Everything in Online Marketing - PPC, Adwords, Analytics, Google, Yahoo & More

Facebook to Start Own Advertising Platform

2010-02-09T11:19:00.002+05:30

Facebook is currently the world’s biggest social media site. Any doubt?

The latest news is that they are going to dump Microsoft adCenter. They are getting ready to launch their own advertising platform. But with the original deal not running out until 2011, full worldwide, Bing integration appears to have been the real deal sweetener.

Facebook is a good platform for any advertiser to exhibit or promote their products. It is equally effective in delivering good returns to the host – Microsoft. However, in something of a surprise move, Facebook have ended their agreement with the technology giant. Now they want to manage their advertising system in-house.

With a year left in the contract, clearly Microsoft will seek something in return and it appears as though it may come in the form of Bing being integrated into Facebook as the default search engine, worldwide. Obviously the exact nature of the agreement is still largely under wraps, but Bing could be set for a huge promotional push, starting off with 350 million+ Facebook users.

2010 will be a crucial year for Bing as it looks set to become integrated in Yahoo!, the search engine of choice for iPods and now could appear on the pages of Facebook. Microsoft is putting plenty of effort behind their search engine currently. In this effort they are getting help from another technology giant Apple.

Launching own advertising platform will give Facebook a chance to create a larger revenue stream themselves, without having to pass anything to Microsoft.

IP Tracking in Google Analytics

2009-08-03T14:57:00.004+05:30

I was facing some issue related to analytics. I had to track the IP address of visitors from one of my client's Website. To find a solution I just posted a question in LinkedIn.

Here is one of the answer I got. Looks interesting...

This solution was given by Tom Griffin
(LinkedIn of Tom)

Justine-

You can setup Google Analytics to include the user's IP address in reports using pageTracker._setVar.

Background:

pageTracker._setVar allows you to segment traffic using a user-defined variable. This information is then reported in Google Analytics under 'User Defined', under the Visitors menu. Usually marketers segment traffic according to user segments, such as logged in visitors versus not logged in. In this case, you want to segment on a much finer level: the user's ip address.

Execution:

Your goal is to write the user's ip address to Google Analytics using SetVar. Your Google Analytics code will look something like this:

You will need to insert some code in the "USER's IP ADDRESS GOES HERE" placeholder which will inject the IP address into pageTracker._setVar. For example, if your server supports PHP, the code would be as follows:

pageTracker._setVar('');

Benefit:

There is a ton of ways you can get IP address information from your visitors - but the benefit of having it in Google Analytics is that you can then cross/filter/segment it along with the rest of your data. For example, you'll be able to drill down on a specific IP address and understand their site behavior, including pageviews, events (if you're using event tracking), etc...

Let me know if you have any questions on the approach :-) And good luck!

TG

Canonical URL Tag:- What Search Engines Have to Say?

2009-07-28T10:38:00.002+05:30

What Information Have the Engines Provided About the Canonical URL Tag?

Google:

Is rel="canonical" a hint or a directive?
It's a hint that we honor strongly. We'll take your preference into account, in conjunction with other signals, when calculating the most relevant page to display in search results.

Can I use a relative path to specify the canonical, such as ?
Yes, relative paths are recognized as expected with the tag. Also, if you include a link in your document, relative paths will resolve according to the base URL.

Is it okay if the canonical is not an exact duplicate of the content?
We allow slight differences, e.g., in the sort order of a table of products. We also recognize that we may crawl the canonical and the duplicate pages at different points in time, so we may occasionally see different versions of your content. All of that is okay with us.

What if the rel="canonical" returns a 404?
We'll continue to index your content and use a heuristic to find a canonical, but we recommend that you specify existent URLs as canonicals.

What if the rel="canonical" hasn't yet been indexed?
Like all public content on the web, we strive to discover and crawl a designated canonical URL quickly. As soon as we index it, we'll immediately reconsider the rel="canonical" hint.

Can rel="canonical" be a redirect?
Yes, you can specify a URL that redirects as a canonical URL. Google will then process the redirect as usual and try to index it.

What if I have contradictory rel="canonical" designations?
Our algorithm is lenient: We can follow canonical chains, but we strongly recommend that you update links to point to a single canonical page to ensure optimal canonicalization results.

Yahoo!:

The URL paths in the tag can be absolute or relative, though we recommend using absolute paths to avoid any chance of errors.

A tag can only point to a canonical URL form within the same domain and not across domains. For example, a tag on http://test.example.com can point to a URL on http://www.example.com but not on http://yahoo.com or any other domain.

The tag will be treated similarly to a 301 redirect, in terms of transferring link references and other effects to the canonical form of the page.

We will use the tag information as provided, but we’ll also use algorithmic mechanisms to avoid situations where we think the tag was not used as intended. For example, if the canonical form is non-existent, returns an error or a 404, or if the content on the source and target was substantially distinct and unique, the canonical link may be considered erroneous and deferred.

The tag is transitive. That is, if URL A marks B as canonical, and B marks C as canonical, we’ll treat C as canonical for both A and B, though we will break infinite chains and other issues.

Live/MSN:

This tag will be interpreted as a hint by Live Search, not as a command. We'll evaluate this in the context of all the other information we know about the website and try and make the best determination of the canonical URL. This will help us handle any potential implementation errors or abuse of this tag.

You can use relative or absolute URLs in the “href” attribute of the link tag.

The page and the URL in the “href” attribute must be on the same domain. For example, if the page is found on “http://mysite.com/default.aspx”, and the ”href” attribute in the link tag points to “http://mysite2.com”, the tag will be invalid and ignored.
o However, the “href” attribute can point to a different subdomain. For example, if the page is found on “http://mysite.com/default.aspx” and the “href” attribute in the link tag points to “http://www.mysite.com”, the tag will be considered valid.

Live Search expects to implement support for this feature sometime in the near future.

YouTube in 3D...!!!

2009-07-23T10:45:00.002+05:30

Yes... you heard it right... If everything goes well, you can watch videos in 3D from YouTube.

Google is still working on this, hopefully will be ready to launch soon. This 3D videos cannot be embedded.

YouTube has now invited users to upload our own 3D video.

How to do this...?
Here is the tips, taken from YouTube blog

Tag the video with yt3d:enable=true, and leave the link in a comment on this blog.

Some basics around shooting 3D videos (this isn't easy, so patience is key):

* Use two cameras arranged like a pair of eyes.
* Start both cameras recording simultaneously.
* In your video editing program, place the footage for the left and right eyes together in the frame side by side, with the right eye on the left and the left eye on the right.
* Upload your video! Edit your videos tags and add yt3d:enable=true. If video is widescreen, add yt3d:aspect=16:9 too.

Advantages of Twitter in Search ENgine Marketing

2009-07-22T11:09:00.004+05:30

As we know, micro blogging or Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media. But are we making enough use of this?
Twitter couldn’t find out yet how they can make money out of it. But others are making use of it. E.g. Dell.
There was some news that the revenue of Dell has been increased tremendously after them trying to market products through Twitter.
How can we make use of Twitter in PPC, or Search Engine Marketing? The main advantage of Twitter from a Search Engine Marketing point of view is that we can easily identify what is happening in the market. What people are talking about our brand? What people are talking about our competitors?
We can find out who is talking about our brands on Twitter, know the influence level of our brand and competitors brand on them
Then just analyze the influence and reputation level of twittees. This will help us to make a campaign strategy.

Now how to search in Twitter? Its easy.
Just go to Twitter Search and type the keyword you would like to know about. Thats it...

Microsoft is back with a BANG… sorry BING

2009-06-12T11:08:00.003+05:30

Yes, that is the new search engine by Microsoft. After Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN, this is MS’ next triumph card to compete with Yahoo! and Google.

This went fully online on 3rd June 2009.

There are a few notable changes in the Bing such as the listing of search suggestions in real time as queries are entered, and a list of related searches (called "Explorer pane" on the left side of search results), based on semantic technology from PowerSet which Microsoft purchased in 2008.

Bing also has the ability to Save and Share search histories using Windows Live, SkyDrive, Facebook, and e-mail.

The home page image of Bing changes daily.

The future of Pay Per Click

2009-04-08T16:53:00.003+05:30

Hello everyone... Posting something after a long time...

I had this doubt in mind. Since I was more into PPC, this was disturbing me or rather confusing me. I just posted this in Linkedin and got some truly amazing responses...
Here are those for you...

My Question Was
What is the future of Pay Per Click?

The avg CPC of keywords are increasing every year... Might be after 5-10 years advertisers will not get the leads/sales at an acceptable CPL/CPA.
Then how will PPC be profitable? If they start other channels like Social networking, shouldn't it affect PPC? Your thoughts...

See the replies I got in Linkedin

Benin Brown
Co-Founder, Pamoja Media, Inc.

I think that with the economic challenges faced by the world's most developed economies right now the one thing that seems to be the biggest driver of online ads or advertising period is ROI.

With that being said I think that any of the cost per action models-CPC included are all here to stay. Perhaps they will undergo many more changes in the future to meet future demand. But in my opinion they are priced correctly, it is only that more companies are looking towards the direct marketing model as a way to quickly boost sales and as a result the price overshoots the supply of clicks available and hence is reflected in the pricing.

