AdWords Updates Display URL Policy – New Policy Still Falls Short
Google has finally updated their Display URL policy so that if you use a shared domain (such as blogspot), then you need to be more accurate in your portrayal of the destination URL.
For instance, if your URL was: mybusiness.blogspot.com, all you had to do was use blogspot.com in your destination URL and you would meet the policy. In fact, you could have even used YourCompetitor.blogspot.com as the display URL and taken them to your page.
While blogspot is an easy one to pick one, I think that this ruling occurred (and will be modified one more time) because of the sudden influx of Google.com URLs.
Legitimately Use Google.com as Your Display URL
If you use Google Apps or Google Pages, then you can have a site hosted at:
sites.google.com/a/Customize
If site.google.com/a/Customize is the destination URL, you can use Google.com as the display URL.
With Blogspot, every site has a subdomain and therefore this is an easy ruling to apply.
With Google pages and Google sites, the URL is a folder and not a subdomain and therefore makes it difficult to pick a URL that accurately describes where the user is going.
In fact, you may see destination URLs that are: Google.com/AdWords or Google.com/Coupons that actually go to sites.google.com/a/SpammyOffer.
This is a good move from Google, it just needs to go further to clarify how to handle folders within a subdomain or what constitutes ‘additional information’ that is actually relevant to the consumer.
Best New AdWords Features Launched Over the Past Month
Google has launched several small updates over the past month. Together, there has been quite a bit of innovation. Here are my favorite changes that everyone should know about.
AdWords Editor Updated:
The newest version of the AdWords editor launched with some very nice updates. It now supports:
- Ad scheduling
- Advanced location targeting
- Inline editing
- Editing multiple campaign settings at once
- YouTube promotional ads
- New keyword expansion options
- Set default targeting
- Supports Spanish as an interface option
You can see the full release notes for the newest version here.
Product Listing Ads:
Google announced new product listing ads:
Google Ad Planner Updated
Google made some nice additions to Google ad planner. You can now see placement listings, subdomain info, and additional graphing options.
New Alerts Features
You can set up customized AdWords Alerts to help spot issues within your AdWords Account.
Sitelinks now available for AdWords Ads
![[sitelinks.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XvO3o7JhYsM/SvByJoce_-I/AAAAAAAAAD8/_EopSSaT7iA/s1600/sitelinks.jpg)
If ads meet certain quality guidelines, they can now show additional links within the ad. Good stuff for branded queries, or when you are currently sending traffic to segmentation pages.
Google Analytics for Mobile Users
Many phones do not support scripts, such as Google Analytics. If you want to track additional items, you can use event tracking to track mobile usage and apps.
New Conversion Tracking Interface
The conversion tracking interface received a facelift. Among the changes is the ability to see which page conversions are occurring on.
Latest SEL Column: How To Bid Profitably On Non-converting Keywords
There are many studies that show that using both organic and paid together creates increases in CTR and conversions, even if the ad is not clicked.
However, many of these types of words are early in the buying cycle. It is very hard to monetize keywords early in the buying cycle as often someone is still conducting research before buying. However, that does not mean these keywords are useless. Often consumers will ‘lock-in’ to a site, or find enough information on your site to finishing going through the buying cycle and create a conversion.
However, how do you set bids for keywords that often do not lead to direct conversions; but for ones that you still wish to find some visibility?
You can use a combination of the new goals in Google Analytics (page views per visit and time on site) and the budget optimizer, which tries to maximize the clicks that any one campaign receives.
The two of these in combination with each other allow you to set ‘branding awareness’ or ‘informational campaigns’ to take advantage of these words.
My latest Search Engine Land column walks through the procedure for setting up these campaigns and how to measure them for effectiveness:
How To Bid Profitably On Non-converting Keywords
Should you use Google’s new translation tool for AdWords?
Google announced that your can use their translator service to automatically translate an .aes (AdWords Editor File) into various languages.
Sounds nice?
I’m not so sure. The same words have different meanings in different languages and this scares me a little bit.
Andy Atkins-Krüger wrote a good piece at Search Engine Watch about translation a while ago that is worth reading again before you use the tool without a language specialist to edit the file before your keywords and ads go live.
I spoke on the same panel as Andy at SES San Jose and he definitely knows his linguists. Here’s a good comment from the piece for just English (and it gets crazier past English):
Why doesn’t translating keywords work? Because keywords are the fruit of a language, hanging on the branches of trees that grew and were nurtured in the local climate and are rooted in the local culture. As markers of someone’s intent when they search — they spring from local habits and behaviors that will vary from country to country — or even region to region.
