Searching Beyond the Paid

Speaking at SES Chicago

2009-11-03T22:22:00.000-05:00

SES Chicago is happening in the Windy City December 7-11. I've been attending SES since 2003, and it's always a fun and worthwhile conference.

This year, I'll be speaking for the first time, and in two sessions to boot! Both are on Wednesday. The first is "Facebook Rockstars RoundTable: Marketing For the Other Internet," with my good friend Marty Weintraub from aimClear. We'll be discussing Facebook success stories, which should be a lot of fun.

The other session is the Pay-Per-Click Congruency Clinic, where we'll take volunteers from the audience and make suggestions for aligning their keywords, ad copy, and landing pages. I've learned a lot from the SES Clinics, having "taken one for the team" more than once. I'm honored to be able to offer my expertise to others.

If you haven't already done so, you can register and get the Early Bird rate before Nov. 20. There are also discount codes floating around out there, so be on the lookout for those to save even more.

Be sure to stop by and say hi - I love meeting my fellow SEMs! See you in Chicago!

Healthcare Search, And The Art Of Slowing Down

2009-10-24T14:02:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted here. And it's not just because I've been busy. I have been busy, but that's not the only reason.

Thursday, August 6, was a pretty typical day. I drove 80 miles to our Ann Arbor office for the day, where I had a client meeting. After the meeting, a couple co-workers and I walked several blocks through downtown Ann Arbor to get cupcakes to snack on. I drove home afterward and had a normal evening with my family, and worked on last-minute plans for our summer vacation, for which we were to leave 2 days later. Then, tired, I went to bed.

I woke up a couple hours later feeling terrible. Fever, aches, muscle cramps, etc. I tried to go back to sleep, but by 5 a.m., I knew I was really sick. My chest hurt and I was coughing badly. My husband took one look and said, "We need to go to the doctor."

Later that morning, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. I've never had it before, although our daughter did when she was 6, so I knew how scary it could be.

Luckily, I wasn't hospitalized - with a blood oxygen level of 94, it wasn't hospital-serious. However, the doctor told me that it takes 6-8 weeks to recover from pneumonia.

"Pshaw," I thought. "I'm in great shape, and if I just rest for a week or so, I'll be fine." But just in case, I turned to the Internet to see what I could find about pneumonia recovery. I searched on both Google and Bing, partly because one of Bing's primary verticals is health care searches. I wanted to see if, indeed, this was "better than Google."

I wasn't disappointed in Bing. A Google search turned up a mish-mash of forum threads, blog posts, and informational articles - and it was hard to sift through it all. Bing, on the other hand, turned up highly relevant and credible articles about exactly what I needed: information on how long it really takes to recover from pneunomia.

Even though the online information backed up what the doctor said, I still blew it off - much to my detriment. 3 weeks into my recovery, I came down with bronchitis. While it wasn't severe and I caught it early, it was the wakeup call I needed. Yes, even pneumonia wasn't enough of a wakeup call for me to realize I needed to slow down.

I'm 43 years old. I'm told I don't look it, and most of the time I don't feel it, either. I'm proud to be able to successfully juggle a full-time career and be a good wife and mother - and still go to the gym twice a week and participate in a few extra-curricular activities of my own. I eat healthy and have kept off a 35-pound weight loss for 10 years. I think I'm doing pretty well for my age.

But that doesn't make me infallible. Being a busy working mom can be stressful, and I wasn't doing a good job of slowing down and resting when I was tired - I just kept soldiering on. I sort of had the attitude that I'd sleep when I'm dead.

No more. Now, I make sure to get at least 7 1/2 hours of sleep a night (as opposed to the 6-7 I was getting before I got sick). I take frequent breaks during the work day instead of pushing through 8 hours without stopping. And if I'm too tired to work out, I don't - even if it means missing a day.

I heard recently that, for many moms, "the slowing-down process is not something we're good at." That's for sure. But in the past 2 months, I've gotten a lot better at it. I've learned to say, "No, I can't do that just now," even to my boss. I think I'm worth it. I *know* I'm worth it.

Fun Way To Look At Web Logs

2009-08-18T00:00:00.000-04:00

In my spare time (I know, ha ha) I love to watch Food Network. Yes, I admit it - I'm a closet FN junkie. And naturally, my new favorite website is Food Network Humor. It's a smart and hilarious site that pokes (mostly) good-natured fun at Food Network shows and stars.

One of the most recent FNH posts is titled Food Network Humor Search Terms. Needless to say, that got my attention! Food Network *and* search, all in one post? Jackpot!

Whether or not you watch Food Network, if you're a search pro, you'll love this. We've all seen similar examples of weird, crazy, and just plain non-sequiter search queries in our logs, but these made me laugh anyway.

I think I'll go bid on "bobby flay arrogant ugly redhead."

Microsoft and Yahoo Seal The Deal

2009-07-29T09:27:00.002-04:00

After nearly 18 months of deliberation, the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is finally complete. Needless to say, the blogosphere and Twitter-sphere is all a-buzz, so I won't go on and on here. You can read more, including my comments, at Search Engine Watch (and every other SEM blog in the world). If you're on Twitter, there is lots of live coverage of the MSFT-YAHOO phone call. Danny Sullivan's tweets (@dannysullivan) are particularly entertaining.

Now, the fun begins. Once the dust has settled, what do you think will happen in the PPC arena? Or in search in general? Does MicroHoo have a shot?

YouTube Ads

2009-07-09T07:51:00.004-04:00

I finally saw my first YouTube ad today. These have been around for a while, but I hadn't seen the popover type yet, until today.

It's for Biggby Coffee, a local franchise started by a Michigan State grad. Great guy. And I love their lattes. But I digress. Here's a screen shot of the ad:

And yes, I admit it - I was watching a godawful Charlie the Unicorn video. My 12-year-old twins love these things. I think the guys who make these are, well, smoking something. But again, I digress. (And I swear, this was work-related research. Really.)

This ad is clearly geo-targeted to Michigan, and possibly behaviorally-targeted as well, since I am an avowed Biggby customer and have visited their site before. Still, this is kind of cool. I'm not sure what the ROI on these ads would be, but it got my attention.

Anybody used YouTube ads like this? If so, what were your results? Would you do it again?

More Google Trademark Insanity

2009-06-30T22:13:00.000-04:00

This has to be one of the nuttiest things I've ever seen. Via Marketing Pilgrim, it appears that a firm called Ascentive is suing Google for not showing them in the organic results. They claim that "consumers expect to see the trademark owner in organic search results for the trademark and therefore consumers will be actionably confused if the trademark owner doesn't appear there." Apparently Ascentive claims that this is a violation of a legal statute called the Lanham Act.

Are they kidding?!? Since when does a search engine have a legal obligation to list your website in their free organic results? And since when does the absence of said listing lead to consumer confusion?

I agree there is plenty of consumer confusion when it comes to the SERPs. But that has nothing to do with obligation on Google's part.

What about your obligation as a website owner to make sure your site is optimized? Hmm....

Additional coverage is at TechDirt, where I agree with the first commenter who says, "Google is not a RIGHT. They OFFER a service, they are not OBLIGATED to include you in it." Indeed.

Early Results from Bing PPC

2009-06-15T21:40:00.000-04:00

The SEM world is still a-buzz over Bing, Microsoft's new search engine. While it's still way too early to tell whether it will be a Google killer or even an improvement over Live.com, early results for one of our adCenter PPC clients are encouraging.

I ran a quick analysis of visitors & conversions for this client, whose business is in the travel vertical, comparing the first 11 days of May to the first 11 days of June. Their PPC campaigns were unchanged during this time as far as budget and strategy.

Growth in visitors from Bing PPC is 25% higher than average. Even more exciting is that Bing/MSN's traditionally-good conversion rate is continuing: conversion rate from adCenter is 58% higher than average for PPC, and actually increased since the Bing lauch - whereas overall conversion rate from PPC is down slightly.

Is this proof that Bing's a Google killer? No. Is it a good sign for overall client ROI? Absolutely.

Microsoft Search Summit 2009: Bing, adCenter, and More

2009-06-08T11:06:00.004-04:00

Last Wednesday through Friday, Microsoft held their Search Summit, where approximately 80 search experts gathered in Bellevue, WA to hear about and discuss the latest and greatest about Microsoft's search products. In previous years, MS had two separate conferences, with organic / SEO represented at Search Champs and advertisers at Ad Champs. This year, they decided to combine the two for a super-power-search experience.

Of course the biggest buzz out of this conference was over Bing, MS's new search engine. I have to say, initially I'm impressed with the functionality of the engine, especially in certain verticals like travel and shopping. Instead of a mish-mash of results, Bing returns an organized SERP with sections for reviews, price, features, etc. It's pretty cool.

On the advertising side, a lot of discussion focused on the adCenter spring upgrade, including the new and improved adCenter Desktop, which is close to coming out of beta.

Most of the advertiser sessions included plenty of time for questions & discussion, which is always the best part. Controversy over trademark protection continues, with lots of debate over Google's recently announced trademark policy change. It seemed as though half the attendees favored the new policy, and half were up in arms over it. I guess we'll see how it all shakes out.

All in all it was a useful and informative conference, with networking that was second to none. I'm honored to have been a part of it. I hope that Bing gives MS the traffic boost it needs to make all their efforts worthwhile.

If you're interested in reading more news from the conference, WebProNews has a good summary of interesting tweets from those in attendance.

Funny AdSense Ad Of The Day

2009-05-27T21:44:00.000-04:00

I was reading my Gmail today when this short and sweet ad caught my eye:

I was intrigued by the ad copy, but even more so by the display URL: phoqueue.com. Say it out loud. ORK ORK!

I should send this to Bob & Tom.

Google Revises Adwords Trademark Policy

2009-05-15T10:54:00.004-04:00

Well hallelujah and the saints be praised - Google has finally come to their senses and modified their Adwords trademark policy to allow the use of trademarked terms in ad copy. It's about flippin' time!

I've written about this a couple times, most recently just over a month ago. This trademark thing has bordered on the ridiculous many times, as anecdotes about people not being able to use the words "target" or "daddy" or "next" or other common terms abounded on forums, blogs, and Twitter. Now all that silliness has been laid to rest. From the Inside Adwords blog post:

Imagine opening your Sunday paper and seeing ads from a large supermarket chain that didn't list actual products for sale; instead, they simply listed the categories of products available - offers like "Buy discount cola" and "Snacks on sale." The ads wouldn't be useful since you wouldn't know what products are actually being offered. For many categories of advertisers, this is the problem they have faced on Google for some time.

Hey, that sounds familiar. In my post Trademark Trials and Tribulations, I wrote (emphasis added):

What I don't understand is why this is such a big deal in the search space. I mean, can you imagine JCPenney running a newspaper ad for Levi's or Carter's or Samsonite or any of the hundreds of other brands they carry in their stores - without using those names in the ad?? How silly would that look? And how many people would be compelled to shop for "great brand name jeans" or "cute brand baby clothes" or "super durable luggage" after seeing such an ad? Where would all the grocery store circulars be without using brand names and logos? What about TV ads for just about anything? What about magazine ads??

I won't go after Google for paraphrasing me. I'm just glad they've finally seen the light and modified their policy - it's long overdue.

Google Conversion Optimizer Observations

2009-05-08T09:26:00.004-04:00

Back at SES Chicago in December, I heard a lot of good things about Google's Conversion Optimizer, which (in a nutshell) allows you to set a desired cost per action instead of cost per click on your PPC campaigns. You only pay for conversions (not clicks), and theoretically, Google's algorithm adjusts your ad serving in order to show the ad at times when it's most likely to convert. Sounds great, right? Why aren't we all using it, then?

Well, I tried it a few months ago on a client campaign that wasn't converting as well as I thought it could. To me, this is the ideal campaign for Optimizer. However, it totally bombed. Campaign trafffic dropped to next to nothing, and we got 0 conversions - that's right, 0 - in over a week of testing. I canceled the test and decided Optimizer was flawed.

But I've been mulling it over in my head ever since. That particular client had a limited PPC budget which was well below the available search volume on their keywords. And the recommended cost per conversion that Optimizer suggested was about double what their daily budget was! I had to set the cost/conversion at their daily budget limit, which severely limited Google's ability to generate conversions & traffic. I suspected this was the fly in the ointment.

