This simple tool can quickly tell you when your ads stopped running and in which adgroups they stopped running in.

Large portions of your campaigns can become dormant because for one reason or another, your ads may have been disapproved. So if you notice a sharp drop in traffic, this is one place in your campaigns that you’ll want to take a closer look at.
Here’s how to do it:

For those of you using the old AdWords interface, simply click on the Tools link in the Campaign Management tab as shown here:

If you’re using the new interface which is currently in public beta, you’ll find the disapproved ads tool by clicking on the Tools Tab and then on the “More Tools” link from the drop down menu as seen here:

Also be sure to keep an eye out for emails from Google letting you know that some of your ads have been deactivated. They typically send email alerts when your ads become disapproved (unless you’ve opted out of email notifications), but as we all know, it’s sometimes easy to miss emails so it would be good to automate the Ad Performance report and check it regularly.

You can do this from the Reports section in your account:

Just remember to add in a filter to show you disapproved ads only so you can quickly see which ads are no longer active:

Depending on the reason given for why your ads were disapproved, you can call the AdWords team and ask for a review or simply make the necessary changes and wait for the editorial team to review your ads which usually takes a day or two. You can find more information on what to do once your ads have been disapproved here.

Have a question or need something clarified? We’d be more than happy to help - simply submit a comment!

We’re honored to be a part of the exhibit Logos, Icons & Images 1983-2009 – a Stuart Rowley Design Retrospective at Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above in Malone, New York.

Stuart Rowley’s logo designs are creative and smart but equally important, the working process in creating the logo with us was strategic, smooth and fun! You can view some of Stuart Rowley Design’s logos at www.stuartrowleydesign.com and here are some insights from Stuart himself:

“As a graphic designer, I have always believed that less is more. My rule of the thumb for designing a logo is: 1.) keep it simple (smart,) 2.) if it looks good at 3/4 inch it will look good on a billboard, 3.) never show a client something you wouldn’t use yourself, and 4.) avoid ‘art by committee’ at all costs!”

If you are in the Malone New York area, the show opens tonight, Friday May 22 at Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above with a reception at 6-8 pm. The show runs until June 13. For more information please call Forartsake at 483.9411.

Congratulations Stuart!

Details of the press release below.

PRESS RELEASE:

Logos, Icons and Images 1983-2009
Stuart Rowley Design Retrospective

Where/When:

Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above
May 22 - June 13
Opening reception Friday, May 22, 6-8 pm

A logo is both form and substance, image and idea. To be effective its form must be recognizable and unusual enough to be memorable. The design must be simple enough to be read in an instant and rich enough in detail or meaning to be interesting. It has to appeal to a wide audience and must look and feel timeless.

Stuart Rowley has designed logos and trademarks for the past 26 years, and yet it is difficult to tell which ones were done in the 80s, 90s or later. Stuart says, “Over the years I think the work has held up quite well. Each mark was designed to provide a distinctive, memorable and appropriate visual expression of the company or individual it represents.”

“As a graphic designer, I have always believed that less is more. My rule of the thumb for designing a logo is: 1.) keep it simple (smart,) 2.) if it looks good at 3/4 inch it will look good on a billboard, 3.) never show a client something you wouldn’t use yourself, and 4.) avoid ‘art by committee’ at all costs!”

Many of the 85 logos in this exhibition are still in use. They go beyond the fashion of the moment. They have thrived with repetition. They have survived changing markets, technology and business practices. A sample listing of some of the logos you will see in this exhibit: CVPH Medical Center, The Development Corporation, Franklin County 200th Anniversary, St Lawrence County Arts Council, Asept Pak, Mayor’s Cup, the new Forartsake, Gallery 393 Above, Plattsburgh International Airport, OneWorkSource, Bloom Search Marketing and Adirondack Pet Lodge.

Stuart Rowley studied graphic design at California State University at Northridge CA (BA Art/Graphic Design 1982) and at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena CA in the early 80s.

Logos, Icons and Images 1983-2009, Stuart Rowley Design Retrospective, opens Friday, May 22 at Forartsake/Gallery 393 Above with a reception at 6-8 pm. The show runs until June 13. For more information please call Forartsake at 483.9411.

Visit www.stuartrowleydesign.com

If you’re absolutely passionate about Pay Per Click marketing and are looking for an exciting and stimulating challenge, then check out the posting: http://www.makeitbloom.com/about/jobs/listing/ppc-account-manager.php

We’re looking forward to meeting you!

Here are a few of the things you can do in the group:

• Submit your or others’ blog posts for discussion and feedback.
• Submit new articles for group commentary.
• Discover new blogs to follow and read from fellow Canadian PPC experts.
• Post PPC job opportunities to a more targeted audience.
• Ask questions in the discussion area.
• View and communicate directly with other PPC professionals from around Canada and expand your network.

