Dayn W Creative

Google Pay-Per-Action (further referred here to as PPA) is currently being given trial runs for some AdWords users.  PPA allows the advertiser to select to pay Google only for traffic that converts to some predetermined action like an order, email signup, or sales lead.  Rather than paying for every click in AdWords’ CPC model,  some advertisers will find it attractive to pay only when one of those clicks turns into an action.

This may change the way your ad group appears in the featured Google results.  If you were Google, it would make sense to place PPA advertisers with a high conversion rate above and more frequently than a standard CPC AdWords advertisers.  It would follow that if the traffic sent to a specific advertiser was converting well, Google credibility rankings for that advertiser would also be high.

So, as always, traffic is no good without conversion.  In a move that serves the consumer,  Google will be keeping tabs on what advertisers do with the referral.

Popularity: 10% [?]

It’s no fun being indoors in a windowless basement while it’s a rare-for-Portland 82 degrees and sunny, no matter how much fun graphic design is. I need to get one of those laptop sun shades so I can join in the outdoor WiFi coffee shop fun too.

I poked around, and here are the contenders for sun shades meant for the outdoorsy laptop user .

Hoodman USA makes the Eclipse Laptop Hood ($34.99). It looks to be a collapsing model ala the wire and nylon reflectors we use on film shoots. However, I did notice that the keyboard is left out of the hood, so there might be finger access issues between the bottom of the hood and the keyboard. That said, I’ll probably buy this one over the others because of the name and the offering at B&H Photo.

CompUshade ($29.95) offers a version that connects to your LCD screen and folds up when you close the laptop by way of a left and right half that separates in the center. This laptop shade allows easy access to the keyboard because there is no bottom panel. The CompUshade is certainly the most seen online, and their video demo makes using it look easy, but the CompUshade web site needs a redesign.

Finally, I found a telescoping laptop shade by Screen-Shade. I’m not sure if you can close the laptop with this installed or not. The design suggests that it may be possible. I love the idea, but at $129.95, it doesn’t make sense for my frequency of use and the Portland climate. Maybe if I took a vacation once in a while…

Of course, for the ultra budget conscious, there’s always this route:

Popularity: 12% [?]

A client of mine recently asked me this question. It’s a good one I hear all the time. This particular client designs and manages their own broadcast emails with a web based app built by local email marketing gurus, eROI.

First off, SPAM filtering is some of the worst voodoo out there, so all the info herein is totally based on my experience in email design.

Being mistook for a spammer is typically due to the composition of your broadcast email. Social spam marking functions aside, spam filters are usually based on a point threshold system. Incoming emails are scored bad points based on a list of predefined spam-ish characteristics. Once an email scores a certain level of bad points, the server marks it as spam. Depending on your email provider’s settings, the next course of action may be to deliver the message to a special “junk” mailbox, or delete the message altogether.

Here’s a couple of things that I think are probably the most common mistakes you can make when composing a broadcast email. In my experience, these are quick ways to get yourself bad points. This is by no means comprehensive, and each ISP may have it’s own spam criteria.

- Weird characters, sales text, and all caps in the subject line or From address. Real spammers try to get creative with call-to-action text and cr/\zy characters in the Subject or From fields. Not surprisingly, spam filters are clamping down on such abuse. So, try and step back from it and view the text strictly on a logical plane. Do the words or phrases shout “I’m Junk Mail!” ?

- Content that is mostly an image. I know it looks good, and it’s way easier than coding the HTML, but to a spam filter it looks like you’re hiding something. The filter can’t tell what the image says or looks like, so it gets nervous about letting it through. So, it may mark the email with a bad point, just in case.

These are just a couple of areas that I can confirm the filters take into consideration. Thankfully, there are services and features built in to many email list management apps that will test your email before you send it. Lately, I’ve been a fan of iContact, and they’ve built in a spam point checker. Not sure if the eROI guys have one, so check with them.

I have Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail email accounts strictly for spam testing, and I leave the filter settings at the default. Before a blast goes out, I send it to all of my addresses and make sure it doesnt get marked as spam.

Popularity: 7% [?]