Internet Marketing, Social Media, Business | StuckInTheFunnel

5 Common PPC Mistakes to Avoid

This post was originally written for the blog Raleigh Web Insights.

Depending on your organization’s marketing budget, you may opt to manage your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns in-house. While this can save you money on management fees, you run the risk of losing dollars if your campaign is not maintained correctly. Over the years, we have heard countless stories of under performing PPC campaigns from our current and prospective clients.

Here are 5 Common PPC Mistakes to Avoid:

1. Focusing on Budget and Not ROI – Many marketing managers view a PPC budget as another line item on a marketing report. This is common with small businesses. Unlike traditional media campaigns such as Television, Print or Radio, Paid Search Campaigns provide the opportunity for detailed analysis and analytics. Make sure you constantly track and refine your campaigns so you get the most out of your ad spend.
2. Sending All Traffic to Your Home Page – Your ads are ranked by a number of factors, including the relevancy of your destination URL. If you send your visitors to relevant landing pages, it will increase your ad position and your visitors will be more likely to convert.
3. Forgetting About Negative Keywords – Negative keywords are a great way to qualify traffic and avoid wasted clicks. Make sure you omit keywords from your campaigns that are not relevant to your brand, product or service. For example: if you sell Ferraris, do not include the search term “cheap” in your campaigns.
4. Not Checking the Competition – While you do not have to stalk your competitors, checking their ads and landing pages periodically will provide you with competitive insight. This knowledge gained can be used in your differentiation strategy.
5. Not Paying Attention to Ad Text – Be sure to include one or more of your keywords within your ad text and include a call to action. A good call to action will guide the visitor in the right direction after they enter your site. Placing keywords that are relevant to the search term in your ad text will also increase your ad’s relevancy and Click Through Rate (CTR) which will also help your ad positions.

How to Get Started With Email Marketing Software

This post was originally written for the blog Raleigh Web Insights.

Many of our new customers ask us about email marketing software and rightfully so. No matter how great your copy and call to action is, if no one sees the message your hard work will be in vain. It’s important to choose a reputable tool that will get the message delivered.

Here are a few guidelines to follow when selecting your Email Marketing software provider:

• Make sure the company does not allow it’s customers to market to purchased lists.
• Select a tool that can handle your subscription list. If you are a larger organization, you may have to get a custom quote.
• Look for a company that conforms to all authentication standards including Sender ID and SPF and DKIM which are used to prevent SPAM activity.
• Find a provider that provides live help and support, especially if you are new to email marketing.

There are a lot of products out there, but take the time to choose one that is a good fit for your business.

Social Media Automation – What's Good and Bad About It?

This post was originally written for the blog Raleigh Web Insights.

When discussing the topic of Social Media with our current or prospective customers we often get the response “I don’t have time for that”. While Social Media is a labor intensive form of marketing, it does provide the personal touch your audience is looking for. Many businesses are unaware that you can actually automate a good portion of your Social Media Marketing.

With a little planning, you can syndicate your online content and reduce the time it takes you to spread your message across all of your social pipelines.

Here are a few tools that can help you do this:

• Tweet Deck (update Twitter and Facebook simultaneously).
• Word Press Twitter Plugin (Display your Tweets on a Word Press Blog)
• Twitter Feed (Automatically feed your blog and other RSS content to Twitter)
• Hoot Suite (for scheduled Tweets and other workflow)
• Posterous - (Allows you to email content and have it distributed to multiple Social Networks Simultaneously. )

Benefits of Social Media Automation:

• Allows marketing staff to spend less time on copying/pasting so they can focus on generating original content and other critical business tasks
• Keeps your content/brand consistent across all social networks.

Negatives of Social Media Automation:

• Can result in neglecting social networks. Make sure you continue to login and build up your following and relationships.
• It may cause you to get labeled as a Spammer or robot. It’s important to comment on the content created by others. Don’t just send your content into the pipeline without participating in other discussions.

Social Media automation can improve your business processes, but remember to use the tools available ethically and build your audience organically.

Internet Marketing VS Traditional – What You Should Know

This post was originally written for the blog Raleigh Web Insights.

Digital marketing spending will increase 17% in 2010 as marketers move dollars away from TV, print and radio advertising to social media, mobile, search and e-mail marketing according to a February report from e-mail service provider ExactTarget and Internet marketing and e-commerce consulting firm Econsultancy.

