FroggBlog - Search Marketing Blog

The Froggblog has moved

2009-03-04T16:10:00.003Z

In line with the launch of our lovely new website, the Froggblog has moved.

If you are not redirected automatically, please pay us a visit at www.leapfrogg.co.uk/froggblog/

Leapfrogg has evolved almost beyond recognition in recent times changing from a pure SEO company into a digital marketing agency offering a much wider remit of services. These include consulting on social media, web copywriting and customer retention consultancy. However, we continue to cling on to the same values that saw the company start out over five years ago.

The new website is a reflection of this shift. So after photo shoots, a mass of copywriting and a freshening up of the brand, we have arrived at the finished article. Check out some of the rather lovely new features, including:

New monthly newsletter to include the best bits from the Froggblog and latest Leapfrogg news.
Meet the Froggers – an introduction to, and some rather lovely pictures, of the team
Lots of information about our history and philosophy
Enhanced resources section with glossary, information on partners and new downloadable content due to be added
Integrated blog offering enhanced functionality and a whole load of personality

We look forward to your visit.

The 'Froggers'

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The Wired Sussex Digital Media Jobs and Skills Fair.. see you there!

2009-02-19T11:19:00.003Z

Leapfrogg are proud to announce that we will be exhibiting at the Wired Sussex Digital Media Jobs and Skills Fair. Members of the Leapfrogg team will be on hand from midday to 8pm to talk to you about up and coming job vacancies at Leapfrogg in 2009, what it’s like to work at Leapfrogg and offering their insight of working within the magical world that is digital marketing.

Our Managing Director Rosie will also be speaking on the day about getting your first job in Digital Marketing and our Sales Director Ben will be giving a presentation on Leapfrogg at 5.30pm in the Skills Hall.

The fair takes place on Thursday 26th February at the Corn Exchange in Brighton and anyone is welcome to attend, so we hope to see you all there!

For more information on upcoming vacancies at Leapfrogg OR to if you wish to be added to our Recruitment Database to be considered for future vacancies at Leapfrogg please send a cover letter/email and updated CV to me at recruitment@leapfrogg.co.uk, and we will be more than happy to contact you as soon as a vacancy arises that suits your skills and aspirations.

Brighton Twestival raises £2435 for charity 12th Febuary 2009

2009-02-13T15:47:00.020Z

Brighton tweeple 'Twit the night away' for charity:
Brightwest, part of the international event Twestival kicked off in spectacular style on the 12th of February, raising £2435 for charity:water. Brighton has been dubbed as the 'Silicone beach' of the UK with a huge number of digital agencies, start ups and movers and shakers in the industry who descended on the Black Lion in Brighton to move, shake and donate. Over 140 tickets were sold with many more on the door, the atmosphere was fantastic. The main man of the night Andy Keetch, or @special_noodles as he is known on Twitter worked the room, with the help of Dan Richardson (@shortlisted) and Catherine Pryce (@prycie) all of Leapfrogg Digital Marketing, so a big thank you to Leapfrogg too for not only sponsorship, but support and enthusiasm for the night itself. With little over three weeks to drum up all the sponsorship the response from local businesses was fantastic, with special shout outs please to:Beachdown, Content & Motion, Daharmafly, iCrossing, NixonMcinnes and the Press Dispensary. Dragged from the slumbers of his hangover, Andy managed to say this :

“I'm really chuffed we managed to organise such a successful event at such short notice, not only was it a great party and chance to meet new tweple, but we also raised a load for money for a great cause”.

Twestival has gained a lot of press recently, having featured online in the broad range of news sites from the Sun to the Guardian running up to the night itself with many a celebrity joining the early adopters in the online digital world, however, last night was the opportunity for cities all across the world to get the twits together to 'meet, tweet and donate'. Twitter is a 140 character micro blogging social media tool that has taken off in a massive way, and lends itself for sharing ideas, information, links, business, as well as the drab to the bizarre elements of peoples lives including preference for lunch and hangover cures (of which much was needed this morning I am sure). Twestival connected the mass of followers we have all gained 'in real life' and was the perfect stage to put a face to a name, network and ultimately have a great deal of fun!

A game of 'Twingo' had been conceived well in advance by local whiz kid @akacarlos (it’s bingo with Twitter avatars) and with a prize of tickets to Beachdown Festival, £600 was raised for that alone with @prycie and @Laurenfisher on a hard sales whirlwind around the room. Compered by local charmer @willmcinnes, he had some moving words to address the room before the games began, and this the morning after the night before:

"Judging by the hangover, Brightwest rocked. It was friendly, lively and silly, and all for charrideee. Best of all, it brought together some of the wonderful people that make up Brighton's creative DNA that otherwise wouldn't have met."

Peppered with a bit of ‘Twit it on’, £1 for a track and a raffle with an abundance of prizes including a bamboo keyboard from Minkbaby (very Brighton, very ethical!) the evening wound up with some serious shape throwing on the dance floor so thanks to @rah_rah for starting off the dancing and all the DJ’s that helped out including @oswald808, @beansbeansbeans and @Benap for the vinyl! Overall the evening was a resounding success, some fantastic feedback of the night, generosity from all that attended and is testament to the close knit community of digital people of Brighton.

Thanks for photographers www.flickr.com/lukielou of yougotpapped.com and www.flickr.com/photos/tristanbailey/
Props for fatsand.com for filming and @rosiefresh for the vox pops!

Here are some tweets of feedback:

I have a twangover @huddlesuz :)

CliveAndrews: Just remembered the multiple occasions last night when #Brightwest strangers asked me if I was @stevepurkiss! I think it's a hairstyle thing

rogerwarner: big up to the #brightwest crew - esp @special_noodles & @rosiefresh & team - top night. take home: must type better. twitter not twatter.

JimCallender: Loving the energy from tonights #brightwest #twestival Wow, who knows where
this will go. Great to meet new people and friends. Shanti!

