Google Adwords update MCC Dashboard

Google has updated its MCC Dashboard in a move to make it (in Googles words) - “easier to view a wide range of client account statistics from the highest level of your MCC account”.

So what changes have been introduced? In the main, these are primarily changes to the main interface, allowing quicker access to the most used pieces of information (at a campaign level), such as delivery statistics (Clicks, Impressions, CPC, Costs etc), and performance statistics (like Conversions, Cost per Conversion etc)

Taken from the Google update page itself:

“On the Performance page, you’ll find stats on clicks, conversions and conversion rates, as well as separate columns for Search and Content CTR, allowing for easier comparison of performance based on network placement.On the Budget page, you’ll find information about start dates and end dates, percentage of budget spent and total spend for each account.”

Personal first impressions are favourable. Only time will tell

To read a full overview, the MCC Dashboard post is here

Add comment May 28th, 2008

Yahoo terminate Ambassador search marketing accreditation

According to reports on SE Roundtable, Yahoo is no longer accepting applications for their Ambassador program (something that I should add won’t affect many paid search specialists in the UK - as it has never been rolled out to UK organisations). For those unfamiliar with the Yahoo Ambassador program it is (or was) the equivalent of Google’s Adwords Professional program, where you take an online exam, administered by YSM!, and upon successful completion, you receive a Yahoo! Ambassador badge that can be displayed on your website.

From a search perpective it is not a great suprise, however given the lack of credible accreditation out there it does seem somewhat of a pity to see this fall by the wayside. This like the Google Advertising Professional/Company accreditation is a distinguishing feature and something that certainly can help in distinguishing you from smaller ’smoke and mirrors’ organisations.

Other coverage on this

Search Engine Land - Yahoo Search Ambassador Program closing

Search Engine Watch

Add comment May 17th, 2008

Google Adwords improve quality score reporting

Google has announced a significant improvement in the reporting within its quality score stats following on from the announcement that landing page load time will become a quality score factor from Mid June 2008 onwards.

Reporting accessible via the quality score analysis tab allows you to analyse whether there are any issues relating to your landing pages and landing page load times, with a brief comparison to other ’servers’ in the region . This is reported on by keyword level.

To access this data:

1) Choose the applicable campaign, and ad-group.
2) Choose the keywords tab if not chosen automatically
3) From the keyword page, click on the magnifying glass icon, and click on the ‘details and recommendations’ option for quality score.

This will present the following page:

For further help on improving your load times, refer to this help document from Google themselves

Add comment May 14th, 2008

Fine tuning your landing pages - Turbo boost your Online Marketing

Over the last couple of weeks we have spent a fair number of hours finetuning a number of Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns run here at E-Gain. Very few (if any) campaigns are spot on at the first attempt, and most campaigns will take hours of ‘tweaking’ in order to become efficient conversion vehicles. Therefore it is essential, you don’t look at Campaign Setup as a one off for a campaign, and then just leave it. To make PPC work it takes time, effort and testing, and above all patience. However it is worth it, we have had some startling results, with some ROI campaigns seeing 100%+ increases in ROI, due to ongoing ‘optimisation’ just off the landing pages, so what do you need to consider…

Test, Learn, Refine

As we mentioned above, no campaign is perfect - there is always room for improvement. Therefore a good campaign should involve a healthy dose of testing, always followed up by evaluation and learnings from the testing, and then refinement of the campaign as a result. Once this has been done, test - learn - and refine your campaign again.

There are plenty of tools out there that will help you do this, not least Google’s very good Website Optimiser product which allows you to test a number of on-page mechanisms such as strapline, imagery and content, in such a way that you can see exactly what is working, what isn’t and subsequently develop a strategy that will work for your clients. After all - every project and every client is different.

