Managed placement targeting on the Google AdWords content network is one of the most accurate and potentially profitable weapons in the PPC arsenal. Because this tactic is based solely on the content network, it’s often disregarded or ignored due to misplaced skepticism and widely accepted misinformation about the content network as a whole.

While I could wax poetic about the content network, today I’ll simply focus on tools and strategies for placement targeting that will lead you to greater PPC success!

What is Placement Targeting?

Google’s content network version 1.0 was a system that placed your ads on websites based on the theme of your keyword lists and your ad copy. There was no way to dictate specific sites you wanted to target, you could only block those sites that were not working. This system is still employed today, but now it’s called “Automatic Placements” in AdWords, and many advertisers refer to this as “keyword targeting” for content.

Content network 2.0 brought about placement targeting — labeled as “managed placements” in AdWords. This system allows you to pick specific websites that are a part of the content network and individually bid on those sites for placement. Because you’re hand-selecting the sites to place your ads on, you don’t use keywords for targeting purposes.

If managed properly, placement targeting is an effective way of leveraging the content network for pinpoint targeted traffic and conversions.

Fit Placement Targeting Into Your AdWords Strategy

Finding success with placement targeting requires a shift in strategy from traditional content network targeting. The first step to doing this is to literally fit placement targeting into your AdWords strategy:

1. If you haven’t done so already, create separate campaigns for search network and content network targeting. This is PPC 101, but I’m offering up this reminder just in case.
2. Now take it one step farther — separate your content network efforts into unique campaigns for “managed” (placement targeting) and “automatic” (keyword targeting). You can alter these settings at the campaign level using the check boxes seen here:

Tools for Finding Relevant Sites to Target

• Placement Performance Reports: The first place to look for finding websites for your placement targeting campaign is already in your AdWords account! If you’ve been running automatic, keyword-targeted content campaigns, you have a goldmine of performance data. Run the placement performance report and create a list of those sites that are performing best and add those to your new placement targeting campaign.
• Google AdWords Placement Tool: Google provide a powerful tool to search their internal database of available Content Network sites in AdWords under the Opportunities tab (see image below). You can search either by keyword(s) or by entering a website that Google will crawl and use to find relevant sites. When performing keyword searches, limit your search to a single keyword if possible. Multiple-keyword searches with this tool tends to confuse Google and generates muddled results. No matter how you search, make sure you review the sites you choose to target to ensure they are relevant (yes, Google is not perfect).
• Auxiliary Tools: Placement targeting has generated a cottage industry of tools to find sites to target. Some of my favorites are Shoemoney Tools’ AdSense Crawler, The Placement Locator, and Content Bully.

No matter how you find websites for content network placement targeting, play it smart. Set reasonable CPC bids and monitor your performance. Ultimately, by taking the power of the content network into your own hands, you stand the chance to boost click traffic and increase relevant, affordable conversions.

Originally posted May 28, 2010 on searchenginewatch.com.

Learn more about advertising on Google’s Display Network – download David Szetela’s book free!

PPC bidding strategies come in many shapes and sizes. Manual CPC bidding is what most people use; other options include CPA and CPM bidding.

Google AdWords also offers Position Preference bidding. If you want your ads to appear in a specific position, or range of positions, Google can adjust your maximum CPC bid to do just that. Let’s go over why position preference is useful, how to set it up and how to avoid missing click and conversion opportunities when running position preference.

Why Use Position Preference?

With all of the bidding options available, why would anyone want to use position preference? Well, there are a few good reasons:

• Over time, it frequently becomes apparent that some keywords convert best in a specific position. Position preference can aid in ranking your keywords in positions that are most cost-effective. (One caveat: if you use automated bid management, then ROAS or CPA bid rules would be more effective than position preference bidding.)
• Brand advertisers often seek to dominate the top ad positions for their branded keywords, and can use position preference bidding to force their ads into the #1 spot.

Setting Up Position Preference Bidding

The position preference bidding option is turned on and off at the campaign level. Note, however, that control over position preference is managed at the keyword level!

Go to your campaign settings and find the “Bidding and Budget” section. Position preference is a plus box – click the “On” option:

With position preference turned on for your campaign, you can move on to selecting specific keywords within any ad group in that campaign. Since position preference automatically uses your maximum CPC bid, you only need to select the position range in which you want your ad to appear. Go to the Keywords tab in your campaign and you will see a new column labeled Pos. Pre. Your keywords will be listed as “Any” in this new column until you update the Position Preference setting. Click on “Any” and you will see a yellow box appear with two drop down boxes to choose your position range. Click “Save” to apply the change to your keyword:

How Does Position Preference Bidding Work?