Greevsie @Prycie Had lots of fun last night - thanks to you all for organising!
miss_scribbler @Prycie yes i had a brilliant time despite only knowing a few folks from previous lives. a bus & friend chicken saved me, as did escaping !

robshepherd @Prycie didn't get anywhere near winning Twingo (3 off) even tho I knew all but 1 name on my sheet. But brilliant #twestival night. Thankyou

Social Media For Business

2009-02-11T17:34:00.003Z

We are pleased to announce the launch of the first in a series of workshops which aim to demystify the world of digital marketing.

The first workshop will take place on Thursday 5th March at The Lighthouse in Brighton.

Social Media for Business has been designed to educate and inspire SMEs to harness the power of social media for their businesses.

You will learn how social media tools can drive to new sales, increase the reach of your brand and foster positive customer relations.

Come along and find out the answers to all of your questions from our social media experts.

Find more information on the Social Media for Business Workshop here.

New Google AdWords Interface

2009-02-10T13:31:00.011Z

Ok, I am officially the most excited person on the planet right now! Today is the first day that I have had access to the new beta Interface for Google AdWords. My first impressions are that it is a hybrid between Google Analytics and Google AdWords Editor (Google's free offline tool to Create/Edit/Delete campaigns).

As it is still in beta there are a few things that need to be ironed out, such as speed, and our MCC drop down menu having clients in alphabetical order! But, I thought I would put a post together commenting on the massive time saving changes/tweaks that will enable Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms Joe Public gain much better performance from their AdWords campaigns with immediate effect!

1. There is a great Help Section which by default appears on each area of AdWords. Not only that, the help centre is specific to each area you are in. The example below shows the "Help" options you will receive in the Ads section.

Those that are slightly more PPC-savvy - DO NOT FEAR, there is a minimise option if you do not want the interface cluttered with help.

2. Graphical data immediately at your figertips. Those at all familar to Analytics will notice the immediate similarities.

These graphs are available at the Campaign, Ad Group, Keyword and Ad levels.

The beauty of these graphs is that you can far more easily look at trends and potentially find problems that you would not have found without deep analysis of the keyword data.

3. AdWords Editor Style Expandable Navigation of Campaigns and Ad Groups.

This means that navigating between campaigns and ad groups will be significantly quicker and you shouldn't have issues with page load times. I find this a massively useful tool in AdWords Editor when I am making bulk changes to campaigns.

4. Editing Keywords/Ads within the page you are in.

Eligible status simply means that the keywords are "eligible to show". I.e that they have a sufficient first place bid, and the search volume is not too low.

YES...THAT'S RIGHT...you will no longer have to be taken to a new page to change bids, keyword match types or ad copy!!! This should be one of the things that saves you the most time on a day to day basis. Simply click into the chosen area that you wish to change, and make the change...that's it! The first time you make a change in this way, you will see a little yellow box come up. This is just informing you of the consequences or results of your change. This is just Google covering their backs!

5. It is now so much easier to add negative keywords into an account, with the search query report built into each ad group. The search query report which is currently found under Reports, shows the search queries that your ads have actually appeared against. This is great for finding negative seach terms. For example suppose you have the term "fountain pen" on phrase match in your campaign. From running a search query report you see that your ad appeared for "parker fountain pen". If you do not offer parker fountain pens, then this can be a really quick way of finding that "parker" needs to be added as a negative search term.

From the example above, you can now highlight the terms in the search query report that you wish to add as a negative and click "Add as a negative keyword". Yes, it is as easy as that! This will ensure that only the highest quality traffic is directed to your site, by not showing your ads against irrelevant searches.

Please note that placement reports (know as URL reports in the new interface) are now available in the Networks tab of all Content Network enabled campaigns. This will allow you to easily see which sites on the content network your ads are appearing on, and like the report above, easily exclude poor performing sites from your campaign. While content targeted campaigns can work very well for some campaigns, If you are at all new to PPC, I would immediately switch them off and concentrate your budget solely on the Search Network. You can then come back to the Content Network when you are better equipped to accurately optimise it. To switch the Content Network off in the new interface please go to the Settings tab and then Edit the Networks and Devices. You will simply need to uncheck the Content Network option and press Save!

Basically there is tonnes of great stuff in the new interface and I have by no means gone through it all. I would be really interested to find out how other people trialling the new interface are finding it.

If anyone has any questions or comments on the new interface, please leave a comment.

Thanks.

Leapfrogg Sponsor The Brighton Twestival

2009-01-30T10:51:00.006Z

We are delighted to announce that Leapfrogg is sponsoring the Brighton Twestival on the 12th February.

Twestival is a social event for users of the micro-blogging service Twitter (Twitter + Festival = Twestival).

The original Twestival, which took place in London last year, was organised by a small group of Twitterers who decided to organise an event where the local Twitter community could meet offline, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

This year Twestival has gone global.

Brighton is one of over 125 cities around the world holding a Twestival event on the 12th February.

Each and every city is raising money for charity:water, a non-profit organisation dedicated to bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

The Brighton Twestival will be taking place at the Black Lion on Black Lion Street in Brighton. Check out the Brighton website for further details and to book tickets.

It promises to be a great evening and a chance, not only to raise money for a wonderful cause, but to meet the faces behind the avatars.

See you there!

Leapfrogg's homage to Barack Obama's Social Media prowess

2009-01-23T14:54:00.009Z

Loads has been written of late, about how impressive the social media and online presence was in Barack Obama's presidential election campaign. Akamai Technologies, which delivers Internet video for a range of different websites, said that the inauguration was a record for them. 7.7m people watched video streams at the same time, according to The Associated Press. Apparently the Internet's top 40 sites have slowed down by up to 60% when the event started!

Obama himself was a Social Media dream - maintaining an inauguration blog at http://www.pic2009.org/content/home/ which was up kept by the good people at at Tumblr who updated it throughout the day. "Barack Obama Inauguration" had a Facebook, so one could join the event while people could submit photos, videos, quotes, links and blogs for the site and even upload photographs to be considered for the official inauguration book. Twitter, of course, had an official presidential Twitter stream (@barackobama) as well as one exclusively for the inauguration (@obamainaugural). Flickr (the Yahoo!-owned photo sharing site) hosted an Inauguration 2009 group for people to add their photos to throughout the day.

