AdsUpNow Archives - Page 7 of 8

Why Hiring a Search Engine Marketer is Like Going to a Mechanic

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Andrew

Yup, you read that right. At first glance, there might not seem like there’s much similarity between digital advertising and auto repair, but they do have their similarities. For more information on search engine marketing, check out our post on online advertising and the state of search.

First off, both are things you can do yourself. Yup, it’s true. You can do your own car repair the same way you can do your own search marketing. It might take you longer and you might not get the same results, but it’s still possible.

The second reason they are similar is that a lot of people have had bad experiences in the past. Almost everyone you know probably has a story about a shady mechanic, and a lot of people have separate stories about search engine marketers over-promising and under-delivering.

The third reason is that you get what you pay for. There are mechanics out there that will give you a quote for really cheap car repair, but you don’t know exactly what you’re getting. The same is true for search engine marketing agencies. Someone can tell you that you only need to spend $200 per month on search, but don’t tell you what their methods are.

The last reason is that you’re better off hiring a professional. I know I said you can do it yourself, and it’s true. The only thing is that you’re better off hiring someone else. If I asked you to replace the head gasket in your car, the chances are you would have no idea where to start. The same thing would probably happen if I told you to make a search campaign that included dynamic keyword insertion, geo-modifiers, negative keywords, ad rank and quality score. You could spend hours researching how to do all of those things, but the truth is, you’re never done researching. Google, and other search engines, roll out changes constantly, and you need to stay on top of the latest changes in search marketing methods.

At Conversion Logix, we guarantee you’ll see a lift in traffic and will have nothing but good stories to tell your peers and colleagues. We are a full-service digital ad agency in Seattle dedicated to bringing you results.

Does Your Website Promote Conversions?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Andrew

How much of your web traffic do you convert? The chances are, not very much. In fact, most small business’ websites achieve only a 2% conversion rate. That means 98% of your web traffic is leaving without taking any action.

So why does this happen? Consumer behavior has changed. With the introduction of the search engine, consumers shop around before making any purchase decision.

This means that you might get a lot of web traffic, but if all your traffic does is poke around your website for a few minutes and leave, your website isn’t doing you any good.

A conversion is either a sale (hard conversion), or a lead (soft conversion). To maximize your conversions, you need to alter your website to promote both types of conversions.

Examples of ways to promote hard conversions would be a feature where users could buy online. That way, for those visitors that are ready to purchase, they have the option right in front of them.

The only problem with promoting hard conversion is that barely any of your website visitors are ready to make a purchase. Thus, trying to convince your traffic to buy right away isn’t very successful.

Soft conversions are a better way to convert your users. Because a soft conversion usually consists of only contact information, your website users will be more willing to give out their information, allowing you to contact them later.

Examples of a soft conversion would be an offer to join a mail list, or using a conversion driver to give a special to your website visitors.

Also, because they are willing to fill in their contact information, soft conversions are further down the purchase funnel than the average website visitor, as they are already considering your product or service.

Your website can’t be a passive page. The Internet is dynamic; use the ability to change deals on the fly and host mini-sites with your special offers to help increase conversions.

Check out our mini-sites and conversion drivers today and see how to use your existing traffic to create more leads.

Online Listings Bring New Opportunities to Local Businesses

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Andrew

I consult a search engine about local businesses almost every day. You probably do, too. If I’m looking for the nearest bank branch, gas station or restaurant, I type it into Google Maps on my iPhone and away we go.

Research from eMarketer confirms my personal anecdote. They found that more than 70% of consumers check an online source before going to a local business or restaurant.

That’s a huge number. If you don’t put a lot of stock in your online presence, then you should.

Out of that 70% of people, 43% said they visited Google to find out information about a business. By far and away that was the most popular way of discovering new business. In a distant second place, with 30% of the vote, was yellowpages.com.

This tells us that the majority of consumers look for local businesses in the same spots, meaning it’s fairly easy to get noticed.

One of the easiest ways to appear prominently to searchers is to optimize your Google Places listing, and appear in hundreds of online directories with Local AdsUpNow. These two things alone will get you exposure to 73% of the consumers who search online for local businesses.

If you have any questions, sound off in the comments, or contact us for a free digital marketing consultation.

An infographic On the History of Google Places

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Andrew

Fellow Local Search Marketer David Mihm put together an infographic showing the history of Google Places changes over the last few years.

If nothing else, this graph shows the importance of diligence when creating a Google Places listing. It’s not something that you can just set up and forget about – it requires maintenance.

Get a Better Google Places Rank with Local AdsUpNow

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Andrew

More than 3 billion searches for local goods or services take place every month. That’s a huge number, and it’s only getting bigger.

We’ve talked on this blog before about Google Places optimization and some of the ways to get your business listing higher in Google. One of the things we mentioned was using business directories to get what are called “citations.”

Citations are mentions of your business name on the Internet. So why is it important to have so many citations? Well search engines think it’s important, that’s why.

Retargeting: The Ultimate Lift For Website Traffic

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Andrew

We’ve talked about retargeting before, but for those of you who don’t know what it is, how it works, or how it fits in to your digital marketing strategy, here’s the short version: A user visits your website, a tracking cookie gets placed in their browser, your ads appear to them over the next month as they browse the web, and they are more likely to return to your website and take action.

