The ROI Revolution Blog

Bid for Profitability, not Pride

2009-11-05T15:25:46Z

Every company wants to be at the front of the pack, leaving their competitors in the dust.

To beat the competition in PPC advertising, your first instinct might be to outbid competitors and get your ad into the top few positions, often located directly above the organic results.

With your ad gloriously perched atop the search results, surely you're at a competitive advantage compared to all those lowly ads on the right side of the page...right?

Well, not necessarily.

With PPC, you don't always get the gold for being in first place. While having your ad in higher positions tends to yield more clicks and therefore more conversions than lower spots, it doesn't always ensure the best return on investment.

If you have to pay twice as much per click to get your ad to the top position but find that it only gets you a few more sales and ultimately cuts into your profits, then you probably wouldn't want to continue that strategy.

And if you're thinking that you might be able to boost your conversion rate by getting your ads to the premium positions, Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian, shared on the Inside AdWords blog that conversion rates don't vary much by position. He explained that for the same ad, conversion rate only differs by less than 5% on average across all positions.

This is not to say that you should shoot for 4th position necessarily, or any other specific position for that matter. The important thing is that you test how profitable you are in different ad positions and then bid for the ones that work the best for your unique business.

To learn a few more AdWords tips, enter your name and email to watch a video explaining 3 more strategies.

ROI Revolution Attends 3rd Annual GAAC Summit

2009-10-30T14:09:27Z

Hey, look! It's a gaggle of GAACs!

Every year when autumn rolls around, you'll find the ROI Revolution Analytics Team hard at work planning our strategy. Not for clients (we do that all year 'round, of course) but for the strange and fun activities planned at the annual Google Analytics Authorized Consultant Summit. Last year, it was Rock Band. This year, trampoline dodgeball.

Not all of our time at Google is spent jumping around on trampolines and pegging each other with balls. For four days, Google Partners from around the world convene in Mountain View to talk about the state of analytics and optimization, learn from one another, and push the limit when it comes to supporting our favorite free analytics platform.

Click for a rundown of what we covered...

Day One: Google Website Optimizer

Dan Siroker, former director of analytics for the Obama Presidential Campaign and founder of the online multiplayer game CarrotSticks, talked about how his team used Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, and other free tools to help Obama win the presidential election.
Sandra Cheng, Product Manager of Google Website Optimizer, and Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager of Google Website Optimizer, talked about the future of the free website testing and optimization tool. There's some exciting stuff coming, not least of which were the recently announced over-time charts and the experiment management API.

Google Analytics Product Marketing Manager Eva Woo and her magical margarita machine. I want one for the ROI office.

Day Two: Google Analytics

The keynote, by Avinash Kaushik, was, as always, eye-opening and in-your-face. We <3 Avinash.
Phil Mui, senior product manager for Google Analytics, discussed the roadmap. He touched on engagement goals, mobile reporting, and multiple custom variables, all announced a week later.
What am I most excited? Analytics Intelligence, an algorithmic intelligence engine for Google Analytics to provide automated alerts for significant changes in your site's metrics. We've been using it in beta and we're glad we can share it with all of our clients!
After all of the announcements, we headed to Sky High Sports in Santa Clara and did our trampoline dodgeball. All of our practice paid off when we were unceremoniously destroyed in the first round.

Day Three: More Google Analytics

Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist, talked about using Google tools to "predict the present" and glean important intelligence about the current economic situation. Very cool stuff.Lots of discussion on the Google Analytics API, as well as some exciting developments in the works for Google Analytics and advertisers. We can't say much yet, but it's really a great time to be using Google Analytics!

Day Four: Urchin

We heard some awesome news from the Urchin team on the development of the Urchin software. Stay tuned to the blog for more news as it comes!

That's about it. In spite of our crushing dodgeball defeat, it was a great time and we were glad to chat with analysts from all over the world. We can hardly wait 'til next year. We're all secretly hoping next year's event is Slamball.

Slamball.

Yeaaaah. Not so much.

Use ALL 3 Google AdWords Keyword Match Types for Google Search

2009-10-29T14:19:31Z

One pattern we often see when conducting an AdWords account audit and strategy session for an advertiser, or when beginning work with a new client is that there are only broad match keywords throughout the AdWords account.