Compare the U.S. and U.K. use of English — the same language. In the U.K., we’re in the habit of saying "holiday" when folks in the U.S. would say "vacation." For "football boots" Americans would say "soccer cleats" (Can someone please tell me what a "cleat" is? Because, as a sailor, I think that’s somewhere you fix a rope to stop it slipping). And as for baseball, well that’s just not cricket.
Here’s the full article on translation.
Everything you need to know about Google’s SK Tool via Video Tutorials
Google launched the SK Tool (search based keyword tool) in November 2008. This tool uses Google’s crawler information and combines it with AdWords data to suggest keywords for your website. You can examine the results about any domain via the SK Tool. If you access the SK Tool while logged into a Google account that is associated with an AdWords account that buys traffic to a domain, then you can see some associated data points with the suggested keywords.
Google is excellent at making helpful videos about their products. What they aren’t great at is putting the videos in useful formats and marketing their own videos. Some of these videos have under 300 total views, and most are under 1000. Considering how beneficial these videos are (and how many people conduct keyword research); those numbers should have a couple more 0s after it.
I’ve taken the videos that Google has produced and created some custom playlists so that you can view Google’s information is an easy-to-follow manner.
SK Tool Introduction & First Steps
This first playlists consists of 9 videos:
- Video 1: Product intro (3:49)
- Video 2: Getting started (4:06)
- Video 3: Navigating the interface (6:23)
- Video 4: Refining results (6:27)
- Video 5 & 6: Exporting the information (7:49)
- Video 7 – 9: Tracking the results (3:52)
It will take just over 30 minutes to watch all of the videos. However, as these videos do play in the correct order, you can leave and come back and jump to the next video you wish to view.
SK Tool Opportunities
The next playlist is a set of six short videos totaling around 15 minutes of ways to use the SK Tool to identify missed opportunities.
SK Tool – Other Videos
The last two videos are:
- Using the tool to promote new part of your website (2:22)
- Identifying how well your active keywords are doing (2:39)
More Google Videos
Google has quite a few channels and videos that they maintain. If you would like to see all of the official Google channels, you can view our subscription list or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Quality Score is Based on Precise Match Not Exact Match
I made a comment on Twitter that stirred up some confusion; however, as tweets are limited to 140 characters; it seemed easiest to write out the explanation as a blog post and then let people read the rationale in its entirety.
The common assumption is that the CTR used in the search quality score algo is based upon the search query matching your exact matched keywords. Sometimes this is stated as ‘the search query exactly matches your keywords’. That statement is actually true, but sometimes confusing as Google has an exact match type; and the match type itself does not play a factor into determining quality score.
What if you do not have exact match keywords? How are those keywords assigned a quality score? You do not have to have exact match versions of broad matched words. Please note, this is not a debate about what is best practice, but about what is possible – there’s a difference.
The truth is that the CTR that determines your keyword’s quality score is based upon the user’s search query precisely matching the keyword in your ad group, regardless of the match type you use.
For instance, if you have the keyword ‘Google AdWords’ broad matched, then your ad could show for:
- Google ad words
- Google adwords help
- Google adwords alternative
- my adwords ad is not running on Google
- Google AdWords
- etc…
In this case, only the CTR of number 5, Google AdWords, would be used to calculate your quality score.
This same exercise can be applied to phrase and exact match.
This is also why if you have the same keyword as an exact, phrase, and broad match in the same ad group, they will have the same quality score. As quality score uses precise match regardless of match type, all of those keywords are assigned CTR information under the same conditions.
<Please note this next section is for advanced PPC marketers and could require paragraphs of explanation. It might not make sense to many of you – and if it doesn’t – that’s OK>
There is a difference between all three match types showing the same quality score and being displayed in the same positions.
For instance, one of the quality score factors is, “Relevance of keyword and ad to search query”. This factor is calculated after dynamic insertion is applied to an ad copy. Therefore, if for some reason a broad matched variation was doing fantastic with DKI, yet the exact match was doing average with that ad, it might appear that the broad matched word had a higher CTR than the exact match, which might result in a higher average position. Yet since that broad matched variation is not a keyword in your account, your broad matched word would still maintain the same quality score as the exact matched word that has a lower average position. This example is a rare case; however, it could happen.
