PPC Discussions

Google Using AdWords Search Ads to Promote Sites They Don't Own?

2009-02-13T16:37:00.002-06:00

Came across something interesting this afternoon in the paid results. I was signed into my Google account and did a search for "recipes". I noticed a paid ad from Google and thought that was odd... didn't know Google had a recipe site they were promoting.

After I clicked on the ad I was at my iGoogle page (which I have never used) and was kind of surprised at what I was looking at:

It took me a minute to figure out what happened but as you can see a gadget for Simply Recipes was now present on my iGoogle homepage. Outside of the ad copy indicating I could "See easy and delicious recipes on your iGoogle homepage. Free!" I was never asked or prompted to add anything. I know that technically nothing is being "installed" but I would have to venture a guess that this is closer to prohibited than encouraged. When I hit the back button it didn't go "back" either, it just added another gadget. Hit back again and it added another. Don't think it's supposed to be that way...

I did the same thing not signed into my Google account and here's the page I landed on:

That's a little better, at least I'm getting chance to "say yes".

The Simply Recipes gadget and the site have AdSense ads.

I though this experience was interesting...regardless of who's running the ad.

If Simply Recipes is running the ad I would like to know how they were able to get around Google's enforcement of it's own TM rule and the fact that Google does not allow advertisers to use Google.com as as a display/destination url. I've tried in the past and get auto rejected during ad creation. Maybe Google and Simply Recipes struck a deal and Simply Recipes has permission to use the Google TM? That seems like a stretch to me but you never know.

I think what's more likely, and this is pure speculation, is that Google is running the ad themselves to promote the use of iGoogle via gadgets....which in this case is tied into a site that runs a lot of AdSense ads. Now if that's the case it opens a lot more questions like who's paying for that ad? If Google's paying itself to run that ad that raises even more questions. Has Google decided that it's ok to use it's search network to promote sites that it does not own that promote it's revenue generating products (AdSense)? Does Google not have to adhere to it's own policies (functioning back button)?

This is one query and one example but if Google is indeed behind this campaign the implications for other advertisers could be significant. Imagine if Google came knocking in your vertical with a similar campaign. How could you compete against the owner of ad platform on it's own platform? You couldn't, at least not effectively.

Hey it's Friday 13th and maybe this is nothing more than an ad campaign that slid past editorial review. Then again, maybe it's not.

AdWords Ad Serving: Optimize vs Rotate Evenly

2009-01-30T16:17:00.002-06:00

I read all sorts of paid search blogs and forums. I have a few hundred in my reader and typically ad at least one or two new ones a week. A lot of those blogs include best practices, common mistakes to avoid and other tips for AdWords advertisers new and seasoned alike. A common tip/best practice that's often included is about ad serving and whether "optimize" or "rotate evenly" is the best setting to start with. By default, Google sets new campaigns to the optimized option.

The optimized ad serving option is typically dismissed by search marketers as a money grab for Google - Google optimizes based on CTR. A higher CTR means more clicks and more money for Google. More and more guides and best practice documents insist that the rotate ads evenly option is the better of the two and only an uniformed amateur would ever use the optimized setting. This is a perfectly logical argument. Search marketers - at least every one that I've ever met, optimizes to conversions and related metrics. A high CTR is nice but it won't pay the bills or bring in new business...unless of course you happen to be Google.

That said, I have to disagree with the assertion that "rotate evenly" is a best practice, should be a default account setting or is only used by the mis or uniformed. I typically start almost every new account/campaign with optimize as my default setting, and I do it on purpose.

I've found that the optimize setting does do a great job of serving the ad with the highest likelihood of receiving a click. In round 1 testing I like to take 2 - 4 ads that test various messaging elements and let the optimized ad serving setting show me with has the best CTR. Serving the ad with the highest CTR helps your quality score which in turn helps reduce your actual CPC which in the long run will have a positive impact on your campaign ROI.

After I let the ads run for bit under the optmized setting I take the top ad (in terms of CTR) and use that as the basis for my next round of testing. In round 2 I switch ad delivery to the rotate evenly option and typically test 1 or 2 ads (building on the ad elements that "worked") vs the "control" ad I established in round 1. I already know that the control ad from round 1 has a great CTR so now I can focus on finding the balance between CTR and cost per conversion, and I'm likely doing so at a lower CPC due to the higher quality score my high CTR ad earned in round 1 of testing. I feel that this method of testing gets my ads to where I want them faster, at a lower costs and with less effort. I might even make the argument that this method, not defaulting to rotate ads evenly, is really the best practice advertisers should follow.

That's my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.

Have a great weekend.

Side suggestion for Google - you should add an ad serving option to optimize to conversion rate instead of CTR. I think some advertisers would love an option like that and we all know that more conversions at a lower cost = more budget dollars for paid search = more money for Google.

adCenter Display URL Optional?

2009-01-16T14:20:00.003-06:00

Came across an interesting adCenter ad this morning that omits the display url. Last I checked it was required element of an ad...wonder if this is a test, glitch or something else all together. I have not been able to recreate an ad like this with any other query.

AdWords Budget Settings and the Impact on Conversions

2008-12-21T08:46:00.003-06:00

AdWords budget settings are one of the most important yet often overlooked settings in an AdWords account. A lot of people write the budget settings off as nothing more than a simple mechanism you can use to make sure you don't spend more than you have available. True, you can use the budget settings in AdWords in that way but I think it's important to understand the implications of those settings. I'll use an account I recently reviewed for an associate of mine (let's call him Jim) as an example of what I mean.

Jim runs a small business and sells a few of his smaller "shipping friendly" products on his website. He's been using AdWords for about a year and half. Jim's self taught and has never been any formal AdWords training or hired any outside help. That said, his AdWords account has steadily grown in terms of importance to his business over the past 12 months as it's continued to bring more and more customers within his target ROI. Jim called me because he felt like he had hit a wall..."no matter how many keywords I add I can't seem to push past X number of sales per month and I know there are more customers out there." Jim asked if I would take a look at his account and see if I could offer any advice that might help. I agreed and he gave me access to his account.