Chetna Khanna
Regional Head,
Sales and Marketing (West) at Banyan Netfaqs Pvt Ltd (www.afaqs.com)

The PPC, PPL, PPA models gained importance when organisations began to look at ROMI. While PPL and PPA are both effective when the campaign wishes to drive sales, there are not real measures in place to judge the effectiveness of brand campaigns. In such a scenario, the only real measure of a brand campaign aimed at grabbing mind share is a PPC model. A click on a creative gives to some extent a measure of the involvement of the surfer with the brand.

Thus, as long as there is a pressure on marketers measure their returns on marketing investments on campaign that do not initiate a direct response from the surfers, a PPC model would be the only measure of effectiveness of the campaign and will thus remain popular.

Brett Nicholson
Digital Marketing & Media Analyst at Next Digital

Hey Justine,

I find that for for the big brands to succeed on social environments, and sites outside of search there is a big component many fail to see. The focus on the 'click' (although we are miles behind in Australia with CPM dominating) will fade dramatically and success will be focused on engagement.

What happened when users saw the content - did they forward it on, watch, act, join, talk about, did it increase brand recall? These are all factors which the current CPC metric doesn't take into account.

Yes CPC will become more competitive if demand starts to out-wiegh supply, but it all seems cyclical in one way or another to me.

Hendrik van Slooten
Marketing & Development Manager Jr. at CameraNU.nl

Well there are already portals (which send people through with a CPC-model) who can actually see how much revenue "their" customers are creating, so even after those customers found you and closed the portal, it's still possible for them to see how much sales you really got, from these customers, on you own website. Seeing the amount of portals grow rapidly, makes me believe that the buyers (which pay for the clicks) will have more and more leverage to force portals only to charge valuable (read: REALLY BUYING) customers. This leverage is caused by the fact that if you have a non-cooperating portal, you just go to another one. Of course this isn't always possible, but I believe it will become more and more..

Steve Bottomley
Director of Broadcast Strategy at ITV plc

Hi Justine,

PPC is a pure method of payment for results but market CPMs will be set by the balance of supply and demand and demand is made up of advertisers who can afford very different customer acquisition costs. If a channel is effective for high margin product campaigns the market price will tend to increase making the channel expensive for low margin sectors. As markets mature there will be market price cycles driven by the demand profile.

As Brett says the purity of CPC pricing misses the value delivered (or not?) by previous ad views by the same customer which may have contributed to the decision to click/purchase. This branding value will be variable depending on the product, channel, creative etc. but it is the stuff thata drives the relatively high cpms of TV, Press etc. If content producers/channels rely on CPC models only they will probably deliver a lower RoI on their investment than if they use CPM models. IN my experience of TV I have never seen a pay per response TV campaign that produced anything like the same revenue as a 'normal' CPM (CPT) campaign. DRTV campaigns tend to run at the periphery of the schedule as a result.

So, I see advertisers pushing for CPC and media owners/channels pushing for CPM. Buyers have their own business dynamics which mean they must balance the need to produce results for their clients while adopting the trading method that produces a profit for them.

As online content develops further I would expect to see an amalgam of pricing models that reflect the differing levels of engagement, response delivery and measurability offered by differing channel types e.g. information websites, social sites, portals, media rich sites, blogs etc.

The onlne market has the potential to be as complex as all other media markets combined and more so. So, individual marketing campaigns will need to plan for, adapt to and cope with varying response levels, pricing models and value metrics.

As the market develops we will probably see many boom cycles and bubbles within it.

Steve

Dinesh Kulchandra
Sr. Manager Business Planning Communicate2

Search Advertising has been the mainstay of marketers looking at generating relevant eyeballs on their m-sites/acquiring leads. However important this medium might sound there is a general discomfort faced by advertisers owing to it's susceptibility. Misdirecting audience, for one had never been so dramatically convenient.
Somehow, contextual advertising is the next step in PPC considering that if my OOH audiences shift to CPC or CPL, with dynamic bidding models OR consider Print getting in contextual mode wherein if a SALE is happening aound my area is visible to a specific radius...
Best..
Dinesh

Taseer Rangrez
Business Development, Marketing, Sales Operations

PPC programs can deliver instant targeted visitors to your website in streaming amounts, but bear in mind the downsides of click fraud.

It has been estimated that up to 38% of all clicks through PPC advertising are fraudulent. Allegations have even been brought against the major search engines for not doing their part to control the click fraud issues, and critics are quick to point out the fact that search engine companies earn 99% of their income through this advertising method.

Industry analysis's predict a change in the next few years as PPC advertising shifts to CPA advertising with search engines. This will eliminate the click fraud issue, because advertisers will began to pay for actions instead of clicks. This form of advertising will become the most dominant form of online advertising.

properly managed PPC advertising campaign can still be the most effective online advertising method for a company. It IS still possible to achieve a great ROI for a particular product or service, and will continue to drive the most traffic, clicks, and sales for online advertising for years to come

Gianluigi Cuccureddu
Web Marketing Strategist Consultant @ Traffic4u

Hello Justine,

Competition will increase and be it by technology or ultra effective campaign management, outsmarting through targeting the right keywords at the right time at the right person will be the challenge.
Also the neverending increase of CPC's has its positive effect, at one point, the average advertisers will bail out due to price/competition and the price level will normalize.

Best regards,
Gianluigi Cuccureddu

Search Vs Content Network

2009-03-10T14:41:00.004+05:30

When a user search for some products and the search result shows an ad is called search
When user is not searching but the ad appears related to the content of the sites is called content

Search
More reliable
Avg. CPC is higher than the Content
Easily Manageable; More control

Content
Reliability of leads is not guaranteed
Low Avg. CPC resulting low cost
Only bids are under control

Search Example

Content Example

MS Outlook Shortcut Keys

2009-02-19T12:36:00.000+05:30

OUTLOOK SHORTCUT KEYS

Alt + S Send the email
Ctrl + C Copy selected text
Ctrl + X Cut selected text
Ctrl + P Open print dialog box
Ctrl + K Complete name/email typed in address bar
Ctrl + B Bold highlighted selection
Ctrl + I Italicize highlighted selection
Ctrl + U Underline highlighted selection
Ctrl + R Reply to an email
Ctrl + F Forward an email
Ctrl + N Create a new email
Ctrl + Shift + A Create a new appointment to your calendar
Ctrl + Shift + O Open the outbox
Ctrl + Shift + I Open the inbox
Ctrl + Shift + K Add a new task
Ctrl + Shift + C Create a new contact
Ctrl + Shift+ J Create a new journal entry

Excel Shortcut Keys

2009-02-19T12:32:00.002+05:30

EXCEL SHORTCUT KEYS

F2 Edit the selected cell
F5 Go to a specific cell
F7 Spell check selected text and/or document
F11 Create chart
Ctrl + Shift + ; Enter the current time
Ctrl + ; Enter the current date
Alt + Shift + F1 Insert new worksheet
Shift + F3 Open the Excel® formula window
Shift + F5 Bring up search box
Ctrl + A Select all contents of worksheet
Ctrl + B Bold highlighted selection
Ctrl + I Italicize highlighted selection
Ctrl + C Copy selected text
Ctrl + V Paste
Ctrl + D Fill
Ctrl + K Insert link
Ctrl + F Open find and replace options
Ctrl + G Open go-to options
Ctrl + H Open find and replace options
Ctrl + U Underline highlighted selection
Ctrl + Y Underline selected text
Ctrl + 5 Strikethrough highlighted selection
Ctrl + O Open options
Ctrl + N Open new document
Ctrl + P Open print dialog box
Ctrl + S Save
Ctrl + Z Undo last action
Ctrl + F9 Minimize current window
Ctrl + F10 Maximize currently selected window
Ctrl + F6 Switch between open workbooks/windows
Ctrl + Page up & Page Down Move between Excel worksheets in the
same document
Ctrl + Tab Move between two or more open Excel® files
Alt + = Create formula to sum all of above cells
Ctrl + ‘ Insert value of above cell into current cell
Ctrl + Shift + ! Format number in comma format
Ctrl + Shift + $ Format number in currency format
Ctrl + Shift + # Format number in date format
Ctrl + Shift + % Format number in percentage format
Ctrl + Shift + ^ Format number in scientific format
Ctrl + Shift + @ Format number in time format
Ctrl + g Move to next section of text
Ctrl + Space Select entire column
Shift + Space Select entire row
Ctrl + W Close document