<End advanced section – next section for everyone>
The same principles that apply to “Your Broad Match Keywords Are Not Converting Higher than Your Exact Match Keywords” apply to quality score. However, instead of examining conversion rates, just substitute quality score relevancy factors.
I hope that helps explain the confusion. If not, please add a comment and I’ll do a long blog post using the search query report and actual numbers to showcase how match types and quality score interact with the actual search query.
Combine Bid Simulator with Value Per Click to Maximize Profits
In 2001 I invented a metric call profit per impression or profit per click based upon the metric value per click (which Google didn’t yet have as AdWords didn’t yet exist).
As far as I can tell, I’m the first one to talk about this metric; however, in the past few years I’ve seen it mentioned a few times – which is great as it means more companies are understanding the revenues associated with their PPC spend.
Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, took these values (which he probably came up with himself – not from me – he has a tremendous amount of experience in finances) to another level using Google’s new Bid Simulator. The video did make me feel justified in the metrics I’ve been teaching for years, and the long bidding discussion we have at ever Adwords Seminar.
The video is around maximizing profit. However, it does not take into account ROI. Therefore, it’s another bidding method, but might not work for everyone. The video is almost 10 minutes long, and it’s worth watching every second.
If you’d like to see all of Google’s videos; and our favorites. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Does AdWords differentiate keywords by capitalization, underscores, or apostrophes?
I was watching an AdWords webinar today on Optimization goals (you can view it on-demand); and Google had a screenshot showing what they consider the same or different keywords.
While upper versus lower case usage has never been used to differentiate keywords, diacritics has been questionable at times. Is saké the same as sake? The answer is yes, they are different words; and if you are using exact or phrase match – you should add them both.
Here’s a screenshot from the webinar showing a few examples of what the system reads:
The 6/90 Rule: 6 Reports Contain 90% Of Actionable AdWords Insights
You can extract more data out of Google AdWords than you ever have time to analyze. My latest Search Engine Land article looks through some of the more common data sets you need and how to extract them from AdWords. Here’s the article: The 6/90 Rule: 6 Reports Contain 90% Of Actionable AdWords Insights .
If you need more reading this week, here’s a few good places to start:
- Why You Can’t Ignore The Google Content Network – AdSense Q&A
- Varian Shares AdWords Secrets – Will He Bring Transparency To Google? While Google talks about conversion rates not changing by position in aggregate; I have found many exceptions to this rule.
- WordStream Believes: Keyword Grouping & Organization Are Critical to Success. I believe this as well. Every AdWords Seminar we discuss account organization.
- Praise and Caution for the AdWords Opportunities Tab
Q&A Should You Bid on Your Competitor’s Name or use Their Name in Ad Copy?
Should you use your competitor’s name as a keyword? What about using their name in ad copy? Is there a difference in using it on search versus the content network? These questions boil down into a few sections that we will address:
- Can you bid on their name via the search engine policies?
- Can you use their name in ad copy?
- What should the landing page look like?
Legal Note: We will walk through these questions as it regards to current search engine policy. That does not mean you still cannot be sued by your competitor – it just means that these are the current guidelines. As always, consult your lawyer before trying this at home.
Can you bid on your competitor’s name via the search engine policies?
The first question you need to answer: Is your competitor’s name trademarked? If no, then you can bid on their name via policies in most countries. If yes, here’s the quick and dirty rules to trademark policy:
Google AdWords Trademark Policy
- If the word is not trademarked, you can bid on it
- If the word is trademarked, but the owner has not filed an exception request with Google, you can bid on it in most countries (US, UK, and Canada included) and use it in ad copy (more on ad copy below)
- If the word is trademarked, and the owner has filed an exception request then you can bid on it in most countries; however, you cannot use it in ad copy
- In the US on Google.com only, if you sell a product, fix a product, sell parts for a product, or are an informational site, then you can bid on the keyword and use it in ad copy
Note about Trademarks: All three engines allow the ‘generic’ use of a word, sometimes called the ‘dictionary use’ where a word could be trademarked, but if you use it in the generic manner, then you can bid on it and use it in ad copy. For example, there are hundreds of companies who have incorporate the word Apple into their trademark (Apple records, Apple vacations, Apple computers, etc). If you are an orchard farmer and sell Apple the fruit, you can use the word Apple in both ad copy and as a keyword.
Learn more about the AdWords Trademark Policy:
The Bottom Line: Can you bid on an AdWords trademarked word?
