A marketers tightest and most valued ally is their sales force. Without communicating routinely with front-line sales representatives and agents, a marketer will never identify who their true prospect targets are. Despite what some of us may think, we don’t need to optimize pages for the people that come to a site and convert regardless of content, nor the people that will never convert (ever). The people we’re trying to ultimately reach are the few that might be interested, because if we can win them, we will be maximizing conversion. Read more…
Being in the agency/consultation end of the pay-per-click game for a few years now, I can appreciate how hard it is to manage multiple client accounts through numerous analytics solutions. Client A might use Google Analytics, and Client B might be using Webtrends, whereas Client C might be using both! Managing logins, passwords, unique URLs and varied implementations is the last thing I want to troubleshoot, which is why acquisio SEARCH sparked my interest. Their t-shirt offer sure got my attention, not for the shock value, but because the message resonated. Read more…
Being a member of various marketing associations including the Canadian Marketing Association, I see a lot of news about the rules and regulations that are in the works for a National do not call list. I also get frequent e-mails about how to effectively use telemarketing to drive sales continue to wonder, is it even worth it anymore? Telemarketing has been around since the introduction of the telephone, and I’m betting Alexander Graham Bell is turning in his grave because of it. Read more…
Not long ago I posted a rant on what I thought were major problems with Omniture’s newest releases, SiteCatalyst 14 and SearchCenter 3. I’ll be honest, it got a lot of attention for my relatively small blog and I thought we were making progress. It seems a lot of clients are frustrated, and for whatever reason aren’t inclined to make a big switch to other brands like Webtrends. However, with Yahoo announcing their takeover of IndexTools, an analytics package capable of offering “up 80% of Omniture’s features for FREE”, clients may begin to wonder and possibly wander. Read more…
Everyone running online marketing campaigns can tell you that conversion testing is important, especially when fine tuning landing page content. However, there is a far more valuable use to conversion testing: finding out what works relatively better than your stock page content for natural results, and finding those answers quickly using pay-per-click. One hotly debated element of site tuning is actionable page copy and interactivity. Think the text on your buttons, form fields, shopping cart, and post-sales communication. Read more…
The only reason I endorsed the Microsoft takeover of Yahoo was because after thinking about the deal from an online advertising perspective, it would setup a nice healthy rivalry between two technology giants. With recent Hitwise numbers indicating Google dominating over two thirds of the US search share, it is somewhat disheartening that rumors are flying around about Yahoo in testing phases with outsourcing pay-per-click to Google Adwords. Now, I like Google a lot, but I also like fair competition and I think the markets do too. Read more…
It’s amazing what an online behemoth like Google can do in only 6 short months. After all, it was only 6 months ago that I first reported Content Network placements becoming more and more unstable, a server side switch for Adwords advertisers to turn off parked domain ads, and the mysterious “clicks greater than impressions” reporting. Google has seriously cleaned up their Content Network act, but history tends to repeat itself. Read more…
Is nothing sacred? As an online marketer, I have little choice to disable spam filtering on my e-mail account, because more often than not, important e-mails that are filtered automatically go unanswered for weeks. Because of this exposure, I’m extremely aware of the phishing scams that get introduced, and this latest phishing scam made me do a double take. Read more…
Oh Google, what will you think of next? “Search Tomorrow’s Web Today”
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Google announced early today that they’ve started a joint program with Virgin to colonize Mars. Virgin, the brainchild of Sir Richard Branson, has in recent years rocketed to the forefront of space travel and exploration – making inner atmosphere space travel a possibility. Go here for more information on project Virgle. Read more…