Keyboard Shortcuts

2009-02-19T12:27:00.002+05:30

Keyboad Shortcuts

Ctrl + A Select all contents of the page
Ctrl + B Bold highlighted selection
Ctrl + C Copy selected text
Ctrl + X Cut selected text
Ctrl + N Open new/blank document
Ctrl + O Open options
Ctrl + P Open the print window
Ctrl + F Open find box
Ctrl + I Italicize highlighted selection
Ctrl + K Insert link
Ctrl + U Underline highlighted selection
Ctrl + V Paste
Ctrl + Y Redo the last action performed
Ctrl + Z Undo last action
Ctrl + G Find and replace options
Ctrl + H Find and replace options
Ctrl + J Justify paragraph alignment
Ctrl + L Align selected text or line to the left
Ctrl + Q Align selected paragraph to the left
Ctrl + E Align selected text or line to the center
Ctrl + R Align selected text or line to the right
Ctrl + M Indent the paragraph
Ctrl + T Hanging indent
Ctrl + D Font options
Ctrl + Shift + F Change the font
Ctrl + Shift + > Increase selected font +1
Ctrl + ] Increase selected font +1
Ctrl + Shift + < Decrease selected font -1
Ctrl + [ Decrease selected font -1
Ctrl + Shift + * View or hide non printing characters
Ctrl + f Move one word to the left
Ctrl + g Move one word to the right
Ctrl + h Move to beginning of the line or paragraph
Ctrl + i Move to the end of the paragraph
Ctrl + Del Delete word to right of cursor
Ctrl + Backspace Delete word to left of cursor
Ctrl + End Move cursor to end of document
Ctrl + Home Move cursor to beginning of document
Ctrl + Space Reset highlighted text to default font
Ctrl + 1 Single-space lines
Ctrl + 2 Double-space lines
Ctrl + 5 1.5-line spacing
Ctrl + Alt + 1 Change text to heading 1
Ctrl + Alt + 2 Change text to heading 2
Ctrl + Alt + 3 Change text to heading 3
F1 Open help
Shift + F3 Change case of selected text
Shift + Insert Paste
F4 Repeat last action performed (Word 2000+)
F7 Spell check selected text and/or document
Shift + F7 Activate the thesaurus
F12 Save as
Ctrl + S Save
Shift + F12 Save
Alt + Shift + D Insert the current date
Alt + Shift + T Insert the current time
Ctrl + W Close document

WIN Key Short Cuts

2009-02-19T12:25:00.000+05:30

WINKEY SHORTCUTS

WINKEY + D Bring desktop to the top of other windows
WINKEY + M Minimize all windows
WINKEY + SHIFT + M Undo the minimize done by WINKEY + M and WINKEY + D
WINKEY + E Open Microsoft Explorer
WINKEY + Tab Cycle through open programs on taskbar
WINKEY + F Display the Windows® Search/Find feature
WINKEY + CTRL + F Display the search for computers window
WINKEY + F1 Display the Microsoft® Windows® help
WINKEY + R Open the run window
WINKEY + Pause /Break Open the system properties window
WINKEY + U Open utility manager
WINKEY + L Lock the computer (Windows XP® & later)

Microsoft Windows Shortcut Keys

2009-02-19T12:21:00.002+05:30

Some Microsoft Windows Shortcut Keys

Alt + Tab Switch between open applications
Alt + Shift + Tab Switch backwards between open applications
Alt + Print Screen Create screen shot for current program
Ctrl + Alt + Del Reboot/Windows task manager
Ctrl + Esc Bring up start menu
Alt + Esc Switch between applications on taskbar
F2 Rename selected icon
F3 Start find from desktop
F4 Open the drive selection when browsing
F5 Refresh contents
Alt + F4 Close current open program
Ctrl + F4 Close window in program
Ctrl + Plus Key Automatically adjust widths of all columns in Windows Explorer
Alt + Enter Open properties window of selected icon or program
Shift + F10 Simulate right-click on selected item
Shift + Del Delete programs/files permanently
Holding Shift During Bootup Boot safe mode or bypass system files
Holding Shift During Bootup When putting in an audio CD, will prevent CD Player from playing

Basic Computer Shortcuts

2009-02-19T12:19:00.001+05:30

Basic Shortcuts

Alt + F File menu options in current program
Alt + E Edit options in current program
F1 Universal help (for all programs)
Ctrl + A Select all text
Ctrl + X Cut selected item
Shift + Del Cut selected item
Ctrl + C Copy selected item
Ctrl + Ins Copy selected item
Ctrl + V Paste
Shift + Ins Paste
Home Go to beginning of current line
Ctrl + Home Go to beginning of document
End Go to end of current line
Ctrl + End Go to end of document
Shift + Home Highlight from current position to beginning of line
Shift + End Highlight from current position to end of line
Ctrl + f Move one word to the left at a time
Ctrl + g Move one word to the right at a time

Landing Page - AB Testing Variables

2009-02-17T14:35:00.003+05:30

Try to create 2 different pages with everything same but with and without any one of the following variables at a time...

1. Submit Buttons
2. Images
3. W & W/O Privacy Statement
4. Display of Awards
5. Layout Designs : Colors & other design elements
6. Variable Flow : Left to right & Top to Bottom
7. Landing pages with/without other navigation links.
8. Business / technical / organizational benefits.
8. Client List

Landing Page Optimization

2009-02-12T09:29:00.001+05:30

How to optimize landing pages ?
1. Measure the performance of the landing pages
2. Perform an A/B split test
3. Identify what worked and what didn’t
4. Add/Subtract test elements (refer slide#13) from the landing page based on results

A/B split testing :
1. Create two Landing Pages with just one differentiating variable (variables discussed in detail ahead)
2. Send equal traffic to both versions
3. Run the test for a period of time (say 4 weeks)
4. Choose a winner based on a higher ratio of conversions or quality of leads
5. Now add/subtract another variable to the Landing Page and follow the above cycle till the best combination of the tested variables is achieved

Landing Page – Eye Tracking Map

2009-02-12T09:24:00.006+05:30

Latest research allows us to create eye tracking ‘heat maps’ of a Landing Page with a flow from left to right (appended below)
It’s easy to see how these maps can be used to place core elements at the hot spots

Range: Light Green to Red.
Red denotes the maximum number of eye balls.
Source : marketingsherpa.com

Eye tracking heat map of a Landing page with a flow from top to bottom
Core elements placed at hot spots = more conversions

Range: Light Green to Red.
Red denotes the maximum number of eye balls.
Source : marketingsherpa.com

All About Landing Pages

2009-02-09T15:06:00.005+05:30

What is a Landing Page?

We have discussed a lot about online marketing, analytics, PPC etc but landing page, commonly known as LP among online advertisers, is a most improtant thing in digital margeting.

In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.
It is a website page that is created for one purpose - to persuade the site visitor to convert into a customer by making a sale, completing a form, signing up for a newsletter, etc.

Types of Landing Pages:
There are two types of landing pages:
1. Reference Landing Pages:
A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to the visitor. These can display text, images, dynamic compilations of relevant links, or other elements for providing enough information about the products offered. Reference landing pages are effective if they meet the objectives of their publishers, which may be associations, organizations or public service entities.

2. Transactional Landing Pages:
A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with the goal being the immediate or eventual sale of a product or service. If information is to be captured, the page will usually withhold information until some minimal amount of visitor information is provided, typically an email address and perhaps a name and telephone number as well – enough to "capture the lead" and add the prospect to a mailing list.

A visitor taking the desired action on a transactional landing page is referred to as a conversion. The efficiency or quality of the landing page can be measured by its conversion rate (Percentage of conversions to clicks or visits). Since the economics of many online marketing programs are determined by the conversion rate, marketers constantly test alternatives and improvements to their landing pages.

First Page Bid (FPB) - From Google

2009-01-06T15:45:00.002+05:30

First Page Bid

This is one of the new offerings from Google. First Page Bid, commonly known as FPB among the online experts, is purely based on your Quality Score

The first page bid estimate is the approximate maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of Google search results when the search query matches your keyword exactly. The estimate is based on the Quality Score and current advertiser competition for the keyword.

This helps you to plan your bidding strategy.

But meeting the FPB will not guarantee a placement. As per Google your Ad Placement depends on Quality Score, your cost-per-click (CPC) bid, your budget and account settings, and user and advertiser behavior.

QS is no longer keyword static, but rather will vary by user query, geotargeting, etc.
Every time someone clicks on you ad, Google will recalculate your quality score.
Moreover now there will not be any Inactive KWs and minimum bids. You can bid as low as you want for your keyword, still it would be active.

In AdWords Editor, the first page bid estimates for your keywords are displayed on theKeywords tab, in the column labeled 'First Page Bid Est.'

Here's a list of factors that make up Quality Score, which in turn helps determine your keyword's first page bid:

1. Historical click through rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google
2. Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
3. The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
4. The quality of your landing page
5. The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
6. our account's performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown
7. Other relevance factors (Only Google and God know this)

How to write high CTR ads...?

2009-01-02T11:31:00.002+05:30

Happy New Year to all... Writing something in my blog after a long time

How to write great ads

Use questions that arouse curiosity or interest. Example, you can say Want to make $10,000 in 24 hour?

Offer instructions Make a Website in 3 simple steps, or How to keep your PC virus clean, would be interesting.

Tell a story There’s nothing better to spark interest than to appeal to your audience’s sympathy or empathy. Tell them a story like How I made $10,000 in 24 hour, or I lost INR 50000 in one month.

Divulge information Claim something that only you know, such as The top secrets of Google AdWords. People will notice this, especially if they want to learn more about what you have to offer.

Create (and maintain) trust Users are not using Web to get information only anymore. The web is all about trust these days. Recommended by the Queen, would be good.

Compare People love to go for what’s better. You can say cheaper than Wal Mart or better than Coke. Try to compare with big brands.

The Three Dots Try to put three dots (…) after your description 2. Studies proved that this will improve your CTR.