On Google, if you are in the list of countries where Google does not investigate the use of trademarks as keywords, then you can bid on your competitor’s name. If you are not in that list of countries, and the competitor has trademarked their name, then you cannot bid on it.
AdWords Content Targeting Tip
If you have decided you want to bid on your competitor’s name, and that it’s a name that often ends up in the news or in other coverage; you might want to use it as a content targeting term so you can capitalize on press and other coverage of your competitor’s products.
As the content targeting uses all the keywords in an ad group to determine the ad group’s theme; and then show your ad – if you were to put all of your competitor’s into a single ad group – your targeting would probably be pretty poor as the article would have to cover most of your competitor’s for your ad to be shown. (More on content network targeting)
To create an ad group where your ad is only displayed when the page’s content is about your competitor’s and their products, then just include your competitor’s name as a keyword, and additionally use a few of their top products as additional keywords. If you have several competitors, create a separate ad group for each competitor for better targeting purposes. For instance, the keywords in your ad group might look like:
- Competitor’s name
- Competitor’s product
- Common words associated with the product
If you use the content network strategy, employing image ads instead of text ads can be to your advantage. Text ads have little recall value. However, images and video have much higher recall values. Therefore, utilize image ads so you can start to associate yourself as the top competitor and a company that someone should evaluate before engaging your competitor.
Yahoo Search Marketing & adCenter Trademark Policies
Yahoo and adCenter have very similar policies. If you are:
- Reseller of a product
- Informational, non-competitive site
- Dictionary use
You can both bid on the word and use it in ad copy. If you are not one of the above, then you cannot bid on the word and use it in ad copy.
If you use adCenter broad match and Yahoo’s advanced match options for triggering keywords,then you might find some variations of words that trigger your ad to be shown for a competitor’s name. For instance, if you were Microsoft and sell the Zune; you might be able to broad match MP3 player, or similar words and end up showing on competitor searches (such as iPod) without actually bidding on the term.
More Trademark Policy Resources
- SEL article: How will Google’s new TM policy affect you?
- On-demand Webcast: Trademarks, Brand Terms and PPC Advertising: Updates You Must Know
Now that we have a starting place to examine the policies, lets examine the impact of using competitors’ name as keywords and in ad copy.
Can you use your competitor’s name in ad copy?
Fist, let us revisit the fair use of trademarks in the United States. A trademark does not give you absolute protection over a word; it gives you limited protection.
In the US, you can use someone else’s trademark (Fair Use) if (this is US law, not search engine policy)
- Identifying the owner
- Describing own products
Example: Comparisons
- Mercedes could say they are rated higher than BMW (according to some study) because they are using the BMW trademark to identify the owner.
Example: Newspaper Ad:
- Best Buy show an image and use the word ‘Apple iPod’ in a newspaper ad because the trademark usage identifies the trademark owner.
Example Describing Products:
- Powered by Intel
The second example, newspaper ad, is one of the reasons’ Google gave when announcing their change to US policy.
In the US, the government recommends the ‘sniff test’ as the first line of determining infringement. The sniff test is:
- Does the the use of the trademark confuse the customer?
In the above example, the use of ‘official apple store’ in an ad copy that goes to a non-apple owned website is definitely confusing. The ad makes a claim that is not true. This would fail the sniff test.
In the Best Buy Example, the use of the trademark iPod Touch would be considered non-confusing as the word is identifying the trademark owner, which is a ‘fair use’ of a trademark.
If you use your competitor’s name in ad copy and claim to be the competitor then you would be confusing the customer and should not use the word in ad copy. This is by far the most common question I’m asked. Someone is using our name in ad copy, our name is not trademarked, what should I do? Obviously, you should trademark your company name. However, this is where many companies decide to sue other companies outside of Google’s influence. Be careful of identifying your company as your competitor’s company with confusing ad copy.
Using your competitor’s trademarked name in an ad copy as a comparison, “Mercedes is rated higher than BMW” is not allowed by the search engines even though it does fall under one of the fair uses of trademarks in the US. However, if your competitor’s name is not trademarked, then you could write an ad copy making that claim. Please note, if you make that claim you must have 3rd party verification on the landing page.
Overall, using your competitor’s name in the ad copy is not a good idea at the moment. Personally, I’m waiting for Google to adopt the all of the ‘fair use’ for trademarks before going down this route. However, if you consult with your lawyer, and feel protected, then you could do it (if your competitor’s name is not trademarked). Just note, you could be sued, however, there’s a good ‘fair use’ defense available. And furthermore, this is my opinion – I’m not a lawyer, just trying to help out the marketers. Talk to the lawyer first.
If you are using your competitor’s name as a keyword or in the ad copy, what should your landing page look like?
If you make a flat out claim, such as ‘we are better than competitor 1’, then your landing page must have a 3rd party verification on the page (such as a JD Powers study that found your car is rated better than your competition or a Consumer Reports showing your car safety standards is better than your competition). However, if you are just using your competitor’s name as a keyword, then you do not need that information on the landing page.
If you are able to use the trademark as a keyword because you are a reseller, fix a product, or an informational site; then your landing page must contain information related to that trademark. For instance, Best Buy must link the ads that say ‘iPod Nano’ to a page where they sell iPod nano’s.
If you are just using your competitor’s name as a keyword and sending the user to a typical page on your site, you will commonly see two things:
- High bounce rates
- Low quality scores
Why? Because the Psychology of Search tells us that we do a search to find a piece of information. Since your landing page does not contain that information, then the consumer is going to bounce off of your website.
Secondly, the quality score factors include relevance of keyword to ad copy to landing page. In this case, neither your landing page nor ad copy is relevant. Therefore, your quality score should be low.
How do you increase your quality scores when bidding on competitor’s name?
This is simple, make your landing page related to your competitor. Landing page quality and relevance affects your quality score. If the page you are sending traffic to has nothing to do with your competitor, then the page will often be found non-relevant and negatively affect your quality score. Therefore, you need to make the landing page for your competitor’s name related to your competitor. This does not mean you need to give away your competitor’s contact details and send searchers that direction.
To make your page relevant, create a comparison chart. Make column one the comparison features, column two you, column three your competitor. Very simple. If you make this chart and still see ‘landing page not relevant’ for your keywords, than add a paragraph or two about your competitor.
Do not disparage your competitors. Avoid slander based lawsuits. Make your product look better by creating an honest comparison chart and showcasing why you are better than your competition. This is a good exercise even if you are not buying your competitor’s name. You should understand your product and your competitor’s so you can arm your sales force with the proper responses to potential-customer questions.
Write a couple paragraphs about them so that the search engines can read that information to understand that your landing page is a comparison chart and the consumer can learn about your competitor on this page. This may make your page relevant, will then allow your keyword to have a decent quality score when advertising on a competitor’s trademark.
How to check if a name is trademarked
This might be the most aggravating part of the entire process. None of the search engines have a public list of trademarks. In their defense, this is why:
- Trademarks are assigned by geography. A word might be trademarked in the US, not trademarked in UK, or only trademarked in Alabama, US and not the rest of the country.
- Trademarks are assigned by industry (it’s a bit more complex, but this is the simple version)
So, technically a search engine would have to have a list that is both industry and geographically relevant.
When you submit an ad copy to Google that contains a potential trademark, you’ll be asked to file an exception request. If you use the word ‘apple’ and you sell apple the fruit, then you’ll submit a request such as ‘it’s the dictionary term, it’s not trademarked for fruit sellers’. If you were to submit an ad copy for ‘Home for Sale’; you would say that the word ‘home’ is not trademarked for the real estate industry.
This area of research is murky at best. If you are the industrious type and wish to try and discern if your competitor’s name is trademarked, you can use the USPTO.gov (US Patent & Trademark Office) trademark search to try and find the trademark.
Conclusion
If you want to avoid controversy and lawsuits, just don’t bid on your competitor’s name or use their words in your ad copy.
If you want to maximize your exposure, showcase your offers when someone is looking at your competitor, then in many countries, on Google, you can use their name as a keyword.
Be very careful using your competitor’s name in ad copy as you can still be sued even if you abide by the search engine policies.
To really protect yourself, draft a keyword use policy. Have your lawyer approve it. Then follow those policies.
If you use an agency, make sure they have a copy of your keyword policy and are also following it. This can help keep you out of legal trouble you didn’t go looking for because some agency decided to be aggressive with their keyword research.
How trademark law will be applied online is still being shaped. There have been many lawsuits and there will be many more. Just because you are following search engine policy does not mean you cannot be sued – it just means the search engine may approve your keywords or ads.
Search engine trademark policies are still being created. As laws emerge and the courts rule, the engines will adjust their policies. Just because you follow all the rules does not mean your ads and keywords will be approved. It will give you a better chance of having the keywords and ads approved.
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
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