Ideally, you should bid on all three match types of every keyword you decide to include in your account for Google Search. To see why, read on....

To quickly review:

Using broad match keywords allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations. If you are bidding on the keyword: buy flowers, your ad may show on searches such as: flowers, purchase flowers, buy daisy flowers.

Using phrase match keywords allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase. You are bidding on the keyword: "buy flowers", your ad may show for: I need to buy flowers, buy flowers online, buy flowers for my wife.

Using exact match allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively. You are bidding on the keyword: [buy flowers], your ad will only show when someone searches for: buy flowers.

Broad matched keywords are great for capturing a lot of traffic, but as you can see from the example, your ad may show up for many different search variations on Google.com. In the example above, you may be an online flower shop but you do not offer daisies. By only bidding on the broad match, your ad may end up showing for irrelevant searches, therefore potentially being clicked on and costing you money for no return because you simply do not have what the visitor is looking for.

Phrase match is more targeted than broad match, yet still allows flexibility. In the example above, by bidding on: buy flowers, these two words have to always be together and in this order for your ad to display. Clearly, the searches: I need to buy flowers, and buy flowers for my wife are still relevant to your keyword.

Exact match is the most targeted option available. Your ad will only show when a user of Google.com searches for the exact query that you are bidding on as a keyword. This match type guarantees that you get the exact traffic you are hoping to receive from Google.com. The negative impact of using this match type is that it can reduce the amount of traffic to your website, because your ad does not display nearly as often as it potentially could.

You should keep in mind that each of the three match types provides a different way for a Google.com user to interact with you. Broad match will give you the greatest amount of traffic but potentially not the most qualified and action oriented visitors. By using phrase match, and especially exact match, you're ad will show less of the time but will often yield more targeted and qualified visitors who are ready to conduct the action you want - whether that be signing up for a newsletter or making an actual purchase.

By bidding on all three match types, you provide the opportunity to enter a conversation with many different types of visitors, positioning yourself in the strongest way to find success using Google AdWords. You also are able to bid differently based on your ROI for each match type; this especially applies to high volume keywords within your account.

Learn more proven AdWords tactics with our AdWords strategies video.

Your Ads Can Work 9 to 5 Too

2009-10-22T13:06:15Z

Have you ever driven to a store in the evening to make a purchase, only to discover this sign hanging in the window?

Frustrated, weren't you? As a consumer, you just wasted your time and gas money, and now you have to come back the next day during business hours, go to a different store that's open, or just forget about it altogether and go home and watch some primetime television.

And as for the store that was closed at the time, they probably just lost out on your sale. Everyone loses.

So let's say you're shopping online in the evening instead, you click on an enticing ad and then decide that you'd like to speak with a customer service rep to make the purchase because you've got some questions and order specifications. You pick up the phone and dial the business number, only to hear the following automated message:

"Thank you for calling (insert company name here). Unfortunately we are closed at this time. You can reach us during our store hours which are Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm Eastern. Thank you."

Everything in this scenario is the same as the first brick-and-mortar example except for one major thing: the online business just wasted valuable advertising spend on a click that didn't result in a conversion.

Similar scenarios involving PPC advertising occur online every day, especially with businesses who carry out most of their transactions through the phone. Examples of businesses where this is common include ones who sell in bulk, have customizable products, or simply require all transactions be made over the phone.

If your business operates "9 to 5" and most transactions happen over the phone, you might test saving money by using Ad Scheduling to only show your ads during this time frame.

If you're not familiar with Ad Scheduling, it's an AdWords feature that lets you specify certain hours or days of the week when you want your ads to appear.

The Ad Scheduling feature is found under the Campaign Settings tab > Advanced settings > Ad scheduling. Click "Edit" and a window will appear where you can set your ads to run only during your desired hours.

If you click on "Bid adjustment", you can get a little more advanced by adjusting pricing for your ads during certain time periods. For example, if you know that your call volume is highest between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., you can bid more for impressions or clicks during that period.

Remember: No one likes seeing the "Sorry, We're Closed" sign, so don't be the company that wastes money sending people there.

For more information on ad scheduling, click here and for more AdWords tips check out this video.

