Performics Performance Marketing Blog: SEM, SEO, Social & Display

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         Big Yahoo!, Microsoft news.

·         Microsoft earnings down.  Hope to boost traffic on Bing with new game.

 Other Topics of Interest:

·         Can Microsoft-Yahoo! rival Google?

·         Facebook lets you change your vanity URL now.

·         Facebook also lets advertisers use your picture.

·         Slideshow: 10 ways Google and Microsoft are at war.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         7-year-old boy led officers on a car chase in an effort to avoid going to church.

·         Floating Maserati deemed unseaworthy by Italian authorities.

Webinar Thursday: Increasing Visibility Through SEO; Win a Free SEO Analysis

Join us through the end of 2009 for a monthly webinar series as we take a fictitious online retailer, Stanley’s Sweaters, through the entire holiday sales process, including holiday planning, search engine optimization (SEO), landing page optimization (LPO), paid search optimization, competitive analyses, bid/budget management and paid inclusion (Yahoo! SSP).

 

Thursday, July 30, 2009

2:00pm Eastern/1:00pm Central

REGISTER HERE

WIN A FREE SEO ANALYSIS!

 

 

Bing’s First Month Performance

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

The numbers are in and despite the massive advertising spend and buzz, Bing has yet to make a significant impact on search market share or advertiser performance.

According to comScore, Bing’s June ’09 share rose 0.4% from May ’09 (8.4% from 8.0%).  Google stayed constant at 65% and Yahoo! lost .5%.

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         Google CPCs drop.

·         New Yahoo! homepage.

·         Yahoo! earnings: Profit increases, revenues fall.

·         Most think Microsoft-Yahoo! deal is inevitable.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         Twitter’s secret files: seeking IPO or sale next year?

·         More people share content on Facebook than by email.

·         Study: Search key to travel purchases.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         You’ll need 250+ Twitter followers to get this job.

HP Personal Systems Group uses Yahoo!’s Rich Ads in Search to Enhance Branding and Super-Charge Click-Through Rates

Posted by Danielle Gantos, Account Manager, Paid Search

Search ads are a proven winner, but how can a company inject them with more life, color, and sound to improve user experience and click-through rates?

Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Systems Group found the solution to that challenge—and remarkable increases in ad performance—in Yahoo!’s Rich Ads in Search feature.

The Challenge:

HP sought to increase reach, and brand and product awareness, through enhanced online consumer interactions and ad placement in prominent page locations.   

As a strategic digital partner to HP, Performics evaluated a number of cost–effective, innovative methods that would help increase consumer engagement via paid search ads. Yahoo! was identified as the partner–of–choice to help implement solutions that would effectively build on HP PSG’s search program.

Location, Location, Location: Paid Search Geotargeting Strategies for Retailers

Posted by Andrew Sandoval, Associate Account Manager

Geotargeting services from Google, Yahoo!, and MSN allow advertisers to efficiently allocate search campaign resources at a local level.  With geotargeting options available today, audiences can be targeted at the country, state, city, and even ZIP code level to generate high potential ad placements.  These options allow advertisers to create a local audience and generate opportunities for optimization.  Here are a few examples of effective geotargeting strategies:

·         Support Regional Promotions – Perhaps a few particular branches of your business are clogged with back inventory.  Maybe you want to offer a “Buy 1, Get 1 Free,” sale to clear some badly needed shelf space.  Geotargeting allows you to target shoppers in one locale with the offer, but not in another locale if your retail branch there doesn’t need to clear out inventory.  With geotargeted campaigns, you can tweak ad text to your audience.  This means “Buy 1, Get 1 Free,” copy can be served to searchers in the same city or ZIP code as your retail location.  In more sparsely populated areas, it might make sense to target surrounding cities as well, or to set up a ZIP code radius to target all searchers within a certain distance of your store.  Using a geotargeted campaign to compliment local radio/TV spots will make sure your promotion is a hit!

 

Back-to-School: Merchandising Strategies for Seasonal and Campaign-Specific Landing Pages

Posted by Julia Cardis, Senior Manager, Landing Page Optimization

For many retailers, the back-to-school (BTS) bus has already left the playground. When thinking about optimizing paid search performance during this critical season, Performics offers some landing page strategies to make the most out of your BTS paid search budget.

 

The focus of this blog posting is on apparel retailers, but the strategies and merchandising concepts also apply to computers and electronics, books and music, school supplies retailers as well as other advertisers who market to the back-to-school consumer.

 

Who Are You Targeting, and What Are They Shopping for Online?

 

The first step in developing a landing page strategy is to identify and prioritize your target segments. For example: Parent or student? College freshman or high school freshman? Teen girls or teen boys, or both?

 

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         Google Q2 earnings.

·         Google to launch Chrome operating system.

·         Microsoft: Bing month one stats.  Compete says different, so does comScore.

·         Facebook hits 250 million users, gains 50 million in 3 months.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         Cash for tweets.

·         Customers trust reviews from virtual strangers.

·         AdAge: What your favorite social network says about you.  71% of people say they can’t live without Facebook.

·         Local advertisers moving to social networks.

·         Chief Marketer: Making sense of consumers’ recession behavior.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         Drunken badger stops traffic.

·         The turtles and the jets.

·         Smoking will cost you.

Social.icio.us Thursday: Facebook Announces Three New Targeting Filters for Advertisers

Posted by Micheline Sabatté, Product Marketing Manager, Performance Media

In an effort to provide advertisers with additional ways to reach audiences and potential consumers, Facebook announced three new targeting filters this week: Connections, Locations and Birthdays.

• Connections: Want to target members of a particular Facebook group, application, page or event? Or target users who are not already members? Advertisers can now target members connected to a group, application, page or event to serve up custom messages. Additionally, advertisers can target non-members of these entities to encourage users to join or participate.
• Locations: Want to target a single Facebook ad to multiple countries? Advertisers can now target ads to up to 25 countries using the Location filter. Ads are delivered based on IP address and a user’s profile information.
• Birthdays: Want to say happy birthday to someone or remember them on their special day? Advertisers can now target users and send specific messages to them on their birthday.

Overall Household Economic Situations Show Signs of Improvement; Consumers Still Cutting Back on Dining Out, Apparel, Non-Essentials

Posted by Andrew Caravella, Corporate Communications

Fifty-seven percent of consumers say their household economic situation is the same or better; 52 percent expect to spend same or more in next 60 days

Performics today released its third month's consumer behavior findings from its "2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study."

Three months into the study, online and off-line consumers continue to forecast decreased spending this year, with cut backs on non-essentials and falling income as the primary reasons for this behavior. However, 57 percent of respondents say their household economic situation is either the same or better than it was at this time last year, up from 47 percent in April.

A variety of factors contribute to these consumer feelings. For example, in April, 17 percent of respondents indicated a lack of confidence in the economy as a reason for spending less. Since then, however, the number has dropped dramatically, to nine percent, indicating that while consumers continue to keep their belts tightened, a more positive outlook may be on the horizon.

"Consumers remain wary of today's economic situation and are behaving very carefully, making calculated purchase decisions across many types of goods and services," said Nick Beil, CEO of Performics. "Some signs point to improvement, though. We've begun to see attitudes changing, and behavior typically follows suit. Until these attitudes more significantly impact behavior, however, marketers should continue catering to the thriftier, calculating consumer."