Getting the Most Out of Your Pay-Per-Click Program
Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 · Leave a Comment
From the session: Our slides on Getting the Most Out of Your PPC Program
Pay-per-click search has completely revolutionized how multichannel merchants acquire new customers. In this fast paced session, we will review best practices for developing keyword lists, building effective adgroups, and writing compelling copy. We’ll present explicit formulas for rational economic bidding. We will describe and provide spreadsheet models to determine optimal PPC ad budgets. We’ll also touch on key advanced topics, including advertising on brand names (yours and others); match-type optimization; and mining the long tail.
Thanks to everyone who attended our session during the Paid Search Intensive.
A few follow-up links:
Slides: Getting the Most Out of Your Pay-Per-Click Program
Session Worksheet: Evaluate Your Approach to Pay-Per-Click Worksheet
Spreadsheet Model: How Much Should I Advertise
The DMA ACCM 2008 Conference Site
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Conversion Is Your Ultimate Secret Weapon: Tracking & Optimizing Search Traffic
Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 · Leave a Comment
You must measure your paid and organic search conversions to determine where to invest, where to cut, and where to fine-tune. In this session, we’ll review different tracking technologies, including redirectors, cookies, tracking URLs, and on-page JavaScript. We’ll show methods for tracking search-driven sales into the call center and stores. We’ll discuss the limitations of “last touch gets credit” allocation schemes and propose alternatives. We’ll discuss why “conversion is the ultimate secret weapon” and present concrete approaches to increase average sales per visitor.
DMA ACCM 2008 Conference
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Web Design Consultation Sessions
Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Registered attendees who arrive at Web Design ’08 at the InterContinental Hotel Miami on Jan. 30 (the day before the main conference begins) can take advantage of a unique bonus that the conference offers to all paid attendees: Up to three free 30-minute private sessions with web site design experts who will use that time to review each attendee’s retail site and make practical design recommendations for boosting its conversion rates—and online sales.
Internet Retailer Web Design ’08 Conference
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Give Your Search a Physical
Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 · Leave a Comment
In this presentation George Michie of RKG and Natalie Pietrzykowski from The Sharper Image review ways to improve your paid search program.
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Email Signup Study Data
Posted by Administrator on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 · Leave a Comment
This Excel sheet contains the data from the Email Sign-up Study
Essentials of Paid Search Marketing
Posted by Administrator on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 · Leave a Comment
George, Kate and Joy presented at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia on September 20, 2006. They discussed the essentials of paid search marketing.
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Shop.org Strategy and Innovation Forum
Posted by Administrator on Friday, December 7, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Ryan Gibson and Alan Rimm-Kaufman will be attending the Shop.org Strategy and Innovation Forum in Orlando January 22nd through 24th.
If you’d like to meet with us in Orlando please give us a call.
Goldman Sachs Online Advertising Conference Call
Posted by Administrator on Friday, December 7, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Anthony Noto, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs, Internet and Entertainment, discussed trends in online advertising with a panel of industry experts: Brad Agens of Gorilla Networks, Bill Gossman and Jeff Hirsh of Revenue Science, Alan Rimm-Kaufman of RKG, and Kathy Sharpe of Sharpe Partners.
Key takeaways: online advertising continues to take share from traditional media, and panelists believe the sector will be insulated in a weaker macro-economic given its secular growth and core advantages.
45 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A.
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Guerilla Conversion Tactics for Your In-House Team
Posted by Administrator on Monday, December 3, 2007 · 1 Comment
You can’t just buy an increased conversion rate: you work the cycle of measuring, testing and optimizing your site. Here are guerilla tactics that even lean, in-house teams can use to move the needle.
Measure What Matters
Don’t let the data tsunami drown you: use web analytics to look at your critical few metrics and hear the voice of the customer. The goal is shaping the experiences your website offers to create outcomes your business needs.
Tips:
•Before you look at a single report, answer this: Why does your company have a website? Likely answers: Sell products get leads, get catalog requests. Laser focus your analytics on tracking these outcomes and ignore distractions.
•Learn what your customer is trying to do.
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Try this fast online survey: “Why did you come here today? Were you able to meet your goal? If not, why?”
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Talk to your call center staff. Where your site is slowing people down?
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Conduct a guerilla usability test: Research shows that testing with as few as five users can identify 80% of a page’s problems. Does the sample matter? Sometimes. A golf merchant testing content needs users who know irons from wedges but to test Checkout, all they need is people who shop online.
•Spend your budget on people, not software: You’ll gain more insight from 1 sharp
analyst using a free or inexpensive tool than from a team of part-timers trying to squeeze value from a premium package.
•Learn which metrics matter and which mislead. Exit pages are out: Sure, your visitor left, but after succeeding or failing to meet her goal? Bounce rate is in. Which pages create single page visits of < 5 seconds? Someone did not find what they were looking for. Time for a test.
Always Be Testing
The release of Google’s free Website Optimizer means that split and multivariate testing no longer commands a premium. Start testing now—your competition will.
Tips:
•Start with a business problem. Bad: the CEO hates this page, we’ll test the art director’s new idea. Good: why do 38% of the people landing on this page immediately leave? The few clicks we get occur below the fold. Will repositioning these links help conversion?
•Test high traffic / high profile pages and elements. Examples: homepage, landing pages, headlines, buttons, images, and navigation links.
•Test shouts not whispers: Significant lifts often require radical change.
•Watch out for hidden costs: Even with a free tool, more testing means more creative. If you work with a testing agency, find out the costs of their also contributing design.
Cut The Fat out of Your Design Process
Continuous testing demands fast-paced design. To jump start your process, a $3 pad of graph paper can beat the latest edition of PhotoShop.
Tips:
•Bang out new ideas with “lo-fi” paper prototypes. Typography and color matter but a sketch or wireframe let’s you nail down critical page real estate and call to action links much.
•Debug on paper before you commit the bits: Put your paper prototypes
to the test. Do your 5 guerilla usability test subjects understand where to click? If not, fix that problem before you commit to costly IT and graphic design.
Got it working on paper? Now develop and test your new design on your site. Keep that cycle working: measure, test, and optimize.
Larry Becker is VP and Principal, Website Effectiveness at the Rimm-Kaufman Group, an online agency offering website effectiveness and paid search services. www.rimmkaufman.com.