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The ROI Revolution Blog

Online Advertising

Google Launches Enhanced CPC

August 17, 2010

Google released their latest addition to the bidding features family - Enhanced CPC. It's been in beta since March, but Enhanced CPC officially launched yesterday, August 16th.

The premise of the tool, much like Conversion Optimizer, is to "boost your ROI with an easy to use, automated bidding tool." Enhanced CPC will automatically adjust your max CPC bid based on the likelihood your ad will convert.

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Introducing Image Search Ads

August 4, 2010

If you've used Google Image Search at all recently, you've probably noticed that things are looking a bit different thanks to a redesign launched by Google last week. The images are grouped closely together, which allows more results to be displayed on the page. If you mouse over a specific image, the image expands out to a larger size with its source displayed below it. After you click an image, you are sent directly to the destination page with the image overlaid at full size. Most exciting for us with the new Google Image Search redesign is the introduction of a new ad format - Image Search Ads!

Image Search Ads allow you to target the millions of users searching Google images. The ads combine text with basic images, which creates more relevant ads that grab the user's attention. I did a quick search for shoes, and this is what showed up:

Notice the Image Search Ads from Sears.com and Skechers.com, with simple images of shoes that are very similar to the search results.

So, why should you use the new Image Search Ad format?

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Plus One! Google Adds Another Match Type

July 30, 2010

Google's latest targeting feature is the release of the new modified broad match. This new match type gives targeting results that are in between phrase match and the original broad match, but is more closely related to phrase match.

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Can Facebook Grow My Business?

June 24, 2010

A few months ago I posted a mini case study on a lead generation client for whom we've been able to find success on Facebook over time. Of course we have also seen less-than-stellar advertising performance (i.e. compared to Google/Yahoo/MSN) on Facebook for clients in other spaces.

So, the question that's often been on my mind since we started managing Facebook advertising, is whether or not a certain kind of business is a good fit for the Facebook ad platform.

So, my Facebook PPC client experiences usually translate into recommendations for clients, but I've always known that those answers are a bit linear in nature and I have yet to find someone with a few more Facebook battle scars to provide more insights.

That was until yesterday, when I discovered a 10-question quiz for the business owner or PPC manager that may be wondering "Is Facebook for me" @ Perry Marshall's new website/tool www.isfacebookforme.com - catchy URL. Here you will find a series of 10 "Yes or No" style business model questions that "provide instant feedback on whether Facebook could be a main traffic source for your business."

I completed the survey for the client that we've had success with on Facebook, and it gave me a 6/10, meaning that "Facebook will probably be a significant way for you to get more customers affordably" - and I can say that it has!

So, if you're considering Facebook now, consider checking out this new tool and getting a heads up on these 3 questions that it can help answer:

- Can I advertise on Facebook and make a profit?
- Will my products appeal to Facebook users?
- How much time should I devote to understanding how to advertise on Facebook?

The quiz is here: www.isfacebookforme.com

How to Place Ads on YouTube with Google AdWords: Part 2

June 14, 2010

In Part 1 of this series, I showed how to launch YouTube promoted videos through Google AdWords.  When you promote one of your videos, you are paying YouTube to funnel more traffic to the video... but the traffic still stays on YouTube.  (Of course, you can include a call-to-action link in your video that goes to your website, but that is more a feature of the video than a specific advertising strategy.)

You probably want to do more than just get people to watch one of your videos in an environment controlled by YouTube.  You want to get people to come to your website where they can take a desired action and you can make money.

There are multiple ways you can get your ads to show on YouTube searches, inside and alongside other people's videos.  With the right targeting, this can be a very profitable way to take advantage of YouTube's enormous amount of traffic.

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How to Place Ads on YouTube with Google AdWords: Part 1

May 28, 2010

In search volume alone, YouTube is the #2 search engine behind Google itself.  Yet even with its gigantic size, it is easy for YouTube to get passed up by online advertisers.  Many advertisers ignore the opportunity due to the convoluted process required to explicitly target YouTube with ads.  This means there is less competition for ad space on YouTube and great rewards for those who can crack the code.

In this post I hope to clear up the confusion and tell you exactly how to get your ads showing on YouTube.

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Do you know about Gmail's Funbox?

May 13, 2010

The 'Funbox' is a little known reference to the top ad spot in gmail, and guess what? You can target it as a managed placement in your AdWords content network campaigns.

So how do you target the fun box? The fun box is not found in the placement tool, so you need to add this in manually as a managed placement (in the networks tab):

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Save Money In Yahoo Search Marketing By Excluding Search Partners That are Not Performing Well:

April 27, 2010

I'd like to share with you a way to save money in your Yahoo Search Marketing account that is not as obvious as the regular optimization strategies. As you probably know, when you advertise on Yahoo's search network, your ads don't just show on Yahoo's search results page. They are also displayed on countless search partners that Yahoo has agreements with. This new optimization strategy is centered around the search partners.

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New, Live Webinar: The 6 reports that contain 90% of actionable AdWords insights

April 14, 2010

Here at ROI Revolution we are always students of the best practices and the smartest strategies in the world of data driven paid search. Brad Geddes, founder of the Internet marketing training firm bgTheory (pictured right), has some of the most powerful pay per click insights around.

Brad is a long time internet marketing veteran who regularly speaks at search marketing conferences throughout the country and is the only Google AdWords Seminar Leader in the world who teaches, under Google's authorization, AdWords 301 and 302.

I've personally used Brad's techniques to come up with powerful new ad text for my clients, find new keyword opportunities, and find areas where my bids were limiting exposure on profitable keywords.

Brad has recently written a new book, Advanced Google AdWords, and we've already purchased five copies for our office.

We've got a unique opportunity to join us for a live webinar with Brad Geddes. Brad will shed light on the 6 most important AdWords reports that will give you all of the actionable insights you need to make some powerful changes within your AdWords account.

The AdWords report center is a powerful tool that should be leveraged by every advertiser, but without knowing what data to focus on it's easy to waste time running useless reports.

The webinar will be on Thursday, April 22nd at 2pm ET.

Click here to get signed up for this free event:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/855171728

Hosted by: ROI Revolution's CEO, Timothy Seward
With Guest Presenter: Brad Geddes, Founder of bgTheory

Keep Reading »

AdWords Lead Capture Extensions: A Double Edged Sword?

When PPC Hero first pulled the tarp off Google's newest AdWords extension beta, we got a lot of juicy details about the lead generation mechanism coming down the pipe, but few ideas of how this might impact advertisers on the whole.

Corey Trent over at Marketing Experiments recently published an article on Google's new lead capture extension where he and I discuss the impact that a feature like this will have on AdWords, businesses and PPC in general.

If you're running AdWords to generate leads, check it out. You just might catch a glimpse of the future of your online advertising!

Make the most of your Google AdWords reports

March 10, 2010

One "mistake" that we consistently see when conducting one of our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions or when beginning work with a new client is that the AdWords report center is not used effectively, or maybe even not at all. In order to know what is working, what is not working and how to make your account better you need to make use of this feature.

You can access the report center by clicking the "Reporting" tab found at the top of the AdWords user interface and selecting reports.

Once the next screen loads you will find reports ranging from individual keyword performance to ad performance - even discovering the exact search queries that are being made on Google.com that then show your ad and delivered a visitor to your site.

There are 11 reports in all.

At the very least, we recommend running an Account Performance report for the past few months at a week-by-week basis to spot major trends.

Keep Reading »

Stand Out From Your Competitors with Competitive Research!

March 4, 2010

Stay abreast of what your competitors are up to on a weekly basis through regular research. This research should include searching on key terms, checking out your competitor's ad text, and visiting competitor sites regularly.

Questions you should ask yourself:
Are their ads more compelling? Do they have a sale going on or a new product that is a better version of yours? Does their headline standout more? If you want your company to be able to compete online, regular competitive research is essential.

Benefits of regular competitive research:

• You'll be happily surprised when you see your traffic and sales increasing, if you regularly pay attention to these details to set yourself apart.


• You may also be surprised how little most of your competitors update their own ad text---this will give you the advantage.


• Plus, you will immediately notice when new competitors enter your market---something a company should always know.

Keep Reading »

Facebook Advertising Success

February 23, 2010

Just how big is Facebook, really?

According to TechCrunch, big enough to encroach on Yahoo's position of "third largest Web property in the world", trailing none other than Google (#1) & Microsoft (#2).

In the U.S., Facebook already has the second highest number of unique visitors per month - surpassing Yahoo for the first time in January. Compete.com also reports that of all time spent online in January, 11.6% was on Facebook, compared to less than 5% on Yahoo and Google each.

What does this mean to you?

Well, I don't have the answer to that question, but I can tell you what it now means to some of our clients for whom we've recently started advertising on Facebook --> more qualified customer leads + a desirable cost = more $$$ for them.

The following story is about a lead generation client (Client A, for anonymity), but Facebook would certainly be worth testing if you're in an e-commerce space too.

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Boost Online Sales with Google Checkout

February 17, 2010

Do you remember way back when the Internet was new and it seemed scary to buy things online? The fear of identity fraud and other security violations was very real, especially when horror stories were broadcast all over the news and spreading like wildfire.

Despite all this, there are now over 1.25 billion Internet users around the globe, so the sky is the limit for online retailers who can do a good job of catering to their target market's needs.

If you're already selling products on the Net, then you are probably well aware that credibility is KING with consumers in the information age. People (whether consciously or unconsciously) are constantly looking for little security checkpoints in a site that tell them "Not to worry...your money is safe being spent here."

How can you be sure that your visitors feel safe buying from your site? That's a multiple answer question, but some of the lowest hanging fruit in terms of establishing your online checkout credibility is using common identifiers that people can recognize, like PayPal, VeriSign, and especially a trustworthy checkout process like Google Checkout.

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Using Google Insights for Search for Seasonality Trends

February 10, 2010

Use the Google Insights for Search tool to check the seasonality of your major keywords. This tool also shows you countries, states, and metro areas that search highly for your terms.

According to Google, Insights for Search is a tool where users "can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames, and properties."

To use this tool, you need to visit www.google.com/insights/search/.

Insights for Search will show you when a search phrase is most popular during the year. If you are an advertiser with a seasonal product, it is very beneficial to be able to see when the peaks in your search traffic usually start and when you should turn your seasonal campaigns on.

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Be Your AdWords Account Historian

January 28, 2010

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

Previously tucked away under the tools menu in the old AdWords user interface, the "My Change History" tool is an account manager's best friend and as such, has been moved to a more prominent place within the account under the reporting tab.

Why has this tool been granted such a prominent position in the new interface, alongside such heavy hitting account management tools as Google Analytics, Conversion Tracker and the Report Center? Well, sure it's a reporting tool like the others, but it's unique ability to track changes to your account, coupled with its performance metric graphs and visual timeline overlay make it a key weapon in any AdWords account manager's arsenal. It's placement under the Reporting tab is a testament to its usefulness.

While managing any AdWords account, it is common to make tens or even hundreds of changes to your account in one sitting in an effort to optimize traffic for better return on investment. Periodic tweaking of your account is essential to long-term growth and greater ROI. However, these changes are only beneficial to you if you can account for which ones resulted in performance improvements, and which ones didn't. In fact, it is the accountability of PPC optimization that affords us confidence in the power of split testing to boost profits.

And so, AdWords has given account managers the "My Change History" tool which records all changes made to an account for 2 years prior to a given date, then categorizes those changes for easy access.

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Is it Time For a Winter PPC Account Makeover?

January 19, 2010

January is a fresh start, a time for resolutions, and a time for cleaning up the mess made from the holiday season. The same should apply to your Pay-Per-Click campaigns. Breathe new life into them with fresh keywords, ad text, and competitive research.

Here is a 5 step plan to give your PPC accounts a (much needed) winter makeover:

1. Read Blog Articles For New Keyword Ideas: Read your industry blogs to keep up with the latest buzz words. Reading the latest and greatest articles may help you think of new ways people will be searching for your products. Setting up a Google blog reader to follow blogs from your industry can help make this task much more time efficient.

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Want more traffic? Check your delivery setting.

January 13, 2010

Often times our clients want to get as much traffic as possible, yet their campaign settings are not set up appropriately to accomplish their goal and that's where we come in.

There are two different types of budget delivery standard and accelerated.

Standard Delivery: Selecting this option can potentially limit the number of times your ads show throughout the course of the day. This option designates the campaign to spend the daily budget allocated steadily throughout each day.

Accelerated Delivery: Selecting this option guarantees that your ad will show as much as possible throughout the course of each day except in the event that the budget you allocated for that campaign is depleted before day's end.

As an AdWords advertiser you must decide which of the two settings is a better fit for you and your overall account budget.

To switch between Standard Delivery and Accelerated Delivery, follow these steps:

Keep Reading »

Easy Recipe for Successful Ad Text

January 7, 2010

When it comes to ad text "Always Be Testing" is the motto that we hold in high esteem here at ROI Revolution. If you continually test your ads (to beat the current best performer) you will constantly improve the performance of your campaigns.

It is important to remember that there are a few strategies and tips you pretty much always need to implement as you are writing and testing ads. I"ve come up with an "ad recipe" that I keep on my desk to ensure all necessary elements are included in the new ads I write.

I"ll break down each ingredient:

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Qualify Your Customers With Your Ad Text

January 6, 2010

With PPC advertising, the best use of ad copy is not just to attract prospects, but sometimes to filter out searchers who are unlikely to become your customers.

Since you pay for each click to your site, when a click-happy searcher pops into your site just to browse or to do a little price comparison, you're probably wasting some of your precious ad spend.

One way to effectively ward off some of these searchers is by including the price of your product or service in your ad. You obviously can't eliminate clicks from these users entirely - if they want to click through, they're going to. But adding the price makes them less likely on average to want to click.

For searchers who sincerely think they might be interested in your product or service, your price acts as a great filter, keeping out prospects that don't want to pay or can't afford your price point. And if the searcher has zero interest in spending money, your price makes it loud-and-clear that they won't be getting any freebies by clicking your ad.

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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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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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The Positives of Keyword Negatives

December 8, 2009

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.

Keep Reading »

Search is from Mars, Content is from Venus

November 20, 2009

Google's search and content networks are both great sources of profitable traffic, but they are very different from one another. And in the same way that you wouldn't want unrelated keywords grouped together in your account, you're going to want to keep search and content in their own distinct campaigns.

But what is it that makes them so different?

Audience:
Traffic from the search network is coming from an active group of prospects. This is exactly what makes paid search advertising so unique: you get to show your ad to a prospect at the precise moment that they are seeking your product or service (depending on your keyword list of course).

On the other hand, traffic from the content network is much more passive. You're getting your ad served at a moment when their attention is elsewhere, focused on the content of the site they're on.

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Geotargeting: Do your ads accurately reflect your service area?

November 11, 2009

Determining where you want to have your ads show is, surprisingly, often neglected. We often times see when conducting our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions, or when beginning work with a new client that geographic targeting is set up incorrectly. This is primarily due to new Google AdWords campaigns automatically adding Canada as a target country.

If your product or service is not available in Canada, be sure to remove it from your geo-targeting list once your campaign is uploaded.

Now, moving beyond this quick tip, there are a number of slightly more advanced geographic targeting features that are very helpful for advertisers.

In order to focus on specific cities, states, regions, etc you must select which campaign you would like to work on.

Keep Reading »

Bid for Profitability, not Pride

November 5, 2009

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.

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Use ALL 3 Google AdWords Keyword Match Types for Google Search

October 29, 2009

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.

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Your Ads Can Work 9 to 5 Too

October 22, 2009

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.

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3-Session "AdWords Academy" Bootcamp for Beginners ONLY

October 15, 2009

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.

Leverage Your Brand in your AdWords Account

October 12, 2009

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

Keep Reading »

For PPC Beginners ONLY: AdWords Academy online training course

October 6, 2009

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.

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Using Google Analytics to Your PPC Advantage: Geo Targeting

September 15, 2009

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.

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

September 5, 2009

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.

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Keeping an Eye on the Competition

August 18, 2009

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.

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5 Calculated Risks to Strengthen Your PPC Advertising

August 13, 2009

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.

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AdWords Display URL Policy: Are All Of Your Ads Still Running?

July 24, 2009

Back in February of this year, Google announced a change to their AdWords policy regarding multiple display URL domains per ad group. The change basically prohibits advertisers from running ads in the same ad group that send users to multiple domains.

When I learned of the update, I (mistakenly) assumed that the policy referred to active ads only. Lately, I have started finding out that my initial assumption was very wrong.

I'm in the process of working with a client who has dozens of different domains in their AdWords account to migrate those domains down to one central domain. To implement the migration, I started pausing their ads to preserve the history, duplicating those ads, and changing the display and destination URLs before taking them active.

I posted phase one of our domain migration yesterday, and all of my new ads were immediately disapproved.

Let me reiterate that all of the active ads in each ad group were sending traffic to one domain. However, there were multiple paused ads in the same ad group sending traffic to old, outdated URLs.

All active ads in all of the affected ad groups were disapproved, because essentially, the ad group was violating the updated URL policy for containing ads, active or paused, that sent traffic to multiple domains.

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Google's Conversion Optimizer is Now Available to More AdWords Campaigns

July 23, 2009

If you're currently using Conversion Optimizer in your AdWords campaigns or have been thinking about giving it a try, we have some great news! The Inside AdWords crew announced yesterday that Conversion Optimizer, a free AdWords CPA bidding feature, is now available to more campaigns.

Any campaign with at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days is now eligible to use Conversion Optimizer, whereas previously it required that a campaign needed at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days.

In case you're not familiar with Conversion Optimizer, it's a multi-dimensional bid management tool that uses your AdWords Conversion Tracking data to get you more conversions at a lower cost. You enter in your maximum cost per acquisition (max CPA), and the tool takes into consideration many factors including user location, time of day, and the search query to automatically calculate the equivalent cost-per-click (CPC) bid for your ad each time it's eligible to appear.

You still pay per click, but you no longer need to adjust your bids manually to reach your CPA goals. Sweet!