3-Session "AdWords Academy" Bootcamp for Beginners ONLY

2009-10-15T13:21:35Z

ROI Revolution is now offering a 3-session training series for PPC beginners ONLY.

Our goal with this course is to really take you step-by-step through the process of creating and managing campaigns in Google AdWords.

Each session goes for 90 minutes including 20 minutes of Q&A.

The course will teach beginners how to use the AdWords interface to build your Google campaigns from the ground up. You'll learn the essential structures, terminology and all of the many handy facets that can help you better manage, understand and utilize your account's data.

You will learn and gain an understanding of:

Pay-Per-Click Marketing
The Google Networks
Features & Benefits of AdWords
Key Terminology
A Proper Account Structure
The new AdWords Interface
How to Create a Campaign

Language & Location Targeting
Writing Ad Creatives
Building a Keyword List
Match Types
Budgets

How to Edit Campaign Settings
How to Optimize Your Campaigns
How to Create Reports & Understand Them
How to Use the Many Tools in AdWords
Bidding
Other Advertising Options on Google

If you have just started using Google AdWords or would like to grow your business online, but have yet to try, this is just the course for you to get you started.

I manage pay-per-click campaigns on AdWords all day long, every day-of-the-week, so I made sure to cover all of the essentials and give you insider tips to build a well-structured campaign and manage it smoothly.

Please come and join the AdWords Academy boot camp, and get the help you need to make your business soar online or learn more about each training session in detail.

All three sessions are now available on demand via the All Access Pass.

Universal Conversion Code For Google Website Optimizer

2009-10-13T19:48:32Z

We've been using a piece of code for a while that makes it easier to set up multiple Google Website Optimizer experiments. These experiments could be one right after the other, or even several experiments running simultaneously. The only requirement is that you should have a single conversion point for all of your Google Website Optimizer experiments. You may be able to adapt this code to situations with multiple conversion points, but that's likely to get rather complicated. So why use this code? Oftentimes your conversion point is a page that you're not really wanting to edit a lot, or may even be able to edit a lot. Instead of having to update your conversion page every time you set up a new experiment, you just add this code to your conversion page once and forget about it. It will register a conversion for all current and future experiments, and will even accommodate visitors who may be part of more than one experiment. So here's the code:

A few things to keep in mind:

If you have your own functionally equivalent readCookie function, you can use that instead.
This code will probably work best if it comes after your Google Analytics Tracking Code.
If you have any kinds of modifications to your Google Analytics Tracking Code, you'll need to make those same modifications to your Google Website Optimizer code. See Shawn's post on this.
This code is meant to replace the Google Website Optimizer conversion script that's provided with your instructions.

That's it! I always appreciate suggestions for improving code I put up here. If you've found this code to be particularly useful, I'd like to hear that too.

Leverage Your Brand in your AdWords Account

2009-10-12T16:27:34Z

Be sure to have a "branded" campaign filled with variations of your company name and website.

Not only do you want to ensure ad dominance for your own keywords, but it will help separate these highly performing keywords from everything else, so as not to skew your overall account statistics.

Creating a branded campaign is key to online advertising success as you will want your company to come up when users are specifically searching for your company.

You would want to bid on all versions of your company's name including:

the correct spelling
common misspellings
your company name followed by.com
your company web address
your company name with the www. before it

For example, say your company was called Cheesemonger. You would want to bid on the following keywords:

cheesemonger
cheesemongers
chesemonger
cheesemunger
thecheesemonger
www cheesemonger
cheesemonger com
www.cheesemonger.com
www cheesemonger com

Directly bidding on these keywords, means searches are specifically looking for you, so it is important that you don't miss out on this profitable opportunity. Plus, if your company's site is already ranked organically you will show up twice, once in the paid listings and once in the organic listings, which can only help!

Initially you may think, why should I pay for my own keywords if my site is already in the organic listings, but if you show up twice, people will most definitely find your company. Plus, you don't want competitors snapping up your traffic because they are bidding on your branded terms and you are not.

Not to mention, if you are having trouble getting your site to rank on the first page of the organic search results, bidding on your branded keywords is a surefire way to show up.

