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Free Competitor Website Analysis

28 07 2010

Have you ever wondered how your competition is attracting more customers online, how many sales they are getting through their site, or how you can get more business online? We at Candybox Marketing are offering one Free Competitor Website Analysis PER WEEK until September 21st 2010. This report will help you understand the gaps in between you and the other guy that is doing better than you.

How do we know?

Our trained nerds know the current trends / fads of Google Search, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media so we can quickly distinguish what would promote or penalize your website in minutes. Websites that did well in the 90's are not what Google is looking for, and we can show you how small changes on a website can make a big difference!

What do you get?

We will give you a sweet little presentation, online or in person.

How do I enter?

Simply enter your information on the right side of this page and we will contact you within 24 hours!

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Categories: Analytics, Candybox News, Google, Lead Generation, Organic Results, Paid Advertising, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization — Darrell Keezer @ 1:55 pm

Candybox welcomes new customers | The Weather Network | O’Neil Data Systems | No Limit Kids

24 06 2010

We are pleased to announce a few of our most recent customers that have started to work with our team! Although we would love to blog about each one of our clients, here are a few highlights that we can tell you about what we are working on:

The Weather Network (Search Engine Optimization)

We are proud to be helping The Weather Network with their Search Engine Optimization strategies and tactics over this summer. Being one of the top visited websites in Canada, making sure users get to the right page quickly is their #1 priority. We are looking forward to being a part of their team!

O'Neil Data Systems (Website Rebuild, Viral Video & Online Campaigns)

We have never found data driven publishing to be so exciting until this project. This company has a printer that looks like it builds Terminators, and online programs that provide complex printing solutions to top financial & health care providers across the US. We are looking forward to giving their site a face-lift and help organizations find them on Google.

No Limit Kids Movie (Website Rebuild, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization)

Targeted at the US pre-teen market, we will be helping to create a buzz around this upcoming movie release this summer. Watch out for our multi-channel media release including contests, video's and much more!

This past week, we have also been excited to launch a few new web-presences. Checkout our newest launches below:

  • Conference Hero – A cost-effective Teleconferencing provider. (www.conferencehero.com)
  • Integrated Copy Solutions – Leading provider of copiers + document management solutions in California (www.icscopiers.com)
  • Acres4Life Facebook Page – Provided a viral Facebook page to spread the news about this amazing charity. (http://www.facebook.com/acresforlife?ref=ts)
  • Boardroom Metrics – A consulting firm full of former CEO of Canada's top companies based in Toronto. (www.boardroommetrics.com)

Let us know what you think of our most recent website builds, we'd love to hear from you.



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Categories: Candybox News, Facebook Advertising, Lead Generation, Organic Results, Paid Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Sociographic Marketing, Video — Tags: , , , , , — Darrell Keezer @ 6:06 pm

Facebook Advertising Costs

11 06 2010

How much does advertising on Facebook REALLY cost?

Well, in the Facebook advertising interface they give a very vague guideline by suggesting a bid price, but it doesn't really give you any clue why. Statements such as 'Suggested Bid: 0.49 – 0.68 USD' is helpful, but after a few days, they may chose to raise the price to a dollar! Going from $0.49 – $1.00 CPC (cost-per-click) can make or break a campaign, and rates can increase for no other reason other than Facebook just raised it.
At Candybox Marketing, we have launched many Facebook Ads campaigns for clients for building a Fan base for a FB Page, or driving qualified leads to a website. In our experience, there are two major factors to price changes, and ways to bring the CPC cost down:

1. Facebook Click Through Ratio (CTR)

We started one of our campaigns at $15.00 / day for a customer trying to increase their Facebook Fan base. The first day, the campaign was averaging $0.80 / click, but every day following, the CPC came down by 5% each day. The major contributing factor was that their ad was generating a very high CTR, which made it profitable for Facebook to show it more often. With a combination of a great message and image, we have slashed their CPC to $0.16 / click over two weeks! If you want to lower your cost of advertising on Facebook – come up with an ad that promotes a higher CTR and you will see the cost drop.

