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Pubcon – Boston 06 – Intro to Pay Per Click – Brad Geddes

April 25, 2006

25 Companies who can make a web impact

April 22, 2006

Interesting article on CNN Money about the ‘Next 25′ companies who can make an impact upon the web.

Article: http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/23/smbusiness/business2_nextnet_intro/index.htm
Full index of companies outside of CNN’s frame here.

Boston Pubcon Presentation Now Online

April 22, 2006

Boston Pubcon 06 was it’s usual interesting and entertaining time.

The best conversation often happens late at night in the bars, and this time didn’t disappoint.

Jake insisted he doesn’t have a blog, he has a whiteboard (although, he couldn’t explain the difference between his whiteboard and a blog).

Rae was enjoying her blog being blogrolled by the new YPNblog. She also did a nice on-the-spot interview (inquisition?) of Jeremy Zawodny.

Todd was enjoying the single life as we all wish him well in his new endeavors.

Shri, Ted, (several people who’s names I can’t currently recall), had interesting viewpoints on the current data quality (or lack of) that Google is using.

The organized party scene was very light, however, Brandy managed to organize a very enjoyable party for YPN.

MSN adCenter organized a wonderful small party at Fenway. Unfortunately, I flew out the day before so I had to miss it. Although, I’ve pretty much promised all the MSNers that I’ll be spending a few extra days in Vegas or San Jose so I can finally catch up with everyone again. I’m very much enjoying MSN, their PPC program, and the excellent support they give.

I also had a chance to catch up with some of my favorite Googlers. (I’d link to Jame’s blog, but not sure if he has one…) in the exhibition hall.

I heard one of the exhibitors was sending out bluetooth spam the entire time, glad I’ve never adopted the unsecure network yet.

Of course, there was also a conference happening as well. Malcolm Gladwell preformed the keynote (which I missed, although, I did catch him at the Zeitgeist Conference last October.

Justin received his usual compliments for his passionate presentation about local marketing.

As for me, I was involved in two sessions. The first was an Introduction to Pay Per Click with Christine Churchhill. Jessie failed to show, so I did some double duty as both moderator and presenter.

While focusing on a high level aspect of PPC, I did go into detail about the search process; especially expectations as it relates to each step of the process (as can be seen on slide 9, the search to conversion process). I received enough requests for presentations and additional information that I plan to add a video to this blog that discusses the search process from the advertiser and searcher perspective.

The second session was a PPC and Landing Page Clinic with Christine and Dixon Jones (i.e. Receptional on the boards). The session went smoothly, and I received as many inquiries for cards and additional information that I’d ever received from a clinic before. I found that interesting as the conference was one of the smaller search conferences I’d seen in a while, yet those who were there really wanted to learn and get more complex with their marketing needs.

Now for the real information. Here’s the set of links I promised to add to the web:

Here’s the archive power point for Intro to Pay Per Click.

Where to Sign Up for PPC:
AdWords: https://adwords.google.com/select/starter/signup/Fork
MSN: https://adcenter.msn.com/
Yahoo: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/choose.php

Signup with Additional Assistance :
AdWords – https://adwords.google.com/select/jumpstartwelcome
Yahoo – http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/choose.php

Keyword Tools:
Yahoo Bid Tool: http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/index.jhtml
Yahoo Inventory Tool: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
AdWords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.ca/select/KeywordToolExternal

Additional Help:
AdWords Learning Center: http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/
Yahoo Tutorials: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tutr.php
Yahoo eBook: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/eworkbook.pdf
MSN Help Files: http://advertising.msn.com/msn-adcenter/learning-center/faqs
WebmasterWorld: http://www.webmasterworld.com

Verizon Offers Pay Per Call Solution

April 11, 2006

Verizon has launched a PPCall solution, however, it is a bit different than the other offerings on the market.

Verizon is building static ads with static phone numbers. However, those wishing phone calls are still bidding in an auction style for those leads. Sound confusing? It’s really not, it’s just a different model.

Basically, Verizon is going to build ads that they determine have high call rates.
Those wishing the phone calls will bid (like PPC) for those calls.
Depending on who is the highest bidder at the time of the call, Verizon will route the call to that bidder.

