Archive for the ‘Marketing’ category

Migrate Your Bing Shopping Account Into The New Microsoft adCenter Self Service Portal

December 13th, 2010

Ever since Microsoft made Bing Shopping free, merchants have been lining up to get their products listed on the new Bing Shopping. The was process was very manual, and every merchant application had to be reviewed by Bing manually. They have recently launched a new tool within Microsoft adCenter for managing your Bing Shopping product listings so that merchants and advertisers can have one interface for both adCenter and Bing Shopping.

Here is a quick “how-to” migrate your existing Bing shopping account or create a new account within adCenter:

Step 1 - Login to Microsoft adCenter and go to the “Tools” tab. Once there, click on the “Bing Shopping Account Management” link pictured below:

Step 2 - For existing accounts, select “Migrate” and enter your Bing Shopping login credentials. For new accounts, select “Create New Account.”

Step 3 - Once you enter your login information or create a new account, you will be taken to the Store Settings screen. You can enter all your store info as well as upload a logo.

Step 4 - Go to the “Catalog Management” tab and choose how you will send the feed. In this new adCenter console, you now have the ability to have Bing automatically import your feed from an HTTP URL. This is a new feature that was not previously available in the Bing Shopping portal. If you choose “Microsoft Download”, you will be prompted to enter the URL where the feed can be downloaded. If you select “Merchant Upload”, you will need to enter the file name and manually upload the file with the FTP credentials specified in the next tab.

You should check back in a few hours to ensure the feed was processed correctly. Additionally, you may want to click the “View Catalog Quality Feedback” link and check for any specific feed errors. At this point you should be done… It’s a fairly simple process. However, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

How To Setup The New Google AdWords Product Listing Ads

November 19th, 2010

Google has been testing Product Listing Ads for over a year with select *lucky* advertisers. This past week Google has rolled out this feature to all AdWords advertisers. In other words, we are all lucky now.

For some reason, the setup process does not seem very straight-forward. Here is a quick guide on how to set up Product Listing Ads.

Step 1 – Connect Google Merchant Center To Your Campaign

About a year ago, Google released AdWords Product Extensions, where related products are displayed under your ad in a PlusBox. Setting this up is the first step towards getting Product Listing Ads up and running.

You will need to goto the Ad Extesnsions tab in your campaign, and select Product Extensions from the drop down list. Then click on New Extension and check off your Merchant Center account which should show up.

Once this is done, your ads will start displaying with a PlusBox and related products under it on Google.com.

Step 2 – Create Product Targeting On The Ad Group Level

Now that your campaign is connected to your Merchant Center account, you need to select product targeting in the new Auto Targets tab. Click the Add Product Target button and select all products or a subset of your products using the filters. TIP: These product filters look for an exact match only and will give you the ability to validate the results.

Step 3 – Create A Product Listing Ad Type

The next and final step is to create a new Product Listing Ad in the Ads tab of your Ad Group. click the New Ad button and select Product Listing Ad.

You will then be given the option to fill in promo text and save the ad:

That’s all. You’re done… You should start seeing your products displayed on the top right of the Google SERPs for related terms.

For extra credit, you can watch this Google video explaining product ads.

How To Setup Conversion Tracking In Microsoft adCenter

November 4th, 2010

Microsoft adCenter Conversion Tracking

Now that Microsoft adCenter is powering ads for both Bing.com and Yahoo.com, it is extremely important to make sure you are tracking your campaigns properly. Here is a quick guide on how to set up revenue and conversion tracking for Microsoft adCenter.

Step 1 – Turn On Conversion Tracking

In adCenter, conversion tracking must be turned on for each individual campaign. You can do this by navigation to your campaign and clicking on the “Change Settings” link. In the top right corner of this page you will find a check box to Track Conversions. Check this box.

If you just want to track the number of conversions, you can click the link to “show code” and paste it into your order confirmation page. If you want to track revenue too, then you’ll want to follow the next steps.

Step 2 – Revenue Tracking

In order to track the revenue generated from orders originating from adCenter, we will need to set up custom code. Start by clicking on the “Open Campaign Analytics Tool”. This will bring you to the Campaign Analytics section of adCenter. The next step will be to set up a goal by clicking “Create Goal”.

It will bring you to a simple form that you will need to fill out. Most of the form is self-explanatory. Just make sure you select “Variable” under the “Revenue to track” option.

