The Inn Blog Reviews » clients

Guide in Shopping for a PPC Company

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:03:27 +0000

Your online advertising campaign can be made or broken by the right PPC company. Nowadays, there are lots of companies promising to maximize their clients' ROI (return of investment), but research shows that only a smal fraction of these companies are doing what their supposed to do. To get your ...

The rest is here:
Guide in Shopping for a PPC Company

Four things agencies should know about site testing

cgseo — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:10:00 +0000

The beginning of the year is a great time to take a step back and to re-evaluate marketing plans for your clients. Of course, one key ingredient in a successful marketing plan is the website. Over the next couple of months, the Google Agency Team will be blogging about how you can work with your clients to review their website and landing page performance for 2010. Today, we'll discuss how site testing can benefit both you and your clients. 1. Testing is good for PPC management agencies Whether you specialize solely in pay-per-click management or you also help your clients with website design, the creation and optimization of landing pages for the best possible user experience will help you achieve your performance goals. We've all seen this situation before: you've already worked exhaustively to ensure that your search marketing efforts are bringing in relevant traffic, but are still not seeing conversion results. The reason? The current format and messaging on the site does little to retain even the most qualified traffic. Remember that doubling your conversion rate is essentially the same as doubling your traffic at your current conversion rate. (click here to view image) If you're a design shop, establishing a strong culture of testing will also bring great benefits. As with PPC campaigns, it's best to consistently monitor current site performance and then optimize based on data. Even if you've designed the site yourself, there's no way to predict exactly how it will perform and as a result, there will always be an opportunity for incremental improvements. Build these expectations in with your design clients. Consider also that market and visitor expectations change frequently (e.g. holidays and the recession). The beauty of testing and re-optimization is that you can address the immediate site issues and help the client adapt to any changing conditions. 2. Testing is good for your clients Often a major concern from clients is the production resources and money necessary to move forward with testing. But it's worth it! We all know we shouldn't judge a book by its cover; but let's face it, first impressions matter, especially on the internet. If users don't like what they see at first glance - even if it's for a superficial reason - they are likely to move on. Explore the possibilities with your client. We have an extensive library of success stories with Google Website Optimizer that showcase some of the increases in conversion rates for businesses that have done landing page testing. Higher conversion rates mean more sales and/or leads at the same cost. If the client already is doing PPC and has an understanding of the opportunities in online marketing, the importance of providing visitors with the right on-site experience for their goals will be easy to demonstrate. Your client will appreciate your expertise in helping to develop this crucial piece of their marketing plan. 3. You likely have the data to identify site problems If your client has web analytics data, you can begin to identify site and landing page weaknesses today. In Google Analytics, the "Content" section houses some of the most useful reports. Start by looking at Top Landing Pages. If the bounce rate of these pages is higher than or close to the site average, you may want to examine possible issues with these pages that would cause a user to leave the client's site. To see if visitors are proceeding down the expected path, set up a funnel if you haven't already to find out if there is kink in the trajectory to conversion (i.e. if visitor volume is dropping off at any point in the process). You can then open your Navigation Summary to see where those visitors are actually exiting out of the funnel. 4. You can test with Google Website Optimizer for free Remember that while Analytics may help identify issues with the site or landing page, a website testing tool can help you find the solution. With Google Website Optimizer, you can quickly set up a A/B or multivariate test. Website Optimizer can work with almost any site infrastructure or type . It's free and easy to get started, and a great way to add value to your existing client services. Be sure to check back soon when we explore more ways to use your Analytics data, industry-specific challenges, and testing strategies. Happy Testing! Posted by Michael Giannotti, Agency Team

More here:
Four things agencies should know about site testing

Adwords – The Public Tool That Can Make Your Online Business Boom

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:12:02 +0000

Google adwords have provided results that are higher-than-anticipated by the promoters and their clients, laying out the means for a replacement system of online advertising. The online advertising experts have created smart techniques, which can influence be cost efficient, as additionally be an effective means that of increasing the congestion ...

