An Internet Marketing and Advertising Campaign for The Look Photography Studio

A Plan B Project Presented to The Faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications San Jos State University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science

By Roberto L. Delgado September, 2010

The Look Photography Studio

Roberto L. Delgado Abstract The overall aim of this project was to create an Internet marketing campaign to raise the profile of a small photography studio in Puerto Rico. After an analysis of the market situation, the student identified a lack of competitors using the Internet as an advertising medium. As such, the student reasoned that the campaign would be successful if 1) a website was designed and built that engaged users and 2) an Internet marketing campaign was implemented to attract visitors to the website in order to generate interest in the client's services. Accordingly, the project was divided into two phases. The first phase entailed conceiving, designing and programming a website built according to standard webdesign principles, such as ease of navigability, clear and compelling copy, strong relevant visuals, and a well organized overall layout. The second phase involved conceiving and implementing an Internet marketing campaign using three specific channels: Google Adwords, Twitter and Facebook. The student completed the first phase of the project in approximately two weeks. This phase entailed building a site from the ground up using industry standard webdesign software, such as Dreamweaver CS4. After the site was completed, the student began the second phase of the project. As a first step, the student created a facebook and a twitter account for the client to promote the site using social networking. After creating these accounts, the student implemented the Google Adwords campaign. This Google Adwords platform was selected as a targeted way to attract users to the website. The student slated the Adwords campaign to run for one month. As a result of advertising on this platform, users visited the site everyday, with a majority of them arriving to the site from clicking on the ads, while a smaller percentage was referred from facebook and twitter. As the ads ran, the student modified some campaign settings, such as the keywords and the ad rotation, in order to increase the impressions received on the best performing ads. As a result of this project, the student had qualitative and quantitative data to show the client that measured the performance of this Internet marketing effort. The student used Google Analytics data to track the number of users that have visited the site since it was launched. Over the course of one month, the site attracted 152 visitors. A majority of these visitors were referred to the site from the ads that the student wrote and placed on the Google search engine. This modest number of visitors represents a success for a client that had not engaged in any Internet advertising. As a result of the success of the Internet marketing campaign using Google Adwords and social networks, the client is in a good position to develop these channels as they continue to grow their client base on the island and beyond.

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Introduction In the 1960s, Marshal McLuhan (1967) envisioned a world where communications media would lead to greater interconnectedness among people, he summed up his vision with the now famous metaphor of the global village. William Gibson (1984), however, envisioned a world affected quite differently by the same media. In his novel, Neuromancer, Gibson coined the term cyperspace to express a world besieged by media, where cyberspace became an autonomous realm for new regimens of control and individual escapism.

While from our vantage point it would seem that each of these visions fell short of the mark, their common insight that media would change the world remains as true today as it did then. We are also in the midst of a radical change in communication. More precisely, we ourselves are rapidly changing through communication. The ideals (or nightmares) of total access to information and ubiquitous communication of just a few years ago have today been realized in very tangible ways. Moreover, these ideals have been given definitive shape through the technologies that we have come to depend on day to day. Internet media, and the mobile devices through which we increasingly access them, have played an enormous part in democratizing access to information, solidifying real social networks through their virtual counterparts, and opening up electronic commerce to small businesses and individuals (Bucy and Gregson, 2001; Rheingold, 2002).

The Look Photography Studio

The aim of this project is to raise the profile of a small photography studio in Puerto Rico (The Look Photography Studio) by developing a usable, informative and entertaining web site and an effectively targeted Internet marketing campaign. The student firmly believes that given the trends mentioned above, it is much easier for smaller companies or individuals to capitalize on their ideas on a global scale. This project seeks to test this idea. It was conceived quite simply as a tool to meet a specific need for a niche market. Through this project, the student will test the strength of this need in the best way possible, namely by creating the website itself and advertising it using Internet marketing tools.