So, last week I decided to try again with a different client. This client has been doing PPC for years, and they get very high conversions (both volume-wise and conversion %-wise) because their goal is lead generation (email signup). But there was one campaign that I thought could do better. So I decided to try Optimizer again.

It's only been a week, so the jury is still out, but early results are promising. Here are some early observations:

The campaign is getting higher impressions, clicks, and CTR with Optimizer.
Average ad position is slightly higher (but only very slightly).
Conversion rate is 10% worse with Optimizer, and cost per conversion is 22% higher.

I know, you're thinking "Cost per conversion is 22% higher? Stop the test!" That's what I thought, too. But there's a caveat. The client drastically reduced their budget for this campaign earlier this week (a planned reduction). The lower budget has been in effect for 2 full days. (Yes, I know my test is now skewed. Keep reading...) Observations over those 2 days:

At the lower budget level, CTR and conversion rate are nearly double what they were at the higher budget level.
Cost per conversion is about half what it was at the higher budget.

Of course it's too early to draw any real conclusions, but what I suspect is going on is that now that the budget is lower, Optimizer is forcing ad serving on only the best-quality searches. Impression volume is about 1/6 of what it was before, but I don't care about that. I care about conversions.

Conclusions?

Optimizer seems to work best for campaigns with lots of conversions (i.e. way above the 30 per month minimum required to use Optimizer) and a decent conversion rate (i.e. 10% or better).
If your budget is enough to max out impressions & clicks, you may not get as favorable a cost/conversion with Optimizer as you do with a more limited budget. However...
If your budget is too restrictive (i.e. impression share less than 50%) and your conversion rate is low, Optimizer is unlikely to work well for you.

I'll be running the test for another week or so to see if these observations hold true. I'd love to hear other observations about Optimizer - post them in the comments!

Uploading PPC Campaigns Quickly

2009-04-23T07:58:00.003-04:00

If you're like most PPC marketers, you start a new campaign by setting it up in Google, most likely using Adwords Editor. Editor is probably the single most useful Adwords tool Google has released yet, and it's one of the first things I teach new PPC hires at our agency. But I digress.

Even though Google has by far the largest market share in the search world, you're missing 20%-30% of searchers by putting all your eggs in that basket. To take your PPC campaigns to the next level, you need to expand to Yahoo and MSN. But how? MSN has adCenter Desktop, but it's still in beta and not everyone has access to it. (Plus, it's not the most user-friendly tool out there, but again, I digress.) Yahoo doesn't even have a desktop editor. What to do?

Lucky for you (and for them), both Yahoo and MSN have made bulk uploads much easier than they used to be. The days of creating a massive spreadsheet, copying, pasting, and hoping, are over.

Yahoo makes a decent effort to make up for their lack of a desktop editor with their "Convert Third Party Campaigns" function. You'll find this in the "Import" menu of the YSM interface. Here's how to use it:
1. Export your Adwords campaign from Adwords Editor using the Export function. Save the file as is.
2. If your Adwords campaign has any negative keywords, open the CSV file and delete those rows - you'll need to manually add those negatives to Yahoo later.
3. If your campaign status is anything other than Active, Paused, or Deleted (such as Pending), change it to either Active or Paused. Yahoo doesn't understand Pending and your conversion will fail.
4. Go to the "Convert Third Party Campaigns" page in YSM and follow the steps to convert your file.
5. Once the file is converted, download the conversion file, make any edits (such as updating tracking URLs) and save the file as a Unicode Text with a .csv extension.
6. Then go to the Import Campaigns tab and follow the steps.
7. Pray you didn't get any errors.

If you do get errors, it's not easy to figure out what to do. If the only error is "this keyword was not added because it is a duplicate of another keyword," you're fine - Yahoo's match driver means fewer keyword variations are allowed in Yahoo than in Google. If you got other errors, you can either try to fix your upload file and re-upload, or just go into the interface and fix them manually.

It's even easier to bulk upload to MSN. You can do it via the online interface - simply follow the instructions outlined in the adCenter Blog. The sticking point of this is when you use keyword-level destination URLs - these are not carried over into your import, because MSN decided to use that horrid "param1" function. You'll have to add those manually later, or use this workaround: In your export file from Adwords, change the ad copy destination URLs from whatever they are to "{param1}" (without the quotes). This will bring in all your keyword-level destination URLs - but not your ads. So you'll still have to do some manual work, but usually campaigns have far fewer ads than keywords!

