The Adventures of PPC Hero

Our Greatest Hits for June 2009

Jessica — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:08:00 +0000

The page views have spoken! Below we have gathered PPC Hero’s four most visited, and hopefully most valuable, articles from June. Whether you’re a new or long-time subscriber you may have missed these insightful and helpful pay-per-click management tips. Enjoy!

If you’re not using competitive keyword research tools to learn about your competitors’ keywords, you may be missing out on opportunities to expand or further specialize your own keyword list & search engine strategies- and on profit in the process.
Naturally Bing was big news in June- Andrew describes what, exactly, it may mean for PPC advertisers and how we can ensure that we’re monitoring and managing our accounts correctly in response.
As Joe says, your keyword list drives your PPC campaign. Those little words determine how many people see your ads! As such of course you need a whole lot of relevant, targeted keywords- and how to discover them? Tools like Google’s Wonder Wheel and the Related Search option can help you find relevant keyword variations you’d never think of on your own.
A lot of people were perplexed by AdWords’ new conversion tracking metrics- one-per-click, many-per click, what? Joe explains (with examples!) what each means, and how you should be considering each for the purposes of understanding your PPC account’s conversion statistics.

Happy 4th of July from PPC Hero!

Joe — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:00:44 +0000

Hello my fellow Americans. It is time to celebrate our freedom and independence. While a few individuals prefer to light copious amounts of fireworks, PPC Hero has taken a historical approach to the 4th of July. Our fearless hero is paying honor of our founding fathers our by giving us his best George Washington impression!

Happy 4th of July!

PPC News Roundup for Thursday 7/02/2009

Buki — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:07:37 +0000

Google Adwords clicks are actually accurate? According to the Inside Adwords blog theMedia Rating Council has accredited Adwords in regards to their click measurement systems. I didn’t even know there was a Media Rating Council! They say Google’s click measurement technology meets the industry standards for counting interactive advertising clicks and that it’s processes supporting this technology are accurate. Go Google.
If you liked the keyword extraction and keyword suggestion tools from last week, then you are going to love this second post in a series from Katrina Morris of the Microsoft adCenter Blog and Forum Community, focusing on Microsoft Advertising Intelligence. Specifically, she touches on using the traffic and demographic tools for market trends.
Writing effective, successful PPC ads is no easy task. Whether you’re new to the game or have been doing it for a while, moving beyond the space, character, and other limitations can be daunting. Here are some great tips and pitfalls to keep in mind when trying to make a strong impression with your ppc ads.
Relevant, targeted keywords are a basic staple of any healthy PPC diet. Ravi, from OnlineMarketer, has an interesting article that discusses ppc account history, quality score, keyword performance, and the best way to proceed if you find yourself needing to move a keyword from one campaign or ad group to another.
Warm weather = vacation and shopping! Make sure you gear up for the season and optimize your ads with the appropriate amount of summer love! Here are some tips from Noah Belson of the YSM Blog for enhancing the quality of your ads during this busy summer season.
Google Ad Planner has a new look… And it looks good! Amanda Kelly, from Inside AdWords gives us an overview of the new look and features of Google Ad Planner.

CLRB Hanson LLC et al. V. Google Class Action Settlement

Joe — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:52:23 +0000

Neither PPC Hero nor Hanapin Marketing have any affiliation with this settlement regarding Google AdWords nor can we offer legal advice on the subject. However, we did think it was a good idea to post the settlement statement in its entirety to the blog because 1) it’s directly related to our blog’s focus and 2) our readers might be curious about the statement if they haven’t seen it already.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
SAN JOSE DIVISION

CLRB HANSON INDUSTRIES, LLC d/b/a INDUSTRIAL PRINTING, and HOWARD STERN,
on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs,

vs.

GOOGLE, INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. C 05-03649 JW PVT

NOTICE OF PENDENCY AND PROPOSED
SETTLEMENT OF CLASS ACTION AND SETTLEMENT HEARING

TO:

ALL PERSONS OR ENTITIES RESIDING IN THE UNITED STATES WHO HAVE PAID GOOGLE FOR ADVERTISING PURSUANT TO GOOGLE’S ADWORDS PROGRAM WHO (A) BECAME ADWORDS ADVERTISERS BETWEEN JUNE 1, 2005 AND FEBRUARY 28, 2009, INCLUSIVE, AND WHO WERE CHARGED MORE THAN THEIR PER DAY DAILY BUDGET ON ANY DAY DURING THAT TIME PERIOD; OR (B) PAUSED THEIR ADWORDS ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS ON ANY DAY DURING THE PERIOD FROM JANUARY 1, 2002 TO FEBRUARY 28, 2009, INCLUSIVE, AND DURING THE SAME BILLING PERIOD WHEN THEIR ADWORDS ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS WERE PAUSED, WERE CHARGED MORE THAN THE PRODUCT OF THEIR PER DAY DAILY BUDGET TIMES THE NUMBER OF DAYS THAT SUCH CLASS MEMBERS’ ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS WERE NOT PAUSED DURING THAT BILLING PERIOD

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY AND IN ITS ENTIRETY. YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE AFFECTED BY PROCEEDINGS IN THIS LITIGATION. IF YOU ARE A CLASS MEMBER, YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO RECEIVE BENEFITS PURSUANT TO THE PROPOSED SETTLEMENT DESCRIBED HEREIN.

EXCLUSION DEADLINE: REQUESTS FOR EXCLUSION FROM THE CLASS MUST CONTAIN THE INFORMATION SET FORTH BELOW AND BE ACTUALLY RECEIVED BY THE CLAIMS ADMINISTRATOR ON OR BEFORE JULY 14, 2009.

