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
What Yahoo’s New Minimum Bid Means To You & When conversions outdo Sphinns
May 4, 2008
My newest article at Search Engine Land came out last Monday. It’s about what the new Yahoo minimum bid means your PPC campaigns.
I spent more time writing this article that almost any I’ve done in the past year. I had access to Yahoo decks, Yahoo PDFs, and Yahoo employees when I wrote this, and really tried to check the accuracy of everything as this is such a new change.
What I found fascinating was that while this column only produced 3 Sphinns; I received 34 contacts via my blog about the story. I think that falls somewhere in the top 20 ever received by this blog from a single post within a week (and it wasn’t even linked to from my blog - the only way to find this blog from the article is in the author section at the bottom of the article).
Sometimes social media looks like one thing (3 Sphinns is very little), while the results can be far different (I consider 34 contacts exceptionally high). Normally when my stories end up on social media sites, I receive very little comments, so I found this quite fascinating as it’s far from the norm that I see.
Enjoy the article, it’s worth reading as this is a change to the philosophy of minimum bids.
Short Descriptions Finally go Live on Yahoo
June 21, 2007
The YSM blog has been putting out warnings for some time that Yahoo would go to all short descriptions.
It seems today is that day.
Starting today, ads that appear in U.S. Yahoo! Search results with descriptions longer than 70 characters will be cut off (â€truncatedâ€) at the nearest complete word, followed by an ellipsis. The optional 190-character long descriptions may still be displayed on some of our distribution partners’ sites.
If you haven’t gone through your Yahoo Panama account and created short descriptions, you definitely should. Yahoo will automatically truncate your ads, and when the ads are truncated, you are losing control of your marketing message.
As an advertiser, one of your top priorities should be controlling your message.
More information from Yahoo on how to change your ads.
Some info about ad description writing.
Yahoo Rolls out Quality Based Pricing
June 12, 2007
Yahoo recently rolled out Quality Based Pricing.
Essentially, this says that not all clicks from the content network are created equal, and therefore, they advertisers should pay a different price based upon the quality of that click.
What’s interesting is Yahoo is saying they are using conversion data as one of the data points (there are others) in determining this pricing.
For those familiar with AdWords, it’s very similar to the AdWords Discounter.
Yahoo Offering Free Consultation for Panama Upgrades
February 11, 2007
Yahoo is sending out emails offering custom assistance for Panama upgrades. What’s interesting is that I received these emails even for a small account spending under $20 per month and another account which hasn’t been active in over two years.
There seem to be two subject lines that they are using:
- Need Help Restructuring Your Account?
- Call us Today to Help Restructure Your Account
If you need custom help understanding the upgrade or restructuring the account, Yahoo seems quite eager to help at present.
Here’s the email I’m receiving:
Dear Advertiser,
Our records show that you recently upgraded to the new Sponsored Search system. During the upgrade, your account was reorganized to match our new account structure, which we believe provides you with more flexibility to help manage your campaigns.
We know that not every customer is satisfied with the results of their upgrade and would like some help. If that’s you, as a valued customer, we’d like to offer a complimentary, one-time assistance with the restructuring of your upgraded account.*
This offer includes:
- Phone consultation of how you would like to reorganize your account
- Helpful advice on how to best structure your account
- Upload of your restructured account
Once you agree on how you’d like your account restructured, we’ll do the work and then we will upload the information to your account. Please note that your account will be taken offline after the upload, until you review the changes and put your account back online. You will be notified via email to log into your account, review the new structure and set your account status back to “On.” This entire process should be completed within approximately 5 business days after the consultation. However, the process time may vary depending on the complexity of your account.
If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, please contact us at [phone number removed].
Also, make sure to review our Quick Start Guide to get helpful information on the new system. Thank you for your business and we’re committed to helping you be successful.
Sincerely,
Your Partners at Yahoo! Search Marketing
Random Notes on Yahoo Panama
February 6, 2007
I sat through a Yahoo Panama seminar today and dug into some of the quality score algo and other information about need to know items on Panama.
Here are some rough notes about the new system:
There is an import process where you can upload your Google AdWords account and make it into a Panama account.
Accounts and campaigns have budgets. An account budget by default is off. If you ever enable an account budget, you can never disable it again (however, you could set an account budget to a million dollars a day if you wanted an unlimited spend).
An account budget can be lower than all of the campaigns combined (Why can’t Google have this feature?).
If you are using Yahoo’s conversion tracking system, you will want to update the code. Upon updating the code (or getting a new code) if you’re not sure if you want total stats or regular stats - choose regular stats. You can update to total stats, you can’t downgrade to regular stats.
