The excellent Brad Geddes, Google-approved AdWords Seminar Leader and Friend-of-Trada, published an article in Search Engine Land this week: 8 Quick Ways to Increase Your AdWords CTR.

Lionhearted world travelers Anna Sawyer and Matt Hessler were so impressed with the article, they called in from their trip to Brooklyn, NY, home of groundbreaking rapper Biggie Smalls.

In this episode of Internet Ads Update, Matt and Anna comment and offer additions to Brad’s tips and (respectfully!) disagree with one of his CTR-boosting methods.

EXCITING BONUS FEATURE! Subscribe and listen to the podcast for a chance to win a $25 Amazon.com giftcard!

As always, we want to rap our love for your questions and topic suggestions. Leave them in the comments or email us at podcast@trada.com!

Have questions about Trada? Sign up for our webinar this Tuesday. One lucky attendee will win a $100 gift card!

Guest post by Marianne Pratt

More and more businesses of all types are taking advantage of pay-per-click advertising. But it can be daunting, especially if you’re trying to go it alone. You need to learn the language, the mechanics of how it all works and – most especially – the nuances of each step that will help you put PPC to work most profitably.

So maybe you’re just starting out. Or perhaps you’re already working in the PPC environment and have hands-on experience with AdWords, in which case it’s time to delve deeper or learn about the latest AdWords updates direct from the source.

Wherever you are in this continuum, you can gain the knowledge you need by studying toward Google AdWords Professional certification. [Read more...]

Guest post by Marianne Pratt

“Retargeting advertising” is a phrase that may seem rather mind-boggling at first, but it’s actually a subject you should get to know better.  “Retargeting” refers to using  sophisticated online targeting technology to repeatedly put your brand in front of searchers who have already shown an interest in your products or services but who have not yet become paying customers.

Because retargeting advertising campaigns are behavior-based and extremely refined, this relatively new marketing technique is growing in popularity with all types of marketers – both publishers and advertisers, especially retailers.

How retargeting advertising works.

• You visit XYZ website to investigate a product, maybe even go so far as to put something in your shopping cart, but you don’t buy anything.
• While you’re there, the XYZ website marks your computer with a “cookie” it then uses to track your online activity for the next several days or even weeks.
• As you continue to search, you see ads appear for XYZ’s product that you viewed.
• Is this a coincidence?  Not at all — you’re being retargeted.  It’s a very deliberate effort by marketers to stay visible and available to prospects.  Using retargeting keeps your brand and products top-of-mind, to attract browsers back and ultimately convert them to customers. [Read more...]

Search Plus Your World is causing quite the kerfuffle since its US release last week, and we’re being bombarded with burning questions! How does it work? How can I, as a marketer, capitalize on Search Plus Your World? And is this just a slippery slope toward a dystopian alternate-universe future where the education we get from the internet is inconsistent with that of others’ and is subject to factors outside of our control?!

In this 8-minute podcast, intrepid world-travelers Matt Hessler and Anna Sawyer call in from their trip around the world to offer practical advice for digital marketers. This week, they’re in orbit above New Zealand in the International Space Station with a macro view of the potential effects Search Plus Your World will have on Planet Earth. They cover:

- How does Search Plus Your World work?
- What does it mean to marketers?
- What are steps marketers can take to protect their place in the organic and paid search rankings?

As always, your comments, topic suggestions and compliments are like the rich oxygen that fills our lungs. Leave them in the comments or email us at podcast@trada.com!

Recently Mark Suster wrote a great post on how to use people’s time wisely. I could not agree more. As anyone in Boulder will tell you, the best thing about Boulder is the humility of its community. Everyone is open to meeting anyone else. It’s one of the things I love the most about being here and fundamentally believe it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep the community flywheel spinning.

As Trada is one of the bigger startups in Boulder now, I get asked to meet a lot with people about their ideas, startups, sales plans, and funding strategies. In general, I love doing this. I think it’s a privilege that anyone thinks I have something of value to share. Some weeks I have 5-8 meetings that have nothing to do with my business (if you want to find me it’s a safe bet to show up to Ozo or Jill’s at 8:30am on most weekdays). Some weeks it’s the other way around. After 100s of these meetings, some awesome, many painful and most in between I put together a little do and don’t list of my own. Some of this is a follow on to Mark’s post and some is an extension of what Brad Feld wrote a while ago about asking for his time.  I’ll make the same caveat that everyone else who writes this kind of post makes: while some of these may sound petty and frankly some may sound like rants (who the hell does this guy think he is!), what I’m really trying to share is how to engage someone without creating unnecessary friction so you get the most out of their attention and time.

