'marketing' Category

• Definitions: CPA

  Various of our clients have different performance targets for paid search, evolved because of the different ways in which they can or want to measure performance. For paid search, the most common performance measurements that we see are CPA, ROAS and ROI. This article addresses CPA, the Cost Per Action. CPA – Cost Per Action [...]

  September 3rd, 2007

• Google Top Position Pricing Motivational Analysis

  Google announced yesterday (2007/08/08) that the pricing system for placing adverts above organic search results is to change. What effect will this have on advertisers and other Google stakeholders, and what reasons might Google have for doing so? As you might expect, a first pass analysis suggests that Google is using this to increase revenue [...]

  August 9th, 2007

• Google is destroying the web!

  Adam Lasnik, Google’s missionary to the heathens, fired up to convince webmasters to use links only if they fit the citation model, wrote a few months ago that he and Matt joked that people are often bragging they have an undetectable technique to raise rank. The interview (second link in this paragraph, to Stone Temple) [...]

  July 30th, 2007

• Turning visitors into buyers – whose shoes do you wear?

  Chances are, if you are reading this, you’ve got a problem with turning site visitors into buyers. You’ve probably made one big mistake… It’s common, and almost all sites suffer from this to a greater or lesser extent. It affects shops, banks, consultants and pretty much everything that anyone tries to sell… And it seems [...]

  May 29th, 2007

• Trademarks and Google AdWords

  Brand owners can use their trademarked names in several ways with Google’s AdWords paid search, for competitive advantage. Control over trademarked names is offered at two levels. Worldwide, by country, a brand owner can protect their brand name in AdWords adverts. Outside North America (US and Canada), trademark holders can also control which AdWords accounts [...]

  May 25th, 2007

• AdSense and Behavioural Targeting

  Matt Cutts has elliptically proposed that AdSense is a form of Behavioural Targeting. Or, maybe he’s proposing something else… Hmm. Let’s look at that. The proposition represents that AdSense is to Behavioural Targeting as Hydrogen Bonds are to Van Der Waals Forces. While both forces arise from the intermolecular behaviour of electrical charge, the Hydrogen [...]

  April 26th, 2007

• Rev B: SEO, Game Theory and Intrinsically Corruptible Systems

  This is the other article on the End Of Life As We Know It. See also “Rev A“, published previously. A recent posting by Matt Cutts to invite reporting of paid links to Google set me thinking. One thought train lead to a fairly predictable (for me) posting. The other has lead into some stranger [...]

  April 24th, 2007

• Rev A: SEO, Game Theory and Intrinsically Corruptible Systems

  I’m pretty sure that I can see a rising interest in, and reasons for, dislodging Google’s search and search advertising dominance. However, the causes are complex and the way in which it would happen are even more subject to unpredictable accidents. I’ve now written this article twice, with different perspectives… And I couldn’t think of [...]

  April 21st, 2007

• Search Engine Blog Awards

  That nice Mr Ball nominated us as SEM blog for the Search Engine Journal Awards. Aww, shucks. And gee whillickers. Head on over and add your favourites, right now. Mine? Well, take a look at the comments there!

  December 15th, 2006

• SME’s Failed by IAB “Media More Engaging”

  The Internet Advertising Bureau in the US (there’s another IAB in the UK) has just started advertising a promotion for internet advertising. They offer a microsite that is a microcosm of everything you should avoid doing in Search Engine Marketing, as a small business hoping to gain visitors. It’s also pretty much against most recommendations [...]

  December 4th, 2006