Brad Interviewed by Search Engine World
While at Pubcon a couple weeks ago, I did an interview with Vanessa Zamora. We covered topics from my new startup, bg Theory, to search to landing pages to fun things at Pubcon.
You can find the entire article at Search Engine World.
Enjoy.
Google’s Display Ad Builder
Google’s display ad builder lets anyone quickly build images, flash, and widget ads from premade templates. I’ve been playing with some of the widget ads, and while the CTRs are pretty mixed – it’s a tool to try out, especially if you’re designed challenged.
Here’s a YouTube video about the display builder.
In addition, Google has a microsite showcasing how it works.
Are you showcasing your benefits to the correct person?
One should always showcase a product’s or service’s benefits to the consumer. This is tried and true marketing wisdom.
However; you need to segment consumers into two different categories:
- The product buyer
- The product user
Throughout most of the year, the buyer and user are the same person.
This is not true in the retail holiday season – often the product buyer is not the product user.
A product’s benefits for the product user are emotional responses about how the product will make their life better in some way:
- The Sony Z laptop has an 8 hour battery life so you can be productive on a cross country flight
- Save time and money using the Neat Receipts scanner
- Easily recover from devastating computer crashes by saving your documents online.
However, in the retail season we need to think about the shopper:
- Buy 10 gift cards and easily send them to 10 different addresses
- Save time with our Free Gift Wrapping service
- Save money – free shipping on orders over $25
- The perfect gift will arrive by December 23rd if you order today
- Have your own Merry Christmas, receive a bonus gift on orders over $100
While the above statements are common to see in the retail season – those comments are not directed at the product user – they are for the product buyer.
Your marketing language needs to change in the retail season.
Don’t just showcase benefits for the product user.
Show the buyer why they should purchase from you. How will you make the buyer’s life easier?
Buyers and shoppers are two different segments in the retail season.
Are you showcasing your product’s benefits to the correct person?
8 DON’Ts and 7 DO’s For Holiday eCommerce
My newest column was published by Search Engine Land entitled 8 DON’Ts and 7 DOs For Holiday eCommerce.
The last three AdWords Seminars of 2008 will contain a special retail presentation that starts from the article, but expands on the information and adds a lot of charts and figures.
We’d love to see you in:
- Las Vegas Seminar Monday, November 17th
- Washington DC area Seminar Tuesday, December 2nd
- Houston Seminar Thursday, December 4th
Enjoy the article.
In Vegas for Pubcon next week
I’m going to be in Vegas all of next week for Pubcon.
I will be speaking on Landing Page Optimization on Tuesday.
I will be moderating two sessions which are usually fan favorites:
- PPC Engine Vendor Panel on Tuesday
- Learning to Love Your Quality Score on Thursday.
I’m staying in Vegas over the weekend, and then conducting an AdWords Seminar on Monday at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in Vegas. For the last three sessions of the year, I’m tossing in a special added bonus: “Tips for the Holidays”.
My schedule is quickly filling up. If you’d like to catch up, chat, etc next week, please let me know.
Enjoy the show.
AdWords API Help – Local Database Sync
One of the biggest issues many companies face when using the AdWords API is that they store all the information at Google. It can be very time consuming (and expensive) to constantly download your information into a local database.
Over the past couple years, I’ve seen many companies who really needed to build a sync system to keep a local store of all information.
Google recently launched a code base and scripts to make this happen for their clients.
If you are an aggregator and need to take your API to the next level – check out sync:
Special Bonus for Upcoming Seminars in 2008 – Special Retail Section
The holiday season is almost upon us. In December, the online shopping world changes.
Bids go up.
Conversion rates skyrocket.
Costs per conversion go down.
At least, that’s what the top retailers see in December.
Hopefully, you see similar trends.
As a special bonus for the last three seminars in 2008, I will be adding a limited time section to the presentation:
Tips and Tricks to Increase Your Holiday Success
Signup now to ensure you have a seat.
The last three AdWords of 2008 will be:
- Las Vegas – Monday, November 17th
- Washington DC area – Tuesday, December 2nd
- Houston – Thursday, December 4th
Hope to see you there.
Ads were already normalized by position – Stop Freaking Out!
Google made two changes to AdWords Quality Score Calculations while I was away on vacation. The first one was so minor, I didn’t even look twice at it. Unfortunately, it has caused an unnecessary uproar.
Ad position has been taken into account for the calculation of a more precise Quality Score.
Ads in high positions typically earn better CTR than those in low positions, because ads in high positions are more visible to searchers. To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it’s important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score. We’ll update the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position.
Please note that this does not change the Quality Score Factors Chart – it’s just an update to the algo. I’ve seen some who have freaked out thinking that the information I’ve been giving (and Google as well) wasn’t quite accurate. That’s not true. Google (and my) info has been accurate. CTR has always been normalized by position. Since they recently moved to a ‘query time update’ of quality score, I think this is just a logical extension to CTR projections.
The takeaway? Don’t fret on this one – CTR is normalized by position. Bid what’s profitable for you and don’t think twice about this update other than Google is trying to make their algos better (a good thing).
Higher quality ads are given the more opportunities to move above the search results.
We’re also improving the way we determine which ads show in the yellow region above the search results. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, we may not have shown any ads above the search results. With this update, we’ll allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so.
Thank you! I first talked about this issue in 2004. You could essentially ‘lock-out’ a competitor from being able to get into the top spot if you had just one of the main factors a bit low to be considered appropriate for the top spot and your overall bid times quality score was still higher than the other competitors. While most people really don’t want to get into this level of keyword manipulation as its very rarely worthwhile – it was something that did happen in certain niches.
This is a fantastic update. It might be a bit confusing to explain to others, but I actually a fan of this one.
Remember, to be in the top spot you must meet minimum standards on several of the quality score factors. If you have even one of the major factors below par, you could still have a great quality score but your ad would not appear in the top positions. This makes it so that you can leapfrog someone if all of your factors meet these standards.
I’ll be moderating a session at Pubcon next week on quality score, and then giving a day long AdWords seminar in Vegas two weeks from today. I’m guessing some of these new factors will be discussed in depth during both of those events.
Google AdWords
Seminars for Success
Learn about Google AdWords from experts hand selected by Google.
These seminars will educate advertisers on the creation and management of successful AdWords campaigns.
Upcoming Seminars:
Phoenix AdWords Seminars April 14th & 15th
Chicago AdWords Seminars April 29th & 30th
Vancouver AdWords Seminars May 5th & 6th
Denver AdWords Seminars May 18th & 19th
Minneapolis AdWords Seminars May 26th & 27th
Learn More about the Seminars:
Seminar Information
Official Google Seminar Page
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Brad Geddes
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