August 2009

Using Webmaster Tools to Optimize Online Marketing

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Anthony Avolio

Google_Webmaster_ToolsGoogle Webmaster Tools is a free service that provides diagnostic reports and tools for improving a site’s visibility on Google and other search engines.  While it focuses on technical aspects of search engine crawling and is aimed at webmasters and SEO practitioners, it also contains several features and reports of particular interest to online marketers.  Listed below are three features of Google Webmaster Tools that can help improve your marketing efforts.

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What Our Clients Are Talking About: The Top 10

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Suzy Sandberg

How to lower cpcs with pay per click media sources. Last year we saw paid search trademark terms increase noticeably in the 4th quarter, and the shopping comparison engines have always increased cpcs during the holiday season.  Reducing cpcs in each channel won’t necessarily lower either media provider’s revenue.  On the contrary, lower cpcs should enable marketers to spend more since they’ll hit their ROI goals more easily.  For the CSEs in particular, it would be beneficial if they pursued the math on this.

Efforts made to increase website conversion rate. Since even small increases can make a huge impact on revenue, our retail clients are, at present, unveiling new technology investments in time for the holiday season and hoping the needle moves in the right direction.

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Email Watch: Be Thrifty, Buy Play-Doh

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Glenn Lalich

PM_Digital_Orb_Play-DohIt’s not every day that a retailer encourages customers to try yard sales, thrift stores and comparison shopping to get their children ready for school, but that’s what HasbroToyShop does in a new email tracked this week. Clearly Hasbro, the #2 toy seller behind Mattel, has been thinking creatively about their customers’ experiences in challenging times, along with ways to sell more Play-Doh. Here’s a recap, along with a few takeaways.

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CSEs and APIs

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Jeffrey Cohen

APIs have been helping businesses interact with other businesses for years, and they are supercharging the way consumers interact via the web.  In simple English, an API, or application programming interface, lets websites make their content easily available to other web developers, who can import it, display it on their own sites and combine it or “mashup” with other material.  Resurrected during the Web 2.0 boom, some of the most frequently used APIs today include Google Maps (probably one of the most utilized), YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

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Back-to-School: Will the Buyer Show Up?

Posted on August 13, 2009 by Chris Paradysz

SchoolAfter a week’s worth of intense scanning, reading, searching and analyzing performance data, it seems Moms, Dads and kids are swiping their cards, so to speak. Click and conversion rates look to be steady to last year. Bad news: units look like they’ll be down. No shock. What we’re not seeing so far is a deluge of last-gasp, 50% off, get it now-or-never offers. There are lots of free shipping pricing experiments, but no game-changers.

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A Look at Social Media Measurement

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Anthony Avolio

SocialMediaLogosSmMost online marketers are comfortable with the measurement and metrics behind traditional click-based programs like paid search.  Less rigorously measured and discussed is activity from social media sites like user-generated links and comments placed on sites like Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.  While social media as a channel presents unique challenges to measurement, there are several tactics marketers can take to start measuring the impact of social media on their business.

Outbound links. If your site includes a social bookmark or sharing tool, measuring usage of this tool can help answer…

  • Which social sites are my customers using to share my content?
  • Which types of content are customers sharing most?  Should frequently shared content be more prominently featured?
  • What type of customer is sharing content on social media outlets? Is your business benefiting from this?

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Why Catalogs Matter

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Chris Paradysz

ACMA? NEMOA? Who are they and why should we care about them? They represent the catalog industry which is a major driver of retail demand, spurring intrigue in all kinds of products that consumers and businesses wouldn’t consider otherwise. Without them, internet sales would be substantially less.

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Outranking the Competition

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Suzy Sandberg

No matter the demographic, one of the most effective ways to reach consumers and drive business is through search engine strategies. Brands today are in a battle to keep their businesses growing and find ways to outshine and outrank their competition as hundreds of thousands of companies vie for top placement within search engines.Over the years, we’ve spoken to many marketers who aren’t sure how to navigate the complexities of search engine marketing campaigns. They want to reach new audiences and drive sales but don’t know how to work their programs to gain favorable results.

Below are solutions to five questions that can help you create efficiencies, improve spend and gain the upper hand with your SEM efforts.

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Social Marketing: Beyond the ROI

Posted on August 4, 2009 by Suzy Sandberg

The amount of social marketing conversations with clients has definitely proliferated over the past few months.  As a direct response agency, prior discussions usually started — and then died — when someone asked “but where’s the ROI model?”  Translated, this really means “it’s not trackable” and “I don’t get the metrics,” but considering that all of them — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others – are free, the ROI isn’t really questionable.  It wouldn’t take a lot of sales to offset the expense of maintaining even a limited social marketing presence.

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