I. SUMMARY OF SETTLEMENT AND RELATED MATTERS

Purpose of this Notice

This Notice is given pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and an Order of the Court, dated May 12, 2009. The purpose of this Notice is to inform you that the above-entitled action (”the Action”) has been certified as a class action and of the terms of a proposed settlement of the Action. This Notice describes rights you may have under the proposed settlement and what steps you may take in relation to this litigation. This Notice is not an expression of any opinion by the Court as to the merits of any claims or any defenses asserted by any party in this litigation, or the fairness or adequacy of the proposed settlement.

Statement of Recovery to the Class

Pursuant to the settlement described herein, $20,000,000, in a combination of cash and AdWords Credits, have been created for the benefit of the Class. These funds have been placed in an interest-bearing escrow account.

A Class member’s distribution from the net Settlement Fund will be determined by a Plan of Allocation to be

approved by the Court. An explanation of how each Class member’s distribution will be calculated for purposes of the settlement is set forth in the proposed Plan of Allocation which is summarized in Part VI of this Notice below.

Statement of Potential Outcome of the Case

Google has denied, and continues to deny, each and all claims of wrongdoing against it and continues to assert defenses thereto, and has expressly denied any wrongdoing or legal liability out of any of the conduct alleged in the Action. Google denies that Representative Plaintiffs or the Class have suffered any damages or are entitled to any restitution. Representative Plaintiffs considered that there was a substantial risk that they and the Class might not have prevailed on their claims and that there were risks that they and the Class could have recovered substantially less than the settlement amount, if the case had been litigated to judgment.

The settlement was reached only after the parties conducted arduous arm’s-length negotiations over a period of two months. Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel have determined that the settlement was fair, reasonable and adequate and in the best interest of the Class.

Statement of Attorney’s Fees and Expenses and Representative Plaintiffs’ Incentive Compensation Awards Sought

Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel for the Class intend to apply for: attorneys’ fees of not more than $5,000,000, plus a proportionate share of the interest earned on the Settlement Proceeds, for reimbursement of expenses incurred in connection with the prosecution and settlement of this litigation, not to exceed $250,000; and for an incentive compensation award to the two Representative Plaintiffs, not to exceed $20,000 each.

Further Information

Further information regarding the litigation and this Notice may be obtained by contacting Representative Counsel
for the Class:

LESTER L. LEVY
WOLF POPPER LLP
845 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022

RACHEL S. BLACK
SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 3800
Seattle, WA 98101

MARC M. SELTZER
SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.
1901 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 950
Los Angeles, CA 90067-6029

II. NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT HEARING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and an Order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (the “Court”) dated May 12, 2009, that a hearing (”Settlement Hearing”) will be held by the Court on September 14 2009 at 9:00 a.m., at the United States Courthouse, 280 South 1st Street, San Jose, California, 95113. The purpose of the Settlement Hearing will be, among other things: (1) to determine whether the proposed Settlement Agreement is fair, reasonable and adequate to the Class and should be approved by the Court and, therefore, whether the Action should be dismissed on the merits and with prejudice, and (2) to consider the reasonableness of an application by Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel for payment of attorney’s fees and reimbursement of costs and expenses incurred in connection with the Action and for incentive compensation award to the Representative Plaintiffs.

The Court has certified a Settlement Class defined as: all persons and entities residing in the United States who have paid Google for advertising pursuant to Google’s AdWords program who (a) became AdWords advertisers between June 1, 2005 and February 28, 2009, inclusive, and who were charged more than their per day Daily Budget on any day during that time period; or (b) paused their AdWords advertising campaigns on any day during the period from January 1, 2002 to February 28, 2009, inclusive, and during the same billing period when their AdWords advertising campaigns were paused, were charged more than the product of their per day Daily Budget times the number of days that such Class Members’ advertising campaigns were not paused during that billing period. Excluded from the Class are Resellers, defined as persons or entities whose regular business activities include placing ads on Google’s AdWords program on behalf of otherwise unaffiliated persons or entities.

III. BACKGROUND OF THE ACTION

AdWords is a global advertising program offered by Google. This Action concerns Google’s billing practice for its AdWords program.

On May 4, 2006, Representative Plaintiffs filed their Second Amended Class Action Complaint, which is the operative complaint in the Action, which alleges five causes of action: (1) Breach of Contract; (2) Breach of the Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing; (3) Violations of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, et seq. (”UCL”); (4) Violation of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17500, et seq. (”FAL”); and (5) Unjust Enrichment. In their Complaint, the Representative Plaintiffs sought damages, restitution, and injunctive relief to remedy Google’s practice of (1) charging its AdWords advertisers up to 120% of their per day daily budget on any given day (Plaintiffs’ “120% claims”); and (2) charging AdWords customers who paused their campaigns more than their per day Daily Budget times the number of days their campaigns were not paused during the billing period (Plaintiffs’ “pausing claims”).

Google filed four separate motions for partial summary judgment. The Court dismissed the Representative Plaintiffs’ Second and Fifth Causes of action for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and unjust enrichment. Google also successfully argued that its practice of charging AdWords Advertisers up to 120% of their daily budget on any given day does not, in and of itself, constitute breach of contract. The Court held that triable issues of fact existed as to whether Google’s practice of charging up to 120% of an AdWords Advertiser’s per day Daily Budget violates the UCL and FAL and whether Google’s pre-September 2006 pausing practices constitute a breach of contract.

IV. BACKGROUND OF THE SETTLEMENT

Google has denied all claim of wrongdoing or liability in the Action. The Settlement Agreement is not and shall not be construed or deemed to be evidence or an admission or a concession on the part of Google of any fault or liability or damages whatsoever, and Google does not concede any infirmity in the defenses which it has asserted in the Action.

