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Latest Blog Entries
Seems everyone and their dog has a blog these days. It goes without saying that a search marketing blog should provide commentary and insight about search engine marketing; practices and principles; heroes and villains. We like to think of ours as a reflection of who we are. And of course, as a platform for putting blog marketing theory into practice.
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Have you tried Google Plus Hangouts yet? If not, I highly recommend you give it a try. From a collaborative meeting point of view, this has been an AMAZING (to coin a phrase from Vito) addition to our communication arsenal internally, and we only see it getting more integral to our continuing growth.
So check it out!
You can have up to 10 participants on a video chat in Google Plus Hangouts, which is pretty substantial, and it provides outstanding opportunity for those telecommuting to work every day.
Whoever is making the most noise (err… I mean the primary speaker of the moment) automatically gets the main video window which makes it very clear who is speaking when. (Kinda like watching TV a little, actually!)
Currently there is a sneak preview of new Hangouts features for a limited time such as:
- Named Hangouts
- Shared notes and sketchpad
- Google Docs integration
- Screen sharing (ALWAYS a helpful tool!)
What a great way to put “Social” back in to social platforms too. Use it for catching up with friends and family face to face, sing-a-longs (yak), or any number of social interactions.
Hey, it’s good enough for President Obama. He logging in on Monday night (January 30, 2012) for the Oval Office’s first virtual “Hangout”.
So, login, create a hangout, check to make sure you look good, and invite some folks from your circles to gab with you face-to-face.
Cheers!
Doug Gebhardt
By: Doug Gebhardt on February 3, 2012 in Engines, Light Reading, Tools/Analytics, Treats
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Our first coordinator outreach landed some pretty big shoes to fill now that we’re out in the market again.
That small email went something like this:
We are looking for junior talent who would be willing to telecommute. Full-time gig. We will provide a happy salary, 3 weeks vacay. (We didn’t have benefits then but we do now.)
They will provide a curiosity that puts a well-known children’s story monkey to shame. And they can be relatively self-managing or at least have sense enough not to try Doug’s patience.
They are junior. Maybe a coordinator somewhere. They probably don’t have search experience but do have some sense of the Interwebs, marketing and Excel.
We will train them. By we, I of course mean Doug as I will probably just scare them when my impatience becomes visible o’er vidphone. Right. We will provide them a webcam for inter-computer conferencing. (It’s fun!)
If you know of them, they should get to know of us.
Availability – they can start very, very, very soon.
Thanx!
Shane & Doug
And it landed us some pretty big results so we’re taking another kick at the can.
We’re hiring a bilingual search marketing coordinator. A junior role with big aspirations. We call that a cat herder. Here’s why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
If you can work independently and remotely, respond fast and tirelessly, you might just fit the bill.
Fire off a resume to careers@searchtactix.com and we’ll take a look.
Thx
Shane & Doug (Again)
By: Shane on January 30, 2012 in Marketing
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If time is money, web analytics are the currency by which engagement is measured and time is spent. The challenge, as with most investments is in realizing a return on investment and in a market where digital management roles are only now being addressed client side, analytics and analysis remain clouded in mystery with brand managers not fully versed in their use, value or merit and global agencies consistently reticent to tie performance to results.
Myriad web analytics packages exist, among the most popular, Google Analytics, Omniture (Adobe), WebTrends and Coremetrics, but all serve one specific role providing intelligent online business intelligence. Hiring a web analytics consultant or web analytics agency is a first step along the path to digital enlightment and is that much more important as display and search more closely align through real-time exchanges, DSPs and Google initiatives. It has been predicted that Facebook will be the digital market leader for display advertising, something we all know Yahoo, Bing and Google must be paying close attention to. Google cannot have purchased Doubleclick without a vision and a business case for it.
