Tag Archives: Internet Marketing

Making Mobile Paid Search A Priority For Your Campaigns

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making mobile paid search a priority for your campaignsI believe that if you’re in marketing or if you’re reading this that it’s not news to you that marketing to users on their mobile devices is a good thing.  I’m also not going to barrage you with the hundreds of stats that marketers have thrown out about how consumers these days use their mobile devices to do everything.  Chances are even very good that by now you’ve already rolled out some kind of specific mobile campaign in the last 12 months or so.  If you haven’t then I’d like to encourage you to take advantage of this segment of users.  You’ll want to approach this audience a little bit differently than you would approach those same consumers on other devices.  There are lots of ways to attack the mobile segment and get your message through to your consumers, but today we’re going to focus on using paid search to reach this audience.  Your website is an important piece of this puzzle.  Is the goal on your website different from a mobile perspective than the average visitor or are there any technical limitations you need to account for in where you send visitors and how you track conversions?  Should you bypass your website entirely and just try and make your phone ring?  Before you dig into some of the nuts and bolts of your campaigns you will want to assess your assets and how best to use them.

Device Targeting

First, you’re going to want to define the devices that you want to target.  For you this may or may not include tablets as well.  In my opinion, the tablet is more like a laptop or desktop than a mobile device and I think people use it more as a second screen than as a true mobile on-the-go sole device.  Time of day is also a large driver of that opinion I just mentioned though so take that into account.  You’ll need to decide whether you’re just targeting smartphones or if you also want to include tablets in that same audience.  You can also target more specific device makes and models depending upon whether you’re running an Adwords or a Bing Ads campaign.  Let’s match up some of these advanced targeting options.

Adwords lets you target

  • Operating System
  • Device Models
  • Carriers & Wi-Fi Networks

Bing Ads lets you target

  • Operating System

Keyword Targeting

When people are on a mobile device they aren’t using the same types of keywords that they use when they are on their laptop or desktop.  A lot of times they use shorter search queries because they aren’t using their thumbs to appease your long tail keyword strategy.  I know, I wish they would too…  Your keyword strategy may need to be more towards your head terms than your long tail terms.  Also, your negative keyword strategy might not help you as much as you’d hope because the more terms people use the more they explain their search intent.  We use this to optimize our campaigns using negative keywords to exclude searches we don’t want, but with less words we don’t get as much intent.

Let’s throw a new twist in here.  What if your products or service cater directly to the mobile search audience.  Do you sell cell phone accessories, and what if they’re just for a device like the iPhone?  Are you the company behind a new app or mobile game that you’re trying to market?  You may have an entirely different keyword strategy for your mobile campaigns than your other campaigns.  This may also help you target just the specific devices that you’re looking for.

Ad Copy Optimization

Another thing you should be evaluating is your ad copy.  Your ads should be saying something different to a mobile phone user than someone on a laptop or desktop.  The biggest difference in my ad copy that I’ve seen is our call to action and the use of ad extensions to attract calls and leads.  If you’re running a lead generation campaign then maybe getting a user with a click to call ad is a better experience than sending them to your website, or maybe you’d just rather give them the option.  Depending upon your business you can use Adwords to force a call or give them the option to call or visit your website.  Almost always you’ll want to say something specific to a mobile user giving them a phone based call to action.  Maybe that’s calling your business or downloading your app.  You could also investigate changing your products mobile check out experience to streamline your conversion process for a mobile user.

Enhanced Campaigns

If you haven’t been watching the developments from Adwords on the new Enhanced Campaigns then you will be forced in this direction sooner rather than later.  I’m not even sure that Google could have predicted how important mobile search has become in the last 12 months.  Enhanced campaigns are their effort to make it a bigger focus for everyone.  In their opinion it helps people optimize mobile campaigns more efficiently and at a better scale depending upon the size of your campaigns.  This whole topic has been thrown around the ring with PPC managers taking both sides.  Some people see the benefits and others say that they like their mobile specific campaigns being separate.

