Internet Marketing Course BLOG

How Linking These Two Applications Can Improve Your AdWords ROI

By Dave Ingalls
Internet Marketing Consultant
November 29, 2009

Does this sound familiar? You’ve got your AdWords ads click through rate (CTR) up in the 5-15% range, and sometimes higher, but those clicks are not translating into either online sales and/or product inquiries.

Waz up with that?! Here’s a way to find out what’s going on.

FIRST, watch this short video on YouTube by Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik on why “Bounce Rate” might be the BEST metric to use to quickly understand what’s going right, and more importantly, what’s going wrong with your AdWords program:

“Google Analytics – Bounce Rate: The Simply Powerful Metric”

SECOND, if you haven’t done this already, you need to create a Google Analytics account and add the analytics code to each of your Web pages/Blog posts. (I’m assuming that you already have a Google AdWords account or else you wouldn’t be reading this article!)

THIRD, you need to link your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together. This step can be a little tricky, so be patient and follow Google’s directions.

From Google AdWords Help:

“How do I link my Google Analytics account to my AdWords account?”

FOURTH, wait 2-3 weeks until you have some AdWords/Analytics data to analyze.

Next Steps – Please click on this link for Part II of this exercise.

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Marketing Apple – 5 Secrets of the World’s Best Marketing Machine
Steve Chazin
June 28, 2009

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): I recently came across this free ebook by Steve Chazin. Steve worked at Apple for a decade at a critical time in Apple’s history. His ebook “spills the beans” on how Apple resurrected itself. These 5 “secrets” are not specific to Internet Marketing, but I’m sure you’ll be able to use them to help your online marketing efforts. Plus I’m a sucker for lists, especially when they’re numbered, short and right on the money! And this list fits all 3 criteria! I also dug up the FIRST iPod commercial (below) so you can check it out before reading the 5 secrets and see if Apple followed their own advice – enjoy!

From Steve’s intro: “These secrets are super condensed learnings from my nearly decade-long tenure at Apple about how and why people spring to action. Since that time, I’ve uncovered many ways that can enable any company to tap into people’s innate desire to share their passion for products and help create “lift” – the irresistible force of millions of customers selling your product for you. Just as Apple has harnessed this power more than any company in history now you can too. So even though these really aren’t Apple’s secrets these just may be even better. Here are my proven ideas to help you market like Apple and improve your business and your reputation at the same time.”

Read the free ebook online by clicking on the following link:

Marketing Apple – 5 Key Secrets

P.S. If you like to see what Steve’s been up to recently, visit DimDim.com

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Search dominated by paid placement, more SEO to come.
eMarketer
March 30, 2009

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): The beat goes on! Nice to look at any spending projection chart these days (see full article on eMarketer) and see the numbers going UP! This article also does a nice job making the case for why SEO will continue to grow at a rate faster than paid search engine advertising.

“New data provided by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), based on research conducted by Radar Research, sheds light on how search marketing dollars are being spent.

In 2008, $13.5 billion was spent on search marketing. The space was mostly made up of paid placement and search engine optimization (SEO), with a sliver going to technology providers whose software assisted in the execution of search campaigns. Paid search ads saw 88% of the total pie, SEO only 11%.

The ratio of paid placement to SEO will change in the future.

“Internet users prefer organic listings to paid search. They generally find them more relevant—or simply more acceptable—than advertising,” said eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman. “Therefore, they tend to click on organic results more often than on paid search ads.”

SEO is also cost-effective and works across all search engines. In addition, an optimized site doesn’t drop off the first results page even when a marketer’s spending slows or stops, as paid search does.”

Read the entire article online by clicking on the following link:

Search Marketing Spending and Trends

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by Rick Burnes
Hubspot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
November 18, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): What an insightful and helpful article! Rick Burnes does a masterful job of integrating the next round of Internet Marketing initiatives and showing how they can form the basis of a comprehensive online “Inbound Marketing” strategy. The comparison of Inbound Marketing tools to “Outbound Marketing” tools is spot-on. An excerpt with one of the charts from this blog entry is given below. I suggest you STOP whatever you’re doing, take 10 minutes and read the entire article (link below). You will not be disappointed!

“What Is Inbound Marketing?”

“Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

In traditional marketing (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers. They use techniques that are poorly targeted and that interrupt people. They use cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows.

Technology is making these techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, they attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.”

Read the entire article by clicking on this link:

“Inbound marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web”

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eMarketer
October 28, 2008

Social network ads can seem intrusive.

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): As this article points out nicely, you can reach young adults by advertising on their favorite forms of communicating with each other, but you might not be too happy with the results! A really interesting read!

“Responding young adults in the US said e-mail and direct mail were bigger influencers on their purchasing decisions than social networks, according to recently released data from an ExactTarget-sponsored survey conducted by the Ball State University Center for Media Design.

Mike Bloxham, research director at Ball State, noted in a statement that just because 18-to-34-year-olds like to spend time on social networks does not mean advertisers should try to reach them there.”

“It is too easy to assume that the media consumers choose for their own news, information and entertainment are, by default, the best media to use for marketing messages,” Mr. Bloxham said.”

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“The researchers noted that college students were particularly spam-savvy and believed private communications such as SMS and social networks were off-limits for marketers.”

Read the entire article by clicking on the following link:

Digital Tactics for Reaching Young Adults

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