What this does is take the complexity of building ads, testing call rates, etc out of the hands of the advertisers. The only complexity left for the advertiser is the actual budget and bidding.

Verizon will take on the responsibility of optimizing the ads, showing them in various appropriate locations, and just pass the phone call to the highest bidder.

Simple model for the advertiser. Some complex call routing behind the scenes by Verizon. Ad optimization without the customer service of talking to advertises about creatives.

It is an interesting model, and on the surface, it seems like a fairly easy one to implement. It will be interesting to watch the adoption rate for this product.

More information from MSNBC.

Google AdWords Launches New Tool – Allows Advertisers to Control Ad Position

April 7, 2006

Google AdWords has released a new feature called Position Preference. This feature lets you specify which position you’d like your ad to be displayed.

Basically, if you specify a position, a few things will happen when someone searches for your keywords:

• The typical Ad Rank auction is run behind the scenes to determine preference.
• If your Ad Rank is higher than is necessary to be in your desired position, Google automatically adjusts your max CPC (behind the scenes) to be what is necessary in the CPC x QS (quality score) formula for your ad to show in that position.
• If your ad falls into the current position, then your bid won’t be changed.
• If your Ad Rank is not high enough for your ad to be displayed in that position, then your ad will not be displayed at all.
• The feature is not compatible with ‘budget optimizer’. Therefore, you can only use one of those two features.
• The feature will not be available to starter accounts.

The new setting should go live for most accounts within the next two weeks. Some accounts will see the new feature much sooner. When your account is opted into this new setting, then you will have a new setting on your campaign preferences page called ‘Ad Position’. It’s a simple checkbox that leads to a confirmation page with instructions on inputting these positions.

If you navigate to an AdGroup, check the words you want to modify, and hit ‘Edit CPC’s/URL’ you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

The position preferences are incremental numbers from 1-10 (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) and 10+.

Enter the range you wish the ad to be displayed and hit save – all done.

The change to the AdGroup structure, which included the ’settings’ tab, was to enable this feature and a couple other really nice ones that should be announced within the next few weeks.

Google has also changed the power post feature as seen below, so that Ad Position can now easily be modified on a mass scale:

If you can’t read the last line above, which is the power post example it is:

keyword**0.25**http://www.example.com/**#2-3

where #2-3 is the power post rule for position preference.

It is important to note that it’s possible your ad will occasionally show one level above your desired preference (i.e. if your preference is 3-5, it’s possible for you to show in position 2 on occasion); however, you will never show below your desired position. Therefore, it’s easy to set rules that will never trigger your ad. Be careful when enacting this rule to ensure that your ad is appearing, and that you’re not targeting a position that your ad doesn’t have the necessary Ad Rank to be displayed.

Overall, a great feature. The most common applications I expect to see for this is:

• Brand advertisers who want to be shown in position 1-3 or not at all.
• eCommerce sites who are seeing better conversions in position 3-5 (which is common).
• Sophisticated advertisers who have narrowed down conversions by time of day and position and understand their target market behavior.
• Those who want some exposure, but know they can’t afford to pay for the premium positions, yet want to appear on page 1. They will most likely target positions 6-10.

The only piece of information missing is how many ads are shown on a page. It will be difficult to target the bottom part of page 1 as 8-12 ads can be shown on a page, so with that shifting number, it’s difficult to actually set that in an integer format.

The negative impact this could have is that in competitive markets, there will be potentially dozens of people targeting certain positions, and it’s possible that position 3-5 can become more expensive than position 1-2 if more people are targeting those positions. In one way, it gives advertisers more control over their ad display, in another way, it removes them even another step further from understanding exactly how the price for their ad is being calculated.

Overall, Google is giving advertisers more control. It’s hard to complain about a feature that allows that, even if it has some possible negative consequences. The tool is there, the adoption and implementation will be the part that still needs to play out.

I’m very nit picky on details, and I didn’t come across anything that immediately stood out as being a negative consequence (other than the possibility above) or not well thought out. It seems Google has thought about this, looked at their ad serving technology, and figured out how to leverage additional control for advertisers.

Of course, the next step is implementation across hundreds of thousands of accounts and how advertisers use the tools. This feature will come soon. Keep an eye out for this release (and another really nice one that will be phenomenal for local businesses) that should be available in all accounts within the next couple of weeks.

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