Modern traffic acquisition techniques are no longer merely based around getting the word out and doing a bit of search engine optimization or PPC campaigns. These days, any strategy has to integrate high quality content, social marketing and multimedia aspects.
The so-called SoLoMo approach (read SoLoMo Minded SEO Strategies from Websitemagazine.com) for example, embraces [So]cial, [Lo]cal and [Mo]bile aspects of modern organic SEO. We can also leverage this approach. For example, Social traffic acquisition might include anything from active tweets to maintaining high-quality social profiles on Facebook.
Local traffic acquisition may prove to be a harder nut to crack, especially if your target audience isn't that bothered about where they get their goods and services from. However, if they do, anything from a local domain name to some kind of physical presence will all contribute to helping boost traffic acquisition strategies by giving them a local aspect.
Mobile traffic acquisition strategies follow much the same path as local SEO - low page load speeds, high visibility, mobile specific content, etc. - with the added bonus that we can now leverage things like apps (iPhone/Android) to help improve incoming traffic.
The recent addition of In-Depth to the Google stable also favors traffic acquisition through high quality, in-depth (i.e. well written and researched) articles. Again, Websitemagazine.com has a great article on Google In-Depth, and the underlying message is clear : to get users interest and confidence/trust, you need to provide high quality content.
Now that Google is recognizing that content for what it is, you can build an additional level of trust into that relationship, making the target (potential) customer more likely to (a) bookmark, (b) share - see Social traffic acquisition, above, and (c) buy!
Time to get researching, creating, and promoting your high quality, industry and product-specific material, then...
Which brings us to video. A staggering 87% of marketers use video, according to Uflip, and it's easy to see why. For example, did you know that YouTube is the second most used search engine?
Clearly, there's a great avenue for traffic acquisition through video. In fact, this is nothing new - it's how soap operas got their name - but the possibility to combine Social, Mobile, In-Depth and Video in one campaign is something that only new advances in technology can facilitate.
Something to mull over when you design your next online/offline traffic acquisition campaign!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
What is the Traffic Acquisition Cost for Google?
Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that Google could be paying up to 1 billion dollars to remain the default search engine on Apple's iOS devices. Part of their reasons for doing this might just be that the cost of acquiring traffic is on the increase due to increased competition from the likes of Microsoft's Bing service.
The underlying question is : why should Bing (and others) matter to Google's TAC?
The answer is fairly simple. Google, Bing and others do deals to put their services on platforms as a default search provider. They pay money to be able to do this, and to hit the platforms with the highest penetration (Blackberry, iOS, etc.) they need to have deep pockets.
If they miss out on a platform, they have to work doubly hard (and pay more) to entice those 'lost' customers back to their service, as well as having a smaller customer base to start with. Even if advertising (or R&D) costs stay the same, the TAC would go up if they lost one of the key platforms.
According to TechCrunch, Google's actual TAC for 2013 is estimated at 3.3 dollars per iOS user, and is something like 5% of gross revenue across all platforms, which includes iOS and Mozilla, as well as Chrome/Android.
Now, obviously, the increasing penetration of Android, Chrome, and other Google platforms and products going forward will have an impact on Google's TAC, but unless iOS sales drop, that won't save them from paying absurd amounts to Apple, for the slightly dubious privilege of being the default search provider.
What can other businesses learn from this? Firstly, you need to make sure that your TAC is balanced by lifetime customer value. In other words, knowing your TAC per 100 dollars ratio (or similar) will be vital in helping you to understand if it is as efficient as it could be at retaining customer value.
The forEntrepreneurs website has a great graphic illustrating this key ratio. In essence, you can exchange CAC (cost to acquire customers) with TAC, factoring in your conversion rate as you go along.
It's interesting to note that Google has the R&D investment to increase several areas of the equation without shelling out to third parties (through open source participation, viral effects, and strategic partnerships that don't involve the exchange of real money), but that clearly their management puts a lot of stock in their core offering - the free search engine service.
That service drives the Google engine; and that includes opening up revenue opportunities. So, investing 1 billion dollars in keeping a high flow from established and emerging platforms makes good business sense, whilst also demonstrating the power of free.
The underlying question is : why should Bing (and others) matter to Google's TAC?
The answer is fairly simple. Google, Bing and others do deals to put their services on platforms as a default search provider. They pay money to be able to do this, and to hit the platforms with the highest penetration (Blackberry, iOS, etc.) they need to have deep pockets.
If they miss out on a platform, they have to work doubly hard (and pay more) to entice those 'lost' customers back to their service, as well as having a smaller customer base to start with. Even if advertising (or R&D) costs stay the same, the TAC would go up if they lost one of the key platforms.
According to TechCrunch, Google's actual TAC for 2013 is estimated at 3.3 dollars per iOS user, and is something like 5% of gross revenue across all platforms, which includes iOS and Mozilla, as well as Chrome/Android.
Now, obviously, the increasing penetration of Android, Chrome, and other Google platforms and products going forward will have an impact on Google's TAC, but unless iOS sales drop, that won't save them from paying absurd amounts to Apple, for the slightly dubious privilege of being the default search provider.