Counsel for the parties conducted extensive settlement negotiations to achieve the settlement described herein. The settlement was reached only after the parties conducted arduous arm’s-length negotiations and after the parties conducted extensive pre-trial discovery. During the course of this Action, Google produced hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, responded to multiple interrogatories, and Google employees testified at deposition. In addition, Representative Plaintiffs produced documents to Google, responded to interrogatories, and testified at deposition.

In determining to settle the Action, Representative Plaintiffs and Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel have taken into account the substantial expense and length of time necessary to prosecute the litigation through complete pretrial discovery, trial, post-trial motions and likely appeals, taking into consideration the significant uncertainties in predicting the outcome of this complex litigation. Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel believes that the settlement described herein provides substantial benefits to the Class. Based on their consideration of all of these factors, Representative Plaintiffs and Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel have concluded that it is in the best interests of the Class to settle the Action on the terms described herein, subject to the approval of the Court.

Representative Plaintiffs recognized the uncertainty and risk of the outcome of any litigation, especially complex litigation such as this, and the difficulties and risks inherent in the trial of such an action. Representative Plaintiffs desired to settle the claims of the Class against Google on the terms and conditions described herein which provide substantial and immediate benefits to the Class. Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel deems such settlement to be fair, reasonable and adequate to, and in the best interests of, the members of the Class.

Google, while continuing to deny all allegations of wrongdoing or liability, desired to settle and terminate all existing or potential claims against it without in any way acknowledging fault or liability. During the course of the litigation, Google, in addition to denying any liability, disputed that Representative Plaintiffs and the Class were damaged by any wrongful conduct on its part. The settlement provides immediate and substantial benefits to the Class and avoids the risks that liability or damages might not be proven at trial.

THE COURT HAS NOT FINALLY DETERMINED THE MERITS OF REPRESENTATIVE PLAINTIFFS’ CLAIMS OR THE DEFENSES THERETO. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT IMPLY THAT THERE HAS BEEN OR WOULD BE ANY FINDING OF VIOLATIONS OF LAW OR THAT RECOVERY COULD BE OBTAINED IN ANY AMOUNT IF THE ACTION WERE NOT SETTLED.

V. TERMS OF THE SETTLEMENT

In full and complete satisfaction of the claims which have or could have been asserted in this Action, and subject to the terms and conditions of the Stipulation, Google has paid $20,000,000 into escrow on behalf of the Class (the “Settlement Proceeds”), which has been earning interest since on or about March 31, 2009. The Settlement Proceeds, which are inclusive of any Fee and Expense Award and incentive compensation award to Representative Plaintiffs, shall be distributed by Google (with respect to AdWords Credits) and the Claims Administrator in accordance with the terms of the Plan of Allocation described below.

The settlement will release Representative Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ Released Claims against the Google. The Released Claims are defined as: any and all claims, demands, actions, causes of action, rights, offsets, suits, damages, lawsuits, liens, costs, losses, expenses or liabilities of any kind whatsoever, for any relief whatsoever, including monetary, injunctive or declaratory relief, or for reimbursement of attorneys’ fees, costs or expenses, which the Representative Plaintiffs or any Member of the Class which were or could have been asserted based on the allegations set forth in the complaints filed by the Representative Plaintiffs in the Action, specifically including any and all claims based on a Class Member being charged more than his, her, or its Daily Budget.

Upon the Effective Date of the settlement, the Representative Plaintiffs and Class Members on behalf of themselves, their heirs, executors, administrators, successors, assigns, employees, officers, directors, attorneys, representatives, affiliates, agents, and any persons or entities they represent, shall be deemed to release and forever discharge Google from all Released Claims, and shall forever be barred and enjoined from prosecuting, commencing, instituting or asserting all or any of the Released Claims in any action or other proceeding in any court of law asserting all or any of the Released Claims in any action or other proceeding in any court of law or equity, arbitrational tribunal, administrative or other forum, whether directly, representatively, derivatively, or in any other capacity against Google.

If the settlement is approved by the Court, all claims which have or could have been asserted in the Action will be dismissed on the merits and with prejudice as to all Class Members and all Class Members shall be forever barred from prosecuting a class action or any other action raising any Released Claims against Google.

The settlement will become effective at such time as Final Judgment entered by the Court approving the settlement shall become final and not subject to appeal (the “Effective Date”).

VI. PLAN OF ALLOCATION OF SETTLEMENT FUND AMONG CLASS MEMBERS

1. The $20,000,000 settlement and the interest earned thereon are the “Settlement Proceeds.”

2. Upon final approval of the settlement by the Court and the satisfaction of the other conditions to the effectiveness of the Settlement, the Settlement Proceeds will be allocated under the Court’s direction and supervision, as follows:

a. To pay the fees, expenses and costs of Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel as and to the extent allowed by the Court;

b. To pay an incentive compensation award to each Representative Plaintiff to the extent allowed by the Court; and

c. To pay all costs and expenses reasonably incurred in connection with the preparation and filing of tax returns and the payment of taxes on the interest earned on the Settlement Proceeds, including all taxes and tax expenses.

