Featured

I’ve prattled on about the marketing stack for a few years now, but haven’t really explained each chunk. This 5-post series explains the stack as a whole, then piece-by-piece. I’m not some TV series jerk who will keep you hanging, though, wondering which of your favorite characters will die next (cough HBO cough cough). Instead,… Read More

Design & Development

Photo by Jeremy Keith. With the multitude of phones, tablets, phablets, fondleslabs, and other devices on the market, it can be difficult to determine whether or not your new responsive web site is actually responsive. Unless you have a lot of cash to blow on every mobile device that exists, you are probably going to… Read More

Internet Marketing

I talk about all that’s wrong in marketing, tactics vs. strategy, etc. etc. We’re ignoring strategy and sound marketing. We work too hard to game the algorithm at the expense of long-term business development. FYI: For me, gaming the algorithm means finding the fine edge between legitimate and spam, and skating that edge. For me,… Read More

Analytics

Last week, I gave a free webinar on measuring mid-funnel activity using Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. If you missed it, here’s the recording: During the webinar, I made mention of several links and resources that would be available afterward. Here’s the link bundle containing everything: http://portent.co/measuring-intent If you don’t have time for either… Read More

PPC

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) should be an integral part of every company’s online marketing strategy. Seriously, it’s legit. After all, what marketer wouldn’t like having totally transparent marketing spend and return data available just a few clicks away? Oh, every marketer likes that sort of data? That’s what I thought. Here’s the problem. Most… Read More

Random

You’ve heard me rant about strategy vs. tactics, and why tactics-only business relationships are getting marketing agencies fired. I’ve realized it’s a much bigger problem than that. If you look at the last 15 years, the drive to ‘productize’ services has ripped the guts out of any business that is paid for an individual’s craft… Read More

PPC

Have you ever stumbled onto a new feature without even realizing it? It just happened to me recently when I told my boss Elizabeth that I had gotten a second, French language, PLA feed going for a client. She looked at me sideways and said “how’d you do that?” Considering she’s covered a PLA base… Read More

SEO

Has this ever happened to you? You’re working on your website, updating title tags and meta descriptions, when all of a sudden you’re panicked at the thought of a truncated title tag! Sure, you kept it under 55 characters, but you know that doesn’t always work, because Google truncates to a pixel width, not a… Read More

Copywriting

So you have all these great ideas for your business marketing: an app that will take over the world, an e-book that will change the industry as we know it, a banner ad people will actually click on. Ideas and passion are fuel for successful campaigns, but you also need the structure that strategy provides… Read More

PPC

Both pay-per-click advertising and organic listings vie for your attention when you search, but do the two types of search results always have to be at odds, or can savvy marketers use SEO(Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) in tandem to dominate the search results? Making Portent history, Laura Oden (PPC Strategist) and Kaitlin McMichael… Read More

Random

We got challenged! Some colleagues challenged Portent in the Ice Bucket challenge. Here’s the video: We changed it up. Here’s why: ALSA has now raised $111 million. That is freaking fantastic. It’s a great cause. 5,000-6,000 people are diagnosed with ALS each year, impacting tens of thousands of people. 30,000 or more Americans live with… Read More

Analytics

Google brought Universal Analytics (UA) out of beta earlier this year in April. It’s ushered in an exciting new era where integration with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is possible. That kind of integration is the holy grail of web analytics — truly closed-loop reporting, from the time a visitor first hits your website, to when they become… Read More

PPC

Problem Ever since Google AdWords introduced enhanced campaigns, targeting mobile traffic effectively using mobile bid modifiers has been an important strategy for all PPC managers.  Some of you may have mobile bid modifiers set in your campaigns already, but aren’t seeing very good results from mobile traffic.  Others may have your mobile bid modifiers set… Read More

One spring day of 2011, Google announced a new thing called “Authorship.” They described it as a way of using data to “help people find content from great authors in our search results.” With little exception, the SEO community rejoiced. Finally, we, the content creators and bloggers of the world, were on top. By adding… Read More

Account Management

A brand is a pulse of a company and customers interact with it every day across print, media, online and social platforms. The ever growing mobile industry is changing the way customers interact with and purchase their favorite brand’s products. In this post I will provide three important suggestions to build your online brand. Let’s… Read More

SEO

If you grew up watching Sesame Street like me, you might have heard this song: One of these things is not like the others,One of these things just doesn’t belong,Can you tell which thing is not like the othersBy the time I finish my song? The search results that you see within your browser are… Read More