TRS Technology Group Inc » Internet Marketing

Search Marketing $14.9 Billion in Revenues First 6 Months 2011

stickner — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:22:46 +0000

Search marketing advertising still remains the leader with 49% of revenues, up 2% from last year, followed by display (banners) at 23%, the same as last year.

That $14.9 billion spent by U.S. Internet advertisers during the first six months of this year represents a 23.2 percent year-over-year increase, eclipsing last year’s first-half record of $12.1 billion in revenue, according to the latest Internet Advertising Revenue Report from IAB.

A whopping 23.2 percent increase over last year! Even though Google is still dominating the search market, there are many competitors to Google's display advertising service, with new companies starting all the time. Not only new companies offering display but exchanges that offer the ability to tap into the bigger search marketing display advertising platforms, where you would normally have to start with a $5k or $10k minimum media buy.

All of which show me pretty clearly that online advertising is where its at, where it's going and where you've got to be.

Search marketing and advertising resources

Here's Eric Schmidt giving some interesting stats and ideas about search marketing and display advertising earlier this year;

Eric Schmidt Delivers the opening keynote at the 2011 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting

Eric Schmidt, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Google, shares his vision for technology, mobile, search marketing and advertising, the world and beyond.

Source

Search Marketing

What is Search Marketing? – definition

Top 7 Social Engagement Plugins for WordPress

powerpromoter — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:11:57 +0000

I build all of my websites and those of my customers on the WordPress platform. One of the features of WordPress that makes it so astonishingly great is plugins!

It's probably true to say that without plugins WordPress would have died. Glad it didn't, as there are new and ever powerful plugins coming out all the time and a lot of them help us with internet marketing and traffic, automating the mundane chores that suck countless hours from days.

There are numerous ways you can cultivate an active community around your blog that goes way beyond simple traffic generation.

After all, who wants the kind of traffic that comes and leaves to never come back, right?

Our ultimate goal should always be to make sure that our blog is sticky enough to turn the first-time visitors into fans and loyal readers and that’s what I’d like to talk about today – how to get them to stay, read our fabulous content, and share it with others.

I get asked on a daily basis what all those fabulous social engagement plugins I use on Traffic Generation Cafe are.

All the plugins we will be talking about today have been designed with one goal in mind: to keep your readers interested and to get them to share your content within their social networks.

I suppose that’s two goals then…

Here's a quick video from Yaro Starak where he talks about blog design and how important it is; I couldn't agree more with him on this;

Does Blog Design Matter? – Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

In this post, professional blogger Yaro Starak discusses whether blog design really matters.

==> Read all about the plugins on Yaro Staraks main blog Entrepreneurs-Journey

No related posts.

Facebook Advertising Costs on Average About $2.30 Per Thousand Impressions?

stickner — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:07:02 +0000

Back in May comScore reported that Facebook served about 346,000,000,000 ads in the first quarter of 2011.

Facebook is so large that it now accounts for about one out of every three ad impressions in the U.S., according to the latest statistics from comScore Ad Metrix. In the first quarter of 2011, comScore estimates that 1.1 trillion ads were served to U.S. Internet users, and 346 billion of those (or 31 percent) were on Facebook. This percentage is up from 23 percent in the third quarter of last year.

Recently another report estimating earnings has been put forth;

Facebook now accounts for one out of three ad impressions in the U.S., and that, really, no other web property in the U.S. comes close (Yahoo was second with 10 percent). That means that Facebook served approximately 340 billion ads in the first quarter. It’s probably not a surprise, then, that advertising makes up for about 89 percent of the social network’s total revenues, which are estimated at about $1.6 billion for the first six months of 2011.

So based on those numbers, which I find hard to comprehend, Facebook revenue in 1 quarter was roughly $800,000,000 (half of 1.6 billion). And 800 million dollars divided 346 billion impressions is 0.0023 cents per impression or $2.30 per thousand impressions or CPM?

You don't have to buy advertising on Facebook by CPM, in fact, most savvy advertisers start off paying per click and then move to CPM when their ads are performing well.