Typically your branded campaign will get you the cheapest conversions out of any of your campaigns because clearly you must be the most relevant choice if you actually are that company, so you will be paying the least amount for your own terms.

Lastly, you will want to have these terms isolated in a separate campaign so that you can strategically bid for these less expensive terms. If you have your branded terms mixed in with other general terms, you may end up bidding these terms higher than is necessary.

In essence, if people are searching for your specific company name, they want your exact product or service, so missing out on this easy way to make money would just be foolish. Go out and make yourself a branded campaign today!

For PPC Beginners ONLY: AdWords Academy online training course

2009-10-06T18:48:45Z

Learn how to set up your Google AdWords account step by step from the very beginning. We'll go through each step of campaign creation from keyword research to match types, account structure and setting bids. Each one of these steps done correctly results in saved money and time.

The best part is that this course is for the true AdWords beginner; we'll practically be showing you every button you need to click to get the job done. If you've been putting off starting your own Google AdWords account or have paused it because it was losing money, you'll want to be sure to attend this course and learn to do it the right way.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your products or services in front of your prospects at the precise moment when their interest is at its peak. Over 60% of all US paid search advertising comes from Google AdWords.

Beginner Google AdWords Academy Online Course dates and times:

Tuesday, October 27th, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed): Introduction to Google AdWords (available on demand via the All Access Pass)
Thursday, October 29th, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed): Properly Setting Up an AdWords Account (available on demand via the All Access Pass)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed). Advanced AdWords Features(available on demand via the All Access Pass)

Each training session lasts approximately 90 minutes, including 20 minutes of Q&A at the end of each session.

Online Training Topics

Pay-Per-Click advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your products or services in front of your prospects at the precise moment when their interest is at its peak.

Session 1:
Intro to AdWords

Session 2:
Proper Account Set Up

Session 3:
Advanced Features

Introduction to Online Advertising

What is pay-per-click
Features & benefits
Google search & content network
Account structure
The interface

Benefits and features of AdWords

Cost
Timing
Flexibility

Basic Terminology

Keyword
Cost-per-click
Clickthrough rate
Impression
Landing page
Conversion
Conversion rate
Ad position
Quality score
SEO v. SEM
AdWords v. Adsense

Creating a Campaign

Language and location targeting

Targeting guidelines
Excluding locations
Making custom targeting

Writing ad creatives

Editorial policies
Ad writing exercise

Building a keyword list
- Best practices
Match types
- Broad, phrase, & exact
- Negative keywords
Setting bids and budgets

Daily budget
Minimum & Maximum bids

Using the Traffic Estimator

Optimization

Optimize to increase traffic
Optimize to increase quality score
Optimize to increase landing page quality
Optimize for the Google network

Reports

Creating and analyzing reports
Saving reports and report templates

Google Analytics

Basic linking to AdWords
Analytics dashboard
Using All Traffic Sources, and Site Usage
Tracking goal conversions
Tracking keyword performance

Proper Account Structure

Account
Campaign
Ad Group
Keywords

AdWords Interface

Campaign management tab
My account tab

Editing Campaign Settings

Basic settings

Setting start and end dates

Budget options

Delivery methods + Standard & Accelerated

Networds and Bidding

Choosing content or search

Ad scheduling

Multiplying bids
Setting times of day that you want your ads to run

Ad Serving

Setting ads to “Optimize” or “Rotate”

Tools

Campaign optimizer, Keyword tool, Traffic estimator, Ads diagnostic tool, Ads preview tool, Disapproved ads, Conversion tracking, My change history, AdWords Editor

Bidding

Manual bidding
Changing bids through “edit keyword settings”

Other Advertising Options

Image ads
Video ads
Local business ads
Mobile ads

Billing cycle and options

Steps to setting up an account

Starter vs. Standard
Choose Currency
Create your first campaign

Each training session lasts approximately 90 minutes, including 20 minutes of Q&A at the end of each session.

All three sessions are now available on demand via the All Access Pass.

Meet the Academy Instructors

Timothy Seward is founder and CEO of ROI Revolution. Timothy's firm is a charter consulting partner with both Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer as well as a Google AdWords Qualified Advertising Company. Timothy has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida Gulf Coast University. His company serves large and small Google advertisers throughout the United States and Canada and is based in Raleigh, NC.

