Clix Marketing PPC Blog

Well folks, June is almost behind us. Hopefully this month has been productive and profitable for you and your PPC campaigns! In that spirit, it is time to start preparing to make July even more successful. To help you out, here are this past week’s latest and greatest PPC articles.

• PPC Blog: Whether you manage PPC for yourself or for others, there is a very clear process to be followed. This piece from the PPC Blog describes essential best-practices for successful PPC project management.
• WordStream: Keyword tools are essential for PPC, but most of them lack in one major area: negative keywords. Last week, WordStream announced their newest freebie – the Negative Keyword Tool. Use this tool to find irrelevant variations of your PPC keywords, and you can even search based on match types (broad, phrase, exact). Check it out!
• Inside AdWords: Google made a pair of announcements last week. The first was that Sitelinks are now available for any campaign. The second announcement is that Google plans to remove the Report Center from AdWords. That’s not to say that the reports themselves won’t be there, but instead of being found in a central location – report functionality will be placed within the actual management interface to “combine insights and control.”
• Marketing Tech Blog: Facebook advertising is still a relatively new frontier for most advertisers. But as this article shows, many of us are finding great results. While you may not get a 400% acquisition increase, you will surely be able to find highly targeted, qualified traffic for your sites.
• Search Engine Land: In another solid post in the “PPC Academy” column, Josh Dreller explains two tactics for PPC copywriting. The first section regarding what, exactly, must be in a great PPC ad is spot on and must-have information for PPC advertisers. The second on DKI is questionable, but still valuable.

The overwhelming summer heat seems to have put a damper on the volume of PPC-related news this week. Nevertheless, I was able to gather together a decent list of important announcements and helpful articles for this week’s PPC news and views list.

• The Click Equations Blog: We all know that ad writing and testing is a tremendously important piece of the PPC puzzle. But do you know the most effective methods for ad testing? This article breaks down the steps in the text ad testing process from start to finish – a great resource.
• Inside AdWords: Google’s display ad network continues to grow, and so does their cache of display advertising features and targeting options. In an effort to better-position all of these options for advertisers, Google has created an “umbrella name” – the Google Display Network.
• Search Engine Watch: Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 6 months, you know that Yahoo! and Microsoft will be merging their search properties into the Search Alliance. This article explains how Yahoo!’s tools and services for PPC will be phased out and transitioned to the Microsoft adCenter platform.
• Search Engine Land: Google is testing more ad types in the SERPs. This time it is “related ads” where Google is matching ads “for related queries or refinements of the user’s original query.” Is this a user-facing manifestation of expanded broad match? Guess we’ll find out if/when Google decides to launch this feature.
• WordStream: It is here: The Ultimate Guide to Quality Score. WordStream interviewed 15 PPC experts (including Clix’s own Joe Kerschbaum) and put together their views and advice on Quality Score. Topics range from troubleshooting to methodology and even prioritization of Quality Score improvement tactics.
• Search Engine Guide: In another take of ad testing this week, this article from Search Engine Guide looks at how you can fine-tune your ad testing by segmenting the types of messaging used.
• Search Engine Land: Keyword bid management is not an easy task. PPC managers and PPC software engineers alike struggle with finding the perfect process for managing bids. A major part of understanding how to manage bids is understanding how the bid auction really works. This article explains just that and reveals some of the subtleties of bid management.

Greetings PPC friends! In case you have forgotten to check your blog reader, the last week has been full of helpful articles and a few exciting announcements from Google AdWords. Here is just a taste of what the PPC world had to offer in the last week:

• Search Engine Land: Many of us know the struggles that come along with managing B2B PPC campaigns. They are traditionally high maintenance and more to the point, high CPC endeavors. This article by Andy Komack offers 6 ways to overcome those high CPCs ranging from Quality score tactics to who and how you pay for PPC management.
• Inside AdWords: A few months back, Google started BETA testing a program that put more in depth AdWords reports directly in the Google Analytics interface. On the 7th, they announced that this program is now available to all AdWords advertisers who are using Google Analytics!
• Search Engine Watch: The search marketing industry (as with most industries) goes through cycles of buzz words and hot topics. In the PPC space right now, the buzz word is “remarketing” (AKA retargeting). But don’t think that just because it’s a popular tactic to discuss that it is just a passing phase. This article explains how remarketing is ready to go mainstream and become a powerful PPC tool for all advertisers.
• WordStream: The folks over at WordStream are giving us a sneak peek into their newest whitepaper on Quality Score this week. In Part 2, they discuss the nuts and bolts of how Quality Score works. This is information EVERY PPC advertiser should know – and I recommend you read these posts all week long.
• Digital Alex: Click Equations’ Alex Cohen posts his conference presentations on his personal blog (among other helpful tidbits for PPCers). This presentation is titled “The Maverick’s Guide to Text Ad Testing.” Check it out. Please. You can thank me later.
• Search Engine Land: Facebook Ads are fast becoming a major topic of discussion for PPC and social media practitioners. While Facebook ads still function on the basic principles of PPC, the setup and management can be considerably different. This article explains some of those idiosyncrasies and provides tips for successfully creating a Facebook Ad campaign.
• Inside AdWords: In another exciting announcement from Google, advertisers can look forward to a split testing tool for campaigns. The tool is called ACE (AdWords Campaign Experiments) and will allow you to test changes in keywords, bids, ad groups and placements! Trust me folks – this is huge! The tool is in BETA and requires that you sign up here.
• PPC Hero: Managing Yahoo! PPC campaigns presents a unique set of challenges. And despite Yahoo!’s best efforts, advances like their desktop tool haven’t closed all the gaps in their offerings. This article explains a method for pairing keyword data with the Yahoo! Desktop Tool to make data-driven bid adjustments.

