AdWords API Help – Local Database Sync
November 9, 2008
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:
Ads were already normalized by position - Stop Freaking Out!
November 3, 2008
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.
Use Demographic Targeting to Reach Your Customers in New Ways
October 28, 2008
I’m a little late in posting this. My latest Search Engine Land column was published while I was away on vacation in Europe.
It shows how to combine the power of demographic targeting with the targeting of AdWords to create some really targeted campaigns.
Hope you enjoy it.
Use Demographic Targeting to Reach Your Customers in New Ways
From Google – Paid clicks more likely to convert
October 27, 2008
Google and Compete did a joint retail study examining the role of search in retail, and they have a webinar about the findings.
One retail study they were involved with started that in 7 out of 8 categories they tested, paid clicks were 50% more likely to convert than organic clicks.
Personally, I’ve always felt paid should convert higher for two reasons:
- You get to choose your keywords. You can show in natural results for terms unrelated to your products/services. For paid, the relevance should be higher.
- Many consumers know they are ads. Often we click on natural when we’re surfing/researching, and ads when we’re more in the mood for buying or researching a future purchase.
If you are in the retail industry (or a paid search manager), the webinar is definitely worth watching.
The note above about the conversions comes on the ‘Key Findings’ slide if you’d like to jump to that point and listen. Then jump to the slide ‘Paid clicks are more likely to convert’ to view the chart.
Local Info
The other chart that most of us involved in local will be interested in is the ‘In-store purchases’ near the end of the presentation. “Up to 43% of of online shoppers purchase in-store”. That number changes a lot depending on who you are talking to; however, this study does show a chart of in-store purchase percentage by a few verticals, which is useful.
Affiliate & Retail Info
Slide ‘many people click now and buy later’ shows a chart of how much time occurs between initial search and purchase time. It’s common to see one to two weeks pass. If you’re an affiliate with a same day or one week cookie, this is important to understand in your driving traffic to a site where you might not gain the commission.
The Actual Study
It’s an adobe webinar so you will need flash installed to view it:
Google retail industry webinar.
Microsoft adCenter Resources
October 24, 2008
I don’t talk about adCenter very often; however, Microsoft has a strong PPC platform that is worth testing to see how your ads perform.
Microsoft launched a learning center for adCenter recently.
adCenter has a fantastic community site.
I’m also a fan of their analytics solution. Here’s some screenshots and a review I wrote up about adCenter analytics earlier this year.
Give adCenter a Try When..
Most PPC marketers start with Google, add Yahoo when they max out Google, and then add Microsoft when both of those are maxed out.
If you’re a small business managing your own account and not spending a lot of money; that might be the way to go (time is money).
However, if you are a dedicated PPC manager, or a business with a high spend, or a high percentage of your client recruitment from search - you should test out adCenter to determine your returns. You might want to move a slice of the Yahoo/Google budget to Microsoft permanently. The one thing about adCenter is they know they are the small player, have engaged the community exceptionally well, and have done many things right in helping people to transition accounts to adCenter.
Other Microsoft adCenter Resources:
- Excel plug-in (easy keyword research tool)
- Bulk upload your account (you can use AdWords Editor exports to make this simple)
- Microsoft adLabs – If you’ve never visited this site, use your Friday afternoon to learn some new (and fantastic) tools.
13 Sites to Jumpstart Your Keyword Research
October 21, 2008
I recently wrote about the simplest way to jumpstart your keyword research. First, read that post. Secondly, come back and use these sites to examine the results.
- Your site
- Your top competitors site
- Thesaurus.com
- Ask.com
- The DMOZ page for your category
- The Yahoo Directory page for your category
- If you’re a location based business, try the local.com search results for your keywords
- Is the number one page/site in the organic results related to your keywords?
- If yes, spider for keywords
- If no, spider for negative keywords
- Google News or Yahoo News. Do a search for your keyword first (this one might not be around forever. Google doesn’t normally let their results get spidered)
- The top authority magazine’s or newspaper site in your industry.
- The sites where you get your news about your industry
- Any sites you regularly watch for information about your industry
- If it’s one of your industry resources, spider it for new keywords
Keyword Confusion - Do your keywords describe more than just your product?
October 16, 2008
While the word ‘bleach’ often conjures up images of housewives doing laundry, the number one demographic that searches for this word is an 18-24 year old male.
Ever heard of Japanese magna? Bleach is one of the top shows.
There are times when our keywords describe more than a single topic. It’s important to examine those keywords to determine what to do with them. In many cases, you’ll want to write something more specific in the ad copy to clarify the different. Other times, you may wish to change the keyword matching options and use more negative keywords.
In the case of bleach, one ad copy could call out Clorox; while another one talks about selling DVDs. Someone learning more about bleach’s effect on clothing is probably not in the mood to buy a magna DVD.
How do we find out this information?
Demographic Prediction
A great tool to start with is Microsoft adLabs Demographic Prediction Tool.
In adLabs demographic prediction tool, the ‘general distribution’ describes the audience who use MSN search. The ‘Predicted Distribution’ is Microsoft’s prediction of what demographics will search for that particular query.
Organic Results
Not only are organic results are a great way to kick off your keywords research, but a quick search on Google would let the people at Clorox know there is a problem as every single top result is about anime or magna.
What can be more useful than a Google search result, it a Ask.com result that has information about narrowing down your query. If you had done the same ‘bleach’ query on Ask – you can see there are differences between anime and Clorox.