Tiny changes Small changes can make a huge impact in CTR. Even a word can make your ads to boost in CTR. Eg. Replace the word Changes in your ad by Change. I got more than 100% increase in CTR.

The Power of The “Secret” Keyword One of the power headlines keywords is the word : Secrets and this resulted a huge boost in CTR +200%!

Capitalization Capitalize every keyword in your ad but do not capitalize the words: “in”, “and”, “on”, and those 2 words like “up”, etc… This can boost your CTR for 80%.

Repetitive keywords Repeating words in your ads can decrease your CTR and Conversion

Think as a searcher Think as one of the visitors that want to search for the keyword that you are advertising. Keep splitting ads and testing to see which ad will work for you.

The Keyword: Free: The free keyword is one of the most powerful keywords that you can add in your ads if it works with what you are advertising. If you are advertising a product, service or site that give you something free is a MUST to add it on the ad, your CTR will boost up for sure.

Stay away from “Buy” in headlines Never put “Buy” in headlines. Try to add that in the description 2. Users will not be interested if they see Buy in your ad, even if they are looking to buy something.

Feel the power of “Download” keyword Anyone tested the Download keyword in your description or headline? This is a powerful keyword to add in your ads. Why? The keyword download might give people the idea that they can get something very fast

Time, Time & Time You know that most search engine users are lazy and they want to find what they want as soon as possible. So let’s play with keywords that means times: “Today”, “Now”

The Power of “Exposed” Keyword Adding this little keyword in headline will definitely increase CTR. The keyword “Exposed” is a very showy word.

Sell The Benefits This is another “old” or “classic tip” that most of the e-books recommends, adding benefits and telling the user why your ad is better than your competitors.

Remove Common Words Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of”, etc. Make every word count.

The Power of “How to” keyword The keyword: “How to” is another powerful keyword which will increase your CTR.

Never Include your company name in the headline This means your are repeating your company name in the headline as well as the URL. These ads have nearly zero CTR unless you are a well-known brand name.

Price in case is competitive If the product that you are advertising is highly competitive in words of price. Add the price in the description of your ad. Sometimes, it works adding the price in the headline after the main keyword that you are bidding.

Friendly Competition If you have a friend, family member, employee that is interested in the product you are promoting or a friend that really knows about the product and he search about it. Ask them to write an ad for you and test them. You can possible see that ad looks terrible but test it and you can see the results.

Endorsements and Testimonials These are a powerful form of persuasion. If your product has been written up in a name-brand magazine such as InfoWorld try including that information in your ad This is a very powerful technique for increasing ad CTR.

SEO – What you should not DO

2008-12-10T13:03:00.001+05:30

SEO is a part of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) or Online Marketing

If you are getting started to do SEO for you site or blog, here is some tips on what not to do. Search engine spiders are intelligent than you. In other words they are more intelligent than what you think about them.

Cross Linking It’s okay to link your sites together. People do it all the time. However, it can be considered spam if you do so excessively (e.g., in the footer or side bar of every page), especially if the sites reside on the same IP block. As with everything else, ask the question, “Is this adding value for the user?” If you can answer yes, it’s probably okay.

Mirrored Sites and Content Duplication “Never settle for one top 10 rankings when you can have all ten?” This might be the thought when you start SEO. This may cause all of your rankings to drop. Your content should be as unique as possible to a single page. Search engines are probably smart enough to recognize content duplication within blogs (e.g., the same post text on your home page and the individual post page). Generally speaking, though, the more unique your content is, the better off you’ll be.

Keyword Stuffing This will not going to help you in any way. Moreover stuffing keywords may help your site get penalized or delisted. Search engines are very good at detecting this. Whether you’re putting them in your content, in alt tags, in meta tags, or wherever, be sure to use your keywords in moderation.

Cloaking Showing one thing to users and another thing to search engine spiders is a big red flag. It’s just as easy for a spider to change its user agent as it is for a browser. You can bet search engine spiders are crawling your site under a variety of names just to see if you’re cloaking or not, so don’t do it.

Hidden Text and Images As I told earlier search engine crawlers are smarter than you think. It is easy for them to detect the hidden stuffs. Granted, there are legitimate reasons to hide content from users, but it’s pretty obvious when you’re up to something.

Finally, while doing SEO just keep in mind that the results will not come overnight. It will take months.

If you don’t have enough patience spend some bucks and try PPC.

Pay Per Click Advertising Channels

2008-12-09T11:46:00.005+05:30

These are a few PPC advertising channels.

1. Google AdWords
2. Yahoo Search Marketing
Yahoo! Sponsored Search lists your business on top sites like Yahoo!, AltaVista and CNN.
3. Microsoft Adcenter
4. Business.com
5. Ask Sponsored Listings
6. Marchex Adhere
7. Findology
Findology's Pay-Per-Click Search Network has over 3 billion monthly searches with a minimum bid of $0.03
8. ABCSearch
ABCSearch will match your initial deposit up to $100. Billions of Monthly Searches and Bids begin at $.10
9. MIVA
10. Search 123
11. Bidvertiser
12. Netklix
13. Ezanga.com

Online Marketing Acronyms

2008-12-09T11:14:00.003+05:30

Internet marketing seems to have a language of its own. If you have ever spoken with any online marketing expert, it’s like they are speaking a whole other language. These are the list of commonly used abbreviations in the internet marketing industry.

ACL – Average Conversion Latency – The time it takes from initial click to converting sale. If a visitor to your website is logged at 05:00 PM and purchases your product at 07:00 PM, then the latency time of conversion was 2 hour. If you average out this time across all your sales, you will know how long it takes your site to convince someone to use your product or service.

AMM – Affiliate Marketing Management – A marketing manager who advertises for their client using commission junction, link share, or private in house network.

AOV – Average Order Value – The average net income of a numbers or sales over a given period of time. This number can then be used to determine the expected spend of each person who orders and allow you insight to average profit margins per sale.

B2B – Business To Business – If you or your client specifically targets commercial businesses as their clients, then you are selling in a B2B marketplace.

B2C – Business To Consumer – If you or your client specifically targets end users and home owners as clients, then you are selling in a B2C marketplace.

CPA – Cost Per Acquisition/Cost Per Conversion – How much money you have to spend to make 1 sale. If you have a CPA of $100, then this means for every $100 you invest into marketing you can expect to have 1 sale. This can now allow you insight as to how much you have to spend to make X amount of dollars.

CPC – Cost Per Click – How much you pay a venue, such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing, for each and every single click they send to your website. If your campaigns average CPC is $1, then this means if you get 100 clicks, you will pay the search engine company $100.

CPS – Cost Per Sale – The same as CPA, but Cost per sale is a more layman’s term.

CR – Conversion Ratio – How many conversions, sales, or acquisitions you can expect to receive based on a percentage of clicks to your site. If your CR for January was 1.25%, then this means if you had 10,000 clicks from a search venue, you would expect to have 125 sales.

COR – Cost Over Revenue – An analysis of how much revenue was made for how much money was spent on marketing. The Lower the COR the better. If you have a COR of 25% this means you would spend $25 for every $100 in gross revenue.

CSE – Comparison Shopping Engine – These are sites such as PriceGrabber, Nextag, and Bizrate.

CSF – Critical Success Factors – This is the analytical performance review of a website and the minimums needed to keep an internet marketing campaign successful. Your benchmarked CSF might be a CTR of 1.25%, CPC of $2.35, CR of 1.35% with an AOV of $238.68. You now know exactly what it takes to stay profitable, and you can now find ways to manipulate these numbers in your favor to make higher profits.

CSS – Cascade Style Sheet – This is used in website design, and maintenance to reduce the file sizes of websites and reduce the amount of tag attributes, repetition and / or memorization.

CTR – Click Through Ratio – This is the percentage of impressions an ad gets before someone will click on it. If you have a CTR of 1.25% then for every 1,000 impressions your ad gets, you can expect 12.5 people to click on it.

CPM – Cost Per Mille (Thousand) – This is a bidding strategy. Bid search engines like Google have both CPC and CPM method. Either you will be charged once you get a click or for the impressions you are getting. If your CPM is INR 10, then you will have to pay Rs 10 for 1000 impressions or Rs 5 for 500 impressions and so on.

eCPM – Effective Cost Per Mille (Thousand) – This figure is used to determine how much money you make for every 1,000 impressions an ad is displayed. If you sell a product and pocket $50 from each sale, and it took 50,000 impression to make that sale, then your eCPM is $1. You make $1 for every thousand impressions. ($50 / 50,000 * 1,000 = $eCPM)
EPC – Earning Per Click - This figure is used to determine how much money you make for every click on your ads. If you received 100,000 clicks on your ads last month and you made $5,000 then your EPC is $0.05. ($5,000 / 100,000 = $EPC)

FFA – Free For All – Free For All is an old advertising technique that allowed you to place a link to your website on a page for free, usually listed with thousands of other websites, in hopes for both increased search rankings and traffic.

FTP – File Transfer Protocol – Many times you need to upload and download images, csv files, zip files or webpages to a website. Using an FTP program makes the transfer of the file really easy.

HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language – Webpage are developed using tags. HTML can be used to create really simple websites or it can be used in conjunction with PHP or ASP to develop really advanced websites such as wordpress.

