Many online marketing bloggers seem to be writing a lot recently about how “everyone” can maximize ROI this season by getting on the pay-per-click gravy train. Although many online retailers will see significant increases in revenue compared to last year, competition is also getting much more fierce. Be prepared to bid higher, target the long-tail, and offer attractive promotions to win your holiday share of sales. Your analytics should show ROI quicker than normal, with the added search traffic. Be prepared to be unique. Read more…
I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged on this subject before! It’s so simple, yet can be so complicated to explain to potential clients. Heck, it can even be difficult asking for more funding within an organization with a good campaign track record. Let’s examine a day in the life of an average Joe, such as myself, to see what kind of advertising I can remember seeing, and which are truly memorable. Read more…
To say it’s been a crazy Thanksgiving long-weekend for our American brothers and sisters across the border is an understatement. First came Black Friday, a day designed by marketers to kick off the holiday shopping madness with deep “discounts” and one-day specials. The term Cyber Monday was coined back in 2005, and conceived especially for online retailers that wanted to cash in on the same revenues Black Friday promotions garnered. Last year around this time the traffic generated by sales crippled direct debit systems, did we survive this year? Maybe not… Read more…
Many experts will often preach about website freshness and how webmasters should focus on keeping content up to date and new and exciting. For the most part, they are correct, as “content is king” for search engine optimization. Fortunately, landing page freshness isn’t as important in Pay-per-click campaigns. Read more…
In the United States, Thanksgiving decorations will quickly be swapped out for Holiday-themed signage and the masses will experience a rush of advertising chaos. Just over a month of holiday shopping days left for you to convert those search visitors into paying customers. In Canada, it’s a very different story because the departure of Halloween marks the official start of holiday advertising. Not to worry, if you’re an American retailer and want to target Canadian shoppers this season, it’s not too late! Read more…
I recently came across an interesting “malware warning” from Google and Stopbadware.com informing me that the site I was visiting may be harmful to my computer. The site in question was TheHockeyNews.com! Really, the only harmful thing I can think of originating from The Hockey News website is injury news from my beloved Ottawa Senators. There must be some mistake, right? Not according to Google last week… Read more…
Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it, search marketing meetings can sometimes get a little boring if all your metrics are more or less business as usual. This little graph should lighten the mood. I dare everyone to sneak this into their next analytics meeting and review the results without laughing. Read more…
Rumors regarding Google’s next big acquisition abound with mentions of Sprint popping up here and there. One significant relationship that is emerging could change the way everyone interacts on the internet, and that is through increasingly tight partnerships between Google and Go Daddy. Go Daddy of course is the internet leader in domain registrations with over 25 million sold, plus countless more millions opted into web hosting, certificates, merchant services, etc. Sprint would be big acquisition, but GoDaddy could be monumental. Read more…
Someone at Google must have been listening, because now you’ll be able to start excluding your Content Network Adwords campaigns from showing up on Domain Ads and Error Pages. Although I’ve always preached that it’s best to determine whether or not those placements will convert on your unique campaigns, you’ll now have the power to test it yourself, without the need for insider help. Read more…
With the introduction of Placement Targeted campaigns in Adwords, now comes the ability to target and setup strategic bidding on demographic sampling as well. Although this feature concept is somewhat dated thanks to MSN Adcenter, Google Adwords engineers have finally caught up – but how accurate is the demographics information? Read more…
