How I Got 1,242 Facebook Fans For Only $347.70

I’m a huge fan of Facebook advertising, especially when my goal is driving fans. I currently have three Facebook Fan Pages: my PPC Ian Fan Page (please like me, I would truly appreciate it) and two others for my top two authority sites. The main goal of my Facebook Fan Page strategy? Drive repeat visitors to my sites, communicate with my top visitors (people who can be evangelists for my brands), and of course create SEO value (social media is driving SEO and will only continue to do so more, in my opinion). I’ve had a lot of success with my newest Facebook Fan Page. I basically went from 0 fans to 1,242 in less than a week for only $347.70. That’s only $0.28 per fan! (Make sure to check out the screenshot from my Facebook account at the bottom of this post.) These are real fans, fans who are interacting with my page, fans who are helping me build my business. I feel that this point is absolutely critical because I can get 1,242 fans for cheap on Fiverr but those wouldn’t be real, quality fans the way you can drive with a paid campaign. Today I’m excited to share my strategy!

Step 1: Leverage The $50 Coupon

First and foremost, it always pays to have a coupon. My wife found one for me in the recent issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. I put it to good use immediately and this lowered the cost basis of my campaign. If you don’t have a Facebook advertising account yet, make sure to leverage this coupon or another one when you open your new account. Even if you don’t have money to spend on your Facebook Fan Page, at least the coupon will give you $50 in free spend.

Step 2: Write Great Creative

I’m sure you’ve heard this hundreds of times, but I truly can’t underscore the importance of testing creative (both text and images). Just check out the screenshot below. The second ad is the clear winner with a CTR of 0.217%. The other ads have CTRs of 0.126% and 0.080%. What’s really crazy here is I didn’t vary my text too much. I already have a winning model that starts with "Poll" and then asks a simple question. If the answer is "yes", I ask the user to click "Like". This copy has worked really well and I encourage you to try it out. Amongst the three ads, I really did vary the images. The winning image actually surprised me, it’s hard to predict the winner so I always recommend testing!

Step 3: Give Your Facebook Campaign Time

I put a budget of $250/day on this campaign from the start. It made perfect sense, I was targeting a huge audience of around 300,000 reach. However, Facebook really surprised me this time! It seems that they throttled my campaign. Despite having a good CTR and low CPC, I didn’t hit my daily budget. The frequency is lower than I’ve seen in the past and it took many days (almost a week) to hit just half of my target audience.

I almost prefer it this way. I was able to run my campaign for about a week and I’m seeing no signs of burnout yet! I’m still running it now and perhaps the Facebook Ads team is working on the burnout problem. The moral here: We don’t appear to be in a churn and burn environment right now. I used to run Facebook campaigns that would experience ad fatigue within 24-48 hours. I’m not seeing that with my most recent campaign and recommend stretching your time horizon out a bit.

My Typical Experience With Paid Facebook Like Campaigns

Over the last year or so, I’ve run a multitude of Facebook "Like" campaigns (paid campaigns with the goal of driving likes). I’ve seen truly varied results. Some verticals, despite my best efforts, come in at a lofty $5/like. In a more typical situation, I have seen likes between $1 and $2 each. For the reasons outlined in the introduction, I can’t imagine running an authority site without at least a few hundred real, dedicated likes so I’m happy to pay the price even if it is in the $1-$2/like range.

I’m truly thrilled with this campaign, however, because I’m coming in at $0.28 per like. I spent $397.70 so far, but I got that great $50 coupon so I actually only spent $347.70. $347.70 divided by 1,242 fans is a sweet $0.28 per fan. Knowing how well my website converts and the value of these fans, I will keep running this campaign until it experiences fatigue. I expect that to happen after I hit 2,000 fans since at that point I will have hit the majority of my target audience and the ad frequency should get up to the 10+ range.

I truly hope this helps you out not only with the strategy but also with some numbers so you know what to expect. Want to learn more about driving fans on Facebook? I highly recommend my post about Three Ways To Drive More Facebook Fans. Also, Acquisio’s free Facebook Webinar is truly awesome. What has been your experience? Anyone driven fans via paid Facebook campaigns for less than $0.28/fan?