So as a homage to Barak himself and his clear adoration of all things Social Media, here is the inauguration speech one more time – but this time it’s Leapfrogg style!

(Image rights reserved to image copyright: Mikie Bones 2009)

“My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank Google for its service to our internet, as well as the innovation and versatility it has shown throughout this transitional period.

These words have been spoken during rising tides of websites and the still waters of commerce. Yet, every so often an oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, Leapfrogg has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because the staff and clients have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Internet users.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our World Wide Web is at war, against a far-reaching network of black hatters and unsecure badly optimised websites. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make the changes needed and prepare our websites for a new age. Sites have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Competitors’ optimisation is too costly; their training fails too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use the Internet strengthen our search and could bring us an increased ROI.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our Web - a nagging fear that marketing is needed is inevitable, and that the next generation must push harder.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, web users search needs- they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen expertise over armature, a high level of friendly service over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our industry.

We remain a young industry, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our passion; to choose integrity; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from web developer to content creator: the God-given promise that all websites could be equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of profit.

In reaffirming the greatness of Leapfrogg, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer no text over engaging, optimized copy, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the PPC team, the SEO team, the content creators and Social Media Strategists- some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards high-ranking positions and exceptional conversion rates.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across Brighton in search of a new way ensure that the web is a better place to do business.

For us, they toiled in the old smelly office and settled the nicer big office; endured the lash of Rosie’s whip and ploughed through search terms, link work, and content and ad copy.

For us, they searched and optimised places like Babyoka and Aurora; Mayo Wynne Baxter and Wow estores.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were hurting so that we might find it easier to find what we want. They saw the Internet as bigger than the sum of our individual ambition; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most innovative, ambitious, exciting industry on earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of black hat techniques, of phishing and spaming - that time has surely passed. Starting today, Leapfrogg must pick itself up, dust itself off, and begin again the work of making the Internet a better place to do business.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the Kidstuff calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create better search, but to lay a new foundation for Social Media growth. We will build the sites and meta tags, the copy and ad campaigns that feed our ecommerce and bind us together. We will restore the Internet to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders and lower your cost. We will harness the power of the Web and the traffic and fuel our sites and run our businesses. And we will transform our tools and copy and search to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this company has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether Digital Marketing is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps users find sites of a decent quality, products and services they can afford, a brand that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, our work will continue. And those of us who manage the bids and ecommerce will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad search terms and landing pages, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their Internet.

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that Leapfrogg, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

Online business users and Internet users. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With expertise, Passion and integrity, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and Google’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great need for acquisition and conversion and delivered it safely to future online SMEs.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the Internet.”

Recession - it might just be what the search industry needs to separate the wheat from the chaff!

2009-01-09T10:10:00.003Z

So here we are, 2009, and as tends to the be the case at the turn of a new year, search marketers everywhere are making their predictions for search, social media, mobile and so on.

Amongst the articles that have caught my eye are those concerned with 2009 being the ‘year of ROI’. They all follow a similar theme; that due to the dire economic situation, now more than ever we need to be focusing our search marketing efforts on delivering, and being able to accurately measure, ROI, whilst at the same time moving away from measuring meaningless metrics, such as rankings. But should it really take an economic downturn for everyone to do what they should have been doing in the first place and measure the impact of search against real goals, not rankings? Perhaps not, but it has got me thinking. Will we see a whole host of ‘consultants’ and agencies, who sell their services purely on the basis of improved rank, fall by the wayside (and in many cases crawl back into the hole from whence they came!)?

We have already seen a whole host of companies in the UK go out of business in the last few months including major high street brands such as Woolworths and MFI. I hope not to see too many more fail in such dramatic fashion but turning back to the search industry I am rather hoping (with a somewhat evil glint in my eye!) that we do see some casualties; namely the sharks, the opportunists and the charlatans who knowingly cheat those looking to improve their search engine visibility with classic gems, such as;

- We guarantee top search engine rankings!
- Want Top Website Rank? Call the experts
- Top 10 search engine results or we refund you!
- Top 3 on Yahoo and 13 engines or first Page on G!
- If we can't get your site there you don’t pay a penny
- We submit your site to 1000’s of engines for guaranteed listings

Sometimes I just want to find these people and ring their necks. They prey on the naivety of what remains a relatively uninformed audience in an immature market. They rarely deliver, don’t even pay up on their ‘guarantees’ when they don’t deliver (due to their cleverly written contracts), devalue the better agencies and ultimately inflict great damage on the reputation of the search industry.

Arrghhhhh!!!! OK….calm down Ben…..breathe….because there may be hope. This economic downturn could just be what the industry needs. Coupled with the continued changes to the way in which search engine results are displayed, the downturn in the economy will, in my view, separate the wheat from some of the chaff.

So let’s take a look at each of these points in turn. Firstly, rankings (as a metric) are just about dead. Personalised search, blended search and Google’s ‘SearchWiki’ mean that the variation in search engine results is increasing by the day and will continue to do so; in other words no two searchers are seeing the same set of results when using the same search query. This makes measurement by rankings obsolete. Of course, rankings should never have been a measure of success in the first place; as we have always professed to our clients ‘rankings are a means to end’. A number one ranking on Google means absolutely nothing if your site fails to convert the traffic that you receive as a result! So what does this mean for the so called ‘marketers’ above? Well, it makes their offering more meaningless than ever before because search results differ significantly between searchers; one person’s number one ranking could be another’s number 20.

Secondly, due to the downturn in the market budgets have been tightened and businesses need to know exactly what they are getting in return for their investment in search. Again, rankings offer nothing of value in attempting to measure ROI. Even a decent stats package such as Google Analytics does not provide the full picture. Agencies need to press for, and clients need to be open in providing data including offline conversion rates, value of sale, margins and revenue. Armed with this information agencies can demonstrate the true value of their search marketing campaigns. If you want to retain clients in 2009, this is absolutely essential. Again, agencies focusing only on rankings as a reporting metric will be unable to prove the true value of their work to demanding clients. Will clients keep spending money on something where the return cannot be accurately measured?