HTTP – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol – This is a communications protocol that allows you to transfer an html, asp, php or other file format from either an intranet or the World Wide Web, to a browser for reading.

HTTPS - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure – The same as HTTP, but using encryption software so that nobody can intercept, and read what you just transferred from halfway across the world.

IM – Instant Messaging – This is any one of the chatting interfaces such as AOL, Yahoo or MSN. It allows for quicker communication than email. I highly recommend using it to keep in touch with your networking buddies.

KDA – Keyword Density Analyzer – This is a program that will scan a webpage and return the frequency of words used on a page. Many SEO people will use it to ensure a specific keyword, or set of keywords, has dominance over a webpage so that when a search engine spider visits, it will not be confused on the topic of the page.

KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Index – This figure lets you know how competitive a keyword is. You take the number of searches a keyword gets per month, and divide that by how many pages show up for that keyword. If the keyword, “blogger”, gets 10,000 searches per month, and 1 million pages show up in the search results, then you have a KEI of 0.01. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have. That means that you might have a better chance of getting to the top position.

LSA – Latent Semantic Analysis – Search Engines are getting smarter, and using an analysis process known as LSI. This is how a search engine attempts to analyze a website to determine that the search for apple computer is correctly linked with a site about apple computers and not apples that you eat.

LSI – Latent Semantic Indexing – This is the process of collecting data and indexing it for LSA.

PFI – Pay For Inclusion – This is a flat fee that is charged to be placed into a directory such as Yahoo directory or others. Usually it is a one time or yearly fee.

PFP – Pay For Performance – This is a search marketing agency term that is used to charge a client based on performance, rather than charging based on hours spent on project, or the amount of media budget.

PPA – Pay Per Action – This is a flat fee that is charged to an advertiser by a venue whenever an action is made on a website such as a lead or sale. Instead of paying per click or impression, you can pay only when a site visitor actually does something on your site. Now Google has withdrawn this.

PPC – Pay Per Click – Google Adwords, and Yahoo Panama, charge you based on a per click service fee. If someone searches for a keyword you want to be shown up for, and clicks on your ad, you will be billed accordingly.

PPL – Pay Per Lead – This is similar to pay per action but restricted only to leads, for those industries that are in the lead generation business, such as mortgage loans.

PPR – Product Placement Report – If you are doing contextual marketing with Google Adwords, they offer a PPR report that exposes all the websites your content ads are displayed on. This report can then be analyzed to exclude out poor performing websites.

PPS – Pay Per Sale – The opposite of pay per lead, this pricing model is for those who sell a direct product to an end consumer.

PPV – Pay Per Visitor – Same as Pay Per Click, PPC, just used another way.

PR – Page Rank – This is a number between 0 and 10 that Google assigns every webpage on the internet. PR is updated quarterly, as far as I know. It is used to measure a websites value across the entire internet. You would think the term “page” in page rank stands for a web page, but is actually named after Larry Page who designed the PR algorithm.

PV – Page View – When a visitor to your website loads a webpage, your analytics software will count it as one new page view. Page View is much different than unique visitors, and is always a higher number. If you received 10 visitors who each viewed 2 pages on your website, your page view count would be 20.

ROAS – Return On Ad Spend – This is how much revenue you make for each dollar that is spent on advertising. If you spend $100 marketing your site and you make $1,000 your ROAS is $10 to $1. You make $10 for every dollar you spend.

ROI – Return On Investment – This is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment that you make. If you invest $1,000 to market your new product, and you make $5,000 back, your ROI is 5 to 1.

SE – Search Engine – Search engines are sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Enough said…

SEM – Search Engine Marketing – This term is related to an agency or person that manages a marketing campaign targeted just to search engines.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization – This is the process of getting traffic from major search engines, from natural or organic listings, of targeted keywords. If you want to get your website to show up on Google for the keyword “blogging” without having to pay cash for the spot, then you would go through the process of search engine optimization.

SEP – Search Engine Position – If you successfully get listed on a search engine like Google or yahoo your listing will show up somewhere between 1 and infinite.

SERP – Search Engine Result Pages – Any time you search for a keyword, term or phrase on a search engine you will be sent to a page of results.

SES – Search Engine Specialist – This is someone of specializes on everything to do with a search engine. This person will know the search engine better than the back of his own hand.

SMM – Social Media Marketing – A newer form of marketing by getting a page around the internet via social media. Social media are networks of friends interested in sharing their daily finds with everyone they know, resulting in traffic, and buzz about a specific website, product or article.

SP – Shopping Portal – These are websites that display products from many different resellers. Popular sites include Amazon.com, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber and etc…

SPAM – Sites Positioned Above Me – The most overly used and exploited word on the internet. Anytime anyone receives anything they do not want is commonly labeled SPAM, even if they knowingly sign up for it. Also, any time something is done repeatedly over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again is known as SPAM.

SQL – Structured Query Language – This is a database computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems (RDBMS). Wordpress uses SQL to store all the data that is entered into it such as your articles, comments, and settings.

TLD – Top Level Domain – These domains are reserved for the big 3, dot COM, Net and ORG. If you own any of these, you own a TLD website.

TOS – Terms Of Service – Anytime you participate on any website such as MySpace, AOL, stumbleupon, digg and endlessly others, the site has a terms of service which lays out the rules and guidelines of the website, about what you can, and cannot do. Such as SPAM other users or write them offensive, violent or hatred material.

URL – Universal Resource Language – This is the physical location of a document somewhere on the internet. When you type in robdogg.com as a URL your browser will use its http to locate my site and transfer the file located in that directory to your browser, and translate the HTML into an understandable, readable format.

UV – Unique Visitors – A visitor is considered unique when the IP address, of the person surfing your website, does not match any other IP that has ever visited before. If it does match a previous IP address, the visitor will be marked as a repeat visitor instead.

VAR – Value Added Reseller – This is a person, or company, that takes a product, or service, and ads to its features to create a better product, or turnkey solution, for resale to others.

VBS – Visual Basic Script – This is a very common programming language used to design and develop proprietary software. There are hundreds of other programming languages out there, but this is one of the most common in the industry.

WCAG – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – this is a set of guidelines created by W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative to allow the disabled to understand content on the internet. Many search engines these days will give your website a greater value, when you include these standards and guidelines on your site.

WOMM – Word Of Mouth Marketing – This is advertising your website off the internet, which usually involves handing out business cards, and telling your friends and family about what you created, so that they will go out and do the same.

WWW – World Wide Web – This is the interlinking of every website, article, image, video and document in the world with the use of hyperlinks and URL’s.

WYSIWYG – What You See Is What You Get – This is a text editor that allows you to type just as you would in a word document, which then converts the word document into HTML so that it can be published just as it looks in the text editor, without any prior HTML knowledge.

XML – Extensible Markup Language – XML is a programming language designed to share structured data across multiple platforms of software. This helps eliminate the need to design software in only specific, outdated or latest languages. It allows data to be transferred between incompatible systems and allows businesses to share data with ease.

Firefox Extensions for Web Analytics

2008-12-08T14:53:00.014+05:30

As everyone knows, Firefox is one of the most user friendly browsers available in the market. Here is a list of Firefox extensions which are useful to those who work on Website and Web analytics.

1. Web Analytics Solution Profiler/Debugger (WASP)
WASP is aimed at web analytics professionals who wants to do quality assurance and understand how their web analytics tags/beacons are implemented.

2. TrackMe Analytics on user habits.
TrackMe delivers Personal Analytics on user habits and can provide teachers with a tool to use in assessment which can encourage learners to engage in inquiry in a domain, whilst documenting and developing their habits

3. Data Analytics 0.1.9
DataAnalytics is a Firefox extension that enables importation, manipulation, analysis and graphing of data

4. Greasemonkey
This extension allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript

5. GA? Is Google Analytics Installed 1.0

6. Counterpixel
Displays the counting/measurement pixel of a website.

7. Fire Analytics
This extension allows you to view Google Analytics reports in Firefox. You need to have a Google Analytics account to use this extension.

8. Better Google Analytics 0.3
Enhances Google Analytics with a compilation of user scripts.

9. Ghostery 1.1
Ghostery lets you see the invisible web on every page on the web. Invisible web objects include web bugs that track your behavior as well as analytic trackers used by the sites you visit to understand their own audience.

10. Alexa Sparky
Get Alexa data in your status bar.

Retailers Get Social with Facebook in US

2008-12-04T16:37:00.005+05:30

Retailers are thinking high…

Almost all top retailers have fan page on social marketing sites like Facebook, MySpace etc.
Facebook is the social media site of choice for many US online retailers, judging by an August 2008 study by Internet Retailer and Vovici.
32% of responding businesses said they had a Facebook page
Will it be a revolutionary change in the Online Marketing Industry? Well, time will answer that question

A September 2008 study by Rosetta (formerly Brulant) that focused on the top 100 online retailers in the US found that 59 had a fan page on Facebook, up from 30 in May 2008

But while making the fan page, you should carefully consider what your customers are looking for, what you would like to communicate, and what role a fan page should play in your overall online strategy.”

