This post originally appeared on Growth Everywhere, a marketing and business growth blog.
Happy Friday, everyone! Before you take off for your weekend, check out my five favorite marketing articles from this week.
- How Many Variations Can You Have in an A/B Test? – If you’ve ever wondered how many variations should you test against the control, then this ConversionXL post is a must-read. There isn’t necessarily a black and white answer because it depends on things like your traffic, conversions, audience, etc. This article doesn’t give you a solid answer, but a lot of experts weigh in on this to help you find the right answer for your company.
- Why Google’s quality updates should be on your algorithmic radar [Part 2]: The connection to low-quality user experience – This is the second installment of a two-part series on Google’s quality updates (aka Phantom updates), and goes into the connection between user experience and organic search performance. The author has analyzed a lot of companies that have been impacted by Google’s quality updates and recommends a plan of attack for maintaining the highest level of quality possible on your website.
- 150 Years of the Best Holiday Campaigns – This is a super fun (and super epic, with 24 chapters!) post that dives deep into the history of holiday advertising in terms of the most successful brands. It starts with a great infographic of the last century and a half of memorable marketing campaigns from Macy’s window displays in 1874 to Apple, and answers the questions you’re burning to know, like “Did Coca-Cola create the modern day Santa Claus?“
- Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen explains how AI will change the world – This post is an interview with Marc Andreessen in which he declares that “recent breakthroughs mean artificial intelligence has the potential to spawn a new generation of big, important technology companies.” Some industries remain quite resistant to technological change, and he argues that “more work is needed to bring the power of software to every corner of the economy.”
- The Advertising Solution: Resources – This page is full of videos and PDFs (free to download) on a variety of advertising and marketing resources, like The Best Headlines of All Time – And What They Can Teach Us Today and the direct marketing classic Scientific Advertising that explores timeless marketing principles. There’s also a swipe file of hard to find ads and letters from marketing legends David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, and Claude Hopkins.
In case you missed it:
Latest blogs from Growth Everywhere:
- GE 172: How Bestselling Author Ramit Sethi Generated $5M in 6 Days (podcast) – Interview with Ramit Sethi, personal finance genius: why good information is nothing if you don’t deliver it to people in a way they want to receive it. Includes special bonus just for our Growth Everywhere listeners: GrowthLab’s Ultimate Guide to Starting an Online Business!
- Marketing School: How to Use Live-streaming to Market Your Business | Ep. #74 – Eric Siu and Neil Patel sit down to talk about live-streaming and how it can be used for your business. Listen as they discuss Periscope, Facebook Live, Snapchat Stories, and a number of other tools, and share their strategies for successful deployment.
Latest blogs from Single Grain:
- What Is Link Roundup Link Building: The Practical Guide – Effective SEO has gotten harder. So how do you acquire strong, authoritative links? One answer: by reaching out and getting placed on link roundups.
- The Advanced Guide to Medium Marketing – Use Medium’s internal discoverability feature to get content in front of your target audience—even if they don’t follow you—and generate 1,000s of leads.