So if you are a so-called ‘search marketer’ selling yourself on the basis of ‘guarantees’, ‘top website ranks’ and ‘first page G’s’, step up or get out. It is as simple as that. Clients need to see, now more than ever, that their search marketing campaigns are delivering. Rankings do not equal success in a buoyant market, let alone one dying on its arse. Therefore, 2009 could well be the year that we see both ROI come to the forefront of clients minds and many of the search marketing charlatans get their coats and head for the exit door.

We can only hope.

P.S. Of course, I am not so naive to realise that this time next year many of charlatans will still be around; whilst there are people selling crap there will be people suckered into buying it! But my one hope for 2009 is that the combination of major changes to search engine results, along with the downturn in the economy will at least see some of them either significantly improve or get out of town.

The Security of Start Ups and Believing the News

2009-01-08T10:28:00.012Z

The recent bout of fake Twitter updates is interesting from at least two points; the potential security flaws of start ups and the unquestioning nature of many people in regards to news story’s sources (this will be part deux).

It was reported that 33 high profile people’s accounts were hacked with Biz Stone disclosing to Wired.com that a dictionary attack had been used to break a support team employee’s password and that was how the fake tweets were posted.

Having a password that occurs in the dictionary is fine and doesn’t offer up a particularly serious security issue but it does highlight another issue more fundamental to the creation of social networks and other places where people openly share personal information; that they are frequently built and maintained by a very small group of people. Most start ups these days are literally a couple of people with a great idea and some venture capital, sure most of them are pretty smart but this is necessarily David and Goliath.

Twitter is a good example of a company moving from nothing to exploding across the globe in a matter of months. They initially had issues with the scalability of the site however as the site now settles it is still a system built and tested by a very small group of people. This could be the reason why they were able to be exploited when their systems didn’t limit the number of login attempts, allowing someone to run a script and likely crack a password.

A primary defence is to run your social network closed source however this is what creates the problem as there is not a significant enough amount of user testing. Saying that the famous DNS security flaw from last year was found in software which had been used since the 1980s and was thought to be thoroughly tried and tested.

Compared to other social networks, Facebook presents very strong security. Bar information on a sample of your friends and network there is little coming out of your profile however even Facebook, which crossed 150 million registered users, has had breaches. There was the Canadian hacker who discovered you could view other people’s pictures, the homepage code getting leaked and also a small number of users who could access other’s inboxes and details and this is from one of the largest and most thoroughly developed social networks.

This shows just how weak a lot of the newer social networks really could be and when people will quite willingly signup to a number of services before settling on one they could easily leave details on a less secure, less funded network. Additionally with the growth and integration of mobile platforms the amount of sensitive information increases as transfer methods weaken.

With this in mind I think it is worth considering what information you release onto the Internet and to what location. In honesty with Facebook and other giants there is little significant risk, however the thing to consider is that you are ‘releasing’ information and you will likely never be able to collect it up again. It is fun to share information online however there can be a few more safety issues than you might initially consider and they aren’t being looked at in the detail your might want them to be.

In terms of digital marketing and companies over individuals it is a balance between sharing your information and making it safe. For companies it is about remembering that just because it is not your personal information and instead a company credit card or internal information it can still be exposed by not considering exactly what you are doing.

In the second part of this post I’ll cover phishing emails and how fake news stories can often be taken a little too far.

Image sourced from http://www.flickr.com/photos/honan/3170575329/

Yahoo's change to Terms and Conditions - OPT OUT!

2009-01-07T09:23:00.003Z

A couple of weeks before Christmas, we noticed a new alert in each of our Yahoo accounts. The alert notified us of an update to Yahoo's Terms and Conditions. No specifics or details were given, and it was only at the beginning of this week that I learnt more about the "slight" changes.

I won't go into detail about the minor changes such as the dissolution of Overture services etc, but will instead concentrate on optimisation changes.

In the US, the new terms and conditions regarding optimisation is as follows:

Sponsored Search 3. OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request.

There are many good commentaries and summaries on this from blogs such as Search Engine Land and Marketing Pilgrim so instead of discussing Yahoo's business objectives of this change, I will discuss the effects this is likely to have on client accounts.

Firstly, it is widely acknowledged that the best performing campaigns are managed/run by professionals who are experts in Paid Search, and have a solid knowledge of both the particular industry and the business' goals and objectives. Without knowledge of the objectives of a campaign (i.e brand awareness vs. ROI) it is absolutely impossible to make a sensible optimisation.

Secondly, the "two many cooks spoil the broth" idea. Here at Leapfrogg, all optimisations that are made to campaigns are recorded, tracked and then analysed. All optimisations are a test, and there are very few instances where you can guarantee a result. For this reason, we give each optimisation or change to an account, time to settle down, so that we can fully track and analyse the effect on performance. If Yahoo were to make changes at the same time as us, this could potentially cloud all other optimisations that were being carried out on the campaign, and decrease performance.

Thirdly, who would be making these "optimisations"? Would it be automated systems? Would it be Yahoo staff? What performance indicators would they be using as a "flag" to carry out these changes? If they were using CTR, for example, some of our campaigns would be changed unnecessarily. In order to drive quality traffic from our paid search efforts, we use the "don't click here" approach in some clients' ad copy. For example, if a client offers B2B services, we would make this very clear in the title, description and if possible the display URL. This may mean that for more generic terms, the CTR would be very low, however, a far better quality of traffic was directed to the site. A change by Yahoo, could again massively decrease the performance of the campaign.

Whilst I didn't know the specifics of the changes to terms and conditions, I had heard lots of whispers about Yahoo making their own changes to campaigns earlier in 2008. After reading many speculatory blogs about this I heard that you can send an email to your Account Manager opting out of this. Leapfrogg duly did this, and only time will tell whether this will safeguard us against any of Yahoo's "help".