Once you fill out the form, click “Save and generate code”. Copy and past the code and…

Step 3 – Inserting Revenue Variable

At this point you should have code that looks kind of like this:

<script type="text/javascript">if (!window.mstag) mstag = {loadTag : function(){},time : (new Date()).getTime()};</script>
<script id="mstag_tops" type="text/javascript" src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/site/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/mstag.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> mstag.loadTag("analytics", {dedup:"1",domainId:"XXXXXX",type:"1",revenue:"",actionid:"XXXXX"})</script> <noscript> <iframe src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/tag/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/analytics.html?dedup=1&domainId=XXXXXX&type=1&revenue=&actionid=XXXXX" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden; display:none"> </iframe> </noscript>

At this point you need to generate the order total from your eCommerce system and pass the variable in the two places it says revenue. Here is an example, look at the word revenue on lines 3 and 4.

<script type="text/javascript">if (!window.mstag) mstag = {loadTag : function(){},time : (new Date()).getTime()};</script>
<script id="mstag_tops" type="text/javascript" src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/site/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/mstag.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> mstag.loadTag("analytics", {dedup:"1",domainId:"XXXXXX",type:"1",revenue:"1234.56",actionid:"XXXXX"})</script> <noscript> <iframe src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/tag/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/analytics.html?dedup=1&domainId=XXXXXX&type=1&revenue=1234.56&actionid=XXXXX" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden; display:none"> </iframe> </noscript>

Your final code should look something like the code directly above. You can paste this code into your order confirmation page.

NOTE: Don’t copy and paste this as it won’t work, because I removed all the IDs that adCenter uses to identify which account this is for.

How To Track Phone Sales In Google AdWords With Call Metrics

November 3rd, 2010

Every online merchant knows how complicated it is to track phone sales… Google has announced a new Ad Extension called Call Metrics. This works by getting a new phone number for each campaign through Google Voice. AdWords will then report how many calls that ad received.

How-To

Go to the Ad Extensions tab on any campaign and select View Phone Extensions. From there you can select New Extension. You will be prompted to fill out the following info:

  • Country
  • Phone number to call

Then check the box next to “Call metrics: Use Google Voice to track calls from my ads”.

Image Credit: Search Engine Land

Here is a video Google created to explain the benefits of call tracking.

NOTE: This has not rolled out to all accounts yet.

Image Source: -eko-

How To Save Money In AdWords With Broad Match Modifier

October 22nd, 2010

In the middle of July, Google announced the release of the new Google AdWords Keyword Match Type called Broad Match Modifier in the US. Here’s a quick “how-to” and why you’ll want to use it.

Until now Google offered three match types:

  1. Broad Match
  2. Phrase Match
  3. Exact Match

How & Why?

For some advertisers, Broad Match is too liberal and Phrase Match is too conservative. What Broad Match Modifier brings to the game is somewhere in between. For example, if you had previously wanted to advertise the term “nike shoes” and only have your ad displayed when the search term included the word “nike”, you would have had to use the phrase match terms. This becomes difficult because you need to add many different variations of the terms in order to reach a wide enough audience. With the new Broad Match Modifier, you can now use one keyword: “+nike shoes”. This will display your ad for many variations of the keywords and make sure that it always contains the word “nike”.

Overall, this new feature should save you time and money while helping you expand your reach.

Do you see this helping your business?

How To Get Access To The Free Microsoft Bing Shopping

August 27th, 2010

As you surely know by now, Microsoft shuttered Bing cashback at the end of July. They have already launched the new Bing Shopping which is completely free for merchants. Like Google Product Search, it is a must for every merchant to be listed on Bing Shopping. It’s free, so why not?

Microsoft is currently allowing new merchants to join the program. You will need to go to the Microsoft Advertising site and fill out the Bing Shopping Merchant Application Form, once you do that you should hear back from the Bing Shopping team within a couple of weeks.

Once you are approved to join the shopping program, you’ll get an email with your account login information and feed specs. All you need to do to go live is:

  • Fill out your merchant contact info, shipping and tax rules within the Merchant Portal.
  • Setup and submit your data feed via FTP.

If you’ve done it before for Google Base, you can do it again. It’s free, you might as well…

UPDATE: This article is outdated, you can find updated instructions for the new Bing Shopping/Microsoft adCenter self-service portal here.

From Jellyfish To Bing CashBack To Nothing

June 4th, 2010

The latest news coming from Microsoft is that Bing cashback will be retired at the end of the month. In a post titled “A Farewell To Bing Cashback” they say:

As part of this “test-and-learn” mentality, we will be retiring the Bing cashback feature, which means that the last day you can earn cashback will be July 30, 2010.

Why are we doing this? When we originally began to offer the cashback feature, it was designed to help advertisers reach you with compelling offers, and to provide a new type of shopping experience that would change user behavior and attract a bunch of new users to Bing.