Here’s Google’s explanation:

Position preference helps you achieve your desired ad position in two ways. First, it attempts to show your ad only when its Ad Rank (maximum CPC x Quality Score) has placed it in the positions you select. Second, if the Ad Rank places the ad in a higher spot, position preference will discount your maximum CPC bid to move the ad into your desired range.

There are some very important things being said in those 3 sentences. Let me break it down.

• Your ad will only show in the specified position range if its Ad Rank has already placed it in the position range you specify. So for example, if you set a position preference of 2-4 and your Ad Rank is low enough that your ads are normally displayed no higher than position 5 – your ad will not show.
• If Ad Rank places your ad higher than your specified position range, AdWords will automatically adjust your bid to rank you lower. This is important to note sinces it is a signal from Google regarding position preference strategy. So set your position preference, but aim your bids high to ensure you hit the mark.

So if you are using position preference and not monitoring your performance carefully, there is a significant chance that you are missing out on potential impressions, clicks and conversions. Because of the risk of missed opportunities, advertisers who want to display their ads to every potential customer should use position preference at their own risk. If position preference is a tactic you want to use I recommend brushing up on your Quality Score improvement strategies and ensure that your Ad Rank is always high enough to rank you in your preferred position!

Have a question about position preference or want to add to this post? Leave me a comment!

by John A. Lee, Search Marketing Manager

Successful PPC management is all about proper targeting. The potential audience for a PPC ad is huge, but you want want to zero in on the right people who are ready to take action at the the moment they see your ad. One method for targeting users when they are most likely to take action is called Ad Scheduling.

The tactic is known as Ad Scheduling or Day Parting and it is available in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. As with all PPC tactics, Ad Scheduling should be approached with caution and a full understanding of how it works. If you know that customers convert higher (or don’t convert) at certain times of the day, you can either pause your campaigns or lower keyword bids during that time. This can save you money by not wasting budget when customers aren’t buying. At the other end of the spectrum, you can automatically increase bids when users are most likely to click and convert.

The single biggest mistake advertisers make is relying on their intuition to set up Ad Scheduling for PPC. Using real data is the only way to accurately schedule your ads around customer behavior. Google AdWords reporting doesn’t provide time-of-day conversion reporting. Though I should mention that Microsoft adCenter DOES! Advertisers also fail to recognize the many other potential downsides to Ad Scheduling. Advertisers often confuse or disregard time zones. Worse yet, many advertisers set Ad Scheduling and never revisit the data to make adjustments. Beyond generalities, each of the big three search engines handles Ad Scheduling in a different way and must be discussed and managed independently.

Google AdWords

In AdWords, to edit Ad Scheduling, go to your campaign settings and find the section labeled “Advanced Settings” and click the “Edit” link:

Once you click “Edit” you will be presented with a dialogue box showing the seven days of the week – each broken down into six, four hour segments. This dialogue box will allow you to simply pause your campaigns or to modify bids based on the time.

Here are the 6 things you need to know about Ad Scheduling in AdWords:

1. Very Important! All actions performed as a result of your Ad Scheduling settings will be based on your account’s time zone settings. If your account is set for the Eastern time zone and you target customers in California under the Pacific time zone that means there will be a 3 hour disparity in targeting. For example: if you choose to pause your campaigns from 8 pm to 8 am Eastern, that translates to 5 pm to 5 am Pacific. If Ad Scheduling is an absolute must for your PPC efforts, you will have to create unique campaigns for each time zone to be 100% accurate.
2. Ad Scheduling is set at the campaign level. All ad groups under that campaign will be governed by those rules. Plan your account structure accordingly.
3. Campaigns can be paused or have their bids raised/lowered in 15 minute blocks of time.
4. Bid changes are set as a percentage with Ad Scheduling. You tell Google that you are willing to pay X% more or Y% less for a click in the specified time range.
5. Ad Scheduling settings can be copied and pasted to other campaigns using AdWords Editor.
6. AdWords does not provide time-of-day reporting on conversions. You will need to utilize another data source to make decisions on Ad Scheduling. One potential option is Google Analytics.

