PPC: Why You Need To Pay For Your Brand Terms
When it comes to developing an effective PPC strategy, it is important to include branded terms. However, many marketers are opposed to doing so. This is a mistake. Let’s take a look at why.
Understanding the value
In this economy where marketers need to do more with less, it is easy to understand why they might balk [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
Twitter Gets Its Own URL Shortener To Stop Scams; Good Marketers Need Not Fear
Twitter has just announced that to protect people from scams, links in direct messages and sent via email will be shortened using its own URL shortener. It’s a welcome move. Still, I was curious about any impacts this might have for good marketers who are not trying to scam people. Good news, on [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
Watch Out America! Here Come the European Social Media Marketers!
According to a new study being published this week by Unica, European marketers trail their American cousins, when it comes to the adoption of social media marketing.
While, 58% of marketers in North America are already engaged in social media marketing, only 34% of Europeans can say the same.
That’s likely to change in the next 12 months:
Some quick math suggests that this time next year, 76% of American marketers will be knee deep in social media marketing, with an impressive game of "catch-up" played by European counterparts–hitting 64% adoption.
So what’s keeping Europe from making this a photo-finish? Well, the biggest set-back is the 20% of European marketers that don’t want anything to do with social media. Not, "we’re more than 12 months out" or "we not sure yet" but flat out "we have no plans for social media marketing."
I’d love to know what industries those marketers represent because I’d go and steal their lunch money! 
SMX Advanced Seattle Registration Open – Best Rate Available Through March 20
Ready to exchange ideas, influence the industry and build your network? Join the most accomplished search marketers in the world for Search Marketing Expo – SMX Advanced Seattle. The conference will be held June 8-9 at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, WA.
Register before March 21 and you’ll receive the best rate [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
Awesome Social Media Workshops from Andy Beal & Marketing Superstars
How would you like to indulge in two days of hands-on, advanced social media marketing training?
Training from experts such as Jason Falls, John Jantsch, Giovanni Gallucci, yours truly, and a bunch of other top-notch marketers?
What if I said you could get that training for just $429? When was the last time you went to a 2-day event for less than $500?
What if I made that price even sweeter by providing you with the discount code “andybeal” which drops the price down to a crazy low $304!!!
Up for it?
OK, then head over to register for the Social Media Optimization Summit taking place in Dallas, TX on March 23 & 24.
There are dozens of workshops to choose from and I’ll be teaching you how set up your own social media monitoring alerting system–and I may even throw in some Trackur freebies too. 
See you there!
Study: 43% of Email Marketers Want a Slice of the Social Media Pie
According to a study by EmailStatCenter.com (sponsored by ExactTarget and BrightWave), the promise of social media marketing riches is too much of a temptation for email marketers–they want in on the action.
According to the study, 43% of email marketing firms are already offering social media marketing as part of their service line-up:
Not sure what to make of the 66% that said they provide "Strategy & Consulting" alongside email marketing. I would have thought that ALL marketing firms offered strategy and consulting, otherwise you’re just some kind of email spammer. 
The study helps make sense of why companies such as ExactTarget are buying up social media firms such as CoTweet. I never saw the overlap between email and social media, but apparently they do, and that’s all that matters, right?
I wonder how they plan to monitor all of this social media activity? 
Google Getting Even More Personal–Starred Results
For once, an advance in Google personalized search I actually like. They’re adding the same stars we’re so used to in Google Reader and Gmail to personalized search results. The starred results let you mark favorite sites to show up at the top of future posts—and it doesn’t appear to affect the rankings of the rest of the organic results.
As Google puts it:
With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl].
The stars are replacing an old feature in personalized search: SearchWiki. Says Google, “In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn’t like changing the order of Google’s organic search results.” (Which probably isn’t to say they actually disliked reranking sites, but just that they didn’t do it very much. Seriously, it just wasn’t super useful.)
Any SearchWiki notations you made will be saved in your Google Account. If you want to continue to make notations in SERPs, Google recommends Sidewiki, its browser-based, publicly-edited sidebar wiki for commentary launched back in September. Last we heard, Sidewiki hadn’t really taken off—maybe this is Google’s push to create new, passionate users.
The stars are all set to go and will be rolling out for all signed-in users in the next few days. So far, there’s no indication starred Google Reader items will have any relationship with this effort beyond the passing similarity.
