Simulating Google’s quality score, Microsoft has unveiled an identically named metric of questionable value to advertising efforts.  Most marketers are intimately familiar with Google’s quality score and the impact it has on SEM campaigns.  While the exact formula behind Google’s quality score is intentionally nebulous, the constituent factors are clearly stated (CPC): (more…)

A national chain of hotels came to us asking for advice on how to improve their PPC program. When we took a look, we almost immediately discovered a serious flaw: they had poured a significant amount of money into their PPC campaign without ever stopping to seriously consider where most of their visitors were coming from. Had they been utilizing Advanced Segments, a tool that was added to Google Analytics within the last several years, they would have found this information extremely easy to obtain and could have targeted their advertising to the areas with the highest chance of success. (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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The best way to explain search engine marketing is with an example. Imagine that you sell cell phones and that a prospective customer is searching on a major search engine such as Google for the phrase “free cell phone”. That prospect will probably see a page like this:

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