Legendary Instagram Captions, SEO Survival Guidelines & More Top Stories through February

February may be the shortest month of the year, but man, there was a lot going on this month.

From the predictable (if misplaced) anxiety about Google Chrome’ s new built-in ad blocker to must-read SEO survival strategies for the coming voice search revolution, there was plenty for marketers of all stripes to get their teeth into this month.

In case you missed them, here are the most popular posts from the WordStream blog in February. Whether you’ re an advertiser worried about how Chrome’ s new ad blocker will affect your campaigns, a social media manager in need of a crisis management strategy, or a small-business owner who wants your ad budget to go a little further, there’ s something for you in this month’ s round-up.

1 )   35 Marketing Statistics That Should Change Your Strategy in 2018

Did you know that year-over-year search spend in AdWords increased by 24% this past year? Or that the average CPC on the Google Search Network spiked by 14% in Q4 2017?  

Some statistics are little more than tiny morsels of mildly interesting trivia. The stats above, and the other 33 like them in our most popular post of the month, should stop you in your tracks. Allen takes top honors in February’ s round-up with this fascinating assortment of statistics that could change the way you conduct business in 2018. Are you prepared?

2 .   How Will Chrome’ s New Ad Blocker Impact Your Adverts?  

The largest news of the month was Google’ s hotly anticipated launch of its built-in ad blocker for Chrome. The world’ s largest online advertising company introducing an ad blocker in the most popular browser sent many advertisers and marketers into a panic – but were their worries justified? You’ ll have to read this post by Allen to find out. (Spoilers: they weren’ t. )

3.   10X Your A/B Testing with AdWords Ad Variations

A/B testing at scale is a pain in the ass. It takes quite a while and requires a lot of work, rendering it about as appealing as having a wisdom tooth pulled. Fortuitously, Google introduced Ad Variations by the end of last year as a way for marketers to test their ad copy with out getting stuck in the weeds whenever they should be, you know, running their companies.  

In our third-most popular post of the month, Allen explains everything you need to know about Ad Variations, why they’ re so awesome, and how to start testing your copy at scale.

4.   7 Killer Tips for More Effective Real Estate Facebook Ads

When it comes to buying a house, it’ s all about location. When it comes to selling a house, where that house happens to be is only part of the puzzle that realtors have to solve if they want their commission.  

In our fourth-most popular post of February, Margot offers seven highly actionable tips that realtors advertising on Facebook can take to make their realty agency – and their listings – all the more attractive to prospective buyers.

5.   7 Ways to Stop Burning Your AdWords Budget

Although many costs in AdWords have risen during the past 12 months (see our most popular post for the details if you want to see just how much they’ ve risen), it’ s still a remarkably cost-effective way to get the word out about your business. That doesn’ t mean that you can’ t allocate your ad budget a little more wisely.  

In this post, guest author Barry Feldman outlines seven ways to stop burning through your budget like a lobbyist at Mar-a-Lago. Barry explains some of the hidden traps that can sap your ad budget without you even realizing it, as well as proactive ways to manage your ad spend and make certain every dollar of your ad budget is working as hard when you are.

6.   5 Best Reporting Tools For Marketers & Advertisers

Let’ s face it – reporting sucks. It’s rather a thankless, time-consuming task, and that’ s even if the results are good .

There is another way, weary marketer.  

In this post, Brad Smith examines five of the best reporting tools available to beleaguered marketers who hate reporting as much as the White House does. Brad takes a look at each reporting tool comprehensive, outlines the pros and cons of every, and shows you some pretty nifty tricks you can use in good old Google Analytics to take the pain out of your reporting.

7.   Social Media Crisis Management: A Guide to Staying Calm Under Pressure

Considering how much capital, knowledge, and expertise major brands have at their disposal, it’ s amazing just how many brands still manage to royally screw up on social media. When brands make horrendous gaffes on social, lots of people take a moment to bask in the schadenfreude that comes with it, but what’ s the poor social media person in charge of containing the damage supposed to do?  

In this post, yours truly explains how to handle a variety of social media marketing crises, from ill-advised tweets wanting to coopt national tragedies to make a sale, to “ hacks” that look a lot like an inept social media manager tweeting from the wrong account. By the end of this post, you’ ll have several actionable steps you can take to place out your next social media fire.

8.   33 Epic Instagram Captions Which will Break Your Like-Ometer

As any hardcore Instagrammer could tell you, captions are nearly as important as the images they accompany. Without a snappy caption, even the most beautifully photographed brunch becomes just another dumb photo of someone else’ s food.  

In this post, Gordon lists 33 Instagram captions that took these posts from “ good” to “ great. ” Each example has something unique to offer, so whether you’ re hoping to improve engagement or broaden your audience, there are plenty of lessons to be learned from these Instagram captions.

9.   4 SEO Survival Tips for the Voice Search Revolution

Voice search is poised to be among the most potentially disruptive changes to the search landscape in recent memory. For every exciting innovation promised to us by emerging voice search technologies, you can find dozens of challenges – particularly when it comes to SEO.

In our penultimate post of this month’ s round-up, Hallam Internet’ s Ellie Pollicott outlines four survival tips to ensure your site – as well as your traffic – survives the impending voice search revolution. How many of the strategies are you already using?

10.   How to Turn Customer Feedback into High-Converting Ad Copy

Writing good ad copy will be a lot harder than it sounds. Fortuitously, you have a wealth of firsthand experiences upon which you can draw when writing your ads – your customers’ feedback.

In our final post of this month’ s round-up, guest author Robin Geuens lets you know how to transform customer feedback from a wide variety of sources into high-converting ad copy that drives results. Robin shows you how to gather and identify the best feedback to use in your copy, from social media posts and blog comments to customer reviews and client testimonials.