It all comes down to math. Dust off your calculators and let's look at a pretend business that sells widget X.

Keyword: widget X
Cost-per-click (CPC) for "widget X": $1
Average clicks per day: 10
Conversion rate (in this case, the number of people who come to the site and purchase the product): 5%
Profit from each sale of widget X: $10

Let's do the math:
Cost: $10/day = $300/month = 300 clicks
Conversions/month (at 5%) = 15
Profit = $150

YIKES! We spent $300 to make $150! Not a great business model (unless you're the government). 

Here's the secret to Google Adwords: you have to make the math work.

Have no fear – all is not lost for our fictional widget maker. We can change any one of a number of variables to make it Google Adwords a much more viable – even profitable – option for the company. Here are just a few:

• One thing we didn't factor in is the average lifetime value of a customer. Let's say the average customer buys one widget X every month from us. So, our profit would jump to $1,800 from our original $300 investment. Bueno!
• Let's say we can do a better job with the landing page, the page visitors are directed to when they click the ad. Optimizing this page can make a huge difference. If we can increase that to a 10% conversion rate = 30 widgets sold = $300. We'll break even. If we can even sell two widgets a year to the customer, it's been worth it.
• What if we could find a way to get a lower cost-per-click? There are some creative ways to lower your CPC, including finding undiscovered, undervalued keywords. For example, instead of bidding on the "widget x" keyword, you find less competition on "best widget." If that keyword costs $0.50, it would cost you $150 to make $150 with the same conversion rate.

You can quickly see how being able to improve any of these variables can greatly make or break a campaign. It is, quite literally, the difference between profitability and losing money.

I think most marketers today have a puppy problem. Everyone loves a puppy – they're fun, cute and playful. Just look at the above picture of Asher (aka, the world’s cutest dog). 

I had the opportunity to puppy-sit Asher, and he actually taught me a lot about marketing. I would pull out a toy and he would get super-excited. I could almost hear him say, "OMG!!!! That's my favorite toy! I love it, I love it, I love it!" Different toy, same reaction: "OMG!!!! That's my favorite toy! I love it, I love it, I love it!"

Too many marketers have this puppy problem. So often, we miss the big basics because we’re chasing the next trend – Pinterest, Vine, Reddit, etc. For CMOs, this can mean getting seriously off-task, wasting time and, potentially, your company’s money. So what’s really important for CMOs when it comes to technology?

1. Know your audience.

Women are more likely to use Pinterest. Instagram has a younger audience. It's simple: different audiences use online tools differently. Find out where your customers are and start there. Quantcast.com has a lot of great tools that provide demographic information about visitors to specific websites (the image below shows such data for Facebook users).

Or take a look at how visitors are getting to your website using Google Analytics. If you're more likely to get a sale from Facebook than Twitter, it's a no-brainer to spend more time with Facebook. But you should also do it the old-fashioned way: talk to your customers. If you have a brick and mortar store, ask people that come in. If you have an email list, send out a small survey.

2. Test, measure and adjust.

This should seem obvious, but it's VERY often overlooked. I've met with several clients who were enthusiastically trying out QR Codes, without implementing any way to evaluate their effectiveness. You can track traffic from QR codes (and Facebook ads, digital ads, etc.), using Google's URL builder.

3. K.I.S.S.

In the trite but true category: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Just because technology can be complicated, doesn't mean that it should be. Too often, brands try and accomplish too many goals with one campaign or initiative. Focus on one main goal, instead of having a convoluted campaign that no one can follow. 

4. Do something!

The most successful CMOs are the ones that can identify long-term trends, such as social media and mobile, experiment personally (for example, don't expect massive results from Pinterest if you don't have an account set up for yourself) and test professionally.

When it comes to marketing technology, no one wants to be left behind, which makes it easy to be puppy-like -- and ultimately unproductive -- in how we approach the many tools out there. You can avoid chasing your tail by remembering the Big Basics:

• Know Your Audience
• Test, Measure Adjust
• K.I.S.S.
• Do Something!

This season’s flu is the worst it has been in decades. How do we know, without even calling the CDC or thousands of hospitals? Simple: Google.

Google tracks the number of people that go to Google.com and search for flu-related terms (“body aches,” “high fever,” “Tamiflu,” etc.) and aggregates the information. In theory, the more prevalent the flu is, the more people will be searching for it – just as more people search for coats in the winter. Of course, more people search for the word “flu” during flu season, but does it actually correlate with real-world occurrences of the flu? Google worked with the CDC to compare search volume of flu-related terms with the actual number of cases of the flu.

