The Lookout:

Facebook IPO: Not Focusing on Advertiser’s

Wed, 16 May 2012 07:39:00 -0700

Facebook IPO: Not Focusing on Advertiser's Needs

It's definitely no secret that Facebook is launching it's IPO this coming Friday, as it's been all over the news in the digital marketing industry. However, there has also been a great deal of backlash from their current advertisers, including GM who actually stopped all of their Facebook advertising. Facebook recently announced that they were going to increase the number of shares to it's public offering, which has so many analysts around the world wondering if they are going to be able to uphold their worth.

Facebook has used many different types of advertising models, some of which have been successful, others, not so much. Although Facebook has been a huge hit amongst it's users by catering to their demands, they haven't been so catering to their customers - advertisers. Facebook is a great marketing tool as companies can choose their exact target audience, however, Facebook has not yet executed a strong advertising system for businesses.

Currently, Facebook has ads on the side of the web page so when users are logged into their accounts, they see ads targeted to them along the right side of the page. This is great for businesses to get right in the face of their target audience who may be pulled in by the ad, but what if their target audience isn't actually looking or interested in the product or service? That is where the advertising system being used by Facebook is flawed. For example, with Google, users are actively searching for particular products and services and advertisers appear in those searches. So here you have the consumer searching for a particular product, and the advertiser appearing right in front of the user.

Facebook's average click-through rate (CTR) for a Facebook ad is under 0.05% which is approximately half the average CTR for banner ads across the Internet, whereas the average CTR on the Google Display Network is a bit under 0.50% - almost 10 times the CTR for Facebook ads.

What are your thoughts on the Facebook IPO launch?

3 Steps to Start a Pay Per Click Campaign

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:56:00 -0700

Today, pay per click is an extremely popular concept, especially for start-up businesses. Pay per click allows you to target your audience by geography and keywords or key phrases. This is some powerful information seeing as though if someone is searching for a term that is directly related to your business, this will put your website right at the top of their search. Therefore, giving you a great deal of power to get highly targeted leads to your website. Check out these three important steps to follow when first starting your pay per click campaign.

1) Setting a Budget: This is obviously an extremely important factor. Setting a budget for your pay per click campaign allows you to control how much you are willing to pay for each lead as well as limit your spending per day. A tip is to try and choose niche keywords and key phrases where you may need to pay slightly more per click, but you are also getting much more highly targeted traffic to your website which will have a higher chance of conversion.

2) Seek Professional Support: A management service that is dedicated and trained to provide optimized pay per click management services is trained to help businesses not only get the most return-on-investment for their daily spending, but also to manage all campaigns so that you can focus on other areas of your business.

3) Analyze and Experiment: You might think you know EXACTLY what you are doing and what results are going to be produced. However, you'll quickly learn that keywords and key phrases that you thought would work out successfully, don't and therefore, you need to analyze and test out different keywords and key phrases to see which ones are driving the most traffic and producing the highest conversion rates.

We hope this blog post has helped you in getting started in your pay per click advertising campaigns. Pay per click is a very powerful marketing tool for businesses of all sizes, however, you need to ensure your getting the best return on investment and the highest conversion rates for your money spent. If you have any questions regarding pay per click advertising, please feel free to contact us at LookSmart and one of our Account Managers would be glad to assist you.

3 Successful Pay Per Click Strategies

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:23:00 -0700

There are many ways to drive traffic to your website including social media marketing, search engine optimization, and email marketing. However, these methods of driving traffic take time and don’t produce immediate results. So some businesses turn to more immediate results for traffic such as pay per click advertising.

Pay per click advertising is the best digital marketing strategy to pursue if you are looking for quick traffic. The other great aspect of pay per click advertising is your ability to control your campaign 100%. Check out three proven strategies for getting the most successful results with your pay per click campaign:

1. Always Include a Call-to-Action: When you designing your ad, you can include text or image, or both. You should always have some kind of a call to action in your ad. You should be telling the visitor what to do such as “Click Here for…..”. In your call to action, explain briefly what they should expect to find when they click on your ad. If you are sending them to a landing page for a free report, tell them that.

2. Targeting: Pay per click advertising also allows you to target your audience right down to countries. If you are advertising a product or service that can be used globally, utilize the global paid advertising tool. However, if you are advertising for someone that is geographically linked, take advantage of the targeting tool by determining which countries you want your ad to appear.

