Ironvine Search Marketing

Amazon Webinar - September 10, 2008

ChannelAdvisor will be hosting a webinar this Wednesday, September 10, 2008, at 2 p.m. EST on how to build and grow your Amazon business.

Listen to Scot Wingo and Sam Wheeler, Director of Merchant Services at Amazon Services, as they discuss the various Amazon programs and best practices for succeeding on this channel. Better yet, they’re available for Q+A after the main act to answer questions that you may have.

Click here to register for the event.

ChannelAdvisor, Amazon, Webinar

Below is the latest press release from ChannelAdvisor about the securing of a new round of venture capital funding.

CHANNELADVISOR SECURES $20 MILLION IN FUNDING
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Leader in E-commerce Channel Management Accelerates Path to Profitability

Research Triangle Park, NC – September 04, 2008 – ChannelAdvisor, the leading provider of e-commerce channel management solutions, today announced it has received an additional $20 million in funding to accelerate its growth. The funding round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from current ChannelAdvisor investors Advanced Technology Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, eBay and Southern Capitol Ventures.

Additionally the company plans on implementing a restructuring plan that will both streamline operations and accelerate the company’s path to profitability.

“We continue to be increasingly impressed with ChannelAdvisor’s superior technology, significant traction in the retail sector, and leadership in the software as a service e-commerce industry,” says Patrick Kerins, General Partner of NEA. “We’re not only excited that the company continues to grow rapidly, but will also be able to do so profitably.”

During the past year, ChannelAdvisor’s revenues have grown over 55% and gross merchandise value (GMV) has grown over 45%. Additionally, the company has experienced significant customer growth, now boasting more than 100 top internet retailers from the prestigious Internet Retailer magazine’s Top 500 list.

With several acquisitions over the past two years, ChannelAdvisor has expanded its paid search offerings, distanced its leadership in the online marketplace space and most recently entered into the rich media segment with the acquisition of RichFX.

“ChannelAdvisor has grown rapidly over the last two years, both organically and via two material acquisitions, and has strengthened its leadership position in the e-commerce channel management space,” says Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor. “With the additional financing and restructuring of the company, we are excited about accelerating our path to profitability. We have reached not only a revenue scale that very few Software-as-a-Service companies have achieved, but also outstanding growth and profitability metrics.”

The following ChannelAdvisor leaders will take on expanded roles as part of the restructuring:

David Spitz, Vice President of Operations, is responsible for global products, services, and finance operations.

Michael Jones, Vice President of Business Development, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, currently leads ChannelAdvisor’s global marketing, business development, corporate development and acquisition strategies. Jones will be expanding his role to include global sales and revenue responsibilities.

Scott Alridge, Vice President and General Counsel, will be expanding his role to include human resources operations.

About ChannelAdvisor Corporation
ChannelAdvisor Corporation provides technology and services that enable leading online retailers to maximize their products across multiple ecommerce marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon.com and Overstock.com, comparison shopping engines such as Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Nextag and Google Product Search and search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In 2007, ChannelAdvisor managed over $2.1 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) on behalf of its customers. ChannelAdvisor solutions combine best practices, on-demand software and integration technology to help retailers sell more products, faster, by automating labor-intensive, manual functions so they spend less time optimizing campaigns and more time solving marketing and business issues. ChannelAdvisor has expanded its retail technology and services by acquiring Rich FX media solutions. MyRichFX™, RichImage™, RichCatalog™, and RichCircular™ are now part of the ChannelAdvisor rich media technology and service solutions that ChannelAdvisor offers. ChannelAdvisor’s customers include Wal-Mart, GSI Commerce, Brookstone, Abebooks and Motorola. ChannelAdvisor Corporation is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC with offices in Atlanta, Seattle, New York, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and Germany. For more information, visit http://www.channeladvisor.com/.