• Ask the person how they like to meet

I like breakfast. I like it because it gets me out of bed early and it allows me push the start of my day off a little bit. I can think about your questions and challenges much better if I haven’t slid into thinking about mine at the office yet. This is why I dislike meeting people for lunch and almost always refuse after-work drinks and/or dinner. I’m in my Trada zone the minute I step into the office. This sustains until I crawl into bed. Some people are the total opposite: they covet their morning time and are happy to take a break at lunch. The point is – ask the person what they prefer and respect what they tell you. It’s frustrating when I say “I’d like to do breakfast” and someone incessantly asks me to “Go have a beer” with them. A little fact about me: I don’t drink during the week, not even a beer. I save it for the weekend.

[Read more...]

This week had one very intense meeting for Trada. Was it an intense corporate strategy meeting or was Tim Mayer leading our team in fantasy football recruitment? Look at the picture and be the judge.

So what great marketing articles caught our eye this week?

• Using Google Analytics to Uncover Hidden Problem Areas by Lisa Barone. Good, simple tips on understanding where you might be leaking sales or leads.
• How to Strategically Analyze Your Competition’s PPC Campaigns by Andrew Davis. A quick and dirty guide to spying on your competitor’s paid search campaigns.
• EARTHQUAKE! Rare Tremors in Northeast Shake Up Twitter by Elisa Gabbert. Great examples of how Twitter is changing real-life mentions of Twitter.
• Trademark Issues w/ PPC? Ways to Take Back Your Brand by Lisa Raehsler. Fantastic tips on how to handle if someone is buying PPC ads on your branded terms.
• How to Market Your Business on Twitter by Elaine Ellis. Advice on using Twitter in marketing from Qdoba Mexican Grill, Ignite Boulder, Web 2.0, ModCloth and Kapost. Leave a comment with your own tip on using Twitter, and the best comment will win a $75 gift certificate from Amazon.
• Social Media Budget Blunders (and How to Avoid Them) by Kerry Jones. You get what you pay for, and that includes social media.
• 6 Keyword Research Mistakes You Might be Making by James Agate. “It is better to have a bigger slice of a few smaller pies rather than not getting even a slither of a much bigger pie.” Be realistic on the terms you can rank for.

Hi there blog readers! Hope you’re having a good week. The end of Trada’s abysmal softball team is coming to an end, so we’re in talks to start up an abysmal basketball or hockey league.

• 11 Google Plus Predictions from 11 Social Media Pros – We read this one with bated breath because as our Facebook poll (above) showed us, not too many people are actively involved with Google+. Tamar Weinberg has what I feel is the most accurate prediction: “I think it’s really dependent on Google+ getting those business pages ready. Once that’s made, the businesses that get started will have a leg up on their competition. If you snooze, you lose. Early adopters always see a lot of success.”

Put on these sneakers, drink this nice drink, and submit to the conversions.

• More Conversions Than a Kool-Aid Cult: Using Mind Control to Boost Your Lead Gen Conversion Rate! by @annafsawyer – Our own Anna Sawyer participates in the Unbounce Conversion Fest blog contest. Please check it out – it’s funny and informative!
• What today’s startups can learn from yesterday’s marketing by @bradmccarty – Lessons from companies that nailed marketing in years past.
• Wordstream introduced an AdWords grader. Finally, the PPC counterpoint for Hubspot’s website grader.
• Microsoft Keeps Chipping Away at Google’s Search Market Share by @mattrosoff. Always interesting to see how the competitive landscape of the search networks is changing. Even more interesting that “Microsoft’s Online group lost $2.6 billion on revenue of only $2.5 billion.”
• More Conversions Than a Kool-Aid Cult: Using Mind Control to Boost Your Lead Gen Conversion Rate by Trada’s @annafsawyer. A humorous look at how to increase conversion rates
• 5 Strategies for Improved A/B Testing by Trada’s Chief Strategy Officer @timmayer. Tim wrote a great piece on being smart about your A/B testing. If you’re a web nerd, you’ll love it.

Hope everyone had a great week! Here at Trada, our softball team put up its 10,336 straight loss. But this week isn’t a net loss because our account manager, Dan Tisser, brought in his toaster to Trada. It’s a pleasant addition to have toast in the morning.

Now onto the weekly best online marketing articles.

