The “Search Alliance” brings together Yahoo! and Microsoft technologies for search results as well as paid search platforms. According to the Search Alliance site, Microsoft will manage the technology platforms for both.

For paid search, each company will retain customer service to different advertisers based on their size. Microsoft will handle the self-serve smaller advertisers, while Yahoo! will support high volume advertisers, SEO and search marketing agencies.

Yesterday, testing began for the delivery of organic and paid search results from Microsoft systems. According to Microsoft, “You may see some increases and regular fluctuations in traffic for your search ads.” Their suggestion during this testing is to “Follow our tips to help you manage your budgets.” This typically means there will be additional cost involved, so make sure you keep a closer eye on your PPC campaigns during this transition period.

The timing of platform integration is set for 2010, however, it is likely not to happen until sometime in 2011 according to a recent Search Alliance update sent from Microsoft:

“Our aim is a high quality transition of advertisers and partners in at least the US prior to the 2010 holiday season. However, we may wait until 2011 if we determine this will be more effective.”

There could be significant changes as a result of this unification of two major search platforms. What are your thoughts? Will this be good for consumers? How about advertisers, how will this affect them? Let us know your thoughts.

The PR machine deep inside Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters was quick to deny the existence of any problems with the antenna, but the flood of reports of shoddy reception were too much to ignore. Steve Jobs eventually responded directly to a customer’s emailed complaint and suggested a possible fix: “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

Someone has even put together a photo gallery of images taken from Apple’s own marketing materials showing numerous examples of the phone being “held wrong”.

Rival smartphone manufacturer, HTC, has decided to take advantage of the flood of search traffic related to iPhone 4G problems by placing PPC ads in Google. Below are a few examples of search queries that were seen triggering HTC ads:

• iphone dropped calls

• iphone problems

• iphone reception

• iphone antenna

And now, take a look at the ads that resulted from these search terms:

These ads are a great example of how paid advertising can be used to take advantage of current events or hot topics that may be experiencing a flood of traffic. Apple’s problems may become HTC’s windfall if customers continue to be sick of problems with their new 4G phones. Unhappy iPhone 4G users will begin to look for alternative phones and they will find these well targeted ads by HTC. After seeing the following ad, it appears that HTC isn’t the only company looking to profit from Apple’s misfortune:

But they don’t have to be boring! And they don’t have to be called a webinar. Who came up with that term, anyhow?

Think about it. A “webinar” gives your business the opportunity to engage a live audience of prospects and clients. Potentially thousands of them–from across the globe! Very few other marketing channels provide that opportunity in such a cost effective, non-invasive way. Stop thinking about it as a lecture and start thinking of it as a virtual conversation—and your business is sure to reap the rewards.

Recently, Oneupweb started to harness the power of the “webinar” with our live strategy sessions. And we’ve seen astonishing success. Here are a few tips to turn the boring webinar on its head and make it work for your business:

1. Before you pick your topic, put an ear to the ground and find out what your audience wants to know from and about you. Check your social channels, your email, your proposal requests—what does your audience want to know?
2. Power Point is not the only answer. Do you have product demonstrations people would like to see? Can you do a live site review? Make the session engaging and move beyond the slides. Anything you can bring up on your computer can be broadcast live during a webinar. So put the slides down.
3. Be real. There shouldn’t be a script…and just because you’ve scheduled an hour, doesn’t mean you should spend 59 minutes of it lecturing. The goal with a webinar should always be to engage your audience. Take their questions and answer them, live, in real-time.
4. Continue the conversation offline. If you have attendees who are particularly engaged and have numerous questions on the subject or your business—follow up with them! And do it quickly. A webinar is an introduction, and an introduction is useless if there’s no follow through on the relationship.

It’s one of the most cost-effective marketing channels out there today, if you execute well. If you need help, or ideas, ask us! And, be sure to check out our digital road show series.

Next Wednesday our CEO, Lisa Wehr, and Director of Operations, Tim Kauffold, will be having a live chat on the new PPC. If you’re interested in learning how to run effective paid search campaigns in new channels like Facebook, and set new ROI benchmarks for your business, you will want to attend.