It turns out search volume in Google is highly correlated with actual cases as reported by the CDC, as the graph above demonstrates. However, search data is near real-time, where reporting from hospitals across the world can take months to collect. The ability to quickly identify outbreaks of the flu (which can be measured even at a city level) can save lives.

The ability to sift through this kind of information and draw conclusions, develop insights and make decisions is known as big data. And you’re probably familiar with it even if you’ve never heard the term. It’s how Obama’s technology team helped him win re-election and blogger Nate Silver accurately predicted all 50 states in that same election (when many pundits said it was “too close to call”).

The flu and politics are, obviously, important topics – ones in which big data can be a big deal. But what about marketing and advertising? At Balcom Agency, we use the same tools (Google Trends, among others) to discover how and when customers are searching for our clients’ products and services.

Let’s say that we want to see if our TV ads are moving the needle at all. We can look at overall search volume in comparison to our television buy. If advertising works, it will generate more demand and more people will search after they see the ad.

As you can see, the more people that saw the TV spots (impressions), the more interest (search volume) we generated. As a result, the client has decided to spend even more on television advertising and look closer at the analytics to discover new opportunities. 

There’s no doubt that big data can help you optimize your marketing and boost ROI. But before you go big or go home, remember that correlation doesn’t always equal causation. Ask questions, get details and never forget how important the human element still is when it comes to marketing. 

Yesterday, Facebook released new terms of service for their recently-aquired social media darling, Instagram. A couple of weeks ago, Facebook changed their privacy policy. What do you really need to know?

It's always good to know what you are signing up for, but you also have to realize that, unless you are paying for a service, the company will try (and be forced) to monetize it. Period. End of story. Facebook will monetize the content you post, so will Instagram, so will Twitter, so will Socioogle (wait for it, it will be huge).

Facebook's terms of service state that content can be used on the site per your privacy settings. For example, if you like Coke, Facebook can charge Coke to show your friends that you like Coke (and they should, too).

Instagram's new terms of service are a little more wide reaching. They state that you grant Instagram a perpetual and transferable license of all the public photos you upload to Instagram. In other words, you allow Instagram to sell your photos (if Instagram wants to), to advertising agencies like the Balcom Agency. This is the cause of many red flags from users.

Do I think that Instagram will do that? No. In fact, I believe that Instagram will revise their terms of service after this public outcry. If they do not revise their terms, I don't believe Instagram will turn into an iStockPhoto where the photographers don't get paid, as some have said. More realistically, I believe that companies (think resorts, restaurants, theme parks, etc.) will be able to pay to use Instagram photos on their website or Instagram profile.

Personally, I'm OK with that. If I take a photo at Disneyland, I think it's fine that they use it on their website or Instagram photo. Here's the biggest privacy concern many (and I) have: What about photos taken of kids or family at Disneyland on Instagram?

Lawyers frequently put out overly-broad language to cover themselves for all of the future possibilities, to see what they can get away with (I'm sure there is a more legalese way to say that). I really think the terms will be revised with more clear plans on how Instagram will use the photos.

If you're concerned about this in the meantime, here is a really easy fix: make your account private. The transferable license only applies to PUBLIC photos.

I think it's important for user's to know the terms of service of their service, but so many websites turn to fear mongering as a first reaction. Could Instagram use the photos in "evil" ways? Of course, but, Instagram needs users to love the service to use it. If they try and push the use of their photos too far, people will abandon the service.

It's time for this internet reminder: anything you post online could become public, even if it's "private." Be careful, friends.

I'll let you know the first sign someone is NOT creative. It's when they utter the phrase, "I'm just a creative person." That is the most tell-tale sign that someone is the farthest from being creative. That phrase is usually followed by some obscure vision that isn't rooted in any reasonable reality.

Here's why: creative people create.

Steve Jobs created the iPhone, iPad, iMac and much more.
Richard Branson created the Virgin line of companies.
Leo Burnett created great ads.

To be creative, you have to create. Period. End of story. You don't have to create art or words or music. You can create anything.

I look around the office and everyone is creative. Lynne has amazing ways to figure out the nuts and bolts of how to make our client's dreams come true. Mike finds ways to solve complex problems with programming. Alan finds unique ways to meet new clients. I could go on and on.

We can even take a look outside of the office:

• Moms (and Dads) find new ways to organize the house so it is clean, but everything can be found.
• Cops find ways to catch bad guys.
• Doctors find new ways to treat diseases.

Notice something in common? They all have deliverables: a clean house, guys in jail and new treatments.

Guess how you can be more creative. Create something. It can be anything. It could be a love note to your significant other, a unique thank you note, an unexpected homemade gift, the painting you've always wanted to create or the poem you've always had in the back of your head.

You'll find that it opens up the brain to think in new and interesting ways. The creation process is what makes you creative.