Using Google Analytics to Create Time-of-Day Conversion Reports

Because Google (and Yahoo!) don’t provide hourly conversion reports, it is very important to access that data somewhere else. In this case, that somewhere else is Google Analytics. Once logged into Analytics, choose “Goals” from the left-hand navigation and then select “Total Conversions.” If you go with this report as-is, you will view all conversions regardless of the traffic source. So we need to focus on PPC. In the upper right-hand corner of your Analytics screen, look for the “Advanced Segments” button and click. Under “Default Segments” look for “Paid Search Traffic.”

Now that you are looking at PPC, you can move on to getting to the hourly conversion data. Select your date range and then look for the line that says “Graph by:”. Here you will find a clock. Click the clock icon and your “Total Conversions” report – segmented by “Paid Search Traffic” – will be laid out for you by time-of-day. This will be an accumulative total per-hour based on your time range.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

To be honest, Yahoo!’s Ad Scheduling functionality doesn’t differ greatly from the Google AdWords model. That being said – it differs in areas that are VERY handy for advertisers. Yahoo! also loosely refers to location, demographic and Ad Scheduling settings as “Targeting.” To access these settings in Yahoo!, click on the Campaigns tab and look for three small icons next to each campaign – a head, a globe and a clock. Of course, you’re looking for the clock:

Clicking the clock icon will instantly display that campaign’s Ad Scheduling settings. To modify, simply click “Edit.”

Remember the sticky situation with Google AdWords and time zones? Yahoo! has eliminated this concern by allowing advertisers to choose to A) target their time zone or B) target the audience’s time zone:

Here are 4 things you need to know about Yahoo!’s Ad Scheduling settings:

1. Yahoo! lets you choose whether Ad Scheduling is based on your time zone OR the time zone of the targeted audience.
2. In another crowd pleasing gesture, Yahoo! allows you to decide whether to manage Ad Scheduling at the campaign OR the ad group level. By default, it will be at the campaign level.
3. And to yet again set themselves apart from Google, Yahoo! allows you to modify bids by percentage OR price.
4. Yahoo! does not provide a time-of-day report for conversions. Use the instructions listed above for Google Analytics.

Microsoft adCenter

The Ad Scheduling capabilities of adCenter are effective, but decidedly less robust and more restrictive than those offered by either Google or Yahoo!. To access Ad Scheduling settings in adCenter from either a campaign or ad group, click on the “Change Settings” link. Under settings, find the box labeled “Additional Settings.” From here, find where it says “Target by time of day” and click “Edit”:

Microsoft adCenter will only let you pause or modify bids for your campaigns within preset blocks of time:

Here are 5 things you need to know about Ad Scheduling in Microsoft adCenter:

1. Microsoft will not let you choose a custom time range. You must choose from their preset blocks of time.
2. Ad Scheduling can be set at either the campaign OR ad group level.
3. Bid changes are set as a percentage only.
4. In adCenter, your Ad Scheduling settings are automatically applied to the audience’s time zone. You don’t get to choose. If you literally want your campaigns to shut off at a certain time for your time zone, but you target the entire US, than you will get really confused, really fast. In this scenario, you would likely have to geo-target different time zones in different campaigns or ad groups BEFORE setting up Day Parting.
5. Microsoft adCenter DOES provide a time-of-day report for conversions. Choose “Hour” as an attribute when building a custom report.

So there you have it. Ad Scheduling in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter isn’t overly complicated, but there are enough differences and pitfalls that it is easy to make mistakes. One important note I would leave you with today is that if you are in the habit of creating campaigns in Google AdWords and then copying them over to Yahoo! or Microsoft – take the extra time to modify your Ad Scheduling settings to account for each search engines’ differences.

Have a question about Ad Scheduling or know any good tips? Leave me a comment!

by John A. Lee, Search Marketing Manager

Last week, Google announced another round of changes for the AdWords interface. These updates mainly affected the AdWords dashboard under the Campaigns tab. In short, performance analysis tools that were previously scattered throughout the AdWords interface are now easily accessible directly from the dashboard.

Now included in the main campaign screen navigation are quick menus for segmenting your campaigns, filtering based on your own criteria, exporting the exact data you are viewing and even a quick link to the Change History tool (see the big red arrow below):

View Change History

This update doesn’t change the look of AdWords, but it is a major improvement for quickly and efficiently managing PPC campaigns. I’ll start with the Change History link. Typically speaking, when you need to review Change History, you have to click through the Reports tab, pick a date range and select the campaign or ad group you need to review. Now, when you click “View Change History” you will be taken to the Change History report with the data pre-segmented by the date range and campaign or ad group you were already viewing. Very handy and efficient.

