PPCwizz

Google Ad Innovations

2010-12-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

Google have announced today that they are going to introduce Google Ad Innovations to the USA.

Please feel free to click on the link, because I for one cannot wait to see if this is going to be included for us to have a play with this on this side of the pond.

Also click here to see the post from Google.

Google AdWords Weekly Agency Update

2010-11-17T08:37:00.000-08:00

Sorry and I know its been a while since I have blogged/posted.

Something caught my eye in the latest Google AdWords Agency update.

We all know that Google have launched instant previews and there has been lots of talk about it on peoples Blogs and Tweets.

There in the the last paragraph is the comment "Note: at this time, Instant Previews does not impact ads.

It will be interesting to see in the future it will have an impact on ads.

PPC V SEO

2010-10-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is question that many people inside and outside of digital marketing often ask. When I ask it to myself it brings up many questions, I also have my own view what the answer is.
I have worked for several agencies and in the past, and there has always been an opinion amongst us PPC people that people within SEO see themselves as elitist or is this just my experiences. So does it even need to be PPC V SEO, or can the two work side by side?
SEO is seen as the Holy Grail so to speak. To appear in top positions on the search engines for your chosen keywords on the search engines. Sounds simple I know. Everyone in the industry also know its not that simple. It can also take time for you to appear in any favorable positions.
Step up PPC. Although PPC is instant it is becoming more and more scientific as more companies get involved. Gone are the days of starting your bidding at £0.10 and lowering it each day until you’re paying about £0.05 a click and still ranking on the first page before the fold. I hope I am not giving my age away there as many of the new people involved will have never know those early days.
SEO is a fantastic and very difficult strategy to follow, there are many metrics involved to help improve your rankings. If there was only a few the job would be simple.
PPC used to be the ideal answer, but as mentioned it has and continues to become more complicated. No longer is it create an ad, find a load of broad match type keywords, stick in a £0.10 bid and as your CTR improves lower your bids. The one major advantage over SEO is its instant. Do all your work correctly and you can get a position you want for the budget you have allowed.
If you have the budget and the time SEO will do its magic, unfortunately not all companies have a large budget, and there probably not patient either.
Going back to my title I do not feel it should be this traditional PPC V SEO, but it should be “PPC & SEO a marriage made in heaven.”
I feel I have been educated in my thoughts over the past 6 months or so by the people who are involved in search at Branded3 (my employers). I used to get wound up by the SEO teams rubbishing PPC this no longer happens and has never really happened at Branded3 apart from the odd bit of leg pulling. Why does it not happen here? Well its down to good management for one and a few simple things.
• We are all part of “The Search Team.”
• We all sit together, yes rocket science the PPC & SEO teams sit together, talk pick up tips from each other.
There is no rocket science involved at all.

Google Inside AdWords

2010-09-22T01:59:00.001-07:00

For those of you who missed it yesterday, Google have announced some new features in My Client Center (MCC) for those of us who use the function.

1. e-mail notifications.

2. Custom alerts.

Please click here if you want to read the full blog.

Also coming soon form myself, a new blog with the title PPC V SEO. Any ideas and thoughts, please let me know. Everyone has a perspective on this would be great. I have my own ideas and will put it on here shortly.

AdWords Myths Part 2

2010-08-03T05:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I posted briefly about the new Google AdWords blog about AdWords Myths.
The second installment is now available to view, with Myths 3, 4 and 5

Myth#3: Your conversion rate can impact your quality score

Myth#4: The AdWords keyword tool suggests keywords to use

Myth#5: Upper and lower case letters in AdWords keywords matter

Click here to read the blog in full.

We Will look forward to see what new myths Google tell us all about next week.

Google AdWords Myths

2010-07-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Google started to run a post on their Google AdWords Blog about the myths and the facts surrounding the myths and facts of Google AdWords.

The first myth was 'Spending money on Google AdWords will influence my websites ranking in Google's free search results.'

The second myth was one I am sure we have all heard 'Google AdWords has declined my credit card.'

Next week we can all look forward to AdWords clicks and Keyword myths.

Google AdWords Updates

2010-07-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

As we are all aware or most of us are aware Google are at present adding extra features to the AdWords interface on a regular basis.
The latest is to the 'Opportunities Tab'. There are now three advertising goals. These three goals are:'Increase Traffic', 'Balance Cost and Traffic' and 'Maintain Or Decrease Cost'.
It is far too early to see the results and the benefits of the tool, but I am sure we will all be having a play to see how it will benefit the campaigns we manage.

Please click here to read more.

It’s Too Good To Be True

2010-07-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if it is just me, but there is a worrying trend of a number of agencies promising you guaranteed first page listings on Google for less than £100.00 per month.

