If you're anything like me, chances are constantly measuring yourself (or what you create) against that of the competition. While analyzing and making improvements based on the past performance of your campaign is a good way, analyzing  performance against that of the competition is another. 

If you are an Adwords advertiser you…

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Today Google announced a slick update to its ad Preview Tool. Included is the ability to see integrated keyword diagnosis results. So, an advertiser can select a keyword or phrase and check where and in what ad groups the ads are appearing, or not appearing. From the AdWords blog:

"In addition to displaying the ads for that search, the…

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

The Irish Tourism team launched a Twitter campaign called “My Irish 140” which aims to encourage those living in the UK with Irish heritage to tweet their connection with Ireland. It has a simple concept.
All users need to do is to tweet about their Irish connection and tagged it with #makesmeirish. For example: Warm friendly [...]

Related posts:

1. Uniqlo Lucky Line Twitter Campaign Goes Wildly Viral What are the chances of seeing an Asian topic on…
2. The Standard Chartered Breeze Twitter Campaign Cameron Ng is a citizen of the World Wide Web….
3. uSocial Offers Twitter $500,000 To Host 24 Hours Advertisement Who would be Twitter’s first advertiser? No matter who it…

Google anounced the release of a new video ad format dubbed TrueView Video Ads today . TrueView gives users what I would consider total control over which advertiser's message they want to see (and when). Advertisers are going to jump on board in…(read more)

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Late last year, Advertise.com and the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) shared some interesting findings from a survey on ad technology, and found that remarketing (sometimes called retargeting) was considered the most under-utilized online marketing technology by nearly half or respondents. 

Since then, Google has launched remarketing capabilities for AdWords, and I’m guessing the technology has been taken advantage of by more advertisers since. Daniel Yomtobian, CEO of Advertise.com, which offers its own remarketing services, tells us, "As many as 96 percent of the people who visit a website leave without completing the actions marketers would like them to take, like making a purchase. Remarketing targets previous site visitors and brings them back with highly customized ads that maximize conversions and return on advertisers’ interactive spend. Remarketing has been shown to improve ad response up to 400 percent compared to traditional display marketing."

Remarketing, simply put, targets customers who have been to the advertiser’s site before, but didn’t convert, and tries go gain their interest again, maybe with a different offer or a different spin on the ad. 

"These visitors are tagged when they leave the site then later are shown ads with specific discounts and specials on items previously browsed as they surf elsewhere on the web," explains Yomtobian. 

"First, the advertiser is given a line of code from the Remarketing network to include into their website," he continues. "Once implemented, upon visiting the site, users are tagged anonymously and later recognized by banner ads spaces on other websites within the Remarketing network. Advertisers later follow-up with these users as they surf other websites with an advertising message." 

"It is important for both consumers and advertisers to understand that remarketing does not pull any other information from the visitor other than that he or she has viewed that particular site," he notes. "The visitor is ‘tagged’ anonymously and this allows advertisers to serve a relevant ad later in the visitor’s Internet surfing.

Increasing Traffic and Conversions

"Remarketing provides marketers with a vehicle to bring lost visitors back to convert, a solution that did not previously exist," says Yomtobian. "Remarketing reminds those consumers who didn’t convert the first time about the original offers as well as new opportunities, and seeks to bring them back for conversion."

"Most remarketing models are based on identifying consumers who expressed initial interest in a product or service on a web site or landing page or website but didn’t convert," he adds. "With Remarketing, advertisers can reach out to these past visitors with an ad relevant to their interests before they left the website.  Matching these banners to users who are most likely to respond to them increases brand awareness, site visitations and conversions."

Remarketing might be particularly effective around the holidays. Customers that showed some interest in products might need a little extra encouragement to go through with a gift purchase. For that matter, products browsed around the holidays may be retargeted later as potential birthday gifts.

Promoted Tweets are now live. Yet, for most of us, there’s still a general curiosity about how this will work in the wild.

What does this mean for the partner advertisers? Are our search results and Twitter streams going to be spammed with advertisements now? Will Twitter ever be the same? Of course, the answers to those questions depend entirely on the individual advertiser.

The only real way to understand what Promoted Tweets means in the grand scheme of things is talk directly to the advertisers executing on Twitter’s vision. Virgin America’s vice president of marketing Porter Gale was more than happy to answer our questions and provide insight into the company’s strategy around Promoted Tweets.