Contact:
Ashley Jones
ChannelAdvisor Corporation
Ph: 919.349.4177
ashley.jones@channeladvisor.com

As I posted last week over at SearchMarketing.com, Yahoo has done a good bit to give more insight into what it is doing to combat click fraud.

While there is not a lot of everyday usefulness in the update, they are making a good faith effort to combat the very controversial topic.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Search Marketing, Click Fraud, Ironvine

Here’s an eBay PayPal coupon promo code for someone to use:

eBay/PayPal Coupon: 10% off purchase up to $100

Here’s how to redeem this offer:
1. Start shopping on eBay. Be sure the seller accepts PayPal.
2. Pay for your item with PayPal before the expiration date: June 30, 2008 11:59:59 PM PDT.
(Make sure the email address on your eBay account is also on your PayPal account. Find out how.)
3. Enter the redemption PayPal code: CJUNE0810P

Technorati Tags: eBay, PayPal, Coupon, Ironvine

I know we’ve probably all used these but I thought I would toss them up here when I found an article with them all included.

Word Tracker http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
With Wordtracker you type in one keyword and can get up to 100 top keyword variations and approximately how many searches each one receives. They also have an ‘adult filter’ you can use to eliminate any adult orientated search terms that might be related to your keyword.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
The Google Adwords keyword tool is great! You can type in as many keywords as you like to start with, and Google will literally give you hundreds of keywords to choose from including different variations of your keyword to misspellings. They also give you much more information than just keyword variations. They can show you advertiser competition, search volume per month, average search volume total, average CPC , ad position and much more.

SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
The  SEO Book Keyword Research Tool is very cool for many reasons. Mainly, it shows the estimated number of daily searches for each Google, Yahoo and MSN. They’ve also recently added an export to CSV feature, so you can now export the entire list of keywords into a spreadsheet to share with others or to use for future references.Keyword Discovery http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.htmlThe free Keyword Discovery tool is great for giving many different variations of keywords and their estimated number of searches performed. The great thing about Keyword Discovery is that they collect data from all major search engines. I do feel however that on some keywords they estimate a very low number of searches .

SpyFu http://www.spyfu.com/?kw=keyword%20research%20tool
 Spyfu is pretty cool in the fact that they give you more than just variations of keywords you are searching for. Spyfu gives you such information like, an average cost-per- click, cost/day, clicks/day, the number of advertisers also bidding on a particular keyword and the number of search results listed. In addition, they will list out top related terms, related concepts and keywords that competitors bought. What’s even more cool, they will also list out the top 5 (although you can view more) advertisers who are advertising for this keyword, their domain and ad text, both in paid search and organic. Now that’s a lot of info!

MSN Keyword Forecast Tool http://adlab.msn.com/ForecastV2/KeywordTrendsWeb.aspx
This tool doesn’t necessarily give you variations of a keyword you type in, but it gives you traffic forecasting information as well as demographic information. For Example, for the keyword ‘catheter’ I found that that majority of people tying in this keyword are women ages 50+. This will help me understand my target audience better as well as allow me to set up correct demographic settings within my accounts. It also gives me an estimate of when searches on this keyword are highest and lowest so I know when to expect more traffic and when to expect a drop in traffic.

Technorati Tags: SEO, SEM, Keywords, Tools, Tips, Marketing, Search, Ironvine

Erin wrote a nice reminder about getting your paid search accounts ready for Mother’s Day. This is typically a great period for female demographic targeted sites. My typical advise is to give holidays a 1 month lead time in marketing (more for larger holidays). Don’t wait for those last minute shoppers!Pump Up Paid Search for Mother’s DayThis week is the time to start preparing your paid search campaigns for Mother’s Day if you have an applicable product or service. Trend reporting for popular Mother’s Day gifts show a historic spike in traffic starting around April 15th thru May 9th.written by Erin Gordon — erin.gordon at channeladvisor.com Technorati Tags: SEM, Marketing, Mothers Day, Ironvine

