Let’s be clear: nobody is measuring their social activity effectively. This may seem like a sweeping statement but understand that this claim is based on a five fundamentals:   Read More »

Despite how far we have come in social media and its exponential growth ROI still remains one of, if not the biggest, challenge that marketers face when it comes to using social. This infographic takes a good stab at dispelling some of those myths that have over time become widely accepted truths.

First up it challenges the idea that measuring Facebook likes and Twitter followers equals social media ROI. Read More »

Forrester recently released a forecast that people in the search industry may find a little disquieting. These gods of digital marketing research are predicting that year-on-year growth in paid search is set to slow to 19% in the current year. This is compared to 31% for last year and 24% between 2009 and 2010.

Unsettled by the findings, I decided to audit our own growth in paid search spend.

And the results neatly mirror Forrester’s: spend growth amongst Tug’s PPC clients, held from 2010 to 2012, slowed from 46% in 2010/11 down to 17% in 2011/12. So could this mark a nail in the coffin for paid search? Of course not.  Read More »

It is my pleasure to share with you a method for calculating Bounce Rate to make it more accurate.

In North America alone the search engine marketing industry will reach a value of nearly $23B by the end of 2012 with an expected 17% increase in 2013 according to ‘The SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report 2012’.

After placing a substantial part of their advertising in SEO and PPC and associated costs with developing the website, execu­tives and marketing teams are tracking website traffic metrics to evaluate the ROI of that online marketing investment. Bounce rate is one metric that shows slippage and can equate to a substantial loss of potential sales. Read More »

Three major misunderstandings about social media ROI are undermining the use of social media by brands, according to Walter Carl, chief research officer and founder of US-based research firm ChatThreads, who spoke last Friday at Social Media Matters Asia 2012.

Keep it to yourself, but there’s a bargain to be had on mobile CPCs. Findings from Adobe’s Q2 Global Digital Advertising report show that ROI on mobile campaigns is as high as 160% compared to PC campaigns, yet CPC rates are 30% percent less.

But fill your Google and Bling boots while you can, because it won’t last forever.

Quarter-on-quarter growth in online advertising shows the industry is in rude health, yet despite this, it seems marketers are yet to properly cotton on to the fact that tablets aren’t really mobile devices, at least not in the sense that they are inferior to PCs for delivering compelling ad content. Read More »

Listen closely and you will hear the ghosts of Australia’s marketing sector speaking. Actually, you don’t have to listen that hard.

They’re all over the place and they’re droning on rather loudly. They just don’t know they’re dead yet. Sadly, neither do the businesses that listen to them and buy their services.

They are the old guard of the marketing sector; those advertising and PR executives who have emerged from their creative and journalistic antecedents and who believe truly in the adage, “there’s no such thing as bad advertising”. Read More »

Experiential or engagement marketing attempts to connect more strongly consumers with brands by “engaging” them in a dialogue and two-way, cooperative interaction. In today’s world CMOs are focused more than ever on returns on investment. This is putting pressure on Event & Exhibition organisers to deliver more value.

Golf Live (the worlds leading interactive Golf Event) & Ipsos pushed the boundaries of mobile technology, experimenting with key exhibitors and sponsors. What we found could be revolutionary…. Read More »

The ability to link a consumer’s social data to existing CRM systems – and what you do with that data – is, arguably, the answer to the social ROI question.

Much is talked about social ROI, but in practice, little is being done to any great effect. The technology is there. It is possible, and reasonably straightforward, to extract social data from a social media campaign on, say Facebook, and cross-match it with a CRM system. But more interestingly, it’s also possible to match existing CRM data with customer interactions on social media. Read More »

No, I’m not about to paint rosy scenarios. Nor am I adding a new acronym to the already murky waters of social media metrics. Neither am I a self proclaimed social media evangelist, and nor do I belong to the abundant cadres of social media experts proliferating across the world, tirelessly giving birth to newer and more veracious types of metrics to measure (and make sense) of social media performance.

But what I am definitely attempting to achieve here, is to plant a few seeds of thought in your mind on how to work with a few simple, yet elegant performance parameters in the glamorous (and cacophonic) world of social media. And that leads me to ROSS. Read More »