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One major challenge facing e-commerce clients, especially as we move into the holiday season, is managing product-based paid search campaigns as efficiently as possible. It is quite common for e-commerce retailers to bid on product-specific keywords, such as product name, model number and SKU. There are three scenarios of inefficiency that are unique to e-commerce retailers:

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Google announced the rollout of Google Instant on Wednesday to a chorus of questions and concerns from various members of the industry. While most concerns focus on the impact of Google Instant on SEO, I want to take some time to discuss the impact of this change on Paid Search (PPC) programs. (more…)

While setting up a recent Paid Search (PPC) campaign, the client asked, “Why should we spend money on branded terms? We’re already in the top positions in natural search.” This is a common question, especially for site owners that have spent considerable resources in SEO. Many companies believe that if they’re number 1 in the natural search listings (through SEO efforts), their work is done. There are three reasons we’ll discuss why almost every company should include branded keywords in their PPC campaigns. (more…)

One year ago, Yahoo and Microsoft announced an alliance where Microsoft/Bing’s search results would be used across both engines. We wanted to take a moment to discuss the impact in the world of search as well as how the changes will affect your SEO and PPC programs.

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Announcements from Yahoo state that their first quarter earnings doubled. This is the company’s first revenue increase since 2008’s third quarter.  The 1% increase in revenue was below some expectations by analysts, and a 14% drop in search advertising sales restrained Yahoo’s overall revenue gain. The boost in earnings for Yahoo included reimbursement payments from Microsoft as the two companies are taking steps to begin displaying Bing search results on Yahoo.

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For those agencies and marketers with a total focus on ROI, sometimes branding campaigns can be confounding.  How can I measure the effectiveness of my branding campaign to optimize performance?  The answer is something we call a “Brand Metrics Calculator”.  A Brand Metrics Calculator will convert all brand touch points into a common unit, and thus a common financial value.  This way the marketer can determine the effectiveness of multiple brand touch points and shift budget accordingly, as they would say in determining that a paid search campaign generates leads at a lower cost than say a banner campaign.   While this is not by any means an exact science, it allows the marketer to make data-driven decisions on how to invest marketing funds. (more…)

Webinar to Focus on Search Engine Marketing for eCommerce Retailers

Rise Interactive, and Lyons Consulting Group will be joining forces in a one hour webinar on March 17 titled “Just in Time Paid Search: Cutting Edge Secrets for Engaging—and Converting—Savvy Shoppers.” The two companies recently announced the launch of an alliance with the goal of providing eCommerce retailers with a cutting edge service that uses real time competitive intelligence and inventory management to cut paid search cost. This service is designed to attract and convert savvy Internet shoppers – shoppers who are using the web to research and compare products prior to making purchases. (more…)

2010 will be a very interesting year in the search space, both in the natural and pay per click markets.  As Bing attempts to gain more traction and Yahoo concentrates on maximizing its product offerings, Google continues to release updates to its search engine asserting their progressive approach. (more…)

As consumers continue to flock to the search engines to research their pending buying decisions and make purchases, it is more important than ever to make sure that your company is doing everything it can to maximize online exposure and get in front of Web browsers. Paid search coverage is the term used to describe the percent of time your text ad serves an impression on the first search engine results page (SERP), which is a vital part of achieving your search goals.  For example, if the keyword “Chicago Marketing Firm” is searched 100 times on Google and your ad appears on the first page of the SERP 60 times, your coverage is 60%. (more…)

As Internet marketers, our number one objective is to utilize online marketing to boost company revenue by means of increasing sales. If you are like most marketers, you are spending money across a variety of online channels to generate conversions. So, knowing it is our responsibility to generate revenue via these channels, it is also safe to assume that most advertisers know their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) threshold, or how much they are willing to spend in order to have a potential customer submit a form, purchase a product/service, or complete whatever action they have deemed necessary to achieve their objective. After all, knowing this number ensures we can effectively allocate and measure marketing dollars and therefore prove an initiative’s value to company leadership. (more…)