Photo Credit

Whenever I speak, I almost always get asked, "What's the next social network?" I have always said, and will continue to say: Facebook. It's not Pinterest, it's not Twitter and it's not Tumblr. Why? Because Facebook is totally ingrained into our lives.

• The average Facebook users visits the site four times a day.
• Facebook accounts for about 9% of all internet traffic.
• But here's the biggest deal: Millions of users use Facebook by not going to Facebook.com. They login to their favorite site (ESPN.com, for example) or like a page or listen to a song on Spotify.

If you were to erase Facebook today, people would freak out - thousands of websites wouldn't work and the number one website destination in the world would be gone. What if you deleted Twitter? People would probably shrug their shoulders and turn back to Facebook. 

If the Twitter immigrants didn't like the way Facebook showed their information, they could create an app that displays it the way they want. With the new Twitter rules, this is a big no-no.

Facebook wants to be the glue for the web, Twitter wants to be the book. You can't make a book without a whole lot of glue.

Photo Credit

Retargeting is one of the most innovative (and some would say creepy) ways of getting more traffic to your site. You’ve probably seen it before and didn’t know how it worked. Here’s how:

1. You visit a site, say a travel site. You search for flights to Chicago.
2. You don’t end up buying a flight to Chicago.
3. A couple of days later, you are on another website and see a banner ad that says, “All flights to Chicago, now on sale!”
4. You think to yourself, “That’s great! I’m looking for a cheaper flight to Chicago.”
5. You click the link and (hopefully, for the site) you buy a ticket to Chicago.

What you just experienced was retargeting. This is an advertising technique that allows websites to follow you around the web. It works pretty simply for the advertiser:

1. The advertiser places a small piece of code on their website that puts a cookie on your computer.
2. That cookie is linked to an advertising network.
3. When that advertising network sees the cookie on your computer, it triggers an ad to appear on the page.
4. When you end up making the purchase, there is a piece of code that shows up on the website that deletes that cookie and makes sure the advertiser doesn’t advertise to you again.

The first thing that people think is, “Wow! That’s creepy!” But let me assure you, the advertiser has no idea who you are. The advertiser anonymously installs that cookie and never knows who they are advertising to.

This is a great way to reach your customers. Most people that visit a website don’t make a purchase on their first visit. Having a constant reminder follow the user around the web is a great way for customers to come back to your website — not to mention it is a much more targeted technique than blanketing the internet with your ads.

Continue reading: Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Website with Facebook
View all: "Driving More Traffic to Your Website" blog series

People have been saying for years that mobile is the future. It is no longer the future, it is the present. In fact, more Americans own a Smartphone than a "dumb phone". On top of that, there are more cell phones than people in the U.S.

How can you reach all of these customers? Easy -- mobile advertising. Mobile advertising makes the most sense for companies that have specific locations, but it can also be valuable for overall branding.

Let's take the example of a store that sells shoes. There are a couple of ways that the store could choose to advertise: 

Mobile Search Advertising

Most cell phone users use a search engine (like Google or Bing) to make purchasing decisions on the fly. Within Google AdWords, you can target mobile devices and geographic locations -- allowing you to hit your target at the time (and place) they are searching for a place to buy shoes.

Mobile Display Advertising

Just as there are both search and display advertising on the desktop -- there are also both on mobile. Most free games and apps are supported by display ads. Depending upon the advertising network, you can target based upon contextual information (for example, showing restaurants in an app like Yelp) and location. This will reach customers that aren't necessarily searching for your product or service -- but still be targeted. 

App Sponsorship

Another possibility is to sponsor an application. That's exactly what The North Face has done with their Snow Report application. Obviously, the app is very connected to their brand -- but the key is that it provides something useful to their customers.

It's essential that the page that the ad leads to is mobile friendly. Some advertisers simply don't have the budget to create a mobile website -- but it's simple to create a one-page landing pages that will work on a mobile phone. This means that the site can not use flash and be formatted, so you don't have to zoom in on the site to read the content.

With mobile use growing at a very quick rate, maybe it's time you start advertising on mobile devices.

Continue reading: How to Drive Traffic to Your Website: Facebook Ads
View all: "Driving More Traffic to Your Website" blog series

Search Engine Optimization. SEO. First of all, what exactly is search engine optimization? It simply means Google (and Bing and Yahoo) can find your website.

Over the years, it has turned into a snake-oil business full of smoke and mirrors. But I’ll let you in on our secret SEO strategy: produce great stuff. While that sounds incredibly simple, it’s incredibly difficult.

