Bing Search Engine Marketing

SMX West starts next week, are you excited?  Having been to a couple of SMX conferences in the past myself, I can say without a doubt that it’s one of the best out there for online marketers.  There’s always a great mix of speakers from across the industry; if you don’t walk away from this event feeling like you learned something new, then you’re probably ready to be one of the speakers.

If you’ve been following us on Twitter, you’ve most likely seen the 10% off discount code we’ve been tweeting over the past few weeks.  If not and you haven’t registered yet, just do so by 2/27 and use code smx10bing when you do to get the discount.

Here’s a quick summary of the sessions where you’ll find Microsoft staff speaking:

Tuesday 2/28 @ 10am: Best Practices with adCenter for Bing and Yahoo Wednesday 2/29 @ 10am: Bing Webmaster Theater Session Wednesday 2/29 @ 5pm: In-House PPC: Organizational PPC Challenges Solutions Thursday 3/1 @ 2:20pm: Ask the Paid Search Reps – Open QA

In addition to visiting us at booth #406, and visiting the sessions above, there’s one more

Continue reading SMX West: Use Our 10% Off Discount Code, Share Your Thoughts and Enter to Win an XBOX #smx #ppc #sem

We’re reporting from SES London to share some top PPC and social tips with those attending who love a re-cap and those chained to desk, unable to make it. We wriggled our way to the front seats of the ‘Landing page optimization’ session this morning. If visitors arrive on your site but conversions aren’t up to scratch – your landing pages are one thing you should examine.

When a visitor comes to your webpage you’ll be surprised on how large the impact of great targeted ad copy, good images and relevant products are. Improving only one of these elements can better your conversions with 5-10% says Nathan Richter, Strategic Services Director at Monetate.

Landing page optimization tactics and their impact

If your message, image and merchandise are aligned this could improve your average conversion rate by 5-20%. Product ‘badging’ -adding emblems with a rating- can improve conversions by as much as 55% according to Richter, international geographical messaging can improve conversions by as much as 100%. He also points out that we should think of landing ‘sessions’ opposed to ‘pages’. When your visitor starts looking around on your site, it should be easy to click back

Continue reading SES London Day 1: How To Optimize Your Landing Pages for Conversion Happiness #seslondon

As Bob Wiley so eloquently put it, “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don’t”.

As a card carrying member of Red Sox Nation who’s belted out “Sweet Caroline” from the top of my lungs at Fenway Park (and in more than a few bars in the Kenmore Square area), I’m pretty much obligated to say that the former applies to me — it’s amazing what loyalty to a team will do to your otherwise flawless music aficionado credentials.

For argument’s sake, let’s say you’re an online purveyor of all things Red Sox and you want to target me, a Boston native transplanted to Mariner country who absolutely needs to represent during any and all trips to Safeco field. No doubt you’re especially sure my befreckled Irish self would consider the latest St. Patrick’s Day-themed gear must-haves, what with the High Holy Holiday being right around the corner and all (…and you’d be right).

You’ve got your keywords list built out, you’ve made your ad copy super relevant to the displaced Bostonian, now it’s just a matter of zeroing in on me and the thousands

Continue reading Location Targeting Changes Coming Soon to Microsoft Advertising adCenter