Mike O'Rourke is a PPC Account Manager at ROI Revolution. Mike joined the company in January of 2008 after graduating with a B.A. in Communication Media Studies from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2007.

See you during the academy!

Check Landing Page Performance by Browser

2009-10-06T15:52:19Z

Every browser is different.* Ask any web designer about their craft and you'll eventually get them talking passionately about these differences. How Internet Explorer 6 renders CSS pseudo-elements (badly) and handles padding and spaces (randomly). How IE7 ignores CSS drop shadows. How floating divs never seem to work the same way in any of the browsers. These peculiarities have driven many a developer to strong drink.

When it comes to testing new webpage designs in Google Website Optimizer, speed can be essential. You want to get the experiment out the door as soon as possible so you can get preliminary data. Sometimes this means that things slip through QA. Browser testing is exceptionally finicky and time consuming. Not every office has a spare Mac sitting around, and with three different versions of Internet Explorer still in wide use—and no easy way to install all three versions on a single PC—it's no small feat to make your page variations all work perfectly in every popular browser.

With just a few Google Analytics Advanced Segments in your arsenal, however, you'll be able to see whether or not your new pages are functioning fine in all the right browsers. Hit the jump for details.

First, you'll need to create a new Advanced Segment for each landing page in your experiment. Check out Segment 1 and Segment 2 for more detail.

Next, apply both segments to your reports and head to the Browsers reports. This report defaults to the pie chart, but I like to switch back to the data table:

Now check out each browser and pay attention to the Bounce Rate column for each Landing Page segment. If one particular browser has a Bounce Rate that seems particularly out of whack, drill down and check out the versions. Then, using your findings, test the page live (if you can) or use a site like Browsershots.

What other browser testing tips or tricks do you have to help ensure that your site is fit for all visitors? Share them in the comments.

* "No two browsers are not on fire."

Using Google Analytics to Your PPC Advantage: Geo Targeting

2009-09-15T20:38:07Z

Strategy: Using Google Analytics, you can see which cities and states are performing well, and you can create separate PPC campaigns for those areas with higher bids. Conversely, you can see which cities and states underperform, and you can isolate and bid them down or eliminate them altogether.

Google Analytics can reveal so much invaluable information about your online (and offline) marketing efforts, and uncovering where the majority of your traffic and customers come from is just one of the many important pieces of the marketing pie. Using different reports and segmentations in Google Analytics can shed light on where you should be focusing your marketing.

The Map Overlay report under the Visitors section (illustrated below) allows you to see number of visitors, revenue, goal conversion, and many other metrics for your website coming from anywhere in the world! You are able to click on a region and drill down further to see many different metrics within that region.

Another tip for finding out where your most valuable traffic or your trash traffic is coming from is to view any report and change your dimension targeting to Continent, Sub Continent Region, Country/Territory, Region, or even City.

Once you are able to pinpoint where you would like to target or exclude your traffic, you can alter your Google AdWords geo targeting to reflect what you've found.

Allowing your ads to display only in the areas that are most profitable for you and adjusting your campaign budgets to reflect where the best traffic comes from, can't help but boost the return on your AdWords investment!

We've got a few additional strategies to make your AdWords advertising drive more response & profit. Our CEO, Timothy Seward, has prepared his top 3 "undercover" tactics that we consider the cream of the crop. (Hint: there's a large-screen eight minute AdWords training video when you opt-in).

Get the three free AdWords strategies here!

New Webinar for Ecommerce Sites ONLY: Optimize Your Product Listings on Shopping Engines

2009-09-05T19:28:17Z

Wouldn't you like to know how to optimize your product listings on shopping engines? With today's economy every little bit helps. If you're not already listed on comparison shopping engines such as Amazon and Shopping.com, we'll cover the basics and for those of you who are listed, wouldn't you like to get more out of it?

On Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 4:00 pm Eastern (1:00 pm Pacific) Timothy Seward, CEO of ROI Revolution, Inc. will host with guest presenters John Kleven, CEO of Versafeed.com (pictured left with his Senior Feed Engineer, Andy Hund) a 45 minute presentation detailing how to get your products optimized and listed on comparison shopping engines and marketplaces.