Image in this post © PPCIan.com

My SMX Advanced 2011 Pictures and Recap

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 9 14

I just got back from SMX Advanced Seattle and had such an amazing time. I always have so much fun at these conferences, but must say SMX Advanced Seattle 2011 was one of the best. Why? I really took time to network more than ever, as you can see in the many pictures throughout this post. Today, I’m really excited to talk about my epic experience at SMX and share tons of pictures (thirteen of them)!

An Amazing Whirlwind First Day At SMX Advanced

PPC Ian and Craig Danuloff (ClickEquations)

On Tuesday, I had a truly great day at SMX Advanced. I had one of those whirlwind days where the day is packed from 8:00 am through 11:00 pm at night! My day started off going to the sessions at SMX Advanced. I must say that the first session about pay per click quality score was the best session of the entire conference.

My favorite part of the session: My friend Craig Danuloff (CEO of ClickEquations provided a multitude of insights about quality score and announced his brand new quality score book (which I purchased and plan to review here soon). Craig is the leading expert in our industry about Google’s quality score algorithm and it’s always an honor to hear him speak. While I was at the ClickEquations booth, I also caught up with my friend Alex Cohen. Alex also spoke at SMX and is truly impressive. I highly recommend his blog, Digital Alex.

Geoff Shenk, David Rodnitzky, and PPC Ian

As the day progressed, I really enjoyed walking around the expo hall (twice as many exhibits as last year) and eating the great food and snacks that SMX provided (they went all out and I feel like I ate way too much, but it’s all good). While walking around SMX, it seemed like I was always running into people I knew! Truly cool stuff! In my opinion, the biggest value of these conferences is the networking. My advice to you: Go all out and network with as many online marketers as possible. It’s amazing the connections you will build.

Right around lunch time, for example, I ran into my friends Geoff Shenk (Managing Director at Kenshoo) and David Rodnitzky (CEO of PPC Associates). Kenshoo is an amazing online marketing platform that I highly recommend. I recently blogged about their new Watchdog product. I’m friends with a lot of people at Kenshoo and they truly have an amazing company. PPC Associates is one of the hottest paid search agencies in the Bay Area.

PPC Ian and My Marin Software Friends

While walking around the expo hall, I of course ran into my good friends Michael Cook and Jana Fung from Marin Software. I’m a huge fan of Marin Software and have blogged quite a bit about their SEM platform and whitepapers. One of my favorites: Marin’s Free Guide To Facebook Ads.

Later in the day, I also ran into my friend Matt Lawson, Marin’s VP of Marketing. Matt’s a real visible guy, I’m always running into him at all these conferences and he truly does a great job representing Marin Software. Marin is located in San Francisco so I enjoy having lunch with Matt from time to time.

PPC Ian and John Rampton From TechieMania

Here’s where it starts getting really crazy! Out of the blue, I ran into John Rampton from TechieMania. I have never met John in person before but he’s a regular commentator here on PPC Ian and I truly appreciate his contribution to the comments here. John came up to me in the expo hall and recognized me from my blog! That was a real milestone for me, my blog is starting to get truly noticed thanks to all of you! It was great hanging out with John and I highly recommend checking out his blog. John is a great guy and I hope to network with him more in the future.

Later in the day, I attended more exciting sessions while diligently taking notes. Overall, I felt the SEO content from SMX was stronger than the PPC content. Don’t get me wrong, the PPC content was great. It’s just that the SEO content was unparalleled. The SEO track pulled out all stops. At the end of day one, I really enjoyed watching the You&A session with Danny Sullivan and Matt Cutts. There’s always some great comedy in this session and I truly enjoyed it!

PPC Ian and Chris Guthrie (Make Money on the Internet)

At the end of the sessions, I headed over to the expo hall floor for the Expo Hall Reception sponsored by Yahoo! and Bing. It’s there that I met up with my good friend Chris Guthrie from Make Money on the Internet. Chris is an inspiration to me. He’s a big time blogger and affiliate marketer. He makes a ton of money online and works really hard to deliver value. That said, he stays humble. He’s got the best attitude around and truly enjoys helping others. I was really hoping that I’d be able to catch up with Chris at SMX Advanced like I did last year and was really happy we were able to connect two years in a row!