3. Subject to the approval by the Court of the Plan of Allocation described below, the balance of the Settlement Proceeds remaining after the payment of the foregoing fees, costs, expenses and taxes (the “Net Settlement Proceeds”) shall be distributed in the form of cash or AdWords Credits as set forth below, to Class members who have not requested exclusion from the class in accordance with the instructions contained in this Notice. The following methodology shall be used to calculate the distribution to each Class member:

(Class Member’s Total Overcharges) x (Net Settlement Proceeds)
sum total of Estimate of all Class Members’ Total Overcharges

	a. “Net Settlement Proceeds” means the remaining balance of the Settlement Proceeds, including all interest earned thereon, following payment of any Fee and Expense Award as allowed by the Court.
	b. “17200 Overcharge” means the dollar amount that a Class Member, who signed up for AdWords between June 1, 2005 and February 28, 2009, was charged by Google in excess of his, her, or its per day Daily Budget, the first month such overcharge occurred.
	c. “Overcharge” means to charge an AdWords Advertiser more than his, her, or its per day Daily Budget on any given day.
	d. “Pausing Overcharge” means the dollar amount that Google charged a Class Member, who paused his, her, or its campaign for any amount of time in a billing period, in excess of the product of the Class Member’s per day Daily Budget times the number of days that the campaign was not paused during the same billing period, at any time during the period between January 1, 2002 and February 28, 2009, inclusive.
	e. “Total Overcharges” means, for each Class Member, the sum of his, her, or its 17200 Overcharges and Pausing Overcharges, less any Overcharges that are duplicative of the Pausing Overcharges.
	f. “Claims Administrator” means Gilardi & Co. LLC.
	g. For each Class Member who has a balance due on his, her, or its AdWords account as of the Class Member Distribution Calculation Date that is equal to or greater than that Class Member’s Distribution (defined as “Active AdWords Advertisers”), Google will issue AdWords Credits in the amount of such Class Member’s Distribution within ten business days of the Class Member Distribution Calculation Date. At the time of distribution, Google will notify each Class Member who is an Active AdWords Advertiser who has a balance due on his, her, or its AdWords account as of the Class Member Distribution Calculation Date that is less than such Class Member’s Distribution that they may elect to receive cash in lieu of AdWords Credits by contacting Google via email. To make such an election, the Active AdWords Advertiser must notify the Claims Administrator within forty days of the Class Member Calculation Date via email or in writing, including the following information: (1) name of Class Member; (2) AdWords account(s) number; (3) email address associated with AdWords account; (4) mailing address. The request must be emailed to the Claims Administrator at the following email address: claims@adwordscustomersettlement.com , or sent to the Claims Administrator at the following address:
CLRB Hanson LLC et al. v. Google Class Action Settlement c/o Gilardi & Co. LLC P.O. Box 808054 Petaluma, CA. 94975-8054
	Each Active AdWords Advertiser who makes such an election before the designated deadline shall receive that portion of the Class Member’s Distribution that is in excess of the balance due on his, her, or its AdWords account in cash.
	h. The Claims Administrator will issue checks to all Class Members who are not Active AdWords Advertisers, in the amount of each Class Member’s Distribution. To the extent, at the conclusion of efforts to make distributions to Class Members, there remains any undistributed portion of the Net Settlement Proceeds, it shall be disposed of pursuant to the instructions of Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel, with approval of the Court. Under no circumstances shall the Net Settlement Proceeds, or any portion thereof, be paid or otherwise revert to Google following the Effective Date of the Settlement.
	i. The computation of each Class Member’s Distribution shall be made by Google or the Claims Administrator, and the data supporting such computation shall be supplied to the Claims Administrator. Payment pursuant to the Plan of Allocation set forth above shall be conclusive against all Class Members. No Person shall have any claim against Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel, the Claims Administrator or other agent designated by Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel, Google, or Google’s Counsel based on the distributions made substantially in accordance with the Settlement Agreement, the Plan of Allocation, or further orders of the Court.
	4. If the proposed Settlement is approved by the Court, the Court will enter a final judgment (the “Judgment”) which will:
	a. Dismiss the Litigation against Google with prejudice, and without costs;
	b. Adjudge that Representative Plaintiffs and each Class Member, except those members of the Class who have previously timely and validly requested exclusion from the Class, shall be deemed conclusively to have released the Released Claims (as described above) against Google. Notwithstanding that Representative Plaintiffs or any Class Member may hereafter discover facts in addition to or different from those which Representative Plaintiffs and Class Members now know or believe to be true with respect to the Litigation and Released Claims or to the subject matter of the release, plaintiffs and each Class Member shall be deemed, upon the Effective Date of the Settlement, to fully, finally and forever settle and release any and all Released Claims as against Google;
	c. Bar and permanently enjoin Representative Plaintiffs and each Class Member, except those members of the Class who have timely and validly requested exclusion from the Class, from prose-cuting any Released Claims against Google; and
	d. Reserve jurisdiction, without affecting the finality of the Judgment entered, over:
	(i) Implementation of the Settlement and any award or distribution of the Settlement Proceeds, including interest thereon;
	(ii) Disposition of the Settlement Proceeds;
	(iii) Hearing and determining Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel’s appli-cations for attorneys’ fees, costs, interest, and expenses (including fees and costs of experts and consultants) and for an incentive compensation award for Representative Plaintiffs;
	(iv) Enforcing and administering the Settlement, including any releases given in connection therewith; and
	(v) Other matters related to the foregoing.

VII. RIGHTS OF CLASS MEMBERS

The Court has certified this action to proceed as a class action pursuant to Rules 23(a) and 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. If you are not a Reseller, you are a member of the Class if: you reside in the United States, have paid Google for advertising pursuant to Google’s AdWords program and either (a) became an AdWords advertiser between June 1, 2005 and February 28, 2009, inclusive, and were charged more than your per day Daily Budget on any day during that time period; or (b) paused your AdWords advertising campaign on any day during the period from January 1, 2002 to February 28, 2009, inclusive, and during the same billing period when your AdWords advertising campaign was paused, were charged more than the product of your per day Daily Budget times the number of days that your AdWords advertising campaign was not paused during that billing period. Class members have the following options:

If you wish to remain a member of the Class, you may share in the proceeds of the Settlement. Class Members will be represented by Representative Plaintiffs and Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel, unless you enter an appearance through counsel of your own choice at your own expense. You are not required to retain your own counsel, but if you choose to do so, such counsel must file an appearance on your behalf on or before July 14, 2009, and must serve copies of such appearance on the attorneys listed below.