I would like to thank all the people who have already joined the group - It’s great to see you there!

Spread the word around - we’re a friendly bunch!

Also feel free to connect directly:

Martin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinperron (martin at makeitbloom.com)

Xurxo: http://www.linkedin.com/in/xurxo (xurxo at makeitbloom.com)

2 years ago on this day, Xurxo and I officially launched Bloom Search Marketing. Since then, we’ve learned a lot of things and met a lot of great people. 2008 was an exciting year for our team. Besides continuously sharpening our paid search skills, we learned quite a bit about growing our company, blogging, participating in social media and even office moving logistics with our move to new offices in July. Most importantly, we had the opportunity to work with great clients, forge strong partnerships and network with really smart and interesting colleagues in the industry.

We are excited to see what this year will bring and would like to wish everyone a very happy 2009 filled with much prosperity, health and happiness!

Thanks to SERoundtable for catching this earlier today. Some of details found in the release notes include:

• First page bid estimates: the Editor now uses first page bid estimates for your keywords and Minimum cost-per-click (CPC) bids are no longer used.
• Keyword Quality Score: The Keywords tab now displays the Quality Score for your keywords. [Finally!]
• Keyword Opportunities locale: Tailor your keyword suggestions to a particular language and location by changing your Keyword Opportunities locale.
• Campaign targeting in the data view: You can view your targeting settings in the new ‘Language’ and ‘Location’ columns on the Campaigns tab. These columns are hidden by default, but you can select them with the column chooser.
• Send feedback to Google: Help us improve AdWords Editor by enabling usage tracking in your AdWords Editor settings.
• Absolute Numbers for Volume in Keyword Opportunities Tool: The ‘Volume’ column on the Keyword expansion tab of the Keyword Opportunities tool now shows absolute numbers (traffic for the last month) instead of scaled values.
• Keyword Opportunities tool isn’t available for draft accounts.

Overall, the two major updates that should help speed up day-to-day optimizations of your AdWords campaigns are the addition of First Page Bid Estimates and Quality Score data in the Editor. You can quickly spot problem keywords across your multiple campaigns without having to go through the web interface or extracting reports. Here’s how the new data looks like:

So, how can we make use of this? Here are a few ideas…

2 Filters To Catch Problems Quickly

You can make use of the Advanced Search feature in the “Create or Set Custom View” tool to apply filters on your campaigns, identify potential problem areas and take action.

1. Spot Low Quality Score Keywords

If you want to make sure that you didn’t miss any low QS keywords that may be lurking in your campaign, using a filter in the editor will save you lots of time. Simply select the new option for Quality Score and apply a filter to match Quality Score criteria (when you spot problem keywords, go back in the web interface to get more insights as to potential problems):

2. Spot Keywords With Max CPC lower than First Page Bid Estimates

In some cases, you may be bidding too low for your ads to appear on the first page. Through the web interface, Google alerts you of these potential problems but again, you have to navigate through each Ad Group to spot them. By using the new data in AdWords Editor 7.0, you can apply 2 filters to find where your Max CPC is lower than your First Page Bid Estimates. Unfortunately, you’ll need to repeat a few times and use a variety of values as you can conditionally sort something like: Max CPC is less than First Page Bid Estimates.

Look out for Google’s official announcement shortly and as pointed out here and here, let’s hope there are less bugs than in version 6.5.

But simply including all keyword match types in your campaigns for each and every keyword will not always make sense to do. You might actually find that broad or phrase matched keywords outperform exact match keywords and bring in better quality traffic on the same keywords. How so? Let’s take a couple of examples using AdWords:

EXAMPLE 1

Let’s say you sell blue suede shoes and bid on all keyword match types of blue suede shoes as follows: blue suede shoes, “blue suede shoes”, [blue suede shoes]. By looking at your Search Query Report or web analytics software, you might discover that you are getting traffic for people looking for the song “Blue Suede Shoes” made popular by Elvis. So you add in negative keywords like “elvis”, “song”, “lyrics”, “cd”, etc. to filter out people searching for the song and not actually the shoes you sell.

But these negative keywords won’t help you eliminate this traffic if you’re using the exact match keyword [blue suede shoes] since negative keywords don’t impact exact matched keywords and you’ll be getting impressions and even traffic for both people looking for the shoes you sell as well as the famous song. So you might be better off not using the exact match variation of this keyword as targeted as it might seem to your product.

