Local Marketing

Do you want to know a little more about how Search Engine Marketing, Site Retargeting and Search Retargeting work together?

Well lucky for you, we wrote a whitepaper about that very subject. We discuss how small businesses can use the power of the Internet to reach more customers than ever before.

The main way to do this is by changing the way you target your advertising. Instead of spending money trying to drive people into the purchase funnel, target people who have already entered it and are looking to buy what you have to sell.

A short excerpt:

The problem with traditional advertising is that there’s no way of knowing who the message is actually reaching. The goal is to advertise to your demographic equally, hoping the message reaches the few people who actually want to make a purchase of your product or service.

Today’s consumer leaves a massive trail behind as they go about their day. They “check-in” with their friends at local restaurants, share with the world the things they “like,” and search for information on things they intend to buy…The most efficient way to advertise is to people who intend to buy what you have to sell.

So what are you waiting for? Click the link to download our free whitepaper and discover how you can leverage the Internet to get more customers and make more sales.

Tablets have been heralded as the leaders of the post-PC revolution, and their sales back up this claim. The tablet population has gone from virtually non-existent in 20010, to more than 54 million in the United States alone.

So the tablet population is growing, but how do you reach this growing consumer base?

One of the easiest ways is to adjust your website. Tablets don’t trigger a mobile website, but your traditional website might not be the best option for tablet owners. The simplest solution is to make sure your website is tablet-friendly. This might seem like a huge burden, but it’s necessary to take advantage of tablet traffic. It’s an easy fix: get rid of small buttons, and make sure all your links can be easily tapped by people using their thumbs.

So why is this important? Tablets and mobile devices represent a dramatic change with how people find businesses. Tablet owners search for local businesses more than smartphone users. Also, most tablet owners have a higher income level than most mobile and desktop users. This means you’ll have access to the best audience available.

Google sees mobile and tablets as being important as well. They said, “We believe that mobile represents a sociological shift with how users relate with both the digital and physical world. Businesses that understand this will win.”

It’s time to reach the growing tablet and mobile markets, and make sure your website looks good across every platform.

More and more consumers are using mobile phones to find businesses. If you aren’t mobile ready, you’re missing out on a lot of customers who use their phones to find local businesses.

In a new report from Google, 57% of mobile users won’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile site. Additionally, 40% of mobile users turn to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience.

So what should you do? It’s time to get a mobile site. A mobile site is the easiest way to bring more customers into your business. For example: 95% of smartphone users have searched for local info, 61% called a business after searching, 59% visited in person, and 90% of these users acted within 24 hours.

These fast-acting mobile consumers are ready to take action, and ready to find your business. According to Google, mobile search queries have grown five times in the past two years. Additionally, 20% of all telecom searches, 30% of all restaurant searches, 25% of all movie searches are done on a mobile device.

The great thing about the mobile landscape is that it’s virtually untapped. Mobile is the most imbalanced medium when it comes to ad spending versus time spent, at 1% compared to 23%, respectively. This means that advertising in mobile is cheaper than it ever has been.

It’s time to get started with a mobile advertising campaign. Your business should be reaching as many people as possible, and mobile is the best course of action.

It can be intimidating to try and figure out where to spend your money in digital advertising. With so many options to choose from, it can be difficult to find what’s really necessary.

A good place to start is with paid search advertising. We call it search targeting, and it gets your business listed at the top of the search results for everything relevant to your company. This is important because the Internet may be the first place your customers ever hear about you.

A second way to advertise is by using Site Retargeting. Every time you get a website hit, that’s a potential lead. Aside from the people who accidentally click on your site, all of your visitors are at least somewhat interested in your products or services. The sad truth is that 98% of your website visitors leave without taking any action.

Site Retargeting remedies this by delivering ad impressions to people after they leave your website. This allows you to effectively follow-up with every single person who visits your website.

So what happens if someone searches for you, sees your ad, but doesn’t click your links? The answer is Search Retargeting.

Search Retargeting works by focusing on people who conduct searches for things related to your business, products or services. That way, even if they don’t click on your link, you can still advertise to them.

Every search represents someone trying to solve a problem. They might be looking for a new car, a pizza shop or the best way to tie a tie. Most of the time, consumers will research something without a specific business in mind. By focusing on their search intent, you can reach out to them as they research.

This helps fill in the gaps left by your SEO and paid search efforts by advertising to people who intend to buy what you have to sell.

These three tactics give you the ability to target your advertising to the right person at the right time. First, Search Engine Marketing lets people with purchase intent find your website. Next, if they visit your site and don’t take an action, Site Retargeting will advertise to them, keeping your business top of mind. Finally, if they search for a business, product or service like you, Search Retargeting will allow you to advertise to them regardless if they visited your website or not.

Don’t waste your money on advertising products that don’t work and can’t be easily measured. Instead, deliver your message to a targeted prospect rather than an ambiguous group.

Contact us today if you’re interested in learning more about Search Retargeting and other forms of digital advertising.

A lot of the time, people focus on the click-through rate of banner ads to measure how successful they are. This is a fine way to get the baseline statistics on how a display campaign is performing, but banner ads offer much more than just ways for people to get to your website.

One of the ways they help is with overall brand recognition. Your display advertisement could be the first time that someone hears about your brand, and even if they don’t click on it, they are still being exposed to your company.