Awesome Dinner With Friends, Talk About Great Times

While I was hanging out with Chris Guthrie and enjoying some free drinks thanks to Yahoo! and Bing, we met up with a variety of great people including Nathaniel Broughton from Growth Partner (Nathaniel is a big time affiliate marketer, entrepreneur, and leader), Sujan Patel from Single Grain (Sujan owns an SEO agency right here in San Francisco), and Max Wellenstein and Steve Kroll from RocketClicks (these guys are truly inspirational and make an amazing name for RocketClicks). I had such a blast networking and making new friends. I learned that Sujan’s office is just down the street from mine in San Francisco and we already have lunch on the books next week. Talk about great networking and building my network with high impact professionals. We were all having so much fun at the expo hall that we decided to head out to dinner. You can see a picture to the right of us all enjoying dinner!

We really enjoyed dinner in Seattle because it stays light so late in the summer! The long days are really neat. After dinner, which ended around 10:00 pm, I caught up with my great friend from Stanford who happened to be in Seattle for Microsoft conference. We had drinks and enjoyed catching up. Like I mentioned, a true whirlwind day and a true blast!

SMX Advanced Seattle Day 2, My Time To Chill Out

Richard Couture, PPC Ian, and Marc Poirier

Day one of SMX Advanced Seattle was amazing, but was also a bit tiring. So, I decided to take it a bit easier on day two. My day started off with a 7:30 am breakfast at the Edgewater Hotel. I truly enjoyed meeting and networking with the CFO of a local Seattle startup. After that, I checked out of my hotel and headed over to the conference. Just like day one, I enjoyed the sessions, networking with new and old friends, and eating some great food and snacks.

I had a ton of fun in particular catching up with my friend Marc Poirier CMO and co-founder of Acquisio. Acquisio is an amazing performance marketing platform for agencies. I have blogged quite a bit about Acquisio here on PPC Ian and recommend checking out their free Facebook Webinar. I learned a lot by watching this webinar. Marc is a truly impressive professional and one of the nicest people at the conference, I always enjoy catching up with him. I also enjoyed meeting Richard Couture, Acquisio’s co-founder and VP of Product Management.

I ended up leaving the conference a little bit early and flying back to San Francisco in the early evening. Next year, I’m thinking of staying another day so I can take in the parties and festivities at the end of the conference on Wednesday night. Seattle is such an amazing city and I want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Danny Sullivan and the entire SMX team. You guys did a great job with this conference! Everyone who I networked with at SMX, it was really great meeting up with you guys! Please stay in touch.

More Amazing Pictures From SMX Advanced 2011

SMX Advanced Seattle 2011

SMX Advanced Seattle Edgewater Hotel

SMX Advanced Seattle Convention Center

SMX Advanced Seattle Marc Poirier

SMX Advanced Seattle Skyline

All images in this post © PPCIan.com

Amazing Times With My Friends At Google

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 6 7

I’ve been networking with Google like crazy lately, it has been a real blast! Today, I wanted to share some cool pictures with you, in addition to my insights about Google as an organization. In short, Google is on an amazing roll, they are reaching out to clients like never before and it really means a lot to corporate marketing professionals like myself.

Let’s Start With The Fun Events

PPC Ian and Kit (Google Employee) at Google Mountain View

As you can see throughout this post, I enjoyed two amazing Google events within the last few weeks. Highlighted in the first picture, I recently visited Google’s Mountain View campus to meet with Kit from the DoubleClick team. As a follow up to my recent speaking engagement at Google, Kit reached out and scheduled a meeting with me for my feedback and insights on some of their new tools. I really enjoyed viewing their new tools and contributing feedback. Our meeting lasted a good hour+ and was super productive. I must say, it was quite the honor! It’s not everyday that I get invited to Google for 1-on-1 time regarding their latest products.

Google Giants Stadium Luxury Suite

Kit was really gracious to treat me to an amazing Google lunch (I can’t get enough of their gourmet food). I even got a tour and was amazed to learn Google has a new bowling alley. It’s really slick, better than the real thing! Kit and Google/DoubleClick, thanks so much and please don’t hesitate to reach out if I can ever be of further assistance.

