Monday, March 16, 2009

Negative Keywords

In Search Engine Marketing, the most underutilized tactic is the usage of negative keywords. We have noticed that numerous clients neglect to use negative keywords in the pay-per-click campaigns. According to Google, negative keywords are a core component of a successful keyword list. The adding of negative keywords to an ad group or campaign means that the ads will not show for search queries containing the specified negative term. By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help marketers reach the most appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), and increase your ROI.

There are several reasons to make a keyword negative such as zero conversions, bad brand association, not relevant to a user, or to improve search quality. Most search engines will allow 250 up to 10,000 negative keywords per ad campaign or ad group. There are a few tools to help you identify negative keywords such as WordTracker, Keyword Discovery, and Epiar Negative Keywords.

Be sure to implement negative keywords in your next ad campaign. Let us know how these tools work for your campaign.



Monday, March 2, 2009

Paint the Picture for Your Online Marketing Programs

We are continuously surprised by the lack of measuring and testing of online marketing campaigns. We’ve worked with organizations of all types and it continues to be a reoccurring theme. As marketers, it is up to us to “paint the picture” of how our campaigns support the business objectives. It is just as critical to demonstrate that value of online marketing campaigns by tracking, recording, and measuring the effectiveness of our campaigns. Without measuring our campaigns, it’s difficult to implement A/B or multivariate testing to improve marketing efficiency and reduce the cost over the long-term. Be sure to translate how your online marketing programs equate to management or ownerships metrics. Remember to KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid), not everyone in your organization is a search engine marketing expert or understands web analytics.


Paint the Pictures, Demonstrate Value, and Translate the Implications on Business Objectives!

DaBrian Marketing Group