Last week, I had the pleasure to present a webinar sponsored by Compete titled “How to Legally Spy on Your Competition.” Many people on that webinar requested a list of the tools that I mentioned on the call. I thought I’d share them here as well. For specific examples on how to use each of these tools, please check out the recording of the webinar. 1. How are your competitors doing now? One of the most common questions heard across boardrooms,…
I couldn’t be prouder of my MarketMotive conversion certification students. Two semesters ago, one of those volunteer sites, a mobile application provider, increased their conversion rate by over 100% based on the recommendations of one of my students and today I was thrilled to hear about one of our volunteer websites increasing conversion rates by over 50% in just one week. I need more volunteer websites to work with my students. In order to achieve their certification, my students must perform…
We want it simple! Given a choice, human beings choose simple over complicated virtually every time. Searching with Google is simple. You type in a few words and Google delivers the most relevant results. So, what could be simpler than Google pay-per-click advertisements? People search for stuff, you craft a 95-character advertisement with a URL based on that search, you make a bid telling Google how much that searcher is worth to you, searchers click on your ad and go…
In my previous life, I was a social worker who helped mentally ill and chemically addicted adults on their road to recovery. I see many of the same symptoms of addictive behavior in too many pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers today. After all, there’s something terribly seductive about the simplicity of creating a PPC (define) ad; within moments your ad shows up and gets you clicks. As the high continues, you crave more, adding more keywords and new campaigns to keep increasing…
In a couple of weeks, I will be on the road again to help people optimize their Pay Per Click marketing efforts. From July 7-9th, I’ll be in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City for the Online Marketing Summit tour. Here is a description of the PPC Optimization workshop I’ll be doing: Over $10 Billion dollars were spent on Pay-Per-Click advertising last year. A portion of that came out of your pocket. Are you satisfied you’re getting the maximum return…
Actually the answer is pretty simple. You haven’t given me sufficient reason to choose you over your competitors. Today’s customer has more choice, more knowledge, and even tabbed browsing to evaluate you and distinguish you from all of your competitors. In the few seconds they’ll invest in your website, if they can’t decide why you might be the solution to their want or need, they’ll close that tab faster than your Flash promotion can ever engage them. I just returned…
When we audit clients’ PPC (define) accounts, we look at their work from two aspects: the technical and the creative. While a 95-character ad shouldn’t be so challenging, common flaws appear in almost every account. Let’s start out by examining the creative aspect. Creating the PPC Searcher’s Journey For visitors to convert, the five steps of the PPC searcher’s journey must be in alignment along the conversion path. I describe that five-part journey below. The model is simple, the execution…
Newsletters continue to serve as an effective way for businesses, from retailers to B2B services, to stay in touch with their customers. In my last column, I shared the simple but powerful technique of using point-of-action assurances to convert more visitors into taking the actions you want them to take – such as using the words “we value your privacy” anywhere you want someone to provide you with their e-mail address. Here are some other tips you can use to…