Uploading via adCenter Desktop is even easier. You can import your file from Adwords without even converting it. Just make sure to edit your ad copy destination URLs as described above if you're using keyword-level URLs. Entering ad copy in Desktop is much easier than in the online interface.

If anyone knows a better way to import campaigns with keyword-level URLs in MSN, please post it in the comments! Also post your questions, tips, and tricks - when we share our knowledge, we all improve.

DM News Essential Guide to Search Marketing 2009

2009-04-10T20:52:00.000-04:00

DM News, the powerhouse publication of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), has released their 2009 Essential Guide to Search Marketing, a 32-page publication covering a myriad of SEM topics. You can read the guide online here - although be forewarned, the screen reader is kind of odd. Still, there are lots of great articles by some of the biggest movers and shakers in search: Wister Wolcott, Joshua Stylman, David Berkowitz - and me! I am honored to be included in such prestigiuos company.

Give the Guide a look - it's definitely worth a read.

Why All The Hype Over Trademarks in PPC?

2009-04-03T07:13:00.003-04:00

Last week, there was a flurry of news covering Amazon being sued over using trademarked terms in their PPC ads. In a nutshell, a company called Video Professor was unhappy that Amazon was bidding on their name, but the landing page had competing products featured on it.

At first pass, I thought "fair enough." But then I read the details and discovered that the landing page on amazon.com did indeed include Video Professor products. While it is a best practice to send PPC searches for "video professor" to a landing page on amazon.com showing only Video Professor products rather than a broader category page with multiple product lines, the fact that other competing products also appear on the search page does not make this a trademark infringement.

I am continually surprised and perturbed by these type of complaints and lawsuits. If this were an ad in traditional media, no one would bat an eye. For whatever reason, search is under the microscope for frivolous trademark complaints. Further, I believe that Google’s trademark policy only exacerbates the issue. By allowing companies to file trademark complaints, Google encourages lawsuits such as this, and hurts the advertisers who are legitimate sellers of the trademarked product.

I wrote about this 2 years ago, so I won't rehash the whole argument here. My take on the Amazon suit is that, especially in tough economic times, companies are lawsuit-happy and perceive successful online organizations such as Amazon and Google to have deep pockets. In reality, all they're doing is making things difficult for all PPC advertisers.

3 Must-Read Search Engine Industry Blogs

2009-03-13T20:52:00.000-04:00

Years ago, people started their day with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Later, it was coffee and the TV news. Now, many of us start the day with Starbucks and the internet. (My Starbucks is home-brewed, but still.)

Part of my morning routine is catching the latest news on SEM blogs. Here are my top 3 must-read feeds:

1. Search Engine Land. Their Daily SearchCap is an absolute must - great summary of what's happening in search.

2. Search Engine Roundtable. Barry Schwartz is the hardest working man in SEM, and keeps us all informed throughout the day with news posts. I don't think anyone gets an earlier start than Barry!

3. Search Engine Watch. SEW has breaking SEM news, but one of my favorite features is the expert articles. Written by some of the biggest names in SEM, the Search Engine Watch Experts feed is a deep dive into all the key details of SEM.

There are tons more great blogs out there, but these are my go-to feeds every day. What are your can't-miss SEM feeds?

How To Fail At Online Execution of Offline Promotion

2009-03-04T21:43:00.000-05:00

I've been a working mom for 12 years, and one of my favorite magazines is Working Mother. Last night I was reading Working Mother Media CEO Carol Evans' column in the latest issue, where she talked about FMLA. In her column, Evans urges readers to "...make our voices loudly heard in the tumult of change. Please go to workingmother.com and vote in our FMLA Support Poll. We will use the poll results to call attention to this important matter."

I was inspired. Expanding FMLA is an issue near and dear to my heart. 12 years ago today, I was 8 days away from giving birth to twins. I'd been on bed rest since the end of January. To make a long story short, my maternity leave before & after the twins were born lasted 16 weeks - all of them unpaid. It took us nearly 2 years to pay off the debts we incurred from the unpaid leave. Needless to say I've been a vocal advocate for better parental leave ever since.