Deleted Campaigns

Before this update, the ability to segment your campaigns by deleted status was sort of hidden. There used to be a link on the far right hand side that said “Filter Views.” From there you could sort by “All Enabled” or “All” or “All But Deleted.” Now you don’t have to search for it. Reading left-to-right, click the first button that says “All but Deleted Campaigns.”

Segment

This is probably one of my favorite aspects of this update. The Segment button opens a menu that allows you to change how you view your stats. Segment by Network: Google Search, Search Partners and Content Network. This isn’t new, but the rest of the menu options are. Now you can segment your data by Day, Week, Month, Quarter (and yes, you can use this for side-by-side date range comparisons!). You can also segment by Device and Click Type for those of you testing Google’s click-to-call service.

Filter Data

If using Google’s preset segments isn’t enough, you now have the option to filter the data by specific stats. Want to know what ad texts are generating a low CPA? Create a filter! Want to know which keywords are performing with a CPC over your maximum threshold? Create a filter! The new Filter option is a real time saver for those of us who are used to pulling massive reports into Excel and creating our own filters. Thanks to Google, now we can perform these tasks directly from the AdWords interface, make our changes and move on with our day.

Export Reports

If after segmenting and filtering your AdWords data you find that you still need a report – Google has made that easy to do, too! Regardless of what level you are viewing in your AdWords account (campaign, ad group, keyword, etc.), you can simply click the “Download Reports” button on the far right of the dashboard. This will automatically generate a report of the stats you are currently viewing and allow you to download in the format of your choice. No need to visit the Report Center and craft a report from scratch. Just push the button and open your spreadsheet report.

Personally, I have found this update to be immensely helpful. I’ve already had several occasions to utilize the fast report export functionality and the segmentation for data comparison. Hopefully Google keeps up the momentum and keeps making strong improvements like this in the coming months.

What do you think about the Google AdWords dashboard update? Love it? Hate it? Leave me a comment and let me know!

by John A. Lee

If you advertise in Google AdWords, there’s a good chance you’ve used the “Change History” tool. Change History allows you to review all account changes in a quick, orderly fashion. Not only can you choose a specific time period, but you can slice and dice the records by account manager as well change type (was it an ad text or settings change?). With the option to see your change history in a performance-related time line, you can see how these alterations affected your performance . In other words, it’s an extremely valuable resource for managing AdWords. For those of you new to Change History, it is located under the “Reports” tab in AdWords:

I’ve been using Change History for years, but I was shocked (and pleased) with a recent discovery. Underneath the date rage is a section labeled, “Affecting level.” My instincts tell me to look for a pull-down menu to choose campaigns or ad groups. Instead, it is just a box that says “All changes.” Turns out, all you have to do is type the first few letters of the desired campaign or ad group in this box and AdWords will search the content of your account and display a list based on what you type.

In the example above, I typed “c” and was shown a list of campaign names containing “c”. Once you choose a campaign, a new box appears where you can drill down into ad groups. Easy enough! In the grander scheme of PPC this is but a small tip. But my experience has taught me that anything you can do to make your account management or analysis faster or more efficient is a very good thing, indeed.

Do you have a great AdWords account management tip you would like to share? Leave a comment!

by John A. Lee

Do I have your attention yet? Earlier this year, Google AdWords launched another addition to their PPC keyword-matching algorithm called Session-Based Broad Match. This is an extension of the typical broad match that we all know and love (*cough*). Frankly, Google made their announcement with little fanfare, and only a few advertisers have made mention since. Despite the lack of noise, I have personally made reviewing Search Query Reports for session-based queries a top priority. Why? For the most part I have found session-based queries to be consistently irrelevant, and I typically add them as negatives in my campaigns!  So, if you are ignoring session-based broad match, there’s a pretty good chance you are losing money in your AdWords campaigns.

Google’s goal with session-based broad match is to pair PPC ads with a larger cache of long tail keyword inventory. The core issue I have with this that the long tail keywords that Google deems “relevant” to your ad are frequently not relevant at all. The process goes as follows:

• User types in a search query. Google evaluates this search query. Your ad may be triggered (or not).
  
