Tag: PPC

TrafficGuard Launches Free PPC Fraud Protection

Advertising fraud protection firm TrafficGuard has announced the launch of free PPC fraud protection, as well as a pay-as-you-go Pro option.

According to founder and COO Luke Taylor, the company sees “ad fraud draining almost 30% of every new clients’ advertising spend.” Unfortunately, in times past, advertising fraud protection was outside the means of many small startups. TrafficGuard is working to change that.

“Our mission is to drive trust and transparency in the digital advertising ecosystem,” continues Tayler. “A reflection of this mission is our effort to democratise transparency. With our free PPC protection, transparency isn’t just the purview of big brand advertisers and agencies – Businesses of all sizes can get the visibility they need to fight ad fraud.

“We believe that if every business takes steps to protect their own ad spend from fraud, the cumulative effect is a strengthened industry and less funds flowing through to the perpetrators of ad fraud. Most fraud prevention tools are aimed at the big advertisers. By offering a free version of TrafficGuard, small and medium businesses also have the tools they need to protect their own spend.”

TrafficGuard’s announcement is good news for companies looking to maximize their advertising budget.

April 21, 2020
The Challenges of Brand Search and PPC

Controlling the search position of your brand is very important to your business. However, this has become increasingly difficult due to changes in Google brand policies that have opened the door to competitors stealing (or buying) your brands traffic and business. Puneet Vaghela, Head of Paid Search at PHD UK, a global communications planning and media buying network recently spoke about these important challenges:

Why is brand search difficult to control in PPC?

With brand search, you are expected to get most of the traffic. However, what we are seeing increasingly is more and more competitors entering the market in our brand space. Back in the day, it was there but you could just get them kicked off by Google or Bing. Nowadays, it’s a lot more difficult with all of the policy changes. What this actually means is that they are not only cannibalizing our traffic but they’re also pushing up our CPCs and our CPAs.

As a brand, you are always looking for ways to get people to your website and get them to convert more. It used to be just interest-based keywords on generics related to your own brand. Now you can cannibalize other peoples brands and get those incremental gains. The problem then is competitors coming into our brand space and pushing our ads down or increasing the CPCs on our ads. It’s not just direct competitors either, you have resellers, aggregators, etc. In the automotive space you have dealers and many automotive brands are having issues with trying to control how their dealers are bidding because dealers don’t have as much experience.

What we are seeing now is traffic is being lost from our brands’ brand-related search terms onto our main website and it’s going away.

This is even more important on mobile

As you know with mobile there’s a lot less space on the SERP, and usually with the size of the ads above the fold takes up most of the space and not many people are going to scroll down all the way to the bottom. Also, with mobile, it’s when people are actually looking for stuff at the moment and they’ve got less attention span, so it’s even more important that we actually pick up this traffic. Chances are that whatever they click on they are going to then stick with that. This is especially the case for retailers and automotive businesses who have local offerings and people looking for local specific information.

On mobile, the lower your ad position is the higher (negative) impact it has on your clickthrough rate.

On tablet and on desktop the actual CTR decrease as your ad position goes down isn’t as significant as it is on mobile. This goes to show that on mobile we need to make sure that our ad positions are up there at the top.

How valuable is your brand space?

Once you have the data and you know about your brand space it’s about analyzing the data and finding out how valuable is your brand space to you? Years ago you could just log into Google Analytics and look at the value per click of your organic brand and the value per click of your paid search brand. As long as the value was more than your cost per click it made it viable to bid on your brand. It was a pretty simple analysis.

Then seven years ago Google took away the ability to see organic keyword data and analytics have become harder. What we are seeing now is that’s it’s a lot more difficult to access this data and so people are having to think of different tests that they can come up with.

I like to use standard deviation to get the validity of the data in the beginning in order to measure the success of the ad test. The reason for this is that gives a much better data set to work with so once you actually have the data in you can use a range to look at the changes we see if we then turn the brand off. If it fits within this range then fine, we don’t need to work on brand PPC. If it’s outside of the range then we know that PPC needs to be turned on because it’s having a significant impact on our business.

August 23, 2018
Google Adwords Upgrades Consumer Targeting Functionality With Phone Numbers and Addresses

Google’s AdWords platform has been tweaked recently to allow for the integration of a bundle of new features. The added features will permit marketers to utilize postal addresses and phone numbers to reach particular groups of consumers and for Customer Match retargeting.

The company launched Customer Match in 2015. The feature allowed marketers to upload their lists of customers and other proprietary lists (ex. newsletter subscribers) into the AdWords platform to target or exclude search and display advertisements to particular users. However, Customer Match only worked with uploaded email lists.

Allowing the use of phone numbers and postal addresses is a significant change from the company’s previous customer targeting model. Since the old system only allowed email data that had been rendered anonymous, marketers could only use blanket interests and demographics to target potential clients. This led to marketers who wanted a more targeted approach feeling dissatisfied.