If you are at all worried about this, I would definately pop Yahoo an email asking to "opt out of the automatic optimisation programme".

I will be interested to hear if this truly is enough to prevent Yahoo changing things without approval.

And, we’re Back

2009-01-06T08:41:00.003Z

Happy New Year from everybody at Leapfrogg!

And hello from me. I’m Dan, the newest member of the team and the latest to be handed the baton (well, actually it’s a frog!) to write not only my first post, but also the first FroggBlog post of 2009. It’s traditional here, a bit like the First-Foot.

I joined Leapfrogg as business development manager just before Christmas, and bring with me over 10 years of business development and marketing experience. I had heard a lot of good things about Leapfrogg and I’m not just talking about the two awards picked up last year! And since joining I have certainly been struck by the passion, energy, creativity and enthusiasm for all things digital marketing.

In the fine tradition of posts at this time of year I’m going to share a couple of “tops”.

My top 3 online tools/resources:

1. Remember The Milk – about so much more than just milk – of course! A very useful tool for managing your to do list!

2. Guardian Tech Weekly an obvious one perhaps but great nonetheless. The podcasts cover the latest news from the digital worlds of technology, gaming and the web.

3. Netvibes – a free web service that brings together all your favourite media sources and online services into one webpage.

And at the tail end of the festive season...

My top 3 dancers from the Leapfrogg Christmas party

1. Libby

2. Claire M

3. Sacha

If you ask nicely – there might be a photo or three!

I look forward to meeting you all in 2009.

Image by Michael Mistretta

Merry Christmas from the Froggers!

2008-12-24T08:59:00.008Z

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Leapfrogg team!

This is us looking rather silly at our Christmas Party! A present, Christmas tree, Reindeer, a Robin, an advent calendar, a pig in blanket and Jesus himself were among the contenders for best dressed. But there could be only one winner and that went to Amelia for her angel!

To all of our readers, have a great break! We'll be back in January raring to go in 2009 and with a new look website!

Leapfrogg's Christmas Cheer

2008-12-19T09:23:00.007Z

So the festive season is upon us and Christmas celebrations for the Froggers will be taking place later today. Libby has been up to her elbows in arranging a festive feast of merriment for us all, but unfortunately I cannot say what these celebrations will consist of as there has been a dark veil of secrecy over the planning and implementation of the party (and after my very unsuccessful attempt at apple bobbing at the Leapfrogg Halloween party I can only hope that there is no water, apples or buckets involved...)

However, the one thing we know for sure is that we will all be attending as our favourite Christmas elves / Santas / angels / shepherds etc...you get the point! So I wanted to make a few predictions as to who / what will be turning up for the afternoon...

Will it be

Or perhaps

Or even

Only time will tell...oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

P.S I must apologise for my terrible "skills" in paint!

Images sourced from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/denoneno/274634757/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7542093@N03/437665349/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetoftheweb/2096097734/

Christmas Gifts - the inside scoop!

2008-12-16T13:50:00.002Z

If you are anything like me, you have spent the last couple of weeks trying desperately to get your friends and loved ones Christmas presents. Due to my general lack of creativity, this year I have opted for the "Tell me what you want and i'll buy it for you approach" (within reason!!). Whether I just haven't asked people before, or it is a sign of the times, a lot of my family and friends have asked for vouchers.

At first I thought this was a rather dull and thoughtless present, but then I thought about what I want for Christmas. I certainly don't want the Christmas jumper with reindeer on from Granny, or the If-you-don't-like-it-I-will-have-it present from siblings. With so much variety (both online and offline) there is too much to choose from, and inevitably there will be a lot of unwanted gifts given that will live in the back of the wardrobe until they are eventually thrown away. So, yes...I now get why vouchers are such a sterling idea!

According to a survey by YouGov and commissioned by the VA (The Gift Voucher and Card Association) 41% of the UK population would prefer to receive a gift voucher over a traditional Christmas present. The gift voucher industry was worth £3.2 billion in 2006 and was forecast to grow 20% year on year.

Now to the actual point of this blog post - if you run any kind of business online that would be feasible for gift vouchers, are you using them? And...if not...WHY NOT? In my opinion there really are no e-commerce companies that would not benefit from this. At this time of year it would be particularly useful for those companies that do not sell "present" related items and whose sales tend to drop around Christmas. Not only can it expand and increase sales but it can also be a great "word-of-mouth", personal recommendation of your business from existing customers.

So, if you run an e-commerce site what are you waiting for? You've not got long until Christmas, but there is still time to get those vouchers available on the site. Go, Go, GO!

We would be interested to hear about the uplift in sales and unique users as a result of these vouchers, so please keep us posted.

Oh, and, of course - MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!

Changes to Google Analytics code - Try Catch Err

2008-12-10T18:49:00.008Z

We have recently noticed data dropping off from a couple of analytics accounts. This ranges from just some data to all of it. After investigating we have found that Google have made "improvements" to the analytics code and added a little bit of extra code which should help with tracking data in some browsers. These tweaks should not have any impact on tracking if the old code is still in place, however we are seeing a few instances of data dropping off as a result. For reference I have pasted an image below with the extra code highlighted in red:

Has anyone else experienced this?

IMS London – The GOOD The BAD and The UGLY

2008-12-05T16:43:00.013Z

Image via Wikipedia

I set off to IMS London on a frosty Tuesday morning arriving too late at Clapham Junction to grab a Chai latte and instead had to hack it with a milky tea from Olympia station. For anyone who hasn’t been to Olympia, the venue is vast, I thought Earls Court was big, but this place would eat Earls Court for lunch and still have room for two star bucks and a subway.

The first speech was a ‘keynote’ and was entitled ‘Social media – the story so far and beyond the hype’, the speaker Michael Nutley the editor-in-chief of NMA began saying that

“Earning media was now the way forward and that the web was moving away from bought media into new realms”, he continued with “Brands are no longer what marketers tell them it is, its what peoples friends tell them it is”.He then took us on a rollercoaster ride through a number of compelling social media ‘failures’ and ‘successes’.