• User types in another query. Google evaluates this same user’s previous queries during the same session (thus the name!).
• Google assesses these new queries and generates “similar terms” for that search.
• Google cross-references these “similar terms” against the broad match keywords you’re bidding on in your AdWords account.
• Google potentially shows your ad if the system detects a relationship between the new query and the previous query. Your ad may be triggered for “related keywords” that aren’t in your campaign.

What does that mean for you?

Well, it means the potential exists for irrelevant impressions and clicks. Take the following search queries for example. I’m using the keyword “black tea” in my campaign – and for some reason, Google has found a relationship between “black tea” and “mickey mouse teapot” and even “black sequin top”! Keep in mind, that all of the keywords in this ad group contain some variation of the root term “black tea” and yet my ads still appeared for these irrelevant search terms:

In this example, AdWords has displayed my ad for “black tea” on very irrelevant searches through session-based broad match. This has two negative implications. First, my ads are displayed to searchers who never wanted my product. They are less likely to click on my ad, and this will lower my click-through rate (CTR) and could potentially damage my Quality Score. Second, even when the search query and the ad are completely dissimilar, some of the people using the irrelevant search query will click on the ad – and these are the least unlikely site visitors to convert. This makes my campaign vulnerable to losing money through lower return-on-investment (ROI) and increased cost-per-acquisition (CPA).

How is Session-Based Broad Match different from Automatic Matching or expanded Broad Match?

This is best described with visuals. The first illustration explains how the process for Automatic Matching (and expanded Broad Match) matches a search query with your ads:

This second illustration shows how Session-Based Broad Match is a tangent from the normal flow between search query and ad delivery:

Unlike Automatic Matching, session-based broad match cannot be turned off. Accordingly, if you are bidding on broad match keywords, you must remain vigilant. Run search query reports on a regular basis and keep an eye out for those queries marked Broad (Session-Based). When you find queries that are completely off-base from your product or service, add them as negatives. Train Google to NOT match your ads with those search queries – otherwise, resign yourself to losing money!

by John A. Lee

November has been an exciting month for Google AdWords advertisers. Google announced and/or unleashed three additions to the AdWords ad format arsenal: Product Listings, Product Extensions and SiteLinks. While the first two are most appropriate for advertisers of retail products, the SiteLinks program is a potential gold mine for all advertisers! Let’s dig into each one. 

Product Extensions

If you pay attention to search engine news, Product Extensions is a feature you’ve likely heard of before. Originally called the “AdWords Product Plusbox“, this feature has been in production since as early as November 2007 – running on a limited beta. At the most basic level, this is a feature that marries a retailer’s AdWords campaigns with their website’s product feed (containing images, prices and detailed product information) via Google Base. When a user performs a product-related search on Google, the text ad is augmented by illustrations, prices and product choices. On 11/24, Google announced announced that Product Extensions are out of beta and available to all US advertisers. The only catch is that you must have a Google Merchant Center account with a valid product feed.

Here’s a screen capture of a Product Extensions ad in the Google search results (courtesy of Inside AdWords blog):

And here is what you need to look for under your campaign settings to set up Product Extensions ads:

Important Notes:

• Product Extensions are only shown on Google.com. They are NOT shown on Search Partners or the Content Network.
• You don’t get to specify which keywords, ads, etc.  will trigger Product Extensions displays. Google will match items from your product feed to user search queries when relevant. Want to make sure you’re covered? Link your product feed to all campaigns that are currently bidding for product-related keywords on Google.com.
• Your ads on Google.com will still be dictated by your keywords, bids, settings, etc. – this is simply an extension of your existing PPC ads.

Product Listings

The Product Listings feature was announced for the first time earlier this month. Essentially, it builds on the marriage of Google Base and Google AdWords that was created for the aforementioned Product Extensions. The primary difference? Product Listings aren’t displayed along with your core text ad – these are standalone listings. They appear in the Sponsored Linkssection of the search results, but without a headline, body or display URL. And in keeping with the retail spirit, Product Listings ads are cost-per-acquisition (CPA) based only! That’s right – you pay only when a user clicks on the listing AND completes a purchase. In other words, Product Listings are analogous to an affiliate program you conduct via the search results pages.

Here are two examples of Product Listings (courtesy of Inside AdWords blog):

Important Notes to Remember

• Product Listings is a beta-only feature. If you are a retail advertiser and interested, contact your Google representatives and see if you can be included.
• Setting up Product Listings requires some additional steps:
  • Submit a product feed via Google Base / Google Merchant Center
  • Sign an Addendum agreement
  • Set up Google AdWords native conversion tracking
• Product listings are only shown on Google.com. They are NOT shown on Search Partners or the Content Network.
• Your Product Listings ads will operate independently of your campaign’s keywords and ads, giving you the flexibility to advertise your entire product inventory.

