Good morning Marketer, and welcome to Friday!
There was a lot to learn this week at SMX Next, our free virtual search marketing conference that kicked off Tuesday. From our editor-in-chief’s keynote session on the role of predictive marketing to a discussion by Greg Sterling on the evolution of local search, there was a little bit of something for everyone. Check out all the replay sessions from the two-day event here.
In other news, CallJoy – Google’s call intelligence service for small businesses – is shutting down on July 22. Launched in May 2019, the virtual agent SaaS platform answered calls, filtered spam (including inside sales calls), and provided basic business information (e.g., hours) to consumers.
“Like all projects from Area 120, CallJoy was an experiment,” said a spokesperson from Google. “We’re proud of the team’s work and achievements, and we look forward to seeing the great things they’ll continue to do at Google.” Translation: There likely just wasn’t enough adoption or revenue for Google to justify continuing the service. As a larger theme, the end of CallJoy – as with other discontinued Google products or undesirable product changes (e.g., GMB messaging) – raises the question of Google’s commitment to its non-core products.
There’s more below, including news on TikTok for Business.
Happy watching!
Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor