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AdWords Conversions: The One vs. Many-Per-Click Breakdown

June 25, 2009

There's a lot of confusion regarding Google's recent change to conversion metrics with the AdWords conversion tracker.  Previously a "1" in the "Conversion" column would tell you there was at least one conversion that happened within 30 days of that date. You were happy with this limited knowledge.

Messy and/or complex data was disguised as clean & simple data.  The "1" was all you knew.  If the user clicked an ad and purchased something, you'd see a "1."  If the user bookmarked the page with the conversion tracking script and went back to it a week later, you'd still see a "1."  If another purchase was made two weeks later, you'd still see a "1."  Simple, right?

In early April, Google exposed some of the potential mess to be more in line with the way conversions and transactions are tabulated in DoubleClick and other online ad platforms.  They changed the name of "Conversions" to "Conversions (1-per-click)" and added a new metric called "Conversions (many-per-click)".  While the 1-per-click conversion spot can only be filled once, the many-per-click conversions are incremented whenever any of your conversion scripts run within 30 days after a click.

Under the new system, consider the following scenarios and what conversions would be tracked for each:

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Calling Out All AdWords Newbies---Read AdWords Step by Step: A Guide to Building Successful AdWords Campaigns.

June 24, 2009

If you are new to advertising with Google AdWords and want some additional help setting up your campaigns, but cannot yet afford agency services, read Step by Step---a help guide to getting started with AdWords .

This workbook is a simple, easy-to-understand, 35-page guide that maps out the process of setting up your very own AdWords campaign from start to finish.

The book lays out in 3 fast chapters the processes of organizing your account, picking the right keywords, and writing targeted ads---all essential components to a successful AdWords campaign.

Each chapter is then broken down into simple steps that any beginner would be able to understand, along with a section of key terms and a helpful worksheet at the end to guide you through the setup process of your account.

First, let's start with the section on Organizing Your Account. This section really focuses on helping you, the advertiser, organize your campaign around your personal business goals, concentrating on one goal per campaign. After all, how could you hone in on a specific cost per conversion or certain ROI level for a campaign, if it had more than one goal?

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Tie It All Together: Linking Google Analytics Goals With AdWords

June 19, 2009

Isn't it annoying when you have to click back and forth between your Google AdWords account and your Google Analytics account to see which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are bringing the most profit bearing conversions for you? Well I have good news... You don't have put up with that headache any longer!

We've seen it in our client accounts for some time now, but Google has just announced that it is now possible to import your goals and transactions from Google Analytics into your AdWords account.

To be able to do this, you must first have your Google AdWords account linked with your Google Analytics account. Once that is set up, you just have to make a few clicks, and you're done.

In the new user interface, you can find conversion tracking under the tools tab.

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Have You Used Google's New Wonder Wheel?

June 10, 2009

A few weeks ago our agency received an update that Google released a new tool called Wonder Wheel. I could not help but conjure up all these funny images related to wheel of fortune. After a training session with our Google team, I realized that even with a funny name, this was a very powerful keyword tool.

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Power Using the New AdWords Interface, Part 2: Integrated Placement Performance Reports

June 8, 2009

A few weeks ago, I posted an article outlining the benefits of the new integrated search query reporting feature built into the updated AdWords user interface.

I covered in depth how the Search Query Report (SQR) could be used to capitalize on new keyword opportunities, previously hidden in the depths of the report center.

I also covered how the new interface's integrated SQR makes finding money-hemorrhaging search queries you're matching on easier than ever to identify and exclude from your account.

Today, I'll be covering the other advertising power tool provided to advertisers in the new interface, the Integrated Placement Performance Report (PPR).

The SQR is only half of the equation for successful micromanagement of your AdWords account since it is only used on the search network.

While most advertisers start their AdWords campaigns on the search network, many continue to neglect the content network. The AdWords content network can be the biggest and most profitable source of traffic for many accounts. As such, using the Placement Performance Report has given us the ability to see which content network websites (placements) our ads are showing on, as well as how they are performing.

While we've had the ability to run PPRs in the AdWords report center for some time now, like the Search Query Report, Google has recognized its usefulness and integrated it into the interface for easier use.

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Google AdWords Updates Editor to Version 7.5.1

June 4, 2009

On Monday, Inside AdWords, Google's official blog for everything AdWords related, announced the release of a new version of AdWords Editor.

With this new version there are a couple of very helpful updates that increase efficiency when working on your account.

Additionally, the desktop-based keyword tool within Editor has been enhanced by creating a more robust capability in order to increase your presence on both Google's search and content networks.

There are three main upgrades that come with updating Editor to version 7.5.1:

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AdWords Increases Transparency of Search Query Performance Reports

June 3, 2009

If you manage an AdWords account, you're most likely familiar with the Search Query Performance Report, which allows you to view the exact search queries users have typed when they clicked your ad.

Being able to see these actual queries for your broad and phrase match keywords gives you the opportunity to add the queries that perform well as keywords to increase granularity, and find queries that are not converting and add them as negatives to cut the fat.

The only catch was that some queries with very low volume were pooled together in a line item called, "other unique queries." The main issue was that although the queries contained in this grouping had low volume, some advertisers saw that collectively, "other unique queries" accounted for a significant portion of overall traffic.

Needless to say, it's a bit frustrating to run a report for the sole purpose of gaining insight towards what users are typing when they click your ads, only to find that a decent percentage of the data is still hidden behind the curtain.

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Resellers Rejoice: Google Relaxes U.S. Trademark Policy

May 30, 2009

To the delight of many, Google announced an update in their AdWords trademark policy that will go live on June 15th for advertisers in the U.S. only.

In short, a few categories of advertisers who were previously unable to use a trademarked term in their ad text will be allowed to do so - even if they don't own the trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it.

These lucky advertisers include the following:

• Resellers of the trademarked goods or services
• Sellers of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark
• Informational/review sites that provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademarked term.

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How To Use Google Search Suggest's New Enhancements To Monitor Your Brand and Keywords

May 29, 2009

Google wants you to find the information you're looking for fast, without having to search multiple times to get what you want.