A lot of companies that provide SEO services outsource a lot of “link building” to Third World countries and, for all intents and purposes, spam unrelated websites. We are working with a client that hired an SEO firm to help them, and we found they had posted the link on over 2,000 other sites that had no relationship to our client. They were garbage sites full of other links. These SEO firms will also try and repeat the keywords you are trying to rank for all over the site - most of the time, it looks sloppy and doesn’t make any sense.

Google is getting smarter than that. It is now able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

So, how do we use SEO for our clients? It all starts with research. The first thing we do is use Google Keyword Tool to find out what people are searching in relationship to our client’s product or service. Then we compare it to Google Analytics to see how people are currently finding their website. We then compare the two to see where we could add content to match what users are searching for.

For example, let’s say we are working with a candle company. We notice in Analytics that users find the site by searching for things like “best candles” and “apple scented candles.” That’s great. When we look in the Google Keyword Tool, we realize that people are searching a lot for “How to get rid of dog odors” and “Best candles for setting the mood.” Those are a great fit with our client, so we write a blog post or create a page that talks about each of those two topics. We also make sure to include links to the candles that would be the best fit for the post and make the post factual and even entertaining (if we can). Then we link to the posts from Facebook and Twitter and we might even post the articles to StumbleUpon or Reddit if we think it’s relevant.

Providing solutions to the problems your customers search for is a much more valuable strategy than loading up your site (and others) with irrelevant links and spam. 

It’s also important to build your site correctly. If your site is not built correctly, all of the above work can go down the drain. Keep these technical tips in mind:

• Make sure the site is not built completely in Flash - Google can’t read Flash. Google is a robot, not a real person.
• Google also can’t read the text in images, so use images for photos and illustrations, not text. There are plenty of fancy-text alternatives (http://www.google.com/webfonts) to avoid using text in an image.
• Put your company name in plain text (not an image) in several places on the homepage. We have had several clients that weren’t even ranking for their company name because there was only a photo logo on the homepage.
• Have search-friendly URLs. For example, Google can read http://balcomagency.com/blog/the-best-article-about-seo-ever better than http://balcomagency.com/storyid=123423221.
• Use alternate text (alt-text) wherever possible. Google can see the alternate text of images, which helps.
• Install Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to make sure you can measure how people are coming to your website.

While this is not a definitive guide to SEO, it should serve as a great primer to get more traffic to your website by using search engine optimization.

Continue reading: Using Ad & Video Networks to Drive Website Traffic
View all: "Driving More Traffic to Your Website" blog series

Buying ads on a search engine is one of the most common ways to drive traffic to your website. Google and Bing are the most common search engines.

The search below shows a Google search for “car insurance.” You might not know this, but the listings in yellow and on the right-hand side are ads. The companies (GEICO, Progressive) pay to be listed when people search for car insurance.

Search engine marketing is a huge business -- in fact, advertising makes up 96 percent of Google’s $37.9 billion in revenue last year.

Search engine marketing is a great idea because it allows you to be right in front of the customer when they are searching for information about you, or your product, service or competition. If you are doing research for car insurance, for example, you’re going to go to Google and search for things like “best car insurance” or “car insurance reviews.” There’s a good chance you aren’t looking for a specific brand, but looking for solutions to your problems.

While it could take years to rank up in natural search engine results, search engine marketing allows you to pay for a higher listing.

Search engine marketing is also a complicated business. There are entire books devoted to search engine marketing, but here’s the quick version of how Google Ads work:

• The advertisers decides to run ads on Google. The advertiser will decide what keywords (or search terms) they want to advertise for. While this seems simple, there can be thousands of keywords that an advertiser buys (think of all the products that Amazon sells).
• The advertiser pays for each click on the ad. If a Google searcher sees an ad and does not click on it, the advertiser is not charged.
• If the user clicks on an ad, the advertiser is charged. The cost per click (CPC) is based upon several factors - the biggest being competiton. The more competitive the keyword, the higher the price.
  - For example, “car insurance” is very expensive (about $38 a click). “Fort Worth Advertising Agency” is about $5 a click. There’s obviously more competition for car insurance than ad agencies in Fort Worth.
• The advertiser can target the ads in many ways:
  - Geographically (down to the city level)
  - By Price
  - According to a user’s device (Mobile Phone, Tablet, Computer)

Search engine marketing isn’t without its drawbacks. It’s complicated and needs to be continually optimized. We’ve talked to many clients that started a campaign and didn’t have the time or resources to continually monitor it. The results reflected the effort. Monitoring an online campaign is crucial to success. Prices change, new competitors pop up and the way people search changes.

Search Engine Marketing is a great way to drive guaranteed traffic to your site. Just remember you pay for it, so it pays to monitor and optimize it.

Continue reading: How to Drive Traffic to Your Website: Retargeting
View all: "Driving More Traffic to Your Website" blog series