Retargeting is great in that it follows up with your website customers automatically. 98 percent of your web traffic leaves without doing anything, but with retargeting, you get a much higher return rate. In a study from comScore, sites with retargeting got a 726 percent lift in site visitation after four weeks of ad exposure.

Retargeting also reflects positively on your branded search. Branded search is when someone searches for your business, such as “Moe’s Pizza,” instead of searching a broad category like “Pizza Seattle.” Branded searches are important because it means more and more people know about your business. In the same study, comScore noted that after four weeks of ad exposure, branded search increased 1,046 percent.

This means that even if the retargeting ads themselves don’t have a high click-through rate, searchers are still looking for those businesses more often than ones they aren’t retargeted for.

After conducting its study, comScore concluded: “In building the model of branding effectiveness, one strategy clearly outperformed the rest – retargeting. This strategy works well in every scenario and should be considered for both direct response and longer term branding objectives.”

For more information on retargeting, contact us today for a free consultation, or ask a question in the comments.

Mobile Search Increased 269% Y-O-Y in Q4

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Andrew

We’ve talked a lot on this blog about the emergence and importance of mobile advertising, but I’m afraid we’re going to talk about it a little more. According to a new report from IgnitionOne, mobile search advertising spend grew 269 percent year-over-year during the last quarter.

That’s an outrageous amount, and really showcases the increasing importance that is being placed on mobile. Over the same period, mobile ad impressions also increased by 317 percent, and CPC decreased by 8.6 percent. Meaning marketers were serving more impressions at a lower cost than ever before.

Things were all good on the desktop front as well, as desktop search grew 22.4 percent year-over-year in quarter four. There were also increase in impressions (20%), clicks (34%) and CTR (12%).

Overall, the search market is still growing, especially in mobile. If you want some more background on what makes up a mobile marketing campaign, and why it’s important, check out some of our previous blog posts.

If you have more questions about mobile, let us know in the comments. Or, contact us today for a free mobile consultation.

The Car-buying Mobile Revolution

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Andrew

Mobile is transforming everything from shopping to searching. According to wireless statistics, wireless users logged 1.15 trillion minutes on mobile devices in the first half of 2011. That’s more than 6 billion minutes of usage every day.

Car Dealership Mobile App — More and more car dealerships are developing mobile apps

One place mobile is changing the world is in car sales. A recent survey noted that 78 percent of people who are planning to buy a vehicle during the next 12 months will use a mobile device at some point in the purchase process.

If you’re a car dealer and you don’t have a mobile campaign, well, you now have a reason to get one. You can’t alienate such a large percentage of your car shoppers by not having a mobile strategy.

Here are some more stats: 44 percent of mobile car buyers use their phones to compare prices at different dealerships, 32 percent will use them to locate a dealership and 23 percent will use them to contact a dealership.

Those are numbers that you can’t ignore. Mobile is the way of the future, and you need to start adapting your business to the wants of the mobile user.

That means mobile landing pages, mobile ads, mobile SEM, QR codes, SMS campaigns and more. Tailoring to as many different users as possible will ensure none of your customers fall through the cracks.

Call us today and see how we can help you with your mobile strategy. We’ll get you started on the path to digital marketing success.

Small Businesses Moving Aggressively to Online Marketing

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Andrew

Digital marketing is continuing to grow compared to traditional forms of advertising among small and medium-sized companies (SMBs).

According to BIA/Kelsey, digital spending for US SMBs is expected to reach $16.6 billion annually by 2016.

That means 70 percent of SMB marketing budgets will be spent on digital. In 2010, SMBs spent 52 percent of their budgets on traditional marketing and advertising, but that number will shrink to 30 percent in 2015.

Digital marketing includes mobile, social, online directories, online display, retargeting, search, and more.

Neal Polachek, president of BIA/Kelsey, said SMBs are using digital practices to engage their customers for longer periods of time.

“With the advent of daily deals to drive customer acquisition, SMBs are now increasingly focused on leveraging technological solutions to engage, grow and retain a higher percentage of their customers,” said Polachek. “As this trend accelerates, these SMBs will turn to outside providers to harness simple tools, which will enable them to maximize the long-term value of each new customer they acquire.”

Some of the other Key takeaways from the report are as follows:

Overall, U.S. SMB spending on media, marketing and business solutions will grow from $22.4 billion in 2010 to $40.2 billion in 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 percent.
SMB spending on traditional advertising will be essentially flat during the forecast period, experiencing a 0.6 percent CAGR, from $11.8 billion in 2010 to $12.1 billion in 2015.
SMB spending on digital/online media will grow from $5.4 billion in 2010 to $16.6 billion in 2015 (24.9 percent CAGR).
SMBs will also increase spending on performance-based commerce and transaction platforms, from $1.7 billion in 2010 to $4.6 billion in 2015 (21.5 percent CAGR).
Spending by SMBs on customer retention business solutions will grow from $3.5 billion in 2010 to $6.9 billion in 2015 (14.6 percent CAGR).

As you can see, digital marketing and advertising are becoming increasingly important. There’s no excuse for why you shouldn’t have your own digital marketing campaign. Contact us today to learn more.

Infographic on the importance of SMS messaging

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Andrew

So we’ve already explained to you the importance of doing a Text Campaign for your business, but texting has a broader reach than use in mobile marketing. As the number one data service in the world, it is helping developing countries buy and sell things easier and safer.