2. Proper Targets

In our research of our customers multi-channel campaigns, we have found that some sociographic groups are sought after more, and therefore more advertisers are bidding on that group. If you are targeting CEO's who smoke cigars (yes, you can do that), you will be paying more than a 18 year old student living in Alaska. Make sure to target your groups specifically and with a proper message, you will get a lower CPC quickly.

Interested in finding out more? Feel free to give us a shout and we can show you how we create these low-cost / high-conversion campaigns!

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Categories: Conversions, Facebook Advertising, Landing Pages, Lead Generation, Paid Advertising, Pay Per Click, Sociographic Marketing — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Darrell Keezer @ 6:45 pm

Is your site Blog-Worthy?

27 05 2010

No, we aren't trying to just tell you why you should have a blog, although you should, but are people blogging about you?

While some companies are desperately trying to make link backs to their website to improve their overall PageRank with Google, we love stories like these where our clients are praised by a real client – with a reputation. What made this customer feel that they needed to blog about their experience? Here is a list of items, just to name a few:

  • Credibility: Finding the same company on the top of Google Search no matter how many variations of they searched.
  • Simplicity: Navigating through a site where the user is valued as top priority, and helping them find what they want.
  • Offering: Being able to find what they are looking for quickly, and being enticed to submit their information for it. (If you are looking for teleconferencing, you don't want to read through pages about video-conferencing)
  • No Flash: Strangely enough, this particular customer loved the fact that the page didn't have to load some type graphic to tell them what they need.
  • Automated Email Follow-up: The fact that a personalized message sent back immediately from a real person's email account (even thought it was automated) was a warm touch after they submitted their information.

Thanks to Gyft.to for such a great review of one of our favorite customers, Vesta Networks.

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Categories: Blogs, Candybox News, Google, Lead Generation, Organic Results, Paid Advertising, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization — Darrell Keezer @ 3:18 pm

Facebook PPC Strategies

23 02 2010

With a ever increasing market, Facebook is becoming more popular for companies to spend their Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign dollars. Candybox Marketing has created a new program called Extreme Targets that segments multiple specific groups, with corresponding landing pages. Our concept for this program is simple, the better you target, the better your conversions are going to be.

Facebook's recent user-interface changes has made ads slightly more prominent, and their addition of Group / Page targeting has allowed advertisers to re-market themselves to current users. Interested in how you can monetize your PPC budget with Facebook? Contact us for a Free Seminar and evaluation on how your company can profit from Facebook users.

Candybox Marketing is currently one of the leading Facebook PPC Advertisers in Toronto, Canada.

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Categories: Facebook Advertising, Lead Generation, Paid Advertising, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Sociographic Marketing — Tags: , , , , , — Darrell Keezer @ 9:55 am

Sociographic Marketing using Facebook

17 12 2009

Sociographic Marketing is the ability to segment people by social status and life cycles. Facebook allows us advertisers to start using demographics to refine our market, but uses sociographics to improve an already qualified set of data.

For example, a mortgage agent may be looking for find new home buyers in a certain area. We would start by targeting using demographics (city, age), but then could dip into a much larger database of knowledge including their social behaviours (recently engaged, having a baby etc.). This enables us to extend our marketing reach into groups of people that are much more than an age / location, but a person with a real-time agenda for their next year of life.

Sociographics are now becoming popular to target because we actually have this information online now. Google Search is wonderful for targeting people who are actively searching for a service, Social Media sites such as Facebook allow us to get access to people minutes after they update their status (Wow, I'm engaged!), interests (boating & cigars) and affiliations (Darrell just joined the Aids in Africa Group).

Interested in reaching your prospects using Sociogrpahic Marketing on Facebook? Contact us today and we can show you how!

