Here’s what happened…

I’m using TweetDeck which is a Twitter client (software) that allows you to organize your Twitter streams into multiple columns by people in different industries or different criteria that you determine such as an A-list for people you want to follow more closely – thanks @TanveerNaseer for that great tip. TweetDeck also lets you set up streams/columns by filters for mentions of certain words or topics. I had one set up for “AdWords” so I could follow people who mention AdWords to keep up to date with news and other related AdWords tweets. Last week as I was going through the AdWords tweets I came across one by @JustinLocke. Justin was frustrated by some of his ads not showing up right away as he was led to believe so I sent him a quick tweet explaining why this most likely is happening.

For my 10 second effort, Justin was impressed that a complete stranger out of the blue took it upon themselves to give him a hand on Twitter. He was so impressed by this that he even wrote a blog post about his experience and the fact that I reached out to give him a hand.

Needless to say I was in turn impressed as well because I didn’t expect anything to come out of this other than an exchange about AdWords editorial policy and a quick thank you for sharing some info. Instead I get some added visibility and someone I didn’t know before, to pass my name and company on to potential clients. How amazing is that?!

So the moral of this story is that Twitter in and of itself is not good or bad – a total waste of time or a great tool for business development. It can be all of these things depending on what you do with it. Use it wisely and you’ll be surprised with the results!

We’ve recently come across an excellent Video by Hal Varian – the chief economist at Google where he visually explains how an advertiser’s quality scores and bids affect their ad positions. After watching this video most people will understand what the AdWords quality score is and how it affects their ad positions and campaign performance. I highly recommend you check it out for yourself:

So knowing this, when it comes to landing pages why would you want to cram as much choice in there to confuse and paralyze people from taking action? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on one product, service or offer at a time?

Too Many Options on Your Landing Pages Gets You Less Conversions not More

Let’s take the example of an ecommerce site that sells running shoes. Let’s say the site sells all the major brands and models. Now a great landing page would be one where one specific brand or model is listed and nothing else. But more often than not, we come across landing pages that prominently feature one model while also listing a variety of other models a visitor can choose from – supposedly in case they don’t like the main model shown on the page. If the owners of these landing pages would conduct a path analysis in their web analytics solution, I’m sure they’ll find that a significant amount of visitors will click on the other models and will go on browsing multiple models only to exit the site completely without buying anything. Why you ask?

Because now they have a choice to contemplate before buying. So instead of making it easy for them, landing pages with too many choices will cause them to hold off and “sleep on” their decision before committing to a purchase. They tell themselves “I’ll come back later when I have more time to go over all these options”. And of course most never do.

To make matters worse, among those that do buy, many will not be quite happy with their purchase because they have it at the back of their minds that maybe they didn’t make the right choice.

So now that it’s clear that more choice leads to fewer conversions and more buyer’s remorse, get out there and make your visitors happy by giving them fewer choices on your landing pages!

Your sales team will thank you.

10/10 Quality Scores and Double Digit CTRs

We’ve experimented with this strategy on a number of new campaign launches in the last few months with astonishingly positive results. The quality score across most, if not all keywords tends to be anywhere from 7/10 to 10/10. And in several cases CTRs have held steady in the double digits for a relatively good amount of traffic.

Maintaining a solid CTR is critical to keeping your quality score high and CPC low and this is especially true when a campaign is new and has no history. Once you have some momentum built up, you can slowly begin introducing some broad match keywords to gain incremental traffic, but keep a close eye on the search query report to make sure that you filter out any irrelevant search queries through the use of negative keywords. I recommend checking this at least once a week for campaigns with larger amounts of traffic and at least once a month for smaller campaigns.

Expanded Broad Match – Or Almost Anything Goes

Google has been known to open up the floodgates in campaigns containing broad match keywords through their expanded broad match feature to the misfortune of unsuspecting advertisers. That said you’d be surprised (not pleasantly) to see what kind of queries some of your ads are showing up for because of this. All the more reason to watch the search query report like a hawk once you’ve got some broad match keywords in your campaign.

