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eTail 2011, Palm Desert
2011-02-16 16:35:00
NetElixir is a Search Summit sponsor as well as exhibitor (Booth#99) at the upcoming etail show - 22nd February-24th February. At the show we will be unveiling a major enhancement to our SEM technology, LXRRetail. We are confident that this new module will be of immense help to retail search marketers in managing search programs more holistically. - Udayan Bose
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Q1 Search Advertising Data confirms strong retail bounce back
2010-04-23 20:30:00
2010 has started strong. The economy is showing signs of slow but sustainable recovery, business confidence is gaining grounds and retail sales are rising.As a search engine marketing firm that specializes in assisting e-tailers, we have the opportunity to observe the retail sector’s fundamental shifts first-hand. Search advertising parameters are great indicators of the level of confidence consumers have in the economy.Our report is based on data collected from our ongoing research on paid search advertising campaigns of 32 online retailers. In this report, we have used our research findings to understand implications for retail search marketers in the post recessionary era. We have also shared the SEM lessons learned by us to help retailers successfully navigate the new search advertising landscape .You can download a copy of our whitepaper here: http://netelixir.com/winner.htmlThanks,Ud ayan
More About: Advertising , Data , Retail , Back

Why We Are Optimistic about 2009 Holiday Season
2009-09-29 23:42:00
Our keyword search advertising report received press coverage today-http://www.internetretailer.com/dai lyNews.asp?id=31964The release states our bullishness about the upcoming holidays based on keyword search advertising trends.Its important to realize the significance of keyword search trends as economic indicators. We have seen all the three parameters - clicks, click through rate and cost per click - bounce back from "the terrible lows of April and first few days in May 2009".People are searching more. Each conversion is preceded by more clicks. The rising clicks reflect a change(improvement) in searcher intent. Its difficult to extend our findings to anything beyond just this "improvement in searcher activity and intent". - Does improvement in searcher intent mean potential improvement in online sales. We don't know. We definitely hope so, but its not possible for us to make such an extrapolation based on this limited data.You can download a copy of our ...
More About: Holiday , Season

eMarketer's Predictions - US Retail ECommerce - Should we pay attention
2009-08-21 22:26:00
First the excerpt:eMarketer has revised its forecast of US retail e-commerce sales growth after a lackluster first half of 2009. Retail e-commerce sales, excluding travel, are expected to contract by 3.1% this year. Growth will resume in 2010, at 5.5%, as consumer spending recovers from the recession. By 2011, eMarketer expects pent-up demand to accelerate growth, peaking in 2012. Retail e-commerce sales will continue to increase, but the rate of growth will fall off in 2013, continuing the pre-recession trend of strong but slowing growth. Previously, eMarketer projected flat growth for retail e-commerce, expecting declines in the first half of the year followed by second-half recovery. But August figures from the US Department of Commerce (DOC) show sales decreased more than expected in Q2, falling 4.5% year over year to $30.77 billion. Our comments:I am often amused by the lack of accuracy of predictions. Despite constant revisions they still fail to be accurate.I fi...
More About: Ecommerce , Predictions

NetElixir's holiday gift for e-retailers
2009-06-26 21:45:00
NetElixir released the an SEM "workbook" for retail search marketers to help them turbo charge their SEM program for 2009 holiday shopping season. Here is the press coverage: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews .asp?id=30925 There is wide consensus on the fact that 2009 holiday shopping season will be the most difficult one a retailer has experienced in decades. A marketer will have to be both creative as well as clinically efficient to do well. Our workbook is NOT A THEORY MANUAL on SEM best practices. It is a workbook. Retail marketers have to take the pains of filling the tables/charts in the workbook. We firmly believe that just following the 10 tips mentioned in the workbook and solid execution will take care of efficiency issues for most retail marketers. The workbook can be downloaded here: http://netelixir.com/contact.html Happy Selling! - Udayan Bose
More About: Holiday , Gift

