Google Buzz comes in like Wave, so is it doomed?
Feb 10, 2010 Google Adwords, Social Media
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The buzz is certainly upon us. Not unlike several months ago when Google spearheaded their PR campaign to introduce the world to what they thought (and still kinda is) a revolutionary work-flow solution in Google Wave, the company releases – albeit slowly – their social media platform entitled Google Buzz. Obviously, social media has become the focus of tech-savvy companies the world over, minus those that haven’t objected to social media or don’t know where to start. Few companies have really learned how to monetize the social media space. This is one area where Google may have the upper hand and wherewithal to succeed with Google Buzz, they know how to monetize useful applications and platforms.
Tags: google buzz, google wave, monetizing social media, Social Media
Bing! Your conversions are ready
Jan 12, 2010 Bing, Google Adwords, Microsoft adCenter, Yahoo
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You know, I didn’t know what to make of all the hype back at SES Chicago last year. There were tons of people talking about how great Bing! had become, and how it would be so much better once they integrate Yahoo properties into Adcenter. Being a seasoned veteran of the pay-per-click marketing game and having wasted many hours on trying to bleed the stone, I didn’t think twice about giving Microsoft another chance until recently. Boy, was I wrong to wait!
SES Chicago Day 1 Recap: Strong focus on data, ROI and LTV
Dec 7, 2009 Mobile, PPC Programs, SES Tour, Search Engines, web analytics
I was quite surprised to see such an overwhelming emphasis on web analytics, data, integration, and core business impact metrics such as return on investment and lifetime value of the client today. It’s somewhat unusual for much of the session talk to stray far from general search marketing, because as marketers we perhaps tend to gloss over the numbers in the name of branding efforts and long term investments in growth. Not so with SES Chicago! Not anymore!
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Tags: blended attribution, bryan eisenberg, Google Analytics, jeff jarvis, lifetime value, phil mui, real time search, rupert murdoch, search engine strategies chicago, semantic search, web analytics, wolfram alpha
Google Adwords Impression Share Metrics for Campaigns
Oct 21, 2009 Google Adwords, Google Analytics
Once upon a Google Adwords report, the impression share metric represented a peculiar, but intriguing metric. Impression share can be thought of as a “share of voice” metric which measures the total impression your ads generate in a campaign out of the total available impressions for your keywords and targeted geography. However, campaigns can be large, complex messes full of different ad groups and match types, so an impression share metric was relatively useless, unless your campaigns were simple. Although not revealing their quality score hand completely, Google has bestowed more meaningful insights to advertisers, if you know where to look.
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Tags: exact match IS, impression share, lost IS budget, lost IS rank
Tried and true PPC trends you can take to the bank
Oct 15, 2009 Economics, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Landing Pages, PPC Programs
At first, I thought it was curious that my paid search campaigns would show relatively consistent patterns on a monthly and yearly basis. Trends that I blogged about before some 2 years ago, still hold true today while others have become even more obvious. Needless to say, knowing about these trends gives you a significant leg up on the competition, and verifying which patterns exist for your industry is as easy as tuning your campaign reporting to historical dates in the past.
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Tags: Google Adwords, holiday phenomenon, paid search trends, ppc trends, seasonal search trends
The Google Content Network is a nice place, yet again
Sep 30, 2009 Google Adwords, PPC Programs
Every now and then I like to run a check-up on my contextual match content network campaigns, to make sure Google is doing it’s job in keeping Adsense partners in check. I’m happy to report that recent screening and higher scrutiny has gone a long way to clean up the Google Adwords Content Network. The whole point of contextual match campaigns is to find areas advertisers can generate impressions, and hopefully cheap clicks.
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Tags: ad impressions, adwords content network, Google Adwords, google content network, low cpc
SES San Jose 2009 Day 1 Recap: Clay Shirky, Analytics, Conversion and more, oh my!
Aug 11, 2009 Analytics Tools, Bing, Economics, Google, Mobile, New Technology, PPC Programs, SEO, SES Tour, Social Media, Webmaster Tips, Yahoo
Given the recent economic downturn and attendance numbers in a downward spiral over the past year or so, turnout for SES San Jose, the granddaddy of all online marketing shows, was surprisingly optimistic. Not only are all major search engines, agencies, and tool providers on hand for the festivities, experts from all walks of marketing disciplines are presenting on their specialties. It’s the perfect storm, in the perfect weather, at the perfect time for optimizing online marketing.
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Tags: Bing, global websites, Google, online marketing, search engine strategies, ses san jose 2009, Yahoo
Hitwise, eh? Welcome to the Great Canadian North!
Jun 2, 2009 Hitwise, PPC Programs, SEO, SES Tour
On the week leading up to Search Engine Strategies Toronto comes news from Hitwise of their entry into the Canadian market. Obviously, they must have struck a deal with one or two of only three major ISPs in the country, finally giving Canadian business the opportunity to keep an eye on competitor movements. With comScore amping up their web beaconing effort to normalize their panel-based results, Hitwise seems primed to become a quick favorite, if they can take hold of decent market share.
It’ll be interesting to see whether their announcement includes the full bevvy of reports available to US marketers, such as search marketing traffic, both natural and paid, and other juicy segmenting features. I’ll cover more news as it becomes available. Needless to say, Hitwise has already reached out to larger online web producers well in advance of this announcement.
Google Adwords allows Trademark Usage in Search Ads
May 19, 2009 Economics, Google Adwords
Whoa, didn’t see this one coming. In a surprising move yesterday, Google announced that advertisers would be allowed to use trademarked terms in their search ads, making for quite the conversation piece admidst legal uncertainty surrounding rights-holders. The older rule allowed advertisers to request Google remove trademark and brand names from ad text, thereby providing some protection for owners. Is this good or bad? Depends which side of the fence you’re sitting on.
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Tags: brand protection, Google Adwords, keyword protection, legal issues, reserved keywords
Google's Search Based Keyword Tool: Finding Diamonds in the Long-tail
May 18, 2009 Analytics Tools, Google Adwords, Landing Pages, Search Engines, Webmaster Tips
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In marketing, vendor and partner transparency is king; more transparency equals better client relations. In the online marketing world, there’s the tendency for vendor relations to languish or stagnate by maintaining the status quo. After watching Google as an advertising vendor for many years, they simply aren’t that kind of company. With the web being what it is today, clients and agencies that use Google Adwords are very vocal about improvements they’d like to see made, including the improvement of transparency. Google’s new Search Based Keyword Tool is one such improvement: more better.
Tags: broad match, exact match, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, google search based keyword tool, other keyword matches, phrase match, roi
