Friday, April 20, 2012

Mobile Paid-Search Clicks, Ad Spends Climb

Mobile devices are quickly changing the landscape of paid search advertising, according to a recent report from Marin Software. Both click-throughs and advertising spends are climbing for paid search on mobile devices. Marin Software found advertisers grew their share of search budget on mobile devices from 3.4% to 8.7% in 2011, and the company expects that, by December 2012, mobile devices will account for 25% of all paid-search clicks and 23% of search budgets. Smartphone and tablet users not only have higher click rates than desktop users but those clicks are cheaper. Smartphone clicks are approximately 36% cheaper and tablets 24% cheaper than desktop clicks. There's a caveat, of course: Conversions are lower on mobile than desktop. For more, see
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2163758/smartphones-tablets-changing-paid-search

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

'Surgical' Direct Mail Still Delivers B2B Profits

We hope you aren't like the business-to-business marketers recently described by Mac McIntosh, president of B2B consultancy Mac McIntosh Inc, in a chiefmarketer.com interview: "We have certain clients who can't be convinced to try direct mail because they tried it once with a rented list and didn't see success." If you are b2b direct-mail phobic, Mac has a remedy we'd like to pass along. The key to profitable direct mail is to use it more surgically in your marketing campaigns, he advises, by targeting certain segments at certain times with different types of pieces. For example, some tiers may respond best to three-dimensional mailers, while others show a boost from a postcard mailing. Mac cites "one client we work with who was doing primarily e-mail tested variable print mail — and got a 500% better response to the same names." For more advice on b2b tactics, see http://chiefmarketer.com/b2b/b2b-marketers-taking-fresh-look-dm-tactics