THE GOOD

The first example was of the recruitment drive done by the ‘Royal Navy’ on Bebo, they gave an actual helicopter pilot a bebo page and let him simply post about what it was like to be a pilot in the navy and answered peoples questions and conserns. The recruitment drive was the most successful ever with huge numbers of young people signing up to be just like Brendan Spoors.

Another success story was Lego. Lego had for a long time ignored the community of Grown up Lego fanatics like those behind the website Lugnet, probably due to fear. But since the drop in sales of the building bricks, in favour of the new model toys, Lego took a risk and reached out to the huge communities of Lego fanatics beyond their sphere. They sent them free Lego and asking them to design new products which Lego would put on sale, of course the adult legoians responded en mass – sending design after brilliant design and the best bit, as Michael Nutley pointed out is that unlike their in-house designers these guys only wanted paying in Lego.

This is one of the new Lego development communities featuring an electronic Lego toy NXT which looks very much like 'Johnny 5'.

THE BAD
You have probably heard of the Virgin Flight staff slagging off plane passengers on Facebook, and calling them ‘smelly annoying chavs’ and alleging saying that the plans were infested with cockroaches, although they didn’t get offensive about any of the roaches, which is something. Since the conversations were tracked down more than 13 Virgin staff have been fired, but as Michael pointed out, it is crazy that the company wasnt tracking mentions of itself being that Virgin is such a huge company.

Walmarts horrendous SPLOG is a famous one and featured a supposed wholesome american couple Jim and Laura that travelled around America in their RV parking overnite in Walmart carparks and talking about what they loved about Walmart. The blog had been commissioned by Walmart and developed by an agency called Edelman and when the blog was finally exposed both Walmart and Edelman’s President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Edelman was forced to make a public apology.

THE UGLY

Unilever vs Dove, Dove’s real beauty campaign has been on our screens for a long time now and is one of the most successful beauty campaigns ever, due to its honest approach to the female form and a unique examination at the beauty of popular culture and how that affects everyday women. But, Dove is also owned by Unilever the huge conglomerate that owns a lot of other brands one of them being ‘Slim-fast’ a brand that is aimed directly at making woman who aren’t satisfied with their bodies the exact opposite of the Dove campaign that features proud plus-sized women. Unilever is also been forced to pull adverts for the american company ‘Axe’ that feature increasingly degrading images of woman, again the exact opposite of Dove’s ‘real beauty’.

The difference between companies now and a few years ago, isn’t that they are more ethical or that they are more open and understanding, it is all to do with visibility. Nike can no longer have their expensive shoes made in sweatshops, not because they feel bad but because people found out and those people don’t want to wear shoes that are made in that way. Companies need to have a handle on the information that is out there about them from tiny one man bands to huge conglomerates, they need to be tracking who is saying what about them and when, ok they can’t stop what is being said but they can respond to it in public and be accountable.

My next post will be on social media – control and commitment can companies handle it?
Image by Dunechaser via Flickr
Well can ya.. punk ?

Leapfrogg at the DIMAS

2008-12-02T09:47:00.002Z

If someone had said to me before that the immeasurable success of this year’s DIMAS would be amplified by a large church (and by amplified I don’t just mean the amazing acoustics), a pie in a cardboard box and colloquial dress code, I would have had my doubts. Media events are often top heavy with glamour and ostentation, and light on substance and compassion.

The 2008 DIMAS, however, avoided any of the above and instead produced an evening of exceptional local talent, only matched by our emphatic neo-gothic surroundings. Leapfrogg were among an illustrious list of sponsors, and we were proud to support the ‘Most Effective Digital Marketing Campaign Award’. As a sponsor, we knew it wasn’t about our name up in lights, but more for the recognition of the industry and businesses that we are happily associated with – especially with the last quarter of this year being enveloped by an unstable economic climate. I think the industry and everyone involved has proved that staying positive and passionate has certainly got us all through a turbulent time.

This is the why the DIMAS had more emphasis draped on them this year. Each category was full of businesses, agencies, studios and individuals who had all remained focused and driven, and subsequently deserved to be nominated.
Kevin Carey delivered a speech with the usual amount of brilliance. His engaging introduction, titled ‘HumaniTy’, echoed around the cavernous All Saints’ interior. Proceedings were then comically sewn together by host Stephen Grant, with the help of Mark Walker of SCIP; very few escaped a cheeky, but innocuous comment from the Komedia keeper as people arrived on stage! The award itself deserved a prize for its innovative design and unique character – attributes that were synonymous with each winner that held it.

The judges undoubtedly had their work cut out to distinguish between some healthy local competition, so they were probably thankful when the task was momentarily directed to the audience. As the award for ‘BANG Best Use of Animation’ was ascending, glow sticks (yes, glow sticks) were being distributed to every table, and guests looked at each other with both puzzlement and anticipation. Was this to be a media rave of religious proportions? Not tonight, no. The glow sticks were to be used to select the winner by everyone waving them frantically in the air when each nominee was announced! The light from the sticks and the noise from those cheering was captured on a visual device, that then gauged the nominees popularity on the large screen. Whether or not the experiment was genuine, it certainly provoked the crowd and was the perfect preface to Big Fug stimulating the masses with their DJ set.

So, a night to remember. Never before have I had so much fun in a church, neon green glow stick in my grasp, surrounded by the elite of the digital south! The Brighton and Hove Web Awards may be in the past, but the reincarnation of the DIMAS has a very bright future indeed. I can’t wait to see next year’s agenda…

The common misconception of the “S” word.

2008-11-26T14:58:00.004Z

Leapfrogg has evolved into an all encompassing search-led, digital marketing company (and while that was a mouthful, is certainly more delicious than the above). As a result we will soon be adding another string to the bow and offering email marketing as a service to our clients.

The premise of this blog entry is to firstly educate on the many benefits of email marketing, particularly its integration with search. Secondly, to stop you half way through that sharp intake of breath at the thought of emailing your clients….didn’t that sound much nicer?

Emailing clients, not spamming them. How many of you have recently been to Gap, Threshers (their viral campaign created £15 million of extra business last Christmas) or any of the numerous chains that are using this means to increase their footfall?

