123greetings.com - Sponsored Links :: Measuring Performance, Live!

The overall performance of a campaign is just the beginning of evaluation of your ads. True ad performance is reflected with an in-depth analysis.

Sponsored Links on 123greetings.com offers comprehensive reporting. You can track ad performance by:

1. Individual campaign
2. Overall ad performance for a selected period

Each of the reports 'drill-down' into the ad campaign metrics, beginning with a summarized bird's eye view and progressing one step at a time.

The period selection offers preset periods including:

1. Previous day
2. Current week
3. Previous week
4. Current month
   
5. Previous month

In addition to the above presets, you can generate custom period reports.

The most striking factor is the live reporting thats unique to Sponsored Links on 123greetings.com. This is especially useful when you are in a short, event specific shopping periods like Valentine's Day. These are times when you have just a couple of days to reach the traffic and depending on day old reports could be decisive.

The live reports help you tweak ad targeting and bids and advertise as per the 'need of the hour', literally.

Landing Page Optimization

One of the primary reasons for prospects not converting is when they do not find what they expect. So while the ad may have been planned well, and the clicks generated from the right prospects, they would still be a problem with the conversion if the Landing Page didn't have enough focus on item advertised.

I have come across numerous occasions where the product advertised was lost among other products on the page. In some cases there was no more than a mere link to the product advertised. This often happens when the Landing Page is the web site's homepage or a page that has an entire product segment. The garment retailer as an example, maybe a mink coat is advertised, whereas the prospect lands on the entire winter collection page.

When you choose to advertise a specific product, or for that matter range, then you have to devote due attention and focus to the same accordingly. The advertised item(s) should be the sole focus on Landing Page, with links to related items. Discounts, USPs and other highlights should all be available on the Landing Page. This way you make sure that all that you have used as an attention getter in the ad is met by the prospect.

Making available all aspects of the product advertised on the Landing Page results in a positive user experiences that instills confidence on your services in the mind of your prospects and increase the chances of conversions. A positive experience also helps lay the foundations for a loyal customer base.

For more information, please visit my pages on Yahoo.

Target Your Audience

There would be very few advertisers who would find the importance of targeting an alien concept. But it's one thing to know who you want to target and quite different on how to target them.
Ad targeting just does not end at targeting geo-locations and selecting keywords in Adwords or ecard sections on 123greetings Sponsored Links.

A targeted ad really targets the need of the audience in a location. So you need to know

1. What is likely to be in demand in a specific geography
2. What regional aspect fuels the demand
3. How you address the demand
4. And if you are really looking to survive in the competitive arena for long, you need to create a demand too!

It doesn't matter if you do not have separate products for separate audiences, very few do.
What I mean by the above four points is about positioning your product. You need to understand what would capture your potential buyer's fancy.
Take the example of a garment seller. He will need to know the climate, culture and any specific events and occasions in the geography to position himself. So a pullover with holiday motifs would do good in US in winter while he'll have to think if thats the best approach to reach his Asian markets.
An ad must address the specifics of the audience to offer a positive ROI.

Writing Your Ads

Ad Title & Descriptions

Ad copy plays a crucial role in generating the interest in the minds of potential buyers. Write a copy that addresses the need that your product/ service is about.
The Title should get the attention of your prospect and the description lines should generate interest to take a look.
Effective Title and Description lines have a fairly high potential to generate more relevant traffic and be crucial to advertising ROI.
Ads copies that are not specific in their content result in misleading CTR and wasted advertising dollars, with the visitors' expectation not matching with the products/ services offered.
If you have varied product offerings that target entirely different buyer profiles, then run multiple ads rather than having a 'putting it all in one' ad. This will also help you understand the audience profile and predict ad campaign results over a period of time.