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 If your site is not mobile-friendly, improperly secured or using outdated practices for SEO, your rankings may be dropping.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.

Cross Audience Recommended: Olea Sensor Networks Promises To Revolutionize Mobile And Cloud-Based “Internet of Things”

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.

Cross Audience Recommended: Acct Two Helps Organizations Achieve Success By Transforming Finance And Accounting Into A Growth Enabler

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. 

What Are the Basic Forms of Mobile Advertising - Jeff Kamikow

 If you are one of the hundreds of millions of people who accesses the internet on your smartphone or tablet, you are probably well aware of mobile advertising. Jeff Kamikow, a branding expert, knew that mobile advertising would one day overtake desktop website advertising and other ad networks. It is simply changing customer behavior.

More people are tapping rather than typing to reach their favorite sites or apps. More people are accessing media content on an app rather than a desktop website. It’s partly simple convenience. You can’t just carry your desktop or laptop everywhere you go. But you can take your smartphone or tablet with you, making them much more convenient. This is why mobile advertisers like Jeff Kamikow incorporate various strategies to help these users access their clients’ brands.

Here are various forms of mobile advertising you might find when you go on a website or access media on your mobile device:

Banner Ads: These are, by far, the most common mobile ads you will find out there. That’s because they are seen by the most people and they’re rather innocuous. They rely on brand recognition as it is tough to get in details in these tight banners.

Video Ads: Video ads certainly engage the user. They are played automatically as a user is on a mobile website or application. However, they can be more expensive and not welcomed by some  who would prefer to get straight to their content. That is why it needs to be done right to deliver the right message and response.

Native Ads: If you’re a fan of Deadspin or other blogging sites, you have probably seen native ads. They are designed not to actually look like ads, but rather content that closely resembles the site or app.

Interstitial Ads: These are widely used by Jeff Kamikow and other brand experts to create a compelling CTA and creative content to engage the user as the site or app loads. When done right, they can really draw a good response.

Hack These 3 Ecommerce Trends in 2023 | Jeffrey Kamikow

Jeffrey Kamikow has noticed the distinctions between ecommerce and “regular” commerce are falling fast, if they ever really existed at all. No matter what your business does, who it sells to, or how it’s built to make money, it needs a cohesive ecommerce (or at least e-conversion) strategy.

What this looks like on the ground, of course, is up to you. No one can hold your hand and tell you that this is how you turn your online dross into ecommerce gold.

What experienced marketing professionals like Jeff Kamikow can tell you is how to capitalize on late-breaking ecommerce trends — how to ride the wave that everyone knows is cresting, but few are exactly sure how to catch without wiping out.

These three ecommerce trends are all set to build or crest in 2016. Which are you most looking forward to capitalizing on?

Multichannel Is the Way to Go

Ventureburn has an in-depth look at the emerging power of multichannel marketing and sales. If you have time, definitely read the whole thing. Here’s the short version: Since your customers access your ecommerce platform on a variety of devices, you need to tailor your marketing campaigns to capture them all.

Use mobile ad networks to turbocharge conversion rates and reach customers opportunistically, retargeting systems to catch prospects on the conversion bubble, traditional PPC and search campaigns to draw in desktop-bound users, video and email to build awareness and loyalty, and non-digital word of mouth campaigns (brand ambassadors, anyone?) to develop legitimacy.

Content Marketing Works Pretty Much Everywhere

Think no one reads your product descriptions, ad copy or “about us” blurb? Think again. Content is the once and future king of ecommerce, naysayers be darned. What’s different for 2016 and beyond? In a word, quality. We’ve been hearing the drumbeat about quality content for years, but it’s (unfortunately) been possible to skate by with subpar, corner-cutting content until relatively recently. That’s certainly not going to be the case in 2016, and likely won’t be for the foreseeable future. Make sure your ecommerce portal’s content engine is well-oiled and primed to purr. From your product descriptions and reviews to parent-page content, blog and sales collateral, everything you produce needs to be on-message, authentic and structured to sell.

Responsive, Ready or All In? Either Way, It’s Mobile Now & Mobile Forever

Mobile ad networks aren’t the only mobile-centric ecommerce trend set to shake up the digital landscape in 2016 and beyond. Thanks to recent algorithm changes by Google and other search engines, ecommerce sites that don’t have mobile-friendly architectures and designs risk drastic hits to search visibility and performance.

If you haven’t already, get on the stick and invest in a mobile-friendly overhaul that touches every aspect of your ecommerce operation — including ancillary pieces like confirmation emails and tracking tools. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure here.

Which ecommerce trend are you most looking forward to in 2016? Which are you most skeptical about?

Jeff Kamikow - An Executive Position with Verve Mobile

 Jeff Kamikow left Pulse 360 in 2011 and accepted an executive position with Verve Mobile, one of the very first companies to crack the mobile advertising code. Kamikow subsequently moved to Lyfe Mobile, whose methodology and approach closely mirrored Verve’s. As Lyfe’s chief revenue officer, Kamikow was responsible for growing the company’s revenues, expanding its brand, and ultimately executing a complex and highly beneficial sale to BlinkX, a larger European competitor seeking a foothold in the American market.

Telling a Story with Your Mobile Ad - Jeff Kamikow

 If there is one thing that could really annoy a potential customer, it’s giving him or her the same ad to look at over and over again. There is certainly something to be said about ad repetition in some mediums. You hear a jingle on the radio or see the same pitch guy on a commercial, and it could create a level of familiarity that could improve the brand. This is not the same with mobile ads.

Mobile users want ads that they can engage with. For example, you can have an ad that utilizes some form of gaming that keeps the user interested. However, if the same user is given an ad with the same gaming feature over and over again, he or she will eventually get bored with it. Jeff Kamikow is a mobile advertising expert who has produced mobile ads of all kinds. He would argue that a company’s mobile advertising strategy must consist of fresh content all of the time that tells a story. So how can you accomplish this?

There are a number of tools available today that allow mobile advertise to use predictive behavior to slightly update an ad with each view by a user. For example, the first time might just be n introduction, so it might just show broad features or a tagline. The second time around, more details might be shown or the ad might showcase a feature that could be of particular interest to the user. This will go so on and so on until the user has a full understanding of what the product does.

By adapting to customer behavior to tell your brand’s story organically, you could reach your audience better, which could potentially turn into a lead. When it comes to mobile advertising, the key is freshness to adequately tell a story