Blog

Desktop is Not Dead! The Evolution of Desktop and Mobile Marketing

Desktops computers soared to popularity in the 1990’s and became a household item, like a microwave, or a television.  In the 2000’s a new normal revolutionized on the go technology with mobile phones.  The evolution of mobile phone technology ultimately lead to the status quo of the smartphone, which are ultimately monopolized by Android and Apple.  Easy access to...

From Google: 5 Things You Need to Know About SEO

Are you looking for ways to organically increase the traffic to a website?  If so, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will improve the overall structure of a website which will help drive traffic. How? An SEO specialist has many different ways to optimize a website. Below are 5 examples taken straight from the "Search Giant" itself, Google. 1) Create unique and accurate...

Why Don’t My Click Reports Match My Google Analytics? (Example)

Google Analytics is a terrific platform for understanding more about how visitors use your website.  However, keep in mind that it is not tracking data the same way that log servers track clicks. Click data is based on ad server logs from the ad exchange(s).  Analytics data (such as Google Analytics), is based on cookies or page loads. HOW GOOGLE ANALYTICS...

Why is Conversion Tracking and Goal Setting So Important?

Before you start a search engine marketing campaign (aka Pay-Per Click) it’s important to do a bit of homework first. As they look through their Google Analytics, they see clicks+cost with an overall increase in traffic. Putting these items together, increased traffic with clicks implies ads are working, right? Not necessarily!   Your customer could potentially be losing revenue from really expensive...

If Your Mobile Site Doesn’t Load in 3 Seconds, Your Customers Aren’t Happy

Ready or not, the holiday season is upon us.  While some of us are already planning on procrastinating holiday shopping until Christmas Eve and some of us are still in denial that it isn't July anymore, the most avid shoppers have had their credit cards ready since the first leaf of the season changed.  But this year, instead of...

Branding Yourself On Linked In with Customizable Backgrounds

What was once only available to premium members of Linked In has now reached the masses: customizable backgrounds, similar to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  Give your profile a professional punch by uploading your own in a few easy steps: Step 1: Create a 1400 x 425 background that is under 4 MB in  .jpg, .png, or .gif.  You'll notice that...

Generation X Edges Out Millenials in Facebook Use…But Not Selfies.

Generation X, the middle population of 65 million Americans ages 34-49, are frequently recognized as being squished in between the older, dominant Baby Boomers and the young, free-spirited Millennials.  And boy does Generation X love their mobile technology and social media!  Despite blatantly targeting every new tech trend to be marketed towards millennials, it's Gen Xers that spend the most...

Did Your Website Get Hit With the Penguin Penalty?

Take a peak at your Google Analytics.   If you are seeing your website traffic is at an ALL time low in the past month you may have been struck by the Penguin, or Googles’ third update to its algorithm.  Colloquially known as Penguin 3.0, this update launched on October 17th (according to Google Webmaster Hangouts) and has caused many...

What Did Your Website Look Like 10 years ago? Take a peek!

Step into our time machine and travel back to September 4, 1998 when Google was founded. This is what their website looked like:   That's Google in Beta test mode and trying out their new colorful logo.  Let's travel back a bit further, to July 5, 1994, when Amazon.com was founded. This what their website looked like:         Scads of sports stuff? A...

What are college kids doing on Friday and Saturday nights? Snapchatting.

Snapchat, the “now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t” photo app, has caught the attention of the tech world because of its rapid success, occasional controversy and most of all, its devoted audience of users. “What the heck is Snapchat?” you might be saying in your head right now… Snapchat is a photo service that allows users to take pictures or videos, known as “snaps” of themselves...

2014 – The Year Of Mobile Domination

It's official - mobile rules when it comes to media consumption.  The average person consumes 7 hours of media a day and mobile is number one, accounting for about 35% or 145 minutes of that time. The 2014 "Marketing In A Multiscreen World" report found similar results with smartphones at 35% of daily screen time, far outpacing T.V., tablets, and...

“Completers” Are Better Than “Clickers”

If you are doing a video pre-roll campaign, there are a lot of metrics you can measure, but which are the most important? Impressions? Click-Through-Rates? Completion Rates? A study done by Vindico clearly demonstrated that what counts for video ad campaigns are Completion Rates, saying, “Click Through Rate is the King of False Positives” The report goes on to explain that...

The Need to Move Faster

Technology is affecting customer behavior and the changes are opening and closing customer touch points with businesses. With businesses in markets across America, the advertising mix is changing, and with that advertising revenues are shifting from legacy media to all things digital.  Yet I feel that many in the media sector don’t understand the velocity of the change and...

Does having a separate mobile website hurt my SEO?

