I must really be polite in my discussions about Thomas Register. If you feel seeing them get slandered, head here:
F*****Company.com - Thomas Register discussion

Updated my bids

I did the rounds at Google AdWords and Overture today. On Overture, I was able to lower my bids again. The top three spots for the top keywords are still around $10 per click, but the positions 3-6 are getting pretty cheap. I did notice that with one low-traffic keyword I was getting 10% click-thrus, which at 5 cents a click is a good way to get leads no one else is.

On Google, I never really have to adjust my campaign, which is cool. Why competitors ignore AdWords, I don't know. I did notice an interesting trend. For each keyword, I have two listings, the second one being the plural. For the singular versions, the click-thru rate is nearly double for all keywords. Because Google serves less relevant content if you use the singular term, the ads must be more useful to the searcher.

BTW: Only a week to go before I run the numbers and see how many clicks I got from Industrial Quick Search.

Google gobbles Blogger

The big question going around is why Google bought Blogger (which I use to post b2blog). Can't anyone see it? Money! They can use their AdWords service and run ads on Blogs. The beauty of AdWords is that they are targeted, and blogs are targeted, get it? I had just requested my free advertising with Blogger two weeks ago (I get $10 of ads for being a Pro Blogger). The ad was reviewed last week, and according to my stats, the reviewer was already coming from a Google server!

Learned about CRM

I spent Thursday and Friday at a CRM conference, where I was undoubtly an exception, being from a "SMB" (small-medium business). I did find myself learning that doing CRM right means planning, as simple as I see our needs being. I filled a whole page in my notebook listing items that I'll need to address prior to launching. The MBA in me is excited to see a real management/strategy project, but boy is it big, like I don't have enough to do right now.

I talked to exactly one vendor at the show, and I'm glad I did. I will investigate their fit to our needs before I say I will add them to our list, but they did get a major award at the show and they are targeted at SMB like me. Who are they? C2 CRM

Just to prove it

Sure enough, I went and checked out some websites of pseudo-competitors in the Thomas Register. Didn't take long to find a real beauty. So good, in fact, I submitted it to Vincent Flanders (Mr. Web Pages That Suck) who is using it for a website critique game called two minute offense. The offender is www.norlake.com, whose website is just graphic images. Well, just go and look to see how sucky it is. They are spending tons of money on TR and they can't even figure out how to do a website? They don't even really have a true product listing on their site.

PS: To my friends at GlobalSpec, I promise to talk about your site-search white paper. I liked it and it got me thinking. I'm just engrossed in many projects right now to discuss the subject the way I want to. As it is, I'm going to a CRM conference in Chicago tomorrow. And I really need to write more about my CRM evaluation.

Easy way to do a newsletter

Got this from BtoB.com new weekly newsletter on email newsletters:

Low-cost "smart" e-mail services are letting marketers track their messages-and monitor every point and click that occurs within their e-mail-long after those missives leave a company's servers.

For $25 a month, for example, users of the Topica Email Publisher service (http://www.topica.com) are able to track how many e-mails they've sent on any campaign, how many of those e-mails were opened and which links each recipient clicked on while reading the message. The service also generates an easy-to-understand report digesting all these statistics, which downloads with a single click into Microsoft Excel.

Microsoft bCentral's List Builder (http://www.bcentral.com/products/lb) offers a similar service starting at $30 a month, which also tracks opens, link, clicks, bounces and similar activity. The campaign tracking details are stored and retrieved from bCentral's Web site.

Both Topica and List Builder offer a 30-day free trial.

As with all tracking services, attention to the reports is essential. But marketers who take the time to study these reports will know precise details about the people who opened their commercial e-mail. They'll also know what elements of an e-mail should be changed and tested: By analyzing clicks, marketers will be able to see right away the efficacy of a particular phrase, image or pitch.

Moreover, by studying the reports of these services over time, marketers can segment an audience into distinct groups based on behavior. Such insight enables them to avoid one-size-fits-all mailings and instead custom design an e-mail campaign message for each subset of a subscriber base.

The books arrived!

Thomas Register books were delivered yesterday. Now 17 books instead of 24 (plus two Company Profiles and just one Catalog book). But don't count the reduction in advertising on the Chambers, Environmental section. We had reduced our ad from two pages to one. I noticed a great increase in smaller "call" ads to supplement advertising spreads, no doubt done to help increase rankings online.

What was unexpected was the number of new listings in our category. These are from bit players for a specific product type--walk-ins. While I'd never see these people on-line as competitors, their money is certainly showing their interest in this market. And I'm just dying to check out their (sure to be) lousy websites.

What does your website do?

People come to your website for different reasons--you need to be prepared to address those needs. Here is an article to help you focus on this task (via marketingfix).

Two Steps to Spike Acquisition, Conversion, and Retention

Overture activity

Overture recently sent me an email telling me their minimum bid is rising to 10 cents. Not a big deal because existing bids under this will be honored, which I have a few in obscure keywords. Most of my bids are in multi-dollar keywords, though. What I found out today, is that some of the other competitors have backed down their bids. This has allowed me to reduce my bids significantly and still maintain my place. These are for 5th and 6th place bids, which aren't that visible anyway. However, I hear that Yahoo is going to reformat their listing method to show more "sponsored links" near the top, ala Google.

What happens to PPC click-thrus in your log files

Here is a snip from a discussion I am having at ihelpyouservices.com:

I just pulled up one of my log files (my ISP saves by the day, which makes this easier) and found that the "referrers" from my PPC ads are listed as such:

The images and other parts of the page list the referrer as the request from the PPC with the tracking URL:
http://www.espec.com/digest/?source=overture

Of course WebTrends or FastStats is going to ignore those because they aren't pages. But for the page, it is different!

For the page requested under referrer it lists the search page:
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=temperature+chamber

But also under cs-uri-query it lists the stripped tracking URL info:
source=overture

So, to track the tracking URLs, you need to use WebTrends to somehow record the activity in this category. That would be the next step in this investigation.

Doing this opens a whole new world of analysis. If you break it down by keyword, you can compare the success of your listings versus your ads. Perhaps getting a lot of PPC on a term you aren't ranked well will make you think that terms is doing okay, when it is actually draining your cash.

More than a toy

ClickTracks shows you how your site's visitors behave by visually showing clickthrus, which is helpful for usability. Now they have added features that help with further analysis. Even better than my favorite FastStats. But at $495, it should be better.

For example you can track behavior of site visitors from Google AdWords or Overture (or IQS) and see if they actually spend more time at your site. (I can see if double qualifying a visitor adds value, Mike!)

ClickTracks: What's new in 3.1

Challenge yourself

Learn a new trick or two taking these quizzes. Marketing and sales people need to be in control of their software, so I emailed this to our entire group.

Microsoft Office Quizzes

Would you want to read this?

I get a few direct mail pieces from marketing companies looking for my business every year. I study the piece for technique and effectiveness, as it is a one-piece portfolio of their capabilities. The subhead on the one I got this week says:

"From the CEO on down, this market-driven focus is our mantra. And we have implemented a proven process for customer interaction that enables us to build successful products that resonate with the market."

This is a quote from their client, although I doubt anyone really talks this way. And thats the problem with this quote and the headline above it. They are vague and buzz-word filled. Worse than that, they give no reason to read the rest of the copy in this piece. They need to get Mark Joyner's book.