The ROI Revolution Blog

Our Top PPC Blog Posts of 2009!

December 30, 2009

Here at ROI Revolution we've enjoyed reviewing our most popular posts of the past year. There have been a lot of changes in the Pay-Per-Click world over the last twelve months, and it's been exciting to watch them unfold.

To wrap up the year we've ranked our top 7 PPC blog posts of 2009:

1. The One vs. Many-Per-Click Breakdown --Turn to this article for a breakdown of the One Vs. Many-Per-Click conversion change that happened in Google AdWords this past year. Since conversions are a reflection of your bottom line, understanding this change is crucial!

2. Top 5 Free PPC Tools --There are tons of FREE PPC tools on the web. Some of them are great, some are alright, and some are just OK. Here are ROI we've had experience with almost all of them, and have compiled a list of the top 5 for you to reference.

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Our 8 Most Popular Analytics Posts of 2009

December 29, 2009

The end of the year is a nice time to take a look back over all that was accomplished throughout the year. To that end, I'm going to give you a list of our top 8 Analytics Blog Posts of 2009. As we go through the list, I'll give you a short description of each post as well as any random thoughts I have about the post.

Enjoy the posts and have a Happy New Year!

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Happy Holidays from ROI Revolution!

December 20, 2009

Last Friday, we held the first ever Tacky Holiday Sweater contest here at ROI!

Each contestant's sweater was judged based on unique features, creativeness, effort input, tackiness, awesomeness, and even repulsiveness. General enthusiasm was also taken into account.

After a vote was taken, the following were our top 3 winners (pictured here with fabulous prizes):

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5 Step Google Initial Quality Score Checklist

December 16, 2009

You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression. The moment you upload your new campaigns & ad groups, even if paused, Google gives you an initial quality score. If it's below average you'll be paying more per click until Google has enough data for your actual performance to determine your quality score.

If you don't come out of the gate with your best foot forward, you'll pay a premium on your first 100+ clicks. Worse, you may be tempted to give up on a keyword prematurely based on astronomical bid prices. Pay attention to the checklist below when launching new campaigns, ad groups or keywords into your AdWords account.

The good news is that all these suggestions won't just help your initial quality score, but should actually increase the long-term quality of your AdWords campaigns.

Here's how to get the best possible initial quality scores in Google:

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New GA Feature: Annotations

December 8, 2009

Keeping up with the changes on your site can be nearly impossible. Equally challenging is keeping up with those changes in your Google Analytics reports. Yesterday Google announced a new feature called Annotations to help you remember what happened on your site, who did it, and when it happened.

Any user with Google Analytics access can write comments on the over-time graph to indicate any notes they have for that particular event. This will save a lot of time for companies where the tasks are distributed between numerous people, which means you the analyst will no longer have to spend hours figuring out why all your data has changed. Just view the annotations to see if any major updates or changes were made!

In addition to this new feature, Google also released the ability to use the Custom Variables in Advanced Segments and Custom Reports, and the new Tracking Code Setup Wizard. To view more information about these you can visit the Google Analytics blog.

The Positives of Keyword Negatives

A "mistake" that we consistently see when conducting our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions, or when beginning work with a new client is that there are no negative keywords throughout the entire account. The use of negative keywords can save you hundreds of dollars every month by preventing your ads from displaying for irrelevant Google.com searches.

The addition of negative keywords to your account should be made in order to have your ads show only when it is relevant to your product offering or service. The easiest (and quickest) way to find negative keywords is to use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

This tool can be found by clicking on "Opportunities" at the top of the new AdWords user interface...

...and selecting "Keyword tool" found on the left hand side of the following page.

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LAST CHANCE To Attend Google™ Analytics Seminar in Charlotte, NC

December 1, 2009

Just 10 Advanced day seats left for the downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, Google Analytics Seminar for Success!

This is it, your last chance to join fellow Google Analytics users in the Charlotte area to learn more about this great tool and ask your questions to qualified experts. Google Seminars for Success is officially sponsored by Google, you can trust that you are receiving the most accurate and up-to-date information on the best practices for Google Analytics.

Who each day is geared for:

• The Introduction and User Training, on Wednesday, December 9th, is designed for the beginner in Google Analytics and is primarily for non-technical users such as marketers and analysts. A large part of the day focuses on the reports available and how to use them. The intent is to present reports, explain what they mean and how they might be used with a site. While explaining the reports, the various tools (the calendar, different chart views, tabs, etc.) are explained in context.
• The Advanced Technical Implementation Training, on Thursday, December 10th, is is primarily for the technical user who installs and configures Google Analytics. Familiarity with JavaScript, HTML, and cookie management is assumed.
• You can see all of the content here.

Each seminar costs $499 (or $898 for both sessions, a savings of $100!).

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Get More from the Navigation Summary and Pivot Tables

Back in August, a tip was released on the Official Google Analytics Blog that allows you to export more than 500 rows from a report. In the post, this technique was used to export more than 500 rows worth of keyword data. Here we often use this technique to export more than 500 rows worth of pages from the Top Content report.

What you may not realize is that you can also use this trick to export more than 10 previous and next pages from the Navigation Summary report. As you may recall, the navigation summary report looks something like this:

In some case, 10 previous and next pages may be just what you need. But what if you want more?

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