The Looks website will be an online platform intended to function as both a promotional tool and as a social hub. The service being promoted through this platform will be photographic packages for aspiring models both on the island and in the mainland United States. The student will design the website in order to create a compelling online experience for The Looks current and prospective clients. The student will also strategically develop and implement an Internet marketing campaign in order to attract the right visitors to the website. The overall aim of the project will be to create a compelling web presence for this small business that works synergistically with an effective Internet marketing effort.

This small business is located in Puerto Rico. As the tropical spawning ground of numerous Ms. Universe winners, Puerto Rico has attained international renown as an epicenter of modeling talent. Surprisingly, however, there are few photography studios in Puerto Rico that specialize in creating photographic packages for current or aspiring models. Fewer still have

The Look Photography Studio usable websites that exploit the latest web design tools to create compelling experiences, and/or

savvy Internet marketing campaigns strategically deployed to raise the profile of their operations.

Several observations resulted from the students preliminary analysis of the sparse competitors. The first, and most obvious, is that no website is fully dedicated to engaging users in a rich manner. The second is that these potential competitors have not built their sites using standard web design principles, which in turn makes their sites difficult to navigate. The third, and most important for the purpose of this project, is that there are no indications that these websites are engaging in any Internet marketing efforts to attract visitors. For example, a basic search on Google using relevant keywords such as, Puerto Rico modeling, or Puerto Rico modeling photography yields no results within either the organic or paid search results for a company in Puerto Rico offering these services. Each of these factors combined create a substantial need for a website that is designed intuitively and encourages clear navigation, provides a stellar presentation of the service being offered, gives the user a reason to return through interactive elements, and aggressively attracts visitors through a solid Internet marketing campaign.

As a Puerto Rican himself, who also happens to be part of what Duany (2002) called a nation on the move, the student is intimately acquainted with the niche market being courted through this project. According to Duany (2002), Puerto Rico is a unique territory whose people have maintained a profound sense of cultural identity despite being a colonial possession for most of its history. Currently, the Puerto Rican population is nearly evenly split, with an almost equal number living in the mainland United States as are living on the island. Puerto Ricans

The Look Photography Studio living abroad, either in the U.S. or internationally, represent a vibrant market, with a cohesive cultural identity that thrives in spite of the lack of political sovereignty for the island itself.

Hence, products tailored to this market, whether on line or off, have a good chance of succeeding if they tap into and amplify this sense of cultural pride and belonging. For instance, Nelson (2009) recently reported on the challenges and opportunities of marketing by and for Caribbean people, he noted: Certainly every situation calls for a unique solution, but there are some steps that Caribbean marketers can take to demonstrate higher return on investment. You still need to get the basic recipe right, but adjusting the ingredients to taste and adding that secret spice can give you the edge (p. 29).

This project report is divided into three sections. The introductory section above laid out the aims of this project and an overview of the unique characteristics of the niche target market. The literature review section that follows will provide the theoretical foundations for this project. This section is broken down into two parts, the first deals with the trends in Internet marketing, specifically the unique challenges and opportunities of search engines as an advertising tool. The second part of the literature review integrates the trends in Internet marketing with those of website usability in the mobile era. The method and results section of the report will provide an account of the methods used to attain the aims discussed above and a summary of the results obtained.

Personal Credentials and Project Sponsorship

The Look Photography Studio Roberto L. Delgado earned a B.A. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2002. Since that year he has attained professional experience in the communications field by working in public relations in Washington, D.C. He has an abiding interest in all things related to advertising, but is particularly drawn to the challenges of small business advertising in the context of the global economy. This interest has been strengthened academically through various graduate and undergraduate courses in advertising and new media at San Jos State University.

Additionally, the student has attained professional experience in website design and maintenance. As a staff member of Yuquiyu communications, a start up advertising agency in Puerto Rico, he was tasked with designing the agencys corporate website: www.yuquiyu.com. The agency needed a website in order to promote its services and to present a professional corporate image. In order to achieve these aims, the student used Dreamweaver CS4, the industry standard, to design and program the website.

