MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

Pity the poor PPC ad copywriter. Back in the days of the so-called mad men, before Transparent Marketing was a necessity, they could just mix hyperbole, bold fonts, and a handsome fella, and then head out for the three-martini lunch. No one is measuring anyway, so who could prove the ad didn’t work?

Fast forward to the present day. In a PPC (pay-per-click) ad, all you have are a few precious characters and tiny visuals in which to convince a skeptical consumer that will only glance at your ad for a split second that your ad deserves a click. On top of that, with paid search, you’re competing for that click with all of your competitors’ ads, as well as organic traffic, with no visual help at all.

On Wednesday’s Web clinic – Optimizing PPC Ads: How to leverage the full potential of 130 characters by clarifying the value proposition – Dr. Flint McGlaughlin will review key PPC experiments illustrating the potential of a clear value proposition to help the humble PPC ad men and women of the world perfect their craft. He will also teach on the components of a properly stated value proposition and how they apply specifically to PPC ads.

But first, we wanted to hear from you. How do you create an ad that stands out from the rest of your competitors? How do you get the click? Here are a few of our favorite answers… Read more…

So, you’ve done all of this, right?

1)      Made sure you understand what your current site looks like through a variety of mobile operating systems. Is it good? Is it even adequate? (User Agents)

2)      Understand what people use your current site for? What is the top content overall, and top content immediately preceding a successful call to action. (Analytics)

3)      Understand your target audience? (Internal discussions)

4)      Lastly, determined if the benefits of building a mobile site or redesigning your current site outweigh the expenditure.

If not, refer back to our previous blog post, but now we’re moving on to actual mobile website design recommendations.

Now let’s say you’ve made the decision to create a website specifically for mobile devices. The main thing you need to understand about mobile devices is the difference in usability:

• They have much less real estate
• Buttons are harder to click
• People will be zooming in to see any small features
• When a potential customer clicks on a box to enter text a good portion of the screen is covered by the keyboard

So, you need to make your page as easy to use as possible. I can’t stress that enough! While there may be TONS of great content on your site, you need to keep your mobile site as easy to use as possible. Read more…

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides for their research trying to explain why unemployment remains so high in the U.S. and other advanced economies. More specifically, they won for their analysis of markets with search frictions – any factors that keep markets from operating efficiently.

Being the amateur economist I am (CV: 11^th grade with Mr. Lamar, I’ve read several issues of The Economist), I was elated to hear about this selection. Theoretical economics is sometimes too, well, theoretical. Supply A meets Demand B and they live happily ever after.

With the notable exception of Dan Ariely, I often wonder if these economists live in the real world or just a magical Shangri-la where everyone always behaves rationally, and mere trifles like food and energy aren’t important aspects in the average family budget (I believe this Eden is called Princeton).

The world I live in doesn’t work that way. Which gets us to your landing page… Read more…

At the end of this month, a who’s who of email marketers will descend on Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas for MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2011. Flint McGlaughlin, the Managing Director (CEO) of MECLABS will teach a two-hour email optimization training session and your peers will be presenting 21 email marketing case studies.

One such case study that I thought would be of particular interest to readers of the MarketingExperiments blog is entitled, “Leveraging Transactional Messages to Boost Email Newsletter Opt-Ins,” and will be presented by Johannes Neuer, eCommunications Manager, The New York Public Library.

If you are attending the Email Summit, Johannes will be presenting in Breakout Session #1 on Wednesday (Day 3), just before the networking lunch and sponsor exposition. His full case study has about as much helpful information and educational data as you’ll find on a trip between the lions. Here is a quick look at what Johannes will be speaking about… Read more…

I’ve listened to the gurus and read their blogs. I studied the MarketingSherpa ROAD Map for social media marketing. Heck, I’ve taught that ROAD Map to a hall of very gracious marketers. From experience, I have to say that pretending to be a social media marketing guru is a pretty sweet gig.

So, when I had to roll up my sleeves and walk the walk, I had no idea how much work would go into just getting started. Read more…

Here’s why I like “tweet count” as the ultimate metric for a blog post. It’s basically a resounding “yes” to the oft-asked marketing question, “would you refer this to a friend?” Sure, you can look at “visits,” but that may be a better indication of a
good headline than a good post. Even “time on site” only tells you that someone stuck around longenough to kick the tires, but it doesn’t mean they got enough value from a post to take action.

As with any analytics tool, the Topsy Retweet Button isn’t perfect. Based on our traffic through TweetDeck, it seems to undercount the retweets on many posts. I’m pretty sure one of the posts below has some serious over-counting issues. And there has been a hanging chad or two.

Nevertheless, it remains the best way for us to gauge what posts have value for you. So, without any further ado, here are the 10 posts you told us were most valuable in 2010, along with a quote from your peers about each post… Read more…