Yes its been a while since we wrote on our blog! Tut Tut! But moving offices and other exciting changes had us running around like wild creatures for a few weeks. Things are settling into a manageable pace again so hopefully some more chatter from the Traffic Branders is on the cards.
I have also put some writing efforts into a new travel industry blog which has been consuming my words :). Online Travel Focus is a great new blog focussed on information and challenges facing the South African tourism industry’s online presence. It has some very informative topics and articles and provides a great resource for the web savvy travel industry experts to keep abreast with developments in the field.
Online Travel Focus is run by Paul Hobden who recently returned to South Africa after many years in the UK. Paul was also instrumental in hosting the successful Online Travel Summit last month. His focus on research and disseminating information for the wealth of local online travel companies promises to fill a much needed gap and I am sure that his expertise will add great value to our existing knowledge pool.
Yesterday, Google finalised their acquisition deal of DoubleClick, a company that offers an awesome range of online marketing products to advertisers, publishers and agencies.
One immediate question comes to mind:
What does it mean for all other agencies and Adwords advertisers?
In my opinion, it sure looks like Google is trying to position themselves as an agency. Just look at features on Adwords like the Conversion Optimizer, Budget Optimizer, etc. Now that they have a full blown campaign management system at their disposal, I think it might become increasingly difficult to sell bid and campaign management tools, etc as Google releases them for free on Adwords. This means that agencies will have to make greater effort to position themselves as marketing specialists and not just service providers with great tools. More companies will most likely do or try to do their marketing campaigns in-house.
If you take a step back and look at the internet and how it has become more user friendly over the past couple of years, especially with the immersion of web 2.0, one can start to see a trend. A few years ago, companies had to pay fortunes to get websites done for them and pay even more to have a content management system behind it. These days, with hundreds of web development tools, content management systems and blogs freely available, it has become much easier and cheaper to get your company online. I believe the same is happening with the marketing of these sites. It’s fast becoming much easier to effectively manage your own campaigns, etc. with the launch of every new product. The difference is that when you want an exceptional website or an exceptional marketing campaign, you still and will always need a specialist with passion for what he or she does, in order to make the project stand out from the rest.
In the long run I believe there will always be a need for specialist online marketing agencies as online marketing is not a science, but rather an art form, which needs a passionate artist to make it a big success.
It’s hard to believe that the second biggest search engine (admittedly a distant second!) can make such a fundamental error in their Pay Per Click (PPC) ad copy. “Pay Per Chick” is certainly a new take on paid search! What is particularly embarrassing is that this really unfortunate typo appears on their competition’s website and further drives home the point that Google gets the superiority prize again and again.
I have actually emailed them to try and alleviate this embarrassing show of words but that was 2 days ago and the Ad still appears. I am assuming that this is an affiliate ad which brings up further points about whether brand management is at all possible if you open up your brand to PPC affiliate marketers.
Regardless of who is responsible for the writing of this Ad, as a pedantic editor (if you find spelling mistakes or errors on our website, please email us!) and writer I find it quite appalling that this kind of error occurs. It does, however, highlight one of my favourite pet subjects in the PPC arena. Most agencies will “wow” you with all sorts of statistics and metrics and numbers of clicks, impressions and conversions. Where most agencies fall short of a good paid search campaign, is their lack of attention to good Ad copy.
After all the geek-speak and lingo is thrown at you, its no wonder that clients of PPC agencies forget to discuss the core brand message that they aim to portray online. Good Ad copy that clearly states the sales or service offering and has a clear brand message is admittedly a challenge when we are reduced to 3 lines of 25, 35 and 35 characters. But it is entirely possible. Only when the agency works closely with the client to develop this message can the PPC industry truly claim to be advertisers. Just because we are using the Internet as a medium does not mean we can forget about the basic rules of advertising, marketing and brand identity.
Sorry Yahoo! this is not a great reflection on your marketing team or your affiliate marketers.