Web Analytics are your friend - Track Everything

As we mentioned above, Test - Learn -Refine is a fundamental part of all campaigns, however Web Analytics are a fundamental part of that process. On all E-Gain Search Marketing campaigns, we implement three forms of analytics in order to:

• Get an overview of where our visitors are coming from
• Find out what phrases our visitors use to find us
• Find out what our visitors do when they land on the site
• Determine what proportion of visitors leave the site on entry (bounce rate)
• Determine how many of these visitors convert and above all what mechanisms do they use to convert - brochure downloads/orders/bookings/newsletter signups etc
• Determine the ‘trends’ of visitors visiting the website
• Determine how they interact with the site as a whole

There are a number of tools out there that allow you to do this, from base level Google Analytics (which is a very very good starting point), to Omniture (would suggest for Enterprise level sites), to more niche analytics such as SpeedTrap (behavioural analysis) to more sophisticated eye-tracking tools. As mentioned previously, we use three tools on our sites to identify the above behaviour, and allow us to tailor our strategies accordingly.

Know your audience

This to me is critical with landing pages. There is no point having a one page conversion mechanism for a client if the product or service they offer is not an ‘everyday product’. I can use an example of a company I recently spoke to whose niche product similar to health insurance was not converting. However a first look at the conversion mechanism (a one page ‘funnel’ into signup), highlighted the consumers requirement for further information, particularly from online referrals such as Paid Search and Behavioural activity.

It is therefore imperative you know your audience. The above scenario does not fit for all. In some instances, you will need to make the conversion metric far more streamlined - for example I would suggest Apple could/and probably do (haven’t analysed it for the purposes of this post), a far more ’streamlined’ conversion funnel given both the strength of their brand and the type of product they offer

Above all, test - learn - refine, and make sure you track everything.

Engage with your audience - Your calls to action

Your calls to action are your mechanism for your customer to communicate with you, whether it be

• Contact Form
• Product Purchase
• Brochure Download
• Whitepaper request
• Newsletter signup
• Competition Entry
• Blog Subscriber
• Price Alert Request

These mechanisms need to be obvious and above all prominent. Incorrect implementation of your calls to action can significantly impact on your ROI, and ultimately on your bottom line.

Secondly, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I am constantly amazed by the amount of websites that only have one call to action, even if its a contact form. Above are 8 possible data capture mechanisms, and I could have gone on. Not all customers convert at the first attempt (according to a recent presentation at Search Engine Strategies 2008 in London - a research study by ComScore suggested that most users converted roughly 3 visits after their initial entry to a site - and this entry to conversion mechanism in many cases could be longer than 30 days+).

Say your are selling widgets. Your primary call to action is going to be based around the purchase of your widgets, however by providing

• Newsletter signup - Collect potential customer information and then email these ‘consumers’ with information regarding deals, news and other information
• Competition entry - As with the above - these people have allowed you access to your data (I would add at this point, permission of the ‘customer’ is essential to send email marketing to), so use this data to send them relevant news and information. Above all - understand your customer and make sure these timings are right - don’t overuse this as this is likely to make the whole process counter productive
• Brochure Download - this I would suggest is two fold - one you know your client is further down the ‘conversion matrix’ and thus is in decision making/buying mode rather than browsing, so they require a different type of approach. A simple follow up a couple of days later could work wonders here.
• A widget blog - you can get people to subscribe to your blog and raise further brand awareness of your widget

Above all make sure people can find these conversion mechanims. Don’t hide them away at the bottom of the page (you will be amazed how many people do), and make them obvious without making them offputting - as there is a fine balance.

Therefore make sure your landing pages have relevant and obvious calls to action - as soon as your customers get to the site, and make sure they have the relevant ’support material’ to make that decision.

First impressions are key - Dress to impress

Much like people I guess - landing pages need to create a favourable first impress. In most cases - that first impression can be the difference between you getting the sale, and you losing the sale. Your website is your shop/your sales channel - so it needs to be treated as such. A users mind is made up within the first 4 seconds of them visiting your site (obviously this is going to vary by sector/product), however it is not a long period of time in which to engage and communicate with your customer so those very first important impressions are crucial.

Therefore make sure your pages engage from the off.

• Use colours intelligently in order to raise awareness of key calls to action.
• Use fonts, font size and font weight carefully in order to attract awareness and prominence to your key messages on your page
• Use imagery in moderation in order to convey your message more effectivelly
• I personally would advise not using any highly interactive elements as the primary part of your landing page strategy such as Flash. IF the user does not have this installed - your are very likely to have lost that sale in a very short period of time.
• Make sure your site is up - website downtime is a Very bad turnoff.

