Retargeting

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.

Site Retargeting and Search Engine Marketing are two staples of local digital advertising. Now, we have a third piece called Search Retargeting that compliments all your existing advertising campaigns.

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.

For example, if someone is searching for “valentine’s day flowers” or “flower bouquet,” you can be sure that they are trying to find a place to buy flowers for a loved one. Search Retargeting uses this intent to deliver banner advertisements to people who search for anything related to your business, products or services. Your ads will appear on millions of sites all over the Internet: social, news, entertainment and more.

Search Retargeting works because it allows you to target people who actually want to buy your product rather than focusing on a single demographic or geographic area.

You may have great SEO and search ads, but there is no way to guarantee that someone will click on your links. With Search Retargeting, you can deliver banner ads to anyone who is looking for companies like yours, regardless of whether they clicked your link or not.

This makes Search Retargeting a powerful piece to add into your existing advertising. You’ll be able to target a bigger audience than ever before, but still advertise only to people who are in the market for what you have to sell.

If you have questions about Search Retargeting or other digital advertising campaigns, contact us for a free consultation.

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.

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.

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.

It’s an election year, which means upcoming political candidates are spending a lot of advertising dollars are being spent to promote their campaigns.

According to new numbers from a report by Borrell Associates, online political ad spending is set to increase to $160 million this year – up from just $22 million in 2008. That marks a huge increase from how the digital advertising space was valued just four years ago.

Of that $160 million in online spending, 30% of it is expected to be targeted display advertising, such as retargeting and contextual targeting. Another 32.6% of the political budget will be spent on search targeting.

The only areas losing share for online spending are email, and streaming audio. Streaming video is expected to hold at 22%.

So the biggest names in politics are investing more and more into digital advertising, showing that online advertising is seen as more necessary than ever.

Are you stepping up your digital game for 2012? Digital advertising is growing across the board, and if you aren’t taking advantage of it, you need to.

Contact us today for your free digital consultation.

A lot of business missed the boat on a few marketing trends over the last few years. Some missed out on websites, some on email marketing and others on mobile. Your business may have missed out on some or all of these trends, but I’m here to make sure you don’t miss out on these next three!

1. Mobile
Mobile is huge these days. Mobile search has already been exploding and mobile shopping is expected to increase substantially in the next few years.

2. Data
You need data to understand exactly why you’re doing something, and how you can make it better. The old model of creating a radio or TV commercial is gone. Now we have the ability to track, alter and optimize every ad campaign.

3. Branding
Your brand doesn’t just exist on your website anymore. You are on social places such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, YouTube, etc. Your brand is more “out there” than ever, and your customers have more avenues than ever to contact you — you just need to give them reason to.

It’s a unique time to be a small business. Never before have you had the power to reach so many customers as easily as you can today. The world of digital marketing offers countless ways to interact with your customers, and using as many of them as possible can help bring you new business and more brand exposure.

If you are curious about any of these methods such as sms targeting, search marketing, retargeting, behavioral targeting, mobile targeting and more, contact us today. We’ll help you wade through the field of digital marketing and advertising.

Every customer you have ever landed came through a purchase path. Some of the paths are clear cut, such as getting customers from your website, TV ad, driving by your store, or the customer’s smartphone. Others aren’t as clear. For example, someone might see your TV ad, go search for you online, then come to your store. Some might see your ad on Facebook, go to your website and fill out a form for more information, and wait to be contacted by a salesperson.

The point is, you might have an idea of how purchase paths are laid out, but the truth is they are usually more convoluted than they seem at first.

Because of this convolution, you have to be prepared to remarket your products or services to your customers in many different ways. It’s not enough to do some local TV ads and have a website, you need to be actively targeting and communicating with your customers in order to get them to convert.

There are several ways you can make sure that you are targeting your customers in the right way. The first of which is search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is important because it places your ads at the top of the search results for the keywords you’ve selected, giving you the ability to reach more customers.

Another reason this is important is because your customers may not remember exactly what your business is called, but they just know what type of product you provide. For example, if they heard your radio ad, or saw your business and couldn’t remember what the name was, but could only remember that you sold heaters and air conditioning, they could type “heating and air conditioning Seattle” (or whatever their city was) and your ad would pop up at the top.

A second way you can help promote across purchase paths is through retargeting. Retargeting places a cookie in the user’s web browser when they visit your site, this causes your display ads to be displayed to them after they leave. This brings increased mindshare and brand awareness during the customer’s shopping cycle, which will result in more revenue.

A third way to promote your business across purchase paths is by using your social networks. Chances are, you have a Facebook page, and studies have shown that users who buy something from a business after going through its social channels spend more money per transaction. Leverage your social networks to get users to make purchases. Offer discounts to Facebook fans, or plan a giveaway on your fan page.

If you want to be able to promote your business in today’s changing digital landscape, check out our website for more information on what we do. We are a full-service Seattle ad agency specializing in the digital realm.

We can help you get more from the Internet.

Every time you get a website hit, that’s a potential lead. Aside from the people who accidentally click on your site, all your visitors are at least somewhat interested in your products or services.

So why do you get so much website traffic and so few leads? Because shoppers today go to Google and compare everything about your business with your competitor’s at the click of a button. That means you only have a few seconds to sway them in your direction, or just hope your website was memorable enough that they’ll re-visit it.

How retargeting works

We’ve already written some posts on retargeting, but here’s a quick recap: First the user visits your website, and your website places a cookie in their browser. Next, they leave without converting. Then, the cookie in their browser tells the websites they visit to display your ad. Finally, they see the ads, are reminded of your website, and come back and make a purchase.

So what’s so great about retargeting? Well it follows-up with your prospects automatically. As they surf the Internet, your ads appear and remind them of your services. Also, to increase conversions, you can even promote a special deal for people who click on your ad.

As a full-service ad agency in Seattle, we have a retargeting program that delivers return traffic to your website, guaranteed.

Retargeting allows you to cater to website visitors no matter how far into the buying cycle they are. Whether they’re just doing preliminary research, or almost ready to make a purchase, retargeting works in the same way: it reminds them of you.

Let your web traffic bring you results. More than 98% of your website visitors leave and never come back – give them a reason to.