Another windy morning in Chicago last Thursday ushered in an intrepid LoSasso quartet to The Drake Hotel. Awaiting LoSasso President, Scott LoSasso and Vice President, Mark Hollingsworth were professors from colleges and universities around the Midwest, plumbing the depths of LoSasso’s interactive marketing expertise at the 2011 Spring Marketing Management Association Conference. The talk was organized by Don Jones and resulted in great dialogue between area professors and our LoSasso team.

The presentation addressed changes in the marketing industry and what businesses are looking for in new hires, especially those undergraduates hot off the presses. Particular attention was paid to content driven interaction: the driving force behind creating a space for consumers to interact with one another and with businesses. Industry forums and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare) have become the new quilting circle or local watering hole where information is readily exchanged, available and digested at a rapid pace.

The message was clear: the toolbox has changed but the fundamental principles of marketing have stayed the same. Developing a relationship with a client is still at the core of those principles; it is the way in which we enhance that relationship that has grown to include social media, SEO (search engine optimization) and the need to build a presence both physically and virtually for every client.

Frequent and consistent messaging continues to be of utmost importance but a close second is the need for silos within businesses to break down. More than ever, direct marketing and public relations are completely meshed together: communications and marketing departments have to interface constantly to maintain that consistent messaging for optimal success in their campaigns.

The discussion was also centered around best practices for hiring and what makes a new hire successful. Scott LoSasso initiated the conversation by outlining optimal job candidates that contribute to a team work environment. Incoming new hires are strong writers, positive team players, involved in an array of social media platforms, creative thinkers and detail-oriented. For more information about skill sets businesses look for in new hires, visit iMedia Connection.

Thank you to the Marketing Management Association, Don Jones, The Drake Hotel and all in attendance for a great open discussion about our evolving industry!

Your Google Adwords Quality Score can not only dictate how successful your campaign will be, but also how much money you need to spend to be successful.

So what is Quality Score? (as defined by Google)

“The AdWords system calculates a ‘Quality Score’ for each of your keywords. It looks at a variety of factors to measure how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query. A keyword’s Quality Score updates frequently and is closely related to its performance. In general, a high Quality Score means that your keyword will trigger ads in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click (CPC).”

How is it used? (as defined by Google)

“Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network . The AdWords system works best for everybody — advertisers, users, publishers, and Google too — when the ads we display match our users’ needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success.”

This diagram demonstrates how an ad with a high Quality Score can place above an ad with a higher bid and a lower Quality Score

Quality Score influences your keywords and actual cost-per-click (CPC), estimates the first page bids that you see in your account and determines if a keyword is qualified to enter the ad auction that occurs every time a user enters a search query. Basically, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the higher your Ad Rank (or ad position.) To see how Google does this, watch our recent SEM Minute on Quality Score.

How do you get a high Quality Score?

One way to ensure a high quality score is to create relevant keyword lists, ad copy and landing pages that work together to create a fluid, search-engine-friendly campaign. All of these aspects come together to create a high Quality Score. For a great visual representation of this, see a great blog post on SearchEngineLand.

Let’s start with relevant ad copy. Ad copy is the content that appears below the headline of your ad in the SERPs. It should be uniquely adapted to each Ad Group and targeted to include relevant keywords.  Google will see that the ad copy is relevant to the search terms and will rate it accordingly.

In the same way, keywords need to be relevant because they link the search terms to the ad copy and the landing page. If Google does not see the inherent connection between the different parts of the campaign, it will be reflected in your quality score.

Another important thought to remember is that Google Quality Score is a robot; it does not think like a human. It cannot connect terms based on innuendos or superior-thought. It is based on algorithms and relevant terminology.

That being said, you should build your landing page to reflect this fact. The landing page should contain words found in both the query and the ad copy and it should be built out in a way that is easy for Google to understand. Use proper headings and h1, h2 and h3 tags. Search Engine Journal recently wrote a great article on landing pages—definitely check it out if you need a more detailed description on landing pages.

One way to test that your site is built properly is to try the W3 semantic extractor. This will pull out content from your site in the same way that Google Bots do, so you can verify that the bots understand your site structure.

Another important way to guarantee a high quality score is to link to a targeted landing page rather than the homepage of your company’s site. Homepage’s often contain genera company information, whereas landing pages reflect unique search terms and Ad Groups.

A PPC Campaign is the sum of all its parts and this is best represented in the Google Quality Score. If you design your campaign thoroughly and follow up with continual optimization, a high Quality Score will take care of itself.

In order to have a successful pay per click campaign, you must keep a close eye on your metrics. Watch as Mike Hernalsteen, Online Marketing Specialist from LoSasso Advertising, explains the most important metrics used in PPC.

See more SEM Minute videos.

Mike Hernalsteen is the Senior Interactive Marketing Specialist at LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency where he develops comprehensive online marketing strategies for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Mike)

Maintaining a high keyword quality score is vital to improving your pay per click campaigns. Watch as Mike Hernalsteen, Online Marketing Specialist from LoSasso Advertising, discusses the value of achieving high quality scores for your keywords.

