Why all search ads seem the same (and what you can do about it)

Want to create search ads that stand out from the crowd? Columnist Pauline Jakober explains how a thorough examination of your business and its customers can help you create original and engaging ads.

The post Why all search ads seem the same (and what you can do about it) appeared first on Search...



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

When going HTTPS, don't forget about local citations!

Columnist Andrew Shotland shares some common problems that occur during site migrations to HTTPS and explains the importance of updating your citations.

The post When going HTTPS, don't forget about local citations! appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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Halloween Google Doodle treats searchers to Magic Cat Academy game

Google is celebrating Halloween by replacing its logo with an interactive game filled with ghosts and a magic cat.

The post Halloween Google Doodle treats searchers to Magic Cat Academy game appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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7 Spookily Successful Digital Marketing Campaigns for Halloween

Q: What's the ratio of a pumpkin's circumference to its diameter?

A: Pumpkin Pi

All jokes aside, Halloween presents a huge sales opportunity for B2C (and even some B2B) brands. In fact, Halloween is only second to Christmas as the most commercially successful holiday. And a recent survey found that Halloween spending is estimated to reach $8.4 billion dollars this year, the highest in survey history.

Depending on your line of business, this presents an enormous opportunity for marketing departments to help generate a ton of cash over a short amount of time. However, the bar is incredibly high and competition is stiff, which means that consumers are looking for clever, creative and memorable marketing campaigns. The seven spooktacular campaigns below made their mark this year.   

Burger King Dresses Up As Rival

This spooky marketing tactic has been all over the news in the past few days. A Burger King in New York draped their building with a giant ghost and scrolled the word “McDonald's” on it. They also updated their marquee for the holiday to say “Boooooo. Just kidding, we still flame grill our burgers. Happy Halloween”.

In just a few short days the video already has almost 500,000 views on YouTube.

Chipotle Helps Customers Score A $3 Boorito

Each year, Chipotle runs a promotion offering discounted food to customers who show up in-store wearing a costume. I will admit that I have personally partook in this promotion more than I'd like to admit.

Not only has this one Facebook post received over 7,000 reactions, but nearly 3,00 shares as well proving that followers (and their friends) are keen on the deal.

Airbnb Offers Terrifying Experience

The latest Airbnb contest is not for the faint of heart. The travel giant offered two “lucky” people the opportunity to spend Halloween night in the Paris Catacombs. In case you didn't know, the Catacombs are the final resting place of 6 million souls.

In order to win the full experience, followers were asked to share why they think they are brave enough to sleep in the Catacombs.

Petsmart Gets Cute

I absolutely love this post from Petsmart. In addition to offering pet lovers a clever idea for carving pumpkins, they're also encouraging user generated content by asking people to create their own and use the hashtag #WickedCute as well as tagging the brand and the “pet celebrity” that they choose.

Energy.gov Educates Using Candy Corn

I was pretty impressed by this amazingly clever approach to showing how your energy consumption stacks up to the energy found in Halloween themed objects from Energy.org. Users can choose a number and energy type to find their output.

Additionally, the organization also created a special Energy Ghostbusters podcast that shares “scarily effective” ways to save energy.

REI Offers Zombie Survival Gear

This infographic from REI promises to supply you with the proper attire to survive a zombie apocalypse as well as “five critical skills to keep you from becoming a snack”. Not only is the release of this infographic timely for Halloween, but it also aligns with the premiere of the new season of the Walking Dead and will prove to be a piece of evergreen content for REI once the holiday has passed.

MAC Transformation Magic

The London Dungeon offers a truly unique theatre experience that features special effects, rides and the opportunity for patrons to hear, touch and smell the whole experience. Their latest campaign features the use of high-end Mac cosmetics to create an authentic (and truly disturbing) tutorial for turning yourself from fresh faced to wicked witch with some clever contouring.

TopRank Marketing Team Members Share Their Fondest Halloween Memory

This post would be incomplete without including halloween insights from some of our TopRank Marketing team members. Below you'll find a glimpse into halloween of years past as our team reflects on their fondest childhood halloween memories.

Alexis Hall – Director of Client Accounts

When I was in first grade I was at the school Halloween party. And for three tickets you could place someone in jail for like 10 minutes. And my brother put me in. It had bars and I cried after 30 seconds so he changed places with me and served my time. It was traumatizing at the time.

Leila de La Fuente – Account Manager

When I was 6, I dressed up as my favorite disney Character, Nala from the Lion King. I walked around all day saying “get your paws off me” because it was my favorite line from the movie.

Caitlin Burgess – Content Marketing Lead

Every Halloween night my grandpa would come over for dinner. My mom always made baked spaghetti from a family recipe. After dinner my dad and grandpa would hit the streets with my sister and I, as well as the neighborhood kids, for trick or treating.

Kevin Kotch – SEO Analyst

When I was a kid, I remember trying to find the “best” houses which of course were the ones with the full-sized candy bars. Throughout the night while we were trick or treating, my neighborhood friends and I would have silly string wars. Things got pretty messy.

Amy Higgins – Account Manager

One year I was Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie. I really wanted long hair so I could fold my arms and shake my head to make wishes come true. So, I stole my mother's hair piece from when she was debutante. Mom was not happy. I think she wanted to save it for when beehives come back it style. Just kidding BlogThis!

