From the monthly archives:

July 2010

Helping Online Professionals Conduct Professional Offline Networking

by admin on July 27, 2010

Tips to help you stand out in the crowded world of online marketing

With Ad Tech around the corner, we want to help refresh your memory of the importance of networking and building connections with others. Specifically in the industry of online marketing and advertising where more individuals becoming consultants and self-employed workers, it is imperative for us to understand the power of professional networking.  It allows you to connect with like-minded individuals, but where most people fail is that they do not exchange contact information or never follow up with the individuals that they met.

Here are a few tips to make it easier.

If you have an iPhone, then download the free app called Bump. Bump allows you to share contact information with other iPhone users simply by bumping your phones together.  This makes it simple, even allowing you to include a picture of yourself making sure you don’t get lost in the stack of business cards collected over time. You can download this app by searching for Bump in iTunes. The Bump app is now available for the Android.

When sharing contact information with individuals, make sure to include the following:

Your name, email address, that you check most frequently, accessible phone number, instant messenger handles (AIM, Skype, ect.), a picture of yourself, social networking sites, your business website or product site, and a few words to summarize yourself just in case the person forgets- ex: guy from xyz forum.  Text messaging is becoming more acceptable, as it is easier for people to reach and respond to others. Just make sure if you feel fine text messaging that you identify yourself.

Although you are giving individuals a lot of information, it allows them to reach you in their most convenient way. You have to understand that at these types of events, you can meet some major players and genius underground marketers.  By gaining contacts in this industry, you can build friendships that can turn into joint ventures, business partners and even private masterminds.

If you don’t have an iPhone, that’s OK too. Take the traditional route such as a business card. With a traditional business card, try to include the information that was outlined above. Also, try to keep the back with minimal text and graphics. Having an almost plain side on your business card allows individuals to take notes.  If you receive a cad, write a note or special information they shared.  This will help you out when you get home.

If you have a Blackberry, you can easily share your information with people via email.  Before you attend the event, make sure to create a contact of yourself with all the information stated above.  Then when it comes time to share your information, just select “compose” and ask for the individuals email address. Then select “attach content” and choose the contact you created earlier.

Never be intimidated when it comes to exchanging information.  You will never get what you never ask for, the worst they can do is give an excuse to why they don’t have their business card, so give them yours, or even exchange email addresses. If you are attending a seminar that is multiple days, make sure to get acquainted with your neighbor, but change seats from day to day, same goes for breakfast and lunches. Once the seminar is over, find out what people are doing after. Are some attendees going to dinner? If so, try to join them and continue the conversations and learning more.

These small recommendations can help you get comfortable with networking.  Once you do it more often you will become confident, making it easier to find your own personal plan. But you have to understand that you will need to be patient, it will take months to start benefiting from any contacts you have made. But it is true that if you start things off by helping others, listening to others, making connections for others, then things will certainly start happening for you.

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Online Media Buys – Targeting the Right Media Mix

by DigiMarketing on July 21, 2010

Many factors come into place when looking to make a media buy, but the primary focus starts with budget, demographics, and what you’re marketing or selling.

Sure, if you had unlimited funds for unlimited campaigns you could just buy everything and look at the results later, but this is extremely inefficient and not result oriented.

The primary goal of media is targeting. Which vehicles target which demographics at what reach and at what price?

How to get here?

Start with research.  Your ads need to appear on the sites that your prospects like to visit. Once you’re clear on your demographics, we like to use these sites to start the research phase:

  • Google Ad Planner – - This is an excellent tool that identifies media opportunities by demographic or by URL
  • Magic Bullet System’s Demographic Tool – - Insert a URL of a site that is related to the offer your are going to promote to get specifics on who is visiting the site
  • Compete  – - Very similar to Quantcast except broken down by keyword.  There is also a paid version where you can do more in depth analysis
  • Alexa  – - Alexa is one of the original ratings sites providing free web traffic metrics, top sites lists, site demographics, hot urls, etc.

Once you get a decent read on what the research is telling you, create a media target list and dig deeper to start to indentify which of the sites provide the best returns.  This is a funnel process and by the time you’re down into the smallest part of the funnel, you should be looking at your most targeted sites based on your demographics with affordable rates.

How do you get affordable online media rates? 

Build relationships.  Media buying and planning is all about relationships.  A Media Rep is just as interested in selling you a successful buy as you are interested in executing on one.  You can work with your Media Rep to tell them what your goals are, how much you have to spend, what your campaign is about, etc.  Also ask your rep for recommendations.  At this point you are in your final phase of research and understanding how each of the media networks you’re most interested in will help you meet your end goals. And, don’t be afraid to negotiate rates – - media rates are based on negotiations too so once you get your initial rates, ask them how to get the best rates possible. There is always wiggle room here for the most part.

Finalize your research by creating a Media Buy Plan – - a spreadsheet listing all of your media channels, media rep contacts, website targets, ad size specs, and budgets. This puts your entire buy in one place for you to manage.

