Practical tips to refine your PPC targeting

Recent changes to Google’s AdWords tool allow PPC marketers to set up paid search campaigns without populating long lists of plurals, abbreviations, acronyms, misspellings and stems. In my last post, I mentioned the need to review keyword match types regularly to ensure your paid search campaigns remain profitable. The recent AdWords changes make regular reviewing even more important; especially for small and medium enterprises. Here, ClickThrough Marketing’s Paid Search Manager, Saiqa Bi, looks at the implications of the changes, and the potential pros and cons for internet marketing.

A brief recap on Adwords functionality

Before we delve any deeper into what the recent to AdWords functionality mean for you, it’s probably worth a quick recap of what does what in AdWords: Phrase match keyword targeting allows advertisers to target an ad to any search query that contains…

An example of aligning the Tesco.com digital marketing strategy with retail growth strategy

I was recently speaking at the Internet Retailing Expo and when attending, I noticed Tesco announcing their online marketplace. This has now quietly soft launched in the UK. This interested me as yet another sign of Tesco responding to online opportunities, in this case by opening a marketplace to sell products from other retailers as part of its Tesco Direct offering. Currently marketplace sellers aren’t explicitly featured as in Amazon product listings, instead, it’s folded into search results for some products: It looks as if Tesco are testing how to best integrate the marketplace approach now, as part of a soft-launch.

Tesco marketing strategy - 7 core principles for growth

I was also interested that at the show Tesco talked about how the marketplace supported…

Or is it simply a case that we've now no excuse, fellow marketers?

I've seen this graphic (below) appear a few times now and the general consensus appears to be:  "wow - how insanely complicated is social media" see an example here. I really disagree that this is in any way negative, so much so that I'm eventually compelled to post on the topic. Update 15th June 2012: A new diagram has also been released this week by SMI which shows that it's not so complex in reality. We like the attempt to simplify!  But, back to my main point, I feel some people are missing the gilt-edged opportunity… It's nowhere near as complicated as it looks. Why? As marketers we should be using a process to focus on our own consumers/personas and not get obsessed with the vast array of channels and tactics, you'll quickly shorten…

Why global marketing theory often differs from reality

On paper, global marketing is undoubtedly a great concept. The idea of leveraging a marketing strategy across multiple markets seems to be nothing but beneficial. It saves effort and resources, and ensures a high degree of consistency between all in-market branding and activities. However, the question of whether global marketing works is a frequent conversation topic amongst marketers, and the concept of globally-led marketing resources can be subject to much scepticism. So, how do you make global marketing work?

Stop the swinging pendulum

Marketing departments, particularly those in larger companies, seem to follow similar pendulum movements. Sometimes central teams are set up to oversee all territories; at other times these same teams are fragmented into regional or local components, each focusing on their specific market(s). Yet, there are ways to stabilise the pendulum…

Using segmentation to make your social media marketing relevant

We've mentioned the value of Forrester's technographics ladder before. It's a useful tool. Aimia, a Canadian company who specialise in loyalty management, have created a segmentation model that analyses the behavioral drivers of trust and control to identify six social media persona types – these are no shows, newcomers, onlookers, cliquers, mix-n-minglers and sparks. It's the behaviour angle which makes this worth a proper look. “Today’s approach to social media measurement – racing to rack up the most ‘likes,’ retweets, followers and recommendations – is the wrong approach. Marketers must define success not by social media activity, but rather by customer value and engagement,” Doug Rozen, Aimia senior VP, lead author of the report Naturally, Aimia argues that there's single social media channel can deliver a complete picture of customer behaviour, specific social media personas are identifiable which, if engaged directly, can reap benefits for…

Three examples including the new Smart Insights digital marketing 'health check'

I've been meaning for some time to write about using interactive tools within your digital marketing. I think it's something that's hugely effective; I've used these for years and it still seem surprisingly uncommon given their potential. [caption id="attachment_14593" align="alignleft" width="385" caption="The new Smart Insights Health Check"][/caption] My reminder to talk about this is since we've just finished our new interactive, our digital marketing health check - which you can try it here. It's designed to give you  immediate ideas by helping you quickly evaluate areas to focus on within your digital marketing. Its core purpose is to signpost key content on our site that's going to be most relevant to you at that moment. It's simple, quick and focussed on defining your priorities. That aside, we wanted to bring…

3 top tips to encourage sharing and 7 bad habits to avoid

Social media enthusiasts tend to look at press releases, and public relations in general, with a jaundiced eye. As a heavy social media user since 2005, I must admit I have read thousands of press releases I wouldn’t dream of sharing with my social communities. Nevertheless, I am an optimist! I believe the PR industry can adapt and publish press releases that are highly shareable on social platforms.

Three good reasons press releases should be socially shareable

Should press release writers care about social media sharing? I can think of three extremely important reasons: Social media exposes a firm to new groups of prospects and referrers. Social shares from influential social media participants increase a firm’s credibility. Social sharing may have a rippling effect that improves brand awareness. Unfortunately, many…

Alert: June 13th 2012 ICANN gTLD announcement gives new creative opportunities or scope for more trademark infringements?

Value/Importance: [rating=2] (It won’t be an option used by most companies) Recommended link: ICANN announcement and FAQ

Our summary of the domain name changes

Over the years we’re used to the periodic release of new top-level domains such as .info or .name. This new approach is more significant, ICANN, the domain authority describes it as “The new gTLD program is one the most substantive changes to the Domain Name System (DNS) in the Internet’s history”. Today, the first names applications were revealed on June 13th. They have been kept secret, but the examples above have all been applied for. Some that caught my eye are: .baby .life .design .Paris .degree .dell .hotel .coupon .gripe This ICANN video gives a good introduction to the reasons behind the changes and the…

A tutorial and examples of adding captions and subtitles to videos

In the past, there were four main things that needed your attention in order to optimise your online videos for search engines; video title, description, category and tags. These things still apply but now there is another really useful tool. Closed captioning means that the content of your video is available in written word format which is something that search engines can read and identify. What is closed captioning? Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a screen (e.g. on a TV programme or online video) to provide additional information to what is already being presented. The reason it is termed ‘closed’ captioning is that only viewers who choose to activate them will see them. ‘Open’ captions are visible to all viewers. Some people use the terms ‘captions’ and ‘subtitles’ interchangeably. However, captions are slightly different as they aim to describe what…

9 tips and good practice examples to improve customer service quality through the big five social networks and other tools

Many savvy marketers have known for a long time that social media is more than just facebook pages and YouTube channels and that these channels have far more to offer than mere ‘brand awareness’. Engaging a brand’s customers (and developing a stronger relationship with them as a result) has been one of the main justifications for brand’s investing in social media despite it remaining difficult to demonstrate an accurate ROI for social media activities. I believe this is missing the point.

Integrate social media across the whole business

Social media should be viewed more broadly across a business and form part of an organisation's structure. And, as brands and businesses start to recognise the importance of integrating social media beyond the marketing or PR teams,…