Out of the Fog Marketing

In an attempt to find a revenue generation model, LinkedIn and other social media sites now allow direct pay-per-click advertising on their sites. So when should you advertise on these sites and other content networks. Here's my advice....
1. You've maxed out search network PPC and have budget to spare. When folks search for terms in the traditional search network, you know they are looking for something particular to the keywords you have in your ad campaigns. On LinkedIn they might just be looking for their buddy's phone number and many times don't even see the ad. That being said it is another channel and your cost-per-click (CPC) should be much lower than a search network CPC.
2. You can advertise on a niche site. If you sell a medical device for headache relief and can advertise on a migraine discussion forum site, then content network advertising makes a whole lot of sense.

Labels: LinkedIn, pay per click, web marketing

There is some interesting information in this Forbes article on why you should continue to advertise during a recession. I know, you are thinking these are just advertising and marketing firms that want to keep making a buck.

Well here's some anecdotal proof that increasing ad spend in a weak economy actually works:

1) We increased pay-per-click ad spend for a local IT company this month and their leads have soared. Plus their cost per click is down due to a decrease in the competition's budgets.
2) We increased online advertising for our own firm. In a Google Adwords campaign, we were able to grab the top spot for a competitive term due to competition pulling out. That ad landed us one of our largest clients this month.

So don't spend unwisely, but think about actually INCREASING your budget to outmaneuver your competition this month.

Labels: ad spend, advertising agencies, forbes, google adwords, it, marketing in recession, marketing technology, online advertising, pay per click, recession, weak economy, yahoo search marketing

Great article by Ian Howie on Wordtracker's site. We find many companies to a decent job of keyword search, a mediocre job of ad copy and a dismal effort at landing pages. However it's one of the more important pieces of the conversion process.

If your landing page does not have anything to do with your keyword or ad copy or does not have a call to action, then it will be a wasted click. You are likely to see bounce rates off this page upwards of 85%.

Also Google assigns a quality rating to your keyword based on the quality of the landing page and its relevance to the particular keyword. The more targeted and relevant your ads and landing pages, the more favorably you are treated by Google.

Labels: google adwords, ian howie, keywords analysis, pay per click, ppc, wordtracker

An EMetrics survey released today states only 15% of respondents plan to cut online marketing spending. The online survey, which had 60 respondents, found marketers will increase or maintain their budgets for e-mail, keyword search campaigns, social media and video advertising. Nearly 84% of respondents said they planned to increase or maintain their e-mail marketing budgets.

This is consistent with our business with many of our new leads coming in the areas of web marketing such as pay-per-click campaign optimization, organic search engine optimization, link building, and online reputation management.

Labels: emetrics, improve search engine rankings, marketing budgets, michigan survey, online marketing budgets, online reputation, pay per click, web marketing michigan

Check out Carrie Hill's great advice this week on writing copy for search engines. There are some simple tips such as using tildas instead of pipes or dashes on a web page title to stand out from the organic search crowd. Carrie also offers some great advice on formatting pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

Labels: carrie hill, copywriting, lseo copy, pay per click, ppc, search day, search engine optimization

We all know determining the right keywords for your business' natural and paid search ad campaigns is vital. However, the searchers intent can be quite different when it comes to purchasing your goods or services. For example, the term "Michigan marketing" has a higher volume of searches, but we get more business from searches of the term "Michigan marketing firm".

But how can a business evaluate purchase intent upfront? Enter Microsoft AdCenter's Online Commercial Intent tool. Microsoft claims the tool can evaluate a visitor's intention to buy, sell, or complete a transaction. Simply type in your keyword and select "query". We found the data at least qualitatively compelling.

For example, the probability of commercial query for "Michigan marketing" is 35%, while the commercial intent of a user typing in "Michigan marketing firm" is 65% which is consistent with our historical metric tracking.

Labels: google adwords, keyword analysis, online advertising, pay per click, purchase intent