Cyber Monday Deals For Marketers, Part Two

It’s shopping bargains season, and I’m not talking about retail! The time is here for digital marketers to enjoy special Cyber Monday offers. A few days back, I shared three amazing Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals For Marketers. (I hope you took advantage of those special offers. If not, hurry up, you still have a few hours left tonight.)

Number Two

Cyber Monday is not yet over, and today I’m thrilled to share two more deals that you will surely want to take advantage of! And, don’t worry about rushing tonight, you can take advantage of these two new deals through end of day tomorrow (Tuesday, 12/3).

First, I wanted to highlight a special offer from my great friends at AdMedia. Have you heard of AdMedia? They are a long-time sponsor of PPC Ian, and an incredibly impressive ad network (and so much more). AdMedia helps you advertise, engage, and convert across multiple channels and platforms. Customer acquisition is all about diversification. AdMedia provides a fantastic avenue to diversify your traffic sources, and an opportunity to acquire customers a potentially less competitive environment than the highly competitive, big search engines. And, they reach 98% of the web, drawing 40 million users every month across their expansive network! To celebrate Cyber Monday, AdMedia is offering a free $100 advertising credit. It’s easy: Simply open an account, deposit $100, and AdMedia will match that $100 for free. Click here to get started or check out this post to read more about AdMedia and their special offer. Way to go, AdMedia, what a sweet offer!

Kenshoo is a company that requires absolutely no introduction! They are one of the biggest leaders and most sophisticated digital marketing platforms in existence. This technology-driven company truly knows how to empower digitial marketing professionals and many of the most sophisticated operations around rely on Kenshoo technology every single day. A fun side-note: Kenshoo just posted this neat blog post that illustrates how mobile (phones and tablets) accounted for about 40% of all paid search spend on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Simply staggering numbers! Do you have a mobile strategy? To celebrate Cyber Monday, Kenshoo is offering an exciting free demo. Make sure to ask them about how Kenshoo can help with your mobile strategy!

That’s it, everyone. I wish you great fun exploring these exciting Cyber Monday opportunities, both in this post and my previous one.

Image of Number Two © iStockPhoto – tiler84
Disclaimer: PPC Ian is sharing deals compiled from others, for entertainment purposes. Please consult the companies providing the deal for specifics, terms are subject to change.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday Deals For Marketers

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 30 0

Hi Friends,

Cyber Monday Sale

Happy Thanksgiving weekend! There is so much I’m thankful for, including this blog and you, my readers. It has been such an amazing year, and I’m thankful that PPC Ian is 4 years old, thanks to your support. To share the holiday spirit, I have compiled some really exciting deals to share with you today, thanks to my amazing sponsors.

Think Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all about retail? Think again! Today’s post shares special deals for the digital marketer.

Two out of the three deals below are FREE! The other, in my opinion, is close to free since the pricing is so incredibly low (and the returns you will get should very far outpace the cost).

Have fun shopping, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Sincerely,
Ian

Deal 1, Today’s Special: Acquisio Platform at 1% of Ad Spend OR Acquisio Platform Plus Budget and Bid Management at 1.5% Ad Spend (First 6 Months)

The headline says it all, I would totally understand if you stop reading and drop everything to head on over to Acquisio for this very special opportunity.

Have you heard of Acquisio? They are one of the best digital marketing platforms around, and one of the original sponsors of PPC Ian. The prices mentioned above are truly outstanding, among the lowest I have seen for any top-tier digital marketing platform. Are you in the market for digital marketing technology? Confused by the sea of start-ups and multitude of options? My experience in this industry: It’s often advantageous to go with one of the larger names, those who have been around since the beginning and offer economies of scale. Hint: There are only a handful of larger name platforms that have stood the test of time. Acquisio is one of them, and I highly recommend seeing if Acquisio is the right fit for your agency or business.

Moreover, Acquisio leaders (such as my good friend Marc Poirier, Founder and EVP) are unparalleled values-driven business leaders.

Deal 2: Free PPC Account Audit From Rocket Clicks, Digital Agency

Whether you’re new to PPC or an industry veteran, an account audit from an unbiased third party is always incredibly welcomed. A free audit from one of the most advanced digital agencies in existence is a true blessing! An expert look at your account will always yield helpful insights and optimizations. I’m thrilled to share a really special deal: My good friends at Rocket Clicks digital marketing agency are offering a special account audit to the first 10 people to contact them by end of day Monday, December 2! Simply head on over to their Contact Us page and enter "PPCIAN" next to your URL.