There are many different vehicles to use for paid online advertising.  Find the ones that work best based on these objectives and create a targeted media mix to run your campaigns.

Then, get your ad creatives and tracking together, launch, monitor closely for optimization, and Test, Test, Test! 

If you reach your break-even point then pause your campaign.

Be sure to start with remnant traffic when you are initially testing traffic out and gathering your metrics.

Also, start with at least two banners to rotate for each size.

Before signing an Insertion Order (IO) make sure you have the following terms in your contract.

- Remnant Traffic

- Net 30 Terms (if possible)

- Frequency Cap 1×24 with even delivery

- 24 hour out clause

- Billing based off of your reporting

-  US Traffic Only (Unless you are promoting a non-US offer)

 Contact Digispace Solutions for strategic consulting expertise for your nexts online media campaigns.

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What Is Google’s Quality Score and How Do You Improve It?

by DigiMarketing on July 19, 2010

Pay per click (PPC) Advertising Tips for Online Advertising Campaigns

A ranking developed by Google, Quality Score is an algorithm that calculates how relevant your paid keywords are to the end-user you’re targeting.  Because of this, your Quality Score is just as important as your bid when it comes to where your ad will be positioned.

How does this really impact you? If two competitors have similar or equal bids, the higher Quality Score will earn a higher position.

Pretty important to understand right?

Here’s a few ways to analyze the data and create a plan to increase your Quality Score:

#1-Prioritize & Optimize

Review all of your current campaigns and sort based by:

- spend

- then > ad groups by spend

 -then > keywords by Quality Score.

In those top spending campaigns and ad groups, any keyword with a Quality Score below 7 should be the priority for Quality Score improvement.

#2-Coordinate Search Queries and Text Ads 

Since your Quality Score also factors in click-through-rates, the more you can refine your ad groups so that the keywords are highly relevant to the text ad copy, the better results you’ll see.

Make sure you have different ad groups set up based on how a user may search for your product.  If you’re selling beauty products, you wouldn’t want to have the keywords “anti-aging” and “mineral makeup” in one ad group.  You will want two separate ads to break out these products and target the ads specifically for people searching for these specific products. Hence, your ad copy and your ad groups should be aligned based on this type of user-search structure.

#3-Revise and Test Ad Creative

Now that your ad groups are aligned and organized, you need to make sure your copy is proving to be compelling and effective.  Persuasive and targeted copy is the most optimal way to get good click-through rates.

Take a look at all of your text ads now and analyze the current data.  Find your lowest performers by click-through-rate in your top Ad Groups (by spend).  Delete any non or poor performers and start to integrate and test copy that is stronger and even more persuasive.  Continue this exercise to weed out the under performers and gain higher Quality Scores.

#4-Eliminate Bad Keywords

Get rid of low performers. 

Take a look at the overall distribution of your Quality Score in your account.  If you see overall good performance, you don’t need a major overhaul.  However, this is all part of the vigilance needed in maintaining or increasing our Quality Score. 

Since your Quality Score also looks at historical click thru rate (CTR) on your keywords, you do need to review and  eliminate keywords and text ads that you see with historical low CTRs. These non-performers pull down your overall average and historical rates, which will impact your QS negatively.

Maintain and eliminate as necessary.

#5-Have an Effective and Relevant Landing Page

Your Landing Page can have a huge negative impact on your Quality Score if it’s not functioning, has irrelevant copy, broken links, etc.  If your Quality Score has been driven down, make sure to watch for the issues below and fix asap.  Because Google doesn’t look at landing pages as frequently, be patient, your improvements to your landing page will be soon be realized in a higher Quality Score.

-Pop-ups

-Landing pages that are “bait and switch” offers or that have very little to do with the ad or search query

-Very slow loading pages

Below are the factors you should have on your landing page to ensure a high Quality Score.

- Set up landing pages in Silo Structure

- Content MUST be relevant

- Have at least 5 pages of content

- Have a sitemap on your page: www.xml-sitemaps.com

And finally, include your business pages: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy,  Contact Us,  About Us

Digispace Solutions, is an online performance-based advertising and technology company focused on providing proprietary web technologies to power online advertising strategies and solutions.

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PPC Advertising Practices

by admin on July 15, 2010

Creating Ad Groups for Online Advertising

For those who run pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns, much has been written about the importance of ad group organization and calibration based on your PPC campaign targets.

To do this, you must first understand the goals and objectives of ad groups as explained and simplified here in a snapshot from the latest Pay Per Click Insider Tips article:

The Goal of Ad Groups

• To perfectly align questions (search queries) with answers (text ads)

• Every query that comes into an ad group should smack straight into some ad copy that directly and perfectly addresses its topics, issues, intent, and desires.

• It not good enough for all the keywords in an ad group to be similar or narrowly focused or contextually similar or anything else.

• If the people whose queries come into a group don’t see text ads that satisfy them, the ad group is a failure.

