Monetizing Mobile Apps: Android and iPhone

These days I am getting a lot of queries regarding Optimizing websites for Smartphone, running ads and generating revenue by iphone/android apps. First I analyzed is it worth doing brainstorming over these? Now I come to know that future is of Smartphone only. Soon my advance laptop would be struggling over Smartphone. However usability has its own pace. The point is if consumers are using any new technology then why not marketer. It’s not at all about competition. First move has always its own benefits.

After study I am giving a brief on Monetizing an application that you have made for iphone or android os Smartphone.

Why we need iPhone/Android application Monetization:

•If you’re serious about your App as a Business you need a robust strategy!

•You have a free app: so from where you will manage the cost…..?

•You need money flow to survive your app

•You need to be in ecosystem of user perception about your app related other things

•You want to earn

•You want to balance your Ad spend for App

•If you are making a shareware app

•You are an individual app developer and want pocket money

 

Identifying the most critical part of App Monetization

•Is it required to monetize the app?

–It’s a basic question. If your App is free the obviously answer may be in yes. But if your app is a paid one then you have to justify your app costing vs your ads placement.

•Which part of your app should be monetized?

–Once you decide to monetize your app then it’s too much important to identify that which part of your mobile App you need to monetize. In simple means where you want to place the Ads. We’ll discuss it further in placeholders.

•App Usability after placing ads

–We need to analyze the application nature and then identify the ads to maintain the usability of app even placing ads. It’s just like your app users should love the ads as well. It can be achieved via focusing on user engagement part with respect of your application.

•Revenue stream

–We need to identify if we want to use it as a main revenue stream as it’s pretty difficult in current scenario due to different type of market penetration. It also depends on app target audience. However in gaming arena it’s too common.

•App updates

–How frequent you update your app is again an important factor. If your update frequency it too high then your ad performance will also increase.

 

Identifying your App Placeholders

•Where we’ll place the ads?

–This is the most critical and ignored factor in Mobile App advertisement. As most of free applications are developed by typical developers they are least bothered about user behavior and marketing strategy behind that.

–The placeholder identification is just like dedication a most visible and important part of your app to a third party. Here we need to justify that is the place is worth to make few cents on every click.

–First we need to analyze that how users use our app. Until unless we know the real-time action of user on app we cant decide that. However we must have a projected desired navigation flow for an app.

–The placeholder should not affect your app quality as it would be potentially harmful for long life of your app.

–Ideally we should decide about advertisement section in an app first. It should be a bottom area or a square box within content.

–Most used sizes are square and skyscraper. However choosing a leader board will generate more revenue but it may increase the exit rate of your app.

 

Tracking your app usage

•To know how your application is being used by your users you should install a proper tracking mechanism.

•How it relates to monetization?

–Its simple. As I told previous that we should monetize only those section which can generate traffic as well do not affect the application quality.

–Hence we need to know the user actions, rate of page navigation as well as visible area effectiveness after scroll.

•If I need to pay for tracking, may I able to make profit out of monetization?

–Yes. And a good news that there are free analytics for apps as well. E.g. PinchMedia

 

Choosing right service provider or Ad Network

•There a lot of service providers or Ad publishers network which you can choose. But what if I talk about “right service provider”?

•Points to understand:

–Is the selected network provides ads in your targeted geography?

–Is that particular network has more users of selected Smartphone?

–Will that be compatible with your app?

–Will the ad guideline policies will be compatible with your users?

–Provided Ad sizes to qualify your placeholders requirements.

–Time to integrate or complexity of embedding ad module to your app.

–Revenue stream

•Below are the list of some big players in this arena that I feel are good to go with.

–adMob –MobClix –Samaato  –Google Adsense (Beta)

–Medialets –PinchMedia

Ad Market in a glance:

Calculating How much you can earn:

•Average eCPM is 0.40$. However it may high up to 4$ and lower like 0.09$ depends upon ad type and ad network.

•Now average CTR for an iPhone app ad is 1%-2%. However it may be high like 20% and may be low 0.2% or even 0.

•Now most important factor is how much app has been downloaded or could be downloaded in projected time frame and what will be average impression of ads?

•So the projection formulae would be:

–Impression × CTR × eCPM

•Consider my app has 2000 impressions per day and CTR is 0.7% and eCPM is $0.8. So placing the values in above formulae my income would be:

Income ≈ Impression × CTR × eCPM

≈ 2000 × 0.7% × 0.8

≈ $11.2

iPhone/Android Apps Ad Optimization process:

•Optimizing ad rotation cycle is the key to higher CTR.

–When the ad rotation cycle increased from 15 to 30 seconds, the CTR doubled and revenue increased by 20%.- A study on Bullpen

•Increase lifetime value of users by increasing session times.

–A similar app with many impressions may have a low CTR because of the short average session time.

•Use caution when introducing new ad units or ad placements within an existing app community.

–Study on BlackJack Game: App launched with only 300×50 ad banners. They faced user backlash when they later introduced the 300×250 ad size.

•Mediation layers increase revenue by achieving 100% fill rates.

–Free version with ads has generated far more revenue than the paid version with meditation layer- Study on DogWhistle Game

•Multiple banner sizes maximize an app’s revenue.

–The 300×250 ad size is shown less frequently than the smaller banner, but has a higher eCPM. So rotate as much as possible but be in application session limit.

•Ads that scroll or move along with the app generate a higher CTR.

–Changing from a fixed ad to one that scrolls with FML entries increased eCPM, CTR and overall revenue by more than 5%.- Study on F-Mylife

•

•A splash screen shows multiple ads without altering user experience.

–Three ads are displayed in splash screen in a way that maximizes ad impressions without alienating users.

–A house ad is always in the middle and third party ads are on the top and bottom. -A study on Touch Hockey-F5 Game

What will be the future?
In below chart you can see the worldwide applications available for iPhone/Android Smartphone. Now you can analyze how much profitable it could be or even you can project your revenue. These figure are few month old and application market is growing with a big-bang.

 

For any further query or information or with valuable feedback you can always reach me at my e-mail: krm.amit@gmail.com or my skype/gtalk IM: krm.amit.