A question we are frequently asked is whether having a separate mobile website will create SEO issues?  (A separate mobile url is one that starts with m. and redirects to the mobil url – i.e., m.vicimediainc.com.) The answer is “no” if it is done correctly – and we do it the correct way!  (As outlined by Google in this article.)...

9 Things You Didn’t Know About SEO!

In this digital marketing age, it's no wonder people are putting so much emphasis on SEO.  Search Engine Optimization. It's making your site more visible on search engines so that people can find you!  And don't we all want people to find us?  SEO's increasing popularity, however, has lead to several misconceptions about its use and how to optimize...

Meet Leslye Schumacher!

As Vici Media continues to grow, we want you to know everyone who has been here since the beginning and helped the company rise!  So every week we'll introduce you to a key member of the team.  This week we begin with Leslye Schumacher...Senior Partner and resident Motorcycle Chick here at Vici. 10 Things about Leslye: If I had it to...

UTM Codes?! I’ve never heard of UTM Codes!

If you are like the majority of the population, you might have never heard of UTM Codes.  And why not?! I don't know - because they are a great tool to use for measuring your digital campaigns! UTM stands for Urchin Traffic Monitor.  And that's what it does - it monitors traffic coming into a site, and specifically names where that...

How to Track Your Conversions on Google Analytics!

So if you read our little cheat sheet on Google Analytics (if not, you can read it here!), we're going to jump right in and show you how you can track your conversions.  Remember, conversions are some action that your intended audience takes to push them further down the funnel - such as completing a purchase or filling out...

Your Google Analytics Cheat Sheet (Example)

Are you maximizing your company website, blog, and Facebook page?  Are they optimized for the best performance to fit your needs and for organic search results?  Google Analytics is one of the most popular web visitor tracking tools.  It adds a small snippet of code that is placed on all the pages of your website.  Google Analytics reports can...

What the heck is a DO FOLLOW, dofollow, do-follow…

I had a client the other days ask a question about his website, asking if it would be a "do-follow" site.  This question is SO CLOSE to being a legitimate question, but also kind of funny. Here's why: Essentially you have two terms: "dofollow" and "nofollow".   This tells search engine spiders to crawl, or not crawl, a website. The...

How to install a Retargeting/Remarketing Pixel in WordPress. (Example)

Retargeting web visitors is a common best practice to maximize conversions and invite back potential customers to your website.  Our clients often ask us to help retarget (or remarket) their web traffic.  Retargeting technology uses a pixel (lines of HTML code), which creates a cookie to track site visitors. But how the heck do you install that pixel? Wordpress doesn't...

RPS Tournament

The Results are In! See who won the RPS Tournament: For approximately 1.4 Million Years, the noble sport of Rock Paper Scissors has been used to decide our lives’ most IMPORTANT DECISIONS. Friendship, Marriage, War, Sandwich Ownership… man and lady kind’s deepest choices have all been overseen by the impartial game of Rock Paper Scissors. “I get it,” you say with...

Googles Search Revenues Shift

Nearly seven in 10 marketers say Googles Product Listing Ads (PLA’s) perform better than paid search ads. Performance of Products Listing Ads (PLA’s) in relation to Paid Search, Q1-2014. Slightly Better than paid search- 43% Much better than paid search- 26% About the same as paid search- 14% Much less than paid search- 8% Google is seeing a shift in revenue sources as a result...

What the heck does THAT mean?

Scratching your head when it comes to the jargon of online marketing? Well LOL and WTF no more.  Here's some common acronyms and what they mean.  Got something to add? Be sure to leave a comment! CPM means Cost per thousand.  So why isn't it CPT? The ‘m’ is a Roman Numeral that stands for 1000. CTR means Click Through Rate,...

Men vs. Women Online: An Infographic

When marketing online or with mobile, men and women can't be treated equally. Check out the compelling infographic below which speaks to gender trends in social media and advertising and how it affects men and women differently. Some interesting points: Women send text messages more often than men More women look for support in social media Women are less likely to respond...

Simply Explained

Online marketing can feel overwhelming.  There are a lot of acronyms: CPM, CPC, PPC, SEO... when really all you care about one acronym: ROI, your return on investment!  There are a lot of places to be online from Pay Per Click, to organic search, Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engines, Instagram, Vine, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube... what business owner...

10 (FREE) Websites No Small Business Should Live Without

Small business owners know that the cost of operating can be downright expensive.  Whenever there are programs out there that can help eliminate costs, while still maintaining a professional image, you should take advantage of them! Here are the websites that top my list: MadMiMi.com “Simple and beautiful email marketing” – Mashable.  MadMimi gives you customizable email templates that are not only...