Graham Charlton

This week's top six infographics

Once again we round up six of the best infographics we've seen in the past week.

The topics include social media demographics, creative employment, Google+, and when to post on Facebook...

by Graham Charlton 22 March 2013 10:48am 7 comments

Five examples of local PPC best practice

Local search is becoming increasingly important as consumers look to find information about the products and services near to them.

For example, 81% of UK smartphone internet users have looked for local information with their devices, and these people are just as likely to purchase in your store as online.

There’s an extremely valuable amount of traffic available for local queries, so if you are a local business it becomes extremely important to deliver your messaging to these searchers.

Google has focused heavily on improving its local search results experience, and queries that trigger a local results page have increased in number, so that the location no longer needs to be part of the search query.

Google integrates data from Google+ to its map listings, so the easiest way to make sure your business is appearing on a map search is to ensure your Google+ business page is set up and using the correct address.

Here are five examples of PPC ads using location to enhance listings and (hopefully) increase CTR...

by Graham Charlton 26 March 2013 11:36am 6 comments

Why you should make it easy for customers to contact you

Customer service online is all important, and businesses should be making it easy for customers to contact them to resolve any issues.

However, some sites seem determined to prevent, or least make it difficult for you to contact them. Whether through missing or hard to find contact details, charging for customer service calls, or taking weeks to reply to emails.

Perhaps these firms think they are saving money or easing pressure on customer service staff by doing this, but I fear they are just annoying the hell out of their customers, which is rarely a good idea.

by Graham Charlton 25 March 2013 12:53pm 31 comments

More reasons for retailers to offer wi-fi in stores

Rather than fret about the dangers of 'showrooming', retailers should provide wi-fi for mobile users, as this influences the choice of store for almost 80% of consumers.

A new report by JiWire, which provides ad-supported wi-fi, finds that retailers needn't fear the mobile shopper.

by Graham Charlton 15 March 2013 09:37am 1 comment

Is eBay wrong about the value of paid search?

This week, eBay released a study into the effectiveness of paid search ads which concludes that, for the auction giant at least, 'the efficacy of SEM is limited at best'.

It's an interesting study, and well worth a read, but the report's conclusion applicable to brands in general, is it just less effective for eBay, or is there something wrong with the brand's PPC strategies?

I asked a number of experts about the report, and whether they agree with its conclusions....

by Graham Charlton 15 March 2013 10:45am 16 comments

Will online reviews work in an offline setting?

We all know that consumer reviews work online, so it makes sense to apply this tactic in an offline setting, on TV, print ads and elsewhere.

I'm writing this as a result of the recent launch of Reevoo Everywhere, a new product designed to enable brands to use reviews across different channels, but it's perhaps surprising that this hasn't been tried before, or at least not so I've noticed.

So, can this tactic work, and how can brands use reviews offline?

by Graham Charlton 14 March 2013 10:22am 12 comments

How should web analytics tools be used to measure paid search?

Web analytics is essential for measuring and optimising paid search campaigns, and being able to extract the rind kind of data to improve your campaigns.

This post, which includes some extracts from our new Paid Search Marketing (PPC) Best Practice Guide, looks at examples of how to use analytics to track PPC performance.

by Graham Charlton 13 March 2013 11:15am 2 comments

10 more valuable Google Analytics custom reports

Last week I published a list of ready-made custom reports for Google Analytics, including ways to measure links, PPC campaigns, sales by time of day and more.

The reaction was very positive, and in the comments and related G+ discussion, more great custom reports were suggested, so I've rounded them up here.

by Graham Charlton 11 March 2013 13:56pm 17 comments

10 tips for improving the click and collect customer experience

Click and collect (or reserve and collect, or whatever) is becoming ever more popular, to the extent that it is now a vital offering for any large multichannel retailer.

The reason? It fits perfectly with customer research behaviour, and allows retailers to drive footfall into their stores.

The experience must be right to maximise sales, and a new report from ExperienceLab looks in detail at the click and collect experience of major UK retailers.

It's a big report, but I've summarised some of the findings here and pulled out some key tips for retailers...

by Graham Charlton 07 March 2013 11:07am 4 comments