Also within the last few weeks, I attended the Giants/Marlins game in Google’s luxury suite. This event was hosted by none other than Dennis Woodside, Google’s President of the Americas. This exclusive C-level executive only event was a true blast and reminded me that I have truly made it big in online marketing. I was able to catch up with old friends from the executive teams of Nextag and Apollo Group (University of Phoenix’s in-house onith line marketing agency). I also enjoyed making new friends!

View From Google Giants Luxury Suite

Since the Giants game was an executive only event, I didn’t really have the opportunity to take too many pictures with attendees, but I certainly snapped some of the suite and food. I’ve been to four Giants games in the last year and three have been in luxury suites. (You may wish to check out my recent post about A Day In The Life of PPC Ian where I highlight Marin Software’s luxury suite.) Now that I’ve been spoiled, I never want to go back to regular seats. This is just one more reason I love the corporate online marketing career path so much! Thanks again Google!

Google Is Building Deep Relationships

Food at Google Giants Luxury Suite

So, what does this all mean? More so than ever before, Google is building deep relationships with their top advertisers. They have their sights set on the long term and are making impressive relationship investments that will last decades. I commend Google for their strong efforts in this arena because I’m also a long term type of guy. It is all about relationships, at the end of the day.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Google has always been focused on client interaction, it’s just that they are now going 110 miles per hour versus 100. What does this mean for you, the corporate Internet marketer? Seize the opportunity! Now is your chance to reach out to Google. Now is your chance to get heard! Now is your chance to build relationships that will last forever.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Snacks at Google Giants Luxury Suite

I want to close out today with an important tip that has served me really well: If you truly want something, you need to ask for it in a nice but strong way. How did I get invited to originally speak at Google? How did I get invited to an exclusive C-level executive Giants game with the top executives at Google and in the Bay Area? I asked! Opportunities are all around you. If you remember to ask, you shall receive (most of the time). Even when it comes to promotions/raises at work, it never hurts to ask, as long as you’re a top performer. Just remember to always give back and prove your value over and over. Thanks for reading everyone and now go reach out to your Google account management team and start networking!

Drinks at Google Giants Luxury Suite

All Images in this post © PPCIan.com

How I Earned $4,874.36 on eBay Partner Network

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 5 43

In the last three months (February – May), I earned $4,874.26 on the eBay Partner Network (EPN). That’s an average of about $52.98 per day of pure margin SEO income (no media costs attached). Considering I hold a demanding full time job (that I love) and that the time I invest in my eBay Partner Network websites is low (maybe 1 hour/week on average), I couldn’t be more thrilled with the results. Since my prior posts about my EPN earnings have been so popular (Scoring Record EPN Earnings and My EPN Earnings Rock), I thought I’d do another eBay post today to share my success and a few tips so you too can build your own passive income stream while driving substantial user value. When you’re done reading my tips, make sure to check out the screen shot at the bottom of this post that highlights my earnings!

Tip 1: Focus On An Authority Website

My eBay Partner Network Earnings come from one authority website that I started back in 2007. I started this website about a topic I love! Due to my passion, I was able to write hundreds of articles that users love while really sharing my own personality and perspective with my visitors. I consistently get emails from my visitors saying they love my site and I’ve truly helped them. I invested a ton of sweat equity in the early days (mainly 2007-2008), and continue to update my website consistently to this day (although my commitment right now is about 1 hour/week). (Side note: I don’t want to give the illusion that passive income is easy. It takes a ton of up front work, it’s just that I’m now enjoying the passive aspect of my income stream because my EPN operation has matured.)

By focusing on one site, I was able to build a ton of quality traffic within a particular niche, thus having the ability to send eBay lots of qualified visitors. I have found that the large scale approach (when combined with quality) works really well! So, if you’re thinking about going the multi-site route versus the authority site route, I’d highly recommend going with an authority site.

Tip 2: Don’t Go Overboard With Links To eBay

You’d be surprised! I don’t have a ton of links to eBay on my authority website. I almost make my visitors look for them. This is really important. eBay is measuring results (in the form of account sign-ups and also winning bids) and will pay you higher EPCs if you drive higher quality traffic. In fact, they tend to over-reward their highest quality sources of traffic. (Side note: You can learn more about this in my review of eBay’s Quality Click Pricing.) For this very reason, it’s of paramount importance you don’t go overboard and you only send quality traffic. My personal approach has involved extremely long, complex, passionate articles that truly help users with maybe one link to eBay. I could send probably 5 times as much traffic to eBay as I am now, but I don’t want to compromise the quality because then my EPCs would plummet.

