Google Redoes Remarketing

If you have ever set up a Remarketing Group in AdWords, then you know the pain of creating and placing the new code every time you make a change. Recently, Google has released the new Remarketing code which allows one to manage their Remarketing efforts through Google Analytics. This new code is a single snippet that can be placed onto your entire site, instead of needing separate codes for each Remarketing being done.

What is Remarketing?

Before we go too far, let’s make sure everyone understands Remarketing. In simple terms, Remarketing is advertising to people that have previously been to your website. Placing the Remarketing code lets us know who (or which devices) have been to your website and how long ago it was since they have been there. Since this code allows us to know who has revisited a site, as marketers, we can turn these previous visitors into a target market and create tailored ads just for them in attempts to bring them back to your site.

How Does the New Remarketing Code Help?

The new Remarketing code eliminates the need of having a unique code for each Remarketing list. For instance, previously you could create a list of people who came to the site but did not buy, in an attempt to bring them back and still get that sale. On the other hand, you could create a list of people that bought 2 years ago and may now need a replacement, extensions, or upgrade to your product or service. It's easy to see the value of creating these groups and ensuring that these groups are receiving uniquely different messages from your company.

This new Re-Marketing Code enables one to create, modify, and add on to these groups without going through the headache of creating, placing, and double-checking the lines of code for each Remarketing list. Instead, as good marketers, we can focus on the advertisement message, making sure that it is relevant and engaging to the targeted audience.

If you have any questions about Remarketing or the changes that Google has made, please contact DaBrian Marketing Group. We would love to help you grow your Business through PPC.

PPC Experts? - Prove It!

Recently I read an article talking about how there are many "PPC Experts" due to the low barrier of entry. With that said, if you or your company is looking for online adverting assistance, it is crucial to find an agency/person with the right certifications and a proven track record.

The must have as far as certifications are Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter. Google requires an individual to pass 2 different tests to be certified. A general PPC test and a more specific test focused on the Display Advertising, Search Network, or PPC Reporting. Once the individual certification is earned, it must be maintained by retaking at least 1 of the more specific tests annually and the general test bi-annually. Microsoft adCenter, on the other hand, only requires you to pass 1 general PPC test annually to earn and maintain certification.

In addition to being certified, ask to see what the "PPC Experts" have accomplished for other clients, preferably within your industry. Case studies, white papers, and/or a portfolio of their work and accomplishments should be available and easily accessible. I would think that a "PPC Expert" would want you, as potential future client, to know and see their previous success stories.

I hope that this will help you avoid, as the first mentioned article describes, PPC scams. If you have any questions or comments about PPC, AdWords, adCenter, or online advertising in general, please leave a comment or contact us.

SEO: Think You Can Do It Better?

Many business administrators believe their internal marketing and IT staff have the capability of running successful SEO campaigns. This common misconception originates from a theory that SEO is nothing more than a process of choosing keywords that relate to a business and implementing those keywords on the business’ website. However, much more is needed to run a profitable SEO campaign. The number one necessity for running a successful SEO campaign is utilizing a reputable SEO firm--that’s the easy part.

Internet marketing has become very competitive and complex within the past few years. For this reason, companies may no longer find success with a one-time implementation of basic SEO components. To be successful in today’s competitive Internet marketing environment, one must give constant attention to the campaign. For example, factors such as industry trends and changes to the major search engines’ algorithms occur regularly. Competition is fierce; a business may achieve top ranking for certain keywords one month and drop in rank the next if proper attention is not given to the campaign.

SEO firms are better suited than internal marketing staff for managing SEO campaigns because they have insights into Internet marketing strategies appropriate for various types of industries such as: financial services, pharmaceutical, and professional services.

The qualifications and certifications SEO firms acquire, such as SEMPO certification, illustrate the firms’ specific training, knowledge, and skills. SEO firms are subject matter experts--they know what to do and how to do it.

In-house marketing departments may not have the depth of knowledgeable, training, access to industry tools, and time necessary to run a successful SEO campaign. Therefore, it is best to hire an SEO firm to work in conjunction with an in-house marketing department in order for a company to achieve its goals.

