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2008.08.21 | Austin American-Statesman
Twelve Austin Companies Make Inc. 500 List



2008.08.20 | Online Marketing Blog
SES San Jose: Landing Page Utopia Expert Roundtable



2008.08.06 | MediaPost's MediaDailyNews
Better Metrics, Consumer Interaction Will Fuel Digital Growth

CHICAGO -- Blame it on the dog days of August or the damaging thunderstorms that ripped through the Windy City on the eve of ad:tech Chicago. The opening sessions Tuesday were more review than enlightenment, and a plea for more digital enterprise from leading players, such as media platforms, content providers, ad agencies and advertisers.

The complicated obstacles to achieving digital marketing and advertising nirvana are unchanged. All opening speakers agreed there is a dire need for more accurate, actionable metrics, as well as greater interactivity with consumers. "It's not enough to be marginally better than Google," quipped keynote panelist William Leake, president and CEWO of Apogee Search.

The strategic directives are clear: Local media (newspapers, radio and Yellow Pages) is the battleground. Consumer relevance and engagement are profoundly essential. There are many reasons why it will happen later rather than sooner, including the economic malaise. It will slow digital online advertising growth from 23% to 18% this year, on the way to $50 billion by 2012. Apple's iPhone will change communications forever with more than twice the 400 applications to come.

Macroeconomics, survival of the fittest and the sheer law of numbers will fuel consolidation of all players. For instance, some 300 behavioral and ad networks will be reduced to a few dozen by 2010, said opening speaker Drew Ianni, programming advisory board chairman of ad:tech expositions. Despite the flood of major advertiser spending cuts, the "jury is still out" about what will happen to online advertising in a recession. "$84 billion in ad spending is in play," he said.

Kevin Knell, Google's industry director of CPG, delivered no surprises in "Age of Performance Branding," a keynote speech that called for more consumer relevance and taking advantage of technology breakthroughs. The science of search is the "epicenter" of it all--"the big idea," he said. Strong brands will reach well beyond the concepts of conventional advertising in an interactive arena and will be "in the content game, full stop." It was noted that 10 hours of video are uploaded on Google's YouTube every hour by users of all ages. Cell phones are the global screen of choice. The importance of digital commerce to brick-and-mortar sales is indisputable.

A keynote panel yielded no new insights about how to take online advertising to the next level. The big talking points: more detailed meaningful metrics are essential, and devising them is everyone's problem. Content is king. One of the best thoughts came from Fred Lebolt, president/publisher of Fox Valley Publications and New Media Integration for the Sun-Times News Group, who observed that brand content and marketing is "a continuum" across all media that picks up online where print leaves off. Even the best, strongest brands don't get far in this jumbled environment without smart digital marketing.

Break out panels such as "Developing the Big Idea" drilled down into specific digital campaigns more devoted to the concept, emotions and expectations of the brand than to the tangible product--Diet Coke-Plus, Corona, Hallmark red cards raising funds to fight Aids in Africa. A critical point that emerged: Reaching consumers is not the same as page views, downloads or clicks, which do not take into account the content sharing that goes unmeasured.

2008.08.06 | Adotas
Love Em, Hate Em: Google Makes Us Accountable

Early this year, “Recession-Proof Marketing” was the buzzword of the minute. Now, into Q3 2008, online marketers are finding that the recession is not affecting their budgets as much as they thought and are continuing to push those marketing dollars to online initiatives. However, the scare did one notably good thing to the industry – it forced companies to take a deeper look into their return on investment. It was a significant shift in the move toward accountability in online marketing.

Now, the C-level suite is demanding that marketers not only maximize ROI, but also prove that they are using the most effective blend of marketing channels.

Traditionally, search has been very “recession-proof” not only because of its measurability but also because pay-per-click marketing is customizable – allowing marketers to set bids to align with their specific goals and optimize campaigns on the fly. In that way, PPC marketers can clearly map their marketing efforts back to their overall business objectives, minimize wasted budget and prove the ROI potential of the channel to their bosses. As the rest of the online advertising industry moves toward this model, we may begin to see more and more of the fundamentals of search marketing popping up in other channels.