I know you can theoretically get 1 cent click on Facebook, but in recent experiences with their advertising platform I have seen click prices soar to Google levels!

Not unusual to start with a bid estimate of 3,4 even 5 bucks a click.

Sure those prices will come down if you get a reasonable click through rate (CTR), but even then you'll still be paying 60, 70 cents a click, which as far as I'm aware is now good

Are we going to see ad revenues surge into the trillions in the second half of 2011? Is my math off? Have I gone insane?

Here's a lady with a very nice voice explaining some basic about the Facebook advertising platform…

How Advertising Works on Facebook

Ever wonder why you see certain ads on Facebook? This video explains how our ad system works to show you relevant ads without sharing any of your personal information with advertisers.

==> Original article on techcrunch

==> Latest article on the crunchy thing

Intrusive Online Marketing Practices – I Don’t Get It?

stickner — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 03:11:48 +0000

Lots of news recently about the feds getting all bent out of shape;

WASHINGTON — The federal government has put Google, Microsoft, Apple and other technology companies on notice: Give consumers a way to keep advertisers from tracking them on the Web – or face regulation.

Absurd paranoia?

Washington's call to arms is a response to growing concern that invasive Internet marketing practices are eroding privacy online as every consumer move is observed, analyzed and harvested for profit.

I'm not sure if this is coming up because of advances in what is called "re-targeting' technology, my guess would be that's it.

What re-targeting does is allows you to show your ad specifically to a person who has happened upon it once online; so it does seem a little bit eerie sometimes when you start seeing the same ads popup everywhere you go…

And yes it does use a cookie on the visitors computer.

But there's no harvesting of information from a users computer.

Sure you can get an idea of where a user may have been online,but server logs track all that info anyway.

Has no-one noticed the intrusive faxes, phone calls (I get them and I'm on the Do Not Call list) and all that bloody junk mail that fills up your mail slot at the post office.

If you want to get really paranoid you should get a subscription to the SRDS and see how much information is stored about you on mailing lists that are available for sale to any old tom, dick or harry with cash…

Plus, do you have a mobile phone?

That's a bloody beacon of light shining right on you every minute of every day, doesn't matter whether you have gps turned on or not.

Someone told me a while ago there's no such thing as privacy anymore and to think otherwise is foolish.

I'm inclined to agree with him.

You should see what Eric Schmidt had to say about privacy recently; it didn't go down to well, but he's right!

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on privacy

www.theytoldyou.com "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Schmidt tells CNBC

==> See the full article here

Online Remote Backup

Internet ad revenue tops $12 billion in first half of 2010

stickner — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 21:43:13 +0000

Despite the ailing economy a new record has been set for Internet advertising revenue in the first half of 2010 – $12,000,000,000, that's 12 billion!

Search advertising produced the most revenue, pulling more than $5.7 billion of advertising spending in the first half, an 11.6% improvement over last year.

Display advertising—which includes banners, digital video and rich media accounted for $4.3 billion, up 15.9% over the year earlier-period.

Lead generation dropped from $728 million to $642 million.

Email advertising spending was $120 million.

Here's the full report.

http://www.iab.net

Small Business Marketing Strategy – Website Structure

stickner — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:45:27 +0000

You’ll probably be relieved to know that this article is not all about the technical structure of your website. I could go on about that for days on end, but fortunately, structure for you is non-technical and pretty easy to understand. So here goes…

Getting Rid Of The Brochure Mentality
Most small business owners and entrepreneurs build a website without understanding the fundamental reasons for doing so. As such, they create what I call a ‘brochure’ website. You may have done this already.

Well don’t be upset, it’s a pretty natural thing to do. For some reason we decide to follow the lead of the majority, thinking if everybody is doing it, it must be the right thing to do… WRONG!

So, going against all conventional wisdom, why do we put up a website? What is the best way to use it?

The Fundamental Reason for Being
Why do you need or want a website? The answer is LEAD GENERATION. How is your web site structure important when it comes to lead generation and marketing for small business?

