Jeff Kamikow - 10 Places To Look When Your Website Traffic Is Dropping

For companies that generate most of their leads and sales online, bringing in steady website traffic is critical. That's why a sharp decline in traffic sends the average business into full-on panic mode.

While you should be concerned about a sudden dip in site visits, there's often a logical explanation for it, if you know where to look. Sometimes it's a simple and fast fix – a coding error, for instance – while in other cases, such as an algorithm change, it might take a bit longer to bounce back. Either way, it's important to look for the root of the problem so you can fix it.

Ten Forbes Agency Council members explain some potential reasons your site's traffic may have tanked, and what you can do about it.

1. Tracking Tags

The simplest explanation for a sudden and unexpected drop in website performance is often analytics tags failing to fire. Always check tracking first to make sure website visitors are being accounted for before making drastic changes. Reconciling tracking issues will help mitigate the long-term impact. Additionally, making friends with your IT department will help avoid issues before they arise. - Nina Hale, Nina Hale / Performance Digital

2. The Front End Of Your Website 

The first thing to investigate after a major dip in traffic is your website itself. Is it actually working? Is there a problem with the domain? Mechanically, is everything functioning as it should? If all that checks out, make sure the critical inbound links are still intact. If the majority of your traffic comes from inbound campaigns, ensure your inbound marketing platform is working properly. - Jeffrey Kamikow, Cross Audience

3. Google Analytics 

When the world is crashing around you, trust the data. Dive into Google Analytics and try to pinpoint where things went south. Think back on marketing tactics you recently pushed live and find the correlation. This should lead you to an internal audit, where you may discover an internal tool is broken or an external force is impacting your site. - Kirk Deis, Treehouse 51

4. Google Search Console 

If you don't stay up to date on major Google algorithm changes, you're falling behind. If your site is not mobile-friendly, improperly secured or using outdated practices for SEO, your rankings may be dropping. Check your Search Console, work with your team to fix the problem, and start subscribing to the right resources to avoid this in the future. - Stewart Gandolf, Healthcare Success

5. Traffic Sources 

After confirming that there’s no recent update to search algorithms throwing things out of whack, identify which traffic source has seen the greatest decline – direct, referral, organic, paid, social. After pinpointing the source, work backward to determine what actions (or inactions) could be at fault. Check your content consumption and be sure it is on point with your target audience. - Keri Witman, Cleriti

6. Your Site's Code 

When we see a sharp decline in traffic, we first check the site’s code. During site changes and redesigns, SSL and 301 redirects are often overlooked, causing Google to de-index the site's pages and search rankings to drop. The drop in rankings can dramatically decrease visitors. So when building a new site or making changes to your current one, double-check your redirects before pushing live. - Michael Weinhouse, Logical Position

7. The Bigger Customer Engagement Picture 

Don’t panic, and take a step back to see the bigger picture. Perhaps customers are engaging with your website primarily on mobile rather than desktop. If your mobile site isn’t optimized or they are instead using your app, then this could be why. This gives you insight into how consumer behaviors change over time and where they are most likely to engage with your brand. - Preethy Vaidyanathan, Tapad

8. External Backlinks 

A client once had a downward trend in organic traffic. We audited all the checklist items to figure out what the issue was and we were stumped. We then evaluated the search trends of their top backlinks and found that their highest authority backlink had the same drop. To fix our client site, we had to fix the referring site. External forces are sometimes just as important as internal factors. - Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

9. The Last Item That Changed On Your Site 

When diagnosing an issue, you need to think back to what was the last item that changed. It could be a code push that somehow removed analytics from your site, it could have been a change to content that has caused a decline in search traffic. Did you make a change to your advertising? Sudden declines (or increases) are often traceable back to the last modification (big or small) that was made. - Greg Kihlstrom, Yes& Agency

10. Adblockers 

Check whether you are getting "adblocked" by any browsers, which may be redirecting traffic from your site. Also check on whether you might have had "false" traffic coming to your site from foreign websites, which was then rectified and now has new accurate website traffic numbers. - Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, hawthornedirect.com 

Mobile Performance Marketing Company Cross Audience Announces Launch Of Mobile DSP

Cross Audience works with agencies, partnering to handle their mobile advertising needs, but they also work directly with brands in retail, travel, food service, entertainment, and other verticals. Below is our recent interview with the Jeff Kamikow, CEO at Cross Audience:

Q: What is mobile performance marketing and how does it work?

A: Mobile performance marketing is our specialty – it’s what we do best. It refers to any kind of marketing wherein the marketer only pays when a certain action is completed, whether that means an app has been installed, a purchase has been made, a lead has been generated, a prospect has scheduled an appointment, etc. The difference between performance and traditional advertising is that the publisher or affiliate only gets paid by the marketer when that action has been completed, versus paying on something like a CPM or monthly basis. It’s much more accountable.

Q: What about Mobile App Conquesting? Why is it so powerful tactic in digital marketing today?

A: Mobile app conquesting has been a big focus for us. We really believe it’s a powerful and underutilized tool in mobile marketing, in particular. App conquesting allows mobile marketers to reach and win new customers based on the apps they’re using right now. Marketers can reach and engage qualified mobile customers and their devices at scale using our unique technology – which is, of course, permission based an uses only non-PII data. Marketers can actually target users across their competitive set, while also defining behaviors that will allow them to build out unique custom audience profiles. We’ve seen amazing success with conquesting campaigns over the last year. We’re looking forward to more marketers taking advantage of this powerful technology.

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Q: You’ve recently announced launch of mobile DSP; could you tell us something more?

A: There are so many DSPs out there, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. Our is differentiated in a few ways. For starters, while it’s currently mobile-only, our near-term goal is to make it effective across screens. It’s also fully customizable and trader-friendly. We’re able to deliver broad access to exchanges and suppliers, while simultaneously offering broad access to both first and third party data. That makes things so much easier for today’s trade desks and individual traders – not to mention agencies and in-house marketing teams.

We also know it’s much easier to use than almost any other DSP on the market because we use it ourselves. The interface is very user-friendly. It’s also really fast and flexible, so clients can launch their campaigns incredibly quickly, and optimize easily and to their unique KPIs. We’re excited about that speed and easy customization.

Our full-service clients know that working with Cross Audience will give them the benefit of working the DSP, but also the high-touch service they expect. They have access to our smart, friendly team, along with the confidence that their ads are only shown to hand-raisers with an interest in their (or their client’s) product or service, and on trusted publisher content.

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Q: What else can we expect from Cross Audience in 2018?

A: We have a few things up our sleeve for the year ahead, but right now we’re laser-focused on making the DSP the best it can be. We’ve onboarded several clients already and we’re pleased with what we’re seeing. It’s very exciting to see successful campaigns leveraging our best-in-breed technology, powered by our massive collection of first-party data, and optimized in real-time by our experienced and passionate team. So far, the results have been fantastic, and our clients are raving about how easy the platform is to use and how fast it is compared to others on the market today.

That said, we know there’s always more we can do. We want our clients to get the highest possible ROI from their campaigns with us, so we’ll keep finding ways to improve the technology, optimize the results, and keep everything we do as free of fraud as humanly possible. It’s a competitive industry, and we want marketers to know that we’re here with the best technology and the best quality data – and that we’re willing to work harder to drive results than anyone else.

Jeff Kamikow – Musings from the CEO of Cross Audience

A mobile advertiser likes Jeff Kamikow is constantly looking at market fluctuations and any restrictions that could change mobile advertising strategies.