It’s almost October and you know what that means. No, I’m not talking about figuring out how to end things with your summer fling or how to make your Justin Bieber Halloween costume less creepy, I’m talking about how to get your online marketing adequately prepared for the upcoming holiday season! If you think that September is too early to be gearing up for that all important fourth quarter, then you’re doing your competition a huge favor. Luckily, Q4 isn’t something to fear; it’s something to get excited about. Even if you aren’t a retailer, Q4 can mean the beginning of a new fiscal year, the return from a long vacation or the preparation period for the beginning of the 2012 calendar year for your potential clients. Below, I’ve laid out five PPC management tips for Q4 that can be applied very easily for advertisers of all stripes, from eCommerce … Continue reading
Tag Archives: mobile advertising
3 Mobile Search Tactics to Boost Your ROI
It’s an industry predicted to reach $3.3 billion in revenue by the year 2013, the reason you chose the bed-and-breakfast over the boutique hotel when your original hotel lost your reservation, and top of mind for marketers looking to capitalize on the growing number of consumers using the mobile web to make decisions on how to spend their money and time. It’s mobile advertising, and its mere existence, along with that of PDAs and smart phones, is changing the way consumers make decisions. As marketers realize the value of mobile advertising to influence brand awareness, word-of-mouth, and offline consumer behavior, many allocate their first mobile spend to paid search, or “pay-per-click” advertising, largely due to its track record as an accountable, highly-targeted way to market online. However, while it retains the built-in accountability that makes online search so attractive, mobile search is unique and requires a slightly different approach. To … Continue reading
Understanding Mobile Search: 3 Reasons Mobile Is Different
In January’s newsletter, we discussed 3 online marketing trends from 2009 that are shaping 2010, one being the mobile web (and the other two being real-time search and social media). We pointed to predictions of mobile devices outnumbering computers by 3 to 1 in the year 2012 and the mobile advertising industry reaching $3.3 billion by 2013, and recommended building a mobile version of one’s site – but what about advertising? As the number of users accessing the web via mobile devices grows, so do the number of advertisers vying for their interest. While the long-term potential of mobile advertising remains to be seen, marketers are realizing mobile can be leveraged not only to drive mobile site traffic but also, foot traffic, purchase decisions, brand awareness, and word-of-mouth. Likewise, the nature of mobile search existing primarily as a means to locate actionable data in real-time suggests an attractive potential for … Continue reading
Tues News: 3/2 (Win Some, Lose Some Edition)
“Sometimes you win. Sometimes you tie. You almost, almost, almost never lose.” –Will Ferrel,”Bat Fight” 2009 Oh, Will Ferrel, truer words have probably been spoken many, many times before. However, Will isn’t completely wrong, either. As it stands, this quotation is not only accurate as it applies to bat fights; it’s also pretty accurate as it applies to Google. Think about it: lots of victories, a couple of washes and the occasional failure. In this edition of the Tues News, we’ll take a look at a recent Google win, a recent loss and an upcoming venture that could go either way. Let’s get going! Google scoring another victory isn’t particularly newsworthy, however, in the area of patent law, every win is potentially huge. This week, Google was finally awarded a patent for location-based advertising. I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, isn’t that patent incredibly broad?” Answer: yup! I’m not sure … Continue reading
3 of the Biggest Web Trends from 2009 That Will Shape Your 2010
Looking back on 2009, it seems there has never been a year full of more change, excitement, and shocking news – and if there has, I wasn’t alive to witness it. We saw the death of Michael Jackson, arguably the biggest pop star in the world, fall of the US economic system, inauguration of the first African-American President and fall from grace of a hero, Tiger Woods. We looked on as North Korea detained journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the swine flu epidemic sent an already anxious nation into further panic, and health care reform drew sharp lines in the sand between haves and have-nots – and we’re barely scratching the surface. In spite of all this, life goes on, and so does business. In the online sector, we saw just as many developments, and at times it became difficult to keep up. Things on the web change at … Continue reading
Tues News: 11/10 (Google Is God Edition)
If you are religious, I hope you don’t take offense to the title of this blog. Obviously, Google isn’t God but man-oh-man are they giving the Big Guy a run for His money. I recently wrote an email to a client who’s AdWords account had suffered terribly low quality scores from only three days of total activity in his account, “The lesson, as always, is that Google is God and even turning on your account for three days can royally screw things up for no reason two months later. It’s their world and we just live in it.” That’s a real quote! Maybe there are two lessons: Google is extremely powerful and only getting stronger. I should be careful about how colloquial I get with my clients, especially when writing an email after 6:30pm on a Friday. Luckily, regarding the second item, the client seemed to chuckle and agree with … Continue reading