Landing Pages
Well, in order to generate leads you will need to make offers. Offers need to be tweakable. Therefore, you need to be able to update your content easily and quickly. More importantly though you must have a specific page for your offer. These pages are called ‘Landing Pages’.

Here’s an example:
Lets say you have a website where you are selling vitamins. One of your supply companies is running a promotion and you think you can make more sales while the promotion is running. Would you send your visitor to the home page, hoping that they find the promotion? That’s not going to going to be a very effective marketing campaign!

Or would you send them directly to the promotion?

You’d send them directly to it and make the offer very clear right?

No matter what you do online, you must be able to make clear offers to visitors in order to generate leads and sales for your small business. You do that by sending them to specific pages, which we call landing pages.

Hopefully, you will be able to edit these quickly and easily, so you can tweak your offers and get the best response possible.
Search Engines Want Content
They love to suck it up! The more content you have the better! There’s a saying ‘Content is King!’. Its true.

The more pages you have the better. The more often you add and update content the better.

Did you know that the way your pages are linked together is very important? Your internal page linking strategy is as important as your external links strategy. I can hear you thinking ‘strategy,
shhhhhmategy! this is getting technical, I don’t want to know about this’. That’s fair enough, it is technical. And while you can put a website up and link it together any way you please, if you want a good search engine ranking, it pays to have your site built by a professional who knows about this stuff.

Also, the way your pages are named and the folder structure of your website is important too! So if you’ve got a site that has pages named page1.htm, page2.htm etc, you may just want to pop the cap off that aspirin bottle and start chugging those puppies in earnest!

Your small business marketing strategy must start by getting rid of the brochure mentality. You must start thinking lead generation. Everything starts with a lead!

Follow this link for a free webinar on small business internet marketing
Small Business Marketing Strategy

Website Linking Strategy

Lead Generation Marketing: Lead Generation Campaigns On Autopilot

stickner — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:16:18 +0000

The main goal of your website is LEAD GENERATION
Unfortunately most people believe the main goal is online sales, but that would be considered the ultimate goal. In order to get sales you have to generate leads first. Once you follow up with those individuals, if you do everything right it can produce a sale.

One thing to understand is that if you think about your website as a lead generation portal, then that’s what you’re going to have in front of you. However, if you think of it like a company brochure, then the dullness and approach will be the same. As Earl Nightingale said ‘we become what we think about’ and so it is with our websites.

The Concept of Lead Generation
In order to create a lead one side (your website) has to make an offer, and the other (your potential prospect) has to be interested in it. If you have this scenario then you have yourself a “hot lead” as some people call them. These are definitely the ones you want to follow up with whenever they come across your path.

The Exact Nature of an Online Lead
Let’s be perfectly clear. You absolutely must get visitors to your website to give you their email address. This has to be obtained ethically with the visitor’s permission. Think about it. If you don’t at least get their email address how will you follow up? You can and sometimes must also get a street address, phone number etc. But for now, let’s assume you’re trying to get an email address.

Providing an Offer
In order to get someone to actually provide an email address, you usually need to offer them something. It has to be something they need that will entice them to join your subscriber’s list. It has to be of VALUE to the reader, which in turn their email address will be valuable to you.

So you see; there isn’t much point in just asking people to subscribe to your newsletter. I’m not saying they won’t. I have customers that do just that and get subscribers. But most people are already overloaded with information and their inboxes are bulging, so they probably won’t sign-up unless the information is valuable or specific.

Get the Offer In Front of the Visitor
There is little point in hoping that a visitor will stumble across your website, search for and find your newsletter sign-up link and then subscribe happily to your newsletter. It just isn’t going to happen! Here’s the kicker. The MAJORITY of websites DO EXACTLY THAT! Have you heard the term landing pages? Well, YOU GENERATE YOUR LEADS ON YOUR LANDING PAGES! That’s right. Give your visitor the option to subscribe to a list that is relevant to the content of your landing page, with an offer that is also relevant and valuable.

