Think Bottom Line, Not Top Line, on Social Media ROI

  • December 3rd, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | 5 Comments

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about social media ROI but the hand-wringing about it is totally misplaced.
True ROI (return on investment) calculations are possible in cause/effect marketing scenarios where you can isolate tactics and variables to determine incremental revenue generated. Today, the only marketing programs that can semi-reliably generate “real” ROI calculations are SEO, PPC, [...]

Why PPC is about to skyrocket – and then CRASH

  • October 14th, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | 11 Comments

Times are tough.
But one area that is ready to soar is pay-per-click search marketing (PPC). That most measurable and controllable of digital marketing opportunities, PPC looks like a no-brainer in this economy.
Have you called a newspaper lately and asked them if they’ll charge you per phone call generated? Even with ad sales down 14% year [...]

The Alarming Truth About Digital Marketing’s Imperfections

  • September 8th, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | 8 Comments

A One Legged Stool
There’s no question the Internet has been good to me. The last two jobs I had before getting involved in Internet marketing in 1994 were spokesman for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (prison tours), and marketing director for Waste Management (landfill tours). I prefer this gig as it is smell and [...]

The Official Toothpaste of Social Media

  • September 5th, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | No Comments

Will the Crest Weekly Toothpaste Launch Work?
In a sign that the guys who control ad budgets are getting the value of interactive advertising faster than the agencies that place it, P&G announced recently that they are introducing their new Crest Weekly toothpaste almost entirely through the blogosphere.
Samples of Crest Weekly were sent to prominent bloggers [...]

Agencies Need to be Testing Landing Pages

  • July 21st, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | 2 Comments

Average length of stay on a Web site is approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds overall. Approximate length of stay by visitors coming from search is about 10 seconds. Why the difference? Search users are less likely to know your company and its attributes in advance, and they know there are several other options available [...]

Is Digital Marketing Killing Magazine Ads?

  • July 13th, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | 2 Comments

A report last week by the Publishers Information Bureau found that advertising pages in the nation’s magazines declined by 7.4% compared to the first half of 2007. 
With the stock market down by about 20%, and house prices down at least that much in some parts of the country, a 7% dip in magazine ads may [...]

Google’s Popularity is Costing You Money

  • June 30th, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | No Comments

Paid search management vendor Covario said today that PPC spending was up 52% in Q1 2008 versus 2007.
52% is a big leap for an already red-hot digital marketing tactic.
But perhaps more interesting was the finding that Google took in 85% of the paid search spend in the first quarter. (No wonder Yahoo! rushed [...]

Are you spending enough on digital marketing?

  • June 25th, 2008 | Written By: Jason Baer
  • | No Comments

GroupM (the holding company for all of the WPP media agencies), issued a new report saying that share of spend on digital and interactive media has increased from 8% in 2005 to 14% this year.
They project the total to increase to 16% next year as new digital marketing tactics like mobile and behavioral targeting continue [...]