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Are You still Yellow about Google Local?

It happened again yesterday…

…It appeared in my driveway, inches from the curb and the rushing water from the continued storms. I wondered how many died for it to be brought to me? How many trees were being destroyed to make something little cumbersome yellow different typical? Of course I am talking about the yellow hole that sucks the life out of small businesses, intimidating them into believing that if you aren’t yellow you should be afraid not to be, because your competition is.

Seriously, when was the last time you went into your phone book to look something up? It was to find a restaurant coupon wasn’t it? Unless you are looking to have a furnace from the 1970’s serviced there really seems to be no need to consult the book forged from fear of a competitive disadvantage.

Here is the alternative:

Instead of paying thousands of dollars for an unknown number of people to view your ad spend your efforts on having an awesome Google Local listing instead. With Google Local you can set up the listing for free. There are a lot of features that can allow you to have a great web presence without even having a web site. Then spend the money you would have spent on the yellow ad on taking out your ten best customers for a great dinner. Just ask them that in return they leave a review of your business on your local listing. The testimonial will be worth way more than the dinner, and you can also pick your customers brains for what they think you can do to improve. And sell nothing. remember the dinners purpose, get the testimonials. If you are really savy, bring a video camera and take short clips of customers raving about you, then connect the videos on YouTube and your listing.

If your business hasn’t seen a provable conversion from the yellow intimidator don’t keep throwing money at it because that is what you think is part of doing business. Instead spend the money on your customers or employees and your returns will greatly outperform the big book of one line text ads.

How much Data is Best for Split-Testing Ad Copy

When trying to decide what ad copy is most effective in moving a viewer to a click, to a conversion each step of the equation offers it’s unique input into what drives a viewer of an ad to convert.

Step 1: Impression to Click

The almighty click through rate, CTR, has been regarded by pay per click marketers across the industry as the primary focus of PPC performance. Since this metric supposedly weighs heavy in the computation of the AdWords quality score it seems many marketers have no problem driving up high click through traffic even if it does not convert.
Impression to click is really the least important factor in determining the success of the bottom line of the purpose of the campaign, to convert visitors to clients. CTR is most useful when determining the strength of headlines, but becomes less useful when testing description text and display url’s.

Step 2: Click to Conversion

Conversion rate is a metric many pay per click marketers just felt they didn’t need to pay attention to. When I first began researching and managing PPC accounts I was contracting for an agency in Boulder, CO and was told not to worry about conversions, that was the job of the Web team. The idea was that it was my job to get the people there and their job to make them convert. What happened is a lot of traffic that was generated was not even qualified, much less actually going to convert. Disconnected data led to bad results.
By taking an integrated approach to Interactive design, Creative content, and Search marketing an environment is created in which departments consult with each other about the data collected and collaborate on implementing the best solution.

First, the importance of setting a baseline for when there is enough data to do the analysis is necessary. I draw the line at a thousand search network impressions. It is important to draw this line in the sand and stick to it. By knowing I have adequate quality data to analyze I can be confident that the conclusions I draw will provide the optimizations needed to continue to improve performance.

Where were you at in 2001

First, Congrats to Google for their 10th birthday!

A lot has changes on the landscape of Google’s results page since 2001, from the logo to the results the difference is striking. Back in 2001 I hadn’t become engrossed in the Internet like I am today. Robert Gniadecki, a world leading cancer researcher, was still the dominant result for a search of my last name.

So where were you at in 2001 on Google?  This look back is a really cool toy to play with and reminisce. Take a look and see where you were at, and be amazed at how far Google has come.

Google Politics - Two Party Betas

From day one of the 2008 political primaries the use of the Internet has had a huge effect on the results and communication of the candidates message. With Barack Obama using leading the web in search, and John McCain leading in Paid Search it is no wonder that Google is using the political season as yet another way to test some new products in Google Labs.

“In Quotes” compares the candidates views on issues side by side. The idea here is to let the searcher know who said what, and how the candidates differ side by side. The applications of this feature beyond politics aren’t part of the test, but I am sure many B2B buyers would love to use this feature to compare possible competing vendors.

