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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.

Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?

The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

How do customers interact with my newly launched product?

How do I increase the productivity of my employees?

How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?

We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.

But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!

But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.

We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIn to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Influencer marketing is not a strategy that’s going to go away anytime soon. As companies and brands have realized the challenging reality of marketing to young demographics like Gen Z, it’s become clearer that traditional advertising just doesn’t cut it. They’ve had to switch gears to see what works best.

Many brands are now tapping into the people that these younger demographics trust: influencers. Influencers are changing the face of marketing as we know it – including affiliate marketing. But does it mean affiliate marketing is no longer relevant with the rise of social media influencers, who seem to operate on a “pay me, get a shoutout” model?

In this post, we take a look at exactly how influencers can actually give your affiliate marketing strategy the boost it needs. Then we’ll walk you through a few steps to keep in mind when you want to work with influencers as affiliates for your brand.

The New Influencer-Driven Way of Affiliate Marketing

Before we talk about exactly how affiliate marketing is changing in the era of social media influencers, let’s first look at the “old” way of affiliate marketing.

Most affiliates were traditional bloggers or publishers

Before social media became a huge force in our lives, many brand affiliates were traditional bloggers or media publishers who had their own websites to promote or review a brand. You could only find product demonstrations, walk-throughs, or reviews from these kinds of publishers.

Many affiliates wouldn’t champion one specific brand

Because a lot of these bloggers and media publishers were trying to monetize their own content, they often focused on broadening their membership to multiple affiliate programs in order to increase their chances of getting referral fees from a broader set of readers with varying preferences.

So these content producers often joined all the popular affiliate programs – often for competing brands – and didn’t champion one specific brand over others. This makes it harder for a brand to be seen as a “top choice.”

The “old” way of doing affiliate marketing is still alive and well. And many publishers make a significant income by being part of multiple affiliate programs. But the problem is this: the old way of doing affiliate marketing doesn’t always highlight the unique strengths that influencers bring to the table, especially for brands.

So how are influencers changing the affiliate marketing game – and how is that actually a good thing? Let’s take a look at the two major shifts.

Built on trust between influencer, brand, and followers 

You’ve probably already read the report that said 92% of people trust influencers more than they trust traditional celebrity endorsements or ads. And that’s because, if you tap the right influencer, you’ll know they’ve fostered an engaged community based on trust.

Real, high-quality influencers don’t recommend products they don’t use or trust themselves, and their vast audiences are often aware of that. So this makes influencers one of the best brand ambassadors you can have for your brand. As true fans of your brand, they’ll champion your products and recommend you more times than the average consumer or traditional publisher.

Source: Influencers Are The New Brands, Forbes

Influencers give testimonials, demonstrations, and calls-to-action all at once

Relating to the previous point, one reason influencers can make such compelling affiliates is because of the way they actually promote your brand.

Influencers are content creators, so they focus on delivering quality content for their followers. You’ll find that many influencers use a combination of giving a personal testimonial, demonstration, and call-to-action to talk about your brand.

Followers of these influencers can see how products are used, how it might benefit them, and what the influencer – already seen as a trusted individual in the industry – thinks about the product overall.

What this means is that influencers are helping their audiences go through the typical sales funnel, from brand awareness down to consideration and even purchase. But the difference is that they do this in a very personal, authentic way that their followers trust.

Ready to start getting influencers on board as affiliates for your brand? Here are 4 steps you should follow.

1. Make sure they aren’t already promoting your competitor

First of all, make sure these potential influencer-affiliates aren’t already big promoters of your competitor. While some brands in certain industries can work with the same influencer – such as beauty and fashion brands, for example – you’ll generally want your influencer-affiliate to solely champion your brand.

Tip: Are you looking for fashion influencers? Here's our list of the top global fashion influencers and the top South African fashion influencers.

If you find that your potential influencer might already be talking about your competitor, you can offer either a free trial or sample of your product, just to see if they’d make the switch. 

Also be sure to take note of how your influencer talks about any competition. Do they have a referral code or affiliate link to those brands? If not, you might be in a great position to offer them their first affiliate opportunity that’s exclusive to your brand.

Moving on from this tip, be sure to keep a lookout for fake influencers, who usually have plenty of “ghost” followers or promote brands as if they were partnered with them.

2. Offer to launch co-branded landing pages with the influencer

One way to really personalize your experience with your influencer-affiliates is giving them a dedicated landing page just for their followers. You can create a co-branded page that mentions the influencer or their brand to give it an exclusive feel.

