Guest Author's Blog

We all know that customer ratings and reviews, or user generated content, help drive more traffic to a website, increase sales conversions, make merchandisers smarter and more.

But did you know that customer reviews are changing the way consumers shop and the way companies market their products?

Brett Hurt writes that this is a unique time in the history of advertising, because companies are literally using their customers’ word of mouth as a digital marketing asset to create entirely new forms of multichannel campaigns.

Leon Bailey Green gives organic stores five online marketing tips...

The trend towards free analytics technology, accelerated by Yahoo's acquisition of IndexTools and plan to make it a free service , raises interesting questions both for vendors and for organisational planning, writes Lynchpin's Andrew Hood . 

Believe it or not, there once was a time when Google still had to convince large advertisers that online marketing (and more specifically search engine marketing) was a very cost-effective channel to acquire customers.  

Initially Google provided discount to advertising agencies to encourage the adoption of its Adwords platform but in 2006, since this model wasn’t really fair towards other advertisers, Google replaced it with the Best Practice Funding (BPF) Programme.

Probably one of the most material and controversial changes for the UK and Irish paid search markets is almost upon us – the relaxation of the trademark protection Google currently affords to brands will cease on 5 May 2008.

As Ivan Izikowitz writes, some analysts and industry experts have taken the cynical view that this is merely a way for Google to stimulate volume and/or increased prices at a time when its revenue growth is slowing.

There is another perspective, however…

Leon Bailey Green gives fashion retailers five tips to think about for increasing revenue and sales.

Many companies are still losing customers because they don’t know what they want, writes Marc Morris.

You may have seen print adverts for new website modeurbaine.com.  Leon Bailey suggests five improvements the website should have made before embarking on an advertising campaign.

Leon Bailey and Jonathan Hirshler look at how five of the UK’s most popular campaign groups can enhance their online visibility and presence. 

Marketing departments need to come out of their comfort zones and start demonstrating their impact on the bottom line, writes James Harrison.