This webinar is ideal for online retailers looking to expand sales. Every day, thousands of consumers visit these popular shopping portals to search for products. Don't miss out on this source of income.

Topics include:

Best sites to list on (some are free!)
How to give your inventory listings to shopping sites
Methods to optimize your product listings
Monitoring ROI

Listen in to find ways to increase your visibility while decreasing your costs. We'll also discuss data feed optimization, a proven technique to help your products rank above your competitors.

This webinar will be conducted live, so no recording or replay will be available.

Reserve Your Spot for this Complimentary Webinar

Five Google Analytics FAILS

2009-08-21T17:46:04Z

Here at the ROI Revolution blog, we usually strive to provide you with helpful how-tos and the best examples on making your Google Analytics accounts lean, clean, and useful. Today, we're going a different route in the hope that instead of teaching by example, we can show what not to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our top five Google Analytics FAILs. These are real life examples that our intrepid Google Analytics support staff have encountered in the line of duty. They are not pretty. You have been warned.

1. There Can Be Only One: utm_nooverride=1

We've talked at length about utm_nooverride before. We're big fans of using the utm_nooverride query parameter to make sure that branded and email traffic doesn't overwrite more important long tail referral data.

But there's really only one parameter value to use in this situation. One. It's one. The only one is one. Does that make sense?

No? Ok. Well, see the screenshot to the left? That's what you shouldn't use.

First of all, you should never see the utm_nooverride parameter in your Google Analytics reports. Secondly, you should spell it correctly. Third, don't pass "2" as a value. It doesn't work. Just follow Shawn's instructions in his three-part series on using utm_nooverride and you won't FAIL.

2. You Are Not Selling Medium Green T-Shirts

At the very least, you're not selling only medium green t-shirts, right? Well, maybe you are. Who am I to judge?

The example provided in the Google Analytics Help Center article on e-commerce is just that: an example. But I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't seen people cut and paste that example script right onto their receipt pages, then called it a day.

Google Analytics can't figure out what you've sold unless you tell it. You need to roll up your sleeves and find the variables that contain a visitor's transaction data. Then pass that data to Google Analytics. It's like a relay race, except you're passing product names and revenue figures.

Place a test order. If you view your receipt page's source code and you don't see the correct order total or the products you purchased (or if your code says you bought a medium green t-shirt), then you've got more work to do.

You'll probably also want to check out the values you're passing. We've seen some pretty hinky stuff show up in the Google Analytics e-commerce reports because someone threw too many numbers into the revenue or shipping fields (see left).

Start by checking out Caitlin's article about de-stressing your Google Analytics e-commerce setup. If you're still mired in FAIL, you can always hire us.

Hit the jump for three more epic Google Analytics FAILures.

3. Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics Aren't That Close

Yeah, we know that Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer renewed their vows last year and that you can view A/B experiment in Google Analytics. But they're not inseparable. They like their space. They are their own individuals. It's a healthy marriage.

So don't go mistaking your Google Analytics account number with your Google Website Optimizer account number. They may look similar, but you should always be sure to differentiate.

If you get them mixed up, you'll start seeing some pretty odd pageviews in Google Analytics (see right) and your Website Optimizer experiments will tank.

And while GA and GWO live their own lives (are you as sick of this metaphor as I am?), they want to be treated equal. So if you're using a customized Google Analytics script, you may need to make a few changes to your Google Website Optimizer script. Shawn talks about these modifications in detail in his article on installing Website Optimizer if you use Google Analytics, and Jeremy's world-famous Google Analytics Report Enhancer script lets you customize your Google Website Optimizer scripts in the browser before plugging them into your source code. It makes the whole process FAIL-proof.

4. Let Your Visitors Come As They Are

Be a gracious host. If your website's visitors are coming to a page with a redirect, be sure to let Google Analytics figure out where they came from. Otherwise you're going to miss out on the referring site, any keywords they searched for, and whether or not they clicked on one of your ads.

The way that you redirect your visitors will impact how they get tracked. If you use 301 (permanent) redirects, then the HTTP referrer—essentially, the URL of the webpage that linked to your site—gets passed on to the new page. This means that Google Analytics can figure out how the visitor got to your site. 302 redirects or JavaScript/meta redirects don't do this.