AdWords’ new strategy will enable hashed contact numbers and email addresses to be matched with Google’s own hashed strings. This approach is predicted to be twice as efficient at reaching the target demographic. After all, postal addresses and phone numbers are usually more reliable and accurate than email addresses.

The illustration below breaks down how Customer Match works:

Graphic via Google

Marketers agree that Google’s new AdWords approach would boost Customer Match rate, especially for brands who either do not have all their customer’s email addresses, or the consumers’ addresses are different from what Google has. A postal address also does away with confusion and ambiguity and results in higher match rates, particularly when used in tandem with other data.

Kevin Lee, co-founder of digital agency Didit, believes that Google’s new targeting tools will result in higher match rates since adding these new data will also offer more flexibility in a business marketing campaign.

Augmenting the AdWords platform could also result in companies earmarking larger marketing budgets on Google since its believed the new tools will deliver positive results.

Making use of consumer addresses and phone numbers is already common in marketing, but Google was slow to incorporate it into its system. However, the delay is mostly due to the company being under the intense scrutiny of regulators.

Of course, this improvement to the AdWords system could potentially cause problems. Google’s previous terms and conditions allow marketers to only use their own data, and not utilize third-party data. But by permitting phone numbers and postal addresses to be used, there’s a danger that direct-response marketers might try to secure information through any means to stay ahead of the game.

[Featured Image via Google]

December 14, 2017
SEO Vs. PPC: How to Make the Right Choice
Most successful online businesses typically aim to make maximum profits. To reach this goal, these businesses greatly rely on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) to drive traffic. The more people that visit your site, the better your chances of making sales.

Both SEO and PPC advertising offer profitable result. However, there are many notable differences between the two, thus choosing the right one for your campaign is vital.

In order to choose, you need to first understand what they are and why they are different.

Why Choose SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and as its name suggests, it targets organic search engine results. Before choosing to market your business with SEO, here are a few things to factor into your decision:
- It’s free
- 80% of website traffic comes from search engines
- Getting to the first page of search engines mean sustained traffic.
Keep in mind that since SEO is a free strategy, the competition will be extremely fierce. You won’t be the only one utilizing SEO, so you’ll need to up your game. Improve your website’s functionality and aesthetics, as well as be consistent with your posts.

When to Choose SEO

The right marketing tool to use strongly depends on what kind of company you run and what goals you’ve set for the future. Below are more scenarios wherein SEO will be the better choice:
- You’d rather invest time and effort to get results in the long run, instead of paying money for quick results.
- When you want to increase your website’s value.
- Reaching the first page of a search engine means that you get sustained traffic.
Why Choose PPC

To use PPC, you’ll need to dish out some cash to get results.

Unlike SEO that depends on consistently posting new content, PPC is a method that will get your website on the first page of a search engine through bidding. Here are a few handy things to know about PPC.
- You need to bid a certain amount for your ads to appear in the “sponsored results” section of search engines.
- You pay for every person who clicks on your promoted campaign.
- Examples of PPC tools include Google AdWords, Yahoo Advertising, and Facebook Promotions.
When to Choose PPC

If you are willing to spend money to generate traffic to your website, PPC is the way to go. Here are more circumstances wherein PPC will be the better marketing tool.
- You want immediate results.
- You want to target a specific age group, income bracket, and other demographics.
- If you’re aiming for keyword domination since the top 3 sponsored links on a search engine results page receives 50% of the traffic.
- When you are promoting an event or limited-time offer.
Choosing the right marketing method for your company may seem like a big and heavy decision to make on your part. However, don’t think of PPC and SEO as competitors since they are actually complimentary. If you are able to do both, then you are certain to get way better results compared to what you will get by choosing only one.
July 13, 2017
Infographic Looks at ‘Man vs. Machine’ In PPC

Man vs Machine has always been a complicated argument. In every industry, machines have replaced jobs and turned them into automated functions, but there’s one thing technology will never replace: creativity. The one thing that can’t be programmed is intuitive creativity: the key piece to advertising.

In the enormous world of marketing, creativity is king. It takes a human to properly strategize, while it takes a machine to turn that strategy into something scalable. The two of these powerhouses working together doesn’t translate anywhere better than within PPC. Bid management, the foundation of PPC, works similar to the buy/sell model of the stock market, targeting the prospects in the “I want it now.” Machine helps to automate the lowering and rising bids across a large scale by taking past performance into account. Meanwhile, the creative types are taking this info into consideration and are molding the campaign to make it work at its highest capacity.

Fifty percent of PPC ads shown on Google in the US are managed by one of the top bid management platforms. How can you utilize machines in tandem with creativity to optimize your advertising? Check out this infographic on how you can combine machine and man for a killer PPC ad campaign.

April 6, 2016
Word Stream Discloses How to Get More Leads with PPC

Small business often goes through several changes while they trying to drum up new business. Marketing by bringing attention to their online offers with paid advertising is a popular method for immediate traffic. According to the WordStream Incorporated research department, small businesses waste about 25 % of money dedicated to pay per click marketing efforts. This money slips through the cracks due to easy to identify problems with management style and errors in strategy.

