Month: February 2014

Are you ready to increase CTR (Click Through Rates) on your Paid Search Ad campaigns right now? What I’m about to tell you may change the way you look at paid search ads forever. The better (lower) the average position of your keyword, the higher the Click Through Rate (CTR) will be!

How to increase conversion rates: The research I did was fairly simple, but the findings are very telling. I collected data for this case study from one of our education clients: a niche university, whose headquarters are located in the Northeast, and offer online classes across the entire country. The two separate charts displayed two different data sets. The first showed the average position and CTR per month for the entire campaign over the last two years: average position and CTR per month for the entire campaign over the last two years masoninteractive.com The second showed the average position and CTR for each individual keyword over the past two years: average position and CTR for each individual keyword over the past two years.

What does this all mean? Well, I’ll tell you. As I’m sure you are aware, the better the average position, the more you are going to pay per click. The better the average position, the more clicks you will receive which in turn ends in more conversions. Now I’m not telling you to go and bid every single one of your keywords up and be in the 1st position. I am telling you to take into consideration your current positions and how they are performing. Consider what would happen if you took a keyword and increased it enough to take it from an average position of 3 to 2. Based on my research, you could easily double or triple your CTR which as I stated above leads to more clicks, which leads to more conversions.

Saks Taps Vine for Beauty Tutorials, NYTimes Reports What Every Digital Marketer Already Knows, Facebook Follows Users In Ditching Email Service. What You Missed On the Internet from MasonInteractive.com:

Saks Fifth Avenue Embraces the Vine with their #Saksin6 beauty tutorials [LuxuryDaily] Not Surprising News Headlines: Big Brands including Starbucks and The Economist admit that they use Google+ for SEO more than Social. Um, Duh. [SearchEngineLand] Facebook ditches @facebook.com email service that nobody used. [TheNextWeb] There’s An App For That: When you feel lost and directionless (and could really use a slice of pizza)…there’s Pizza Compass to the rescue pointing you to the closest pizza place.

#MarketSmart Quotes: Great quotes that inspire us to be better advertisers, communicators, innovators and content creators for our clients! Topics include: advertising, client relations, creativity and innovation. Social Media and Reputation Management at MasonInteractive.com/

I’ve got a soft spot for Yahoo. Seeing their billboard on Elizabeth and Houston St.’s in 2000 felt like a big moment. Since then, of course, Yahoo’s lost half of its value. They went from the undisputed leader in search engine marketing, to co-running bing’s search engine. From the place to find anything, to… a place to check email. So here Yahoo is announcing Gemini – “the first unified marketplace for mobile search and native advertising.” – and I have high hopes.

It’s good for our clients to have more choices, and I have personal nostalgia for the company. To my (early) understanding, Gemini is a way, in the same interface we currently buy clients’ ads in, to create sponsored stories – advertorials – across the Yahoo advertising network. One, it attaches an ROI to Yahoo’s decision to spend big on content – Yahoo writes an article about beer? Our friends at Draft Magazine want to be there. Matt Bai writes an article about the Tea party? Our client 1776 coalition should be all over that. There’s a piece on tax strategies? Good Accountants (another client) can be there. Two, Google doesn’t have it. Three, it’s trustworthy – ads will clearly be marked as ads. But as much as I want it to work, I’m just not sure it will. Will they open this up to the vast pool of mid-sized advertisers, our keep it exclusive to the big boys? We work with lots of schools. Not all schools have Devry’s budget.

Yahoo has traditionally tried to differentiate itself from Google by going after bigger clients (or at least, people who are willing to spend more.) So yes, I get that they want to create new ways for ITT Tech to spend more. But for every ITT who spends $400,000 monthly, there are 4,000 schools – psychology schools, law schools, pre-schools, etc… who spend > $1,000 monthly. That latter group is bigger, and if they don’t open this up to them, it won’t fly. Nobody knows if they are Yahoo clients, so they won’t know how to sign up. I kid you not – it used to be that advertisers had either Yahoo or MSN accounts. They merged – forming “Search Partners” – according to some arcane logic, and if it was decided (passive voice intentional) to make advertisers either Yahoo or MSN advertisers – even though everyone logs into the same place and pays the same bill. To this point, none of our Yahoo reps have contacted us about this. If they don’t actively push it out to agencies, it won’t fly. If Yahoo doesn’t do a better job rolling this out to the $50,000 per month advertisers – the advertisers who power Google’s stock price – and make it easy for agencies and clients to get onboard, it won’t grow the way I hope it does.

Facebook Can Predict Your Dating Future, STD Free? Now You Can Prove It plus Mobile Ads in 2014 Go Native. What You Missed On the Internet from MasonInteractive.com – Facebook knows when you’re about to be in a relationship before you do. In a blog post on Friday, Facebook released a report that finds future couples interact more on each other’s Facebook timelines before being ‘in a relationship’. Once statuses have changed, couples post less because they are ya know, in a relationship. [Facebook] So, Yeah There’s An App For That: Hula, which enables sharing of verified STD test results, claims to makes a certain conversation between prospective romantic partners “less awkward” with their smartphone app. While we are all for safe sex, we cannot imagine a more awkward exchange between soon-to-be romantic partners. [Mashable]

Mobile Ads in 2014: After years of trying to figure out the mobile ad aesthetic, it appears a pattern is emerging and it looks…exactly like all of your apps. Native advertising, such as Sponsored Stories in your Facebook App Newsfeed, is what Mobile Ads will look like this year. [BuzzFeedTech]

Sephora Launching Social Network ‘Beauty Board’, New Apps: Ken Burns, the Closet We All Want, Plus Now There’s Seamless for Booze, and Social Media: Is she the New ‘It Girl’ at NYFW?

What You Missed On the Internet from MasonInteractive.com – Launching in March, the beauty retailer extraordinaire, is attempting to expand their shopping experience in efforts to keep customers social but onsite. Sephora ‘Beauty Board’ will provide an unlimited, user-generated stream of hair and makeup inspiration. [WWD] Pinterest Can Hardly Contain Its….indifference.

Appy Day App Happy: These Apps Are Worth Giving A Once Over: Mini Bar: It’s seamless delivery but for Booze! Now serving Manhattan and Parts of Brooklyn! Stylebook: Cher Horowitz Outfit-Picking Closet in an App, plus packing lists, outfit scheduler etc. Ken Burns: Explore American History From Ken Burns Viewpoint.

So Fashion People Have Finally Jumped On the Social Media Bandwagon this season with socially integrated showings for Fall 2014 from fashion mainstays such as Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs, Rebecca Minkoff, Tommy Hilfiger, and Victoria Beckham. [FastCo, DailyNews].