30 Day Countdown to the Urchin Software Retirement
Today marks 30 days until Urchin's official retirement on Wednesday, March 28th, 2012.
After March 28th, Urchin licenses and upgrades can no longer be sold and Google will not be producing any further releases or patches. (With this announcement they did release version 7.200, available for free 30-day trial now). Typical Urchin users include educational institutions, government departments and organizations who prefer to keep their data private. Once purchased Urchin licenses are permanent.
Urchin users should be able to continue using the product unless or until their Urchin Software installation becomes unusable due to possible incompatible operating systems updates in the future. For more information regarding the retirement effects and Google recommended alternatives, check out our original retirement post.
Get Your YouTube Marketing Tips with Manny Rivas
This week’s Marketing Nirvana episode examines how to be successful on YouTube. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world where 3 billion videos a day are being watch.
I wanted to bring on a YouTube expert to talk about YouTube and to give you tips on making profitable YouTube campaigns. So, I naturally turned to my favorite YouTube speaker, Manny Rivas of aimClear.
aimClear is a great agency featuring some real gurus, the most notable being Marty – the Founder and FaceBook savant. They pull off some beautiful social campaigns, and I have even referred a few clients to them. Manny is their resident YouTube expert, and after seeing some actual results from someone I referred to them – the choice was pretty easy – Manny should be sharing his wisdom with the world.
Many people think of YouTube as just a video site full of cats and babies. Another way to think about YouTube is that it’s a social site with communities, comments, members, etc. For the savvy business, there is some serious money being made on YouTube – if you are doing it correctly.
In fact, here’s some mindboggling stats about YouTube:
- 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute, resulting in nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day
- Over 3 billion videos are viewed a day
- More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years
- YouTube is monetizing over 3 billion video views per week globally
- Nearly 17 million people have connected their YouTube account to at least one social service (Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Buzz, etc)
- 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every week
- YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
While these numbers are huge – the marketers challenge is rising above the noise to make sure their videos are the ones being watched, clicked on, and driving either engagement or conversions.
That’s what this episode of Marketing Nirvana focuses on – how to rise above the masses. We examine YouTube videos, making a compelling video, where to showcase your promoted videos, and much more.
During the show, we also mention a few links, so I’ll post them here for easy reference:
- YouTube’s Creator’s Corner (A great set of resources maintained by YouTube)
- creativecow.net – A community for those creating media
- videomaker.com- Contains both reviews on production equipment and bills itself as ‘Your Guide to Creating & Publishing Great Video’
- New York Video School (nyvs.com) – An online film school
For those of you who will e at SMX San Jose – Manny will be speaking YouTube Success Stories for Marketers on March 1st.
The YouTube show will air at 9am PST / 12pm CST Monday March 5th at WebmasterRadio.fm.
Later on, the show will be available for download from our Marketing Nirvana page or on iTunes.
I hope you enjoy the show.
Get Your YouTube Marketing Tips with Manny Rivas is a post from: Certified Knowledge
Profiting from Instant Market Segments
Today I want to share an MP3 on one of the most LUCRATIVE techniques in my marketing arsenal…
In fact, when done right, this technique is SO powerful I’ve literally seen it boost response overnight by 300%. (You can download the mp3 above, or listen at the bottom of this post)
AND I have at least one student (Ryan Levesque) who two years ago went from spinning his wheels to making over $250,000 in one of his businesses, simply by implementing this technique in that business…
(Disclaimer: it’s unlikely you’ll experience this level of explosive growth)
Recently, Ryan and I did an interview revealing HOW this technique works exactly (and how he’s using it)…
Okay, so what’s this lucractive technique? And how does it work, exactly?
In a nutshell, it’s this:
First, you start by asking people a few CRITICAL survey questions…And then you automatically FUNNEL those people into different sales sequences based on HOW they answer those questions.
Sounds simple, right?
