:: Media Viper ::

Myspace has found that it now has four times the amount of registered sex offenders as it did in May of 2007.

The number is pegged at 29,000 registered sex offenders who are registered members of Myspace.com.

I think this quote really sums up the issue.

‘This is horrifying’
“On the most basic level, this is horrifying,” said John Aristotle Phillips, CEO of Aristotle, a technology consulting firm that has developed age-verification for sites including Anheuser-Busch’s pioneering Bud.TV. “You have 29,000 convicted sex offenders milling around with kids on a website, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg because these are just the people who were stupid enough to use their real names.”

You Can’t Fix Stupid!!!!!

For me what I find most disturbing is that this does not get the attention or the public wrath that Michael Vick does with illegal dog fighting.

Doesn’t say much for Americas moral values…..

Google print ads are next to hit the search marketing options for Google Advertisers via Google Adwords
.

I found a new tab in My Client Center today which at this point does nothing but it is there.

So it seems Advertisers will have the choice to run ads in newspapers and magazines and be able to track the metrics. That would be great for advertisers…maybe not so great for the newspapers & magazines.

Personally I like the idea of having greater choices in where to market for my clients and the ability to refine the target market whom we wish to places ads in front of when they are receptive to new ideas or seeking to learn via reading.

Google has announced a that the 1-800-GooG-411 service will now be integrated with a new feature adding Google Maps to the service. 800-GooG-411 is a free telephone information service much like any other local or national telephone directory but with an added twist that lets you search by voice for business and it will connectg you to the business for free.

If you say “map it” into your phone, you will receive a text message with transcribed details of your search and a link to a map of the results delivered to your cell or smart phone.

Try it out!

Pay Per Action Ads From Google

I have learned that Google is expanding the beta implementation of Pay Per Action ads. advertisers who previously enabled conversion tracking, and received more than 500 conversions from their CPC- and CPM-based campaigns in the past month, will be automatically added to the beta on a rolling basis.

Google is giving advertisers the ability to create Pay Per Action campaigns and set the desired conversion action from within their Google AdWords accounts.

Many feel that the PPA model is very good for online retailers and other e-commerce sites but I have several partners and clients in the lead generation side of online marketing and I know the PPA model will be much better for their budget and likely to return far better ROI.

I really like this idea and look forward to it’s implementation and reporting back here how things progress.

Google Adwords Ad Mastery

I had read of someone who wanted to increase their organic serp results by using
special characters in their title tag. Being of the mind that an unusual title
would attract more clicks and help boost ones ranking in the natural results.

So I was thinking about a way to make my ads stand out from the competition in
the pay per click campaigns, and thought to take a bit of the idea above and
apply it to my campaigns.

I knew Google and others will not allow me to use special English characters in my ad and thought perhaps the bots would not be able to read non-English characters.

So what I have decided to do was use non English characters in my ads.

I have placed the characters within the title tag at the front, at the end, and at
the front and end.

Below are images of the ads and stats.

After which you will find the instructions on how you can implement this feature in your ads.

From the small testing I have done there have been mixed results. I do not see the ads hurting my campaigns and in some instances the ads were the true conversion winners.

Warning: This may not be acceptable to Google Google Adwords and may result in having your ads not displayed or placed on hold.

Ok so to make the special characters you need to simply use the following methods:

Use notepad or wordpad or any plain text editor and use the instructions noted
below. Please note there are written instructions below the example characters below.
This list is organized by Accent type. The sample shows a letter with that accent, and the Notes present any special comments about using that accent.
For the Template, the symbol “V” means any vowel.
ACCENT SAMPLE TEMPLATE NOTES
Acute ó Ó Control+’, V ‘ = apostrophe key
Circumflex ô Ô Shift+Control+^, V
Grave ò Ò Control+`, V
Tilde ñ Ñ Shift+Control+~, V Only works with “n,N,o,O,a,A”
Umlaut ö Ö Shift+Control+:, V := colon key
Example 1: To type the letter ó, hold down the Control key, then press the apostrophe key. Release both keys and type o. The accented letter should appear.
Example 2: To type the letter Ó, hold down the Control key, then press the apostrophe key. Release both keys and type O. The accented letter should appear.
Example 3: To type ñ, hold down the Shift key, then the Control key, then the ~ key. Release all three keys, then type n.

Other Foreign Characters
This list is current for Word 2000. Some foreign characters may not have codes in

earlier versions of Word.
SYMBOL NAME CODE NOTES
¡ Upside-down exclamation point Alt+Shift+Control+! Either Alt key

works.
¿ Upside-down question mark Alt+Shift+Control+? Either Alt key

works.

So that is how you make the characters. They will show up on your notepad or
other text editor.

Save those in a file so you will remember them.

Now go to Adwords open your PPC account manager and copy and paste the special
characters into your Adwords Ads and save.

That is the killer you need!!!!!

Again this may or may not be legit but whether it is or not the worst that will
happen is the Ads will be disapproved.

This will take time to happen and in the mean time you have a competitive edge!!!
You got it here first!

Remember the MediaViper always says:

“Bite the competition, before they bite you!”

Google Website Optimizer

Google.com today has released it’s Google Website Optimizer, an application which Google has developed to aide help Webmasters, website owners and marketers to do variate tests over different landing pages in order to determine which designs drive the most targeted conversions.

Conversion statistics can be used for various business goals such as sales conversions, newsletter sign ups and downloads of information to name just a few helpful uses.

With the release of the release of the Google Website Optimizer tool Google has now come full circle with it’s 2006 Fall beta release of the application to Adwords Advertisers, which allows any marketer to display ads, measure with Analytics and now improve the landing pages for increased conversions.