Place Pages now in Placement Performance reports

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:25:00 +0000

You may remember that earlier this fall we announced the launch of Place Pages for Google Maps, which are web pages for every place in the world. Interested users can find relevant information, photos, directions, and reviews for their favorite places. Users will also see contextually targeted ads, and with the inclusion of Place Pages in Placement Performance reports , you'll now have insight into whether your clients' ads appeared on a Place Page and how they performed. With this update, you can more closely monitor and optimize your clients' campaigns. While placement targeting is not available for Google Maps, you can increase the likelihood of appearing on Place Pages by increasing bids on high-performing keywords or by creating ad groups with highly specific keywords to target Place Pages relevant to your clients' products or businesses. Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Maximize coverage this season with Opportunities Tab

cgseo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:00:00 +0000

For the sixth installment of the Holiday Campaign Countdown series , I am happy to share some tips on the Opportunities tab to ensure you're maximizing coverage for your clients this holiday season. Opportunities tab serves as a central location for easy access to budget and keyword suggestions, as well as other AdWords tools you've used before. (Click to view full size image) The 'Budget Ideas' area will suggest you adjust your budget if your campaigns are missing out on valuable traffic due to budget constraints or increased click volume on keywords popular around the holidays. To help you decide, this section will demonstrate potential increased click and impression volume that would result from an increased investment. The 'Keyword Ideas' area will provide automatically customized keyword suggestions based on your client's website, account information, and actual searches on Google.com. Like the budget suggestions, you will be able to see the traffic increase that would result from including additional keywords. Since some suggestions are based on actual searches performed on Google.com, you may find some cost-effective long tail keywords to add to your client's list. The tool will even suggest specific campaigns and ad groups in which to add these keywords. The best part is - you can add them right from the tab into the campaigns! You'll also notice that other familiar AdWords tools are available on the Opportunities tab on the lower left hand side of the page. You know your clients' businesses best - so please assess our suggestions with your clients' goals in mind. Finally, visit this tab often - we'll be refreshing suggestions every few weeks and adding new features soon! For additional information on the Opportunities tab, visit the AdWords Help Center . Posted by Erin McMahon, Agency Team

Originally posted here:
Maximize coverage this season with Opportunities Tab

Retail blog: the gift that keeps on giving

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:36:00 +0000

The snow showers which dusted the Northeast last week were a great (albeit chilly) reminder that the holidays will be here before we know it. To help keep your spirits warm, the fifth installment in our Holiday Campaign Countdown series brings you a gift that keeps on giving - daily holiday posts on the Google Retail blog , which will run through the end of 2009. These posts will provide you with useful data to better understand consumer intentions and purchase trends so that you may refine your clients' marketing plans accordingly. For a little taste of what's to come, check out the posts on holiday purchase trends to date and early bird vs. last minute shoppers data . Interested in having these posts delivered right to your inbox? Subscribe to the Retail blog here . Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Marketing

View original post here:
Retail blog: the gift that keeps on giving

It’s all about the conversions

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:42:00 +0000

There are a lot of metrics that matter to your clients when evaluating performance, but one of the most important figures for your clients' success is conversions. Our Google teammates in the UK have started a blog called the Conversion Room that focuses on how to use Google tools to measure and increase the number of conversions your clients receive. Occasionally, some of the information may be UK-focused, but you'll find the overwhelming majority of tips and tools to be applicable no matter where you're located, such as how to use the Search Based Keyword Tool to find high-converting keywords . We hope you find the Conversion Room blog useful. Bookmark it, follow it with Friend Connect, or subscribe via RSS, and get hands-on with your conversion knowledge. Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Read more here:
It's all about the conversions

