Review your use of search retargeting with this new benchmark

Only a few years ago, 'retargeting' was the hot new practice in online advertising. Today, as Chango’s new Retargeting Barometer report makes clear, retargeting has entered the mainstream. Let’s take a quick look at this survey of marketers and agencies to see exactly what it revealed and why it should be of special interest to search marketers. Who responded? The Retargeting Barometer consists of responses from 51 U.S. and Canadian marketers working for brands and agencies in a diverse group of industries, including retail, financial services, travel, auto, CPG and B2B. One of the biggest takeaways was straightforward enough: retargeting has arrived, and it’s here to stay. Only a year ago, almost half of survey respondents had to form a new budget for retargeting. This year, budgeting was no longer an obstacle. Only 17% percent of respondents had…

We like this simple PPC advice released by Finch on how to implement and optimize a PPC campaign for ecommerce sites, though it can be adapted across different sectors.

It's a useful checklist for those who are perhaps new to managing adword campaigns, in 9 steps for planning, execution and monitoring your campaign. For in-depth advice on how to manage and review AdWords for marketing managers working with specialists in-house or in company, see our 72 page 7 Steps to AdWords Success Guide. 

Here's a summary of the tips from the infographic.

1. Optimise for visits2. Optimise for conversions3. Maximise your ad creative - see our tips4. Define your keyword management strategy5. Reveal all of your inventory.6. Target your visitors.7. Optimise for revenue8. Optimise for profit ad9. Finally, see how your adwords rank.

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Exploring the opportunities and obstacles of targeting mobile users via the affiliate channel

Mobile is an area that is finally beginning to thrive and produce interesting outputs that can aid the understanding of consumer behaviour in an offline environment. To shed light on the intersection between mobile and affiliate marketing, I asked Angie Goodchild ( Twitter and LinkedIn) Mobile and Product Manager for TopCashback, to give me some of her views on mobile, the challenges that brands have faced and examples of new innovations.

1. A lot of clients within the affiliate industry have seen a massive spike over the last few years in sales via a mobile device – are you seeing similar trends on a publisher front?

We’re currently seeing about 20% of our traffic to the site via a mobile device. iPad is dominant (which can be expected for a site such as ours)…

The Top Movers report helps review how Ad ROI changes

Value/Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Adwords New Top Movers report Whether you manage AdWords Hands-on, or manage others internally or at an agency,  we thought this was a useful addition to AdWords. The new Top Movers Report will help you compare Volume and Cost changes for each campaign quickly. You can compare periods of 7, 14, or 28 days, so it's ideal for weekly or monthly reviews although click quality and value measures need to be accessed from elsewhere.

How to access the new Top Mover Adword report?

Select the 'Dimensions Tab' to view this report.

In brief, it provides a comparison of two consecutive periods, and shows the campaigns and ad groups with the greatest changes in that period and potential…

In order to run a successful social media campaign, your offline activity matters as much as your online activity.

Whilst businesses find it relatively easy to set up social media channels, they struggle with the next step, attracting followers. And it’s not just small businesses that find it a challenge. Even major brand names have Facebook and Twitter pages that struggle to get their fan numbers beyond double figures! In this, the first in a series of posts, I'll explain some practical approaches to gain more interaction on you social channels. If you want to understand the difference between those who attract fans and those who don’t, take a quick look around you next time you travel to the shops. Look at the number of advertising billboards that include social media references. Then look at the packaging of some of the products you buy and there’s your answer. Many businesses forget to…

Get to grips with a little used but highly effective ad type

Sponsored Stories have been one of the most consistently effective ad types I use to get people to click to my Facebook Page. The reason these work so well is that they point users towards a Page or piece of content that their friends are engaging with. When someone interacts with your Page, app, or event it creates a story that their friends may see in News Feed but it's also quite easy to miss. Brands can of course pay to sponsor these stories so more people will see it when their friends have engaged with you on Facebook. Of course this brings a level of social proof or tacit recommendation which is one of the reasons Sponsored Stories are so effective. Here's a typical right hand ad created by a conventional Sponsored Story: …

A 5 step checklist for reviewing your local SEO Campaign

Thanks to Google's algorithmic changes, many small to medium-sized businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to make their mark on the search engines. Big brands have big budgets, and can pay SEO agencies big monthly fees to optimise their website for competitive keyphrases. But smaller businesses are getting left behind; watching their rankings slip and their conversion rate tumble. But smaller business shouldn’t be competing on the same level as these big players; not right away at least. The first step in any search engine optimisation campaign should see these businesses reaching out to the audience that is most likely to buy from them. And that is the audience on their doorstep.

The importance of local SEO

The customer base in your local area is perhaps the most important tool in your marketing arsenal, and one that every business should be tapping into. By employing a…

Search and social media marketing advice for travel marketing

It’s not an uncommon process for a firm at start-up level to take their passion for a product or a service and jump head first into an enterprise that can very easily run away, become unsustainable and ultimately fail. The advent of the online option for travellers to purchase was a great leveller in the travel industry. Distribution was not limited to high street chains as independents could conceivable set up a shop window with 24-hour visibility, seven days a week. Several years later, the big names have flexed their financial muscle in an attempt to dominate the online channel but I’m a firm believer (and more a fan of David than Goliath) that there is enough for the little guy (and gal) to make a nice living. This post is not intended to be a review of business models, simply a guide with some…

Guidance and examples for Buying Guides relevant for other sectors too

‘Buying Guide’ or 'Buyer's Guide' content are a common SEO tactic particularly amongst retailer ecommerce sites, but they can be used in other types of site too such as financial services. They're popular since they tick many of the boxes for effective on page SEO. They're naturally rich in keywords, dense in character count and recognisably original, it’s an easy target to hit on your SEO checklist. They also enable you to link to your main target category and popular product pages with relevant anchor text, so boosting their effectiveness.

Potential customers also love Buying Guides, since, done well, they’re a great research resource in the early ‘information gathering’ stages of the purchasing decision process.

If they provide great advice and a good experience in navigating them,…

A briefing on how 13 of the most significant algorithm changes impact SEO ranking

As you may have heard, Google has released a major update to its algorithm which has seen a significant impact on search results in the UK and the US. Penguin 2.0 released on the 22nd May 2013 is the latest in a long line of updates made by Google aimed at improving search results presented to the user. Although Google has made several changes to its Penguin algorithm over the past year, this latest update is perhaps the most significant and has changed the way Google bots rank all pages on a site not just the homepage. The algorithms are designed to highlight only the best results from a search term and Penguin 2.0 has been created to weed out paid for content that masquerades as ‘real’ content such as advertorials, sponsored content etc so that the user finds…