How Does It Work?

• A user opens their browser and logs into Facebook
• They navigate away from Facebook (still signed in) and visit a site on the DSP.
• They perform a search in one of the DSP sites e.g. Caribbean cruises.
• The DSP feeds this information back to the Facebook Exchange.
• The user visits another site on the DSP.
• They are targeted with tailored adverts about Caribbean cruises.

How Will It Affect The User?

The user will get served adverts tailored to their search activities. This can go one of two ways. The user shall be served with quality, relevant adverts for a period of time. The user shall be pestered with adverts everywhere they go. Search as well as site retargeting should be done at the right frequency and I would expect Facebook to provide a frequency capping setting where advertisers can specify how long their advert follows a user.

How Will It Affect The Advertiser?

At the moment, search retargeting is carried out by a handful of companies across the globe. The stumbling block for most clients when it comes to setting up a campaign is the minimum monthly spend figure which is usually about £5,000. Hopefully Facebook will offer a solution that does not have a minimum monthly spend which will allow advertisers, big or small, to avail of their retargeting platform.

Conclusion

The introduction of the Facebook Exchange will give SME’s the opportunity to add search retargeting to their list of advertising platforms. Site retargeting or remarketing is the highest converting form of display network advertising with search retargeting coming in second.

The post Facebook Retargeting – Search Retargeting Made Affordable appeared first on PushON Ltd.

It was only by chance that I stumbled across this book. A link was shared during the daily marketing meeting between the marketing team which led to a discussion on Nike’s new social media video campaign “My Time is Now” whereby viewers are encouraged to find the “hidden tunnels” to find out more about the new stars of world football. This video is excellent by the way and you can view it here.

After watching the video I came across the company who managed the social activation of the idea, digital agency AKQA. Clicking through onto the homepage after a Google search led me to find the biggest plug I have ever seen. Looking back on it now I am delighted that this obvious plug is so in your face as I would have never found this book otherwise. I ordered the book the same day and got next day delivery (don’t tell my girlfriend).

The book barely had time to rest and I was finished with it in one day and has completely changed my perspective on … everything really. Not saying I had a bad attitude towards work or anything but this book has really inspired me to try new things, be creative, innovative and take ownership of tasks that will get clients excited.

The book is written by Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Akqa and Stefan Olander, VP of Digital Sport at Nike. It’s not your average book which reads in big chunks of text but instead a conversation between the two authors discussing digital successes and real life examples of apps, sites and strategies that have taken the digital world by storm. It also has an introduction written by my uncle Sir Richard Branson. (Disclaimer: Richard Branson is not my uncle). Still not impressed? You will be. The book has seven chapters, one chapter for every law. I have gone through each chapter and picked out a few key quotes and have added my perspective on the points raised.

Chapter 1: A Smith & Wesson Beats Four Aces

“Evolve immediately. Entitlement kills”

“It’s good to be first. It’s better to be good. It’s best to be both”.

A person should be brutally honest with themselves and outline what they are good at and what they are not so good at. Learning doesn’t take age into account; you are never too old or too knowledgeable to find new and better ways of doing things. Using your strengths to instil quality into all of your work is paramount if you want to take a market by storm. Early adopters into a marketplace will see some success if the product/service is popular among a community but if early adopters do not create a flawless product then it leaves the door open for a better product to enter the market and steal the majority of market share.

Innovation is a key factor in creating something new and exciting, which is hard to come by as most companies are built on efficiency rather than innovation. Efficiency is the opposite of innovation.

How many agencies do you know that will employ new staff when new work comes in? Company’s personnel find themselves inundated with work and have no time for innovation, they will grow as business comes through the door but they will never dramatically grow or take the market by storm and separate themselves from the competition. Researching every new advertising platform, keeping up to date with industry trends & blogs, and forming new relationships with experts in certain fields will allow me to become better at my job, learn while I work and use techniques that I have discovered are innovative.

