2009 August | Online Marketing Trend Report

Archive for August, 2009

Glossary Of Online Marketing Terms

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Below are a list of commonly used terms in our Industry for your reference:

A.C.R. – Acquisition, Conversion and Retention is used to describe our three step process for success on the web. First you must acquire qualified and targeted traffic to your website. Next, you focus on improving your conversion rate via landing page testing and optimization (i.e. conversion optimization). Finally, you retain your customers with highly targeted and timely messages to increase loyalty.
Advertising network – A service where ads are bought centrally through one company and displayed on multiple websites in their network that contract with that company for a share of revenue generated by placing ads on their site.
AdWords – Google advertising console, aka pay per click management service.
Algorithm – The technology that a search engine uses to deliver relevant search results to a query.
Anchor Text – The clickable text part of a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page being linked to is all about. This increasingly is becoming the most important part of an effective link building program.
Big Three – Often used when speaking generally about the top three search engines – Google, Yahoo! and MSN (Bing).
Click Through Rate – The rate (expressed in a percentage) on which users click on an ad. This is calculated by dividing the total number of impressions. CTR is an important metric for Internet Marketers to measure the performance on an ad campaign.
Content Network - A group of websites that agree to show ads on their sites, served by an ad network in exhange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads. Examples include Google AdSense or the Yahoo! Publisher Network.
Conversion Optimization – The process of improving your website experience in order to increase specific actions (sales, downloads, email sign ups, etc).
Cost Per Action (CPA) – A form of advertising where payment is dependent on an action that a user performs as a result of an advert.
Cost Per Click (CPC) – Also known as “(PPC) Pay Per Click”. CPC is a form of advertising where an advertiser pays a set price for every click they get one of their ads that results in a visitor to their website.
Cost Per Thousand (CPM) – An ad model that charges advertisers every time an ad is shown to a user, whether the user clicks the ad or not. The fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions. M is the roman numeral for 1000. Most displays ads such as banner ads are sold by CPM.
Geo-Targeting – Delivery of ads specific to the geographical location of the searcher. Geo targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or will not be shown, enabling more localized and personalized results.
Inbound Link – A hyperlink pointing to your website from someone other than you. Inbound links are an important element that most search engines algorithms use to measure the popularity or relevance of a web page.
Keyword – A word or phrase entered into a search engine in an attempt to get the search engine to return a relevant result.
Meta Tags – Info placed into the header of an HTML web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers. Meta tags can be used to help properly index a page. Common meta tags include title tags, description tags, and keyword tags.
Pay Per Click (PPC) – See Cost Per Click (CPC) above.
Personalized Search – As the engines begin to collect information about your specific searching habits, they can show you different SERP’s based on your previous searching habits and behaviors
Quality Score – A score that is assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad’s click-through-rate, the relevancy of the landing page, and the consideration of the other factors used to determine the quality of a site. Usually speaking, the higher the quality score, the higher the average position on the engines and the lower the cost per click. All of the major search engines use some type of quality score in their search ad algorithms.
Return On Investment (ROI) – The amount of money an advertiser earns from their ads compared to the amount of money the advertiser spends on their ads.
Search Advertising – Also called paid search. Most search ads are sold by a PPC model, where the advertisers pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in the search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and search advertising, or paid search.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of improving a web page’s rankings by making it highly relevant for specific keywords. SEO takes the form of both on-page optimization (improving the actual website) and off-page optimization (popularity outside of their own web pages).
Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) – The results searchers see after they’ve entered a query in a search box.
Semantic Search – A process wherein the search engines know what you intended when you search based on your previous searching behaviors, interests and preferences. I.e. Jaguar the animal versus jaguar the car.
Social Media - A category of websites based on user participation and user-generated content. These are sites usually centered around user interaction.
Spider -A search engine spider is a program that crawls the web visiting web pages to search out information to add or update a search engines index of pages.
Universal Search – Also known as blended search, universal search pulls in elements of different databases into a SERP such as videos, images, news, and local (map) results. The big three recently integrated universal search into the majority of their SERP’s, as it is something generally preferred by searchers.
Web 2.0 – Refers to the second generation of Internet-based websites and services such as wiki’s, networking sites, and communication tools. This is when the web went from brochure websites to sites that let people collaborate and share information online.
Web 3.0 – The next phase of websites in production that will focus more on personalization and semantic-based searching.