Framebridge has a dedicated landing page for listeners of Gretchen Rubin’s podcast Happier.

Depending on your agreement with the influencer, you can host the landing page on your website, or on their own site if they have one. 

3. Create collateral the influencer can use in their accounts

Do a thorough content audit of these potential influencer-affiliates to see what kind of media they post on their accounts. Some influencers have a variety of channels, such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

If you see an opportunity to supply any relevant content types – flatlays, short screen recordings of an app demo – send these to your influencers. They will most likely appreciate having a few done-for-you posts, so long as it fits their feed or content style and isn’t overly branded.

And of course, give your influencers room to inject their own brand when talking about your product. But having pre-made material that suits their style, just gives them an easier option.

Source: 9 Tips for taking beautiful flat lay photography, Little Coffee Fox

Done-for-you content like flatlays, screenshots, or demo recordings of apps are generally okay to supply to influencers, as long as they suit their brand or make it easier for them to post about your product authentically.

4. Consider offering an exclusive affiliate rate

For very high-quality influencers with huge followings, you can offer a special increased referral rate just for them. So if your usual referral rate for other affiliates is, say, 30%, you can offer a few key influencers a higher rate, say 35-40%.

You’ll definitely need to look into some factors that might merit an increased rate per successful referral.

And when you pitch this partnership to potential influencer-affiliates, be sure to let them know about the exclusive rate that's just for them. This lets them see that you’re very serious about your partnership offer and that you have full trust in their online brand.

Tip: Still didn't find the right influencer for your brand? Our influencer marketing platform will streamline the entire process and ensure you get maximum ROI from your influencer partnerships. Get a tour by filling out the form below.

How Influencers Are Changing The Affiliate Marketing Game

Most people in the West are unlikely to have heard of the Chinese website, Bilibili, but with around 300 million monthly active users, it’s a serious player in its home market.

While China’s online video market seems to be dominated by Youku (owned by Alibaba), iQiyi (owned by Baidu), and QQ Video (owned by Tencent), Bilibili is now becoming increasingly popular, as short-form video sees rapid growth and is now the most consumed type of video in China recent months.

Source: Statista - Average number of monthly users of Bilibili Inc

Bilibili is a video sharing platform which, as well as the basic functions of viewing and uploading videos, allows users to post different types of live comments over the videos, creating a kind of enriched real-time chat-room layer on top of the viewing experience.

The site hosts video on a wide range of popular entertainment and culture topics, and also provides a platform for streamers to live-stream content to their audiences.

It’s hugely popular with the Gen Z demographic, and as well as the primary Chinese language site it offers an international version available in English, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.

While it’s free to use, Bilibili offers a premium tier which provides additional features such as access to higher resolution videos.

If your business operates in Asian markets, and particularly in China, Bilibili can be a powerful source of insight and intelligence for your marketing campaigns.

Better understand and engage Chinese Gen Z

What differentiates this platform from others is that there are a lot of engaged people, in particular young and dynamic China’s Gen Z.

For brands who want to deep dive Gen Z’s preferences and habits, and engage them, Bilibili is a great place to identify emerging youth culture trends.

Measuring the impact of marketing campaign

Brands can use the platform to upload and promote their video content, once they are certified.

Adding Bilibili to their marketing toolbox, they are able to track the performance of their campaigns using metrics such as the number of comments, engagement action score, impressions, and estimated reach.

As a platform favored by Gen Z in China, Bilibili is a great channel for businesses to identify new brand ambassadors from that cohort, and to start working with new Key Opinion Leaders who could also prove to be powerful influencers for that target audience.

Simply fill out the form below to get a free consultation and demo.

What is Bilibili and Why Should You Care?

There’s a lot that goes into launching a successful campaign: creating ad content, securing a budget, and optimizing for the most clicks and conversions. One step that ties all of the above together is deciding how to measure the effectiveness of a digital marketing campaign. 

There’s more to campaign success than monitoring sales. Social media audience growth, email list sign-ups, website traffic, consumer sentiment, digital presence, and brand awareness are all worthy outcomes of a marketing campaign. But sales alone won’t paint an accurate picture of your success.

Measuring your campaigns starts in the earliest stages of planning. Let’s look at how to measure a digital marketing campaign in a way that ties directly to your campaign goals.