• Leveraging your SEO for Search Retargeting by Joanna Lord (@joannalord). An in-depth how-to article on how to use your search retargeting and SEO together.
• Beware the SEO copywriting B.S. – 3 tips about these online tips. Heather Lloyd Martin provides three ways to determine how legitimate the SEO expert advice you’re reading actually is. One excellent point to remember is what works for one company might not work for you.
• Paid, Earned, Owned & Shared Media – What’s Your Online Marketing Media Mix by Lee Odden (@leeodden). A 30,000 foot view of each media type. It’s important to think about each component of your content strategy.
• Quality Fans & EdgeRank = Recipe for Visibility by Selena Narayanasamy (@esvienne). Selena covers in this blog post everything you need to know about Facebook’s algorithm that determines who your updates.
• Mind the Bid-to-CPC Gap in Paid Search by Mark Ballard. A thorough post on what to do when your CPCs are coming in below your bids (woot!) but you know you might be leaving additional revenue behind. This post walks you step by step on when (and if) you should raise your bid.
• Venture Deals by Jason Mendelson and Brad Feld – It’s not just because they invested in Trada that makes them so smart. These two know venture deals inside out and offer a refreshing and realistic take on all the ins and outs of venture financing. If you’re a startup, this is a must read. As one Amazon review said, “First off, Brad & Jason break down the entire process from soup to nuts. That’s great for first-time entrepreneurs. I wouldn’t be surprised if this book became the bible of startup incubator programs. There’s enough detail to make it feel fresh, but it’s not so dense that it’s hard to get through.”

(Photo courtesy of Flickr user Ella Thomson. We have no idea who the baby is but we think her parents should read her PPC for Beginners.)

A weekly roundup of the best online marketing articles that caught our eye this week. As always, leave a comment or share with us on Twitter (@Trada) your favorite posts. Also, this weekend Trada is running a giving away an autographed copy of Sex on the Moon by Ben Mezrich on our Facebook page. Ben is the author of The Accidental Billionaires, the inspiration for the Oscar winning Social Network. To win a copy, just write the best PPC headline for an ad to sell Sex on the Moon on our Facebook page or in the blog comments.

Onto the articles:

• How Bing’s Editors Choose Sexy Images to Seduce You Away From Google by Austin Carr (@austincarr). I love the Bing images, so this is a fun look to see how they’re picked. Also, Austin writes a lot of really interesting content about the search networks that you won’t find elsewhere, so be sure to check out his work at Fast Company.
• What Are the Key Metrics for Brand Awareness Campaigns In An Automated Buying Environment? from @AdExchanger. A good look at metrics to install when running a branding campaign in an automated buying environment. Great perspective from the experts.
• Maximize Social Media Traffic to Your Blog by David Cowling (@smn_australia). Some interesting tips from David on getting additional social media traffic to your blog.
• Search StumbleUpon With New Explore Feature by Brent Csutoras (@brentcsutoras). I love StumbleUpon. I used to use it to bookmark all my favorite DIY projects or recipes I loved until Pinterest popped up. Anyway, StumbleUpon is making it that much easier to find the content you’re interested in phrases you’re interested in (still in beta). And if you’re not paying attention to StumbleUpon, don’t overlook them. They can be a huge driver of traffic.
• 360i’s Report on Social Commerce: Daily Deals – 360i is doing a summer series on social commerce, and this fourth report is about Daily Deals. The market is saturated with new daily deals and for a business, it can be hard to understand all of your options This 8-page report gives a brief introduction to all of the possibilities.
• Friday Five: Social Media Lessons from Startups by Zach Cole (@ZachACole) – Edelman Digital features quick five lessons each Friday on their blog. This blog takes lessons from startups on social media marketing. Great lesson from Crowdbooster - “Speedy and transparent responses to customer inquiries can build a brand’s credibility and enhance the trust people have in it.”

Also, be sure to check out Trada’s post on how to improve your quality score.

Thanks to those of you who stopped by the Trada booth at MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Forum in Austin last week.

We loved meeting you and sharing how Trada, the world’s first and only crowdsourced pay-per-click marketplace, is changing how companies are running PPC on Google and Yahoo/Bing.

On February 16^th , we invite you to join us for a special B2B webinar chock-full of PPC tips for you to put to use!  There is limited space, please register today!

And now…. the results of our Gumball Guessing Contest!

If you entered our gumball guessing contest, we’re sure you’re anxious to know the answer….

47 entries

(the lowest number we’ve ever had!)

highest guess: 7,239

lowest guess: 312

average guess: 1,299

How many gumballs were there? Drumroll please!

1,247 Total Gumballs!

And the crowd wins again!

Beth Cail, you win a $50 iTunes gift card for having the closest guess.

Good eye!

What have we learned?  Well, that many heads really ARE better than one! We use this same concept with PPC advertising- applying the diverse thinking of a crowd of experts to revolutionize paid search.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about Trada’s PPC marketplace, please email us at sales@trada.com or talk to a person directly and call (877) 871-1835.

Interested in working the Trada Marketplace as PPC expert?

Read our top 5 reasons to join the crowd.

Near New Orleans? Need an excuse to go? Trada be at ERA’s Great Ideas Summit, March 1st and 2nd. See you there!