While I won't bore you with all the details of what's changed, I'll briefly summarize the main changes: Google has added AdWords ads to the Google Suggest box, tries to point searchers of "navigational queries" directly to the website, and makes suggestions not just on the homepage of Google.com, but on the search results page as well.

An example of a search suggestion box showing a navigational link and an AdWords ad is below:

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, I'll give you some ideas on how you can use this new tool to research variations of major keywords, observe what customers are saying about you and your brand, and see what people think of your competitors.

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Google AdWords New Display Ad Builder Webinar

May 14, 2009

There's an awesome new Display Ad Builder available in AdWords!

On Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 2:00pm EST (1:00pm CST / 12:00pm MST / 11:00am PST), Timothy Seward, CEO of ROI Revolution, Inc. and Ben Ronnenberg, PPC Account Manager at ROI Revolution will host a 60 minute presenation on the new Display Ad Builder with Special Guest: Ryan Hayward, Google AdWords Product Marketing Manager.

We've been using it for a few months and wanted you to know how you can use it to increase your profits, just like we've done for our clients. Check out the top new features:

• Don't worry about learning the ins and outs of Photoshop. Google now offers pre-made templates of animated, eye-catching display ads that quickly allow you to add your own custom images and text to suit your business' needs.

  This feature is so powerful that it allowed us to recently double clickthrough rate and increase conversion rates by 33% for one client.

• You can easily differentiate your product or service from competitors by utilizing your company logo, brand colors, and product images in display ads.

  The Display Ad Builder gives you the ability to create ads with enhanced user functionality, so you can include coupon codes, user interaction, and navigation between images, tabs, & video within your ads.

• It's fast and free! The Display Ad Builder is free to all AdWords advertisers. Within minutes you can have an ad created and running to test various messages, color schemes, and images at no cost.

In summary, you'll see how the new Display Ad Builder can save you time and money all while boosting your profits!

Don't delay -- this webinar is limited to 1,000 attendees.

Reserve Your Spot for this Complimentary Webinar

Power Using the New AdWords Interface, Part 1: Integrated Search Query Reports

May 13, 2009

As many of you are probably aware, whether through your own experiences with AdWords or from my colleague Katherine Anderson's article last month, AdWords has recently launched a shiny new user interface (UI), and with it several new toys for advertisers to play with.

All of the added features in the new UI are aimed at making the day-to-day work involved with managing an AdWords account faster, simpler, and better integrated. And while the list of changes made from the old AdWords interface is pretty comprehensive, there are 2 new features that warrant special mention: Integrated Search Query Reports and its content network cousin, Integrated Placement Performance Reports.

These two tools work together as a one-two punch that allows you to micro manage your ads' presence on both the AdWords search and content networks. Essentially, they provide you with on the fly insight into how AdWords is matching your keywords to search queries and website content in the interface itself, without forcing you to the reports tab, leaving your work on a separate page. With these updates, Google has taken 2 of the most powerful reports available in the reports center, and integrated them directly into the interface's control bar.

Over the course of this two part series, I'll show you how to use both of these reports in the new UI to increase traffic, decrease wasteful spend, and get you more bang for your AdWords buck.

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Advanced Bid Management Tactics

May 5, 2009

Search Engine Land just published a new article of mine on AdWords bid management. In the article I put a new spin on tracking conversion values in AdWords. I also touch on the advantage of ad group level bid management.

Have a read if you want to learn more about how lifetime customer value can be recorded in AdWords and how to do "portfolio" bid management to make decisions on groups of low-volume keywords.

Make Sure Your Excluded Placements Are Actually Being Excluded

May 4, 2009

Excluded placements, negative sites, blocked domains... call 'em what you want; the point is, sometimes you don't want your ads showing up on certain websites on Google's Content Network because they're costly, they're not converting well, and/or they're just irrelevant to your offer.

Be absolutely sure to exclude unwanted sites.

Just recently, I was analyzing the performance of a Content campaign where I already had "www.myspace.com" blocked as a placement previously, as I found it to be a waste of money. However, the performance of my campaign hadn't improved. After running a domain-level placement performance report, I saw that I was still showing up on MySpace and accruing clicks and ad spend (with no conversions, unsurprisingly). I thought to myself, doth my eyes deceive me?

Only after analyzing the URLs of that particular "blocked" domain and a quick email exchange with my friendly Google rep did I finally find the real reason my ads were still showing. So no, my eyes weren't playing tricks on me—let me explain.

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Top 5 Free PPC Tools

April 29, 2009

As I was conducting a live webinar recently on Google's New AdWords User Interface it dawned on me that there are thousands of AdWords users that are not using many (or any) of the free time saving tools available on the web.

Working at a ppc agency, we share new tools and techniques on a weekly basis. Individuals managing their own accounts are not as fortunate and do not get these insights.

I wanted to take a few minutes and highlight the top 5 tools (in my opinion) that all AdWords users should be taking advantage of. They are all free and could save you tons of time and money.

After reading the reviews add the links to your toolbar for quick easy access during your AdWords management.

I know we all have busy schedules so I've condensed my descriptions to include only the meat and potatoes of what each tool has to offer and why you would want to use it:

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Introduction to Google's Ad Auction, Part 2: AdRank and CPC

March 25, 2009

Yesterday, I introduced you to a video released by Google starring their Chief Economist, Hal Varian that explains the Google Ad Auction and Quality Score. In part one of this two part blog series, I reiterated how Google quantifies their formally elusive, Quality Score.

In today's article, I will use the same video and guidance from our Google rep to explain how Google determines your Ad Rank as well as each advertiser's click cost. Some of this post may make you feel like you're back in high school math class, but bear with me. These formulas really do reveal Quality Score's crucial role in the AdWords system and how you can spend less to get more.

AdRank:

AdRank is the formula Google uses to assign the position of a keyword targeted ad. It is determined by multiplying the maximum cpc bid that the advertiser is willing to pay by the Quality Score of that advertiser. An ad's position is then determined by the advertiser's AdRank, awarding the highest position to the advertiser with the highest ad rank.

Our example above shows how Quality Score can prohibit advertisers from simply bidding high enough to show in the top position. Even though advertiser Cameron is bidding well above all of his competitors, he will show in the fourth position due to his low Quality Score.