Here's how to measure the success of a digital marketing campaign in 6 steps:

3. Choose Digital Metrics That Reflect Your Goals

Setting and achieving goals is a key part of any successful digital marketing campaign, yet many people struggle to do so effectively. One reason for this is because their goals aren’t focused enough.

The remedy: Set SMART goals. Smart goals are those that meet all of the following criteria:

A specific goal is one that is clearly defined and easy to understand. It answers the question, "What do I want to achieve?" 

A measurable goal is one that allows you to choose metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress. For example, instead of saying you want to improve your marketing performance, you could say, “I want to get 100 new social media followers as a result of this campaign.”

Achievable goals take into account your ability and likelihood of bringing that goal to fruition. For example, spending $5 on Google Ads and expecting $5 million in sales is unrealistic. Take into account your resources and other factors to see what outcomes are within your reach.

Relevant goals tie back to your big picture. Ask yourself: Why are you setting this goal? What will achieving this goal do for your business or brand in the long run? 

And finally, timely goals have a deadline. Instead of saying you want to increase your social media following, you could say, “I want to add 100 new followers in three days.”

Putting it all together, you might state your goals like this:

“This campaign will achieve [specific goal] by [deadline] because [reason why it’s relevant]. We believe this goal is achievable because [reasons why you can achieve these results]. We will evaluate our success by [metrics].” 

Once you have your goals in mind, you can develop a sound strategy that directly relates to those goals.

The audience you target can make or break whether you achieve your goals. If you don’t know who you’re speaking to in your campaign, your message will fail to resonate.

On which channels are they most active? (e.g., TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, email, etc.)

What characteristics do they share? (e.g., age, gender, income, interests, values, etc.)

What is your audience’s current familiarity with your brand?

Tip: These social media statistics will help you to determine the right channels. The right consumer insights will help you understand the characteristics of your digital audience. Check out our consumer insights tool to automate this process.

You can discover these nuances among your target audience with data-driven consumer insights. For example, Meltwater's consumer insights platform, Radarly, goes beyond basic social listening to get a more thorough understanding of your ideal customer.

KPIs and metrics are a big part of SMART goals. They give you a way to track your progress and see whether your marketing campaigns met your expectations. And they do this through hard data — not hunches and guesswork.

But let’s be honest; there are tons of things you could measure. Marketers can fall down a rabbit hole of metrics and still not know whether their campaigns were successful.

Tip: Learn how to perform campaign measurement, How To Measure Email Campaign Performance, How To Measure The Success of Advertising Campaigns, How To Measure Brand Awareness, and How To Measure Social Media Campaign Success

So, how do you go about choosing the right marketing KPIs for digital campaign measurement?

Here are some helpful advertising metrics to give you a good starting point.

An increase in website traffic can be a healthy sign of overall growth. But within the website traffic ecosystem, there are a number of metrics that marketers can look at for clearer signs of digital marketing success.

Where are your website visitors coming from? Are they clicking through from ads? Or social media? Or a backlink from a website you’ve partnered with in your campaign? Reviewing traffic sources can give you a good indication of whether your campaign is working.

Bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing just one page and taking no further action. This metric is a strong quality signal that shows whether you’re getting qualified, interested leads.

Also worth noting, bounce rate is different from exit rate. The exit rate shows the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing a particular page but have viewed or engaged with more than one page.

Visitors who view more than one page during their session could indicate good lead quality. It helps you see whether others find value in your entire website or just a small part of it.

Having mostly new visitors to your website could be a sign that not enough people cared about your content, product, or service to return. But a high number of returning visitors indicates the opposite — people are genuinely interested in what you do and keep coming back for more.

Conversion rate refers to the specific desired action a user takes on your website. The desired action could be anything from making a purchase to signing up for a newsletter. A high conversion rate is the goal of any good marketing campaign because it means that more people are taking the desired action.

You can use Google Analytics or other analysis tools to track your website conversion rates.

Tip: Learn how to boost your conversion rate with influencer marketing.

The session duration is the average time someone spends on your website. A high session duration indicates that people saw value in your content.

If you’re using social media for any part of your marketing, you may want to include specific social media metrics to track success.

Tip: We have a dedicated blog explaining how to measure social media campaign success that goes deeper into this topic.

Depending on the channels you use, there may be channel-specific metrics to monitor. Some general examples include:

Social Media Follower Growth
As more people discover your brand on social media, your audience count is likely to change. Get a before-and-after snapshot of your social followers to see how many more people became interested in your brand.