Take for example a success story in pay-per-click search with Qipit. A new mobile services company with aggressive customer acquisition goals to meet, Qipit hired an “interactive marketing agency” to put together an online media buying plan for a display campaign. Before Qipit proceeded with the other agency’s recommendations, Qipit ran a Google Performance Targeting campaign to statistically determine where their ads would perform the best.

The results of the six-week Google Performance Targeting revealed the sites and target audiences that were the best performing for Qipit’s display campaign. Surprisingly, one of the “interactive agency’s” recommended top-tier target audiences was the worst performing category. A mistake like that would have resulted in six figures worth of wasted ad dollars for Qipit - precious resources in today’s economy, especially for small businesses and start ups.

Why did Google Placement Targeting prove to be the smart choice for Qipit? Because it treats display advertising like search marketing campaigns. By managing display campaigns using the same methodologies as it does with paid search, we were able to make micro-buys on behalf of Qipit across hundreds or thousands of Web sites to determine where ads perform best. Also, because we could set unique maximum CPM levels for each Web site, we had the ability to optimize campaigns to a target Cost Per Action (CPA) or Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

“Google Placement Targeting is a valuable low cost tool which enabled us to test multiple ads across a wide range of target audiences without a long term commitment,” said Conrad Hametner, vice president of consumer marketing for Qipit. “It also allowed us to create a basis of performance benchmarks and greatly contributed to building an understanding of our target users.”

Beyond the measurability benefits, Qipit was also able to get better coverage of the Internet population since the Google content network has a much wider audience than any ad network. This allowed them to target more qualified buyers than through using the ad agency’s recommended Web sites alone.

Take a lesson out of Qipit’s play book. If your CEO is asking for measurable results and maximum ROI, Google Placement Targeting could be a critical first step in your display advertising routine.

2008.07.21 | Search Marketing Now (on-demand webinar)
Tracking Beyond the Lead: How to increase the ROI of your lead gen campaign

Listen to Alissa Ruehl's webinar from July 17, "Tracking Beyond the Lead: How to increase the ROI of your lead gen campaign."

2008.06.25 | Online Market World Podcasts
Search: Where We're At, Where We're Headed

William Leake speaks on the future of search engine marketing for the Online Market World podcast.

Click the link below to listen to the podcast: http://www.onlinemarketworld.com/podcasts/BillLeake_6-24-08.mp3

2008.06.20 | Bulldog Solutions blog posting on Interactive Austin
Beware the Zealot



2008.06.18 | Austin Business Journal
Apogee Search sees big potential in Canadian office

Search engine marketing group Apogee Search is heading north of the border.

Austin-based Apogee says it will open an office in Toronto, Canada to reinforce its relationships with several Canadian companies and expand its reach in that market. The new operation will open in September.

This is the third new office for Apogee this year. In January the company opened a satellite in San Francisco and followed that up in April with an office in Chicago. So far, both of those operations have exceeded revenue and profitability projections, the company says.

"The Canadian market is attractive to us for a number of reasons," says Brian Combs, senior vice president at Apogee. "We already have three clients there without having targeted that market and it will be easier for us to service the area pre- and post-sale with feet on the ground. The U.S. also remains an attractive place to spend Canadian dollars due to the exchange rate."

Combs says Canada is also an attractive place demographically, with more Internet users per capita than any other country in the world. "But their advertising marketplace is still behind," he says. "A lot of our competitors are ignoring that marketplace and we see it as an opportunity."

"I believe that opening a Toronto office is an important step in the growth of Apogee Search. I know firsthand that the Canadian market is a dynamic one that requires expert marketing strategies," says William Leake, founder and CEO of Apogee, who is also a native of Canada. "I left Canada as a child, kicking and screaming. I'm always pleased and proud to return to the place I was born, especially during the Texas summer!"