You may have heard the buzz about Internet Marketing and it’s increasing popularity, but you might not now why the buzz is there. The fact is, Internet marketing provides some significant advantages over traditional marketing.

Advantages of Web Marketing Over Traditional Marketing:

1. Outreach – Internet Marketing allows you to target specific locations on a global scale with ease.
2. Conversion Tracking – Detailed conversion tracking and other metrics such as impressions, clicks, click through rates and cost per acquisition are readily available with Internet Marketing. This data is more difficult to obtain with say a newspaper or print ad.
3. Cost of Entry – With Paid Search or Banner Ads, you can spend as little or as much as you like and can adjust your daily budget at any time.
4. Ease of Deployment – With Internet Marketing, you can deploy your campaign as soon as you are ready and do not have to wait for the next print circulation.
5. Consumer Interest – When you present an ad to someone searching for a product or service, you are catching them in “Buying Mode” which is more conducive to producing a sale or lead.

Offline branding is important, but if you do not consider the Internet as part of your marketing mix, you will miss out on potential customers that your competition may already be capturing.

Design for Conversion and Increase Your Sales

This post was originally written for the blog Raleigh Web Insights.

PPC or SEO – What is Right for Your Business?

This post was originally written for the blog Raleigh Web Insights.

According to a 2009 study conducted by Nielsen and Pew Internet concluded that 82% of consumers perform a search on the internet before purchasing a product or service.

More of our new and existing clients are beginning to realize this and often ask us whether they should consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising).

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Oprah Puts the Squeeze on Internet Marketers

Using celebrities to help sell products and increase click through ratings of online banner ads is not a new practice. It doesn’t just impact celebrities, either. During the last presedential election, Internet Marketers plastered President Obama’s face and logo on all types of online creative.

Oprah, a strong force and idol for empowered women has decided that this needs to change. She has teamed up with Illinois State Attorney General’s Office to form a lawsuit against 50 Internet Marketers who have used her logo and other icons without permission.

I first found out news of this from Mashable, who learned about it from Azoogle, a large online affiliate network. Apparently they notified their members of the pending lawsuits:

“The Illinois State AG has filed actions against three parties for deceptive advertising practices in the marketing of acai berry products and other dietary supplements. Please keep in mind that the regulators are choosing to directly pursue affiliate marketers for their marketing practices. The full text of the press release can be found here.

Dr. Oz and Oprah Winfrey have also filed a lawsuit in New York for copyright and trademark infringement against approximately 50 companies, including advertisers, suppliers, ad networks, and affiliates. To put it bluntly, they are very unhappy of their celebrity status being used to market dietary supplements and cosmetics, without their permission. They have specifically listed hundreds of affiliate sites they want discontinued immediately, because the URLs use their name or the sites claim endorsements from Oprah/Dr. Oz. The full story can be found here.”

Honestly, I am trying to get to the bottom of Oprah’s motives here. Many celebrities like the additional promotion they get from Internet Marketers using these tactics, given the product is decent. Does Oprah have a problem with products that are using her image like the Acai diet or is she trying to start a movement that will ban Internet Marketers from using celebrities to enhance their promotions in general?

Internet Marketing Surges as Click Fraud Declines

Research conducted by Click Forensics, a web traffic quality expert, showed reduction in click fraud during the second quarter of 2009.

For the past two years, the average percentage of fraudulent clicks of an advertisers total was around 15%.  The number dropped to about 13.9%  at the beginning of the first quarter.  At the end it had dropped to 12.7%.

Click forensics claims that improved blocking efforts and monitoring have been responsible for the the drop in fraudulent clicks.

However, the fight is till not over as stated by Tom Cuthber, president of traffic monitoring:

“Ad networks should pay close attention to such threats [as publisher collusion fraud] in the coming months,”

If the Internet Marketing industry continues to see improved figures like this, it will only be that much easier to sell the benefits of advertising online. Will the percentage of fraudulent clicks ever be as low as say 3%? Only time will.

Internet Marketing Day Parting Trends Move Torwards Early Morning

If you are a Pay Per Click manager or Search Engine Marketer, you may have heard that the best time of day to use up more of your ad spend is during lunch hours, as many people browse the internet at that time.

However, according to a recent post by the  NY Times, internet and social media junkies can no longer hold off till lunch time before checking the web for news, friend requests and more:

“This is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities”

This goes to show what an important role the Internet plays in the daily lives of people around the world. What does this mean for Internet Marketers? - Start displaying those ads early!