Chapter 2: It’s Easier Done Than Said

“Get Going. Then Get Better”

Know what the consumer wants before they do. You need to take a step back before developing the product and ask “how will this benefit the customer”. Don’t just put your product in Beta and leave it up to your users to spot the bugs. Launch a product that is flawless, put as much time and effort into it, test it, act as your own biggest critic. These actions will enable you to launch a product that will be bought and shared by consumers who love your product.

If you have any problems then go to an expert in that field rather than spending time trying to fix things. The time lost here may see a similar product come to market and blow your idea out of the water. Staying true to your word is priceless. If a product says that it does something and it doesn’t then the disappointment will be resonated by the customer and it is easy to crash and burn before the ball gets rolling due to the popularity and pace of the major social networks.

Have you asked your clients what they want to achieve with a campaign? It is key to outline goals and sub goals when working on an account. Find out as much about the client as you can and then turn your attention to the client’s customers. Perform usability testing on their site, use surveys and heat-maps to see what customers actually want. Set up Site Search reports in Google Analytics to see what they are looking for on your site. Nike put a “tell us what you think” button their nikeplus.com site and they get 15,000 responses a day.

Chapter 3: The Best Advertising Isn’t Advertising

“Make Meaningful Connections”

Making a connection with your customer is more important than interrupting them while they are interacting with friends on Facebook. Connections last and customers who feel connections will become brand ambassadors and promote your product. This is the best type of advertising as people would rather buy a product which is highly recommended by a friend rather than just click on an advert for a company which they do not know anything about.

“You don’t want to ruin it with ads because ads aren’t cool”

That was Sean Parker’s quote to Mark Zuckerberg about adding adverts to the social network. Creating wonder around your product means a company will save on advertising costs as brand advocates shall be born and they will tell your story.

“Advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service” – Jeff Bezos Amazon.com

That’s all well and good Jeff but we all don’t work at Amazon, Nike or Virgin. Some companies have it harder when it comes to getting a product out there but if the product fulfils a consumer need then it will be picked up. Buzzwords are commonplace in the digital industry, “gamification” being the new one. Launching products that do not fit into the mechanics of these buzzwords is a bad idea and time should be spent ironing out any faults and creating those connections rather than trying to create a false mystery around the product.

Study the brief carefully when creating a new product or launching a new campaign. What does the company wish to achieve and what vehicles will take them to their goal?

“Always go too far. If you go too far we can bring it back if we need to. Don’t go far enough and we’ll always be disappointed”

The above quote is in relation to pitches. Some agencies like to give the potential client a taster of what they will do and leave them wanting more. I am of the opinion that you should put your hand on the table and show them exactly what you will do. It’s about the execution of the plan as well as the actual work.

Chapter 4: Convenient is the Enemy of Right

“Never have anything to apologise for”

“Making life easier for people means making it tough for yourself”

“Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you’ll suck forever” – Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys

To succeed when launching a product or service you have to get stuck in and put in the time. Be anal about your product and make sure nobody can find issues with it. After all this is your creation and your name will be forever attached to it. Some things are impossible to manufacture but reach for the impossible and get as close as you can to it.

There will be people out there who will try to create better products than you, waiting for you to fail, don’t let that happen. Take responsibility for everything that you create or provide. Ensure that your clients and customers are serviced fully and are happy with your work. If you go the extra mile the customer will see the benefit in the long run, they may not see all the hard work that you have put in but they will be left with a product or service that truly fulfils the need that it was created for.

In the digital industry you get a range of client personas. Clients who ignore you, clients who are on the phone to you every day and clients who are never happy with whatever you do. All of these clients should be serviced the same way, to the best of your ability. Just because a client does not reply to your monthly reports doesn’t mean they want you to stop sending them. Find a middle ground; supply them with something they desire. Competitor reports and insight usually get a knee jerk. Taking the hassle out of what they do will make you stand out from other agencies. Can we help them to ease their workload?