Wishing you a good luck if your going to try these apps monetizing methods.

Rich Snippets and It’s Importance for SEO

Google Has recently introduce Rich Snippets on Tuesday, May 12, 2009.

As a webmaster, you have a unique understanding of your web pages and the content they represent. Google helps users find your page by showing them a small sample of that content — the "snippet." We use a variety of techniques to create these snippets and give users relevant information about what they’ll find when they click through to visit your site. Today, we’re announcing Rich Snippets, a new presentation of snippets that applies Google’s algorithms to highlight structured data embedded in web pages.

 

SEO Benefits of having Rich Snippets:

Google and Yahoo are just starting to index and use the meta data. Indexing and the relevancy of the Rich Snippets and Microformats in search results is set to gain traction is a very big way so it’s good practice to start incorporating the necessary meta data in websites and blogs now.

Well for instance, you might want to mark-up the "Contact-Us" page to help the search engines pick up the contact details and improve local business rankings. When optimizing websites selling or promoting products and/or services, you can use microformats to markup the product title, description, brand, price, review etc, or use them to markup reviews like most shopping websites already do.

Besides, some other standard are emerging such as the video microformats, and its RDFa equivalent based on the Dublin Core Meta Data Initiative. You won’t be surprised if such initiatives start spreading for images, and think about the potential of marking up social media profiles.

How to optimize with rich snippets:

We need to use Microformats for rich snnipets. With Google entering the RDFa game, the words "semantic markup" will get redefined. Every webmaster wanting to improve click-through rates, reduce bounce rates, and improve conversation rates, can no longer ignore RDFa or Microformats. Structured data is the new SEO.

If we are using structured data it means we are well optimized and with compare to same level of sites in term of off-page links our site will rank higher as well as this will increase CTR and User Experience of website.

Sample of Structured Data:

Say that they originally had:

<a href="http://www.example.com/">Jane Smith</A>

With microformats, you specify that you’re defining a person with contact information with the term "vcard." You use the div and span tags to logically group the information, with div used for multiple pieces of information and span used for single pieces of information.

Using Google’s "Marking Up Structured Data" documentation, they might change this link to:

<div class="vcard">

   <span class="fn">Jane Smith</span>

   <span class="nickname">J.J.</span>

   <span class="url">http://example.com/</span>

   <span class="role">Author</span>

<a href="http://www.example.com/">Jane Smith</A>

</div>

Now they’ve added the context of Jane’s full name, her nickname, her web site, and that she’s an author. To show this same information in RDFa, they might have:

<div xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#" typeof="v:Person">

   <span property="v:name">Jane Smith</span>

   <span property="v:nickname">J.J.</span>

   <span property="v:url">http://www.example.com/</span>

   <span property="v:role">Author</span>

<a href="http://www.example.com/">Jane Smith</a>

</div>

This evolution of the web to the semantic web will enable users to search through more and richer data, potentially being marked up by dozens of different tags referencing each others, inter-linking the web and therefore providing a new dimension called Linked Data.

The search engines are well aware of this, and the more they use these new dimensions, the more relevant their results will be.

Target Internal Site Links for Improved SEO: 7 Tactics

Hi All! After a long gap I am back. Still I am not able to write too much stuff but I got this interesting article in my sherpa newsletter. It’s useful and I’ve also did in my past work experience. Believe me you should not miss this.

SUMMARY: SEO programs often focus on adding in-bound links. But don’t forget that your website contains hundreds of internal links that affect search engine rankings.
We spoke with one of the search industry’s top linking experts to learn how to use internal links to improve SEO. Includes seven tactics, such as areas to test and assumptions to avoid.

When it comes to improving your website’s organic search rankings, inbound links from outside sources are important. But they are not the only links that matter. Your internal links — the links that point visitors to different parts of your site — can be modified to improve your natural search results.
To learn more about the value of on-site links, we spoke to linking expert and SEO authority Eric Ward, President, EricWard.com. Below are the seven tactics he recommends for making the most of a site’s internal links.
These tactics are most likely to help a website that has five or 10 years of history, decent rankings, and no previous focus on on-site optimization. New sites without many inbound links and credibility are less likely to benefit.
Tactic #1. Establish benchmarks and start testing
For all the tactics listed below, it is best to establish baselines for your site’s performance and start testing changes.
For example, if you’re planning to change your site’s navigation, set a baseline average for:
o Number of clicks on each link
o Traffic to each linked-to page
o Conversions on each page
o Search rankings of each page
Once you make a change — such as adjusting a link’s anchor text, or adding links to pages — use these benchmarks to monitor performance.
- Rankings aren’t everything
Remember that the goal is to increase the number of conversions on your website. Higher rankings can help conversions, but there is no guarantee.
"The quicksand here is that you forget testing about the user and only test for Google," Ward says.
- Avoid absolutes
Testing is vitally important because every website and industry is unique. There are no absolute rules that apply to all situations. Without testing, it is impossible to know how many internal links a page should have, or whether it’s risky to have more than 50% of its links with identical anchor text.
Tactic #2. Tweak links’ anchor text
The hyperlinked text of a link — its anchor text — helps signal to search engines what type of content is on the destination page. Using your target keywords in the anchor text of on-site links can boost the pages’ performance in searches for those keywords.
For example, say you ran a link analysis on your website and realized that the product page for a popular product has 30 in-bound links on your site. If only 10% of those links are using a target keyword in the anchor text, you might increase that percentage by re-writing the links.
How much should you increase it? Again, it’s impossible to know without testing.
Tactic #3. Unearth interior content
Internal links from popular pages can increase visibility — and visits — to areas of your site that are lagging.
"Probably one of the most overlooked tactics is using the power of your most visited pages, especially your homepage, as a way to expose the interior content that otherwise might not be as widely known," says Ward.
For example, Ward suggests adding a ‘featured content this month’ section of links to a homepage, and pointing it to rotating areas of the site. Site owners could repurpose or repackage older content to use for this strategy to cut down on costs.
"It’s almost like ‘What does Macy’s put in the window?’"
Tactic #4. Test no-follow links
Some marketers believe that internal links from high-traffic pages need to be rationed, so that the power of that traffic benefits pages they want to rank higher. The rationing is sometimes done with no-follow tags.
For example, links from a homepage to an ‘About Us’ or a privacy policy page might have no-follow tags to avoid using up some of the homepage’s value. Links to more important pages, such as a product category page, are not given the tags.
Ward does not advocate using this strategy, because he believes the concern over diffusing a page’s ranking power is overblown. This is another area that could be tested to improve a site’s performance.
Tactic #5. Test navigation links
Some sites have navigation sections that feature dozens of links to different pages. These blocks of text links can be less than user friendly, but many site owners believe the huge list of navigation links improves a site’s natural search performance.
However, Ward suggests testing using fewer links, or perhaps rotating through your entire list of navigation options. This technique can improve the user experience, which often has a way of improving your natural search results.
"If you let the user experience drive your choices, it gets easier. But you still run into the same challenge, which is ‘What do we show versus what do we not show?’" Ward says.
Tactic #6. Analyze "orphaned" pages
While analyzing your website’s internal links, you might notice that some pages have been orphaned. They have one or no links pointing to and/or from them.
- Sometimes this orphaned content can be valuable. It can be updated or repurposed, and linked to other portions of your website.
- Other times the content has little value, such as a five-year-old press release on a new hire that has since left the company.
Look for these orphans and decide whether they should have less or more link exposure on your site.
Tactic #7. Watch for new keywords
Search habits change, and you may see an increase or decrease in traffic being sent to your site from certain keywords.
Keep an eye on these keyword trends and watch for any upstarts that might be worth testing as new anchor text in relevant on-site links.
Your site’s internal search tool is also a good place to look for new phrases, Ward says.

