Category Archives: Online Marketing

Lead Generation – Create the ideal lead funnel?

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Well really if there was one ideal lead generation system, it would not be a question worth asking or a subject worth blogging about. There are many factors affecting lead generation success and no one set of rules makes sense in all situations. I am however going to add my 2c on the topic.

Dont pay for the traffic until you are sure your conversion is at least working. There is little your PPC marketer can do if the conversion funnel is flawed.

This is so wafty it should not be called a rule but it is the crux of lead generation: Find a ballance between lead volume and lead quality. Do you want as many signups as possible? OR High quality high value leads only?

Some other guidelines I list below, the first 2 appear contradictory:

  • Give them reason – clearly state the reason/advantage/benefits of filling out the form.
  • Quantity over quality – a form should have low/no barriers to entry.
  • Quality over quantity – gather as much information in your lead form to pre-qualify the lead.
  • Visibility – a form should be prominently displayed, or easy to get to.
  • Trust issues – users like to know that their information is secure. If you are not a big name you have to work “harder” to win their trust.

And here is a final rule for you, and it is the most important; Go through the process youself, get a colleague to test and test again.

Google AdWords Broad Match just got Narrower? Modified Broad Match

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My feeling is one of relief to hear that Google have enabled tighter definitions of broad match on Google adWords.

I first came accross the issues with Google AdWords definition of broad match when they started touting a feature called extended broad match. Extended broad match took the term you were bidding on and assumed you were relevant for synonims of that term too; “great I dont have to think of all those words!” RIGHT?

The issue is when a word is ambiguous like “book” (read a book, book a flight). Now I have to admit that the folks at Google got smarter at the extended broad match thing, or the algorythm got smarter, but they could have saved themselves some hasstle, and us a lot of negative keywords, by introducing what has just gone global.

What is Modified Broad Match?

The graphic below from the Google AdWords Blog shows Broad, Phrase and Exact match types, with the outer ring being the behavior of broad match without modifications.

google modified broad match

Now if only I could have had this about three years ago…

Microsoft Spring Upgrade Features Newsletter

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Well I got the Microsoft adCenter “Spring upgrade features now available” email newsletter this morning, and am really excited about some of the features, most notably the ad Center Content Ads program coming out of beta today, but the link leads to a file not found page.

A little bit of digging I found a better (working) link for MSN Content ads coming out of beta. You can now tweak control of content ads by:

  1. Loading negative sites
  2. Targeting sites, much like Google’s Placement targeting.
  3. and the points above would be no good without being able to run a placement report.

All of the above sound familiar? that is because you have had these features on Google Adwords for a little while, but good to have adCenter keeping up.