What can other businesses learn from this? Firstly, you need to make sure that your TAC is balanced by lifetime customer value. In other words, knowing your TAC per 100 dollars ratio (or similar) will be vital in helping you to understand if it is as efficient as it could be at retaining customer value.
The forEntrepreneurs website has a great graphic illustrating this key ratio. In essence, you can exchange CAC (cost to acquire customers) with TAC, factoring in your conversion rate as you go along.
It's interesting to note that Google has the R&D investment to increase several areas of the equation without shelling out to third parties (through open source participation, viral effects, and strategic partnerships that don't involve the exchange of real money), but that clearly their management puts a lot of stock in their core offering - the free search engine service.
That service drives the Google engine; and that includes opening up revenue opportunities. So, investing 1 billion dollars in keeping a high flow from established and emerging platforms makes good business sense, whilst also demonstrating the power of free.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
How Keyword Research Helps Reduce Traffic Acquisition Costs
One of the key questions on all content producer's minds is "how can I reduce my traffic acquisition costs?"
There are some easy answers - pay people less for content designed to pull in visitors, blanket bomb the social networks with a variety of split-tested messages, and use tools to target the lowest priced PPC keywords that have the highest raw return.
But none of these are particularly efficient. They may well drive up visitor numbers, but anyone playing around with Google Analytics will quickly realize, by looking at the Visitor Flow diagram, that the quality of visitor will be falling.
In short, they won't stick around long enough to make a purchase, and they won't come back.
The underlying reason for this is simple : there hasn't been enough keyword research, and as such the visitors that are being captured don't have a real interest in what the site has to offer. You're just pulling in more people with the hope that some of them are interested, whereas an efficient traffic acquisition drive will aim to pull in traffic where the majority of the visitors are interested in what you have to offer.
If you think that sounds obvious, then do me a favor. The next time you go on a traffic acquisition drive, track the conversion rate. 99% of the time, no matter who is managing your traffic acquisition project, it will begin to dip, even as the visitor numbers climb. So will your repeat visitor ratio. As will the time spent on page.
In short, stickiness will fall. And the further it falls, the less profit per visitor is being made. And the cost per visitor therefore begins to climb, which makes the TAC (traffic acquisition cost) look a lot less attractive!
To counteract this, make sure you do your keyword research. Now, as I pointed out on the Keyword Cracker blog post 'The Future of Organic SEO', Google is, on the face of it, about to make this a whole lot harder with the retirement of their AdWords Keyword Tool.
But I think that it's a blessing in disguise, because it will force (persuade?) people to put more emphasis on the context of the keywords that they use, and to re-examine the actual keywords that are bringing in traffic now, rather than trying to second guess what people might be looking for in the future.
So, fire up Analytics (or just look at the Blogger/Wordpress/Squidoo/HubPages/whatever stats) and start your keyword research there, instead. Then try to pick out areas that people are interested in, but that you don't cover explicitly.
Use those in the next traffic acquisition drive, and you should see a rise in effectiveness over previous campaigns, making it that little bit more cost-effective.
There are some easy answers - pay people less for content designed to pull in visitors, blanket bomb the social networks with a variety of split-tested messages, and use tools to target the lowest priced PPC keywords that have the highest raw return.
But none of these are particularly efficient. They may well drive up visitor numbers, but anyone playing around with Google Analytics will quickly realize, by looking at the Visitor Flow diagram, that the quality of visitor will be falling.
In short, they won't stick around long enough to make a purchase, and they won't come back.
The underlying reason for this is simple : there hasn't been enough keyword research, and as such the visitors that are being captured don't have a real interest in what the site has to offer. You're just pulling in more people with the hope that some of them are interested, whereas an efficient traffic acquisition drive will aim to pull in traffic where the majority of the visitors are interested in what you have to offer.
If you think that sounds obvious, then do me a favor. The next time you go on a traffic acquisition drive, track the conversion rate. 99% of the time, no matter who is managing your traffic acquisition project, it will begin to dip, even as the visitor numbers climb. So will your repeat visitor ratio. As will the time spent on page.
In short, stickiness will fall. And the further it falls, the less profit per visitor is being made. And the cost per visitor therefore begins to climb, which makes the TAC (traffic acquisition cost) look a lot less attractive!
To counteract this, make sure you do your keyword research. Now, as I pointed out on the Keyword Cracker blog post 'The Future of Organic SEO', Google is, on the face of it, about to make this a whole lot harder with the retirement of their AdWords Keyword Tool.
But I think that it's a blessing in disguise, because it will force (persuade?) people to put more emphasis on the context of the keywords that they use, and to re-examine the actual keywords that are bringing in traffic now, rather than trying to second guess what people might be looking for in the future.
So, fire up Analytics (or just look at the Blogger/Wordpress/Squidoo/HubPages/whatever stats) and start your keyword research there, instead. Then try to pick out areas that people are interested in, but that you don't cover explicitly.
Use those in the next traffic acquisition drive, and you should see a rise in effectiveness over previous campaigns, making it that little bit more cost-effective.
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