About 6S Marketing

6S Marketing’s downtown Vancouver office (Yaletown) offers a unique work environment that is casual, and fun, yet fast paced and challenging. As a small company we all work together as a single team and have fun doing it. 6S offers an attractive compensation package including benefits. As 6S grows and becomes more successful – that success is shared throughout the company. We expect all employees to go the extra mile, take the initiative, and work with little supervision.

While we like to have fun, our number one goal is to ensure exceptional customer service. Our mission is to “Deliver success through innovative internet marketing services.”

Internet Marketing Strategist (PPC)

You are looking for a company to help realize your goal of becoming an internet marketing guru. You are passionate about learning more about search marketing, and are passionate about providing exceptional customer service to a portfolio of clients.

Required Skills

• Ability to read, analyze and interpret industry trade publications
• Ability to use spreadsheets to keep and analyze performance and results data
• Able to work on multiple projects simultaneously
• Degree or Diploma or equivalent work experience
• Good interpersonal communication skills
• Good problem-solving and analytical skills
• Must be able to use Microsoft Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Outlook
• Strong attention to detail

Preferred Skills

• Knowledge of HTML preferred
• Knowledge of Analytics implementation best practices
• Knowledge of SEO implementation best practices
• Knowledge of CPC implementation best practices
• Knowledge of Social Media implementation best practices
• Knowledge of E-mail marketing best practices
• Knowledge of Website Usability best practices
• Ability to create SEO optimization documents
• Ability to create keyword research documents
• Knowledge of the leading SEO tools
• Knowledge of Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing CPC Platforms

Duties

• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign management (Google, Yahoo, MSN)
• Web analytics implementation and analysis (Google Analytics)
• Social Media duties such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blog & website content management
• Create Internet Marketing Projects
• Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Continual research and testing of the latest cutting edge Search Marketing practices
• Perform Internet research
• Supporting fellow team members

Compensation: Competitive salaries are offered depending on experience.

If this position is of interest to you please email your resume and cover letter to careers@6smarketing.com with the subject – “Internet Marketing Strategist (PPC)”. No phone calls please. Must be Vancouver Based.

Related posts:

1. Paid Search Marketing Strategist
2. Internet Marketing Conference
3. 6S Marketing Becomes Google Partner

In August, we started to experiment with live chat functionality on the 6S site to provide live support to visitors browsing our site or anyone looking for more information about 6S.  We chose Snap-a-Bug as our live chat software for a number of reasons including ease of use, information captured about our web visitors, and integration with our customer relationship management (CRM) software Salesforce.

The software is extremely simple to set up. A few lines of JavaScript is all that’s needed to embed the “Live Chat” button into your website. Be sure to create and customize a live chat button for both an offline status and online status for your agents. Then, each agent that will be using the chat software can sync his or her GTalk account (Google’s answer to MSN messenger) to your Snap-a-Bug account, literally with a few clicks of the mouse.  Chatting can then commence immediately!

The software also comes with a “Proactive Chat” functionality that can be customized to “pop up” automatically to greet visitors on your site after they have been browsing for an allocated amount of time. For example, if Visitor 1 is on your main services page for more than 45 seconds, Proactive Chat can be customized to appear to Visitor 1 with a message such as “Hi, can I answer any questions about our services?”. This is an automatic chat window that appears and does not require the chat agent to physically write the greeting. If Visitor 1 decides to answer this automated greeting, then the chat agent will be brought into the conversion through Snap-a-Bug prompting their GTalk account with the message.

Snap-a-Bug also integrates with a number of CRM software providers, such as Salesforce. This means that any website visitor who inquires about your company using the live chat functionality, will automatically be imported into your CRM as a “Lead” after the chat has ended. This allows for easy follow up if the chat agent and visitor would like to continue a conversation at a later time.

A really cool feature of Snap-a-Bug is the ability to capture demographic information about the “Lead” that is also imported automatically into your CRM after the chat has ended with your site visitor. Geographic location, operating system, browser and language are just some of the details you can capture.  There is no set up fee for Snap-a-Bug and prices range from $19 – $289 per month.

Do you use a live chat functionality on your site? What has your experience been?

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In early September, 2010 Canadian businesses will be able to claim their Place on Facebook. Ultimately, your business is going to be added to Facebook and the information should be accurate. Keep reading to find out how you can control what information is listed on Facebook about your business and how you can reach more customers.