But there's another issue. If you're using Google Analytics link tagging and the query string doesn't move along in the redirect, you're losing valuable intelligence. Make sure the query string shows up on the new page after the redirection. Otherwise: tracking FAIL.

5. You Want to Track Your Website

It might seem pretty obvious to most of you, but when it comes to adding a Google Analytics tracking code to your site, it's very important that you actually track that site's traffic.

Check out the tracking codes below for a site called cheesemongr.com. The site's fake, but these are all FAILs I've actually seen before. Can you figure out why these tracking codes FAIL? Leave a comment and tell us how to fix them.

Keeping an Eye on the Competition

2009-08-19T00:46:04Z

There's an old saying that goes something like: "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer". While PPC marketing is a highly competitive industry by nature, keeping your competitors close to you may be easier than you think. Performing a simple competitive analysis on a routine basis will help you uncover your competitors' deepest secrets and provide you with insights into your own marketing efforts as well.

Paid search offers a wealth of opportunity to monitor your competition's every move. With traditional media, such as print, you may have had to scour through thousands of pages in magazines to find one competitor's ad. With PPC marketing, you simply have to perform a search on one of your keywords to see exactly who is in your space and determine how aggressively they are competing.

Follow these three simple steps and you will reveal more about your competitors than you ever thought possible.

Step 1: Find your top performing keywords

Obviously you can't monitor the competition on every single keyword in your account, but you can keep an eye on your top performers. Identify the top 10 to 15 keywords in your search campaigns over an extended date range and use these as the basis for your competitive analysis. Chances are that your competition has identified these 10 to 15 keywords as their top performers as well.

Step 2: Identify your biggest competitors

While there are probably many advertisers bidding on each of your keywords, it is important to identify the ones that are the most relevant to you and your product offering. After performing a few searches and visiting the websites from the top ads, you will begin to gain an understanding of who is the most similar to you. Keep a spreadsheet of every domain that appears in the paid search listings and make a note of what products they have to offer.

Once you have performed a search on all of your top keywords, figure out which competitors show up the most often and offer the most similar products/service to you. These are your biggest competitors.

Step 3: Learn from competitor ad text

It is extremely important to monitor what your competitors are communicating in their ad text on a regular basis. Ultimately, good ad writing comes down to clearly stating what you have to offer in the most enticing way possible. If you see the same message being communicated repeatedly in a competitor's ads, they have probably had success with this copy.

Keep an ongoing list of competitor ad text and look for similarities between each of their ads. If you are able to identify a message that is consistently repeated, see if you can offer something better. If you can't beat their offer, look for ways to differentiate yourself from them.

Be sure to keep track of competitor ads that are no longer active as well. Your competitor may have realized that a particular message wasn't working well and decided it was time to test something else. By keeping track of this, you essentially get ad test results on your search traffic without spending a dime!

Final Thoughts

Having a good understanding of what your competitors are doing will enable you to make more informed decisions in future ad testing. Learn what does and doesn't work from your competitors and your own ad testing. Always pay close attention to competitor changes and always be on the lookout for someone new.

Perform this competitive analysis on a routine basis and you will be well on your way to dominating your paid search market!

5 Calculated Risks to Strengthen Your PPC Advertising

2009-08-14T01:13:26Z

Investing money in online advertising always carries some level of risk. Whenever you increase a bid price, it is a calculated risk that the additional spend will produce more profitable sales.

Of any form of advertising, PPC carries the least risk since success metrics are available almost immediately. Even so, there is a temptation to minimize all risk.

Even though the following 5 tips are all low-risk & high reward, they are often considered too risky by weak-kneed advertisers.

These are the exact risks you should be taking if you want to strengthen your profits.

1. Be liberal with your daily budget

Are you making direct sales through PPC advertising? If so, what use do you have for a campaign budget? Keywords often have seasonal and/or news-related spikes in traffic. When setting a conservative budget, you risk missing out on the revenue this additional traffic would generate.

