I switched from Blackberry to Android (Samsung Galaxy Glide) last week and I'm mostly happy, except for some features that I had taken for granted as a BB user (good physical keyboard, notification LED, and stellar battery life). If RIM were to release a Blackberry that could run Android apps and had better Google Apps integration, I would switch back in a heartbeat.
The BB10 devices should run Android apps, but I doubt there will be better Google Apps integration. My guess is that they will feature better MS apps (in part because of the Bing app on PlayBooks) before they do Google ones.
I've heard these numbers from multiple sources and I believe they are correct.
The highest costs per click listed in the infographic are for specific, long-tail keyword phrases (three or four words long). These keywords can convert at an absurdly high rate, which means that advertisers can spend a lot of money on clicks and still make a profit. And since Adwords works on a bidding system, the costs per click can get driven up pretty high in a competitive niche.
If you look at the keywords that have a cheaper cost per click, the keywords are fairly generic. That's because the conversion rate is lower for these keywords, so advertisers have to adjust their bids per click downward in order to make a profit. If the infographic showed keywords that are even more generic (e.g., one-word keyword phrases), you would see even lower costs per click.
That's interesting. Do you know How the bidding works for ads shown along with content? Like with blog posts, news stories, and in gmail. How do they bid on how close and likely to buy it is from the content?
I don't know exactly how the content matching algorithm works, but I know that search traffic produces a higher conversion rate than content. A big part of that is because a content click doesn't have the same intent to buy that a good search keyword does. For my business, content clicks convert about 1/3 as well as search clicks, so I just cut my content bid to 1/3 of my search bid, and that way I'm paying the same per customer regardless of the source.
Thanks! I guess my question was, how do you differentiate between context clicks? Say you are a health insurance company. You could bid 30 bucks for a search click on a search of "self employed health insurance plans", and say 1 dollar for a search click on a search of "medical bills". Fair enough.
Going with the 1/3rd analogy, it seems you should pay 10 bucks on a click with a blog post of someone comparing and sharing their experience of buying health insurance while freelancing. You should bid 33 cents per click along with news story about rising medical costs in the nation. But how do you differentiate between these two types of "specific" vs "general" contextual content while placing bids on contextual ads? Or is this functionality just missing in current bidding engines?
I'm aware of two ways to do this with the content network:
- Bid on specific placements. If there's a blog or blog post post I want my ad to appear on, I can tell Google that I want to raise my bid for that specific URL.
- Bid on specific keywords. For example, I might include the keyword phrase "freelancing health insurance personal experience" in my content campaign, and give it a higher bid price than the keyword "medical bills." In this regard, it's the same as with search, except that your ad is triggered based on Google's scan of the blog post, rather than what a searcher types into Google.
To get an idea of the keywords that Google might extract from a blog post, type its URL into the Google Keyword Tool:
I know a lot of Internet marketers. The ones who can get results consistently and who care about optimizing those results are already making a ton of money promoting their own businesses or selling other people's products through affiliate programs. You can't hire them on a salary. If you want to get them on your side, start an affiliate program and offer a generous commission for signups or sales. Whatever your gross margin is, expect to pay about half of it to the affiliate.
It might seem like a lot, but remember that with affiliates you're guaranteed to make a profit. If you paid for an advertising campaign yourself, or hired a firm for a fixed amount, you could potentially lose thousands (or more) if the campaign fails.
If you want to pay for results but you don't want to manage a bunch of individual affiliates, look into cost per action (CPA) marketing. There are several firms (NeverBlue, Pepperjam, etc.) that offer this service. Like it says on the tin, CPA marketing is when you pay after a specific action (like user registration) is performed. They're usually a significant minimum spend with CPA marketing.
However, if you ask me, you should take the time to train yourself (or one of your other founders) into being a capable marketer. Good marketing is one of the important factors in the success of your business, and if you ask me, it's too important to delegate or outsource to somebody who isn't invested in the future of your business.
Hypnosis is usually done with the eyes closed -- people tend to visualize better that way, and I guess it prevents the eyes from drying out too.
Many people have used hypnosis tapes, CDs and MP3s, for decades, without the presence of a hypnotherapist, and I've never heard of anybody being harmed by it. If the recording cuts out halfway through, the client will eventually emerge from hypnosis, as though they were waking from a nap.
I like to joke that this is a business that funnels money from customers to Google Adwords, while I take a small cut for actually delivering the product. But even if that turns out to be the case, it's not so bad. I have few costs other than support staff and marketing.
I'm sure you can get decent traction from adwords in this market, but I would think that you could do wonders with seo here. The number of blogs you could write and forums you could comment on have got to be nearly endless.
I think it's a good idea to do both. It can take a few months to see results from an SEO campaign, so in the meantime, I'll do Adwords to optimize my landing pages and figure out which keywords convert the best.
Have to agree on that good Seo is the key. I set up a while a website for my mum allowing her to offer some online service and there is a tremendous demand. I just wish the service was as automatizeable as yours. Good luck with that, its a great idea!
A few states do, although most states don't regulate hypnotherapy. My understanding is that the licensing applies to one-on-one hypnotherapy services and wouldn't apply to hypnosis recordings created by a semi-automated process. Among my competitors who offer hypnosis recordings online (either pre-made or custom recorded), I don't see any of them restricting their sales to states without licensing requirements. Having said that, I appreciate your comment, and I think it's a good idea to double-check with my lawyer that everything I'm doing is kosher.
1. Initially focus on the weight loss and quit smoking programs.
2. Create special landing pages for these programs and A/B test them using different traffic sources.
3. Incorporate the client's name in the audio, that will really give it the personal touch. If it's too difficult to do that in the actual hypnosis session then add a preamble.
I definitely have #1 and #2 in mind. #3 is hard to do in session, but dropping the client's name into the preamble can work. I think it would drive home the point that the session's customized for every individual, although it does mean I can never be too far away from my (makeshift) studio, at least until I get through the 1000 (?) most common first names.
One of the reasons I'm leaning toward automation is that I'd be able to build the biggest "hypnosis lab" in the world. Imagine getting anonymous feedback after every session... With that data, I'd be able to quickly sort out the snippets that work from the snippets that don't.