So, I went right over to workingmother.com to vote in the poll. Problem was, I couldn't find it. I expected to see the poll, or at least a link to the poll, right on the homepage. No such luck. I clicked on "current issue," thinking I'd find it there. No such luck. I conducted a site search for "FMLA support poll" - the exact words from Carol Evans' column. No such luck.

3 strikes and you're out - after nearly 15 minutes of fruitless searching, I gave up. This is yet another frustrating example of offline marketing failing online. If Working Mother Magazine really thinks this poll is such a big issue, maybe they shouldn't hide it so well on their site.

Biggest Search Geek Contest - Top Scorers

2009-02-25T08:33:00.002-05:00

A while back, Marin Software put on their Biggest Search Geek contest, which I blogged about. The winner was chosen a while ago, but now Marin has released the list of those who scored in the top 10% of all participants.

How do I know this? I made the top 10%! From the looks of things, so did a boatload of other people. Still, it's nice to be recognized. I only wish the list included full names. While I understand why it doesn't, I'd like to know just how good the company is at the top.

Either way, the contest was a fun idea and I'm sure Marin is getting good mileage out of it.

5 Ways To Be A Good PPC Client

2009-02-13T19:56:00.001-05:00

These are crazy economic times, and businesses are rightly watching every penny of expenses. In a recession, advertising and marketing are often the first expenses to be cut - often at their own peril. When times are tough, you need advertising all the more - you can't afford to let even one potential customer slip away to the competition.

If you're using an SEM agency to manage your PPC, here are 5 suggestions based on my experience managing client accounts.

1. Take the time to educate your account manager on your business. Before you launch a campaign, spend 30 minutes on the phone talking about current and past marketing efforts, product / service lines, customer profiles, competitors, and anything else that's important to you. (If you've been working with an agency for a while and haven't done this, that's ok - spend 30 minutes this week and do it now.) This overview will be very helpful to your account manager in choosing what keywords to bid on, what type of targeting (demographic, geographic, etc.) to use, and what ad copy to test.

2. Speaking of ad testing: Work with your account manager to develop an aggressive ad testing plan. This could include simple copy testing, offer testing, and/or landing page testing, among other things. Get creative with special offers - the beauty of PPC is that you can run a test for a very short period of time and get a lot of great data. You may find that lowering your price by 25% leads to a 100% increase in conversions - meaning more total revenue for you.

3. Make sure your account manager sets aside a portion of your PPC budget to bid on branded terms. At least once a week I read an article or hear a comment saying that it's a waste of money to bid on your own name: you most likely rank #1 organically, and people searching on branded terms are looking for you anyway and will be motivated to find you, so you shouldn't pay for them to come to your site. While it's true that you should rank #1 and that a branded searcher is a motivated searcher, you should still bid on your brand. Why? (1) Your competition is probably bidding on your brand. If your ad isn't on the page, you risk losing that click to them. (2) You can't control the verbiage in your organic listing. OK, you can write a great meta description and on-page copy, but can you test offers and landing pages in organic? No. With PPC, you have total control over your ad message and your landing page - meaning you can not only outrank the competition in PPC, but you can put a compelling marketing message in your ad and send the visitor to a dedicated landing page that's optimized for maximum conversion - and that boils down to great ROI. (3) Having both a PPC and organic presence greatly increases clicks to your website. We recently had a client whose PPC campaigns consisted primarily of branded terms. Due to temporary budget constraints, they paused their PPC for a month. Well, not only did they lose all the conversions from PPC, but their organic and direct-referral conversions also dropped by 30%. For this client, PPC only represents about 15% of their traffic. So, by stopping PPC, conversions from 85% of their traffic fell by 30% - including conversions from branded phrases. The end result? A net loss of far more conversions than just PPC. Needless to say, they didn't hesitate to restart their branded campaigns.

4. Take the time to read your monthly reports. If your agency is any good, your account manager has spent a lot of time and brain power creating your reports. Not only do the reports contain campaign performance data, but they (should) contain recommendations for improvement. Read them. And engage your account manager in a conversation to discuss them. Clients who don't implement their agency's recommendations often see less-than-stellar results - and then blame the agency. But whose fault is that, really?

