Minneapolis Marketing Firm, Russell Herder, Achieves Certified Partner Status with Google AdWords

Posted by: Neil James // April 24th, 2012

Minneapolis Marketing Firm, Russell Herder, Achieves Adwords Certified Status

MINNEAPOLIS - Russell Herder, a Minneapolis marketing firm, is proud to announce that it has earned recognition as a Google Adwords Certified Partner.  Achieving agency-level certification, Russell Herder joins the ranks of only a handful of companies within the Minneapolis market.

To achieve the status of Google AdWords Certified Partner, Russell Herder digital experts successfully passed a rigorous set of search engine marketing exams which covered such topics as keyword research, the AdWords interface, and making the most of other various online marketing and analytical tools that Google provides.

“We are proud to add the accolade of Google Partner Certified to the agency’s credentials and accomplishments,” said Carol Russell, CEO Russell Herder. “Our clients have enjoyed measurable ROI through the delivery of Google AdWords management service for some time and now this certification will allow us to further enhance the successful strategies we’ve developed to achieve the best possible results for our clients.”

Russell Herder’s digital division provides a variety of digital marketing solutions, including pay per click advertising, social media marketing, web analytics, email marketing, search engine optimization and much more. The professional digital marketing experts at Russell Herder provide custom-tailored solutions that focus on helping clients make improvements to grow the profitability of their online marketing efforts.

About Russell Herder

Founded in 1984, Russell Herder provides integrated strategic solutions to regional and national clients. With offices in Minneapolis and Brainerd, Russell Herder develops strategies that link creative, research, advertising, public relations and digital communications into powerful, results-driven platforms. For more information, visit russellherder.com.

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The One Thing Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook – The New Facebook For Marketers – Part 3

Posted by: Neil James // October 25th, 2011

The One Thing Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook - The New Facebook For Marketers - Part 4

If you are versed in the principles of search marketing, SEO and PPC, you are at an advantage as a marketer on Facebook.

It’s an important point, arguably the one thing you need to know about the new Facebook as a marketer,  so let’s repeat it.

If you are versed in the principles of search marketing, SEO and PPC, you are at an advantage as a marketer on Facebook.

How?

More than ever, Facebook’s changes have been influenced by the strategic principles that propelled Google to undisputed search dominance.

For those of you old enough to remember, Google holds the rare distinction of being both their industry’s dominant player and last-to-market. Before Google, the search landscape was ruled by indefatigable titans such as Altavista, Lycos, Infoseek, and Yahoo!

Even in those glory days (the 90s) marketers recognized the advantages of having a high ranking for relevant search queries. Savvy webmasters gleefully stuffed their websites with keywords, gaming the system. Yahoo! sold off top rankings to the highest bidder.

Enter Google. While known among techies but less so by marketers, Google’s ascent into dominance was built on their commitment to relevance and the user experience.

What does a user want when they enter a search query? Relevant results.

What type of effect did the gaming and paid placement have on search engines? They produced less relevant results for their users.

Google was the first of the major search engines to recognize this fact and built a system predicated on relevance. If Google’s search engine does not return relevant results, it has failed in its mission. So successful though was Google at delivering relevant results that their very name came to represent the category of online search.

With superior relevance and user experience, Google attracted more eyeballs than any other search property. Advertisers looking to take advantage of these eyeballs were greeted by one of the industry’s most innovative and effective marketing models: pay-per-click marketing.

The rest was history.

What does this have to do with Facebook?

SEO and PPC

The new Facebook will provide visibility to brands similarly to how SEO and PPC produces visibility for brands in search engines.

Consider a search query for the phrase “Caribbean cruises.” Google will return what it believes to be the most relevant results in its organic listings, highlighted below in red.

SEO - The One Thing Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook - The New Facebook For Marketers - Part 4

SEO: Organic Listings - Google

Attempts to improve visibility in these non-paid, organic listings is known as search engine optimization or SEO. The art of SEO is a complex one, and involves, more or less, work to convince Google that your website is worthy of higher organic rankings. SEO is accomplished by attracting links from credible sites, thorough tagging of site elements and properly sculpted architecture enhancing site visibility.