Source: e-marketer daily

Edit and Personalize Search Results in Google

2008-11-24T12:36:00.003+05:30

Edit Organic Search Results

Now again something new from Google. It seems like Google is releasing something new every day.
Here we are talking about the new option to edit your search results in Organic search. Yeah… That’s true. Now you can promote (move the position up) delete or put comments on the search results
Here the results which speaks about Tata AIG is in the lower position. If you feel that it is more helpful for you than other results move it to the top

Now it is moved up.

You can post comments also for certain results. It will be another useful method in connected marketing

Google Search-based Keyword Tool (beta)

2008-11-20T11:44:00.001+05:30

Yes! Another new tool from Google Search-based Keyword Tool (beta)
This is a tool for keyword generation. Right now most of the advertisers are using the keyword tool from Google which gives hundreds of keywords. The user has to decide which one will suit his service/product. So here you are going from the keyword to LP.

This new tool travels in opposite direction. It starts with your pages and identifies keywords that potential customers are searching on to find your products or services. This new tool gives you keywords that are relevant to your site but are not part of your AdWords campaigns. This helps you take advantage of missed opportunities.

Now this tool is available for US and UK customers.
Want to try right away? Go to http://www.google.com/sktool

Tips to Increase Sales/Conversions

2008-11-17T16:02:00.002+05:30

1. Remove Jumble Content
Never ever put distracting, useless images, charts or text on your Web page. Provide users with information as they request it. The path you want the user to take should be clear from the homepage. When you stack up text and images, it dilutes the goal message, and can confuse users.
2. Remove ads
Never put ads on your site. Keep your customers focused on the task at hand. . If they leave the site through an ad, “Great you made $.25,” but just don’t assume that person will hit the back button or ever return to your site. You may have just lost yourself a sale. Moreover putting ads on ecommerce sites are unprofessional.
3. Payment – Offer More Options
At least provide 3 types of payment options for e-comm sites. Taking credit card is obviously the first choice. Other alternative options could be Paypal and BillMeLater. This is great for sites that target demographics who may not have credit cards or checking accounts.
4. Show Shipping Costs
Always show shipping costs on the landing page. Shipping charges are already a huge deterrent to buying online. Why make it a bigger problem by hiding them? Hidden fees will anger the customer and after that they may not trust you. Loss of trust means loss of sale.
5. Sales, Promotions, Free
Experiment with different promotions to up your orders. Also experiment with different wording and calls to action. Try, Free, Discount, Special etc on ads.
6. Stronger call to action
Evaluate your calls to action on a site-wide level. You may have come up with some outstanding copy about how special your service is and then left the reader hanging by not telling them to take the next step. You’re wasting your efforts if you aren’t telling your customers what they should be doing. Putting the word “now” implies a sense of urgency:
7. Add reliability Indicators.
Consider adding brand-recognized logos “above the fold” on your site, such as the Better Business Bureau, and HackerSafe. Of course you have to actually join respective company’s services, don’t just put the logo up.
Security concerns such as using SSL to encrypt data are huge for web shoppers. Calm their fears by adding a security logo (maybe “Secured by Verisign”?), and a security policy to your policies page.
8. Offer expert reviews
Another way to drum up sales is by adding “expert” reviews / analysis of products, testimonials etc. Customers want to know if this product is right for them.
9. Test, Measure and Repeat
Always do A-B testing. Try out different elements, such as different headings, one at a time. You should test one variable at a time so you know what change caused which effect. Keep whittling away at different page elements (”add to cart” buttons, headlines, page copy, image placement, etc.) until you are satisfied with the results.
An effective way to split-test is to point the same pay-per-click ad at 2 different pages, one with with your changed page and one with the current page to see if your changes were effective.

Ad Position is Out of Google AdWords Quality Score – Coming Soon

2008-11-12T10:27:00.001+05:30

As per Google there will be two changes in calculating quality score. The first change helps better evaluate the precise quality of your ad - regardless of its position on the page. The second change improves how Google promote ads to positions above the search results.

Let’s look into this in detail

Accurate Quality Score calculation
Till now CTR was the most important factor of QS because it directly shows which ads are more relevant. But as we know ads which are in the top positions have a better CTR (not always).

To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it's important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score.

In the coming days, the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position will be updated. Google claims that this will result in more accurate Quality Scores, ensure that ads compete fairly for position based on their quality and bid, and show the most relevant ads to searchers by rewarding high-quality advertisers with better ad positions.

Higher quality ads above the search results
Next is about which ads to show in the yellow region above the search results. These positions are particularly valuable to advertisers because they are prominently positioned on the page..

To appear above the search results, in the shaded area, ads must meet a certain quality threshold. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, it was not shown above the search results. But with the latest updates Google will allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. For instance, suppose the ad in position 1 on the right side of the page doesn't have a high enough Quality Score to appear above the search results, but the ad in position 2 does. It's now possible for the number 2 ad to jump over the number 1 ad and appear above the search results. This change ensures that quality plays an even more important role in determining the ads that show in those prominent positions.

New Feature From Google: Video & Voice Chat

2008-11-12T10:04:00.001+05:30

Google now added a voice and video chat feature to its Gmail email service. It is a free Web-based service that competes with the likes of eBay's Skype.
Gmail users can now choose to speak with friends on a video screen and simultaneously instant message them in a Google Chat box.
The video screen can be popped out of the chat box and moved around a user's computer screen. Users can also change the size of the screen and expand it to full-screen size.
The feature is available for both PC and Apple computer users.
A webcam and small web browser plug-in are required to use the video chat. Users who do not have a webcam will still be able to chat with friends by voice.

Lifetime Value (LTV) of PPC Customers

2008-10-22T12:13:00.003+05:30

This is a common doubt which arises in anyone’s mind who does PPC.

"I am able to find out what a competitor was bidding on a particular keyword. I know the market very well and there is no way they can make profit by paying that much per click. Why would someone bid 90% or more of the sale price of a product?"

The answer is not as complicated as we think.

It's not uncommon for savvy advertisers to bid amounts that at first glance appear to be ridiculous. There are advertisers who pay $10 a click for products that sell for $15. I think this will become more common over time.
Here's why - Life Time Value. If you're not familiar with that term and want to be a serious player in the PPC market over the next few years you should be.

Lifetime value is the value to you/your company over a customer's "lifetime" with you. How much $$$ do you make from your customers over time?

The point I wanted to make is that savvy marketers don't care if they don't make an immediate return. They know the lifetime value of their customers acquired via PPC programs and use that number to determine what they are willing to spend (bid) to acquire a customer.

What's a customer worth to you? That information can change the way you play in the PPC arena.

Google with Display Ad Builder

2008-10-16T11:07:00.002+05:30

It’s a great tool which helps us to create professional looking display ads in AdWords. You don’t need to have even the basic knowledge of designing or HTML.
Click on any of your campaigns and get inside. There you have the option to select in which ad group you need to create this image ad/display ad. Then select from the given templates (really cool templates). Put your titles, display URL, logo etc, that’s it. You are done with creating a cool display image. You can change the color and background also.
The tool can create ads to fit all possible placements across the Google content network, including video, game, and feed placements. The display ad builder is available now to all advertisers in the U.S. and Canada.

Is Online Safe from the Meltdown?

2008-10-14T17:40:00.003+05:30

Online ad spending data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the first half of 2008 is in.

The numbers seem generally strong, showing double-digit growth compared with the first half of 2007 in several categories: search, display—which includes banners, rich media and video—and e-mail ad spending. And the total US online ad growth rate of 15.2% is nearly the same as eMarketer’s 17.4% projection for all of 2008.

Yet online classified ad spending was down by more than 5% and may turn out to be a canary in the coal mine, showing the first signs of dizziness in an increasingly toxic environment.

Email Marketing and Sponsored Search

2008-10-14T17:21:00.003+05:30

3 ways to use email and search together to reach your customers

You should know this from your own Web usage, but a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project says that the most popular Web activity for Americans is email, followed closely by searching. The two lessons you should take from these findings are:

1. It makes sense to do email marketing, and
2. It makes sense to do search marketing.

After all, both online channels are perfect ways to meet customers in their natural online habitats.

But there’s a way to make your search and your email work even better. How? Use them together. Here are three suggestions as to how to do it.

1. Use Search to Make Your Email Smarter
To get a strong response to your email blasts, you need to use just the right words and just the right message. This will make your customers want to read your email and respond to it. A good place to start looking for the right kind of language is in your Sponsored Search campaigns:

• Use your best-performing search keywords within your email subject line and body copy.
• Use your best-performing search creatives as the core of your email subject lines.
• Use your best-converting search landing pages as the model for your email body and your email landing pages.

Think about it: If certain words, messages and concepts drive searchers to convert via search, then those same words, messages and concepts should resonate with similarly minded shoppers within email. So it follows that if you want to learn how to sell to your email customers, you should ask your search customers.

2. Use Email to Make Your Search Work Better
People who have signed up to your email lists are, without a doubt, great examples of who your target customers are. After all, they’ve explicitly asked you to keep in touch with them. So if you understand your email subscribers’ online behaviors, you can read the mind of your target market.

Think about the types of wording, messages, email body and landing pages those target customers respond to best, and you can get clues as to what types of keywords, ad copy and landing pages will best capture the attention (and conversions) of people like them as they use search.

And, of course, look at the keywords, ad copy and landing pages that drove those email sign-ups to begin with: They’ve clearly worked!