Facebook Places is not available in Canada yet, but launched in the USA on August 18, 2010. According to 6S inside sources, the Canadian Launch date for Facebook Places Canada is September 3rd, 2010.

The following is what every Canadian business needs to know about getting their business listed correctly on Facebook. For official Facebook Places information from Facebook themselves, please visit Facebook.com/Places. You can also Download the PDF Guide

Q: What is Facebook Places?

A: Essentially, Facebook is launching a mobile application that allows people to “check in” at your place of business. This could be a current customer, employee or potential customer. This is similar to Foursquare or Gowalla but on a much larger scale. These are exciting times for hyperlocal advertising and geo-location related marketing. Never before have business owners been able to target potential customers on the kind of massive scale that Facebook provides.

Q: Why does this matter?
A: Facebook has over 500 million users and is extremely popular among Canadians. More than half of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 55 use Facebook, most at least once a day. Facebook Places allows your business to reach your customers and this is likely the best new marketing tool since the launch of Google.

Q: Why does my business need to claim it’s Facebook Place?
A: Every Canadian business owner should claim their place on Facebook, regardless if they plan to use it in the short term. By claiming your Place you can manage your Place’s address, contact information, business hours, profile picture, admins and other settings.

Q: Why do I need to do it now?
A: Claiming your business on Facebook ensures that you will have the future ability to take advantage of localized advertising to customers already interacting with your business. Similar to registering your domain name, claiming your business will prevent potential squatters from claiming your business. Also, there may be long wait periods or restrictions down the road.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: While claiming a business on Facebook, and setting up a Facebook business page is free, it can be complicated if you do not have the experience. 6S Marketing has helped dozens of Canadian companies with setting up their presence on Facebook. We are running a promotion for the month of September 2010 where we will help you claim your Facebook place on your behalf for $500. 6S can also help you set-up your company’s Facebook page for an additional cost. Contact us for more information.

Q: How do I get started?

A: For more information on how to get started, please contact us.

Related posts:

1. Vancouver Business to Launch Facebook Marketing at Upcoming Tech Show
2. Vancouver Business to Launch Pioneer Facebook Marketing at Upcoming Tech Show
3. Facebook Your Business Now Event at the IIMA

From an Internet marketing perspective, spreading content virally through Facebook can be a great addition to almost any type of web marketing campaign. Everyone who’s used Facebook understands just how easily great content can be shared and circulated through people’s news feeds. But how exactly does Facebook determine which content should surface in people’s news feeds and which should not? Of all the thousands of posts made daily by your friends, how is Facebook able to figure out which one’s you’ll probably want to see versus the ones you won’t? Luckily for us, Facebook answered this very question at their 2010 F8 conference.

EdgeRank

Whenever you login to Facebook, what you see in your news feed is only a very small fraction of all the content being posted by your friends at any given time. In order to determine which items should appear within your news feed, Facebook grades all content posts according to what it thinks your level of interest with each of them is likely going to be. The mathematical formula that determines this for Facebook is known as Edgerank.

Some Terminology: Edges and Objects

Facebook uses the terms “object” and “edge” to help describe user’s interaction with content. An object simply refers to a post or status update made by a user; a piece of content. The term “edge” describes any user interaction with an object; a “like”, a comment, a tag, a “share” and the action of creating the content itself. (It’s probable that clicks and page views also qualify as edges, but I wasn’t able to definitely confirm this.)

The EdgeRank Formula

Here it is:

The variables:

U - the affinity score between viewing user and edge creator

W - weight score for this edge type (create, comment, like, tag etc)

D – time decay score based on how long ago the edge was created

The idea:

The higher the combined value of the affinity score, weight score, and time decay score, the more important an edge will be. Similarly, the more edges, and the higher their total scores, the higher an object’s EdgeRank. Objects with a higher EdgeRank appear more prominently within people’s news feeds on Facebook.

Affinity Score

Affinity is the value Facebook assigns to an object’s creator relative to other Facebook users. In plain English, the more a person comments, likes, or interacts with your posts, the higher their affinity to you, and the greater the likelihood that your posts will show up in their news feed.

For example, I’ve been following 6S Marketing social media strategist Sam Macmillan’s Facebook page because he recently became a finalist in, and then actually won, a local social media marketing contest. Since I’ve been viewing and interacting with Sam’s Facebook page relatively frequently, I have a high affinity to him on Facebook, and the content he posts regularly shows up within my home feed.

