Archive for the 'Paid Search' Category

A Smart Waste of Time

Published by
brian
April 7, 2009 in Ecommerce, Interactive Marketing, Link Dump, Online Video, Paid Search and Social Media. 0 Comments

It’s not like you’ve got anything else better to do…

  • Which URL Shortening Service Should You Use? -- Search Engine Land -- I thought everyone just picked what they thought looked/sounded the coolest.
  • URL Shorteners Are  Bad for Most of Us -- Joshua Schachter’s Blog -- Are they?  What do you think?  The only thing that bothers me is when they don’t work.
  • DIY Social Media Monitoring Dashboards -- Michael Leis -- Why just plugin when you can plugin & monitor?  It’s the logical next step…
  • The Top 5 Video Game Ninjas -- Unreality -- Ninja-related material is always must-read.
  • Twitter Traffic Explodes…And Not Being Driven By the Usual Suspects -- comScore Voices -- Even though the 18 -- 24 year old demographic has a low adoption rate compared to the rest of the olders demos, I see lots of growth coming in the next year.  I base this solely on the fact that my cousin, who’s a senior in college, is now tweeting.
  • Quarterly Online Sales Flash Survey, Q1 2009 Results -- Shop.org -- More than half of the retailers surveyed reported an increase in sales during Q1.
  • Pre-roll Ad Viewing Up, Interaction Down -- ReelSEO -- Not surprising that people looking for content they’d normally have to pay for are more willing to tolerate watch pre-roll.
  • Amazon Cuts Paid Search Affiliates -- Amazon Affiliate Blog -- I wonder if this has anything to do with the pending tax nexus changes.  Search Engine Marketing firms who dislike affiliates will tell you that other merchants should do the same.  What’s your opinion?
  • And when in doubt, think with your dipstick…or don’t.  I think I’ve found my Halloween costume.  I’m Scottish, I could pull it off.  Check out this behind the scenes video; it might be funnier than the commercial.

Use Geo-segmentation to Increase ROI

Published by
brian
November 21, 2008 in Interactive Marketing, Multi-channel Retail and Paid Search. 0 Comments

Given the increasingly competitive cost-per-click environment in paid search, it’s becoming imperative that online retailers seek new ways to improve their return on investment.  Compared to this time last year, average CPCs are up 30%; I have some clients who are seeing 40% & up.  Using a combination of automated bid management with qualitative data analysis is industry standard.  If you’re not already using proprietary tools & some analysis done by an actual person, you’re behind the game.  Get on that…stat.

Your next steps are to…

  • Use your online analytics to identify which states (or larger geographical area) generate the most sales. 
  • Combine sales & costs data.  Search engines can give you impression, cost, & click data by state.  Mesh these results & voila, you have yourself some nice, segmented data with which you can make educated business decisions.
  • Make difficult decisions.  If you are a nationwide &/or an international retailer, you may need to cease advertising in retail trade areas.  This might not be wise since just about everyone uses search to find out, among other things, where your offline stores are.  Not everyone clicks on the natural search engine results.

Now that holiday shopping is in full swing, those year-over-year CPC increases are going to rise even more.  With the current state of the economy & many etailers cutting budgets in the face of decreased sales, your job as an online marketer is to help mitigate risk & add to the bottom line.  Many retailers are going all out with aggressive promotional strategies; this cuts into margins.  Smaller margins & increased customer acquisition costs do not go over well with senior management & investors.

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