One big drawback for marketers, of course, is that every step forward in personal search may mean we’re less likely to be able to rank a site universally—or even tell if our site is showing up for most signed-in users. Plus, we may have to sign out to get the “neutral” results for reporting (although if you’re starring a client’s competitor in your SERPs, “sumbuddy’s doin it wrong”).
What do you think? Do you like the idea of stars and the simpler interface to mark sites you’d want to see in SERPs again? Or do you worry about personalized search affecting marketing? Would you like to see your Google Reader starred items showing up for relevant searches?
Omniture to Provide Analytics on Facebook, Mobile
A little over a month ago, Facebook revealed a planned conversion tracker tool to help marketers track the value of Facebook Pages and fans. Today, analytics firm Omniture announces “A new solution . . . to buy media on Facebook and measure its influence across digital marketing channels.” Any relation?
Facebook isn’t the only thing Omniture’s newest efforts will be tracking. They’re also adding:
- Display ad targeting, using Omniture customer segment data and testing through partnerships with ad networks
- New mobile analytics, including app measurement for the iPad
- Regular analytics improvements, using Experian (HitWise) demographic data
- A new “Idea Exchange” (forum?) for users to communicate directly with engineers and product managers on new feature ideas
However, the Facebook deal may be most key. MediaPost reports the plans to expand the agreement:
Initially, the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement. The partnership builds on Facebook analytic features the companies announced last year to help marketers join the conversation, rather than interrupt the experience.
This alliance is intended to help companies integrate Facebook as a marketing channel ["complete with technology tools, audience segments and best practices," MediaPost says earlier], connecting to relevant conversations with the site’s more than 400 million active users.
Omniture is clearly trying to keep up with Internet marketing, especially social and mobile web, with it ongoing improvements over the last year:
- Dashboard integration with Twitter
- App measurement for Facebook, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm
- Viral video measurement
- comScore data integration
What do you think? What would you most want to see from Facebook marketing analytics?
Protecting Yourself From Your Affiliates’ Bad Actions
Many search marketers work with affiliates but fail to ask the question: Can your affiliates’ bad actions cause you legal trouble? The answer is probably. Among other things, your affiliates might get you into trouble for bidding on competitors’ brand name trademarks or making false offers, claims or endorsements without complying with FTC guidelines. [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
News in the Age of Participation
We all know that news is changing. How we get news, where we get news, how we react to news, what we do with news when we get it and on and on. It’s one of those factors that are known to all but hard to quantify as to the true impact of our news habit both for now and into the future.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has published a report that takes a look at this rapidly changing area of our lives and the impact it has. As we always do here at Marketing Pilgrim we always want to see the marketing side of issues and this particular paradigm shift is making marketers move like never before.
So what is it about Americans and the news? Pew sums up the gist of this subject with
In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.
We know the plight of newspapers but this phenomenon is much bigger than that. While everyone in the online space cries victory over traditional media the fight ahead for the online news gatherer, participator and disseminator will be intense and difficult. Becoming one of the several sources used by someone online will not be easy and not all will survive by just “being there”.
Here are a few pieces of data to consider about news:
Portable : 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
Personalized : 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
Participatory : 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
What kind of news would people like to see more of online?
44% said scientific news and discoveries
41% said religion and spirituality
39% said health and medicine
39% said their state government
38% said their neighborhood or local community.
News now is a social thing as well. We get first hand reports from disasters when possible and these bits of information are spread rapidly through the Internet. The truth is most peple want something to talk about
Getting news is often an important social act. Some 72% of American news consumers say they follow the news because they enjoy talking with others about what is happening in the world and 69% say keeping up with the news is a social or civic obligation. And 50% of American news consumers say they rely to some degree on people around them to tell them the news they need to know. Online, the social experience is widespread:
75% of online news consumers say they get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52% say they share links to news with others via those means.
51% of social networking site (e.g. Facebook) users who are also online news consumers say that on a typical day they get news items from people they follow. Another 23% of this cohort follow news organizations or individual journalists on social networking sites.
So as marketers how so you corral this dissemination of the news? How do you make sure your message is getting in front of the right people at the right time? Will there come a time where there may be too much choice? For marketers that may be true because this moving target of where people get their information is not going to be easy to track or contain.
We as marketers welcome greater segmentation in theory but when it comes to actually seeing which segments are where in an ever expanding group of content deliverers one has to wonder if marketers should have been careful what they were asking for.
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
