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Posted in Attacat on 17th July 2008 by Tim Barlow
Vacancy no longer available.
£14,000 + generous profit share
This is an opportunity for an enthusiastic person to join our small but perfectly formed team. We expect applicants to get excited by the prospect of getting experience in our industry! No prior experience required.
Job Description
The post holder will need to get involved in a huge variety of tasks related to the day to day running of the company. Whilst some of the work will be routine, we will need your initiative and potentially your analytic skills for a variety of less well scoped tasks. Further you will have the opportunity to gain relevant skills in a rapidly expanding area and should you wish, train for the Qualified Google Advertising Professional exam.
As an integral part of our small team your responsibilities will include the following:
- assisting with the delivery of service to clients, under the direction of our account managers
- compiling reports for our clients
- office management
- making occasional travel arrangements
- answering the phone
The following skills will be required:
- excellent PC skills (Excel knowledge a must)
- self-motivation
- good inter-personal skills
- attention to detail
- last but no means least: enthusiasm!
Please apply to us by e-mailing your availability details, CV and covering letter detailing your suitability for the role to enquiries at attacat dot co.uk
(Please note that we will only reply to those applications we wish to pursue further. Apologies in advance if you don’t hear from us)
Posted in Google AdWords on 19th June 2008 by Tim Barlow
As per the heads up in March, Google AdWords have just announced that the time it takes for your landing page (i.e. the page on your site that the AdWords advert is pointed at) is now considered as part of quality score. In a business sense, this means it will cost you more to get visitors onto your site if your page loads slowly.
As we have been given plenty of warning of this, we have been able to check sites to ensure no issues.
A request to Google – please add a comprehensive quality score report that can be run from the report centre. If you want ideas, feel free to let me know!
Posted in on 11th June 2008 by Eoin
The recent update to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act has garnered much attention in advertising circles for its potential to cause havoc with current buzz marketing practices (practices that, arguably, fall under the stealth marketing umbrella and are therefore already illegalbut thats another issue entirely).
However, the implications for optimisation and paid search marketing as disciplines appear to have passed most SEM & SEO professionals by.
The updated act will outlaw practices such as paid reviews (against Google’s guidelines admittedly but not a criminal offence...until now), paid blogging and other similar grey area promotion tactics.
To a lesser extent exponents of SEM will have to keep a closer eye on what they do in future too, particularly in relation to the use of adverts that may, or may not (depending on interpretation), contravene the regulations contained within the Acts section on Prohibition of Unfair Commercial Practices.
Another area where trouble could really be brewing is the future treatment of affiliates, who could be in contravention of the act if they fail to identify business relationships clearly enough. This, perhaps more than any other issue for paid search, has the potential to be a real can of worms.
One thing is clear, however; those involved in our industry would do well to familiarise themselves with the act, which can be found here.
Posted in Google AdWords on 2nd June 2008 by Tim Barlow
Google have been spotted testing out a new Merchant Search Beta
Interesting stuff, absolutely. But I was interested in the AdWords advert used to promote it.
(Source: screenshot on Search Engine Land)
Note the drop down box. Might this be something that would be made widely available to advertisers in due course?
Posted in Google AdWords, Speaking Engagements on 30th May 2008 by Tim Barlow
Some thank yous in relation to the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce workshop I ran yesterday:
- Orla for telling us about her business;
- Everybody else who volunteered to do a 60 second slot;
- The generosity of all those willing to give me 50p;
- Everyone for asking questions throughout;
- Alan for organising it; and of course…
- the Chamber for having us!
The Slides
Download (4MB)
Posted in Other, Attacat on 28th May 2008 by Tim Barlow
Brad Geddes has posted an excellent article on Search Engine Land about PPC Management billing structures.
It’s pretty long looking at all the various options including pay by the hour, % of spend, by number of keywords and flat monthly fees.
At Attacat we use the % of spend model (we charge between 12 and 20% of our clients advertising bill). The fact that this incentivises us to spend more on our clients behalf can be mistaken as not being aligned with our clients’ interests.
However this is anything but the case. All our campaigns are managed to some form of financial metric, reflective of the results that our clients are looking to achieve. This commonly takes the form of a percentage of sales or a cost per enquiry generated.
As a result the incentive is on us to increase the sales or enquires so we earn more.
One particular part of the article that rang true for me is the following:
“The absolute first note is that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Exceptional PPC management is not cheap. Skilled individuals charge what they are worth and try not to leave money on the table. If you see an offer for $295 monthly PPC management regardless of the number of keywords you want managed, and tests you wish to run, think twice (or three times) before signing that contract. Why is it so cheap?”
We do often find ourselves being compared to such offerings (and even less expensive options periodically). Setting up an AdWords account is easy. Setting up an effective account that maximizes your opportunity and profit is another matter entirely.
The article also looks at contract length, discussing options from monthly to annual contracts. This is something that Attacat sticks it’s neck out on with our five minutes notice approach. We believe this keeps us on our toes and ensures that we don’t allow campaigns to get stale.
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