How much does it cost to use Google AdWords

One of the most common questions that we receive when discussing online marketing options with customers is how much is it going to cost to advertise on Google?  It’s never an overly easy question to answer for somebody new to search engine marketing and thankfully Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, has put together a very straightforward video presentation that explains how Google prices and ranks search ads in the AdWords system based on quality and the bid amount.

You can watch the video here:

Setting the Scene – Ballina Info Case Study

As we said in the previous email marketing case study introduction there are certain things that we have done well in the Ballina Info newsletter, and some things that really need improvement. Unfortunately, as much as we would like things to run by themselves, there is no substitute for time and effort when it comes to running a business online.

I am personally looking forward to this case study, as it means that I will be spending more time on the Ballina Info newsletter, as well as showing you just what we do and what can be done to improve an email marketing campaign.

Setting the Scene – Determining our Goals

Because Ballina Info is mainly an informational site targeting the local area, the main goals of the whole operation is to generate good traffic numbers to sell online advertising. The newsletter has two main goals:

• to generate traffic to the site – especially repeat traffic to help build our online community
• to attract enough newsletter subscribers to become an attractive  form of advertising for local businesses.

We know already that the site generates good traffic numbers, so we are a little disappointed in the subscriber numbers. We see this goal as being the most important, so we will mostly try and focus on the goal of increasing the number of subscribers.

Subscriber details

We currently have 644 subscribers, with 580 confirmed contacts. Email Marketer automatically keeps track of the subscribers who have confirmed or who have unsubscribed. The list is attracting on average about 10-20 new subscribers a month. Considering that the site has between 10,000 – 20,000 visitors per month, this is a very low conversion.

Our aim is to have at least 1,000 subscribers before we can consider it a viable entity, so as you can see, we have a fair bit of work to do. On the positive side, we do have the traffic already coming to our site, we just want to send them to the places we want them to go.

How we collect email addresses

Currently we collect email addresses solely through a form on the website. If you click on the screenshot you will see the button that is placed on the side navigation throughout the site. This links through to the subscribe page.

This could possibly be a key factor in the low subscriber count. On most screens and on most key pages, this is down low (below the fold) and not really eye catching. Even with the red arrow next to it (which is just for the screenshot in case you are wondering) it doesn’t jump out.

This will be one of the elements we will test. Getting potential subscribers get to the subscriber page will be a very important part of the process.

The next step – the subscription page

The Ballina Info Newsletter subscription page uses one of the forms straight out of Email Marketer, placed into one of our pages. Email Marketer allows you to create a customised form to place in your site to extract as much detail as you need from your subscriber. The forms also handle all the stages of the double opt-in process to make sure you have a fully legitimate list.

One of the problems that you face is the more detail you extract, the more flexible and targeted your campaign is, but the downside is that people hate filling out long forms. Ballina Info currently asks for First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Preferred format and the security code.

We will also test the effects that this has on the subscriptions, as well as work out how to extract as much detail as possible.

I guess at this stage, that gives a pretty good idea of the actual sign up process that we use to get our subscribers. In the coming weeks we will document our efforts in refining the process of signing up, then we will move on to the actual content of the newsletter. If you have any questions, please feel free to post a comment below and I will be happy to answer them.

Make your Email Undeletable!

A lot of the time you can get a little bit caught up in the “metrics” of how and why your email marketing campaign is not working, when often you are missing the big picture – if you do not make your email campaign something that people want to read, then chances are they won’t read it.

The very first thing you should do with any campaign is work out what it is that you have that will make users go to the trouble of signing up, confirming, opening, and eventually reading and clicking your email.

If you get your basic plan in place early, then spam compliance, catchy subject lines and compelling content can help get your message accross, but it is the product or service that you offer that makes your email undeletable.

One of my favourite newsletters that I have recieved for years I would class as undeletable. The email often gets caught up in the spam folder, or marked as spam by our server – mainly due to its content – but because the information inside is such good quality I have gone to the trouble of whitelisting the email address so that I will recieve it without a hitch every week.

Some times deliverability can be a bit of a battle, but building up a reputation and relationship with you audience through quality content is the key to great email marketing.

Why use Gmail?

I changed over to Gmail a few months ago and I love it!

There are many reasons why I prefer Gmail and the two most important aspects for me, are;

1. I can access my mail from Gmail “web based email” rather than off the server.
2. I have a number of email accounts for personal and business and I can access all my business and personal mail in one spot from anywhere with internet access.
3. If my computer crashes I don’t lose any email
4. I can use my own domain name to identify my email

Since I’ve been using it I am continuing to find more and more features and benefits such as;

• Plenty of ‘free’ storage for large files!
• Super fast search function to find older emails (”I know I saw it here somewhere”) using a particular email address, subject or text.
• This has got to be the bonus… We all hate spam and Gmail blocks spam before it gets to the inbox!
• Displays, in order, all my back and forth emails – grouping replies and responses in the one place.
• Allows me to quickly store emails in an archive for future reference – or to read later.
• I can create labels – instead of folders – to group my mail for easy reference and search.
• Works seamlessly with other Google Applications, including Google Docs, Analytics, Calendar, Reader, etc., Not to mention Live Chat and Mobile Access – how cool is that? Using one web platform has the potential to make my life, and yours, a little bit easier… and that’s got to be good!
• Don’t forget to personalise your home page with iGoogle. Synchronised to show snippets of your Gmail, News, Google Calendar, Weather and more customised features.
• Gmail does show Google ads – ‘not really a benefit’ you say – but for a free service its ok and only ‘good ads’ relevant to the email topic will show.
• More info on Why Gmail?

It’s easy to setup your existing email accounts in GMail too -

• Mail Fetcher -Gmail’s Mail Fetcher can download messages from up to five other email accounts, centralising all your email in Gmail.
• Adding a custom ‘From’ address when managing several email accounts.
• Set up multiple Inboxes – really helps viewing  multiple accounts

Like I said there are many benefits and features but the first step is to sign up at Gmail.com and give it a try.

Ballina Info E-mail Marketing Case Study Series

At the end of the day marketing is marketing, you choose a delivery platform, carefully compose your message/offer and hope that it has a positive impact on your business.  Traditionally marketing agencies have concentrated on print media and television to broadcast their message to the masses.  These mediums still have broad appeal but are very difficult to measure unless you have an extremely diligent sales process or a multinational budget. Read more