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!
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
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
SES Toronto Pre-Show Interview: Janice Hatch, Google
May 5, 2009 Economics, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Landing Pages, Mobile, PPC Basics, SES Tour
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Continuing my pre-show coverage of Search Engine Strategies Toronto, I have the privilege of introducing Janice Hatch of Google Canada. Janice is scheduled to speak on Day 2 of the conference in a session called “Campaign Performance Tracking” and was nice enough to spare some time to answer a few questions that relate to Google Adwords and the future of search marketing.
Tags: ad writing tips, google adwords platform, Google Analytics, google canada, google market share, mobile advertising, search engine strategies
SES Toronto Pre-Show Interview: Julie Batten, Klick Communications
Apr 22, 2009 Google Adwords, Mobile, PPC Basics, SEO, SES Tour
In response to my coverage of previous Search Engine Strategies events last year, the organizers of the show reached out to ask me if I would interview a few of the speakers this year. In the first of what I hope will be a three-part series of interviews, I sat down with Julie Batten, SES Toronto speaker and eMarketing Manager at Klick Communications for a little Q&A on a range of topics affecting our industry.
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Tags: campaign attribution, digital strategy, julie batten, klick communications, mobile search, search engine strategies, SEO, ses toronto
Tracking Paid versus Organic keywords in Omniture SiteCatalyst
Apr 3, 2009 Analytics Tools, Google Adwords, Landing Pages, Omniture, PPC Basics
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I received an interesting plea for help recently via e-mail regarding tracking paid versus organic keywords in Omniture SiteCatalyst. Although many functions are available within vanilla installations of SiteCatalyst, and several settings can be added to implementations after the fact – the little guy is often left holding the stick. It’s easier for Omniture to say, just buy Search Center, because well, 9 times out of 10, they make money that way. For simple keyword tracking without incurring any residual fees, get ready to roll-up your sleeves.
Tags: data correlations, dynamic keyword insertion, Google Adwords, omniture sitecatalyst, paid search detection