This new tool will allow advertisers to receive up to 10,000 versions of a Web page. Tony Leung of Google, was quoted as saying “Website Optimizer is dedicated to converting visitors into customers and improving Web pages”

The website optimizer will not improve your search engine rankings in the organic side. The Website Optimizer allows marketers and advertisers take a web page, add some Java scripts to the page, and this will allow them to display to consumers varied versions of that page. The marketers and advertisers can track the pages that work best and determine which version is most effective in terms of earning profits and driving return on investment.

The new tool represents one of the biggest product launches in quite sometime for Google’s AdWords business. Markerters and Advertisers can sign up here.

Adwords Website Optimizer

There are those people in life who underachieve, and there are other people who are mediocre in life. Many will just do enough to get by and others will not go that far. Many of these type people work in the advertising industry as well as the search marketing field.

These same people will attempt to manage your advertising and marketing without taking risks or a willingness to try something new. This is too bad for you the owner of a great website or product as aversion to risk won’t make your brand a household name any time soon.

As you can see the MediaViper is an over achiever who enjoys over coming obstacles. Mountains are great obstacles man loves to overcome. Advertising online presents obstacles that need to be overcome.

Getting over obstacles in life prepares us for the realities that set in each day. Nothing worth owning is obtained easily. When presented with obstacles those who turn and retreat, lose a piece of their soul, something that saps our power in ways many do not realize.

When you look back on the obstacles you have had to overcome to achieve success and when considering further success and who you decide to partner with in life or business you will typically be drawn to others who have the same traits and characteristics as you do.

When you reach the pinnacle the view on top is one of the best!!

I know some of you are saying walking up a mountain trail full of rocks and boulders is not overcoming obstacles.

It is though when you ride your ATV up the mountain!!

If you are ready to enhance your advertising online and want a partner who overcomes your obstacles in business feel free to email me clint at sem-advance.com

Pay Per Action Beta Test From Google.com

Google.com has decided to offer a limited beta of pay per action online advertising. Pay Per Action or PPA as it will come to be known allows advertisers to base payments on a certain consumer action such as a sale or a form fill for a newsletter subscription.

PPA Ads will be displayed only within the AdSense Publisher Network. Publishers are allowed to choose whether they want CPA ads to appear on their sites. Google will send invitations to both publishers and advertisers during the next few weeks.

It should be noted that this is the second beta offering from Google involving PPA ads which previously ran on the Content Network side of Google. Adsense was not involved at that time and should yield good results for advertisers.

For publishers CPA ads will generate a lower volume higher cost option on the ads displayed within their Adsense publishing channels. With fewer actions will come a more lucrative revenue earning capability.

The exciting thing for myself and others publishing Adsense ads is there will be a great deal of choice if asked to participate and apparently we will know how much any lead or action will generate it terms of revenue.

Google is prepared well for this offering going so far as to implement the new PPA ads within the current Adsense offerings so publishers will continue to earn revenues from PPC while beta testing the new PPA ads.

I can’t wait for my invitation!!

Search Engine Marketing Television Advertising News

Google.com started to enter the television advertising fray last year, and the Wall Street Journal has announced that the search giant and is about to sign a deal with satellite television provider the Dish Network.

While it is not anything new in the announcement that Google wants to expand it’s advertising empire beyond Adwords paid search, and other ad formats it has rolled out as of late, there is more to the story.

Googles owners the G-boys believe that they have the stuff needed to reinvent traditional media, and have gone so far as to claim that the can make advertising in traditional media much more efficient, which in turn would increase ROI. The only problem is the G-boys have all wind and no sail apparently.

Their recent bout at radio advertising (traditional media) with their recent purchase of Dmark automated radio ad company has not performed well and the brother team of Chad & Ryan Steelberg have left the company due to tensions.

From my perspective Google might want to stay with what they know best, TV is headed out, short attention span theater is in as the new media vehicle to ride on and Google is good at hitching along with new and improved.

I think Adwords and paid advertising online could be improved and once Google has the perfect vehicle in place online the advertisers will spend even more money on buying online ad space.

One of the major errors in corporate business is expanding into areas a company is not built to take on. We typically do not see automakers taking on airplane manufacturers or retail super box giants. There is a reason for this, and maybe the G-boys should pay attention to past history, it’s noted for a reason.

Improve Marketing - Defeat Stereotypes

I read an interesting article this morning on advertising to single moms. Seems that marketers for the most part have very little clues as to reality. In that their perceptions are so misconstrued that they actually harm advertising clients as opposed to helping them truely.

First most women hate being labeled a “mom” and more despise being marketed to in that form. They prefer to be thought of as women with children as it seems are more receptive to advertising when marketers view them as such.

But this is not limited to moms and mothers..marketers must look beyond what is known or “perceived” to be target market and find out the reality of how the target market feels when being advertised to.

Here are some interesting sterotypes about single moms for example.

Age bracket

What marketers believe:
35% of single moms are 18-24 years old

The truth is:
12% of single moms are 18-24 years old

Education:

What marketers believe:
31% of single moms did not finish high school

The truth is:
19% of single moms did not finish high school

Ethnicity:

What marketers believe:
24% of single moms are Caucasian

The truth is:
58% of single moms are Caucasian

Source: DraftFCB

At the DraftFCB Advertising agency, the word “mom” is no longer to be used. Think about that for a minute when considering your marketing methods. What other words should we lose when talking with consumers?

As you can see sterotypes like the ones above will hurt your clients more than help. While the hurt is not measurable or felt in the P & L statments, it is the amount of lost sales that one has to consider.

The moral is to not let your own prejudices or stereotypes have a detrimental effect on your income. Be the smarter marketer!