New Overture Sponsored Search

I do some of the daily PPC reporting for my company – collecting data from a  variety of sources, including Google Adwords and Overture Sponsored Search. NextStudent recently upgraded to Overture’s new (and thankfully improved) Sponsored Search analytics tool. I wanted to give Yahoo “props” on finally making their tool more user friendly! At this point, I’ve only used the Reporting section of the upgraded tool but I have to say that it is far superior to the old program. The old system constantly gave me errors of all sorts when I tried to run even the simplest of reports. The new system is both quick and user friendly! My only complaint thus far is that you are not able to customize the reports shown on the dashboard. Or at least, I have not yet found a way to do so.

If anyone has found a way to do this, I would very much appreciate some assistance. For example, I use the Performance report most frequently and the only thing it does not provide is Avg. Position. If I could find a way to add this data to the report I would be a very “happy camper” indeed!

Wii Will Rock You!

My company recently published an article about How to Throw the Ultimate College Wii Party! I was totally unaware of what Wii was before this article was written (I’ve seen a few commercials about it but like many of the drug commercials out now, you can be aware of the product name without having a clue about what the product actually is)! Funny enough though, I went to a house-warming party this weekend expecting a normal, rather dull gathering, and instead stumbled upon a bunch of people playing the coolest video games! Turns out..they were using the infamous Wii! Though we didn’t follow all of the sage advice provided by NextStudent, we all had a great time! I highly recommend getting one!

Email Subject Lines

Just a quick post – the end of my weekend is drawing close and I want to try and enjoy what’s left! I tried a few of my new subject lines last week and I’m very happy to report that they worked out very well. With one email, the open rate was almost 10% higher – which is outstanding in my world. The others did better as well though not quite as well! I will report to you all the methods I used next week!

I also wanted to thank the person who commented on my original email subject line post – he gave me a link to collection of great articles that proved very valuable.

Could You Be Haunted by your Blog?

I just read an article by Gerry McGovern that caused me to go back and read the posts on both of my blogs.  The basic premise of the article is this – Could my blog posts and comments come back to haunt me in the future? Could my current employer or any future employers use something that I have written against me? Will my future run for presidency be affected by something I am saying now? Like Mr. McGovern so aptly pointed out…a blog is NOT a conversation. It may seem like a conversation – many times you are posting on true conversations that took place in the past, things you have seen or heard, or simply imparting your opinion – but unlike most conversations, a blog post is a permanent record that could very well be used against you far into the future.

So next time you post, think about these things first: Could your comments be taken out of context? Is it something you would want your grandmother, mother, or future potential employer to see? Is it an impulse post or have you put some thought into it? Do you have your facts straight? Do you have something to say and are you saying it well??

Do this and you will never have to worry about being haunted by your blog!

Advertising Inquest

I was looking at some competitor emails the other day (a practice which I highly recommend for any company by the way) and came across one which was too horrible to describe! It was by a competitor (who I won’t name) that is huge compared to my company and a true name within the industry. I was amazed that they could distribute a marketing piece that was so poorly done. After I thought about it a bit though, I realized that because of their history, and because they are practically a household name within the industry, that they didn’t necessarily need to rely as much on their marketing skills.  Though I obviously don’t know this for sure, I would imagine that they rely a great deal on the fact that their name is known by almost everyone (especially as my industry is one in which trust is very important). Given the choice between a known name and anonymous Company B, most consumers would probably go with the familiar. This is obviously the reason why “brand” should always be a part of any marketing campaign.

I did have a second though that maybe some of you could help me with. If you agree with the concept above, why do companies like Coke for example, who are one of the biggest household names in the world, still spend billions of dollars on advertising (did anyone see their very creative commercials shown during the Superbowl?) I would think that there is no way they can increase their brand recognition at this point. If you are Coke fan, you will probably always be a Coke fan and chose Coke over Pepsi forever. The product does not change, so why market to such a degree? Do they create these great ads simply so that their advertising executives can show off their talents??

I would love some input on this, and please feel free to tell me if I’m wrong!