Author archives: Andrew

Posts by Andrew:

Are You Attracting The Right Crowd With Your Promotions?

Posted on by Andrew

In an attempt to drum up new business, businesses will run sales and promotions. Sometimes these efforts can be successful, but other times it can lead to the wrong kind of new business.

One area where this can be seen is with local restaurants and businesses that use Groupon. Because the discounts on Groupons are so steep, you attract a clientele that isn’t interested in doing business with you, they just want the screaming deal you’re offering for a limited time.

One of our clients experienced this firsthand. They were running a gift card promotion on their website and suddenly leads for their giftcards started pouring in. They called us wondering if we had made any changes to their campaigns, so we dug deeper to figure out what cause the spike.

It turns out their promotion somehow got picked up by a daily-deal aggregating website. We tracked the traffic inside of Google Analytics and found only six out of 30 leads were  even local, and even those six leads were probably mooches who were just interested in free stuff.

The lesson here is that not all leads are the same, and not all promotions are created equal. Even if you have an ad campaign that works well on the surface, if all the leads are garbage, then it was a waste. Always make sure that the promotions you run are focused in on the right audience. If it’s a weak offer, then no one will bite, but if the offer is too easy to get, then you’ll end up giving out a bunch of gift cards to people who have no real interest in what you want to sell. If you’re currently running a promotion, evaluate whether it’s helping you reach the right audience and giving you quality leads.

Give the people what they want – targeted ads!

Posted on by Andrew

For years now we’ve been hearing about privacy concerns related to smartphones and the Internet in general. Sometimes, those concerns have extended to the ad industry and consumers have worried about how their information is tracked. We’ve even had clients be concerned about appearing creepy by using retargeting and data targeting-based ads.

Well, fear no longer because a new survey from Zogby Analytics confirms what we’ve known all along: people prefer targeted advertising.

In the survey, which focused on Internet privacy, most adults were worried about identity theft and viruses when they were online. Furthermore, when the survey asked about advertising, 75% of users liked the ad-supported Internet model, and 70% of the users wanted to see advertising tailored for their interests.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If I’m in support of advertising in exchange for free content on my favorite websites then I know I’m going to be seeing ads. If I’m going to be seeing ads all over the place then they might as well be for things I’m interested in.

The consumer has spoken. For all of those businesses worried about “stalking” their customers online, the truth is that they prefer it. Plus, we implement impression caps to avoid annoying your customers and having a negative impact on your sales.

If you’ve shied away from display ads before, maybe it’s time to rethink that and give a retargeting campaign a try.

How do we protect against fake website traffic and bot traffic?

Posted on by Andrew

We wanted to take a second and give a quick update in regards to the recent reports about click fraud and bot traffic. Click fraud and bot traffic have been around since the beginning of Internet advertising. Luckily, the high-tech nature of digital marketing means attempts to dupe advertisers are discovered and eradicated quickly.

At AdsUpNow, we take our jobs and your campaigns very seriously. We’ve been leaders in data targeting since our company began in 2008. We’ve bought data from multiple sources targeting against keywords, website context, user behavior and more. We’ve also developed and collected our own data targeting techniques through our proprietary website history and sitelist targeting.

The breadth of our experience gives us the ability to detect fraudulent clicks and make sure we drive only real people to your website.

One of our tactics is that we operate your campaigns with an evolving blacklist and whitelist. This means that if a certain website is delivering too many impressions for the amount of traffic it actually receives, we can blacklist that site, so your ads won’t be served on it. We also work with our providers to block sites so you always show up on sites that are brand-safe for your business.

Another way to ensure we deliver the right traffic is through Google Analytics. Our ad servers give us reports, but we like to verify the information with a third-party system to track our traffic to make sure all of the clicks we delivered actually landed on your site. Through Google Analytics we can see exactly which campaign brought the people to your site, and what they did when they got there.

We touch our advertisers’ campaigns every day to assure they are getting the best results and the highest quality clicks as possible.

Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you. Thank you for your support and continued business.

