INBOUND MARKETING BLOG

Display Network Image Ads with AdWords

• By Josh Curcio

If you are considering image/display advertising for your business or organization, you should consider utilizing image ads with Adwords to do this. You can run image ads across the Google Display Networks (GDN) and continue to pay on a cost-per-click basis instead of a CPM (Cost-per-thousand impression) basis which most other platforms will require you to do. CPC ensures that you are only paying for people that have at least a bit of interest in your ad. Your ads can be incredibly targeted as well. With the Google Display Network you can target your ads based on:

Calculating Your Marketing ROI

• By Donny Kemick

In business, we frequently ask what the ROI is of an investment of time/money. We want to know that if we spend $100, we're getting at least $101.00 back from it. That is a really conservative return, but you get the point. We don't want to spend money without making it back, plus some.

Visual Search Ads - What They Mean for Small Business

• By Josh Curcio

Google is now in the testing phases of visual search ads which allow for large banner ads in the search results page when a branded term is searched. See example below:

'I Don't Have Time For [Whatever]!' OK, Time For PPC.

• By Donny Kemick

6 Tips for Setting a Marketing Budget for AdWords

• By Josh Curcio

This is a common question among most businesses and organizations that have considered using AdWords...and unfortunately the answer is not simple. Here are 6 tips if you are planning your 2014 marketing budget.

Combating Showrooming In Your Store

• By Donny Kemick

Showrooming - The act of examining merchandise or products in a store and then buying it online, often for lower prices. 35% Of All Americans Engage In Showrooming Combating showrooming can be tricky. Regardless of smartphone ownership, 35% of Americans engage in showrooming. Ultimately, this means a whopping $217 BILLION spent online instead of in stores, after the product had been looked at in stores. This is obviously a huge loss for local retailers. The most showroomed stores are big names such as Bed Bath & Beyond, PetsMart, Toys 'R' Us, and Best Buy. In rural areas such as Bradford, PA, it's the smaller stores that really suffer. These are not huge corporations, these are small, family-owned businesses that truly depend on those sales. They tend to provide more value and service than online retailers and can use that to their benefit when trying to reduce the showrooming that happens with their store. Combating In Store Comparison Shopping Mobile devices have made in-store ...

Small Businesses MUST Embrace Mobile Pay-Per-Click (PPC) & Click-To-Call

• By Donny Kemick

70% of mobile searchers use click to call... - Google Study (http://p80.us/3b7433) Picture this. You're out for lunch with a friend, planning to do a little Christmas shopping afterwards so you start putting together your list of gifts on your smartphone. While you're at it, you start adding the stores that might have some of the gifts you want to buy. Of the stores, you ask: Are the gifts in stock? How long are they open? Do they have any sales going on? All questions that you could go online to get answers for IF the small businesses have websites that are regularly updated. What we tend to see is that most small business owners barely have enough time to get their normal daily tasks done, let alone update their websites/social media/etc...! Since you are already on your smartphone, it would probably be faster/easier to just call the stores. I bet you don't have them on speed dial, and you're more than likely NOT carrying a phone book with you, so you turn to trusty ole Google! A ...

A Funny Story About the First Time I Wrote Ad Copy

• By Josh Curcio

I am going to break off from the education for this blog post and tell a funny story...or at least one that I think is funny. It's about the first time I wrote ad copy for a sponsored ad campaign.

In 2014, Use PPC & Inbound Marketing instead of Traditional Marketing

• By Donny Kemick

How PPC Works for Search Engine Advertising

• By Donny Kemick

Although pay-per-click advertising has been around for quite a while now, it's still very common for new clients of ours to ask us to explain how PPC works. This will be a very beginners-level post, but I hope it will help any businesses or nonprofits that have been considering using PPC to get started. For this post we are going to focus on Google Adwords because it is the most common PPC platform.