By working with an SEO firm, businesses will create efficiencies, save time, and money--after all, that’s what it’s all about it.

The Cost of a Low Quality Score

Quality is important in advertising, but even more so in PPC advertising. Google AdWords gives the top Ad Position to the highest Ad Rank, and Ad Rank is Max CPC Bid multiplied by Quality Score. This means that there are two factors that decide what position your PPC ads are shown – 1) How much you Bid (CPC) and 2)What your Quality Score is. A Quality Score can range from 1 (terrible) – 10 (excellent), as shown below.


In order to clearly see the Value (or Cost) of Quality Score, let’s walk through an example. First, assume a competitor is Bidding $0.75 with a Quality Score of 7. This means their Ad Rank is 5.25. The Table below reveals the CPC Bid that is needed in order to achieve the same Ad Rank depending on your Quality Score.


As you can see, a Higher PPC Quality Score can actually save you money, while a lower Quality Score could cost you $1.00 or more of additional cost per click (CPC.) Let’s continue with this example and assume 100 Clicks in a month. The below Table shows the additional and total savings/cost due to Quality Score.


The Yellow Highlighted Row is your competitor. The Green Highlights show the possible savings per click, and how you could be paying less than your competitor, if you have a higher Quality Score. However, the Red Highlights reveal that a low Quality Score could cause you to pay more than double your competitors per click. Now you should be able to clearly see how a Low Quality Score will greatly increase your Cost per Click, which in turn increase overall Cost, but also how a high Quality Score could lower you Cost and increase your Bottom Line.

Paid Search Drives Offline Sales?

I just finished reading an article, from MediaPost that stated PPC ads help increase in-store purchases. This is great news for the bottom line of the stores/companies running Pay per Click Ads. However, for the marketers, it is very difficult to contribute the off-line sales towards the PPC Campaigns effectiveness. With that being said, new strategies and technologies are beginning to be implemented to ensure that PPC Campaigns get full credit for the online and offline sales that they drive. An example of a strategy being used is implementing coupons via barcodes or keyword phrases, to PPC Landing Pages can help keep track of people seeing the ads online but buying in the store, this is still a work-in-progress. Do you have any other ideas of how to credit the appropriate in-store purchases to the online marketing campaign that initiated the sales process?

Alternative PPC Platforms

Check out DaBrian Marketing Group's latest YouTube video, where our Search Engine Marketing Consultant Justin Miller discusses the importance of pursuing alternative Pay-Per-Click platforms.

For more information on our Pay Per Click and Banner advertising services, please check out the SEM Services section of our website! Also, be sure to subscribe to both our blog and our YouTube channel to always get the latest news and tips for SEM, SEO, Internet Marketing, & more!

PPC Advertising > Keywords + Ad Copy; Don’t Forget about the Landing Pages

Testing is a crucial part of improving your PPC advertising efforts. You test Keywords to enhance targeting and increase relevant traffic to your site. You test Negative Keywords to prevent irrelevant clicks and lower cost. Testing Ad Copy is to find out what appeals best to your clientele. However, testing should not stop there. Your Landing Page is a critical component of obtaining conversions, and not just clicks.

If you have tested and found great Keywords and have excellent Ad Copy, then there is no doubt that, you are getting clicks and driving relevant traffic to your site. However, what is happening after that still has a huge impact on the success of your PPC efforts. Your Landing Page is the first experience a potential customer has with your website. It needs to aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and a good starting point for your conversion funnel.

In order to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your Landing Pages, you will need to integrate your Analytical Solution with you PPC Platform. Once you have the Analytics in place, you can begin testing your Landing Pages with tools, like Web Optimizer. Test various wording, layouts, pictures and more to discover what works best for you and your clientele, and watch your ROI increase.

Be Relevant to Searchers with Dynamic Text

Anyone doing PPC advertising knows that you want to incorporate your best performing keywords into your ad copy. Not only will this help your quality score and cause your ad to stand out more with bold text, but it also keeps you relevant with people searching for your products and/or services. If your keywords are very similar or even synonyms, Dynamic Text will save you many headaches.