The potential sales loss of a constrained budget poses more risk to your bottom line than some crazy clicking event of unqualified traffic. You can always scale back your bids if the traffic decreases in profitability. An unexpected surge in profitable traffic, on the other hand, is usually hidden in historical reports of lost impression share. Your budget should probably be at least double your average daily spend.

2. Play in the same pool with your SEO

There's enough traffic for both PPC and organic listings. Some advertisers are afraid they'll waste money if they bid on keywords that rank well organically -- such as their brand or product name. Yes, you will probabably pay for some clicks where the visitor would have otherwise clicked on your free listing. But you will also get some additional clicks where the visitor would have clicked on a competitor ad or another organic listing.

The result of bidding on your organic keywords is typically a net profit. If you aren't convinced, do your own test. Bid on your organic keywords for a week. See how many additional visitors came to your site from those PPC keywords versus the organic counterparts. Take the PPC cost for these keywords and divide it by additional conversions you got. If this is still an acceptable CPA on the marginal sales, continue the practice.

3. Keep optimizing your sales funnel

A profitable sales funnel should be considered a starting point, not finish line. Yes, that new ad might decrease your CTR. Yes, that new landing page might decrease your conversion rate. Yet if you are consistently keeping the good and throwing out the bad, you will ratchet up your success to increased profitability. Don't be afraid to test new things.

4. Bid on competitor brand & product keywords

It may seem obvious, but the word "competitor" comes from the word "compete." This is the same terminology used in professional sports. The goal of the competition is to win (get the sale). Yes, sometimes the opposing team gets mad when you make an interception. The ball was, in fact, meant for their own team. Yet there is no disputing that interceptions are perfectly within the rules of the game.

Don't be a PPC pansy. This is a real life competition and the strong survive. I'm not advocating breaking the rules or doing anything unethical such as putting on the other team's jersey... that would be a trademark issue. But if your ad wins fair & square for a competitor keyword, you've done well.

5. Be willing to delay your profit until the backend

On highly competitive search terms, you may be tempted to wonder how your competitors can afford those bids and still make a profit. Well, most of them can't -- at least not on the front-end sale. In fact, many advertisers plan to actually lose money on the initial sale. How can they afford this? They've got a profitable backend sale funnel.

If you can cover your marketing costs with your frontend sales, you are doing well. Now that you have a relationship with these customers, additional sales over the next days, weeks, and months are essentially free money (after your fulfillment costs, of course). Build up your backend product offering. This is where the big profits are made.

When your customer value increases, you can afford to increase your bids to fuel the additional traffic & sales.

Get the three free AdWords strategies here!

Announcing Google Analytics Seminars for Success in Charlotte, NC, December 9-10

2009-08-12T14:20:41Z

You are cordially invited to ROI Revolution's Google Analytics Seminar For Success in Charlotte, NC this December.

WHAT: Wednesday, December 9th is the Introduction & User Training Session designed to help users explore and understand their data in Google Analytics. See what you'll learn in our Google Analytics introduction and user training day.

Thursday, December 10th is our Google Analytics Advanced Technical Implementation day and will cover installation and customization techniques to suit the needs of your business. This day is perfect if you're the webmaster for your site and are comfortable working with html and JavaScript. Learn more about what is covered.

Both sessions feature multiple question and answer sessions so you can get your specific Google Analytics questions answered. Google Seminars for Success is officially sponsored by Google, so you can trust that you are receiving the most accurate and up-to-date information on the best practices for Google Analytics.

WHERE: The seminar will be held at the Holiday Inn Center City in Charlotte, NC.

WHEN: Instruction begins each day at 9am (with registration at 8:45am to get your training materials, the seat of your choice and coffee!) and goes until 5pm with a one hour break at noon for lunch on your own.

COST: The cost to attend the seminar is $499 each day or $998 for both days. For attending a session you'll receive a $50 AdWords credit (so you'd receive $100 in AdWords credit for attending both sessions; limit 2 per company).

Don't pass up the opportunity to learn from the experts what you have to know about Google Analytics in one (maybe two) days! Save your seat for either Google Analytics seminar day here.

See you in Charlotte, NC this December 9th and 10th!

P.S. Just a reminder that we're also teaching our Google Analytics seminar in downtown Chicago, IL on September 16th and 17th if you'd rather not wait until December. Find out the details here.