Internet Marketing Blog

First look at AdWords Ad Sitelinks

Josh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:32:39 +0000

We have been granted access to the Ad Sitelinks beta in Google AdWords for one of our clients. This new feature, which was announced on the Inside AdWords blog two days ago, provides advertisers in the top spot with the ability to show additional keyword links in their ads as shown in the example below. Advertisers [...]

SEM brand lift, maybe

Josh — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:41:48 +0000

A recent post in the Google Retail Advertising Blog describes a study conducted by Google and Levi’s to see if search ads generated brand awareness. The study demonstrated increased brand awareness, but there are some significant caveats to extrapolating to other brands. The study showed a significant increase in Levi’s brand awareness among people who saw [...]

Bug in Microsoft adCenter geo-targeting

Josh — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:27:22 +0000

Original Post, October 28, 3:27 PST Double check your geographic targeting in Microsoft adCenter! We have encountered and reproduced a bug with a support representative in which selecting specific US states for inclusion/exclusion does not get saved. More specifically, we have a US campaign that we switched from national targeting to do so by state so [...]

Local SEO: local store marketing – part 1

Ian — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:57:30 +0000

Studies indicate that “70% of U.S. Households Now Use the Internet When Shopping Locally for Products and Services.” (The Kelsey Group and ConStat Indicates) Ian White reported that “40% of [search] queries have local intent.” If you own a business that depends on local traffic – restaurants, lodging, retail stores and/or services – you simply can’t [...]

Blog Action Day

Josh — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:05:23 +0000

Today is Blog Action Day, and we’re at a loss for profound additions to the deluge of climate change blog posts. This is a business blog, and we are reluctant to share personal issues here. However, climate change is more than a personal issue, and it is already affecting many businesses and — consequently — [...]

Improving web form conversion rates

Josh — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:03:32 +0000

You can drive all the traffic in the world to your website, but it’s a waste the visitors don’t convert. Form design is very often a significant contributor to poor conversion rates. While Key Principles and Specific Recommendations that follow are generally written for forms that solicit contact information from potential customers, they can also [...]

Why and how to tag links

Josh — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:15:42 +0000

When you create online advertising of any kind, it is possible to “tag” the ads in a way that website analytics software like Google Analytics and WebTrends can provide additional information about these traffic sources. For example, tagging can make it possible to tell exactly which ad among several provides the most online purchases or [...]

10 AdWords setup tips

Josh — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:04:57 +0000

Here is a quick checklist of commonly missed tasks that should be undertaken when setting up an AdWords account and new AdWords campaigns. Determine if you’ll use pre-pay or post-pay. We only recommend pre-pay for those cases where you need precise control over the total budget consumed over the life of a campaign. Note that as [...]

Do you know where your ads are? AdCenter’s Publisher Placement Report

Ian — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:01:52 +0000

Just last week we looked at Yahoo’s Ad Placement Report, how it can help optimize your Yahoo PPC campaigns and how discloses the huge number of sites included as part of the Yahoo Search network. Does Microsoft adCenter offer a similar report? Yes, the Publisher Placement Performance report. Running the report is extremely easy. Access it [...]

DoubleClick Ad Exchange expands Google’s content network

Josh — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:53:09 +0000

Google has just announced DoubleClick Ad Exchange and provided more details for advertisers in the AdWords Blog. For advertisers, this means more sites will be available through the content network, many of them large, marquee brands that were previously difficult to reach for many small advertisers. Ad space purchased through the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will appear [...]