3. Bringing it Together
For this last point, allow me to provide a simple example:

Consider a shopper who’s bought a specific brand of pants (let’s say, Acme Pants). She’s very happy with that brand, and the next time she wants to buy a new pair of pants, she searches for “Acme Pants,” clicks on a Sponsored Search ad, and buys the item.

That’s a Sponsored Search click that’s led to a sale—and so, arguably, that’s search spend well spent.

But here’s an even better scenario: The same shopper signs up to an Acme Pants email list. The next time she needs a pair of pants, she doesn’t search at all—and so she doesn’t create any search click costs for Acme. Instead, she arrives at the Acme Pants site via the Acme email, and buys a new pair of pants directly from the manufacturer.

The moral of this tale? Use Sponsored Search to acquire new customers. Then once you have those customers in your database, help them bypass the search engines by putting them on your email lists. Offer a clear “email signup” link throughout your site, and suggest that shoppers sign up to your email list as part of the checkout process.

You can invest the money you’ll save into getting even more customers via Sponsored Search.

PPC Bid Management Process

2008-10-14T17:13:00.002+05:30

PPC bid management is the concept whereby pay per click search engines first allow you to establish an account with an initial deposit, after which you could make pay per click bids for top positions in the site's search results pages for certain targeted key phrases or keywords.

The main focus of the bidding is to achieve target conversions at the given target CPL.

Scenario 1

· When the conversions is low.

· When the CPL is high

Case 1:- Avg position low

· Increase the bids and monitor

· Check Avg position improved – If no(Reduce the bids to earlier bid amnt)

· If yes then check for the clicks has increased –If no (Reduce the bids to earlier bid amount)

· If yes then check for the conversions has increased –If no (Reduce the bids to earlier bid)

· If yes then check for the CPL is under control – If no (Reduce the bids marginally)

· If yes retain the bids

Case 2:- Average position is good

· Check for the CPL

· If the CPL is normal retain the bids

· If the CPL is high reduce the bids conservatively and monitor

Scenario 2 - CPL High

Case 1:- Average Position Low

· Increase the bids and monitor

· Check Avg position improved – If no (Reduce the bids to earlier bid amount)

· If yes then check for the clicks has increased –If no (Reduce the bids to earlier bid amount)

· If yes then check for the conversions has increased –If no (Reduce the bids to earlier bid)

· If yes then check for the CPL is under control – If no (Reduce the bids marginally)

· If yes retain the bids.

Case 2:- Average position is good

Reduce the bids conservatively and monitor

How to create an AdWords Account?

2008-10-02T17:40:00.013+05:30

Phase 1: Logging In

Step 1: Visit the URL https://adwords.google.com/select/Login .

Step 2:Click on the Start Now Button
Step 3: The two options available on the next page are:
Starter Edition and
Standard Edition

Phase 2:Targeting

Step 1: Select language targeting for the account.
This is based on the target audience.

E.g.: UK clients would be English. However if we are looking at UK and China as our Target audience, then language selection would be English and Chinese.
Step 2: Select country targeting for the account.
Based on client specifications
Can be selected on various levels of filtering
Country specific or
Region specific

Phase 3: Creating Ads

Step 1: Provide Ad text. This could be an ad that has already been created or a dummy ad text just for account creation.

Headline - 25 characters
Description Line 1 - 35 characters
Description Line 2 – 35 characters
Display URL - This is the URL displayed on the ad to identify the site to users. The display URL is limited to 35 characters. It doesn't need to be the exact same as the URL the ad links to, but it should be an actual URL that is part of your site.
Destination URL : This is the URL to which the ad will link. Users will be taken to your destination URL when they click through to your site from your ad. When choosing a destination URL, use a page in your site that relates to the content of your ad text and keywords.

Phase 4: Choose Keywords

Step 1: Provide a sample list of keywords for the account.
Step 1: Choose the currency. Note : Please insure the currency choice is correct in the initial setup of the account as it is impossible to be changed later.

Step 2: Choose the daily budget. This could be an initial indicative amount and can be edited later.
Step 3: Choose the average CPC. This can also be an indicative value.

Phase 5: Set Pricing

Step 1: Choose the currency. Note : Please insure the currency choice is correct in the initial setup of the account as it is impossible to be changed later.

Step 2: Choose the daily budget. This could be an initial indicative amount and can be edited later.
Step 3: Choose the average CPC. This can also be an indicative value.

Phase 6: Review Account & Sign In

Step 1: Provides a preview of selections made so far.
Please double check all numbers, currency figures, keywords and adtext before proceeding.

Step 2: Provide an active Google account login details.
Please make a note of the same. This will function as adwords account details as well. Never use a personal Gmail id as a login.

Phase 7: Billing Information

Post account creation, once we login the account snapshot will have an alert in red which asks for billing information.
On clicking the same we are led to a page which asks for credit card details.

Phase 8: Tracking Code Insertion

Tracking Code Insertion

If client is tracking leads, sales etc. the respective tracking code is required which can be procured using the Tools tab on the Adwords Campaign Summary Page.
Based on client requirements we can either select sale, lead or sign up option on

B2B Marketing On Online Social Networks

2008-09-26T19:52:00.005+05:30

Online Social Networks Are changing the face of marketing
The B2B (business to business) Marketing on Social Networks (like Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn) report shows the growth of business-oriented networks.
As you know the popularity of LinkedIn is increasing day by day. Reports show that LinkedIn users have more than doubled in the past year.
Now even Facebook is becoming a business network as more business people join, B2B marketers are reconsidering the social network environment.
Advertising expenditures will also increase as the number business users are increasing in these networks. The estimation is that it will reach $210 million in 2012.
Marketers will now spend far more over the next few years to create and manage their own social networks for business customers, partners, suppliers and vendors.

Yahoo! Launches Transformative Online Digital Ad Platform

2008-09-25T10:55:00.004+05:30

San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News First Customers to Go Live

In simple words APT from Yahoo! is a digital advertising solution. It helps to streamline the process of planning, buying and optimizing display advertising.
It is designed to buy/sell ads online in a simple way, while connecting all the market players -- publishers, advertisers, agencies, networks, partners and developers
APT is a single platform for connected digital advertising, including ad serving, ad network and ad exchange. It is designed to streamline advertisers' ad-buying process for multiple accounts across multiple publishers, and enable creative testing and campaign optimization. It also helps advertisers to easily identify audiences through geographic, demographic and interest-based targeting.

Key advantages of APT from Yahoo!

The ability to connect to new business partners for cross-selling
Providing ad selection and inventory management tools to match relevant ads to marketers' target audience
Publishers can create their own private network.

Some of the initial capabilities featured in the new platform include

Guaranteed cross-selling with pre-defined selling rules
Audience targeting techniques based upon behavior and geography
Filters for better controls around creative
Flexible and powerful APIs
Federated ad call to support multiple ad formats

Yahoo! will start to make the platform available to other parties including advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies in 2009.
Additional information on APT is available at http://apt.yahoo.com.

Google With Android Phone - Cost $199

2008-09-23T15:32:00.003+05:30

The first mobile phone to use Google Inc's Android mobile operating software will cost $199
The phone which has features like a slide-out keypad, is being manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corp. This will be sold by Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA unit, They are planning to unveil the device at an event in New York on September 23.
The only U.S. operator selling Apple Inc's iPhone is AT&T Inc. They have set the price of the latest version at $199 in July and this became a benchmark for smartphones that can surf the Web, manage email and other multimedia features.

Google AdWords: Different Ad Types

2008-09-23T12:26:00.005+05:30

Online

Text Ads
Google text ads are four lines of text:
A title of 25 characters, two lines of ad text with 35 characters each and a URL line. This format of text ads may differ on partner sites. For example, your ad text may appear on a single line.

Image ads
Images ads are just graphical AdWords ads. It will appear on select content sites in the Google network. Unlike traditional online graphical ads, image ads can be matched to a page's content.

Video ads
Video ads also appear on content sites in the Google network, but they are user-initiated. A user must click "play" to watch your ad. Think of video ads as a type of commercial on the Internet.

Mobile ads
Mobile ads appear on mobile websites as texts or images and direct users to your mobile website. Mobile text ads can also appear when users search Google from a mobile device. You need to have a mobile web site to run a mobile ad.

Offline

TV ads
Through your AdWords account, you can launch even a TV campaign. This is available to advertisers located only in the United States and billed in U.S. dollars.

Print ads
Now you can place your ads in newspapers across the United States using Google AdWords. You can choose from more than 750 newspapers, and set a price that matches your budget..

Audio ads
You can even broadcast your message on over 1,600 radio stations across the U.S. It is just like traditional radio commercials. But if you do it through AdWords, it is easier to buy and manage. This is also available for advertisers located in US.

Google's Online Marketing (Web Search) Share Reaches 63% in US

2008-09-22T16:31:00.003+05:30

Google extended its lead in US Web Search to 63% share of the market in August. This is the biggest monthly gain in 5 months.
Yahoo Inc, (No. 2 player in the U.S. Web search market) has a drop of 0.9% to 19.6 from July while Microsoft, (No. 3 U.S), slipped 0.6% to 8.3 %, according to ComScore Inc.
IAC InterActiveCorp's Ask.com retained its 4th position with an increase of 0.3% percent while Time Warner Inc's AOL edged up 0.1 percent to 4.3 percent.
ComScore estimates that the number of searches performed by U.S. Web surfers on the five top search engines was virtually unchanged at 11.75 billion searches compared with July.

