aimClear Search Marketing Blog

There has been much written surrounding classic query types. In review, conventional wisdom dictates that there are basically three kinds:

• Informational - suggests the searcher is on the broad quest for knowledge about a topic of interest (medical symptoms, film trivia, tips on housebreaking puppies, etc.).

• Navigational - indicates the searcher is on the hunt for a specific website, usually dedicated to a specific brand (a search for Pepsi usually means the searcher’s destination is Pepsi.com).

• Transactional - connotes the searcher is ready to make a purchase online (typically formatted like so: “buy [product keyword] online”]).

However, things are not always that cut and dry. In these days of four and five word searches, there are subtle shades of intent that aren’t always obvious to the marketer.  For PPC jockeys, spending cold cash to separate out live customers can be a crucial matter of budget.  Let’s take a look at four ways to identify and leverage some subtle intent words out there to help you focus time and money on PPC keywords that should stand a decent better of converting. Read the rest of this entry »

But before you scroll down to find out how, I want to tell you that you can fly Southwest for FREE.  Yes—Southwest is giving away free tickets in a promo that expires tonight! Or so the ad on the right would seem.  It’s got the Southwest Airlines logo and is worded such that you’d think that Southwest is running this Facebook contest.

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Welcome to those tuning in for  our SearchEngineStragtegies Chicago 2009 conference coverage. After a night of tossing and turning in a cold sweat, replaying the brutal defeat of my beloved Vikings , I’ve pulled myself together. Hey, at least SES Chi-town 2009 won’t let me down.

My session today (first session of the day titled Search Industry Today) focuses on where the paid search and SEO industry sit after a decade of growth tallying over $10 billion. Will the flow of ad dollars into search soon plateau? Is search too expensive and competitive or is it realizing a larger share of advertising revenues? What is the value of search beyond performance and results? Have most of the SEM + SEO brand strategy insights and performance gains been discovered by the industry or will the road to discovery continue?

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We’ve been deploying Facebook Paid Advertising since its inception and evangelized its power for targeting specific demographics. However once ads are safely tucked in place, a PPC Manager must grapple with that perpetually-still-making-improvements Ad Manager thingy.

Understanding some corners of Facebook’s quirky paid platform reporting module is essential to optimizing campaigns to keep analytics-focused clients sane and ROI under control. Read on for the latest comprehensive info’ as to what’s hot, not and exactly which reports are currently available (that work) in the ever-evolving web admin’ interface.

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Dear Facebook Ads,
Thank you for the amazing new Ad Platform. It’s groundbreaking,  heart-pounding, a lot like Google’s Content Network and with even more intriguing targeting options on the grid.  It’s been a love affair for aimClear, starting in the academic lead generation sector years ago when ‘Ads first launched. I’m sorry to say that Facebook’s inability to grow customer service at the same prodigal rate is extremely disappointing. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: B Rosen

We’ve reviewed plenty of paid search accounts, where the supposed PPC expert literally destroyed a business. We know it’s difficult for non PPC professionals to vet vendors, giving the ever shifting best-practices landscape.  It’s no wonder there’s an icky underbelly to the PPC vendor scene.  Things change very quickly so it’s hard for anyone but the most committed practitioners to keep up.

For wary CMOs and marketing managers wondering how to screen their AdWords account for obvious weaknesses, this post offers guerrilla protocol for a 30,000 foot PPC vendor gut check. Use it to check whether experts are cool or jacking you around.

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photo credit: photoaf

By design, in-house and advertising agency clients can successfully take over day to day account basics after working with us to pilot, heal or massively improve missing, average or terribly broken PPC. Agencies & businesses just need reliable support (and intensive training) to fix existing accounts themselves. We’ve witnessed success in as little as 4 intensive weeks. That said, the full heat press is certainly not for wimps. Read the rest of this entry »

The Advanced Paid Search Techniques session on Day 3 of SES San Jose brought together a fantastic group of marketers offering advice and guidance for getting the most out of paid search campaigns. Moderator Chris Boggs, Director of SEO at Rosetta kicked off the session. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting someone to click a search ad is one thing; getting them to convert into a sale or lead is another. The second session I attended on Day Two of Search Engine Strategies San Jose was “Landing Page Testing and Tuning“. Featuring a solo presentation by Tim Ash, President of SiteTuners.

Sage Lewis, President of SageRock provided a quick introduction [apparently Tim has a lot of groupies ] and then it was off to the presentation. Read the rest of this entry »

Today on the Social Media Track at Search Engine Strategies San Jose, I attended “Facebook Ads: Reaching Prospects Earlier In The Decision Cycle” with Sarah Smith (Manager of Online Sales Operations for Facebook). She helped guide advertisers through successful implementation of their ad model.  Read the rest of this entry »