Filtering Out the Noise
The issues is that if you are advertising for either Clorox or Bleach anime, you want to make sure you’re only being shown on appropriate keywords. One of the best ways to start is by using the AdWords keyword tool.
You can use these results to find negative keywords so your ad is only displayed on more appropriate search results.
The other technique is to use very explicit ad copies:
| Clorox Bleach Turn your clothes whiter than when they were new. Clorox.com |
Bleach DVDs Season 3 now on Sale. Only $24.99 Bleach DVDs.com |
Don’t Confuse the Searcher
In order to have high converting landing pages, you must meet the expectations of searchers.
When searcher’s can be confused by results, or your keywords can describe other industries, follow these simple steps:
- Examine your keywords
- Examine their meanings
- Use negatives to filter out the noise
- Use ad copy to pre-qualify the keyword’s meaning (or the searcher’s intent)
Don’t just give up on the traffic – as with everything else – optimize towards what you can control.
Q&A - Should I use both Google Analytics and AdWords Conversion Tracker?
October 14, 2008
Yes! Please! I often survey attendees of an AdWords Seminar, and a common theme often emerges.
- Most of the audience uses Google Analytics.
- Most of the audience does not use the AdWords conversion tracker.
They are different tools that should be used differently.
AdWords Conversion Tracking
The AdWords conversion tracker just tracks conversions. You can define a conversion in many different ways (sale, lead form, page view) etc. You can define different conversions within the same account. Once you’ve enabled conversion tracking, you can run reports to see performance statistics by keyword, ad group, campaign, ad copy, landing page, content sites, etc by different conversion types (what keywords lead to contacts vs. shopping cart checkouts).
AdWords conversion tracking passes that stats back to your AdWords account so you can easily access all you conversion information cross referenced with your AdWords data within the single AdWords reporting interface. This is a huge timesaver.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an analytics system. It will give you more information than you need to know about your site and visitors. You can easily define goals (conversions) within your analytics account. Google Analytics will tell you about visitors to your site that came from other sources than AdWords. You can view browser, screen resolution, referring site info, and your AdWords account within Analytics (as well as hundreds of other data points).
Like AdWords conversion tracking, analytics should be used to make decisions. Whenever you decide to implement analytics, the first question you should ask is ‘What information do I need to know to get my job done well?’. You can ask that of the design, marketing, and other departments within your organization. Then look for an analytics solution that fits your needs.
For most small businesses, Google Analytics will fit that need. If you need to make real time decisions, then it will not meet your needs.
However, it is much more difficult to extract data such as what content sites are sending you converting traffic from your Analytics account. From within the AdWords conversion tracker – it’s easy. From Analytics – incredibly difficult.
Use Both Google Analytics and the AdWords Conversion Tracker
Assuming you’re willing to use Google Analytics, and it gives you the data you need to perform your job – then you should use them both. Since these two tools perform different functions, you need a tool for each function. Neither are difficult to install, and the data can be invaluable for increase your website’s effectiveness.
AdWords Conversion Tracking Resources:
- Video: Setting up conversion tracking (watch this first)
- Setting up AdWords conversion tracker FAQs
- PDF guide to setting up AdWords conversion tracking
- Troubleshooting conversion tracking
Q&A - Why should I only use one country per campaign?
October 7, 2008
This is a very common question, and one that’s often addressed in the AdWords Seminar. The answer to the question resolves around how you use your reporting statistics for further optimization.
If you run a campaign targeted to the UK, Canada, US, and Australia (a very common thing to see), and after a month you have these stats:
- CTR: 5%
- Conversion rate: 5%
- CPC: $2
What do you do next? Where are your ads doing well?
If you had this data:
| Australia | Canada | US | UK | |
| CTR | 10% | 3% | 5% | 1% |
| Conversion Rate | 6% | 1.5% | 1% | 12% |
| Cost Per Click | $5 | $2 | $10 | $0.25 |
Suddenly, you can make much better decisions.
- The UK converts well, and is the cheapest click, but has a much lower CTR – work on raising that CTR.
- The US CPC is way too high compared to the others and the conversion rate, lower the CPC.
- Do the math on Australia, with a high CPC, but a nice conversion rate, it might be an OK campaign.
The more granular you can view the data, the better decisions you can make.
And I didn’t even mention the most obvious question, how do you spell ‘color’ or ‘colour’ in your ad copy? Every area has a different belief system and different ways they react to words. You can’t test well for different geographies if you don’t have the data to work with.
There are some reasons to start bundling countries; however, a good general rule of thumb: target just one country per campaign.
AdWords Quality Score now uses Geographic Signals
October 2, 2008
Google has updated their information on Quality Score to now include geographic information. This has long been a part of the ‘other relevancy factors’; so it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.
At present, it’s only used in calculating the quality score for search.
Essentially, Google is looking to see how your account performs in different geographies. At present, this factor is listed to be used at the account level. Hopefully, it will eventually be moved to the campaign level, which is where you can actually specify different geographies.
This should help small businesses who are targeting very locally.
It should also help those who are tightly focusing their keywords and ad copy around specific geographies. You should use one campaign per country at a minimum (another post coming on that soon).
I’ve updated the Quality Score Factors Chart to also include the new geographic information.
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:
Las Vegas Seminar Monday, November 17th
Washington DC area Seminar Tuesday, December 2nd
Houston Seminar Thursday, December 4th
Learn More about the Seminars:
Seminar Information
Official Google Seminar Page
Suggest a new city
Brad Geddes
Leslie Clark
Other Memberships