Tip 3: Leverage Text Links To eBay

eBay offers a ton of complex ways to link to them. They offer widgets, the ability to embed eBay results right on your website, and all sorts of options. When it comes to SEO, my strategy is one of keeping it very simple. As such, the majority of my eBay links are text links. Of course, I sprinkle in a few widgets too, but those represent the minority of my EPN clicks. My advice is to not overlook the simple, text link strategy because it works really well with Tip 2 (keeping your traffic quality high).

I hope these tips help you out! I’m super thrilled with my eBay results because of the passive income, but more importantly because I’m learning. I’m learning new skills that help my corporate online marketing career while having fun and making some extra income!

My eBay Partner Network Earnings

Image of my eBay Partner Network Earnings © PPCIan.com

The Best Domain Names For PPC and SEO

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 30 3

I’m a huge fan of domain names and now own several hundred domains across the dot com, dot net, dot org, dot me, dot us, dot co, dot biz, and dot info extensions. I also own over 100 developed websites across these same TLDs. Domains are the real estate of the future and one of the best investments around, in my opinion. I recently got an excellent question from a PPC Ian reader, Anthony, which I paste below.

Red and Green Apples

Hello Ian,
I came by your site via a dot co article you wrote some time ago. I am in the process of deciding wether to purchase a .co or launch a site under a .info, which the article was critical off. How has you experience been with .co, have they ranked well?
Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks,
Anthony

The post Anthony is referring to is my piece titled Dot CO Domain Names Rock. I’m thrilled to answer Anthony’s question about dot info and dot co domains in today’s post.

PPC Domain Names

The first point I want to call out here is the difference between PPC (pay per click) versus SEO (search engine optimization). If you know up front the domain will be primarily used for paid search, you will have a lot more flexibility. If you’re building a PPC only site, you can really build it on any TLD you’d like.

My main advice for paid search domains: Make sure they are keyword rich. If the keywords you’re buying are in the domain, your display URL will display bold, which in turn helps you earn a higher CTR. These days, keyword rich domains are table stakes in paid search (unless you already have a hugely recognized brand name within your industry). Of course, I always prefer an exact match dot com. Those, however, can be pricey. Quinstreet, my old employer, recently purchased CarInsurance dot com for a cool $49.7 million (domain name plus existing business). By contrast, your going to be able to pick up the same name with a dot me or dot co TLD for considerably less.

In sum: Get the best, keyword rich domain you can find for PPC. Don’t worry as much about TLD as long as it’s one of the big ones mentioned at the top of this article. Want to learn more about paid search domains? Check out my article all about PPC Domain Strategies.

Best SEO Domain Names

Let’s now look at domains for SEO (or for a hybrid PPC and SEO strategy). First and foremost, I’ve had success with all TLDs in SEO, some more than others. Of the second tier domains, dot us, dot me, and dot co are my favorites when I just can’t get the dot com dot net, or dot org (although I’m less of a dot org fan versus dot com and dot net).

There are really two point that go into this. First, I have found that search engines have a higher affinity for certain TLDs, with dot com and dot net topping the charts on Google. On Yahoo, dot com, dot net, and dot us rank the quickest and the best. You might pay more for these domains but they will rank quicker and higher, helping you recoup your investment.

Second, SEO is all about branding these days. Build a great brand and you will do quite well. Gains are exponential so I’m really focused on my top sites and recommend a single site strategy (or handful of sites strategy). I personally own over 100 active websites, but that’s because I love testing new stuff and I’m addicted to big numbers (even though this might not be the best financial decision). In my experience, it’s much easier to build a brand on a dot com or dot net domain. Therefore, if Anthony is going for an authority SEO site, I’d recommend going after a good dot com or dot net. (Side note: Check out my guide for Buying Domains on Sedo. This will come in particularly handy when buying high quality domains on the aftermarket.)