SiteLinks

We’ve saved the best for last! Google has also rolled out a beta program for SiteLinks. This program will allow advertisers to display, under the normal text ad, up to 4 additional lines of text linked to additional URLs. Google’s goal here is to “…extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within your sites…” In the announcement post, early testers of this feature found SiteLinks made it easier to direct users to relevant info and drive them deeper into the sales funnel. If you’re eager to jump on the SiteLinks bandwagon, you may have to wait. Not only is this a beta-only feature, but Google is including advertisers in the beta based on a “quality threshold.” When you are given access to SiteLinks in your campaign settings, you will be asked to pre-load up to 10 destination URLs from your website. On a search by search basis, Google will choose from this list of 10 URLs to display those 4 additional links under your text ad (image courtesy of Inside AdWords blog):

This is huge – it’s like gaining an additional 140 characters for your ad, since each line of link text can be 35 characters long!

Here is what you need to look for under your campaign settings to get SiteLinks set up:

Important Notes to Remember

• SiteLinks is a beta-only feature. If you want to be included, try contacting your Google representative and/or continue working on improving the quality of your campaigns.
• You DON’T have control over what links are displayed with your ads beyond your initial choice of up to 10 destination URLs.

Are These New Ad Types Right For You?

Product Listings and Extensions are obviously geared toward retail/ecommerce advertisers. That being said, even if you’re advertising just one r two products, you should jump on the chance to occupy SO MUCH of the Google search results page real estate.

SiteLinks is an altogether different beast. On the surface it seems that it’s an ad feature geared towards established brands that want to expose deeper links as a result of brand-related searches. But well be testing the feature for a wide variety of ad types. For example, if your site is segmented into departments, and ad triggered by a department-level keyword could include SiteLinks for specific product pages. Another example: if your site sells just one product or service, each SiteLink could refer to a separate specific feature and benefit pair, each with its own landing page.

There are still plenty of mini-mysteries and open questions regarding these new ad types. For example, can they be used in combination with each other? What impact do they have on quality score? We’ll be digging in, experimenting and discussing with our Google reps, so watch for updates here over the coming weeks.

The Clix Marketing Blog has been dormant for the past 6 months while David Szetela has been writing the opus Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing: An Hour a Day. While that writing is far from finished, you’ll see posts at least weekly from now on, thanks to some new Clix team members like John Lee, formerly of PPC Hero fame, who penned this:

Many folks who manage PPC campaigns live in the microcosm of their own keywords, tactics and reporting data. Living with blinders on is a very dangerous thing. While you can (and should) effect a great deal of change based on your own PPC performance data, understanding how that data relates to the actual market place is infinitely helpful. This is where the venerable Impression Share report from Google AdWords comes into play. Based on “share of voice” metrics used in traditional advertising, Impression Share provides us pay-per-click advertisers with a tool to gauge how effectively we are targeting our potential market.

“Impression Share…represents the percentage of times your ads were actually shown in relation to the total number of chances your ads could have been shown, based on your keyword and campaign settings.”

What is Impression Share?

In a nutshell: reality / opportunity = impression share. OK, so maybe that’s not terribly helpful. Let me try that again. Impression Share, or IS for short, is a comparison of the chances your ad had to be shown (opportunity) to the actual number of times your ad was shown (reality). Assuming you live in a perfect world, the ideal IS is 100% – meaning your ad displayed 100% of the time it could be shown. Impression Share is calculated at the Account and Campaign levels. What factors play into your IS? Campaign budgets. Bids. Ad Rank. Geo-targeting. Day parting. All things that you can control.

You may be asking yourself, why am I losing Impression Share because of Ad Rank or Geo-targeting? Let’s start by discussing Ad Rank. This is Google’s formula that ultimately determines your ad position (calculated as Maximum CPC X Quality Score = Ad Rank). Two very important pieces here – BIDS and QUALITY SCORE. If either of these are lower than Google thinks they should be, it results in poor Ad Rank and poor ad positions in the search results. You could come back to me and say, “I’m losing IS due to Rank, but my ad positions are in the top 3!” OK, that may be. But… Impression Share stats are reported at either the account or campaign level and are an aggregate total of all keywords, ad groups, etc. You could very well have irrelevant keywords in your ad groups that are in essence pulling down Impression Share stats for your entire campaign or ad group. Another frequently asked question with Impression Share is whether or not geo-targeting plays a role in your IS percentage. The short answer is no. Google calculates your Impression Share within the scope of your account and/or campaign’s settings – geo-targeting included.

