Google 2.0: Google Universal Search

Many of you may have seen or heard by now from this article:

Google 2.0: Google Universal Search

Google has changed up the way listings are displayed. Although paid search will not be effected as much as organic search there are some things that all paid search advertisers should be doing or taking advantage of on Google:

• Account Structure – Making sure the site structure and the search engine account compliment each other in such a way that users can find what they are looking for with ease.
• Trademarks – if you own trademarks, the time has come to get the paperwork into Google so others will stop bidding on what are probably some high grossing terms.
• Google Checkout/Google Account Integration – Google Checkout will become a trusted source for people who buy thing online. It integrates with Gmail and Personal Google accounts. It allows users to make purchases without being hassled by long shopping cart processes and save CC info of users so they only need to have the card on file at Google. If Google checkout is implemented it also displays a graphic to differentiate yourself from the competition. You should take advantage of this ASAP.
• Google Analytics – Google analytics is a free solution and a new platform was just released. It ties back easily with Adwords spend and transactions that occur on checkout. If you have not implemented it yet – you should.
• Shopping Feeds - If you have any product database you should consider getting on Froogle as it is free and the listings often display at the top of the page. Research has shown that Shopping engines usually convert at higher rates then traditional paid search
• New Engines – Try to break out of the pure Google mindset. There are many other engines out there we can test that still have good results. Many advertisers just deal with Google so don’t forget about the little guys.
  

PPC King

Importing To Yahoo Panama

Having trouble with that panama import spreadsheet? Y

ou need to save the import spreadsheet as a unicode.txt, but you have to name the file as a .csv.

That is dumb.

To make this more clear. This is is what your save as: menu would look like.

File name: Example-yahoo.csv

Save as type: Unicode Text (*.txt)


Oh Yeah, and then you have to zip the file and submit it: Straightforward.

PPC Bid Management Tools

I recently had to do some research on PPC Bid Management Tools. Here are my findings. there are many other solutions out there as well. Feel free to put in your two sense.

SEM in a Box:

• New Tool aimed at agencies that have multiple accounts to manage or larger accounts. Developer Token is required.
• Non Automatic bidding
• Non-portfolio approach
• Offers insights & recommendations on the keyword, adtext, & adgroup level. You CHOOSE whether or not to implement them
• Imports Google, Yahoo accounts and has easy to use interface
• Allows you to set up on the “Initiative” Level
• Initiative can be set as Target CPC or Target CPA in other words makes it ideal for managing accounts with different price points in a product line.
• Uses developer token on MCC to pull down past report data
• Contains the Following Toolsets within:

1. Campaign Converter – Google >>> Panama
2. Competitive Landscape – Will provide you with what URLs are bidding on your terms
3. Keyword Finder
4. Top Keywords - see the ads for each of your top-performing keywords alongside the ads of your competitors
5. Keyword Grouper – experimental feature

• Reporting – Create Reports based on Initiatives
• Downside – Takes while to manually set initiatives
• Upside – to date the best job of integrating the many area of search marketing into one place.
• Price $399 Per month, per implementation (URL)


Keyword Max: ( I would not Get it)

• Make sure to use the trial first
• Only supports Google & Yahoo
• Keyword minimums & tiers, constraints on actions
• Read the forums before purchasing -

http://forums.seochat.com/seo-tools-75/keywordmax-90528.html


Inceptor Bidcenter or IDEARC

Conceptually I think inceptor comes across as a great solution. It allows you to set targets while taking into account you margins on particular items, or allows you to manage on CPA across many different tiers. Main problem with it is: It overwrites your URLs; this causes a major headache with adwords by causing a serious editorial nightmare. Bottom Line. Lots of Kinks.

• Inceptor integrated Adwords, Yahoo, MSN: A very enticing package
• Uses a portfolio approach - allows you to group terms in your own way. We would suggest by category or price point
• Attempts to service Google, MSN, and Yahoo and allows you to manage not just keyword bids, but adtext, & adgroups.
• Allows you to push over efforts from Google to YSM, & MSN,
• Allows you to set goal targets bases on the following:

• ROAS
• CPA
• CPC
• Traffic

• Rewrites all of your URLS which causes editorial nightmare
• Has a custom tracking pixel that can capture revenue & Conversions on their end, it uses this pixel to make decisions on successes or failures NOT what the engine says
• Has a lot of neat features but overall it is clunky and slow and it is not real time so there is a constant melee with their unresponsive support team
• Conceptually it was on the ball

Omniture Search Center

I have never used omniture, but it sounds good on paper. I think it probably does a nice job of managing bids; I am just unsure of how it works with goal setting, and managing on ROI. I bet it does a good job with maintaining rank and tracking profitability.