“GAudi” or Google Audio Indexing begins the real connection between Google and YouTube as the search giant tries it’s had at audio indexing. Anyone who has tried any of the image or video searches by any search engine knows they are typically unreliable. If Google can get it right with YouTube, perhaps users could expect an improvement in non-text based search technology.

Now if only they indexed the third-party candidates like the Libertarians and the Green Party this may actually bring some real progress to politics and voters knowledge base. But just because Google says that they are looking to improve user experience doesn’t mean they don’t have a vested interest in towing the Republicrat line. After all, with the Yahoo! ad deal on the table they just aren’t looking to really give great information, just a beta.

What Percentage of Marketing should be Search Marketing?

Currently the portion of the advertising budget being spent on search marketing has been increasing much faster than other advertising forms, and for many businesses it is difficult to gauge what percentage of their media spend should be allocated to search. From 2006 to 2007 ad spend on Search advertising increaded by almost 19% according to Neilsen’s. In December of last year ComScore reported the top five search engines had increased their share by 15%, totaling almost 100% of search queries. So the traffic is becoming limited to a few lanes, and reaching it has become even easier for advertisers.
But what percentage of media budget is usually spent on search? Sources vary greatly, but it breaks down that in the US search budget for an average company is about 11% of their marketing budget. Dies this mean that 11% needs to be your budget, no. What it is is a starting point, from which to begin the discussion of what id the best way to spend your marketing budget as a small business.

With over 99% of search moving through five search engines it is then good to start by looking to gain exposure across all five of these engines. Too many small business owners go with Google because they are the largest, and figure if they have budget left over they will expand to the others. Start with all five, the upfront costs may be a little higher, but the wider range of data and the lower price points of the #2-#5 engines makes it well worth the investment.

According to ComScore the US search share for July 2008 breaks down like this:
#1 Google @ 61.9% (up .4%)
#2 Yahoo @ 20.5% (down .4%)
#3 MSN @ 8.9% (down .3%)
#4 AOL @ 4.5% (up .2%)
#5 Ask @ 4.2% (up .1%)

By breaking down the total search budget by these same ratios a business can make the most informed choice as to where they will get the best ROI, and a positive first impression of search marketing.

AdWords can take it to the Street

One of the biggest competitive advantages that Google’s AdWords platform has over the competitors is

the ability to really fine tune geo targeting.  Lets face it, Chicago is a huge city, with a massive number of residents and neighborhoods. Many businesses thrive, only serving a small geographic area within this large city, or DMA.

With AdWords it is possible to very finely tune the geographic targeting of a campaign, allowing local advertisers to enter into the PPC market with confidence that the traffic they pay for is not in an area they do not serve.

Knowing exactly where ads are going to appear lets advertisers not only target the areas they wish to, but it also allows very specific copy to be written. By knowing exactly where the target audience is advertisers can utilize local terms in ad copy to give the local searcher the best information.

Recently Ask.com included geographic targeting in their advertising platform. Unfortunately, it mimics all the other second tier PPC platforms in that the finest tuning an advertiser can do is to a DMA. If the second tier platforms want to compete with Google they must also give advertisers what we want…          … more ability to fine tune and target.

Can Google NBC Alliance Shed New Light on TV Viewers?

Google began a private beta of Google TV Ads last summer, and released it to the public in May.  However, for many agencies and advertisers tracking held them back from trying the distribution service. By adding tracking through Analytics to Google TV Ads in June the Internet Info-product marketers jumped in. I’m sure you saw more than one commercial from a crazy fox selling you the latest Internet get-rich-quick-scheme. But seeing as the system itself and offering have both been in the development stage traditional advertisers have shied away from Google TV Ads.

At the beginning of September Google and NBC announced a partnership involving several of NBC’s cable networks and Google’s TV Ads Platform. On the surface this looks lke Google just trying to offer broader TV choices to advertisers, and NBC looking to pick up falling ad revenue.