While the benefits of SEO are immense, the process is slow and arduous. Enter, pay-per-click marketing or PPC.

PPC - The One Thing Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook - The New Facebook For Marketers - Part 4

PPC: Paid Listings

In the above image, the areas of a search engine results paid highlighted in red are purchased through Google. The art of PPC is complex as well. Ever committed to the user experience, Google does not simply allow any advertiser to buy visibility for a given keyword. Advertisers must (generally) be relevant to the keyword they choose to advertise under. PPC allows advertisers to obtain visibility as a media expenditure rather than as a function of natural relevance to a specific keyword.

Facebook Visibility

Prior to September 2011, the bulk of Facebook updates were delivered to users in chronological order. If my friend made a post at 3:00 pm, a brand I was following made a post at 2:00 pm, and another friend I was following created an event at 1:00 pm, I would see those updates in that order from top to bottom: the 3:00 pm post is most visible at the top followed by 2:00 pm branded update and and the 1:00 pm event creation.

As discussed in part one, with the introduction of Top Stories, Recent Stories and the Ticker, this is no longer the case.

Now, Top Stories, the most visible part of the Facebook user experience, is controlled by a Facebook algorithm. Based on the posts you’ve liked, commented on and interacted with in the past, Facebook figures out automatically which posts are most likely to be relevant to you and gives them prominent visibility.

Sound familiar?

Top Story - The One Thing Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook – The New Facebook For Marketers

Top Story: Facebook Organic Visibility

In essence, brands that fail to produce relevant content, which in the context of Facebook, is content that is liked, commented upon, shared and interacted with, will be punished with reduced visibility.

Such, the analogue to SEO. The art of SEO is creating a website that, by improving relevance, promotes organic visibility in the results pages of search engine. Creating visibility for your brand’s posts on Facebook, formerly a product of chronology, will now be a function of relevance, which for Facebook, is measured by user engagement.

Sponsored Stories

Not everybody can be a winner at the organic game. What if you just want to buy visibility?

Enter Facebook Sponsored Stories.

Sponsored Stories - The One Thing Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook - The New Facebook For Marketers - Part 4

Sponsored Stories: Facebook Paid Visibility

Let’s say somebody likes your brand’s Facebook page. This action is likely not something that will be shared or commented on, and as such, be less likely to be visible in the new Facebook construct.

By paying for Sponsored Stories, Facebook allows you to increase the visibility of this new “like”. When purchased by the advertiser, the friends of the person who liked your brand will see this “like” as a prominent sponsored story in the right hand column of the page.

“Likes” are not the only action that can have their visibility powered up by Sponsored Stories. Perhaps more importantly, if your brand issues a post about an upcoming sale, purchasing Sponsored Stories will ensure that more of your fans see this post. Specific likes or comments on posts, app uses and check-ins also can be promoted via Sponsored Stories.

Just as with Google PPC marketing and Facebook’s current ad platform, Sponsored Stories can be tightly targeted. If you’re promoting an extreme energy drink, you can create parameters that ensure your sponsored story only shows to males ages 18-34 in your targeted geographies.

Sponsored Stories are purchased on a cost-per-click or cost-per-impression basis. It should be noted that if you choose cost-per-click, which most advertisers will, Facebook is not in the business of giving you free advertising. If your sponsored story doesn’t generate a click, Facebook will stop promoting your message.

So just as Google did, Facebook is leveraging the sheer amount of eyeballs it owns to charge brands for prominent visibility.

Should You Buy Sponsored Stories?

Like any good answer to a generically asked marketing question, it depends.

With any luck, you’ve been very diligent about paying attention to the metrics of your Facebook page generated through Facebook Insights. If you haven’t, that’s okay.