I was shocked, and the folks reading this post that manage campaigns for a living will understand why. Almost all of the accounts I've looked at for friends, associates and small/large businesses over the years have been disasters. No organization or logical campaign/ad group naming, match types all over the place, no negative keywords with broad match, 1 landing page for 5,000 keywords, no ad testing, geo targeting the entire planet, content running with search, etc, etc. If you manage campaigns for a living you know the drill. I was shocked because almost none of that applied to Jim's account.

Jim's spent time - a lot of time - studying AdWords and best practices. He spends as much time as possible reading various resources for ppc practitioners and the time he's spent learning really shows in his account. It's well organized and follows a lot of what are considered best practices. A separate set of eyes never hurts though, and I was able to put together some suggestions for him that should help his accounts performance. Before he implemented any of my suggestions though I asked him to do one thing....

Raise his daily budget from $160 to $5,000 and change ad delivery from standard to accelerated.

Jim, like a lot of small business owners, decided what he was willing to spend each month and did the simple math to arrive at a daily budget. His campaigns were capped at $160 a day and ad delivery was set to "Standard: Show ads evenly over time". His account was always hitting the spend cap by the end of the day and it was obvious there was a lot of additional search volume out there he was missing out on. We had some conversations around "what ifs" associated with the budget increase and Jim realized one of those what ifs would be great for his business - what if he could spend $5,000 a day at the same ROI that he was spending $160?

I told him I didn't think his current account would spend $5,000 a day but I was sure it would spend a heck of a lot more than $160. His account setup was solid so I was also confident in the fact that he would see the same/similar conversion rates and ROI at those increased spending levels. He said he would put the budget change in place and we scheduled a follow up two weeks later.

Fast forward two weeks - Jim was ecstatic. He was not spending $5,000 a day but since the change his account was averaging $600 day and his conversion rates and ROI were at the same levels they were when he was spending $160 a day. He use to average about 10 sales a day but since the change was averaging closer to 35 sales a day and one day had even broke 45. He did not change anything else in the account, just the budget settings.

My philosophy on account management has always been to build accounts out to the point where I'm setting spending caps to stay within client budgets. This allows for quick growth when the client is ready. If I'm capping spend at $500 a day and a client wants to increase their budget there's no mad dash to build out keyword lists and expand the account, I just up the budget and let the system do the rest.

The AdWords budget settings are important...don't let artificially low settings limit your accounts potential.

Here are a few other AdWords budget related posts & pages that are worth a read:

AdWords Monthly Budget Now in Expanded Beta, Pros and Cons

AdWords Daily Budget is Actually Monthly Budget: False Advertising Claim Proceeds

AdWords Help Center - Budget

How You Control Costs - AdWords Learning Center

11% of AdWords Clicks are Wasted on Dead Pages

2008-11-21T09:32:00.002-06:00

Over the past 60 days I have been keeping track of all of the AdWords ads I have clicked on. As of today I've reached 1,000 clicks. There's a ton of interesting data in my spreadsheet but one thing really jumped out at me - the amount of clicks that advertisers pay for that resulted in me seeing an error/dead page.

Out of my tracked 1,000 clicks 110 of them landed me on a dead page. A dead page could be a 404, site down, broken redirect, typo in the destination url, etc. Basically it means I (or anyone else) could load the page if they clicked on the advertisers ad. Of course this small sampling of clicks doesn't mean that 11% are wasted across the entire AdWords platform but to me it did validate something I've felt for quite some time...website/web page uptime is a pretty big deal for AdWords users.

If you're a paid search account manager who works with clients/departments and are not the one in control of the server that hosts the landing pages or sites you have likely dealt with this issue a number of times already. You notice that your campaign that's converted at 10% for 2 years converted at 0% yesterday. You do a quick check of the landing page and it's loading so slow unless you're willing to wait 10 minutes for a partially loaded page you're out of luck. You contact who ever is in charge of your server/site and sometime thereafter (shortly thereafter if you have a good team) things are back to normal. Great...but what about all the $$$ you essentially pitched into the trash yesterday sending people to a "dead" page? That one day could have a big impact on your overall campaign numbers for the month and no one wants to hear "the server was down" as an excuse....especially when you can't prove it.

What's even worse that having a server/site down for a period of time is having an intermittent problem that makes it hard to identify site performance as an issue. Spread a few dozen "dead" clicks across a few hundred total clicks and it impacts the numbers, and not in the way it should. I've seen problems like this continue for months and months. The impact on the paid search campaign(s) can be disastrous.

I would love to see AdWords jump in and help advertisers with this issue. They could do something as simple as creating a report that advertisers can run that would show clicks that resulted in "dead pages" and the costs associated with those clicks. This would help advertisers:

1) Make more informed decisions - they would not shut down keywords/ad groups that were producing a poor return on investment due to server issues.

2) Provide more accurate reports to clients. The paid search manager should not be penalized due to site performance issues. If the landing page won't load 11% of time that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at campaign performance.

3) Work with their host/IT group to identify and correct the issue. If your page or site isn't loading for 11% of AdWords clicks you're paying for odds are it's not loading for other traffic sources as well. This could be huge...imagine an 11% lift for your business without altering your advertising at all.

I'm not saying or implying that Google shouldn't charge for clicks that lead to dead pages...our server uptime is not their concern. What I am saying is that when Google can help advertisers be more effective (and this type of reporting would help) those advertisers can produce a higher ROI for clients which will likely result in increased spending with the AdWords platform.

Since Google AdWords doesn't offer this type of reporting at the present time my advice is to set up your own site monitoring if you think there may be availability issues with some sites you're working with. You won't get the same level of detail that an AdWords based service could provide but the right service will allow you to estimate downtime with a fairly significant degree of accuracy - not to mention the fact that if you knew a site was down you could pause a campaign until the issue was resolved and avoid paying to send people to an unresponsive page. I use http://www.dotcom-monitor.com/ and would estimate that over the years it's saved the businesses I've done paid search management work for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Anyone else using a site monitoring service or product in conjunction with paid search they would recommend?

My Best CTR = 92,233,720,368,547,776.00%

2008-11-18T15:05:00.002-06:00

From my AdWords MCC screen in the search ctr column...