In summary, if you haven’t been giving the proper attention and optimization effort to your mobile campaigns then it’s time to reevaluate.  You’re missing out and it’s not like mobile campaigns are a fad that is going to pass.  Evaluate where your budgets are at and your management time should emulate the type of spread between where your budgets and ultimately your performance is coming from.

Is Linkedin Right for Your Business?

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A common misconception on the business side of social media is that companies should take on all the different type of social media profiles to have a wide swath of social presence, pervading all parts of the social Web.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely an advocate for a big social presence, but there are limitations. Many businesses don’t need to be on Linkedin. There, I said it. Now, gather around and I’ll tell you why.

With most social media, the effort and time you put into it is indicative of the results you will inevitably see from it. However, with Linkedin, the effort and level of results does not stop with the person posting on the company profile, it’s the whole team effort of the employees that make your presence there a valid tool or a complete waste of resources. That’s what sets it apart.

If you want your company to be involved on Linkedin, not merely as a passive content distributor, your employees need to be engaged on the site. This is especially crucial if your company is B2B, but salespeople and most employees of any company on the site should be versed in Linkedin and be using it on a daily basis, acting as advocates for their company by sharing company updates, engaging in group discussions, etc.

Not only is it a fantastic networking resource, but Linkedin can also be a place to share newsworthy company updates. I think of it an extension of your company’s ‘newsroom’ where you can funnel PR updates, product launches, management transitions, employment opportunities, etc, giving them a wider audience than their usual static reach of the News section of your site and press releases most people will never read.

However, it should by no means be seen as a content dumping ground from the posts you are broadcasting on other social networks. That post you just made about spring cleaning tips is perfectly fine for Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, but is most likely not appropriate for Linkedin. This can go both ways, as the industry jargon-filled report you just posted to start a discussion on Linkedin may fall flat with your Facebook fans as the audience may be completely different: employees and industry peers vs. consumers.

Oftentimes, people who are encapsulated on a daily basis with their industry and company have a distorted view of what is important and interesting to them and what is actually interesting or social-friendly and appropriate for social media. Not every move your company makes should be broadcasted on social media, but Linkedin is a more appropriate arena than most for company updates.

To reiterate my main point from earlier, Linkedin success goes beyond company profile updates sharing your latest blog post. To truly benefit from this unique site, your employees need to be active on it, sharing and conversing: building relationships.

To benefit from Linkedin, your company needs to do the following:

- Post regularly about company updates, industry news, etc.

- Completely fill out and optimize your company’s profile with products/services, design elements and more.

- Employees connect with your company profile and utilize the site to network, recruit, engage in industry discussions, etc.

Social Media Marketing

Remember, don’t feel like your company has to spread itself too thin throughout all the different social media sites. Excel at a few, and forget the rest, rather than weigh yourself down in mediocrity with a pervasive and overwhelming, but ultimately milquetoast presence.

How are people in your industry using this powerful networking tool? Tell us in the comments below.

PPC Ad Group Segmentation, How Deep Should You Go?

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Developing keyword lists and building out paid search campaigns can be a very large and a very fun project.  I believe there is some debate among paid search managers as to when you should be adding new ad groups and how many ad groups are appropriate based on the size of your keyword list.  There is really no clear cut answer as to when it is appropriate to further segment your ad groups.  Like most things in this industry, it depends.  The further you can break your ad groups down the better your campaign performance can be.  It takes more work, but it pays off in the end.  You need to be able to analyze your keyword list to determine how many different groups of keywords you’re working with.  Also think about the potential of using different ad copy to speak to each of these different searchers.  Do these different groups of keywords show different user intent?  Are these searchers asking a question, or are they looking for a specific product or service?  Answering these questions will help you determine when you need to utilize some different ad copy to really speak to searchers in a different way.

Rules Of Thumb To Help

There are a few different guidelines that you can use to help determine when you should be making a new ad group or just adding a few different keywords to an established ad group:

  • Use a 2 root words guide.
  • Try to not have more than 20-25 keywords in a single ad group.
  • Different types of keywords that show different intent.

