Pay Per Call Advertising, Marketing & Affiliate Education.

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How to Generate Leads for Your Business on Radio

There are lots of ways to generate inquiries for a small business. As the online advertising landscape has grown due to the ease of tracking and reporting Web visitors, a lot of small business advertisers have moved their offline budget to online placements.
 
As online direct response advertising and lead generation has grown, traditional media like print, TV and radio have had to adapt, and become more welcoming for companies that don’t have a pile of money to “test.” Radio specifically has moved quickly into direct response, due to the ease of creating an advertisement, and tracking with the use of unique call-in numbers and vanity URLs.
 
There are two distinct types of direct response radio advertising, Pay-per-lead and Pay-per-call. Both options usually require a relationship with a radio-specific agency that focuses on buying media on a per-inquiry basis.
 
Pay-per-call radio advertising is a direct response option that works well with call centers that have sophisticated phone tracking capabilities. When you are paying for calls, it’s important that someone is there to answer them.  In a Pay-per-call agreement, you can expect to pay for connected calls that last between 30 seconds and one minute. This would signal that the call was not a wrong number or hang up, and the caller was legitimately interested in your products and services.
 
A couple issues that arise from Pay-per-call: 1) A call center generally doesn’t stay open 24 hours per day. So you either need a backup call center or you need to be prepared to pay for calls and voicemails that get left after hours. 2) Faulty reporting and tracking. If you’re paying for calls, you likely should use a unique number so you can track the calls along with the company buying the media that way you can compare data. In a best case scenario, you can utilize a third party call tracking solution company like Marchex or Mongoose metrics who specialize in tracking and sourcing call-in leads.
 
The most popular direct response radio advertising option is Pay-per-lead or Pay-per-sale. This is also not the norm, and these types of deals are hard to come by. There is a lot of risk for radio stations to run an ad with back-end compensation. Stations generally work with a specialized media buyer who they trust that can assure them they will get compensated. You also need to have a solid offer to even get picked up by the stations. A general offer like car insurance or online education might get a lot of free airplay in hopes of generating leads, but a niche offer like investing your retirement funds may not.
 
For both options, you need to have a professional spot created that can be shopped to relevant radio stations and networks. Getting a station to test the offer is easier than having them continue running it. Plus, generating a significant number of leads is what everyone wants. You should also be aware that the cost for leads and calls on radio will be higher than your general online lead campaign. For example, a term life insurance lead may cost $15-20 to generate on search or thru affiliate networks, but a lead from the radio could cost 2 – 3 times that. However, you should expect the radio lead to be higher quality, less likely to have been shopped around, and to close more often. But it will be integral that you are aggressive as possible when negotiating a lead price, and are open to increasing or decreasing that price based on the lead quality and success of the program. As ramping and getting more stations to pick up an offer could require increasing your payout.
 
Alternatively, should you not find any takers on your offer, or the proposed cost per call/lead from these radio media buying agencies is too high, you can also look into remnant radio advertising as a way to test the medium. This is essentially buying radio advertising on a space available basis, when the station has unsold media. This can occur during the morning commute, or the drive home, but that is when the high-paying advertisers want to show up. More often than not you are running in off hours or overnight. You should still be paying much less than “rate card” overnight placements. In the remnant scenario, it is also important to stick to stations and networks that are relevant to your offer. That last thing you want to have happen is for them to run your financial services ad overnight on the Top 40 channel. 12 – 24 year olds likely are not interested in your stock trading or life insurance offer.

 

VoodooVox acquired by Call Genie

Mobile analytics and advertising network company VoodooVox has been acquired by Call Genie. The cash-and-share deal is valued at $2.8 million.

Call Genie has raised a ton of venture capital from investors like Apax Partners, Softbank Capital, Steamboat Ventures (Disney), Berkshire Capital Investors and Village Ventures.

VoodooVox provides demographic information on phone calls and mobile ad traffic in real-time, enabling companies to gain insights into their call volume and mobile application activity. Call Genie, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, said it will use the acquisition to further expand its product offering, and delve further into the mobile advertising market, specifically strengthening its Pay Per Call advertising.