A quick distinction: While my bias is dot com, dot net, and sometimes dot us for authority SEO sites, I’m much more flexible when it comes to smaller minisites. In the case of minisites, I’d consider all the domains listed in the intro and definitely rank dot co ahead of dot info. Dot co has a ton of marketing dollars behind it and is a hot TLD right now. It screams ©commerce" and "e;commercial", making it perfect for most sites. Dot info is regarded as a cheaper domain name and has many questionable sites on it due to its ultra-cheap price for the first year on GoDaddy.

Intent of The Domain Name

I’d like to close out today with one last word of advice: Buy the TLD that most closely matches your business. Let’s say your are going to build a pure, informational site. In this case, dot info could make sense. Let’s say on the other hand, you are building a site for a non-profit organization. Of course, dot org makes the most sense. Let’s now say you are building a personal blog. In this case, dot me might be best. Last, dot us makes a ton of sense for sites that are strictly about the United States. I’ve had a ton of success with finance-oriented sites on dot us. I’m a huge fan of making sure my website strategy aligns with the true intent of the domain TLD.

As you can see, there is no clear answer since there are so many sub-questions that go into choosing the right domain name. The best news: The opportunities in domain names right now are unparalleled. My closing advice is to really think it through, but at the same time just go for it! The sooner you start, the quicker you will achieve success!

Image of red and green apples © iStockPhoto – pederk

Inflection: The Hottest Bay Area Startup

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 23 6

Last Friday, my wife and I went to an amazing party at Pampas Palo Alto hosted by Inflection (formerly People Search Media). In my opinion, Inflection is the hottest startup in the Bay Area. I’m proud to say that I used to be Director of SEM at Inflection and am excited today to share my high level thoughts about the future of this fast-growing business.

I Used To Work At Inflection

PPC Ian and Matthew Monahan (CEO)

As mentioned in my post I own shares in Inflection, I used to work at Inflection and own shares in this awesome company. I’m a very proud shareholder, indeed. Inflection is one of the best companies I worked for and I had a true blast managing their entire search marketing team, the backbone of the business.

You can read all about Inflection on their corporate website and particularly their about us page. Inflection is a true force in the Bay Area right now. They operate some of the largest sites on the Internet such as Archives and People Smart. They are very profitable, and have an amazing team. Perhaps most excitingly, they just raised $30 million in funding and are moving to a new office because of their rapid growth. The best part of it all: Inflection did not need to raise funding, they were self funded and profitable from their early days due to good old fashioned sweat equity.

As portrayed throughout this post, Inflection threw an awesome party for both current employees and also graduates (like me) last Friday to celebrate their new office. They are truly growing fast!

Inflection Is An Amazing Employer and Investment

PPC Ian, Don, and Brian Monahan (VP & Co-Founder)

Anyone who says employee stock options are worthless is a fool! I feel strongly about this. When I was a senior at Stanford someone told me that I shouldn’t worry about stock options because they had friends who worked hard and their options didn’t pan out. Well, I proved them wrong and went onto several companies that each had major liquidity events. My options did extremely well! This is how I made it big in online marketing.

My advice: Ignore the naysayers. If you pick your employers wisely (which you can when you’re in PPC because of the huge demand for our profession), you can accumulate stock option positions that will become a great source of your income. In my opinion, Inflection is the perfect company to consider if you’re looking to accumulate some really special stock options. If you’re interested in a job at Inflection, you’ll definitely want to check out their careers page and benefits page. Also, please feel free to contact me and I can pass your resume along directly.

Pay Per Click Jobs Are Fun

Inflection Party at Pampas Palo Alto

I couldn’t be more excited about the pay per click career path. Over the years, I’ve attended a plethora of Inflection parties, just like the one featured in this post. I even joined Inflection in Las Vegas (paid for by the company) to celebrate a milestone.

My current job also provides truly amazing opportunities, I couldn’t be happier! We had a team offsite in Las Vegas, I get the opportunity to travel quite a bit, and I attend tons of conferences such as SMX West and SMX Advanced. Check out my post A day in the life of PPC Ian and you’ll see just how amazing the search marketing career path can be. My closing thoughts: This is the best career path around, and think strategically about your employer as an investment. Pick a winner like Inflection and you’ll make a very wise investment in your future and your happiness!