Apogee Search opened in 2001 as a division of Leads Customers Growth LLC and focuses on search-engine optimization, online media buying and other Web-based services for its marketing clients. The company has grown from a staff of less than 20 people in 2006 to nearly 60 today.

Marketers are divided on this issue, as are the major search engines. Yahoo forbids it. MSN’s rules state that you are not allowed to infringe trademarks within its editorial guidelines. Google allows advertisers to bid on trademarked search terms as long as the term is not used within the advertiser’s ad copy.

Until the search engines and the industry come together to create standards around usage of trademarks in PPC campaigns, the decision is up to you.

Trademark bidding is tightly targeted, and impressions could lead to more qualified clicks and customers. Serving an ad for a special deal on a Honda Civic Hybrid as someone searches for Toyota Prius would be a dream for Honda, for example.

Consider UK retail store Marks & Spencer, which recently ran a campaign using trademarked keywords that Google forced it to take down. Four major newspapers covered the story. The PR benefits and exposure it received from the press led to more impressions of its message than it might have received from the PPC campaign alone.

Comparative advertising helps us all make informed decisions, and it leads to more innovation and diversity.

On the con side, is trademarked bidding really worth the time, money and potential lawsuit? A study by ComScore and Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture) found most buyers do not search by trademarks. Findings indicate that from the total number of searches, roughly 20% are trademark searches. This might change as Google continues to push “search within a site.” The number of brand searches may increase, allowing marketers to access targeted traffic at lower costs than broad search terms.

If you are the owner of a trademark, and your competitors are bidding on it, the increased competition for the trademarked keywords means pricier bids for you. Considering the time and effort you put into building your brand, should you really have to pay more for your own branded keywords?

If you are concerned about competitors using your branded terms, you can defend your trademark by conducting search audits at least once every month and closely monitoring paid search results or PPC contextual ads.

Follow the rules of the search engines, and the decision to use trademark bidding is up to you and the ethics of your company.

2008.06.04 | Search Engine Roundtable
Closing The Loop: Are You Tracking Every Lead?


Session Intro: When paid search results in leads, are you keeping track of them in an organized, efficient manner? This session looks at integrating leads with Salesforce, ensuring that leads related to search but happening offline get properly tracked and other issues related to lead management.

Chris Sherman, Executive Editor of Search Engine Land is moderating this session along with Chris Winfield, President & Co-Founder of 10e20 doing the Q&A moderating. Speakers include Adam Goldberg, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of ClearSaleing, Alissa Ruehl, Manager of Paid Search Services at Apogee Search, John Tawadros, Chief Operating Officer of iProspect and Lauren Vaccarello, Director of SEM and Analytics at FXCM.

First up is John. He begins by asking if we recall the last time we ate too much, drank too much and said too much. Tracking web site stats cannot be done too much. He then goes on to say that if we are not tracking every detail of a lead, we are missing the boat. He shows us several real examples of how if they track the most minute details, one can learn a lot of what advertising works and what does not.

Tracking in this kind of detail show that the combination of TV, search and blogs provide the best marketing combination that yields the greatest results. In other words, you cannot track too much data. Pretty simple presentation that really asks us "how much is too much." For John, he wants to know it all. At least then he has the option to sift through what he needs and doesn't need.

Next up is Alissa. She asks what does your company really want to get out of its marketing effort. Most often it has to do with money. What then are you using to measure that success? All leads are not created equal. So how can you separate the wheat from the chaff.

Pull paid search info into your CRM system. She then shows us three case studies. First example shows that keyword that generated the most leads produced the worst conversions. Shallow success can mislead. You can also find buried treasure when you track a campaign at this level. Second example discovered that Yahoo traffic was not the kind of traffic they wanted which then prompted them to change the way they spent budget at Yahoo. Third example, even though an improvement, led to lower lead to sales conversions.

How to implement? Create custom fields in CRM system. Add referral URL for SEO purposes. Update tracking URLs. Make sure not to duplicate variables in tracking URLs. Set cookies as well to track user activity. Also add hidden fields that will pull values from the cookies. Most important -- test and report. Adjust campaign accordingly.

