John Busby

Articles by John All articles by John

• Search And The Booming World Of Online-To-Offline Conversions in Search & Performance Insider on 11/12/2014
  

  Marketers everywhere are looking at their 2015 budgets and asking the same collective question: How am I going to get more customers for less money in search? Higher prices are a headwind for the simple reason of supply and demand: Advertisers are increasing their spending on search ($38 billion estimated in 2017) faster than the rate of searches is increasing. So where should marketers turn for a better return on search spend?

• After The Search: The New Shopping Cart Travels Online To Offline in Search & Performance Insider on 10/22/2014
  

  Are you interested in modernizing your brand experience and customer journey to attract younger generations, such as Millennials? If you're following the money in any fashion, chances are very good that you are. And if you're not, you should be. Estimates say this group, born between "Airplane" and "Gladiator," will spend $200 billion per year by 2017 and $10 trillion in their collective lifetimes. While Millennials' peak buying power may still be years away, marketers need to think about how to build strong business-to-consumer relationships with this demographic juggernaut. For all their acclaimed technological savvy, here's an equally important and little-known fact: Millennials are the driving force behind online-to-offline consumer spending in the U.S.

• Google Seeks Extra Credit With Latest Adwords Changes in Search & Performance Insider on 09/02/2014
  

  Have you ever contributed to something and felt like you didn't quite get the credit you deserved? For example, I cheered very loudly at many Seattle Seahawks games last year and the team won the Super Bowl. Maybe you can see why I'm angry that owner Paul Allen hasn't given me a championship ring! Kidding aside (sort of), in our data-driven, Moneyball world, we marketers want credit for every transaction we directly impact. Google is no different, and its latest changes are designed to give credit where credit is due.

• Running SOCIAL Search Marketing Campaigns in Search & Performance Insider on 07/28/2014
  

  A few weeks ago, I was tuning in to the Seattle Mariners TV broadcast and heard the announcer state that the backup catcher had been released from the team. Immediately, I wanted a bunch of details: news of the transaction, commentary and the reaction of other fans like me. I searched for "John Buck" on Twitter and found all three in a matter of moments.I'm also looking for a real estate agent, and in addition to combing through Zillow for neighborhood experts, I found myself searching Facebook as I recalled a friend endorsing an agent that he really loved. Problem was, I couldn't recall which friend.The sum of these and other experiences leads me to believe it's time to broaden our search horizons to include social platforms. Social networks aren't just for audience targeting or stoking demand; they're also useful for bottom-of-the-funnel direct-response campaigns.

• Search And Call Measurement: An Advanced Placement Class in Search & Performance Insider on 06/25/2014
  

  If you're the marketing director of a business that relies in some way on phone calls to drive new sales or set appointments, you're probably already using call extensions in your search program. After all, more than $65 billion is spent annually across media to generate consumer calls to businesses, according to a recent report by research firm BIA/Kelsey. If you're unfamiliar with call extensions -- the term for the call icon and clickable phone number that appear as part of a sponsored result in mobile search -- then check out our tips and best practices, which appeared here on Search Insider last summer. Consider this article a follow-up to that, with today's focus being on three key steps to help make the most out of call-driven campaigns:

• The Underappreciated, Unrecognized Value Of Non-Brand Search Campaigns in Search & Performance Insider on 05/29/2014
  

  This fall I will watch a ton of football, which means I will see a ton of advertisements for trucks and beer. What if the success of those ads was measured on the number of visits to BudLight.com or the number of phone calls to a Ford dealer in the minutes following a commercial? This would clearly be a disaster for television ad executives. That's because employing such metrics would miss the whole point of a TV ad, which is to stoke consumer demand and influence brand perceptions. When it comes to search engine advertising, marketers tend to take the opposite approach. We measure what we can measure directly and reallocate budgets accordingly. Except this standard operating procedure misses something big: the value of the non-branded search term.

• Local Search: Tips For Driving Buyers To Businesses in Search & Performance Insider on 04/29/2014
  

  According to Google, 70% of mobile local searches result in a consumer connecting with a business over the phone. And 66% actually visit the business in person. Mobile searchers are buyers, and a marketer simply can't expect that type of return on investment from a desktop campaign. If you're responsible for marketing one or more locations for a small business or a national brand, it's unlikely that you can organically rank at the top of the results for every related query or have the budget to pay for top placement for every search. So where should you focus?

• Cutting Through The Complexity Of Search Marketing in Search & Performance Insider on 04/08/2014
  

  The first search advertisement I placed was on GoTo.com in the late '90s. Back then, it was pretty simple. The highest bidder for a keyword landed at the top of the search results. For that keyword, you paid your bid price for each click. Done.

• Beyond Google: The Fragmented World Of Mobile Search Marketing in Search & Performance Insider on 03/05/2014
  

  Google commands the largest share of mobile search volume of any single publisher, but it may surprise you that recent surveys of tablet and mobile users have found that nearly half of consumers use apps for local business searches. So where are all of these mobile searches coming from? Here are three of the largest non-Google, non-Bing sources of mobile search for local business -- and why they're important for search marketers to consider:

• Television Advertising And Search Performance in Search & Performance Insider on 02/03/2014
  

  Big events like the Academy Awards or Super Bowl may get the most media attention for their impact on digital activity, but marketers would be wise to pay closer attention to this connection throughout the year. In many organizations, digital direct marketers of large brands rarely interact with those responsible for television advertising and often use different advertising agencies. Yet in this age of marketing attribution, it is clear that these forms of advertising are becoming more closely linked. And now we have some specific ways to prove and monitor this.

Comments by John All comments by John

• Search & Call Extensions: Tips & Best Practices by John Busby (Search & Performance Insider on 08/07/2013)
  

  Hi all - thank you for the comments! I agree with the sentiment that calls are a more attractive outcome for SMBs in many categories. @Neil - it may surprise you that in search as much a third of calls are accidental and this can be 75%+ in mobile display... so an important, and sometimes overlooked, factor to measure. Some more data here - http://internet2go.net/news/ad-networks/marchex-online-mobile-directories-deliver-highest-new-customers-mobile-display-lowe

About Edit

You haven't told us anything about yourself! Surely you've got something to say. Tell us a little something.