Out of the Fog Marketing

If you use Adwords for English-based campaigns in the US, you might want to get on the waiting list for this beta tool test:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/06/adwords-campaign-experiments-beta-split.html

It lets you run split tests in your campaigns, assign varying percentages of traffic to the experiment, and you can actually test different bid amounts.

Labels: adwords, google adwords, ppc

There is some interesting information in this Forbes article on why you should continue to advertise during a recession. I know, you are thinking these are just advertising and marketing firms that want to keep making a buck.

Well here's some anecdotal proof that increasing ad spend in a weak economy actually works:

1) We increased pay-per-click ad spend for a local IT company this month and their leads have soared. Plus their cost per click is down due to a decrease in the competition's budgets.
2) We increased online advertising for our own firm. In a Google Adwords campaign, we were able to grab the top spot for a competitive term due to competition pulling out. That ad landed us one of our largest clients this month.

So don't spend unwisely, but think about actually INCREASING your budget to outmaneuver your competition this month.

Labels: ad spend, advertising agencies, forbes, google adwords, it, marketing in recession, marketing technology, online advertising, pay per click, recession, weak economy, yahoo search marketing

Great article by Ian Howie on Wordtracker's site. We find many companies to a decent job of keyword search, a mediocre job of ad copy and a dismal effort at landing pages. However it's one of the more important pieces of the conversion process.

If your landing page does not have anything to do with your keyword or ad copy or does not have a call to action, then it will be a wasted click. You are likely to see bounce rates off this page upwards of 85%.

Also Google assigns a quality rating to your keyword based on the quality of the landing page and its relevance to the particular keyword. The more targeted and relevant your ads and landing pages, the more favorably you are treated by Google.

Labels: google adwords, ian howie, keywords analysis, pay per click, ppc, wordtracker

Thanks to Josh of Web1Marketing for alerting us that folks have been hijacking Adwords accounts getting in probably through the use of weak passwords. Josh has some great tips in a blog entry on how to product your accounts.

Labels: adwords hijacking, google adwords, web1marketing

We all know determining the right keywords for your business' natural and paid search ad campaigns is vital. However, the searchers intent can be quite different when it comes to purchasing your goods or services. For example, the term "Michigan marketing" has a higher volume of searches, but we get more business from searches of the term "Michigan marketing firm".

But how can a business evaluate purchase intent upfront? Enter Microsoft AdCenter's Online Commercial Intent tool. Microsoft claims the tool can evaluate a visitor's intention to buy, sell, or complete a transaction. Simply type in your keyword and select "query". We found the data at least qualitatively compelling.

For example, the probability of commercial query for "Michigan marketing" is 35%, while the commercial intent of a user typing in "Michigan marketing firm" is 65% which is consistent with our historical metric tracking.

Labels: google adwords, keyword analysis, online advertising, pay per click, purchase intent

Check out StomperNet's Adwords Triangulation Video which has some great advice for intermediate to advanced Google Adwords users including a great explanation of how to use "embedded match". The training video also has some great advice on writing Adwords ad copy. Thanks to Andy Jenkins and Dan Theis for the amazing content.

Labels: embedded match, google adwords