Using Dynamic Text will automatically insert your keyword or phrase that is generating the impression into your Ad Copy. This means that you no longer have to create a new ad for each one of your keywords. Instead, save time and effort by letting the automated Dynamic Text take care of it for you.

The example of how to implement Dynamic Text below is from Microsoft adCenter, although other popular PPC platforms, like Google AdWords, provide this service as well.

As you can see, this generic Ad Copy will tailor itself according to the keyword list and the search query. Depending on the search this Ad Copy could read:

Looking for Fresh Fruits?

We have the Fresh Fruit You are looking for.

www.--------------.com/Fresh_Fruits

Looking for Apartments?

We have the Apartments You are looking for.

www.--------------------.com/Apartments

Looking for Computer Parts?

We have the Computer Parts You are looking for.

www.--------------------.com/Computer_Parts

A quick warning, before implementing dynamic text make sure that all your keywords will make sense in the Ad Copy. The keyword “rent apartments” would not work in the example above. Also, make sure that the inserted keyword does not exceed the character limit; otherwise, your ad will not be shown.

Hope this helps improve your PPC efforts and keeps you relevant to your audience.

Helpful Advice to writing Text Ad Copy PPC Advertising

When writing good Ad Copy, one must remember the end goal of the Campaign. Are you trying to drive traffic, obtain conversions, build brand awareness, or something else? For best results, the Call to Action in your Ad Copy needs to be aligned with the goal of your PPC Campaign. In addition to the Call to Action, the other part of the Ad Copy needs to be enticing and informative at the same time. The target audience needs to know what your business can do for them and why they should click on your Ad. Select one benefit that your business can provide and focus the Ad around it. To end the Ad, use the Display URL to tell the target audience who you are.

The first step is now done, you have an Ad. Now, it is time to optimize it. Read over your Ad a few times, trying to slice in keywords whenever possible. These keywords will help make your Ad more relevant and standout among other Ads. Finally cut your ad down to fit the appropriate character limit. Lastly, test your Ad Copy. Try running variations – focus on a different benefit, use different keywords, or reword the Ad – to see what achieves the best results.

From SEM to Results

It seems like businesses are trying to justify SEO, whether it’s the tactics itself or the assumptions that Social Media has made SEO irrelevant. In order to effectively justify SEO for the business, you need to understand their purpose for hiring an SEO agency or an SEO consultant. In most cases, you want more relevant traffic that should generate leads or sales. There’s a process as to how agencies go about implementing a campaign. In addition to improved site traffic, a good consultant or agency should be able to provide you with the following items:
1. SEO Audit – this should identify strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat for competitor in relation to your business goals and objectives.
2. Competitive Data – this information should be used to identify or create a competitive advantage.
3. Web Design issues – they should be able to identify indexing, crawling, load time issues, etc.
4. Improvement!

New Version of Google Analytics: Improved Interface Means Improved Reporting

On March 17, 2011, Google announced that their new and improved version of Google Analytics has been released to beta. They have started rolling out the beta version of the new interface to a small group of users, and have also provided an option for people to sign up for the free beta.

Google Analytics Version 5 brings quite a few improvements and additions to the table, including:

• Streamlined, easier to use interface.
• Customizable widgets.
• Ability to create multiple totally customizable dashboards for each profile.
• New, customizable visualizations, including pie charts and term clouds.

The smoother, more efficient design and added functionality should allow for improved reporting and better insights into the performance of your website. Internet trends are changing day-to-day. Luckily, the tools to monitor these changes are evolving at the same pace.

Your Trademark = My Keyword

Recently, a California Appeals Court ruled that it is legal (as least for now) to use competitors’ trademarks as keywords. Although it is legal, that does not mean you should run out add your competitors’ names, or other trademark terms, to your keyword list. Google Adwords and others give keywords a quality score based on how relevant the term is to your products/services and the landing page of your ads. Assuming that your site is tightly optimized for your specific products/services, then adding competitors’ trademark as a keyword will generate low quality score. This low quality score will result in your ads not being shown, average Cost-Per-Click increasing, and/or ad rank dropping. Although adding competitors’ trademark terms to your keyword list will get more impressions for your ads, specifically when someone is searching for a competitor, is it worth it? This answer may vary depending on the industry, the competitor, and even the location. Before, you start having your ads appear for your competitor’s trademarks, make sure that it is worth the time and effort. My point being, trademark or not, do research and test keywords and make sure that it is worth the time and effort to implement them it into your keyword list, and continue to monitor and measure performance to ensure results.

