links for 2007-05-21
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Google’s experimental search ideas.
Is AdSense cleaning house before advertisers see all the data?
There have been several threads lately about AdSense publishers receiving letters from Google about their accounts being closed on June 1. The most common reason for the dismissal from the AdSense program has been ‘unfit business model’.
The speculation is that these letters are mostly being sent to publishers who are using arbitrage as their business model, which makes sense as the Google AdSense TOS has included provisions that one should not make pages just to serve ads.
I find it very interesting that this is occurring before Google rolls out their new advertiser report which lets advertisers run stats across the content network.
I’m in the beta program which lets me see click through rates, conversion rates, dollars paid, etc to every site in the content network sending me traffic. It’s a fantastic idea, and one many advertisers will applaud. It will also force content sites to send better traffic since advertisers will have this visibility.
It seems the timing of these two items are mysteriously close to each other.
Pay a CPM Rate to Appear on Google.com - Are your old offers still on the web?
I was searching for some information on Google’s site today and came across an offer to advertise on Google’s homepage and pay on a CPM basis.
In 2002, there was an advertising program on Google.com which was called AdWords. One could pay Google a CPM rate and have one’s ad appear. Later, Google released AdWords select which is the PPC model we’re familiar with today.
For a while, both AdWords and AdWords Select ads appeared on Google. Later, Google dropped the CPM program and went with just the PPC AdWords Select advertising method.
Very quietly, they dropped the ’select’ and just called it AdWords.
Most people probably don’t remember the days when one could double serve on Google with both a CPM and a PPC ad. However, this page would be a confusing offer to some, and yet an offer others would jump at the chance to take advantage of.
It’s not really available anymore, however, the offer is still on the web.
Do you have old pages still on the web that no longer apply to your business?
A little nostalgia for those of us who used both AdWords and AdWords Select:
Google Launches Ad Preview for Mobile
Every wonder what your AdWords mobile ad looks like on a mobile phone? How about on a different carrier? Or in a different country?
Similar to the search preview page, Google launched an search preview page, Google launched an ad preview page for mobile (http://www.google.com/m/adpreview).
The really nice part is the on screen segmentation controls. It’s very easy to switch views depending on:
- Country & Carrier
- Spoken language
- Markup language
- Search type
This is a nice tool to be able to see a mobile result to understand what the consumer sees and the advertising competition.
links for 2007-05-16
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The new Ask.com mobile download is impessive as it ties several ‘lifestyle’ elements together on your phone.
Peak behind the content curtain to learn what AdSense sites are doing for you
Google is finally allowing advertisers to see where their ads are shown on the content network.
However, Google even goes further and allows advertisers to see the conversion and click through rates by content site.
Google’s newest beta report allows advertisers to run reports that are specific to the content network. Finally, advertisers can have full visibility into the often hidden world of the content network.
This will finally allow advertisers to learn:
- Where their ads are being shown
- What sites are converting
- Understand if they wish to use site targeting
- Which sites to block from displaying your ads
- What smart pricing is really doing for your costs
This will mean very different things for both publishers and advertisers. Today, the focus is the advertiser.
How to find Content Network Information
In your AdWords account, go to the ‘reports’ tab and find ‘placement reporting. Selecting this button will let you run a content network report.
There are several options for segmenting the data under the ’settings section’.
- Level of detail
- AdGroup
- Campaign
- Account
- Domain or URL
- Time View (summary, daily, etc)
- Date Range
- Which campaigns or AdGroups to include
Next is the good part, customize your columns. You can also view conversions! Finally, advertisers will have the ability to view conversions and clicks by site across the entire content network.
Finally, you can filter, save the report template, etc.
While you’re waiting for the report to run, Google displays the following box:
Placement Performance report tips: This report shows performance metrics (including impressions, clicks, and cost) for content network sites displaying your ads. When you review these metrics:
- Don’t focus on clickthrough rate (CTR): Content network CTR doesn’t affect your ad ranking on the search network. Learn more.