“The more pay per call advertisers know about their callers, the more success they’ll have with their campaigns,” commented Call Genie president and CEO, Michael Durance. “Our goal is to create a smarter mobile ad network, and VoodooVox gives us audience insights that benefit key stakeholders in the mobile advertising ecosystem.”

In other news, Call Genie said it intends to change the name of the company to VoodooVox, as it believes ‘Call Genie’ no longer reflects how its business has evolved since 2000. The name change will be brought to a vote at the company’s special meeting of shareholders later this month.

Call Genie is a provider of mobile local search and mobile digital interactive advertising, whose solutions are deployed in 12 countries worldwide. Its software allows telecom operators to search and access directory listing information.

Voodoovox had a strong focus on the Hispanic market as Hispanics are heavy pre-paid phone callers. However, pre-paid advertising does not seem to have really taken off.

In early 2010, Bob Perry, until then VP of Multicultural at Voodoovox,  was appointed as  new Senior Director Mobile Sales and Solutions at Mobile Posse in New York City. Both Voodoovox and Mobile Posse were (partially) backed venture capital investment company Softbank.

Can SEO and PPC Play Nice?

How “On Page” SEO and PPC Can Work Together To Expand Your Reach

Visited: 34Not rated


by Emily McClendon
August 25, 2011


Emily McClendon

Emily McClendon is the Director of SEO at Nebo Agency. She believes that communication and shared knowledge are the most important facets of conveying information about an ever-changing field.  Specializing in SEO strategies, with an emphasis on mobile and local search, client’s strategies must evolve as SEO does. A stagnate mind contains useless knowledge.

Emily McClendon
has written 3 articles for PromotionWorld.
View all articles by Emily McClendon…

So you need powerful landing pages for your PPC campaigns, but you’re worried about disrupting your overall SEO strategy. You’re not alone. The rivalry between proponents of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising has always been fierce, but can the two marketing options work together? Of course they can! Historically, SEO and PPC are seen as two very different strategies. SEO is long-term, holistic, and cautious. PPC is short-term, immediate, and more risky. However, in terms of on page optimization, PPC and SEO have a lot in common. Successfully harnessing the power of both PPC and SEO strategies to strengthen your landing pages through great content, keywords, and navigation is the key to providing your website with better overall reach and rankings.

Content

Whether optimized for organic search or as part of a paid campaign, great on page content is integral for any successful webpage. Offering unique, interesting content on your SEO and PPC pages will continuously engage users and build a strong, trusted reputation for your page. Let’s say you sell a basic commodity like pencils. By providing additional or more relevant information than your competitors (e.g. pencil comparisons, tips on using pencils for marketing, back to school tips, etc.), you can give users a reason to visit and convert on your site. Relevant content yields higher quality scores for PPC keywords, and it will also indicate to search engine robots that the page has more organic relevance for search queries.

Best practices for PPC pages traditionally include having more concise, highly relevant content with a clear call to action dominating the page. For example, a PPC landing page for our pencil company might feature a single option, a yellow #2 pencil with a large click-to-buy call to action. A page optimized for both SEO and PPC would again offer the #2 pencil for purchase, but would include additional options such as related products or a more extensive textual description of the product. SEO pages are still targeted but can incorporate more textual elements that engage the user with a less blatant call to action. Ultimately though, both PPC and organic search landing pages should appeal to users with a variety of expectations by finding the appropriate balance between a narrow and focused content scope.

For both SEO and PPC campaigns, your on page content must target the right audience. Our pencil company homepage would include high-level content more appropriate for branding purposes, but our yellow #2 pencil product page would include more targeted content focused toward sales. However, both pages would incorporate content related to the campaign-specified keywords or ads, giving visitors flexibility and options.

Keywords

Including the appropriate keywords on page is crucial for both gaining higher PPC quality scores and organic rankings. Thus, incorporating keywords seamlessly into page content should be your first step toward on page optimization. It should sound natural – you don’t want to mention “yellow #2 pencil” dozens of times in a bed of unreadable text (aka keyword stuffing)! But if your site is attempting to rank for a term, your content should naturally include mentions of the keyword.

