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Like shopping malls and strip centers, websites rely on traffic to generate sales and leads. It might surprise you to know that more than half of all US residents and more than 75% of all US adults are online today. Source: Us Census Bureau, May 2011.

Business websites need traffic to add value and deliver ROI - Internet advertising can provide targeted traffic

In fact, 35% of US consumers spend more than three hours online every day (Source: The Media Audit, October 2010). I am sure the numbers today skew higher. It’s like the old proverb says, “if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” The analogy here is, if a website exists on the Internet but there are no mechanisms for people to discover the website, does it exist?

This post is part of a series that will discuss strategies to reach targeted markets with laser precision. Included in this series will be recommended Internet marketing and Internet advertising tactics. While writing the initial piece, the need to chunk the content into digestible posts quickly became clear. With that, the Terrific Time for Traffic series was born.

One of the biggest challenges that business owners face online or off is to be found. Discovery of a new website can be especially challenging. Business owners ask how can we cost-effectively market our website on the Internet? Another related question is how can we quickly ramp up website visitors? Not just any visitors, but targeted visitors otherwise known as qualified prospects? How can we connect with those businesses and consumers researching purchases online for the very products and services we offer?

The question is will these businesses and consumers in market for the products and services sold by your business find your website? If they don’t find your website, won’t they likely find your competitor’s website? This is a huge challenge for new businesses and for business whose name and brand are not currently well-known in the market.

Business owners have many Internet advertising options available to lead online researchers to their products and services on their business website, including:

Internet advertising and Internet marketing options to drive targeted, qualified visitors to your website

• Purchasing advertisements on search engines where ads are shown for search term bid on for placement in the paid search results.
• Purchasing display advertisements on websites; these can be contextually targeted based on context (what type of site they are on) or behavioral factors such as show ads to those who have already visited your website (remarketing)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website, mostly accomplished through obtaining non-paid links from other authoritative websites to your. These links are required to rank well for user searches that are relevant to the products and services offered by your business. More on this topic in an upcoming segment.
• Issuing press releases with links to your website; this can provide huge value if/when the press release get picked up by mainstream news outlets or niche news outlets in the case of a more targeted release.
• Writing and publishing articles and posting those articles to article directories with links to your website; this practice is referred to as Article Marketing. Other places to publish include newspapers, magazines and other publications looking for relevant content.
• Commenting on blogs whose content is contextually relevant to your website, focusing on blogs that allow you to link back to your website in the comments form. Avoid automated commenting software or leaving spam comments.
• Inter-linking multiple websites owned by the same company to create a network of websites, focusing on carefully worded links with preferred placement. This practice can also be viewed as risky as search engines may view as an attempt to manipulate search results, risking possible ranking penalties.
• Purchasing targeted advertising on social media networks such as facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Facebook and LinkedIn offer self-serve options including the ability to target your ads to specific user demographics and geographies (more on this in subsequent posts).
• e-mail marketing with messages that contain links back to your website; email marketing is safest when using a double opt-in list to avoid email marketing pitfalls.
• Listing your website in search engines and local directories under your business category or categories.
• Creating social media profiles and then using those profiles/pages to promote your products and services while networking and engaging potential clients online.
• Referencing the website address (e.g. www.eBizROI.com) in all marketing materials and communications, both online and offline.
• Purchasing text links to your website from other websites whose content is relevant to your products and services; Caution: negative impacts on search engine rankings a risk with purchased links.
• Create a blog and post content of interest to your target market which, according to HubSpot, a leading supplier of marketing software, results in obtaining 97% more inbound links that websites without a blog - Source: Hubspot, State Of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010. Blogging also adds value to your clients while building trust.
• Too many more to list without needing to break this first post in the series into a series itsel, but you get the idea.

The key takeaway is that If you are a business owner, marketing manager or CMO with a marketing budget and better yet, an Internet advertising/marketing budget, there has never been more options for businesses, large and small, to target and reach well-defined niche(s) online efficiently and effectively.

In the next post in the Terrific Time for Traffic series, we will discuss data points that demonstrate the breadth of US Internet users and how they rely on search engines over 50% of the time to begin researching products and services that they are in the market for.

If you found value in this post, please like eBiz ROI on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ebizroi(or click like button directly below) and Follow eBiz ROI on Twitter @eBizROI (or click the Twitter follow button directly below) to stay connected to the Terrific Time for Traffic series and other quality content for growing your business online while maximizing marketing ROI (Return on Investment).

