JumpFly Blog: AdWords, Yahoo & Microsoft Advertising

Windows Market Share Below 90% for the First Time Ever 

For the first time ever, the Windows operating system has dropped below 90% market share, according to recent data released by Net Applications, Inc., a popular Web metrics company. Last month, only 89% of the users who connected to websites did so from Windows powered systems. This drop was the largest dip by Windows in the last two years. Meanwhile, Apple Inc.’s Mac OSX posted its biggest gain, growing to 8.9% market share. This was the third month in a row that Mac operating systems remained above 8%.

My grandfather used to say, “It’s hard to be all things to all people,” and he was most likely correct. This statement also holds true when it comes to online business. Your website needs to be as compatible as possible for every visitor, and this can be hard to accomplish. When it comes to PPC advertising, you’re paying for every visitor. If that visitor can’t use your website due to compatibility issues, you have just wasted your money.

Let me ask you this; What does your website look like on a Mac? How does it work?

Last month Internet Explorer’s market share dropped below 70%, while Firefox increased to 20.8%.

How does your website look and work with Firefox? How about Safari?
(Safari now has 7% market share)

I recently had a PPC management client whose website worked great with Firefox but had problems with Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, the designer only used Firefox and never bothered to check his design work on I.E. He just assumed it would work. Can you imagine? This client was missing out on 70% of his traffic until this issue was fixed.

It’s not uncommon for a shopping cart to work perfectly in Internet Explorer, yet have serious functionality problems in other browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Chrome (BETA). Different browsers react to code irregularities in different ways. Without checking, you will have no idea how your website behaves on different operating systems and browsers.

Ok, so you basically have two options for checking compatibility; check it out yourself, or use a tool.

There are tools available that will show you how your website looks through different browsers and on different operating systems. A free option is an open source tool called Browsershots.org. It can show you how your website looks on 4 different operation systems with dozens of different browser variations, with the ability to download screen shots for review. Of course, this will only show you how it looks, not how it works.

The best and most accurate solution is to actually check your website out yourself. This can be as easy as downloading the latest versions of these alternative browsers onto your own computer. Of course, you might not have a MAC system at your house, so a visit to a friend’s house might be needed. Your local library might have a token MAC available, or you could always demo one of the cool new systems at your local Apple store.

It doesn’t matter if your visitor is arriving from a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing campaign, or from a well placed organic listing, if the visitor can’t use your site you are going to miss out on the lead or sale. By checking your website’s compatibility on the different operating systems and browsers you could be opening up your business to a substantially wider audience while providing the best user experience possible to your new visitor.

Looking to drive sales this holiday season? Offer free shipping. Free shipping has huge perceived value and can pay-off in added sales.

Case in point: one of my retail pay-per-click (PPC) advertising clients that I manage here at JumpFly offered free shipping on any size order for the last 10 days. Business was brisk, to the point that they were running out of the small free gift they were offering on certain size orders. Their free shipping on any order offer ended at Midnight on December 1st, and they went back to their regular shipping offer (free shipping on orders greater than $75). How did sales do on December 2nd? Dropped by 50%.

According to Ken Cassar, an Analyst at Nielsen Online, “Free-shipping deals is a minimum cost of entry.” What does that mean? Unless you are the only retailer in your niche, if your prices aren’t the lowest of all your competitors, and you’re not offering free shipping, you have absolutely no enticement for someone to order from you. The Internet is all about comparison shopping. It takes one click to leave your site, and without a reason to come back, you’ve probably lost the sale.

Another case in point, I did an A/B test in Google AdWords for another PPC advertising client where we compared a free shipping offer versus a percentage discount. The dollar savings of the percentage discount was more than the free shipping offer; an end customer would have saved more money with the percentage discount. Surprisingly, at the end of the test, the free shipping offer outconverted the discount by a pretty hefty margin.

So what can you do if you can’t offer free shipping on any order? Offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount. If you already do that, like my client above who normally offers free shipping on orders over $75, than reduce that minimum dollar amount. One option is to figure out your average order size, than make the free shipping offer just a few dollars higher than that. (Think about Amazon.com and their Free Super Saver Shipping. I know that I’ve added another item to an order, just to qualify for that $25 minimum. How about you?)

And if you do offer free shipping, whatever the deal, make sure you highlight it everywhere on your site and in your ads at Google AdWords, Yahoo and Microsoft. Remember that it does no good to have it only on the home page if you’re sending your ads to an internal landing page. Make sure the offer is displayed everywhere, on every page, and on your shopping cart. You still have roughly eight more days of online shopping, depending on when your cut-off is for guaranteed Christmas delivery. Use that time wisely.

More about Nikki

The holiday shopping rush is under way. No doubt, you have already made some improvements to your website and your offers. But have you given any thought to your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns?

Here are some tips to making the most of your PPC Ads at Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter:

1. Highlight Your Holiday Specials

In your ads, be sure to mention any holiday specials you are running.  From price reductions to coupons to free shipping.  Include it in the ad.  People are looking for bargains this holiday season.

2. Set Your Budgets Higher

This time of year there will be more traffic on all of the product search terms.  Make sure your ads are showing consistently all day by setting the right budget and the right keywords bids. 

You should double-check your positions as well.  There are some terms that become highly competitive this time of year.  You may have been running happily at positions 2-3 for the last few months and all of a sudden drop to 10 because of increased holiday competition.  Keep an eye on this through the end of the month. 

For most B2C retail businesses, the holiday makes up as much as 60% of their total revenue for the year.  Your advertising spend should reflect this.

3. Consider Gift Terms

Be very cautious with the vague, generic gift terms.  However, you may find that gift terms specific to your product line will help you.  For example, if you sell coffee, consider “coffee gifts”, “coffee gift ideas”, etc.  As with everything, watch your cost per conversion on these terms.

The Google AdWords Team talks about some of these tips in their Inside Adwords blog. Applying proven PPC Management techniques is always critical, but especially during the holidays.

More about Kristie