PPC Advertising

PPC Advertisers Should Follow SEO Rules

Monday, October 19, 2009 by Darrin Strain

A common misconcpetion about pay per click (PPC) marketing and PPC advertising is that if you throw enough money at it, you can have a top paid search placement with search engines. This is just not true.

PPC marketing requires marketers to utilize many of the same rules that are required for organic search engine optimation. When creating a PPC campaign, here are three considerations any interactive marketer must keep in mind: bid amount, click through rate (CTR) and quality score.

Let's exmaine these three areas a little closer.

· Bid amount does not necessarily ensure a high position. A PPC advertiser can have the highest bid for a keyword, but the PPC ad may not rank well. Google will factor in CTR and Quality Score as well as Bid Amount to award a PPC search ranking.

· CTR must be a certain rate, generally .05 percent, to even continue the campaign. Google will disable PPC campaigns if the CTR falls much below .05 percent. The higher the CTR the better the chances for the top spot for your PPC ad. Typically, the more focused the PPC ad, the better your CTR will be. Of course, this is subjective as to the keyword and the PPC ad.

· Quality Score: Google will assign a measurement or grade to the overall campaign. The higher the Quality Score (from 0-10) the better chances your ad will appear in the No. 1 spot. To achieve a high quality score, the PPC ad should use the keyword at least once. And, the landing page should have considerable keyword density as well as content that directly relates to the what the PPC advertisement is selling. For example, if your PPC ad is pushing an Email Marketing Webinar, your landing page should be focused on offering the Webinar. Your density would go down if the Webinar is only a small part of the landing page. If your landing page does not offer a Webinar at all, it is highly possible that Google would disable the PPC campaign, or, at the least, your quality score would be so low that your PPC would not show regardless of CTR and bid amount.

Like Fast Food, Online Marketing Webinars are Everywhere

Sunday, October 18, 2009 by Darrin Strain

Once upon a time, we had marketing and we had marketing-related specialties like search engine marketing and online marketing. Not so much today. The division between offline and online marketing is becoming more and more blurred. After all, marketing needs to create demand and interest for a company's products and services, no matter what form it takes.

For a traditional marketer, online marketing can seem a little overwhelming, but it doesn't need to be. Marketers can find a Webinar or podcast for nearly any facet of the marketing world.

One of the marketing tactics nearest to me is search engine marketing. Network Solutions had become a great resource for everything Web related, from securing a domain name to browsing and watching its comprehensive listing of pre-recorded Webinars. It's a great place to brush up on some lesser used skills or learn new ones.

Right now, the Network Solutions is offering free pre-recorded Search Engine Marketing Webinars on these topics:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Link Building Techniques
Effective Keyword Strategies
Search Marketing for Local Businesses
Constructing Optimized Web Pages
Blogging/Web 2.0 Strategies
SEO for Ecommerce Sites
Getting your Business Online 101

Even the most seasoned interactive marketer can learn something from this extensive list.

Got Collateral? Get Aprimo.

Thursday, October 8, 2009 by Kati Dafoe

Maybe you already "got milk," but that's not all you need in life. Experts say we need a balanced diet of dairy, protein, grains, fruits and vegetables. You wouldn't try to survive on only one of these. You'd run into all kinds of problems if you only ate ground beef or blueberries. You know better, so you try to include every food group.

I hope you also know better than to think you're set for life if you're using marketing software that addresses one, tiny area of your marketing organization. Yes, it may be improving your outbound marketing and lead distribution efforts, but what about your materials and inventory? You may have a microsite builder, but are you working on search engine optimization or PPC Advertising?

We do software, and if you do collateral we can help. If you and your team realize that much already, half the battle is behind you. Are you looking for collateral customization software? Collateral management software? Marketing collateral software? Marketing collateral management software? Digital asset management software? Brand content management software? (Phew.) No matter what you call it, we do it.

James Gilchrist, a Graphics Designer at Aprimo and one of my coworkers, may be talking about this functionality so check out his posts for more information.

Blogging Ages & Stages

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 by Kelly Turner

A year ago, I didn't follow ANY blogs. I now follow four, plus the two I write....(kinda have to subscribe to those) so we're up to six! A year ago, I didn't author any blogs and as forementioned, I now write two. Two years ago - I hate to admit, but I don't remember even thinking that blog was a word! Could have been longer than that - I can barely remember last week, let alone two years ago. In any case - here I am...subscribing to blogs, researching blogs and certainly writing them.

