NetArgument - Online Skills!

Is Google Redirect Notice ruining your campaign?

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:04:00 +0000

Perhaps you haven't come across any Redirect Notice served by Google, after clicking an ad on its content network. I too hadn't till I decided to click on some of the ads, I manage, to get the feel of customer behavior. To my disbelief, some of the placements (Not All though), serves you notices like I have posted above, just click on them to know what they read. Some ads, after clicking would say "The previous page is sending you to ....., If you do not want to visit that page, you can Return to the Previous Page". Another one says, "The previous page is sending you to an invalid URL, If you do not want to visit that page, you can Return to the Previous Page". I found Url is valid in both the cases, because one of the ad I have myself created, which works well at other places, serves "invalid url" notice. Check your own ad too, Google might be preventing, visitors from reaching your website!

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Google Adwords Payment through Netbanking

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:24:00 +0000

Since, payment through credit card has become a lengthy process, several advertisers are preferring payment through netbanking in india. System is cool, more or less. Even an MCC manager can transfer fund without any need to log in through customers user id. However, it is a third party gateway, which in India is provided by Times of money. Hence, actually it involves mutiple party, if you get into any kind of trouble with this. on one side is Google, another side is payment gateway and third is your bank whose card you would be using, and they just don't know each other. In case payment is through and not reflected in your Billing Summary, you may get into difficulties convincing google, that payment has actually been made from your side. Since, Google does not have any means to know whether the transaction you made through your bank account has reached Times of Money or not, and also whether transaction failed between bank and ToM or between ToM and Google. It happens many times...

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Twitter Account Optimization

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Optimizing your twitter account means optimizing it with respect to marketing effectiveness. let us start with registering your username. If you were not an early starter with twitter your favourite user name may not be available now. so, you would need to create something innovative. Here, what should not be done is more important than what should be done. Your twitter handle should not be: Containing a number, - or any other special character. Like @dolly21, @dolly_21..Too long. Like, @dollythesweetdollLook like impersonator of some other personality or brand. like @dell, Giving a hater x message. like @Xkiller, @ihateX, ....Too far too away from your personality.contain an adjective, unless they invoke humour. like @bestFocus on a specific trait/feature.Displaying your greed.Disparaging yourself, like @idiotintown After that comes the page theme and bio. You may use from an array of themes available in your account or just upload a custom theme. The theme should be reflective of...

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Ads on Twitter - Would Twitter Always Serve Third Party Ad Tweets?

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:22:00 +0000

Twitter till now have no revenue model. However, there are third party applications available, which are promising, advertisements on twitter platform. There are three kind of models available for marketers to advertise on twitter. CPM model of advertisement, through Be A Magpie. In this auction only the highest bidders ad gets triggered at the rate decided by the second highest bidder, for the same category. So, if you are bidding through this model, you need to bid very high for your ad tweets to appear. You have to prepay and there is no guarantee your ads would show up till you continuously try to bid more and more. Once you pay for it, keep checking the bids. New CPC model of advertisement offered through twivert, cashfortweet and perhaps many others. In this case you pay per click, and there is fairly higher chance of your tweet ads being displayed. You need to sign up through twitter ID and they have O auth too! Directly contact few Highly influential...

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How to Interpret View through Conversion Metric

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:29:00 +0000

View through conversion metric which has recently been added to your adwords account, needs some analysis before you consider it a success or failure. Important questions are: 1. What this says 2. What are the ads it take into account 3. Should you add them to conversion through clicks or not Before you puzzle yourself with these questions, you should read this helpful resource from Google. Important interpretations are: • This metric says how many people, who saw your ad, didn’t click and got converted • It takes into account only ads triggered through adsense network. • For adwords advertisers it will only show conversions on content network. • It would only show conversion of display ads. • It won’t work on search network. • It won’t work for Text Ads. It is pretty clear, this metric is only for tracking the success of display ads on content network. As the article makes it clear, the cookie in this case is set by adsense code on the page. It means if the page displaying...