Profit Optimization is the Future!

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Over the past ten years, I’ve been struggling to find a term that truly defines what it is we can do for our clients. We’ve tried terms such as ACR (aka acquisition, conversion, retention) but that described our process to online marketing more than it did the benefits. We also tried going after specific optimization terms (search engine optimization, ppc campaign optimization, conversion optimization, etc) but that approach always left us too niche and “type-cast” with our clients when we could do so much more for them beyond these single services. Now more and more, however, I have been speaking about “profit optimization” and have come to realize that this not only accurately describes what we can do for our clients but it is the future of our Industry.

So what exactly is profit optimization? Profit optimization, simply put, is where you boost your return on investment by coordinating your search data with your conversion/sales data . In other words, not all conversions are created equal. Some conversions will actually cost you money while others will generate healthy returns. Yet, all this time, we’ve been allocating equal priority to every conversion. With profit optimization, however, we can start making better choices about our marketing thresholds and spends.

So how do you start profit optimizing? Here are some tips:

Establish a way to integrate search data with conversion data so you know which keyword drove the sale. Some simple ways to do this involve custom tags, unique phone number tracking, and dynamically generated landing pages. A more advanced way of doing this is through automatic data sync’s via API’s.
Improve your reporting so that you know which conversion are of high value and which ones are of lesser quality. This is an extra step but the most crucuial. For example, a high value sale may have cost three times as much to acquire but the ROI is much better. The only way to know this is with this extra data point.
Optimize your campaigns -Now that you have these critical technologies and reporting pieces in place, you can now make better decisions optimizing your SEO, PPC, and Online Advertising campaigns, your conversion optimization campaigns, and your retention campaigns. Once you know the high value targets, you can aggressively go after them, while minimizing the spends on the lower value ones.

While we are excited about all of the changes happening in the online space, we are most excited about profit optimization. Here, we finally get to the root of what online marketing is all about – the bottom line – and now we have the tactics and the technologies to make this a reality for all clients.

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A World Without Keywords?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Imagine a world where keywords are not used for searching. Instead, in this world, the major search engines know exactly who you are and deliver content to you based on your previous browsing behavior and indicated interests and preferences. As crazy as it sounds, this future may not seem as far fetched or as far away as it sounds. At this month’s Search Engine Strategies, the experts in fact discussed that improvements are currently being tested that will deliver better search results, more highly targeted advertising, and an overall enhanced user-experience without the necessary dependence on keyword searching. So, how exactly will the engines know what to deliver to you? To look at this another way, isn’t this already what happens in Facebook to some extent? You get content (in this case adverts and fan page suggestions) delivered to you based on your indicated preferences and interests (things you said you like). The search engines may not be far off from that type of form and function.

So, what does this possible future mean to the website owner/search engine marketer? Especially those of us that have been so dependent on keywords since the dawn of the Internet? Below are some tips for preparing for this possible new world:

Design your website for your customer – make it easy to navigate and user-friendly and try to keep your users on the site as long as possible. In the future, Google will likely place more value on on-site user experiences.
Build your brand – branding and positioning will also grow in importance for Google.
Hire Experience – Hire a search engine optimizer that is looking at all your data and is thinking about the future of SEO (i.e. predictive technology).
Hire Experience II – Old School SEO tactics are now a commodity and too many people claim to have expertise in this field now. BUT Google is always looking for new ways to determine relevancy, and most SEO’s do not take the time to keep up – so make sure you choose an expert who can advise you on the latest SEO trends.
Mine Your Data – Begin by looking at your own website data from Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google Insight to get a sense of existing user patterns. Learn a little about how your users are using your site right now.
Think profit optimization over search engine optimization – If you build a site and a brand that delivers a good product or service, you will not be left out of the mix. If you instead focus on tactics and strategies that are too narrow -minded (give me a top ranking), you may completely miss the boat.

It’s hard for all of us to imagine a world without keywords. For those using search engines for some time now, we’ve grown accustomed to getting to what we want via keyword searching. The change would inevitably shake up the Industry but if the end game is really a better experience for searchers and for advertisers, this change will ultimately be a positive one.

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The Return of Display Advertising???

