Why Remarketing is a Must-Do for 2012

25/01/2012 By

If I told you I could identify the people on your website who left without buying, and then I could get them back to your site again to buy – you’d be interested wouldn’t you?

Well that’s exactly what remarketing (or retargeting in some circles) enables you to do. With a cunning implementation of cookies, a little marketing know-how and a Google Adwords account you can be remarketing to your “lost” customers in no time at all.

Why Remarketing in 2012?

Well, it’s been around for over a year now – so it’s not because it’s just arrived. There are a number of reasons remarketing should fit really well in any 2012 marketing plan:

  • in this economic climate you need to maximise the return on your marketing spend – by remarketing to people you’ve already paid to get your website you’re improving the performance of ALL your marketing activity
  • it should be really profitable – as you’re advertising to people who are already interested in your brand
  • the fear factor has gone – LOTS of companies are doing it now, so consumers are used to seeing the ads of sites they’ve been too – you don’t need to be scared of what your customers will think
  • you can be very clever with it…. show pictures of women’s clothing to those who looked at womenswear and men’s clothing to those who looked at menswear – so it gets very targeted
  • you can use to reduce abandoned baskets – advertise just to those who’ve created a basket but not checked out
  • you can… well there’s a lot you can do, based on your business and your website structure

We think remarketing is going to bring great results for those who use it in 2012 – if you want to be among them get in contact and we’ll be happy to discuss how it could work for you.

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Twitter Advertising to come to the UK

21/03/2011 By Leave a Comment

According to last week’s NMA it seems that Twitter advertising (the wonders of the Promoted tweet!) will be coming to UK shores soon.

PLUS it’s going to be via a “self-service” tool – so should be open to everyone.

Question is, will it become an essential like Google Adwords, or a pricey experiment like Facebook ads?

Read the full story

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Sponsored Stories – Facebook’s Latest Advertising Tool

25/02/2011 By Leave a Comment

In January, Facebook launched a new type of advertising allowing advertisers to really focus their Facebook advertising by prequalifying those that see their ad based on the activity of their “friends”.

“Sponsored Stories” links your advertising to specific mentions of your brand/company. If a Facebook user “likes” your brand, their friends will see that “like” on the right hand side of their News Feed as well as a link to your brand’s Facebook page and an option for them to “like” you too. Or, if a user “checks-in” at one of your stores, again, that (and therefore you) will be advertised on the right hand side of the News Feed on their friend pages.

From a users point of view, initial feedback has been mixed. Many users feel that although they might “like” a brand or “check-in” at a shop, they don’t necessarly want to endorse that brand or give permission to become an unpaid part of an advertising campaign.

From an advertising perspective, however, this is a great way to essentially pre-qualify users based on their peers/friends “likes” i.e. the people they respect, share opinions with and take notice of.

It’s good to see Facebook are widening the opportunities to maximise your Facebook marketing campaign. Several big brands are reportedly signed up to “Sponsored Stories” so it will be interesting to see the results.

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4 Things you need to know about Group Buying websites

02/02/2011 By 1 Comment

What is Group Buying?

Many retailers are getting great results from local group buying campaigns. These are campaigns focused on individual cities where the consumer can buy a voucher that gives them a great deal in a local place – could be a theatre, hair dressers, shop or restaurant. Most of the deals only last for one day, and are limited to a certain number of people.

(so this post is about that type of group buying – not the sort done by made.com which uses the power of many buyers to lower the price).

First thing you need to know: What websites run Group Buying?

There are several, most are American imports, and the big boys are also starting to get involved too:

  • Groupon – wide range of cities covered in the UK – one of the biggest worldwide
  • Pooodle - yes that’s 3 ‘o’s. Not hugely well known, but does have a fairly wide range of UK coverage
  • LivingSocial – not as wide a coverage as the others, but better know than Pooodle
  • Groupola - run by myvouchercodes.co.uk
  • Google have a version coming soon “Google Offers” (see Mashable for details)

Secondly: How does it work?

Ok, as a retailer (or shop owner, local business etc) you create the offer you want to run. Then contact the group buying website of your choice.

They’ll then agree their commission with you, and when it’s going to run.