If you do not wish to remain a member of the Class, you may exclude yourself from the Class by following the instructions below. Persons who exclude themselves from the Class will NOT receive any share of the Settlement Proceeds and will NOT be bound by the Settlement.

If you object to the Settlement, the Plan of Allocation, or to Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel’s application for attorney’s fees and expenses and for an incentive compensation award for Representative Plaintiffs, and if you do not exclude yourself from the Class, you may present your objections by following the instructions below.

VIII. EXCLUSION FROM THE CLASS AND SETTLEMENT

Each member of the class shall be bound by all determinations and judgments in this Action concerning the Settlement, whether favorable or unfavorable, unless such person files a written request for exclusion by first-class mail so that it is actually received by the Claims Administrator on or before July 14, 2009. Your rights against Google will be affected by this Settlement.

To be effective, any request for exclusion from the Class must be in writing and must include the name, email address, AdWords account number, and mailing address of the person seeking to opt out, the dates that the person was an AdWords Advertiser, and a statement that the person wishes to be excluded from the Class, and must be signed by or on behalf of the person so requesting exclusion and sent via first-class mail to:

CLRB Hanson LLC et al. v. Google Class Action Settlement
c/o Gilardi & Co., LLC
P.O. Box 808054
Petaluma, CA 94975-8054

IX. SETTLEMENT HEARING

At the Settlement Hearing, the Court will determine whether to finally approve this Settlement and dismiss the Action and the claims of Representative Plaintiffs and the Class. The Settlement Hearing may be adjourned from time to time by the Court without further written notice to the Class.

At the Settlement Hearing, any Class member who has not filed a proper request for exclusion from the Class may appear in person or by counsel and be heard to the extent allowed by the Court in opposition to the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of the Settlement, the Plan of Distribution, or the application of Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel for an award of attorney’s fees and expenses and for an incentive compensation award to Representative Plaintiffs, provided, however, that in no event shall any person or entity be heard in opposition to the Settlement, the Plan of Distribution, or Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel’s application for attorney’s fees and expenses and for an incentive compensation award to Representative Plaintiffs, and in no event shall any paper or brief submitted by any such person be accepted or considered by the Court, unless, the objection is filed with the Court and served on Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel and Google’s Counsel so that it is received no later than July 14, 2009. Any such objection shall include all briefs or other papers to be considered by the Court, and must include the name and address of the person and the dates that the person was an AdWords Advertiser, and must be

served to Representative Plaintiffs Counsel at the following addresses: and upon counsel for Google:

LESTER L. LEVY
WOLF POPPER LLP
845 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022

RACHEL S. BLACK
SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 3800
Seattle, WA 98101

Daralyn Durie
Durie Tangri Lemley Roberts & Kent
332 Pine Street, Suite 200
San Francisco, CA 94104

and said objections, papers and briefs must be filed with the Clerk of the Court, showing due proof of service upon Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel and counsel for Google.

X. ATTORNEY’S FEES AND EXPENSES

At the Settlement Hearing, or at such other time as the Court may direct, Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel will apply to the Court for an award of attorney’s fees from the Settlement Proceeds in an amount not exceeding $5,000,000, plus a proportionate share of the interest earned on the Settlement Proceeds, and for reimbursement of their costs and expenses, not to exceed $250,000; and for a incentive compensation award to the two Representative Plaintiffs, not to exceed $20,000 each. Representative Plaintiffs’ Counsel, without further notice to the Class, may subsequently apply to the Court for fees and expenses incurred in connection with administering this Settlement and distributing the Settlement proceeds to the members of the Class.

XI. FURTHER INFORMATION

For a more detailed statement of the matters involved in this Action, reference is made to the pleadings, to the Settlement Agreement, to the Orders entered by the Court and to the other papers filed in the Action, which may be inspected at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, United States Courthouse, 280 South 1st Street, San Jose, California, 95113, during regular business hours.

ALL INQUIRIES CONCERNING THIS NOTICE OR THE PROOF OF CLAIM FORM BY CLASS MEMBERS SHOULD BE MADE TO THE CLAIMS ADMINISTRATOR. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE COURT OR THE CLERK’S OFFICE FOR INFORMATION.

Dated: June 9th, 2009

____________________________________
James W. Ware
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Break Out Your Yahoo Sponsored and Content Keywords with the Touch of a Button

Amber — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:40:22 +0000

There is a cool feature in the Yahoo! Search Marketing interface that allows you to separate your search network and content network distribution for any active ad group with only a few steps.

Breaking out your sponsored search tactic from the content network in two separate ad groups helps you manage your bids better since they’re more organized and it allows you to create different ad texts for two different audiences. Some say that people viewing ads on the content network respond better to promotional-salesy copy over people who perform an actual search.

Here’s how you do it:

Go into your Yahoo Search Marketing campaign, select an ad group that is running both sponsored search and content network together.

Then, towards the middle of the page there is a button that you can click that says, ‘split ad group’. Click it!

3. A window will pop up asking you to confirm that you want to split your ad group into two separate ad groups. Click the button that says ‘split into separate ad groups’ if you still wish to continue.

4. From there, you will be asked to name your two new ad groups. Click ‘save changes’.

5. Once you’ve done these steps, Yahoo will automatically separate your sponsored search from the content network into two separate ad groups. This takes about 30 seconds to complete.

After the separation is complete, you will have two brand new ad groups containing the sponsored search and content network tactics. Your original ad group that you separated, will be paused. Keep in mind that your Quality index will reset at this point for your original ad group. After speaking with my rep. about this, this is what he had to say:

The quality index score will reset. So there will be a period of learning. This may cause terms to have a slight increase in CPC before normalizing.