Getting your landing page strategy takes time - but in the end it can pay off handsomely. Above all make sure your landing page strategy doesn’t end with the landing page - follow this process through to the rest of your site. A well thought out conversion funnel can pay dividends (John, Paul and myself used to work for a major PC manufacturer and were responsible for the redevelopment of the conversion funnel - from entry to conversion - a redevelopment which saw a 300% increase in conversions due to streamlining of the conversion funnel)

Add comment March 10th, 2008

Google to trial demographic targeting on Adwords

Google is currently in the process of testing a demographic bidding system on the Adwords platform, which will be rolled out to selected advertisers initially with a full roll out later in the year.

The targeting will allow Google paid search advertisers to run demographically targeted campaigns, such as displaying ads to women aged 25-35, a move reminiscent of the earlier MSN Adcentre incarnation. This targeting will be initially be rolled out across the content network in the US and UK

Add comment January 31st, 2008

Launched: E-Gain New Media PPC Management Conversion audits

We have been working with a number of clients recently who previously had not used Paid search as a mechanism for driving increased traffic to their website, instead utilising a number of channels either above or below the line. Any online activity was limited to well established hybrid brands such as Yell.com, and has as yet provided limited success to the clients in question in terms of ROI.

Now Paid Search is a big enough jump in itself, however explaining to clients the potential benefits in terms of conversion of a well structured conversion funnel encompassing not only structured landing pages, but also a tailored approach to converting a website visitor.

It is still surprising how many companies fall into the OZDC Syndrome - thats over-zealous data capture syndrome to you and me - in order words - asking clients for too much information for what is required. I have lost count of the number of people who require everything but your bank account detail to register for a site. Why - why not capture some details the first time, follow up and capture more the second, and make it a work in progress. If a browser wants to buy/purchase he will give the information. If he/she doesn’t - make sure you get something off him, and then work on making you sure you get him the second time.

It is for this reason - I often advise clients to focus their data capture into bitesize segments. For example, I may have a cruise company. I may not be looking to book for six months or so, so therefore am going to be looking for a good deal and willing to wait. For this reason, why not look at capturing his/her details via price alerts, perhaps a newsletter - and the age old favourite competitions. All have their own little benefits, but above all allow us to build a profile of the user, and how our users use the website.

However probably the biggest aspect of the new conversion audit service is our bottleneck analysis. A good site is built up of a well structured navigation funnel, channeling users through a sales process. For example base product, upsell, cross-sell. However this process can often become lost and confusing for the client. E-Gain New Media analyse all aspects of the customer journey in order to refine and develop the purchase flow, and ultimately work at increasing your ROI.

To find out more simply contact us at E-Gain New Media via our contact form or call 0845 671 0018

Add comment November 20th, 2007

Efficient PPC Management Part II - Google Adwords Troubleshooting

This is probably slightly out of position as the second part of the ‘Effective PPC Management’ series, however I would suggest most people reading this probably are more concerned with getting to the bottom of Paid Search management issues, and as such it seems appropriate to include this earlier.

Google Adwords is one of the primary reasons, Google is the behemoth that it is today. Adwords is designed to make Google money, and it certainly does that, over and over and over again. For this reason, it is imperative that your campaigns are carefully managed, constantly optimised and refined. If you don’t understand the system, it is very easy to get burned.

1) Know your networks

The number of times I have gone into a campaign, and seen huge volumes of impressions, and clicks, and very little ROI from campaigns which have the content network included is phenomenal. Whilst utilising the content network isn’t bad, many people do this without careful analysis of the potential audience, and without careful thought to budgets, and by the end of the month, have a very big bill, with very little ROI. I will use a local solicitors we were helping recently, on a campaign supposedly set up by a PPC expert - however careful analysis showed that despite some good keyword research - many of the fine tuning of the campaign had been forgotten. For example