- Think in terms of conversions: You can use Google’s free Conversion Tracking tool to determine whether site performance meets your ROI objectives. Learn more.
- Consider the site targeting feature: You can increase your exposure on top performing sites. Learn more.
- Wait for statistically significant data: For sites without much performance data, wait a while before making a final judgment. Learn more.
Some of the above information is very important to remember. One should never worry about the click through rate for content. It’s not one of the quality score factors.
And then finally the numbers. You will easily be able to compare site targeting to pay per action ads to every site on the content network where your ads are showing.
No longer will advertisers be in the dark about where their ads are showing. You can now have visibility into the network, block non-converting sites, and even target sites directly that are converting.
This is a huge win for advertisers. Many thanks to AdWords for finally introducing this report. Next, because there’s always more that advertisers desire, would be visibility into search partners.
The key to a successful AdWords campaign is account organization, visibility into numbers, and then optimizing based upon that data.
Finally, advertisers have visibility into the content network numbers. It’s time for content network optimization.
AdWords Editor v3.5 is Now Live
The newest version of the AdWords editor is now live.
The latest version offers new functionality for:
- Geographic targeting
- Image ads
- Some drag and drop functionality
For those using preferred bidding, you can not change the bidding types through the editor (i.e. switch from max CPC to preferred to budget optimizer). However, if your campaign is using preferred bidding, any bid updates you make to that campaign will function properly (i.e. not cause a conflict and update your preferred bid).
If you use geographic targeting, get the editor - the new interface is quite easy to use and it will save a lot of time from logging into the interface.
Overall, a nice release.
links for 2007-05-10
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Look up queries across different data centers.
AdWords Bidding Methodologies Compatibility Chart
Updated 9/6/2008:
I’ve created a new AdWords Bidding Chart to reflect the changes to Google’s system over the past few months. The old chart still exists below for reference purposes. Enjoy.
| Compatibility | Set Max CPCs (default) | Preferred Cost Bidding | Conversion Optimizer | Budget Optimizer |
Best for:
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Using All features | Controlling costs | Maximizing Conversions | Maximizing Traffic |
Ad Scheduling:
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| Position preference | Yes | No | No | No |
| Location Targeting | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Content CPCs | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Language targeting | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Networks
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Ad Serving
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| Budget | Daily | Daily | Daily | Monthly |
Originally Created 5/8/2007:
Google offers four different bidding methodologies. I detailed the advantages and disadvantages in today’s Search Engine Land Paid Search column.
Here’s a quick compatibility chart to see the functionality of each bidding methodology.
| Compatibility | Set Max CPCs (default) | Preferred Cost Bidding | Pay Per Action | Budget Optimizer |
Best for:
|
all features | controlling costs | Pay only when receive conversion | max traffic |
Ad Scheduling:
|
|
|
|
|
| Position preference | yes | no | no | no |
| Location Targeting | yes | yes | no | yes |
| Content CPCs | yes | yes | no | no |
| Language targeting | yes | yes | no | yes |
Networks
|
|
|
|
|
Ad Serving
|
|
|
|
|
| Budget | daily | daily | daily | monthly |
A Look into adCenter’s Quality Score Rankings
Quality score remains one of the more ambiguous ideas on the web. Google has become much more transparent with sharing information about AdWords quality score.
Microsoft adCenter has also announced it will use a quality score formula to determine placement. I’ve had some discussions with Microsoft digging into the full algo, however, here are some high level facts that will help you optimize for adCenter’s quality score.
- How closely related the keyword is to the ad’s content (single factor)
- How closely related the query is to the landing page (single factor)
- How closely related the keyword is to both the ad and landing page (combined factor)
- The serial chain of query to ad and then ad to landing page
- Uniqueness of the ad to other ads on the page. adCenter tries not to show duplicate ads on the page (this is an interesting one).
Overall, it’s fairly similar to Google’s.
The concept is quite simple: If you are enhancing the search process, then ads rank well. If you aren’t, then ads rank lower.
Google AdWords
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These seminars will educate advertisers on the creation and management of successful AdWords campaigns.
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