Don’t forget to catch our other SEM Minute videos!

Mike Hernalsteen is the Senior Interactive Marketing Specialist at LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency where he develops comprehensive online marketing strategies for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Mike)

The first half of 2009 has been hell for just about every industry. For a lot of people it has been about damage control, cost cutting and simply figuring out how to get through this. So it has been a tough year to try anything new.

But don’t write off 2009 just yet. There is an important opportunity in all of this that you should think about.

Marketing is changing so fast right now that most marketers have not really developed their search engine marketing and online lead generation expertise.

That means that lots of companies will be doing their 2010 planning without any real experience in potentially the most productive and measurable strategy available to them.

So once again, online will be secondary to the traditional planning model. This could prove to be a HUGE missed opportunity when the economy improves.

Your buyers research their purchases online and they start with the search engines. The easiest way to capture these searchers is through search engine marketing – Pay per click and website optimization. You can respond specifically to what they are searching for and take them to targeted online content.

It is an incredibly simple idea, but behind proper execution is a strategic, methodical, science – it is not simply buying clicks to your site. And if you do it right, it works. We see it every day with programs producing results for clients in a variety of industries b2b and consumer.

There is no question that when the economy turns up, marketers that have learned how to leverage online lead generation will steal market share from those that have not. With close to 100 million searches on Google every day, how could it be any other way?

It is not too late to run a pilot program this year and gain experience that will be critical to your 2010 planning.

A simple keyword report can tell you a great deal about the opportunity and how your competitors may be gaining ground on you. Look at your core keywords, the frequency of search on each, competitive advertisers bidding on the words and a ranking of where you currently show up.

Don’t go into next year with one arm tied behind your back – get your program started now. This could be the best thing to come out of 2009.

Scott LoSasso is President of LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency specializing in content marketing strategies and customer acquisition for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Scott)

Here is part one of the new LoSasso SEM Minute video series, episode titled “SEO and PPC”. This is a brief intro video about a few basic SEO and PPC factors. As the series progresses, we will be discussing many search industry issues ranging from questions like, “Do meta descriptions matter?” to “does PageRank sculpting help my site?”

Is there a specific Search topic you would like to learn more about? Please submit a request in the comments below.

Mike Hernalsteen is the Senior Interactive Marketing Specialist at LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency where he develops comprehensive online marketing strategies for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Mike)

With several thousand advertising, marketing and PR companies in Chicago, maintaining first position in the search engines is an unrealistic objective for a tiny agency in Ravenswood – yet there we are – #1 in Yahoo! for the term “Chicago marketing agency”. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure – we are currently on page 2 in Google – down from our all time high on Google of #3. Organic search marketing can be a vexing concept. It is so much more nebulous than most forms of advertising that it often gets pushed to the back burner – or handed off to in house marketing staff person with little time or training. This is a mistake. The dynamics of marketing have changed a great deal in the past 5 years. Search marketing is the fastest growing discipline in the marketing world. And if you have not committed to a search strategy, now is the time. Most of your competitors are spending fewer dollars and will be slower to move. This gives you a time advantage that can pay dividends because organic search takes time.

About 7 months ago we were virtually invisible to the search engines. Ranking below position 100 for just about every keyword we wanted to show for. Since we were constantly pushing our clients to do a better job with their search marketing, we decided to walk the talk.

As a small shop, we maintain a lean staff, so we required lean plan for our SEO work. We redesigned our site using best practice architecture, incorporated a blog and began actively publishing highly relevant content with embedded links to our site and to other legitimate resources. We have also utilized social media such as Facebook, Linked in and Twitter to provide more traffic and visibility to our site. We have employed a few other tricks of the trade, but all has been done with a relatively modest time effort.

The key to this effort for our agency and clients is the continuous learning of our online marketing team. We have dedicated specialists for search marketing and web development. We encourage continuous development, and require that they spend time each day staying current with best practice.

The most common mistake in this part of our industry is the casual approach that many marketers take to this very important component of their marketing strategy. Search marketing is a discipline that requires distinct and separate skill sets that include web development, search engine optimization and pay per click ad management. And while it may be an anchor point, search marketing is only one component in the rapidly evolving digital marketing space.

eMarketer chart

There is great opportunity in digital marketing, but managing and executing this work is still a great challenge for many marketers and agencies. This is reflected in the active turnover of agency relationships in the digital space as recently reported by eMarketer.

Scott LoSasso is President of LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency specializing in content marketing strategies and customer acquisition for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Scott)

Scott LoSasso, President of LoSasso Advertising in Chicago, discusses marketing planning for 2009. With marketers concerned about the economy, it’s important to make sure that you don’t stop evolving. Online marketing is essential to  positioning your company for growth coming out of the economic slowdown.

David Fabbri is Creative Director of LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency specializing in content marketing strategies and customer acquisition for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by David)