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Over the past decade, the “display ad” has become an after-thought for the savvy Internet marketer. Click through rates are at an all-time low (less than .1%) and there are far too many sites/places to advertise. With budgets becoming extremely limited, the smart choice has been to put your money in search where marketers have known exactly what outcome they could expect from their investments. Before we bury display advertising, however, there is now strong data that supports using display in conjunction with your search campaigns. Let’s look at some of the facts presented by Rajas Moonka, Group Business Product Manager, Google Inc. at last week’s SES Conference in San Jose.

Display Drives More Search – After seeing display ads, nearly as many users search (27%) as those who click on display ads (31%).
Display Drives More Traffic – After seeing display ads, website traffic to advertisers websites increased 268%.
Display Drives Better Conversion - Using display ads, a major financial services firm saw a +38% conversion lift while a major airline saw a +34% online revenue lift.
Display Drives More Offline Sales – Using display ads, a major food manufacturer saw a lift in offline sales of +52%.

The numbers clearly indicate that we’ve perhaps been too hard on display advertising over the past few years and we should instead reconsider using them in our marketing mixes. When looking at this from another perspective, consider the fact that people’s media habits are changing. We are now consuming less traditional media (goodbye newspapers, radio, tv) and spending a lot more time online (hello Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Google, Flickr). As such, doesn’t it make sense then to refocus your budgets and advertise where your target customers are now going? Of course, search is still an integral part of the mix. A customer often needs to see your brand in many places and from many different types of media (video, banner, social media) in order to put you in their consideration set when they are ready to buy. But give display advertising the “assist”and the credit it deserves in helping you win conversions from search.

The “big three” search engines get it. Yahoo! in particular has been leading the pack offering a search re-targeting service. This service uses search query data to re-target display ads through sites in the Yahoo! network. Google also is making great strides for potential display advertisers helping them build and create display ads easily with their Google Display Ad Builder. Because of search re-targeting’s upside, additional solutions are out there. According to Mark Simon from Online Strategies, “you should familiarize yourself with solutions from companies like Advertising.com and Audience Science” if you are interested in getting into this space.

Display advertising is the oldest form of advertising on the web and perhaps we all may be been just a little too quick to rule it dead???!!!

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Thoughts on Day #3 at SES San Jose 2009

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Today marked the last and final day of SES San Jose 2009. Again, the conference seemed to have less people than the day before (which itself also seemed to have less people than the day before that) but putting all that aside… today was a good day. From the amazing opening keynote speaker, Charlene Li, to the finals sessions, today was a day of learning, networking, and introspection. Mostly discussed topic this week…”where exactly is this search industry headed”?

Below are some observations about the last day of the conference:

Even less people but the keynote was packed with marketers waiting to hear Charlene Li speak.
Charlene Li gave an impressive speech on the future of search including the declaration that you will soon be taking social with yo (i.e. social in the air).
She also mentioned that the future of search will be by “people” not by “keywords”
After Charlene, the day was packed with great and (mostly) full sessions.
Blogs, news feeds are all powering and serving SEO campaigns well.
Display, content, and search all used at the same time give your campaigns a huge life.
Don’t necessarily give your search (last click) all of the credit! Display ads, emails, etc. can often give an “assist”. p.s. Yahoo! is now tracking search assists.
Hours spent online is going up~ but search only takes up a small amount of the time what people do online.
Search is becoming the new display operation system – and improving the ways that display can get into the mix.
This year was less about the war between Bing, Yahoo!, and Google and instead was more focused on ROI for our clients.
Lunch? C’mon guys.. Three straight days of the same food? Really?

In summary, there were a lot of great speakers and a lot of great people here at this year’s SES San Jose. Next year, SES will move to San Francisco which should be a great change of venue for this conference. Maybe, just then, we will see an attendance number that more closely matches the quality of the event.

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Thoughts on Day #2 at SES San Jose 2009

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Today, On Day #2 of SES San Jose 2009, the conference finally seemed to get down to business. That is, after all the attendees and exhibitors stumbled in late (thanks to our friends at Webmaster Radio and last night’s Search Bash). Today the tracks started at 9:00am and continued all the way through to 5:00pm. With an hour lunch for networking, followed by an hour keynote presentation given by Nicholas Fox, Director of AdWords, the day was filled with many “things to do”. In retrospect, today was the day we all got serious about the conference. Even the exhibitors I asked all seemed to have had a much better day than the day before.

