Category: News & Trends

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Know Your Cost Per Acquisition to Be Profitable with AdWords

To use pay per click advertising successfully you really need to know what your cost per acquisition is or rather how much you are willing to spend to get a new customer and still have profit left over. Without knowing your cost per acquisition, you can actually be paying Google AdWords for each new customer sale you make or each new customer your get. Google will work hard to spend your money, but it is your job to make AdWords profitable for you.

So, do you know how much it costs for each customer? How to you figure this out? A lead conversion in Google AdWords does not mean a sale. The formula for each business is different. One of my clients told me that for their business, it takes 10 leads to make a sale. Typically the higher the value or price of your service, the more lead conversions you will need to make a sale.

AdWords will track the lead conversions for you, but you need to track sales generated and each month look at the sales generated, total spent on advertising in all areas and then extrapolate to determine your cost per acquisition. In some cases when clients review this information they find which avenue is a better lead generator for their business or that one is more cost effective to use than another. Without this additional information and careful review, you may be spending more than you should on generating new business.

Once you know your desired or average cost per acquisition, Google AdWords has some excellent tools to help balance your traffic and cost per click to keep you within your profit restraints. The conversion optimizer with a maximum cost per acquisition setting is an excellent tool. You can balance what you want to spend with what Google recommends. Remember however that Google is in the business to serve clicks and you need conversions and sales so make sure that the setting you use does not stretch your margin too tightly.

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Are You Watching Your Website Stats? Why Not?

You can’t find out if your website is working for you if you never take a look at your website statistics! It is great to have a website and every business should have one, but sometimes just having one is not enough. Sometimes you need to “nurture” and “feed” your website to help it be the best promotion vehicle in your advertising arsenal.

When I say “nurture” and “feed” your website I mean specifically know what your website visitors are looking for when they come to visit, how long they stay, and what they do when they get there. I have found in many cases by a careful analysis of website statistics will allow us to recommend new pages, optimization, and areas for enhanced engagement with readers. Here’s just one example: from the integrated web search report we get for a client we found over and over that users were searching for a specific product. Based on this information, to make it easy for them to find it and to feed sales, we created new content on the home page to speak to this need and point readers to the shopping and more information sections on the product. In other cases, reviewing Google Analytics, we have found new search terms to use for optimization of content, new terms for AdWords programs, and services that readers are looking for and possibly not finding.

One key indicator to review in Google Analytics is a page’s bounce rate. Over 75% and you have some challenges that you need to address as your readers are not finding what they want or you are directing untargeted traffic to the page with pay per click programs and may need to add negative keywords to your program to cut costs and be more targeted.

A careful review of  your website statistics can be used to really review your online health. It is more than a gage of how many visitors you have a day, the wealth of information can help you develop new services, cater to an audience, and more carefully target pay per click advertising. As Google Analytics is free, there is simply no reason you should not be tracking and reviewing what is going online with your website.

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Smartphones Are Changing the World as We Know It

We thought that the invention of the Internet was the most life changing thing to happen in our lifetime, but I am here to tell you that smartphones are the next big change driver. It just takes a few weeks of using a smartphone to know that the Web will never be the same and that the future is in the integration of the Mobile Web with the Internet.

In fact while you are reading this post, I will be up in NYC using my smartphone to help my family navigate the subways, find places to eat, secure tickets to events, and follow an itinerary mapped out by an Android application called  mTrip. I consider my Motorola DroidX smartphone such a revolutionary tool that my head is simply spinning with the future possibilities.

Here’s just an example of what I mean when I say smartphones are revolutionizing the world.

  • I downloaded mTrip. Planned our NYC itinerary with it. Used it to actually plan out each day based on activity level, types of things we were interested in, and our dates of visit, and location. We are able to follow an itinerary, get directions to get us from one location to another by walking or subway. We can find shops or places to eat by simply clicking virtual view and then holding the phone out and turning in a circle. Highlights appear on the screen over images shown on the phones camera. Click a highlight and see photos of the restaurant interior, pricing, menu, and even review specials or discounts.
  • I downloaded the subway maps for NYC so we could see the stop names by line and even watch for service delays by train or line number. There’ll be no delays for my group, we will simply work around the problems.
  • I browsed for several other travel apps like tripadvisor, GuidePal, and other NYC subway apps. With nearly one click I now have phone numbers, locations, and even coupon codes for dining specials.
  • On top of that we won’t ever be lost as I have Google Maps and full navigation on my Droid. What better way to be an out of town traveler than to have all the information you need in your pocket or purse for a terrific experience based on what you want to see and do.

With information at your fingertips where ever you are with your smartphone you are connected to the world. I consider this technology revolutionary in scope and know that the Mobile Web for smartphones will forever change our world for the better.

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How to Sync Outlook on Your Motorola Droid X Phone

This past week I bought a Motorola Droid X mobile phone. I wanted to have a portable office so I can go anywhere yet be working. Well, kinda of working. My biggest question was how to connect Outlook and my Outlook calendar with my new Droid phone. I have tested a few applications this week and wanted to share my experience with you.

Google Apps for Business
Actually I unloaded this application after I got it to work, but for larger offices this may be a very practical solution. With an Outlook plugin, you can see your email, calendar, and contacts on your mobile phone. Google works to sync your info to GMail and then your phone grabs it from there. With a $50 a year single user fee it is very practical. For me, I found the program however intrusive. It set up a second mail profile which after I unloaded it I was stuck with. The settings are complicated so don’t do set up on a weekend when there is no phone support.

CompanionLink for Outlook
I had hoped that this would be the perfect solution for me. One click syncing. I downloaded the free 14 day trial and had an endless look as the software tried to sync Outlook. I was willing to be patient for the first time sync but the menu did not give me an idea of what was happening, to me it appeared stuck. Price for this one is $39.99, but I unloaded it too.

Google Calendar Sync
Okay, now I am back to free. I was willing to pay, but just could not get everything to work properly. I set up a calendar with my GMail account, then I downloaded the calendar sync software. This was pretty easy. Allow several hours for all your appointments to appear in the calendar online which then your phone can grab. For me it took about two or three hours for the events to appear and in the meantime, I was sure it was not working. I recommend setting it up and then leaving it to work over night. In the morning all your appointments will be on both Outlook and your Droid.

The Rest of the Story
Okay so what did I do about mail and contact syncing? Well I set up my Droid to download my mail from my servers making sure that my desktop Outlook was set to leave a copy on the server. Then I manually loaded my cleaned up address book to GMail. It was cake to export a .csv file from Outlook and cake to load it to GMail. So now I am totally synced office to phone and phone to office.

If you are holding back from getting a smart phone due to the complication to figure out how to sync, learn from my trials and just start the easy way. Sometimes simple is best!