Recently, Microsoft released a beta of an enhanced Bing search engine called Visual Bing. Instead of returning text, Visual Bing displays images of the products that match your search query.
Currently limited to just several “galleries” and a bit on the slow side, it does point to some hope that search will evolve in a big way. Search marketers have been limited to 70 characters in the major engines for their PPC ad creative. After 9 or so years of PPC, there’s a limitation to how innovative a marketer can get with 70 characters.
Additionally, searchers now simply scan the copy instead of really reading the text. If Visual Bing is a stepping stone to a more visual presentation of search results, both organic and paid, it will breathe life into traditional marketers who are looking for more creative and effective ways to drive profitable traffic beyond a 70 character text ad.
It’s interesting to note how the United Way is launching a social media campaign to raise funds. With a headstart from one of its 500 cause members, the United Way is now jumping on board the Facebook, MySpace and Twitter boats.
According to a 2006 study examining brain reaction to commercial brands, strong brand identities can create more excitement than weaker ones even in products considered dull such as insurance.
Here’s a common situation:
Finally, there’s an easier way to leverage the power of geotargeting your Google AdWords campaigns by analyzing CTR’s, Conversion rates and CPA’s by geographic origin. Using the new AdWords report “Geographic Performance”, you can run a report at the account, campaign or AdGroup level that’ll show you metrics by country, region, metro area and city.
The word on the street is that PPC advertising will fall out of favor with advertisers as the economy worsens. Further, I’m hearing that companies will steer more towards natural optimization so they can avoid PPC click charges.
If you’re managing pay per click campaigns you know, or most definitely should know the importance of incorporating a thorough negative keyword list. Unless, of course, you’re bidding all of your terms exact match … and if that’s the case unless you can climb into the minds of all of your potential customers, you could be missing out on a lot of qualified traffic.
Something that I still see many marketers forget is that prospects who are thinking of doing business with you are in different places in the buying cycle. Some may be launching their first attempt to research the general options related to products and services that meet their needs.
It’s happening – despite whether the US economy was headed for a recession, we, the people of the US, seem to be willing to make it a certainty. Not that it’s our fault. The headlines on most major news sites seem to proclaim the doom that awaits.
Had lunch today with Becky Carroll, President of Petra Consulting Group. Becky’s firm specializes in helping organizations maximizing the return they get from customer relationship. She’s got some unique and extremely useful insights in social media and customer service.