Ad Position, CTR & Quality Score - We're Going to do What we Already Did

2008-10-31T07:47:00.006-05:00

New post at the AdWords blog this morning about our favorite topic, the quality score. Before I get to the meat of this post I wanted to highlight one line from that post:

"Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the most significant component of Quality Score"

(We already knew that...just added in case anyone is still unclear about how they can improve their quality score...)

Ok now on what this post is actually about. For years Google has said - in person and in writing that ad position is taken into consideration (normalized) in terms using CTR to determine the quality score. More precisely Google has said:

Misconception: Showing up in a higher position will benefit my Quality Score

Fact: Quality score is normalized to compensate for differences in performance for ads in different positions.

An ad in a higher position is predisposed to get a better CTR.
An ad above the search results is predisposed to get a better CTR.

I know I'm not the only one that's been given this information.

The post today on the AdWords blog says:

"As you probably have observed, ads in high positions typically earn better CTR than those in low positions, because ads in high positions are more visible to searchers. To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it's important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score.

In the coming days, we'll update the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position. This will result in more accurate Quality Scores, ensure that ads compete fairly for position based on their quality and bid, and enable Google to show the most relevant ads to searchers by rewarding high-quality advertisers with better ad positions."

Based on what Google has said in the past I think the majority of advertisers assume that what Google is saying they are now going to "update" has indeed already been in place for years. I mean can you make some thing more normalized?

A column I read at Search Engine Land this this morning further adds to the confusion. The article states:

"In the past, CTR was all equal. No matter how high or low your ad appeared, an impression on the ad was an impression and it counted towards your quality score equally. For example, if your ad was in the 8th position, on the first page of a search result, you were less likely to be clicked on than an ad in the first or second position. But since the CTR was calculated equally, Google did not take into account that the first or second ad would have a higher probability of being clicked on than an ad in the 8th position. This upgrade will change that and now will take into account the ad position while calculating the quality score. Google said this should make the quality score more accurate, allow ads to “compete fairly” and show searchers more relevant ads."

So after reading everything this morning I think we're left with 2 choices:

1) CTR already is and has been normalized by ad position in relation to calculating the quality score. Google's now somehow going to do this "better". If someone could explain to to a simpleton like myself how this may work I would appreciate it.

2) The SEL column is correct and up until this announcement there has been no normalization for CTR/quality score at all.

Personally, I lean towards #1 based on all the data I've seen over the past few years but given the fact that up until somewhat recently advertisers really couldn't even see their quality score with any level of granularity I won't say I could produce factual data to back up my assumption. I'm just curious how this could be done "better" as Google is now claiming they are going to do.

Any thoughts?

Understanding the AdWords Quality Score

2008-10-16T15:43:00.002-05:00

A new post on the Google Blog today talks about the quality score and ad auctions. If you use AdWords read it, it's worth the time. In my opinion the most important paragraph in the post is this one:

"What matters in this decision is not simply an advertiser's value for a single click -– the maximum CPC that the advertiser is willing to pay -- but rather the total estimated value of showing that ad: the value per click times the number of clicks that the ad is likely to receive."

Translation;

AdWords Quality Score = Google Revenue Potential
High AdWords Quality Score = High Google Revenue Potential
Low AdWords Quality Score = Low Google Revenue Potential

I spend a lot of time in forums and other areas where AdWords users congregate and without fail the most common question (and biggest source of frustration) is the AdWords quality score. Advertisers just can't understand why they are getting a poor quality score because in their eyes their campaign/ad group/keyword/landing page is "completely relevant" and should have a perfect 10/10 quality score.

Once you understand that in terms of it's ad network Google's yield management practices are what drives the quality score it becomes a little easier, at least from a conceptual level, to improve your quality score. Yield management, from an ad serving point of view, means extracting the maximum amount of revenue from a fixed quantity of perishable goods and/or services (ad impressions).

Simply stated that just means Google wants to make the maximum amount of ad revenue from every single ad impression generated within their ad network. If you want to improve your quality score demonstrate to the quality score (yield management) algorithm that your ad stands to make more money for Google than other ads in the same auction and you will receive a better quality score.

Typically when I reach this point in the conversation with people a common response to the above is something along the lines of I'll raise my bids so I'm in a higher position and that should improve my CTR. A higher bid + a better CTR should give Google what they want and should help me raise my quality score.

Unfortunately that approach doesn't work and often just ends up frustrating the advertiser when they see all the extra money they are spending but are not seeing an improvement to their quality score. In relation to determining your quality score, Google normalizes CTR by ad position. That just means that Google knows higher positions get higher click through rates and that's taken into account when determining your quality score. When an advertiser increases their bid to get a higher position and improve their CTR all they've really done is moved a poor performing ad into a higher position on the page. They won't see an improvement in their quality score and will likely just end up drastically increasing their actual CPC without any quality score related benefits.

The best way to improve your quality score, both short and long term, is to work on improving your CTR. CTR is huge part of the quality score and can be influenced by advertisers rapidly with great ads / ad groups. Check out the following for more info about CTR and improving CTR:

- AdWords Tips
- How to Improve Your AdWords Quality Score (nice section on improving CTR)
- Q&A - What is a goof Click Through Rate?
- 31 Killer AdWords Ads Tips

If you have tips or suggestions on how to improve AdWords CTR's comment away!

Tarnishing a Competitors Brand with Paid Search

2008-09-25T08:59:00.002-05:00

When most people think of paid search they think of ways paid search can benefit their business. Paid search is a great way to acquire customers or potential customers (leads) at an often lower cost than other advertising platforms. Paid search allows you to reach consumers at various points throughout the buying cycle and to present highly relevant ads in order to take consumers to the perfect page on your site.

There's a dark side to paid search though, one that's practiced far more than it's written or spoken about. All of the benefits of paid search can be flipped around and used against a business or individual if someone is willing to spend the money to make it happen. I was reminded of this while reading a Google Groups post, "I'll bet you have NEVER had this happen to you".

The author of the post, ttbcom, says:

"Someone ELSE is advertising our company through their own PPC
campaign. Yes, someone ELSE is paying money to Google to drive traffic
to our site. But Google won't tell me who they are.