When the deal goes live consumers will buy your vouchers online, and bring them into your store to be redeemed.

Within an agreed time period the group buying site will transfer the money paid for the vouchers to you. (minus their commission).

3rd thing: What sort of offers work?

Most offers are either:

  • buy this widget/service that usually costs £150 for £60
  • or get a voucher worth £20 for just £10

Almost all the offers have pretty strict Ts and Cs – so before you put together your offer take a good look at some other offers to make sure you’ve covered all the Ts and Cs you should.

4thly: How to choose which group buying site to advertise on

There are some key things to consider when deciding which group buying site to advertise on:

  • How much is it going to cost you?
  • How long do they hold onto the money before you get it? (Google’s entry is likely to speed this up – they’re planning on paying most of the money within 3 days!)
  • How many people do they have signed up in your area?
  • What other sort of deals have worked on their site, and are these for similar products to yours?

 

So, lots of information there about group buying site – if you think we’ve missed anything please comment below. And we’d love to hear how you get on with this too.

Filed Under: Advertising, General Marketing, News, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

New Facebook Profile pages – what are the Facebook profile changes and what are the implications for Facebook advertisers?

08/12/2010 By Leave a Comment

Facebook unleashed its new profile page this week. With Facebook being the most popular website in the world, the Facebook profile page is arguably one of the most important web page designs ever, so any changes don’t come lightly. Facebook’s culture has never been to sit back and stick with what’s already working as any Facebook user will know, so what are the changes this time?

The New Facebook Profile Changes

  • Quick Overview – At the top of the profile page there is now a condensed paragraph of information which includes where you’ve studied, where you live / hometown, where you work etc. [Read more...]
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New Powerful Linkedin Tool, Company Pages

16/11/2010 By Leave a Comment

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Linkedin, the world’s largest professional network with over 80 million members worldwide, have launched a powerful new tool, Company Pages, to help companies attract new customers by showcasing products, services and recommendations to their followers.

In terms of features Company Pages offers a lot more than the Company “Profiles” of the past. Companies can now create products and services tabs (including video) that showcase their various offerings. They can also create products and services pages for up to 5 different categories including industry, geography, job/role and company size and/or rank. In addition to these features, users can submit twitter feeds, publicise blogs/vacancies/news mentions/employee data and access basic analytics on followers (providing they are logged in as an administrator).

Perhaps the most important new feature is the Recommendations facility, which is the Linkedin version of Facebook’s “Like” button. This facility enables Linkedin members to leave comments regarding a company’s products and services. Company employees/representatives can then either delete these comments or respond to them. The recommendations facility also allows companies to ask for recommendations.

Linkedin believe that Company Pages will help to bring brands to life by showcasing them in an environment professionals turn to when making critical decisions. They also believe that by making it easy for employees and customers to become brand ambassadors, Company Pages will help grow businesses virally through word of mouth advertising.

Only time will tell whether Linkedin’s beliefs come to fruition. Either way it’s certainly a step in the right direction and perhaps somewhat overdue considering the progress made by other social networks.

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Twitter Advertising – not in the UK yet…

06/08/2010 By 1 Comment

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How to monetise twitter has been a pondering point for many over the last couple of years. With the wide variety of software via which people access twitter – it’s not like they can add adverts to the side like Youtube, Facebook, or the search engines do.

So I guess they’ve reached the kind of obvious solution – sell tweets.

For the last few months (in the US only at the moment) twitter have been trialling 3 types of advertising:

  • Promoted Tweets – where you pay to get your tweet to the top of the results
  • Promoted Trending Topics – paying to place your choice of trending topic on the right hand bar (see this blog for information on the first one)
  • EarlyBird – twitter.com/earlybird which is a twitter account that tweets about fast moving commercial deals

As yet there aren’t any case studies on whether these are working for brands or not, plus we don’t yet know if these are the ad tools Twitter will be rolling out to the UK. So watch the web for more updates!

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Twitter Advertising News

04/05/2010 By Leave a Comment

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Following in the footsteps of Google and Facebook, Twitter has launched an advertising service that will let top brands such as Starbucks and Sony have their Tweets show up in the top of search results. This marks a first attempt by the service to monetise its user base. [Read more...]

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