Adwords is a popular cost per click network that many small businesses rely heavily on for their advertising needs.

Adwords is a must if you want to get competitive! #Small Business Marketing #Small Business Branding http://t.co/I6jK0SEXon

— Small Business Angel (@PhxDigital) October 9, 2013

WordStream recently interviewed 500 businesses that were routinely losing part of their pay per click budget. Many small to medium sized business owners do not take the time to manage their Adwords account. This is essential if the ads are going to receive necessary improvement throughout the campaign.

The loss of business that occurs does have an impact on the number of leads that are gathered. The amount of qualified people who fall through the cracks during the marketing campaign is substantial. Most small business owners have purchased leads in the past. Purchased leads are not always qualified nor are they always easy to reach. When a customer is reaching out and finds an advertisement online they are valuable.

Many small business owners are ignoring the mobile markets when placing their ads. According to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s annual Internet Trends report the average American checks their personal phone 150 times daily. Consumers are going online for email, to check their social media pages, and to perform internet searches. Many of these activities show ads from the Adwords network.

About 250 of the 500 businesses in the Word Stream study have activated the tracking features within their Google Adwords account. They will have no way to now which ads within the campaign are bringing in leads that covert to sales, business sign ups, or newsletter subscribers.

Only 5 percent of small business operations are set up to send fresh leads to the correct phone number and extension. Giving a general contact telephone number is not enough in cost per click campaigns that are geared to a specific type of lead.

Word Stream has several resources to help small business owners see where they are in error. The tools are in place to help business owners of all sizes fully maximize their marketing budget when using cost per click.

Small business owners that do not go through the proper training and follow up with proper management techniques will continue to lose money. Logging in to the account during the campaign and going through the free resources offered by Word Stream will help to minimize loses. Word Stream has free webinars that claim 20 minutes is all the time needed to start seeing an improvement in ppc campaigns.

Image via Facebook

October 13, 2013
New Google Maps Ads Come With New Click Type

Google announced an updated ad experience for Google Maps on Android, iPhone and iPad today. Ads will now appear at the bottom of the screen when the user searches for something.

The ads include a title, ad text and a link to get directions, and users can swipe up to get more info. Google calls this new click type “Get location details”. The standard CPC charge applies.

“When users click on an ad to get location details, they’ll see additional information such as the business’s address, phone number, photos, reviews and more. From here, there are a number of paid and free click actions they can take,” says Google Maps product manager Salahuddin Choudhary. “Free actions include saving business information for later, sharing a business with a friend, or starting navigation. Aggregated reporting for these free clicks is available in your account.”

Here’s that it looks like before and after the ad is expanded:

“Paid clicks include the initial ‘get location details’ click, get directions, click-to-call and clicks on the ad headline,” says Choudhary. “AdWords will only charge for up to two paid clicks per ad impression. Reporting for these paid clicks can be found by segmenting reports in your account by ‘click type.’”

To take advantage of the new ad style, advertisers have to use location extensions or create ads with AdWords Express.

August 8, 2013
Google Changes AdWords Quality Score Reporting

Google announced a change on Friday to how Quality Score is reported in AdWords. The company says the change was made so that it more closely reflects factors that influence visibility and expected performance of ads.

“Under the hood, this reporting update will tie your 1-10 numeric Quality Score more closely to its three key sub factors — expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience,” explains AdWords product manager Jen Huang.

“Please note that this is only a change to how a keyword’s 1-10 Quality Score is reported,” Huang adds. “It does not change how Quality Score is calculated in real-time for each auction, and thus won’t have any direct effect on your ad performance. So unless you have automated rules tied directly to your reported 1-10 Quality Score, your ads should continue to behave as they did before.”

Google says the change will make it easier for advertisers to take specific actions to improve ads and recognize when changes they make are actually working.

The update will be rolling out to all advertisers over the next few days.

July 26, 2013
AdWords Now Lets You Do More With Auction Insights

Google has added some new functionality to the Auction insights report in AdWords. Now, in addition to running the report for a single keyword, you can run it for groups of keywords, individual or multiple ad groups or individual or multiple campaigns.

“The Auction insights report gives you valuable insight into how your ad performance compares with that of other advertisers,” says AdWords product manager Dan Friedman. “For example, based on the impressions you’re eligible for, you can see how often your competitors’ ads are appearing above yours or whether one of your competitors has a higher impression share than you on an important keyword. Before today, you could only get this data one keyword at a time – making it hard to see the bigger picture of where you stand relative to your top competitors.”

For groups of keywords, just filter your keyword list, select the ones you want to include, and run the report.

“You’ve probably already arranged your keywords into meaningful groupings within ad groups,” says Friedman. “For example, if you sell men’s wear, you may have an ad group for ‘Father’s Day gifts’ with keywords all about Father’s Day. Now, from the ad groups tab, you can select one or more ad groups to run an Auction insights report. This will show you how your performance on all eligible keywords within those ad groups compares to advertisers who most commonly compete with you on those terms.”