A new month, a new round of great PPC articles from our favorite paid search pundits. This week’s collection of articles spices things up with info on Facebook ads, conversion optimization and Google AdPlanner!

• Grok Dot Com: The buying cycle is a very important concept for PPC advertisers to understand. Everything from keyword selection, bidding strategies and conversion optimization is affected by the buying cycle. This article from Grok Dot Com explains and expands on the buying cycle’s three stages.
• Search Engine Guide: Much has been said about PPC account organization. Organize by theme. Organize by product/service. You name it. In this article, Mike Fleming suggests that you leverage account organization to manage budgets and “spend PPC dollars more intelligently.”
• Search Engine Land: If you aren’t bidding on your brand keywords – shame on you. If you are, good news – you can beef up your brand targeting with PPC. In come Google’s Sitelinks and Yahoo!’s Rich ads in search (RAIS) both of which enable brand advertisers to include additional links to boost CTR and overall ad performance.
• aimClear Blog: Spending advertising dollars on Facebook Ads? Beware. The folks at aimClear discovered that Facebook had increased spending on one of their campaigns by 5X – and the scary part is that this activity is listed in their terms of service. Proceed with caution!
• RKG Blog: Now that I’ve got you scared about Facebook Ads, it’s time to reel you back in with a view on the upside potential of Facebook. The RKG Blog discusses the pros of using Facebook Ads including targeting controls, volume and the lack of ad fraud.
• Inside AdWords: Google announced some updates for the DoubleClick Ad Planner that are great for Content Network advertisers. The biggest is the “Ad Planner 1000” list of the most visited sites which is combined with the “Ad Planner 1000 targeting feature” for the Content Network. Deeper insights into the sites available for targeting is never a bad thing!
• Search Engine Land: Conversion optimization is super important for long term PPC success. But when does it become too much, or worse, evil? This piece from Closed-Loop Marketing’s Sandra explains ways that conversion optimization becomes evil and will actually begin turning customers away – defeating the entire enterprise.
• adCenter Blog: So much fuss is made about prepping PPC campaigns for the winter holidays and I’ve always felt sad for the dog days of summer. This year the folks at adCenter finally came through and put together summer-time PPC tips from some of top PPC experts (including our very own David Szetela!).

The month of May is quickly drawing to a close, but PPC bloggers are not slowing down one bit. Last week was another great one for fresh PPC content from around the blogosphere. Here is what you may have missed:

• Post Click Marketing Blog: Have you paid attention to the behavioral analytics trends on your website? “Behavioral analytics is the part of Web analytics that tells you more than just the who and the when, but the how, why and what.” A must read for everyone with PPC conversion growth goals.
• Search Engine Guide: Assumptions are a bad thing when managing PPC. This post highlights the super-important point that data, not assumptions, should dictate PPC strategy. Despite all of the great tools and resources out there, you won’t really know how your keywords, ads, etc. will perform until they are put to the test – and tested again.
• PPC Hero: We all know it happens – PPC traffic patterns can change. But how do you plan for and stay ahead of these performance shifts? PPC Hero makes some good suggestions in this post ranging from looking at your own historical data to keeping tabs on what your competitors are doing.
• BG Theory: Remarketing from Google AdWords is a great new targeting feature that is becoming more and more important to PPC advertisers. Brad Geddes breaks down one his own Remarketing campaigns to explain objectives and how exactly he set it up. A MUST READ!
• WordStream: I know what you’re going to say, “not another list of tools!” Well, I’m going to share it anyways. Christine at WordStream put together a list of 13 tools for PPC advertisers. How this list differs is that it includes obvious choices like the AdWords keyword tool and some great underdogs like the Microsoft adCenter Demographics Prediction tool. All of the tools on this list are worth your time to mine great data for your PPC campaigns.
• PPC Hero: In a post geared for advertisers who manage multiple PPC accounts in a team environment (agency or other), Jessica shares with us some tips and tricks to maintain organization and communication. The most important tip? Keep a log of your changes in a place where the entire team can access that info.
• Click Equations: Craig at Click Equations elaborated on the idea of “living with low Quality Score” based on questions from last week’s SMX Advanced conference. He explains some of the finer points of Quality Score-minded PPC management. My personal favorite is the example of B2B keywords where the ad is written to pre-qualify the click versus targeting the keyword for Quality Score – in the end finding the perfect customer is the higher priority.
• Inside AdWords: The new Ad Extensions in AdWords are great, but most of us have found them to be tedious to manage and maintain. Google made our lives a little bit easier last week by adding a new Ad Extensions tab that culls all of that data into one place in the AdWords interface. Whoohoo!
• adCenter Blog: Relatively speaking, Content ads in Microsoft adCenter are still new. This post is a great primer on the differences between Search and Content ads in adCenter and how to manage them.