This project is being developed on behalf of The Look Photography Studio. The studio is located in the commercially active city of Bayamn, Puerto Rico. It is lead by a trio of recent graduates from the department of communication at the University of Puerto Rico. They decided to open the studio in 2009 after identifying a need for photographic services geared toward the thriving Puerto Rican modeling industry. After seeing the professional quality of their sample portfolios, the student approached the studio in November and offered to help them reach out to a broader clientele through the Internet. Through this project, the student expects to attain a solid

The Look Photography Studio understanding of the Internet marketing process, which he will be able to use for personal projects or as a consultant for other small businesses.

Literature Review & Background of the Project

Internet Marketing Trends

The Internet marketing industry has grown enormously since its inception in 1994. Since that year, the Internet itself, as the backbone for all sorts of communication, has changed largely in response to how people have used it. The first attempt at monetizing access to the Internet began when users dialed up their connection through service providers such as AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserveall of which, in hindsight, represented failed monopolistic business models (Arens, 2006, p. 543). Since that time, the emphasis of business on the Internet has shifted from charging for access to creating engaging content or useful services for users. As a result of this shift which was bolstered by an overall positive reception from users, Internet advertising has experienced phenomenal growth. According to the Internet advertising report released last year by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (2009), Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $10.9 billion for the first six months of 2009, with Q2 accounting for approximately $5.4 billion (p. 3). By all accounts Internet marketing activity has grown exponentially since the Internet became a place to do business.

The Look Photography Studio The phenomenal growth of Internet advertising stands in stark contrast to the continued decline of traditional advertiser supported media. News items in this country frequently marshal market data to warn of the steady shift of advertising dollars to the Internet. Ward (2009), a reporter for Barrons business weekly, recently noted in a cover story about the bleak future for the traditional advertising industry that much of this can be explained by the continuing shift

from traditional media outlets like newspaper and broadcast TV to alternative media platforms as a less expensive and more effective way of targeting customers (p. 22). Its a trend that

seems unstoppable, not only in this country but globally. Sweeny (2009), a reporter for The Guardian in the U.K., recently cited important figures released in a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau which show that the UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on Internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record 1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.

This massive shuffling of currency has strong implications for the global media ecology and the industries that depend on it, such as advertising. Importantly, this shift also signals that what people expect from media is changing. Internet marketers are being admonished to build their advertising campaigns with humility and unobtrusiveness as guiding principles. A recent report on the state of advertising within social networks by the Nielsen Company (2009) noted: whatever the successful ad model turns out to be, the messaging will have to be authentic and humble, and built on the principle of a two-way conversation not a push model that adds value to the consumer (p. 14). In other words, what were starting to see more clearly than ever is a shift in the labels used to describe the people who use media, moving away from passive labels such as consumer toward active ones such as user/searcher. These changes in the

The Look Photography Studio metaphorical labels that we apply to people and social phenomena, particularly the multi-

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dimensional Internet landscape, have concrete effects in the everyday world (Shaw 2009; Lessig 1999). Shaw (2009), in particular, noted:

Attention is therefore directed to the power of metaphorical descriptions to evoke new imaginative possibilities that generate new insights and understanding. This notion of description, however, is not a reflection of reality out there that is then reflected through metaphors. Rather, description has a constitutive function that constructs reality by defining its distinctive features. (p. 15)

What type of commercial reality, then, is being constructed through the new metaphors enabled by Internet marketing? It is a reality that at its simplest, and in slight contrast to the Nielsen observations cited above, recognizes the difficulty of hooking people with undifferentiated, added value slogans that are irrelevant to the user and is shifting toward targeted, inherent value propositions that are relevant to the user.

