Having launched as a shirt specialist of some repute in Glasgow back in 1987 Ted Baker quickly became the place to buy some of the very best contemporary clothing around. Make It Rain is now charged with promoting Ted Baker’s wide range of collections including: Menswear, Womenswear, Global, Endurance, Accessories, Fragrance, Skinwear, Footwear, Eyewear and Watches across paid search platforms.

Ted Baker’s alternative approach by choosing not to advertise through traditional channels, means they focus on more innovative and fun ways to promote their ranges of products. Make It Rain will focus on maximising the UK PPC strategy enabling Ted to reach a wider audience and driving increased sales through tedbaker.com with the first focus on the new Autumn/Winter 2011 range.

Justin Hayward, Managing Director at Make It Rain comments: “Ted Baker is a fantastic brand to work with, by fully implementing Ted’s quirky style into our PPC campaigns, coupled with our retail experience, this will make for a very strong and successful partnership.”

Social Media books

Inbound Marketing

By Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, David Meerman Scott

An introduction to online marketing for those that are baffled, Inbound Marketing covers a wide range of topics. Offering hands on advice for getting your business found via SEO, blogging and social media, with a particular leaning towards social media.

Recommended by Brian Rogel and Paul Dunay

The Experience Economy

By B. Joseph Pine II, James H Gilmore

Taken from the blurb: “Businesses must form unique connections in order to secure customer affections”. The focus of The Experience Economy is on marketing your brand through creating an experience and engaging with the customer. The premise is that by enhancing the experience you add value to your product and therefore to your bottom line. This book is particularly relevant to new marketing, with the rise of social media marketing being considered by many as a product of the customer’s increasing demand for an “experience” and feeling of affiliation with a brand.

Recommended by Brian Solis

Engage

By Brian Solis

Engage guides you from planning and implementing a social media campaign through to measuring success and ROI. Actionable strategies are given for increasing SOV, growing loyalty and trust, community building and identifying brand evangelists and influencers. A good introduction to social media.

Recommended by Tamar Weinberg whose own book New Community Rules also focuses on social media.

Content Rules

By Ann Handley, C.C. Chapman

Content Rules gives tips and strategies for creating engaging content for blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms, along with tips on maximizing the reach of the content that you create.

Recommended by Jay Baer and Todd Defren

Launch

By Michael Stelzner

A hands on guide to community building and customer engagement with a strong focus on content creation and relationship building – both with customers and also with peers who may help promote your content. Launch also highlights how to retain customers though continuing to hold their attention thereby increasing the ROI of online engagement.

Recommended by Michael Stelzner

Meatball Sundae

By Seth Godin

Answering the question: ‘how can we alter our business to become an organisation that thrives on new marketing?’ Meatball Sundae looks at how the internet is transforming our perceptions of marketing, the way we want to makes purchases and the type of products that we want to purchase before guiding us on how to modify business models to succeed in this new environment.

Recommended by Jennifer Laycock

SEO Books

Art of SEO

By Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, Jessie C Stricchiola

Details SEO best practices from the basics to an advanced level, from managing SEO projects to building a competent SEO team. This book really gets to the heart of search engine optimisation, and is very useful both for those who are new to SEO and for seasoned practitioners. The Art of SEO is widely believed to be the best SEO book out there.

Recommended by Zarko

Don’t Make Me Think

By Steve Krug

Written with web designers in mind, Don’t Make Me Think focuses on on-site optimisation and web usability. An invaluable resource for SEOs as success of an SEO campaign should not only be measured on increased traffic and improved rankings, but also on increased sales. This look at how customers interact with a site and how to optimise for conversions is a great starting point. Accessible and easy to read, yet still offers useful nuggets for the more advanced web professional.

Recommended by Linda Bustos and Joost de Valk

PPC Books

Winning Results with Google Adwords

By Andrew Goodman

A comprehensive guide to Google paid search which includes strategies for setting up the account, writing successful ads, and optimising campaigns once they’re up and running. Winning Results with Google Adwords offers tips for getting the best ROI possible on your Adwords spend.

Recommended by Jonathan Allen

Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords

By Perry Marshall

Another guide to Adwords that teaches the creation of keyword lists, setting up accounts, writing copy, targeting, and conversion optimisation.

