Check out today’s SearchDay article we contributed.

According to a recent Marketwatch story, a growing number of advertisers are cutting their spending on search campaigns. The reason? Keyword inflation and low conversion rates.

So let’s get this straight — instead of taking the abundant traffic from search engines and working on ways to better convert that traffic, many advertisers are abandoning search in whole or in part, looking for a cheaper way to drive traffic. What do they expect will happen…

...continue to read "Landing Page Optimization 2007"

Back when we published our hardbound version of Call to Action in 2005, we were a little pressed for time. So it had a flaw or two here and there. But the content was solid. You must have thought so, because you helped us turn that edition into a bestseller!

Now the publishing house that brought you Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? brings you a new, improved Call to Action in paperback. We’ve worked hard to clean up the organization,…

...continue to read "Call to Action Index and Expanded Table of Contents"

Is traffic cost inflation stalking you, or has it fully violated your 2007 marketing budget? No online marketer is exempt; online traffic costs will increase. It’s the nature of supply and demand.

This relatively new Internet economy is settling into familiar patterns, and the costs of doing business online are beginning to resemble those of our brick-and-mortar brethren. In the brick-and-mortar world, there’s no such thing as low-cost traffic.

The corner of 57th St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan is one of the…

...continue to read "The Value of Online Traffic"

Every time I read a “best practices” guide to optimizing landing pages, I cringe. I know full well the limitations and the biases inherent in what the teacher is about to dispel to the pupil. Even worse, I know full well the pupil is likely to accept the teachings as gospel, and run off to begin implementation. Honestly, I don’t blame them- implementation led by a methodology will inevitably outperform pure talent or intuition. However, the assumption in that last…

...continue to read "Problems with Landing Page Optimization?"

Scott Donaton’s latest article over at AdAge touches on something I wrote a while back, after the Agency.com fiasco.  He astutely writes (emphasis is added):

As with ads in any medium, those that work are those that start with an insight, show an understanding of their target audience, and have an authentic, relevant connection to the brand. Those that don’t smack of having been produced because someone wanted to do a viral video to please himself, his boss or his board. They’re the…

...continue to read "AdAge on Viral Campaigns…"

Is it me or have you also noticed Amazon has been sending out many more recommended book emails? Their last one really caught my attention.

It started… "We’ve noticed that customers who have expressed interest in Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results by Bryan Eisenberg have also ordered Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch.  For this reason, you might like to know that John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s…

...continue to read "Email Marketing Can Be Sticky"

From Dow Jones MarketWatch…

Keyword inflation, low conversion rates sending merchants elsewhere

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A growing number of online advertisers are bidding a partial goodbye to Google Inc.

Frustrated by the soaring price of Internet-search advertising and diminishing returns from the ads they buy, mid-sized advertisers say they plan to reduce how much business they do with Google this year — in some cases, significantly.

Last year, for example, eBags.com co-founder Peter Cobb spent between $5 million and $8 million to peddle…

...continue to read "Some Google Advertisers Cutting Spending"

Do you have a successful e-mail list?

How do you determine its success:? Total subscribers? Number of weekly sign-ups? High open rate? Click-throughs? Comments generated?

All those numbers are important, but often the real value of a good list is the participation it stimulates between the subscriber and your business.

Too many businesses shell out too many dollars and resources to up their number of subscribers or to improve the demographic quality of their e-mail lists, while too few consider the quality of…

...continue to read "Delete Your E-Mail List"

Kick the habit of assuming who your customers are, what they should want and how should deliver it.

Remember this classic scene from the Odd Couple?

Felix Unger: [to woman on witness stand] Ah … you assumed. My dear, you should never assume. You see, when you assume… [Felix writes the word "assume" on a blackboard] … you make an ass out of u and me.

Want to know what really gets in the way of better conversion rates? All too often it…

...continue to read "Unspoken Assumptions"

Date:March 20-22, 2007

Location: New Orleans, LA

About: Bryan Eisenberg will be presenting the keynote at this exciting conference.

For More Info: http://clientsummit2007.meetingsthatwork.com/

...continue to read "Coremetrics Client Summit 2007"