So just remember not to react too quickly to changes made by the split ad groups tool. Give it at least a week or longer depending on traffic volume to make an informed decision.

I really like that every once in a while Yahoo! will surprise me with a new feature that makes my life easier that Google AdWords doesn’t have. I think it’s a great feature and I wish Google AdWords had something identical. Not that it’s difficult to copy and paste some keywords and change some settings, but it’s nice Yahoo took that step out of it and does it for you automatically.

Separating Your Matches Types into Different Campaigns is a Bad Idea

Joe — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:07:17 +0000

We have inherited a couple PPC accounts recently that had some odd campaign structures. Within Google AdWords these accounts had the various match types (broad, phrase, exact) segregated into separate campaigns. Since I’ve now seen this a couple times, I think this campaign structure is worth commenting upon and discussing why it’s a bad idea.

First, let’s explore the different match types within Google AdWords:

Broad match: This is the default option for keywords within AdWords. This match type reaches the widest audience. By using broad match, your ad may appear whenever a user queries any word in your keyword phrase.

Broad match example: If you have the keyword ‘tennis shoes’ your ads could appear when a user’s query contains either or both words (’tennis’ and/or ’shoes’) and in any order. Google may match these phrases to other terms including singular/plural forms, synonyms or other queries it deems relevant to your keyword.

Phrase match: Phrase match is the middle child when it comes to match types. This is because phrase matches provides a higher level of control, but your ads can still show for additional search queries. Your ads may appear when a user’s search query contains your keyword in the exact order you have entered them.

Phrase match example: If your phrase match keyword is “tennis shoes” then your ad may show for other search queries such as “red tennis shoes,” “buy tennis shoes,” and “tennis shoes reviews.” However, your ads will not appear if the search query does not match the order of your keyword, so your ad would not appear for, “shoes for tennis,” “tennis woman shoe,” or “tennis sport shoe.”

Exact match: This is the most tightly targeted and specific match type. By using exact match your ads will appear only when a user’s query matches your keyword exactly.

Exact match example: If your keyword is [tennis shoes] then your ads will not appear for any other search other than “tennis shoes.”

There are other keyword match types within Google AdWords such as negative match and embedded match, but for the sake of this article, I’ll just focus on the three match types listed above.

The accounts that we inherited had each broad, exact, and phrase match keywords separated into their own campaigns. This account structure is a bad idea for a few reasons:

Complicated PPC reporting

Each of these match types will have different results, however they are still the same core keyword. If you want to get an idea as to how your “tennis shoes” keyword is performing, you would have to look within at least 3 different campaigns, and three different ad groups. This makes reporting complicated.

Wastes a lot time

This is the major reason not to separate match types into their own campaigns. Creating this structure will take a lot of time, and then anytime you do keyword research, run keyword-level reporting, you are will have to deal with three different campaigns. This will waste a ton of time when you are trying to manage your PPC account efficiently.

Ad text confusion

When you are split testing ads, you will have to keep track of which ad texts are working best with each match type. Anytime you launch a new ad text for testing, you’ll have to insert this ad into three different campaigns. How can you keep all of this straight?!

Optimization difficulties

Account/ad group optimization never ends. As time goes on, you’ll see that there are always opportunities to make your ad groups more focused and tightly grouped. If you have all of these match types broken into their own campaigns, this means you’ll have to do three times the amount of keyword moving/re-grouping. This will make optimization very difficult.

For keywords that generate a large quantity of traffic, it can be beneficial to separate your match types into different ad groups within the same campaign. You should do this for your most important keywords. However, creating entire campaigns has so many negatives that any positives will be heavily outweighed.

I would suggest having all three match types for the same keyword within the same group. This will provide easier management and reporting.

If your account is structured so that your broad, phrase, and exact match keywords each have their own campaigns, you should rethink this strategy and give some thought to restructuring your account.

Quick Look: Pay-Per-Click Metrics All Campaign Managers Should Understand

Andrew — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:00:49 +0000

One of the best aspects of managing a pay-per-click campaign is the completeness of data. It is the only advertising medium that can give you a fairly accurate representation of how many eyeballs see your ad, and it’s the only advertising medium that can regularly associate a user behavior with an advertising placement.

But with all of the data that’s available to an account manager, how can you determine what to look at, and which metrics truly matter? Here’s a simple guide:

Click-through Rate (CTR)
How to Calculate It: Clicks divided by impressions
What It Tells You: What percentage of the time an ad display leads a user to your site; which types of ads are most relevant and most stand out to searchers on a SERP
What It Doesn’t Tell You: Whether your ad actually left an impression (no pun intended, I swear) on the user who clicked or did not click; whether your clicks were the result of well-crafted ad language, or simply due to aggressive bidding
Best Used For Evaluating: Quality of your ad text
Who It’s Most Useful For: A new or re-focused website focused on bringing in new traffic; Sites primarily interested in exposure

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
How to Calculate It: Total spend divided by total conversions
What It Tells You: Your average cost for each conversion; how much you are spending for each sale, lead, or site registration
What It Doesn’t Tell You: Depending on the conversion, whether the acquisitions are actually improving or can be expected to improve your bottom line; whether you’re bringing in new customers, or simply generating repeat conversions from site loyalists
Best Used For Evaluating: Effectiveness of your bidding strategies
Who It’s Most Useful For: Site owners operating on a limited budget, seeking to exploit only the most efficient of keywords

Conversion Rate (CVR)
How to Calculate It: Total conversions divided by total clicks
What It Tells You: The frequency with which ad clicks are leading to a desired user action
What It Doesn’t Tell You: Whether mid-to-low ad position is effectively leaving your site under-exposed
Best Used For Evaluating: Quality of your selected landing pages
Who It’s Most Useful For: Business-to-business sites seeking to bring in a large number of prospective clients at the start of a long sales funnel