In scenarios where you want to run the report for individual or multiple campaigns, select the campaigns from the campaigns tab and so so.

June 11, 2013
Google Launches New Image Extensions For AdWords Ads

Google announced on Wednesday the addition of new image extensions for AdWords ads. These allow advertisers to make their ads more visual with pictures relevant to their offers, and potentially better attract the attention of customers.

The extensions are currently in beta, and join Google’s growing list of extension options.

“As the web evolves, Google users expect richer and more diverse content,” says Awaneesh Verma, Product Manager, Ad Formats. “More than one in six searches on Google today provide results with visual content. Image extensions will show in some cases when we determine that a search is likely for visual content. For example, it is more likely that your image extensions will show for a query like luxury car designs than locations of nearby car dealerships.”

“You can choose the images that you want displayed with your search ads and send them to us for review,” Verma says. “You must have the necessary rights to the the images you wish to display with your ads. We encourage you to submit your images as we continue to experiment with and improve our visual ad formats.”

For the time being, the new extensions are only available in English, but are available globally. You must fill out a form to apply to take part in the beta, however.

June 5, 2013
Google Adds Bulk Uploads For Ads, Ad Groups In AdWords

Google announced bulk uploads for ads and ad groups in AdWords today.

“Imagine you download a report from the Ads tab and want to test different creatives in ad groups that are underperforming,” writes AdWords Product Manager Prashant Baheti. “You might also want to turn off certain ad groups, or change the budget for others. Instead of toggling back and forth between AdWords and your spreadsheets, you can now download reports from the Ads and Ad Groups tabs, make changes directly in your spreadsheet, and upload them directly to your account.”

“Uploading changes to your ads and ad groups is simple,” adds Baheti. “Just like with keywords, when you download a report you will be prompted to make the report ‘editable.’”

After making changes, you can save in CSV, TSV and Excel formats. To upload ,click Reports and Uploads on the left side, and then select Uploads. From there, you will see the Upload Type column. You can only upload one report type at a time. If you want to make bulk changes to both keywords and ad creatives, this must be done separately.

Once you bulk upload, there’s no way to cancel the automatically reverse the changes. Something to keep in mind.

May 29, 2013
Yahoo Bing Network Continues Growth

The Yahoo Bing Network has been rolling out in seven new markets in Europe and six in Latin America, bringing the total to 22 countries.

“As we recently reported, search engine marketing continues to grow as a proportion of digital ad budgets, and the Yahoo! Bing Network is outpacing the competition on key metrics like click-through rate,” says the Yahoo advertising team in a blog post. “The most recent comScore numbers are also telling when looking at the Buying Power Index (BPI) — which is a measure of purchase behavior — for all searchers on Yahoo! and Bing.”

“According to comScore, searchers on the Yahoo! Bing Network are likely to spend 123% more than the average Internet searcher,” the team adds. “The worldwide BPI for Yahoo! and Bing searchers who don’t use Google (that’s 83 million, by the way!) is even more dramatic, with spending levels 317% more than the average Internet searcher. So with the Yahoo! Bing Network, you don’t have to search hard to find the highest quality audience in the world!”

A report from Kenshoo also showed that Yahoo Bing Networks CTRs and CPCs are consistently higher than Google’s.

Yahoo shares a map showing the status of Yahoo Bing Network implementation in various countries around the globe:

November 8, 2012
Yahoo And Microsoft Introduce The Yahoo Bing Network, adCenter Becomes Bing Ads

Microsoft and Yahoo have announced the Yahoo Bing Network as the official name for their combined search marketplace, which came about as the result of the companies’ “Search Alliance” partnership. Likewise, Microsoft adCenter has become simply Bing Ads.

“Bing Ads is not only a new name, but an improved experience with new features to help you better manage your campaigns and complete tasks faster,” says Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher. “Recent improvements include: a new web interface, improved ad rotation controls, and agency enablement tools that make it easier for agencies to manage multiple accounts.”

David Pann outlines the changes as:

Historic Quality Score helps advertisers closely monitor their campaign performance trend and proactively respond to the competition.

Negative Keywords Conflicts Report allows advertisers to identify negative keywords conflicts in scale with ease. As a result, advertisers will receive more targeted traffic and increase their ROI.

Share of Voice reporting quantifies missed impressions and classifies them in detailed buckets, allowing advertisers to take precise action to regain lost share.

Ad delivery status and ad preview tools enable advertisers to more quickly identify issues hindering ad serving at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.

With ongoing enhancements to the Bing Ads Desktop tool, advertisers have an additional resource for tracking performance and identifying growth opportunities.

The Bing Ads Intelligence tool provides access to customizable marketplace level information that allows advertisers to make proactive decisions regarding their campaign management.

Pann also notes that there is a new Import Campaign feature (for importing from AdWords), and a new Editorial Exceptions feature for resolving editorial disapprovals during and after the ad submission process.

Additional updates are on the way, Kelleher says.

Microsoft and Yahoo say that the network (in the U.S.), consisting of Yahoo and Microsoft’s core search sites, accounts for 30% of the search share, and reaches 151 million searchers who are likely to spend 124% more than the average searcher, and 5% more than Google searchers. The companies say advertisers can reach 46 million unique searchers in the U.S. who aren’t using Google.

“A similar result holds true worldwide, with 489 million unique searchers, 92 million of whom do not use Google; and worldwide the Yahoo! Bing Network represents an audience who is likely to spend 124% more than the average searcher and 78% more than Google searchers worldwide,” the companies say.

“In addition to Yahoo! and Microsoft Core Search sites, the Yahoo! Bing Network represents partner sites like Facebook, Amazon, Monster, WebMD, CNBC, and Viacom, plus networks like The Wall Street Journal Digital Network,” the companies add.

Advertisers would do well to note that Bing has been revealed as the default search on Amazon’s new line of Kindle Fire devices.

September 10, 2012
Google Changes How AdWords Rating Extensions Work

Google has made a change to how the rating extensions for AdWords ads work. Google says the change will keep them fresher and more relevant.

“Previously, we would show seller rating extensions only for advertisers that have at least 30 lifetime reviews and a 4-star average,” explains AdWords product manager Liza Ma. “Moving forward, we will only show seller rating extensions for advertisers that have at least 30 reviews over the last 12 months and a 4-star average.”

“Since customer opinions about a business can evolve over time, this change will help make seller rating extensions more useful and relevant for searchers,” adds Ma. “It should also benefit businesses that satisfy customers and garner positive reviews on an ongoing basis.”

According to Google, the extensions often lead to higher clickthrough rates.

Last week, Google announced some new local targeting options in 11 countries.

September 4, 2012
Here’s What’s Working For B2B Businesses In Search And Social

It’s an ongoing struggle for businesses to figure out how to get the most out of their marketing budgets. While email has proven time and time again to be an incredibly effective channel, there’s still a lot of question as to how to maximize ROI in channels like search and social. Here, you’ll find a look at what seems to be working for a great deal of B2B businesses.

Do you get a bigger bang from your buck from SEO, PPC or social media marketing? Let us know in the comments.

Webmarketing123 has put out some interesting survey results for its State of Digital Marketing 2012 report. It looks at B2B vs. B2C marketing efforts in terms of SEO, PPC and social media. We’ll focus on the B2B side of things here. Among other things, it looks specifically at the satisfaction levels of in-house/agency search marketing and social media efforts, as well as how much money businesses are putting into different social networks, and how much they’re getting back.

The survey included companies like Sony, Olympus, Phillips, IBM, Hitatchi, Cisco, Agilent, Microsoft, Citrix, Medtronic, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Blue Shield, ADP, Pitney Bowes, Monster.com, Angie’s List, GE, John Deere, Aramark, Thomson Reuters, Federal Express, Bose, and Nestlé. In all, over 500 marketing professionals from the U.S. responded to the survey.

The main B2B takeaways appear to be that lead generation is the top objective among brands, and SEO is found to be twice as effective as either PPC or social media marketing. This is quite interesting, considering that it is getting harder and harder to get on the first page of Google results. Of course, there are some major brands that took this survey, and they likely don’t struggle with rankings as much as some smaller businesses.

According to the survey, about 50% more B2Bs now consider social media as having the most impact on lead generation, compared to last year, though SEO is still significantly ahead.

Based on the surveys findings, most B2B businesses engage in SEO, and do so in-house, rather than hiring agencies. Almost all of them either intend to increase their SEO budgets in 2013 or at least maintain their current budgets.

According to the survey, the most common measures of SEO performance are the volume of traffic, organic traffic, and the number of keywords appearing on page 1, “which give no insight into financial impact.” Fewer marketers, Webmaketing123 says, are employing “more sophisticated measures,” like number of qualified leads or sales attributable to organic search.

Here’s a look at how businesses are doing their PPC, and what their budget plans look like:

Here’s a similar look at how businesses are doing social media, and what their budget plans look like:

Interestingly, while in-house dominates the efforts of businesses across SEO, PPC and social media, the satisfaction levels are significantly higher when outside agencies are hired, according to the survey:

According to the survey, B2C businesses are getting more engagement than B2B businesses from their social media efforts, but the gap is narrowing. B2B businesses are getting better at social media.

“B2C marketers are ahead with 70% moderately to highly engaged (40% highly engaged), but B2B is catching up, with 63% at those levels of engagement (27% highly engaged), overall, only 1 in 10 have no social media program,” the firm says.

It probably helps that the social networks are putting out more business-oriented products. Facebook, since the IPO, has certainly had businesses on the brain (even at the cost of user-friendliness, perhaps), launching more and more ad products and targeting capabilities for posts. Twitter, just this past week, announced new ad targeting options of its own, as well as the Certified Product Program for businesses. Google also announced some new business-specific features for Google+ this past week.

As these networks continue to cater more to businesses, businesses are likely to find them more valuable, and perhaps find more room in their budgets to take advantage. However, it is the social network that has always been business-oriented, that currently seems to be providing the biggest bang for B2B business’ bucks.

Last, but not least, Webmarketing123 provides a look at the break down of dollars spent among popular social networks, and money made from them. It looks like businesses are getting the most out of their dollars spent with LinkedIn, though for B2C, Facebook blows LinkedIn out of the water. This makes sense, however, if you consider the professional nature of LinkedIn.

Businesses may soon be able to get even more out of LinkedIn, as the company just expanded LinkedIn ads into 17 new languages. The company is also improving its developer platform, which could lead to some more business opportunities.

From which social networks are you getting the most ROI? Are you getting more from SEO or PPC? In-house or agency? Let us know what’s working for your business.

August 31, 2012
New “Simpler, More Beautiful” AdWords Rolls Out Globally

Google says it wants to deliver a “simpler, more beautiful” experience across Google products, and the new AdWords design is the latest installment of that strategy.

Google announced that the new AdWords look is now rolling out globally.

“The new look simplifies the interface with newly designed menus, tabs, navigation, and buttons so that the important things — such as your data — stand out,” explains Greg Rosenberg with Google’s AdWords User Experience Team. “The latest web technologies have been used to make the interface more visually appealing and zippy, while keeping the features where you are accustomed to finding them.”

Earlier this month, Google offered a preview of the new look. Below are some screen caps:

Homepage:

Keywords Tab:

New Campaign Page:

The new look will be rolling out over the next several days to all accounts.

June 20, 2012
SMX Advanced: The Mad Scientists Of Paid Search [Takeaways In Tweets]
Following the “Periodic Table of SEO” session at SMX Advanced today, was the Mad Scientists of Paid Search session.

SMX’s description of the session says, “Our mad scientists emerge from their PPC labs, where they’ve been assembling keywords words, bidding strategies and other assorted parts into monster PPC campaigns. Attend this session to see how they’ve successfully enhanced paid search performance with rigorous testing and trial and error. Their creations are abnormally effective!”

The speakers list was as follows:

Moderator: Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster (@mvanwagner)
Q&A Moderator: Joseph Kerschbaum, Vice President of Client Services, Clix Marketing (@joekerschbaum)
Speakers:
Michael Behrens, SVP eMarketing, WebMetro (@MichaelBehrens)
Benny Blum, Director, Strategy & Analytics, eSearchVision (@bennyblum)
Ryan Hutchings, Director, Online Marketing, VacationRoost
Matthew Mierzejewski, Vice President of PPC, RKG

As usual, attendees tweeted their own takeaways and highlights from the panel. Here’s the best of what was said:

Follow @iamjohn John McCarthy
@iamjohn @webmetro google has multiple options to map KWDS #sem #smx #11b
2 hours ago via Mobile Web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Tip: Use longer keyword (match length) ** Adgroup + Use keyword with highest ad-rank (Quality x Bid) #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @iamjohn John McCarthy
@iamjohn @webmetro is now showing multiple mappings how queries are being mapped to different keywords #11b
2 hours ago via Mobile Web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @blakedenman Blake Denman
@blakedenman Queries triggering more than one kw results in chaotic account behavior, data integrity, and accuracy of modeling & bidding #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @iamjohn John McCarthy
@iamjohn @webmeto mapping problems occur at both campaign and ad group levels #11b
2 hours ago via Mobile Web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @blakedenman Blake Denman
@blakedenman On average multi-mapping happens 10% across accounts #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @leuk Kim Engels
@leuk Match Type length Seems to be the Most over ridden rule #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Force matching through negative keywords & choose match types carefully #smx #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @EBurgau Ellie
@EBurgau 1 query can trigger multiple keywords across adgroups & campaigns, making account control difficult! #smx #11b
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @r_bruss Ryan Bruss
@r_bruss #smx #11b if you have multiple ads per ad group and rotate evenly, multiple matching keywords is expected behavior
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @blakedenman Blake Denman
@blakedenman Take back control by force matching through negative keywords #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @jordanlebaron Jordan LeBaron
@jordanlebaron @dan_patterson I’m digging the literal rubbing of shoulders of fellow search marketers #smx #11b
2 hours ago via HootSuite · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM You know your business better than Google does (enough said) 🙂 #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @blakedenman Blake Denman
@blakedenman Cross serving on a query is a frequent issue. #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Use the Google Ad Preview Tool to identify which adgroup/campaign your keywords are matched too. **it’s not always accurate though #SMX #11b
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Follow @leuk Kim Engels
@leuk Solution for wrong matching: insert thousands of negatives 🙁 #11B #smx
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @GaryLHenderson Gary Henderson
@GaryLHenderson Have a VERY large negative keyword list to force #Google to respect your ad groups and campaigns. #SMX #11B
2 hours ago via Tweetbot for iOS · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @blakedenman Blake Denman
@blakedenman #AdWords will “interpret on your behalf” to show what they believe the most relevant keyword regardless of your account structure #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @emilyevjohnson Emily E. Johnson
@emilyevjohnson I’m appreciating the sarcasm of speaker #2 #smx #11b
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM It’s not a bug, it’s a feature (said Google) 🙂 #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @EPowerMarketing E-Power Marketing
@EPowerMarketing Just because your ad is showing doesn’t mean it’s showing for what you want! -E #SMX #11B
2 hours ago via HootSuite · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM In most cases there is weak correlation between Quality Score and Conversion Rate #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @syantien Sho Shimoda
@syantien Matthew Mierzejewski from RKG. #SMX #11B bottom ads, bottom ads higher CRT, no difference in CVR. well, at least it brings more volume?
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Root of Google’s CPC decline (it’s not Mobile) it’s Brand Queries & PLA’s #SMX #11B
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @syantien Sho Shimoda
@syantien CPC 11% down, because mobile traffic has double (at lower CPC) on last qt. #SMX #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @jd711 Jon
@jd711 Avoid Adwords Adrank trumping your match types by granular structures with EXTENSIVE negatives #smx #11b
2 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @dbeltramini David Beltramini
@dbeltramini RKG’s says they have seen a 51% increae in Brand query clicks and an 85% decline in CPC #smx #11b
2 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Mobile: Lower engagement, less likely to convert #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Tablet: High PPV for impulse and DR / Ecom, High bounce rate for service / software #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @jd711 Jon
@jd711 Purchase intent and engagement varies across devices. @bennyblum #smx #11b Bid strategy should reflect this!
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Follow @rpboots Ryan Boots
@rpboots I’ll be interested to hear if any Google reps respond officially to some of what was said today #smx #11b
2 hours ago via Silver Bird · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @atalley Ashley Rhodes
@atalley Google rolled out new matching behavior because the system was already doing it..? Interesting thought from the scientists #smx #11B
2 hours ago via Twitter for Android · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM Question: Best practice. To group Broad Match keywords with Exact Match – or not? Should we isolate kw’s based on search demand? #smx #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @MartinSEM Martin SEM
@MartinSEM @rpboots I’m sure they will, but I wouldn’t expect “helpful” answers.They are all great politicians. #smx #11b
2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @ashleybarton3 Ashley Barton
@ashleybarton3 Google incorrectly matches 10% of your queries due to not following their own processes #SMX #11b
2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
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Microsoft wrote a blog post about the session on its adCenter blog, including a list of tips for “taking back control”:
- Use negative keywords
- Force matching through negatives
- Conducive account structure
- Tightly themed ad groups
- Maximize ad group match length rule
- Easier negative implementation
- Choose match types carefully
- Phrase OR Broad (almost duplicate) ?
- Broad OR Broad Match Modified ?
- Remove duplicates/ambiguous
- Maintain campaign budgets
These were from Michael Behrens’ presentation. Check out their post for a more complete recap.

Image: Aqua Teen Hunger Force (via YouTube)
June 5, 2012
AdWords Campaign Bid Simulator Launched

Google announced the launch of the campaign bid simulator in AdWords. This is something of an extension of the bid simulator launched a few years ago. Previously, the bid simulator worked at the keyword and ad group level, but with the new launch, you can access it at the campaign level.

It’s available in the Opportunities tab in AdWords, and lets you view bid changes (in aggregate) and model changes, “even when keywords or ad groups might not have enough data for this on their own,” according to AdWords Product manager Sheridan Kates.

“See what might happen if you increased or decreased all your bids by a specific percentage (10%, for example),” says Kates, listing the functions. “See whether you may need to increase your campaign budget to ensure it doesn’t become limited by budget at the new bid value.”

With the feature, you can also see what would happen if you changed all your bids to a single value.

From the campaign bid simulator, you can download bid simulation data (at the account or campaign level) and a file (compatible with AdWords Editor) with bid amounts at the simulated level, and the ad groups/keywords where they should be applied, according to Google.

May 11, 2012
New Google Near Match Types For AdWords To Be Available In May

Last week, following a report from GroupM Search CEO Chris Copeland, published by AdAge, we talked about some improvements in match types coming to Google: “near exact” and “near phrase”. The basic gist is that these new types will allow advertisers to take advantage of misspellings (on the searcher’s part) and plurals.

At the time, a Google spokesperson told WebProNews, “We actually haven’t announced anything on this and don’t have any more info to share at this time-we frequently beta test new features with agency partners.”

Now, the features have been officially announced. Google gives the following examples of how things will work:

1. waterproof sunblock buy bollard cover single serving coffee maker
2. waterpoof sunblock buy bollard covers single serve coffee maker

Right now, only the first row would be considered matches, which would trigger the appearance of an ad, but once the features launch, the second row would be included as well. This should open up the door for a lot more impressions.

“People aren’t perfect spellers or typists. At least 7% of search queries contain a misspelling, and the longer the query, the higher the rate,” says AdWords Product Manager Jen Huang. “Even with perfect spelling, two people searching for the same thing often use slightly different variations, such as ‘kid scooters’ and ‘kid’s scooter’ or ‘bamboo floor’ and ‘bamboo flooring.’”

Huang shares a quote from one of the testers on the Inside AdWords blog:

“Previously we spent a lot of time making sure to include hundreds of versions of brand misspellings and to include plural forms of all our keywords,” said Dana Freund, Senior SEM Manager at GameDuell. “With the improvements to exact and phrase match we don’t have to worry about these keywords anymore. We get more relevant impressions for a smaller number of keywords, and it’s been a significant time saver for us.”

Google says the changes will actually go live in mid-May, but for the time being (over the coming weeks), they’ll be rolling out controls for advertisers to get prepared. These, Google says, will allow advertisers to adjust keyword matching options, and will be found under “Advanced Settings in Campaign Settings. From that section, you’d go to Keyword Matching Options.

More on the features soon.

April 18, 2012
Microsoft /Yahoo Search Alliance Nearly Final In UK, Ireland, France

In February, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they were expanding their “search alliance” in the UK, France and Ireland. Today, they announced they’re about to enter the final stage of its implementation in these countries, and will start combining Bing and Yahoo search audiences on the Microsoft adCenter platform.

The ad transition officially begins on April 18.

“Next week, we begin to shift ad serving for Yahoo! Search over to Microsoft Advertising adCenter,” says Microsoft’s Cedric Chambraz. “This means that adCenter ads will gradually be displayed on Yahoo! Search result pages in the UK, France and Ireland. This process will begin as early as the 18th of April and is expected to conclude during the last week of the month when 100% of the Yahoo! traffic will be made available in adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts will go in read-only mode.”

“As Yahoo! ad serving moves to adCenter, and your clicks and impressions in that account begin to increase, you’ll see a corresponding decrease in clicks and impressions in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account,” he adds. “It is thus important to continue managing your campaigns across both platforms throughout this transition phase, in order to avoid missing out on any potential clicks. To help you prepare, I wanted to share the following guidance to assist you through this transition.”

There’s a “transition portal” in the adCenter tab when you sign into your Yahoo account, which you can use to complete the transition, which the companies are urging you to do sooner rather than later, if you’re in one of these countries.

The companies also suggest increasing your adCenter budget (go figure) to prepare for increased traffic, once Yahoo search traffic starts to flood adCenter.

According to Microsoft, Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be getting the search alliance treatment in the coming months.

April 13, 2012
Ad Targeting With Google About To Get Better With Near Match Types?

Update: Google finally returned our request for comment, only to say, “We actually haven’t announced anything on this and don’t have any more info to share at this time-we frequently beta test new features with agency partners.”

Chris Copeland, CEO of GroupM Search, wrote a piece for AdAge, saying that Google is about to push “near match” ad targeting from beta to mainstream. There is virtually no other discussion about this feature currently happening, as far as I can tell.

We reached out to Google, who readily responded to questions about the new Google+ redesign (though vague in their answers as usual), but they have so far been silent on questions related to Near Match.

“The beta, Near Match, is designed to ‘enable you to safely extend the reach of your Exact and Phrase Match keywords to cover plural, misspelling, close rewrite, abbreviation and acronym variants only,’” explains Copeland. “In previewing the beta for advertisers, Google has suggested a 6.5% increase in click volume and a 9.8% increase in impression volume. Appealing for marketers, but at what cost? We know that digital auctions and publisher revenue thrive, in part, due to a lack of data to inform smarter bidding.”

There was a bit of discussion about the “near exact” and “near phrase” match types back in November, which would reportedly be offered alongside of broad, broad match modified, phrase and exact. Agenda21’s head of PPC, Matt Holland, wrote at the time, “From the 14th November Google will be running this new beta test match types that will slightly broaden the reach of Exact and Phrase match keywords with syntactic variants including; plurals, misspells, acronyms and abbreviations but not synonyms. The idea being that this will be for advertisers who wish to increase their coverage and volume on Exact and Phrase match keywords and help them find incremental traffic with minimum effort.”

J. Prentice Parton spotted this several days ago:

Interesting. I wonder how this will pan out. #ppcchat twitter.com/JohnnyScoots/s…

— J. Prentice Parton (@JohnnyScoots) April 6, 2012

You can tell that advertisers are already getting excited about it:

@scottassoc
Joseph ScottWith #Google creating Near Match, could this be the end to Broad Match as we know it? #AdWords http://t.co/soE8xF8N 3 hours ago via LinkedIn · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto

According to Copeland, Google is “changing the game” as it prepares to reports its earnings on Thursday, following a report in January, which disappointed shareholders with an 8% decrease in CPCs. We talked about this earlier this week, as there seems to be concern about mobile becoming a revenue problem for Google, as the CPCs aren’t increasing enough to keep up with the mobile clicks.

Google will release its Q1 earnings report on Thursday. Between CPCs and the new Google+, there should be plenty to talk about. I’m hoping Project Glass is brought up at least once. Of course there’s plenty of ad revenue opportunities there:

April 11, 2012