If your brand posts according to an editorial calendar or on a schedule, keep a careful eye on the news feeds impressions through Facebook Insights, particularly if you have a KPI whose effectiveness depends on this metric. If you notice a decline in the number of people viewing your posts, you need to consider:

  1. Rework your posts to drive more engagement – more shares, comments and likes.
  2. Consider purchasing sponsored stories to drive up impressions, and track the subsequent results

The New Facebook for Marketers by Russell Herder

Introduction: The New Facebook for Marketers

Part 1: Facebook Ticker and How the New News Feed Works

Part 2: Getting the Most Out of Facebook Insights

Part 3: The One Thing That Marketers Need to Know About the New Facebook

Part 4: What is Facebook Timeline?

@NeilAndrewJames

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Search Marketing and Social Media: Are They Interchangeable?

Posted by: Mark Palony // March 31st, 2011

Search Marketing and Social Media Are They Interchangeable

Have you ever used a hammer to tighten a loose screw or a screwdriver to pound a nail? If so, I’m willing to bet the results were less than successful. And so it will be if you’re using social media to do the job of search marketing. Like the hammer and screwdriver, search and social media are both very useful tools, as long as you use them for the right job.

Cara Whitehouse of Reload Digital, makes the mistake of equating the two in this post on The Wall, a UK blog.  According to Whitehouse, social media will not drive people to your website as well as a solid search marketing strategy. But the point is based on the premise that social media and search marketing are interchangeable.

If your one and only objective is web traffic, by all means pour your budget into search marketing. But if you also want to build an online community and have meaningful engagement with the citizen, social media offers the tools and tactics that will help you achieve that goal.

Different jobs call for different tools. Don’t use a digital screwdriver to pound a digital nail.

@MarkPalony

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How Much Should You Spend on Search Marketing?

Posted by: Neil James // December 21st, 2010

If your brand isn’t visible to search engines, you might as well not be on the Internet. A recent iCrossing survey found that 95 percent of all non-branded natural search traffic originated from page one results across all three major search engines. Ensuring that customers can find you when searching for your products and services on Google is more critical than ever. How much should you pay a consultant or firm to help you with your search marketing? Ultimately, the scope of your business and its goals will be your primary guide to how much you should spend. That said, a recent survey done by SEOMoz compiled of over 10,000 respondents found that 22 percent of companies spent over $1,000 per month on SEO consulting services. Similarly, 24 percent spend over $1,000 per month on pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.

@NeilAndrewJames

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18 Predictions For Paid Search in 2011

Posted by: Neil James // November 29th, 2010

Staying on top of the changes in paid search marketing is a full-time job in and of itself. 2010 brought us the Bing/Yahoo merger, Google Remarketing, click-to-call and image search placement among other innovations. So what’s in store for 2011? Jake Hird interviews four of the industry’s leading search marketers in an article for Econsultancy, Expert Opinion: What’s Ahead For Paid Search in 2011. Unsurprisingly, paid search marketers see Facebook and mobile devices playing increasingly larger roles in the coming year. Paid search marketers also are predicting success for new Google programs, such as Google Voucher which allows top listings to build an image and promotional offer into their ads, and Google Boost which integrates Google Places pages into PPC ads.

@NeilAndrewJames

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Google Instant: The Lazy Marketer Tax

Posted by: Neil James // September 30th, 2010

Did you notice something new about Google on September 8th? As you typed in your search, the results changed with each keystroke as Google attempted to guess what you were searching for. It marked a very drastic change in Google’s user experience.

This change has a name: Google Instant.

If you are advertising on Google, you will come to know this change by another name: The Lazy Marketer Tax.

Most advertisers purchase keywords from Google on a cost-per-click basis. Just as commercial time is more expensive during high-rated TV shows than late-night cable fare, keywords with greater search volumes will ultimately command a higher price than those with lower search volumes.