Want to Look Cool- Get Haircut Like I did

Hi All, Today I am feeling better because few girls commented on my Haircut by saying “tht’s Cool”.

I wanted some change. From a decades I used to go “Italian Saloon*” for my haircut. The reason behind it that I am familiar with The Italian Environment. Ohhh! Don’t think like that.. I never been to Italy neither faced Italian hospitality/lifestyle till today. We use this term for a place which is usually on a street corner and beside traffic red-light with a slogan(Not written any where) “Cheap and best haircut”.

Finally today for a change I went to Matrix Hair Saloon just below my Apartment and Got my new Hairstyle that obviously expensive than what I used to pay. But It’s COOL. Now you are thinking that Why I am talking about haircut on my SEO blog? You are right. It’s a complete story. Just move ahead.

In this Matrix Saloon I met with two guys. One who going to cut my hair and other one who has on billing counter. Once I entered they greet me and spoke me. They didn’t asked that whether I came for haircut or not. They simply asked me to start the process. While washing my head he started talking me about various topics, the city environment, human behavior and bla bla bla. I became familiar with him in very first minute of my interaction. Then I also started adding humor to his facts and communicating. Finally it took 20 minutes to complete haircut and making a new friend. Well he did fantastic work with my hairs.

In above paragraphs have you noticed that what I am talking about? Any Clue? I want you to say a simple thing that how important communication is in our life. It means a lot for professional. That guy did my haircut and got a client as well as a good reference. His good work obviously matters but the style of communication and the understanding of customer is more important that his haircut expertise.

In web marketing we often follow the Italian Saloon concept that is “Cheap and best haircut”. This is well said USP but not appealing. Now days we want to listen our story not the old folks. So many paid Ads failed because of there communication strategy. They failed to communicate what they want because they are doing there best not what their customers want. I want a cool haircut but if some body is adding a bit of fun and few statements full of life and lift my mood up, why not I go again to him?

This is my point. I’ll give you five points that where a Internet marketing Professional should add the above moments in communication and win the race.

1. Writing Meta Tags: This is a very basic work that every SEO/IM Professional often do. Why they do this? This is required for Spiders cool haircut. But are you thinking about end user, that what he feel about meta description when he read it in search result page? Think and justify…Please change if you need “cool” factor that further will be click.
2. Directory Submission: Why your directory submission has been rejected? Because it’s read by human editor and you haven’t told him that how cool your haircut is. So mind it next time.
3. Link Building: You are trying to increase your links but what happened? Are you getting it? Have you told another webmaster about Haircut? Until unless you personalize the communication you will be treated as those Viagra guys. Understand…
4. Social Media: Social Media is a virtual life book. Tell them whenever you get a new haircut. It will increase your credibility.
5. Blogging: Bloggers are very emotional online species I have ever seen. They are more attached to there blog (Like me) than of girl next door. Like I am sharing this Haircut story….Just I want to share a bit of my life. Hope you are getting.

So, I think you are getting my point of “Cool haircut” that I had today. Tomorrow I am going to change my specs. May be I’ll see world from a new angle.

But if you need more inputs and unable to understand this “Cool” Factor, please get back to me.

Why PPC Campaigns usually not be up to snuff

What happened? You started thinking about your Pay per Click Campaigns. Well I am not going to write a lecture note on this topic. I have few simple points to remind and little schoolwork to show.

Basically I categorize PPC in three parts. One is for Branding; other is for Leads and Viral Marketing expansions. There is also another class of Pay per Click advertisement that is Counter PPC.

Branding:

This is one of the typical types of Pay per Click model. This is a broad campaign in which we should use huge inventory of keywords and placements. The Ad Copies should be generic and discussing about product features and specification rather than offerings and promotional schemes. We should be aware of placement in this scenario as huge inventory may cause negative branding. Simply we should understand what model will entertain and engage the end user rather than showing you’re……….

Leads:

This model is little more sensitive towards business investments. My personal experience has taught me that we must segregate our Campaigns on the basis of leads. Because return from advertisements are not for sure. Hence we should focus on the source of leads. In case of pay per advertisements keywords are our assets. Hence we should separate our High ROI keywords in a different campaign so that we have a fix ratio of online leads then after we can improvise it for better CTR and lowest possible bid. The Ad copy in this campaign’s adgroup should be very specific, more of the offers, product USP(unique selling product) and other value association. But never forget counter Ad copies for your competitors. Focus on the placement network with more selected Placements and your genuine Image Ads. Better to make it in flash so that you can use maximum of your allotted space. One interesting thing about Placements that don’t let it be on default bid, you can save a lot here.