To help explain more about some of these guidelines I’ll use a few different examples.  Let’s say you’re making a campaign to advertise your ppc management services.  You may have a list of terms that include: ppc management, ppc management company, ppc management services, search marketing management, search marketing manager, google adwords management, google adwords management services, etc.  Your ad group list should at least include 3 different ad groups with this small list:

  • ppc management
  • search marketing management
  • google adwords management

When you’re using more than 20-25+ keywords in an ad group you may have a specific reason you need that many keywords, but for most ad groups this seems like there could be further segmentation.  Maybe you’re taking over a campaign for someone, acquired a new client or maybe it’s just time to re-review your ad group structure.  Whatever reason it is I believe your entire campaign could benefit from this exercise.  If there are more than 25 keywords in a single ad group it’s hard to believe that all those different searchers should be seeing the same set of ads, which is why it might be time to build some new ad groups and write some new ads.

There are a lot of ways that people search the internet to find an infinite amount of different things.  This also means that we cannot think of all these searchers as the same.  Some searchers are just looking for information, while others are looking for that product that your site sells.  Professionals in search marketing have tried to group keyword searches into 3 different groups.

  • Informational
  • Navigational
  • Transactional

google adwords ppc ad group segmentation

This is a good way to think about your keyword and where these people are within your sales funnel, or are they in your sales funnel at all?  Based on the intention of the searcher you should have different ad groups with terms that have totally different ad copy which speak to that searcher on an individual level.  If it’s an informational keyword then your ad needs to answer the question or promise more insight into what problem they’re looking to solve.  If the keyword is navigational then your ad needs to direct that searcher to their destination.  Lastly, if the search is transactional then your ad should grab their attention and offer them the product or service that you’re selling and close the deal.

Whether you’re a seasoned PPC manager or just starting out this exercise of segmenting or adding to your ad group list is a great optimization technique.  Don’t get caught up in adding keywords over time to your existing ad groups to gain traffic and exposure be left with a small number of ad groups that all have hundreds of keywords in them.  Your campaigns and business are going to suffer.  Take the extra time to do it right.

How Much Value Does Social Media Really Have?

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Many clients and conversations we have with marketers ask us: Is social media worth any investment? The answer is yes, but maybe not from every channel that’s available.  Just make sure you set up measurement data points, implement tracking tags from Google Analytics (or some other program), and post relevant content to your audience(s) and not just “clutter.”

You also have to look at what you deem as having value to your organization. If you see your audience, followers, comments, “retweets” are growing, and your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube/Vimeo, Linkedin and Instagram are all growing in numbers and in some cases driving people to your website, then it’s valuable and driving awareness. More than likely, you will find a few of them are not worth any direct time investment.
social media marketing
True, social media doesn’t allow you to measure it as closely as other Internet marketing pieces such as banner ads, Pay-Per-Click, or email marketing, but you can track direct leads and/or sales from each social media medium you use – if that is what you need to make sure the time, money, effort you spend on it is worth it.  One key piece…don’t be lazy.  Don’t just use a feeder system (like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite) that cuts off posts or uses hashtags where it’s not appropriate. Dedicated users will know you did not intend that message for that medium and it can lose some impact.

You also have to find what works for your organization – every business is different based on size, geography, client demographics, etc. You need to watch the data and optimize for what works specifically for your business.  We can tell you – just a bunch of self-promotion is NOT going to generate social media strategy that will maximize the efforts you are putting into it and there is no “cookie cutter” solution that will maximize results.

Social media also allows people to use the Internet on their terms.  They may never leave Pinterest or Facebook until they are ready to transact.  If you aren’t there in that space, you could be missing 10-20% of your desired audience that didn’t know about you because you weren’t there and part of “their conversation.” If you could get 10% more sales from having a solid strategy here, that could be a lot of growth – but it won’t happen overnight.