Determining Click Cost:

Each advertiser only pays the minimum amount required to maintain his position.

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Introduction to Google's Ad Auction, Part 1: Quality Score

March 24, 2009

Last Wednesday our agency's Google rep sent over a video put together by Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian that very clearly explains Google's Ad Auction and Quality Score. The 9 minute video is definitely worth viewing at least once to get a better understanding of two large parts of the AdWords system that were, until now, pretty hard to quantify.

In this two part blog series, I will explain what Quality Score actually is, how the ad auction works, and how Quality Score determines your ads' positioning and costs per click using the video as my guide. Today's article will cover the ever elusive concept of what Google's Quality Score really is.

Google's reasoning for creating Quality Score is to make sure that the best interests of all parties included in the search experience (the advertiser, the user, and Google themselves) are taken into account when a search is performed on Google.com. Below, I've explained the motivation to appeal to each party's interest:

• Advertisers want to show relevant ads so that users will click on their ads and land on their site, hopefully intending to purchase something.


• Users want to see relevant ads so they can easily find what they're looking for in the shortest amount of time.


• Google wants the best experience for both advertisers and users so that advertisers continue to use the AdWords program and so users continue to use Google.com and Google's other host of products.

Until recently, Google's "Quality Score" was an abstract concept with little to no definition. Advertisers wanted to get the highest Quality Score possible, but didn't really know what they were striving for.

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Google's New Interface Will Make Your Advertising Life Easier

February 24, 2009

If you advertise on Google AdWords and have not yet become a part of the new AdWords interface beta, you will soon get a chance to use this because eventually it will be available to everyone!

The new interface is laid out much like AdWords Editor with a side panel that appears on the left of the screen where you can expand a campaign name, and it lists all of the ad groups. This makes it much easier for those of you constantly having to click into campaigns to find top ad groups---you can see your entire account's top ad groups, keywords, or placements without having to dig into multiple campaigns, making management much more efficient.

Another great feature of the beta is that there is a graph on the campaigns tab graphing various metrics such as cost, cost/conversion, click-through-rate, clicks----well, you get my point, but it makes it easier to spot account trends like in the account snapshot. With the graph being above all of the campaigns and ad groups and changing with the date range, you can now easily spot positive or negative trends at a glance.

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2-Part Webinar Series: Mastering The Art Of Search Advertising With Author Richard Stokes

February 12, 2009

Q: Do Your PPC Search Ads Show Every Time Your Most Important Keywords Are Typed In To Google?

A: A study conducted by the AdGooroo team, led by Richard Stokes, was designed to evaluate the percentage of time that an advertiser's ads actually showed up when their respective keywords were typed into Google. Stunningly, the results across several industries revealed that as much as 98% of Google advertisers' ads were generating impressions less than 20% of the time when their keywords were being searched on!

The AdGooroo team learned that the ads of only a select few advertisers (less than 3%) showed more than 20% of the time when their respective keywords were searched on - and this trend was found in almost every industry they observed.

Ad Coverage In A Nutshell

Ad Coverage is one phrase used to define the percentage of ad impressions that you generate compared to the overall volume of available impressions on the Google Network. Google refers to Ad Coverage as your "Impression Share" and will tell you about it in the Campaign Performance Report, but they currently do not offer coverage data at the keyword level.

Rich Will Be Sharing His Secrets About Ad Coverage - in Our 2-Part Webinar Series

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How to Use Negative Keywords When Targeting Google's Content Network

January 26, 2009

If you put "Negative Keywords" and "Content Network" in the same sentence, even folks with intermediate PPC experience get confused. I felt the same way until a recent conversation with our Google Rep. She helped to clarify the best practices for using negative keywords when creating AdWords campaigns that target Google's content network.

While writing this article, I will assume that you are already implementing the AdWords best practice of separating out your search traffic and content traffic campaigns. If you aren't, well shame on you! It takes about 10 minutes in AdWords editor and can save you tons of money.

For quite some time, most SEM specialists have known that the best practice is to eliminate phrase and exact match types in content network campaigns, only using broad match terms. Since the keywords are being viewed as a theme, match types do not apply. It is best practice to have no more than 10 to 15 broad match keywords per adgroup in content campaigns.

Negative keywords should be thought of very differently on the content network. Copying the negative keywords you have in your search campaigns to your content campaign could limit the sites your ads are eligible to show on. This could severely restrict a number of relevant impressions being generated (and possible conversions!)

The right way to use negatives on the content network is to:

1.Start off with only negative keywords that are highly irrelevant.

2. Only add your negative keywords in broad match.

To control where your ad shows, run the AdWords Placement Performance report . This report will show you which content sites your ad was shown on. You can view performance (cost, conversions, ect.) for each site. Site's that are highly irrelevant or unprofitable can be added as excluded sites.

So go take a look at your content negative keywords. A few simple changes to your negatives could open up the taps on tons of relevant traffic!

Google's Recommendation to Optimize Ads, and Why It's (Potentially) Not a Great Idea

January 19, 2009

Occasionally, Google will show alerts in our AdWords accounts introducing new products or tools, or notifying us of maxed out budgets or disapproved ads. These are usually very helpful to us. Lately, many account managers in our PPC management agency have noticed the following message in their clients' Google AdWords accounts suggesting that the Ad Serving setting be changed from "Rotate Ad Serving" to "Optimize Ad Serving" in order to 'increase traffic by showing your best ad most often'.

Click to View The Image Larger

At ROI Revolution, we recommend always setting our campaigns' ads to "Rotate" as part of what we call "AdWords 101" or the most basic and well-known practices for an AdWords account. There are two main reasons why we do this:

More Clicks Does Not Equal More Conversions

Google optimizes your ad serving based on Click-Through-Rate. This works out great for Google, because showing the ad that gets the most clicks more often means more Google revenue. However, optimizing ads based on Click-Through-Rate is not always the best practice for advertisers, because conversion rate is never factored in to the equation. While increasing clicks is a wonderful way to get more visits to your site, conversion rate is equally as important, if not more important, to most advertisers. With the exception of brand awareness, there is not much of a payoff in getting someone to click on your ad and then leave your site without buying anything or submitting any of their information.

