Banners for (SEM Dummies) Part 2

Basics: What is a Third-Party Ad Server?

In the beginning of display advertising over a decade ago, advertisers sent in their banners in the same way traditional marketers traffic ads to magazines or television stations. Publishing sites would “paste” these ads up and then deliver post campaign results. There were some obvious inefficiencies in this method. As the technologies and methodologies evolved, advertisers could send in “tags,” which aren’t actual ads, but rather “placeholders” which would pull these ads from the advertisers’ own tool call the third party ad server. This is a superior adaptation as now advertisers get real time data of their ads, can serve targeted adseach time the tag is pulled by the publisher, and can perform many other vital operations.

Here are some of the basic features that most third party ad servers can bring to a display campaign and now can be used for Content Campaigns in Google (via certified tools):

Rules: When a banner tag is “pulled” by a publisher site to load on a page, the third party ad server is passed limited anonymous user data such as the location of the user’s IP address, what language their browser is set for, whether they’re using a Mac or PC, etc. Rules can be set to send the appropriate creative every time. So, for example, you can serve a Spanish ad to Spanish speakers. You can also send a user in Liverpool a specialised ad vs. a user in Manchester. This higher relevancy generally increases CTRs and conversion rates.

Frequency capping/storyboarding: Not only is anonymous user data passed in milliseconds to the ad server, but also user cookie info. Using this information, the ad server knows if this user has seen your ad before and how many times. Over time, you can develop a strategy to frequency cap and not show anymore to users who don’t click your ads (thereby not wasting CPM purchased impressions). As well, you can storyboard, which means you can start serving different ads to users based on how many times they’ve already been exposed. So, for example, you could have general creative out there (example: “10% off), and then, if the ad server detects a user who hasn’t clicked after seeing your ad five times, you can start serving an ad with a stronger message (example: “25% off if you act now”) and so on.

Reach and frequency reporting: Provides insight into the number of people who have seen an ad campaign, and how many times, on average, people are seeing these ads. This is important in understanding how users are interacting with your ads and finding the ‘sweet spot’ to just how many ads you need to buy in order to get your message out to a good percentage of your target audience. As well, a Reach report may show you that buying on football Website A may not be needed because a high percentage of the same users are being exposed to your ads on Football Website B, which you are purchasing at a much lower rate.

View-through conversions: As stated above, once a user is served an ad, they are cookied. So, unlike search, if a user converts after seeing your ad (but not clicking an ad), you will have that insight. This is huge because you’re lucky to get more than a .3% or .4% CTR on your ads…that means if you run 1,000,000 impressions, you may only get 3,000 clicks. However, the other 996,000 ads do have an effect in the marketplace and you can measure that when those users come back and convert.

All of these features may not be immediately available to advertisers. However, Google Content is one of the largest (if not the largest) ad network in terms of volume and these tools are going to help you get the most out of them.

Totally Unrelated Free Tool: HTML That Every Online Marketer Should Know


Tired of “viewing source” of an HTML page and thinking it looks more like ancient Greek than a real language? Online marketers are always checking out web pages to see if their tracking tags are there, checking navigation/link structure, reading competitor metatags for keyword ideas, etc. Understanding HTML is a good skill to have.

Check out Dave’s HTML Interactive Tutorial for Beginners (find it using Google Instant). Sure, there’s a ton of spamvertising, but I’ve literally sent dozens of folks there and they’ve all come out the other end of the seventeen mini-chapter tutorial with a good HTML foundation. Check it out!

Advanced Business to Business Marketing

This week at SEO Liverpool we’ve had a discussion this about how best to leverage b2b marketing. Have a look at our tips.

10 Tips for business-2-business marketing

1. Reach prospects early in the buying cycle
2. Advertise in “the tail”
3. Include non banded keywords
4. Pre qualify clickers
5. Focus and align ad copy
6. Create very specific landing pages and microsites
7. Test pages continuously
8. Offer multiple action options
9. Simplify registration forms
10. Turn web inquiries into sales leads

Advertising in the tail

Example is software: the tail would go to software…. enterprise software… business enterprise software and so on

Include non banded keywords

  1. Use adcopy to pre-qualify clickers
  2. Address your specific target audience

Pre qualify clickers

  1. Align ad copy with search query
  2. Modify copy across buying cycle
  3. laptop computer -> laptop information -> laptop user reviews -> ibm laptop models -> ibm thinkpad t61

Microsite

  1. Typically between 3-10 pages.
  2. Focused on a solution or client type.
  3. It eliminates the political stuff that comes with changing a corporate website

Test page elements – landing page testing

  1. Run a/b or multivariate constantly on microsites.
  2. Pick items to test.
  3. Page layout.
  4. Action triggers.
  5. Images.

Registration form placement.

  1. Names and descriptions of downloadable assets
  2. Registration form fields

Track & improve results

  1. Get some decent metrics into a chart of 60 days

Secondary actions

  1. Allow for more than just one action
  2. Registration forms

*Scour the internet and look for great examples of these*

For more information contact SEO Liverpool

PPC Basics Part 2

SEO Liverpool understand that Using Pay Per Click without knowing the fundamentals of advertising and writing copy is absolutely pointless. You’ll be taken to the cleaners and beaten at every turn by people who have learnt the game and understand the equilibriums

There are excellent resources available for quickly and painlessly learning the fundamentals. Obviously experience, is key but practising the fundamentals will improve your results the minute you start. You can run small campaigns at relatively little cost that will help you gain the understanding needed.

Book-wise if you’re a novice their is no shame in the Adwords for Dummies by Howie Jacobson. Excellent read and still a good resource for anybody involved in running a campaign. The only drawback is Google adds features periodically to it’s Adwords dashboard and you need to keep update with the latest tools.

Also check out this PPC video… it will help you understand how the process of the bid auction works

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