What we discovered is that if used correctly — something Twitter plans to manage with resonance scores — Promoted Tweets could actually be meaningful additions to the Twitter experience.

Getting the Advertising Partner Deal

Twitter hand-selected a few businesses that they’re using as advertising partners during the phase one rollout of Promoted Tweets. In speaking with Gale we learned that Virgin America was approached by Twitter (and not the other way around) to participate in the new program. She credits the company’s inflight WiFi, general Twitter savvy, presence at tech events, public discussions about using Twitter and their all-around social media savvy as the primary reasons why Twitter selected them for this partnership.

Gale speaks very highly of Twitter and the opportunities that the ad platform make available to Virgin America. She says, “We love their brand and we think it’s a good fit because they’re tech savvy.”

During the discussion it became apparent that one of Virgin America’s goals is to highlight their own tech savvy, something this deal certainly affords them. The company is already seeing 300 to 500 inflight tweets per day, with anywhere from 6% to 15% of travelers logged into inflight WiFi. Participating in the Promoted Tweets initiative is certainly a logical next step on the Twitter front for the company.

As for the financials, we don’t know what the advertising partners are paying for their Promoted Tweets; Twitter has mandated that none of the partner brands disclose those details just yet. We do know, however, that whatever the payout, Virgin America is happy with the early results from their first promoted tweets.

Tailored Conversations and Relevant Travel Deals

Gale spoke strongly about Virgin America’s position around Promoted Tweets being about better engagement. She doesn’t see the paid-for-tweets as advertisements, but instead as opportunities to enhance the communication that they’re having with customers and followers.

To that effect the company is purposely burying their Promoted Tweets in nearly impossible to find search listings. By opting to select highly specific keywords Virgina American can assure that they will only be seen by Twitter searchers looking for something very specific. Gale describes the follower relationship as something sacred and one the company has no intention to disrupt. She says, “people have to really want the promotion to find the tweet.”

In fact, the company’s three promoted tweets are almost impossible to find in ad form. I tried practically every related keyword search term I could think of and still couldn’t find them. Save for using the specific term associated with the promo, Virgina America’s sponsored tweets won’t appear in your search results. And that’s the point. The airline has no intention of spamming their audience.

Inquiring minds can satisfy their curiosity around Virgin America’s plans for Promoted by taking a look at the three the company is running today. Each of the tweets are meant to remain consistent with the regular conversations the company has on Twitter.

VXREDHOT: The company is using the “Red Hot” tweet to give away promo codes (50% off of travel itineraries of two guests) to the first 500 Twitter followers that participate. They launched the promotion at 1:30 ET today and as of 5:15 ET it had sold out entirely.

Red: “#nowplaying Tell us what you’re watching on RED at 35,000 feet! (#nowplaying Avatar at 35,000 feet).” This Red tweet is less about promotion and more about engagement. It’s designed to get passengers currently flying Virgin America to share what their watching on Virgin America’s Red entertainment system while in transit.

Best Geek Moments: This tweet (when live) will be another super specific call to action for passengers currently using Virgin America’s inflight WiFi. They’re using this promoted tweet to encourage customers to share their best geek moments via Twitpic while up in the air.

Despite Twitter users’ reticence towards ads, we have a hard time believing that any of these Promoted Tweets would anger searchers who discovered them. In fact the inflight calls to action are actually quite clever. A passenger at 35,000 feet in air could be pleasantly surprised to find that the airline actually cares about their experience, as it’s happening.

New Market, New Medium

Other than travel deals and tailored engagement initiatives, Virgin America believes that Twitter and the Promoted Tweets program could potentially replace existing traditional marketing and advertising initiatives. They plan to put that theory to the test next week when they announce and promote the launch of a new market (a new destination city that they will fly out of) entirely via Twitter.

Gale tells us that, “We believe in the power of Twitter, and the power of retweeting, communities and digital influencers.”

Clearly that’s the case as the company is forgoing their traditional online banner ads and newspaper ads for the new market launch in favor of Twitter. While we weren’t able to get specifics, we do know that some of the Promoted Tweets Virgin America uses next week will be to support the initiative, get the word out and offer discounted fares to and from the new city in question.