Really what this is all about is data, accountability, and Google trying to develop the same level of real time information for traditional media outlets as it currently has with the AdWords Platform. One of the first steps in their partnership is to work with the service provider Dish Network to more precisely measure viewer activity through tracking with the subscriber’s set top receiver.

Also in the works, is to work toward local targeting of ads through this network as well. Google and NBC intend to work together to increase the information advertisers can receive about viewers, increasing the advertiser’s and agency’s ability to optimize advertising campaigns.

Dynamic Keyword Insertion is Soooooo 2003

Whenever I hear someone who is new to writing AdWords ad copy they inevitably mention great “tricks” they learned from whatever “guru’s” course they took, I know Perry Marshall is responsible for many people using this technique in the worst possible ways. The first one to always come up is dynamic keyword insertion.

Here is what dynamic keyword insertion is physically: {keyword:alternate text}

So you search for “local laundry service”

And see the ad:

Buy local laundry service
Best deals on local laundry service
Limited quantities. Buy Today.
www.store.com/local_laundry_service

I went little overboard, but it illustrates the point. You have seen ads like these, where they use the insertion only once, and you have laughed because it was so irrelevant to what you had searched for. I had heard they were so effective from so many sources that I agreed to do it for one client who had been suggesting it for months, to my resistance. Upon testing we discovered a higher CTR, corresponding to an increased bounce rate, lower conversion rate, and higher cost per conversion.

I have not used dynamic keyword insertion since. I find that it is much easier to properly structure an AdWords account so that each ad group is so finely focused that filling in the 25 character headline at least 2/3 of those characters will be the keyword that every phrase in the ad group has in common. Dynamic keyword really is an effective trick, a trick by the platforms on advertisers who just run for the click, no matter who is doing the clicking. It’s not 2003 anymore, It’s time to think past the click, consider the conversation you are having with prospects, and use your best semantic judgment to design a quality account and not just use a bunch of cheezy tricks.

Virtual Location in Paid Search Marketing

Of the many factors of virtual location placement in paid search advertising platforms continues to be one of the most popular ways for tightly niched and small businesses to gain the attention of prospects. The numbers are obvious every time ComScore releases them, Google is squarely sitting on top of search. So for many businesses, Google is the obvious choice for getting your feet wet in paid search marketing.

However, many small businesses or regional players stop there, intimidated by the additional setup time required to even duplicate the same basic structure and keywords over multiple platforms. Some solve this problem by relying on a program in which they are able to manage campaigns across multiple platforms in one interface. I have found that these programs generally are not as robust as the actual ad platforms interface, resulting in less control over ads served. It is better to take the time to set up each campaign correctly and appropriately in each platform than to loose features provided by a platform in order to make bidding modifications easier, or automatic.

When it comes to location, one is just never enough. With Google nearing 60% of the search traffic, where is the other 40% going? Still more than 20% are going to Yahoo, with just over 9% using MSN, and near 5% for AOL and Ask respectively. That is 39% of the 40% accounted for. With this type of concentration, search marketers can use initial Google performance data to optimize campaigns as they are set up across the hand-full of players in the search placement sandbox. The users of each engine are also have distinct differences. By seeing how the differences in users effects campaigns across different search engines we are able to optimize budgets and placements to be sure clients’ virtual location align with their locational strategy and branding.

Defining Semantic Judgement

I’ve started talking recently about semantic judgement, and the effects of having it, on PPC marketing. So what exactly do I mean by semantic judgement? Do a search for “semantic judgement on Google” and most of what you see is academics dealing with the learning process in children, intelligence, and special needs individuals…          …and someone who picked up my previous post on the topic.

 

Semantic Judgement - The process of intelligently discerning the multiplicity of meanings of words and phrases to organize massive amounts of keywords or information in a way that identifies the commonalities, differences, and cross-over between the categories and classifications of terms.

 

That’s it. It may seem like a bunch of academia but break it down and it all seems so simple.

It’s not. I will be posting each Monday with tips on developing semantic judgement and what to look for in a PPC manager that is essential to your success.

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