It is, except…
There are a few subtle SECRETS which are the KEY to making this strategy work (One of them is something in Psychology called the “Forer Effect” which I’ll get to in a moment)…
But first, I want to mention this: You see, this “survey funnel” technique is something I’ve been trying to get my students to do for YEARS… (And when people SEE this technique and the results it can give them, many times they WANT to implement it in THEIR business…)
But most people get STUCK on the actual IMPLEMENTATION, simply because they’re not a “Geek” and don’t have the programming skills to set it up properly…
So they give up, often leaving BIG MONEY on the table…
Or worse…
They walk away from a break-even business that could otherwise become WILDLY profitable – with just a few minor tweaks to their sales process…
In other words, the challenge to making this technique work, has always been something I call the “Geek Gap”…
That is, until now…
Because one of my most successful students (Ryan) has partnered with Jack Born (Perry Marshall’s marketing manager) to come up with a way that automatically FUNNELS people into the sales sequence that’s MOST likely to get them to convert. (Their solution is brilliant, actually!)
AND if your site is built using WordPress, this simple method completely eliminates that “Geek Gap” I talked about, because it requires ZERO programming to set one of these funnels up. (Once you see how this works, I’m willing to bet you’re going to rush to set this up on your website too…)
In fact, you can see exactly how the technique I’m talking about works right now by visiting:
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www.InstantMarketSegments.com
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(By the way, it’s worth checking this out – even if you’re just curious because Ryan gives a “behind-the-scenes” look at what’s made one of his businesses so successful… And he reveals the POWER behind that “Forer Effect” I mentioned earlier…)
Now I need to mention, I know because Ryan’s giving away one of the big secrets to his success, he won’t be keeping this up for long, so if I were you…
I’d go ahead and check this out now while you’ve got this open and you’re still thinking about it:
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www.InstantMarketSegments.com
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My warmest regards,
Dr Glenn 
PS – Because Ryan feels like he has me to thank for learning this technique, he’s willing make the automated solution he’s come up with available to my subscribers for less than HALF of what it costs the general public – through February 29th ONLY… So if you’re even just the least bit curious, go ahead and click on the link below so you can see how this works now:
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www.InstantMarketSegments.com
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PPS – For absolute clarity InstantMarketSegments.com is the 1/2 price site Ryan has set up for people coming through my affiliate link, whereas you can download the FREE MP3 where we discuss the technique below. I suggest you do both. (Actually, I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t when they see the price, unless they’re allergic to money)
The Culture Code – Why People Around the World Live and Buy
Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille is a French-born medical anthropologist and psychiatrist who authored The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do. He’s also an expert known internationally for Archetype Discoveries and Creativity.
Here’s a brief but powerful interview my darling wife did with him a few years back.
Enjoy,
Dr. G
www.HyperResponsiveMarketingSecrets.com
PS – This interview originally found on the QRCA podcast website.
Advance Google AdWords 2nd Edition is Coming Soon
I am pleased to announce that the 2nd edition of Advanced Google AdWords is coming soon.
It is already available for pre-order on Amazon.
It was quite the journey writing the 2nd edition. I had thought that working from the first edition and then adding what was new, editing what has changed, and adding some new test cases wouldn’t be too difficult.
I was wrong.
It was amazing to see how much AdWords has changed in two years. When you work with AdWords every day, you just adopt the small changes that occur each week and keep going.
When you need to examine AdWords from two years ago, you realize:
- Remarkeing didn’t exist
- Modified broad match wasn’t introduced
- Quality Score was calculated differently
- Local business ads were in
- Google places didn’t exist
- There were no ad extensions
- There was a ‘reports’ interface
- There were different bidding options
- Topic targeting and interest targeting didn’t exist
- Google Display Network was still named the content network
- and the list goes on
The specs for this edition included roughly 60 new pages of content, over a hundred pages of major rewrites, and endless pages of minor rewrites.