Marketing. Measuring. Testing. Results!

DaBrian Marketing Group LLC.

Increase Marketing Effectiveness With Web Analytics

When it comes to marketing your product or service, it is best practice to determine who your target audience is, both demographically and geographically. You figure out who you want to market your product or service to, and then where to market it.

When it comes to traditional marketing, it can sometimes be difficult to determine how effective your marketing campaign is, or how many people view it. With internet marketing, however, it is possible to not only determine who is viewing your website, but where they are from, and how much they interacted with your website. With web analytics, you can find all of this information, as well as:

· How much those visitors interacted with your website.

· What traffic sources they came from.

· Where they went after landing on your page.

· Success of e-commerce transactions.

· Determine whether those visitors are generating ROI on your site.

Internet marketing does not stop the moment you launch your shiny new website. It is an ongoing and continuous process, which benefits greatly from being monitored. Implementing web analytics tracking and reporting can provide the key insight to get your results.

Google Adwords Reports + Alerts = Success

Any good marketer will tell you that the success of a marketing campaign is in the results. However, it is not wise to wait for the final results before measuring and analyzing the success of a marketing campaign. Fortunately, Google has made it easier to monitor and review Search Engine Marketing campaigns in AdWords using the customizable reports and alerts. The reports, which can be scheduled monthly, weekly, or daily, are a quick way to see the performance of critical metrics of your campaign at each level. The alerts, on the other hand, are warning signals. Think of them as a check engine light for a car. Alerts can be set-up to warn you that your ad position is dropping, or that you are receiving less impressions, clicks, conversions, etc. Use the Reports and alerts wisely, and they will help keep your Pay-Per-Click campaigns on track, leading you towards success.

Tracking Other Search Engines In A Google-centric World

When you mention the term “search engine” to any internet user, the first name that comes to their mind is usually Google. It is obvious why; Google has held the top spot for search engine usage. Their name has even become a term in itself. Don’t know which companies in your area sell the type of widget you’re looking for? Google it.

When it comes to tracking, Google Analytics tracks a comprehensive list of the most widely used search engines on the internet. This of course includes the three titans Google, Yahoo, and Bing, however it also includes over 40 other organic search engines. But what about the other thousands of organic sources that are out there? Google Analytics does not recognize these sources as search engine traffic by default, and as such, your Traffic Sources report will be somewhat inaccurate and skewed. Even though the “Big 3” search engines drive a great deal of traffic to your website, ignoring the other search engine traffic is statistically irresponsible.

In order to track the search engines not found in Google’s list of recognized ones, you can use the _addOrganic() method. This allows Google Analytics to identify the unrecognized search engines and classify them properly in your reports. By doing this, you can make better-informed decisions and recommendations for with your website’s Web Analytics and determine whether your Search Engine Optimization is working, and not just on the titans.

Discovering the Targeting Abilities of Search Engine Marketing

As someone, who has recently made the transition from the classroom to the office, I am just discovering the depth of the power of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, specifically that of Google AdWords. Any good marketer, or marketing student, can tell you the importance and benefits of having highly focused ads reaching a specific target market. However, figuring out how to practically do this in an efficient and effecting manner is not an easy task; at least not until now. Using Google AdWords, one can easily customize the targeting setting to tightly focus on a specific target market. Some of these targeting options include:

· Keyword Targeting

· Geographical Locations (National to City level)

· Placement Selections (specifying certain websites)

· Language(s)

· Ad Scheduling (selecting Seasons, Days, and/or Hours)

Combining these targeting capabilities to the Conversion Tracking and Budget settings, which are also available with Google AdWords, one can now more easily create, manage, and maintain a marketing campaign, or at least a Search Engine Marketing Campaign.