🐹 Hamsterdam part three. (10/5 to 10/12, 2024)

A weekly marketing and AI content recap.

Welcome to the third week of the renewed Hamsterdam! 🐹

Broken record here … but have a new format!

The focus is on my Google Discover feed 🤳 🌏, with attention paid to stories you might not see in your ordinary travels through SEO or marketing circles.

Before we dig in, here’s a quick introduction …

With some insights I’ve learned since broadening my career from SEO to holistic marketing.

First, let me clarify.

I still offer SEO services as a consultant.

I did make a stern declarative statement that SEO (as we knew it) is dead.

That refers to the growing use of LLMs (like mentioned here), and what I see as the writing on the wall when it comes to knowledge graphs and RAG, as opposed to traditional approaches — read, checklists — to achieve organic search visibility.

I even wrote a new definition of SEO, which incorporates social media, imagery, videos, and other brand-focused content that would feed multimodal results and help tell brand stories.

In my view, the future of marketing is two fold: 1) focus on the fundamentals of brand storytelling and 2) learn as much about generative AI as possible.

As I wrote about last week, I’m still recovering from my last bipolar episode, so my content production rate isn’t 100 percent back to normal, so to speak, but I did create a couple of new short articles this week:

• Brand storytelling
• Differential transformers

Pick your journey, but you can’t go wrong with both directions. 😉

Now, on to the show! 🎤

Let’s review this week’s choice of stories from Google Discover.

Excerpts go to the authors. Bolding is mine.

🧨 My pick of the week is 5, How We Built Rufus, Amazon’s AI-Powered Shopping Assistant.

1. What Is AI Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)? – Shopify

Excerpt:

“AI conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the use of artificial intelligence to increase your conversion rate, or the percentage of potential customers who take a desired action on your site like buying a product or signing up for a newsletter.

Artificial intelligence CRO uses advanced algorithms and machine learning to analyze vast amounts of data about how users interact with your website or campaign, including how long they spend on your site, what they click on, and what they buy. By making sense of complex user behavior patterns, AI can predict future visitor behavior and make real-time adjustments to increase conversions. AI-powered CRO technologies continuously learn and adapt, leading to more precise and effective strategies than traditional conversion rate optimization tactics. …

Hyper-personalization is one of the most talked about AI-driven CRO methods—and for good reason. This conversion rate optimization technique can boost conversion rates by helping market to customers on an incredibly personal and granular level. Before AI marketing tools, marketing teams personalized content through customer segmentation—splitting customers into groups based on common traits like age or interests to market to them separately. However, segmentation often lacks precision and can lead to messaging that feels generic.

Hyper-personalization, on the other hand, creates highly targeted experiences based on each customer’s unique behavior, purchase history, and even their interactions with your social media accounts. This lets you customize product recommendations and content to speak directly to each customer’s needs and preferences. For example, imagine a customer browsing your online clothing store. With hyper-personalization, the AI system can track their past purchases and browsing history so that when they return to the site, they’re immediately shown product recommendations that match their style preferences.“

2. Conversion Rate Optimization: What Works and Why? – Lyndon Bell, AdLift

Excerpt:

“CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization. It’s the process of improving the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form. …

At its core, Conversion Rate optimization leverages principles of consumer psychology to influence decision-making processes and prompt users to take specific actions on a website.

One key psychological concept is the principle of reciprocity, wherein people feel compelled to reciprocate when they receive something of value. By offering valuable content, discounts, or freebies, businesses can evoke a sense of indebtedness in visitors, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Additionally, the concept of social proof plays a significant role in Conversion Rate Optimization, as people tend to follow the actions of others when uncertain about what to do. Testimonials, reviews, and user-generated content are powerful social proof elements that instill trust and confidence in potential customers, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.

Furthermore, leveraging scarcity and urgency tactics taps into the fear of missing out (FOMO), prompting users to quickly secure a deal or limited-time offer. By understanding and leveraging these psychological principles, businesses can optimize conversion rates and create more compelling user experiences. …

By analyzing metrics like conversion rate, bounce rate, click-through rate (CTR), and average session duration, businesses can gain valuable insights.

These insights include visitor behavior, identifying areas for improvement, and optimizing strategies to maximize conversions and enhance user experience. The metrics are key indicators of customer engagement, satisfaction, and the success of marketing campaigns and website initiatives.”

