paid search | Internet Marketing Blog

ASOS is king of natural search among fashion retailers

In the battle for fashion shoppers in natural search, research by I Spy Marketing shows that ASOS is trouncing the competition.

The e-tailer appeared in the top ten for 66 out of 72 generic fashion search terms in Google – Amazon was the second best performing retailer followed by Debenhams.

The Fashion Sector Report found that fashion brands and luxury clothes sites, with the exception of Net-a-Porter, were absent from the results.

by David Moth 30 April 2012 14:31pm 5 comments

Foursquare to roll out paid search ads for local specials

Foursquare is reportedly planning to launch paid search ads in June, allowing brands to promote check-in deals when users search for local specials.

The new ads will work on the same algorithms that power ‘explore’, Foursquare’s search tool that recommends locations based on a user’s previous check-ins and as well of those of their friends.

AdAge reports that the social network is developing the new ads with marketers that it has worked with before which includes the likes of Pepsi, Whole Foods and Dunkin’ Donuts.

by David Moth 20 April 2012 13:07pm 0 comments

Seven changes Search plus Your World brings to PPC

Search plus Your World is well underway in rolling out for English language Google.com searches.

The new evolution of Google is effectively live in the States and for many people in the UK, like myself, who search on the .com site by default rather than the .co.uk.

Search plus Your World impacts PPC just as it impacts SEO. Let’s look at seven reasons why your PPC strategy might need changes due to Search+

by Andrew Girdwood 23 January 2012 10:56am 3 comments

How to increase traffic volume without adding new keywords

Many marketers still find themselves spending hours of time having to review raw query reports with the slight hope that keyword expansion tools might be able to help them identify those key terms that their campaigns are missing.

Adding new keywords and refining match types might be important for optimisation, but it’s not necessarily the fastest way to increase volume. Often, advertisers focused on growing their paid search programs pay too much attention to keyword expansion activities.

This isn’t surprising, especially given the multitude of keyword tools out there such as Wordstream, Trellian, or Adgooroo, each promoting their own version of keyword data.

However, once marketers have built out their core search programs, the process of adding long-tail terms can require a massive expansion and yet only return a slight impact on traffic volumes.

by Ed Stevenson 29 September 2011 10:28am 8 comments

Brand bidding on Adwords is ok, rules EU in Interflora vs M&S case

On the way into the office today I noticed a bunch of tweets along the lines of 'Interflora wins EU PPC case vs M&S'.

I have just read the ruling in full, and I don’t interpret it as a win at all, but there are some key takeaways that you need to be aware of if your brand is involved in bidding on competitor trademarks.

by Chris Lake 22 September 2011 12:30pm 12 comments

Attribution: Why search marketers should care about customer loyalty and lifetime value

It’s common for consumers to click on an online ad, view a product and then postpone purchase until a couple of days later when they’ll go directly to the site and the conversion is made.

Furthermore, once an order is complete, that same customer could keep coming back to the site to make other purchases. And yet, measuring these instances of customer loyalty to optimise bids has often proven to be a problem for marketers.

by Ed Stevenson 08 June 2011 11:48am 1 comment

Companies increase outsourcing for SEO, PPC and social media: survey

SEO, paid search and social media: for obvious reasons, it's difficult, if not downright impossible, for companies to thrive online without them.

Given their importance, one might expect that a growing number of companies would be eager to bring their SEO, PPC and social media activities in house, but according to SEMPO and Econsultancy's State of Search Marketing Report 2011, just the opposite is happening.

by Patricio Robles 21 April 2011 12:27pm 9 comments

How to use paid search as a branding tool

Paid search is typically perceived as a direct response channel. It is most frequently used by firms for sales and lead generation.

There are definite brand benefits to paid search, but most advertisers do not focus on the softer brand metrics when placing Adwords campaigns. Clickthrough and conversion rates are what matter the most, as far as most people are concerned.

As such it was rather interesting to spot a seemingly random paid search ad for Ann Summers, which was anchored to a keyword search on last year’s budget.

by Chris Lake 29 March 2011 12:54pm 16 comments

Social media and SEO massively undervalued: study

Now that TagMan has been tracking all the activity of some very big clients for a substantial period of time, we can provide some pretty definitive answers about how different campaigns appear in, and contribute to, the path to conversion.

From this data, we have proof that natural search and social media channels are vastly undervalued, while the effect of paid search is overstated...

by Paul Cook 03 March 2011 11:29am 48 comments

Two channels. One search. Zero excuses.

Most brands now engage in organic and paid search to a greater or lesser degree, but most do so with little understanding of the interaction between the two mediums, and therefore fail to acknowledge that search is one medium and not two and should be managed as such for maximum return.

by Andreas Pouros 30 November 2010 11:35am 2 comments