Search Engine Marketing

Nowhere is this shift from added to inherent value more evident than in the quick and explosive growth of search engine marketing (SEM). Currently, advertising on search engines is the dominant form of Internet marketing. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (2009), search accounted for 47 percent of 2009 Q2 revenues, up from the 44 percent reported for the same period in 2008 (p. 8). Even though the same IAB report noted a drop in total

The Look Photography Studio advertising spending for the Internet marketing industry as a whole during 2009, the fact that search continues to increase its share of the online advertising pie is significant. The same IAB report noted: search revenues totaled $2.6 billion in the second quarter of 2009, up 1 percent from the second quarter of 2008 when search revenues totaled $2.6 billion (p. 8). As the dominant internet advertising platform, search is well positioned to benefit from the annual growth projections that Ward (2009) presented in an article in Barrons financial weekly. According to these projections, both Internet and mobile advertising spending are expected to

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grow by 10.6 percent and 33.0 percent by 2013, respectively. By contrast, traditional media such as newspapers and broadcast TV are expected to lose 8.9 percent and 2.0 percent in advertising spending during the same period.

The Internet advertising literature and market research reports have sought to identify the specific features that make search advertising the preferred choice, amid other options such as display advertising (banner ads) and email (IAB 2009; DoubleClick 2005; Klaasen 2008; Edelman Digital 2009; Fulgoni & Mrn 2008). An Edelman Digital (2009) report on search engine visibility explained that search engine ads succeed because they relate directly to something that the searcher wants to know now and implicitly trusts when it pops up on the first page (p. 2). Similarly, Fulgoni and Mrn (2008) identified a notable difference between the effects of search versus display advertising. They found that

the impact of search ads alone on consumers behavior was found to be clearly greater than that of display alone. This is true both in terms of the ads impact on online buying as well as the impact on offline sales. This is not surprising because consumers

The Look Photography Studio responding to search ads are much more likely to be in the market for buying the advertised product. (p. 14)

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According to the Edelman Digital (2009) report, there are two standard approaches used to advertise on search engines:

Paid Search More widely known as search engine marketing (SEM), paid search is an advertising paradigm in which marketers purchase small text ads that are triggered when certain keywords are searched (for example, an ad for Toyota Prius might show up on searches for hybrid cars).

Optimized Search Often referred to as SEO, optimized search is a technical process in which webmasters make adjustments to their sites in an effort to rank well organically on high-value keywords (e.g. Toyota.com becomes a top result for hybrid cars). (p. 2)

Search engines are effective advertising platforms since they allow the advertiser to precisely target an unobtrusive ad to specific information requested by the searcher. This type of contextually relevant advertising tends to convert at a higher rate than most non-search ads because its an intent-driven channel (Klaasen, 2009, p. 2). This means that the searcher exposed to the ad is more likely to click through to the advertisers website if the ad is relevant to the search results. Another added feature of SEM that benefits the advertiser is the payment structure. As Klaasen explained: searchs click-based payment model makes it easy to track the investment since an advertiser only pays when its ad is clicked. Smart search marketers track

The Look Photography Studio performance all the way down to conversion did that click result in a sale? to really take advantage of the channel (p. 2).

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Something that should be fairly evident from what has been discussed so far is that the click is considered the primary currency both within SEM and the Internet marketing industry as a whole. Click through, to use the industry term, represents the percentage of searchers who clicked on an ad versus those who were exposed to it but did not. Click through is important because it not only represents the first step in the buying cycle but also because it validates the Internet marketing strategy. According to a DoubleClick (2005) report on buyer search activity, however, it is also important to understand search before the purchase (p. 1). Data describing how users search the Internet before committing to a purchase is important because it allows marketers to better match their campaigns with the searchers actual behavior. The DoubleClick report identified people who had bought items from 30 websites in four categories, then they analyzed their search activity for 12 weeks prior to purchase (p. 1). Two of their most interesting findings were that most buyers complete their relevant search activity well in advance of the purchase and the majority of pre-purchase search activity (searches and clicks) involved generic terms, not merchants brands (p. 1). These two findings support the idea of a level playing field between big and small merchants in the Internet marketplace. The lag time between initial search activity and final purchase opens the field to small businesses that do not have big brand recognition. Another strong implication from these findings is the importance of understanding the generic terms (or keywords) that people employ when searching. A proper understanding of the keywords used by people on search engines is a necessary prerequisite to any Internet marketing campaign.