Online Marketing Methods - SEO or PPC?

2008-09-22T13:28:00.003+05:30

After setting up a Web site, the next question which is best:- PPC (Pay Per Click) or SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you consider the pro’s and con’s of each you will find the answer easily

Search Engine Optimization
For a new Web site, whatever you do you are not going to be in the number 1 position for quite sometime. However, you will never rank in the top 50 (pages) unless you do undertake some form of search engine optimization program

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click campaigns will generate traffic to your Web site. The more traffic you generate, the more your site will be seen and the better the possibility for natural links to your site. Obviously, if your site is a commercial site then PPC will bring extra traffic targeted to your keywords and hopefully ready to open their wallets
From the above two short descriptors, you are probably already trying to organize your first PPC campaign. Just wait a moment and reread them, particularly the last sentence in the search engine optimization brief.

So the answer is “both” You need to do PPC as well as SEO if you want your web site to succeed. Search engine optimization will provide long term benefits for free. So you don’t have to pay to get them on search engines on SEO. This will generate organic visitors from the search engines like Google and Yahoo. But in PPC you have to pay for each click.
If you don’t have big amount to play around and you are a beginner stay away from PPC. It will eat your money like anything

Yahoo! Search Marketing

2008-09-19T10:54:00.001+05:30

Difference between Short Description and Long Description

A short description (up to 70 characters) is the brief summary of the products or services that you want to advertise. As you have the character limit of 70 you should be so creative in expressing your service.

Short descriptions are now required when you create or modify an ad.
A long description (up to 190 characters) is a detailed summary of the products or services that you want to advertise. It will not be displayed on the Yahoo! search. It is displayed on partner sites that can accommodate longer descriptions.
Long descriptions are optional

How should I organize my keywords in ad groups?

These are best practices
• Make sure all keywords in an ad group are very closely related to one another. The “tighter” the ad group is, the more likely you are to write ads that relate to all of your keywords.
• Don’t put the same keywords in multiple ad groups, because they will compete against themselves. Two exceptions to this practice are using the same keywords in both geo-targeted and non-geo-targeted campaigns, or using the same keyword for different seasonal campaigns. For example, you can use the keyword “gift baskets” for both a Valentine’s Day campaign and a Mother’s Day campaign.
• Keep what’s working! Remove, or just move, low performers so they don’t negatively impact your ad quality and you don’t waste too much time monitoring them.

Updates From Google

2008-09-16T17:41:00.003+05:30

A few updates from Google

Now the quality score will be calculated at the time of each search query
So according to Google the quality score will be more accurate

There will not be any keywords which are marked as “Inactive for Search” because now they are evaluated for every relevant query

No more minimum bids. This will be replaced by “First page bid estimates”.
But I have seen KWs which are bidding Rs 60 and at avg pos of 3.5 with a comment First page bid estimate is Rs 207. Is it a foul play by Google?
No AdWords report will give this data. We have to go through each KW.

3 tips to capture more impressions and clicks through hot happenings

2008-09-15T12:17:00.001+05:30

3 tips to capture more impressions and clicks through hot happenings

Between the presidential elections, the Olympics in Beijing, and NASA Messenger’s second flyby past Mercury, 2008 is a year of big events. Search marketers should take note.
Why? Because whether you’re dealing with a nationwide political decision, an international sports event, or a hot dog eating contest, “big events” can drive serious search activity. And if your business has a reason to connect with those “big event” searchers—say, you’re a political publication covering the presidential campaign, a sports magazine with Olympics coverage, or a hot dog vendor—you can use that event-driven search to engage those searchers in a meaningful conversation.
Here are three hot tips on how to start talking about that big event:

1. Don’t forget to add the keyword
If you’re hoping to capitalize on a big event, your first course of action should be to remember to advertise in search for that event to begin with.
This sounds obvious. But I can’t tell you how many sports sites with dedicated Olympics sections, news sites with Election ’08 coverage, and science and nature magazines with NASA Messenger images have failed to advertise on crucial event keywords like “candidates 2008” or “mercury photos.” Those businesses have ended up hidden on relevant search terms—and they’ve missed out on a window of opportunity.
Don’t lose out on these opportunities. If you offer something of value to a sudden influx of searchers, let them know about it by advertising the appropriate keywords Yahoo! Sponsored Search.

2. Beware of ambiguous terms
Search terms like “presidential candidates 2008” are clearly event-related. But other terms are more ambiguous. “Cycling,” for example, could represent a search for an Olympic bike race, or it could be a search from someone who wants to buy a bicycle or is planning a long bike ride of her own.
Since big events are short-lived and capture popular interest, big event search marketers face a real challenge from ambiguous keywords such as these. That’s because big events can create sudden, diverging meanings for the same term. On the July 4th weekend, a search for “hot dogs” might be a search for the processed meat (as it usually is year-round); but it might also be a search for übereater Takeru Kobayashi, in anticipation of the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Confusion—and wasted search spend—can ensue.
As a rule, your attitude toward ambiguous keywords should be determined by your search budget. The less you have to spend, the warier you should be of ambiguous event terms. If you’re interested in scale, though, advertising on those ambiguous terms may be a worthwhile gamble. You might attract a lot of bike shoppers to your Olympics pages, but you’ll capture a lot more Olympic cycling enthusiasts, too.

3. Say it with creative
If you do decide to advertise on ambiguous search terms, your ad should let searchers know exactly what you offer—and, by implication, what you don’t offer. For example, if your site features Olympics coverage and you’re advertising on the keyword “cycling,” make sure that your ad copy explains that you feature Olympics scores, articles, and videos—and not sales on Schwinns. “See Olympic Cycling Photos” might be a better ad title than simply “Cycling,” or even “Men’s Cycling.”
If you use your ad copy to tell searchers exactly what you offer, feature or sell, you’ll get fewer of the wrong kinds of searchers—and more of the right ones—clicking on your ad.
Do you have your own strategies for running search campaigns around a big event? Post your comments below. Maybe I’ll talk about your suggestions at my next conference…and then, of course, you could advertise in Yahoo! Sponsored Search around the event.

Source: Yahoo Search Marketing Newsletter

AdWords:- Search & Content Statistics

2008-09-06T11:14:00.004+05:30

CR and CTR are not comparable between the search network and content network because users browsing content approach ads differently than users searching for a particular topic. So Google use smart pricing to protect advertiser ROI by automatically adjusting the cost of a contextually-targeted content network click based on its effectiveness compared to a search click.
As Search and Content network statistics can differ, looking into aggregate statistics for a particular campaign running on both the networks may not give you the exact performance of your account.

Now Google has made necessary changes in the interface, where you can see the performance of your search & content networks separately.

This option is already available in Yahoo Search Marketing.

In Google, now we have a “Statistics” drop down menu lets you to change your view to see search and content network statistics in individual rows for each of your campaigns

Google Launches Chrome

2008-09-05T16:31:00.002+05:30

Google has announced the beta version of a new open source brouser Google Chrome.

The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers. Chromium is the name of the open source project behind Google Chrome, released under the BSD license.

Chrome periodically downloads updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware) and warns users when they attempt to visit a harmful site

Each tab in Chrome is sandboxed into its own process to "prevent malware from installing itself" or "using what happens in one tab to affect what happens in another". Following the principle of least privilege, each process is stripped of its rights and can compute but can not write files or read from sensitive areas (e.g. documents, desktop)—this is similar to "Protected Mode" that is used by Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista. The Sandbox Team is said to have "taken this existing process boundary and made it into a jail";for example malicious software running in one tab is unable to sniff credit card numbers, interact with the mouse or tell "Windows to run an executable on start-up" and will be terminated when the tab is closed. This enforces a simple computer security model whereby there are two levels of multilevel security (user andsandbox) and the sandbox can only respond to communication requests initiated by the user.

Plugins such as Adobe Flash Player are typically not standardised and as such cannot be sandboxed like tabs. These often need to run at or above the security level of the browser itself. To reduce exposure to attack, plugins are run in separate processes that communicate with the renderer, itself operating at "very low privileges" in dedicated per-tab processes. Plugins will need to be modified to operate within this software architecture while following the principle of least privilege.

Chrome supports the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) but does not support the embedding of ActiveXcontrols. Also, Chrome does not have an extension system such as Mozilla-compatible *.xpi cross-platform extension architecture and thus XPI-based extensions such as AdBlock and GreaseMonkey can not be adapted to Chrome.

A private browsing feature called Incognito mode is provided as well. It prevents the browser from storing any history information or cookies from the websites visited. This is similar to the private browsing feature available in the latest beta version of Internet Explorer 8

It has a simple and intuitive user interface and an entirely new architecture. According to Google it is designed for speed, security, and stability while browsing the Internet.

Google Chrome uses the same open source rendering engine as Apple's Safari browser (WebKit), so your landing pages and sites should appear in Google Chrome as they do in Apple Safari. The way users interact with ads and sites should be similar as well.

Source: Wikipedia