3. Design a Killer Landing Page: The purpose of pay per click advertising is to drive as much targeted traffic as possible to a particular web page. So you want to make this web page look as professional, appealing, and user-friendly as possible. You don’t want your visitors landing there and not knowing what it is you are advertising. Usually a landing page that is graphic-oriented and “clean” in appearance is the most successful. You should also focus on collecting visitor emails by having a Subscription box available.

We hope you enjoyed this blog post, and for further questions on how you can utilize your pay per click advertising campaigns, contact our knowledgeable team at LookSmart.

3 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:47:00 -0800

There are many website and blog owners out there who have a website that generates a fair amount of traffic and are not currently doing anything to monetize that traffic. Of course the main purpose of a website is to provide valuable information on a subject you are interested in so you can educate those who are also interested. However, what if you could also generate some pocket change from that traffic?

There are many different programs available to help you do such a thing. Offering up real estate space on your website is a great way to generate money off of ad impressions as well as clicks on ads. So here are three excellent and proven successful methods to generate income off of your website:

· Banner Ads: Banner ads are display (image) ads, which are usually positioned at the top of the web page. Usually you generate income for each impression as well as each click through. It can be easy to find advertisers or affiliate marketers who want to use that real estate on your website because the banner ad is displayed right in front of the user.
· Affiliate Links: This is another great way to generate some income off of your website. Affiliate links are links placed on your website that market another product or service. And if a user that was on your website, clicks on the affiliate link and ends up purchasing something you generate a certain percentage of commission from the sale. The key in affiliate advertising is to choose products and services to market which are in the same interest category as the content on your website. If a user is on your website to learn about a particular product or service, obviously you’ll want to choose an affiliate product or service that the user would be interested in.
· Text Advertising: Text advertising is another effective method of monetizing your website. This involves displaying text ads in different areas of your website real estate with the hopes that visitors will click on the text ad and you’ll generate revenue off of each click. Although it’s more difficult to get the visitor to click on the text ad compared to display advertising, you can generate more revenue through cost per click text ads.

Generating traffic to your website is not an easy, but once you get a particular amount of traffic you can begin to utilize display advertising to generate some income. Of course the mort effort you put into driving traffic to your website such as utilizing social media channels and search engine optimization techniques, you will be able to drive even more traffic to your website and therefore, generate more revenue.

The key to getting as much organic traffic as possible is to work on your search engine optimization. So you choose a specific amount of keywords and key phrases and work on getting your website to page 1 of all major search engines. By doing this you have a large amount of traffic going to your website simply because you are on the first page of results. To learn more about how you can monetize your website, check out LookSmart’s Advertising information section.

How to Get the Most out of Your Pay Per Click Campaign

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:57:00 -0800

Pay Per Click is a proven and successful online marketing strategy which allows advertisers to drive traffic to their website and publishers to monetize their website. The advertiser does not pay a fee to place an advertisement, but rather pays a certain amount of money each time their ad gets clicked.

With pay per click, you control the entire campaign and you can choose your key words, where you want to direct your traffic, as well as what type of ads you wish to display.

1) Choose the Proper Keywords: Choosing the proper keywords can attract prospective visitors to your website through major search engines, not just traffic, but actual potential buyers. If you choose the proper keywords, a user types in the search phrase and your website will appear at the top of their search results, therefore, in the direct path of the consumer. Put yourself into your target audiences minds to brainstorm potential keywords and key phrases that they may search for to find a product or service such as yours.
2) Create a Landing Page: By building a landing page to drive traffic to, it allows you to create a totally clean, customized, and fresh webpage to market a particular product or service for each keyword or key phrase. Because landing pages are so easy to create, you may even build several landing pages, one for each keyword or keyphrase.
3) Ad Variation: When you are creating your pay per click campaigns, always use variety. You can test out text ads, banner ads, and image ads to see which ones provide the most conversion for you. By producing different kinds of ad you can monitor any patterns showing which ad is being clicked, and which aren't.
4) Analyze & Report: Take advantage of LookSmart’s fantastic analysis and reporting tools to determine which ads are working, which ads are producing the highest click-through-rate, and which ads are driving the most traffic.
5) Refine: Based on these reports, you can adjust your pay per click campaign to optimize your return-on-investment. No one gets their pay per click campaign right the first time, which is why you need to take advantage of the great analytical tools available and use them to refine your campaign to boost your return on investment.

