INSIGHT blog

Posts Tagged ‘Search Engine Marketing’

« Older Entries

Our Online Marketing for .ORGs Series Comes to a Close

29
May
2009

Wednesday’s webinar on Social Media for .ORGs was our biggest success yet, closing out the end of the series on a high note.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Back in December, 2008 we hosted our first seminar at the Melrose Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Online Marketing for .ORGs.  That day over a continental breakfast, we welcomed an audience of ready-to-learn members from various local associations and organizations.  Due to the positive feedback of that event, we decided to begin a webinar series tailored exclusively to this .ORG audience and presented every month since January.  After five webinars covering topics such as search engine marketing, email marketing, social media and viral marketing, we’ll be taking a few months off to regroup and plan for a new webinar series at the end of the summer.  We want to thank everyone who has attended our webinars and hope we can continue the dialogue in the future.  We have greatly appreciated all the feedback you have submitted and are eager to apply these suggestions in order to make our next series even more successful.

This past Wednesday, we presented on our final topic of the series: Social Media for .ORGs.  With over 80 people in attendance, we introduced some very important content including:

  • How to communicate through social networks
  • The various types of social media and how they can be applied to your organization
  • How to measure social media for success

For attendees that would like a copy of the presentation or for those who were unable to attend, the deck can be downloaded on our Facebook Fan page.  We encourage anyone to contact us for more clarification on this topic or any others from the series.  Thank you again to all those who have helped make these webinars a success!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

New Similar Images and Timeline Application Integrated in Google Search

22
April
2009

Two new experimental tools are launched to help users more efficiently browse through data

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Similar Images is an application that allows users to sort through the results of an image search by clicking on links to other similar images.  The searches populated will also try to match the angle of the image, a person’s position or expression, or depth of the picture. 

Another new system, Timeline, categorizes information chronologically by day, week, month or year in a zoomable format.  Users will be able to sort through the same type of results that would be shown in a typical Google News search.  According to Google, the results are pulled from various sources including recent and historial news, scanned articles, blogs, Twitter status messages and other media. 

Check out these new features through Google’s latest version of Google Labs.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Spending Trends in Search Engine Marketing for 2008

30
March
2009

In 2008, companies spent more money on paid search than search engine optimization

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

According to new research conducted by Radar Research, spending for paid placements in North America greatly exceeded that of organic search. Last year, $13.5 billion was spent on search engine marketing; 88% of which came from paid search and only 11% from SEO. The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) estimates that search marketing spending will increase to $14.7 billion next year. This figure is inclusive of paid placement, organic search, paid inclusion and SEM technology. 

While SEO tends to be more cost-effective in terms of longer lasting results, it takes time for a site to achieve a high ranking or even a first-page ranking. Oftentimes, clients are either not willing to wait for this to occur or desire results that can be measured short-term. These factors, among others, attribute to the large gap between paid and organic search spending. However, as marketers begin to understand that users find organic listings to be more relevant than paid, they may realize the wait is worth long-term campaign results. 

Spending Trends in Search Engine Marketing for 2008

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Survey Reveals Which Online Marketing Tactics Produced the Highest ROI in 2008

5
February
2009

MarketingSherpa’s year-end survey shows which tactics yielded the highest ROI and how marketers should adjust budget planning for 2009

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

During 2008 MarketingSherpa and Ad:Tech surveyed over 1,200 marketers to determine which online marketing tactics were used most often and how much money was spent on these various programs.  The results of the survey can help marketers adjust their budgets for 2009 to achieve the highest ROI for each program.

MarketingSherpa ROI vs. Budget in 2008

As seen in the chart above, email is the most commonly used tactic  by marketers and also ranks very high on ROI, as the budget required to successfully execute these programs is relatively small compared to other tactics.  The affordability of this particular program is likely the reason for 90% of marketers participating.  Over 50% of respondents report “great” ROI on paid search, more than any other tactic presented in the survey.  This is largely due to a marketer’s ability to track how many conversions are resulting from each dollar spent. 

After paid search, marketers reportedly spent the most on display ads, such as banners and buttons. This is very alarming because less than 15% of those surveyed indicated that this tactic was generating a good ROI.  With the economy forcing companies to cut back on spending, marketers may be shifting their dollars into more revenue generating tactics.

The chart below illustrates the importance of including search engine marketing programs in a marketing plan for 2009.  Paid search and search engine optimization rank among the top three highest ROI generators and are two of the most commonly used tactics. This chart also shows that poorly targeted online advertising, such as pop-ups and emails to rented list, yield a poor ROI.

MarketingSherpa Top ROI Generators

The survey also prompted marketers to indicate what tactics they planned to invest in during 2009.  The benefit of paid search remains clear, as 57% reported increasing spending on this successful ROI generator.  Despite last year indicating a low ROI for display ads, 29% of marketers will continue to spend money on traditional online ads.  This is very surprising; considering one out of three respondents indicated that they deliver a poor ROI and only 13% said they were great.  Perhaps the stresses of an ailing economy will force marketers more than ever to truly focus on the programs that produce the highest ROI.

MarketingSherpa Spending Projections in 2009

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Online Marketing Seminar for .ORGs

11
November
2008

EyeTraffic hosts the first of a series of free online marketing seminars for cause-driven organizations.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

Last Friday November 7, EyeTraffic Media hosted the first of a series of free seminars intended to educate cause-driven organizations on how to successfully apply online marketing strategies.  With the current economy and shrinking marketing budgets, associations and cause-driven organizations are looking for ways to optimize their marketing efforts at lower costs.  Through these seminars, EyeTraffic Media will encourage the .ORG community to explore ways to efficiently manage their marketing dollars.

“With our headquarters in Washington DC, we are surrounded by associations coping with the struggling economy and limited marketing budgets,” said EyeTraffic Media’s Principal Manager George Assimakopoulos. “Having worked with several nonprofits, we have proven that we can help organizations achieve their online marketing goals in a cost efficient manner. It is important to us to share our knowledge of best practices with the rest of the community.” 

The seminar discussed how online marketing can produce more effective results at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Online marketing allows non-profit organizations to attract awareness for their causes and events, and increase both sponsorship and membership.  This can be accomplished through the use of search engine marketing (SEM), viral marketing and email marketing; all of which were reviewed at the seminar.

The event was held at The Melrose Hotel in Washington, DC and had a marketing representative from over 30 different non-profit organizations in attendance. 

“EyeTraffic Media provided a great overview of the key aspects of a successful online marketing campaign,” commented Elizabeth Burrell from The Coalition for Government Procurement. “The seminar offered valuable information that I can now use to re-evaluate my organization’s online marketing efforts to better target appropriate audiences. I look forward to attending future seminars.”

To learn more about the free online marketing educational seminars please contact Christine Pepin, Media Coordinator, cpepin@eyetraffic.com.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Older Entries