Caveats to remember -- ay attention to statistical significance, take your sales cycle length into account, look at junk leads as well as sales, and consider an intermediate step of looking at cost per opportunity.

Adam is up next. He shows us three different ads, one of which is much cheaper than the others. The common move would be to eliminate the more expensive ads but if you can show that the more expensive ads convert better, you can justify spending more for those ads. You really need to show how much you have added to the bottom line. In his three examples, he showed that the ad that cost the least made only $20 profit whereas the most costly ad made $2,200 profit.

He next talks about the stages of the customer buying cycle. Problem recognition is first. This is followed by information search. They then look for alternatives before making a purchase decision. Finally they make their purchase. Knowing this allows us to make shifts in the way we market.

Next he talks about phone call tacking. Adam's company combines cookie tracking along with generated session ID and phone call data to track phone leads. Sales rep upon determining customer is on web site asks for session ID number and can then monitor the activity of that lead.

Finally, Lauren is up. Who needs conversion tracking? Any sort of lead generation site, especially where most of your money is made offline. Benefits of integrating tracking is that you will define the quality of the lead. You get true conversion tracking. Omniture, ClickTracks and Webtrends are all analytics programs that integrate with Salesforce.

Now the sales department is going to always combat the marketing department. How do you go about working with them? Bribery works. Give a certain set of sales people the better leads list so they will be on your side. Watch out for poor planning.

Some strategies to increase ROI? Go for low hanging fruit. Build useful reports for sales force. Build time to sales reports for sales teams as well. Give best leads to best sales closures. Finally, stop wasting money. Look for where money is bleeding and stop it.

Q&A:

Here is a recap of "some" (not all) of the questions that were asked and answered.

How do you know if conversions are a result of a good sales day or marketing?

Adam says that you have to look at statistics over time rather than on a day by day basis.

Are there more robust tracking options than cookies?

Human input into tracking systems such as Salesforce can tack beyond people deleting cookies because it can associate with name or even company name.

Compare acquisition costs between three major players.

All seem to agree that Yahoo and MSN cost less but the volume is just not there as it is with Google. Adam said however that he doesn't look at CPA because if you track further you can sometimes see that it is a false metric to measure success by.

If conversions are low, how can I know if it is advertising, sales team or even crappy web site?

Look deeper into leads -- where they are coming from and how they end up. That may help track down the cause of low conversions.

2008.06.02 | Internet Retailer Magazine
10 Secrets to Paid Search Success



2008.05.08 | Investor's Business Daily
Microsoft Ad System Earning Good Marks From Online Ad Firms



2008.04.15 | MarketingProfs
Top 10 Things You Should Be Monitoring in Your PPC Reports
By William Leake, Apogee Search CEO

Pay per click (PPC) search marketers are faced with an increasingly challenging task: analyzing the multitude of performance reports available to help optimize campaigns. Web analytics tools and PPC reporting features are becoming more sophisticated, offering savvy marketers vital insights into what’s working, what’s not and what needs more effort to work efficiently. However, there is so much data available that it can become difficult to determine which data points to look at and which to ignore. TMI (too much information) can lead to either focusing on the wrong data, or not focusing on the data at all, because it’s overwhelming.

Search is a highly measurable channel, more so than most other forms of advertising. This can be both a blessing and a curse. Some of those metrics do not impact your bottom line and would be a waste of time to measure. Some aspects that are important to measure, like lead quality and web site conversion rates, are not as obvious as number of clicks. Even if you are analyzing the right data, if you don’t know how to take action, tweak and improve where needed, you will miss out on valuable opportunities to maximize SEM and overall business goals.

To avoid data overload and streamline search engine marketing (SEM) efforts, there are ten things you should be virtually always monitoring (with only a few exceptions).