The First NetElixir SEM Workbook to be launched at the Internet Retailer Sh
2009-06-11 00:15:00
Alpha Graphics delivered the first set of 300 copies of our first SEM Workbook - Fresh Ideas to Turbo Charge Your Keyword Search Advertising this Holiday Season. NetElixir has been working hard to share the best practices in SEM that we ourselves learned through our experience of managing SEM campaigns for more than 200 US retailers over the last 5 years. This workbook is NOT a theoretical best practices handbook. It is a WORKBOOK that any retail advertiser can use - its 100% "execution" focused. The workbook will be particularly handy in difficult economic times like this. Everything points towards the most difficult holiday season in many decades for any retailer. We hope that some of the lessons we share in this workbook will help search advertisers improve their campaign management efficiency.- Udayan Bose
More About: Internet , The Internet

Our New White Paper on Mother's Day Keyword Advertising trends
2009-05-21 18:28:00
Key Points -1. CPC's keep moving down (this has been an ongoing trend since Q4,08)2. Average Order Value (AOV) is down by about 10%3. The Revenue generated per dollar spent on PPC remains almost un-changedHere is the link: http://www.netelixir.com/PDF/NetElixirMDW hitePaper.pdfHappy Reading!Udayan Bose
More About: Advertising , Trends , White , Keyword , Mother

Google's TM Policy Change
2009-05-18 22:52:00
The changes in Google 's ad policies regarding trademarks announced for next month are causing quite a stir.Here is the link: https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/an swer.py?answer=145407And here is the link from NYTimes on the reaction by advertisers:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/0 5/15/technology/internet/15google.html?_r =3&hpw   Upon initial investigation of the ramifications, the biggest winners and losers of the change appear to be...   Winners:  Resellers and department stores, as they will now be able to bid on TM keywords and display TM terms in their ad copy without permission from the TM holder.  Keep in mind that many such resellers have deeper pockets than the TM holders themselves... Google, at least in the short-term, as increased competition for popular TM terms is likely to raise both the amount that each advertiser will have to bid on such terms as well as the aggregate amount being bid on them.   Los...
More About: Change , Policy

eMarketer's Predictions for 2009
2008-12-16 22:22:00
Here is what eMarketer's predictions are for 2009. I think they are too optimistic. I would be surprised if the overall online advertising growth rates exceed 6%. I think estimates on video ads, display ads are both optimistic. The optimistic me thinks search is the only online advertising channel that will show double digit growth. Here is the eMarketer article: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id= 1006813 eMarketer's Predictions for 2009 DECEMBER 16, 2008 What lies ahead in the new year? David Hallerman, Senior Analyst Online Ad Spending: Still Solid Choice Video ad spending will run counter to overall economic developments, rising by 45% in 2009 to reach $850 million. Two key factors support this trend. First, the sharp escalation of professional video content on the Web—mainly from TV networks—is creating a viable base for brand marketers. Second, even though most advertisers are increasingly cautious with their budgets, they still need to reach online a...

How big was CyberMonday this year
2008-12-05 21:16:00
We have done a continuous - literally hour by hour search pattern analysisbetween 0:00 hours, 27th November - midnight of 2nd December. There ishardly any analysis on search trends during this period because of TGholiday. Given the importance of CyberMonday (this year being VERY SPECIALfor most retailers given the economy - quite literally was a historic BlackFriday and CyberMonday )- we thought of analysing the key patterns in searchtraffic, purchases - value - time - number, keyword click price movements,click to purchase conversion rates. The analysis was done on 3 clients from totally different categories ofretail - large Speciality Food etailer, large Consumer Electronics retailer,large Gifts retailer. There were some very interesting findings. Key Search Trends by category: Electronics - On 27th-30th Nov, search traffic spiked between 6am-8am EST and 12-2pm ESTand also 9pm-11pm EST (especially on 30th).  (Reasoning: Maybe, people weretrying to find the best deals for...
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How much will Online Retail Sector grow this holiday season
2008-11-24 18:26:00
How much will the online retail grow this holiday season.This is the biggest question doing rounds at this time.My optimistic guess: 8%More realistically, 2-3%We at NetElixir will be doing a comprehensive analysis of the holiday months. Watch out for our Report to be published in January 09.- Udayan
More About: Holiday , Retail , Season , Online , Grow