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The Importance of Website Usability

Understanding the trends in Internet marketing and the intricacies of search engine marketing is only half the story. The other half concerns the usability of the website that visitors land on if the campaign has been successful. The concerns surrounding usability have changed substantially since the era of static, text only web pages. The typical Internet searcher is now confronted with an explosive array of web-based multi-media, all vying for attention. Nevertheless, as with all media, time is of the essence. The longer a user feels comfortable in a website, the more likely they will either buy whats offered or engage the content in some meaningful way (Powazek, 2002; Holzschlag, 2002).

Websites need to be usable for two main reasons. The first, and most important, is to make the navigation easy and intuitive for the user. The second is to foster meaningful interaction between the user and the content. Holzschlag (2002) broke down the general concept of usability into three main components: a product or product component, whether it is software or the design of a new stove, is measured by its efficacy; ease of use is paramount; the time to learn features is short; components within the product are understandable and consistent (p. 4). Apples iPhone (the precursor to the recently unveiled iPad) serves as the perfect example of a product that seamlessly integrates each of the usability principles. The touchscreen is a simple user interface that eliminates clutter associated with buttons and instantly conveys its ease of use. The navigational icons on the home screen, in turn, are laid out and designed to enable the user to access the phones functions quickly and easily. Even so, Holzschlag cautions that web

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usability continues to evolve and that web professionals have to be very flexible to meet all the audiences needs (p. 4).

Today websites need to be designed in a usable fashion for both technical and cultural reasons. Gevorgyan and Manucharova (2009) studied the links between Internet users ethnic identity and their preference for culturally significant design elements in websites. Their findings suggest a strong positive correlation between Internet users strength of ethnic identity and their preference for design elements that reflect their cultural backgrounds. The long-standing argument, they noted, that online marketers should make their Web sites culturally oriented is well grounded (p. 404).

Mobile Advertising and the Social Web

The proliferation of mobile devices and social networks has added new dimensions to the quest for maximum website usability. Moreover, ideas on how to seamlessly integrate advertising into each of these highly interactive and portable platforms are now at a premium. As Laszlo (2009) noted: The ability of a mobile device to provide instant gratificationwhether communication, information, or entertainmentwhenever and (more importantly) wherever a consumer happens to be empowers both advertisers and consumers, and creates a strong likelihood that mobile communication devices will become the next great advertising medium. (pp. 28-29)

The Look Photography Studio Internet marketers are thus becoming doubly bound to create not only usable websites

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scaled down for mobile platforms, but also to experiment with original applications customized specifically for mobile devices. E-commerce websites specifically need to ensure that their online stores translate well to the new mobile platforms. The benefits of doing so involve not only an increase in sales but also the potential to establish deeply personal relationships between brands and consumers (Lazslo, 2009, p. 32).

By contrast, the beauty of the social web is its kalaidescopic anarchyhere the relationship between brands and consumers is anything but settled (Nielsen, 2009). The social web (Web 2.0 and 3.0) comprises both the big name social networks (Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Youtube, Twitter) and the smaller scale networks linked to the blogs and websites of individuals. Given the enormous amount of data that is posted to these networks, Internet marketers are frantically trying to discover ways to latch themselves on to the phenomenon. Even so, it seems as if penetrating this market will take some serious innovation because as the Nielsen (2009) report on social networking noted:

A key reason why advertising on social networks hasnt been as successful as on the more traditional publishers is because social networkers serve a dual role as both the suppliers and consumers of content. In the traditional model they simply consume the content supplied by the publisher. Therefore, members have a greater sense of ownership around the personal content they provide and are less inclined to accept advertising around it. A well used analogy is that advertising on a social network is like gate-crashing a party. (p. 5)

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Internet marketers face an uphill battle in identifying ways to integrate their messages within social networks. Part of the reason for this difficultly, however, has little to do with Internet marketing per se, but with the advertising industrys long legacy of condescension towards consumers that it has inherited. The best Internet marketers will abolish this legacy on the social web by engaging in what Piper Jaffray, cited by Riegner (2007), termed Communitainment: a new form of entertainment that combines communication, community, and entertainment online (p. 444). Perhaps, both businesses and the marketers charged with selling their wares should endeavor to join the communitainment party as guests rather than risk getting booted for gate-crashing.