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View through conversion Reveals the magic of Impressions

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:26:00 +0000

The new column that appears at the extreme right of your account's dashboard has some magical information to reveal about your ads. Just have a look into the snapshot in the left. It has a view through conversion column, which reports those conversions where people visited the page displaying your ads, didn't click on it and got converted! The figure also reveals View through Conversion is greater than conversion through click!! Of course the account has many Display Ads. Had you ever in your imagination could think of such a situation where impressions are of greater value than clicks. A question strikes our mind, do serious buyers hate clicking on ad and passively and involuntarily reacts to the message? Thanks Google for revealing this.

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Google to Report Conversions w/o Click too!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:41:00 +0000

A new metric is going to be shown into your account very soon - conversion of impressions w/o click. Presently, it sometimes shows and then goes off. It will show you the number of conversions from impressions i.e., people who saw your ad on any site and got converted. It would be the last column in your account, after conv rate 1 per click. This figure might speed up competition for impressions on quality websites. People who were shy of targeting by CPM, may find the information compelling enough to do so in future. The move may heat up the war for impressions on quality network. Also, it will reveal something new about display/image ads. Let us see how much of our belief were correct at least we shall get an opportunity to do some corrections in what we believe till now.

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Adwords Double Serving Policy after Diluting Restrictions.

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:04:00 +0000

Adwords Double Serving Policy used to be very stringent before the start of 2009. Advertisers were required to maintain one single account, to fecilitate automatic one ad per keyword. If you have multiple stores all of which could be advertised on same keyword. you could advertise for only one of them. Google added following exceptions to the otherwise strict rule: To protect trust in Google, and to provide a quality experience for our advertisers and our users, the double-serving policy is strictly enforced. Exceptions are granted only in very limited cases. Advertisers seeking an exception to Google's double-serving policy are required to contact AdWords Support. When reviewing requests, we focus on the preservation of a unique user experience for each site, and also take into account the following: The destination site for each ad offers different products or services (for example, a large manufacturer with two product sites, one solely for stereos and one solely for...

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Attempts to turn Seth's Advocacy for Sympathy Click into Mass Movement

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:49:00 +0000

Seth had said - "If you like what you're reading, click an ad to say thanks." in his one of the controversial blogpost Ads are the new online tip jar, Also, see the first person to react via trackback, Cem Sertoglu of Turkey, Seth further reacted in another blogpost - Beating the status quo, that he didn't mean to advocate Click Fraud, as has been misunderstood by the practitioners of click advertising, rather he wanted to beat the status quo of only hardcore click throughs. Seth's Logic - As clicks would increase, Revenue would increase for Publishers and Advertisers would get more Attention, from people who had mild interest in the advertisement. But, converting mild interest into sales is Profitable. Profitable for the advertiser, for the publisher and for the online industry at large. That is seth's Logic, but from the perspective of Pay per click managers who struggles to eliminate these unwanted clicks everyday, through more focused creatives and more focused...

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Multiple Presence on the same Page - It enhances your Conversion Rate Many Times Over!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:09:00 +0000

Once upon a time People thought, since they have good SEO, and presence on quality keywords they don't need Adwords. Some used to think just the reverse, and perhaps still thinks so, that since they have a good running Adwords campaign, they don't need to SEO their website. Just check your stats and focus on adwords stats where, you had presence both in Organic and paid links. You would notice, you had wonderful conversion rate both in organic and paid. Why this happens? Not only it increases your percentage of links on the page over others, it increases the level of trust of visitors in you. People think since you are also present in the paid link despite being present in organic link, you are the person worth doing business with. Google now offers you three opportunities to feature on the same search page. They are 1) organic Listing, 2) Paid Listing, and 3) Local business listing. Don't discount any of them. If you are running a hotel, or selling flowers or any kind of...

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Conversion Optimizer: It does something Beyond Conversion Optimization !

