From the monthly archives:

May 2009

Pay Per Click Fraud Leaves Internet Marketers Looking for Better Solutions

by lynbat on May 15, 2009

In the New York Times this week, Susanna Hamner relayed some great information to readers about the true effects of click fraud, related to pay per click advertising. In her article, Hamner focuses on the automotive retailer industry and points to a substantial number of advertising pay per clicks that originate in locations where these retailers are not doing business, such as Bulgaria and Indonesia.

One point that Hamner makes soundly, is that Google and Yahoo differ in reporting to their advertising clients the percentage of fraud to non-fraud that is really occurring. Google reports that the amount of true click fraud is hovering near 1% and professionals from Yahoo indicate that number is closer to 15%. The variance in those numbers is more than alarming and should be considered negligent. It is time for PPC companies, such as Google and Yahoo, to provide solutions to the click fraud dilemma.

Marketing professionals could use this opportunity to explore other and less expensive alternatives to PPC. Hamner points out that PPC is the only division of internet marketing to actually grow in the last year, despite the rest of the national economic decline.

“Because of the troubled economy, companies have shifted their advertising dollars to more cost-effective formats like pay-per-click advertising, which was the only form of Internet advertising that grew last year. It accounted for 57 percent of Internet advertising in 2008, up from 52 percent in 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing online advertisers.”

Other options for internet marketing are springing up. For eCommerce sites, true data feed optimization can turn your data feeds for comparison shopping engines from steam engines of the past to bullet super trains of the future, helping to reduce the dependence on PPC and increasing your bottom line.

Social network marketing can deliver readership from a whole host of social sites and blogs that can answer that age old question when it comes to successfully marketing your presence on the Web: What’s Next? Whether it be the inclusion of blogs, direct marketing on social sites, embedding video into your site or including news feeds, social network marketing is a huge area that stands currently developed and is waiting for your site to pull out of the station.

So with the unexpected toll booths along the information super highway no longer collecting just simple nickels and dimes, maybe it is time to put the car in the garage and jump on the bullet train.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the current article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/media/13adco.html?_r=3&ref

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How To Optimize Feeds To Maximize Your Exposure In Shopping Engine Results

by lynbat on May 7, 2009

Following is a great article on the need to maximize your exposure in top CSE’s (Comparison Shopping Engines) using data feed optimization.  One thing, though…  For the novice, this is a great article about what needs to be done but does not explain HOW to make this happen.

Excerpts taken from http://searchengineland.com/how-to-optimize-feeds-to-maximize-your-exposure-in-shopping-engine-results-18505

May 6, 2009 at 1:38pm ET by Arpana Tiwari

Each day millions of online shoppers turn to comparison shopping engines (CSEs) to compare prices, read reviews, research products and make buying decisions. While comparison shopping engines don’t sell or ship the products featured on their sites, they advertise products from merchants to a diverse online audience. Merchants are using CSEs in a down economy to capture shoppers looking for deals. To take advantage of this growing advertising space and get more exposure than your competitors, you need a product data feed—and even more importantly, you must optimize the feed to gain maximum exposure in CSE search results.

The number of online shoppers is increasing, and they’re internet-savvy. They will scan a product page for what interests them—the best price, a brand they trust, free shipping or seasonal discounts. It’s no surprise that clickthrough rates (CTR) and conversions increase when:

  • Titles are relevant: Is this what I am searching for?
  • Descriptions are engaging: Is this the right size, color, style?
  • Promotions are enticing: Should I buy this now?

Perfect your listings!  Making the leap from interest to conversion

Here are some specific tips for optimizing feeds to maximize your exposure in shopping engine results:

Craft targeted, keyword focused titles. On search engines, the online shopper controls what they see. They will search for brand, model, product type and product attributes. Shopping engines bold the keywords in your product title that match the shopper’s query. Bolded keywords in the product title increase the click attractiveness of your listing and also qualify your lead.

Map your products to the taxonomy of each CSE. Loose classifications lead to fewer and poor quality clicks, but what will hurt your campaign most is the missed opportunity of qualified shopping traffic that could easily have been yours if your products were correctly categorized.

Include detailed product specifications, attributes and features for each product. Detailed product specifications will surface your listing more frequently for targeted keywords with higher shopping intent, leading to more conversions.

Cross-sell related products.: Include product uses such as “can be used with,” “best suited for,” and so on so your product may be displayed as a related product or “shoppers also viewed,” increasing visibility and appeal to shoppers.

Add visual prominence with images and logos. Large images get more attention and are the first to be picked for featured pages and shopping blog entries. Shoppers love close-up images and pictures that show multiple angles of the product. Even if CSEs display a thumbnail image on the search results, if you provide a full size image of the product most will offer shoppers the ability to click through to the full size image of your product.

CSEs may also allow you to add your logo for an additional charge, a feature that gets attention and lends credibility to your product listing.

Tune your marketing message. Savvy shoppers are always looking for deals, discounts, specials, free shipping or other savings online. If you offer specials, provide these promotions in the feed to CSEs. Products that display promotions will not only attract more attention on product search pages, but will get highlighted on featured deals and promotions pages.

Don’t spend—invest. Spending gets cut in a tight economy, but investments continue. Track your ROI. As long as you’re seeing return, it is an investment. Work with your CSE to closely track conversions on the traffic you receive. If possible, consider installing any available ROI tracker the CSE provides to better analyze performance.

Promote hot products and seasonal items in your feed. CSEs want to help their retailers promote their products, and this data is important! Surface your seasonal products in the feed and call them out. Most CSE’s actively scour their products for seasonal items and promote them on special seasonal features, such as guides, newsletters, press releases, shopping blogs, tweets and more.

Strive to get in the top three listings. Whether on a search engine like Google or a CSE, the top three results get the lion’s share of qualified leads. Analytics show that even on shopping sites, conversions for the top three listings are disproportionately high. Quality score matters on shopping engines too. In addition to bidding, relevance and popularity impact the position of your listing. A placement above the fold gets a disproportionate number of eyeballs from shoppers, so it’s important to optimize your feed.

Make it stick. Increase your branding and visibility to consumers through other advertising channels like banner advertising or page sponsorship. Just as paid ads coupled with organic search results in Google boost traffic to the site, banner ads on comparison shopping sites improve branding and traffic to your site.

Merchants who pay attention to optimizing their feeds and leverage the advanced features and new opportunities offered by CSEs will position themselves for increased traffic and conversions.

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