Beyond the big rocks affecting Impression Share like budgets, bids and Ad Rank, there are plenty of other conditions that can result in poor IS. Take for instance your use of negative keywords. Negative keywords in practice are used to weed out “bad” search traffic by blocking those search queries you find to be irrelevant. So, in the discussion of Impression Share, negative keyword usage can throw your IS reporting up or down. A lack of negatives will leave you open to irrelevant searches and can lower your IS (matching to irrelevant searches without Quality Score friendly ad texts, etc.). Making frequent use of your Search Query reporting and adding negatives will not only limit irrelevant clicks, but also “improves the value of the IS measurement and hopefully the number as well.”   But before you try your hand at controlling IS, learn how to pull the reports!

How to Create IS Reports

Obvious steps first – head on over to your friendly, neighborhood AdWords Report Center and choose to create a new report. Next up, choose either ‘Account performance’ or ‘Campaign performance’ under “Report Type.” If it’s your first time running the report, I would suggest running the account level first just to get some practice before honing in on the more granular campaign data. The real meat and potatoes is located under “Advanced Settings (Optional).”

For an account level report, choose to Add or Remove Columns and look under “Performance Statistics.” At the account level, you can add Impression Share (IS) and/or Exact Match IS.

For a campaign level report, once again choose to Add or Remove Columns and look under “Performance Statistics.” Here you can drill down and add Impression Share (IS), Exact Match IS, Lost IS (Budget) and/or Lost IS (Rank).

Interpret Your IS Data

Running the reports will only get you so far. You need to understand the Impression Share data and know how to take meaningful action. Here’s a breakdown of what each IS report segment is telling you about your PPC performance:

• Impression Share (IS): Depending on whether you pull this report at the account or campaign level, this will tell you the core IS statistic – the percentage of times your ad was shown out of the total of times it was eligible to be shown.
• Exact Match IS: The core IS percentage is a summation of all of your keywords, regardless of match type. However, Exact Match IS will show you your Impression Share assuming all of your keywords were Exact Match. In other words, the number of times Google matched a user’s search query exactly with one of the keywords you are actively bidding on.
• Lost IS (Budget): If your core IS percentage is low, there’s a reason. Lost IS (Budget) will tell you how what percentage of impressions were lost due to budget restrictions. This is only available at the campaign level, therefore it is based on your campaigns’ daily budgets.
• Lost IS (Rank): Another possible reason for a loss of Impression Share is Lost IS (Rank) – or the percentage of impressions lost due to low Ad Rank. Ad Rank is the formula that ultimately determines your ad position in search results and is calculated as cost-per-click X Quality Score.
• What IS is Good IS?: When looking at the core Impression Share percentage, ideally an IS of 70 or more is what you are aiming for. Anything less than 70 should raise a red flag for you. When dealing with Exact Match IS, that number increases to 80-85.

Take Meaningful Action and Improve Your PPC Performance

How can you improve your Impression Share percentages and ultimately improve your PPC performance? There are many variables at play, but I’ll break down the high level tactics you can utilize to improve your Impression Share.

• If your account-wide IS or Exact Match IS is low, your first action should be to segment the data by campaign so that you can make more targeted, accurate changes. Looking at account-wide data will give you the big picture view of your overall Impression Share performance, but it won’t provide you with a road-map to begin making campaign-specific changes.
• At the campaign level, determine if you are losing IS because of your budgets. Depending on the situation, this could be remedied by simply increasing your daily budget. What if you are already hitting your daily campaign budgets and don’t have the additional money to put towards pay-per-click? Try lowering your bids incrementally to drive more clicks through your budget (think of your budget as a bottleneck).
• What if you’re losing Impression Share because of Ad Rank? In other words, what if despite your best intentions – your ads are consistently ranked poorly and/or displaying on page two of the search results? As with most things related to Quality Score, this is slightly more complicated. One tactic that could give you a boost would be to increase bids, though this might get you back into trouble with budget concerns! The more intelligent tactic would be to focus on improving your Quality Score through improved campaign optimization and writing highly relevant ad texts.
• Exact Match IS is possibly the trickiest of all to improve. If this percentage is low, this means that Google has identified a problem somewhere in your PPC process. When your ad is not shown when a user’s search query exactly matches a keyword you are bidding on – something’s definitely up! It is difficult to pinpoint one specific area to focus on in this area – but you should perform a careful review of bids, ads and keyword Quality Score. Keep testing until you find the changes that equate to an improvement in Impression Share.

