The Digital Marketing Future: Listenomics, or Creep Factor?
If you optimize highly targeted digital direct response campaigns, conversations, and other buy cycle functions, you are the future. The last of a four-part series. Previous columns in this series have argued that paid search is the most sophisticated current version of a true direct response “machine,” and that companies typically under-invest because they fail […]
The ‘Chaos Scenario’: Will You Be Ashes, or Green Shoots?
Part 3 of a series on building marketing information assets. The “Chaos Scenario” is upon us. It’s not proving to be an orderly transition. On one side: “old, dead media” (and the advertising that assumed and furthered its continuation). On the other side: “something very different,” and possibly far less valuable. There is hope…if you’re […]
Maximizing Your Paid Search Asset
Are companies doing what they can to identify, nurture, and maximize the paid search asset? Here are some things they should be doing. Can a well-honed advertising campaign be considered an asset? A mature paid search campaign is an asset, in the sense that it’s a complex, diversified portfolio of laser-targeted advertising touch points (search […]
Your Paid Search Campaign: It’s an Asset (Literally)
The biggest sin in the marketplace isn’t asking questions and digging up data from people; it’s not asking, not digging, and getting it wrong. Can an advertising campaign be an asset? I don’t mean asset as in “Say, Biff, you’re a real asset to Norelco. Another quarterly sales increase, and thanks for taking care of […]
The Google AdWords ‘Tourist Tax’
The difference between the newbies in AdWords Nation and the veterans. On a recent trip to Italy, I was struck by the pricing gap between “insider deals” you might get if you were a local, and the prices paid by harried newbies who just got off the plane. It’s price discrimination against the “rich,” or […]
Five Edgy Paid Search Techniques That Aren’t Black Hat
You won’t necessarily find these techniques in a Google AdWords certification course. Second in a two-part series. In my previous column, I expressed skepticism that black hat techniques are relevant to the world of paid search. This time, let’s look at some aggressive techniques that are worth considering – and aren’t necessarily black hat. Let’s […]
Black Hat PPC: Really? (Part 1)
Search marketers who use black hat techniques in paid search advertising are misjudging the guvernment of Google. Here’s how. With apologies to SNL’s Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler: this column is about black hat paid search advertising. Really. I’m a white hat. Really. So to you clever black hats out there: you still want to […]
Three Effective Tactics for Content Targeting
In today’s paid search environment, there’s a myth that content targeting doesn’t convert measurably for advertisers. Let’s dispel that myth. I admit it. Along with about 90 percent of AdWords advertisers, I was once a card-carrying member of the “Content Targeting is Scary, Kind of Like a Toyota, Club.” At SES New York one year, […]
Ad Position: Do You Need to Rethink Your Assumptions?
A look at the results of a bid increase test to see if a slightly higher ad position justifies an aggressive bid. No wacky stories this week – just numbers. Below I share the result of a bid increase (ad position) test, with the goal being to find out whether that slightly increased average ad […]
Paid Search Ad Copywriting: 7 Heavenly Virtues
If you want to reach your potential in the landing page optimization world, follow these seven steps. In the landing page optimization world, only a small elite reach peak performance. Those are the multitalented practitioners who have the good fortune of being fueled with data from a decade’s worth of testing, and who excel above […]