Beyond basic best practices to shorten and clarify search ad copy, the choice of language used in the creative should depend on what the objective is, according to search marketing experts. “Creative can impact click-through and conversion rate, and many times, the two act in opposition to each other…

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Web marketers can easily tell whether a particular consumer visited a specific site, when she visited, and whether she bought something. But despite a decades-long head start, television advertisers haven’t been as successful connecting the shows people watch to the products they buy. Now a new media research company, TRA – for “True ROI Accountability for Media” – is taking another crack at the problem. It merges data from people’s cable set-top boxes with consumer-purchase databases…

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Great taglines have three things in common:
1. You see them;
2. You understand them;
3. You connect them to the company.

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Whether you’re using online or offline media channels to drive your direct marketing, copy significantly impacts your results. Direct is about getting prospects to read your message and respond right now. While you strive to build and support your brand using high-impact formats and images, you also must deliver copy that touches the heart and head of your prospects.

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When sending a book for review, it’s essential to include the following: (1) a copy of the book; (2) a personal cover letter to the reviewer that sells the book and tells why it is important to the readers of the review; (3) a press release that enthusiastically describes the book and its benefits…

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The heads of the radio-advertising firm bought by Google Inc. a year ago have left the company as the Internet giant faces skepticism about its efforts to sell ads on radio stations. Google confirmed the departures of Chad Steelberg and Ryan Steelberg, brothers who led the radio-ad firm dMarc Broadcasting Inc. and sold it to Google last year for $102 million, plus the potential for $1.1 billion in performance-based payments tied to revenue and ad-inventory targets.

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GOOGLE INC. has been racing to extend its reach on the Internet and in traditional media. Now it needs advertisers to follow. Among those it is wooing is Alan Cohen, chief marketing officer of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.

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SPOT RUNNER RAISES MONEY from a raft of media and advertising heavyweights. CBS Corp. and two advertising holding companies, WPP Group PLC and Interpublic Group, each took a minority stake in Spot Runner after participating with several others in a $40 million round of financing for the closely held firm. Spot Runner, of Los Angeles, helps small businesses create…

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The fact that an executive from Garrand Marketing Communications bested thousands of competitors to win the right to produce a TV spot for the Super Bowl is, of course, big news. It would be big news for any winner. The fact that he works for an agency in Portland, Maine, is big news only because we don’t think of ourselves as a major player in the advertising business.

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CBS is about to start showing some skin. About a year after they were introduced, a handful of video-ad formats-called bugs, tickers and skin – are jockeying to become the favorites among marketers. The skin format, in which the ad appears in a graphic surrounding the window where the video plays, has been slower to gain momentum because it isn’t widely available on top video sites.

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