Sri

However, the focus on product quality and the retailer’s discounting strategy have detracted attention from a significant shift – Tesco has halted its plans to open more hypermarkets in the UK on the back of its strong online sales, which grew 14%.

This, combined with the fact that many of Britain’s best loved retailers, such as Blacks, HMV and La Senza are now struggling on the high street, shows that high street presence is no longer key to retail success.

Retailers shouldn’t remove themselves from the high street on the back of Tesco’s results, but they should certainly take a careful look at their own strategy.

Less profitable stores in high traffic areas such as Oxford Street, London and the Bull Ring, Birmingham, alongside a strong online presence, can play a key part in raising brand awareness and driving sales. The key is to see on and offline as two elements of an integrated strategy and focus on getting the balance between them right. Ultimately, the relationship between online and offline should be symbiotic.

Mobile technology, such as near field communications and specific mobile formats, such as hyperlocal adverts, have made joining up the channels far easier for retailers. For example, through Google Wallet a consumer can now search for a particular product, follow a paid search advert to an online offer, save the voucher to their “wallet” and then redeem it in-store via a swipe of their mobile phone. The challenge for retailers now is to understand their customers, how and where they want to shop and make the experience as easy as possible.

To learn more about how to leverage mobile to bridge the gap between on and offline take a look at our whitepaper The Future is Mobile.

Thanks,

Sri

NMP and ACT – where PPC meets environmental conservation

Net Media Planet’s Managing Director Sri Sharma went on a holiday in the Xixuau Xiparina are (where ACT concentrate their efforts) and was so impressed that he set the wheels in motion for us to support ACT’s efforts. You can read more about how this campaign came about here.
 
After it was agreed that Net Media Planet would carry out a PPC campaign for the Trust, we set about brainstorming target customers. The aims were to encourage both donations and visits to the Trust’s reserve base, as well as increase general brand awareness.
 
We concluded that corporations and schools were most likely to donate, and that students, travellers and environmentalists should be targeted with regards to ecotourism.
 

Where we are today

Since we started the PPC campaign in early March, the ACT’s Google adverts have been seen by 1.5m people and their website has had almost 60,000 visitors come from Google searches. There has been an average of two donations per month since August, including a monthly commitment to regular donations.
 
An English school also held a fundraising day in support of the ACT, and there has been an increase in the number of enquiries about trips to the Amazon region.
 
We are very pleased with these results and are looking forward to continuing to support the Amazon Charitable Trust’s vital cause and great work.
 

It’s fantastic news – I’m really proud of the team and all the great work that they have done to win us this nomination, particularly working with a great client like Papa John’s.

It demonstrates the drive and determination that underpins our approach to PPC as well as our ability to keep coming up with new and ground-breaking ideas in a constantly shifting market.

We’ll be dusting down out evening wear come February and heading to the awards ceremony where we hope to be bringing back the award – so keep watching this space!

Thanks,
Sri

 

 
Prostate and testicular cancer are the top two types of cancer affecting men. According to Cancer Research UK, prostate cancer was responsible for over 10,000 deaths in 2008 – and that was just in the UK. There is an urgent need to help raise awareness about these diseases and help educate people about the importance of regular health checks and properly funded cancer research. We at NMP believe this is a fantastic cause, and thus duly got involved.
 
On 1 Movember, all male participants (Mo Bros, as they are called) showed up with a clean-shaven face and have been proceeding to grow and groom their moustaches over the last few weeks. You can view some of the results below or over on our Flickr page.

 

 
We’ve been on dates and to friends’ weddings, all with our moustaches proudly on display. Here’s what some of our Mo Bros have said about their Movember experience:
 
“There’s no way I’m going to keep my moustache, but I get the feeling it will be missed nevertheless.”
 
“I was explaining Movember to a pretty female when my mate rudely interrupted me and just said: ‘Borat’.”
 
“Wearing a ‘tache last seen on the set of Magnum PI has been a month of hell, with even close friends refusing to stand within a safe distance. I hope others appreciate the long evenings spent maintaining this beast and give generously!”
 
“All the stares, the double takes and the fact I’ve absorbed a yeti on my face go out the window for such a great cause.’’
 
“I’ve never had a moustache before, but this one’s definitely growing on me.”
 
Growing a moustache has been unusual for most of us, but the hassle of shaving every day has been dwarfed by the great cause and the success: at the moment of writing, we’ve already raised over £1,000!
 
But as we’ve got another couple of weeks to go, we’re hoping to double this amount – especially as Net Media Planet will match whatever its employees raise. So please, donate what you can over on our Movember team page (captained by the superbly ‘tached Andrew Turner). All proceeds go directly to The Prostate Cancer Charity, who then allocate funds to their different programs.

The seller stars are generally a useful tool for advertisers: they are free, add a visual dimension to ads and, most crucially, enhance the advertisers’ reputations and increase users’ trust in them. At the time of introduction, brands were excited about it: higher star rating generally meant a higher CTR and more sales.

The problem: how do you get the seller stars to show?

Recently, a client asked us why the Google seller stars weren’t showing across all their targeted keywords, even though they had met all the prerequisites necessary to use them (more than 30 unique four out of five user reviews, the relevant Google merchant centre setup and settings in Google AdWords). We researched this issue but found no information on it, so we investigated ourselves and tried to find out how to make sure the sellerstars show up across the client’s account.

The solution: By modifying the display URL subdomain

We found that by having the keyword in the subdomain of the ad, we could ‘hide’ the seller stars. For example, Official.Brandxyz.co.uk does not show the stars whilst Brandxyz.co.uk/Official does show the stars (see screengrabs below). Thus, removing the keyword from the subdomain will make sure the seller stars show up.

Ad without the seller stars showing:

The same ad with the seller stars enabled:

What else do I need to know about optimising for conversion?

Another of our clients raised the additional issue of outdated seller star ratings showing up in their ads. Users’ ratings often take a long time to be processed and, as a result, are often out of date by the time they appear – which reflects negatively on the brand’s reputation. Our client asked us to remove them, which we did.

This in turn led us to the interesting question as to whether to enable seller stars across campaigns which had already been optimised for CTR. These campaigns would have short tail keywords in the subdomain and, as a result, would not have the seller stars showing.

Because having a short tail keyword in the subdomain has been proven to be conducive to a higher CTR, an interesting conundrum arises: Would it be better to optimise a campaign for CTR or should brands try to get their seller stars (which also have a positive impact on CTR and conversion) to show?

The answer to this question will differ on a case-by-case basis. It’s very difficult to make a general assumption about this, so individual brands would do well to test both approaches against each other to see whether, for them, the benefits of having seller stars showing outweighs those of CTR optimisation.
For brands who encounter a high number of outdated seller star ratings, the solution is straightforward – put the keywords in the subdomain or opt out of the seller rating product extension altogether.

Thanks to everyone for coming to hear me speak on ‘New Ways to Drive Revenue from PPC’ at the a4uexpo in London last week. I talked about leveraging mobile search, video search and going global with your business. Lots of data and, even more importantly, useful insights. Please find the presentation below. Enjoy!

Sri