Chapter 5: Respect Human Nature

“Make yourself proud by making people’s lives easier, richer and more fun. Don’t just give people choice, help them to choose”

“I just think things should work properly” – James Dyson

Create products and services with the consumer in mind. Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes and ask yourself; is the product useful? Where and how can I use it and is it easy to use? Is it cool? Always try to exceed expectations and make a customer’s life easier. The vibe around a product is extremely important, more important than content. The experience a customer has will influence whether they buy a product or use a service.

It is easy to open a client’s eyes to new services that have come to the market although the usual response is “why didn’t you tell me about this sooner”. Provide clients with proposals on how to improve their offering. The worst thing that can happen is that they say no to the idea. If you don’t do it then another agency will. Make sure to outline benefits of using the proposed service and be analytical about it. Forecasting is extremely difficult. Especially in this economic climate whereby one month to the next may show really varied results. Act as a guide when presenting the proposal and offer alternatives if the service is not a good fit for the client. Make it not about saying no but about which one to choose.

Chapter 6: No Good Joke Survives a Committee of Six

“Have the balls to make the calls”

“We have no money so we have to think” – Billy Beane, Oakland A’s

Groupthink and brainstorming sessions are very popular in the digital sector but there will always be one person who will have an objection with an idea. Most of the best ideas come from individuals, using their own initiative and bringing that idea to the fore where it can be developed further and brought to reality. Don’t be afraid to project your ideas on the group, you may get shot down nine out of 10 times but that one idea may change the business.

Once an idea has been identified it has to be acted upon. It is easy to list ideas, harder to list good ideas, even harder to list great ideas but once noted they need to be acted upon. Offer to take responsibility to follow up on your idea. Too many times ideas have come and gone because everybody is too busy. Why bother brainstorming if no actions will be taken?

A team that has a boss who comes up with all of the ideas isn’t a team. A leader should let their staff evolve and feel comfortable and confident in bringing new ideas to the table but at the end of the day it’s the manager’s decision on what projects shall be carried out and what will be ignored.

Chapter 7: Have a Purpose Larger than Yourself

“Do the right thing: always play from your heart”

“It’s not about “big ideas” or “small ideas”, it’s about good ideas”

Be passionate about your work. If you don’t have passion and enthusiasm for what you do then you are in the wrong job. Showing your love for your work will shine through and customers will see that and admire you. Keep making suggestions which you think will help customers reach their goals and objectives. Always dream big and reach for the impossible, then it will be pulled back to see what can be done in reality.

“Life is like a box of…..” just kidding, you know I’m not going there.

When attempting to create something amazing, financial incentive should be at the back of your mind. A consumer’s needs and desires should be at the forefront when doing anything product or service related. Personally, I love what I do and get excited about new client projects and new technologies which will help me service clients better. This shines through in client meetings and discussions because if your client shares a passion for what you are doing and is appreciative of the hard work you are carrying out on their behalf it is so much easier to reap the benefits.

Conclusion

“The most powerful force in the universe isn’t technology. It’s imagination”

This book is a must read and is definitely worth the £6.99 & £6 postage and packaging (don’t tell my girlfriend). It is very product based but can be transferred across into everything that a company does. The book lists some really good quotes and extracts from other books which I will look into reading and reviewing over the coming months.

The post Velocity – The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital appeared first on PushON Ltd.

• What is affiliate marketing?
• How to create an affiliate programme
• Types of Affiliates
• Affiliate recruitment
• Affiliate retention

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is a source of online advertising which is, in my opinion, wrongly ignored by many companies. It is quite difficult to explain affiliate marketing without confusing people, that’s why a diagram is usually more apt.

Let’s use a real life example to make affiliate marketing easier to understand. Here are the steps usually followed to complete an affiliate sale:

• Jim Bob is a keen runner, he runs in all of the UK marathons and he also owns a blog where he writes about running.
• JD Sports approach Jim Bob and say “Hey Jim Bob, your readership would be very interested in our products, would you like to promote the brand?”
• Jim Bob obviously asks “what’s in it for me?”
• The JD Sports affiliate terms state that if Jim Bob sends a user to their site who buys a product, he will receive a percentage of that sale.
• Mary visits Jim Bobs blog and is reading a recent post about the London Marathon when she sees a JD Sports banner promoting the new Nike long distance running shoes.
• Mary clicks the banner, goes to the product on the JD Sports site and buys them for £60.
• As Jim Bob is on a standard commission rate of 10% he will receive £6 from that sale.