Summary

This literature review explored key ideas which serve as the theoretical background for this project. One of these main ideas was the exponential growth of the Internet marketing industry since the mid nineties. It also specifically examined search engine marketing (SEM) as a particularly effective way for marketers, big and small, to reach people through contextually relevant advertising. Finally, the review described the challenges and opportunities faced by Internet marketers with the rise of mobile platforms and social networks. How the interested parties (users, marketers, businesses) engage these last two phenomena is one of the crucial questions of our time.

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Method

Website Design As mentioned in the introduction, thelookphotographynow.com website was built to promote the services of The Look photography studio. The site was designed with Dreamweaver CS5 following standard usability principles. It features a user friendly interface that facilitates navigation and clearly communicates both content and structure. The site copy alternates between English and Spanish to cater to the bilingual nature of the target audience.

Social Networks One of the most important components of the internet marketing campaign for The Look was to generate awareness through social networks. Two key social networks were selected for this purpose: Facebook and Twitter. As mentioned in the literature review, while advertising on social networks has grown, it remains a medium whose primary purpose is social, not commercial. This reality forces potential advertisers to adapt their communications to the demands of the new medium. In response to this, Facebook has been expanding the features of its social network in order to better serve the businesses and groups who wish to advertise. In doing so, they have developed business friendly features, such as the Facebook Fan Page. This feature enables businesses or groups of any size to advertise by creating engaging and interactive

The Look Photography Studio multimedia profiles resembling that of individual users. The student aimed to harness the

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capability of these popular social networks by creating and updating accounts in each. The aim in doing so was twofold: to generate awareness of the services provided by The Look and to increase traffic to The Looks website.

Google Adwords

The Google Adwords platform is the industry leader in search engine marketing. Adwords dominates the market with 58.5% share if you go by ComScore; 66% if you ask hitwise. Its challengers, meanwhile, have struggled. Per ComScore, Yahoo has 22.2% share, Microsoft 9.8% and Ask.com 4.5% (Klassen, 2008, p. 2). The student developed a Paid Search (SEM) campaign using the Adwords platform. Adwords was chosen for several key reasons: its leadership position in the industry, exposure to the people who use Google as their primary search engine, its thorough analytic software that precisely reports on ad performance, and the low cost of setting up a campaign at a scale appropriate for this project.

The first step in setting up a campaign using the Adwords platform entailed creating a list of keywords (see Appendix C). The Adwords platform provides automated tools that help new users find appropriate keywords for their campaigns. A well selected list of keywords is important because they are used to trigger the ads that appear in the sponsored search results of the Google search engine and their affiliate network. The next step in the campaign involved writing ads that incorporated the best performing keywords. After analyzing keyword trends on a national (U.S. mainland) and local (Puerto Rico)

The Look Photography Studio level, the student wrote four ads (see Appendix B), two of these were in English and two in

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Spanish. The reasoning behind writing the ads in different languages was to ensure that each ad had a chance of being triggered whether the user had their language preference set to English or Spanish.

After writing the ads, the student set the broad campaign parameters. This step involved putting the ads in rotation, targeting the appropriate regions, and setting the budget constraints. For the first two weeks of the campaign, the student allowed the ads to rotate evenly. This meant that Google would allow each ad a fair placement in the search results independently of whether another ad performed better. After these two weeks, the student allowed Google to put the best performing ads in rotation, in order to ramp up the number of clicks.

In a similar vein, the geo targeting was initially set broadly in order to include several states in the east coast of the U.S. with high numbers of Puerto Rican young women, as well as Puerto Rico. After these two weeks, the student narrowed down the geo targeting to just Puerto Rico. This meant that the best performing ads were only shown to Google users in Puerto Rico.