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Categories: Facebook Advertising, Google, Landing Pages, Lead Generation, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Sociographic Marketing — Tags: , , , , , , — Darrell Keezer @ 1:36 pm

Google Analytics Upgrade – Track more Goals!

20 10 2009

Google Analytics has always had a very handy tool of tracking Event Based goals.

This would allow users to customize Google Analytics to track whenever a certain page is reached on a site that equals a certain value, for example, a /thankyou.html page if someone submits an order. This can be used to measure Campaign effectiveness by tracing all Goals back to their original source (Adwords, Affiliate or alike).

Before now, Google only allowed users to track 4 Goals under a single profile. This made it difficult for advertisers to track multiple lead channels that usually exceed 4 paths and would warrent a new profile.

Today Google announced that all Google Analytics accounts can now track up to 20 goals per profile! This will allow less profiles to be made & easier tracking all in one place. They have also added the ability to measure goals by Time on Site, or even # of pages visited.

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Categories: Analytics, Google, Lead Generation, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization — Tags: , , — Darrell Keezer @ 3:02 pm

Paid Advertising on Facebook – Amazing Targeting!

25 09 2009

Advertising on Facebook is not only cost effective for small businesses, but extremely targeted! Facebook allows you to target based on Demographics, sociographics, geographics, marital status (including engaged), group associations and interests! If that's not enough, their interests also link into their actual profession in their profile, so you can be as specific as targeting Business Owners, CEO's and VP's of large organizations.

The major difference in Facebook Ads and our most commonly used Google Adwords, is that it is within the category of interruption marketing. People who are actively searching on Google for a product or service will have a much higher conversion rate than someone who casually noticed the ad and checked out the site. In our experience, Google Search traffic has more often provided our clients with a higher conversion rate, but it can also cost up to 10 times more…

Depending on what you are targeting and your type of business, Facebook may or may not be the solution for your company, but it is worth a peek! We have been managing major Facebook Campaigns for large enterprises with incredible results in this past year and have learned the in & outs of this new platform. Interested in finding out more? Give us a shout and tell us about your business!

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Categories: Analytics, Conversions, Facebook Advertising, Google, Lead Generation, Mobile, Paid Advertising, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Darrell Keezer @ 7:05 pm

Local Searches on Google

21 09 2009

Over the past year Google has been displaying their local Google Maps results in the search results. This tactic has brought more relevancy to the searcher trying to find a local pizza store, and even more opportunities to advertisers.

A typical Yellow Pages full page ad will cost upwards of $40,000 / year +, given the industry and competition. But who uses that 2.5 lb outdated book anymore?! Recycling plants are having a huge influx of new Yellow Pages / Canpages books whenever there is a new book delivery for one simple reason, it's not being used.  Why find the book in the front hall closet, when in you can search Google in seconds, or even use the Local Business search on your iPhone using the GPS locator?

Gone are the days where naming your company AAA Auto Dealers was a competitive advantage, because no one is looking in the alphabetical yellow book anymore. Being at the top of Google for local searches (eg / auto dealers in Tornoto)is the new AAA marketing tactic that only a few companies are noticing.

Our company has quickly moved small companies / SMB to the top of Google Local map results within weeks, resulting in an overwhelming increase of website traffic and lead generation.

Are you at the top yet? Give us a shout, we'll pull you up!

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Categories: Analytics, Conversions, Google, Lead Generation, Organic Results, Search Engine Optimization, Traditional Marketing — Tags: , , , — Darrell Keezer @ 9:05 am

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about a Video?

15 05 2009

Do you find it hard to communicate your companies offering online? It is a hard task, and most sites don't accomplish this objective. Take a look what this local Toronto construction company did to communicate an incredible offering in under two minutes. Now this is marketing at its best. 

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Categories: Conversions, Google, Landing Pages, Lead Generation, Organic Results, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Video — Tags: , , — Darrell Keezer @ 3:38 pm
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