The sole bright spot in a gloom and doom economy
2008-11-21 02:04:00
The IAB published Q3,2008 Internet Advertising Revenue numbers today. There has been an 11% growth over the same quarter last year. The third quarterly revenues this year have touched $5.9 B. Indeed, online advertising continues to shine in a gloomy economy.Three observations -1. In the difficult economy that is likely to extend beyond 2009, online advertising should see heavy gains2. A lot of advertisers who stayed away from internet advertising more because they could not fathom the importance or did not have adequate knowledge or just did not care would now be forced to include internet advertising in their advertising mix3. The ONLY advertising option for a small business(quite literally) for these difficult times would be internet advertising- Udayan Bose
More About: Economy , Spot , Bright , Doom , Sole

Grab the Online Shopper
2008-11-19 00:40:00
We released a white paper today on Smart SEM Tactics for a slow holiday season. The white paper was based on our analysis of the 2006 and 2007 Holiday months (November and December) for 7 large US Retailers. The white paper contains actionable tips for the smart search marketer.The white paper is our way of sharing that knowledge with the retailer community and hopefully helping some of the E-tailers have a more successful holiday season.You can download your copy here:http://netelixir.com/HolidayWhitePap er.htmlThanks,Udayan
More About: Online , Grab , Shopper

Interactive Marketing Imperative
2008-10-24 22:52:00
I attended the webinar by Shar von Boskirk of Forrester Group, Interactive Marketing Imperative, today. It was attended by more than 50 professionals.Through the presentation, Shar shared information on how Social Media and Search Marketing continue to attract marketers, why interactive advertising would not be impacted by a global recession, why a focus on branding is going to be important, how a combination of display and search advertising deliver disproportionate performance improvements and shared Forrester's projections of Online advertising revenues growing to $61 Billion by 2012(in US) - a whopping 18% of total advertising revenues.There were obvious questions and concerns raised by some attendees over the slow economy and how it would effect online ad spends. I firmly believe that the global slowdown would actually lead to a growth in online advertising. More money would flow into search advertising as its a proven model. More importantly, search advertising has greate...

Online Holiday Forecasts from eMarketer
2008-10-22 19:54:00
Here is what eMarketer estimates would be the November and December Online Sales for Retailers. Its understandably a conservative estimate. My honest opinion - Retailers should be happy if they are able to realize the mentioned sales numbers. I would put the growth % in single digit - between $30.5 and $31 B? EMarketer Report: The weak economy is placing downward pressure on e-commerce sales this season. That pressure accentuates the already declining sales growth, which is a sign of the inevitable maturation of the online shopping channel.
More About: Holiday , Forecasts

NetElixir launches the first edition of SEM Case Series for E-Retailers
2008-10-21 22:56:00
Through this 10 edition case series, we hope to share some of our PPC management tactics that we used over the past 4 years to optimize more than 200 unique retailer campaigns.The first edition of the series was released  this month. Here is the link: http://www.netelixir.com/PPCWP1.html?ne_p pc_id=31I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions that may help us in making the cases more relevant and useful for you.The next edition gets released on 15th January 2009.Thanks,Udayan Bose
More About: Series , Case , Edition , Retailers

