Google AdWords Experiments – What You Need To Know

Google AdWords experiments provide an avenue to test new ads and keywords.
Google AdWords experiments can provide insight into increasing click-through rates and conversions.

Running successful long-term AdWords campaigns can be a balancing act between key word selection and budget allocation. Google AdWords experiments provide an avenue to test new ads and keywords against existing ads at the same time. However, there can be a downside to running an experiment in the form of a drop-off in click-through rates (CTR) and conversions while the experiment is running.

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Implementing a Balanced Approach to Increasing Brand Awareness

Understanding how brand awareness influences purchasing decisions can help keep the sales pipeline full

In today’s cluttered marketing environment, standing out from the competition has become more challenging. Everywhere we turn, thousands of brands are vying for our limited attention span. This overload has conditioned us to be hyper-sensitive to brand messaging delivered through advertising, POP marketing, and social media platforms, or as I prefer to call it, our “BS” meters are working overtime.

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Is your online/offline customer service process in sync?

Why the human factor is so important in the automated customer service process.

For all of the resources that companies are pouring into automating the customer’s journey, many are falling woefully behind in training their frontline personnel in the automated customer service process.

Automating back office customer service functions is nothing new. Companies are obsessed with efficiency, implementing automated customer service systems, and reducing head count as a way to increase efficiency and reduce cost.

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Courage to Change

There are very few things that are as profound as the act of change. In our personal and business lives, we, for the most part are creatures of habit.

Routine make us feel secure and brings order to our lives. Staying within our own daily grind gives us a sense of security. It’s only when change is thrust upon us that we wake up and see the possibilities that are right in front of our eyes.

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Mobile marketing: Shiny object or game changer?

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There is considerable content being generated on the topic of mobile marketing. Data suggests that by 2016 there will be over 196 million smart phone users (60% of the population) in North America. eMarketer is predicting $67 billion in digital ad spending, of which $40 billion will go towards mobile internet ad spending. Obviously these are sizable numbers but we should not lose sight of the total ad spend which is close to $200 billion, with traditional (broadcast and print) representing $132 billion. Continue reading

Business-to-business marketing and relationship building

The longer the sales cycles, the more important the relationship becomes

Business-to-business marketing has always been about establishing a relationship with the prospect. One reason for this is most considered purchases involve multiple parties, resulting in extended sales cycle time. With the new technology of programmatic buying and selling of digital advertising inventory, ad technology companies would like for you to believe that a constant barrage of banner ads will substitute for a relationship built on trust.

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The myth of the “full service” advertising agency

The advertising/marketing ecosystem is too large and complex to offer all services in-house

It’s an old illusion in the advertising business that agencies wanted to look larger then they actually were. The thinking behind this was that the more services you claimed to offer, the better chance you had of reeling in new accounts. It was this mindset that coined the phrase “full service” agency.

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Ad Technology: Programmatic Advertising

Welcome to the high-speed trading desk for automated digital advertising placement

Marketers spent more then $3.37 billion on programmatic advertising last year. eMarketer is estimating the programmatic advertising will top $9 billion by 2017. Research studies by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester indicated that only 23% of marketers said they used and understood programmatic advertising and that 26% indicated they understood the concept but needed to learn more about how to apply it to campaigns.

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