Atlas Copco Construction Mining Technique USA was looking for a new channel to sell pre-owned water well drill rigs. They turned to us, 90octane, a Denver-based, conversion-driven marketing agency, for help.

90octane built a custom lead generation microsite to showcase the rigs, which typically carry six-figure price tags, and crafted an associated paid search marketing campaign to drive visitors to the site.

Joanna Canton, Atlas Copco marketing communications director, is pleased with the hundreds of highly qualified leads generated. For the paid search program, “The average cost-per-lead is $28, compared with hundreds of dollars apiece for leads from trade shows and print ads,” she noted.

Because the program has resulted in high-dollar sales, Atlas Copco CMT USA already has plans to expand it.

Read the full Atlas Copco paid search story from a February issue of BtoB Magazine.

Posted by: Erin Wilson, Marketing Coordinator

Social media marketing will be an important player in many companies’ business strategies this year. The key is determining the most efficient and cost-effective way to implement social media tactics into your business plan. Sponsored tweets are quickly becoming one effective way for organizations to use Twitter for their business needs.

Ad.ly and Sponsored Tweets are just a couple of the companies that have created a platform for businesses to connect with Twitter users. These services pay people to tweet about specific products and services. Depending on their influence within Twitter, Twitter users tweeting for sponsors can get paid anywhere from 50 cents to $10,000 per tweet. Power tweeters like socialite Kim Kardashian fall into the higher end of that range. Tweeters are required to disclose that they are endorsing a product/service through symbols like #ad, (ad), etc.

Posted by: Shannon Denny, Project Manager

Google has recently launched a new feature for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising that inserts customized site links beneath the ads. At this time, this feature is readily available to PPC advertisers with high quality scores. Google allows advertisers to enter up to 10 sitelinks, and all sitelinks can point to different pages within the site. The higher the quality of the PPC ad, the more site links will be displayed. Below is an example of these sitelinks (highlighted in green) in action:

Sitelinks take up valuable real estate in the Google search results allowing advertisers to “own” the space which will likely lead to an increased click-through rate (CTR). As these links can be modified any time, it is a good idea to keep seasonality and new promotions in mind when planning them out.

We’re taking you to the Online Marketing Summit with us. Sort of.

From February 23-24, 90octane Account Manager Kelly Hall heads to OMS San Diego. OMS brings together hundreds of marketers for educational sessions on search marketing, social media, email, demand generation, analytics and more. No exhibit booths. No sales pitches. Just the opportunity to glean information that applies directly to today’s conversion-driven marketing programs.

What’s better? You don’t need to register. Kelly is going for you! Kelly will bring the knowledge she gains back to 90octane, and in turn, we’ll share our learnings with you. We’ll also think about what smart marketing trends and up-to-the-minute innovations could affect your programs.

So, you’re “invited.” To clarify, you’re invited to help us steer our OMS program selections. What are the marketing trends you want to learn more about? Where do you think your company’s marketing programs have the opportunity to grow?

Take a look at the detailed programming schedules for each day of OMS (linked below), and let us know what you’re interested in learning about. Leave a comment at the bottom of this post with your thoughts. (And feel free to post your name as ‘Anonymous.’)

Day 1
Day 2

We’ll follow up with you after the event. Also, be sure to follow Kelly on Twitter as she sets her OMS schedule, attends the sessions and reports back with gained wisdom.

Posted by: Mackenzie Ross, Conversion-Driven Media Specialist

In a recent article for ClickZ, Harry Gold explored interactive television as a developing technology. As marketers, we are interested in the changing dynamic of the interactive space and always looking out for the latest innovations. It appears that cable and satellite companies are gearing up to make television more interactive using Web-based technologies. The interesting part about marketing interactively on television is the immediate access to your audience while they are engaged.

Much of the technology already exists to make the smooth transition into television and Web integration. The remote in many ways acts as a mouse, with much of the same functionality to boot. Many cable companies actually populate their guides through the Internet to provide users with up-to-date programming information. You may notice that with your cable provider you are able to access Twitter, Facebook, the weather or games. These widgets are connected to the Internet and are available now.