The ultimate goal is to get a post in front of thousands through their networks – through the use of tagging, timely posts, and community/industry cross promotion. Marketing is the sum of all parts and the number of touch-points – something known as frequency – the number of times someone has to be exposed to something before they are willing to take an action.  Through social media, you can increase those touch-points and be in front of them more often, which helps speed up the frequency time-period until an action will occur.

With an agency/resource who can monitor and report on social media for you (and also bring some creativity to your strategy), it can be the most effective $500-$1,500 a month (local-to-national type budgets) you spend out of your marketing budget and go a heck of a lot further than any advertising dollar could with reach.  Just make sure you give it a few months and your resource for this is showing you the data and how it is moving in the right direction on the way there.  Happy posting…

Coming To Grips With Your Websites Content Strategy

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I’d like to take some time and focus on the content strategy for your companies website.  Why does website content seem to be an after thought for a lot of businesses?  It seems like a lot of businesses brush over the fact that their website actually needs to have a strong message and a valuable content strategy.  The content for your website needs to be able to drive a visitor to take some kind of desired action.  Whether that’s making a purchase, becoming a lead or coming into your business you want your visitors to feel like they can take that next action.  Websites can serve a variety of purposes, but for the most part businesses want to take their website visitors and turn them into customers.  So how do we do this?

Describe Your Products Or Services In Depth

I’m sure you have more to say about your business than you think.  No matter if you are a local business or a Fortune 500 company.  I would bet that you could expand the content on your website or make it better.  If your website is on the smaller side then you need to think of each product or service that you offer as a unique page on your website that is completely dedicated to that product or service. A lot of times I’ve spoken with companies who think a single page on their website labeled “Services” is going to list out and describe all the different things their company offers.  You should really push yourself to consider more than 1 services page as a general role of thumb.

If your website is on the larger side then you should have more resources and offer more, which means more pages and a larger site.  Don’t just think too that the answer is always adding more pages just to get your page count up.  You always want to approach content by adding value to your website visitors.  Larger websites can do much more with their content and add even more value by evaluating a larger content strategy.  If you need more ideas think about developing content then think about playing the recency card.  Develop something timely that is relevant to your audience.

Blogging For Your Business

Blogging is a great way for anyone to develop content on an ongoing basis very easily.  Blogs present unique opportunities to create interaction with your audience whenever someone comments on your post, and posts are often shared more often than other standard website pages.  Most of the time your blog posts are ordered by date, but you can also do things like assign categories and tags to your posts it often makes it easier for users to navigate to the content they are looking for.  Most people think that writing for a blog is either too much work, or that they aren’t going to be able to come up with new ideas for posts.  Here is just a small list of content ideas we’ve compiled over the years:

  • Changes or additions to your companies products or services.
  • Company or industry updates.
  • News that is relevant to your industry.
  • Discussing the most frequent problems that your customers bring up to your sales department or customer service department and develop answers to those questions.
  • Joining an internet community for your industry and blogging about topics that are presented often within that community.  Examples could be:
    • Social Media
    • Forums
    • Reddit

Developing Local Content

We work with a variety of local and regional clients that often come to us with this same problem about developing content relevant for their audience.  If you want to develop content or optimize content for a local audience think about how your business relates to those local consumers and integrate your web content with the interests of their local region.  Maybe you should start breaking out pages individually for each region you service and merge that content with how your company has serviced or been involved in that local community.  Work with a local journalist who reports on the area you service and help develop content that can be promoted on a local news outlet as well as your site.  Find local bloggers who live in your area that write content that supports your industry and present them with a guest blog post.

Ultimately Trying To Provide Value

At the end of the day whatever content you are producing with your website or for your company you need to be adding value to your visitors.  Also remember that you shouldn’t be running out of ideas.  Try to come up with creative pieces of web content that will help your audience and be pertinent to your business.

Facebook Marketing & Fan Interaction 101

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Guest author Brandon Williams writes for AdMedia.com covering Internet Marketing, Remarketing, PPC and more.

