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Friday, May 22, 2009

The Next Frontier In Search Marketing



by Sramana Mitra


It may be hard to believe for tech types like us, but in 2008 newspaper advertising still consumed almost $35 billion of U.S. advertising spending while TV took in double that amount. If I were a CMO, would I be spending so much on avenues that are so wishy-washy, unmeasurable and downright ineffective?

Online advertising's lure has been growing as businesses see it as a more effective way to measure customer engagement. In 2008, the Internet took in $23.4 billion in ad spending. Pioneered by Google, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is both measurable and efficient, and is attractive due to its pay-for-performance attribute.

But recently, paid search ad spending has been slowing down as advertisers figure out that organic search results drive a much more significant portion of their traffic. Organic search refers to search results that are not paid for by advertisers. They are a search engine's natural results, purely driven by the algorithms.

Internet tracker Hitwise claims that "the share of search traffic to Web sites generated from paid listings has dropped to about 7.25% over the last four weeks, down from 9.8% during the same period a year ago. And Hitwise noted that paid clicks from searches for brand name terms--such as Home Depot and Orbitz--saw especially sharp drops."

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim points out that these major advertisers are most likely relying more heavily on organic traffic. Thus far, however, organic search marketing via search engine optimization (SEO) has not exactly been a science. CMOs have been leery of paying fees to SEO agencies and consultants without the ability to measure what they're getting in return.

This could change with Enquisite, a new search engine marketing company. For businesses that rely heavily on online traffic, Enquisite's search marketing innovation promises to address an important gap in search marketing: driving more of the right organic search traffic.

Through its suite of products like Enquisite Campaign, Enquisite Optimizer and Enquisite Auditor, customers can maximize their traffic flow from organic search results, and agencies can be completely transparent in demonstrating the progress and value of their work. They can even charge on a pay-for-performance basis, making organic search engine marketing a viable bucket in which CMOs can now safely allocate ad dollars.

I'm not the only one who is excited about this company. Veteran entrepreneur Mark Hoffman has made Enquisite his next run. For those too young to remember, he founded the database technology pioneer Sybase, and served as its chairman, chief executive and president. He was also chairman, chief executive and president of Commerce One, which is considered to have established the software standards for electronic commerce.

Enquisite was spun off from founder Richard Zwicky's prior venture Metamend, an SEO consulting boutique. The company has raised $12 million in funding so far.

There are lots of companies like Omniture, Coremetrics, WebTrends and Marin Software in the Web analytics sector, but none of these are focused on organic search. Yet 88% of Internet search traffic flows through organic search results, making it one of its biggest untapped innovation opportunities in the domain of online marketing. SEO is mostly contracted as a professional services (flat fee) model but SEO agencies earn little compared to the value delivered.

Enquisite provides the technology to address the untapped organic side of the search market. It has the necessary technology to measure, report, demonstrate and audit the results with no lag time. Customers are assured of predictable results since the profitable business model mitigates client risk and maximizes performance. This way, both the agency and advertiser are highly motivated.

Enquisite targets large sites that depend heavily on traffic for their business. These are generally in segments like travel, insurance and online retail. Customers include sites like Viator.com, as well as agencies like Metamend, Bruce Clay, ZaaZ and Netconcepts. Enquisite leverages agencies as its main channel. Some customers, like Viator, have seen a 300% improvement in natural traffic since they began using Enquisite.

Instead of spending advertising dollars on newspaper and magazine ads, focusing on acquiring more organic search traffic as a key pillar of advertising strategy should become mainstream in the next 12 months. Thus, I see organic as the next big frontier in online advertising.

As Hoffman puts it: "If a $100 billion market-cap company [Google] can be built on the shoulders of just 12% of the world's search traffic, what kind of value creation opportunity remains locked in the other 88%?"

Indeed, it would be wonderful to see innovators tap into the organic search opportunity and create both some great companies, as well as an eco-system that would take search marketing to its next level.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Twitter, online patter inescapable, says panel



by New Mexico Business Weekly



Gweneth Doland of the New Mexico Independent says she gets breaking news on her iPhone before she even gets out of bed in the morning.
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Experts on social media, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, say that soon the entire Internet will be transformed by these communications concepts.

“It will be much richer than what we see now,” said Sophie Martin of the online site, Duke City Fix. “We, as a community, will go much further with it in the future.”

Martin founded Duke City Fix, www.dukecityfix.com, five years ago in Albuquerque. It is a unedited community Web site about the city, moderated by volunteers.

The panel was hosted by the New Mexico Advertising Federation at the Embassy Suites hotel. Approximately 100 were in attendance. The discussion covered the growing influence and impact of social media on advertisers and consumers.

“When I wake up in the morning and roll over, the first thing I grab is my iPhone,” said Gweneth Doland of the New Mexico Independent.

Doland said she worried for years about the effect social media seemed to have on the “demise of newspapers,” but now thinks the two mediums offer a different product.

Doland previously worked for the Weekly Alibi and the Santa Fe New Mexican before taking a position with the entirely online Independent.

Panelists agreed that there are many misconceptions about social networking sites — the main one being that it’s only used by young people.

“The fastest growing demographic for Facebook is women over 50,” said panelist Greta Weiner of GWDC LLC, an Internet marketing company in Albuquerque.