If you never updated your ad curatives from 190 to 70 characters; its time. With the new ad ranking algos, you’ll want a bit more control over your ads.
The keyword and ad intersection is where quality score lives. Yahoo displays the ad’s quality score. They do not display the keyword quality score. This will be the subject of a much longer and detailed post.
Yahoo says more general ads do better (from a click through standpoint) than more specific ads on the content network.
Local search accounts will be migrated last. Local search accounts are going away. If it’s easy to map the location to a DMA, the account will be changed to the appropriate DMA (geographic targeting). If the account cannot be easily mapped - Yahoo will contact the advertiser.
An AdGroup can have up to 20 ads.
Content match is bid at the AdGroup level.
You can have a campaign which is only content match (or only search).
Reports are generally 1-3 hours behind real time.
Check your accounts time zone, that’s where you are seeing your stats.
You can choose not to show your ads to other continents (more on this later - it’s a cool feature) regardless of the search.
One can set permission levels on a login (administrator, campaign manager, etc); however, one cannot yet see changes by login.
You can now change your password without having to contact Yahoo.
If a keyword didn’t get a click in 13 months or an impression in the last 17 months - the keyword will not be migrated from your old account to your Panama account.
You can set a campaign’s start date to be in the future. You can set a campaign end date. This is useful for making sure all of your ads are approved before your campaigns start date. Very useful for time-sensitive campaigns (FYI - this could be done with Google bulk uploads, but now that those are going away - Google needs to follow Yahoo on this one).
Hope that was useful. More details to come.
Yahoo Panama Keyword Tool Allows For Site Spidering
February 6, 2007
One of my favorite keyword tools is the Google AdWords keyword tool that lets an advertiser spider one’s site. This functionality is useful in finding high quality score keywords, understanding what Google thinks a page is about, etc.
Yahoo Panama keyword tool now has similar functionality.
In the Yahoo Search Marketing keyword tool, one has several options:
- The typical ‘find related keywords’Â
- Look for words from a particular URL
- When searching for keywords, one can specify which words those phrases must contain
- When searching for keywords, specify which words must not be included
One must input three keywords that Yahoo will use as it’s ’seed’ keywords. In other words, these are keywords that you can find related keywords to, or if you are using site spidering (find keywords from a particular URL) it helps Yahoo to narrow down what it finds on your site.
However; what if you want Yahoo to spider your webpage and bring back results regardless of what you wish to filter by?
It’s easy - use blank spaces as a keyword.
Essentially, Yahoo’s only verification is that a character has been entered. It doesn’t care about the spelling, that it’s a space, etc - they just care something was entered.
Below is a screenshot of the input functions.
I inputted my Free AdWords Keyword research ebook (which I think will finally be update in the next couple of weeks) into the tool, and was presented with this information:
Now, because this is a blog and has recent articles, there are a lot of poor keyword choices such as ‘hotel Denver’ and ‘Chicago’. Therefore, I inputted the phrases ‘marketing’; ‘AdWords’; and ‘advertising’ to see what would be presented.
These seem a bit too general. So, what to do next?
Use the ‘refine feature’. This I do like quite a bit. You can tell Yahoo what words are relevant and what aren’t relevant and then the keyword tool will refine your results based upon your input.
Overall, Yahoo’s keyword tool is decent. It’s defiantly better research than their old interface tools. I still think Google’s is better at present; however, this is large strides for Yahoo and I can only hope to expect more of this in the future.
As Yahoo goes towards more quality score, this tool will be more useful in finding out what Yahoo thinks about your page. If you want to expand your keyword research, its also a good place for some expansion.
It is still a tool. The major effort first comes from brainpower.
Note: I’m currently sitting in a Yahoo seminar about Panama right now which is pretty good. I’ll post random useful notes later.
Yahoo Misses ‘Panama’ PPC Launch
July 19, 2006
The new features of Yahoo Search Marketing’s Panama project have been widely discussed and speculated upon. Terry Semel made it public yesterday that the launch of the new system will be delayed until Q4.
It seems that many inside Yahoo have been as uncertain of the launch dates as those outside of Yahoo. No wonder they’re are not many answers. We’ve already had several conference calls with Yahoo about the new API, new interface, new features, etc - and had always been led to believe that August 15th was the launch date. In fact, I had heard that launch date as far back as Q1 of this year.
It seems Yahoo set an aggressive date, tried to keep that date both publicly and internally, and then in the end - just couldn’t hit it.
Yahoo shares fell yesterday after they failed to meet ad sales expectations (and for your internet PPC geeks, many of their sales are CPM based, they have one of the best CPM behavioral buys around). The new Panama system will increase Yahoo’s inventory and profitability - something they sorely need as shares fell after the news was made public.
