Yes, it’s tough keeping up with all the changes in online marketing.  In our shop, we talk about how as marketers are jobs are changing every two years, with new tools and technologies to master.

Contextual advertising, which serves up your ads to people who are most likely to be interested in your content, is getting easier and easier to do. Here are a variety of new techniques we’re applying to clients campaigns to get more ROI out of their marketing programs:

1. We’ve long been a fan of remarketing banners.  They continue to show dramatic returns in pushing people back to websites they’ve visited, at a very low cost/click.
    
2. We’re employing Google Interests, which serves up our ads to people connected to our products or industries based on how they’ve filled out their Google Plus profiles.
    
3. Google Similar serves our ads to those who’ve visited industry related sites, associations, magazines, even competitors!
    
4. Sponsored Tweets serve our tweets to those who search on our targeted key terms, or those who follow others on Twitter related to our businesses (again, including associations, magazines or competitors on Twitter).
    
5. We’re running contextual ads on Facebook through Facebook Exchange and on LinkedIn, but frankly, those metrics aren’t performing as well as some of our Google campaigns described above.

Across all these campaigns, we’re applying the same ROI metrics to prove value:  cost/click, cost/engagement and where feasible cost/lead.  Think about how these programs fit into your paid search campaign metrics, and how to boost your overall returns with our Marketing ROI ebook.

Written by Joel Goldstein:
Goldstein Group agency president who builds “Measurably Better Marketing” programs that create WOW experiences for clients.