Archive for August, 2008
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Using Landing Page Testing to Influence Offline Ad Campaigns
Great post today on the Search Engine Watch blog: not all landing pages are created for paid search campaigns. As our clients know, landing pages can be created for offline advertising on television, radio, and magazine ads.
(For example, here is a link to our Tourism BC Case Study highlighting precisely this point – which is mentioned in the posting itself.)
But best practices still hold: you should not just create the landing pages – you should test them as well to ensure you get the highest possible ROI from that investment.
And the next part is wonderful, as it reinforces something we have often blogged about: Google’s Tom Leung is quoted saying that marketers “can use landing page testing as a ‘bargaining chip to get a seat at the table with other marketers in your organization’” This is because the information gained from testing is highly useful to all your marketing colleagues planning offline campaigns.
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A Website Optimization Primer
Everyone in the Online Marketing world seems to be talking about ‘Optimization’ lately, but you may not always know what they’re talking about. Search Engine Optimization (i.e. improving your search engine ranking) is a very different practice than Conversion Rate Optimization (i.e. improving your website conversion rate), which is also different from Web Performance Optimization (i.e. improving your page load times).
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It’s Time to “Master” your Own Website through Optimization
Nice to read fresh new data that support management acumen:
A recent study from the Corporate Executive Board said that the best thing a company can do in terms of its digital strategy is to “master its own web site” but, unfortunately, most are not currently doing so.
As we blogged earlier, the status quo for marketers is to focus and invest primarily in driving traffic to the site via off-site factors such as banners, affiliates, email, etc.
The problem is that marketers often forget their job doesn’t end there. Now what?
Now marketers must master what their anonymous web visitors are actually doing on the site: marketers can no longer Continue Reading
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New Google Website Optimizer Features Released
We’ve been previewing some new features in Google Website Optimizer and are now happy to be able to tell you about three great improvements.
Here’s a screenshot of an experiment we have in progress with the new report features showng:
1. Remove unwanted combinations
You can now selectively remove variations or combinations from a Google Website Optimizer experiment that is in progress. This is a helpful feature I’ve been asking for from the beginning, but it’s also going to be dangerous for those inexperienced in testing and must be used carefully.
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You Need to Attend the West Coast Internet Marketing Conference
Need a Reason to Visit to Vancouver this September? Come to this amazing conference happening in Vancouver September 11 and 12: the IMC (Internet Marketing Conference)
Co-organizers Lennart Svanberg and Lars Johansson have attracted an incredible roster of speakers and participants from Europe, the United States, Canada, and Asia who are traveling to Vancouver, BC, Canada to take part in the conference. Continue Reading
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Big News: Search Engine Use is UP!
No, seriously folks, this is big news:
Pew Research, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world, reports today that the percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%).
With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email, arguably the internet is the all-time killer app…
In other words, your customers are using Search every day more than they did before and are becoming more sophisticated about their response once they land on your website – and on your competitors’ sites.
It’s high noon to make sure your landing pages are the best in town!
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How to Hire a Conversion Optimization Services Provider… Part 6
This is the sixth posting in a series aimed at helping you as a Marketer evaluate conversion optimization services providers so you make the best possible decision of who to hire. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.
Q6: “What is expected from my team?”
When you hire a conversion optimization services provider, you must start off with a clear understanding of what will be expected from you and your team. If you don’t have this clear understanding, you may be in for a nasty surprise in terms of Continue Reading
Raquel Hirsch
Chris Goward