Advertising and the Reticular Activating System

Posted on by Andrew

Have you ever learned about something for the first time and then started noticing that very same thing everywhere you went? That’s called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) and it helps your brain create connections and makes things easier to remember.

One of the most common occurrences of RAS is when you buy a new car. Once you buy that car, you start noticing more cars just like yours on the road. Does this mean that everyone went and bought the same car you did? No! It just means that your brain has forged a connection with something it never cared about before.

So where does this fit in with advertising? I’m glad you asked! Since we can’t necessarily choose what our brains remember, RAS can be used to the marketer’s advantage.

Here’s an example. Say someone sees a Toyota commercial on TV for a new RAV4. A week goes by with no further thought about the vehicle. Then, one day, she is on one of her favorite blogs and notices an ad for a RAV4. A week ago she wouldn’t have even noticed the ad, but now she does. She sees the dealership that it’s for and heads to their website. She finds the car she wants and buys it the next day.

So how should businesses use RAS to their advantage? The answer is with a variety of advertising. You need both traditional and digital advertising components to connect with every shopper. Most people who buy from you will have heard about you through multiple sources. Plus, you don’t know what will activate their RAS. It might be a banner ad, search ad, TV spot or radio ad.

Long story short, if you want to take advantage of RAS, make your advertising memorable, and use variety. You never know what people will remember later on when they are making a purchase.

Brand Jacking: The importance of Protecting Your Brand Name in Search Engines

Posted on by Andrew

If you’re doing a PPC (pay per click) campaign for your business, chances are you are focusing mostly on specific keywords to bring new traffic to your site. This is important, but you shouldn’t forget about buying branded search terms to protect your brand name from brand jacking.

Brand jacking is when someone camps on your brand name in search ads, in an attempt to drive people away from your business. If it seems like a sleazy move, that’s because it is. Luckily for us, Google’s quality score metric makes it cheaper for you to buy your brand name than the guy who’s trying to steal it. So, with any luck, you’ll be able to buy your name for $.20 a click while your competitor has to pay $1 a click.

The problem arises when a company doesn’t buy its brand name and a competitor successfully brand jacks it for an extended period of time. The reason this is an issue is because when a competitor gets clicks with their search ad, Google sees them as the most relevant option. So even if a company starts buying its own name, they have an uphill battle until Google realizes they are the rightful owner of the brand term.

Thankfully, it’s easy to combat this. If you manage a SEM or PPC campaign, stop reading right now and go buy your brand term. We’ve seen too many clients who didn’t want to spend $.20 a click on their brand name, and now have to spend $2 a click to overcome their entrenched competitors.

Don’t lose your brand name to brand jackers! Bite the bullet and buy your brand name. Trust us, it’s worth it.

Use Retargeting to increase your traditional advertising’s effectiveness

Posted on by Andrew

Even in today’s world, traditional advertising is still important. It helps create awareness of your business, familiarizes people with your products and helps drive demand.

The problem with traditional advertising is that’s all it does. It tells people about you, but you don’t have the opportunity to segment your advertising and marketing to people who might be more likely to make a purchase in the short term.

That’s where we come in.

In order to help you get better ROI from your existing advertising, we use retargeting. If you think about it, all your advertising tells people to visit your website. Your URL is on every bus ad and your TV ads end with your website address. After people see your ad, they hit the Internet to find out more about you.

So you spent all this time and effort getting people to your site, do you really think they’re going to convert on their first visit? The answer is no. In fact, 98% of people who visit your site will take no action – they’re just there to browse.

Retargeting fights window shopping and delivers ads to your website visitors after they leave your site, helping you increase your conversion rate and maintain top of mind awareness of your business.

Make 2013 your best year yet and start a retargeting campaign for your business.

Tablet users are engaged during primetime – are you marketing to them?

Posted on by Andrew

Tablets are becoming more and more commonplace both in work and at home, and they are now the ultimate companion device for consumers as they watch TV.

In a new report from Flurry Analytics, tablet users are shown to use their tablets throughout the day, but during the primetime hours the usage spikes.