LookSmart Hosts a Round Table at Social Media Insider Summit

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:27:00 -0700

Benoit Vatere, LookSmart’s VP Distribution Network hosted a round table event with Media Post’s Social Media Insider Summit on August 18^th, 2011. Benoit lead the group in a discussion on techniques and strategies for integrating search with social marketing. Of the 20 people in attendance, there were industry marketers from American Express, Bing, IBM, Kelley Blue Book and Nielson.

The group discussed how social media impacts organic rankings. A representative of Bing confirmed that social media is part of Bing’s algorithm; however he would not reveal exactly how this algorithm worked. Additionally the roundtable discussed how to successfully do search retargeting on social media websites such as Facebook. Though all in attendance agreed that retargeting has explicit value, no one was able to agree on the most effective way to execute on it.

LookSmart Interviews with WebMaster Radio at SES SF

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:39:00 -0700

Webmaster Radio Roving Reporter, Dana Todd interviewed Benoit Vatere (VP, Distribution Network, LookSmart) at SES SF. In this brief interview Dana and Benoit discuss LookSmart's unique perspective on translating user intent into enhanced conversion rates. Benoit goes on to describe how LookSmart's Tier 1.5 initiatives equip advertisers with advanced technology and traffic quality at low PPC prices.

Check out the full, unedited interview for yourself!

LookSmart at SES San Francisco

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:40:00 -0700

LookSmart will be exhibiting at Search Engine Strategies – San Francisco in August. If you are planning to attend, we’d love the chance to speak with you about our search advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers. Feel free to stop by booth #517 at any time during the show – we’ll have a team on hand to answer any questions you may have.

Also, if you have not yet registered, you can save 20% off the current price of a conference pass when you use code 20LOOK at checkout.

Hope to see you next month!

LookSmart is Hiring!

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 10:01:00 -0700

LookSmart is actively hiring for a number of diffeent positions, in our San Francisco headquarters, as well as our offices in New York and Kitchener, Ontario. It's an incredibly exciting time to join the company, so please be sure to checkout our jobs page.

Open positions include:

Director of Network Analytics (San Francisco)
Vice Presdent, Advertising Sales (San Francisco or New York)
Perl Engineer (LookSmart Canada - Kitchener/Waterloo area)
Sr. Software Engineer Ruby on Rails (LookSmart Canada - Kitchener/Waterloo area)
Software Engineer Ruby on Rails (LookSMart Canada - Kitchener/Waterloo area)
Sr. Account Manager (LookSmart Canada - Kitchener/Waterloo area)
Business Development Manager, Publisher Services (San Francisco)
Sr. Software Engineer Ruby on Rails (San Francisco)
Software Engineer Ruby on Rails (San Francisco)

Keyword Research - How to Begin

Fri, 13 May 2011 16:01:00 -0700

As a search ad network, we know that a marketer’s keyword list is integral to the success of their campaigns. Keeping a list static for too long can mean missed opportunities and missed revenue, so it’s important that search marketers be constantly adjusting their lists and testing new keywords. As regular readers of this blog know, at LookSmart we try to assist advertisers at key times of the year by aggregating together large lists of seasonal keywords around events like Valentine’s Day and Back-to-School. But what about the rest of the year? We often get questions from advertisers, especially those who are relatively new to search marketing, about what tools they can use to do their own keyword research. Luckily, there are a plethora of inexpensive and even free tools available.

Here’s a quick snapshot of some tools to check out. We haven’t used all of these tools ourselves, so we can’t speak to the quality of each and every one, but we hope this list will at least provide a good starting place for those of you who are interested in expanding your PPC keyword lists. If you try any of the tools, let us know in the comments section how they work!

In no particular order:

• Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
• Spyfu: http://www.spyfu.com/
• Wordtracker: http://www.wordtracker.com/
• Market Samurai: http://www.marketsamurai.com/
• PPC Keyword Toolz: http://ppckeywordtoolz.com/
• Wordstream: http://www.wordstream.com/free-keyword-tools
• KeywordSpy: http://www.keywordspy.com/
• Speed PPC: http://www.speedppc.com/
• Keyword Elite: http://www.keywordelite.com/
• SEO Book Keyword Typos Generator: http://tools.seobook.com/spelling/keywords-typos.cgi
• Keyword Ninja: http://www.keywordninja.com/
• Sktool: www.google.com/sktool/
• SEMrush: http://www.semrush.com/
• KGen: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/kgen/
• Wordpot: http://www.wordpot.com/

Happy researching!