• Content network activated on loosely related generic phrases. i personally have used Content Network, where a niche exists. Content network basically displays ads on sites which have related content (and who are part of Googles publisher network - Adsense), however this relationship is determined by Google rather than you personally and as such, the link can be somewhat ropey to say the least. The more generic the phrase therefore and the more competitive the industry, the less inclined I would be to use the Content Network - particularly if budget is an issue.
• Content bids are the same as Search bids. Browsers entering as a direct result of search network activity are often more ‘qualified’ than content network browsers and as such are generally (not always) more likely to convert. Therefore I would suggest if you are going to use the Content Network - pay careful attention to your content bids. Careful management of this aspect of the campaign can save you a lot of money

2) Keyword matching
By default, Google defaults keywords to broadmatch. Leaving your phrases broadmatched will lose you a lot of money, again particularly if you are working within a competitive sector such as debt, insurance or real estate.

Careful consideration should be given to your choice of keywords, and I would suggest research should play an important part of your Paid Search campaign. If you check the phrases your ads are being shown for on many of your broadmatched terms, you will find Google is really pushing the ’semantic envelope’ on some of them.

For this reason, I would suggest looking at the following:

• Negative keywords - Some thorough analysis of your analytics will often highlight a number of terms which provide traffic, but often result in high bounce rates and very low conversion rates. Many of these terms can be ‘removed’ without adversely affecting the scope of visibility of the phrase itself
• More targeted matching - Rather than broadmatching, there are other matching options available that will give you far greater control over what terms your ads display for. These include ‘phrase match’, ‘exact match’ and the afore mentioned ‘negative match’. Strategic use of these matching options will often result in significant improvements to your ROI.

3) Impressions

High numbers of impressions are not necessarily a good thing. High impressions and Low CTR (click through rate), can often be indicative of issues elsewhere in your campaign, such as your Ad-creative or the like.

However more pressingly though, high impressions and low CTR damages your quality score, which results in you having to pay more for every click.
4) Multiple campaigns

I have seen a number of ‘campaigns’ where multiple clients are managed under one account, or hundreds of diverse adgroups are run from one centralised campaign. Don’t be afraid to split the account into multiple campaigns (broken down by theme, budget allocation etc).

Doing this not only allows for easier management of your campaign, but also will allow:

• Greater control over where your budget is spent - Rather than allocate 100% of your budget to one campaign, allocation can be split over multiple Adwords campaigns providing better scalability, and focus, particularly where a good ROI has been established.
• This will also allow you to get a clearer idea of where volume is, either in terms of impressions or clicks. From an ease of management perspective, this will allow you to analyse and fix any potential bottlenecks that exist

5) Analyse your keywords

Don’t just monitor your campaigns at campaign/ad group level. Delve deeper - get your fingers dirty, and analyse the campaign at its root. Looking at ROI and conversion rates at keyword/phrase level can often uncover some gems, often missed during the campaign setup, which given some time, and attention can result in significant improvements to your Adwords ROI.

This is possibly one of the most important parts of the optimisation process. Careful analyse of your keywords not only uncover the gems, but also the snakes, which as mentioned above can often be the difference between successful PPC management and failure.

6) Targeted Adgroups

We covered this to a certain degree in part 1 of the Effective Pay-per-click management series, however this is one that can really pay dividends. The more targeted your ad groups, the more targeted your creative can be. Reinforcing the points made from point 4 - having relevant ads will often result in a higher CTR (due to the relevancy of the ads vs the searched query thus a lower minimum bid), which therefore means you pay a much lower cost per click.

7) Landing Pages

We discussed the effects a well structured and optimised landing page can have in the first part of ‘Effective PPC Management’, however again it is worth highlighting the benefits of focusing significant time and effort on getting these right. Thorough analysis of user behaviour on your landing pages is paramount to establishing how your users browse and convert and thus capturing the best way of converting ‘wannabe’ customers into ‘confirmed’ customers
Adwords is not easy - many of the biggest (notice I didnt say best ) companies out there such as Latitude, Starcom and the like have years of experience behind them - however I would suggest it is the process of doing the above well that determines the success of many of their campaigns.