Weight Score

The weight score is a measure of the combined value of all an object’s edges. The more edges an object has the higher its weight score will be. Not all edges hold an equivalent weight on Facebook. So for example a comment likely holds more weight than a like or a simple click or a “like”.

Generally speaking, the more interactions a content post has on Facebook, the more prominent it will be in other people’s feeds. A post with 12 comments and 10 likes will appear in people’s news feeds more prominently than one with no comments and no likes.

Time Decay Score

Like Google, Facebook is concerned with the freshness of content. Newer content and interactions hold more importance and have a higher likelihood of being published in your news feed. The older the interactions are with an object, the lower their time decay score and less of ability they have to push content to the top of people’s news feeds.

What now?

While it’s interesting to have a better understanding of Facebook’s content ranking algorithm, much of this information reaffirms what we already know. It’s not surprising that the more people interact with your posts, and the more interactions there are with a post, the more likely that post will be to be visible in people’s feeds.

If you’re promoting a campaign on Facebook, be sure to share content that your audience will want to engage with. This doesn’t mean that everything you share has to be unique, it just means that the content you do share has to be able to draw the attention of your audience and then connect Facebook users with your message.

Many sophisticated online marketers spend allocate large budgets to daily Facebook pay per click campaigns, but in contrast, every time a content item you post on Facebook surfaces in people’s feeds it’s a free opportunity to get your message out. Figuring out how to run content campaigns that actually get published within people’s news feeds can therefore save you money and get your message out.

Questions or comments? Don’t be shy, leave us a message in the comments section below. We love hearing your feedback.

Also be sure to check out 6S’s Facebook marketing services or social media strategy page for more information about our social media marketing services.

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2. Vancouver Business to Launch Facebook Marketing at Upcoming Tech Show
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Groupon offers “Unbeatable Deals on Local Adventures!” according to their site. So has Groupon sold out? The site launched in Vancouver earlier in 2010 and offered localized neighborhood deals to their members for the restaurant around the corner, or the dry-cleaning company in your neighborhood. Groupon did a great job of promoting the “small guys” in a charming and fun way. Definitely not promoting international companies such as The Gap.

What do you think? Has Groupon lost it’s way?

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Over the past few months, a new feature called Enhanced CPC bidding has slowly been appearing in Google AdWords campaign settings. Today, the new automated bidding feature was rolled out across the AdWords system to all advertisers.

What is Enhanced CPC Bidding?

Enhanced CPC is a new automated bidding tool that takes into account your campaign’s historical conversion history and automatically adjusts your keywords Max CPC bids based on the probability that your ad will convert, due to their conversion pattern in the past. This new tool will help to decrease your campaign’s overall cost-per-action and result in campaign managers spending less time manually adjusting CPC bids.

The new bidding system also has the capability to recognize different variations of converting terms, and actual converting keywords within keyphrases. For example, let’s say you bid on the keyphrase plush puppies. The system recognizes that when the word plush has triggered an ad in the past within other keyphrase variations, it has converted. Therefore, any keyphrases variation (i.e. plush black corgi puppies) containing the world plush will trigger the system to adjust your CPC bids in order to obtain a conversion for the variation containing your historically well-converting keyword.

How to Use Enhanced CPC Bidding?

Because Enhanced CPC bidding is focused around increasing conversions, conversion tracking must be enabled within the campaigns you want to enable Enhanced CPC bidding.

To enable Enhanced CPC Bidding:

• Log in to your AdWords Account.
• Click on the Campaigns tab and then click on the campaign in which you would like to enable Enhanced CPC bidding.
• Within the campaign, click on the Settings tab.
• Scroll down to the Bidding and budget area of the campaign settings page.
• Next to Bidding option, click edit.
• Next, chose either manual bidding or automatic bidding to try to maximize clicks for your target budget. Either of these options can be combined with Enhanced CPC.
• Check off the box next to Use my conversion tracking data and bids to optimize for conversions under Enhanced CPC.
• Click Save.

What is the difference between Enhanced CPC and Conversion Optimizer?

Both Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC bidding tools aim at increasing or improving a campaign’s ROI. Both tools calculate a predicted conversion rate for each ad auction.

The big difference between the two is how Enhanced CPC works with the Max CPC bids that you set at the keyword level and with all settings of your current campaign. You can then optimize and change the Max CPC’s as much as you like. Conversion Optimizer only allows bidding at the AdGroup level.

With Enhanced CPC, your campaigns also do not need to convert at least 15 times in 30 days, which is a requirement in order to use Conversion Optimizer.