Difficult to Believe?
2008-09-05 22:20:00
This post has reference to the NAILED IT section of DMNEws dated 25th August 2008. Its an interview with Paul Siska, CEO of First Consumer Debt Management. He raves about the results delivered by a search firm EveryMundo.Here are the results Paul claims EveryMundo delivered for their PPC Campaigns-Average Cost Per Lead Acquisition went from $284.16 to $24.99, a reduction of 11.37x.Their Conversion rate went up from 1.32% to 2.97%., an increase of 2.25x.Now cost per conversion can go down because of ONLY two reasons - CPC going down or conversion rate going up. That's it. Period.If the conversion rate went up by 2.25x, CPC would have definitely have gone down by - 11.37/2.25=5.05xIts difficult to believe a 5x drop in CPC within 1 year (lets for a moment consider that CPC remained the same -- zero CPC inflation).This can happen only (and yes I emphasize, ONLY) if the account was NOT BEING MANAGED AT ALL (someone purposefully bidding on all the wrong keywords) OR competitors aband...

Just a little bit of attention
2008-08-14 23:19:00
Understandably PPC management is challenging. Its difficult to keep a tab on all the ad copies on a real time basis. However, agencies are supposed to be responsive and responsible enough to do this efficiently. It pained me to see this ad still running on 14th August at 5.20pm EST. This just gives a bad name to the SEM industry. Overstock Sale Alert www.LumberLiquidators.com      Quality Hasn't Been Cut; Just The Prices! Buy Now - Sale Ends 8/10
More About: Attention

4 years - nothing much has changed in SEM space
2008-03-21 00:30:00
I visited the SES Show after about 4 years, yesterday - in NYC. I was excited to be attending SES because this was the first show we attended after founding NetElixir - SES, San Jose 2004.So much has changed in the search world. The power equation has changed considerably between Google and others. Disappointingly, not much has changed on the SEM space. The usual suspects, iCrossing, iProspect, Did-It, Efficient Frontier, were all there. There were new agencies and SEM tools. All agencies started their pitch by stating that their proprietary technology was awesome because... Back in 2004, they started the same way... Its disappointing. But seriously, SEM companies are struggling to establish a differentiator. Everyone does the same stuff - only the presentation is different. So, is there no differentiator in SEM space? Yet, advertisers are stressed - they complain about their agency or their SEM technology.  They would do so only when there is a need gap. What is the nee...
More About: Space , Years

2nd Annual PPC Stress Study Results
2007-10-31 23:05:00
We released the 2nd Annual PPC Stress survey results today. We had 140 retailers participate in this year's survey. They ranged from giant e-tailers like WalMart to one person shops. Despite all concerns about rising click costs and click fraud, e-tailers are investing more and more on paid search advertising. Also, the sophistication level keeps increasing. We believe that use of long tail keywords is one "probable indicator" of level of sophistication (attempts to monetize the long tail). I am amazed - still - at the number of people a firm dedicates to its PPC campaigns and the time spent in management. Understandably more people are willing to outsource. Number of specialized agencies are still very few. PPC Management still is done by boutique firms who offer other services as well. My forecast remains optimistic - I don't see any signs of a PPC slowdown till 2011/2012. You can read the press release here : http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id= 1005557 You...
More About: Study , Results

LXR Solo Launch at Shop.org Annual Summit in Manadalay Bay, Las Vegas
2007-09-18 01:23:00
The day has finally arrived when LXR Solo would be unveiled to the world of e-tailers. Understandably its a very important moment for all of us at NetElixir. We have spent the past 2 years building the technology - testing the algorithms - simplifying the UI and building a tool that is relevant and useful to online retailers. There is an interesting history behind this tool. Let me share that with you. Circa 2004 - I tested the 3 most popular PPC tools in the market - GoToast (became Atlas One Point subsequently), Bid Rank and Search Ignite (end of 2004). There was a clear emphasis on "bid management". The bid rules were complex - even for someone like me who had a decent amount of hands on experience in the space. Also, after having struggled as a marketer to run an optimal PPC campaign I knew that bid management was a small part of the entire PPC management process.I wanted to develop a PPC tool that had three key strengths -  SIMPLE TO USE, POWERFUL PERFORMANCE...
More About: Las Vegas , Shop , Launch , Summit

