Pulling Levers Blog

Last week Lever Interactive employees participated in the company’s 2nd annual Ugly Sweater Contest.  Thank you to all that participated and everyone who voted for your favorites on Facebook!

And the Winner is…

Josh Cole

Additional recognition to our runner ups!

To check out all the participants, visit us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LeverInteractive

Wishing everyone a very safe and Happy New Year!

Happy Anniversary to us! During the month of August we are celebrating our 5 year anniversary.  We kicked off our celebration with a surprise party for our president, Chris Gilmartin, at a local restaurant on Thursday, August 11. Our entire staff participated, as well as their significant others. Photos have been posted on our Facebook fan page if you want to see the fun we had.

As part of our month long 5 year anniversary celebration, we will be posting employee spotlights as well as various case studies here on our blog.  Be sure to check back and read about our greatest assets: our employees and clients!

As with most Google innovations, upgrades and optimizations are always being worked on.  Google recently announced an opportunity to sign up to see and test upgrades to the +1 button.

Sign up with your Google account at the Google+ Platform Review and when you are logged into the account and visit a website utilizing the Google +1 button, you will be able to view and test the newest functionality of the +1 button.

I signed up and immediately noticed a new component of the +1 button.  Hover and confirmation bubbles now appear to show the user what will happen if the click, what happened after they click, as well as other actions (other friends that have clicked the +1 button).

Google indicates that this will serve as a reminder as to which account the user the signed into as well as that their action will be made public. In addition, you can see which people in your Google+ circles have also used the +1 button.

Remind me to tell Eileen she has to add a photo to your Google+ account!

If you were waiting to add the Google +1 button due to rumors about it slowing down the load time for your pages, Google has just tripled the speed.  We had implemented the +1 button on several client websites, and did not see a delay time in page load (confirmed with site speed in Google Analytics). However, most of these clients have optimized code overall that does not weigh down the page with too many calls out to scripts.

If you have already implemented the +1 button, you are all set, just watch it load 3x faster!

In addition to the speed increase, Google has introduced a new “snippet” to work the asynchronous analytics code that will make the +1 button even faster.  Basically, it allows your page to continue to load and appear while the browser downloads the script behind the +1 button. This way, your page does not stop loading when it hits the call to the script, they are downloaded in parallel. In order to achieve this greater speed with the async code, you will need to update your code with the new snippet.  Use Google’s +1 button configuration tool to generate the +1 button code, as well as the new async code to make it even faster.

Lever Interactive Expands Team and Announces Promotions
New Hires Joining the Optimization and Business Development Teams

DOWNERS GROVE, IL (July 19, 2011) – Lever Interactive, a Chicago-based full-service online marketing company specializing in performance-based marketing management, recently expanded with the addition of three new team members and announces recent promotions.

Stephanie Saucier joins Lever Interactive as Manager of Optimization, Josh Cole joins Lever Interactive’s Business Development team and Brad Bonic joins as an Account Strategist. Lever Interactive is also proud to announce two recent promotions. Jennifer Davis was promoted to Vice President of eMarketing and Jamie Watanabe has been promoted to Account Strategist.

Saucier will lead Lever Interactive’s team of paid search account optimizers as well as the search engine optimization and design/development teams. Saucier, a resident of Montgomery, comes to Lever Interactive after several years as a Web Operations Manager at FTD.com. She received her Bachelor of Science in marketing from Northern Illinois University.

Cole, a resident of Midlothian, will help direct Lever Interactive’s sales efforts. He comes to Lever Interactive from Crown Mortgage Company where he served as a loan officer. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and accounting from Augustana College.

Bonic will manage and optimize search engine marketing and display advertising campaigns for several clients. Bonic, a resident of Plainfield, comes to Lever from Starcom Mediavest Group where he managed both on-line and off-line marketing and advertising campaigns representing a wide range of clients.

“I am very excited to have Stephanie, Josh and Brad join our growing team,” said Chris Gilmartin, President of Lever Interactive. “They bring diverse experience and knowledge to our team that will help grow the success of Lever Interactive.”

Davis has been with Lever Interactive for three years and leads the company’s daily activities. Davis has over 15 years of marketing, ecommerce and development experience. She is a resident of Downers Grove and earned her Bachelor of Arts in writing from Dominican University and her Master of Arts in business writing from DePaul University.

Watanabe has been with Lever Interactive for two years and has been instrumental in the day-to-day activities for several clients. She is a resident of Villa Park and earned her Bachelor of Arts in advertising from the University of Illinois.

“Both Jennifer and Jamie have contributed to Lever Interactive’s growth and success over the last couple of years,” said Gilmartin. “I look forward to their continued contribution in their expanded roles.”

About Lever Interactive

Lever Interactive is a full-service online marketing company specializing in performance-based marketing management. With a focus on search engine marketing, Lever Interactive combines the experience of seasoned search and online professionals with the latest in advertising technologies. With over 15 years of direct and interactive marketing know-how, the team at Lever Interactive provides leading expertise in today’s most advanced online marketing opportunities. Services include search engine marketing, shopping comparison and feed-based programs, email marketing, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), web design and development. Lever Interactive is a Google AdWords Certified Partner, Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador and Microsoft AdExcellence Member. They are also members of industry organizations Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) and Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA). Lever Interactive is located at 1431 Opus Place, Suite 625, Downers Grove, Illinois 60515. For more information, please visit www.leverinteractive.com.

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Media Contact
Chris Gilmartin
630-435-6400
cgilmartin@leverinteractive.com

The Google +1 button has been out for about a month, but it has become more popular than Twitter tweet buttons on major websites.

A recent BrightEdge study of 10,000 of the largest websites found a 33% increase in placement of Google’s +1 button.

The study reports Google +1 buttons are present on 4.5% of the sites reviewed which is up 3.5% in June. In comparison, Twitter’s plug-ins are present on 3.4% of the sites.

Facebook plug-ins, including like buttons, still dominate. Although the Google +1 button is growing rapidly, the Facebook like button was placed on about 50,000 websites within the first week of offering the web-wide “like” button last spring.

Need to track social engagement? Read our blog about a new social report within Google Analytics.

Need help integrating the Google +1 button in your site? Contact us for assistance.

Welcome to the first post of Pulling Levers – a search marketing and analytics resource.  The official blog of Lever Interactive, we hope to provide not only industry news and POV, but also expert search marketing advice and insight.

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