5. Tell your account manager when you make changes to your website. Yes, your account rep should keep tabs on your site anyway. But they can't watch it every second. If you're running an offer in PPC and you remove it from your landing page, you've created a disconnect between your ad and your offer. Would you run a newspaper ad promoting a product that's nowhere to be found in your store? Of course you wouldn't - so don't do that with your PPC ads.

This list really boils down to communication. Don't worry about "bothering" your account rep with too much information. Much of this communication can be done via email - a few minutes sending an email can save hours of aggravation (and sub-optimal performance) down the road. Taking the time to keep your PPC account manager in the loop will pay big dividends in ROI from your campaigns.

Google Adwords No Longer Allowing Multiple Display URLs Per Ad Group

2009-02-05T07:36:00.000-05:00

This has been out in the news for a while, but on Monday I received an email from our Google rep confirming that ads with different display URLs within a single ad group are going to be disapproved.

Here is the email from my rep:

"In an effort to provide more relevant results and a higher quality experience for our users, we have made the decision to no longer allow multiple domains within a single ad group. Starting in mid-February, all display URLs within an ad group must be for the same top-level domain. Please note that this amendment to our policy applies to all advertisers, regardless of previous exceptions or acceptability of any campaigns. While we understand there are legitimate use-cases for multiple domains within one ad group, we ask that separate ad groups be created for any given domain.

In order for your ad(s) to be approved, please edit your display URLs within your ad group(s) so that the top-level domains are consistent. For instructions on editing your display URL, please see https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6272&hl=en_US."

I don't have a problem with this policy - I'm sure it's intended to stop unscrupulous advertisers from gaming the system. I'm just honestly not sure which of my ad groups have different display URLs! This is not a common practice for me, and now I have to comb through my client accounts to figure out which ones I have to edit....

YSM, You Are the Liar!

2009-01-28T08:50:00.004-05:00

Yahoo Search Marketing caused a stir recently when they updated their Terms and Conditions to include "auto-optimization" of YSM accounts. They decided to update one of our client's accounts shortly thereafter, and it was anything but "optimized." I'm quoted in the Search Engine Roundtable post, so I won't reiterate Yahoo's idiocy here.

Now, Yahoo has decided to speak out on the issue on their blog. They sing the praises of this "service" and claim that it "helps small advertisers improve performance issues on their accounts." While that may be true for some advertisers, it was anything but for my client. Then Yahoo has the audacity to say that "not everyone in the blogosphere understands this new program, which we believe is the result of misinformation more than anything else." What?!?!? Misinformation???

Bullcrap. My story is 100% true, and it offends me that they would call it "misinformation." Furthermore, it appears that they went against their own intentions when they took it upon themselves to optimize our client's account: Yahoo claims in their blog post, in bold font no less, that auto-optimization "is not designed for larger advertisers who actively manage their accounts." I manage hundreds of thousands in advertiser spend and have been doing SEM since 2002 (before Yahoo even HAD a PPC program - it was still Overture then). I do actively manage all of my clients accounts. Yet Yahoo felt the need to add a new campaign with ad copy that could have been written by one of my 11-year old twins (wait, I take it back- it wasn't even that good). And they were bidding on keywords that aren't even relevant to my client's offering. It was as far from optimization as it could be.

Yahoo goes on to say that "Advertisers are notified of any changes within 24 hours (usually, fewer than eight hours)." Double bullcrap. I never received any notification that this had been done - I found it by accident when I logged in to "actively manage" my client's account.

Yahoo, you screwed up once by launching this "feature" in the first place. You screwed up a second time when you violated your own principles by doing this to an account that is being actively managed by a professional SEM. You screwed up a third time by calling all of us SEM pros - A-list bloggers and long-time SEMs - liars.

Three strikes and you're out. I shut off Yahoo for this client and many others as a result. It's just too risky and their attitude sucks.

Are You A Search Geek? Take The Test And Find Out

2009-01-23T20:54:00.000-05:00

This has been out there for a while, but if you haven't gotten around to taking the Biggest Search Geek test, now is the time - the last day to try your luck is January 28.

