Search Engine Marketing

From this article, you’ll learn how to determine the efficiency of your online advertising efforts and how to calculate the maximum cost per click for those campaigns. The basic economics of online marketing are simple: Determine the advertising efficiency needed to make your profitability goals, then buy all the inventory you can get your hands on. But how do you determine the advertising efficiency needed to achieve your profitability goals? This article offers some practical formulas and advice. Defining Online Advertising Efficiency Ad efficiency comes down to a cost vs. benefit ratio: “What did I spend on advertising?” vs. “What did I get in

Search marketing is hot: Analysts predict the industry will reach almost $15 billion in marketing spend in 2005, up more than 30 percent compared to 2004. There are two primary flavors of search marketing: paid search, dominated by Google’s and Yahoo!’s pay-per-click networks; and natural search, also known as organic search, unpaid search, or search engine optimization. Since cost-per-click fees have risen during the last few quarters, marketers have increased their focus on natural search efforts. To help improve online sales, this article examines nine common misconceptions about natural search marketing and how you can avoid these pitfalls. It’s simply too complex. Some

“As consumers become savvier searchers, online merchants must become savvier marketers,” said Diane Rinaldo, director of strategic alliances for Yahoo Search Marketing, at the session “Search Engine Marketing Strategies for Retailers: What Are Your Choices, and How Can You Use Them Effectively?” at the Search Marketing Forum held last month in New York. Rinaldo offered the following two strategies for merchants looking to get the most out of search engine marketing: 1. Since 38 percent of sales occur four weeks after a consumer’s initial search, you need to track consumer behavior for a longer period of time, Rinaldo pointed out. “Look beyond your current cookie duration.

The rise of the search engine as a marketing tool has brought with it a bevy of other online-selling opportunities. Not least among these are the shopping feeds, Web sites that act as online aggregators of merchandise and that allow consumers to compare similar products online, then choose merchants to supply the items. Often shopping feeds are referred to as comparison shopping engines or Web co-ops. Notable examples include Google’s Froogle and Amazon (see “Five Feeds Examined,” below). While few catalogers are claiming that shopping feeds are bringing in huge amounts of money, many in the e-commerce world do admit that they’re

“The No. 1 mistake that search marketers make today is not thinking like their prospects,” said Kevin Lee, executive chairman of search marketing consultancy Did-it.com. “Marketers still seem to think customers will find their products based on the way the marketer wants the customer to, not the way the customer actually does.” Opening with that statement, Lee presented his seminar “20 Bloopers, Blunders and Mistakes to Avoid in Search Engine Marketing” at The Direct Marketing Association’s Search Marketing Forum, held last week in New York. While he asserted that figuring out how the customer thinks and searches is difficult and will vary from product to

More than one-third of online shoppers reported they frequently shop around online before making a purchase in a retail store, according to a study of multichannel shoppers conducted by Fry Inc., the e-tailing group and comScore Networks. Other findings include: ¥ 97% of shoppers expect a seamlessly integrated shopping experience between online and offline channels. ¥ 46% of consumers start their shopping at a search engine. ¥ 39% of shoppers go directly to the retail Web sites in which they are interested. ¥ 36% of online shoppers have purchased a product online and picked it up at a retail location. Source: comScore Networks, www.comscore.com

Introduction Like other forms of e-commerce, the possibilities in search engine marketing (SEM) are only just beginning to be fully explored. In its own way, the craft of SEM is a lot like other methods of direct marketing: It requires a steady dose of testing, and in the end, a favorable return on investment. According to a recent SEM survey by New York-based Jupiter Research, just 25 percent of search marketers use “sophisticated SEM tactics. Marketers must cultivate sophistication to remain successful,” the survey states. What’s more, the search numbers continue to multiply. For instance, in November, Google doubled, to more than

I’ve been thinking a lot about Google these days. Its IPO has been in the news, and “60 Minutes” recently ran a fascinating profile of the company. But there was other news about Google that got only brief media attention and deserved much more, because the announcement was no less than historic: Google’s plan to scan all text from books in five libraries (e.g., the New York Public Library, University of Oxford) and make that content available online and easily searchable. Something like this was a dream of Vannevar Bush, Ph.D., science advisor to President Roosevelt, former director of the Office of

Problem: Sea Eagle needed a way to gauge whether its advertising investments were paying off. Solution: It developed a proprietary ad-tracking solution that ties back to sales data. Results: The merchant of boats and gear now can track back 21 percent of its sales to the cost of promotions, vs. only 10 percent last year. As more and more of its customers migrated to the e-commerce channel, Sea Eagle was losing sight of how it was generating leads. Were they coming from print advertising, search-engine marketing, natural search on the Web or some other method? “We spent $400,000 in print ads

1. What is paid-search marketing? It consists of placing ads for your products/services on Internet search engines and content sites. These ads typically are small snippets of text linked to your merchandise pages. You pay when someone clicks through to your site from the ad. Cost-per-click (CPC) fees range from 5 cents to several dollars per click, with an industry average near 30 cents. Leading search-marketing channels include Google, Overture and Inktomi. Additional smaller channels and new large channels are expected to appear soon. 2. What sort of catalogers benefit the most from paid-search marketing? Catalogers with fair pricing, good Web sites and