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Anyone managing a campaign with at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days can use conversion optimizer. This rule is a big relaxation over the previous rule which required a very higher conversion number within 90 days period. In that way only big advertisers could qualify for it. No more now, however, nearly anybody can qualify now with less than one conversion a day. Let us see how it works: It places your ad into historically high converting zone more often. It manages the bid on its own. So, if exhorbitantly high bid is required to occupy a slot, it would place your ad there keeping in view the cost and probability of conversion. If you are not meeting the required number of conversions within cost your ad automatically slows down. When conversion goes down, it starts pushing your ad into low CPC zone. So, you start getting low cost per click. Some important observations rearding the behavior of campaigns on conversion optimizer with respect to CPC are: If your...

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My Name is Khan: Promotion at Newark Airport

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 09:17:00 +0000

Shah Rukh Khan, the Indian Movie Star, was reportedly detained at Newark Airport, on 15th of August, 2009. 15th of August is celebrated as Independence Day in India. At the backdrop is a similar incident with an ex Indian President passing through almost similar security related checking in India itself by the staff of an American airline. So, the message is Indian sentiments hurt by the conduct of US airport staff who are paranoid against Muslims in general and particularly Indians. Incidentally both the persons associated with the incident are Muslims. Khan being a Muslim last name, and the title of the Film in making. I do not want to allege that Fox and Sah Rukh Khan planned this incident well in advance where everything was preplanned. It may be 100% unplanned, but everything was in right place - the place, the occasion, the person, the escalation. Nothing else could have produced such a great impact. Well, I want to see this movie now, so you and everybody! Many people have...

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Adwords New User Interface, Powerful but you should Ponder!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:51:00 +0000

This week Google finally pulled down the old user interface from all the accounts. Many people loved it including me for its classy look, fast download, easy navigation and relevant information. It is gone now, perhaps forever. New UI is there with bundles of features. Since every Adwords user has already been exposed to it, I won't delve into what it contains and what it misses. Some of the feature you should not miss out and that can really improve your campaign's performance are: Impression caps on content Ad. Now you have the advantage of limiting the exposure of your content ads by impression. It can be set up at adgroup level and would be great for advertisers who are worried about wear and tear of ad. If you want to know how ads are worn out check this post . Google perhaps have given some thought to it. Big advertisers who are advertising on a very large scale would find it great. It has another side too. some notorious ones whom adsense publishers were trigger happy blocking...

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Google Migrates away Pro Center from MCC

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:39:00 +0000

Google yesterday migrated the Pro Center to a new home. If you have checked your pro center recently, you would find it has moved to a new page asking you to re login to access. New features include: Ability to unlink from your Company's MCC. Now GAP qualified people are no more required to be tied up with the MCC of the company. They can unlink themselves and attach with a different MCC. Last 90 days spent is mentioned, instead of the Total managed spent. This is good because Google decides your status according to the last 90 days managed spent only. Logo size has become smaller. Earlier Logo used to be much bigger like I have one on this page.GAP exam record is mentioned along with the expiry date too. A completely new thing, at least this would remind people when to take the exam, before it expires. Unlike many others I prefer taking exams annually and recommend the same to everyone. You also have a message center. It didn't have any message for me so I can't say much about...

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Billing Issues with Google Adwords Customers in India

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:18:00 +0000

For long Google Adwords Advertisers have regarded payment through credit card to be the best option for paying their adwords bills. There were few hiccups in the system, which resulted into frequent Payment Decline situations, but scenario since, Aug, 1st, 2009, changed completely making it the worst form of payment option. Issues related with payment through credit cards are:It is difficult to authenticate in the first place. Before the first billing of Account creation charge, you have to try it many times.Google has counter imposed manual verification of credit cards on advertisers against the online verification asked by RBI. Many are concerned about the security of information revealed in this process.There are cases where Google has charged more than amount spent and that too multiple times.Ads frequently stops and you have to o through traumatic phases of reviews by their customer support team.There are reported events when advertisers were unable to modify/add credit card...

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RBI imposes Double Verification of online transaction through credit cards: Google fails to meet the deadline.