Lead Generation IS List Building
This article is about lead generation marketing. There are a lot of online marketers that call this effort List Building. It is that, but I prefer lead generation as it makes me think more specifically about whom I’m trying to interest with my offer and how I’m going to follow up with them. You may have heard the saying ‘The Money Is in the List’? Well, the list is the end result of your lead generation efforts. And yes, the money is in the list, but you have to know what to do with the list and how to do it.

No related posts.

Increasing Response: Personalization Is Catching On!

stickner — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:46:56 +0000

Personalization of your sales message is very important and most people don't do it. You personalize a message as simply as adding the persons first name into the copy you are writing, so it speaks directly to them. It's really simple to do if you are using an autoresponder beacause you can add the name field tag of the autoresponder to the message. Very few people actually take the time to do this though. You really should, because personalizing your message is proven to increase response by 10% or more… Now the spamming bastards of the world are trying it too! I've recently had some unsolicited email form these scumbags with very tardy personalization attempts. But at least they're trying! Here's a couple examples for your viewing pleasure… This one is even made to look like an html newsletter, very sophisticated! Of course, having my actual email address name embedded looks really stupid, but it's an attempt at personailzation and if my email was just Steve@ then it would work! This is another, less sophisticated example;

Is Personalization Important?

Are Your Lead Generation Strategies Working?

stickner — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:46:36 +0000

Twitter is exploding at the moment and everyone is climbing on the bandwagon, blogging about its benefits etc, and you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the new easy way to online success.

In the real world, clients want to talk about search engines, search engine optimization or search engine marketing (Google Adwords / Pay-Per-Click).

Why? The current economic downturn is having an impact on businesses and with the majority of people now using Google (mainly) to find information on an all subjects across the board, many organizations are re-evaluating their online marketing and website strategy. It’s an area that clients in every market are asking for advice on.

Many are now concerned by their visibility to prospective customers. Businesses that previously saw a website as an online brochure are waking up to the fact that online they’re completely invisible to those searching online for the products and services that they offer. Not a good place to be at the best of times, but a business killer in a recession.

These same clients also recognize another huge challenge. Failing to act now to improve visibility will leave them even farther behind their competition when the economy starts to grow again. This fact is compounded by the changes in the search engine world over the last 18 months of many people are completely unaware. These include Universal Search in Google over the longer term and more recent changes to local search in Google.

Search engine marketing isn’t a one off activity. It requires constant attention, tweaking and monitoring, which is true of both Search Engine Optimization (the free organic listings) and Search Engine Marketing (Google Pay-Per-Click etc).

The best place to start is with an audit of where you are, what are they key words and phrases that are being used by prospects and how well are you currently ranking. Here are some questions to consider;

Has your website been built with optimization in mind?
What can you do in the short, medium and long term?
How are you going to grow links?

It’s also vital to ensure that your paid and natural search is properly co-ordinated. Increasingly, you also need to think about online PR and drive coverage on social media sites, which can both benefit SEO.

Now is the time to act, before your competitors either beat you to it or get so far ahead of you that you’ll never catch up. From what I’ve seen in the local search markets in some industries, there is already a war going on.

Face the challenges of search engine marketing and search engine optimization head on. With the demise of printed media it is increasingly important to stake your claim in the search engine soil. It can be time consuming (especially at the start) but once you begin you can very quickly see improvements in your rankings. Very soon you can also see the benefit on the bottom line with more visitors, more subscribers and more sales!

Start with a $97 FREE Search Engine Ranking Report
and Review of Your Current Web Site
& Get More Traffic Today!

Just click the button to get started!

Whats Killing The Newspapers?

stickner — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:15:38 +0000

I’ve been reading recently about some major newspapers requesting, and getting, tax breaks because they are failing in the current economy.

A tax cut has been approved in Washington state; I quote “Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising”

Read about tax breaks here

I really don’t get it. They are even blaming Google for their problems? I’ve been recently checking into advertizing rates for display and other types of ads in local papers and magazine here in Sarasota. They have got to be kidding! Sky high prices, with no way of really tracking results. And yet they are still failing?

I think most people see printed news as largely outdated and cumbersome.

This video post from Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand. I’m off to apply for a bail out too!

No related posts.