 Analytics Certified The role of analytics, as both Avinash Kaushik and the Google Analytics certification exam would have you know is not of absolutes but of identifying trends – the proverbial canary in the coal mine. But to trust in the numbers the process is paramount. Accordingly, an analytics agency or consultant’s first role if not one of implementation, should be an audit followed by an overview of goals, objectives and desired outcomes. Functionally, the role of web analytics is both reporting and intelligence in the measurement, collection, analysis of internet data as it relates to understanding and optimizing web habituation and usage in search of increased engagement with accountability to metrics, conversions and ultimately, transactions. At the end of the day, web analytics extend well beyond site usage as an intelligence and research tool for social media, mobile, entry and exit behaviours and with increasing frequency, offline indicators.
The challenge of web analytics within organizations is typically one of resource strain as data mining and reporting are time consuming at a minimum and associated costs are closely vetted by procurement officers. Analytics, however, can become a profit center if research and time spent lends itself to actionable insights which in turn can be tied back to budget line items. As some analytics programs are free, the only associated cost is in fact time and hours can be costed back on a project or FTE (Full-time employee basis).
The movement towards analytics as a profit center necessarily depends on success around implementation and the hands and eyes responsible for analytics outcomes, whether internal, a web analytics consultants or a web analytics agency:
- Understand the role analytics will play with your organization
- No metric lives in isolation; what will you measure; how?
- Create custom dashboards and communicate through the organization
- Measure consistently both in time and manner
- Test to a plan with defined hypotheses and benchmarks
- Factor analytics into project costs against marketing
- Align goals to conversions and vice versa
Peter Drucker famously said: What can be measured can be managed. And for digital presence the key element comes down to web analytics.
For analytics capabilities, we’re available at 1-800-994-4568 or info@searchtactix.com.
Have a good one.
~ Shane Wagg
By: Shane on January 12, 2012 in Marketing
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The combined impact of search and display advertising initiatives serves, increasingly, to shore up performance metrics from engagement to conversion with accountability through analytics.
Before the this year’s de rigeur Zero Moment of Truth the bulk of search display eyes were on the last click attribution model. For the coming year cocktail and conference conversation will centre around search and display, real-time bidding, DSPs, exchanges and while I want to say “of course” the truth is, finally, a little more accountability to metrics.
Full funnnel attribution is an accessible model, but challenging to explain in four-year-old terms. For that, we defer to a picture easily worth a thousand keywords… Display and text working together. Courtesy of The Exchange Lab:
 Search Display Full Funnel Attribution Real-time bidding is an auction model and the alignment of search to display advertising, remarketing, retargeting or whatever naming convention you choose to give it is a natural and a win/win/win/win/win. For the consumer, advertising will be more closely aligned to search patterns. Which is great if you’re looking for a hotel, not so great if you’re a teenage girl looking for an abortion clinic on the family computer. For publishers, with quality content, content which has always “been king” will now rule and push itself to the fore. For Yahoo/Bing, if they can get it front of it, display (at which they lead) will more closely align to search (at which they don’t lead). For Google, search (at which they lead) will more closely align to display (at which they will lead).
There will also be room for the Facebooks and the LinkedIns of the work, user-generated, self-defining content plays richand robust in keywords that will effortlessy marry more closely to tactical display advertising initiatives more closely aligned to user habituation than brand folly.
And last but not least, brands will benefit as digital aligns itself more closely to search (consumer driven) than to broadcast (brand manager driven). The risk however, is that brand managers will not fully understand search display advertising opporunities and AORs will not properly educate them based on resource and revenue limitations.
Creating Search Display Efficiencies
- Unsilo search and display managers to better work together
- Identify search and display baselines individually
- Test a keyword based remarketing campaign
- Test a display based remarketing campaign
- Deploy a search display based campaign
- Deploy a search display based remarketing campaign
- Measure benchmarks with accountability to conversion and analytics
That’s what we’re here for. 1-800-994-4568
By: Shane on December 18, 2011 in Canadian, Eh, Display, Engines, Marketing, Search, Tools/Analytics
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Random Google Insight of the day…
Somewhere between birth and death, you’ll find God.
Have a good one.
~ Shane
By: Shane on September 29, 2011 in Marketing
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