SearchCap: SEMPO survey, HTTPS & Halloween

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

The post SearchCap: SEMPO survey, HTTPS & Halloween appeared first on Search Engine Land.



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

5 a/b test ideas for mobile gaming apps

We talk a lot about a/b testing here on MarketingExperiments. What we don't usually talk about is a/b testing for the mobile web…especially testing within mobile apps.

I thought we should change that. As I was scouring the web looking for mobile a/b tests, I found this 2-year old video by Amazon.

Apparently, Amazon Web Services (AWS) at one point had an a/b testing feature that is now closed

.

When they had testing, however, one app developer used it extensively and shared their experiences in a promotional video for the feature on Amazon. The developers were behind the game Air Patriots. Russell Caroll was the Senior Producer for the game and Julio Gorge was the Game Development Engineer. The game is a kind of aerial take on the classic tower defense game genre.

Air Patriots

Now granted, this was a promotional video, but the content still speaks for itself. These guys had (and still have by the looks of it) a fairly successful mobile app and they ran some successful tests. It's a great starting place for what you can test in your mobile app.

By the way, while Amazon has shut down its a/b testing feature, there are a lot of other tools for testing mobile apps that will accomplish the same thing the developers talk about in the video.

Test #1: What is the impact of ads on customer experience? (1:34)

The first thing the team tested was the impact of ads are on their customers. They wanted to make sure the ads did not harm the customer experience. So they tested a single ad in the main menu near the bottom of the screen.

They found that the ads didn't affect customer retention. This meant that they could insert ads and generate more revenue without hurting their customers.

Test #2: Will in-game ad placement affect customer retention? (2:56)

In the second test, the team put ads in the game screen.

In both the first and second tests, the ads had a little “X” that the customers could tap to hypothetically dismiss the ads. When they tapped, a pop up came up that told customers they could eliminate ads with any purchase in the game's store.

In this test, there was again, no impact on customer retention, but there was a statistically significant increase in revenue.

Test #3: Simple game-circle icon test (4:20)

In this test, the team wanted to know whether an icon to the game-circle (Amazon's game stats and leaderboards portal) would improve performance.

It's not clear which icon won, or even why this particular test was useful for the team, but they did get a favorable result, and the lesson they wanted to drive home was that simple changes like icons can make a difference. We've, of course found that to be the case in a large number of our tests on MarketingExperiments.

Test #4: Does game difficulty affect revenue? (4:58)

In this 4th test, Caroll made a mistake. He accidentally changed the game difficulty to make it about 10% harder. As a result, every metric that was important to them tanked.

The team of course fixed it as fast as possible, but it gave them an idea.

What would happen to revenue if they made the game easier?

So they ran a test that had 5 treatments: The control and then 4 difficulty levels that were easier than the control.

It turned out that the easiest difficulty performed the best. By making it easier, they players playing 20% longer and revenue went up 20%.

Test #5: When is the best time to have push-notifications for re-engagement in inactive players? (7:43)

The team then tested a push-notification that offered inactive players and incentive for picking the game back up.

They wanted to know when the best time to send the notification would be. So they tested a few different variables and found that the best time was 3 days after the last game play.

They also found that sending the notification 7 days after the last game play negatively impacted their performance metrics.

With these 5 tests and probably a few more that have been happening off the record, the team was able to develop a great app for their customers and steadily increase their revenue. At the end of the video Carol gives a few key takeaways for marketers who are a/b testing their apps.

You might also like:

Email Research Chart: Email opens trends on mobile devices in 2015

Mobile Marketing Chart: Amount of revenue from the mobile channel, by merchant type

3 A/B Testing Case Studies from Smart Brand-Side Marketers

All the Marketing Tools You Need This Season

As soon as the last jack-o'-lantern is extinguished, the holiday marketing season begins in full force. In many cases, it doesn't even wait that long! Fortunately, our Everything Holiday resource center has all the tips, tools, guides, giveaways, and festive freebies you need to make the remaining months of the year a smash success for your business. 

Here are some of the highlights that we unlocked last week:

• Our guide to holiday landing pages and how they can enhance your seasonal promotions.


• New Year's-themed graphics for your email and social media marketing - along with some visual elements for the holidays that come early in 2017.


• Tips on making the most out of Small Business Saturday.


• An email marketing calendar to help prevent the post-holidays drop-off that often occurs in the first quarter.

Those are just a taste of what Everything Holiday has to offer. All 24 days are hung from the chimney with care, ready to help your holiday marketing reach new heights. Check out some of some of these seasonal goodies:

• Holiday guides to email marketing and social media.


• A holiday checklist and email marketing worksheet to help stay on track.


• A holiday-themed subject line generator.


• A guide to seasonalizing your brand.


• And a Santa-sized grab bag of bonus content to help and inspire you, all free!

With Everything Holiday, you're sure to have smooth sledding this holiday season. Happy holidays!

Shine Bright This Season 24 Days of Email Marketing Tips, Tools, and Festive Freebies Everything Holiday

 

© 2016, John Habib. All rights reserved.

The post All the Marketing Tools You Need This Season appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.