Check Me Out In The Pay Per Click Mindmeld

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 18 4

Today I’m thrilled today to announce an exciting project I’m involved in, The Pay Per Click Mindmeld. The idea is simple, yet extremely powerful. The PPC Mindmeld hand selected the top 60 experts in the pay per click field (I’m one of them). Then, they had each expert record a 1-2 minute soundbite with their top PPC tips (specifically, what makes or breaks a successful PPC campaign). The result: An amazing mp3 file with 60 pay per click experts each sharing their favorite PPC tips.

The end product is a truly invaluable resource and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Not only am I thrilled to be personally involved in such an extraordinary project, but I’m excited about the tips I personally took away from the other speakers. The best part of it all: The Pay Per Click Mindmeld is 100% free. All you have to do is enter your email address and then you will be emailed a link to download the mp3 file and listen for yourself.

Now, The PPC Mindmeld officially launches soon (Thursday). However, I have a special link exclusively for PPC Ian readers. If you Click This Pay Per Click Mindmeld Link, you get exclusive pre-release access to the Mindmeld and can download the file right away. Once you download the file, you can skip directly to my soundbite by going to 1:35:30. That said, I really encourage you to listen to the entire project because the tips from all the speakers are truly amazing!

A closing tip from my friend running the Pay Per Click Mindmeld: There will be a tweet-to-win iPad 3 (due out in September) contest. It’s really easy: Just download the PPC Mindmeld. Then, click the twitter button on the Pay Per Click Mindmeld homepage. Once you tweet, you are entered to win – it’s that easy! I hope you enjoy my tips and all the tips in this great project.

Showtime Capturing Email Leads In Las Vegas

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 16 12

I’m a huge fan of Las Vegas! One of my current personal goals is spending a good amount of time vacationing and working remotely from Las Vegas within the next few years. Recently, I took an amazing trip to Las Vegas with my wife. We had a great time! Also, we happened across a really cool Showtime photo booth that captures email leads. Today, I’m going to discuss both!

Another Awesome Trip To Las Vegas

PPC Ian Las Vegas 2011

My wife and I try to visit Las Vegas a few times each year. In 2010, we made it there 4 times! We typically like to go when the weather is warm, and that’s exactly why we visited Las Vegas at the end of April. While it was still a bit chilly here in the Bay Area, we enjoyed 70-80 degree weather in sunny Las Vegas.

This time, we decided to stay at the MGM Signature. It was my 2nd time at this hotel, and I highly recommend it. At the Signature, you get to enjoy all the amenities of a condo hotel. The rooms are amazing, the hotel is smoke free and quiet, but you are connected to MGM Grand and all its amenities as well. We really enjoyed the MGM pool and especially the lazy river. I’ve stayed literally everywhere in Las Vegas (Wynn, Aria, Bellagio, Caesar’s, Paris, etc.) and rank the MGM Signature towards the top of my list. It’s great if you’re going to Vegas to relax!

Showtime Las Vegas

In addition to relaxing at the MGM Signature, we did a lot of fun stuff in Vegas including shopping, eating out, a little bit of gambling, and enjoying a great show! In the picture above, you can see us right before The Lion King show at Mandalay Bay. Going into the show, I didn’t know if I’d like it, but must say The Lion King was great. The show was rather long, but definitely worth seeing. I’m also pleased to announce that I actually walked out of the casino making money this trip, always a great thing! It’s always fun coming home from Las Vegas because I now have some new clothes to enjoy as well.

My blog is called PPC Ian, so you know I’ve got online marketing at the top of my mind, even when I’m vacationing. This brings me to my next point: Email lead capture, Las Vegas style!

Capturing Email Leads Via The Showtime Photo Booth

Showtime Photo Booth

Connecting the Signature to MGM Grand is a tunnel with moving walkways. The tunnel connects to MGM right near the pool, a variety of restaurants, some shops, and a Showtime store. You can see a picture above where I’m in front of the Showtime store. We’re fans of Showtime, especially Dexter. Having a store dedicated to Showtime is a really great opportunity for branding. However, that’s not what really caught my eye.