LookSmart is Hiring!

Mon, 09 May 2011 15:47:00 -0700

We have several open positions in various locations - please be sure to check out the job listings in the "Working at LookSmart" portion of the site!

LookSmart Exhibiting/Speaking at ad:tech San Francisco

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:36:00 -0700

LookSmart will be exhibiting at ad:tech San Francisco on April 12th and 13th. We’re in booth #1413 - please make sure to stop by if you are there! Several of our staff members will be on hand to discuss our search advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers, including some new pricing models we have in the works. We'll also have some fun giveaway items!

If you are interested in setting up a meeting in advance of the show, please leave a message in the comments section of this post, and we’ll be in touch.

In addition to exhibiting, our CEO Jean-Yves Dexmier will be speaking as part of the ad:tech Marketing Master series. Please join him on April 13th at 2:30 pm in the expo hall theatre to hear a brief overview of LookSmart and the services we offer.

We hope to see you at the show next week!

Increase PPC Campaign Performance with Tax Season Keyword Expansion

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:24:00 -0800

At LookSmart, we often see that advertisers drive more traffic and conversions when they adjust their campaigns to take advantage of seasonal keywords. With tax season upon us, we know many advertisers are looking to expand their campaigns to account for the increase in tax related searches. As such, we have prepared a list of approximately 7000 relevant keywords that you may want to incorporate into your campaigns.

Keywords cover a range of tax season topics including:

Tax Help, Preparation, and Software
Government Tax Forms
Income Tax Calculators

If you would like to receive the list, please email us with the subject line "send me tax season keywords" and we'll get it over to you right away.

Have Questions? As always, our Customer Service team is available to help! Contact Customer Service or call 877-512-5665 for more information.

LookSmart Exhibiting at SES New York

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:04:00 -0800

Just a quick note to let everyone know we’ll be exhibiting at Search Engine Strategies New York on March 22nd and 23rd. If you are planning to attend, we’d love the chance to speak with you about our search advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers, including some new pricing models we have in the works. Feel free to stop by booth #1301 at any time during the show, or, if you’d prefer to set up a scheduled meeting with one of our account executives, drop us a line in the comments section, and we’ll be in touch to set something up.

As exhibitors, we are thrilled to be able to offer you 20% off the current price of a conference pass. Just use discount code 20LOOK at checkout. You can register here.

We hope to see you at the show!

LookSmart Product Updates

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:26:00 -0800

Happy New Year! We hope you made it through the hectic holiday season and are gearing up for a successful 2011. We certainly are. Before we completely turn our sights to the future, however, we wanted to take a last look back and compile a list of key product enhancements, company announcements, and recent news that you may have missed.

Without further ado...

Referrer/Subid Targeting: At client request, we can now enable features in the LookSmart AdCenter that allow advertisers to block specific referrer URLs, or to block subids passed through when an advertiser incorporates a {feed} variable in their destination URLs. We can also set campaigns to whitelist specific referrer URLs or subids.
• Benefit: These features allow advertisers to have a very granular level of control over the traffic they receive from us.

Pixel Based Conversion Tracking: While we've had this feature for quite some time, we still get a lot of questions about it, so we figured it was worth including. With pixel-based conversion tracking, clients can place a pixel on their site that will track conversions through the LookSmart AdCenter.
• Benefit: This is one of the best tools we have to help us create a customized distribution channel for your campaigns. It allows us visibility into which of our traffic sources are performing well for you, and we can then better tailor traffic to your performance metrics. If you are able to take our pixel, we highly recommend it.

Smart Rotation: A form of ad rotation, Smart Rotation uses LookSmart's award winning AdCenter platform to automatically service the ad creative with the best CPA in a campaign, determining the conversion data using the LookSmart tracking pixel.
• Benefit: Advertisers can increase ROI and save time by optimizing to display the best performing ad more often.