• All in one solution does analytics & auto bid management
• Tracks paid search and Organic Data
• Does not provide suggestions
• Automate keyword strategies and processes to your specifications
• Target keyword marketing by demographics, behavior and lifetime value
• Maximize keyword performance with integrated Web analytics
• Improve cross-channel marketing results
• Improve overall effectiveness
• Engines supported:
• Click fraud monitoring
• Allows management across 40 different search platforms

Organization is Key to PPC

Pay Per Click Help is hard to come by. I want to share with you the underlying principles of what makes PPC successful. There are many people out there who do this stuff completely wrong. The bottom line, the absolute, the best advice you will ever hear on PPC is about to be revealed to you.

1. Don't be a lazy ass - look at your account everyday and slowly peck away at making it work better. Do keyword optimization every week, then for the month, then for every 90 days, Implement the revenue tracking option and conversion tracking option on any engines that offers it, sign up for goole ananlytics as well and implement revenue tracking there as well. DON"T BE A LAZY ASS

2. Organization - You need to think of how you will break apart the account from the very beginning and you cannot just use keyword segmentation alone, although that is the major factor but take the following into consideration when you are creating adgroups:

• Keywords - make sure they all relate to one another
• How will you use the keyword in the adtext and how it will relate to the product. I.e. use the {KeyWord} variable in the adtext and destination URL. But grouping becomes really important, because if you have something like 100 model numbers all by the same manufacturer, then you want to group accordingly, having only one adgroup per model numbers so 100 adgroups: Then you have adtext that can list factors such as price, geo location, etc..
• Destination URL & Landing Page - using the above structure you better send the traffic direct to the landing page of the product
• Volume - if you have all of your popular keywords in one adgroup, and you have budget cap, then bad performing words can take away from good ones.

So to do things this way at this level is very time consuming, but it works much better and the more targeted your listings the more likely you are to sell. Some tricks that might help you generate a giant properly segmented PPC account fast are to use a feed from your site if you are using a shopping cart, figure out how to break that feed apart and use the organization of it to import it into adwords editor. Along these lines always create an account in adwords first using the adwords editor then export into other engines. In time I think there will be more tools to make MSN and YSM more user friendly but right now adwords allows you to get the breadth of account built out.

3. Let go of bad performers - just turn of shit that does not work. End of story.

4. Don't blame Google, your website may suck. Most people have real issues with hearing their site is looked upon negatively. I have gotten no real kudos on my site design and not a customer yet! But I am willing to listen if someone tells me it sucks, or realize that I might need to make tweaks if I am getting targeted traffic and nothing is happening.

PPC Tracking: Get it

Everyday in my life as an account manager I run into clients who refuse to recognize the importance of tracking. If you are one of these people: " I hate you". At my job I have to ultimately accommodate whatever foolishness I may encounter, but on my Blog; Tracking is everything and inexcusable not to have. If you are building a website using a CMS, make sure you can ad tags to the source code. If you are using a third party shopping cart, then figure out how the cart interacts with tracking solutions. You need to put tags on your cart pages and if they do not allow you to do this, then you are SOL. The types of tracking you should set up for PPC Campaigns is listed in this PPC Tracking Matrix. It will tell you what engines are out there and how to track them. A must as well for your account is enabling Google Analytics you can find more info on Setting Up Google Analtyics here.

{KeyWord} & YSM URLs

Recently I have really begun to enjoy using the {KeyWord} Insertion variable in my destination URLs on Google. It really allows you to not worry about whatever tracking solution you are using messing up match types, getting those fun and "term=None" issues. Google has keyword insertion technology on the adtext and URL level. I know that find it quick has it. I think they use <>. I have seen it in other places but I cannot recall where right now, anyone know? If so Post and Share!. I know where i have seen it does not have the same resources as YSM. But Yahoo (sigh), oh Yahoo, I frown upon you like when I see my now coke/crack addicted female high school classmates that were once cute and full of life. You were so close, you put the same insertion variable; you know this one {KeyWord:Yahoo Sucks} as an adtext creation option for the new Yahoo Panama interface; But you left this out of the keyword destination URL field. I heard that I can use "OVKEY" but tell me how? All I can find is "turn on the append option" and your in business. Right, but I use Google analytics, so explain how that works with your system, or I use webtrends etc... Yahoo Rep will tell me on the phone " Uh? you can use Yahoo Analytics". Bollocks.

Calculating PPC ROI

I have put this up so I can reference it too. It is is response to something I read about some guys who were talking about ROAS.

PPC ROI I have found that ROAS is an awful indicator for performance. Try using the pure ROI equation. Calculating the ROAS is a basic equation of revenue/cost.
To calculate PPC ROI:

First get the contribution: (Revenue X Margin) - Ad Cost = Contribution
So using the numbers from the example with a presumed 50% margin:
(1574 X .50%)=787)) Then - 787-1525=-738
contribution is -738

The to calculate PPC ROI Use: Contribution/Cost

-738/1525= -48% ROI

Yeah that is awful...