Recommended by Ashu Jangid

Website Analytics Books

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity

By Avinash Kaushik

Written in the same jargon free style in which Avinash Kaushik delivers his presentations, this is a well thought out and easy to understand text. With a focus on the analysis of data, Web Analytics 2.0 lays out what you should be looking for in your analysis, and more importantly, how the data can help you. Giving specific, actionable recommendations and strategies, this is a valuable resource for improving the performance of your website.

Recommended by Mike Grehan

Marketing and Internet Marketing Books

Made to Stick

By Chip and Dan Heath

An explanation of how humans absorb information and what makes us more likely to remember an idea or story, Made to Stick guides you on how to create compelling and memorable marketing communications.

Recommended by David Armano

Buyology

By Martin Lindstrom

Buyology looks into the psychology of why people buy. Citing neurological studies and tests that investigate the subliminal reasoning behind making a purchase decision, Lindstrom illustrates the emotional connection that customers have with products and services. Good to dip in and out of.

Recommended by Murray Lunn

Get Rich Click

By Ostrofsky

An absolutely monster guide to setting up a profitable online business, Get Rich Click guides you through buying a domain, setting up an ecommerce business, promoting your online business through SEO and PPC, selling ad space, affiliate marketing, content creation, social networking, mobile marketing and more.

Recommended by Chris Brogan

Business Books

The Dip

By Seth Godin

A fresh look at running your own business, The Dip looks at what you should do when times get tough. Godin takes the stigma out of quitting by showing that sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do.

Recommended by Ross Hudgens





Thanks again to all those that took part. If I missed you off the list and you’d like to share your favourite online marketing book – please do so below!

Top position ads are displayed above the natural search results (top of your screen) and side position ads are displayed in a column at the right hand side of the search results page.

The new tool provides clear stats on how your ads perform in each of these locations.

The tool can be accessed at all account levels, Campaign, Ad groups, Ads or Keywords. Here’s how to access it.

1. Click on the Segment button in the tool bar above your data.
2. Select Top vs. Side form the drop down menu. See below.

Above, the results have been segmented top/side and the results are astonishing.

The ads on the side have a considerably lower CTR and conversion rate. With the recent introduction of extended headlines we wondered if these trends were influenced by the new ad format.

No change. Looking at historic data the performance trends are consistent.

So what does this mean for Advertisers?

Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian says on the Adwords blog ‘this distinction is important, since, on average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the right-hand side’.

No change there then!

On a positive note the CPC’s are lower for the top positions.

The obvious tactic is to target the top positions aggressively:

• Increased traffic for a lower CPC
• Increased CTR – helps quality score
• Increased conversion rate – more sales

Not quite that simple. From an advertiser’s perspective the targets haven’t changed. It may not be feasible to target the top positions for all terms.

There will be a spike in clicks when increasing positions. This could lead to meeting your daily budgets quicker. You’ll need to adjust and manage the daily budgets accordingly.

If you don’t have sufficient budget to support the increase in clicks implement day parting tactics so you target the top positions at the right times for your business.

Tasked with driving a significant increase in both traffic and sales whilst maintaining CPA and closely managing cannibalisation from a strong natural search position, Make it Rain will develop a PPC strategy that targets different customer segments and different points in the path to purchase. Understanding consumer behaviour will underpin the strategy and full integration with other marketing channels will be key in terms of optimisation.

PPC activity was previously managed in-house and the appointment comes following a competitive seven-way pitch process including Latitude, iCrossing and Harvest Digital.

Justin Hayward, Managing Director of Make it Rain comments: “We’re delighted to be working with Prescription Eyewear Ltd on these two great brands. This campaign is about understanding what consumers want and most importantly getting it to them in their window of need. To achieve this we’ll be monitoring the latest trends in fashion, lifestyle and optometry to ensure that both Glasses Direct and Sunglasses Shop extend their positions as the leading players in their respective markets.”

Rick Duncan, Head of Online at Prescription Eyewear Ltd said: “We have done a great job of managing our paid search activity internally, but now want to take it up a gear and properly integrate with the multitude of other channels in our mix. This is an exciting time for the business following our recent acquisition of Sunglasses Shop and the expertise Make It Rain will bring to the table will allow us to be more agile and realise quicker results. We felt that Make it Rain best reflected our ethos of being innovative, entrepreneurial and fast moving. The agency already feels like a natural extension of my internal marketing team and I look forward to building on that relationship.”