Facebook is a wonderful way to utilize your personality to interact with fans and to simply show them you’re not just a big-time company that isn’t concerned with their customers’ needs. How you fully go about keeping these marketing efforts going will be unique to your business, but there are some simple tricks to keep the interaction going and build your brand through Facebook.

Get your fans involved and interaction flowing with these Facebook tricks.

Real People & Real Personalities

First, it’s beneficial to know that Facebook is a great promotional tool on multiple levels because it allows you to connect with customers, potential customers and even other companies in the industry that can help you increase your exposure. When you take to Facebook in order to promote your brand, understand that the people on there are all real and they expect you to be as well. This is a great way to show your personality and show that you care about facilitating their needs when it comes to your services and products.

It’s Not About the Hard-Sell

facebook fan interaction

Be sure to let the interaction flow for purposes that involve your business and even some that don’t. This goes along with showing your personality as you can simply engage in contact with your fans by writing a status on just about anything relevant, asking for their input or what they think about certain things. When you engage with the fans, it builds a comfortable rapport between them and your brand which can help convert them into buyers.

One of the more entertaining methods of marketing on Facebook is the use of yourwebsite to conduct scavenger hunt type deals in order to promote a new or hot item that you may be selling. Simply use Facebook to post photos of places in and around your city and have people search for what you are giving away. This allows the fans to be a part of your businesses promotional plan, get something for free and see the true quality of your product.

Deals like this and “Facebook Exclusives” get fans talking and word of mouth can bring in a lot of business.

Above all else, the biggest tip on making Facebook marketing successful is to interact. Give the fans a reason to notice you and feel that they can trust you. If you let questions, comments or suggestions go without a response, you’re not using the full potential of what social media networks can offer businesses.

Have Fun

Finally, have fun. Rarely are people going to take Facebook too seriously, so enjoy the interaction and promote what you want to promote. When you’re having fun with the fans that means they are having fun with your business, and that is an easy way to increase conversion rates and profit.

Making Social Media More Valuable for Your Business

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So you have dabbled in this. You get some people to follow you. How do you know if it is worth your time and really, what can you do to maximize what kind of web traffic you get from these mediums?

What if you changed your website experience based on how the visitor found you? The data is there to do this, you just need to interpret it and adjust accordingly. Set up correctly, you would be able to profile how your Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, YouTube/Vimeo, Google+, Pinterest, and Blog readers all use your site and based on looking at your traffic’s referring source. You can then change the experience, path, content, etc that they have to maximize your conversions and exposure by utilizing what that data tells you.

Social Media 2.0 & Web 3.0

This is Social Media 2.0. This is web 3.0. Create a unique experience for every web visitor based on how they got to your site. Combine the social media elements listed above with Search Engine and Content related marketing – you have groups of keywords within a segment to promote something – based on keyword you could adjust what they see and the content they would get – changing their “path”. If they were from Organic search results – same thing – we all know that paid traffic typically differs 25-35% in what they do versus unpaid traffic – create specific content based on those patterns.

Every person, every way, every avenue and it allows them to use the web the way they want while still allowing you to reach them. Will every person do the exact same thing that visits from Facebook – no, but if you study the analytics, traffic patterns , implement goals, and adjust based on history – over time you will be able to predict relatively accurately what 70% of them do and improve their experience with your Brand and site.

5 Things About Using Social

You also need to realize the following things about social media:Social Networking by Device statistics

1. It might not work for you - not everyone gets the value they need out of it for the investment they make. Just make sure you give it a good try and analyze before making any decisions.

2. People access from Mobile devices most often - so everything should be mobile optimized and easy to consume – especially if you have a global reach.

3. The bulk of social media time is spent on Facebook, - with newcomer Pinterest climbing rapidly. It should be treated as the dominate force it is for any consumer related marketing efforts. B2B marketing should have more of a mix – but the referring traffic reports and analysis will tell you what you need to know and where to best spend your time.