In lots of ways, this was a great feature – we had over a thousand merchant partners delivering great offers to customers and seeing great ROI on their campaigns, and we were taking some of the advertising revenue and giving it back to customers. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for.

This is definitely bad news for small eCommerce sites. Bing cashback was one of a few good channels with little up front costs. Goodbye Bing cashback…

How To Set Up The Facebook Like Button For Magento + Facebook Insights

June 1st, 2010

When Facebook announced they were launching a “Like” button for the whole internet, you knew you had to get in on it. The Facebook Like button is part of Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol which allows users to easily share content (including yours) from across the web. For the developers amongst us, you can get all the code and info on Facebook’s developer site. For the rest of us, here are 4 Magento Extensions that will easily integrate Facebook’s Like button.

Facebook Like Button Extensions

The first two are simple implementations of the standard Like button. The next two are more complex integrations with many more options and with Open Graph support.

Pick one, buy it, install it.

  1. Facebook Like Button by RetailEvolved
  2. Facebook Like Button by TSDesigns
  3. Facebook Social Plugins by Magento Ireland
  4. Facebook Like Button with Open Graph Support by Soleun

Track Like Button Activity With Facebook Insights

Once you have the Facebook Like button installed, you’ll want to set up Facebook Insight for Domains. This will allow you to see what is happening in the world of Facebook in relation to your store.

  1. Go to Facebook Insights
  2. Click green “Insights for your Domain” button
  3. Enter your domain name and select your account from the drop down list.
  4. Copy the Meta Tag that Facebook gives you and paste into your Magento Admin -> System -> Configuration -> Design -> HTML Head -> Miscellaneous Scripts
  5. Confirm the domain with Facebook

You should now be able to see all kind of cool reports in Facebook Insights.

6 Tips For Improving Email Campaign Delivery & Open Rates

May 17th, 2010

Like most eCommerce stores, you have a database with all your newsletter subscribers. You send them emails on a weekly/monthly basis. You have a very low open-rate and deliverability rate… How do you fix this? Here are 5 quick tips to get your email in the customers inbox and get them to open it.

Improve Deliverability

Tip #1 – Remove Bounced Emails

After every email you send, remove all the hard-bounces. Most email providers will allows you to view a report of which email addresses bounced back. Take that list and bulk-unsubscribe them from your list.

Most ISPs see that you keep sending to email addresses that don’t exist and they will start to think of you as a spammer and blacklist you.

Tip #2 – Include Unsubscribe Link On Top Of Email

Include a unsubscribe link at the very top of your email body. The ISPs scan for this and when they see an unsubscribe link on top of your email it tells them that you are serious about your email list integrity and that you are not a spammer.

Tip #3 – Text to Image Ratio

Another thing ISPs look for are emails with mostly images. When an email body consists of just images with very little text it has a higher chance of being spam. Spend the extra few minutes and add some text!

Improve Open-Rates

Tip #4 – Subject Line

Your subject line is the single most important element of your email after it has been delivered to the customers email inbox. This is what will make someone click to open the email. Write it well and always include a call to action.

Tip #5 – Include Short Text Snippets

Include a short text snippet on top of your email template. Most email clients offer a preview pane and this will be the first thing consumers  see. This is extremely useful with email clients such as Gmail and Outlook where they show a snippet of the email in the inbox itself.

Via: Campaign Monitor

Tip #6 – Use Alt-Text & Image/Table Sizes

Make sure you always include alt-text on all images because most email clients will block images when the email is first opened and will only display the images when the customer clicks “Display Images”.

It is equally important to use the width and height tags for all tables and images so that when there are no images displayed, you email is still structured properly. This will help the consumer understand what the email is about even without images and encourage them to view the full email.

List Your Products Free On TheFind.com Via FTP Feed Upload

May 13th, 2010

TheFind.com has been around for some time and has been a great tool for consumers to find the products they are looking for. Until now TheFind has populated its product database by crawling the web and filling in the blanks from third-party feeds.

I just realized this a few days ago, but in late April they launched the ability to upload a feed via FTP.

Great news! TheFind has launched a feed upload tool through the Merchant Center and now accepts direct feeds from merchants.

What does this mean for you?

  • Greater control over product information on TheFind (ability to set up notifications to primary email address, letting you know when the feed is live)
  • Faster updates (initial feed can go live within 72 hours)
  • Increase product relevancy through our new, expanded attributes, as seen in our the data feed specs.

I’ve just submitted a data feeds for several clients, we’ll see how it works. In the meantime, you can register here.