For PPC landing pages in particular, you want to make sure someone who clicked on the ad understands the connection of your page to their search query. PPC landing pages should include the keywords that trigger the ad impressions. For example, if “Buy yellow #2 pencils” is a keyword in your ad group, you would ideally have the same words prominently displayed on the landing page next to an option to buy yellow #2 pencils. In addition, “Yellow #2 Pencils” would ideally be in an H1 tag to indicate organic relevance to search engines.

As with content, PPC and SEO campaigns can utilize keywords with different levels of focus. PPC offers the ability to rank for broad, highly competitive keywords by using a bidding system with controlled placement. SEO reduces cost, and initial campaigns are typically focused on long tail keywords. Combining SEO and PPC allows a newly launched campaign to reap the benefit of high rankings for broad keywords while reducing campaign budgets with long tail organic rankings, and the scope of both options can be adjusted as search efforts mature. When a page is supported by SEO and PPC campaigns, the keyword footprint can be larger due to the integration of organic and paid targeted keywords. For example, it might be impossible for your site to achieve high organic rankings for a very competitive keyword like “pencils” using only a SEO approach, but you may be able to achieve a top paid listing using a PPC campaign with geographical and temporal targeting.

Navigation

A major differentiator of PPC best practice (vs. SEO best practice) is that landing pages might incorporate modified or pared down navigational features to keep viewers focused on conversion and discourage them from leaving the page after seeing something else that caught their eye. The same goes for links that could lead the user away from the specified goal. Limited navigation or linking could be detrimental when optimizing for search engines, so keeping full capabilities while improving page flow is an easy way to manage SEO tactics while also optimizing for PPC conversions. In other words, you want a visitor who came to your site from a yellow #2 pencils PPC campaign to easily be able to search through all kinds of pencils if they desire.

Different styles of navigation can greatly affect how visitors act on your landing pages. A clear, efficient page flow can help engage a visitor and establish a professional, trusted page atmosphere; but a well-designed page flow can also guide users strictly toward making a conversion. Funneling someone into a conversion path may be appropriate for the yellow #2 pencil PPC landing page, but not quite as optimal for the more general content-focused SEO pencil homepage. A person clicking a PPC ad might be further along in the buying cycle than a searcher who clicks on an organic listing. However, you don’t want to restrict that visitor too much in case they are interested in other parts of your site. Keep navigation targeted for conversions but also flexible enough to allow users to visit and gain trust from other site features.

Conclusion

Tapping into the benefits of the relationship between PPC and SEO can have an explosive effect on your brand’s site. It’s not PPC vs. SEO. It’s PPC and SEO. By strategizing keyword strategies for both paid and organic search mediums, you can acquire short-term and long-term rankings that will boost your click-through rate and increase the online shelf space of your brand. SEO and PPC are often thought of as independent tools, but with the right strategy they can work together to increase your brand’s overall success in reaching your target market.

   

  

   

  

  

Affiliate Window and buy.at Team Up with Freespee for Next Generation Global …

Award-winning performance marketing networks Affiliate Window and buy.at have joined forces with Freespee, leaders in Pay-Per-Call advertising solutions. Freespee’s platform allows the networks to significantly improve their existing call tracking technology and fully integrate offline conversions with affiliate campaigns, creating new business opportunities for advertisers and publishers. The cross-territory partnership is exclusive to Affiliate Window and buy.at in the UK US markets.

In many service industries, phone calls stand out as the preferred method for many consumers to connect with advertisers during the purchase process and while solutions existed, they were limited in their sophistication and flexibility. Recent innovations in advertising technology enable Freespee to open up new opportunities for publishers to generate traffic and sales, as the use of phone numbers have proven successful across all channels both on and off line.