We all know that tracking conversions is crucial to optimizing PPC campaigns. But almost all conversion tracking mechanisms – including the ones used by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and most site analytics packages – are flawed in an important way.

Frequently a conversion happens after the customer has visited the site more than once. This is especially true for sites that sell high-priced consumer goods, or complex technical solutions. The first visit may have been elicited by a PPC ad, resulting from a broad search query like “digital cameras,” or a banner ad on a content network. Subsequent visits may result from clicks on natural search results, and/or PPC ads that are displayed as a result of progressively more-specific search terms.

The final conversion often happens following a brand- or site-specific search on a query like “Buy EOS Rebel XSi EF-S” or “B&H Photo.” But here’s the problem: the conversion is attributed to the most recent site visit. So the keyword that results in the ultimate conversion is highly valued by the PPC advertiser, all previous visits are disregarded, and the PPC keywords that elicited those earlier visits are undervalued.

This can lead to self-defeating bid management; the broad terms that send potential buyers to the site receive low bid prices, or worse, are shut off, since they don’t seem to be resulting in conversions. This short-sightedness afflicts advertisers using manual bid management strategies as well as most automated bid management software available.

Former Google employee Adam Goldberg is trying to lead the charge toward remedying this serious defficiency industry-wide. His company, ClearSaleing, offers analytics technology that lets advertisers track all of the site visits that lead up to the conversion, and attribute value to each action in the path.

That’s why today’s Search Marketing Now webcast, “Measuring an Ad’s Value: A Forum Discussion,” is a must-attend. Adam will lead a forum discussion intended to, in Adam’s words:

“…bring together the online marketing and advertising minds to work together as a community to help collectively identify, evaluate, vet and ultimately recommend the best attribution valuation practices and methodologies.”

We share Adam’s hope that the discussion will lead to better analytical tools from the search engines, and better bid management tools, that will incorporate attribution management that enables advertisers to make fully-informed ad investment decisions.

We’ll be participating in today’s forum, and we hope you will be, too.

According to this release today, sent to Adsense publishers, Google is experimenting with different formats for ads. I think this is good news for advertisers and publishers – anything that calls attention to the ads is helping both.

See the release below, and below that, the detail they reference:

Readers with sharp eyes will notice that on some rare occasions, your ads may appear or act slightly differently than what you’re accustomed to. Rest assured that this is normal behavior that results from our efforts to improve the experience for all members of the advertising ecosystem. (You may have noticed a similar post about our search results on the official Google blog.)

One way in which we achieve this is by making continued tweaks and innovations to the user behavior and appearance of our ads. In the past, these experiments have included changes to the font styling, coloring, spacing, and other aesthetic components. More specifically, changes such as redesigned ad units and arrows to show additional ads have stemmed from these tests. The purpose of these tests is to identify changes to our product that can bring long-term benefits to our publishers, your site’s visitors, and advertisers.

Before rolling out a change to our ads, we test performance for a limited number of ad impressions, which may not apply to all publishers. Although we don’t notify publishers of these specific changes in order to prevent bias, we closely monitor the performance of these tests. We also welcome feedback from publishers, users, and advertisers, so feel free to drop us an email.

A fresh, new look for AdSense ads

You may have noticed that some of your ad units have started to look a little different lately — we’re happy to announce that, just in time for spring, we’ve given our standard ad units a fresh makeover. After extensive testing and research, we’ve found that the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers. We’re in the process of rolling out this change to all ad units, and you should see that your ad units are automatically updated over the next few days. But, before you rush to make sure all of your ad units still match your site, please be assured that the fonts and colors of your ads won’t be changed.

Although it’s not possible to opt out of the new designs, we hope that you and your site visitors will find our new ad formats clearer and more attractive. We’re always testing new ways to improve the look and feel of our advertisements, so stay tuned for more format options in the future.

Show me the ads

After months of testing, we’ve just updated our text ad format to include ‘next’ and ‘previous’ arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the ‘next’ button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher’s content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking — for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.

You won’t generate earnings for clicks on the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they’re looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.