1. Do your bid levels match your target ROI? What we’re talking about here is your standard bid management. The performance report you review can be as simple as a keyword list in Excel showing clicks, cost and conversion data for the last 30 days. Many of the PPC search management systems on the market will make this reporting review process easier by identifying keyword phrases that are far outside your target ROI goals. Regardless of what tools you’re using to analyze your keyword performance data, you will want to review these reports frequently to ensure that bids are set appropriately to achieve your ROI goals and maximize your budget.
   
   
2. Text ad click-through rates and conversion rates. With text ads, you have the option of using general keywords and ad copy to encourage the highest click-through rate or you can use more specific, targeted copy to improve conversion rates by lowering your click-through rate. For example, if you are a bike store, you could in theory run either of the examples below:
   
   Ad copy #1:

   Save Big on Bikes
   At Joe’s Bike Warehouse
   Save 20% or more off retail
   

   Ad copy #2:

   Custom Mountain Bikes
   Designed for the Serious
   Mountain Bike Enthusiast
   

   Ad copy #1 is designed to increase click-through rates. Ad copy #2 is designed to pre-qualify consumers and will likely lower click-through rates and improve conversion rates on general keywords.

   It is important to note that Google will reward high click-through rates by improving your ranks. So Joe’s Bike Warehouse will want to work to get the highest click-through rate possible to reap the ranking benefits. But the custom bike manufacturer will want to avoid paying for clicks from budget-conscious consumers that are unlikely to purchase from them.

3. Is your budget in line with your bids? Are you hitting your budget caps before noon? Is Google recommending that you increase your budget? These are both signs of inefficient spending. If you are spending your entire daily budget early in the day, you are likely spending more per click than you have to. Drop your cost per click and you can get better representation throughout the day, more overall clicks & conversions, and still track to your target budget.
   
   
4. Search queries and potential negative keywords. You are bidding on the keyword “bikes” set to broad match on Google, and you are getting a lot of clicks. But what are the actual search queries that consumers are using? If your ad is appearing for “schwinn bikes” that’s probably a good thing. If your ad is appearing for “motor bikes,” and you don’t sell them, that’s a bad thing. Your PPC reports will tell you what people search under to find your brand. If you discover that your ads are coming up under unrelated search queries, you can block those search queries by using the negative keyword tools provided by the search engines.
   
   
5. Site placement and potential site exclusion. The same goes for content matching on Web sites. Google now provides a site placement report, which will show you exactly what sites your ads are appearing on and how they are performing. Keep an eye on conversion rates and cost-per-action on sites where your ads are appearing. Low performing sites can be blocked using the site exclusion tool. We’re a big fan of appropriately using the site placement part of Google, as it’s one of the few places in online advertising where good bargains can still be had.
   
   
6. Conversion rate variances by time of day and/or day of week. Monitoring conversion rate variances will allow you to better understand your various audiences and when they are more likely to convert. With proper analysis, you will be able to lower or raise bids at different points during the day or week to more effectively reach budget and ROI goals.
   
   
7. Conversion rates by position. When search marketing first came to the scene, companies engaged in bidding battles for the top three positions. Most of us don’t do this anymore and instead optimize to ROI metrics. However, if you do find that the top positions provide better conversions, you might be willing to spend the extra money. If you are using Google Analytics, you will want to take a look at the AdWords Keyword Positions report for the skinny on how your offer is converting at different positions.
   
   
8. Monthly summaries. This one is more obvious. Comparing month-to-month performance can show seasonality and may be useful for allocating PPC budgets. This can be extremely important for many e-commerce advertisers that must account for market changes around big gift-buying holidays or other seasonal events.
   
   
9. Lead quality. For this one, you’ll have to go beyond your PPC report and look at additional offline conversion events. You might be effectively driving leads for your business-to-business website at your target cost per lead. But what if all the leads coming from one particular ad group always end up in the garbage bin once they reach your sales team? Do you really want to pay the same amount for these leads that consistently fail to convert into closed business? Factoring in offline conversion rates is one of the best ways to improve lead quality and make better use of your budget.
   
