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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Feb
22nd

Oneupweb : YaBing’s Future Effects On Paid Search Management

Posted by Adam on February 22, 2010 at 11:23 am

No matter which brand catchword you prefer, YaBing!, Microhoo!, BooHoo! or But It’s Not Google Yet (more catchword branding), the deal is done. It’s been approved and implementation has already begun. Microsoft and Yahoo! will team up at an attempt to produce a more profitable search business. Hopefully, this will also mean a better search experience for users.

This deal will affect search marketing on both sites for Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search. Here is some information on the specific changes effecting Paid Search advertisers’ campaign management, advertiser competition,and the implied customer service effects:

Account Management: Customer service greatly effects the ease of account management, but since that’s already been addressed I’ll focus more on the general effects that this merger will have on account management.

Overall, I suspect this partnership will be positive for advertisers, agencies and publishers. Microsoft adCenter’s platform has always been known for producing solid return on investment. The issue has been one of market/search share. Once the partnership implementation is complete, advertisers will need to manage one less account. Unfortunately, this will also increase bidding competition on both domains.

Platform Differences: By now most of the targeting is the same. Both providers have geo-targeting, demographic targeting, content network controls, etc. One of the few major changes will be keyword match types. Google has made the broad/phrase/exact/negative successful and easy to understand. Since Microsoft adCenter currently uses this style of match types, Yahoo! advertiser will soon as well. Good riddance to Yahoo!’s standard and advanced match.

The second positive change that will come of this transition is the death of the Yahoo! ‘bulksheet’. Yahoo! advertisers have craved an AdWords Editor-like application to replace the bulksheet for years. Microsoft has come to the rescue with it’s adCenter Desktop application. Although it’s still in beta and buggy at times, it’s miles ahead of the bulksheet in terms of usability.

One big downside regarding the switch from Yahoo!’s Panama management interface to Microsoft adCenter is that adCenter is buggy. From the management interface to the reports center, results have been known to report inconsistantly. Double and triple checks should become routine for Yahoo! advertisers who are new to Microsoft adCenter.

Customer Service: As a part of the arrangement, Microsoft will be keeping Yahoo!’s customer service staff. I see this as being one of the few great ideas that will come of the deal. I’ve worked with both of these companies managing PPC campaigns for several years now. Yahoo!’s customer service is far superior to Microsoft. To put it more clearly as to the magnitude of difference, I’ll rank the three leaders on a 1-10 scale:

Google – 8
Yahoo! – 9
Bing – 3

Though these opinions are solely my own, I suspect that they cannot be far from the popular opinion.

To be fair to those who work in an outsourced adCenter call center, Yahoo!’s customer service excellence is only partially due to its great people. Yahoo! also has a system in place that supports good service and allows their people to do a great job. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, Microsoft hasn’t provided a proper environment for their service staff in the past.

I can only hope that the environmental challenges Yahoo!’s service staff will encounter with Microsoft do not reduce the great service they’ve provided over the years.

Summary: In short, I’m excited about this deal, even though many of the details are still up in the air. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! still will not be able to truely challenge Google’s dominance in the Paid Search space, but nevertheless, this change should still produce a better sponsored search experience for users of all types.

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Dec
23rd

May The Best Page Win

Posted by Vern on December 23, 2009 at 10:02 am

As 2009 comes to an end, we’re helping clients plan their 2010 online marketing programs. Along with SEO expansions, Facebook and Twitter initiatives and blog optimization, we’re recommending a healthy budget allocation to A/B testing of landing pages in the PPC space.

PPC is a very flexible online marketing channel. Messaging on the SERP can be tailored to react to the competition, feature special offers, promotions and, in Google, integrate additional links to different landing pages. With this flexibility comes the potential for wasted click spend if you’re relying on existing pages from your website to capture leads.

It seems I address this topic at least once a year, but the advice bears repeating—custom landing pages, with content specific to the keywords driving traffic to them, deliver high conversion rates and more qualified leads. Add a robust landing page A/B testing protocol and you’ll be sure to be even more successful.

A/B testing involves creating two nearly identical landing pages and changing a photo or better yet, the headline. Next, rotate traffic equally between the two and look at the results from each. You’ll want to compare conversion rates, but don’t stop there. If you can, track the leads from each page to determine lead quality, close ratio and size of the contract/service sold. This requires integration with your sales lead management system, but the payoff can be huge in cost savings and added revenue. Once you’ve seen a large enough sample size, declare a winning page and create another to test against it.

By running ongoing landing page A/B tests, you’ll ensure that you’re constantly striving to be more efficient while also capturing great leads. Be Relentless in your pursuit of excellence through intelligent keyword selection, ad copy creation and landing page testing. Your bottom line will thank you. And as always, consult a digital marketing agency like Oneupweb if you need help.

Happy Holidays From The Oneupweb Team!

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Dec
21st

Paid Advertising in Social Media: YouTube Promoted Videos

Posted by Steven on December 21, 2009 at 3:55 pm

A while back, I wrote about a new PPC (pay-per-click) model that was starting to appear in social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Because of the positive response, I thought I would continue that theme with a look at YouTube Promoted Videos.

You may have noticed that the once advertising-free YouTube is now flushed with ads. Google continues to monetize the site and since visits reached over 85 million last month, don’t expect these ads to go away. There are many ways to start advertising on YouTube, but let’s focus on Promoted Videos.

What are they?

YouTube Promoted Videos are pay-per-click ads that are displayed after a search is performed. These ads look similar to the typical results you would see, except they are displayed on the right-hand side of the page under “Promoted Videos”, or at the top of the page, depending on the keyword bid.

How do I get started?

To get started advertising with YouTube Promoted Videos, you will first need a video to promote. You also need an AdWords account since Promoted Videos uses the Google AdWords platform. The next step is to choose the keywords that will trigger your ad to display and how much you are willing to pay for each click. For more information, visit the YouTube Promoted Videos page.

Why YouTube, why now?

Video advertising provides the ability to highly engage your audience, and with YouTube Insight, you can gather statistics to get a better understanding of how your campaign is performing. But mostly, YouTube is one of the biggest and fastest growing sites on the internet, so chances are good that your target audience is there—and the video format allows you to engage your target audience like never before.

The Big Picture

When examining various advertising options available across the web, it is important to have a well planned campaign structure with all components tightly integrated. It might not make sense to run a display campaign without a paid search campaign, for instance. By having advertising diversity across the web you will not only be able to reach new audiences, but also improve the results of your core online marketing channels. This is because running a display campaign will increase your brand awareness and recognition, which in turn increases searches on your brand name and keywords surrounding the ad’s message—which can then be capitalized on through a paid search campaign.

As internet marketing options continue to grow, it is important that your marketing campaign includes a diverse array of marketing channels and the campaign is crafted with a specific objective in mind. So start with your goal and then work your way back to determine where you’ll need to be to achieve success.

If you are ready to get serious about achieving your online marketing objectives in 2010, YouTube Promoted Videos could just be a piece in the greater marketing puzzle. Ready to take your brand to the next level? We can help.

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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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