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Website Landing Page Optimization Based on Traffic Source

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Just reading through a Marketing Sherpa report on Landing Page Optimization and I thought I would share a few thoughts. They typically look at it from three types of landing pages; E-Commerce, Incentivized Leads, and Direct Lead Generation. These are, after all, the reasons you are out there with internet marketing campaigns – to drive leads and sales.

With the tools available (Google Analytics is perfect and FREE), you should spend some time figuring out who converts the best on your site from what medium of advertising. You also need to look at assigning a lead “quality score” in order to balance quantity and quality. Paid media, customers, e-mail blasts, social media referrals, and general organic traffic all do different things when they get to your website and you should be looking at the data to tell you what you need to do based on the source.

Which takes me to some work we did a few months ago for a big automaker here in Michigan. They created a comparison site for their brand site and wanted to know how it was working.  We helped them understand all the ways they could measure their traffic patterns and usage so they could make changes to improve performance based on EACH way someone got to that site – paid, social, Brand site, mobile, etc. for the next model year. This is extremely important to look at in order to make sure you are maximizing your opportunity with each and every visitor to your site based on how they get to you and what they do once there.

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Using Open Graph to Control Branding

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An important aspect to building a brand identity is controlling the brand. Large companies have entire documents defining the logo, colors, verbiage, etc. of their brand. However, it is often the little things that get overlooked. In social media there is a multitude of ways to disseminate and support your brand; this is about one small way that could have a big impact.

Anyone who has posted a link on Facebook has seen the thumbnail that shows up associated with the link and site blurb. You may notice that it will often give you options to pick the thumbnail you want. You may have even noticed that oftentimes the company’s logo or any relevant picture is not in the list. Where do the blurbs and thumbnails come from, and can you control what thumbnail is associated with your site?

The most basic thing that Facebook does is simply read your page. You should already have a “description” meta tag for SEO, and that is used as the blurb. Any images embedded on the page (through img tags – not included in CSS as backgrounds, etc.) will go into the thumbnail list. You may try to trick Facebook by including a picture but obscuring it, etc., but there is a much easier and reliable way to do this.

The answer is through Facebook meta tags, made available in the Open Graph protocol.  With those meta tags, not only can you specify a picture for a thumbnail, but you can specify real-world location information, your site name, description (that blurb), and more.

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New Twitter Features Improve Usability

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Not to be left in the shadows of the attention that Facebook and Google+ have been getting recently; Twitter has been busy rolling out changes this week. New platform transition, new activity stream, new @username stream, new share an image feature… new, new, new is always the trend in the world of social media.

New Twitter Transition Complete

The first change has been an anticipated one. As of Monday, August 8, Twitter will no longer offer the option of using its old interface. Although the “new Twitter” first became available in September 2010, users still had the option of accessing the old platform up until now. Changes include a new design with @mentions, retweets, searches and lists immediately above your timeline on the left side of the screen. When you click on a profile or hashtag, rather than being directed away from your timeline to a new page, you see the information on the right side of the page. This was a much welcomed change as it allows you to seamlessly maneuver between your timeline and those that you’re following. With the transition officially complete, everyone’s Twitter experience is now on the same page.

New Activity Stream

When Twitter was created in 2006, the whole concept was based off answering the question “What’s happening?” with a to-the-point, 140 character update. Keep things clear, keep things concise, keep things easy. As social media’s popularity grew, users began utilizing platforms in more complex ways and in turn they continued (and still continue) to grow and develop. The newest Twitter development comes from users wanting an easier way to interact as well as monitor interactions, similar to how you are able to use Facebook.

With Twitter’s new activity tab, you can easily view recent retweets, follows and favorites from the people you follow in one streamlined place. This will more than likely make Twitter more intuitive to use, especially for new and “mild” users. You are also able to follow users directly from the activity stream, making the feature even more seamless.

New @username Stream

The new @username stream is similar to the new activity stream, except it highlights only interactions that your profile is involved with. This includes @mention tweets to you, your tweets that have been favorited, your tweets that have been retweeted, users that followed you, lists you have been added to, and more.

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