“We are extremely proud to become the partner of choice for the Digital Window group”, says Carl Holmquist, Founder and CEO of Freespee, based in Sweden. “This partnership also heralds our sooner-than-anticipated expansion to the U.S. market – as we are seeing very rapidly increasing demand for call monetisation solutions in Europe and beyond”. Holmquist continues ”Our partners appreciate our uncomplicated approach to adding phone calls as another key CPA method in order to fully monetise their traffic. It’s also about giving consumers freedom of choice to call the advertiser whenever the product is too complicated to buy just online.”

Paul Inman, Technical Solutions Director for Affiliate Window and buy.at adds: “Working with Freespee has been poetic. Our business models and technologies slotted together seamlessly allowing us to quickly take the offering to market. The team at Freespee have been ever present to help us prepare for launch of the service to both our UK and US client bases and we are all very excited about the potential of this new addition to our portfolio of performance based marketing tools.”

This partnership will further develop the networks’ capabilities to monetise offline conversions for clients, and enable true Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) pricing for inbound phone calls with advertiser CRM integration. Pay-Per-Call has seen a growing success rate across the finance, telecoms, travel, and insurance verticals where phone calls often prove most lucrative, as a large percentage of consumers prefer a personal telephone service. This solution, with its fast, flexible and simple integration process becomes increasingly more attractive for advertisers whose websites have lower conversion rates and are often overlooked by publishers.

For Affiliate Window buy.at press enquiries, please contact:

Lisa Chaikin

PR Manager – UK US

Affiliate Window buy.at

e:
t: +44 20 7553 0333

For Freespee information, please contact:

Juhani Polkko

VP of Marketing, Freespee

e:
t: +358 9 8860 2860

Published on: 11:10AM on 25th August 2011

Revealing Lead Gen Survey Shows 3rd Party Opt-in Email Campaigns Are Most …

  • 3rd party opt-in email campaigns – 20.3%
  • Online display campaigns – 19.1%
  • Cold calling – 14.3%
  • Trade shows – 13.1%
  • Other – 11.3%
  • Direct mail campaigns – 10.7%
  • PPC search campaigns – 10.1%

When asked whether they have utilized 3rd party opt-in email campaigns either now or in the past, responses included:

  • No – 64%
  • Yes – 36%

In response to a question regarding which lead gen method was most effective, 35.9% pointed to PPC campaigns. Full responses include:

  • PPC search campaigns – 35.9%
  • Online display campaigns – 17.9%
  • Other – 13.7%
  • 3rd party opt-in email campaigns – 11.3%
  • Tradeshows – 7.7%
  • Direct mail – 6.5%
  • Cold calling – 5.9%

“Lead gen professionals are always looking for the best tools that deliver results,” said Daniel Yomtobian, founder and CEO of Advertise.com. “Although 3rd party opt-in email campaigns are the most underutilized platform, I believe that will not last long. As these professionals test things out and see the results, they’ll begin to add this powerful option to their arsenal. Since consumers previously opted in to receive updates from our publishers, these email campaigns work extremely well, with an average conversion rate of 9-13%.” According to the Direct Marketing Association (Q4 2010 Email Trends and Benchmark Report), the industry average conversion rate is 2.9%.

Yomtobian continued, “Our survey participants highlighted the effectiveness of PPC, which is naturally a great way to target and qualify leads. PPC is highly optimizable based on keywords, bids and the proactive nature of the search.”

Advertise.com provides lead gen professionals with a one-stop-shop for all of their lead gen needs, reaching a wide audience through premium traffic sources and an exclusive publisher network. Advertise.com offers advertisers multiple integrated programs, including PPC, Remarketing, email marketing, and display advertising.

About Advertise.com

Advertise.com is a premier platform for Keyword PPC, Display, Email, and Remarketing campaigns. Celebrating its 10th year, the company enables advertisers to reach a wide audience through its exclusive network of search engines publisher partners and content properties. Leading the charge in online advertising, Advertise.com connects thousands of advertisers with millions of consumers every day – delivering more than 3 trillion ad impressions since 2001 (delivering over 9 billion visitors to advertisers since 2001). For more information about reaching the consumers looking for your products and services visit www.advertise.com or call 1-800-710-7009.