Make sense? I told you that it was confusing. At the end of each section I will outline a task to make this post more interactive and bring you on a learning journey (I know what you’re thinking, who says “learning journey”?).

If your company/client uses PPC and SEO, you do the math. For example your company offers its affiliates a commission rate of 4%. Your company makes £50,000 revenue from affiliate sales in May and pays its affiliates £2,000 commission. Would you make £50,000 revenue from £2,000 spend from PPC and SEO? If the answer is no then you should look at setting up an affiliate marketing programme, if the answer is yes then affiliate marketing can be another great revenue generating source to run alongside your PPC and SEO campaigns.

How to create an affiliate programme

It’s quite easy to create an affiliate programme. Firstly you must decide whether you are going to manage it through a public network or an in-house network.

The main advantages of managing an affiliate programme through a public network is that the admin is taken care of it for you, reporting and payments are formulated on your behalf, and affiliate recruitment is made a lot easier, as your programme is seen by thousands of affiliates. The downside is that you must pay an override on every transaction and the set-up fees can be quite steep.

With an in-house network, a merchant can offer higher commissions as they do not have to pay an override therefore affiliates may push the merchant to their customers more. The downside is that larger, super affiliates have strong ties with public networks. These affiliates will want to keep everything central, and as they have so many merchants you cannot blame them. The ideal situation is to run your programme on a public and in-house network where you can get the benefits of both. That’s if, of course, the programme is large enough and you have a large affiliate base.

Once you have chosen which network to host the programme on, all you have to do is create your profile page which affiliates will see, set a commission level or commission tiers, add a terms and conditions page and supply several creative images and text links which affiliates can use on their site. Remember to supply a logo, as the larger affiliates will only use a logo to promote the merchant.

You can also supply a list of deep links if you wish, but affiliates nowadays usually choose their own landing pages and add their affiliate tracking ID to the end of the URL. A list of products, part numbers and an RSS feed is also beneficial for affiliates. In the UK, from my experience, Affiliate Window is a superb public network to host your programme on. They have a huge affiliate base, a great and easy to understand reporting interface and very helpful account managers.

What networks have you worked with and what experiences have you had with them? Different industry sectors have industry specialist networks. Try and find out which network your competitors are on before launching a programme, as one network may have a wealth of e-commerce affiliates when you may want to target insurance affiliates.

Types of Affiliates

There are many different types of affiliates, and the key to running a successful affiliate marketing campaign is to have a good mix of the different genres of affiliates. I will briefly run through the different types of affiliates.

1. Pay Per Click

PPC affiliates are usually brought onto an affiliate programme in small doses; usually a bidding group is created so that it is easy to monitor activity. These affiliates can cannibalise the market for certain merchants, cost per clicks may be high in certain industries, therefore having 4 or 5 PPC affiliates bidding on the same keyword casts a merchants advertising net further. When accepting PPC affiliates onto your programme make sure to have watertight terms and conditions and be clear on brand bidding and direct linking. Some merchants allow affiliates to drive traffic straight to their site without having a landing page setup themselves.

2. Cashback Sites

Cashback sites encourage users to buy from a merchant, and the customer is then rewarded with a % of the commission earned. The two main cashback sites are Quidco and Topcashback as they give 100% commission back to the customer. Usually these sites also have an increased commission as merchants vie to get placement on these high volume sites. In certain cases, cashback sites make up for 75% of all affiliate sales.

3. Content Sites

Content sites are probably seen as the most valued genre of affiliate. These sites hold relevant content on the site to the merchant therefore users reading this content will have an interest in your product. For example the below site would be perfect for a company who supply running shoes.

4. Product Comparison

Product Comparison sites list a certain product and list the prices of the different merchants underneath which is usually automatically pulled in from a feed.

