Give your marketing some love!

Right smack in the coldest part of winter is a day that makes most women rub their hands together in anticipation and men to shiver in fear.  Women start thinking of love and romance, hearts, chocolates and flowers and men start contemplating the consequences of what happens if they get it wrong.  Of course, what I’m talking about is Valentine’s Day.

According to the National Retail Federation,  total 2013 spending for Valentine’s Day in the United States will reach $18.6 Billion — an average of $130.97 per person, so from a sales and marketing standpoint, Valentine’s Day is a retailer’s bonanza.  If you look at Valentine’s Day from a practical, marketing perspective, I think you’ll agree that there are some interesting lessons that the business owner can learn from the hoopla of Valentine’s Day. (more…)

Where did January go? The post-holiday crazy-busy period has deposited us in almost-February. If you haven’t yet, it’s time to get serious and think about goals for your pay-per-click campaigns this year.

We came across Jump-Starting Your 2011 PPC Campaign which offers very handy tips to put a shine on your campaigns. Here’s a sample:

Focus on coverage to gain more clicks.  This can be tough for most business owners to undertand.  Logic would tell you that the higher your ad is displayed, the more clicks (and conversions) you are likely to receive.  In some cases, this is true.  However, if you are a new marketer (particularly in a highly competitive online market), you may want to lower your keyword bids so that your ads display is less competive positions (say spots 4-7).  This allows your ad to show more often (which means more opportunities to drive clicks) for relevant keyword searches than it would if you were going head-to-head with the established advertisers in the top 3 ad positions.

If you’re not using custom landing pages, you could be missing out.  Custom landing pages help your PPC traffic convert, thereby helping improve keyword quality score while lowering the cost-per-click (CPC) of your campaign.

You don’t need to make a formal resolution out of spiffing up your PPC campaigns – no, the time for resolutions is past, my friends. All we’re saying is that you’ll feel better if you pay them extra attention when you can. It will pay off.

–The Advertise.com team