Google Instant Preview is switched on for AdWords PPC Ads

In the last few days Google instant preview has finished being tested and switched on for AdWords PPC Ads. Its too early to say what effect this may have on account stats, but its fair to surmise that with searchers being offered a sneak preview of the landing page prior to clicking thru, this should increase the quality of traffic whilst also decreasing the volume of traffic.

No doubt Google see this as a win-win situation for both searcher and advertiser. More to follow.

Google Adwords Broad Match Modifier

If you are using Google Adwords you should be aware that there are different match types available for you use to try and filter, or refine the searches which your ads get shown on. The four being -

Broad match
Phrase match
Exact Match
Negative Match

Recently Google have introduced the Broad Match modifier, its use is defined by Google below  -

Broad match modifier allows you to create keywords that have greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match.

Adding modified broad match keywords to your campaign can help you get more clicks and conversions at an attractive ROI, especially if you mainly use exact and phrase match keywords today.

Just put a plus symbol (+)with no spaces directly in front of one or more words in a broad match keyword.

Your ad will show to users who search for close variants of the modified term. Close variants include misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings (like “floor”and “flooring”).

Here's the example they provide -

Broad: dress shoes Also matches*: classic brogues, formal footwear, lace-up wingtips…
Phrase: "dress shoes" Also matches*: black dress shoes, men’s dress shoes…
Exact: [dress shoes]Matches: dress shoes:

Using the broad match modifier -

Modified Broad: dress +shoes Also matches*: evening shoes, square-toe formal shoes…
Modified Broad: +dress +shoes Also matches*: dress shoes, men’s shoes

Need to track Adwords keyword clicks to telephone calls?

Anyone working with Google AdWords will tell you that the number one goal is to accurately track the ROI (Return on investment) of your AdWords spend. This is, after all the beauty of Adwords - it allows a level of tracking which other forms of marketing (including some other online activities) cannot match.

Of course it is always easiest to track e-commerce activity - simply enabling the e-commerce module within Google Analytics and adding a piece of code to post payment pages takes care of that. Lead generation via form capture can also be fairly simply tracked using the goals features within Google Analytics.

One scenario which has always proven difficult to track though has been lead generation, such as telephone calls. Someone clicks on an ad, visits your site then makes a call to you - how do you know what ad they clicked on? Without that data, making sense of your AdWords spend and formulating an ROI is very difficult.

There are products on the market such as the excellent Clarity from Adinsight which can answer this question though. Using sophisticated telephone routing and server querying software they can accurately track the source of a call to your business.

Source calls can be split between PPC and SEO generated traffic and data can be generated to keyword level providing the caller is still on the site at the point they call you. Using this information it is possible to build an accurate ROI model over time.

Google Adwords Certification

I'll be honest, I've had more fun on a Saturday. But after a mere 240 questions and 3 hours of answering them I've renewed my Google AdWords certification.

I even got a certificate this time around - how completely exciting. No doubt I'm probably not supposed to use it as a promotional item, but here it is for now.

Google Adwords - What are you bidding for?

When advertising on Google AdWords it isn't always possible to measure directly the outcome of the advertising, beyond a visitor reaching your site. It may be that you don't have an e-commerce site, or are selling business to business and a purchase requires a phone call, a meeting or more. It may also be that you view the campaigns as brand awareness and don't intend to measure directly the outcome.

If this is the case, then consider using the budget maximiser setting within the relevant campaigns - 

This feature controls your CPC settings for all adgroups and keywords within the campaign and quite simply extracts as many clicks as possible for the budget you set. This saves time monitoring or "optimising" the campaign aand can prove very effective at lowering your CPC across a campaign.

Google Adwords MCC interface and the iPad

For managers of multiple Google Adwords Pay Per Click accounts (like myself) there is an excellent tool called the Adwords MCC, or My Client Centre. This enables an overview screen of all clients, some additional budgetary controls and probably most usefully - a single login. Anyone managing multiple accounts will be aware of how many Google Passwords you can acquire! So we've established that the MCC is excellent.

The iPad is also an excellent device and, you may think, would be excellent for using at client meetings due to its portability and wow factor. Unfortuantely though it isn't, yet. The AdWords interface will not run on the particular Safari browser which the iPad uses. I've seen loads of complaints yet no response from Google. Are they getting complacent?

Google Bounces Back

Google announced it's latest quarterly results yesterday beating it's own forecast. Although profits were partly generated by cost cutting overall the results have indicated a general recovery in the market. The UK results weren't so rosy though. Extracts below -

Google, the internet giant, provided further signs of economic recovery today as it delivered a forecast-beating set of quarterly results and signalled plans to resume its policy of taking on staff.
Beating earlier Wall Street predictions, the California-based company reported revenues of $5.94bn for the last three months, an increase of 7% on the same period twelve months ago. Profits for the quarter rose by 27% to $1.64bn, from the $1.29bn reported this time last year. Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said he thought the company's growth was a sign that a wider economic recovery was underway.