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:26:00 +0000

August, 1, 2009, was the deadline imposed by Reserve Bank of India, to introduce double verification of credit cards for online transactions in india. All credit cards has to be verified by Visa or mastercard before the transaction is validated. All major payment gateways has already introduced this feature for verification. However, google failed to introduce it before the deadline and it resulted into payment failure in all the accounts which uses credit cards for running their adwords campaign. As an adhoc measure google asked their clients to submit a hard copy of filled up form authorizing them to charge their credit card for dues in their account. Unfortunately, it was introduced too late and clients were intimated only after payment failure, when their ads stopped running. Dual verification where Visa/Mastercard validates the transaction requires a minor tweak into payment gateways. As a workaround, Transaction has been converted to Offline, which takes time and would mean loss...

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Adsense Heat Map - Why it Fails!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:12:00 +0000

Ever since Google has released its Heat Map, Web Monetization Experts are recommending, shifting the ads along the heat map hot zones. People tried it and what they got, Frustration! People wondered Why is it that placing ads along heat map fails? It fails because heat map's hot zones are places where people tend to believe it contains Valuable Information. if you serve something which people hate there, you are bound to invite hatred for yourself. Adsense ads monetize best when you serve them as Relevant information. They work well when you serve them as additional information along with information you are offering. If you try to camouflage your ads as information, users start disbelieving you and your site. People who are serious about their website should create information bundle around adsense units, rather than spamming the visitor with ads at places they never expected them to be. Some Publishers have tried to put the adsense unit in extreme left below the information they...

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Adwords Key Metric which is not available on Your Dashboard!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:46:00 +0000

Average CPC, Conversion rate, cost per conversion etc., are widely used to report the performance of the campaign. Few people are also concerned about CTR, Quality Score, Cost per impression. While former reports about how well your campaign performs with respect to the allocated budget, later is for some well informed advertisers who are familiar with the finer points of Adwords. The foremost advertising goal is all how many people becomes aware of your offering. Well, there are conversion rate freaks who considers higher the conversion rate better is the campaign. conversion rate involves two factors, the number of clicks and the number of people who got converted. It does not tell you how many people who saw your ad got converted. Tracking the rate of conversion against impression count reveals a much interesting picture. It rather tells you about the power of ads you have created, the suitability of the keyword you are choosing, kinds of network and what kind of traffic they...

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Position Preference Failures: When and why it Happens?

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:16:00 +0000

After writing the post, When and How to use Position preference for keywords in Adwords, I recieved many complains from people who have failed to see their ad in the preferred position. This is true if you are targeting position 6-8, your ad may show in position 1-8 in fact. Whereas, Google honours the lower limit, it may not go by your preferred upper limit. Brad Geddes has addressed the situation citing someone from Google: The lower limit on position preference is a hard limit, but the upper limit is not. The system will try and hold to the upper limit defined in your preferences, but we couldn’t make it a hard limit. In the unlikely scenario that the ads that would normally compete for the top few positions all had upper limits of position 4, for example, having that upper limit be a hard stop would cause issues for the auction. After going through the explanation, it just seems natural that upper limit can't be honoured. Had it been, then if too many people opted for 3-8...

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When and How to use Position Preference for Keywords in Adwords

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Adwords allows you to set Position Preference for Keywords on search. To enable it,Go to Edit campaign setting and check the box for Position Preference.select the keywords where you want to apply the preference and click edit keyword setting.Choose the preference of position against each of the selected keywords.Position preference is to tell the system what is your most preferred position where you want the clicks to come from. Situations where you should use it are: You have discovered some patterns through observation and arrived at the conclusion you convert more often at some places.You find it is useful to show in top 3 and useless to show below them. It is true for some kind of Search queries, Conversions are absorbed by top 3 solts, you shouldn't waste click showing below.You find a lot of junk clicks at the top and so want to show at the bottom instead. There are situations at certain times that top 3 and higher up the rank attracts too many junk clicks which makes your...

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Rediff.com gets Uncluttered !

