Let’s get right to that list…. 1. Online Marketing budgets aren’t allocated to enable you do to the job right. 2. Because of #1, I am sure you could list 98+ more reasons! Too often the C-Suite has not figured out that your digital marketing (I include web, email, mobile & social here) activity is the glue that binds their brand together. They miss that online is that initial first impression before most people even decide to step into your…
During March’s Conversion Conference final keynote “Confessions of a Conversion Rate Optimizer” I shared this 7 minute video from advertising legend David Oglivy of a impassioned speech “We Sell or Else” he gave to a group of direct marketers in the 1960s. He was a huge student of Claude Hopkins “Scientific Advertising” first published in 1923 and a huge advocate of “if it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.” It was required reading for David Oglivy’s employees and should be for yours as…
No question FaceBook advertising bears little resemblance to Search Advertising. However, we are starting to see some great success stories of companies success with FaceBook advertising. Nevertheless, FaceBook’s advertising model may be seriously flawed. If you ever accessed Facebook using one of their mobile applications; perhaps you noticed something missing. There are no ads. Most 30-40 year old women (one of the most coveted and powerful consumer groups) access their Facebook accounts usinge their mobile device. While I agree that…
No one knows exactly when the first advertisement was published on a printing press. We do know: In 1609, a British newspaper published an ad for migration opportunities to America. For hundreds of years, ads and print went hand and hand. Then came the Internet. AT&T was the first to pay HotWired to display the first ever online ad; a 468 x 60 banner that came to life on October 25, 1994. Do you remember the days of explosive CPMs?…
There is hardly anyone who would argue over the impact that search, social, and mobile technologies have had on the customer buying process over the last five years. However, while many companies worry about keeping ahead of their competition, they actually have a much bigger issue – keeping pace with their customers. Indulge me while I explore the changes we’ll see over the next five years. A Marketer’s Job Is Already Hard Enough Jeffrey, my partner and brother, and I…
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…
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…