Average Sale (Avg. Sale?)
How To Calculate It: Revenue divided by total sales
What It Tells You: Which keywords are bringing in big-ticket purchases; which ad language is most conducive to bringing in high-spending customers
What It Doesn’t Tell You: Whether the high-ticket sales correspond to high profit-margin items; how much you’re spending for these high-revenue purchases
Best Used For Evaluating: Whether or not your ad text speaks to the potential large-revenue consumer
Who it’s Most Useful For: Experienced e-commerce site owners seeking to tweak ad language or landing page selection to drive campaigns to peak performance

Return on Investment (ROI)
How To Calculate It: Net revenue divided by net advertising spend
What It Tells You: How much benefit you are getting for the money you are spending; in theory, all you need to know
What It Doesn’t Tell You: Whether this ratio is the best way to evaluate your campaign’s success, or whether you are over-focusing on a ratio rather than on the bottom line
Best Used For Evaluating: The interaction between all elements of your online campaign
Who It’s Most Useful For: When calculated properly (taking into account every aspect of campaign revenue and potential revenue), ROI is relevant to all website owners

There’s no perfect metric with which you can analyze campaign success. As this list indicates, the most important metrics really can vary on a client-by-client, or an industry-by-industry basis. In addition, it is important to realize that all of your media campaigns – paid search, direct mail, outdoor, radio, social networking – interact with each other and, as a result, you can never be sure what keyword or ad language truly drove which purchase.

The nice thing about pay-per-click marketing, though, is that you have an idea. That’s a start.

PPC News Roundup for Friday 6/26/2009

Amber — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:09:16 +0000

If you wanna make some display ads for yourself…or your clients, but don’t really have the time, money, expertise: that’s okay! Yahoo is piloting a program that provides templates to help you in creating display ads and displaying them for a minimum of $30/day. Read Yahoo’s take on why you would want to run them, and how to get started.
Hey! Apparently this has confused a ton of people, not just me. Good to know. Google’s conversion metrics change in AdWords. Why’d they do that? How does it work? What does it mean! If you can follow along with the many possible conversion scenarios, this post from Chris Compton might clarify things a bit.
Microsoft is living large at Cannes Lions Festival this year! Watch Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s presentation on “Living Up To The Promise Of Online Advertising”. He discusses many issues, including the newest addition to the Microsoft family, Bing!
What’s the word on the street? Listen to the Google agency experts as they give you their analytics tips from the “streets” of Google!
In the last two weeks Bing! increased its paid click share from 8% to 13%. This can have huge implications for how marketers assign their budgets to this search engine. The only question is, can this growth be sustained? Only time will tell.
Managing a small business PPC campaign? This means war. Pay-per-click war, that is, and there’s definitely an art form to defining your competition and what you’re up against. Anthony at Marketing Pilgrim discusses tactics, tools, and tips of small guerilla marketing and how you can prepare yourself for the PPC battleground.
I’ll do keyword research in exchange for a chicken and some milk? SemGeek talks about how bartering might lend a hand in the tough economic times. The entry continues with reasons on how and when this old fashioned technique might be beneficial for some clients.

Yahoo’s New Display Advertising – See How It Works

Amber — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:59:49 +0000

On Monday, Yahoo released their new display advertising for small and large businesses. Yahoo’s display advertising program is identical to Google with a few twists. You can target your display ads geographically, demographically, and within specific content network placements. The funny thing about Yahoo’s new display advertising is that it’s not connected to your Yahoo sponsored search account – mainly because you don’t have to have a Yahoo sponsored search account to advertise via display ads.

It’s easy to track the performance of your display ads to. You can get daily reporting on impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, spend, etc. You can set a daily campaign budget for each display advertising campaign, with a $30 per day minimum.

There are two pricing models, one for CPC (cost-per-click) and the other is CPM (cost-per-impressions). I’m not entirely sure why people would want to pay just for people to look at their ad with the CPM model, I’d rather only pay when someone clicks on my ad which is the CPC model just like regular Yahoo search marketing.

If you’re nervous about the creative aspect of your display advertising, Yahoo has a solution. It’s pretty cool actually – you can choose from several different business categories, and Yahoo will provide you with many different display ad design templates that you can easily edit and make your own. In the screen shot below, I selected the retail business category, and you can see the different templates Yahoo offers. What’s cool is that they also give you the impression count and click-through rate for each template. So you can choose your design based off past performance of that template.

Once you’ve chosen your ad design template, you can customize it with your information, logo, pictures and ad copy.

Now that I have customized my ad with my own logo, images, copy, etc. It shows me a preview of what my ads would look like in all sizes offered.

The next screen allows you to enter your destination URL of your ads. You can enter separate destination URL’s for each separate ad or just one destination URL for all of your ads. If you’re running analytics, don’t forget to add tracking to your destination URL!

To finish up your Yahoo display ads, you must select your budgeting, CPC or CPM bid, targeting, and industry. Yahoo provides a list of industries in which you can advertise your ads on. You can select several industries at the same time which is nice.

The only bad thing about the budgeting is that Yahoo will recommend a CPC based on my ads and industries I targeted, and I couldn’t bid below that recommendation – which really isn’t a recommendation but a requirement to get your ads to run. What’s even worse is that the recommended CPC for my specific ad was $3.79! But you can set a daily budget and they will not exceed that daily budget. Again, the minimum daily budget can’t be any lower than $30/day.

To submit your campaign and begin running your ads, you have to create an account and submit your credit card information. Or you can save your campaign as a draft and come back to it later.

I think the overall process is super easy and anyone can create an ad with their templates. You don’t target via keywords which could yield potentially unqualified traffic. However they do offer reporting so if you find there are sites that are spending too much and not converting you can remove those sites.