It's not an easy test. According to Marin Software and Search Marketing Expo (SMX West), sponsors of the test, the best score as of Wednesday was 76.8%. I didn't do that well, and I've been doing search for a long time. Median score to date (of those answering at least one question) is 33.33%. I did a lot better than that, but still.

According to the test sponsors, "Thus far, the highest scoring contestants have taken the longest to complete the test. There is no time limit, so contestants who are serious about winning should take their time in answering this complex set of questions." This was part of my problem - I took it on a lark and just breezed through. And I still beat the median (grin). The test focuses mostly on paid search, so if you're a PPC pro, you're likely to do well.

There's a nice payoff for a high score: "The winner will receive a free trip for two people to SMX West in Santa Clara, California, February 10-12, 2009. The prize includes round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations, and passes to SMX West 2009 for the winner and a travel companion. The winner will also receive an award on stage from Danny Sullivan, and will gain nationwide recognition as the Biggest Search Geek."

Not too shabby. Give it a shot!

It's 2009 - Time To Update Your PPC Reading List

2009-01-05T08:51:00.003-05:00

Alex Cohen of Digital Alex has published a list of 26 Useful Paid Search Blogs. If you're involved with PPC in any way, you need to take a look at his list. It's an all-star cast of really good, really useful PPC blogs. I've added a couple from his list to my own feed reader. You should do the same.

Full disclosure: This blog is listed there; however, I'd recommend his list even if it weren't.

Happy New Year, SEM friends!

Eddie Van Halen Hot For Teacher Guitar Track

2008-12-23T20:53:00.000-05:00

This isn't search related, and if you're not a Van Halen fan, you can stop reading. ;)

Just stumbled across the isolated guitar track from Hot For Teacher, one of the best tunes from Van Halen's 1984 album. As a lifelong VH fan, this find made my day. There is just no better guitar player than Eddie, and hearing this track in isolation makes that plain. Nobody rocks like Eddie! Ed-die! Ed-die!

Plus, if you're a total VH fan like me, you can sing along. Ha!

Rock out this holiday season - best to all of you in 2009!

PPC Comes Through In Holiday Shopping Crunch

2008-12-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

This year, my husband and I decided to go simple on holiday gifts. The plan was to get a Nintendo Wii, plus a couple games, for the immediate family for Christmas - and that's it. Great plan, that is, until we realized just how popular the Wii is this year. My husband went to three stores last night (in the course of shopping for other extended-family gifts) and came home with Rock Band II, but no Wii.

I said, no problem, I'll just check Amazon - I'm sure they'll have it. Ha. Well, they do - but only via third-party vendors, who seem to be in a bidding war for Amazon customers. Prices were at least $100 more than advertised in-store prices. Sorry, no go.

Enter PPC. Determined not to end up a Scrooge, I went to Google and searched for "nintendo wii." Jackpot! Of course, there were ads from the shopping search engines and eBay, but I bypassed those for Walmart's ad. I'm not normally a Walmart shopper - I have issues with some of their business practices - but amongst all the PPC ads on the page, they were the most trustworthy of the bunch. And they had the Wii in stock, at the same price I saw in all the sale flyers, ready to ship by Christmas.

This is one instance where PPC fits the bill much better than SEO. Nintendo topped the organic results for "nintendo wii," complete with sitelinks and such. Which they should, no argument there. But I want to *buy* the Wii, not learn about it from the manufacturer. PPC, with its on-target messaging, hit the spot here.

I know this isn't a big surprise to anyone, but it's just fun to be able to find what I'm looking for without ever leaving the house, thanks to PPC.

SES Chicago - SEM In The Snow

2008-12-09T21:30:00.003-05:00

Day 2 of SES Chicago has come to a close - well, I know they're still going strong down at the hotel bar, but the "official" day is over. It's been a great conference so far - I've learned a lot of new things on a variety of topics, and of course the networking can't be beat. I've been lucky enough to converse with David Szetela, Kevin Newcomb, Matt Van Wagner, Carrie Hill, Jim Hedger, and others; plus a lot of great vendors like Acquisio and Marin Software. In fact, it's been hard to catch up with everyone I'd like to chat with!

Hard to believe the conference is more than half over already. While December is a busy month, it's always worth it to take time out for a quality search conference.

If you're here and I haven't seen you yet, find me and say hi!