Test, Test, Test

It is best practice to run at least two ads in a paid search ad group. If you're not continually testing ad text, headlines, landing pages, basically everything, then you're missing out on new opportunities that could bring in more money for you. If those ads are not rotated evenly, there is no way to tell which one generates the most profitable traffic for your business. Rotating ads evenly will ensure that the data you're seeing in your reports is a fair representation of how they actually perform when given an equal chance.

The moral of this story is DON'T choose this setting if you want to maximize your results through testing and conversions. Leaving your ads set to "Optimize" is a common mistake, but one that you can and should avoid. In order to make the best decision for your AdWords account, it is essential to outline goals, prioritize them, and optimize your ads based on those goals.

For more insider tricks and tips that we use to help our clients in multiple industries, you can register for our 3-part Google AdWords Beginner Online Training course taking place later this month.

For Beginners Only: Google AdWords Teleseminar with Perry Marshall

January 2, 2009

Perry Marshall and Timothy Seward discuss getting started with Google AdWords and Perry's AdWords Cheat Sheet during a special, one-time only teleseminar on Tuesday, January 13th at 1:30pm EST.

Perry Marshall developed this Google AdWords Cheat Sheet to help AdWords beginners to get started on the right foot, and short-cut the week or month-long learning curve.

Invest just 60 Minutes and...

• Learn about the 16 Google's Ad Copy Ground Rules from the very beginning - you won't have to figure them out yourself through painful trial-and-error.

• Get the 8 Steps for Your Basic Google AdWords Setup - after these steps your ads will start running right away!

• Get the scoop on 8 little-known "Making It Work" strategies! Following these will make sure not only that your ads will KEEP showing but that you'll get good results from those ads, too.

• Are you confused by all the new terms, like 'Phrase Match', 'Negative Keyword', 'Max CPC', and others? Get a glossary of terms that explain what all of these and other terms mean in plain English.

Space is limited, so sign up for the FREE Google AdWords Cheat Sheet teleseminar now!

Tagging Business.com with Google Analytics: Creating Transparency For Relevance Match

October 20, 2008

If you have a Business.com account, you probably know that they do not offer a conversion tracking feature within their UI. If you're reading this blog and you have a Business.com account, you probably (hopefully!) have your Business.com keywords tagged with Google Analytics tagging.

We have recently taken over PPC account management for a client's Business.com account that was already created but not tagged. We have come up with a way to not only tag the account to find which keywords are worthwhile and which keywords are wasting money, but we can also create some transparency for Business.com's Relevance Match using Google Analytics.

Business.com describes relevance match as keywords that are similar and relevant to the keywords that you are already buying in a particular category, but are not those exact keywords. I would say it's similar to the way that Google uses their broad match feature. Within the listings or categories in your account, you will see the list of keywords you are buying and the phrase "relevance match" at the bottom of the list. Clicks and spend will be assigned to "relevance match," but there is no way to tell in the interface what the search terms were that Business.com deemed relevant enough to show your ad and cost you a click.

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Google's new 'First Page Bid' - strategies to stay on page one without bidding higher

September 13, 2008

A couple of weeks ago Google announced a number of changes to the user interface. One of the changes that is slowly rolling out across all AdWords accounts is the change from 'Minimum Bid' to 'First Page Bid.'

This particular change certainly has its benefits, primarily greater transparency on what you must bid to acquire the maximum number of impressions and clicks available based on your daily budget. Ideally you want to drive as much traffic to your website as possible while remaining profitable. There is no question that if your advertising is not showing on the first page of search results, you are passing up the majority of available traffic for your product or service.

With this increased transparency, advertisers will now be able to determine very easily what they must bid to display their ads on page one and acquire those much desired impressions and clicks. Inevitably, this will produce more competition to display your ad in one of the top 8 positions simply because it is easier for advertisers to manage their AdWords accounts.

Now, of course, one way to continue serving your ads on page one would be to increase your keyword and ad group default bid amounts if you see an increase in competition. However, there are many other ways to remain on page one without increasing your bid amounts and also to maximize customer value.

• Ad Creative: The more relevant you can draft your ad headlines, body copy, and display URLs to that of the user's search query, the greater your quality score will increase, which will reward you by driving down your average CPC. By constantly conducting A/B split testing with your ad creative, you become more and more relevant, allowing you to display on page one for less than your competitors who may not be testing ads and are holding onto one of the top 8 spots by constantly increasing their bid amounts
• Landing Pages: Again, just like your ad creative, the more relevant your landing page is to what the user has searched for, the greater your Quality Score will increase and therefore lower your average CPC. Relevancy reigns supreme in paid search and this does not just span your AdWords account. From your keyword lists to your ad creative and ultimately where you send your traffic all plays an integral part in the overall performance of your PPC campaigns. Constantly test new landing page formats and content to match as closely as possible what the initial search query was on Google.com in order to maximize relevancy and to keep your ads displaying in those most coveted spots.
• Up-Sells and Back-End Offers: For practically all products and services there is potential to drive traffic for not only the immediate desired action, but also for subsequent signups and purchases, sometimes at the exact moment your customer is making their first conversion. Once you have your customer in your sales funnel and they are checking out, offer them another product or service that relates to this initial purchase.
  

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New Google AdWords Quality Score Change - And How It Affects You

August 22, 2008

As if the AdWords Quality Score algorithm couldn't get any more elusive and mysterious, Google announced a new groundbreaking change this morning to how it will determine the quality of keywords and ads in the future. And yes, it will affect you.

Instead of the usual static per-keyword quality score Google dishes out to advertisers, quality will now be determined in real-time each time a user searches, based on such factors as geographical location and the actual search query.

Gone are the days when your phrase matched term "swiss cheese" is nailed with a $5 minimum for being "irrelevant" due to a low CTR in the US, grinding your traffic to a screeching halt. Now, your keyword will still be active, giving you a chance for searchers in Canada searching for "fine swiss cheese", which you're not directly bidding on, to still see your ad. Since quality is determined in real-time on a per-query basis, the algorithm may determine that users in Canada click your ads more often, and click your ads when searching on specific queries.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Google will also take into account the quality on certain search networks. So while your ad may not pass the quality test to show up on Google.com, you can still show up in the search results for AOL and Ask.com.