What does this mean? It means tablet users are using their devices as they watch TV. They’re searching, networking and playing games. Their high engagement during the primetime TV hours means that you have an additional way to get their attention instead of just TV commercials.

Imagine you run a primetime TV spot at 7:30 p.m. on a local news channel. An interested customer sees your ad, grabs their tablet and looks you up online. You have two opportunities to grab them while they are searching for your business.

The first is with a search targeting campaign. Also known as paid search, search targeting puts your ad at the top of search engines. This gives you the chance to reach people as they look up your business.

The second is with Retargeting. Retargeting displays ads to people after they visit your website, allowing you to remarket your business to them. So if the interested tablet user searches and finds your website, but leaves without taking action, you can still reach out to them through a Retargeting campaign.

Tablet users have high primetime engagement, and tend to be older and more affluent than other demographics. It’s time to target tablet users with search and display ads.

The Final Part of the Boeing Classic Campaign: A Mobile Website

Posted on by Andrew

The third portion of the campaign was the mobile website. Since the rate of mobile Internet adoption is expected to pass desktop Internet useage in two years, it was almost essential to offer a mobile interface for Boeing Classic. The mobile page featured links to the Boeing Classic Facebook page, directions to the golf course, a schedule of events, and an embedded Twitter widget programmed to grab tweets about the Boeing Classic. The mobile site also featured a tee times page that we updated daily so tournament-goers could see when their favorite players were teeing off.

Overall, the campaign was a huge success. We brought more than 1,000 people to the Boeing Classic website, and delivered more than half a million ad impressions to Boeing Classic’s target demographic. Our ads were displayed on thousands of websites, spanning more than 50 ad networks. These results echo what we see with our clients every day. Boeing Classic wanted a far-reaching display campaign, and we delivered.

This is just one example of how our clients use our products to attract more people to their site. Go to our website to learn more about starting your own digital marketing program.

Boeing Classic Campaign Part Two: Pixel Targeting

Posted on by Andrew

The second part of the campaign was a Pixel Targeting campaign. Pixel Targeting is a unique product that we developed to find appropriate customers based on their purchase history, search intent, search history and more. For Boeing Classic, the Pixel Targeting campaign was aimed at Washington State golf enthusiasts. This allowed Boeing Classic to reach out to people who might not have heard about their website, but would be interested in attending the tournament.

The Pixel Targeting campaign used the same creative as the Site Retargeting campaign, and the eye-popping design grabbed the attention of golf enthusiasts as they browsed their favorite websites. This part of the campaign was focused on high-volume ad inventory and succeeded in reaching thousands of people in Boeing Classic’s target demographic.

Overall campaign stats were just as impressive as Retargeting: 301,051 impressions, 527 clicks and a CTR of .18%

AdsUpNow Sponsored the Boeing Classic

Posted on by Andrew

The Boeing Classic annual golf tournament draws large crowds throughout the Puget Sound Region and Washington State every August. The $2 million purse and $300,000 first place prize money bring out some of the best golfers on the PGA TOUR Champions Tour. To help promote this famous Washington State event, AdsUpNow sponsored the Boeing Classic with a full digital marketing package and mobile website. The end results were fantastic, as the various campaigns delivered more than 500,000 ad impressions and drove more than 1,000 people to the Boeing Classic Website. Over the next few days, I’ll take you through our campaign and what we did for each part.

The first part of the package was a Site Retargeting campaign. Site Retargeting allowed Boeing Classic to serve ads to everyone who expressed an interest in the Boeing Classic by visiting their website. This repeat exposure helped increase top of mind awareness as the event drew closer, and succeeded in bringing more than 600 people back to the website who otherwise wouldn’t have returned.

The Site Retargeting campaign was designed to grab the attention of Boeing Classic’s website visitors. It involved nine sets of creative, each one advertising different events that happened over the weeklong tournament. The campaign was hugely successful, and shows the power of following-up with your current website visitors.

Overall campaign stats were extremely impressive:  195,643 impressions, 606 clicks, and a CTR of .40%.