As I become more savvy to the social media science going on behind the blogs - I take particular note of some of my favorites and all of the social media advertising that sandwiches both sides of the posts. I have to wonder as a marketer, what their intent was in starting their blogs?

For me, my personal blog catalogs the life of my 3-year old and the funny things she says and does - a scrapbook, if you will...since she was born to a ridiculously uncrafty mamma! My professional blog catalogs my life as a marketer - marketing technology for marketing departments across the globe. Both will capture rights of passage, I suppose.... and coming of age or stage.

Who knows...in time, perhaps you'll see my blogs with PPC advertising peppered down the sides - until then, keep reading, keep commenting.....I want to know you're out there! and I'll keep writing.

How Marketing Finance Operations Work

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 by Jeff Chamberlain

I mentioned getting Marketing Finance Operations under control in my last post. We operated as a typical marketing organization with distributed authority for approving expenses and no real good central mechanism to track expected expenses. The complexity with managing marketing financial software is the various stages of marketing spending.

First, there is a forecast for a program (e.g. an online marketing campaign) that is planned in the future. This "earmarks" money from the budget somewhere out in time. Second, there is the point where you actually start to commit spending money for the online marketing campaign through a verbal or written contract (e.g. a PPC advertising campaign). Finally, there is the actual invoice when cash flow is impacted. These all need to be managed on three dimensions - a budget, an activity and alignment with your General Ledger accounts. Visibility to all these aspects allows me to react to budget increases (yes, it can happen), budget cuts (okay, this is more common) and the desire to change plans to react to market dynamics. The association with the General Ledger provides an alignment point between Marketing Operations and the company accounting system.

In the past, we would get invoices that we didn't realize we had not yet paid and be forced to adjust our future spend when it was almost too late. A good proportion of marketing spend is committed well in advance. When we had to adjust within a quarter, our options were limited on finding places to cut. Also, without the visibility of what was committed and what wasn't, we didn't really know what activities carried a large amount of sunk cost. The other side of the equation, measurement, is equally as important. Without knowing the cost of an activity (the Investment), it's pretty difficult to assess the Return on Investment or ROI in Marketing. But, that's a topic for my next post. Until then, may the marketing process be with you!

The Role of Marketing Automation Software in an Integrated Marketing World

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 by Bill Godfrey

Integrated marketing. Sounds simple enough. Google its definition. Doesn't seem so simple now, does it? The reality is that the concept and practice of integrated marketing is applied along many dimensions:

Integrated marketing communications
Integrated marketing planning
Integrated marketing operations
Integrated online marketing

Regardless, the crux of what we're talking about here is creating the right alignment and synergy between disparate communication channels, strategies, budgets, campaigns, brands, teams, partners, agencies, etc. -- to create a relevant and impactful impression with our target audience at the point of interaction.  The challenge of pulling this off in a half-way coordinated and streamlined manner is nothing other than a daunting task, even for the most proficient marketing organization.

The promise of marketing automation software is to enable integrated marketing. The problem with most marketing automation software is that it partitions off only a limited aspect of the end-to-end marketing process and, by design, automates a discrete step (or channel) in the integrated marketing lifecycle. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude where this leaves you - with yet another integrated marketing challenge - that being how to connect these myriad point solutions operating as silos of marketing automation. I've seen this time and time again, and trust me, it creates even bigger problems!

If we hone in on just the category of online marketing or interactive marketing, I can almost guarantee you that your marketing organization is currently using a collection of non-integrated tools to manage your PPC advertising, social media, banner ads, lead management, email marketing, microsites, PURLs, web analytics, etc. Ughh! Good luck bringing harmony to your customer's experience with your brand, not to mention figuring out how to report on marketing effectiveness.

Now, extrapolate this microcosm to the reality of how we actually market, which is to transparently blend our offline promotions with online call to actions (and vice versa), and this challenge to integrate all your marketing activities starts to feel like your every-day world, right? You're certainly not alone.

Aprimo's philosphy is that marketing professionals should be free to focus on high value-add activities (like marketing!) by relying on a comprehensive, integrated marketing platform to connect all the dots for them.  Aprimo believes that marketers should be liberated from time consuming, manual tasks so they can focus on strategic, 'above the neck' matters. And perhaps most importantly, Aprimo believes in empowering marketers to unleash the power of truly INTEGRATED marketing.

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