And the best part about it all…there’s virtually no power point involved. Much like our One For The Road: Operation Michigan tour that took place last summer, we’re giving the power to the people. You ask, we answer. Just don’t call it a webinar.

As one who works closely with individuals who work hard and care deeply for their families, it causes me to pause and reflect on the word prevention. Last week, our company spent some time focusing on wellness and the importance of preventative care. And we heard that if we really want to enjoy a long-term, quality-of-life journey here on this planet, we have to work at it. We cannot exist in a world where we are exposed to more toxins than we were ten years ago, and not make every attempt to live a lifestyle that defines quality of life.

As we listened to these words (and yes, they did ring true for most of us), I couldn’t help but think about how this same rule applies to companies who don’t pay attention to their own healthy existence online. Often times, they simply just exist and don’t bother to find out about what “supplements” could be added to their site, allowing them a healthier existence! Websites, too, need “preventative” care, and one cannot rely solely on keywords within their content as the only preventative measure in increasing traffic to their site.

A few of the “vitamins” that extend the limbs of your site and allow you to “pump a little iron” consist of social media, mobile marketing and SEO/PPC campaigns. If you don’t have the time to look up and down the aisle for just the right potion to cure your ailing website, check out our new services magazine. We offer an easy, at-at-glance cure for any website pain you may be experiencing. And like any good massage, we can help you release those toxic embedded codes that are simply existing and taking up air space. We like to call it our Vitamin O (I’m sure you can guess why). We guarantee it will boost your immune system, allowing you to weather any forecasting storm. And the recommended daily allowance is tracked by us 24-7. We know our stuff.

Everyone knows that a virus is not restricted to humans; an online virus can impact those sites that don’t take preventative measures. It’s like any bad cold—if not treated properly, your days in bed recovering are just what your competition needs.

Did I hear you ask me for some Vitamin O? It’s just what the doctor ordered.

So what does that mean in the context of small or mid-sized businesses looking to seek returns by advertising online? It means that the small blip we saw last year of reduced ad spend is probably over, as more advertising budget is being allocated to the online space.

As competition rises, it is no longer a matter of getting ads out there enough times to hit campaign return goals. With fierce competition in every click, it’s time to get creative and create campaign efficiencies that will give your SEM campaigns a decided edge over your competition.

Here are a couple tips to get you started:

• Optimize for High Quality Scores
  Achieving high quality scores on large ad platforms like Google will enable your campaigns to gain an edge over your less-efficient competitors. With high quality scores, you pay less per click for the same ad position as a campaign with lower quality scores. Gaining high quality scores is a matter of relevance—it’s done by closely matching the keyword to your ad copy, and then the subsequent website and landing page. It is also important to note that Google also has an account-level quality score that is difficult to quantify, but it is a compilation of all keyword quality scores in the account.

• Bidding Strategies
  If you have been able to create a campaign full of highly target and high quality keywords, you already have an edge on your competition. The next step in getting more for less is developing a bidding strategy. Just because you may be paying less per click than your competition, that doesn’t mean you should always be bidding to the number one ad position. Your ad should at least appear on the first page of the SERP, or not at all. However, let the higher spending competitors fight for the top three spots, and reap the rewards of low CPC in the four to six positions. You may not be able to dominate top-level category searches in the same way as a large advertiser, but by maintaining some visibility on the high competition keywords, you will be able to get the advantage of high exposure for your brand without the premium price tag.

Internet ad spending is unlikely to decline any time soon—but if you get creative and are resolved to out-smart your competition, your PPC campaign will be primed to produce a high level of return.

The digital marketing empire provides an immense amount of data to understand and analyze. As a result, marketers have a number of key performance metrics specific to the business, vertical and industry. While this transparency is incomparable to other offline channels, it also creates a narrow approach to campaign management.

My colleague, Vern, points out in a recent post that “we’ve become slaves to micro-managing ROI at the keyword level.” While this methodology can create impressive ROI figures, how does it translate into business growth?