3. Ecommerce CRO: 15+ Proven Conversion Rate Optimization Tips – NitroPack

Excerpt:

“… here are some of the most common CRO mistakes that most eCommerce store owners make so you can successfully avoid them. … Not setting clear goals and KPIs … Testing without roadmap … Not tracking micro conversions … Pausing test before getting significant results … Giving up on failed tests …

16 Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimizations to Apply in 2024 … Make sure your website is user-friendly … Optimize your store for mobile devices … Ensure fast page load times … Use high-quality images and videos … Let your customers know your store is secure … Offer free shipping … Give detailed product descriptions … Personalize their experience … Let customers checkout as guests … Run shopping cart abandonment campaigns … Provide chat support … Leverage customer reviews and testimonials … Have a great product return policy … Capture customer emails … Spell-check your copy … Never stop testing.”

4. How to use AI to create social videos that people will actually want to watch – Kim Rittberg, Fast Company

Excerpt:

“AI is powerful, but your superpower is YOU. AI can never be you, even if it’s impersonating you fairly well. The biggest value is getting content that helps you shine, that attracts ideal clients, and isn’t vague, wooden or robotic. But how can you make content that is unique to you? Here are a few ways: … AI Can’t Know You If You Don’t Know Yourself …

Run any creative output from AI through a checklist. My checklist involves asking three questions: … Does it “Sound” like Me? … Do I “Agree” With It? … Is it “Generic”? …

Adding a Human Touch Helps to Stand Out in a Sea of Robotic Content … Injecting your human touch into AI will help you not only scale your content to market your business but also help the world—including potential clients and future bosses—understand who you are and your distinct personality.”

5. How We Built Rufus, Amazon’s AI-Powered Shopping Assistant – Trishul Chilimbi, IEEE

Excerpt:

“Amazon’s answer is Rufus, a shopping assistant powered by generative AI. Rufus helps Amazon customers make more informed shopping decisions by answering a wide range of questions within the Amazon app. Users can get product details, compare options, and receive product recommendations. …

To build a helpful conversational shopping assistant, we used innovative techniques across multiple aspects of generative AI. We built a custom LLM specialized for shopping; employed retrieval-augmented generation with a variety of novel evidence sources; leveraged reinforcement learning to improve responses; made advances in high-performance computing to improve inference efficiency and reduce latency; and implemented a new streaming architecture to get shoppers their answers faster. …

Most LLMs are first trained on a broad dataset that informs the model’s overall knowledge and capabilities, and then are customized for a particular domain. That wouldn’t work for Rufus, since our aim was to train it on shopping data from the very beginning—the entire Amazon catalog, for starters, as well as customer reviews and information from community Q&A posts. So our scientists built a custom LLM that was trained on these data sources along with public information on the web. …

Our LLM uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to pull in information from sources known to be reliable, such as the product catalog, customer reviews, and community Q&A posts; it can also call relevant Amazon Stores APIs. Our RAG system is enormously complex, both because of the variety of data sources used and the differing relevance of each one, depending on the question.

Every LLM, and every use of generative AI, is a work in progress. For Rufus to get better over time, it needs to learn which responses are helpful and which can be improved. Customers are the best source of that information. Amazon encourages customers to give Rufus feedback, letting the model know if they liked or disliked the answer, and those responses are used in a reinforcement learning process. …

Our scientists worked with AWS to enable Rufus to use continuous batching, a novel LLM technique that enables the model to start serving new requests as soon as the first request in the batch finishes, rather than waiting for all requests in a batch to finish. This technique improves the computational efficiency of AI chips and allows shoppers to get their answers quickly. …

That’s why Rufus uses an advanced streaming architecture for delivering responses. Customers don’t need to wait for a long answer to be fully generated—instead, they get the first part of the answer while the rest is being generated. Rufus populates the streaming response with the right data (a process called hydration­­) by making queries to internal systems. In addition to generating the content for the response, it also generates formatting instructions that specify how various answer elements should be displayed.”

