There are numerous benefits to employing a Search Marketing firm to manage your company's Pay Per Click advertising. Two of the bigger benefits that easily come to mind are time-management and professional assistance.

Pay Per Click campaigns should be monitored multiple times throughout each day. If a merchant is going to be successful online, he or she will be responsible for many hours each week managing bid changes, writing and adding new advertising copy, reconfiguring daily, weekly, and monthly budget figures, and reviewing and acting on analytics data. There is a lot to do, and very little time to do it... especially if the merchant is a single-person or smaller operation.

In addition to that, PPC marketers spend a great deal of their time learning. We read industry focused blogs and newsletters, test new products and services offered by the search engines, and attend several yearly PPC seminars and conferences. Therefore, when you employ a Search Marketing firm to manage your company's advertising you are essentially buying their wealth of advertising knowledge as well as their past years of experience in dealing with PPC accounts, platforms, strategies, and techniques. The resources that professional PPC managers bring to the table are endless and are typically without additional costs.

Employing a Search Marketing firm to manage your PPC advertising means having the peace of mind that your company's campaigns are being run correctly, in addition to now having the necessary time needed to effectively attend to the many other daily tasks associated with running an online business.

There are a number of software products that condense statistical information from multiple Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns and platforms (such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask) and provide it in one single place for merchants to compare and review efficiently. These kinds of software products are definitely helpful... at least in the sense that advertisers can now view the details of their accounts from one central location, but I'm not quite convinced that there's even a need to purchase such a program.

If you're like 90% of the PPC advertisers out there, you're no doubt using some sort of ROI tracking and analytics tool to measure conversions. In my opinion, this is all one needs to review data from multiple sources. At All Web Promotion, we use Conversion Analyst, KeywordMax, and Google Analytics to provide conversion data to our clients, and, in addition, these programs provide us with every bit of the same statistical information (clicks, costs, etc...) that these PPC managing software products do.

Why would anyone foot the bill for a service they're, in most cases, already paying for?

As common as these suggestions will sound, you'd be surprised to know how many PPC advertisers fail to understand even these few simple concepts. These suggestions may not apply well to every company, industry, or campaign, but I'm sure you'll find at least one to be useful in your Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing efforts.

• Don't Spread Your Budget Too Thin: Should your company have a small-to-medium sized PPC budget, it is best that you not divide it into too many parts... say Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask. Instead invest most, if not all, of your PPC budget into one search engine. Doing so will allow your company to adequately compete, in terms of getting top PPC positioning, in at least one front, as opposed to having borderline medium-level or poor positioning on all fronts.
  
  
• Advertise Where It Makes Sense: It's quite common to know that advertising specific industries on certain search engines may actually work better than others. Take for instance the finance industry (stocks, taxes, banking, and investing). Because of the sheer nature of the MSN audience, these companies are better suited to advertise on Microsoft's PPC platform as opposed to Yahoo's or Google's platform. And vise versa depending on other industries. I suggest that you review your advertising options thoroughly and determine which PPC providers provide the best return for your specific industry... then simply allocate your budget accordingly.
  
  
• Hit 'em High, and then Hit 'em Low: If your company's products or services happen to revolve around specific seasons or other set time frames, I recommend minimizing your PPC spend during "off-season" months while increasing spend just before and during "in-season" months. Dividing your budget as so for each of your campaigns (across all PPC platforms) will ensure that you have the necessary funding available for when advertising becomes the most profitable.

I open the floor to you readers. If you have an additional tip or suggestion that is easy to integrate and will help others in budgeting for multiple campaigns, I ask that you please share it with us. My "comments" feature is open and very easy to use.

Managing campaigns across multiple platforms can be a little problematic in the sense that a company has to create and maintain an internet presence at multiple locations (say Google, Yahoo! MSN, Ask, and any other PPC provider). This typically translates into a larger work-load and more advertising spend. However, the benefits certainly out-weigh any of the hassle that goes along with doing so.

The most obvious benefit to advertising with multiple search engines is the sheer amount of additional exposure a company will receive. Each major search engine has its own advertising network consisting of smaller search engines and website partners. With only a few buys, one can literally have their brand or message exposed to hundreds of millions of internet users daily... rather than being limited to the reach of just one search engine and its network.

The same pretty much applies for niche and vertical search engines. Pay Per Click advertising is all about being where your target audience is. Setting up local PPC campaigns or those campaigns that allow you to advertise in niche areas is another opportunity for a company to gain exposure. As with all forms of marketing, the more exposure an advertisement receives, the more leads it will be able to generate, which, in turn, could ultimately mean an increase in sales or conversions.

Check it out... a couple of weeks back I was interviewed by Ryan Welton, a staff writer for Practical eCommerce Magazine, for an article he was writing titled "Maintaining Sanity Amid Multiple PPC Campaigns". Ryan emailed me a few questions and I did my best to address them in a way that would be most useful for his article. Looks like I succeeded!

