Emotional PPC Bidding
TweetEmotions tend to run high when involved with any type of bidding. Be it a fine piece of art, classic car, or a keyword. Many people cannot let go of the human emotion when they are trying to outbid the person next to them. All common sense is out of the door. They turn the bidding into a full out competition. Winning is the only option their ego will allow. This is a very well known phenomenon in the auction house and eBay setting. How many advertising professionals realize that they are partaking in the same type of competition? The advertiser is not always the one to blame. If you have the luxury of working in an organization with a big online marketing team, then perhaps the individual is responsible for her own accounts. Blame away! But, in many cases there is one person in the company who controls all PPC and online marketing. If this person was in control 100% of the time, emotional bidding could be blamed on him as well. However, in many of my experiences there is an outside influence…coming from the inside…from behind a nice desk….in the largest office in the building. Yes, it is our beloved CEO / business owner. This woman built the company from scratch and knows the product inside out. When she searches Google for a product that she sells, she wants (needs) her company to show up before all of her competitors. She’s invested too much time and energy to be “beat” by her competitors in the PPC game. It’s purely an emotional ad position competition. Fact: An ad in the number one position does not necessarily mean it’s the number one performing ad. The next step our CEO takes is walking down to the one man team that manages her company’s PPC bids. She will demand that her company is in the number one position for all of her favorite keywords. Some PPC managers will listen and do whatever their boss says and blindly raise bids; others may put up a fight. I’m telling you now, put up a fight. How to fight the CEO and not lose your job: Bidding for position is important. And testing the number one position should be part of your everyday practice. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it’s a hole in your wallet. You won’t know what works if you don’t...
Read More50 States Text List Copy Paste
TweetUse this list of 50 states, in text (and capitals below) for any project where you need to easily copy and paste them. I searched everywhere for a simple text list to copy for a PPC campaign I was working on and had no luck. Hopefully this is useful to someone other than myself. Google’s recent update has dropped this page down from 1 to 10 because they don’t think it’s relevant. Based on the feedback from all of you – this is the most relevant page out there. Please keep commenting and sharing so we can help more people save time with this easy text list. Thanks! 50 States List Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming * District of Columbia Puerto Rico Guam American Samoa U.S. Virgin Islands Northern Mariana Islands ...
Read More50 Capitals Text List
Tweet50 Capitals This is a list of state capitals in order of the states, alphabetically. If that doesn’t make sense, you can always sort it out yourself in Excel. Montgomery Juneau Phoenix Little Rock Sacramento Denver Hartford Dover Tallahassee Atlanta Honolulu Boise Springfield Indianapolis Des Moines Topeka Frankfort Baton Rouge Augusta Annapolis Boston Lansing Saint Paul Jackson Jefferson City Helena Lincoln Carson City Concord Trenton Santa Fe Albany Raleigh Bismarck Columbus Oklahoma City Salem Harrisburg Providence Columbia Pierre Nashville Austin Salt Lake City Montpelier Richmond Olympia Charleston Madison...
Read MoreThere’s a Lawsuit for That
TweetAT&T’s response to their lackluster 3G coverage is a poorly done ad campaign that refers to their STANDARD cell coverage. This is all highlighted by a desperate looking Luke Wilson who throws POSTCARDS on a map of the US. How about spending some of those millions of dollars on expanding your actual 3G coverage instead of poorly defending yourself? AT&T recently sued Verizon over the “There’s a Map for That” ads. Basically AT&T said Verizon mislead consumers with their maps. By only showing 3G coverage on the map, it appeared that AT&T had no service in any of the white areas. Verizon made some disclaimer changes, and most of the issues are smoothed out. Main issues I have with AT&T’s ad campaign: AT&T responds to a 3G coverage map with a standard cell coverage map. Luke Wilson throws postcards on a map. Who in the hell sends postcards these days? Postcards are as out of date as your standard cell coverage map. The ads ooze desperation and haste. This was clearly rushed through the marketing department in an attempt to save any credibility they have left in regards to their 3G coverage. Verizon nailed their “There’s a map for that” ad campaign. AT&T retorts with a poorly done ad. It makes them look...
Read MoreRed Monday
TweetLet’s take a break from counting our money, Retailers. Do we realize what we have just done? This past weekend we encouraged the same type of spending habits that wiped out our economy a short time ago. We dazzled, wooed and begged the American people to spend their money so they could ‘save’ X percent on something they didn’t need. It feels good doesn’t it? It feels great to be deep in the black for a month out of the year. Who cares about Joe Samson, who just spent $800 on a flat screen instead of saving that money for his mortgage? I’m sure he’ll be fine when he loses his job next month. Americans are great at holding grudges on all sorts of things. But why is it that we have such a short memory of a financial crisis? Terrorists touch a few thousand of us and we are angry at them forever. It is justified. But why are we not irate towards retailers and financial institutions that extend infinite credit to individuals who cannot afford it? They are ruining tens of thousands of lives. Overall, consumers had an average of 5.4 retail cards with a total of over $900 billion in outstanding debt. (Source: Nielsen Report, April 2009) That is ridiculous. I’m not suggesting that American’s do not spend anything this holiday season. I am simply saying that we overdo it every year. We need to stop accumulating debt. If we learn to balance our checkbooks (debit cards) then retailers and financial institutions can learn to balance their finances as well. Try to be frugal this year. Look like a cheapskate for once. It’s not that embarrassing. Try to make something that has more sentimental value than a plastic-wrapped gadget. Happy holidays. Try to stay out of the red this year! Background: I have worked in the eCommerce industry for over 4 years. I advertise online for a number of clients that spend thousands of dollars every week in search marketing. I am in the belly of the...
Read MoreDon’t Ignore Updates
I’m back after over a month without an official blog. After a year of solid blog posts and finally getting my site laid out the way I wanted, I was hacked and lost everything. WordPress is a great blogging tool, but if you ignore the updates, you will get burned. I have learned my lesson. It’s time to move on and make this more useful than it has been in the...
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