6. 5 Brand Storytelling Techniques to Engage Your Audience – Content Whale

Excerpt:

“Whether you’re using visual storytelling to grab attention or leveraging emotional storytelling to build trust, you’re setting yourself up for serious growth. Ready to make your brand unforgettable? Let’s break down five brand storytelling strategies you can use right now …

Storytelling in marketing isn’t just about sharing information; it’s about creating an experience. When you tell a compelling story, your brand connects with people on a deeper level. This connection fosters trust, loyalty, and ultimately, better audience engagement. … Now, let’s talk about why it matters for your brand … Stories humanize your brand: When you share your journey, values, and challenges, your audience sees you as more than just a company—they see you as relatable and authentic. Emotional storytelling drives action: Brands that master emotional storytelling tap into their audience’s desires, fears, and aspirations, creating a bond that leads to stronger loyalty and higher conversion rates. It strengthens your brand message: Storytelling gives you a unique voice in the market. Whether it’s through a clever campaign or consistent messaging, your story helps you stand out. …

Your brand narrative is the foundation of how your audience perceives you. It’s more than just a story; it’s a reflection of your values, mission, and vision. To craft a powerful narrative, you need to align your brand’s story with your core purpose and ensure that it resonates with your target audience.

Here’s how you can create an effective brand narrative: Start with your “why”: Why does your brand exist? What problem are you solving? Clearly define your mission and ensure your story is built around this core idea. Be authentic: Consumers crave authenticity. A brand that showcases its true self gains trust faster. Avoid over-promising and focus on telling a story that’s honest and relatable. Consistency is key: Your brand message should be consistent across all channels—whether it’s your website, social media, or email campaigns. Every touchpoint should reflect the same story. …

People make decisions based on emotions, and by tapping into those feelings, your brand can create a stronger bond with your customers. … Understand your audience’s emotions: Are your customers looking for hope, joy, or even comfort? Identify the emotions that align with your brand and craft stories that reflect them. Make your audience the hero: One of the most effective brand storytelling strategies is to center your audience in the story. Show how your product or service solves their problems or fulfills their desires. Use real-life examples: Sharing real customer experiences and testimonials is a powerful way to connect on an emotional level. People trust stories that reflect their own lives, making your brand appear more relatable and trustworthy. …

Visual storytelling is a powerful way to grab attention and make your brand message more memorable. In a world where people are constantly scrolling through social media, using visuals like images, videos, and infographics can stop them in their tracks. Brands that incorporate visual storytelling into their strategy are more likely to engage their audience and communicate their story in a way that sticks. … Use high-quality visuals … Use visuals to showcase how your product improves lives or to bring your brand’s journey to life. … Video content for deeper engagement. …

People trust other people more than they trust businesses, and sharing customer testimonials, success stories, and reviews makes your brand relatable and trustworthy. … Leverage user-generated content (UGC) … Turn testimonials into stories … Feature case studies.”

7. The time is ripe to reboot blogs – Louis Evans, The Drum

Excerpt:

“As generative search technology advances, the discovery and consumption of content is rapidly changing. People want their information faster and have less loyalty to brands. All this makes it even more crucial to rethink how you blog. …

SEO consultants keen to stay ahead of the curve should consider the merit of rebranding blogs. Instead of recycling the same old topics that lack depth, insight, and personality, we should aim to shake up these uninspiring areas of the internet. Blogs should be revived as guides and tools that offer immediate value to the reader. Create posts not only to rank but also to establish trust and authority. Publish content that resonates with real people. …

Rebranding blogs isn’t just about changing the name. It’s about a fundamental shift in how content is conceived, created, and delivered. By moving away from the traditional blog format, brands can break free from the perception of producing generic, low-value content.

Instead, they can focus on creating specialized resources that truly serve their audience’s needs. For example, in-depth articles, case studies, expert interviews, and even interactive content like quizzes and videos can all be designed to establish the brand as a thought leader. …

For SEO experts and marketing teams, this shift is an opportunity to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive digital landscape. By focusing on quality over quantity and leveraging SEO strategies to enhance visibility, these rebranded content platforms can drive more meaningful engagement. They can help brands stand out not just by ranking high in search engine results but by offering content that people want to consume, share, and return to.”

8. Multimodal Document RAG with Llama 3.2 Vision and ColQwen2 – Zain Hasan, Together.AI

Excerpt:

“For AI models to be effective in specialized tasks, they often require domain-specific knowledge. For instance, a financial advisory chatbot needs to understand market trends and products offered by a specific bank, while an AI legal assistant must be equipped with knowledge of statutes, regulations, and past case law.