I'm happy to mention that Ryan's Article was featured in the latest edition of Practical eCommerce Magazine, and that I was one of a few quoted in the piece.

Here are a few of my blurbs that made the final cut:

Ryan did a great job outlining some useful tips and suggestions that I know many of you readers would benefit from. If you're interested in checking out the online version, you can do so here: Maintaining Sanity Amid Multiple PPC Campaigns.

This post is in regards to my recent write-up titled "Introducing the NEW AllWebMail". If anyone out there is willing to give AllWebMail a serious shot at putting together a targeted email marketing campaign, I have a few freebies to offer up as a token for being a loyal reader of this search marketing blog. Simply tell me or anyone else at All Web Promotion (your Yahoo! Store, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, or current Email Marketing account managers) on or before August 31, 2007 that you want the "Klog" discount for email marketing. It's that simple.

For qualified companies* with a pre-established email list:

1) A FREE Email Marketing Campaign: AllWebMail will create an email marketing campaign specifically tailored to a sale or promotion of your choice and send it out to your entire email address list. No hidden fees, and absolutely at no cost to you. Our goal is to simply show you how great our services are. We know that once you see the sales attributed to your campaign that you'll be back for more.

2) Waived Start-up Fees: After your FREE Email Marketing Campaign. AllWebMail will also waive the one-time start-up fee valued at over $150.00! This means no charge to generate custom email subscription code to place on your own website, no charge for initial database work to setup custom marketing fields in our mailing systems, and no charge for initial training and consulting to maximize your email marketing experience. There are no additional mark-ups and no requirements on how many campaigns you'll have to run. Whatever makes sense for your business model, whether its sending emails weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, or even yearly, the start-up fee waiver will apply.

For new online companies or companies without an email list:

1) FREE Integration and Use of our email collection script and form: AllWebMail will create a custom form tailored to the design and layout of your website, and integrate it onto your website. Our email collection script and form will allow your customers and website visitors to sign up to receive product updates or promotional emails... thus building a qualified email list to use in future email marketing campaigns.

2) Free Email Campaign & Waived Start-Up Fees: Once you've generated an appropriate amount of emails in your list, you'll be qualified to receive a FREE Email Marketing campaign and waived start-up fees on every campaign there after (the same deal explained above).

Seriously... these are some pretty sweet deals. If you have any questions on our newly adopted Email Marketing services or on any of these "Klog" specials or about Email Marketing in general, please feel free to contact me directly. If I can't address your questions, I will put you in touch with those who can.

* Qualified Companies: This offer represents a significant investment on All Web Promotion's behalf so we must limit this to companies/individuals whom, based on our experience, can materially benefit from email marketing and would therefore consider ongoing email marketing through All Web Promotion or another email service provider.

As a man that wears many hats and has quite a few affiliations in the search marketing arena let me first start this post by checking them at the door. I typically do this with every post anyway, but because of the sheer nature of this post I want everyone to be aware of it. The following words and opinions are my own and I certainly don't want to come across as blowing smoke up your asses and endorsing a product on the account of All Web Promotion. Even though that would be the smart thing for me to do (as they sign my pay checks)... I promise you all that this is not the case.

Ok... with that being said and now out of the way, let me tell you about All Web's newly revised AllWebMail Email Marketing services and how I believe it can benefit your online marketing efforts.

A week or so ago I sat in a meeting with Peter Roebuck, head of our Maryland office and Email Marketing services, as he presented the company's revised email marketing package in all its greatness. Actually, to be honest about the whole situation, the current package has been in affect for quite some time now, but it was only a week ago that it was presented in a way that we non-email marketing folks could understand it. I can honestly say that I have a new found respect for this service. I also learned that we've been doing email marketing for over 7 years! We have long-term clients that mail as frequently as 3 times a week and some that mail monthly or even quarterly. We have clients with less than 500 names on their email lists and some with more than 100,000 names.

First of all, if your company is one that has been online for years now and doesn't currently run targeted email marketing campaigns then I can say, without doubt, that you're missing out. In my opinion, email marketing is the best way to attract repeat business... which we all know is far more profitable and less costly than attracting new business leads. AllWebMail offers several packages, based on the number of emails you'll want to send (must already have an email list - we don't buy or sell lists), and can help you in your email marketing and repeat business efforts.

Second, if your company is new to the internet and has just recently launched a website (or will be launching a new site) now is the time to start thinking about email marketing and repeat business strategies. Seems kind of funny to be thinking about ways one can market to future "past-customers", when your online store isn't yet open for business, but I assure you, doing so can make a significant contribution to your website's success. AllWebMail has solutions to help new websites prepare for future email marketing campaigns, and can even offer solutions to help your company build-up and manage an email list consisting of your website's visitors and customers.

Click here for a printable PDF highlighting our services and our pricing structure.