In this spring time season of renewal, there have been some common themes emerging from the PPC blogosphere. New tools and resources. New relationships (and competitors). And a sense of reNEWal with positive industry trending. I take this as an early sign that 2010 will be a great year for pay-per-click advertising!

• Search Engine Land – A survey conducted in April reveals that SEM is still a strong source of traffic for retailers. “As far as traffic is concerned, …28% say that more than a quarter comes from paid search advertising.” And almost half of the respondents to this survey have increased their PPC budgets in the past year.
• Ion Interactive – Post-Click Marketing Blog – In the world of post-click optimization, technology has a very important role – but it is only effective when part of a holistic strategy. Long story short, technology should be the vehicle to set your strategy in motion in order to reach your objectives and goals. In other words, you’ve got to know where you are AND where you’re going. This is a great reminder for all of us conducting conversion optimization.
• Traffick – On Tuesday, Google announced a new targeting feature for AdWords: the broad match modifier. Andrew Goodman explains the new match type feature in great detail in his follow up post. While the broad match modifier will only be available in the UK and Canada at first, it will surely roll out to the US soon enough.
• AdWords Agency Blog – View-through conversions have been around for a while now, but what many of us advertisers have been wrestling with is how to use this metric to prove additional value to clients. This article is one agency advertiser’s experience with view-through conversions and how he used them to prove the value of display advertising from implementation through reporting.
• WordStream – With the Yahoo! and Bing integration (Search Alliance) looming later this year, it was only a matter of time until advertisers started pitting Bing PPC vs. Google PPC. Christine at WordStream has put together a great comparison for advertisers who are unsure of how to proceed after the big change.
• Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog – Speaking of the Search Alliance, Yahoo! put together a nice, neat question and answer post regarding the Bing/Yahoo! integration. This post covers everything from payment methods to speculation on how advertisers will be able to manage distribution between Bing and Yahoo!.
• The PPC Blog – More times than not, there is a great deal of competition when advertising with PPC. It is your job to differentiate your product or service. As Matthew describes in this post, the easiest way to do this is to write PPC ads that stand out!
• The Acquisio Blog – Not many of us would readily pair Lady Gaga with PPC, but Noran at Acquisio did just that. This post explains how many advertisers have had a Bad (PPC) Romance with Google AdWords. In short, many of advertisers have become disenchanted with AdWords and get hung up on the details that frustrate them. Despite the frustrations, AdWords still allows advertisers to reach their target audiences in a meaningful way. And in Noran’s words, “I say bad romance is better than no romance at all.”

PPC bloggers were busy last week. I’m not sure what caused it, but there was a wave of great pay-per-click content over the past seven days. Maybe there was something in the spring air that put everyone in the writing spirit. Whatever the reason, I love it!