CPA Optimization: While LookSmart bills on a pay-per-click basis, we have many clients who have strict CPA goals. LookSmart's pixel-based conversion tracking can help you effectively deliver on CPA metrics, and Smart Rotation can help you optimize ad copy on a CPA basis.
• Benefit: Expand your reach on CPA campaigns by working with PPC networks.

Post-pay: The default for all LookSmart accounts is now post-pay, a billing model where clients are charged for traffic after it is delivered.
• Benefit: Pay only for the traffic you receive. We no longer require funds to be deposited in advance.

To learn more about any of these features, or to get assistance implementing them into your campaigns, please email or call us at 1-877-512-5665. We're always happy to help!

About LookSmart:
A pioneer of the search advertising industry, LookSmart is one of the largest pay-per-click search advertising networks. We support direct relationships with thousands of diverse paid search advertisers, and our expertise is grounded in connecting these advertisers with high quality traffic sources via our award winning, best-in-class AdCenter platform. With the LookSmart Network, you can expect:
    • Scale: We process over 2 billion queries a day on our trusted distribution network
    • Value: Highly competitive CPC prices
    • Results: Rapid and consistent delivery on performance metrics

Super Bowl Keyword Expansion

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:22:00 -0800

For those of you interested in optimizing your search campaigns for the Super Bowl (February 6th in Arlington, TX), we have created a list of over 5,000 search terms that you may want to think about incorportating into your campaigns if they are relevant.

The list includes:

TV related keywords (the event usually boosts sales on television sets and television-related items)
General Super Bowl keywords, including tickets
Travel keywords, including accommodations, fares, car rentals and packages

If you would like to receive the full list, please shoot us an email with the subject line "Send Me Super Bowl Keywords" and we'll get it right over to you.

Please check back soon as we'll be offering other keyword expansion lists like Valentine's Day and Tax Season.

Happy Bidding!

Gill Brown at Affiliate Summit

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:19:00 -0800

For those of you planning on heading out to Vegas for Affiliate Summit West next week, please be sure to check out LookSmart VP Gill Brown's presentation on "Uncovering Advanced Paid Search Strategies." Oh, and also, put $20 on black for me, would you?

What: "Uncovering Advanced Paid Search Strategies," an upcoming presentation featured at Affiliate Summit West.

Who: Gill Brown, Vice President of Advertising Network Sales, LookSmart Ltd.

When: Tuesday January 11, 2011 from 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. PT

Where: Mouton 1, Wynn Las Vegas

If you're going to be at the show, or in the area, and would like to set up a meeting with Gill, please leave a note in the comment section and we'll get in touch. Or, if you are an existing advertiser, you can reach out to your account manager.

Thanks!

Holiday Keyword Expansion

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:05:00 -0800

It's not too late for paid search advertisers to make last minute keyword changes in anticipation of the holidays! To help, LookSmart has compiled a list of over 8,000 PPC keywords relating to the following categories:

Cards
Gifts
Flowers
Food
Christmas
Hanukkah
Professional Services
Home
Toys
Clothing
Electronics

If you'd like access to the list of PPC holiday keywords, please send us an email with the subject "send me the December keyword list" and we will get it over to you.

Happy Holidays from LookSmart!

Holiday Keywords: Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:46:00 -0800

Holiday Season is officially upon us, and many search marketers are making final adjustments to their keyword lists to accommodate the uptick in holiday-related searches. To assist in this effort, LookSmart has compiled a list of over 35,000 keyword ideas, including ones for Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

We also have lists prepared for specific categories like Toys, Clothing, Home, Electronics and Holiday Items.

If you would like us to send you the keyword list, please email us with the subject line "Send Me Holiday Keywords" and we will get it to you right away.

ad:tech New York a Big Success!

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:35:00 -0800

We’re back from a whirlwind trip to New York. LookSmart exhibited at ad:tech, which proved once again to be one of the biggest and best tradeshows of the year. It was great to have a chance to see some of our current advertiser clients and publisher partners, as well as meet some new faces who we hope to work with soon.

The most exciting part of ad:tech for us was the launch of the LookSmart Quality Manifesto. This was a labor of love and something each and every employee stands behind. If you haven’t had the chance to read it, please take a moment to check it out. Big thanks those who were able to make it to our celebration party at Pranna on Wednesday night…such a fun night!