Social Reach
Social reach shows you how far your posts have traveled. Use this metric to see how many people saw your content.

Impressions
Impressions tell you the number of times your campaign was viewed. It does not take into account the number of people who saw it, as one person might make up several impressions.

Engagement 
Knowing the engagement of your social media posts give you an idea of how other people felt about it. Engagement metrics (sometimes called vanity metrics) include likes, shares, comments, Retweets, and clicks (if applicable).

Email marketing brings a unique set of metrics to help you benchmark your marketing performance.

Tip: We have a dedicated blog explaining how to measure email campaign performance that also includes more email marketing kpis and another blog including general marketing metrics.

Open Rates
Email open rate is helpful when you’re building your email list and optimizing your strategy. This gives you an idea of whether people find your subject lines compelling and whether they’re interested in your brand or offer. It can also be a good sign that you’ve targeted the right audience.

Bounce Rates
A little different than website bounce rates, an email bounce rate is the percentage of emails that are undeliverable. This could be due to a misspelling in the address or an address that is no longer valid. Checking your bounce rate gives you an opportunity to clean up your email addresses to improve your delivery rate.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Once users open the email, the click-through rate shows the percentage of people who took action on your email. A click-through shows interest in your call to action.
The higher the click-through rate, the more your CTAs are working for you. If your CTRs are lower than normal, you might want to change your CTA.

If you’re running a Google Adwords campaign, search engine marketing, or other PPC campaign, PPC analysis plays a crucial role in understanding performance and optimizing your strategies.

In addition, the following metrics make a difference in how to measure the success of a digital marketing campaign.

Tip: We have a dedicated blog explaining how to measure the success of advertising campaigns for you.

Cost Per Click (CPC)
In a PPC campaign, you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. This applies to Google Adwords as well as paid social media campaigns. The lower your CPC, the further your advertising budget will stretch.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Not everyone who clicks your ad will become a lead. It's helpful to look specifically at how many clicks turn into leads and what they cost you.

Cost Per Conversion
Many people might click your ad but not take any further action. That’s why your cost per conversion is always higher than your cost per click and cost per lead. Calculating these costs separately will give you an idea of how much you’re spending to earn each action.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Unlike cost per conversion, cost per acquisition only applies when you have return customers. It can also refer to acquiring paying customers, whereas a conversion may or may not relate to revenue-based goals.

Campaign ROI and ROAS
ROI and ROAS remain two of the most essential digital marketing KPIs. Whether you want to learn how to measure the success of a Google Adwords campaign, social media marketing, or email marketing, ROI helps to complete the picture.

In addition to choosing the right KPIs, you also need to set up a way to track them. Google Analytics, other website analytics tools, and built-in social media analytics are great places to start.

Another option is to centralize your analytics in an all-in-one, third-party platform, like Meltwater. With digital marketing becoming more complex and campaigns taking an omnichannel approach, Meltwater can help to anchor your metrics tracking.

Gain real-time insight into your digital marketing strategy analytics, no matter the channel. See whether your campaigns are hitting the right KPIs and adjust them accordingly. Learn more about our social media analytics capabilities.

How To Measure the Effectiveness of a Digital Marketing Campaign

IDC predicts that global spending on customer experience (CX) technologies will reach $641 billion in 2022, and 95 % of senior marketing executives in leading companies believe that CX roles within their organizations are the most strategically important for growth, according to eConsultancy.

It is clear that customer experience is top of mind for organizations today, and rightly so. Customers hold the power to make or break brands, and providing a positive customer experience is a key differentiator for competitive advantage.

Measuring Customer Experience Requires a Holistic View

Social Listening Gains Importance for CX Measurement

The Meltwater Blog

How Influencers Are Changing The Affiliate Marketing Game

What is Bilibili and Why Should You Care?

How To Measure the Effectiveness of a Digital Marketing Campaign

How To Measure Customer Experience — Metrics, KPIs, Analytics

How to Measure Email Campaign Performance [9+ Email Marketing KPIs]

Measuring Ad Campaign Effectiveness with Competitive Benchmarking Tools

Best B2B Instagram Profiles

How to Gain a Sustainable Competitive Advantage with Porter's 3 Strategies

How Coca-Cola Collects Consumer Insights

Influencer Marketing for Gen Z: 4 Keys to Success

Explained: The Unique Case of Korean Social Media

Digital & Social Media Statistics for Sweden [Updated 2023]