A common solution is Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which retrieves relevant data from a knowledge base and combines it with the user’s prompt, thereby improving the model’s output. However, enterprise knowledge often resides in formats like PDFs, PowerPoint decks, or scanned documents, making it difficult to retrieve and prepare the relevant parts for injection into a prompt we can send to a LLM. …

In this post, we’ll explore a new method, called ColPali, which allows us to index and embed document pages directly, bypassing the need for complex extraction pipelines. …

ColPali’s elegance lies in its straightforward approach to document processing. At its core, ColPali leverages advanced vision language models like Google’s PaliGemma (hence the usage of Pali in the name) or more recently AliBaba’s Qwen-2 to transform document page images into rich semantic representations. These encoders divide each image into patches, capturing the nuanced semantics of different document areas and preserving both textual and visual information as vectors. These patch vectors can then be efficiently stored in a vector database for quick retrieval. …

This interaction of the vision tokens with the language tokens allows for a very semantically rich interaction between the query and the stored documents to establish similarity. This is the same process that was proposed and popularized for text based information retrieval systems in the ColBERT paper, this is where the Col in the name ColPali comes from! …

Treating all documents as images means that the ColPali approach is document format agnostic; it can as easily process scanned documents as complex PDFs, and slide decks without the need for format-specific handling. This image-based approach also preserves the original document layout, a crucial factor in maintaining context and meaning, especially in visually rich documents. …

It’s important to note that ColPali’s primary function is to retrieve and rank relevant document pages based on a query. It can tell you which image/page the answer or relevant content is however it won’t generate answers to questions directly. This is where we can leverage the power of advanced vision-language models like the new Llama 3.2 vision series.

By combining ColPali’s efficient retrieval with Llama 3.2’s ability to reason over retrieved images, we can create a powerful system that not only finds the right pages/images but also interprets and answers questions about their contents.”

9. Guide to hamburger menu design – Justinmind

Excerpt:

“But just how did such a hotly contested icon end up becoming so popular in UI design? More importantly, should you be using it in your next designs and how? These are the questions we’re going to explore in this guide. …

The idea is simple: when users tap or click the hamburger menu, a side or dropdown menu appears, revealing more options that would otherwise take up valuable screen space. It’s a handy solution for mobile devices and smaller screens, where every inch of space matters. But how did such a basic icon become so popular in UI design? …

The story of the hamburger menu starts in the 1980s when Norm Cox created it for the Xerox Star personal workstation. The idea was to use this icon to open a list of options. …

So, what’s with all the criticism? One big reason is that using a hamburger menu can increase something called interaction cost. That’s just a fancy way of saying it adds an extra step to the user’s journey. …

Another concern is discoverability. When important options are hidden behind a hamburger menu, users might miss them altogether. …

Despite its criticisms, it has one major thing going for it: it’s a widely recognized mental model. People have become so familiar with the icon that they instinctively know what it does – open more options. Plus, depending on the app or website, it can be a great way to save space and keep the design simple.”

10. The Art of Storytelling in Content Marketing: 8 Effective Tips + Examples – SECOMAPP

Excerpt:

“In a world where your leads are constantly bombarded with thousands of messages as soon as they go online, in order to stay memorable, you need to stand out. By differentiating your brand with storytelling, you can increase engagement as well as conversion rates. You can also expect your content to become more shareable and likable.

Here are eight effective ways to tell great stories with your content marketing, along with an example of each: …

Understand Your Audience’s Pain Points

In order for your stories to truly resonate and make their mark, you need to understand what makes your audience tick, so to speak.

Take some time to consider the main pain points you’re able to solve. What kinds of solutions do you offer, and how do they improve the lives of your leads? Why should they care about them? How can you make them see the value of your offer? …

Share Your Own Story

Sharing something about yourself can go a long way in helping you connect with your audience. People will have an easier job establishing a relationship with a brand they see as a collection of individual humans who are more or less just like them. …

Ask Customer to Share Their Stories

You can also ask your customers to share their own experiences and connect them to your brand. You don’t necessarily need to ask for a testimonial. Ask people to explain what led them to come to you.

Your goal is to humanize your brand and showcase some of the difference you have made in people’s lives. Not to film an advert. …

Do It with a Video

Video is an incredible format for telling engaging, captivating stories. It gives you practically unlimited creative freedom, and you can film any story that comes to mind.

Video is infinitely more relatable than text, as it allows your audience to hear and see you. All you have to do is figure out what you want to show. …

Find Your Sense of Humor

Wit and humor are an important part of storytelling. They will showcase your personality better, and they can help you connect with people easily. All you need to do is be very careful about the types of jokes you make. …

Tie Your Story to the Impact You Make

Storytelling has the power to shape the world and move mountains. You can use it to get people passionate about a cause or to shine a light on issues and injustice.