Additionally, Google is doing away with the "minimum bid", and replacing it with "first page bid", which guides your bidding strategies a bit more effectively if you want to get on the first page, which is where all the highest quality ads hang out, fighting for that click. This bid is based on the exact match version of the search query, your ad's quality score, and advertiser competition for that query.

These changes can either help or hurt you, depending on how you want to look at it. I can already see the frustration of checking what should be high-volume keywords, and seeing that they're not receiving much traffic. They're not inactive; they're just not generating the volumes of traffic you'd hoped. You've been pegged with low quality. On the flipside, you may notice your clicks and impressions drop slightly, but the quality of that traffic is that much higher, giving you a boost in conversion rate and a drop in your cost per conversion.

According to Google, if you're a high-quality advertiser (and you are a high-quality advertiser, aren't you?) these changes should actually help you:

"Your ads will be more likely to show when they're relevant and less likely to show when they're not. This means that Google users are apt to see better ads while you, as an advertiser, should receive leads which are more highly qualified."

Basically, high-quality advertisers will get shown more for high-quality, relevant searches. That's only fair, right?

Since quality is determined in part by ad CTR and landing page quality, you should get crackin' on a fresh rewrite of your ads, and increasing your landing page quality immediately.

How To Prevent Successful Phishing Attempts with Your Google AdWords Account

August 12, 2008

A couple months ago, there was an increase in attempts to collect personal account information within AdWords by 3rd parties. The most common term for this is phishing, whereby 3rd parties fraudulently try to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy source.

At the time, Google had written that many phishing attempts came from adwords-noreply@google.com. The emails sent by this address asked users to update their billing information, take action on a disapproved ad, edit their account, or accept new AdWords terms and conditions.

In some cases, the links that were included in the email led to websites that install malware (software that attempts to steal sensitive information from your computer, send spam, or commit fraud) onto your computer. While the number of these attempts has decreased, they are still prevalent (we just received another email attempting this today), so you need to keep your eyes open for fraudulent behavior and contact Google of any possible phishing attempts.

During the influx of hacking attempts, one of our clients was affected. Overnight, someone was able to gain access to their account using their login name and password. They created a new campaign with one ad group and allocated a $9000/day budget in order to sell ringtones.

Fortunately, Google caught this suspicious behavior and temporarily suspended the account to investigate. While this phishing attempt was spotted and stopped before it could do some real harm, you may not be so lucky.

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Google Enhanced Campaign's 101

July 25, 2008

By now, most search marketers have at least heard of Google's new Enhanced Campaign option. It was taken out of Beta a few weeks ago, and now is available in all accounts. I wanted to take some time to go over the basics, discuss some misconceptions, and explain exactly how this affects your Google AdWords accounts.

So let's start with the basics.
What is an Enhanced Campaign? It's Google's way of meshing Placement Targeted content campaigns with Keyword Targeted content campaigns. While writing this article, I will assume you have separated out your Search and Content campaigns (AdWords 101.)

What's the big deal?
Many people are not aware that in traditional Placement Targeted campaigns, your ad can show ANWHERE on the sites that you target. This means that your ad is less likely to be shown at the 'moment of relevance.' Keyword Targeted content campaigns do this, but they target the entire content network. Advertisers wanted to do both: use keywords to target certain sites. Voila! Google gave us Enhanced Campaigns. Thank you Google!

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Yahoo Smart Start - A Handy Guide For Yahoo Advertisers

June 24, 2008

If you have ever wanted to pull your hair out over Yahoo's Search Marketing interface--I definitely have--than you know that the interface is not nearly as user-friendly as Google's. For those of you looking for a quick, go-to guide, I have just the one for you: Yahoo Smart Start.

Although Yahoo's blog claims that Yahoo Smart Start is a guide for beginners, I would say that the guide is definitely geared more to those who have some experience with pay-per-click advertising but are not experts. However, the guide would be extremely helpful to show to clients who were curious about the yahoo interface and wanted to understand what they were really getting into with advertising on Yahoo.

The book walks you through the ten helpful chapters below.

• Building a Foundation with Strong Keywords
• Organizing Ad Groups for Success
• Writing Effective Ads
• Making Sure Your Ads are High Quality
• Matching Your Keywords to Your Customer's Searches
• Determining Effective Bids
• Targeting Your Ads Geographically
• Advertising on Content Sites
• Tracking Your Results

Each chapter begins with an opening question from Sharon Goodsense, a character PPC advertiser, such as, "I'm lost on the match type thing. I see there are two options, but I don't understand why I would ever want to use the Standard match type, when the Advanced match type shows my ad for more searches on my keywords. Shouldn't I just always use that option (Yahoo Smart Start 41)?"

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AdWords Editor Updates - Pay Attention!

June 12, 2008

Do you pay enough attention to the AdWords Editor Updates? If your answer is no, I recommend that you start. There is usually some really good stuff, that unless you take the time to read the Editor release notes, you probably would not know about.

Each new version of AdWords Editor is accompanied by release notes, which I highly recommend reading. I will save you some time by highlighting the best, most beneficial updates from the latest version(AdWords Editor 6.0.)

Append Keywords : This tool allows you to add a word/phrase to the beginning or end of any text within the account. I have found this VERY useful in creating local campaigns. Simply take a general campaign and append the city name to all keywords (then tweak the ad text of course.) It is also useful for adding offers to headlines, or changing display URLs.

Get Recent Changes: There is a new option to include minimum bid changes. Before you had to re-download the entire account to get this data. This is very useful in accounts that have keywords that often go inactive. Also when you download this, the changes are highlighted so it is easy to spot the keywords that have recently gone inactive.

Duplicate Keywords: Finding duplicate keywords is now easier! You can now quickly select all the duplicates that meet certain criteria. For example, you can choose to select all the duplicates with the lowest CTR, then delete them. This tool was always handy, but you had to delete the duplicates manually in order to keep keywords with the highest CTR.

Drum roll please!

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