You might argue that it drives free traffic to my site, so that's a
good thing. But this ad advertises for a sale that we are NOT having.
That might anger people who arrive at the site and see no sale."

AdWordsPro responded to the thread and says that he has seen similar reports in his 6 years with Google and the ads in question came from other departments within the same company that took it upon themselves to open AdWords accounts and start campaigns without informing anyone else. If that turns out to be the case for ttbcom I would imagine he (or she) could rectify the situation quickly...but what if that's not the case and the ads were not setup by someone ttbcom can ask to shut them off? I've never seen an official answer to that question.

The reality is AdWords (and every other paid search platform) is being utilized in today's competitive market not just to generate sales, build brands or minimize customer acquisition costs...it's being used to make all of that harder for your competition to do successfully, and, to tarnish competing brands at the same time. How is that possible you ask? Here are just few ways I have seen "in the live" over the past 6 months:

Wrong price information in ad copy.
Bad phone numbers in ad copy.
Typos and other grammatical errors intentionally inserted into ad copy.
Ads landing potential customers on pages that do include the product the ad said would be there.
Ads setup to point to "consumer review" sites that include negative information about the company.

Generally speaking, the people setting up the negative ad campaigns are jut trying to make the target company look bad by ruining the user experience in any way they can. While the first 4 points listed above are relatively "tame" in comparison to some of things that could be done they can still have a HUGE impact on the business you are able to generate from your paid search campaigns...especially if the people running the negative ad campaign are you using your url as the display url. Google only shows one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top level domain in the display url which means that if the company trying to tarnish your brand is actually sending people to a page on your site they can use your top level domain as their display url and if they are aggressive enough prevent your ad from showing for your target terms.

If you're a small business that relies on paid search for a large portion of your sales and revenue I don't have to tell you how damaging that could be.

Now point 5 from above is a different animal:

"Ads setup to point to "consumer review" sites that include negative information about the company."

Some people embrace negative press claiming that there are a number of reasons why you should play it for all it's worth while other companies go so far as to hire consultants or companies to help them keep their online reputation "clean". Most small business owners I know value their reputation above pretty much anything else. Their reputation wins them new clients and helps retain loyal customers. When they start seeing negative ads showing up in the search results it can make them sick, especially if the claims are false which is often the case on some review sites. If a competitor wants to make you look bad they can simply post a number of complaints on the review site(s) and then setup paid search campaigns pointing to those sites for your business name and it's variations. They may even own or control the review sites in which case the small business owner won't even be able to post a legitimate follow up or contest any of the claims made on the site.

At the present time there's not a whole lot you can do to combat this type of advertising. At minimum you should contact the paid search platform (AdWords, YSM, adCenter, etc) and file report. In some cases you may be able to get the ad(s) pulled, especially if they violate a current rule or regulation put in place by the search engines. For example, Google's editorial and format policies covers a lot of the issues touched on in the first 4 bullet points. The problem there though is the burden of finding and reporting the ads will rest with you, and, it will often take some time before Google takes any action in relation to the offending ads. And even after all that there's no guarantee the negative ads won't surface again through a different account or with slightly different wording.

If you have suggestions for combating negative ads or have been through this before please feel free to share what steps you took to resolve the issue. As professional paid search marketers each of us will likely deal with this issue at some point in our career.

My Personal AdWords Account Hacked

2008-09-20T08:32:00.006-05:00

I had an AdWords account of mine hacked on September 18th. I had not logged directly into this particular AdWords account in a long time, at least 6 months. I do access it occasionally but always via my MCC login. Whoever hacked the account accessed it using the primary login, not the MCC. I'm really at a loss as to how the account was compromised. I use strong passwords and take a lot of precautions like making sure I'm only logging in from secure environments.

I have to give credit to Google's systems for detecting the unusual activity and disabling the entire account before any charges were incurred. None of the campaigns created by the hacker every received a single impression - even though they had high daily budgets and CPC's associated with the keywords they had added to the account.

The purpose of this post is just to serve as a reminder to everyone with an AdWords account...how strong is your password and when is the last time you changed it? While I was very fortunate...that might not be the case for everyone. The person who hacked my AdWords account could have changed my password and locked me out...that didn't happen. I was also very fortunate that this was not a business or client account, it's really more of just a hobby account I use for testing and other non-critical AdWords related projects.

If you find that one or more of your AdWords accounts has been hacked here's what to do:

It's assumed the computer(s) you use to access your AdWords account(s) are free of viruses and spyware and that your connection to the Internet is secure. If that's not the case even after following the steps below there is a possibility your AdWords account will still not be secure.

1. If you can still access the hacked account change the password right away. Make sure to create a strong password.

2. Pause/delete the campaigns that were modified or added by the hacker.

3. Contact AdWords Support. If you discover your account has been hacked during Google's business hours call them immediately at 1 (866) 246-6453 and then follow up with an e-mail so there's a written record of your report (very important). If it's outside of business hours send a message to the AdWords team via the contact form. You can also try and make contact via the "chat with a specialist feature which is here.

4. Change all of your other important passwords. If your AdWords password has been compromised the possibility exists that other passwords you use have been compromised as well.

There are a lot of different ways an account could have been compromised. The following links provide additional information and advice for people who have had an AdWords account hacked:

- Google AdWords Account Hacks Via Computer Exploit

- Google AdWords Account Hacked: False Ads and False Charges

- Protecting Your Google AdWords Account From Fraud

- What to do if I Think Someone's Hacked my AdWords Account

- Your Gmail Account (Google Account) Can be Hacked: Here's How to Protect it

- A Kidnapped AdWords Account

- How to Avoid Getting Hooked

- AdWords Hackers - What a Nightmare

- Locked out of AdWords Account

How Google Suggest Changes Paid Search

2008-08-27T16:00:00.007-05:00

On August 25th 2008 Google announced the death of long tail in paid search. Of course they didn't come right out an say it but I doubt anyone reading here is surprised about that. Google called the post, "At a loss for words?"...which when I first the news was an accurate description of my state of mind. The death of the long tail in paid search was not something that happened overnight and the full launch of Google Suggest is not the sole reason, it's just the final nail in the coffin. Lots of little things have got us to where we are today but in my opinion two major events over the past 12 - 24 months are primarily responsible for killing of the tail in paid search.

