The Online Advertising Playbook: Proven Strategies and Tested Tactics from The Advertising Research Foundation

Strategies for Effective Paid Placement Advertising

Use Paid Inclusion to Increase Visibility and Conversions: Radisson Hotels

Paid inclusion campaigns can work well for marketers whose prices change often and that have sizable inventories, like catalogs or hotel chains, as this case for Radisson illustrates.

In early 2002, Radisson Hotels, a Carlson Hotels brand, realized that it needed a search boost: its many pages, buried in subdomains and in “deep property-specific content,” were generally left unindexed by search engine spiders. Radisson’s search engine marketing firm, TrafficLeader, remedied this situation. They created trusted feeds from Radisson’s entire database and supplied them to its search partners, Yahoo!, Alta Vista, Looksmart, InfoSpace, Lycos, Mamma, Excite, and Dogpile.

The program increased traffic and conversions. Traffic to Radisson’s site started at 7,000 users per month in 2002 and had risen to over 125,000 per month about two years later. Radisson’s paid inclusion program increased their visibility and provided consumers with up-to-date information on rates and availability, a relevance booster. Conversion rates, the company reports, “have been excellent,” but they did not provide hard numbers.

Increase Leads: Compass-Guard Security Systems

What happens when you have a website and it’s not generating leads? This common problem often stems from a poor-quality website and the absence of a search engine marketing campaign. Compass Security Services, a watch ...