Auto Parts Retailer's Mobile Response Kills Print Ads

The power of mobile advertising was impressively demonstrated recently by Advance Auto Parts, a retailer previously relying on print ads and TV to drive online and in-store sales, reported Business Insider. Advance Auto Parts ran a promotion simultaneously in print and online, offering digital coupons through RetailMeNot. The auto parts retailer reaped a redemption rate for mobile coupon ads of 30%, compared to less than 1% for the print ads. "While they reached less people with [the mobile ads], the [return on investment] for them was great and the ability to target for them was great," Jag Bath, senior vice president of product at RetailMeNot, told Business Insider. The mobile coupon success for a traditional brand also shows the effectiveness of mobile beyond the Internet-savvy younger audience, Bath added. "It isn't just about millennials," he asserted. "Mobile offers can drive foot traffic for more traditional, established brands like Advance Auto Parts." For the story, see http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-coupons-are-killing-print-advertising-2013-11

How to Rev Up Your PPC Campaigns

If you're a typical small to mid-sized business, you're likely wasting 25% of your pay-per-click marketing budget, according to a MarketingProfs report on a study by search software provider WordStream. So where's your PPC effort leaking dollars? WordStream graded the PPC activity of 500 small to mid-sized businesses in terms of account activity, ad relevancy, keyword optimization, landing page quality and mobile search to come up with five fixes for more traffic, leads and sales. Some takeaways: 1) Make mobile PPC best practices a top priority and get ahead of the over 80% of AdWords accounts that fail to create mobile-preferred ads; 2) Create market-relevant, call-to-action landing pages with conversation tracking instead of relying on a generic home page or single landing page; 3) Improve text writing and relevancy for better click-through and Google quality scoring, and watch your cost per click drop by as much as 50% and your cost per action by up to 80%; 4) Optimize your keywords with strategies like lower-CPC long-tail keywords, modified broad match keywords, and negative keywords; 5) Increase your commitment to PPC by spending at least 20 minutes a week on optimizing your Adwords account. The gain in 2014 from such fixes? Just looking at markets that AccuList USA frequently serves -- multichannel retail, automotive, computer and electronics, education, B2B and insurance -- the study estimated optimized PPC to annually yield 569 more product sales, 273 more vehicle test drive appointments, 211 added enterprise software inquiries, 202 more student inquiries, a 157 gain in B2B supplier leads, and 126 additional insurance quotes. For a helpful infographic, go to http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2013/11993/five-ways-to-give-your-ppc-advertising-an-extreme-makeover-infographic