Author: Mark Harnett

Mark Harnett has run hundreds of campaigns for both high volume consumer products and high value business contracts. He has made lots of mistakes and also found some huge improvements using many of the techniques outlined here.
Why Marketers Shouldn’t Blindly Follow Google’s Recommendations

Why Marketers Shouldn’t Blindly Follow Google’s Recommendations

As a performance marketing consultant, I spend a lot of time working with clients on their Google Ads. One of Google’s newer features is its automated recommendations for marketers. These suggestions are intended to help optimize your account and increase your return on investment (ROI). However, it’s important to understand that not all of Google’s … Continue reading Why Marketers Shouldn’t Blindly Follow Google’s Recommendations

6 Tips for Improving Facebook Ad Performance Now

6 Tips for Improving Facebook Ad Performance Now

Can anything stop the Facebook juggernaut? Despite almost four years of bad PR; a host of government inquiries into its practices; the pandemic and this past summer’s highly publicized #StopHateForProfit advertiser boycott, as an advertising platform Facebook is untarnished. While ad rates declined somewhere between 15-25 percent in March at the outset of the pandemic, … Continue reading 6 Tips for Improving Facebook Ad Performance Now

How to Launch and Grow Your Digital Marketing Program

How to Launch and Grow Your Digital Marketing Program

So you’re ready to launch a digital marketing program. You’ve got a website with a CMS that is owned by marketing. You’ve got a hands-on digital marketing strategist on board, a design resource, and a data analyst to set up your basic measurement infrastructure, as we advised in part one of this series. You’ve checked … Continue reading How to Launch and Grow Your Digital Marketing Program

8 Things You Need to Win at Digital Marketing

8 Things You Need to Win at Digital Marketing

Now is a great time to launch a digital marketing program. Whether you’re a startup, or a mature company that has previously relied on PR and in-person events to generate sales, it should be very clear that digital has to be part of your marketing mix. With marketing budgets being reallocated from in-person events, and … Continue reading 8 Things You Need to Win at Digital Marketing

Is Your Digital Agency Paid as Percentage of Media Spend? Watch for These 5 Red Flags

Is Your Digital Agency Paid as Percentage of Media Spend? Watch for These 5 Red Flags

Do you pay your digital agency based on a percentage of the media budget they spend? If so, their incentives may be misaligned with yours, and it can lead to these common mistakes. Red Flag #1: Blending branded and non-branded search results. Is your search agency breaking out results by branded versus non-branded terms? If not, … Continue reading Is Your Digital Agency Paid as Percentage of Media Spend? Watch for These 5 Red Flags

Retargeting Ads: Don't Overpay for Customers

Retargeting Ads: Don't Overpay for Customers

You may hear that retargeting provides amazing click-through rates, higher conversion rates and better ROI. (See CMO, OkDork, PPC Mode, Hubspot.) These bastions of marketing knowledge are misleading you! One thing that’s missing is that advertisers may be overpaying for customers coming from retargeting ads. As a rule of thumb, you should only pay about … Continue reading Retargeting Ads: Don't Overpay for Customers

Speed Up Facebook Ad Optimization With Dynamic Creative

Speed Up Facebook Ad Optimization With Dynamic Creative

As you may have heard in the news, “Facebook Zero” is imminent. What it means is that marketers must master Facebook ads because essentially, your free, organic traffic from the News Feed will likely dwindle down more than ever. The Challenge with Facebook Ads As I’ve written in the past, it has been notoriously difficult to … Continue reading Speed Up Facebook Ad Optimization With Dynamic Creative

Why You Should Battle Complexity in Facebook Advertising

Why You Should Battle Complexity in Facebook Advertising

We all know that Facebook is a social media giant, garnering over two billion active users a month. With such a vast user base, Facebook advertising allows businesses to target sizeable audiences. You can get granular with your targeting — by a person’s location, age, gender, interests, behavior, and connections. According to Forbes, CMOs still … Continue reading Why You Should Battle Complexity in Facebook Advertising

How to Choose the Right Online Marketing Channels [Infographic]

How to Choose the Right Online Marketing Channels [Infographic]

Online marketing is something you can’t ignore because potential customers use search, social, and mobile to research products and prices before making final purchase decisions. You can build and personalize your relationships with prospects and customers at a lower cost than traditional marketing. But how do you choose the right online marketing channels to market your product? … Continue reading How to Choose the Right Online Marketing Channels [Infographic]