Posts on State of Search about ‘Advertising’

The Mysterious Retirement of Salesforce for Google Adwords

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This is a guest post by Yousef Sekander, Director at Rocketmill.

On May 1st, Salesforce will pull the plug on Salesforce for Google Adwords, and thousands of companies who use it will ask two questions. Why did Salesforce do this, and What do I do next?

We’ll make a few educated guesses at why, and also point you towards some solutions that can replace Salesforce for Google Adwords.

Salesforce for Google Adwords is different from every other app, in that it was the only app installed by default with Salesforce. With close to two thousand apps on the app exchange, only Salesforce for Google Adwords came pre-installed. Amazingly, even a few months after new customers were blocked from using it, it was still there for new salesforce instances (though completely unusable).

So why did Salesforce go from pushing this app on every single customer to suddenly retiring it? Their press release certainly doesn’t help, with this vague statement:

“Unmatched pace of innovation is one of the hallmark benefits to salesforce.com customers, and in order to continue to deliver more breakthroughs around Google AdWords, we’re turning to our vibrant ecosystem of partners. We’re focusing our innovation efforts around making the Salesforce CRM you love even better which is why we have decided to retire SFGA. Our AppExchange partners will provide similar offerings with additional capabilities so you can continue to realize success with Google AdWords.”

Why did this happen?

Theory number 1: It wasn’t worth the support / internal resources. According to Salesforce product managers, only one to two thousand companies were actively using Salesforce for Google Adwords. Considering it was installed by default for everyone, that’s a low, low uptake of +around 1% for active use.

Theory number 2: Salesforce got in a pissing match with Google about something and this was a casualty. Salesforce certainly had a lot more focus on integration with Google Apps in 2008, but this relationship since has cooled, with minimal development to bring the two companies, and their products, together.

Where do I go from here?

There are a lot of solutions out there, ranging from a home-brew DIY solution using open source software, to Marketing Automation companies owned by Oracle. We’ll go through our favourite three at different price points.

Solution for around $100 a month – Daddy Analytics

We’ve taken a look at the solutions that have popped trying to offer a replacement for SFGA. All manage to replace the features of SFGA, and all of them cost somewhere between $50 and $200, depending on your volume of leads or number of users.

The outright winner on features in this price range is Daddy Analytics. As well as replacing Google Adwords, it offers some nifty services based around the IP address, including telling you what company or ISP the Lead came from, what device they were on (can you price your wares higher to Mac users then PC users?), and even their estimated GeoLocation. We were also shown a sneak peak at their beta features coming out shortly, and this one really impressed us – per page tracking for Leads. So you’ll know which pages your prospect went to before and after submitting your web form, and how long they spent on each page. If they spent 3 minutes on the pricing page and then submitted their info, this likely a more qualified prospect.

Solution for around $1000 a month – Hubspot

HubSpot is the winner here, seems to have the highest ‘cool’ factor. Have you seen their Alanis Moriset spoof video? Not only is it funny, it shows the power of inbound marketing, and already has over a hundred thousand views. When that went viral, HubSpot’s incoming leads shot up. HubSpot is not designed as a replacement for SFGA, they are so much more – a marketing automation system that increases your prospects engagement while focusing on your marketing ROI. And HubSpot seems to really ‘get it’, showing a personality that is at once trendy and edgy, while also being focused and professional. Their features are almost too long to list, and their integration with Salesforce leads is robust, as Hubspot use both Salesforce and Hubspot in-house. Salesforce even owns a significant stake in them.

Solution for over $1000 a month – Marketo

Marketo is the market leader, and offers even deeper integration with Salesforce, and more of a full featured offering. You pay for that power, though, with pricing in the range of $2000 to $8000 a month (their pricing can be even higher or lower). Marketo, for example, has far more features around it’s email campaigns, with arguably better better drip-marketing, deliverability reports, and list management.

But the challenge of comparing Marketo to Hubspot is that we quickly move into subjective opinion, rather than a more objective comparison. It’s a bit like Oracle vs Salesforce, or Windows vs Mac. At the end of the day it comes down to what suits you, from the user interface to the company approach. When you’re spending the big bucks for Marketo or Hubspot, you’re going to have to evaluate them and determine yourself, as only you know your exact needs.

What would your solution be?

Creative and Cost Effective Piggyback Marketing

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Piggyback marketing is a technique that has been used by companies for years and if it is done correctly you can end up with fantastic results off the back of it. It is important to get it right though. I have seen companies attempt piggyback marketing and it come back to bite them.

In this post, I am going to share some examples of piggyback marketing campaigns that have gone well and would not have cost the business a huge amount of money. Hopefully these ideas will give you some inspiration to try this marketing technique out for yourself. You simply need to think outside the box and find events that your potential customers would be interested in. (more…)

More Women on Facebook, But Men Click More and Are Cheaper

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Targeting, it is almost a science to find the right target audience. And not as easy as it seems as well. I often ask the question ‘who is your target audience’ in talks and training sessions. In general the answer then is ‘male or female between the age of…’. The follow up question then is: ‘what should they be doing’, on which most responses are ‘buying our products’. With that people tend to forget about the extra target audience they have: influencers.

But when you have things narrowed down most companies still target based on group-details, starting with the difference between men and women, after all we all know that men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, so we should treat them differently right?

A new study of Facebook advertising by Resolution Media and Kenshoo Social looks into that difference and some assumption we all make about the differences between men and women are challenged. Like for example that targeting men gets a better response rate and is cheaper. (more…)

Google Launches UK Insurance Comparison Ads

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Over a year after Google bought insurance comparison site Beat That Quote the search giant has now rolled out insurance comparison ads in the UK.

Similar features already exist for credit cards and mortgages, so it’s no surprise Google has expanded this to insurance. Insurance comparison is a highly profitable business, with insurance companies paying big money for valid insurance leads.