Viral Marketing:

Viral Marketing via PPC is little bit more confusing (not to me). This is basically contextual Ad targeting. Like if you are offering Fruit Juice you can target Cinema Halls, Multiplexes, Shopping Malls and even Health sites. Because it’s where your target audience are roaming. In case of PPC you can create a campaign with those contextual keywords and broadcast them same with image ads. You can choose respective placements with appropriate Image Ad Copy. Flash can work better here.

One thing to be noticed in these type of marketing campaigns that Normal Keyword targeting campaign may cost you higher because of irrespective keywords and landing page. Hence Image Ads and display ads are good to go with.

Synchronizing Campaigns with other Marketing Activities:

After you design your campaigns you should learn or find the way to synchronize your other marketing activities like e-mail marketing, hardcore marketing and event, webinars. Because you should sound unique with your campaign. Your unique selling points and value added services are weapons for online ad campaigns so never hide them. Learning from your competitors is best way to beat the competition. Hence write your ad copies keeping your brand and marketing efforts in mind.

Most Important: Landing Page

So, Finally you have launched your campaign. But who will going to be your customer? Search engine or your competitor. So never keep these two in your mind.

While designing landing page keep Target audience profile in your mind and minimize the number of pages and deep navigations. Study has shown us the one interactive page converse more than a website. So keep promotion, form and USP on a single page. This will help you a lot. Add feedback and comment buttons on your landing page prominently to get direct response if possible.

Statistics show that you have got exactly 6 seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site. If the visitor does not instantly find what he or she is looking for, your budget will not translate into business or leads. It is critical for your website to have the following characteristics:

Enticing images

If you offer a service, pictures of happy people will give the impression of satisfied end users. If you are offering a product, make sure that your images are clear and represent your product in a true manner.

Good web copy

Remember that less is more when it comes to web copy. Don’t clutter your site with unnecessary text. Good web copy should fit in one frame.

Call to action phrases

Tell your visitors what you want them to do. Examples of good call to action phrases are: “Call now!”, “Buy today!”, “Contact us!”.

No scroll bars

Wherever possible, fit everything into one screen or frame. The more a user has to scroll, the more chance you have in loosing the visitor.

Site design in HTML

Flash websites might look great, but are a killer for any SEM campaign. You may incorporate some flash images to enhance your site’s look and feel, however keep your site predominately HTML.

Remember: Unless your site is ready, your traffic will not convert into sales or leads.

Analysis

Do not forget to verify the clicks and conversion rates, not only for each ad, but also for each keyword. If you notice that some keywords are not resulting in any selling operation, you can chose to put them on standby or make some changes in order to improve their conversion. This can mean the implementation of a new ad group and the creation of new ads more focused on individual keywords. This can result in implementing new ad group and creating new ads more centered on individual keywords, or maybe just a simple adaptation of the offer

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JavaScript and Search Engine Visibility

Basically we use JavaScript to style our web page with some of its awesome effects. When a web designer uses this function for navigation schemes it decrease the crawl ability of that particular section highly. Most search engine doesn’t follow the links embedded in JavaScript code including rollover and menus.

But the very same fact is not true all the times. Some basic JavaScript functionality also can be helpful to search engines to crawl the website and it increases credibility also.

But still query has not been solved. Demon is ready to beat the angels. What should we do next? I am signifying some of the steps that can help you getting ranking while using JavaScript menus and navigation pattern.

1. It’s recommended that you put JavaScript code in the bottom of a web page (if code is not too big). The reason behind this that spider process from top to bottom. But if you are using multiple JavaScript at a single web page then also keep loading time in your mind because user can take action only if he get interested in first 15 seconds.

2. But if my navigation or menu is not so simple then what should I do? Great! I have an idea for this also. Create an external JavaScript file and put this under “script” folder on the root itself.

3. You should say search engines to not crawl you scripts folder. There are several of reasons behind that. Search Engines Spider bots usually don’t like the taste of JavaScript as well as other server side scripts. The search engine algorithm doesn’t like it. Why this? Because so many times if programmer has failed to properly close the scripts or there are some issues in loops then it cause Spiders to be crashed. To prevent this issue SE Spiders usually skip these types of scripts.

4. Add following line in your robots.txt file:

a. Disallow: /scripts/ (The folder where you are placing scripts. Scripts is a standard name for search engine but you can customize the name but don’t do it until its necessary )

5. Specify Alternative Content with the <noscript> tag. The <noscript> tag provides alternative content to browsers that do not support JavaScript and for visitors who have disabled JavaScript in there browser settings. The <noscript> tag is used then place it between <head></head> tag. The <noscript> tag also provides good breakfast to Spider hence it should have keyword rich and search engine oriented content (but don’t forget about end user).

6. Please beware of spamming. You can spam the .js file or <noscript> tag via keyword stuffing but remember if your trying to feed more to spiders that wouldn’t be digestible.

These are some basic search engine optimization guidelines for JavaScript base navigation and menus. Keep it in mind that there are lots of other ways also. Feel free to ask more about JavaScript SEO and other design related issues. I’ll welcome your views on this. Hope you are not miser enough to leave a comment.

PPC Search Engines to Try- New in Pay per Click Trends

When pay-per-click (PPC) advertising came on the scene nearly 10 years ago, it changed how companies promoted their products and services for the better. PPC remains one of the default ways to generate traffic, but many advertisers ( to their own detriment) routinely limit their promotions to the big three; Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter. Savvy advertisers understand that the inherent value proposition is not in clicks, but in return on advertising spend. Let’s look at five pure-play search engines and why you should add them to your paid search engine advertising mix.
First let’s explore why so many Internet marketers shy away from these networks.
One of the most pervasive and damaging misconceptions about most ad network providers is that traffic alone (number of clicks) is the best sign of value. That’s a mistake. Just because a network like AdWords is sending lots of traffic, that doesn’t mean it’s the best quality. However, advertisers should focus on other very important issues concerning second-tier, pure-play PPC search engines before funding any account.