I think it’s a step in the right direction for Yahoo – let’s just hope it actually drives some good conversions!

What to Expect When You Make a Global Change to Your PPC Account: Launching a New Website

Joe — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:40:20 +0000

You should think of this article as a “what to expect when you’re expecting” in regards to launching a new website. More to the point, I will focus on the effects that launching a new website will have on your pay-per-click campaign.

Okay, I’ll just say it: you may break your PPC account. However, I want to discuss why making a global change to your PPC account is a big deal; what will happen when you change all of your destination and display URLs at the same time; some tips to mitigate the initial shock to the PPC system; as well as some tips to get your performance back up to speed.

As you learn how to better engage your audience, provide a more rewarding user experience, and increase your conversion rate, your website will evolve over time. And sometimes your website will make an even bigger leap to a new name and URL. If you’ve done your research and have a great team in place, then launching a new website is probably the best decision for the launch haul. But expect some bumps when it comes time to make the switch in your PPC campaign.

Launching a new website is one of the global changes you can make to a PPC campaign that can severely effect your performance. Here are a few reasons why this is such a major change:

You will have to update all of the display and destination URLs within every PPC ad. This means you’ll either need to pause all of your old ads and launch new ads with your updated website info. Or you’ll alter all of your current ads with this new information. Either way, Google AdWords will see these ads as new submissions. This means you’ll have to re-build your AdWords Quality Score and historical performance for these ads.
Google AdWords will have to evaluate this new website site/landing page. I don’t have any time frames set in stone from AdWords as to how long this takes, but it can take a while to re-build this trust.
Any time you make a global change to a PPC campaign, this sends up a red flag. The search engines prefer slow, gradual changes over time as you optimize and enhance your campaign’s performance. Changing all of your ads at once definitely shocks the system.

Those are a few reasons why launching a new website is a big change for your PPC campaign. However, what should you expect when you change all of your ad texts at once in order to send users to your site? This what I’ve seen in the past as a result of this global account change (keep in mind, these symptoms my not always occur, but they occur frequently and you should plan accordingly):

Your Quality Score can take a hit. By this I mean your Quality Score could decrease. This is because your ads and keywords have a symbiotic relationship that has accrued a performance history, and when you sever that relationship, it can negatively affect your account.
This means that your ad positions on the search and content networks will decrease.
If you ad positions decline, your impression share will decline on the search network. And your impression/click volume on the content network can decrease due to lower positions.

In a sense, you’re shocking your Quality Score and your account may see a deflation in volume due to the changes. But this doesn’t mean that you should never re-launch your website or make major changes that may negatively effect your PPC campaign. But while you’re in the development stage of your new website, you need to plan for a fluctuation in your PPC performance when the change occurs.

So, how do you mitigate this performance fluctuation and how do you get your account back on track when this does occur? Those are some good questions. First, let’s discuss some actions you can take before you launch the new website in your account:

Set the proper expectations

Let everyone know (who needs to know) what to expect when this change occurs. This will help preserve your sanity. If everyone knows that you’ll have to re-build your performance history and Quality Score beforehand, that will make your life much easier.

Optimize your account structure

Optimizing your account structure can create tighter ad groups with more focused and relevant ad texts. The result of these efforts can be a higher click-through rate. You should review/tweak your account structure and make changes a few weeks before your new website launches. You should do this step a few weeks in advance because you’ll need to give your account time to adjust to these restructuring changes.

Keep in mind that restructuring an account can also shock your Quality Score. So, you will need to make these changes gradually a few weeks before the new website launches.

Pause your old ads, write new ads

Your old ads with the old website information have a history built up with your keywords. Even if these ads are paused AdWords can still recognize their presence and this can help re-build your Quality Score after a global change. So, instead of changing all of your current ads, you should pause these old ads and upload new ones.

Utilizing AdWords Editor can help you can be methodical and careful in these changes. I use AdWords Editor for almost everything so anytime you’re making a global change, this is the way to do it.

Increase bids a few days before the launch

Let me say this: I don’t believe in haphazardly throwing money at a PPC problem. That’s not how I roll. But if you can anticipate a short term drop in ad position after the website switch, you can preemptively increase your rankings before the change.

Those are a few tactics you can employ before launching the global change in your account. When you launch your new site your performance will dip as the account re-adjusts to the changes. The decreased ad position and performance should be short term, but here a few things you can do help your account gain back its Quality Score and overall volume:

Conduct keyword research

If you find that you need more search volume, conduct keyword research in order to add new terms. You can do this before the launch as well.

Temporarily increase keyword bids

Stop griping. Of course you don’t want to increase your CPC, but this tactic can help. If you drop in ad position and you need to increase volume, this is a great way to do it. Also, temporarily increasing bids can help enhance your click-through rate which can enhance your Quality Score. And this helps increase your ad position and lower your CPC.

Have patience

And then it just takes time for your account to acclimate to the big changes you’ve been making. This means that time heals all wounds. AdWords will eventually begin to look normal again.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to panic and restructure your account and make even more major changes in order to fix your performance right away. These will be more alterations that AdWords will have to review and acclimate to and this can make the healing process take even longer!

Unfortunately, I can’t predict exactly when you’re account will be back to its old self. This process usually takes a few weeks, at least. This is where the patience part and the setting of proper expectations comes into play.

So, when should you start panicking because your performance isn’t picking back up? That’s a good question. If things aren’t starting to pick back up around the three week mark, you should contact your Google Representative to make sure everything with the account is solid. But this will be different for each account.

These challenges shouldn’t deter you from launching a new website, but you should know what to expect when you make a big change to your PPC account (like altering all of your ads at once).