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Retargeting is just one form of behavioural targeting utilized in Internet advertising that works really well to drive increased conversions, but generally to be effective, you need to have a fairly substantial audience (i.e. cookie pool) built up, otherwise ad and campaign delivery will be low to non-existent.

Retargeting Campaigns - 5 Tips to Increase Click to Conversion

5 Tips to Increase Click to Conversion – inspired by SEOMoz Video – see below

1. Create highly relevant audiences  by building segments based on what content people consume and then target message to each audience based on the needs and wants of those segments. Utilize all of your web properties to build audience and segments as audience size is key to getting distribution of your ad on this party ad networks or sites with retargeting capabilities
2. Build and utilize your conversion funnel by moving users from awareness to interest to Evaluation to Decision through to purchase phases during the retargeting campaign. Targeting messages and creative by segment at each phase of the conversion funnel. For example, we as marketers know that at the awareness phase, ads with logo and name can be used to build brand awareness. At the interest phase, showing ads with specific product or services content works best. At the evaluation phase, showing ads that address typical objections that prevent sales work well.  During the decision phase of the funnel, display ads that offer promotions and discounts, then after purchase, showing ads for related products to promote up-sell opportunities can be beneficial to increasing sales and ROI.
3. Avoid showing too many ads to the same user which can create the feeling that being stalled or followed around the Internet. In my experience, large online ecommerce sites are guilty of this as it can make a user feel creepy, almost liked they are being stalked. Advertisers never want to be viewed as stalkers or associated with stalking users. Best practices include limiting to 3 ads per day or 7-12 ads per month. This can be accomplished through frequency capping during  campaign delivery. Rotating in different creative based on funnel phase can be effective in reducing banner fatigue while reinforcing different facets of your brand during the execution of the retargeting campaign.
4. Optimize landing pages that speak directly to the viewers of the ad based on the segment and phase of the conversion funnel they are in. There is a wealth of data showing that conversion rates in retargeting campaigns are highly sensitive to the relevancy of the creative that someone clicks on to the page they land on from the click. Imagine going through a McDonalds drive through and be offered a foot long sub!  Relevancy between landing page and creative will boost your click your click to conversion rate on not only remarketing campaigns, but any campaigns in search or display. Through strategic ad sequencing and segmentation, you can show creative that thanks visitors for returning to your site or requesting that they take a look at something they may have missed. Proceed with caution for the same reason as #3 above. It is a fine line between effective creative sequencing and perceived invasion of privacy, which can differ based on cultural context.
5.  Have patience and continually test and avoid the “knee-jerk” desire to pull the plug on your retargeting campaign before giving it a chance to succeed mad bear fruit (conversions). I know that Internet marketers enjoy the measurability and immediacy of Internet advertising campaigns as well as the next guy, but committ to a week as any retargeting campaign needs several days of testing to ensure that you have sufficient data to judge campaign performance. This is especially true when running a retargeting campaign as it takes time to move your audience through the conversion funnel. In my experience, retargeting campaigns are a great way to boost click to conversion rates on performance-focused campaigns. Be sure to test creative variations, landing pages, ad sequencing and other parameters to tweak and maximize the ROI of your retargeting campaign.

For more information, checkout the recent video from Justin Vanning of the SEOMozo marketing team, the person responsible for all of the SEOMoz Internet advertising, which includes paid search, retargeting, any other budget where SEOMoz acquires new customers through the Internet. In this video, Justin elaborates on each of the 5 points above. The video below was the inspiration of this blog post with Justin providing the 5 tips above and greatly elaborating with real world examples.

SEOMoz Video – 5 Tips for Running a Successful Retargeting Campaign – Whiteboard Friday

To ensure that your retargeting campaign is as efficient as possible, a “clear cookie” after a user converts can be used to filter ads to users on the device for which they or someone else converted on. If someone clears cookies often or configures their browser to not accept cookies (luckily few do), all bets are off as current retargeting technologies rely on cookies to track a users online site/page viewing history and target ads accordingly.

Search and retargeting are great compliments in an integrated online marketing strategy and Internet adversting plan. Large advertisers typically utilize a multi-channel marketing strategy, and look for display advertising to increase their distribution and reach,  especially when targeting competitive keywords that are often overbid negatively impactis ROI on paid search. Retargeting can deliver click to conversion rates comparable to and in some case better than paid search.

Though some Internet advertisers dismiss display advertising in favor of search advertising, large, sophisticated advertisers know that both search and display, especially when leveraging  behavioral targeting, including retargeting campaigns, can have huge positive impact on their Internet advertising ROI.

For more information about how retargeting can benefit your Internet advertising, contact eBiz ROI today.