• Conversion rates will vary (just as they do with Google and Yahoo!) as the traffic from partner sources are different for each network and vary based on time of day. Investing in a longer term campaign will provide a consistent view into how the individual network performs over the long term – not just on one day.
• PPC networks often specialize in topical areas, not all areas (as do larger networks). That’s not limiting however, it’s actually quite a refreshing change. Much like you would make a media buy on a high profile site, PPC networks like those mentioned below should be treated in the same way – as one providing you with an opportunity to get in front of the network’s partners (the network may never in fact ever be seen as most are just middlemen providing a valuable service to both publishers and advertisers).
• The cost per action and return on ad spend, not total spend or total traffic, should be the reason to engage in second tier PPC advertising. Advertisers routinely look at their total number of sales or the total amount of traffic sent from networks to determine quality. What advertisers should be doing is engaging in granular measurement of their return on total advertising spend. There is no other way to know for certain which network provides the best ROI unless you look at campaigns in this manner.

Where Does Second-Tier PPC Search Traffic Come From?
Another very important question advertisers have about second-tier search engines is where these advertising networks get the traffic they send to the advertisers. The answer in short is… their partners including other search engines, niche content portals or individual Web publishers that integrate advertisers from the network into their own sites (through contextual advertising for example) or their own search result listings. It is important to note that this practice is completely standard in the online advertising industry.

Selecting just five pure-play pay-per-click advertising networks is like choosing a favorite child – impossible, but you wouldn’t want to even if you could. In addition, the summations of the networks themselves are intentionally brief. Each of these networks is more robust than can be expressed in just a few words.

Let’s look at five of the top pure-play PPC search engines now though, their unique value propositions and the traffic they receive to their individual sites (data from Compete.com). If you would like to add the pure-play PPC advertising engine you use to this list, simply sign in and comment below. Again, it’s exceedingly important to remember that most of the "clicks" these networks generate come from their partners and not from the actual sites themselves – measuring them in this way is a disservice to them and to the advertiser paying for the clicks.

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7Search: One of the original second-tier PPC search engines, 7Search specializes in serving website owners of “low profit margin” categories of business. Features of the service include fraud detection, geo-targeting, keyword suggestion, campaign conversion tracking, custom per-keyword listing modifications, email outbid notifications, direct navigation advertising and quite a bit more. Often referred to as the "little engine that could," 7Search is known in SEM circles as providing a medium traffic volume but of high quality (the majority of which comes from natural listings on popular search engines).

ABCsearch.com: Part of the Internext Media Corp, ABCSearch is another provider using the classic pay-per-click advertising model. The network features geo-targeting (available for the US and Canada, as well as local markets), a proprietary click fraud solution in ClickShield, flexible bidding and many other features standard in second-tier providers such as auto-rebilling. The company’s focus seems to be on distribution, featuring network partners such as Search123 and its own Scour property, publishers networks such as Bravenet Media, and direct navigation.

Findology: Founded in 2000, Findology Interactive Media is one network that many advertisers have tried at one time or another. The company’s Pay-Per-Click Search network offers a minimum deposit of $25 with a minimum bid of $0.03, real-time click fraud prevention and some decent traffic reporting tools. Findology also has a contextual advertising program where bids start at one cent, offers URL/Keyword and category targeting, geo-targeting and a bidding auction model.

Marchex: Local search and advertising company Marchex is known for making waves. The company purchased over 170,000 domain names for use in its OpenList local search platform. The ad solution provides advertisers with the ability to geo-target specific areas and topics of interest. A pure-play PPC search engine, Marchex has an impressive list of distribution partners including TheMotleyFool and RealtyTrac, advertising resellers such as YellowPages.com and agencies.

Miva: Pay-for-performance provider Miva (formerly Findwhat) is known as much for its PPC service as it is for its e-commerce shopping cart solutions. Miva has been around in some iteration or another for many years and actually has two pay-per-click networks, the Core network features the company’s standard bid-for-position technology, and the new Miva Precision Network enables advertisers to concentrate on specific business verticals. Miva has several interesting features including AdAnalyzer, to track the actual ROI on advertising investments.

Are you ready to try the second tier of PPC?
Should you opt to use second-tier pure-play ad networks such as 7Search, Miva, Marchex, Findology, ABCsearch or others, know at the outset that you will need a decent sample to determine statistical validity. That means you will probably be disappointed if you only fund your account with the minimum and expect big things to happen – much like any first tier engine. The best course of action is to leverage the keywords, titles and descriptions from existing campaigns and make modifications for each individual ad network that you add to your marketing mix. 

Internet Marketing Trends

Trend #1: Recession Marketing

Expect a lot of marketing messaging related to the recession. Don’t be surprised to see lots of offers that “save you money” throughout the year. With fewer purchasing dollars available, how will your marketing message be distinctive and stand out?

Trend #2: Internet Marketing-palooza

Due to its cost-effectiveness and inherent measurability, expect many more small businesses to take Internet marketing seriously in 2009. This includes everything from email marketing, pay-per-click advertising and social networking, to increased investment in websites, micro sites and custom landing pages.

Trend #3: The Customer Voice

Customers are demanding a voice in your business, or they will seek alternative solutions. Think forums, blogs, crowd sourcing, feedback forms, etc. Want proof? Whereas in Q2 of 2007, 25 percent of the online audience called themselves “critics” contributing to the social media discussion, a year later this number jumped to 37 percent (Source: Forrester).

Trend #4: Video Marketing

Many studies show that adding videos to a website increases traffic and time-on-site. Look for a major increase in online videos in 2009. If your website does not yet have any videos, look to add them this year, but be sure that they are relevant and useful to your target audience. Look for interactive video technology in 2009, through which users can click on elements within the videos to be taken to associated content, micro sites and shopping carts.

Trend #5: Blogging

Look for blogging to continue its growth in 2009. The barriers to entry in blogging are so low, expect many more small businesses to launch their own blogs in the coming year.

Trend #6: Social Marketing

Small businesses have been relatively slow overall to embrace social marketing. With greater virtualization of social media and social networking websites, expect more small businesses to get involved in targeted environments where ROI will be easier to achieve.