Here is a first look at a new visual search engine at searchme.com.Searchme does look good, resembling a mashup of Google with Apple’s popular Cover Flow three-dimensional graphical user interface used on its iTunes service, with a little of Ask.com’s categories thrown in.For now, Searchme is only going into private beta, adding users by invitation only.To create the page-riffling effect, Searchme has been working with Adobe. The top screen, after a search term has been entered, then creates a stack of pages to represent the page links on a list below.Technorati Tags: Searchme, Searchme.com, Search, Engine, Google, Apple, Ask, Ironvine

Today CNN published an article about some major changes in the way Ask.com is going to be doing business moving forward. They are changing their focus from an all inclusive, interactive search engine and adapting it to target a specific audience.

With the change it will return to its roots by concentrating on finding answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies, children’s homework, entertainment and health.

The decision to cater to married women primarily living in the southern and midwestern United States comes after Ask spent years trying to build a better all-purpose search engine than Google.

While I am fully supportive of them creating a niche market to provide specific answers, this comes as a strange choice to me. Thinking economically that demographic isn’t among the stronger per capita income areas. They are going to have limited influence in the market base with advertisers who will also be constrained by their focused market.

It seems as this is yet another down turn in the search competition world, Ask.com is starting to fade away into its own corner and returning a small portion of the market share back into the search pool.

You can read the full article at CNN - Ask.com gets a makeover, lays off 40

Technorati Tags: Ask.com, CNN, Search Engine, Marketing, Search, Ironvine

Yahoo board formally rejects Microsoft’s $45 billion bid, saying it ’substantially undervalues’ the company.

Microsoft responds to Yahoo. Says rejection of $45B bid is ‘unfortunate’ and that it’s ‘offering shareholders superior value.’

Read more about the battle at fortune.cnn.com

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo, Takeover, Ironvine

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Jan. 15 — ChannelAdvisor, the leading provider of e-commerce channel management solutions, today announced the launch of its most forward-looking marketplaces solutions to date.

Just off the heels of ChannelAdvisor’s purchase of Marketworks, a former Atlanta-based e-commerce solution provider, ChannelAdvisor introduced MarketplaceAdvisor(TM) and MarketplaceAdvisor Premium(TM). These new products replace Marketworks’ primary solution and ChannelAdvisor’s Merchant solution.

Designed exclusively for online sellers focused solely on eBay, MarketplaceAdvisor allows retailers to automate many of the processes vital to the growth and success of eBay businesses. In addition, sellers can leverage time-saving efficiencies including tracking and shipping of orders all from a consolidated interface.
(Read full article)

Technorati Tags: ChannelAdvisor, Marketworks, MarketplaceAdvisor, eBay, Ironvine

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Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you had a safe and happy holiday season.

I know I was very busy as most marketers are in the last part of the year.

Remember to make your post holiday paid search bid corrections, and plan those budgets for a highly competitive online year!

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Ironvine

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Yesterday if you opened AdWords editor you were prompted to download the latest version and upgrade to v.5.0.0.

It has some very nice new features, including “Local Business Ads”, but there have also been a few bugs reported by my team alone.

From the Inside AdWords Crew…

Today, we released version 5.0 of AdWords Editor, our free, downloadable campaign management application. Among other features, version 5.0 includes support for local business ads, an export picker that lets you select specific campaigns and ad groups to save to a CSV file, and the ability to save advanced search settings. You can read our release notes for a complete list of new and updated features.

If you haven’t yet downloaded AdWords Editor, visit our website to get the latest version. If you’re already using AdWords Editor, you’ll be prompted to upgrade automatically.

Important note: To avoid losing unposted changes or comments, export an archive of your account before upgrading. After you’ve completed the upgrade, download your account then import the archive file to get your account up and running.

Version 5.0 is available now for Windows and Mac. For more information about AdWords Editor, visit the AdWords Editor Help Center.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, AdWords Editor, Search, Ads, Marketing, Ironvine

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