Apr, 24th, 2013
Marin Software is a revenue acquisition management platform for marketers through
online advertising. The web-based platform allows marketers to manage
paid search, display,
mobile and
social media marketing campaigns.
Here’s a list of five things you should know about Marin Software.
- Compatible with a variety of systems – Marin works seamlessly with a variety of systems that your business may already have in place eg, tracking, analytics, eCommerce systems.
- Intelligent reporting and analytics – automated reporting and alerts can easily be set up within the software. Marin lets users set up alerts to monitor any drops and spikes in campaign performances, as well as regular analyses reports.
- Cross-publisher editing – no need to create campaigns from scratch every time. Marin lets users make changes across multiple publishers; create, modify and replicate campaigns in bulk. The software also makes it easy to find and replace text in creative, as well as change geo-targeting.
- Forecasting – Marin forecasts “what if” scenarios. So if you were to change bidding targets, Marin will inform you how it will affect volume, cost, return on investment and profit.
- Predictive bidding – rather than manually calculating bids, Marin’s predictive bidding combines algorithmic automation with user controls to adapt bids in the constantly changing market. This tool adapts quickly to seasonality, competitive market conditions and any shift in business goals.
Want to learn more? Get in touch with FIRST and we can tell you what Marin Software can do for your business.
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Jan, 9th, 2013
For the full case study (PDF) please use our download form
Ted’s Camera Store has been synonymous with photography for the past 40 years. Ted’s offers all major brands and the latest in photographic hardware, including digital compact and SLR cameras, HD video cameras and accessories; equipment suitable for the novice through to the professional.
Ted’s engaged FIRST to increase organic search traffic and revenue, that was being dominated by a number of grey-market importers who could source and offer products at a much cheaper price.
Download the case study to find out the search tactics we used to :
- increase non-brand organic revenue by 102%
- increase organic ‘manufacturer’ product keywords by 181.8%
- increase traffic on organic ‘manufacturer’ product keywords 112%
- increase TOTAL non-brand organic traffic (2011 vs 2012) by 60% YoY
- increase TOTAL non-brand organic revenue (2011 vs 2012) by 102% YoY
Download the case study now
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Nov, 28th, 2012
AdWords Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
AdWords has historically had a few ways you can target people:
- Keyword & match type
- Geographical location
- Device – desktop, mobile and tablet
- Day parting
Apart from keyword, they are fairly crude targeting tools.
Google have introduced a fifth targeting tool: Remarketing Lists for Search Ads.
Remarketing lists for search ads allows you to use your existing Google remarketing lists on AdWords. Let’s look at some scenarios.
You run a toy store, and a customer visits the board games section of your site. They are added to the board games remarketing list. The customer later does a search on Google for “toys”. They are shown a specific ad for board games, with a 10% off discount via a special landing page.
You sell high value B2B software and use AdWords for lead generation – clicks are expensive. Leads generated are actively followed up by an account manager. You add a remarketing list to the thankyou page for the lead, and use it as a negative list to prevent expensive ads been shown to prospects who are actively being nurtured.
The possibilities are endless, and I’m sure we’ll see some amazing “why didn’t I think of that” uses coming out over the next year or two.
A few catches for this new option:
- It’s still in beta, you need to be white listed by your Google rep to use it.
- You can use your existing remarketing lists, but during the beta, only people added to the list after you were white listed will be targeted.
- Minimum list size is 500 people (as opposed to 100 for display retargeting).
- You can’t use creatives that display prior knowledge of the visitor’s action. In other words, don’t be creepy.
There’s a few other traps for young players.
Talk to your First consultant for more information.
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Nov, 12th, 2012
by Mark Baartse, Consulting Director – FIRST
In the classic 4 P’s of marketing, “Place” (or distribution) is often over looked in e-commerce. The site is the place, right? Yes, but not the only place. Product feeds give an opportunity to expand the ability to reach to new customers.
Any ecommerce platform can create product feeds pretty easily, although it seems everyone wants a slightly different format. Technically, this is pretty easy to achieve. The challenge comes from making the most use of those feeds.
Using feeds with an enterprise SEM management system, such as Marin Software, allows you to create highly targeted long tail ads reaching deep into your product catalogue, and kept up to date on latest prices, stock levels, etc. For example, pausing ads for a particular product once inventory gets below 2 in stock. This is in practice impossible to do manually if you have more than a few hundred products.
The classic use for product feeds is shopping comparison sites. In Australia this primarily means GetPrice,Shopping.com and MyShopping.com.au. While companies tend to watch every dollar on SEM, I’ve seen companies spending comparable amounts on price comparison with no attempt at optimisation at all. We engaged a client spending well into 5 digits a month on comparison sites who was treating it almost like a tax. After optimising the feed, improving tracking and optimising the setup with the sites, we were able to save significant amounts and increase sales. Treating product feeds as a purely technical job with no role for marketing is an expensive mistake – all marketing spend should be subsequent to equal scrutiny.
There’s also some clever things that can be done with other channels such as dynamic retargeting, customising Facebook ads, eBay, Google and so on.
There’s a real opportunity to reach new customers – go and get them!
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Sep, 18th, 2012
Buying your own home has long been the Australian dream. It is often the biggest financial decision an individual will make in their lifetime, and for that reason, borrowers find comfort in seeing an expert who can help them wade through the many mortgage products and match them with the most suitable option. With the Australian housing market slowly creeping back from the global financial crisis
Mortgage Choice were also faced with the challenge of regaining market share and acquiring new customers via online marketing whilst also decreasing budget spent on these activities.
Find out how we
- Decreased CPL by 25% YOY
- Increased lead volume by 25% YOY
- Increased average Adword ranking
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