 5. Voucher Code Sites

Voucher Code sites are the hub of the smart buyer. Huge savings can be made when using voucher codes and these sites are very popular. If you have a discount code feature on your site I suggest sharing this information with voucher code sites as some also have a social sharing feature which spreads the word about your deal. Your deal can also be rated by users and this increases social engagement.

6. Email Affiliates

Email affiliates are a dying breed in the affiliate industry but new technologies have seen a few re-invent themselves. The likes of VE Interactive who collect a user’s email data when they abandon at the checkout process have revolutionised the email affiliate genre. Instead of sending cold emails to a database of thousands they use targeted data from potential buyers.

What type of affiliate drives the most conversions to your clients? Is it worthwhile giving exclusive commission rates to these affiliates to promote the brand more?

Affiliate recruitment

Affiliate recruitment, in my opinion is the best part of being an affiliate marketing manager. Methods of affiliate recruitment have changed over the years as tools and technology has advanced. You still can’t beat a good old Google search to find a key affiliate but alternative ways have been exposed. Tools such as Syntryx allow an affiliate manager to plug a competitors URL into the system and returns all affiliates linking to the site. It’s a very expensive tool but worthwhile if managing a large affiliate client base.

For those budget affiliate managers, raising my own hand, we must find affiliates the knitty gritty way. I try and take full advantage of the affiliate directory supplied by the affiliate networks. I break them down into type of affiliate and sector. For instance if managing a travel affiliate programme I don’t only want travel affiliates on my programme but high volume cashback and voucher code affiliates too.

A new method which I have started using is to find a competitor with a good affiliate base. I then compile a list of their backlinks using Open Site Explorer and export them into a spread sheet. I then work out what the merchant ID of the client is, for example some networks use the parameters affid=????. Obviously insert the programme number where the question marks are. I then sort the thousands of URL’s leaving only the ones who have the merchant ID in there. Usually a site has multiple links to an affiliate site so I sort them by name as to not duplicate any work looking through these affiliates. Voila! You now have a list of your competitor’s affiliates.

It is also a good idea to post about the programme on the A4U Forum where affiliates “hang out”. If it’s a new programme be sure to be ready to answer a lot of affiliate queries such as “do you have a PPC policy?”, “is there a phone number on your site?” and “what’s the payment schedule?” etc.

Do you have any affiliate recruitment tips? What’s the weirdest affiliate question you ever had?

Affiliate retention

Once you have built a large affiliate base, your hard work is just beginning. A business usually has several competitors in a certain marketplace who are more than likely running an affiliate programme. You must think “what can I do to make affiliates promote my brand over my competitors?” The main answer is commission rates. Affiliates can be easily swayed to change allegiances with an increased commission rate and they are quite blatant about it.

“Dear Affiliate, your competitor is offering you 6% commission and we are willing to offer you 10%, do you mind changing your main banner on the homepage to ours please”…..no answer….checks site hours later…..banners changes. Commission rates, commission tiers, cookie length and competitions will all influence an affiliate’s decision to promote your brand.

Keep the programme fresh, run a competition for high performing affiliates, send out a monthly newsletter with deals and offers on products which can be used easily on the site, provide data feeds and just communicate and ask if there is anything you can do for them.

How do you keep the programme fresh? When was the last time you communicated with your affiliates and didn’t just answer affiliate queries?

Conclusion

Setting up an affiliate programme can be hard work but is also extremely interesting. Remember, choose the right network, get a good mix of affiliates on your programme, recruit your competitors’ affiliates and keep the programme fresh.

