Archive by Author

Apr27

Kyle Grant

2

PPC Measurability: A Double Edged Sword

In marketing circles, the old adage: "Half my advertising money is wasted. The problem is that I don’t know which half!" is often regarded as marketing fact and has been more or less accepted as fact until now. In a down economy marketers are now heralding this statement no longer as a quote, but as a mission statement to finding where to invest money.  However, the very nature of this quote embodies the challenge that all marketers face: attribution. The famous marketing quote was reportedly said by William Lever, John Wanamaker, and F.W. Woolworth; begging the question: who gets the [...]

Mar16

Kyle Grant

3

Yahoo Day Parting Has Arrived!

Without much fanfare or publication, Yahoo has released its day parting and demographic targeting technologies. This is a great stride forward for Yahoo and, until now, has been a pain for many search marketers advertising on Yahoo. Yahoo now joins the ranks of the other major Search Engines (Google, Microsoft Live Search, and ASK) with offering a greater level of sophisticated targeting tools to help advertisers eliminate wasted advertising dollars. 
We have been working quite closely with our Yahoo Representatives who have been up until this point been assisting with manually day parting our clients’ campaigns. With Yahoo we have seen, [...]

Sep10

Kyle Grant

0

SAR-R: Search and Rescuing ROI

Over the past several months, in part due to increased economic pressures, we have seen an increase of importance placed on improving return on investment (ROI) from search-based activity, particularly from PPC campaigns. ROI attribution and measurement becomes especially important when justifying the cost of the online sponsored advertising and improving the return on advertising spend (ROAS). Here are some tips on improving your search performance and getting the best ROI possible.
1.      Know Your Analytics
This statement may seem fairly redundant, but all too often search marketers find themselves flying blind without proper analytics. Much of this article will focus on [...]

Aug14

Kyle Grant

2

Key PPC Best Practices (Part 4 of 4)

This is the final installment of the 4-part series on key PPC best practices (PPC Best Practices Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).
Speak Their Language
There has been constant debate as to what to use for keyword analysis with regards to long-tail versus head phrases and which yields the better results. Head phrases are the very generic and broad search queries where there is enormous search volume, but costs associated with the keywords are quite high. Torso keywords are the more-specific keywords; the 2- to 4-word search queries that still have lower search volume compared to the head phrases, but [...]

Jul31

Kyle Grant

3

PPC Best Practices (Part 3 of 4)

This is the third installment of the 4-part series on key PPC best practices (PPC Best Practices Part 1, Part 2). So far we’ve introduced the basics in the planning and measurement involved with the setup of a PPC campaign in addition to conversion path analysis. This week we’ll get into testing, demographic targeting, and vertical engines.
Don’t Guess… Test
With a PPC campaign, testing is the campaign manager’s best friend. Testing is a constant, iterative process that must be followed to refine the effectiveness of your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns. Multivariate testing can be as complex as developing a multitude [...]

Jul23

Kyle Grant

4

Key PPC Best Practices (Part 2 of 4)

Last week, I started wrote a post on some of the key PPC best practices (Go to Part 1). This is the second installment of the 4 part series.
 
Plan to Measure; then Measure the Plan
As you move forward with your PPC campaign, ensure you are able to effectively measure your KPIs through your analytics tracking. With several of our clients, we are using keyword-level ROI to ensure we can accurately spend the budget where we are making the highest returns. This measurement includes being able to merge data from several sources in order to accurately measure the effect of each [...]

Jul15

Kyle Grant

4

Key PPC Best Practices (Part 1 of 4)

Stop Thinking PPC, Start Thinking Consumer-Initiated Marketing
Over the past year, several new options (and the list keeps growing) have been made available for online advertisers to create more sophisticated online marketing campaigns. We’ve seen the implementation of display advertising through Pay Per Click (PPC) providers as well as a significant movement towards local and mobile advertising. This movement in the market represents a paradigm shift, from simply a PPC-focused strategy, to thinking about all the channels associated with consumer-initiated marketing conversations.
Several of these options include display advertisements, paid inclusion, local listings and Pay Per Action (PPA). With each of [...]

Jun24

Kyle Grant

0

Google Adwords Phishing Attempts

 
A word of Caution to Adwords Advertisers:
Recently, we have seen a notable increase in the number of what appears to be phishing (A.K.A spoofing) attempts targeting Google Adwords Accounts. These attempts mirror the same strategy that was used to steal account information from bank accounts; where the email appears to be from Google Adwords, yet the URL is a different variation to the Google Adwords link. Google does attempt to contact you through emails; however, should you receive an email alert, please look into your account through the user interface directly. A valid email from Google will include your Customer [...]

May17

Kyle Grant

1

The New Role for Outsourced SEM

Within the SEM industry a trend can be noticed towards the internalization of search; the formation of in-house SEO and SEM teams to handle search. With the costs of reputable outsourcing agents continuing to rise, the justification to hire within and develop an in-house team becomes justifiable, or at least appears to on the books. Return on investment with a team working full time on bid management and organic strategies should be able to deliver the same value as does an outsourced company, not working nearly as many hours.The simple ROI calculation cannot factor in the intangible factors associated with [...]