If you’re using Google analytics you can take things one step further and set up a custom filter to see the actual search queries that your campaign is triggering ads to appear on. Jason Billingsley has put together a really simple tutorial on how to do this on the Get Elastic blog.

Let me know how this tactic works out for you.

This simple tool can quickly tell you when your ads stopped running and in which adgroups they stopped running in.

Large portions of your campaigns can become dormant because for one reason or another, your ads may have been disapproved. So if you notice a sharp drop in traffic, this is one place in your campaigns that you’ll want to take a closer look at.
Here’s how to do it:

For those of you using the old AdWords interface, simply click on the Tools link in the Campaign Management tab as shown here:

If you’re using the new interface which is currently in public beta, you’ll find the disapproved ads tool by clicking on the Tools Tab and then on the “More Tools” link from the drop down menu as seen here:

Also be sure to keep an eye out for emails from Google letting you know that some of your ads have been deactivated. They typically send email alerts when your ads become disapproved (unless you’ve opted out of email notifications), but as we all know, it’s sometimes easy to miss emails so it would be good to automate the Ad Performance report and check it regularly.

You can do this from the Reports section in your account:

Just remember to add in a filter to show you disapproved ads only so you can quickly see which ads are no longer active:

Depending on the reason given for why your ads were disapproved, you can call the AdWords team and ask for a review or simply make the necessary changes and wait for the editorial team to review your ads which usually takes a day or two. You can find more information on what to do once your ads have been disapproved here.

Have a question or need something clarified? We’d be more than happy to help – simply submit a comment!

We’re honored to be a part of the exhibit Logos, Icons & Images 1983-2009 – a Stuart Rowley Design Retrospective at Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above in Malone, New York.

Stuart Rowley’s logo designs are creative and smart but equally important, the working process in creating the logo with us was strategic, smooth and fun! You can view some of Stuart Rowley Design’s logos at www.stuartrowleydesign.com and here are some insights from Stuart himself:

“As a graphic designer, I have always believed that less is more. My rule of the thumb for designing a logo is: 1.) keep it simple (smart,) 2.) if it looks good at 3/4 inch it will look good on a billboard, 3.) never show a client something you wouldn’t use yourself, and 4.) avoid ‘art by committee’ at all costs!”

If you are in the Malone New York area, the show opens tonight, Friday May 22 at Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above with a reception at 6-8 pm. The show runs until June 13. For more information please call Forartsake at 483.9411.

Congratulations Stuart!

Details of the press release below.

PRESS RELEASE:

Logos, Icons and Images 1983-2009
Stuart Rowley Design Retrospective

Where/When:

Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above
May 22 – June 13
Opening reception Friday, May 22, 6-8 pm

A logo is both form and substance, image and idea. To be effective its form must be recognizable and unusual enough to be memorable. The design must be simple enough to be read in an instant and rich enough in detail or meaning to be interesting. It has to appeal to a wide audience and must look and feel timeless.

Stuart Rowley has designed logos and trademarks for the past 26 years, and yet it is difficult to tell which ones were done in the 80s, 90s or later. Stuart says, “Over the years I think the work has held up quite well. Each mark was designed to provide a distinctive, memorable and appropriate visual expression of the company or individual it represents.”

“As a graphic designer, I have always believed that less is more. My rule of the thumb for designing a logo is: 1.) keep it simple (smart,) 2.) if it looks good at 3/4 inch it will look good on a billboard, 3.) never show a client something you wouldn’t use yourself, and 4.) avoid ‘art by committee’ at all costs!”

Many of the 85 logos in this exhibition are still in use. They go beyond the fashion of the moment. They have thrived with repetition. They have survived changing markets, technology and business practices. A sample listing of some of the logos you will see in this exhibit: CVPH Medical Center, The Development Corporation, Franklin County 200th Anniversary, St Lawrence County Arts Council, Asept Pak, Mayor’s Cup, the new Forartsake, Gallery 393 Above, Plattsburgh International Airport, OneWorkSource, Bloom Search Marketing and Adirondack Pet Lodge.

Stuart Rowley studied graphic design at California State University at Northridge CA (BA Art/Graphic Design 1982) and at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena CA in the early 80s.