“Spam is the equivalent of unsolicited junk mail, and at any given time there are millions of these emails floating around the Internet. It is estimated that spam mail constitutes twenty two percent of all active emails”. It’s out there and frustrating to some, but with a combination of best practice, good clean lists that are maintained and relevant audience, email marketing can be an extremely cost effective method of marketing with instant, trackable results.

Having hopped over to Leapfrogg from an email marketing company myself, I hold first hand knowledge of helping companies from the big corporates to SMEs drive traffic to their site and increase their ROI. Email marketing should not be used as a stand alone service and like many marketing disciplines performs best when part of a mix. This is where I get to use one of my favourite buzz terms which we call the “2 pronged attack” for example; emails after a press release to highlight an online sale followed by some telemarketing of the hot leads. This allows you to act instantly upon people that have not only opened an email, but you are able to see what links people are clicking on, how long they have spent on the page and track their activity off the email to a site right up to a checkout. As a result you can see the exact revenue incurred per person, per campaign making it very easy to measure overall ROI. This can be viewed in your analytics reporting as it is easily integrated with by adding a tracking code, enabling you to see what delivered that HUGE spike of hits to your site.

Emails are not just about bulk marketing either. You should use a lifestyle approach to email marketing, target and profile your customers and a behavioural based approach will reduce the volume you are sending, be relevant to the customers and reduce the potential of being marked as “spam”. Techniques such as ‘closing window’, ‘e coupons’, ‘secrets sales’ and continuing the brand conversation after a product has been purchased keeps communication fun, energised and relevant. It also increases the longevity of customer loyalty.

Announcements can be tied together using blogs and emails that can help build link popularity and improve your SEO. Also archive newsletters on your site in a spider friendly manner. Email subscriptions can work on a similar premise, to a feed burner pushing regular readers back to your site who are of quality traffic.

Social media buttons can be added to your email which allow users to post your news that will include links back to your site. So bookmark this ready for the New year, or maybe you will get a surprise in your inbox…

Do you tick this box and commit to a life time of offers forever and ever? I do.
Image sourced from: http://inventorspot.com/articles/japan_ban_spam_email_seriously_14120

Could you do with a jingle?

2008-11-26T11:07:00.005Z

If I asked you to name a popular brand of lemonade, which would you choose?

Would memories be aroused about the outstanding R Whites 'Secret Lemonade Drinker' advert of old?

What if I asked you to name an online company who produces greetings cards, would you sing “Moon…. Pig.com” back to me?

If I asked for an insurance comparison site, hands up who would retort “Compare….. The Market – dot com”

I’m not suggesting that each of these products and businesses are successful because of their jingles. I’m merely making reference to the fact that these jingles can act as powerful tools to spread the message or messages about a company, brand or product virally (particularly if they have the leverage of a multinational and the respective budget). But ignoring all of that, it only takes one idea, one jingle and a connection to ‘stick’.

Now I’m probably unusual in that I regularly ‘join in’ to the adverts (commercial radio provides some excellent examples) but with video, audio and flash demonstrations taking hold online, I have to wonder if the small to medium size business will ever consider embracing jingles as part of their online marketing strategy.

• Club Biscuits - 'If You Like a Lot of Chocolate on Your Biscuit Join Our Club.’
• Shake'n'Vac - 'Do the Shake and Vac'
• Danone - ‘Um Danone’
• Kwik-Fit - 'Can't Get Quicker Than a Kwik-Fit Fitter'
• Kia Ora - 'I'll Be Your Dog'
• Um Bongo - 'They Drink it in the Congo'
• Wall's Cornetto - 'Just One Cornetto'
• Mars - 'A Mars a Day Helps You Work, Rest and Play'
• Mc Donalds - ‘I’m loving it’

The above examples aim to illustrate jingles that stuck, which, even today, do their job to remind us about the companies and products they were written to promote.

This is of course rather simplified and I’m assuming all of the other elements of your marketing mix are polished, but why not use all of the available tools to not only get in the hearts and minds of your customers, but also get into their heads?

Leapfrogg Win the Double At Sussex Business Awards

2008-11-21T17:19:00.005Z

We are delighted to have won ‘best employer’ at the Sussex Business Awards!

Having already picked up the same prize at the recent Brighton and Hove Business Awards, we are over the moon at making it a double! Our staff enjoy some fantastic benefits including generous holiday allowance, duvet-days, flexi-time, full private health care, regular days out and the “Leapfrogg's got talent” bursary.

All of this and more makes Leapfrogg a great place to work, therefore keeping staff happy, committed and above all motivated to deliver the very best to our clients and partners.

We’d therefore like to take this opportunity to thank them for all their hard work! Have a great weekend

Forget link building. Focus on brand equity.

2008-11-21T11:55:00.006Z

If now is not a time to stop link building and instead focus your energies on enhancing your online user experience, driving forward positive customer experience strategies and considering how you can further develop how your brand is perceived then I have to wonder if you and you’re website will be around next year.

The roll out of Google’s SearchWiki, which allows users to vote up and exclude results from their natural search index, has never placed more focus on the importance of the social vote.

Sure we’ve had social booking for years, and while many have speculated that the social vote might in future influence the natural algorithm of the major search engines, this development indicates a real recognition of the power of the community.

Yes, links are important, but all of the links aren’t going to count if your competitors have a powerful and engaged community, driving up votes across all of the major social sites, including Google and they are positive preaching about your business both online and off.

Take the afternoon off. Think only about your brand equity and how you’re going to give your users a reason to love you.

Social bookmarking done badly

2008-11-19T10:52:00.006Z

I came across this website today, with not one of the Addthis.com bookmark buttons on the homepage, but four. I feel this highlights what I believe to be a noteworthy problem online and that’s the lack of understanding or appreciation for what ‘social media’ is really all about.

In this instance I have to question:

• Is anyone thinking about the user or customer?

• Does the target demographic even use bookmarking?

• Will these buttons confuse their users?

