Google Search Partners: How to Identify and Target Your Ads

Posted onJune 9th, 2010 byadmin

Historically, Google has never provided the insight or tools necessary within AdWords to manage their search partner placements. Compare this to the Google Content Network, where only recently have they given us the ability to control and exclude placements on the network that simply don’t perform. However, the Google Search Partner network has remained relatively unchanged over the years despite our continual requests for better reporting and tools.

Unfortunately, this has put us in a position as advertisers and agencies where we are left with only 2 real options. Based on the performance of the Google Search Partners, you are either in or you’re out. There is no middle ground….until now.

At Keyword Search Pros, we identified 3 steps to identify, target, and monitor/adjust specific placements in the search partners. Below are the slides that will give you the low down and exactly how we did and you can do this.

We hope you find great use of this Amazing Tactic. To give an example of how we used it here at KSP, take of one of our clients who sells high-end swing sets. This particular client’s ads were appearing on a Walmart web page with other swing sets that were at lower price points. So these people were going to Walmart, presumably for a swing set under $500. Our clients sets range between $1.5k to $5K.

At first we noticed the low performance from Walmart specifically but were hesitant to opt out since there were a significant amount of conversions still coming from this partner. What we decided to do was create a more targeted ad; something to the sound of,

Swing Set Not On Walmart?
Try Better Swing Sets than Walmart
Prices from $1,500. Free Shipping
www.MyClientsDomain.com

This allowed us to create a better targeted ad that prepared advertisers for our price points and qualified people better who were not prepared to spend in this range. This is only one area  of use. The aim of our presentation and tutorial here is to give control back to the advertisers.

In addition to our findings, we wanted to point you over to an Analytics resource created by a UK company, Periscopix. Here, in their blog piece they tell us how to set filters to segment Analytics data from in Search Partner network. One of the best things it does is gives advertisers a full perspective of who their entire partner network might consist of.

http://www.periscopix.co.uk/blog/index.php/underused-google-analytics-features-part-eight/

We did this filter test in Analytics for one of our smallest clients capturing data over 30 days. Or client got 2,800 clicks over 88 different partners; each partner being of a differnt nature and performance level. This it is why  it is important that we take control of the Partner Network starting with targeting or excluding  its members.

Use Match Settings and Increase Return

Posted onMay 23rd, 2010 byadmin

In order to use match settings and increase return simultaneously, you’ll have to understand a few things about match settings and search queries. One is that the level of impressions significantly decreases for phrase and exact match versions of keywords. And secondly, applying match settings to keywords should be done only with the intention of lowering “high” conversion costs or slowing the amount of clicks to conform to a limited daily budget.

When attempting to lower high conversion cost, it is important that you take all the preceding steps to lower conversion cost before applying match settings. Match setting will likely result in lower traffic and consequently lower sales volume. If you race ahead and apply match settings prematurely, you might forgo the opportunity to lower conversion cost without lowering traffic and sales.

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What is a Good Bounce Rate?

Posted onApril 25th, 2010 byadmin

High bounce rated could be attributed to a variety of different scenarios. The danger with bounce rate is that it really only tells you one thing: the percentage of people who came to and left the website from the same page they landed. That’s all. I often get asked, “What’s a Good Bounce Rate?” And like all  the times I get asked, “Whats’s a good__(CPC, CTR, Conv. Rate)_?” My response is the same. It depends.

Bounce rate doesn’t tell you why they did. Remember that each visitor is different and has a  different experience when they visit your site. Its reasonable to assume they leave for different reasons.

This is just a quick read to give advertisers some reasonable and possible conclusions regarding bounce rate. I’ll also give you some steps you can take to improve bounce rate or otherwise disregard it.

Suppose you get into your analytics and you notice the following bounce rates:

Adgroup 1                     67%                                    Homepage

Adgroup 2                     58%                                    Product Category Page

Adgroup 3                     89%                                    Product Description Page

How to Decipher: What is a Good Bounce Rate?

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4 Easy Steps to Reviewing Google Analytics

Posted onApril 25th, 2010 byadmin

Before we jump straight into Google Analytics I want to set the approach strategy with everyone. Sometimes advertisers are forced into making decisions about search marketing from the pressure lacking campaign performance. They’re not getting enough sales, leads, inquires, and often they are paying good money for these limited results which causes them to look for answers inside Google Analytics.