Right across from the Showtime store, we discovered a photo booth. Upon first glance, it looked pretty standard. Then, however, we noticed it was completely free. How could this be? So, we decided to investigate and learned that it was a truly unique, interesting marketing ploy. Here’s how it works: You go in the booth, take a picture with whatever background you want, enter your email address, and then the booth emails you the picture with some special Showtime offers as well. How cool is that? We had a lot of fun, although the picture did turn out a bit crazy!

Showtime Photo Booth Dexter

I’m a huge fan of both online marketing and also offline marketing. (A while back, I wrote about a really neat WebEx offline campaign.) This is a neat case of online marketing and offline marketing converging. Basically, Showtime is capturing thousands of valuable email leads while branding their shows. Email leads are amazingly valuable. Search engines can change their algorithms and traffic levels from SEO and paid search will fluctuate. However, email leads are yours forever. For that reason, Showtime’s strategy makes perfect sense!

We’re now planning our next trip to Las Vegas and I’m thinking maybe we’ll stay at The Cosmopolitan next time. What’s your favorite place to stay in Las Vegas?

Marin Software’s Free Guide To Facebook Ads

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 11 4

I’m a huge fan of Marin Software and have personally leveraged this amazing SEM platform to manage multi-million dollar campaigns. Not only does Marin have an amazing platform and team (including Matt Lawson who I interviewed here on PPC Ian), but they have been offering some seriously great whitepapers – for free! Last time, I reviewed Marin’s Optimization Beyond Bidding whitepaper. Today, I’m absolutely thrilled to review Marin’s brand new whitepaper: The Search Marketer’s Guide to Successful Facebook Ads.

Highlights From Marin’s Facebook Ads Whitepaper

There’s no doubt about it: Facebook Ads are taking off. Whether you’re an affiliate marketer or a corporate marketing professional, Facebook has become critical to the success of any marketing program. For this reason, I highly recommend downloading Marin’s free whitepaper. Here are some of my favorite highlights:

Marin’s whitepaper is free and super easy to download it. You can download right after filling out some really easy info (no email confirmation required).
Marin interviewed the largest Facebook advetisers around and compiled their tips and tricks into an easy to digest format.
You’ll learn how to leverage your existing fan base to build powerful paid campaigns.
You get to tap into an exclusive Razorfish case study, one of the top online marketing agencies around.
Marin shares a really neat root analysis concept, a creative and algorithmic way of generating new likes and interests.
In addition to tactical tips anyone can put to good use, Marin discusses some of the amazing Facebook features available in their application (with screenshots): Audience segmentation and creative rotation.

So there you have it! One of the can’t miss whitepapers of 2011. I highly recommend downloading The Search Marketer’s Guide to Successful Facebook Ads. I’m going to leave you with an awesome quote from Marin’s whitepaper: “Consumers exposed to a brand’s social media content are actually 50% more likely to click on paid search ads and 1.7 times more likely to purchase through search.”

Google Testing Light Blue Search Results

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 8 8

It seems like Google is always testing something new. Whether we’re talking about Google AdWords, organic search, or simply the overall look at feel of the Google experience, there’s always something new and exciting. Just recently I wrote about Google’s new mega titles and organic sitelinks. The mega titles test stuck (and are amazing), but the organic sitelinks test does not seem to have panned out (I don’t see these sitelinks anymore even though I really liked them). Today, I’m thrilled to share another new Google test. As you can see in the screen shot below, Google is testing a lighter shade of blue in the search results.

Google’s New Light Blue Text

I noticed the light blue a bit earlier today, but it’s already gone from my computer. It seems like a really low volume test right now. Personally, I think it’s a great idea to test the color of the link text. The link text color (on Google and other search engines) has been that classic darker blue color forever. It’s time to try a new shade of blue! I must say, however, the light blue hurts my eyes a bit compared to the classic blue so I must give my vote to the control in this test.

Stay On Top of Search Engine Tests

To close out today’s short post, I want to encourage anyone advertising in pay per click to really stay on top of these tests. Seemingly small tests and changes on Google’s end can mean a big difference for your campaigns. If you’re like me and are in the corporate world of SEM, it’s even more important to stay on top of these tests. When you’re spending millions, these changes can have even more impact. Moreover, you want to know every new thing in SEM because you never know when your boss or another executive may ask you about the new trends they are seeing.