“Power moms are also using Facebook. These are moms that are very busy, but want to keep up with what their kids are doing and keep up with the latest information.”

During the question and answer session, audience members wondered if social media was really the future of the Internet.

Martin said a familiar refrain she hears from clients is that they don’t have time to keep up with all the sites and constant updates.

“However, 10 years ago [clients] were wondering if they even had to have a Web site and wondered if it had to be good,” she said with a smile.

Other panelists included Nora Heineman Fleck, who runs the social media programs for the University of New Mexico, and Silvia Uribe, who administers a community news Web site, Edhat.com, out of Santa Barbara, Calif.

The New Mexico Advertising Federation was established in 1959 and serves as an “advertising voice” for the state. It is a chapter of the American Advertising Federation. The AAF is the nation’s oldest national advertising trade association, representing 40,000 professionals in the advertising industry.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The power of paid search marketing



by AlterSage


With our previous focus on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and its importance in search marketing, we now look at Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising as the twin influence. PPC and SEO are the elements that comprise search marketing, and if the correct synergy is achieved, the two prove to be powerful marketing tools.
PPC works on a bidding system and provides paid-for traffic to your website on a per click basis. PPC advertising is key-phrased based and there are three visual elements to a Pay Per Click advert: a title, a description and a display URL. Adverts are displayed alongside relevant searches in the search engines, and alongside contextually relevant content on third party sites that have opted into PPC advertising publishers' programmes (also known as Adsense). 

The position the advert takes on the search engine result page depends on a number of factors generally referred to as the Quality Score. These include the bid cost for the keyword (versus the competition), as well as the relevance of the advert, your chosen keywords and the landing page. Google determines the position of your advert by utilising a weighted algorithm that takes these factors into account. This means that the highest bid will not necessarily rank first in these paid listings. 

A PPC campaign can complement a SEO campaign in a variety of ways, especially in the early stages of the SEO campaign when the website is still acquiring organic rankings within search engines. PPC is a valuable marketing research tool since it is a great way to test key-phrases for an SEO campaign. Due to PPC's immediate nature, your online marketing consultant can track which key-phrases are attracting the most visitors and conversions and adjust the SEO campaign accordingly to ensure maximum return on investment. Industries in South Africa that prosper by implementing PPC campaigns typically include commerce related websites and services such as property, tourism, financial services and consulting, health products, flowers, gifts, technology and dating amongst others. 

Some studies suggest that running a SEO and PPC campaign simultaneously provides better click-through results. “You may not have a presence on the search engines in the organic listings for all of the key-phrases for which you'd like to rank, but utilising PPC to fill in the gaps will allow you to have a presence for all key-phrases related to your business activity” says Christine da Silva, AlterSage Founder and Chief Strategist. PPC can help to create brand awareness within the online sphere, especially since Google Ads appear not only on search engines but also on websites that have opted into the AdSense programme. These sites form part of the content network and give your PPC advert greater exposure to targeted audiences on third-party sites.

Another benefit of PPC is that the adverts appear in the search engines straight after you activate your campaign, therefore PPC is great way to achieve immediate results. Of course the advertisements are only active while you're within your budget, meaning that the only drawback is that as soon as your budget runs out, so do your paid visitors. 

For e-commerce websites a search engine marketing campaign that combines PPC and SEO is a great online marketing solution, especially for promotions. Since PPC adverts appear immediately and for any geo-location, they can be placed at any time to promote products for special events or occasions like Valentine's Day or Mothers Day anywhere around the globe. 

There are a number of ways to maximise the standard PPC conversion rate of 2% to the more profitable margins of between 4% and 10% (and sometimes as high as 20% depending on industry and offer), one being that the URL in the adverts should link to a unique landing page on your website. This will transfer the visitor to persuasive content relevant to exactly where they want to be. This typically reduces any additional clicks and searches on the website and psychologically leads to an action (conversion) taking place faster. Faster meaning possibly within the session rather than a return session. 

Google recently announced they will be removing trademark protection and allow competitors to bid on rival trademark terms and brand names. “With this new Adwords ruling taking effect from 1 June 2009, it will be imperative that PPC campaigns are supported with a solid SEO campaign to promote increased presence regardless of competitor bidding,” says da Silva.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Google No Longer #1 Company to Work For




by www.submitedge.com


Last year Google headed up the Fortune Magazine list of the 100 best companies to work for. This year they got shoved down to #3 – by a data management company, no less.

According to Fortune, NetApp has made the list the past six years – and landed the coveted top dog spot this year because of their realistic take on the way things work in the real world:

Typical of its down-to-earth management ethos, NetApp early on ditched a travel policy a dozen pages long in favor of this maxim: “We are a frugal company. But don’t show up dog-tired to save a few bucks. Use your common sense.” Rather than business plans, many units write “future histories,” imagining where their business will be a year or two out.

NetApp also has a top notch health package that includes autism benefits (unheard of), generous adoption aid credits ($11,390), and even five days paid leave a year for the specific purpose of allowing employees time to do volunteer work.

NetApp has had an increase in market share this year despite the economy, hasn’t had any layoffs, and has a liquidity of $2 million in cash, proving that treating employees right isn’t necessarily exclusive of profits.

Google still makes the list, but it seems more due to relaxed atmosphere, a generous telecommuting policy and onsite daycare…