EXAMPLE 2

Let’s say you repair Toshiba photocopiers and run a campaign with keywords like “repair toshiba”. You might find that your click through (CTR) and conversion rates are doing well on the broad repair Toshiba and phrase “repair toshiba” keywords but not on the exact matched [repair toshiba]. Especially if you have in place a good list of negative keywords to filter out people searching for repair services for Toshiba products you don’t offer like “toshiba laptop repairs”, “toshiba DVD repairs”, “toshiba TV repairs”, toshiba projector repairs”, etc.

In this case, including the exact matched [toshiba repair] is almost the same as using the broad matched version of the same keyword without having any negative keywords in place. Said differently, someone typing in “toshiba repair” exactly will not always be looking for the service you offer - Toshiba photocopier repairs.

So including the exact match [repair toshiba] as a default strategy will cause you to inadvertently get traffic for people searching for Toshiba repairs, who are not looking for Toshiba photocopier repair services as described above. And since you’re using an exact matched keyword, you have no way to filter out unwanted traffic from it short of simply not using it.

Why is this important? Two words: Quality Score

Even if you’re not wasting money from people clicking on your ads that are not looking for your service, your click through rate (CTR) will likely be very low and over time you might notice that your quality score is dropping on these keywords. This will create a spill-over effect where your minimum bid prices will rise as your quality score decreases. Google is sending you a message that you are not relevant enough and will now have to pay more to have your ads displayed on your exact matched keyword - a keyword that just by match type you might have thought was targeted!

So be sure to go over your existing exact matched keywords to make sure you aren’t targeting people who aren’t interested in your services. You’ll be able to spot some of these by a lower than average CTR especially where there is a high number of impressions.

Google puts it like this “These settings do not apply to mobile format ads. Ads in the mobile ad format always show on traditional mobile devices only, regardless of your choices here.”

You’ll find this new feature in your campaign settings page for which you are “opted in by default”.

Here’s a screenshot:

We did find mention of this new feature on Search Engine Roundtable and the Search Engine Watch Forum.

Our reps at Google explained that this feature was launched on the 3rd of this month and the idea is to expand the reach of AdWords ads to mobile devices that can display websites that were designed for desktop and laptop displays such as the iPhone.

They also mentioned that this new setting is turned on by default so advertisers will have to manually opt out of it if they want to.

Quality Score is Impacted So Be Vigilant

You might definitely want to opt out or test this new feature further as your CTR and consequently quality score will be impacted by this update. Given that user intent on such devices as the iPhone might be different from users searching on their laptops and desktops (think less involved searchers that are not as research intense), you will definitely want to pay close attention to this update.

Some industries and niches might find that mobile devices perform well for their AdWords campaigns while others might discover that CTR is way too low on these devices and therefore not the right venue for their ads.

How To Test Performance

The recommended best practice at this point is to split up your campaigns - one opted into device platform targeting and one opted out of it. Currently this is the only way to measure performance of your campaigns on mobile devices that offer full browser capabilities. As it stands, you can’t see performance split up by device platform on either the AdWords interface, AdWords editor nor any of the reports.

Splitting your campaigns this way will allow you to tailor your keywords, ads and landing pages to target these mobile users differently for greater results.

Learn more about this new feature here.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this new feature. Is it working out for you or not really?

Update (Dec 8): Google just posted an entry on the Inside AdWords blog announcing this feature which allows you to extend your AdWords Campaigns to the G1 (Android) and iPhone.

Martin Perron: How did you get your start in SEO, and what keeps you there?

Anne Charlotte Riley: I had been working as an editor at online directory LookSmart, and was a part of their paid listings program. We worked with several large online retailers, to create granular content within the directory’s categories. The e-tailers would supply me with relevancy keywords, which I would integrate. As a writer and former marketer, it piqued my curiosity about online search and online marketing. I started reading everything I could. That’s where it began. What keeps me here is easy: I love what I do. The fact that people pay me to write is a bonus. I love working on a wide variety of projects, because you are always learning.

MP: What are you most passionate about when it comes to SEO?

ACR: A holistic approach, definitely. The site has to be good for the user, the content has to be keyword rich, interesting to read and informative for the user. If it isn’t, it probably isn’t “link-worthy.” If the design is dreadful, it doesn’t matter how much you tweak the text or build incoming links… if it isn’t “people friendly”, the conversion just won’t be there. I get a lot of satisfaction from creating keyword rich content that is also really engaging copy.

MP: With all the different SEO strategies in existence, tell us a bit about your approach?

ACR: I’m not the type of person who sits around trying to reverse-engineer Google’s algorithmic formula to create some magical mathematical equation that can be applied to every site. That’s nuts!! Each and every site is different. In the initial planning sessions, the stakeholders need to agree on one thing: what defines success for a website. Is it a download? Is it a sign-up? There needs to be a clearly defined goal. You must fully understand the information the site visitor wants. Only once you know those two things can you write the content and design the site.