Savvy search marketers have used the “long tail” approach to circumvent the laws of supply and demand by exploiting Google’s cost-per-click model. Here is an extremely simplified example of how this approach works:

Pretend that you sell tennis rackets. There are approximately 20 times more monthly searches for “tennis rackets” than there are for “tennis rackets reviews.” As a result, the estimated cost-per-click for “tennis rackets” is nearly three times higher.

The savvy search marketer may elect to purchase “tennis rackets reviews” and several other “long tail” terms with comparable estimated search volume and cost-per-click. The combined search volume of these “long tail” terms not only equals the search volume of the singular term “tennis rackets,” but also does so at a far lower cost-per-click. If these “long tail” terms convert into sales at approximately the same rate as the more expensive term “tennis rackets,” the search marketer has struck ROI gold.

Let’s assume Google is interested in maximizing its profits. Google’s not dumb. It knows if you make a sale on the term “tennis rackets reviews.” If that same user clicked through to your site on the term “tennis rackets” instead, Google would have made three times more money.

Google Instant addresses this by delivering a user experience that encourages shorter searches. Let’s assume that a user intends to query “tennis rackets reviews.” As they type in this query, this is what they see:

As the user completes the word tennis, Google returns the above. These results are about tennis as a whole and probably don’t satisfy the user’s need for tennis racket reviews. Consequently, the user continues their query.

At this point, Google’s results are more focused on tennis rackets. Many users will still not find this information relevant and continue typing their query.

Certain users, however, will view these results and think “you know, I bet TennisGT.com has what I’m looking for. I’ll go there.” – and the user proceeds to click on the ad.

If Google Instant did not exist, the user would complete the entire query “Tennis rackets reviews,” returning the following results.

Prior to Google Instant, the same user who thought “you know, I bet TennisGT.com has what I am looking for. I’ll go there,” would have generated a click worth far less advertising revenue.

From a user perspective, Google Instant is saying “in case you are interested, I am going to show you the results for the shorter versions of your search. If you like them, we are glad we could help. If not, no big deal; finish out your query.”

Conversely, through Instant, Google is telling advertisers, “We are not dumb. We know you have been getting cheap conversions using long tail terms. Since there is obviously exploitable value in those terms, we are going to institute changes that ultimately discourage the search volume of these long tail queries, pushing them towards ads tied to shorter, more expensive queries.”

So while we have established Google Instant will likely result in increased advertising costs, how exactly is it a Lazy Marketer Tax?

Simple. Over the past year, Google has introduced a variety of sophisticated programs designed to help advertisers get more out of their campaigns: an improved Google Display (formerly Content) Network, a click to call program for mobile phones, and a highly potent remarketing program.

Marketers who take the time to learn the applications of these sophisticated new programs will be rewarded with a smaller pool of competitors and a reduced cost-per-action.

Marketers who say “Nah, I’m good” in response to Google’s new programs will pay a tax for their inaction in the form of higher costs-per-click.

Like any advertising vehicle, Google must be periodically revisited by marketers and audited for effectiveness. As Google Instant illustrates, a search marketing program is a depreciating asset whose returns will directly reflect owner upkeep and maintenance.

@NeilAndrewJames

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Which Brand Spent $3.6 Million on Google Adwords in June?

Posted by: Neil James // September 8th, 2010

Advertisers often wrestle with the question of how many dollars to allocate to an advertising vehicle, particularly Google Adwords. A recently released internal document, as discussed by Michael Learmonth in an article for Ad Age, What Big Brands Are Spending on Google, yields never-before-seen insights into how mega-brands are utilizing pay-per-click marketing. So who spent $3.6 million on Google Adwords in June? That would be the infamous BP, which used Google as a tool for reputation management by buying keywords such as “oil spill” and “live feed.” Even more surprisingly, five brands spent more than BP in June on Google Adwords, including AT & T, Expedia and Amazon. In fact, 1,831 advertisers spent more than $10,000 and 118 advertisers spent more than $500,000 on Google Adwords in June alone. One things for sure. If you’re Google, it’s good to be king.

@NeilAndrewJames

Image Credit – Insideaffiliate.net

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