Reason 1: Google cranked the dial on EBM (expanded broad match) to a whole new level in 2007.

As recently as 2005 - 2006 you could set up a new campaign with 10's of thousands of long tail exact matched keywords and reap the benefits of your precise targeting via an extremely low cost per click. Odds are most of your keywords would have little to no competition and as long as you could maintain a decent quality score your ad would stay live and your bids would stay low. Each term would not produce many clicks but cumulatively the clicks/traffic for your 100,000 keyword account would add up to numbers that most would consider "significant".

For example maybe one of your exact matched keywords was something like "1997 honda accord replacement left mirror". Odds are you wouldn't have much competition on that specific phrase so even though it may only be handful of queries a year you could still capture that traffic at a very low cost. All those big name advertisers bidding $20 a click on broad matched terms like "cars" and "auto parts" wouldn't be an issue, they were not chasing the tail. Google realized they were leaving a ton of $$ on the table and loosened up EBM. Once that happened all those advertisers spending big money on broad matched terms started showing up in the space and driving up costs for everyone else. Whereas before you may have been 1 of a few ads showing on the page, Google decided via EBM that people bidding on "cars, "auto parts", "mirrors", "autos", "honda", etc should start showing up for a wider variety of terms that they deemed relevant.

That was major event #1 that contributed to the death of the tail in paid search. The cost efficiencies gained from massive keyword lists and low bids were essentially wiped out over a few short months. Why try and manage hundreds of thousands of long tail keywords when you could just punch in your top 20 terms and let Google do the rest?

Don't get me wrong - there's still efficiencies to be realized by utilizing exact matched long tail keywords but those efficiencies have been greatly reduced.

Reason 2: Google Suggest "suggests" shorter queries which from what I've seen in most (all???) cases have sufficient ad inventory to fill the page.

Why search for "used red hybrid cars in illinois" when Google suggests "used cars" instead? Which query do you think stands to make them the most $$$?

Google acknowledges this feature will "help formulate queries"...I would say a better description would be to "help formulate the most valuable queries". While not everyone searching will use the suggested terms I'm sure a fairly high % of people will...enough so that it will make a difference in search volume for both long tail and shorter terms. While I think just about everyone would agree that Suggest will drive up keyword costs on certain terms I do think this opens some new opportunities and efficiencies within the paid search space.

At minimum, look at what Google Suggest is "suggesting" for your base terms and make sure you have visibility for those terms. If you have a very extensive campaign in place already you're likely covered already but I have seen some some interesting suggestions for keywords I watch. You can also use the suggest feature to further refine your negative keyword lists.

I also think this is a great opportunity to rethink the structure of your account(s). I've taken "long tail" accounts with thousands of keywords and consolidated them down to a few hundred keywords. This became more of a common practice for me in 2007 as expanded broad match kept expanding. Why try and manage 20,000 keywords when you can get the same (or better) with 200 keywords? The time savings alone is huge and almost without fail I've been able to maintain or improve ROI using a smaller set of keywords.

As paid search professionals we're use to big changes from Google with little or no advanced notice that can change the way we do business overnight. This is one of those changes and I'm sure we'll see even more changes in the coming months. I think with this particular change there's an opportunity for paid search pros to do more with less...I guess we'll see how it plays out over the coming weeks.

Others are commenting on this change as well, here are some links to other discussions that you may find useful:

How Google Suggest Suggest Will Affect Search ~ Bigmouthmedia

Google.com Finally Gets Google Suggest Feature ~ Search Engine Land

New "Google Suggest" Tells You Where to Go ~ PC World

Google Suggest(s) a New Reputation Management Nightmare ~ Martin Bowling.com

Google Suggest - Long Tail Killer or New Opportunity? ~ 5 Star Affiliate Programs

9 Ideas How Google Suggest Could Change Search Marketing ~ Scott Clark

Google Suggest to Change the Ways of Search Engine Optimization ~ SER

How do you think Google Suggest will impact paid search and paid search marketers?

Quality Score: Changes Coming

2008-08-22T07:56:00.006-05:00

Yesterday Trevor Claiborne posted an update to the Inside AdWords blog regarding upcoming changes to the AdWords quality score. The post, entitled Quality Score Improvements, outlines changes to the quality score that will be released in the coming weeks. I'll just post the summary here...read the full post on the AdWords blog for all the details.

The key upcoming changes to the quality score are:

- Quality Score will now be more accurate because it will be calculated at the time of each search query.

- Keywords will no longer be marked inactive for search.

- First page bid will replace minimum bid in your account.

Here's a link to the FAQ that covers these changes.

I'm excited to see these changes pushed live, especially the real time calculation of the quality score:

"Most importantly, we are replacing our static per-keyword Quality Scores with a system that will evaluate an ad's quality each time it matches a search query. This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed. Your ads will be more likely to show when they're relevant and less likely to show when they're not. This means that Google users are apt to see better ads while you, as an advertiser, should receive leads which are more highly qualified."

That's followed by an example that does a nice job of explaining how that would work:

"Nancy's Dairy advertises on the keyword 'milk.' Nancy's ads perform better on the keyword 'milk' in the U.S. than in Canada. Her ads also perform better on the query 'milk delivery' than on 'milk,' and better on certain search network sites than on others. Instead of one static Quality Score and minimum bid that determines whether the keyword 'milk' is eligible to trigger an ad for all search queries, we will now determine eligibility dynamically, based on factors such as location, the specific query, and other relevance factors. For that reason, Nancy's keyword 'milk' will be able to trigger an ad for search queries where it's likely to perform better, i.e., in the U.S., on 'milk delivery' and on certain search network sites."

In theory Nancy's account should be more efficient, even if she didn't change a thing after these quality score changes are rolled into her account. Assuming she's just broad match bidding on the term milk this change should essentially prevent her ad from showing for unrelated (low ctr) terms...unless there's an extremely shallow pool of advertisers and Google's stretching the expanded broad match envelope in order to keep some ads on the page.