Here are some more observations about day #2:

After a very slow start, people started showing up and participating in the activities of the day.
Less people seemed to be here today, than yesterday, but most of the tracks were “mainly” filled.
Paid search, organic search, and local search still dominate our topics of interest but many in the Industry pondering where are we going to next?
Conversion optimization via landing page testing finally becoming an integral part of an SEM’s playbook.
Site structure, coding, and c0ntent still making the largest on-page impact on SEO campaigns
Link building, content writing, social media still making the largest off-page impact on SEO campaigns
The focus is finally on our customers and the next phase of search is being built to provide better targeted and relevant ads.
Facebook and Twitter are the only two Social Networking sites being talked about (haven’t heard about MySpace once, in fact)
The lunch set up was great for networking opportunities but sadly we were unable to go back for seconds today.

Tomorrow, is the final day of the conference. And while I am looking forward to going back and teaching my staff/implementing new strategies for my clients, I always wish these conference would be a day or two longer. This event, unlike others I attend, has a very positive vibe – one where all of the marketers talk, learn, and share with each other. Competitors are not competitors here just attendees out here to learn for the benefit of their businesses and their clients. Long live search, long live SES!

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Thoughts on Day #1 at SES San Jose 2009

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

As always, it was an enlightening first day of activity at this year’s SES San Jose 2009 conference. While attendance seems to be down (way down), this event seems to run itself so thanks definitely needs to be given to the Incisive Media crew for the outstanding line-up of topics, speakers, and overall organization of the show this year.

Below is a list of the main observations noticed today.

Attendance seems to be waaaay down – This was very noticeable to me from the lull of activity at Starbucks (near the entrance) to the condensed seating charts for the first keynote. I had a hunch things were going to be much smaller this year but perhaps not to the level I saw today.
The convention was all abuzz about Google’s recent “caffeine update’ announcement. This will help the search engine giant compete with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter for “real time” information.
Social Media is mentioned as often as Search Engine Optimization. Even though still hard to measure, it is now widely accepted by the Industry and a part of the overall NEW landscape of online marketing.
There are more “in-house” search engine marketers here than there are “agency” types.
The future of search was a prevalent topic today and sessions on it were well-attended.
Conversion optimization was also a hot topic and sessions on it were also well-attended.
Semantic search, mobile search, and personalization are all future trends to watch out for that will impact your businesses.
This year seems to be less about optimizing for Bing, Yahoo, and Google and more about optimizing sites for your customers (finally!).
The exhibitors have some amazing technologies designed to give all Internet marketers a competitive advantage. Many of these tools, however, are not meant for consumption by small to mid-sized agencies. Hopefully, the price of these technologies eventually lowers over time so that all can benefit from it.
San Diego was “in the house.” Today, I ran into Dana Todd, Lee Mills, Cindy Turietta, Patti Testerman, Patty Keversham, Steve Barber, and Cody Maher.
Our good friends at magnify360 were also in the house today (in their lab coats) showcasing their “Predictive DNA technology.” Great to see Olivier, Chris, Jason, and Jim!
I am off to the Webmaster Radio Search Bash in a few hours and look forward to doing this all again tomorrow.

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Greetings From SES San Jose 2009

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Well, it’s that time again… My annual pilgrimage to San Jose for the Search Engine Strategies Conference (i.e. the Search Engine Convention). My car is packed and I’m ready to go…On my way to the event (7.5 hours straight of highway driving from San Diego to Northern California), I will have plenty of time to review the year that’s been (in search) and think about the future possibilities of our Industry. Search is prevalent in everything we do these days from surfing the Internet (think Google) to surfing your television (think DVR). And with huge advances in mobile technology these past few years, the convergence of search is already happening on your smart phones.

Having spent the past 10 years in the Internet Marketing space, I am most familiar with search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, and local search but even I realize that the times they are a changing…A few years ago, at this very same conference we were engaging in discussions mainly about how to best optimize for Google. This week, we will be talking about semantic search, conversion optimization, the Bing/Yahoo merger and cool mobile apps. All great topics leading to the answer of “what’s next” for search engine marketers.

I, for one, am excited. Although nobody necessarily likes change… in this Industry it is inevitable. I look forward to reporting my experiences this year at the conference via blog posts and tweets. To follow me, find me on Twitter (www.twitter.com@sdmktgguy).

Hope you enjoy!

Ron

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