I owe a special thanks to Matt van Wagner who did the technical editing for this edition. His comments, insights, and incredibly detailed fact and math checking makes me feel especially confident that this edition will benefit anyone.
After nearly 7 months of working, the edition is almost ready for publishing. Current timelines suggest it will be ready on April 24, 2012.
I hope you enjoy the new edition – a lot of work, thought, and editing went into making this the best AdWords book published to date.
Note: that is the cover from the 1st edition. I don’t have the 2nd edition cover yet.
Advance Google AdWords 2nd Edition is Coming Soon is a post from: Certified Knowledge
You’re more powerful than you think you are.
40 years ago, a Pittsburgh metal foundry plant manager named Wayne Alderson shot a riveting film called “Miracle of Pittron.” He said, “People who own and manage companies have huge potential to influence the world for the better. Why aren’t they using it?”
I think it’s because they don’t understand the power they wield.
YOU probably don’t understand the power you wield. You’re more powerful than you think you are:
-The media is full of psychopaths who broadcast their mentality of oppression and despair. You, as an entrepreneur, live in a world of opportunity and cooperation. People do respect you and listen to you, whether you realize it or not. They know you’ve ventured farther than they have.
-For most people, their $1300 mortgage is a big deal. You face a $13,000 or $130,000 monthly payroll. You might as well be bench pressing 800 pounds for all they know. But you do it, month in, month out.
-You create a culture for your customers. In fact your #1 job as CEO is to establish the culture. We talk about “Planet Perry” in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way but I’m dead serious about establishing an atmosphere that is markedly different from the world around you. You should do the same.
-Everyone else is talking about problems, scandals and financial armageddon. You need to shine your spotlight on what people CAN do, what IS possible, the ingenuity that solves such problems.
-Most people devalue human beings and parade the bad ones for all to see. You can celebrate the good ones. “Do gooder” is not an insult, it is a compliment.
-You create a culture for your employees and contractors. Make them feel appreciated. You give ‘em the gold star when they come through for you and the good feelings flow outward to their customers, co-workers and families.
-You know something that most people don’t know: There is ALWAYS a way to turn lead into gold. There is ALWAYS an under-valued resource sitting right under your nose, that solves a problem for a person who’s standing right next to you, who will pay money for it.
-You know something else most people don’t know: Every second of every day, 10,000 people search the web and a whole bunch of ‘em don’t find what they’re looking for. As long as that’s true, there’s an opportunity for you.
Stand up, square your shoulders, walk tall. Defy the norm. Challenge the status quo. The hinges of history turn on “ordinary” people who do just that.
Perry Marshall
4 reasons why the PPC management click funnel strategy is a lie
Have you heard people talking about the “click funnel” or “assisted clicks?” Exactly what is it? It refers to searches for certain keywords as part of a discovery process where people make certain searches before they do the search that leads to the actual purchase/conversion.
An example might be when you search for “discount vacation” before you search for “Dubai discount vacation” where the first search result does not convert and the 2nd does convert. Easy enough? It depends on whether you look at the relationship after the fact (what consultants do to offer you their opinion) or if you are looking at it before you have to pay for the first click (what we do to optimize the ROI on your money). Get the picture?
There is an army of bloggers and consultants feeding advertisers with lies about how this works, and this makes our job more difficult because we need to pick apart why it simply does not work that way. Is there a relationship between the “assisted clicks” and the “converting clicks?” Absolutely. Is it a predictable relationship that you can act on to optimize cost/performance? For the majority of the scenarios the answer is a BIG no! Here is why:
1. Given the choice of paying for a click that will convert or assist, which one will you pick? I thought so 
2. Only after exhausting the conversions you can get for your cost threshold should you explore going to the next level and look at assisted clicks. Or should you? Paying for assisted clicks means that you will pay for TWO clicks to get one conversion, thus increasing your cost per acquisition.