It should also be interesting to see if these changes have any noticeable impact on the local space. I know a lot of local advertisers who are frustrated with vast escalation in average CPCs they have seen over the last two years. When Google "expanded" it's broad matching technology a lot of high bid deep pocket general keyword buying advertisers starting appearing in and dominating local results, relevant or not. The update indicates that factors such as "location" will be one elements used to determine ad eligibility. Maybe, just maybe, this will let the local advertisers reclaim some of the ground (positioning) they have lost over the past two years.

In any even it should be exciting to see these changes roll out in the coming weeks. Here are a few posts on this update from fellow bloggers:

Apogee ~ AdWords Quality Score Overhaul: First Page Bids
Merjis ~ Quality Score Changing
Click Equations ~ Quality Score Changes (Bid Taxes Going Up?)
Dave Martinez / PPC Fool ~ AdWords Quality Score Now in Real Time

Sometimes the easy answer is the right answer

2008-08-20T11:24:00.006-05:00

I was speaking with an associate a few weeks about a small AdWords campaign they had been running themselves for the past 2 years. When I say small I mean small - a dozen keywords with daily spends in the $2 - $4 dollar range. They primarily bid on their business name - it's a small local business and there' not much search volume associated with their name. The campaign has basically been on autopilot for 2 years. They added a handful of keywords but that's about it.

They called me when one day they noticed that they were not getting any impressions and all of their keywords were inactive for search. The AdWords interface indicated they needed to double their bids to reactivate their keywords even though the visible quality score showed "ok". They were pissed. I'm paraphrasing here but the basic feeling was how the hell can Google say they are "not relevant" or need to bid more when the name of their business is unique, no one else ever shows for it and their current bid had been fine for years. They were honestly ready to just shut off AdWords. It wasn't bringing them a ton of business (although it was bringing some and was showing a great ROI...just on a really small scale) and as a small business owner with 1,000 things going on at once he had neither the time or patience to fight with system that to him made no sense.

I took a quick look at his account and did a little research. It looked to me like his local listing was pulling the lions share of clicks for queries based on his company name. Nothing wrong with that...those clicks are free. The issue was, in my opinion, that since he set up his local account (about 2 months ago) the CTR of his AdWords ad tanked. Because of that AdWords reduced his quality score and deactivated his keywords/ads.

My solution...just create a new ad and add it to the rotation. Sometimes simply introducing a new ad can get your keywords activated again while your quality score is being reevaluated. Guess what...it worked like a charm. Hours after adding the new ad all of his keywords were activated again with the same minimum bid requirements he had enjoyed for years. It's been a few weeks and the campaign is still running...and in a lot of cases the quality score has improved from "ok" to "great". A few of the keywords actually have lower minimum bid requirements now than they ever have and account wide his average CTR is up 3% while his average CPC is down 16%.

AdWords, actually paid search in general, can be complicated. The take away from this experience was that even though paid search can be complicated, that's not always the case. Sometimes the easy answer is the right one.

New AdWords Content Network Features Announced

2008-08-07T09:21:00.005-05:00

A post over at the Google Blog today announced new features that are coming to the AdWords content network in the coming months. Click over to the post to read the full list...the one I'm most anxious to use is frequency capping.

For those unfamiliar with frequency capping it's a feature that will allow you to control how many times a user is shown your ad within a certain period of time. It's a great feature for a number of reasons. Within the content network I can this feature opening up impressions for a larger base of advertisers, improving CTR (which ties into an improved quality score) for savvy advertisers, and a better overall experience for both publishers and site visitors. A great feature that's long overdue in my opinion.

These improvements should help advertisers continue to build on the success they are seeing with current content campaigns and may encourage some others to jump back in the content network.

Update: here are some links to posts/articles about the new content network features:

- Awesome New AdWords Content Network Features ~ Clix Marketing
- Google is Adding New Features to Its Content Network Advertising Platform ~ PPC Journal
- Google to Update Content Network as Part of DoubleClick Integration ~ SEW
- Google to Add AdSense Features with DoubleClick Cookies Technology ~ SEL

AdWords Keyword Tool on Vacation?

2008-08-04T08:25:00.003-05:00

I just came home from a week long vacation (with no Internet access!) and was planning to do some light work on a personal AdWords account this morning. I hopped over to the AdWords keyword tool and started running a few queries to get some keyword ideas.

For this project all of my queries/keyword ideas were local so I was expecting some "insufficient data" listings in the keyword suggestions but not at the level I was seeing. I tried a few broad terms and am still getting the same thing - 100% "insufficient data".

Hopefully what I'm seeing (I pinged a few people on messenger and they are seeing the same) is just an anomaly and the tool will be back to normal in no time. People get vacations. Keyword tools do not:-)

How Accurate is the AdWords Keyword Tool?

2008-07-15T12:32:00.005-05:00

I'm sure by now that everyone who reads here knows the AdWords Keyword Tool is showing numbers instead of the graphs it would show just a few weeks back. I think one of the big questions on everyone's mind is just how accurate is the data being shown? I decided to take a look in a few accounts I have access to and found at least keyword that seems to meet all the criteria I would use for a test. I found one in particular that was live in June, and the AdWords Keyword Tool does reference June data.

Here are a few details:

- The keyword is exact match.
- 100% impression share for June.
- It's opted in Google + Search Network
- US targeting

When logged into the account the keyword tool indicates that the approximate June search volume was 34,830. That estimate is based on exact match and the correct location targeting. Here's what surprised me - the actual number of impressions that keyword received in June was 36,770. Do a little rounding and the estimate provided by the keyword tool comes out within 5% of the real number.

Now of course that's one keyword in one account and in no way am I trying to imply that the keyword tool will be that accurate in all cases. I'm honestly surprised though at just how accurate it is in this case.

Anyone else seeing similar numbers?

edit/add - the Wordtracker estimate of this same keyword is way, way, way off. It's estimate is under 200...

AdWords Keyword Tool - Now With "Real" Numbers

2008-07-07T16:17:00.005-05:00

Logging into my MCC this afternoon I was greeted with the following message:

"You can now see statistics on the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords. This data allows you to better plan your budget and pick keywords most likely to return quality leads, which in turn can help improve your ROI."