There are many ways to test ad copy and most SEM’s have their preference. Common tactics include:

• Creating multiple ads and allow auto optimisation is the most common.
• Change ads in line with price/offer.
• Our way

To get the maximum learning it is important to isolate each segment of the ad. (MVT for ads)

• Title
• Line 1
• Line 2
• Display URL

First you write the messaging/copy.

Use the following hierarchy to ensure you have covered the most important USP’s.

Keyword relevance

Including your keyword in your copy assists quality score and helps create instant affinity for the user.

Offer/Price

Vital in pre-qualifying the user, we don’t want wasted clicks.

Only want clicks from users that are genuinely interested in price/offer.

Call to action

Use buzz words to provoke an action (back to your traditional marketing roots).

• Buy now
• Buy today
• Buy online
• Call today
• Enquire online
• Offer ends etc

Brand

Using the brand in the ad is a bonus and only do it if you have sufficient character allowance. It’s easier to mention the brand in the title and it’s already in the display URL so it’s not imperative to include in the copy.

Now we have our control message we can begin the first phase of testing.

Before beginning your test make sure you have your campaign settings set to ‘rotate ads evenly’.

Create ads with the same message and display URL but each with a different title.

E.g

1. Static keyword/product
2. Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI)
3. Brand

Once you have enough data find the winning title and create new ads with the control message. Now create multiple versions of the display URL, e.g.:

• www.Test.com
• Test.com
• www.Test.com/PPC*

*Suffix used in the display URL must be found in the actual destination URL.

You now have a winning title and display URL. Time to test the messaging.

Most ads end with a call to action. Try swapping line 1 with line 2. Start the message with the offer & call to action. Does this provide an uplift?

Test the call to action being used, what buzz word do your users associate with? Cheapest vs. Lowest vs. Discount vs. Buy Online vs. Order Today etc

Once completed you will have the right structure for your ads, title, order of messaging, call to action and display URL.

When analysing performance there are two key metrics that need to be monitored.

• CTR
• Conversion Rate

CTR has huge influence on quality score but it’s more important to look after conversion rates and ultimately your bottom line before catering for to Google’s Quality Score. More clicks doesn’t always mean more sales!

David Lloyd Leisure, the leading premium Health, Sport and Leisure business has appointed Make It Rain, the search and social specialist, to manage all of its PPC (pay-per-click), and SEO (search engine optimisation) on behalf of its 10 European Clubs in Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain and Belgium.

The pan-European campaign follows a successful two-year search marketing campaign by Make It Rain on behalf of David Lloyd Leisure’s 78 UK Clubs. During this time David Lloyd Leisure has climbed from number four to number one in its competitive share of search traffic.

The European brief aims to further strengthen the David Lloyd Leisure brand online, driving new membership sales growth in its European territories. Make It Rain will focus on delivering cost efficient, quality sales enquiries on a CPE (cost per enquiry) basis, through a geo-search strategy supporting all of the David Lloyd Leisure Clubs.

David Brosse, Head of Digital & Marketing Communications at David Lloyd Leisure Group comments: “Our online performance in the UK has been completely transformed by adopting a geographic search strategy to drive traffic directly to the relevant club. Making it really straightforward for customers to search, find and click-through to their local David Lloyd Club sounds simple, but it’s made a world of difference.

“Through the sophisticated ongoing measurement and monitoring that Make It Rain has introduced, we’ve been able to apply real-time insight to maximise efficiency by making small changes to website structure and page content in line with the PPC and SEO keywords and terms. Make It Rain has been a key supplier in enabling our online success and we’re looking forward to working together on developing our European markets.”

Justin Hayward, Managing Director at Make It Rain comments: “Expanding our brief with David Lloyd Leisure is a fantastic endorsement of the success we’ve been able to achieve with the company in the UK, and we hope to be able to boost performance in a similar way in Europe. Our approach with David Lloyd has always been to deliver CPE results, but to do it in a way that builds the online brand in a consistent way over time; we’re offering more than a series of campaigns and the results we’re seeing prove the need for continuous management of search and social.”

Here are our thoughts and pointers…

Firstly it’s important to state that at the moment you will only be exposed to Google Instant if you are logged in during your search.

Potentially Google Instant could influence your PPC performance and results.

Scenario 1 – Click Through Rate and Quality Score

The first thing that jumps out is that, particularly in the short term, impressions could increase for generic/short tail terms. For Google to count as an impression the ad must be present for at least 3 seconds. With the product launching today users will be playing with the functionality (as you do with any new toy) and there will be more chance of the ads being present long enough to clock up impressions.

