Victoria Day is coming up next weekend. So what are you going to be doing for the first long weekend of the summer? Well if you’re an online marketer and you’re reading this blog post, you may just be modifying your search campaigns to take advantage of this golden opportunity. Why? Because holidays may just be the best thing to happen to online advertising campaigns since conversion tracking code (well, that’s a stretch – but you know what I mean).

Over the last several years of running paid search campaigns, I’ve noticed a trend. Search traffic and corresponding response rates generally increase on holidays, and I’m not talking marginally either. In fact, we’ve seen click-through and conversion rates increase as much as 25% - 50% on holidays, and that number goes even higher if you’re talking about mobile advertising.

Thinking about it, I guess it makes sense too. These days, holidays provide us with an opportunity to catch-up on the demands of a busy schedule, and for many people this means spending time on their mobile devices, catching up on social networking activities, or searching for that holiday deal on the net. In short, time people are spending on their computers or other personal devices that make them prime targets for your messaging. They have time to search for things, to consider relevant offers, and to take advantage of promotions that they may not have the time for in their day-to-day lives.

So what should you do about it? Well, how about increasing the maximum daily campaign budget the next holiday to take advantage in the increase in traffic? Or how about setting a bid premium for your keywords over the holiday in order to increase the position of your ad and take advantage of the added traffic?

And in fact, these types of benefits aren’t limited strictly to holidays. Weekends also provide an opportunity to take advantage of people’s new found interest and attention. You can also use day-parting to control when your ad is shown throughout the day. For example, it may make sense for B2B campaigns to limit media spending to weekdays or business hours. Or if you’re a restaurant, it might be beneficial to focus your spend on those primetime hours people are likely to be looking for their next meal.

Online advertising is real-time, so why not take advantage of that fact and manage your campaign in real-time to take advantage of the benefits these key moments might provide for your campaign. Oh, and don’t forget to enjoy the upcoming long weekend too!

Paul

We’re looking for an SEM specialist, and if you know what that is, we want to talk to you. We’re Digital Cement, a direct & digital agency located in an old carpet factory in trendy Liberty Village. Our Demand Generation group is growing again and we need someone to manage our PPC and display campaigns, track the results with analytics, and optimize them to death. If you know anything about SEO, that would be a bonus. Check out our website and drop us a line if you’re interested to hear what we’re about. pkraemer@digitalcement.com

Paul

Google – is there anything they can’t do? Seems like that’s a question I ask myself at least once a week these days, particularly when I’m faced with another news story about some new product offering Google has announced. For instance, did you know you can now buy television ad space on Google? (http://www.google.com/adwords/tvads/how.html)

And while we all love to root for the underdog, (and conversely distrust the monopoly), it’s hard to argue with Google’s business model and resultant success. And in my humble opinion, the secret to that success is Google’s consistent desire and ability to empower the user. Give users free tools to market their products and services across Google’s vast network of advertising properties, and apparently they will come. And why not? The self-serve tools are simple to use, they don’t require human setup (i.e. an account person), they work together and complement each other (like AdWords and Google Analytics), and they’re all available in the same tool / user interface. So here in Canada, we can create and deploy PPC, mobile, and display ads all under one AdWords account, in multiple languages, linked to Google Analytics, and all available with the supply of a credit card. So Google simply makes it easy to spend money with them, and they prove the value of their offerings through analytics.

Seems like a straight forward business model that other search engines could use to be competitive as well. Unfortunately here in Canada anyways, Yahoo and MSN/Bing are sorely lagging. The advertising opportunities available through their self-serve tools are limited, French language support is not offered in Yahoo, and their independent business units are not cohesive (just try to get an MSN AdCenter rep to have a Display Advertising rep call you). And if you’re talking about mobile, Google has a great mobile search product here in Canada that MSN doesn’t even offer, and Yahoo will be making available in beta shortly.

And if you think Google’s success has gone un-noticed by the competition, just consider ex-Google executives at AOL who have just announced a new Google-like tool called Ad Desk that will give users access to AOL’s web properties and its ad network Advertising.com (http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143365 ). Looks like it’s even available in Canada!

-Paul

Not to be confused with its close sibling, SEO – Search Engine Optimization. What’s the main difference? Well, SEM utilizes a media budget to place contextual ads on a search engine results page or banner ads on an advertising network website. SEO on the other hand, does not require a media budget to affect where a website gets listed in the ‘organic’ search engine results page; but instead copy, coding and inbound links. And what about Social Media? Well that’s a whole other beast, but one that works hand-in-hand with SEM and SEO as part of an integrated online marketing approach.

But regardless if you’re talking about SEM, SEO or Social Media, the fact is that these are the new direct marketing tools of the future. And over the past half-dozen years, the popularity of these marketing techniques has grown while at the same time traditional mass market advertising has dwindled. In fact, SEMPO recently released its sixth annual “State of Search Engine Marketing Report” (http://searchengineland.com/the-state-of-search-engine-marketing-2010-38826), and the year-over-year increase in the value of the North American SEM market would have most mutual fund portfolio managers green with envy.

For years, direct marketing (direct mail, telemarketing, email marketing) tempted marketers with the promise of measurable marketing campaigns that could do more than promise impressions and awareness – they could prove their worth through an ROI calculation. Today, online marketing is simply the next ‘wave’ of direct marketing, but instead of using open and response rates to validate the effectiveness of a campaign, we can now use conversion metrics and web analytics to prove the value of our marketing efforts. Not only prove it, but optimize it based on the in-market results we’re seeing on a daily basis.

Gone are the days of coming up with an offer, creating some copy, renting a list, sending some mail, and crossing your fingers for some positive results (and hopefully changing things up for the next mailing based on what you learned). Today’s online marketing campaigns are real-time marketing promotions that can be altered and optimized in line with benchmarked goals, available media budgets, and a myriad of testing and learning opportunities.

At Digital Cement, we see SEM, SEO and Social Media as integral parts of the direct marketing process. And when it comes to demand generation or customer acquisition, these online channels can be used to compliment and leverage offline and mass market advertising channels for a holistic and unified marketing approach.

Over the coming months, we’ll be using this blog as a way to share our learning, keep you up to date on the industry, get your opinion, and hopefully give you something to think about and apply to your own business. I hope you’ll join us.

Paul Kraemer