Now that you understand the goals of Ad Groups within your PPC Advertising Campaigns, it is imperative to understand that reorganizing and shifting things around within the groups is just as important.  Optimizing keyword groups is essential to consistently improve your quality score; which leads to cheaper costs per click and a higher ad position.

Targeting keywords that have an acceptable level of traffic and competition, (something you can effectively compete with) will help you rise up in the rankings as well as begin to tell you a story about the effectiveness of your current ad group strategy – - you will begin to see what works and what does not.

Using PPC Management Software to Achieve Measurable Results

Digispace Solutions created The Magic Bullet System as an all inclusive campaign management system which is an unparalleled optimization system for media buying.

The Magic Bullet System’s Ad Tracker module will help you track keywords, tell you how many days in a row a PPC ad has been seen, provide data on the competition’s keywords, and show which campaigns are profitable based on the categories you are targeting.

Keywords need to be tested and changed often. Utilizing a campaign management system, that pulls and monitors your ad groups is pertinent to achieving results and profits. With The Magic Bullet System, keyword optimization is an automated breeze enabling you to  focus on other aspects of your business while The Magic Bullet System does the rest.

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Pepsi Leaves SuperBowl Broadcast Advertising Behind and Transitions to Online Social Media

by DigiMarketing on July 7, 2010

Pepsi’s Refresh Campaign Blazes New Trails with Online Marketing Technology and Advertising

Pepsi has decided to blaze its own path down the advertising super highway forgoing their iconic commercials from one of the most-watched television programs of the year, The Super Bowl.  Despite the rampant decline of television viewership due to cable and sought after Internet options, advertisers are still willing to pay big bucks for a spot on such highly watched sporting event. As you may have noticed Pepsi decided not to advertise this last February in the Super Bowl, but instead they have generated a social campaign that allows Pepsi to be in direct communication between them and consumers by initiating “The Pepsi Refresh Project”.

Pepsi spokesperson Nicole Bradley says the project’s main goal is to create an accessible discussion between loyal and prospective customers.

“The Super Bowl broadcast can be an amazing stage for broadcasters, and [PepsiCo subsidiary] Frito Lay will be there in a big way,” she tells DMNews. “But our beverage brands’ marketing strategy in 2010 [is] less about a singular event and more about a movement. We are always looking to further develop our two-way conversation with consumers.”

This hits hard on the head of social engagement, attracting consumer thoughts on sustainability.  Rather then spending the money on the ads, Pepsi has allocated $20 million to fund thousands of projects from the ideas of Americans. Since January, the Refresh Project has been giving $1.3 million for 32 grants each month from literacy projects to programs that provide tuxedos for prom. Then online voters choose winning projects.

Recently, Pepsi added an additional $1.3 million toward ideas that will help refresh the oil spill that hit the Gulf of Mexico, proving that corporate contribution and social responsibility is an action Americans want to see, moreover, become involved with. 

But from a business point of view, is Pepsi seeing the social success?

Irbtrax, an independent SEO marketing firm has been closely monitoring the Pepsi Refresh Project resulting in some interesting analysis.

According to Irbtrax founder Scott Moir,  ”At its core it’s a well planned Internet Marketing campaign based on Advocacy that is utilizing it’s existing Social Media assets to spread the word virally. Its appeal has been enhanced by perception. A perception that was fueled by the publicity and Internet chatter they created when they ‘pulled’ their Super Bowl advertising.”  Using two core on-line marketing strategies, trends and timing, Pepsi used the trend towards social media and the timing of the Super Bowl to their advantage, gaining an on and off line buzz.

A further look at the Pepsi Refresh Project from an internet marketing research and statistical perspective, Irbtrax shows the following:

- Campaigns of this magnitude generally take months to plan, develop and refine – -refresheverything.com is a stand alone website. The Domain name was apparently registered on 11/30/2009.



-The top four traffic generators for refresheverything.com are Google searches, Facebook, Pepsi.com, and Twitter. This traffic experienced a huge spike just prior to and after the Super Bowl.

 Since the Super Bowl, the site’s traffic has increased about 800% and remained consistent. The result of this traffic spike is that refresheverything.com has a United States Alexa ranking of 4,083.  About 75% of the site’s traffic is coming from the United States.

International Refresh Project coming?

- The refresheverything.com Meta Title is ‘Pepsi Refresh Project’ and contains 21 characters.

- The refresheverything.com Meta Description is ‘Pepsi is giving away millions each month to fund refreshing ideas that change the world. The ideas with the most votes will receive grants, so vote for your favorites. Do you have an idea that needs support? Learn how Pepsi can help.’ It contains 233 characters.

- The Keywords are: ‘Fund your project with a grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project!’

With two votes casted every second, more and more people have been driven to Pepsi’s site to get involved, showing an increase in website traffic, which helps direct communication with no clutter coming in from third parties. This long term internet advertising plan also could be the beginning of many marketing strategies we may see coming from corporate giants.

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