If users continue with their full search query and generate impressions along the way then CTR may take a hit for generic terms. Will a drop in CTR mean Google deems your ad to be less relevant or have they factored in this into their algorithm?

With CTR influencing quality score you should monitor your QS for generic terms and in turn look out for any CPC movement.

Scenario 2 – Are Google trying to slash the long tail?

Using Google’s own search insights we can see that generic one word searches have been on the decline in recent years (see below screenshot). We are becoming more sophisticated in the way we search, we understand that the longer the query the more targeted the results… most of the time.

Scenario 3 – Less clicks for your budget

Users could now find what they are looking for prior to completing their search and click on the ads displayed. Potentially the percentage of traffic generated by generic terms could increase.
What does this mean? This could mean that you generate fewer clicks for your budget.

For those of you thinking that nothing will change because you will continue to control Generic spend via daily budgets, consider this…

…searches for Generic terms could increase. If you are ads are in rotation, i.e. you don’t have the budget for 100% exposure for generics, you could now be faced with even heavier rotation if you don’t increase your investment.

In short do you want less visibility and reduced brand awareness?

What we recommend

Don’t panic, whenever Google launches a new product it causes a stir but the hype is invariably scarier than the reality. Allow the dust to settle before making decisions.

Remember it is only available to users signed in.

If you run your own PPC account keep an eye on the generic traffic, CPC’s and performance over the next few weeks. You may need to make some budgetary tweaks.

To help manage your daily budget for generics you may need to implement a day parting strategy to ensure the budget you have is working its hardest at key times & days for conversions.

What might be next for Google?

It would be great if Google improved the quality of their location targeting in the UK off the back of Google Instant. It seems that there is now a greater importance in targeting the user with the correct location/ad. While in Google Instant is defaulting to Leeds during my search for a ‘gym in London’ search, see example below.

Wasted impression and not in keeping with Google’s relevancy is king theory.

Quick, clear and easy communication with users informing them they can watch world cup matches while at a David Lloyd club or during their stay at a Best Western Hotel.

If used correctly the local listing can sit next to a local business ad (which works on a CPC basis) and can communicate key information without the need for the user to click through to the website. Through efficient management the user experiences a positive experience, always good for brand perception.

Make it Rain has been appointed by ThirdForce, the UK’s leading e-learning provider, to provide all Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services.

Elaine Kauder, marketing manager of ThirdForce, comments: “The recent dramatic advances in technology and the usage of the Internet, both in the home and on the move, demonstrate the importance of our company’s presence on the World Wide Web. We were looking for an experienced organisation that could deliver an immediate, measurable and cost effective online marketing strategy. We look forward to a fruitful relationship with the team.”

Justin Hayward, managing director of Make it Rain, explains: “As a leader in its field, ThirdForce’s training portfolio reaches a range of sectors, and so, we look forward to implementing an array of innovative online campaigns.”

ThirdForce is an established provider of technology enabled learning solutions and services deployed in more than 30 countries. Working with over 2,500 customers across all major industries, our e-learning and e-assessment solutions have reached over 17 million learners.

We’re really excited to win another prestigious client!

Burgess has appointed Make It Rain as its sole search agency to provide all PPC and SEO services.

Burgess is the superyacht industry leader with 9 global offices including Monaco, Miami and New York, uniquely specializing in yachts of over 40 metres. Burgess guides it clients through every aspect of the yachting experience including sale and purchase, new construction, management and charter.

With a noticeable shift from traditional industry channels, Burgess are placing increased emphasis on search engine optimization and pay per click in 2010 following a recently refreshed website. Lucy Thornton of Burgess said “We had great chemistry with the team at Make It Rain and were impressed by their understanding and integrated approach to search marketing.”

Make It Rain Managing Director, Justin Hayward said “ Burgess is a premium luxury brand and the leader in its field. We’re excited to be chosen as their online partner, which reflects our agency focus of working with best of breed brands. We’re delighted to be working with them in 2010.”

About Burgess

Founded in 1975 with 9 offices globally, Burgess is the superyacht industry leader. Burgess has been involved in the sale of many of the most significant yachts afloat, while their new construction division is currently managing the build and development of a diverse range of superyachts. Burgess’ first-class charter service offers a portfolio of the finest yachts in the best cruising destinations around the world. The superyacht credentials of Burgess are unmatched in the industry, ensuring that clients enjoy the highest level of customer service.

http://www.burgessyachts.com