Add comment October 23rd, 2007

Effective PPC Management - Part I - Getting your landing pages right

We have been undertaking more and more Paid Search campaigns over the last year or so, and I have to say the ‘art’ of effective PPC Management is one that intrigues me nearly as much as my main baby SEO.

Paid Search is a mesmerising mix of effective copywriting, good design and strategic planning. Done correctly it can be a potent part of any search marketing mix, done badly it can be a money pit.

In the first part of a series of effective PPC Management, I thought I would cover the landing much, which I find to be the hardest sell to clients, used to offline advertising, and who often do not appreciate the significant benefits a well thought out landing page can deliver. So what makes a good landing page

1) Look and feel

I could start with something more technical, however I think this is another point often overlooked by a lot of the techies. People do judge a book by its cover, particularly within the retail sector. Whilst I will back this up by saying in some sectors this is not the case, in many it is, and therefore it is import to portray a modicum of professionalism within your landing page design.

2) Focus 

Whilst I have put this down as point 2, it probably should be point 1 given its importance. Success can be won or lost by incorrectly implementing a landing page.

Focussing your customers thoughts where you want them is imperative, and therefore the inclusion of other detractions should be very carefully considered during landing page design. I myself doubted this for years, however the proof in many cases is in the pudding as far as this is concerned.

In particular I would draw your attention to a landing page I found recently for Churchills Stairlifts (from search for stairlifts), which highlights the points above. The PPC manager in this case has carefully thought out what is important namely:

• Focus on the product namely stairlifts - top navigation has been removed
• Inclusion of conversion mechanism - feedback form to the right.
• Easy to access information as core part of the design

I will compare this against a number of other campaigns in order to highlight the point. Recently I was looking for a W910i.  I looked at a number of sites, from the Google UK results with the following results

• T-Mobile - sent me to an OOPS - Sorry we cannot find this page. All I am going to say is that this must be costing them a fortune, and I am suprised that this hasnt been tested prior to going live. Surely all the bid management tools in the world are not going to save you money here.
• O2 - Generic landing page  - whilst this is better than the last attempt surely focussing maintaining the users focus on the product typed in rather than the brand would result in a higher conversion rate/lower bounce rate.
• Dialaphone - whilst I would suggest this was getting more towards my line of thinking with a dedicated Google W910i landing page - I was also advised that ” Sorry, there are no deals available, please amend your search criteria and search again.”. With the thoughts of customer focus in mind surely an alterior call to action would have been more acceptable - ie something along the lines of - “Sorry there are no deals available online - Please call our customer sales team on ….”

Given the recent Omniture study which surveyed a number of different landing pages, the above was all the more suprising. The Omniture report refered to ‘friction’ namely the more you make a customer work - the less likely the are to convert, and the more likely the are to leave your page. Given other reports with a suggested four seconds to impress your clients - the requirement for focussed landing pages is altogether more important.

3) Do your research 

There is no point developing a landing page that is unsuitable for your clients. Use the two searches above - namely stairlifts and mobile phones. Your stairlift audience I would suggest are going to be 35+ (carers, family and people personally requiring stairlifts whome I would suggest would be 45+ - if there are any advertisers out there - would be nice to have some correct figures) many of whom are not going to be particularly IT literate. Therefore bamboozling them with fancy interactive gizmos, and too much content is just going to bamboozle. I would also suggest that this target market would be far more likely to be ‘turned on’ by features of the product and soft selling such as reliability (’Quality conscious’ rather than videos, 3d modelling and the like.

Contrast that with any of your mobile phone vendors, I would suggest your younger demographics are going to be far more succeptable to such technical integration. I personally would suggest the integration of such interactive elements would possibly enhance conversion (particularly on such a targeted term). I would also suggest that this demographic is going to be far more ‘price conscious’ than the afore mentioned stairlift consumer.

4) Test, Learn and Refine
You will be very lucky if you hit upon the magic formula first time round particularly with a new client, however that isnt the end of the world. Many of the biggest PPC agencies out there, constantly test, learn and refine their landing pages, in order to ensure that these pages perform as well as they possibly can. This includes straplines, imagery, calls to action, layout - really anything on there landing pages, that could possibly affect conversion.