Google Adwords Overwhelms me!
2007-06-25 01:06:00
A small business owner (small~ less than 20 people, less than $30 mill annual revenue)in 2004 could run an adwords campaign by himself and make a decent bit of profit. Now - that is IMPOSSIBLE. We bagged an important online retail account last week. The client is one of the largest online jewelry stores in US. I asked their CEO why he considered outsourcing PPC advertising management (given the fact that the campaign was being managed in-house for the past 4 years and PPC remains the most important customer acquisition channel for the company). He put it in simple words - " Google adwords overwhelms us". I could not agree more. Google has been introducing changes in adwords at a rapid pace (rapid is probably an understatement, here). And, a lot of this has been prompted by Google's drive for "dis-intermediation". Google wanted to give all the tools a marketer might need to manage his campaigns in-house. But, they overlooked the fact that all these tools actu...
More About: Google Adwords , Adwords

Bracing Up for a profitable holiday season
2007-06-22 01:43:00
My friend and e-tail expert, Lauren Freedman wrote a nice article today for Practical eCommerce - Marketers should be preparing for the holidays now, http://www.practicalecommerce.com/article s/507/Merchants-Should-Be-Preparing-For-T he-Holiday s-Now/ As is the case with any article she writes the article is extremely practical and drives the point home - 2007 holiday season would be the biggest ever and a prudent marketer needs to start thinking about it right away to gain maximum mileage. After having managed more than 50 e-tailer SEM accounts and having interacted extensively with merchants of all size, I have been able to distill some "to do's" for an e-tailer.The points are self explanatory and might seem almost obvious. Nevertheless, merchants tend to ignore these repeatedly. 1. Begin with a "measurable business goal" 2. Break it down to sub-objectives - "be very clear about what you want to achieve" 3. Write down a plan for achieving these obj...
More About: Season , Seas , Profitable

Wall Street Journal and misleading Google advertising
2007-06-10 17:26:00
I did a search for "wall street journal" on Google to land here - Wall Street Journal www.wallstreetjournal.com      Wall Street Journal Free Delivery & 8 Weeks FreeI clicked on the link to land here -https://www.wallstreetjournal.com/Grypho n/jsp/retentionController.jsp?page=11223& amp;S=63JSBK&psid=searchI filled in the registration information and clicked submit, and hey.. what do i get -the offer is no longer valid!!!This is atrocious. The landing page should have been different (and accurate), or I should at least have been informed of this before I added my credit card information.This is what happens when companies run PPC campaigns with the help of agencies that "do not care" or are "simply negligent".Whatever, it is - this experience was a big "dissonance creator" for a WSJ fan like me.Marketing on the web is NOT EASY. There are multiple touch points that you as a marketer need to have control on. Just consid...
More About: Advertising

Internet Retailer Show 2007
2007-06-09 04:22:00
Just got back after a super Intern et Retailer show in San Jose. Quick observations -1. Steve Rogers - the organizer - is undoubtedly the best I have seen - ever smiling, courteous, affable, super organizer. He has got the attendee list to over 3000, which is extremely creditable2. Online Retail is booming - this show was an eye-opener in every way - huge crowd - interesting sessions - average participant knowledge level higher than most other shows3. There was not much new that any exhibiting vendor had to offer - that is disappointing - I guess, companies are moving towards "efficiency boosts" in their solutions rather than selling creative stuff - clear sign of an evolving industry4. Retailers of all size need help on PPC management - our theme "NetElixir eliminates PPC stress" resonated with the attendees - as a result we got unprecedented number of e-tailers to visit our booth5. Google dictates "everything" in the internet space6. MSN would never EV...
More About: Show , Tail

