Did You Know?

A few shortcuts in your search queries can save you precious time in your workday.

For example, you can find sites that are similar to the one you are on by adding the operation term related: followed by the website URL. So, if you are reading an article about educational standards in China, you can copy and paste the URL preceded by the related: operator to find other articles on the same subject from various other sources.

Conversely, let’s say you are on a website which has very heavy content like cnn.com and you are looking for something on smartphone sales. Use the Google search box as follows. Type in site:cnn.com smartphone sales to receive search results only within that site. Remember, the top few results will show up with paid ads from any number of other sites. So be sure to look at the results below the horizontal line that separates the paid ads from the actual search results.

The minus sign is often overlooked but could prove very useful. Add this character when you want to narrow your results to become more relevant. For example, you could search the term Vintage Cars. However, adding negative keywords like -Ford -BMW will weed out some results that you may not be interested in combing through.

Use two periods to express a range of dates, prices, or even measurements. Again, this will narrow your results. So, country music stars 1970..1985 would be an example of this.

Should you prefer to limit your search by file type, use the specific file extension. Payroll filetype:xls will give you only spreadsheet results. Any file extension will work. Try PPT, JPG, PDF.

Remember, you never have to use exact spelling, full sentences, punctuation or capitalization in a Google search. Save yourself some keystrokes along the way and keep it to just a few descriptive words.

Find even more search tips like these at www.google.com/insidesearch/tipstricks.

John Wanamaker’s famous line, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half,”^[ has been quoted ad infinitum by anyone associated with the industry since the merchant first uttered it in the late 1800’s.  Depending on which side of the buy you’re on, it’s either a light hearted defense mechanism meant to deflect criticism of a poorly performing campaign, or a realist’s resignation most often accompanied by a more contemporary “SMH.”

Sitting in a digital pitch the other day, I was struck by the fact that it might just not be a valid statement anymore. Amid the maelstrom of data generated by SEO and SEM, performance stories emerge.  Even the term, “analytics” proves that today, there is something to examine – something to analyze – something to react to.   What’s the CTR? What happens if we lower our bid? How many Impressions? What is the Conversion Rate? What’s an acceptable bounce rate?  It all adds up to knowing in excruciating detail what’s working and what’s not.  Sort of.

How a campaign performs is ultimately reflected in the bottom line of the business doing the advertising… not the bottom line of an analytics spreadsheet. That’s why I start every client conversation with the question, “How’s business?”  If people are coming through the door, if the appointment book is filling up, if products are flying off the shelves, then the campaign is working.  So while it may be exciting to stalk your prospects… and you may feel compelled to spontaneously high-five your co-workers over an increase in “time spent on site,” no amount of fancy analytical footwork can replace the proof-of-performance ring of the cash register.

Do what makes sense….watch your client’s money like it was your own and above all, trust your gut.  If you do, then maybe this generation of advertising execs can revise Wanamaker’s adage to have it read, “A little of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; and I’m ok with that.”