Google recently updated its AdWords program to allow advertisers to analyse their competitors a little more closely.

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In order to maximize conversions it is important to present your potential customers with the information or answer they are searching for. A person heads to a search engine to ask a question, our job as SEMs is to answer their question in a small ad and direct them to our or our customer’s website which will ultimately lead to a conversion.

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I recently returned from my first-ever trip to beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. I was there speaking at the Counselor’s Academy PRSA annual conference. (Counselor’s Academy is the section of PRSA for owner’s of small and medium independent agencies).

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An increasingly popular question in attribution management and in advertising measurement is what effect ads – that were viewed but not clicked on – have. These ads are known in the lingo as ‘View-Thrus’ or ‘View-Throughs.’ The related question people usually have is what percentage of credit to give view-thrus for conversions that came via multiple touchpoints (e.g. the customer saw and/or clicked several ads, before buying).

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Advertising in Google’s content network effectively is not an easy task to accomplish, so the Google Adwords blog has created a great set of best practices to help you get started on the right foot. Some of the best practices are detailed below, but check out the Adwords blog for the complete insight. (more…)

Sometimes it perplexes me that we spend so much time questioning the return on investment on Internet marketing spending, but we spend almost no time asking about the ROI of the “tried and true” methods, such as television advertising. So, it was refreshing when I was approached the other day with that question, but the answer, as you might expect, is not so simple.

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The PR industry is in a state of flux with increasing importance on getting into the content and social web business. Consumers are spending more time with digital and social media. Advertising dollars are following. That means less budget to staff newsrooms and reporters, journalists and editors to pitch.

Understanding the needs of their “customers’ customer” is essential for PR agencies and communications professionals to remain relevant and productive. “Push PR” is increasingly being complemented by “Pull” tactics – optimization for discovery. Being able to provide value is essential and here are 3 ways a better understanding of SEO can do just that.

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My article on “Six Odd Tactics For Getting Ads Into Google Maps” posted today on Search Engine Land, and I believe many of my regular readers should find it moderately entertaining. The piece covers how some elements of guerrilla marketing have found their way into some Google Maps advertising patents, and also how some others have used creative means to get messages into Maps via “roofvertising”, “skywriting” and more.

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Maybe you can have too much of a good thing. As the Internet allows advertisers to slice and dice large segments of desirable markets into thinner, more defined slices it also creates something that is much less desirable: smaller profits.

How is that you say? How is it possible to make less on my advertising spend when I am advertising directly to the group that most needs or wants my products? Well, it’s simple supply and demand. While you are targeting a much more defined market you are not going to be alone in that quest to advertiser to just the people that will buy. Remember those pesky competitors? They want those people too because their claim is that they are better than you. Now you are going to find a price war that drives up costs for advertising and makes customer acquisition costs rise which in turn hurt the bottom line. So maybe there is too much of a good thing after all.

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Did you know that you can create a “Search Query Performance Report” from your Pay Per Click campaign? What is so special about this report?  Let’s say that you’ve been running your ads for 15 days in a very competitive market and you’re not getting any conversions.

With this search report you can see what visitors are searching that triggers your ad. Knowing this can help you make some changes in your ad or the landing page that visitors are viewing.  The position of the ad are shown with the click through rate percentage. The high percentage reading indicates the ad is a hit.

To view your search report for your Google Adwords, go to reporting and scroll down to reports.  This will take you to the report center, you want to create similar for the report.  Give the report a name like “restaurant consultants” and be sure to click on search query performance.

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