Google Campaign Insights: Better measurement for display advertising

cgseo — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:30:00 +0000

As we've previously said , one of our aims is to improve display advertising on the web and, as a result, grow the display advertising pie for everyone. Three simple principles guide our approach: simplify the system for buying and selling display ads; deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure; open up the ecosystem by making it accessible to more participants. One question on the mind of every advertiser and agency is: how can I better measure the impact of my display ad campaign? We hear you. A growing number of advertisers and agencies are running display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network, so we're investing substantially in creating better measurement tools for our clients. At the moment, an advertiser can measure how many clicks its display ads achieve, measure conversions that result from those clicks, compare results with industry benchmark data , and use View-through conversion reporting to measure visits to its website from users who saw its display ad in the past. Today, we're pleased to announce the launch of a brand new tool to measure the impact of your display ads - Google Campaign Insights. As of today, Google Campaign Insights is available for larger display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network in the US and UK. Over time, we hope to roll it out more widely to assist even more advertisers and agencies in different parts of the world. Google Campaign Insights is a unique measurement tool that can give reliable data about how a campaign has raised brand awareness, or active user interest, in a particular product or service. It looks beyond the traditional measures of clicks and conversions to calculate the incremental lift in both online search activity and website visits that result from a display ad campaign. How does this all work? In short, we use the same expertise we use to improve our own services -- our ability to analyze large quantities of data. Google Campaign Insights compares two anonymized and aggregated data sets: a large group of users (many thousands, minimum) who saw a particular ad, with an equivalent, large group that did not see the ad. It then measures whether there is any significant difference in searches and visits to the advertiser's website between the two groups. Doing this, Google Campaign Insights can determine the incremental change that is directly attributable to the display ad campaign. With this insight, advertisers can establish how well their display ad campaign is working. ( Click for full size image ) ( Click for full size image ) Google Campaign Insights provides highly reliable results to marketers because of the statistical methodology our computer algorithms use to combine and analyze large volumes of data from several sources -- the advertiser's own campaign information, ad serving logs and sampled data from Google Toolbar installs that have opted in to enhanced features. All of the results reported to advertisers are anonymized and aggregated over thousands of users. Advertisers or agencies who run wide-scale display ad campaigns on the Google Content Network and who want to take Google Campaign Insights for a spin should check with their Google representative. We're excited about the contribution that Google Campaign Insights can make to our clients' campaigns on the Google Content Network and to display advertising generally. Posted by Paul Todd, Product Management Director [Note: This post has been reprinted from the Inside AdWords Blog ]

Holiday Campaign Countdown – Get a boost from Google Product Search

cgseo — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:40:00 +0000

For the fourth installment in our Holiday Campaign Countdown series, we reached out to our friends on the Google Product Search team for some quick, cost-effective tips for expanding clients' online presence during the holiday season. Here's what Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, has to share: Over the past few months, Google Product Search has released some great new features for both shoppers and merchants. Heading into the holiday season, we want to make sure our merchants have all the information needed to maximize the impact of data feeds. Here's a checklist to make sure you're set for the holidays. Submit all recommended and optional attributes , wherever they're relevant: Help shoppers make the best decisions by providing them with as much information as possible. For example, make sure you're submitting the UPC, Brand, and Product Type attributes. Use the Google Local Business Center to provide local store locations: Google Product Search is now showing local store locations in our search results, so make sure your clients are sending us this data . Also, if they do have local stores, make sure to include the " online only " attribute in the Product Search feed for any items they don't stock in stores. Send your clients' largest and highest-quality images: We're planning on experimenting with displays that use large images; products that have big, high-quality images will stand out. Please send us images that are at least 300x300 pixels, without resizing them. Track your traffic: Use Google Analytics or your favorite web analytics program to track your traffic. For additional information, visit our site for merchants . You may also follow us on the Google Merchant Blog . Thanks Vivek, and happy planning! Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Marketing

Continue reading here:
Holiday Campaign Countdown - Get a boost from Google Product Search

Webinar Recap: Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Did you miss last week's Think2010 webinar "Using Data to Better Connect with your Customers," or are you interested in reviewing Avinash Kaushik's key takeaways? If so, read on for a recap of the presentation: 1. Mine Website Trends : Utilize Trends for Websites and other tools to index clients' performances, identify competitors' strengths, and find untapped opportunities. 2. Analyze the "Database of Intentions" : Use Insights for Search to segment your clients' share of voice, obtain competitive gains, understand how to most effectively target their campaigns, and find out where they should focus their search efforts. 3. Monetize the Long Tail: Leverage the powerful Search-based Keyword Tool to identify your clients' long tail keywords based on their sites' content, and to find additional cost-effective targeted keywords. 4. Identify Relevant Audiences: Utilize Ad Planner to understand the demographic profile and search behavior of site visitors, and that of competitors, to effectively target clients' messages on the Google Content Network to the most relevant audiences. Most importantly, Avinash's #1 Rule: Make sure that your clients' websites don't stink. What does he mean? Use data to identify fixes (e.g. pay attention to bounce rates) so that customers don't say, in Avinash's own words, "I came, I puked, I left." To learn more about how to improve your clients' web pages, check out this post by Avinash: Six Tips For Improving High Bounce / Low Conversion Web Pages . Visit our Google Business Channel on YouTube to see the recorded version . Interested in more information on the Think2010 series? Visit our site to learn more and sign up for the November 10th webinar "Four Winning Moves for 2010." Posted by Jaime Mayer, Industry Marketing

Visit link:
Webinar Recap: Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers