Mar
1st

Oneupweb : PPC Expansion & Exploration

Posted by Bob on March 1, 2010 at 10:27 am

Google AdWords is a huge piece of your Paid Search (PPC) campaign, eh? I suppose that Yahoo! and Bing also contribute to your efforts, or you plan to include them at some point on the horizon. But is that the end of the road? Are you exhausting all of your PPC resources?

If you haven’t already, it’s time to branch out and explore some new PPC marketing opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, Google is still the king when it comes to getting your company in front of a large and qualified audience. But there are other opportunities that allow you to get your message in front of other large audiences.

With social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, you can target very specific demographics, while comparison shopping engines like Google Product Search and PriceGrabber allow you to place your product in front of interested consumers.

Both Facebook and Linked in allow you to create specifically targeted PPC ads that you can display to the demographic of your choosing. The targeted demographic can be as large or as small as you want it to be. Though these are placement ads, and the person seeing the ad is not actively searching for your product or service, the granular control over demographics helps to ensure that your message is reaching qualified prospective customers.

Expanding into shopping engines like Google Product Search allows you to highlight your product in a shopping environment. People conducting searches in shopping engines are usually deeper into the conversion funnel, meaning that it’s likely they have already done their research and are ready to purchase. This places your product in front of motivated buyers. If you’re a price leader, or offer good purchasing incentives, then shopping engines are a great place for expansion! Best of all, Google Product Search is free and can be integrated into your existing AdWords campaign.

It’s really an exciting time to be involved in PPC. There are so many opportunities, outlets and channels to leverage and explore. Expanding your campaigns outside of traditional search engine platforms and into other areas could supply the boost you’re looking for, and take your campaign to the next level!

Is your company ready to break through the boundaries of its current PPC efforts? Or are you ready to take your performance to the next level? Contact an expert like Oneupweb. Growing businesses is what we do, and we would love to help you reach your goals.

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Jan
5th

Google Raises The Certification Bar

Posted by Bob on January 5, 2010 at 3:55 pm

What impact will we see in the world of paid search now that Google has launched their new Advertising Fundamentals exam? The new Google exam was designed to be more rigorous, have a stronger focus on strategy and be more relevant towards actually managing AdWords campaigns.

So what does this mean for online advertisers? The creation of a more relevant and thorough exam process should create a more qualified and knowledgeable certificate holder—which should build greater interest and emphasis around AdWords certification from potential clients. A win for both advertising agencies and clients.

Because Google is testing on a wider range of knowledge and increasing the passing score from 75% to 85%, quality agencies like Oneupweb, who take a Relentless approach to PPC, will benefit. And I predict that agencies that don’t actively manage and engage with client campaigns, or take the time to study strategy on a daily basis, will eventually find it difficult to maintain certification.

On the other hand, clients should also benefit, as they are provided with yet another tool to measure and compare agencies, helping them to find the agency that best suits their needs. However, the AdWords Certification shouldn’t be the only determining factor in this critical process.

When choosing a digital marketing agency, it’s important to pick the best fit for your business’s needs—to find a partner that’s willing to help grow your business (something Oneupweb has tons of experience with). It’s imperative to choose an agency that’s willing to color outside the lines and offer your business the best product mix in order to achieve your maximum growth potential. And ultimately, it’s important that prospective agencies truly understand your goals and are willing to help make them happen.

Is your company ready to jump into the exciting world of PPC? Or are you thinking about expanding your online presence? Maybe you’re seeking some fresh ideas to rejuvenate your online branding efforts? Whatever it is, be sure that you do your research before choosing an online marketing agency. Contacting an expert like Oneupweb is a great place to start. After all, growing businesses is what we do.

And kudos to Google for raising the certification bar. A more relevant and thorough exam process will translate into a more qualified and knowledgable certifcate holder. And that equals a win for everyone involved!

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Nov
27th

AdWords Site Links Testing: Words of Encouragement & Caution

Posted by Adam on November 27, 2009 at 3:48 pm

Google is now testing site links for AdWords ads. This feature is now offered to select advertisers and being served on ads meeting high quality standards. Site links in the organic results have been around for years and are a staple of setting dominant listings above all the rest. Is your site is in the position to be dominant in the PPC space by using site links?

Requirements:

Google requires ads to meet various requirements before they’ll serve your ad with the site links. First, Google only provides this option to advertisers whose accounts meet a ‘high’ quality standard. Google doesn’t provide anyway to quantify that quality level. Either you’re in or not. Second, Google requires the ad to be in position #1. The ad doesn’t have to average position #1, but when the ad serves in positions below #1 the site links will not be included. Lastly since this feature is in beta status, Google isn’t obligated to serve site links with your ads even if you meet the quality, position and editorial requirements.

Words of Encouragement:

Benefits For The Advertiser: There are several reasons why testing this new ad format may benefit you the advertiser. The most obvious is that your ad will be the only one of its kind on the page, effectively making it stick out. If competition is high for a particular keyword and increasing CTR is a challenge, site links may be the one way to do so. Site links should be used to highlight a particular competitive advantage. This could be a free shipping promotion or a brand new line of products. Either way, make sure the link text is compelling and unique to the SERP. This will give you the best chance to be rewarded with extra visitors and sales.

Benefits For Google: There has got to be something in it for Google to test this new ad format. Their goal always will be providing the searcher with the best experience possible. Equal to the experience is Google’s ability to earn revenue from advertising. The site links ad format is designed to do both. If more searchers click on the #1 PPC listing than before, then Google earns more revenue per click and most likely provided the searcher with a good experience. It makes sense that Google would prefer the user to click on the ad in positions #1 over the ad in position #2, and it also makes sense that Google would want a searcher to click on a PPC ad rather than an organic listing. Giving PPC ads top page position while making them as attractive as the organic listings is likely to divert more clicks away from top ranking organic results. Increasing CTR on PPC ads compared to organic listings is definitely in Google best interest. If you do not rank well organically but your competition does, this may be your opportunity to take some of their business away.

Competition for the top position is bound to increase CPC due to the exclusivity of the site link ad format. Because the #1 spot is required, bidding competition is also likely to become much fiercer for advertisers who desire this type of serving.

Words of Caution:

If you decide to start testing site link ads make sure you pay close attention to trending on your average cost per click. Also, measure your results objectively. Set benchmarks before the site link testing begins. By doing so you’ll have a way to compare before and after performance and be confident that the new initiative is worth the effort. There is rarely a good reason to bid to position #1 if the return on investment doesn’t directly support that bidding strategy.

If your website already ranks well organically and displays site links make sure you do not overlap. Think about your overall search strategy. Take advantage of the unique opportunity that PPC ads offer and promote a part of your business that you couldn’t as a part of your organic site links.

I’m interested to see how strategies evolve and whether Google sticks with this format in the long term. To all who are able to use the new site link ads, I wish you the best of luck.

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Sep
28th

AdWords Offers “Opportunities”

Posted by Bob on September 28, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Laptop Keyboard by DeclanTM

A couple of weeks ago, Google released the Opportunities tab in AdWords. Located inside the Opportunities tab is a cool feature called Ideas. The purpose of Ideas is to provide keyword suggestions for ad groups within your campaign. It also offers suggestions about what AdWords deems as missed opportunities, like a campaign being limited by budget. Much like the Bid Simulator, Ideas offers historical data to help guide you when making keyword decisions.

For the most part, I find Ideas to be quite useful. I’ve used it for many of my clients, found many new keyword opportunities, and applied several of the suggestions to my campaigns. I also appreciate that keywords are presented logically, by ad group. You can easily add or remove new keywords with a simple click, and you can rate the keywords relevancy, which will help Ideas determine the types of keywords to show in the future. You also have the option to add the new keywords to a “pending changes” area, which I use often to manually ensure that any new keywords are applied to the ad groups correctly.

As with many of the AdWords tools, it’s important to be careful when using Ideas suggestions to expand your account. Many of the keywords suggested might fit better in other ad groups not suggested by the tool. I’ve also found several instances where keywords suggested by Ideas already exist in other active ad groups, which could lead to duplicate keywords. Duplicated keywords may not always be apparent when expanding larger accounts with numerous ad groups and keywords. As I said above, sending the keywords to the “pending changes” option is a good mechanism for double checking any new additions.

So far, I’m quite happy that Google released this tool and I believe that it can be used to make an immediate impact on the management of many campaigns. Overall, I like Ideas and recommend taking it for a test drive.

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May
15th

Google Updates Trademark Policy: Open Season for Paid Search Advertisers

Posted by Steven on May 15, 2009 at 2:55 pm

In an announcement made yesterday on Google’s paid search advertising blog “Inside AdWords”, the search monolith declared “we are adjusting our trademark policy in the U.S.” This change of policy comes on the heels of the Texas based software company, Firepond, recent filing of a class-action lawsuit against Google for alleged federal trademark violations.

Google explains that the change is “an effort to improve ad quality and user experience”. Hint: this is code for “an effort to increase ad revenue from AdWords advertisers”. The policy change will allow some ads to use trademarked terms in the ad text, regardless of the trademark owner’s approval. This may result in paid search ads being less generic and more effective (more clicks) — which would improve Google’s bottom line.

The issue of trademark bidding and registered trademarks in ad copy is not new. In fact, Google has been very successful at fighting similar lawsuits filed against them in the United States; but does allowing free use of trademark bidding and registered trademarks in ad copy improve or hurt Google’s “user experience”? Is there rampant confusion about brand identity on Google search result pages?

For marketers, the larger issue may be, is bidding on competitor trademarks bad business? How will this policy update effect paid search strategy in the future? Will we see a change in the way paid search marketers bid on keywords and write ad copy?

The controversy over this topic does not appear to be going away any time soon. What do you think? If this is legal, is it ethical? Will this ultimately hurt Google’s “user experience” or help it?

I personally feel that the biggest winner with this policy change will be the consumer. This change will create more competition and less “ownership” of search result space. Simply put, competition is a good thing. Competition is essential because it leads to one very important thing — innovation.

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