Is the relationship between the first and the second click tight enough that you can, with confidence, predict that you will hit your cost threshold? What the consultants will not tell you is how often the assisted click will turn into a conversion, giving you this formula:
CPA = (# assisted clicks * CPC) + (CPC for converting click / conversion rate)
The double hit will most often kill your CPA target.
3. Let’s assume you can get yourself past the above: Unless all your keywords are in position No 1, you are likely better off increasing the target for the converting clicks (these are direct conversions) instead of betting on something indirect and less reliable and unproven. Allocating budget for assisting clicks will increase your CPA dramatically (because now CPA is CPA + cost of all assisting clicks per conversion). Why not simply raise the target for the converting clicks?
Consider this example: You pay $100 CPA for a B2B lead. You decide to allocate 25% of the budget to assisted clicks. If you take the 25% away from the existing budget, you are taking budget away from certain conversions and putting it towards indirect and uncertain conversions; not very smart.
If you add 25% to the existing budget, why not allocate it to what has proven to work and be willing to pay $125 CPA? Which one do you think will produce better and more predictable results?
4. Stretching even further, let’s say that after the above you can still justify allocating budget to an assisted click. What makes you think the person doing the initial search is loyal to you? Not only do you need to make room for someone clicking on your first ad, but they also have to pick you from the 8 ads on the first page of their second search, AND then turn that into THE converting click. So now you are paying for this:
CPA = (# assisted clicks * CPC) * (CPC for converting click / conversion rate)
It is very easy in hindsight to explain and show that an assisting click leads to a conversion, just like it is easy to guess the score of a game after it is played. Player No 7 passed the ball to Player No 9 who scored, therefore player No 7 has equal value as player no 9! This is a true statement if player No 7 is the one who ALWAYS passes the ball to Player No 9 who then ALWAYS scores. Is that likely to happen? NO! What makes you think it will happen with your budget in PPC?
Everyone can explain what happened in the past, but the one who can predict what will happen in the future holds the keys to big success. Can you? At Finch that is what we do; with our pay per click optimization we predict what will happen with great accuracy.
The only case where a click funnel (assisted click) strategy can be helpful is when a campaign has position #1 for all the keywords and still is inside the cost target. Then it becomes a viable strategy. If that is not you, go to www.finch.com to get a specific analysis of what should be changed and why those changes will produce positive results in your existing campaigns.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Certified Knowledge. If you would like to write for Certified Knowledge, please let us know.
4 reasons why the PPC management click funnel strategy is a lie is a post from: Certified Knowledge
Is your “marketing problem” really a marketing problem?
The other day a customer said, “I’m putting in 120% effort, I’m exhausted and my wife hates it.” I can almost guarantee you, that guy’s doing all the RIGHT things to fix the WRONG problem.
At Roundtable last month, Stew, who sells replacement parts for industrial equipment, revealed his #1 discovery in 2011: His customers will pay what to him seemed “exorbitant” prices, for next-day delivery of hard-to-find parts.
Today he’s getting $500 for parts he used to sell for $150, simply because he’s the only guy who’s figured out how to ship the stuff in 24 hours instead of five weeks. It’s a bargain for the customer because otherwise a costly machine sits idle.
This is only one example of how he’s re-engineered his biz during the last year. Almost none of it has been “copywriting” or “optimization.” He’s changing the game instead. Last year he tripled his profits; in June he took an 11-day vacation to Alaska and the business hummed along without him.
Are you using all the perfect techniques and best practices – but fixing the wrong problem?
http://www.perrymarshall.com/roundtable/
Perry Marshall
Bingelela Lodge: Owner threatens violence over $8 bowl of pasta
Utterly shocking horror story – dinner at Bingelela Lodge in Bergville, South Africa (!) My long-time friend and colleague Howie Jacobson, author of AdWords for Dummies, just posted this:
“On Valentines Day my family and I, along with some friends, were subjected to the most surreal, horrible, and scary experience at a local restaurant. We contested an $8 charge on our bill of over $250 and the owner and his friend blocked us in with his truck, cursed at us, threatened us with physical violence (fists and some sort of stick or club), and generally behaved unbelievably.