Has Enhanced CPC increased conversions in your campaigns? We’d love to hear your feedback about the new feature!

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These reports provide further insight to advertisers as to how keywords and campaigns work together to create transactions and conversions and are definitely recommended to check out. Here’s why:

Currently, Google AdWords reports conversions as the last ad clicked on before a conversion occurs.

Although this is very useful information in determining campaign success, it doesn’t necessarily provide the whole picture in search behavior that led up to the final conversion. With the new search funnel reports, advertisers can now see the impressions and clicks that led up to a conversion. Why is this important? Often times, we feel we need to delete a keyword that has spent a large portion of the advertising budget and yet has not converted. This makes sense but in many instances, customers perform multiple searches and click on several ads before actually converting.



The new search funnel reports allows us to view this type of information and as an end result, helps us better determine the true value of all keywords within a campaign.

Where to Find Search Funnel Reports

Google AdWords search funnel reports can be found by selecting ‘Conversions’ under the reporting tab within the AdWords interface. On the next screen you will see the ‘Search Funnels’  link on the left hand side.

Useful Terminology

It is important to remember that keywords play three roles in the conversion path. These are:

• Last Click: Any search and click that happened immediately preceding a conversion. This is the conversion data you currently see within AdWords conversion reporting.
• Assist Click: Any search and click that happened prior to the ‘last click’ before a conversion.
• Assist Impressions: The number of impressions in this campaign that led to conversion, but were not clicked.

Three Useful Search Funnel Reports

There are 7 new reports and more than 20 new metrics available within search funnel reports. I have selected three reports and specific metrics that I find most useful. For a glossary of all terms related to the search funnel reports check out the Reports and Metrics Glossary.

Path Length Report

The ‘Path Length’ report shows the number clicks & impressions before an actual conversion. This is a good place to start as it provides a high level overview on how many clicks it takes to get a conversion.

Time Lag Report

The ‘Time Lag’ report shows the amount of time (days or hours) it takes a visitor to convert after seeing or clicking on ads for the first time. This provides a general overview of how long it takes the average customer to convert and can be used in conjunction with the path length report. If you are tracking ecommerce revenue, it is great to be able to see how many days it typically takes to receive a conversion by value generated:

Assisted Conversions Reports

This report provides last click and assisted click conversions as well as impression assisted conversions. This report is most useful for determining the true value of your keywords. Use this report to:

• Compare revenue generated versus amount spent on click-assisted and impression-assisted keywords that led to conversions. This allows you to determine the true value of all keywords within your campaign and therefore the ability to adjust your budget accordingly.
• Optimize your keyword list to ensure you have keyword variations including strong assisting keywords.

Conclusion

The Google AdWords search funnel reports is a big step in the right direction when it comes to providing additional insight into search behavior and something that has been long awaited. I’m hoping Google will work to make this new feature even further intuitive as time goes on. Viewing these reports on a regular basis can really help us understand search behaviour better as well as better analyze AdWords campaign performance.

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For instance whilst working with a client in the financial industry it was pointed out to me that Maps had a location of theirs listed that has never actually existed. It was in fact a location of a competitor. However the phone number listed there was the number of our clients call center. This mismatch of data seemed confusing. How would Google ascertain that there was a financial institution at the location but have the details of it mixed up with one of its competitors?

Well, in order to explain why this might happen, you have to understand where Google gets a lot of its maps information from. Google has a number of partnerships with Local directories and listing companies. Their most prominent one is with Yellow pages. On a daily basis Google takes a feed from Yellow pages to update its map data. The Yellow Pages ascertains the existence of a business or residence based on a phone number and this is where the problem lies. Sometimes the phone number list addresses that are completely different to the actual location of the business. However Google takes the feed and verifies the location based off of this data. This can lead to a variety of mismatches in information and when you add in the fact the Google takes in multiple data sources on top of the Yellow pages feed you can see where problems can arise

I think this puts Google in an interesting position. Typically they have positioned themselves as the facilitators of data & information, a source for you to access and find information. It was never their information, so you the user had to assess its validity. However with the maps project this has been turned on its head and they are now the curators of data. It’s now Google’s responsibility to ensure that the information we see in their maps is accurate. This is causing Google some problems. As the ‘original’ source of information the onus is on them to get it right and relying on their third party partnerships to always provide them the correct information is not entirely working.

