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Event Registration (EVENT: 115323)

This event will be live on August 13, 2008 at 1:00PM EDT.

In this webinar, marketers will learn how to increase their spend on SEM to dramatically boost sales and branding, while maintaining - or even increasing - overall ROI. Wister Walcott, VP of products at Marin Software, will outline five simple and practical strategies to help you “spend more and spend better” on your paid search marketing campaigns.He’ll explain why SEM consistently delivers the highest bang for your buck - some studies show that SEM converts at twice the rate of email and banners - and show marketers how to obtain the highest ROI on paid search, even while increasing spend. In these unpredictable economic times, it pays to invest in the marketing methods that deliver the best sales results. So sign up now for this informative and insightful webcast, and learn how to get more out of your search marketing spend today.

I am logged into one web application all day long no matter what and that is Performancing Metrics. It is the easiest to use and most powerful analytics system for blogging that I have ever used. It is not a full blown analytics system, but it is everything I need for tracking my weblogs traffic. From its live spy feature that tracks users while they are on the site to detail IP data about users and an interface that accommodates multiple weblogs, it is well worth what I pay for a subscription. The beautiful thing about it though is that they have a free version so you can give it a run first without paying a dime. Go try it. You will be very glad you did.

Update: One really cool feature is the ability to assign a name or any moniker to an IP address. Certain companies visit my FaxChronicle.com website that are in that industry and I like to know how often they do. Again, this is a great product. I cannot recommend it enough. Try it out now.

Link to User home | Performancing Metrics

Technorati tags: tracking, analytics, sem, performancing, google, spy, visitor tracking, IP logging, log tracking, behavioral tracking

This is a fantastic piece over on Small Business Hub, by Mike Volpe. Great insight on a free resource,

Many small businesses do not know that you can get some FREE advertising on Google, using Google Local or Google Maps. Google is looking to increase the value of their local search and their mapping application, so they have a simple way for you to tell them some information about your business, and now they are infusing those results into their main search engine. This will help you show up in searches and get more traffic, leads and customers. For example, a nonprofit volunteer organization I work with called the Boston Scholars Program is now listed at the TOP of the Google search results for searches like “volunteer in boston“, “volunteer boston ma“, and “volunteer boston, ma“. See the image below.

Source: Free Advertising on Google - A How To Guide

My friend Sumantra Roy wrote a great piece published over at Web Marketing Today on the 10 most important factors to test on your landing pages. This is an excellent overview of the critical issues all advertisers must consider on Adwords or anywhere else on the web. It’s all about the landing pages and testing. If you really want to test properly, then you should check out Sumantra’s company Conversion Multiplier. Their technology is fantastic and their results are amazing. I’ve seen results from his multi-variate testing increasing conversions up to 600%. Call them and tell them Brad Nickel at ClickBrain.com sent you.

…these are all based on actual tests that we conducted for our clients.

1. Long Copy vs. Short Copy. Conventional direct marketing wisdom is that long copy always wins over short copy. Well, not always. Our tests show that while long copy wins over short copy in some cases, short copy performs better than long copy in others. …

2. Credibility Logos. Signing up with organizations like the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Hacker Safe and displaying their logos on your site can often significantly increase your conversions. But, don’t assume that this will always be the case …

3. Security Assurance in Order Form or Shopping Cart. Test whether adding a few lines of content somewhat prominently in your order form or shopping cart page assuring visitors about the security of their financial and personal data increases conversions. This often proves to be a very important variable especially if your target audience tends to be somewhat older in age, or somewhat new to purchasing things on the Internet.

Click on over to read the rest of the piece. Source: 10 Factors to Test that Could Increase the Conversion Rate of your Landing Pages

Technorati tags: marketing, testing, multi-variate testing, split testing, copy, writing, landing page, landing pages, advertising, adwords, conversion, conversion multiplier, conversions

I am all hot and bothered over video “advertising”, but not so much advertising. I want real world customers and users testifying as to the value of a customer’s services, products, and overall value. Yesterday I met with a major retailer about their online SEM and other marketing needs and I believe very strongly that that firm could get a lot of value by adding customer testimonials as well as real life case studies. I also am pushing clients into community and content with video as well to drive lower cost search engine marketing (SEM) by utilizing indirect terms to content rather “buy this” terms. I call it “Indirect SEM” “Indirect Search Engine Marketing (Maybe I should trademark it).

Great content alone doesn’t cut it. Marketers need to put their online video content to work across a number of different channels. With promotional campaigns, high-quality destination sites and custom channel branding, marketers can increase user interaction and participation while communicating their message to a wider and more engaged audience than ever before.

The real challenge of online video is about what (as in what makes good video content, if you don’t have good content then you’re toast anyways) and it’s about where: figuring out how and where to use online video, while still maintaining the integrity of brand. If done right, there are a variety of ways for companies to distribute and display online video to grab an audience and retain their attention.

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A great example of a recent successful promotional contest is the collaboration JVC developed with VMIX. VMIX provided a platform and a JVC custom channel for the “Create Our Commercial Contest,” which asked individuals to submit self-produced ads that they filmed with their new JVC Everio camera to the VMIX JVC channel.

The online video contest produced more than 80 quality entries for JVC, garnered national print and web publicity for JVC and the winner, and ultimately provided a major grassroots marketing campaign for JVC, targeting lifestyle, college, retail and events. The winner of the online promotional contest received $2,500 and saw his commercial aired on Spike TV.

Source: iMedia Connection: Veni, Video, Vici: Conquer Online Video

Advertising age has a good piece on packaged goods manufacturers figuring out that Adwords exists and that it can have value for them. Great examples around the pet food recall category.

When panicked pet owners typed “pet food recall” into search engines during the recent contamination crisis, the paid results included affected and unaffected brands hoping to reassure consumers, plus lawyers, news outlets and even politicians trawling for plaintiffs, readers and votes.

Bounce is among the package-goods brands that are beginning to buy into search advertising.

But there was one even odder interloper — Procter & Gamble Co.’s Bounce dryer sheets. Bounce wasn’t trying to capitalize on the misfortune of sibling brands Iams and Eukanuba. It was simply running a previously scheduled ad around the word “pet” to drive pet owners to BounceEverywhere.com to show how to use dryer sheets to get hair off clothes.

Here’s the money quote though for this industry and in fact everyone marketing online that wants to do search. Its a difficult thing to manage and if you throw the IT department at it as some might suggest, it will fail. You need a strategic mind.

One problem companies have is figuring out who owns search, Mr. Blackshaw said. Agencies aren’t necessarily equipped or required to create search ads, he said, and it’s often unclear internally whether marketing or information-technology staff is best-equipped to manage search.

Source: Advertising Age - Digital - Package-Goods Marketers Finally Find Value in Search

Technorati tags: advertising, sem, search advertising, google, adwords, yahoo, msn, ask.com