I come from a strong marketing and visual arts background. In addition to my experience creating marketing plans and marketing copywriting, I have a BFA and used to be the production manager at a graphics arts company in Toronto. So, the merge of the visual and the copy is extremely important to me, how they work together…

MP: What’s your elevator pitch?

ACR: I craft compelling keyword-rich copy that is good for search engines and GREAT for site visitors to help increase traffic, brand awareness, sales and engagement levels.

MP: Which blogs are a must read for you - those that you really can’t wait for the next post to come out?

ACR: That’s hard. But if I had to name a few, they would most likely be:

• ReadWriteWeb.com
• Adrants.com
• darmano.typepad.com
• TheSocialPath.com
• seomoz.org/blog
• copyranter.blogspot.com
• Seroundtable.com
• SEOsmarty.com
• CopyBlogger.com

But honestly, every week I read a bit of everything - SEO, marketing, copywriting, social media, some tech news, you get the idea…

BONUS QUESTION:

MP: What advice regarding SEO would you give to a client during tougher economic times like the one many industries are facing right now?

ACR: Even with cutbacks to marketing budgets, marketing during a recession is not an option. It’s mandatory. But it has to show a return - quantifiable results - and you have to get more bang for your buck. Optimizing your site is a smart investment, as it helps in a variety of ways: increases your online brand visibility, increases conversion rates to help drive sales and revenues, and compared to traditional marketing channels - it’s highly affordable, highly reliable and highly targeted.

Optimizing your site delivers incredible reach for people who are already looking for your product or service - so they are re-qualified to buy, or at least are in the information-gathering stage of the sales cycle. With SEM and SEO, there are built-in metrics that, again, traditional media such as print advertising, cannot match as precisely. Consumers now see the Internet as a necessity - a recent survey said that people are more likely to cut back on cable rather than their Internet packages.

So advice:

• Spend wisely.
• Have clear objectives.
• Review your keywords - are there any opportunities that you aren’t taking advantage of?
• Analyze your website. How could the sales funnel be improved? Are there ways to up-sell or cross-sell? How can you show real value to your online visitors? If you can do that, you increase the odds of return visits and repeat customers.

-

About A.C. Riley Communications

A.C. Riley Communications is dedicated to delivering strategic copywriting and optimized online content. Producing collaterals that get read, handled, perused and passed around, they build connections by delivering an entertaining, informative and targeted message: yours. You can learn more about Charlotte at www.acriley.com or follow her on twitter: twitter.com/acriley

We come across many businesses that struggle with this challenge so here are 5 ways you can better measure how your PPC Campaigns are actually performing.

1.  Serve Different Phone Numbers

Use javascript on the landing pages to identify the source of the traffic (Ex: Google Adwords, Y!SM, Microsoft Adcenter - you could even go more granular to the campaign level depending on your needs) and serve up a unique phone number so that when a call is taken you’ll know how they found you.

This strategy uses cookies so that as visitors navigate your site, the same phone number is shown to them (You’ll want to make sure that you use persistent cookies rather than session cookies so that the same phone number will be displayed to the same visitor upon repeat visits from them).

2. Use Different Pricing

Display different pricing on your landing pages where you change something like the last digit in the price depending on the PPC campaign that drove the visit. Ex: $199.99 for Adwords, $199.97 for Yahoo and $199.95 for Microsoft Adcenter.

3. Use Offer / Coupon Codes

Include offer or coupon codes on your PPC landing pages that visitors can use on the phone or bring in to your bricks and mortar (offline) stores. The only way visitors can get these coupons is if they came in from paid search traffic or if someone who did passes on the coupon code.

4. Dig Into Analytics

If you’re an ecommerce based business that still gets a lot of sales offline by phone, you can often spot trends to help you see how your paid search campaigns are influencing your offline sales.

For example, we discovered that one of our clients had a higher than average bounce rate on one specific brand and they confirmed that their phone sales were also soft for this brand. After exploring further we discovered that they were not competitively priced so we stopped advertising on this brand and shifted their paid search budget to better selling ones.

Result: Average order value doubled and they hit their previous month’s sales revenue in half the time after the switch.

5. Ask Your Customers How They Found Out About You

This is not very scientific, but will give you an idea over time how people are finding out about you. If they came in from a search engine, they most likely will be able to tell you which one and maybe even what they searched for. Granted there are still a lot of people that don’t know the difference from an organic listing to a sponsored one so you’ll still want to use the above strategies to get a clearer picture.

These strategies will help give you a clearer picture of the true value of your paid search campaigns. So before you pull the plug on your campaign or declare “My campaigns are not working!” give them a try.

Using a similar strategy or completely different one to track offline conversions generated from your PPC advertising? We’d love to hear about it - as would our readers so be sure to add a comment!