on to the post…

I usually use several different resources and methods for creating keywords lists - one of them being Google’s Keyword Tool.  It’s definitely one of the better keyword toolsI’ve used since Google has some of the best access to backend search data on keywords (their own)  and can use that data to recommend more relevant keywords.  However, it still isn’t without it’s flaws.

Today, I’ve noticed that the keywords generated by the tool were much more specific than the I’ve seen  in the past.  I’m not sure if Google has made “improvements” to the tool or if it was just the base set of keywords I was using, but the results I received were more long tail in nature rather than just generic or unrelated terms. This was mainly a good thing, but the problem was that when I conducted some additional research into the keywords, I noticed that many of the terms that weren’t immediately recognizable to me  were actually terms that are more common to countries outside the U.S.

It got me thinking that the keyword tool could be much more powerful if geotargeted settings could be applied to the results and estimates in the same fashion that it’s currently being used on Google Trends.  This way, marketers could use the data to develop different keyword lists for specific regional campaigns and also conduct research into these regions.

Read More at The Inside Angle

Google Keyword Tool Needs Geotargeting

Setting Up Campaigns

Setting up new campaigns in AdCenter is pretty annoying overall.  I’ve gotten used to the ease of using AdWords Editor, Yahoo’s bulk sheets or setting up campaigns manually.  Google is still easiest and while Yahoo doesn’t have the best system in place, they’re both much better than Microsoft AdCenter’s. There were two main problems with AdCenter that I came across, making updates and manually updating ad group settings.

There might be an easy way to go about submitting everything, but I didn’t find it when I was adding my keywords.  First, I made the mistake of not putting the {param2} as my destination URL within my import sheet and wanted to bulk update the creatives.  I couldn’t find any info on how to update creatives using the bulk sheets so I tried to just resubmit it and hoped for positive results.  However, pretty much as expected, it just created duplicates of the creatives.  I then started to manually delete the old creatives, but because of the poor navigation, that was taking forever.  Instead, I just deleted the whole campaign and submitted a new one.

The 2nd problem included trying to change setting.  Ideally, I wanted to set dayparting and geotargeted settings, but Microsoft requires you to do this per ad group.  Again, with their poor navigational structure, that would’ve taken forever and it just wasn’t worth the time it would take.  In addition to not being able to manually navigate between ad groups efficiently, for geotargeting, Microsoft doesn’t allow you to select all states and then remove ones you don’t want.  Instead, they force you to select each state you want.  I needed most states so selected each one for the number of ad groups I have would have taken quite some time.

Overall, after getting the hang of it, I was able to submit a new campaign in Microsoft within a few minutes, but if the campaigns had a requirement to have certain settings like geotargeting or dayparting, then it would’ve taken me at least a full day if not more to get everything updated.

Campaign Management

Campaign management using AdCenter is pretty poor overall.  Their drop down menus are nice to use to navigate, but it’d be nice to also have a “next” and “back” button.  Making bulk changes is difficult except for certain aspects such as bids or turning on/off content.  In general, making changes within the account is pretty annoying.  It can be  slow, pretty difficult to navigate and just cumbersome.  The system also seems to perform much better in internet explorer rather than Firefox which, to me, is a negative.

Reporting

Reporting is decent.  Microsoft offers automated reporting, however, I’ve noticed that one of my reports is being sent in the evening rather than early morning so when I’m creating my own reports, I still need to login and run the report.  The online reports do offer a filtering option making online reporting more useful than Google’s or Yahoo’s.  It’s a nice feature, but I like to play with the data more within excel than in the browser.  The reporting aspects do offer the ability to customize the data columns similar to Google which is definitely a good thing.

Performance

Actual performance is one of the most important aspects of AdCenter. My ROI is actually higher on MSN than on the other 2 engines and the traffic volume is about 10% of what I get from Google.  I haven’t spent too much time optimizing the bids yet, so I should be able to expect to see that ROI come down a little but also an overall increase in volume and overall profit.

Overall

Microsoft looks to have improved their traffic and performance since the last time I’ve used their system.  Overall, I think it can be worth using AdCenter, but there’s still a lot of improvement that should be made by Microsoft.  Due to their current issues and traffic volume, I still won’t be putting as much time into Microsoft as I would other engines, but I will be using it as a way to diversify my marketing efforts.