A second way it helps is by bringing a lift to your search engine marketing campaign. Running a display ad campaign with a SEM campaign has proved to bring significant lift in sales volume. For example, Salesforce.com found that running a display campaign with their search campaign increased branded search and conversion volume by 80 percent.

You can also get a lift in your website conversions through Retargeting. Retargeting displays ads to all the people who have visited your website, keeping you top of mind throughout their researching cycle.

Display and search can combine to make your website a lead-generation machine. If you have questions, or want to get started with either search or display ads, contact us for a free consultation.

The Internet is about to claim another victim. First it was the postal service, then the classifieds, next it’s going to be print all together.

A new report from Borrell Associates said that online spending was up 21 percent in 2011, and will pass local print spending next year.

Despite the big increases, traditional media still holds the majority of all advertising dollars, but Internet spending is increasing, while traditional is decreasing or staying flat. That means that sooner or later, Internet advertising will surpass all traditional advertising, though who knows when that will be.

Borrell is predicting that the overall growth of local online advertising will be 18%, as it goes from $15.7 billion to $18.5 billion.

Also, if mobile is included as part of that projection, the number will jump to more than $26 billion by 2016.

Those are some huge numbers, and they really reflect the current changes in the advertising landscape, as more and more money is moved from traditional to online.

Curious about getting an online campaign of your own? Contact us today for a free consultation. We do mobile targeting, retargeting, search marketing and much more.

According to research firm BIA/Kelsey, more than one out of every four ad dollars will be spent on digital advertising by 2016.

US companies are expected to spend $136.2 billion on local advertising this year, and that number is expected to rise to $151.3 billion by end of 2016.

Out of that rise in local advertising, traditional is expected to remain flat during the period, with most of the growth coming from digital advertising.

Digital advertising is expected to grow from 16% of total local advertising to more than 25% over the next four years.

Digital advertising is gaining traction and there’s never been a better time to get started with a campaign of your own. We are a full-service, digital ad agency that specializes in creating the best campaigns for your business.

If you want to learn more about products like search targeting, retargeting and mobile landing pages, check out our website. Or, contact us for a free consultation.

About three-quarters of enterprise decision makers have been shifting their budgets from traditional advertising to digital in the last year. In fact, about one-third of the marketing executives said they shifted more than half of their budget from traditional to digital.

According to a March 2012 report from DataXu, these numbers will continue next year as well, with 4 out of 5 who are shifting to digital saying that they will continue to do so for the next year.

The main reasons for the big switch is increased metastability. With a lot of traditional media, especially print, you can’t choose who sees your ads and how they see them. With digital advertising, you can choose how many people you target, what actions you are targeting them through, and you can interact with them directly after they take an action. With print media, you have to hope they respond, but you have no way of knowing if they do.

Are you doing any sort of digital advertising such as search engine marketing, retargeting or banner ads? If not, you need to get started. Internet marketing is here to stay, and can give you the best bang for your buck, while at the same time giving you more control over your campaigns than you ever thought possible.

Contact us for a free consultation.

Paid search spending grew 30.3% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2012, representing the highest growth rate since the last quarter of 2010 (35%).

These numbers come from IgnitonOne, who tracked Internet marketing usage during this time period.

Mobile and tablet paid search also increased, with spending up 221.1% year-over-year, and impressions up 119.9%.

Despite the increased budget spending, cost-per-click didn’t increase, rising just 0.9% year-over-year. Clicks rose 32.5% and click-through rates were up 25.3%.

All these numbers mean good things for small businesses trying to use search marketing. Clicks and click-through rates are rising, and the cost per click isn’t changing at all. This means that businesses are getting more impression and clicks than ever before for the same price.

If you’re interested in getting started with search engine marketing, contact us today. We target and fine-tune all of our campaigns, giving you the best return possible on all your marketing efforts.

It used to be that buying a car was a drawn out process. You had to go to all the dealerships in the area, check out all the cars, listen to the salespeople and then make a decision. This was a time-consuming process and could take a long time to complete.

Now, the process is more complicated, yet thanks to the Internet, it takes place in a much shorter period of time. According to new data from Polk and Google, 81% of car shoppers decide within three months, compared to only 57% in 2009.

During this process, car shoppers are using more and more tools to help them make their decision. One of those tools is using search to find dealers. Search directed more than a third of traffic to OEM sites within three months of purchase. Also, those who searched usually searched more than once. 40% search 10 or more times.

Consumers are also starting to rely more on dealer websites to do their vehicle research. In fact, nearly one in three purchasers visited dealership sites during their purchase process, and dealership site visitation was highest the month prior to purchase.

So what does all this mean? It means that you need to change your digital game to appeal to the new car buyer.

It starts with search and extends to your website. Using paid search can help you target shoppers looking for both category and brand keywords, since most people search more than once, this can help you keep your dealership on the top of the consumer’s mind.

You also need to implement retargeting. Retargeting will deliver ad impressions to people after they visit your website. Since most people are researching on multiple websites, retargeting helps remind them of your dealership while they research. That way, when it comes down to make a decision, they will be more likely to remember you.

Now, these aren’t the only things to consider when planning your dealership’s digital marketing strategy, but these are two easy ways to get more web traffic and sell more cars.