The post The Complete Affiliate Marketing Guide appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Richard Gregory/ Mark Kuhilow/ Ben Wightman/ James Hamlin

Our takeaway points from the session can be found below:

Ben Wightman – Latitude – Mobile Paid Search

• Ben uses his mobile marketing report to announce the stats below.
• Since June 2011 tablet and mobile click share has risen, this is also when tablet targeting was introduced to Adwords.
• PPC managers should segment their campaigns to desktop, mobile and tablets.Study that was conducted by Latitude showed that in Q1 2012 click through rates were higher on mobile than tablet and desktop and also cost per clicks were lower on mobile devices by 45% compared to desktop clicks.
• This study also shows that mobile has the lowest conversion rate at 1%, then tablet second lowest and desktop highest at around 3%. Tablet conversion rate is declining, possibly as tablets are getting more popular.
• Average Order Values are highest on tablets, then come smartphones and last is deskops.
• 70% of mobile search came from iPhones.
• Prediction: In 2013 there will be as many clicks on a smartphone as there will be on desktops.
• User location. Mobile searching by weather. Sun is shining there is more mobile search and less tablet search.
• Future – Near Field Communication or pay by phone. The Olympics has been outlined as a launchpad and the Olympians will use these at the Games. Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone have agreed to setup a display network to collect data from people so marketers can target them with more appropriate adverts.

Mark Kuhilow – Mymcart

• Technology that has merged a phone, basket and a website.
• This product is focused at SME’s.
• The year of mobile is finally upon us.
• 40.3m monthly PC users, 26.3m active mobile internet users and 3 million tablet owners (65% iPad)

Q. Paying a lot of money to send users through to the App Store, how can I increase Quality Score.

A. Focus on click through rate as it accounts for 65% of Quality Score. Alternatively use app optimisation and pay for installs to get featured higher in the App Store. AdMob was mentioned as an alternative.

The post SASCON 2012: MOBILE MARKETING GOES MAINSTREAM appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Jon Myers, Director/ Duncan Fisher / Polly Pospelova / Gilli Goodman

Our takeaway points from the session can be found below:

Duncan Fisher – Quaity Score

• Quality score “Is a prediction made by Google using a complex mathematical equation”.
• Google’s perspective is “about showing the most relevant ads.”
• Microsoft Adcenter provide a feedback tool for Quality Score
• Better QS = cheaper clicks and higher rankings.
• Viewable in Adwords and Adcenter platforms.
• Suggested to export to excel and perform analysis e.g. pivot tables and charts.
• List quality score in one column and no. of keywords in other to get a better feel for QS.
• Add column for number of impressions to get a clearer view.
• Focus optimisation at Ad Group Level.
• Look at areas of high spending with low Quality Scores.
• Normalise data, don’t use averages, can be misleading.
• Ways to improve QS: don’t be afraid to pause and delete KW’s, look into search query reports, create smaller, more targeted Ad Groups.
• Book, Quality Score in High Resolution.

Actionable Tips:

• Account Health check,
• Normalise Data,
• Consider Action.

Polly Pospelova – Quality Score – ROI

• Ad position determined by Ad Rank = CPC Bid x CPC.
• QS Parameters – CTR, Relevance and Landing Page.
• CTR is biggest factor.
• QS is also based on user experience.
• How to create large scale QS improvements? Look at landing page, analyse keyword, interpret intent and construct landing page with content and layout relevant to that keyword.
• Create several landing pages with high volume keywords in mind.
• Result from increased QS – increased clicks, conversions, reduce CPC, improve ROI.

Gilli Goodman from Google- Mobile, Remarketing and Automation

• Automated Rules – e.g’s. raise CPC’s to first/top of page bid for certain phrases. Can also be used to ensure brand terms are position 1. Can pause/enable ads, ad groups and campaigns. Change daily budget to incorporate buying trends/conversion rate.
• Remarketing tips – get customers to visit on several occasions e.g. around Easter, Christmas. Up sell from free trial to purchase. Cross sell across sites and products, use different creative and offers. Stagger discounts (1st creative one discount, second discount further discount).
• Mobile – Split mobile and tablet targeted campaigns. Consider geo targeting options with mobile and tailor creative. Make sure landing page is mobile friendly. Use Analytics to review mobile performance.

The post SASCON 2012: ADVANCED PPC TECHNIQUES appeared first on PushON Ltd.