You can also leverage it to show your customers what you care about and the impact you hope to make on the world. …

Finding your unique and original voice is an important aspect of storytelling you shouldn’t overlook. It’s not about sounding like no one else before or after. It’s about striking the right balance between your personality and your words and visuals. …

Finally, don’t forget that you need to adapt your stories as you grow and as the world changes. You don’t necessarily need to completely rebrand yourself when you become more popular. Just change the elements of your messaging that no longer work, or speak about new challenges as they arise.”

11. Which Matters More: The Story or the Storyteller? – Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute

Excerpt:

“Lately, brands increasingly prioritize people as the voice (storytellers) of their value.

Consider the rise of influencer marketing, which relies on people (internal or external to the brand) to gain access and build trust with audiences. Recent Ogilvy research found that 75% of B2B marketers are already utilizing influencers, and most of those who don’t say they plan to start soon.

Then there’s the founder-led marketing trend (that name is new, but the practice isn’t), which activates founders or senior leaders to create a more personal bond with potential customers.

And finally, there’s the increased pressure (even in large companies) for senior leaders to comment on and communicate their take on social and cultural issues. …

As a result, many marketers focus on “authenticity” these days.

But, if trust in the storyteller starts on equal footing with the story itself, we’d be better off using words such as “trust,” “honesty,” or “transparency.” …

In short, your brand (and its storytellers) can be authentic and distrusted. …

If the storyteller must earn the trust of an audience before they can tell a new story, how do they do that without actually telling the story? … The cause of failure for these brands isn’t that they’re trying something new. It’s thinking of influencer- or founder-led approaches as a shortcut to building customer trust. …

To succeed, you have to do one of two things.

The first option is to slowly and purposely evolve the story (with or without new storytellers) to ease audiences into it. …

The second is to suffer the distrust of a large portion of a potential or existing audience as the storytellers prove themselves trustworthy to those who choose to give them a chance. …

One experiment they’re trying is to break the content away from the corporate voice and brand. Creating a separate content brand gives them the opportunity to build a trusted voice (and an engaged audience) and bring the CEO along for the ride.

They’re also pairing the CEO with other influencers to build his bona fides in that industry. They’re easing their audience into realizing that their brand (and its CEO) is behind this new story.”

12. AI has made me all but give up on traditional Google searches — here’s why – Amanda Caswell, Tom’s Guide

Excerpt:

“But within the last few months, I’ve found myself increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT, Meta AI, Claude, and Google’s own Gemini for day-to-day answers.

I enjoy the personal aspect of receiving clear, conversational responses from these AI models, especially when compared to sifting through endless links. I prefer one direct answer from a chatbot rather than a string of Google links that I will have to search through again to find what I need. I know I’m not alone in my endeavors to get answers tailored to me, especially with OpenAI launching SearchGPT later this year. …

In short, AI has revolutionized the way I search for and receive information, often outpacing Google in convenience and speed. However, the risks of misinformation, privacy concerns, and a shrinking pool of content sources remind me that AI isn’t perfect. While I’ve all but given up on Google, I’m cautious about relying too heavily on any one tool — AI included — in this rapidly evolving tech landscape.”

13. Advanced AI Copywriting: How to Train AI to Write Like a Pro – Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner

Excerpt:

“Every AI copywriting persona you create should be a customized AI model trained to write in a specific style to produce a particular type of content. You shouldn’t ask your email copywriter to write you a social media post or your AI social media persona to write you an email. …

When training AI, Hunter emphasizes the importance of showing rather than telling … You’ll first need to gather your top-performing content across all social platforms, aiming for at least 100 examples of your best work. …

It’s essential to give your AI writing assistant context for the target audience you write for by creating detailed audience personas that include demographics, psychographics, pain points, desires, and motivations. …

To help AI write in your unique brand voice and style, document your company’s brand, mission, and values. If your brand is personal, include personal details to add human authenticity (e.g., family information, interests.) …

First, open your AI model and upload your brand voice details, audience persona, and content examples. … Next, specify the persona’s role and output expectations. … When you’re ready for the AI to write your social media posts, simply prompt it … “

Thanks for checking out the new Hamsterdam! 🐹

Until next time, enjoy the vibes:

Thanks for reading. Happy marketing! 🤗