1. Introduction In rule-based bidding, you want to sometimes have step-backs where you first adjust your bid based on a given condition, and then adjust it back after the condition has passed. An example. An use case would be to decrease bids for weekend, and increase back to normal level for weekdays. However, defining the step-back rate is not done…
Introduction. Hm… I’ve figured out how to execute successful political marketing campaign on social media [1], but one link is missing still. Namely, applying affinity analysis (cf. market basket analysis). Discounting conversions. Now, you are supposed to measure “conversions” by some proxy – e.g., time spent on site, number of pages visited, email subscription. Determining which measurable action is the…
PPC bidding requires strategic thinking. Introduction. Wow. I was doing some SEM optimization in Google AdWords while a thought struck me. It is this: Advertisers actively following “Opportunities” in AdWords risk bid wars. Why is that? I’ll explain. Opportunities or not? The “Opportunities” feature proposes bid increases for given keywords, e.g. Week 1: Advertiser A has current bid b_a and…
Yellow ad, red ad… Does it matter in the end? Introduction I used to think differently about creating ad variations, but having tested both methods I’ve changed my mind. Read the explanation below. There are two alternative approaches to ad testing: “Qwaya” method* — you create some base elements (headlines, copy texts, pictures), out of which a tool will create…
Facebook has an incentive to lower the advertising cost for more precise targeting by advertisers. What, why? Because by definition, the more precise targeting is the more relevant it its for end users. Knowing the standard nature of ads (as in: negative indirect network effect vis-à-vis users), the more relevant they are, the less unsatisfied the users. What’s more, their…
Hello, my young padawan! This time I will write a fairly concise post about optimizing Google AdWords campaigns. As usual, my students gave the inspiration to this post. They’re currently participating in Google Online Marketing Challenge, and — from the mouths of children you hear the truth 🙂 — asked a very simple question: “What do we do when the campaigns…
One of the main problems in analytics is the lack of people information (e.g., demographics, interests). It is controlled by superplatforms like Google and Facebook, but as soon as you have transition from the channel to the website, you lose this information. So, I was thinking this in context of dynamic pricing. There’s no problem for determining an average solution,…
Introduction This is a short post explaining the correct way to calculate ROI for online marketing. I got the idea earlier today while renewing my Google AdWords certificate and seeing this question in the exam: Now, here’s the trap – I’m arguing most advertisers would choose the option C, although the correct one is option A. Let me elaborate on this.…
Introduction Carryover effects in marketing are a tricky beast. On one hand, you don’t want to prematurely judge a campaign because the effect of advertising may be delayed. On the other hand, you don’t want bad campaigns to be defended with this same argument. Solutions What’s the solution then? They need to be quantified, or didn’t exist. Some ways to…
Recently I had an email correspondence with one my brightest digital marketing students. He asked for advice on creating an AdWords campaign plan. I told him the plan should include certain elements, and only them (it’s easy to make a long and useless plan, and difficult to do it short and useful). Anyway, in the process I also told him…