My advice: focus on segmenting your keywords into three keyword sets; keywords that perform above performance goals, keywords that perform at goals and keywords that perform below goals but are still converting. The key is to view these three segments as working together to maximize sales, leads, downloads, etc. Yes, you’ll have an occasional keyword that you can pause.

Next, determine the average cost-per-click for each keyword set. Average cost-per-click is at the foundation of many digital marketing platforms and can translate into more than what it costs to drive a visitor to your website. Here’s an example to illustrate.

Advertiser Goal

400% ROI

Keyword Segment Performance by Month

Above Goal – ROI – 700%; Average CPC – $0.38; Clicks – 13,157; Cost – $5,000; Sales – $35,000

At Goal – ROI – 400%; Average CPC – $0.39; Clicks – 25,641; Cost – $10,000; Sales – $40,000

Below Goal – ROI – 300%; Average CPC – $0.44; Clicks – 11,363; Cost – $5,000; Sales – $15,000

Account level – ROI – 450%; Clicks – 50,161; Conversions – 1,325; Conversion Rate – 2.65%

Now let’s say that I’ve decided that a $0.04 average CPC decrease is my target for next month. A $0.04 decrease certainly seems reasonable across a month. First question: all key metrics the same, what impact could this decrease have on overall performance?

Traffic – 14% increase in click volume (($20,000/$0.35) – 50,161 clicks/50,161clicks)

Increase in Sales – $12, 580 ((click increase 6,982 x conversion rate 0.0265) =185 x $68 avg. sale)

ROI - 513%

While it’s easy for anyone to make up scenarios, the value is in knowing how various average CPC decreases can impact your top-level performance metrics. The challenge is identifying which keyword segment(s) to target for a CPC decrease.

Average CPC has even more weight as monthly click volume goes up. Consider large scale advertisers who average 175,000 clicks per month. What does a $0.04 decrease in average CPC translate into? If you need some help with that one, give us a shout.

Yes, that was all made up, but do you remember those days? I’m getting a bit older, but I almost remember them and am surprised by how things have changed so much. Today, I can get everything I need with a click of a mouse, a tap of a screen or a quick call to a cell phone. I can log on to my computer and see where my kids are with GPS tracking if need be. Heck, I can even see who won an Olympic event four hours before NBC broadcasts it.

The question is no longer “what is there to do?”, it’s “what are we going to do next?”.

With information and communication so readily available, you can just about keep track of anyone at any time. When I was a teenager, I lived ten miles outside of town. When I got in trouble, my parents only had to take my keys and I was done for. The phone was attached to a cord, so there was no place to plot and plan my escape. If I did get out of the house, my parents would have no idea where I was until I came back.

Today, you have to take the keys, take the cell phone, and block the social networking sites and e-mail. I’m sure I missed a few other means of communication, but you get the point. I haven’t gone as far as the GPS tracking yet, but it’s nice to know it’s available if I need it. Of course, the kids these days will find ways to get around that, too.

But all this begs the question—is there just too much information out there? I say, who knows, and who cares. The only thing that really matters is whether the information you want to share is what people are finding. With the proper SEO or PPC campaign, your website can be found as easily as your kids on a Friday night.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to branch out and explore some new PPC marketing opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, Google is still the king when it comes to getting your company in front of a large and qualified audience. But there are other opportunities that allow you to get your message in front of other large audiences.

With social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, you can target very specific demographics, while comparison shopping engines like Google Product Search and PriceGrabber allow you to place your product in front of interested consumers.

Both Facebook and Linked in allow you to create specifically targeted PPC ads that you can display to the demographic of your choosing. The targeted demographic can be as large or as small as you want it to be. Though these are placement ads, and the person seeing the ad is not actively searching for your product or service, the granular control over demographics helps to ensure that your message is reaching qualified prospective customers.

Expanding into shopping engines like Google Product Search allows you to highlight your product in a shopping environment. People conducting searches in shopping engines are usually deeper into the conversion funnel, meaning that it’s likely they have already done their research and are ready to purchase. This places your product in front of motivated buyers. If you’re a price leader, or offer good purchasing incentives, then shopping engines are a great place for expansion! Best of all, Google Product Search is free and can be integrated into your existing AdWords campaign.