Google has recognised the revenue potential in insurance comparison and seems to have decided it’s more profitable to cut out the middlemen. Instead Google now offers these services directly on its own properties. Undoubtedly Google will continue to collect heaploads of money from PPC advertising on these insurance-related keywords, as advertisers will now have to compete directly with Google as well as with other insurance websites. (more…)

Microsoft Updating Ad Preview Tool

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Last Friday Microsoft announced it will be releasing an update to their Ad Preview Tool.The Ad Preview Tool lets advertisers see if and how their ads are presented, whether it is targeted or to a specific audience.

When the new version of the tool is launch uses will be able to “enter targeted terms and specify language, publisher domain, and traffic origin location at the country, state and city level to validate engagement with a particular audience.” (more…)

Google’s “racial profiling” issue hints at invasive ad targeting

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Yesterday Google was once again on the receiving end of bad publicity. An article in the Telegraph, one of the UK’s biggest newspapers, appears to show that Google uses racial profiling in its advertising algorithms.

A year ago a Huffington Post article appeared to show racial profiling at work in the ads Google shows alongside emails in Gmail. The Telegraph replicated this experiment recently in the UK, and it reports similar findings:

“The results were stark, and similar to the original experiment – for example, an email sent by “Robert Howe” saying “Need Cash” gets foreign exchange solutions for business advertised to him; the same email sent by “Segun Akinkube” gets offered Payday Loans. Neither of the ads repeated in each other’s preferences; Segun & Robert got completely different ads served to them, when all other factors were the same.”

(more…)

Better Understand Your Ad Traffic, by Google

For many Google advertising is still something they ‘just do’ or if they don’t like it, keep away from. There are how ever many experts who can really make a difference in ads, just take a look at Evert‘s post “How to Keep Control over the New and Improved Exact & Phrase Match in Adwords” recently.

One thing which is hard to understand for some is how to actually look at the traffic you are getting from advertising: how are they different and how can you make best use of them? On the Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center Google tries to help their customers with just that. Last week they launched the video you can see below on that topic.

We are interested to know what you take out of videos like this. Is it useful?

UK and France Completed in Yahoo-Microsoft Search Alliance Implementation

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Yahoo and Microsoft have been working hard in the past year to integrate their search marketplaces. Their goal is to give advertisers a one-stop-shop for both search engines. Both search engines are taking the transition one step at a time.

After first the US, now all digital advertisers and publishers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France have been transitioned to Microsoft adCenter. Next up: Germany, Switzerland and Austria. (more…)

Social Media PPC – Even More Ways To Spend Your Advertising Budget

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We all know that search engines like Google and Bing are a fantastic place for brands to advertise, but did you also know that the bigger social networks offer their own advertising programs? Now more than ever before, it is essential to expose your target market or demographic to the services or products you offer and those potential customers are just as likely to find you via social media sites as they are via the search engines. In advertising, whether on or offline, it is vital to go to where your potential customers are and social media sites are becoming one of the most popular ways for people to interact on the internet on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Even when they are not actively searching, people are still being served feedback on products and services from previous customers and from their peers.

Advertisers who use Social Media PPC are tapping into the viewing and buying habits of those born after about 1980, the so called ‘Generation Y’. These users are the most comfortable with the internet and use it as their primary method of gathering information and making financial transactions. With 85% of Generation Y thought to be actively participating on social media networks, there is obviously massive potential to sell to them in a way they are comfortable with. The main players in the social media advertising market are Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, and we will take a quick look at each of these social networks in turn. (more…)

How I Lost My Adsense Account

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We all screw up once in a while. After all, we are ‘only’ human. This post is about how I made a mistake, the high punishment I got for making that mistake and the lessons which you can learn from being ‘ignorant’.

A few months ago I got an e-mail from Google. It said that I had violated the Adsense terms at that from that moment on, my Adsense account was banned. I was taken out of Adsense. At that point I had no idea why.

Now you have to know that I never used Adsense that much. I had set up an account I think about 6 or 7 years ago. I had put it on a small personal site which only had a few visitors a month. In a later stage I had put the Adsense on a different site but didn’t do much with it. In total I think I never made more than a 100 maybe 200 dollars on Adsense. (more…)

Ads As An SEO Factor: Oh No, Do I Have Too Many Ads?

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Editors note: this is Bryant Dunivan’s first official post as State of Search blogger. He did a guest post before but will be on as a regular from now on. Welcome Bryant!

With Google’s recent algorithm change, many webmasters will be wondering how it will affect them in both the short and long term. This update sees webpages being judged based on how easy it is for the searcher to find the content that is highlighted on the search engine results page (SERP).

What is most interesting about this update is that it is estimated to play a role in only 1% of searches. We do know two things about Google’s estimates though: 1) They are sometimes wrong, and 2) What starts small can turn into a big portion of your SEO strategy. (more…)

5 simple-but-effective SEO/Social tactics I’ve seen over the last month..

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Happy All-Hallow’s Day State of Searchers! Or All Saints Day for those that prefer. Let’s start this post with a little ‘Did You Know’ fact just to ensure it is educational from top to bottom. So, did you know…

“In Western Christian theology, All Saints Day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven.” (Thank you wikipedia). That sounds pretty special to me, a vision of happiness, perfection and clarity. One can dream eh.  But on that note, how about a little happiness and clarity closer to home? SEO heaven?

Yes that is my rather awkward seguing into the main event, some great examples of simple linkbait or visibility tactics that I’ve seen in the past few weeks. Rather than theorise or show amazing examples/ideas that are nearly impossible for the average company to implement, I thought I’d share some examples of marketing tactics that I’ve been impressed with recently simply because they were so very, well, simple. (more…)

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