More Information:
- Yahoo’s Analyst Day Information
- Yahoo’s Rumored New Features
- Stock Ticker: YHOO Information
- What is all this PPC Stuff?
Yahoo Search Marketing’s New Features
July 6, 2006
Here’s a quick summary of what to expect from the new Yahoo Search Marketing capabilities. The US launch will occur in q3 of 06 with the first accounts being transitioned around August 15th. The international transition will occur in q1 of 07.
A full API with sandbox is available for Yahoo API users.
Account Organization
- Master Accounts
- Individual Accounts (unlimited)
- Campaigns (max 100)
- Ad Groups (max 1000 per campaign)
- Keywords (max 1000 per AdGroup)
- 50k-250k keywords per account
- Dynamic Keyword Insertion into titles or descriptions
Bidding
- Will utilize a quality index
- Placement will be based on CTR and Quality Index scoring
- Quality index will be made up of many factors including, ad copy and keyword history
- Quality index will be shown in the account similar to the current 1-5 rating (green bar) one currently sees.
- Competitor bids will be shown (similar to the current system)
- Composite quality index and keyword bid will not be displayed
Tools
- Forecasting
- Will have forecasting tools which include clicks, impressions, and position
- Keyword research tools
Additional Capabilities
- Geo Targeting - US & Uk only to start
- Keyword Research Tools
- Keyword research estimates
- Related keyword tool
Info on YSMs New Interface & Features
May 10, 2006
FYI - Can’t share most of my info about the new product, however, I can show mass emails that Yahoo sent out about their new YSM update.
The New Sponsored Search is Coming
Better Ways to Connect with Customers Will Make Your Advertising More Effective
You’ve told us your needs and we’ve listened. A completely redesigned search marketing platform is on its way, full of advanced, easy-to-use features that will help you better connect with Yahoo!’s vast and valuable audience.
As part of creating these enhancements, we met with advertisers of all sizes to hear first-hand the things they liked and didn’t like about Sponsored Search. We extensively reviewed all parts of our service, including the design, features and tools. The result of these efforts is the new Sponsored Search, which will make its debut this Fall.
Powerful New Features
The new features that will make advertising with Yahoo! better and more effective include:
- Easy-to-Use Control Panel
A completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what’s working and what’s not–at the level of detail you choose–so you can take action and get even better results.
- Fast Ad Activation
Most new ads will go online within minutes, allowing you to connect with customers quickly, and easily make changes to your ads whenever you need to.
- Ad Testing
Easily test multiple versions of an ad to find the message that works best for your customers and provides the greatest return on your advertising investment. You can then choose to shift impressions to the ad that performs best.
- Geo-Targeting
Display your ads broadly or narrow your geographic distribution to better target your customers, customize your ads and control your costs.
- Campaign Budgeting, Forecasting and Scheduling
Create, budget and schedule individual advertising campaigns for greater control over your advertising strategy and spending. Review forecasts of your potential clicks based on your bids and budget and see how many clicks you’re leaving to your competitors.
- Visibility
Understand how well your ads are performing relative to your competitors with the new Quality Index displayed for each ad. You’ll also see the bid range necessary for premium placement at the top of the search results page.
- Easy-to-Use Control Panel
A completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what’s working and what’s not–at the level of detail you choose–so you can take action and get even better results.Thoroughly Tested and Reviewed by Your Peers
These new features have been rigorously tested by your fellow advertisers and refined over time to ensure that we delivered a service that successfully addresses the obstacles you currently face. Judging by the overwhelmingly positive feedback we’ve received, we are confident that the new Sponsored Search not only clears away those obstacles, but offers new and better ways to manage your account.Frequent and Detailed Communication with You
Beginning next month, we’ll begin to provide you with much more detailed information about all of the upcoming enhancements. To make your transition as smooth and easy as possible, we will provide:
- A series of emails with tips on how best to prepare your account
- In-depth articles on our new features in the advertiser newsletter
- A new Yahoo! Search Marketing blog–a community forum for tips, news and your comments, as well as the inside scoop from our own staff, to help you be more successful
- A dedicated toll-free phone number that will be available to you during your transition period, for any questions or concerns you may have
This is just the first step. After all advertisers have successfully transitioned to the new Sponsored Search, we plan to quickly introduce many more innovative products, features and tools that will give you even more ways to connect with customers.
As always, thank you for doing business with us. We look forward to delivering the new Sponsored Search to you later this year.
Google AdWords
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These seminars will educate advertisers on the creation and management of successful AdWords campaigns.
Upcoming Seminars:
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