Trend #7: Mobile Marketing

It feels like everyone has an iPhone or other similar type of digital mobile device these days. According to Nielsen, nearly 40 million people in the US access email on a mobile device. Mobile marketing will finally realize its potential in 2009, especially for local businesses such as restaurants, movie theaters and just about anyone targeting Generation Y.

Trend #8: Behavioral Targeting

Expect online ads to become behaviorally based. Many new behavioral advertising networks will become available in 2009, some serving dynamically generated images and messages based on each user’s online behavior.

Trend #9: Behavioral Analytics

Complementary to Trend #8, expect the world of measurement and web analytics to take a behavioral turn as well. This means measuring not only which pages people visit on your website, but more importantly why they do so.

Trend #10: Widget Marketing

Widgets (tiny, interactive Web applications) are relatively inexpensive to develop, and they can be an effective way to ensure that your customers spend more time with your brand on an ongoing basis. What widgets will you deploy in 2009 that will save your clients time, help them get things done, or simply provide them with useful information?

Trend #11: Innovation

With the recession will come a greater intensity of competition for the fewer available purchasing dollars. With this will bring a surge of creativity and innovation in the online marketing world. Do not let your competition out-innovate you.

Trend #12: Back-to-Basics Marketing

Expect less fluff in 2009, and more marketing messages about how companies solve problems for their customers. Be sure that you understand how your business solves real-world problems, and then clarify that in your marketing messaging.

Trend #13: Relationship Marketing

Companies will move towards a relationship-building model with their customers. The downturn in the economy means fewer new customers for a business. To address this, companies are going to need to focus on thrilling their existing customers and building longer-term relationships.

Trend #14: Verticalization

Verticalization is the natural progression of many marketing channels, providing marketers an opportunity to communicate with a highly targeted audience. For example, if you are a shoe designer or retailer, think ShoeTube.tv instead of YouTube.com. Expect verticalization in the online space in 2009.

Trend #15: Personalization

What customer wouldn’t prefer a customized product or solution vs. a generic, cookie-cutter version?

Trend #16: Multicultural Marketing

In the effort to uncover new audiences, many small businesses are going to realize the untapped potential of the Spanish-speaking market right here in the US.

Trend #17: Mixing Display Ads & Search Marketing

Multiple studies have found that by adding an online display ad campaign to a pay-per-click advertising campaign on the search engines, website traffic can double and conversions can increase significantly. This type of ROI cannot be ignored.

Trend #18: The Long Long Long Tail

Chris Anderson coined the phrase “The Long Tail” to describe the strategy of businesses (e.g., Netflix) that sell a large number of items, each in relatively small quantities. The long tail represents an opportunity for small businesses to capture segments and sub-segments of any market. With the economic downturn, expect the long tail to get much longer as small businesses go after narrower and narrower niches towards the end of the tail.

Trend #19: There’s No Place Like Home

With the growing unemployment numbers, expect a surge in home-based businesses and in mom entrepreneurs in 2009. Correspondingly, expect a surge in marketing directed at this segment of the market. If you can help these individuals be successful, start getting the word out now.

Trend #20: Speed

With the growth in entrepreneurship and home-based businesses, we can expect the speed at which these businesses respond to prospective customer inquiries to be fast. As such, small businesses that want to thrive in 2009 need to operate at lightning speeds and to have websites that fully serve the needs of their customers.

Action Plan

Is your business ready? Based on the above Internet marketing trends, explore and define ways that your small business can leverage the opportunities in the upcoming marketing landscape so that your company grows and you achieve your 2009 business objectives.

How to Turn a Trade Show Speech Into a Podcast That Becomes a Lead Machine

SUMMARY: If you’re being asked to do more with less this year, here’s a low-cost way to create marketing collateral that grabs prospects’ attention. In this case study from our archives, read how a software company turned a client’s speech at a trade show into an educational podcast. Using a $100 digital recorder and free editing software, they created a recording to use in a lead generation campaign that attracted millions of dollars in new business.

Hi All! This Article I got from Sherpa Newsletter. I found this very interesting and useful and my thoughts are very similar to this. Hence I feel to share this with all of my blog visitor so that they can also use this theory in their online campaigns. Thanks to Sherpa for this.

CHALLENGE
When Michael Williams was Marketing Director at Global Management Technologies Corp. (GMT), he had to please a frustrated sales team. The sales cycle for their workforce optimization software for the banking industry lasted at least six months, but the sales reps had no marketing materials available to start conversations with prospects early in buying cycle.

“All our marketing materials were product focused — we offered spec sheets and other product-centric documents. Even our Web site was more like an online brochure,” Williams says.

Williams, who now consults for GMT, and his team needed to develop new material that would educate prospects about their software and generate leads for the sales team. He had experimented with white papers but saw the marketplace flooded with software white papers.
Instead, he wanted to try a podcast, but his bosses were skeptical. For starters, they didn’t think C-level banking executives listened to podcasts. Plus, they had other marketing priorities and didn’t want Williams dedicating time and resources to such a long-shot tactic. Williams needed to test a podcast that required minimal investment, yet would be compelling enough to generate high-quality leads.
CAMPAIGN
Williams saw a solution in the company’s annual appearance at an industry conference. Their big investment as an exhibitor gained them a speaking slot. If they could craft a great presentation, record it and make it available online afterward, they could stretch the impact of their costs while gain the lead generating content they needed. Plus, they would have a marketing tool that helped differentiate GMT from their competitors.
Here are the six steps Williams and his team used to turn that trade show appearance into a lead generating podcast:

-> Step #1.

Select customer to give testimonial presentation
GMT usually sent an executive to give a product-specific presentation at the annual banking conference. But Williams knew that a presentation from a satisfied customer, describing the results they achieved from the company’s software, would be more compelling.
Williams went though their customer list to find what he called the “top five customer champions” — companies that reported significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements from the software. They interviewed a key executive from each to learn more about the results they achieved and to gauge how exciting or eloquent a public speaker they might be.
One customer who hadn’t already gone public with their results was singled out. This way, the testimonial provided a new case study for prospects. The customer had impressive results to relay, including:
o $2.2 million in savings in less than a year
o 8% reduction in full-time hours
Williams asked the customer if they would agree to give a speech at the trade show, which would be recorded for download later. He convinced the executive by describing it as a presentation to a select audience of the bank’s peers and offered to pay for the speaker’s trip to Las Vegas, where the conference was held.

