Acquisition channel opportunities: Underrated channels, native ads, SEO

What's the most underrated marketing channel? Why should you pay attention to native ads if you're a founder in gray-er niches (such as cannabis or crypto)? What types of websites got preferential treatment in Google's latest SEO update and what can we learn from them?

These are all of the questions that I'll answer in this issue of Acquisition Channel Opportunities. Let's get started.

1. What's the most underrated marketing channel?

Pinterest, according to research from FoundationInc. This is especially true if you're a B2B founder.

Here's why:

Pinterest is more like Google than Facebook. FoundationInc created and grew a Pinterest page to 10 million monthly viewers and 30k followers. Their secret?

Simply treat each pin as if it were a page that needed to be optimized for search engines (by doing things such as including keywords in the pin). Pinterest has 5 billion searches each month, according to company's data from May 2021.

The opportunity: Treat Pinterest like a search engine. Its volume may be much smaller than that of Google, but it's still significant. Even for B2B. This dropshipping page, for example, has 4.4k followers and plenty of pins that appear in the top 10 if you type keywords related to e-commerce & dropshipping.

The demand for B2B-related keywords on Pinterest may not be as high as Google. That's the bad news. The good news: The same is true for the competition. Overall, if you see at least one page doing well on Pinterest in your niche, chances are there is some demand.

2. Native ads are becoming more mainstream

Have you ever heard about Taboola? It's one of the largest "content recommendation" ad networks. Its ads appear at the bottom of many prominent newspaper websites as "Content you might like" links:

The news: Taboola has recently announced that they're introducing an "Audience NetworK" by partnering up with Microsoft. This will allow Taboola advertisers to place their native ads on the open web.

The opportunity: Notice something about the ads above? They're not the easiest to approve for traditional marketing channels like Google Ads and Facebook, for example. Taboola's rules are, let's just say, more forgiving.

This increase in reach could be good news if you're into more "controversial" niches like crypto or cannabis, for example. Native ad networks, unlike Facebook and Google, are more liberal with the content they allow, and with news like this, founders in grayer niches have more opportunities to expand their reach.

3. Doing SEO? Here's what we know about Google's latest Product Reviews update

The analysis: Glenn Gabe, an SEO analyst, published a comprehensive post analyzing what we know so far about Google's recently Product Reviews Update.

What's the update about: Essentially, Google is getting sick of low-quality product review websites. Google wants for people publishing product reviews to be more comprehensive by doing things like the ones above:

Here's what the sites being rewarded have in common, according to the analysis:

• They use comparison charts:

• They also use strong visuals (photos, videos, gifts). For example, if you're reviewing a table, you can focus on the frame:

• They write about actual experiences of you using the product
• They explain the review process and why people should trust you

The opportunity: Many SaaS products try to rank for keywords like "[competitor] alternative", "[one-competitor] vs. [another-competutor]" or "[competitor] review". These are all product review pages.

When creating those pages, pay attention this update its requirements. Provide visuals, tell people why they should listen to you and compare as much as possible.

This is the last Acquisition Channel Opportunities issue of 2021. See you in 2022!