Category: Local Marketing

Clicks aren’t the only thing to look at in a display campaign

Posted on by Andrew

A lot of the time, people focus on the click-through rate of banner ads to measure how successful they are. This is a fine way to get the baseline statistics on how a display campaign is performing, but banner ads offer much more than just ways for people to get to your website.

One of the ways they help is with overall brand recognition. Your display advertisement could be the first time that someone hears about your brand, and even if they don’t click on it, they are still being exposed to your company.

A second way it helps is by bringing a lift to your search engine marketing campaign. Running a display ad campaign with a SEM campaign has proved to bring significant lift in sales volume. For example, Salesforce.com found that running a display campaign with their search campaign increased branded search and conversion volume by 80 percent.

You can also get a lift in your website conversions through Retargeting. Retargeting displays ads to all the people who have visited your website, keeping you top of mind throughout their researching cycle.

Display and search can combine to make your website a lead-generation machine. If you have questions, or want to get started with either search or display ads, contact us for a free consultation.

Local Internet Advertising Spending Expected to Pass Print Advertising in 2013

Posted on by Andrew

The Internet is about to claim another victim. First it was the postal service, then the classifieds, next it’s going to be print all together.

A new report from Borrell Associates said that online spending was up 21 percent in 2011, and will pass local print spending next year.

Despite the big increases, traditional media still holds the majority of all advertising dollars, but Internet spending is increasing, while traditional is decreasing or staying flat. That means that sooner or later, Internet advertising will surpass all traditional advertising, though who knows when that will be.

Borrell is predicting that the overall growth of local online advertising will be 18%, as it goes from $15.7 billion to $18.5 billion.

Also, if mobile is included as part of that projection, the number will jump to more than $26 billion by 2016.

Those are some huge numbers, and they really reflect the current changes in the advertising landscape, as more and more money is moved from traditional to online.

Curious about getting an online campaign of your own? Contact us today for a free consultation. We do mobile targeting, retargeting, search marketing and much more.

Local Advertising is Going Digital

Posted on by Andrew

According to research firm BIA/Kelsey, more than one out of every four ad dollars will be spent on digital advertising by 2016.

US companies are expected to spend $136.2 billion on local advertising this year, and that number is expected to rise to $151.3 billion by end of 2016.

Out of that rise in local advertising, traditional is expected to remain flat during the period, with most of the growth coming from digital advertising.

Digital advertising is expected to grow from 16% of total local advertising to more than 25% over the next four years.

Digital advertising is gaining traction and there’s never been a better time to get started with a campaign of your own. We are a full-service, digital ad agency that specializes in creating the best campaigns for your business.

If you want to learn more about products like search targeting, retargeting and mobile landing pages, check out our website. Or, contact us for a free consultation.

The Big Shift From Traditional to Digital Advertising

Posted on by Andrew

About three-quarters of enterprise decision makers have been shifting their budgets from traditional advertising to digital in the last year. In fact, about one-third of the marketing executives said they shifted more than half of their budget from traditional to digital.

According to a March 2012 report from DataXu, these numbers will continue next year as well, with 4 out of 5 who are shifting to digital saying that they will continue to do so for the next year.

The main reasons for the big switch is increased metastability. With a lot of traditional media, especially print, you can’t choose who sees your ads and how they see them. With digital advertising, you can choose how many people you target, what actions you are targeting them through, and you can interact with them directly after they take an action. With print media, you have to hope they respond, but you have no way of knowing if they do.

Are you doing any sort of digital advertising such as search engine marketing, retargeting or banner ads? If not, you need to get started. Internet marketing is here to stay, and can give you the best bang for your buck, while at the same time giving you more control over your campaigns than you ever thought possible.

Contact us for a free consultation.

Paid Search Impressions and Clicks Increasing, Cost Decreasing

Posted on by Andrew

Paid search spending grew 30.3% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2012, representing the highest growth rate since the last quarter of 2010 (35%).

These numbers come from IgnitonOne, who tracked Internet marketing usage during this time period.

Mobile and tablet paid search also increased, with spending up 221.1% year-over-year, and impressions up 119.9%.

Despite the increased budget spending, cost-per-click didn’t increase, rising just 0.9% year-over-year. Clicks rose 32.5% and click-through rates were up 25.3%.

All these numbers mean good things for small businesses trying to use search marketing. Clicks and click-through rates are rising, and the cost per click isn’t changing at all. This means that businesses are getting more impression and clicks than ever before for the same price.

If you’re interested in getting started with search engine marketing, contact us today. We target and fine-tune all of our campaigns, giving you the best return possible on all your marketing efforts.

Local Digital Ad Spend to Reach $38.5B by 2016

Posted on by Andrew

In a new report from research firm BIA/Kelsey, it projected that local online and mobile advertising will grow at an annual rate of 12.7%.

These numbers show substantial lift compared with the $21.2B spent in 2011, but still pale in comparison to traditional advertising spend.