[Img credits: crucially, chotda and 787 Dreamliner]

For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

Tags: MARKETING, Promoted Tweets, social media, twitter, virgin america

It’s official: Twitter’s advertising platform launches in the next 24 hours. The much-anticipated Twitter business model will begin appearing in search results in the afternoon, with ads on Twitter.com and within third-party apps to follow.

The launch of the new ad platform, known as Promoted Tweets, isn’t a surprise — like any other company, Twitter has to make money from somewhere, plus the existence of Twitter’s ad platform has been known for some time.

Now that the ad platform has been revealed and Twitter is focused on making money, the multi-billion dollar question is this: will users click Twitter ads? The answer to this question will decide not only the fate of Twitter as a company, but change the direction of all social media.

Twitter Resonance: The New Digg Ads?

Twitter’s new ad platform will begin by charging per thousand impressions, but will eventually switch to a model that the company calls “resonance.” Essentially, a sponsored tweet gains points based on factors such as retweets, favorites, impressions, and clicks. Combined, this resonance score will tell Twitter whether or not an advertisement is performing, which will affect its longevity and its price.

To us, the system sounds very familiar to Digg Ads. Digg Ads appear in the homepage stream as sponsored Digg submissions. Based on the number of diggs, buries, and clicks an ad receives, that ad will either stay on the homepage for longer and decrease in price, or it will be “buried” and the advertiser is charged more for submitting a bad ad.

While clearly there are differences between Digg Ads and Promoted Tweets, the same concepts and philosophies underly both: users know the difference between a good ad and a bad one, and thus they should get a say as to which ads appear in their streams. It’s not a bad strategy on Twitter’s part: Digg Ads have been successful thus far.

Could this be a fundamental shift in how online advertising is done? We’ll reserve judgment on that question until we see Promoted Tweets in action.

Will Users Click?

Will users embrace in-stream ads? Will they click them, thus giving Twitter the revenue it needs to become a truly profitable company?

There are a ton of factors involved in predicting click-through rates — it’s almost a science. Twitter seems to believe that a combination of relevancy and its in-house resonance score will be enough to address that issue. If Digg Ads are any indication, relevancy shouldn’t be a problem.

Another factor is the presentation of Promoted Tweets. On this charge, Twitter seems to be balancing the need to identify promoted tweets with the desire to integrate them seamlessly into the stream. Twitter ads look nearly identical to regular tweets — the only real difference seems to be the “Promoted By X” line at the bottom of the tweet. Many users will barely notice the difference and will thus click these links just as they would with any regular tweet.

To succeed, Twitter ads have to maintain a level of sincerity that has been one of the cornerstones of social media communication. They also have to be compelling and conversational, rather than overly-promotional. This is something Digg has been able to manage through Digg Ads, and it is something that Twitter must replicate if its model is to prevail.

If Twitter can fine-tune its resonance scale so that promotional, value-deprived advertisements are quickly expelled from the stream, the company may very well be able to entice users to click. It’s those clicks that will determine the fate of the platform, so we can only hope that Promoted Tweets is a success.

[sponsored tweet img credit: AdAge]

Reviews: AdAge, Digg, Twitter

Tags: advertising, Promoted Tweets, twitter

I just ordered the Google Adwords kit, but now I am worried. Has anyone tried this? Does it really work or is it a scam? It says it was on the news, and on NBC, ABC, and others.

Those kits are a scam. The information you need is free for the taking at Google but the people selling the kits capitalize on a newbie’s ignorance for profit.

I am a Google Advertiser, both AdWords and AdSense and I learned it all at Google.

Google has tutorials that teach you all you need to know to put an ad campaign together, but they don’t write the ads for you. They can set you up with someone to write AdSense ads for you if you want to go that way.

I don’t know what they charge or just how effective they are, but I do know that business is tough out there now, not near as easy as it was just 2 years ago.

Some advice about your Kit!

If you kept all the info from when you ordered it and still have all the info that came with it, you may be able to cancel the training and any supplemental programs that came with it. These ad on’s can cost you up to $90 a month.

If you want help with Google, someone to aid you while you set things up, I do this type of work. There are ways to test your ads before you place them and free ways to advertise as well.

A short link to one part of my website is: www.tinyurl.com/okuoyp
To the main site it’s: www.keyandignition.com

I hope this helps with your research and if I can help, just ask.

John