These Interest Lists are actually good news for advertisers as they will group people into broad categories which can be selected when setting up Facebook adverts. A lot of user interests are outdated and a lot of Facebook advertising budget is wasted. For instance five years ago someone may have been in the Parents (0-3) category and may still be seeing adverts related to baby milk. Moving forward I believe that Facebook should try and update user interests yearly or even every two years. By doing this more advertisers may be willing to invest more budget in Facebook advertising.

Having managed several Facebook advertising campaigns , I believe the results lie on two extremes. Half the visitors generated from Facebook will engage with the external site and the goal completion rate will be very good but on the other hand companies can see a high bounce rate from the social network. This is due to many reasons:

• Users do not like to leave Facebook to go to an external site.
• The message is wrong in the advert and misleads users.
• The offer outlined in the ad text is not shown on the landing page

It is best practice when advertising on Facebook that the advert leads to a Facebook business page. Here Facebook can measure conversions which are called connections. It is a lot easier to Like, Want or Own something while still on Facebook rather than trawling around a website looking for products or information. From my experience when a user is transported to a Facebook brand page the engagement is greater and it is also a place where a company can supply exclusive discount codes which can be used on the site. By doing this you are enticing a user to visit the site with this unique code when they are done browsing Facebook. This takes the pressure and urgency away from the situation and gives the brand a cool appeal as if to say “Here you go, here’s a 20% off discount code, use it if you want, if not thanks for browsing our fan page”.

A real life example of the interaction levels can be seen below. Example 1 is an advertiser who led users to an external site and Example 2 is an advertiser who led users to their fan page.

Example 1

Example 2

As you can see the interaction levels in Example 2 are much higher than Example 1 therefore looking at these results it is a must that advertisers have a Facebook page when advertising on Facebook. If you have any questions or comments please just post underneath.

The post Facebook Interest Lists – What Kind of Foolishness? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Google Adwords

The Google Grants programme will give any organisation who hold a current and valid charity status $10,000 worth of advertising budget on Google Adwords completely free. This is an opportunity not to be missed whether you are a worldwide, national or local charity – the reach is endless. As a PPC Specialist it is great to see charities utilising this free budget provided by Google. I have been fortunate enough to manage a not for profit PPC account and I can’t help but feel a bit like Robin Hood. Taking from the rich to give to the poor. The Grants programme has some restrictions but can still prove to be a valuable source of donations:

• Maximum bid is $1
• Cannot advertise on the Google Display Network.

These restrictions are easily overcome as the target keyword list can be as big as you want. The only issue is with the $1 maximum CPC. A lot of the major charities self fund a lot of their campaigns and can bid anywhere up to £10 per click. This bid is determined by the lifetime value of the customer. For a user who signs up to donate regularly to a charity £10 is a low price to pay. Also if the account spends $9,500 during any 2 months then the non-profit organisation can apply for a $40,000 a month Google Grants account. This is huge for any charity giving a yearly budget of $480,000. Let’s break that down further and give a real life return on that spend. In this example we will speculate that the average cost per click is $0.50, the conversion rate is 5% (average for charity websites) and the average order value is £40. The yearly donation figures are:

• 48,000 donations
• £1,920,000 revenue

And remember the above figures will have been generated without the charity paying a penny, well not to Google anyway. To apply just visit this link and fill out the contact form. Google usually responds within a week or two with a decision on whether to accept you or not.

YouTube Advertising

Video is one of the most effectively used platforms for charities. It is easier to convey a certain situation or issue through video than any other medium and thus is why the majority of charities have YouTube channels. YouTube also offer a charity grant which has a lot of advertising benefits:

• There is an increased uploading capacity.
• Beneficiaries can benefit from call to action video overlays.
• Get a listing on the non profit channel page.

YouTube advertising is usually run and managed through Google Adwords. If YouTube was a search engine it would be the 2nd largest in the world and has immense reach. Using the video overlay feature means that advertisers can hit donors at exactly the right time.

The above grants are the only online charity grants that we utilise and I am sure that it won’t be long before Bing & Yahoo introduce a charity grant themselves. For more information on our management of charity accounts or to get involved just give us a buzz on 0844 967 0565. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

The post Google Grants for non-profit organisations appeared first on PushON Ltd.

