When is the best time to sell heaters? How about lawn mowers?  It is a company’s business to know when their seasons begin and end. For example: toy companies do their main advertising from mid-October through December and air conditioning companies do their main advertising from mid-May through October.  Seasons also apply to the world of paid search. Therefore it is important for companies to know their paid search seasons and adjust their online strategies accordingly.

It is always valuable for a business to have a paid search presence. However, it is vital to know when to slow down or throttle up paid search advertising. The main time to throttle up paid search spending is right before the busy season. Each client knows that their sales/leads tend to spike and maintain a high during certain parts of the year. Once a business has defined their busy season, they need to translate this knowledge to their paid search efforts. On the same note, when the busy season ends, it’s good to slow down the paid search spend, so that a wealth of funds can be used for your busy season. For example: Company A sells insurance, and May thru September is their busy season. For the months of April thru September they spend $10,000 a month. They ramp up in April for the surge that will start to take place in May. When Company A slows down in October, they lower their budget to $7,000 and maintain that monthly budget through the end of March. They are spending 30% more during their busy season and still maintaining a presence during the slower months.

Once a business understands their paid search seasons, they can make the necessary changes to their advertising budget.  By making these adjustments, a business is able to make the most of their paid search efforts. For some businesses, the paid search seasons can become a little more complex, which will be discussed in Part 2. 

Google is constantly making changes to improve people’s experience on their search engine. One of Google’s latest changes will affect businesses of all sizes that are running or plan to run paid search campaign. It’s called the Ads Preferences Manager and it’s worth paying attention too.

Google is giving searchers a choice of what types of ads they want to see and even giving them the ability to block ads. When a searcher does a search on Google, there is a little note that appears near the paid ads that says, “Why this Ad?” or “Why These Ads?”

After clicking on these words, a box pops up that gives them the option to learn more about the Ad Preferences Manager. Once they click on the link they are asked to sign in to access their ad preferences. They are then given the option to block ads from advertisers whose ads displayed on their most recent search. An advertiser can be blocked or unblocked with a simple click of the mouse.

According to Google they want to personalize a user’s search experience. In fact on the Ad Preference page it says, “With personalized ads, we can improve your ad experience by showing you ads related to websites you visit, recent searches and clicks, or information from your Gmail inbox.” In all fairness, Google even allows users to block Google ads. (I tried it and it works).  Google also gives the searcher the option to opt out of these personalized ads.

This new option presents a whole new element to paid search ads. For advertisers, not only do ads, keywords, and landing pages have to be relevant, now users have to like them so they don’t get blocked.  This is all the more reason to run relevant campaigns that display ads which are associated to a user’s keyword search, and leads them to a relevant landing page.

It’s a little early to tell if users will adopt this new option and begin using it. However, businesses should keep in mind that at any given moment their ads can be blocked from showing to a specific user. It’s a somber thought, but it is the new reality.

Recently, I watched a commercial where a waiter brought the bill to an individual who was eating dinner with several people.  The individual told everyone how much they owed and. immediately, everyone at the table, except for one, whipped out their cell phones and began to transfer money to this person’s bank account to cover their portion of the bill. It just goes to show that mobile devices are here to stay, at least for now. As technology advances, businesses have to adopt to new ways to reach people and one of these ways is through m-commerce.

M-commerce also known as mobile commerce, according to eHow “is the buying and selling of goods and services through the use of hand-held devices such as mobile phones or PDAs.  This form of buying is known as next generation e-commerce and it’s conducted by allowing users to access the Internet without a computer connection, “ For right now, m-commerce in most circles also includes tablet and iPad shoppers. The beauty of m-commerce is that a person is capable of shopping online just about anywhere.

Many businesses are missing the boat by not having a mobile friendly website.  A mobile friendly website not only reaches cell phone users, but it can also reach tablet users. An article by e-marketer states,  “According to Ipsos, tablet owners shop via mobile devices on a more frequent basis and spend more than smartphone owners.” Keeping this in mind. Businesses who don’t have mobile friendly sites are missing out on some of the action. In fact, the article went on to say that dual owners, “those who own both tablet and smartpone devices,” spend more than those who only own smartphones.  Businesses with ecommerce sites can truly benefit by creating a mobile version of their site .Think about how many more sales could be received by businesses who sell things online if they created a mobile friendly website? 

There are new tablets and smartphones on the market just about every day and eventually desktop computers may become obsolete. In order to stay current and get in on mobile commerce, businesses have to be willing to quickly adapt to technology changes.