They are offering a free condensed PPC account audit, that will have 5 immediate account optimization suggestions. The audit will be performed by my good friend Nicole Mennicke’s team (Director of PPC Advertising). How can you beat that? Timing is perfect as well, you can add the optimizations to your 2014 roadmap (anyone planning for 2014 right now?).

Deal 3: Free SEO Site Audit From AdLift, SEO Agency

Have you heard of AdLift? They are one of the most amazing SEO Agencies in existence. They do SEO for some of the biggest and best brands around, those brands who require industry thought leaders when it comes to SEO. Prashant Puri, CEO of AdLift, is thrilled to share an exclusive free website audit with PPC Ian readers (thanks, Prashant!). Want to sign up? It’s easy, simply enter your contact info and the code "BLACKFRIDAY-PPCIAN" on the AdLift Contact us Page. AdLift is offering this special deal to first 10 who respond by end of day Monday, December 2. This deal is the perfect complement to the last one. Take advantage of both opportunities and you will have a full queue of PPC and SEO optimizations for 2014 and beyond!

I hope you find this list of deals helpful, and I wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving weekend. Have fun shopping, digital marketing style!

Image of Cyber Monday © iStockPhoto – marekuliasz
Disclaimer: PPC Ian is sharing deals compiled from others, for entertainment purposes. Please consult the companies providing the deal for specifics, terms are subject to change.

Cyber Monday and Seasonal Bidding Strategies

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 28 8

Cyber Monday is upon us! If you’re in the retail side of online marketing, you’ve been preparing for this day for the last few months. It’s not only one of the largest volume days (in terms of raw conversions) but it’s also one of the highest conversion rate days. Most businesses follow some sort of seasonal cycle. If you’re in retail, seasonably high conversions and conversion rates are upon us right now. If you’re in finance, high conversions and conversion rates are just around the corner and will take off in January. Today, I want to walk through a few PPC bidding tips to capitalize on seasonal trends.

Tip 1: Identify Seasonal Trends

Cyber Monday Gifts

PPC campaigns (and businesses in general) follow very similar trends each year. If you’ve been in business for a while, it’s critical to analyze data from past years. Pay special attention to seasonal peaks and lows. I’m talking about those months where conversion rate is high and those where it is low. Once you have identified these periods, you are armed with the information you need to make strategic bid changes, I’m talking about blanket bid increases and bid decreases to all keywords in your AdWords and adCenter accounts.

Why does this matter? It all comes down to profitability. Your margins in paid search are directly tied to conversion rates. The higher your conversion rate, the higher your percentage margin. The lower your conversion rate, the lower your percentage margin. This brings up into tip 2…

Tip 2: Bid Based On Seasonal Conversion Rates

If you’re headed into a seasonal period where conversion rates will be high (and you can afford to handle extra sales volume), I highly recommend bidding up. By doing so, you can reinvest some of your higher percentage margin into more sales volume which should ultimately drive more dollar margin. (Conversely, you may wish to lower bids and reduce costs during low conversion rate months.) Click through rate rises exponentially by position while the bid landscape is typically linear. You will capture a lot more volume by bidding up, so why not go for it during your best seasonal months?

Tip 3: Leverage Automated Platforms For Seasonal Bidding

If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you know I’m a huge fan of online marketing platforms such as Kenshoo, Acquisio, and Marin Software. I even wrote an SEM Automation Buyer’s Guide Whitepaper.

On a keyword level, I always recommend bidding based on conversion rate. Most SEM platforms offer this ability. They will forecast conversion rate on a keyword level and allow you to bid accordingly. However, today’s tip takes things to the next level. When it comes to seasonality, you’re not only bidding accurately on a keyword level based on conversion rate, but you’re now making blanket account level boosts when it makes sense.

My advice: Understand how much conversion rates will go up (or down). Then, boost all bids when the seasonal period starts. As time goes on, once you’re a few weeks into the seasonal period, start lowering your boost gradually since keyword level conversion rates (the projections from your automated system upon which keyword level bids are set) will start catching up. If you don’t lower your your overall boost, the seasonal increase will be double counted. You may not want to lower your boost all the way, but just remember that keyword level conversion rate projections will catch up and you’ll need to bring back your blanket boost increase at least a little.

Remember to do the exact same on the way down. If you know a low conversion rate period is coming up, make a blanket boost decrease. Then, after keyword level bids start catching up a few weeks in, make sure to gradually remove (or at least reduce) the negative boost.

I truly hope these seasonal bidding strategies help out. I know I’ll be looking for great deals tomorrow. If you’re in retail, best of luck with your Cyber Monday PPC campaigns!