If you offer advertising (or want to) on your business website or blogs, you may have been holding off because of the cost of using online ad management systems. Sure, there are “free” ad networks, but most of those don’t allow you full control over the ads that show up on your site. Google’s Ad Manager allows you to sell ads, but also to supplement those ads with ads from Google AdSense and other ad networks. TechCrunch has more information: Google Will Now Manage Your Website’s Ads, as well as Ad Operations Online: Google Ad Manager out of Beta; All AdSense Publishers Can Use It.
Internet Advertising
To PR or not to PR
There has been quite a lot of press lately about whether or not you need a PR firm for your business. At the top of the current buzz is a blog post Jason Calcanis, CEO of Mahaolo, wrote: Jason Calcanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company. An excerpt:
My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.
You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don’t need to be connected, and you don’t need to be a “name brand.” Silicon Alley Insider – Jason Calcanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company
Obviously this post has caused a bit of a storm of PR and marketing folks looking for blood. But the fact is that most small businesses (tech startups or otherwise) don’t have the budget for an expensive PR firm. Jason has some great tips that businesses of any size can put to use – whether or not you use a PR firm. An overview of the ten tips:
- Be the brand
- Be everywhere
- Always pick up the check — always
- Be a human being
- How to bond with a journalist
- How a CEO should e-mail a journalist
- How a CEO should speak to a journalist
- Invite people to “swing by” your office
- Attach your brand to a movement
- Embrace small media outlets
Do you have your own tips for PR? Please share in the comments….
PPC Advertising
PPC or pay per click advertising is an Internet advertising model where advertisers only pay when visitors click on their ads. These types of ads are typically found in search engine sponsored listings such as Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN adCenter, but can also be found in many advertising networks as well as content networks for the search engines. Here are some terms and concepts you should be aware of if you’re considering PPC advertising:
- keyword bidding – Many ad networks and search engines use keyword bidding to help decide which ads should be shown for a particular keyword. Usually you can set a maximum bid for what you are willing to spend.
- CPC (Cost per Click) – How much it will cost per click. Set either through keyword bidding or a rate card.
- Clicks – How many times your ad has been clicked on. Visitors clicking on your ad should go to a landing page (see below).
- Impressions – How many times your ad has been viewed. Impressions also have value since there is some branding effect so make sure you include your company or product name in the ad.
- CTR (Click Through Rate) – The percentage of clicks you are getting related to the number of times your ad is viewed (impressions).
- click fraud – Abusive clicks by competitors or others intended to drive up the cost of the ad in question. Most PPC ad vendors have sophisticated anti-click fraud systems in place, but this is something you should verify before advertising with any vendor.
- Content targeting or Contextual Ad – PPC ads also show up on websites near content (a content network). Ads which relate to content being seen are more likely to be clicked upon.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Attempts to increase the visibility of a website on search engines through multiple methods, including search engine optimization (SEO) and paid inclusion (PPC).
- Landing Page – To run an effective PPC campaign, you need to send the traffic from the ad to a landing page which has all the information the visitor needs (make sure you cover what was in the ad), as well as some sort of call to action (this is where you offer them something free in return for their contact information – lead or directly to a sale page). Your landing page needs to be specifically tailored to the ad in question, don’t just dump people to your homepage – they’ll quickly leave and you’ll be paying for it.
Did we miss anything? Please submit any terms or concepts we missed in the comments. Thanks!
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