• Do they even know what they are?

• Are these buttons getting in way of call to actions and therefore lowering conversion rates?

• Is Digg entirely relevant?

• And what about Reddit?

In short, one size doesn’t fit all.

Industry News - What are Leapfrogg reading this week?

2008-11-17T17:40:00.004Z

A weekly (ish) round up of the search and digital marketing stories, articles and tools that have caught the eye of the Leapfrogg team...

Website Optimisation/SEO

10 reasons why your website looks like Spam
http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/website-quality/10-reasons-why-your-website-looks-like-spam/

Not ranking across the major search engines - it might just be because your site is rubbish!
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631213

Good theory of how to structure site architecture
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-filing-cabinet-theory-of-site-architecture

A really rather good Website Optimisation ROI calculator
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=Website-optimization-ROI-calculator

Optimising forms
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631567

The truth about grey Page Rank...
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/myths-and-truths-about-google-graybar-pr/7847/

…but are Google slowly phasing it out?
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/018611.html

Paid Search

Google and Yahoo’s paid search deal. They think it’s all over – it is now!
http://searchengineland.com/citing-risk-google-ends-yahoo-paid-search-deal-15375.php

Argghhh, yet more updates to Google's Quality Score
http://www.ppchero.com/learn-how-google%e2%80%99s-newest-quality-score-update-will-affect-your-accounts/

Consumers still buying, but spending less
http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2008/11/03/online-retail-spending/

International PPC Markets
http://searchengineland.com/getting-to-know-international-ppc-markets-14955.php

Other stuff

The BBC begin blocking external links...
http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/greedy-bbc-blocks-external-links/1478/

…and then respond to the criticism
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/11/knowing_when_to_go_1.html

Funny!
http://www.tmz.com/2008/10/30/google-me-you-dumb-f-k-lawsuit

Until next time...happy reading!

Google offering SEO guide - should SEO's be worried?

2008-11-14T09:03:00.005Z

Google has just released an SEO starter guide. The 22 page pdf document provides basic SEO advice targeted presumably at Webmasters and small business owners. It mainly coves on-page optimisation, whilst also touching on other marketing ideas such as blogging and social media.

So is this a move from Google into providing SEO consultancy? Is it a threat to SEO's?

Well, if the SEO consultancy you provide is restricted to only the areas covered in the guide then perhaps Google is treading on your toes somewhat. I am mainly referring to those design/development agencies who claim to do SEO but in reality their expertise is limited to basic on-page work. This was good enough 5 years ago but not now on the basis that SEO has changed beyond all recognition. Although basic on-page optimisation remains important, factors such as Meta tags do not carry nearly as much weight as they once did in terms of improving search engine rankings. Don't get me wrong, it is still important to get the basics right but what the Google guide doesn't really mention in any great detail is the impact of the arrival of 'blended' or Universal Search and how this has changed the landscape. Added to that, the guide only briefly mentions other essential ways of communicating with your target audience, such as social media.

What constitutes SEO these days is very different to the basics that Google covers. A campaign limited to basic on-page optimisation is not nearly enough. It sets the foundations sure. But success online these days is determined by a 'rounded' strategy that appreciates how the Internet and its users have evolved. We no longer simply rely on search engines as our sole means of finding information. We spend more time online than ever before and spend that time in new ways. We create; we share; we talk; we watch; we recommend; we research; we meet new people; we look for advice and we network, amongst other things. And all of this activity means that your target audience are spread over a wider area. So as marketers this means you have to do a lot more to reach this audience. Online marketing therefore requires a great deal more than the advice Google offers.

There has been plenty of talk in recent times on whether SEO is dead. SEO is not dead, it's just changed beyond all recognition. The factors that used to play a significant role in achieving search engine rankings are no longer so important but they remain part of the mix. Optimising your site for search engines and user-experience set the foundations for success in activity such as video, podcasting, article creation/distribution, PR, blogging and social networking. These activities represent the new SEO actually making the term SEO in itself virtually redundant.

So thank you Google for your guide. Its a few years late but still remains a reasonably useful tool if you want to learn the basics...and I mean the basics.

Eek! Why are my estimated first page minimum bids so high?

2008-11-13T11:02:00.003Z

I’d just thought I should share my observations with you all in relation to first page minimum bids.

Now we are all aware of the changes to Google’s quality score and the introduction of estimated first page minimum bids. Now it was to my understanding that the estimated first page minimum bid was a guideline as to how much our max CPC bid should be set at in order to appear on the first page of sponsored search results.

It therefore came as a surprise that when I was carrying out bid management on a new client campaign, that for one keyword, my max CPC was £3.00 and the average position of this keyword was 2 - yet the estimated minimum bid was a whopping £24.00!

I rang Google straight away as this was not the only keyword within the new campaign that had high estimated min bids yet average positions that clearly were showing on page one.

Our Google representative said that although the estimated min bid of £24.00 appeared high, the estimated minimum bids were there as a guideline and did not represent the exact amount we would pay for our bid (I knew this already however £24.00 seems extremely high for a keyword ranking at an average position of 2 with a much lower CPC)

I was advised the quality score works on a real time basis and that I am likely to see fluctuations in my estimated min bids regularly throughout the day. Although my average position ranking was at number 2, this still did not mean that I would appear on the first page of sponsored search listings every time they keyword was searched for.

Much to my relief, I had not actually moved all of my bids up to the estimated minimum bids threshold suggested! However it then leaves me to wonder if for those bids I did actually increase (I moved all my CPC bids up to any suggested bids that were £3.00 and under)- did I really need to set the CPC that high?

Again I raised this question to my Google representative who advised me that I was unlikely to pay the full CPC I was bidding on but this would depend on how much the person bidding fractionally lower than me was bidding.

I must point out however that the campaign I have been closely monitoring has no existing ‘quality score’ data which explains why I would have high estimated bids in comparison to an account with a history. However in conclusion to this issue, I have decided to concentrate my bid management strategy on focusing on position and max CPC thresholds as apposed to ensuring my bids are set as close to the min estimated bid suggestions.