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Surprise! Rediff.com, which was known for filling everything possible with ads has decided to rework on Page Styling and presentation. It has been a long time since I have used any service of Rediff. I remember, i had written my first blog post on rediff.com in 2004, i used its rediffmail, login of which I have forgotten now. Sometimes, I laso used its comparision shopping. What I used to hate there was, a lot of ads. Ads everywhere on the page and also a lot in your inbox. Rediff has always been ahead of many others in terms of technology they use and launch of new features. Still, it could not make impressive breakthrough internationally. Finally, it has started to rework its design and presentation which is a very welcome move from their side. It was a case of great features with poor presentation which generated Poor user experience. i don't know about other users but i left using services of Rediff, just because of its cluttered interface. Now it has decided to improve upon the...

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Web 2.0 Newest Trend: Build focused community

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:06:00 +0000

Myspace created a stir in the networking. Earlier email was considered the best way of keeping in touch, but conversation kept between the two people. It had little scope of escalation. Yahoo and MSN had created onlne chat rooms for increasing the interaction between people. It too had shortcomings and MSN closed its chatroom while yahoo's boring chat room continues. Myspace unleashed a fresh concept, where people could make friends, write blogs, and find like minded individuals online. Unlike chatrooms, you need not be online all the time to be approached, your page can showcase who you are and what your interest are. It too had a problem, people are not serious in writing who they are and what they want to do. People want places where they would find people like them with more ease. to fulfil this demand was born the concept of professional networking, linkedin being the leader in it. People have understood, what they can do on myspace and facebook is not fashionable on Linkedin....

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Adwords Editorial Guidelines - Who cares? Google!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:38:00 +0000

Adwords Editorial Guideline regarding Superlative Claims: Superlatives are words that emphasize superiority. In the interest of making sure users feel they are being treated in an honest, credible manner, your ad text cannot contain comparative or subjective phrases such as 'Best' or '#1' unless verified by a third party. This verification must be clearly displayed on your website. For example, if an ad claims to be the 'Best of the Web,' the site must display third party verification of the claim. A Forbes Magazine seal indicating this site received a best of the web award would be acceptable, and the ad would comply with this policy. That is what Google says. Run some sample searches on http://www.google.co.in/ , and you would find ads like: Want to Sell your Car? Get the Best and Fastest Deal in Your City. Simple and Fast. Buy/Sell Used Cars Looking for Ideal Secondhand Car? Zoom In for Best Car deals. Free! Besides these you would also find ads which claims: Best of the...

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Adwords Reseller India - Google seeking Partners!

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:36:00 +0000

Google had three Resellers in India, who closed their operations one after another. Adwords Reseller Program was launched in India, in Nov'2006. CGS Infotech, Next Gen Publishing Ltd. & Infomedia were their three chosen partners to spread the program. CGS opted out of it in 2007, followed by Next Gen Publishing Ltd, and lastly Infomedia too opted out in Dec'2008. Now, India has no authorized adwords resellers, but Google is seeking fresh new partners. Google generally chooses its partners from Yellow Pages Industry. From this point of view, Next gen and Infomedia were the best fit. Indian Yellow Pages industry is led by Infomedia, followed by many minor players. Adwords Authorized Reseller is the highest kind of affiliation which google offers for the Adwords Program. Benefits they get, include: Assistance in Training. They receive direct training from Google Employees. Assistance in Sales. They receive Sales Leads & Sales Assistance from Google. Assistance in...

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Google shows Profiles in SERP - What it may mean?

ramesh@netargument.com (Blogger) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:19:00 +0000

Last week Google added a new feature in SERP. When you search for the name of a person, you are likely to see some Google Profiles, at the end of the first page. Check the snapshot I have taken for Google search - Ramesh Kumar, which shows my profile in the second row. Too see such kind of results: You should be signed in to a Google accountYou should have created your Google Profile, either via gmail or through any other Google services.All over the world SEOs are alarmed over this development. Is Google going towards Authority based ranking in SERPs. Earlier, Matt Cutts had given signal that Page Rank based ranking system might get substituted with a new system. This comment was followed by non inclusion of Page Rank indicator in google chrome web browser. Page Rank a pathbreaking advancement in search technology has been the most targeted thing among SEOs. However, since its launch, its secrets have been demistyfied by intelligent web reasearchers, and even a third rate SEO now...

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