This new feature allows PPC advertisers to view Adwords data in Analytics such as spend, click through rate, average cost per click, return on investment and margin. This report can be run at campaign, ad group and keyword level. From a reporting perspective this is a lot easier as PPC managers can find everything in the one place, will save a lot of time and eliminate the need for endless VLOOKUP’s in Excel matching revenue against spend.

The headings that are listed in the report appear in the screenshot below.

While this is a great tool for PPC managers it is also a very insightful tool to use for new business. It is often common that a potential client will give access to their Google Analytics but not their Adwords. This is probably due to the fact that there may be several companies pitching for their business and they do not want them to alter their keywords or account in Adwords. This is very frustrating as it was impossible to gauge spend figures and forecast accurately. With this feature an agency can see key metrics such as spend, average cpc and click through rate which will help in forecasting revenue figures for the potential client.

Does anyone think that they will use this report or still create custom reports?

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With the growth of the mobile search market companies are really stepping up their mobile marketing efforts. Take Unilever for example. In 2011 they launched their new Lynx Excite product and wanted to integrate mobile into their marketing mix. Remember the TV advert, angels falling from the sky because of the new Lynx fragrance. They used the Admob platform which lets advertisers engage with their target audience and maximise reach on mobile. They used mobile banner adverts to transport users to an interactive rotating halo where users could watch the tv advert, look at behind the scenes footage and find cool tips and tricks.

Also with the “invention/introduction” of the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) large companies with great mobile sites encourage users to use their smartphone to research products just before purchase. The previous channel used by a consumer to reach their transactional goal was;

Advert- Shop- Transaction.

With ZMOT strong retail brands encourage users to take a different route.

With these new innovations it is critical for websites to have a mobile presence and one that works well. Google have recently introduced the Google Sites Mobile Landing Pages tool. With this tool you can build a mobile landing page in a few minutes and the best thing is that you don’t have to have any coding experience. This is a free tool therefore regardless of marketing budgets there is no excuse for your company not to have a mobile landing page.

The main benefits of the Google Sites Mobile Landing Pages are;

- It can be measured through Google Analytics.

- It’s completely free so there are no costs associated with the build.

- It’s easy and you don’t need to be a hardcore coder and you can choose from 5 different templates which are industry specific.

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1. Relative CTR

For any advertiser that uses the Display Network it is hard to gauge whether your adverts are performing well, as you usually see high impressions and low clicks. To be honest the CTR on a Display Campaign is pretty meaningless as you cannot measure it against anything. Relative CTR shows your adverts performance in comparison to your competitors who advertise on the same pages. This is done using a quick calculation; if your CTR on the Google Display Network is 0.06% and your competitors is 0.02% your Relative CTR would be shown as 3x. (0.06%/0.02%).

This enables an advertiser to make decisions based on these results. 1x means that your adverts are performing pretty much the same as your competitors but if your campaign is showing below this e.g. 0.5x this might give you the incentive to increase bids, change ad text or test different creative. To view the Relative CTR in your Adwords account go to the “campaigns “ tab, click “customize columns” and check “relative CTR”. This can be found at campaign or ad group level.

2. The Content Ads Diagnostic Tool

In the past it was hard to keep track of where your adverts were showing across the Google Display Network. The Content Ads Diagnostic Tool tells you why your adverts are not showing and which placements that your adverts are showing for. This tool can be used to manage placements and you can also alter bids if you have lost an auction.

3. Unseen Impression Filter

When a user hits a landing page on the Display Network they sometimes only see above the fold and don’t bother scrolling down. This resulted in wasted budget for advertisers bidding on a CPM model. The Unseen Impression Filter makes sure that an advertiser is not charged for impressions that have a low probability of showing i.e. your advert is far down the page and the visitor must scroll to reach it.

These tools are useful for advertisers who use the Google Display Network and will entice advertisers who do not use it to test it.

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