Again, this possibly should have been further up the page, however its importance cannot be emphasised. Even if you think you have the perfect formula, I would suggest it can still be bettered.

5) Quality Score

Thought I would leave till last, however it should always be considered that landing pages are a factor when it comes to both Google and Yahoo’s quality score (I know Yahoo Panamas isnt called this - but it’s a similar principle). Relevant Landing pages can therefore save you money - and isn’t that as good a reason as any.

1 comment October 21st, 2007

Google’s Best Practise Funding no more - what does this mean to UK PPC

On the 20th Sept. 2007, Google announced that they were ceasing Best Practise Funding (BPF) as of 2009, although some changes will be introduced in 2008. To a number of agencies in the UK such as Bigmouthmedia and Search Latitude this is big news, particurly as this will affect the margins the agencies can make on Paid Search campaigns (However I will add most of the afore mentioned agencies have already planned for the removal of BPF).

So why was Best Practise Funding introduced?

• Google wanted to encourage the use of Paid Search, and wanted large agencies to encourage clients to leverage extra budget towards PPC.
• Google needed a mechanism by which to reward such agencies and as such the Best Practise Funding (or BPF) was just one such way to do this

As Andrew Girdwood stated in his post on the E-Consultancy blog post, I would suggest that Google has achieved both its goals in terms of the above.

What changes are to be introduced in 2008

The Best Practise Funding is to be ceased as of 2009, however as of January 2008, the following changes will be introduced.

• No Growth Kicker from January 2008
• Existing tiers for rebates lowered from €4M upwards, making higher rebates achievable quicker. This will equate to a small increase in the total rebate agencies receive
• Removal of incentives for use of new formats such as video/mobile
• BPF targeting handled automatically so separate campaigns will no longer be required for non-BPF countries on multi-national projects and campaigns

So what does this mean?

To the majority of agencies - not very much I would suggest. However to the larger agencies where agency spend is over €250,000 per quarter this could have a significant effect. Agencies where spend falls under this threshold could find their margins thus significantly affected if they have either not planned for such an occurance, or secondly are very reliant on such ‘commisions’.

I personally would suggest this is more likely to affect the PPC reliant agencies rather than the more ‘integrated search agencies’ (a fairly obvious assumption I think most would agree), however I would also suggest this may also provide extra opportunities for smaller agencies outside of the so-called Top 5 (Latitude, Search Works, Publicis, WPP and Aegis) to compete against larger organisations, as everyone will be on a far more level playing field, where larger agencies where BPF was applicable could discount fees with the BPF in mind. I guess only time will tell.

We would also suggest this should result in greater professionalism within the paid search service sector. Many of the larger agencies have already suggested those offering high value services and greater professionalism are likely to benefit from this.

Only time will tell what is going to happen, but one thing is for sure - its going to be an interesting time for Search Marketing and Paid Search Marketing in particular

Add comment September 21st, 2007

Industry PPC click fraud reaches 15% in Q2 2007

According to a recent report by Click Forensics, pay-per-click click fraud reached a rate of 15% for the second quarter of 2007. The Click Forensics report taken from the Click Fraud Index;  which monitors and reports on data gathered from the Click Fraud Network™, which more than 4,000 online advertisers and agencies have joined; showed the following trends:

• Average Click Fraud rate on Search Engine Content Networks was 25.6% including Google Adsene and Yahoo Publisher Network. This was up from 21.9% in Q1 2007 and 19.2 in Q4 2006
• Traffic from botnets doubled between Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 2007.  According to Robert Hanson, CEO of SecTheory - “”We’re not surprised to see the industry average click fraud rate climb this quarter as a result of botnet activity,” and “Our clients are well aware that botnet activity is on the rise and that botnets are being used for a variety of online fraud activities, including click fraud.
• The greatest percentage of PPC click fraud occurred from North America, China (3.2%), France (5.1%) and Australia (3%)
• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 15.8 percent for Q2 2007. This is an increase from 14.1 percent for the same quarter in 2006 and 14.8 percent for Q1 2007.

To read the full Click Forensics release, click here

1 comment July 23rd, 2007