-----

Despite the positive results for the group as a whole, the news was not quite as rosy for Google's British operation. Executives have struggled to cope with currency fluctuations over the past year, as well as what Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said was a result of "ongoing macro-economic weakness".

The company, which dominates the internet advertising market in the UK, brought in $765m (£470m) of British business for the three months ending on September 30 - down 1.5% on last year's figure of $776m (£477m).

Despite the stagnant UK market, however, many observers see Google's overall rude health as positive news not only for the technology industry, but for the wider economy.

You can read the full article at the Guardian here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/15/google-announces-profits

Searching for a Search Engine

It's Friday and it's getting late, so this one is a little more light-hearted. What do you get if you put the term "search engine" into Google? Well number one is Google of course!

But after that is where it gets interesting...

Number 2 is Dogpile, a favourite of techies but probably unheard of by Joe Public.

Number 3 is AltaVista, YES they are still going!

Then we get Ask Jeeves.

Next up is Yahoo, a biggie, followed by Wikepdia surprise surprise.

Finally at Number 7 comes Bing, Google's biggest competitor. So how has it ranked only at 7 when in market share terms it's number two? Something underhand possibly...

To show it's not all one way though a search on Bing for Search Engine doesn't return Google on the front page!

Google AdWords Offer

Would you like £50 free advertising on Google through AdWords advertising? We recently posted this offer here -http://www.clickinsight.co.uk/2009/09/google-pay-per-click-offer.html

For any new clients interested in starting a Google AdWords campaign we're currently able to offer a £50 FREE credit towards your advertising costs.We recently posted an article on the benefits of Pay Per Click which can be read here -http://www.clickinsight.co.uk/2009/09/google-pay-per-click-cheltenham.html

If that isn't enough, we'll even setup and optimise the account for free. We're Google AdWords Qualified so for Gloucestershire Google AdWords advice contact us today.

Google Pay Per Click Offer

For any new clients interested in starting a Google AdWords campaign we're currently able to offer a £50 FREE credit towards your advertising costs.

We recently posted an article on the benefits of Pay Per Click which can be read here -
http://www.clickinsight.co.uk/2009/09/google-pay-per-click-cheltenham.html


To read more about Google Pay Per Click and find out how to contact us -
http://www.clickinsight.co.uk/p/ppc.html

Search Engine Marketing - Yahoo & Bing Paid Search

We're all prone to concentrating our energies on Google as a Search Engine. Naturally so, you might think with it's share of the UK Search Market in excess of 80% right now.

But we shouldn't disregard Yahoo and Bing (formerly known as MSN). Following the recent announcement that Bing would power Yahoo search it's meant overnight that they now hold a decent share of the search market, one that is now far more attractive to Search Marketers and their clients.

More importantly perhaps though, Yahoo and MSN search have always traditionally delivered higher ROI (Return on Investment) on any campaigns as compared to Google. The volumes naturally are lower though.

So if you are looking for Quality, not Quantity don't disregard Yahoo/Bing.

Google Pay Per Click Cheltenham

Well this post is a piece of blatant self publicity. Anyone who may be interested in finding out more about starting a Google AdWords marketing campaign please feel free to contact us using the details here - http://www.simplyonlineconsulting.co.uk/online_marketing_contact.html

Read below if you want to understand more about Google AdWords.

Google AdWords is also known as Pay Per Click marketing. On the Google search page you’ll notice ads on the right hand side and sometimes the top of the page. These advertisers pay every time one of their ads is clicked. The cost per click is dependent on how competitive the keyword is, so for example “cheap car insurance” could cost £4 a click, whereas “sunbed reconditioning Scotland” may only be a few pence. An average cost per click is likely to be around the 0.25p to 0.45p. So a budget of £100 / 0.25p = 400 clicks or visitors to your site per month. If you convert your visitors at around 1.5% that would mean 6 customers per month.

You can allocate an exact budget to this advertising on a daily or monthly basis, once you’ve used it up the ads stop displaying. You can stop the ads at any moment, run them seasonally, or decide to show them only at certain times of day. You can also target certain areas of the country if applicable and obviously only display your ads when the relevant search keyword is typed in such as “holiday cottage Gloucester”.

It is a highly targeted means of getting traffic to your site immediately, however you must bear in mind that you’d be paying for that traffic on an ongoing basis. It also requires some management to ensure you’re not over-bidding on keywords, are not advertising on keywords which have not converted visitors, ads are updated etc etc. Ideally you’d want an event on your site we could use it as a “goal” to identify which keywords caused visitors to convert to customers.