It’s really an exciting time to be involved in PPC. There are so many opportunities, outlets and channels to leverage and explore. Expanding your campaigns outside of traditional search engine platforms and into other areas could supply the boost you’re looking for, and take your campaign to the next level!

Is your company ready to break through the boundaries of its current PPC efforts? Or are you ready to take your performance to the next level? Contact an expert like Oneupweb. Growing businesses is what we do, and we would love to help you reach your goals.

Blame it on Google Analytics, Omniture or even WebTrends for that matter. The perceived ease in which we track online marketing data has created unrealistic expectations in the minds of online marketers. Don’t get me wrong, many online marketing activities have a measurable spend and corresponding sales value. You spend $0.55 for a click on your Google PPC ad that results in a sale of $12.00. At its very basic level your ROI is $12.00/$0.55=2,181%. That sale can be attributed to that particular ad and keyword.

When the only game in town was PPC on Google and Yahoo, attribution was pretty cut and dry. We became programmed to the certainty that sales/spend=measure of success. It was so easy to assume that we could apply the same model to other online marketing. This is where the digital marketing analysis picture begins to get cloudy. If you’re running PPC along with an ongoing SEO effort, you may argue that attribution is precise. Well, what about ad impressions (not clicks)? Maybe the searcher you’re tracking post-click viewed multiple SERPs, saw many variations of PPC ads along with your organic listings and finally clicked on the 10th variation. Since you can’t attribute that sale to impressions, how do you really know what induced the sale?

Add social digital marketing and attribution becomes almost impossible. Social digital marketing is essentially 21st century “word of mouth.” Oneupweb does a wonderful job of tracking interactions across all digital channels. Heck—PodTractor, Oneupweb’s podcast tracking system, was ground-breaking in 2006 and to this day, remains unmatched in its functionality. Our Twitter and Facebook reporting documents interactions in these two venues like no other analytics available. But how do you track/document the conversation between two friends who “saw it on Facebook” or “looked it up on Google” that resulted in direct navigation to your website for a purchase? You can’t.

Every dollar a CMO spends online can generate word of mouth marketing and is an investment in building brand equity. This concept is very often lost in the buzz of attribution. We’ve become slaves to micro-managing ROI at the keyword level, never giving credit to that SEO project or Twitter effort in adding to brand equity and building market share.

I encourage you to take a step back and look at your marketing budget as a vehicle to drive word of mouth, increase brand equity and improve total sales. Take off the blinders. Stop concentrating on ROI by keyword and know that whatever advertising and marketing you’re doing online can’t be totally compartmentalized. Get back to the simple ROI calculation: $25,000,000 in sales/ $1,000,000 in online spend = kick ass results, no matter where that money was spent.

When it comes to your marketing strategy, don’t get stuck on an island.

Yes, it sounds cheesy, but hear me out. What I’m basically saying is that from time to time it pays to step back and take a look at the big picture. Take a look at your marketing strategy and ask yourself what’s working, what’s not and whether there any areas of your business that could benefit from additional marketing efforts. There are a variety of exciting, new marketing methods available to businesses today, but not everyone is utilizing these channels to reach their existing and potential audiences.

So what do I mean when I say, “Don’t get stuck on an island”? I’m talking about not being afraid to try new marketing initiatives and not focusing so much on a single marketing effort. Sure, a single method might be working like gangbusters for you and that’s great. You should continue to pursue it. Just don’t be afraid to try something new. Perhaps you’ve already established your business in its specific natural search space. But have you thought about branching out into social media? Maybe you’ve promoted your business through PPC for years and have never given much thought to your site’s natural presence in the engines, or the site’s design and how it might be affecting your user experience. Some SEO or design work might be just the thing you need to establish yourself in the natural space.

The overall lesson here is that there’s a lot of opportunity out there. While your current efforts might be working great, if you don’t take some time every once in a while to look at your total marketing strategy, you may find that you’ve also become stranded on a veritable marketing-island. And monsters or not, that sounds a little scary to me.