“My feeling of powerless was extreme, especially with my wife and children (and a 78 year old friend) at their mercy for over half an hour.”
Learn more here:
…and spread the word!
See Howie’s video at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xoq815_bingelela-lodge-nightmare-bergville_travel
Last Call for the AdWords Seminar Workshop at SMX San Jose
SMX West is almost here; and with that the registrations for the SMX AdWords Workshop will be closing soon.
If you live in the area or your will be attending SMX and want to learn more about AdWords, I suggest you attend.
The event will take place on February 27th, 2012. Here’s all the details:
Even with all of the new marketing channels that have opened up over the years, AdWords is still the core of many companies interactive campaigns. If your PPC campaigns are not running efficiently, it can have a drastic impact on your bottom line.
Join Brad Geddes for a full day of AdWords education and discussion that will teach you not only the best practices, but also advanced concepts and strategies that are based upon a decade of research and testing.
What Will I Learn?
Comprehensive Keyword Research: The absolute center of every PPC campaign is keywords. Learn the effective methods to discover and research keywords. While keywords are the lifeblood of PPC, perfecting your match types usage while controlling your negative keywords can drastically increase your overall revenue.
Writing Compelling Ad Copy: You will learn how to sync your ad copy with both your keywords and buying cycle stages.
Ad Copy Testing: Testing ad copy is essential to any AdWords account’s success. You will takeaway several ideas for ads to test by the time you leave the session.
Demystifying Quality Score: Quality Score has a larger effect on your account’s visibility than any other setting inside of AdWords. Quality Score can be a challenge to increase. Receive step-by-step instructions in how to prioritize Quality Score improvement, and what actions to take to increase your Quality Scores.
Increase your Reach Through the Google Display Network: Consumers spend about 5% of their time with the search network. The rest of their time is spent on content sites. Learn how to effectively reach users beyond search with contextual ads, placements, and enhanced campaigns.
Control Your Ad Display with Location Targeting: Do you think that geographic targeting isn’t relevant to a national business? Think again! Whether you are a brick and mortar local business, or a global e-commerce site, learn how geographically targeted campaigns can create additional connections with searchers.
Increase Your Landing Page Conversions: The first impression to a potential customer is the landing page. With only a few seconds to engage the buyer this may be more important in your conversion funnel than anything else. This section of the course will not only go into best practices and usability, but how to test landing pages in a simple and effective method.
Networking Opportunities: Conferences are fantastic places to network and meet fellow practitioners of online marketing. Lunch will be provided so you can spend time getting to know your fellow attendees.
Who is Brad Geddes?
Brad Geddes is the Founder of Certified Knowledge, a company dedicated to consulting, educating, and training marketers on Internet marketing theory and best practices. Not one to hold secrets, Brad is a prominent educator in the PPC industry.
- Google Certified AdWords Trainer
- Author of “Advanced Google AdWords”
- Host of Marketing Nirvana on Webmaster Radio
- Internationally recognized speaker
- Trained more than 10,000 businesses on AdWords
- Columnist for Search Engine Land
- Founder of Certified Knowledge
- Worked with companies with budget ranges from $17 month to millions each month
- Has worked with Red Lobster, Encyclopedia Britannica, Yahoo, Google, Amazon, YellowPages.com
Past Training Video Testimonials
How to Register
If you would like to attend the Advanced AdWords Training @ SMX West you will need one of two passes for SMX:
- Workshop only pass
- All Access Pass + Workshop
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More Information:
Please Note: This is a one day event that is a partnership with SMX. This is not the same as the AdWords Seminar for Success. This is one day event that is jammed pack full of information in a short amount of time. Please come ready to learn.
Last Call for the AdWords Seminar Workshop at SMX San Jose is a post from: Certified Knowledge