ACCM Boston and the Plight of Marketers
2007-05-30 06:56:00
I attended the ACCM Show at Boston last week. We had a booth there. It was a well organized show that attracted (my estimate) around 3000-4000 attendees. My "post-show thoughts"- 1. I bet 90% of marketers are just too overwhelmed or too confused by the number of options that are available today to promote their business 2. Our booth was in the Analytics Pavilion of the Exhibition area. The area drew a fair amount of traffic. I could literally sense an added degree of urgency in the marketers towards web advertising. An attendee who had attended all previous versions mentioned that she could "literally sense" a shift towards the web from the more traditional channels 3. (Pardon my arrogance but..) There was nothing really new and novel - however there were companies that had a more efficient approach to solving a pertinent customer problem. This is something to be expected as the industry evolves. We are entering a phase (or I would say - have entered) where ...
More About: Mark , Marketers , Marketer

SES, Munich - March 2007
2007-05-30 06:39:00
This post comes exactly two months after SES, Munich 07 - where I had my first real taste of the SEM business in Germany.My comments -1. Given the penetration levels of the internet, I had expected greater sophistication from the SEM Agencies. I would estimate that the agencies are still - on an average - a year to a year and half behind US2. Some very unique mathematical work is in progress in some top universities on multi-lingual search especially on areas like personalization, behavioral targeting, etc3. I was a speaker in a panel of international experts that discussed the future of search. We juggled around mostly standard topics like potential Google beaters, usability, mobile search, etc. I added an outside US and UK dimension to the discussion. Indeed, search would have arrived when there is a certain degree of searching homogeneity and usage across the globe. Thankfully, the time lag between the most advanced internet nation (Korea? USA? Japan?) and the others is not too l...
More About: March , Marc

Click Fraud Hype or cheap publicity
2007-02-02 20:24:00
I have written on this topic earlier. Its appalling to see companies hype up click fraud issues. Click Forensics recently reported that 14.2% of clicks were fraudulent in Q4,2006. This is a ridiculously high number. And honestly, its impossible to come up with any number based on limited data set and limited knowledge. As expected Google refuted their claims.http://www.marketingvox.com/archiv es/2007/02/02/google-click-fraud-study-in accurate/ I am firmly of the opinion that click fraud threat is being hyped up at times for petty/selfish gains. Click Fraud exists - there is no question about that - however the percentage incidence is much lower than 14%. Today Marketing Sherpa came up with an interesting study - Online marketers rated the tactics used by them in 2006 as best and worst. The "expected" best tactic - paid search advertising. (an overwhelming 49% of the respondents rated paid search as the best online marketing tactic used). Long live paid search.. down with ...
More About: Publicity , City , Hype

Is it going to be Good Bye Bid Management
2007-01-31 19:31:00
Since we started operating 3 years back we have been harping how "in-appropriate" it is to call PPC campaign management - "bid management". Bidding was and unfortunately still is considered by  many as the key  PPC campaign success determinant.  This was primarily because of the way all PPC engines with the exception of Google Adwords worked. You could see what your competitors were bidding for a keyword and change your bids accordingly. This resulted in atrocious activities like bid war (defies economic logic from the view point of both search engines as well as advertisers). Tools like GoToast were built on "defensive bases" to maximize returns in volatile bidding scenarios. Till 2004 (that's when Adwords beat Overture) PPC management was equivalent to bid management. Thankfully, much sanity has been established - first with Google adwords and now with Yahoo!SM following the way "away from bid management".  Things that ...
More About: Management , Good , Mana , Manage , Going

Featured in Internet Retailer
2006-10-27 03:18:00
NetElixir received some press coverage today - http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews .asp?id=20323 Our PPC management solution works particularly well for online retail sector where "sales" can be measured. Based on a combination of multiple algorithms and human specialization, we are able to drive "seemingly unbeatable" results for our clients - consistently. - Udayan Bose
More About: Internet , Featured , Intern , Tail , Feat