When things in the world market are not going as well as we would all like, the scruples of some businesses show their true colours, and business ethics go right out of the window.
Some of the promises that are on offer at times sound too good to be true – in fact, they are usually just that, or a clever play on words.
Companies should be very sceptical of agencies that offer the world.
Here are a few examples of advertising spiel that some agencies are using, and ways that they may be getting around it.
“We will guarantee you a listing on the first page of Google”
Sounds great doesn’t it? Just about everyone wants to be on the first page of Google, but what’s the catch? How can they make these guarantees?
When one of my clients first mentioned this to me, I thought it would be best to investigate it a little further.
Frequently, what is on offer is a local business listing. This is something that any business can add, and the cost to Google is – nothing it’s FREE.
Alternatively, then could simply be using the fact that AdWords is an auction. If you bid sufficiently highly, you can appear first in many cases – particularly if the agency aren’t too concerned about which keywords they are bidding on, on your behalf.
Typically, agencies using this kind of deal will charge you per keyword, and they’ll send you a long list of keywords that sound relevant. But relevance doesn’t equate to importance, and many of these keywords will generate few, if any, clicks. PPC is well-suited to targeting low-volume, ‘long tail’ keywords, but paying individually for each of them will offer you very poor value. At the same time, the agency may adopt to miss critical keywords, as they are going to be more expensive.
“We guarantee No1 24/7 placement on Google AdWords”
Another bold statement. As much as some companies would like you to do it, I for one do not work 24 hours 365 day a year. Of course, any wannabe programmer in his bedroom can now build some ‘bid management’ software, to adjust your bids 24/7, but bid management is a flawed process. No computer program can understand your business, no matter how well-programmed it is (any many aren’t).
Guaranteeing number one position? It’s difficult to give that one any credibility. Suppose that they have two clients in the same sector? Suppose that two people in the same sector sign up with different agencies making this promise? Somebody’s going to be disappointed. And if they are in a really competitive market like Car Insurance, neither of them is going to get a number one listing anytime soon!
As I’ve said already, AdWords is an auction, and if you bid high enough, you can frequently get top positions on some keywords. But unless your account has built up some history, and you’ve been getting good clickthrough rates to build up your quality score, you’re going to struggle to get the number one position on competitive keywords, whatever you bid.
Remember that many campaigns are being run by genuine agencies, and they are bidding what the traffic’s worth to their clients. The only way to appear above them without a good history on your account is to bid much more than they are – and how is that going to profitable?
A strange thing happened to me on the way to work today. I bought some magic beans on the side of the road, and now all I have to do is plant them when I get home and wait for them to grow. It will lead me to a goose that lays golden eggs.
Unlimited clicks.
This one is a real clever one. The sales pitch is that you pay upfront for a fixed term and as many keywords as you/they feel are necessary.
It does not matter how many clicks/traffic you get to your site. You will never pay more than your fixed term contract states. Or they will take all your money and send a load of useless traffic through poorly run content network ads.
But ask yourself a question. They must be charging you more than they are paying for your clicks, and the difference is their management fee. The difference between this and a more transparent agency is that here, you have no idea what you are paying the agency to manage your account for you.
How do you know that you are appearing all of the time for all of your keywords? All AdWords campaigns are required to have a budget, and they aren’t going to set yours at a level where they lose money.
But once they’ve set a budget for your keywords, where is the incentive for them to optimise your campaign? Clearly, they won’t report the performance by keyword, or you’d see what the clicks were really costing you (and find another agency). And there’s a good chance that they’ll pad your keyword list with cheap, irrelevant keywords, in order to get you lots of cheap clicks.
My advice is really quite simple.
Some advice my late grandad gave me was "If it sounds too good to be true, it is because it is just that."
Do not be afraid to ask as many questions as you feel necessary. The more answers we have, the easier it is for us to fully understand what you want. An honest agency should be totally transparent about what their management fee is, how much each click is costing you, and what the visitors to your website were actually searching for.
Companies making claims like the ones here come and go, and are happy to have a high churn rate of clients, as they make so much money from each one. An established agency will be very keen to keep you as a client, by being honest with you and by doing a good job.

Google AdWords Updates

2010-06-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

First of all anyone who is still using the old MCC interface had better get ready for the new one,its about to get switched over.Don't say you were not warned.I used to be one of the worse for trying new things when they were in Beta,but I probably like many others learnt my lesson the hard way.

Google have added some new updates to the AdWords interface.
Campaign Management.
There are more columns and filters.
. Scoping Filter.
.More Details In Keywords Tab Filter
.Invalid Clicks Coloumn

New Tools
Batch Keyword Diagnosis
Detailed Keyword Filtering

Google Display Network

2010-06-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Google have today announced that they are to re-name the Google Content Network.
From Now on it is to be called Google Display Network.

Read more here.

Google AdWords Reports - Sharing is Caring.

2010-06-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

Google today are showing us all the tips and best new way to segment,schedule and e-mail reports from the campaign page.

Click here to seeeverything in full.

New AdWords Reports In Analytics

2010-06-09T02:37:00.000-07:00

This is something we have all been waiting for - imporved Google AdWords Reporting in Google Analytics.

So what are the three new reports that allow us to dig a little deeper into your PPC Campaigns.

Day Part Reports
This allows to see what day of the week,time of the day is most profitable,and helps you make those difficult campaign 'day parting' decisions easier.

Destination URLs Report
Which landing works best and gives you the best results.This can even be broken down to keyword level.

Placements Reports
This report shows you the performance of your ads on the content network.

Along with the new reports,there are also 10 New AdWords Dimensions.

Click here to read the article in full.

View Through Conversion Reporting

2010-06-08T02:40:00.000-07:00

Improvements to view-through conversion reporting for display campaigns

Google AdWords yesterday announced improvements to the view through conversion reporting for display campaigns on the content network.
You will be able to set a custom range for the window of time for which you would like view- through conversions. This was previously set to 30 days.
You will have the option to exclude reporting view- through conversions that are duplicated across both search and content networks.

Click here to view post in full.

Ad Extension Tab Launched

2010-06-08T02:38:00.000-07:00

Google AdWords Ad Extension Tab Launched

After been in Beta mode for a while now with a number of campaigns Google have finally launched Ad Extensions Tab.
Also as further improvement Google have started to launch reporting via the Ad Extensions Tab.
AdWords users that have any type of Ad Extension, location, product, phone, sitelink within their campaign will shortly have access to detailed reporting via this tab.

Click here to view in full