The link provided took me here.

After reading the help page I jumped over to the AdWords keyword tool and ran a sample query and sure enough, there are now actual numbers next to the graphs. Good stuff...should help, at least somewhat, in terms of forecasting and account structure.

Edit: others noticed this as well:

Google's Keyword Tool Now Showing Search Volume Numbers ~ SER
Google "Leaks" Search Volume ~ Tamar

AdWords Pay-per-action beta is ending

2008-06-30T19:42:00.004-05:00

Logged into an AdWords account tonight and noticed a message that says AdWords pay per action is ending;

"The pay-per-action beta will be discontinued the last week of August 2008. After this date, your pay-per-action campaigns and ads will no longer be active. If you wish to retain permanent records of your pay-per-action data, please export it from the Report Center before all pay-per-action campaign data is removed the last week of October."

A link was provided that includes more info: What's happening to the pay-per-action beta? The summary states;

"As part of Google's recent acquisition of DoubleClick, the Performics affiliate network is now a part of Google. To consolidate our offerings, we will be phasing out the AdWords pay-per-action beta, and the product will be retired on during the last week of August. Pay-per-action campaigns and all related data will be removed from all AdWords accounts the last week of October. More specifically, you can expect to see the following changes in your account and campaigns in the coming months:" Read the full announcement.

New AdWords Content Network Feature - Keywords + Placements

2008-06-25T13:44:00.006-05:00

I came across a new AdWords content network feature in an account today. I'm a fan of the content network and am always interested in testing new ways to target users with my ads.

Anyway, the message in the account said they are testing a new feature that allows advertisers to use keywords and placements in the same campaign. It's being called an "advanced content network option". Google's offering a simple explanation and example that explains what this option is and how it works.

According to Google;

"Instead of creating separate campaigns for keywords and placements, you can now include both in any campaign. All ad groups now have tabs for both keywords and placements, and the two can work together to target your ads on the content network.

Here's an example: You might target the keyword roses and the placement *www.example.com*. You can let the keyword roses display your ad across the content network, and use placements to raise your bid whenever roses triggers your ad on www.example.com. Or you can choose to have your ad appear only on www.example.com, and only when its content is a match for roses.

Placements are still entirely optional. They affect your ads on the content network only. You can do nothing and your existing campaigns will continue running just as they have. But these new options can give you better control of ad placement and pricing on the content network."

I'm a heavy user of the content network and placements...having them available in the same campaign will definitely, at least for me, bring some efficiency to the table. I'm looking forward to testing this feature out over the next few weeks.

Here's the page with all the information about this new feature.

The In-house vs. Outsourced SEM Debate

2008-06-23T13:22:00.004-05:00

"I’ve been doing SEM for more than 10 years, and I’ve never, not once, seen a search campaign created by an in-house team outperform one crafted by a competent SEM agency."

Yep, someone actually wrote that down. If you want to see who it was (I won't bother linking) copy the above sentence and Google it. It's nothing more than a fluffy link bait piece full of opinion presented as fact. Anyone who's been in the search game for any significant length of time knows that in-house vs outsourced has nothing to do with how successful a paid search campaign is.

Want to know what makes a search campaign successful? Here are a few hints. It's not bid management tools, keyword research, ad copy, landing pages, geo targeting, match types or search engines. Success also has nothing to do with whether your paid search is managed by a well known agency or by a team of internal folks. All of those elements, while important, can't make a campaign successful.

People are what makes a campaign successful. It doesn't matter if those people (or just one person) work at an agency, as part of an in house team, or out of their house in their pajamas - people are what make campaigns successful. Over the years I've seen one man shops absolutely obliterate paid search campaigns that were built by agencies...both large and small. I've seen it go the other way (agencies outperform internal teams) just as many times.

Apply that same logic to other areas in your life outside of search and you'll see just how ridiculous of a comparison it is. Are the "big shops" always the best? For years my auto mechanic basically worked out of his garage. Sure, he didn't have access to all the newest tools and didn't give me a fancy brochure and business card every time I came by. You know what he did do? He fixed my car every time I had a problem for less than the dealer quoted using the same quality parts as the dealer would. He did it for less $$$ too. The wrench didn't fix my car, my mechanic (a person) did.

I have two dogs. For years I had them groomed at one of the larger national pet store chains. They should be the best right? They have the newest equipment and a nice looking store in the best part of town. They charge a little more but it must be worth it, no one could as good of a job as they do. Last year a friend recommended a local place down the road from my house. I was in a pinch one day (lots of company coming in town) and the large national chain couldn't get my dogs in for two days. I went to the local place down the road and despite the fact they worked out of a tiny space only had two employees and charged less than the national chain guess what...they did the best job anyone had ever done on either of my dogs.

I could go on and on and I'm sure while you've read this you have likely thought of some time in where your life where the "big" service provider didn't do as well as the little guy and vice versa. In other words, you too realize that the size of the business is in no way an indicator of the level of service you will receive. The same applies to paid search - agency does not equal success any more than in-house does. People make paid search successful, and it doesn't matter where those people sit each day. A paid search pro is a paid search pro - in house, agency, independent or other.

In closing I would just say to the author of the original article...if you've truly never seen an in-house campaign outperform an agency campaign...get out a little more, you're missing a huge part of our industry.

AdWords Cross Channel Data will be Deleted

2008-06-18T16:14:00.004-05:00

A few months back I heard that cross channel conversion tracking in AdWords was not going to be made available to new advertisers. Google indicated the decision was made based on user feedback which I completely understand. Of the hundreds of advertisers I have interacted with over the years and the hundreds of accounts I have personally worked on I could count on one hand the number of people that were actively using cross-channel tracking in AdWords.

Last night I noticed a message in an account that has a slightly different message than the help/faq page I linked to above. The message read:

"As of August 25, 2008, the cross-channel conversion tracking feature and all related data will be removed from all accounts. If you'd like to keep a copy of your data, please make a record of it before its removal. AdWords conversion tracking will not be affected."

The key difference being the first message indicated it won't be available to new users and the most recent message states that all cross-channel related data will be removed from all accounts, old or new. If you're using or have used cross channel tracking in AdWords and want to keep your data make sure to log in and get everything downloaded prior to August 25, 2008.