Traditional Spend was $111.5B in 2011, but is only projected to grow to $112.7B. Those are essentially flat numbers, meaning not much will change from no until 2016. In fact, traditional ad spend will decrease to account for about 75% of overall ad budgets, dropping almost 10% from the 84% it’s at now.

This research shows that more and more small businesses are investing into digital advertising, but the real question is: are you?

If you haven’t evaluated your online strategy recently, you need to. Digital advertising is not going away, in fact, it’s only getting bigger.

Check out some of our offerings for digital marketing. We do all sorts of search and display advertising. We also do email marketing, mobile websites and more.

Mobile, Mobile and More Mobile

Posted on by Andrew

We’ve preached over and over how mobile is changing the digital marketing and advertising business. We’ve seen it with our own clients, and marketers across the U.S. are increasing their mobile budgets as well.

The latest report comes from Marin, a search-management software company. They predict that mobile will be bigger than desktop soon, and that marketers need to raise budgets accordingly.

One prediction is that at the current run-rates, mobile devices will account for 25% of all paid search clicks on Google by December 2012. Additionally, the share of ad spend will be 23%. Those are additions of 103% and 164%, respectively.

One of the driving factors behind all of this growth in mobile is the insanely fast consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets. In 2011 alone, Apple sold more iOS devices than the total number of Macs ever sold in the last 28 years.

Another reason for adding mobile into your business’ marketing strategy is that smartphones have higher click-through rate, and a lower cost-per-click than both desktop and tablets. Smartphone users click on ads 4.12% of the time compared with 2.39% for desktops and 3.12% for tablets. Additionally, the cost per click is only $.53 for smartphones, compared with $.83 and $.63 for desktops and tablets, respectively.

So have you decided that you need mobile yet? Well if you haven’t yet, I’ll do my best to convince you with some more data about mobile over the next few days.

Search Engine Use Continues to Grow

Posted on by Andrew

More than half of adult search engine users make searches at least once a day. That represents a 54% increase from 35% in 2004. This represents a huge increase in the number of people that use search engines to find information.

These numbers come from a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Search engine use has never been higher. Daily use is highest among 18-29 and 30-49 year-olds (60%), college graduates (70%), and people with household incomes of more than $75k (68%).


Search engines are also seen as reliable sources of information, while almost three-quarters of users say that most of the information they find is accurate and trustworthy.

So what does all this mean for small business marketing? Well, it means that if you aren’t in the search results, you need to be. Search engines are being used more frequently than ever to find information, and users see them as a reliable and trustworthy way to find what they’re looking for.

One way to get in the top of the search results is with search targeting. Also known as paid search, search targeting gets your ads into the top of the search results page, resulting in increased visibility and clicks.

Another way to show up in search results is to optimize your Google Places page. Create a unique Google Places page that provides information for people to find your business.

Another way to get better results in the local search rankings is to use a business directory service to get more citations of your business. A service such as Local AdsUpNow gets your business listed in almost 150 directories, giving your business increased presence and authority in Google’s eyes.

It’s not too late to get in the search results. Contact us today to get started with search targeting or Google Places Optimization.

More Marketers Flocking to Mobile

Posted on by Andrew

These days, information is passed through more channels than ever before. It used to be the big three: radio, TV, and print. Now, digital marketing has overtaken print to become the second-largest advertising medium based on spend.

2012 seems poised to continue the trend of proliferating digital marketing and advertising – especially in mobile. In a recent survey by ValueClick, 65% of US marketers’ planned on increasing their mobile ad spend for 2012.

The increase is notable, but what’s also significant is that only 3% said they were going to decrease their budget for mobile. I’m not sure who those 3% are, but they need to wake up and smell the mobile.

Another stat from the report is that the lion’s share of mobile ad budgets are going to search and banner ads, with 34% and 30.7% respectively. Also, 49% of marketers plan to use mobile video as part of their budget.

Mobile is emerging as the next large advertising medium, and with more dollars being spent online – both mobile and desktop – than ever before, marketers and business owners need to jump on board and get their feet wet in mobile.

Digital Politcal Ad Spend Increasing

Posted on by Andrew

It’s an election year, which means upcoming political candidates are spending a lot of advertising dollars are being spent to promote their campaigns.

According to new numbers from a report by Borrell Associates, online political ad spending is set to increase to $160 million this year – up from just $22 million in 2008. That marks a huge increase from how the digital advertising space was valued just four years ago.

Of that $160 million in online spending, 30% of it is expected to be targeted display advertising, such as retargeting and contextual targeting. Another 32.6% of the political budget will be spent on search targeting.

The only areas losing share for online spending are email, and streaming audio. Streaming video is expected to hold at 22%.

So the biggest names in politics are investing more and more into digital advertising, showing that online advertising is seen as more necessary than ever.

Are you stepping up your digital game for 2012? Digital advertising is growing across the board, and if you aren’t taking advantage of it, you need to.

Contact us today for your free digital consultation.