-> Step #2.

Publicize the presentation and podcast before the event
With the speaker secured, Williams publicized the presentation to conference attendees.
- Using a list from the trade show organizers, they sent an email two weeks before the show, inviting attendees to the presentation and highlighting the chance to learn about the customer’s positive results.
- The preshow email also invited attendees to preregister for the podcast, which would be available one week after the show. The preregistration offer was a way to gauge the potential interest in a podcast among bank executives.

-> Step #3.

Record the presentation
Williams admits he “had no clue how to make a podcast” when he devised the plan. However, after reading about it online, they were able to get ready in time to record the trade show presentation.
They bought a $100 digital voice recorder with a jack for an external microphone. The day of the presentation, he asked the audio-visual team running the trade show’s media to hook the recorder directly into the public address system in the room so they would get a high-quality recording.

-> Step #4.

Edit recording for podcast
As Williams hoped, the customer presenting his testimonial was very articulate, giving a good raw file to work with. Still, they made some minor edits to turn the audio into a podcast:
- Using free MP3 editing software, they cleaned up extraneous noises, pauses and other distracting moments. For example, they cut out the “ums,” and times when the speaker coughed or cleared his throat. They also cut the gap between the speaker’s introduction and the time he actually started speaking.
- They deleted sections of the presentation not directly related to the customer’s success with GMT software. For example, a section during which the customer talked about a subsequent technology purchase that they made in addition to GMT’s product was edited out.
- Theme music and a voiceover that described the origin of the recording and introduced the speaker was added.
All told, the editing reduced a 45-minute talk to a 36-minute podcast, just slightly longer than Williams’ goal of 30 minutes.

-> Step #5.

Host MP3 file on company homepage behind registration form
They hosted the podcast on the company’s Web site in order to collect registration information and pass leads to the sales team. The registration page described the podcast’s content and highlighted some of the key results from the customer testimonial.
To access the MP3 file, users were asked to provide:
o Name
o Job title
o Financial institution
o Email address
o Telephone number
The registration page was integrated with the company’s CRM software program so leads automatically populated the sales database.
- After registering, listeners could either download the MP3 file to play on their own computer or listen to the podcast online through their browser-based media program, such as Windows Media Player.
- Registered users also could choose to have the podcast sent via RSS feed to a personal homepage, such as a MyYahoo! page or a Google homepage.
-> Step #6.

Promote the podcast with email and search campaigns
To reach as many prospects as possible, Williams and his team also launched simultaneous email campaigns to different lists and a search marketing campaign. “You have to cover all your bases. Don’t rely on any single method to promote your podcast campaign.”
Email campaigns included messages to:
o The company’s existing prospect database
o Conference attendees who didn’t sit through the presentation
o Selected peers of the company featured in the podcast based on the size and profile of the bank and using subject lines and body copy that invited them to learn how their competitor reduced costs and improved efficiency
They also designed a Google and Yahoo! pay-per-click campaign based on relevant keywords for the podcast’s content, such as:
o Bank teller staffing software
o Workforce optimization for banks

RESULTS
The podcast not only convinced his company’s skeptics, it surpassed Williams’ expectations. More than nine times the number of people who attended the conference presentation listened to the podcast. Of those podcast listeners, 16.7% were considered highly qualified leads that their sales team aggressively pursued. They have already closed two deals with a total value of more than $2 million and have several more in the pipeline.
Williams is optimistic about closing even more deals because the podcast has given the sales team an opening to deliver more marketing content. All of the highly qualified prospects who listened to the podcast have since received a demo of the software, and historical data shows that prospects who receive a demo have a 60% closure rate. “Sales has a better chance now, because on the front end they have a really compelling podcast that gives us an edge.”
The podcast also dramatically increased the ROI from the trade show expense. Thanks to the additional leads generated by the recorded file, the company’s cost per lead declined 71%.
Their analysis of where listeners came from proved the importance of a multichannel marketing strategy. Roughly a third of listeners came from the email sent to the conference attendee list, a third came from the email to the company’s own prospect database and a third came through search.
While the email messages to prospects and conference attendees garnered the most C-level executive listeners, the search campaign delivered one of the largest deals closed so far.

Useful links related to this article
Creative samples from GMT’s trade show podcast:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/gmt/study.html
Audacity – the MP3 editing software GMT used:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
FeedBurner, the program used to make the podcast available via RSS feed:
http://www.feedburner.com
Michael Williams’ Web site:
http://mwilliams.bravehost.com/
Global Management Technologies Inc.:
http://www.gmt.com

PPC Bidding

PPC Bid Management Strategies

Engaging in a pay-per-click ad campaign with the major search engines can be confusing–and costly. Is it worth it to bid for the top spot? How much can you afford to spend, realistically? Richard Ball walks you through the cost-per-click equation and warns about the potential pitfalls.

Identify Max CPC

PPC (pay per click) bid management begins with identifying the maximum CPC (cost per click) you’re willing to pay for a given keyword phrase. If you do not know this value, it is not advisable to engage in PPC advertising. The max CPC will change over time and could vary from search engine to search engine. If you don’t know this value, start with an educated guess. This could be based on an industry rule of thumb or on internal factors such as profit margins. For example, let’s suppose you’re bidding on the keyword phrase "nike shoes" but do not know your max CPC. One way to estimate a max CPC involves taking the top 5 bids on Overture and computing the average. The current bids are: $0.51, $0.50, $0.33, $0.32, $0.31. The average is 39 cents. Use that as your max CPC to begin with.

A better approach is to base the CPC on your profit margins. Let’s suppose your average sale price on a pair of Nike shoes is $80 and your profit margin is 20%. That leaves $16 of profit for each shoe. Also, assume that your conversion rate will be 1% (this is a conservative estimate). For every 100 visitors from a PPC ad, you expect 1 sale. If you have $16 of ad to spread over 100 visitors, you have 16 cents to spend per click. Another way to approach this problem is to have an ad spend based on revenue. For example, if your goal is to spend 15% of revenue on advertising then your ad spend would work out to $12 per shoe. Again, assuming a conservative 1% conversion rate, that would leave you with 12 cents per click. As your campaign progresses and you determine your actual conversion rate, adjust the CPC accordingly.