Typically they have relied on a ‘crowdsourcing’ model to validate the data that they have in their listings. If the user sees something wrong he can claim a listing and correct it. However not all listings are claimable. In the case of the incorrect financial institution a postcard couldn’t be sent and the phone numbers were not able to be called to verify ownership. This is probably not the only time that erroneous and misleading data occurs in Google Maps. There are probably thousands of examples of listings that do not exist or have inconsistencies.

Is this a problem Google should care about? Well, yes! Let’s take a practical example that we have come across recently. If you look up the address for the MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) in Toronto, Google will tell you it’s situated on King Street East. It’s not! The real location of the store is King Street West. MEC has gone to great lengths to rectify this mistake through Google’s self administration tools and reporting but the mistake still persists and people are going to the wrong location. This ultimately reflects badly on Google Maps not MEC.

What’s more, poor quality information undermines the value of the Maps product. Recently Google started selling tags on their map listing. For $25 per month you can enhance your listing with a tag. See our blog post on Google Places Tags.  If people stop trusting the information in Maps they’ll stop using it and Google will be less likely to sell their tags. If you’re standing outside King Street East looking for MEC you might not be so keen to check Google Maps next time you’re lost and that’s a problem for Google.

Google’s position on this has always been that information changes and that there are ways that users can update the information so that it can constantly evolve and be adjusted. However this is not always possible. Google needs to ensure that its self regulating process works so that when we, the user, highlight a mistake it can get fixed quickly. I think the problem has been that the maps tools is not a huge earner for Google so the manpower to enhance the reporting aspect of it has never been there. Nevertheless, now that they are looking at it as a potential revenue stream they need to ensure quality is ever more present and solutions to the problems of updating erroneous listing quickly and efficiently need to be found. Simply directing users to send in an error report to the black hole of Google customer service is probably not good enough.

Whatever the solution Google comes up with it’s going to need to be scalable, maps is a huge project. I think it will be interesting to see what Google does to ensure quality in what is now a data accuracy project. Can the biggest company with the largest brains show us how to get it right? Try going to MEC on the weekend and see!

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1. How To Rank In Google Local
2. 6S Releases Whitepaper on Importance of Google Local
3. Social Media Tool Foursquare to take on Google, Twitter & Facebook in Canada says @6S_Marketing

Of course, you can respond to positive reviews too and Google published a guide on “How to Respond to Reviews in Google Places“.

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Moving into the future, Amit says there are several functionalities he dreams about implementing one day in an effort to make information accessible and less of a process to retrieve.

• Search beyond text Information that does not come in textual form, such as images, rely on nearby captions, headlines or text – which is then matched with the users search query to result in relevant image results. Today, colors, shapes, and other optical data is factored into a search. This is described by Amit as a very basic form of “Computer Vision Algorithms.”
• Search beyond language Google is now capable of sorting search results in particular languages; you then can use Google Translate to help interpret the rest of the results.
• Relevant Search Queries By filtering search results at the national level first, Google started to make search results more relevant to their users. Expanding on this, the new social search feature is aimed at making search results that much more relevant by showing commentary from people you follow on social networks.
• Real time search Launched in December of 2009, and includes information from social network sites such as Twitter, Facebook, blog RSS feeds and more. This was an update with Caffeine and the outcome of this feature is that Google is able to provide articles more quickly to its users.
• Contextualized meaning Algorithms are working out contextualized meaning for word variations (sale, sail) without a person first needing to enter in the meaning of these words. It can now all be done with algorithms.
• Searching without searches According to Amit, being able to search without searching first is not realistic with the technology of today, nor is it in the long term road map for Google. However, his vision of search-less search revolves around the amalgamation of all the services Google currently offers (Maps, real-time search etc) and being able to deliver this information to the user, without the user having to ask for it.

With the example Amit used during his talk, it seems as though this technology for search-less search is quite possible. For example:

“Imagine that you have to buy a new cricket bat because your old one’s broken and you happen to have an hour of free time between meetings one day. Your phone knows about your shopping needs because they’re in your to-do list and it knows about your meetings because they’re in your schedule. All it needs is your location (which, of course, it has) and some local area information, and it’ll ping out a message advising you that you can just pop down the road, buy that wooden stick, and be back in time for your 2PM meeting”.

In my opinion, this last capability of “search-less search” is very likely in the near future. It will be interesting to see what other functionalities Google implements over the next 20 years and how these functionalities will make information gathering and accessibility that much more faster, or instantaneous.

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