And that's that. If you have any questions on our newly adopted Email Marketing services or about Email Marketing in general, please feel free to contact me directly. If I can't address your questions, I will put you in touch with those who can. I have put together the following few Q&A tidbits to address some of the more common questions that you'll all have.

So, how does AllWebMail work?
Well, like most email marketing solutions available today, AllWebMail utilizes your company's email list (those emails you've personally collected throughout the years - either from those who've placed orders on your website or have subscribed to other offerings you may have had) and market to them using emails that highlight your latest specials or promotions. The obvious goal here is to attain repeat business / sales from those that have already purchased or shown interest in your products or services. Talk about targeted marketing!

How does AllWebMail differ from other Email Marketing providers?
Simply put... pricing, quality, customization, and reporting. In every important aspect of email marketing... we're better. And that's not a line of bull or me showing a new found cockiness either... that's me being legit. We're better... and there's no other way to say it.

Pricing: We've always had an understanding of how important online marketing services are to an eCommerce website... especially for those little "Mom & Pop" stores. As with all our marketing and design services, our new email marketing services offer lots of value at very little cost.

Here's a snap-shot of our current Email Marketing pricing structure:

Quality: Our team is equipped with qualified designers, marketers, and technicians that are responsible for not only designing your email ad according to your promotion, but also for ensuring that your emails are delivered properly. Anyone can send out an email, we strive hard to ensure that your emails are delivered to the inbox and opened... something many email delivery companies fail at.

Customization: We understand that no 2 email marketing campaigns are the same, nor should they be developed the same. We have highly customizable email marketing platform that allows us the ability to do just about anything needed or requested. Past examples include: Sending by time-zone, A/B testing, text/HTML compliant emails, and more.

Reporting: We can offer you several different pre-mail and post-mail reports highlighting statistics on just how successful your email marketing campaign is. Everything from "bounce rate", "open rate", click-throughs, sales, deliverability by ISP (like AOL.com, Yahoo.com, Gmail.com), and so much more can be tracked for months after the launch of each email campaign.

How does AllWebMail handle bounced emails and unsubscribes?
Our system instantly removes people that ask not to receive further emails and more importantly, our systems automatically remove "bounced" emails that occur when an address becomes inactive. Removing inactive addresses is possibly the most important thing we can do as email marketers while continually massaging our relationships with the big ISPs like AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo and the rest. They all severely penalize email marketers for ongoing mailings to bad addresses.

How many Emails should we send out?
Like with most things... the more emails you have in a list the better your chances are of having a successful campaign. However, depending on your individual industry and the type of promotion you're going to run, small campaigns (1,000 emails or less) do have the potential to be successful. We recommend giving us a call to talk about your specific project... please note that if we don't feel an email campaign will work for you... we'll simply tell you so.

Does AllWebMail buy email lists on your behalf?
We do not, nor will we ever, sell email lists. It is our belief that the best email campaigns are those that utilize the emails that a company collects over time.

Do we sell or market to your Email List?
No... we do not sell nor market to the list of emails you provide us for your campaign. The emails we collect or email to on your behalf are yours and yours alone.

** UPDATE **
Click here for special discounts and waivers courtesy of the Klog blog.

Happy Friday to all of you out there in Klog Land... welcome to another edition of "open letter to the n00bs". In today's post, I will address some of the major concerns surrounding keyword research, as well as highlight methods for selecting the "right keywords" for your search engine optimization campaigns.

Before I begin, I want to take a second to mention that this is in fact the third installment in my "open letter to n00bs" campaign, and that you can view my two previous posts titled "How a Search Engine Works" and "How Search Engine Optimization Works" should you feel the need. And as before, I want to make mention that I use the term "n00bs" with the up-most respect to those of you whom are new or unfamiliar with the search marketing industry... this post is for you.

Choosing the right keywords for your search engine optimization campaign isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, it's quite the opposite... a very challenging task. There are so many details to consider and making even the slightest mistake could cause some really long-term headaches... not to mention profits. Yep... it's that important!

When deciding on which keywords to choose, you may find yourself asking such questions as these: "do I use the singular form of my keyword, the plural form, or does it even matter?", "do I include common misspellings?", "do I use brand-specific keywords or do I stick with more generalized options?", "how many keywords do I optimize per each page?.

These are all in fact very valid questions. However, like most things in the world of search marketing, there are no really easy answers that I can share. The truth is that answers will vary depending on the industry you're in as well as the type of goals you've set out to achieve with your SEO promotion. With that said, I've put together these few tidbits to help you:

Once you've got a grasp on those ideas, it's time to move on to the actual steps leading to the selecting of keywords. The following are some very simple steps that you can follow to help you in your keyword research efforts:

And that's that... a simple 3-step process for finding quality keywords for your search engine optimization campaigns. Please keep in mind that this is not the end all solution; rather one I believe will prove beneficial to those do-it-yourselfers, n00bs, and anyone else with limited resources.