PPC Bid Management Strategies – Different strategy for Google vs. Overture

Adopt different bidding strategies for Google and Overture. Their PPC systems are quite different and it’s worth the effort to identify different bids across the two search engines for the same keyword phrase. Overture sponsored results are based solely on bid while Google uses a combination of bid and CTR (click through rate). Start with Overture to determine initial bid range, since their bidding system is open. It’s likely that advertisers bidding for keywords on Overture are also bidding on Google, and probably in the same range. For Google, use the Overture bids as your starting point in the short term and reduce the bids for the long term if your CTR is high enough.

Don’t bid for spot #1

Contrary to what the search engines recommend, it’s usually foolish to bid for the top spot. Why? Two reasons: 1) It is often prohibitively expensive, and 2) Most web surfers usually try a few different search queries until they’ve found the right one that fits what they’re actually looking for. A click from a surfer in the midst of refining a query usually doesn’t result in a conversion.

Tailor bids to actual search results

Track your paid traffic by keyword. Look to see which sites bring the bulk of your traffic and build your bidding strategy accordingly. Google ads will likely come primarily from www.google.com and aolsearch.aol.com, while Overture ads will likely drive traffic from search.yahoo.com and search.msn.com. Run search queries for your keyword phrase on the search engines that send the bulk of your results and see where your paid ad ranks. Note how many ads are on each page and whether they’re full ads or brief ads. Know where you want your ad to show up in the search results. Do you want your ad to be above the fold on the first page or is anywhere on the first three pages of results sufficient? Your max CPC will limit your choices.

PPC Bid Management Strategies – Take advantage of bid gaps

Normally, bids are separated by a penny or two. Bid gaps occur when there’s a significant price increase to move up one spot in the PPC rankings. Looking at the top bids for "nike shoes" on Overture’s system:

1) 0.51

2) 0.50

      <– Bid Gap

3) 0.33

4) 0.32

5) 0.31

      <– Bid Gap

6) 0.16

7) 0.16

      <– Bid Gap

0.11

9) 0.11

10) 0.10

11) 0.10

Is it worth almost twice the price to move from spot #6 to spot #5? Now that Yahoo is showing more ads per page and fewer search results, it is probably not worth it. Big advertisers blindly set a CPC across a large group of keywords, causing these bid gaps. Take advantage and fill a bid gap. For example, if your initial max CPC for this phrase was 32 cents, maybe it’s worth only bidding 17 cents.

PPC Bid Management Strategies – Overture PPC bid management strategy example

 

Looking at a search for "nike shoes" on search.yahoo.com, note that there are 3 full ads across the top and 2 at the bottom. Down the right hand side are 8 brief ads. Look carefully and notice that spots #1-3 are at the top, #4-5 at the bottom and #4-11 down the right side. If you can afford the 34 cents to be in spot #3, do so. Being at the top of the page is very valuable. However, it’s likely not worth crossing the bid gap to be in spots #1 or #2. If you cannot afford spot #3, notice that being in spots #4 or #5 is twice the bang for your buck. These ads show at the bottom of the page in full form and at the top right of the page in brief form. This is very valuable real estate. This would cost 34 and 33 cents, respectively. Since there is no bid gap, pay for spot #4.

If that is still above your max CPC, note the remaining bid gaps. For 17 cents, you’d be in spot #6 and still above the fold, albeit in a brief ad on the right hand side of the page. Spot #8 can be had for 12 cents, spot #10 for 11 cents and bidding the current minimum, 10 cents, earns spot #15. Clearly, bidding 2 cents above the minimum achieves a ranking jump, from spot #15 to spot #8. It is rarely worth bidding the minimum. At the top end of the bidding range, you’ll find bid gaps. At the bottom end, you’ll find minor increases in bids often result in major ranking jumps.

PPC Bid Management Strategies – Google PPC bid management strategy thoughts

Whether you’re bidding solely on Google or also on Overture, use the Overture bids for your keyword phrases as the "market value" for the bids. This market value could be the top bid itself or an average of the top N bids where you choose N. Choosing N in the range 3-8 is useful. If you can afford the market value you derive, use it. Otherwise, use your max CPC. That max CPC could be set for an entire ad group or for a specific keyword phrase. Track the ad carefully for a few days. Assuming the bid is high enough and generates sufficient traffic, you should have a good idea of the CTR within a few days. If the CTR is good (at least 2%), lower the CPC and see where your ad falls in the search results. If the CTR is sufficient, lowering the CPC should not result in your ad dropping many positions.

Run a query you’ve seen in the Web server logs and note the position of your ad. Drop the CPC by 10%, wait a few minutes, and run the search query again. Repeat until you remain in the top P positions where P is your goal, perhaps in the 3-5 range. Recognize that keyword bidding is a fluid situation and that Google updates that usually take seconds can sometimes take minutes. Be patient. Some would argue that continually running the same query will penalize you as your CTR will be lowered due to more views but no clicks. For queries with reasonable volume, a handful of searches is inconsequential. Plus, unless you’re clicking on your competitors’ ads, the denominator in the CTR calculation is increasing across all ads. If your ad’s CTR is very good (better than 7%) you will likely be able to drop your CPC in half without a noticeable drop in ranking.

If your ad group has many keyword phrases and there’s a divergence in CTR, consider creating multiple ad groups. The more tightly focused your ad group is, the lower your CPC will ultimately become as you weed out poorly performing keyword phrases. Adding negative keywords to each Google ad group will also help increase the CTR and thereby allow you to reduce your CPC.

Conclusion

Before embarking on a PPC advertising campaign, determine the maximum CPC you’re willing to pay for a given keyword phrase. Recognize that this value will change over time depending on your ad conversion rate, profit margins, advertising budget and other factors. Adopt different bidding strategies for Google and Overture. On either search engine, don’t waste money bidding for the top spot. Examine the paid traffic coming to your site and tailor your bids to the search engines bringing the bulk of the traffic. In doing so, take advantage of bid gaps to save money.