• PPC Hero – Jessica at PPC Hero shared 36 myths of PPC, this week’s PPC-mega-list. As you might imagine, a lot of ground is covered here. Misinformed keyword strategies, ad writing foibles and even poor business decisions made the cut.
• Google Analytics Blog – Google has been expanding the relationship between AdWords and Analytics in recent months. The most recent announcement  has to do with additional reporting. Within the Analytics interface it is now possible to break down and review keywords by actual search queries, match types and more. It only took Google 3 years to add search queries to Analytics, but who’s really counting?
• The Search Agents - I like a good analogy and Bradd Libby at The Search Agents blog has come up with a good one: Quality Score is like a teenager. “Unpredictable. Hyperactive. Irrational.” In all seriousness, this post goes into great detail explaining how volatile Quality Score can be and potential areas where PPC managers should be concerned.
• Traffick – Google has released conversion performance statistics touting the potential of Content Network targeting. This week, Andrew Goodman questioned the validity of those stats with data from his own clientele. After sifting through all the data, to paraphrase: Google looks at Content performance as an aggregate so it is hard to relate directly back to your niche, but “…for the median account, content targeted works as billed.” For techniques to make optimal profit from Content Network advertising, download your free copy of David Szetela’s book Customers Now.
• adCenter Blog – All of the PPC search engines have unique rules and editorial guidelines, but it can be frustrating to keep up with all of them. The adCenter Blog has detailed their editorial guidelines for easy consumption. If you advertise with Microsoft adCenter, this is a must-read.
• Search Engine Land – Split testing ads is deceptively easy. You set up 2 ads, they rotate evenly and eventually one will be the victor. Matt Van Wagner explains in this post how that straight-forward approach has flaws: in the traditional A/B ad testing model, the ads may be displayed to very different audience segments. To gain deeper insights into the results, he recommends you use the “Van Wagner Ad Sets Optimization Model” instead.
• Inside AdWords – Conversion Optimizer has been available in AdWords for a while. To date, this has been a “Maximum CPA” system – Google required advertisers to specify the highest amount they were willing to pay for a conversion. Now Google has added the option to bid on a “Target CPA,” allowing advertisers to set conversio cost targets using a more familiar metric.
• Search Engine Guide – This post reiterates one of the most effective ways to stop wasting money on PPC: by utilizing search query reports to mine negative keywords. We all need these reminders from time to time!
• RKG Blog - Did you know that your negative keyword list can actually go too far and block clicks that you really want? This post explains just that. Due to the nature of negative match types, a broad negative keyword could partially match to a positive term in your account, preventing it from generating impressions and clicks. This sentence says it all: “The ultimate problem is that these occurrences are largely silent, unseen by an advertiser and/or their Paid Search manager.”

Many of you are avid followers of David Szetela’s Twitter stream. Every day he tweets 15-30 great links to PPC and online advertising news and how-to articles. We have been publishing a daily digest of each day’s Tweets here on the Clix Marketing Blog each day. That said, we realize that reading PPC news updates a la @Twitter #style isn’t for everyone. So as one of many exciting changes to the Clix Marketing Blog, it will be my pleasure to bring you the best of the previous week’s PPC news and resources in one consolidated blog post.

Here’s the first “Last Week in PPC News and Views” entry:

• PPC Blog – This week Giovanna broke down common issues that lead to shopping cart abandonment. Yes folks, PPC is more than keywords, bids and ads. These 8 tips will help you to sniff out issues in your shopping cart and fix them to improve conversion rates.
• Traffick.com – Andrew Goodman has been on a roll, and he qualified for a two-for-one spot on today’s list. The first mention is for his recap of the new AdWords Certification program. Andrew breaks down many of the differences between the old and new certification programs as well as adding commentary on how this move proves Google’s dedication to advertising agencies. Not to be outdone,  Andrew also continued his discussion on the new Twitter advertising model. In short – Twitter ad potential is huge!
• AdWords Agency Blog - As previously mentioned, Google announced a new AdWords Certification program. This post goes into detail on how the individual and agency certification processes will change. A must read for anyone (or any agency) interested in keeping current certifications.
• RKG Blog – Of all the blogs that discuss PPC, the Rimm Kaufman Group is always at the top of the heap with in-depth analysis and data-driven commentary. This week they broke down Google’s new Product Extensions for AdWords ads. The open and click-through rate data is interesting, but the most important part? “The Fix” – which is a great find. If you want your company name to appear with your Product Extension ads, it better be under 20 characters (change this in your Google Merchant Center account).
• PPC Hero – Track revenue in AdWords. Yes, you read that right. Jen at PPC Hero explains how to leverage the newest conversion tracking tech from Google to pull revenue data into your AdWords reports. If you haven’t done this yet – read this post and do it now!
• Post Click Marketing Blog – Landing pages and conversion optimization are vital to PPC success. The Post Click folks are experts in this field. Their advice this week should be a mantra for ALL PPC advertisers: “…ensure cohesion between your ads and your landing pages.” This post outlines basic questions to ask yourself before creating a landing page to ensure you do just that.
• Search Engine Guide - Mike Fleming’s post on keywords this week struck on one of my personal beliefs: broad match isn’t evil. Gasp! Mike posits that you can actually use broad match as another form of keyword research. With careful review of your search query reports, great keywords will emerge that neither you or a keyword research tool could have come up with.
• Inside AdWords – If you pay attention to the near weekly announcements coming from Google, you are aware that they have been creating some exciting new ad formats for AdWords. The Inside AdWords blog points us to an introductory video to many of these new ad formats and also points us to their Ad Innovations site for future announcements.