Read More at The Inside Angle

Microsoft AdCenter - A Second Look

With the economy the way it is, more and more companies won’t be able to pay their bills.  This can include your client or the merchant running an affiliate program or maybe it’s you not making the payments.  Whatever the case may be, knowing what rights you have to collect can help you get all or at least part of your hard earned money.

I recommend reading the entire article, but to give you a brief summary, your first steps should be:

1. getting a personal guarantee
2. getting a promissory note.

If you’re still unsuccessful at getting paid, then you have some other options:

1. Using a collection agency
2. Taking the other party to small claims court
3. Having your attorney send a debt collection letter to them
4. Having your attorney file a lawsuit against them
5. Let it go.

Read More at The Inside Angle

How To Collect Payments That Are Past Due

if “thousands of people” were to knock a search result off a search page, they’d be likely to make a change.

While large corporate companies most likely won’t be knocked out of the SERPs for high volume terms, what would happen if one affiliate website decides to create a network of bots that automatically vote down the 20-30 smaller guys that are ahead of your site.  All of a sudden, their site starts showing ahead of many others. You don’t need to make your rankings better if you can make your competitions’ worse.

This may not seem like a big deal, but one way black hats operate is by using a exploiting a small hole in the system and scaling the crap out of it.  Imagine if you could vote down 20-30 sites on 1000 or more different keywords.  You may only go from getting 0 clicks per day to 1 click per day, but overall, you’re getting 1000+ clicks a day.  Scale it a bit more and you’re getting 5000, 10,000, 50,000 free clicks per day. 

Obviously, this is all just speculation, nobody knows how any of this will actually pan out.  However, I do know that Digg used to be a much better site before it started to get gamed.  Will Google suffer the same fate?

Other People’s Opinions…
Google Search Wiki To Soon Include An Off Button. Thank You, Marissa.
Black Hats Salivate as Google Prepares to Add SearchWiki to Algorithm
Google May Use SearchWiki For Ranking Purposes

Read More at The Inside Angle

Google SearchWiki Coming to Google SERPs Near You

2008 has been the year that Google began tightening its financial belt.  Most recently, they’ve snubbed their golden geese (see: non-corporate advertisers) by being cheap and canceling their annual holiday gifts as if they’re in such dire financial trouble that they need to do it.  By the way, Google is expecting to make around $6 billion in profit for 2008.

Specifically with their product, Google has been changing their bidding policies more and more lately. On an unscientific note, they also seem to be allowing arbitragers to make a comeback and very low quality sites to market their wares.

They’ve been updating their organic side of the business too. They’ve added SearchWiki and while I can’t seem to find the sources, I believe I’ve read about and have also seen first hand, Google search results getting worse in general.  As an example, when trying to find the specific estimates for Google’s 2008 profits, I ended up getting results for news articles, but none of them had the correct info.  At times, I’d also get results that had info on earnings, but they were for other companies, not Google’s.  When I searched on Yahoo, first result was to Google’s investor relations page - probably should’ve just went directly there in the first place.

Meanwhile, a bit north of the Googleplex, Microsoft has been working hard on seriously getting into the search game.  They’ve been using Live Cash Back, have been poaching Yahoo’s Yahoos, has special promotions for SEMPO members, signed a toolbar deal with Dell and has most recently has become much more willing to work with Yahoo again (who didn’t see that one coming?).  While not all of these ideas will have a positive return for Microsoft, the combined payoff will keep Google on their toes and hopefully will give us advertisers more options for placing our ad dollars.

Google still has a huge lead over, well everybody.  They are to search what Microsoft was/is to operating systems.  At the same time, Microsoft has a warchest that they’re not afraid of spending.  They’re working hard on improving their search technology and creating partnerships to increase their market share.  If Google isn’t careful, they’ll create an opening for Microsoft to exploit which will lead to even fiercer competition since they both have similar traits: lots of cash, monopolistic, extremely competitive.

Read More at The Inside Angle

Is Google Opening the Barriers to Entry?