   
10. Landing page conversion rates - the new key search metric. SEM helps consumers find your site, but your work is not done once they get there. Turn visitors into customers by optimizing your site’s usability and appeal. A/B splits and multivariate testing of landing pages is increasingly becoming a standard part of search campaign management.

The time is now to update your search engine marketing campaigns for 2008 and resolve to make the most of PPC budgets by carefully analyzing and taking action on marketing data.

2008.04.03 | Austin Business Journal
Austin Technology Council adds to board



2008.03.31 | Internet Retailer
Google sacrifices ad click quantity for quality

Search marketing firm Apogee reported a 17% increase in January in paid clicks from Google to its retail clients, mostly retailers of moderately priced goods like clothes and sporting goods. “We haven’t seen anything hit those sectors from a click perspective,” says Bill Leake, Apogee CEO.

2008.03.12 | High Rankings Advisor
A Marketer’s Thoughts from the SMX West Trenches



2008.02.28 | WebmasterRadio.fm
Are Search Engine Marketing Standards necessary?

Jody Vining talks with Brian Combs of Apogee Search about the need for Search Engine Marketing Standards

2008.02.27 | SEOmoz
URLs & Domains Made Fun and Interesting



2008.01.29 | ClickZ's Search Engine Watch
Using SEO for Reputation Management

Even after many years of clean business practices, a single negative event can stain your brand image in the public eye for a long time. Simple things like a negative product review in a blog can be detrimental to your brand, especially when competitors are standing close by to snatch up customers. One way to combat that threat is through a reputation management strategy, which can begin with search engine optimization.

2007.12.04 | Wired
PayPerPost Fights Back Against Google



2007.11.21 | Investor's Business Daily
Google Testing Ads That Get 'Action'



2007.11.16 | Austin Business Journal
Apogee Search to Open Five New Offices Soon



2007.11.15 | Marketing Sherpa
SEO Tactics to Quadruple Lead Gen - Link-Building, Keyword Targeting & Landing Page Tests

Apogee Search helps LifeSize Communications, a high-definition videoconferencing startup, to increase lead flow though a careful search engine marketing strategy.

2007.11.01 | Internet Retailer
Five things to consider when evaluating pay-per-click management tools

As the search marketing industry has matured, the proliferation of data that must be monitored, managed and acted upon to keep an organization’s search campaigns running optimally can become overwhelming. And as the performance data piles up and your search strategy becomes more multifaceted, so does the need for tools that help manage it all.

2007.10.04 | Los Angeles Times
Marketing Through Blog Posts



2007.09.06 | The Wall Street Journal
Paying Bloggers For Online Reviews Can Fan Fame



2007.08.27 | Inc.
Apogee Search Ranked 924th in Inc. 5000's Fastest Growing Companies

Apogee Search was included this year in the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America.

2006.06.30 | Austin Business Journal
Apogee Search takes larger office to accommodate growth



2006.05.01 | CNBC's Squawk Box
Bill Leake featured at search engine marketing expert on Squawk Box

Apogee Search CEO Bill Leake was featured as the search engine marketing expert this morning on CNBC's Squawk Box.

2006.04.28 | Austin Business Journal
Search engine savvy
Businesses turn to Google in a quest to reach more customers


2006.04.27 | The Washington Post
How to Juice Up a Site's Rank



2006.03.08 | Investor's Business Daily
Google, Yahoo, Others Try Phone Advertising



2006.03.02 | eMarketer
Pay-Per-Call Rings Louder With Google



2006.02.27 | New York Times
Pick Up the Phone, Your Search Term Is Calling



2006.02.21 | MediaPost Publications
Pay-Per-Call To Soar To $3.7 Billion By 2010



2006.01.20 | Austin Business Journal
An engine for growth
Leads Customers Growth zeroes in on boosting Internet lead generation for its customers


2006.01.03 | InfoWorld
'Pay-per-call' ads a good option for service providers



1969.12.31 |
10 Secrets to Paid Search Success



1969.12.31 |
10 Secrets to Paid Search Success

 

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