The initial agreed upon budget for the SEM campaign was $400. The client, however, requested that the amount be reduced to $200. The student had to ensure the maximum number of impressions for the ads within a limited budget. In order to do so, the student set the daily budget to $7.00, in order to guarantee that the ads would be in rotation for one month. The main concern with such a small daily budget was to ensure a high rank for the best performing ads. The student reasoned that the goal should be to attract the right users, even if the CPC (cost per

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click) was high, since as a result of the small daily budget the ads would not be able to run at all times during the month. Ideally, the high CPC would be offset by the quality of the users clicking on the ads, which would in turn generate more promising leads for the business.

Project Results The most tangible measure of the success of this campaign was the launch of the website. The client approved the site design (see Appendix A) and felt that their services were being promoted clearly and engagingly. Another measure of success for the campaign were the number of users who became friends or followed The Look through Facebook and Twitter. As of today, Sept. 27, 2010, the number of Facebook friends is at 434 and the number of Twitter followers is at 21. Each of these efforts represents important inroads for future client promotion via social networking channels.

The SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaign conducted via Google Adwords, yielded some successes and also made both the client and the student aware of weaknesses. These weaknesses, however, were beneficial since they highlighted which elements should be addressed in order to improve the results of future efforts. The main success of the Adwords campaign was that the ads received a consistent number of clicks on a daily basis (see Appendix B). This met one of the measures of success set in the students proposal, which was to increase traffic for the new website. Over the course of a month, the website received 184 visitors (see Appendix D). A majority of these visitors (145), arrived on the site by clicking through on one of the ads placed through the Adwords platform. The remainder of the visitors were referred to the website either through Facebook or Twitter (14), or arrived directly to the website (25).

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The main weakness of the campaign was the failure to generate new business leads for the client as a result of these efforts. The student believes that the main obstacle to accomplishing this goal was the limited budget. A bigger budget would have allowed the ads to be in rotation longer each day, which would have resulted in more impressions and more clicks. The student made sure to explain to the client, however, what the literature said about searcher behavior before the purchase. Given the nature of the service being sold by the client it is important to recognize that users may search longer before committing to purchase, since people are likely to be less impulsive shoppers of services than of retail products (Double Click Report 2005). Another weakness of the campaign was the initial targeting of users outside of the region (Puerto Rico) where the clients business is located. The student believes that had he targeted the ads to Puerto Rico from the beginning of the campaign, more of the clicks received would have come from users ready to convert into customers for the client.

With these opportunities for improvement in mind, the student believes that the client is in a better position to take advantage of future Internet marketing efforts.

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Klaasen, Abbey. (2008). Whats the difference between SEO and SEM? Advertising Age, 79(11), 43. Laszlo, Joe. (2009). The new unwired world: An IAB status report on mobile advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(1), 27-43. Lessig, Lawrence. (1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York: Basic Books. McLuhan, Marshall & Fiore, Quentin. (1967). The medium is the massage: An inventory of effects. New York: Random House. Powazek, Derek, M. (2002). Design for community: The art of connecting real people in virtual places. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders. The Nielsen Company. (March 2009). Global faces and networked places. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wpcontent/uploads/2009/03/nielsen_globalfaces_mar09.pdf Rheingold, Howard. (2002). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. In Bucy, Erik, P. (Ed.). (2005). Living in the information age: A new media reader. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

The Look Photography Studio Riegner, Cate. (2007). Word of mouth on the web: The impact of web 2.0 on consumer purchase decisions. Journal of Advertising Research, 47(4), 436-447. Shah, Nisha. (2008). From global village to global marketplace: Metaphorical descriptions of the global Internet. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 4(1), 926. Sweney, Mark. (2009, September 30). Internet overtakes television to become biggest advertising sector in the UK. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/30/internet-biggest-uk-advertising-sector Ward, Sandra. (2009, September 14). Glad men. Barrons, pp. 21-22, 24.

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