Logos, Icons and Images 1983-2009, Stuart Rowley Design Retrospective, opens Friday, May 22 at Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above with a reception at 6-8 pm. The show runs until June 13. For more information please call Forartsake at 483.9411.

Visit www.stuartrowleydesign.com

If you’re absolutely passionate about Pay Per Click marketing and are looking for an exciting and stimulating challenge, then check out the posting: http://www.makeitbloom.com/about/jobs/listing/ppc-account-manager.php

We’re looking forward to meeting you!

Here are a few of the things you can do in the group:

• Submit your or others’ blog posts for discussion and feedback.
• Submit new articles for group commentary.
• Discover new blogs to follow and read from fellow Canadian PPC experts.
• Post PPC job opportunities to a more targeted audience.
• Ask questions in the discussion area.
• View and communicate directly with other PPC professionals from around Canada and expand your network.

I would like to thank all the people who have already joined the group – It’s great to see you there!

Spread the word around – we’re a friendly bunch!

Also feel free to connect directly:

Martin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinperron (martin at makeitbloom.com)

Xurxo: http://www.linkedin.com/in/xurxo (xurxo at makeitbloom.com)

2 years ago on this day, Xurxo and I officially launched Bloom Search Marketing. Since then, we’ve learned a lot of things and met a lot of great people. 2008 was an exciting year for our team. Besides continuously sharpening our paid search skills, we learned quite a bit about growing our company, blogging, participating in social media and even office moving logistics with our move to new offices in July. Most importantly, we had the opportunity to work with great clients, forge strong partnerships and network with really smart and interesting colleagues in the industry.

We are excited to see what this year will bring and would like to wish everyone a very happy 2009 filled with much prosperity, health and happiness!

Thanks to SERoundtable for catching this earlier today. Some of details found in the release notes include:

• First page bid estimates: the Editor now uses first page bid estimates for your keywords and Minimum cost-per-click (CPC) bids are no longer used.
• Keyword Quality Score: The Keywords tab now displays the Quality Score for your keywords. [Finally!]
• Keyword Opportunities locale: Tailor your keyword suggestions to a particular language and location by changing your Keyword Opportunities locale.
• Campaign targeting in the data view: You can view your targeting settings in the new ‘Language’ and ‘Location’ columns on the Campaigns tab. These columns are hidden by default, but you can select them with the column chooser.
• Send feedback to Google: Help us improve AdWords Editor by enabling usage tracking in your AdWords Editor settings.
• Absolute Numbers for Volume in Keyword Opportunities Tool: The ‘Volume’ column on the Keyword expansion tab of the Keyword Opportunities tool now shows absolute numbers (traffic for the last month) instead of scaled values.
• Keyword Opportunities tool isn’t available for draft accounts.

Overall, the two major updates that should help speed up day-to-day optimizations of your AdWords campaigns are the addition of First Page Bid Estimates and Quality Score data in the Editor. You can quickly spot problem keywords across your multiple campaigns without having to go through the web interface or extracting reports. Here’s how the new data looks like:

So, how can we make use of this? Here are a few ideas…

2 Filters To Catch Problems Quickly

You can make use of the Advanced Search feature in the “Create or Set Custom View” tool to apply filters on your campaigns, identify potential problem areas and take action.

1. Spot Low Quality Score Keywords

If you want to make sure that you didn’t miss any low QS keywords that may be lurking in your campaign, using a filter in the editor will save you lots of time. Simply select the new option for Quality Score and apply a filter to match Quality Score criteria (when you spot problem keywords, go back in the web interface to get more insights as to potential problems):

2. Spot Keywords With Max CPC lower than First Page Bid Estimates

In some cases, you may be bidding too low for your ads to appear on the first page. Through the web interface, Google alerts you of these potential problems but again, you have to navigate through each Ad Group to spot them. By using the new data in AdWords Editor 7.0, you can apply 2 filters to find where your Max CPC is lower than your First Page Bid Estimates. Unfortunately, you’ll need to repeat a few times and use a variety of values as you can conditionally sort something like: Max CPC is less than First Page Bid Estimates.

Look out for Google’s official announcement shortly and as pointed out here and here, let’s hope there are less bugs than in version 6.5.