PPC
I’m a Verbalist, Not a Blogger
by George Popstefanov on 09/10/2009 at 3:33 pm in Commentary, Observations, Within Range
With everything that is going in the industry and having the opportunity to go to several different conferences, you would think that I have plenty to say. The truth is that I am more of a verbalist (ver•bal•ist – One who favors words over ideas or substance) than a writer. My problem is that I can’t make my blogs fun and use football references, or talk about my experiences with a phone provider or make a correlation between shoes and online marketing. No, I can talk all day about using search queries reports for your keyword research, looking into webmaster tools to figure out keywords that you might want to add for PPC or utilizing Google Analytics to manage your PPC campaigns, but writing about it and making it fun – Forget about it!
Full StoryWhat’s the Deal with All These Retreads?
by Jeremy Hull on 07/15/2009 at 1:44 pm in Commentary, Observations, PPC, Within Range
Is paid search out of ideas? Don’t get me wrong, I love paid search. It’s my specialty. It’s logical, predictable, and organized, which appeals to my OCD nature. Social media and mobile may be the next “big things,” but from my vantage point, they’re still very nebulous and unorganized. Give me a basic paid search campaign any day, and I’ll sculpt it into something that will make you some money. That being said, I can’t help but feel paid search as a whole is getting a little stale. The past several years have seen lots of new ideas and innovations—improved targeting, more control, the capability for real-time changes—the list is actually kind of long. However, recently it seems like every time I hear about a new paid search feature from any of the major engines I get a strange feeling of déjà vu.
Full StoryPaint or Potato Chips?
by Kevin Freemore on 06/22/2009 at 5:27 pm in Brand Management, PPC, PPC Strategies
Do a search for “eating paint chips” and take a look at how many paid search ads come up. There’s an ad for Healthy All-Natural chips, which you might want to consider if you really are interested in eating Kelly-Moore Latex Sour Cream and Onions. There are also a number of well known paint companies that are advertising and hopefully not intending for their brand of paint to be used as a snack. And who knows–there may come a day when paint is flavored and non-toxic. Glue is ok to eat now, right? Anyway, you get the idea. It took me a whole minute to find an example of this, and believe me, there were plenty more that were way worse. Now, ask yourself a few questions. What does this do to my search performance and what does it do to my brand image?
Full StoryLuxury Digitally Defined
by Andrea Wilson on 06/12/2009 at 2:28 pm in Brand Management, Online Strategies, PPC, Performance Marketing
Luxury retailers/brands should cater their major initiatives to ‘refinement of living, indulgence, enjoyments of comforts and pleasures’. As such, shouldn’t the online experience be as comforting and pleasurable as the product itself? Doesn’t it make sense that a buying a luxury brand’s product should be easier and more enjoyable than a buying a discount product from a mass retailer or discounter? So why is it so difficult to even find the luxury official website?
Full StoryDoes It Make Sense To Run Branded Paid Search?
by Jeff LeVan on 05/20/2009 at 6:14 pm in Brand Management, Nonbrand Strategy, PPC, PPC Strategies
Does it make sense to run branded paid search? If you run branded search are you just taking credit for conversions that would have happened anyway? Is running just non-brand the way to go because it drives purely incremental revenue? Even if it kills your paid search ROI, these are valid questions to consider. It’s important to think about how paid search impacts a client’s business as a whole, not just boast about glitzy 50-to-1 ROI numbers from just running brand. These are the issues that we tried to consider when devising a test to determine whether or not it makes sense for a particular business to run branded paid search.
Full StoryRange Online Media: Plays Well With Others
by Blake Suggs on 04/29/2009 at 5:18 pm in Online Strategies, PPC, SEO
One of our travel clients recently signed on with us to do SEO. Now keep in mind that this particular client has a very well-established brand and secure market position, so we were going to have to bring EXTRA big value to the table. Our task from the outset was clear: take SEO and “integrate” it with all other site initiatives to give our client the biggest bang for their buck.
Full StoryThe Fear of the Dream Realized
by Danielle Smith on 02/06/2009 at 12:26 pm in Observations, Opinion Editorial, PPC, Within Range
The frustration felt when you see a client throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at short-lived, easily forgotten campaigns while allowing their brand positioning in something as basic as paid search to be ignored is maddening. You go home after days like that and just beat your head into a wall. Then you wake up and go at it again. That is until now.
Full StoryOnline Fights for Budgets, While Offline Does Advertising Like This
by Vic Drabicky on 04/07/2008 at 4:07 pm in Commentary, Observations, PPC, Within Range
It still amazes/frustrates/baffles/confuses me how hard online agencies and marketers have to fight for even the smallest of budgets. That’s not to say we shouldn’t have to make a case for why we need an extra hundred thousand dollars here, or million there, but whenever I see ads like the one below (whose production costs alone probably top the entire annual online marketing budget), it still baffles me.
Full Story