New MCC Dashboard

2008-05-27T14:26:00.002-05:00

Noticed a message in one of my MCC accounts earlier today - "Try the New MCC Dashboard".

According to the message MCC users will be able to:

"Find performance and budget stats for managed accounts more easily with tabbed pages for accessing details at a higher level."

The tabs are on the right side of the screen and look like this:

Here's a link to the help/FAQ page that talks about the budget and tabs pages:
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=92577&hl=en_US

In my opinion a minor change that will make getting a quick feel of the status of the accounts in your MCC much easier.

AdWords Automatic Matching - Check Your Accounts

2008-05-23T13:29:00.003-05:00

Like many others in the US I'm putting the finishing touches on the week and getting ready for a 3 day weekend. It appears AdWords is getting ready for a 3 day weekend too...by opting some of my accounts in to the Automatic Matching beta today.

I have not worked with Automatic Matching so I'll hold off on debating it's pros and cons...but come on AdWords team, don't make major changes to accounts the right before holiday weekends. That's just aggravating.

Fellow advertisers, if you don't want any surprises on Tuesday I would suggest taking a quick look in your AdWords accounts for the Automatic Matching "you've been opted in" message.

Dear AdWords, Please Change These 2 Things

2008-04-02T13:18:00.006-05:00

In terms of paid search platforms AdWords is far and away the leader. Tools like the AdWords Editor and the incredible support section are just two of dozens of features and services that separate AdWords from the rest of the paid search crowd.

That said, there are two things about AdWords that really bug me and I think AdWords should change to benefit their advertisers - which in turn will benefit Google in the long run. I know Google cares about the long run as they have proven they are willing to make changes that may impact short term revenue but will likely pay off in the long run.

The two items that in my opinion need to change are:

Item # 1: The quality score column is disabled by default in AdWords accounts.

The AdWords has team has been pounding the importance of the quality score into advertisers heads ever since it was announced. It is an integral part of AdWords advertising and Google has made it nearly impossible for advertisers to ignore it and maintain successful AdWords accounts.

Google's own documentation sums up the importance of the quality score:

"Quality Score influences your ads' position on Google and the Google Network. It also partly determines your keywords' minimum bids. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the better your ad position and the lower your minimum bids.

Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody—advertisers, users, publishers, and Google too—when the ads we display match our users' needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success."

They have entire sections dedicated to improving quality scores, talk about it extensively on their blog and seeming go out of their way to reiterate it's importance again and again and again. Bloggers and AdWords users all over the world dedicate entire posts to discussing it. If you work in paid search for a living you probably hear the term "quality score" a dozen times a day. I think at this point in the life of AdWords, we the advertisers get it - the quality score is important.

So why on earth is the quality score column disabled by default in new accounts?

Like others, the first response that pops in my head is $$$. If people have low quality scores and don't realize it they may just pay more, at least for awhile. That of course, in the short term, benefits Google. But the reality is that as AdWords advertising costs for those advertisers continue to increase they become less and less profitable and may eventually will reduce their spend or shift to other providers. Long term, I don't see this as a good practice for Google to follow.

Google, put the same effort into making sure all of your advertisers see the quality score from day 1 as you do in preaching it's importance every step of the way and everyone will win. Advertisers will build better campaigns that will lead to increased conversions that will lead to increased spend. Don't be evil, show the quality score from day 1.

Item # 2: Don't enable the content network by default.

This has been a common complaint among advertisers for years. Sure, it takes 2 seconds to uncheck the content network when building a new campaign but that's 2 seconds more than advertisers should have to spend on it.

It's no secret that content advertising is completely different that search advertising. It's not even remotely close to the same thing. Everything from the tactics used to setup a content campaign through the analysis pf the results and campaign performance is different. This is not just an opinion of advertisers, it's Google's stance on the subject as well:

"On the search network, ads are shown to users who are specifically searching for results using one of your keywords. On the content network, ads are shown to users as they research interests and browse sites that are related to your keywords and ad text. Users on the content network are in a different mindset than users on search, so changes to your keywords, ad text and account structure may be necessary to make the most out of your content network advertising."

That's from a January 24, 2008 post on the AdWords blog entitled Google Content Network Tips: Optimizing for a Content Network Audience. You know what the first tip on that post is? How about:

"Create separate search and content campaigns."

Other posts from the AdWords blog that are about working with the content work include suggestions such as "use duplicate keywords for appropriate ad groups, use ad group level urls instead of keyword level urls and measure content performance at the ad group level." All of those are great suggestions for the content network but they are absolutely horrible suggestions for the search network.

Don't get me wrong, I think the content network is great and when used properly can produce phenomenal results but can't for the life of me come up with a reason why you would ever have the same campaign running in both search and content. I would go so far as to say that there is never a case in which that setup would make sense or produce better results than a separate content and search campaigns.

I know Google is making a big push this year to ramp up the content network - I think that's great. I think the practice of enabling the content network by default is working against that effort. From my point of view, here's what happens. New advertiser sets up a new campaign and unknowingly leaves the content network on. Almost without the fail the results will be horrible and when they see how the content network is performing they will shut it off. That experience leaves a bad taste in their mouth and they now consider the content network to not be a viable form of adverting for their business. They miss out, Google misses out and the publishers (AdSense) miss out. Everyone loses.

Google, bombard advertisers with account messages and e-mails asking them to opt in, call them...do whatever you feel you need to do to get people to opt in but make sure you set them up to succeed. If advertisers succeed you succeed. Opting advertisers into the content network by default is not the right way to make that happen.

I think AdWords is a great paid search platform - just hope we can see these two items addressed in 08'.

Oh the Irony - New Guidelines for Questionable Products

2008-03-26T11:11:00.006-05:00

Here's a screen shot of the cached text of YSM blog post entitled "New Guidelines for Questionable Products".

No idea how long that link has been there, I just noticed a few days ago. I notice YSM uses Wordpress - did that link make it in via a vulnerability of some kind?

If the YSM blog can't clean up there act I may have to pull them off my paid search resources list;-)