Demand Proof That Your Advertising Works: Tracking Ads

by James Fowler

www.mywebsource1.com

How do you know if your ads are working for you? The internet makes it easy to track your return on investment through pay-per-click ads, but how can you track print ads? How do you monitor your radio and television ads? What do you do if your running concurrent campaigns?

One way marketers have done this in the past is to put a special code on the ad that a customer is supposed to use when they call the company in hopes of getting an additional discount.

For example, if you were running an ad for a Halloween Sale, you might have customers call in and say the code: BOO to receive an additional 10% off their order.

While this may prove some sales, how do you know your ad worked? You know which customers got the discount, but did they call in and have your customer service person offer them the 10% off? What about the customers that didn’t use the code? How about those that saved the ad and called in after the sale? This way cannot positively give you an accurate account.

Another way of tracking ads is the coupon. Likewise, while you know the number of people who have used the coupon saw your ad, what about those who buy your products but didn’t use the coupon? What if they buy something else outside of the sale item? There is no clear way to monitor the effectiveness of your ad…

…or is there?

Let us say you are going to do a direct mail campaign or rent a billboard. You want to know how effective your money is working for you. There is a way to do this by tracking the phone numbers and/or web address that you use in your ads. What’s more, your ad can be monitored each day for its effectiveness. The difficult work is done for you and you just need to worry about getting the sales!

Once you experience the power of the tracking technology by seeing the actual number of leads and hearing the actual phone calls, you will be able to track where you are most effective. You’ll be able to see and hear where your shortcomings are. You’ll be able to see what brings in results.

Why waste money on non-effective advertising month after month? Quit the guessing. Be smart in your spending. Arm yourself with the tools you need to make your advertising as valuable as possible. Think of how much money you can save by spending smart!

Here’s how it works:
ONE: You create a magazine, billboard, catalog, brochure, radio, or television ad. We take your phone number or email address and change it slightly to record the results back to you.

TWO: Immediately, those calls or the web site address comes to you, but are recorded so that you can monitor their results.

THREE: You click on the web site each day and can actually listen to the phone calls or see the results of the web site address provided.

You can see exactly who is answering the call to action from your ads!

I am sure that you can see the benefit in this method of advertising. The added cost (which is most likely less than 10% of your total cost of one mailing) can help you in honing your message and give you the answers to how well your advertising is working for you!

Contact us with your questions and find out how Smart Marketing with myWebSource1 can work for you and get a sample image of how this wonderful software works!

Confessions of a Search Engine Marketing Professional

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

A year ago, on July 1st, I started my business, www.myWebSource1.com. I had been doing search engine marketing (SEM) work for some time, but I thought it was finally time to make it official and start doing this for local businesses and non-profit organizations.

My first thought process was to design web sites for people and do them in a way where they had a good start with search engine optimization. Some of the web sites I saw out there were horribly optimized and relying solely on pay-per-click marketing (PPC) –or nothing at all!

After some time of this, however, I realized that many people already had a web site built for them by a nephew or cousin and they weren’t happy with the results. Some asked for a re-design, but others wanted to know how to fix what they already had. People understood a tangible web site, but finding out the non-tangible – what we do – was difficult for them to grasp. The needed a something to show them a way to make their web site matter. And thus, my SEO report was created.

This was something I was able to grasp!
I had a service to sell!

The SEO report is a search engine optimization paper, consisting of about 40 methods and suggestions for local businesses and non-profit organizations to examine their web pages, find the broken links, the misspelled words, the non-indexed pages and other problems that show poor presentation of a web site. It isn’t necessarily the aesthetic feel of your web site that is the problem, it could just be the way it is presented to the world.

Some things I tell every one of my customers is that to succeed on the internet, you need to do certain things for the search engines to find you. These can be done by yourself, if you have the time, or by a search engine professional. Here is a list of ten things you can do:

1 Have a Site Map – not just the Extended Markup Hyperlink (xml) that Google asks for, but an HTML one, too. This is especially helpful with search engines like Yahoo!

2 Use keyword metatags – these are words that describe to search engines what is on your web page.

3 Make sure that every page has a title. Nothing is more disgusting than finding out your web page is called “HOME”.

4 Create a blog. Most people think a blog is a kid’s thing or something done by musicians. There is nothing further from the truth. A blog can build your business on the web very quickly. More on this at another time.

5 Take those keywords I told you to use in Tip #2 and use them as hyperlinks in your blogs. This entire blog post is a good example.

6 Write articles and press releases. Submit them to web sites that will distribute them for you. Make sure to include plenty of links.

7 Submit your site to search engines. Make sure that each of your web pages is indexed by at least the top three search engines. (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN).

8 Join bulletin boards and online groups associated with your business or service. Post to these. Make sure to include a link back to your web site when you write in them.

9 Ask companies that are associated with your business to include your link on their web site. They may ask for you to do the same. If they do, make sure you add their link to your site.

10 Finally, don’t quit adding new content to your web site. The search engines love this and they will scan your site more often.

I hope you find these ten points useful. If you have any questions or would like to use my services, please contact me at www.myWebSource1.com or by email info@mywebsource1.com .