My only disclaimer is that advertisers who are specifically going to Analytics for answers of what to change in their Adwords account might be quick to jump the gun before learning all the answers. I want to remind you guys that Analytics should be used, not as a change agent, but as a tool that allows us to get the entire story about your campaigns before making any decision at all. In other words, we use Analytics to paint the entire picture so that we can process all the information and eventually come to a justifiable conclusion about what is actually happening when people visit our website.

So for the purpose of this segment, I only want to give you tools that might help paint that picture clearer for you. In reality, everyone who follows these steps will achieve different results that will eventually demand different actions. What you learn today might be change the way you see your campaigns and even your business. Once the picture is clearer, what you do about it should become clearer too.

Note: Because Google Analytics contains information about your website from all referring sources, it is important that you observe the correct source segment (Adwords or Google) and compare to others.

1. Explore Bounce Rates in Comparison to Other Referring Sources

2. Explore Exit Pages (Top Exits and Percentages) in Comparison to Other Referring Sources

3. Explore Average Time on Site

4. Examine Content Page Views and Sort by Source

(video in edit room)

Great job. By now you should have a stronger approach to Analytics and because you have more of the story, your decisions will be more informed and you won’t put yourself in a bad position because you took action prematurely.

Lower Conversion Costs While Increasing Sales Return

Posted onApril 25th, 2010 byadmin

Lowering Conversion Cost without lowering sales return has always been the advertiser’s dilemma. Increasing return has always been an amazing feat. Advertisers have pushed for the lowest conversion cost. But at the end of the sales day, they paid closer attention to sales volume and return than conversion data. As professional Adwords managers, its expected that we’ll be asked to lower conversion cost for our clients. Now at what cost can we do this? The fastest way to lower conversion cost is to lower CPC and the fastest way to do that is to lower the keywords bids and consequently lower ranking, exposure, traffic, and sales return.

So in our business, the client has passed the dilemma onto us. How are we to manage client expectations with lower conversion costs while increasing the sales revenue?

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Unmasking the Abomination of Quality Score

Posted onApril 24th, 2010 byadmin

Dear Quality Score Victim,

I have to admit: I’ve been dying to write an updated piece about Quality Score (QS) since 2 years ago when we put out THIS BLOG piece. The game has changed forever and I’ve spent more time gritting my teeth and cursing at my monitor (logged into Adwords) than ever before. The reason is because we were told quality score was to help ‘reward’ advertisers for constructing highly relevant campaigns and adgroups. But its all different now. Where’s the reward?

When QS was first introduced to advertisers in 2005, it was just a static score used to determine the minimum CPC based on the ad relevancy to its keywords. Over the next five years, Google would add in: CTR, landing page relevancy, account history (a combine average of all CTR’s in an account, and (the best part) “other relevant factors.” I’ve always gotten a big laugh out of “other relevant factors” because as I would dissect QS, I could see there was much more unexplained reasoning for low quality scores.

An Illustration of Traditional Quality Score (Pre-2009-2010)

In August of 2008, Google restructured QS and made it a “real-time” score that would take effect as soon as someone searched on Google. Some of the other differences Google made were: replacment of minimum CPC  to “first page minimum bid”, landing page quality, and landing page load time. In expectation of a rough change to quality scores, we were surprised that existing advertisers who had been advertising a while, didn’t really see much change…until 2010. Now we go into the accounts and look around at QS but we’re not in Kansas no mo.

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Methods to Keyword Research

Posted onAugust 18th, 2009 byadmin

As an advertising consultant for one of the leading PPC firms, I’m always asked this question, “Where do you get your keywords from?” And since this is such a popular question, I have decided to finally write a post about it once and for all. Because afterall, if it’s something you’re going to do, you should probably do it right from the start.

Before we really jump right in, I want to mention that there are different circumstances between advertisers who are looking to do keyword research for the very first time and those who are looking to add additional keywords to their existing keyword mix. Depending on what resources you have available at the time you do your research, that would dictate how you could go about finding them.

There are actually quite a few ways in which to find keywords. Not all of them will be mentioned here in this article. However, we will mention the most popular ways to research keywords and also give the disclaimers to them as well. There is no perfect way to get the right keywords the first time around. And whatever keywords you do find will have to undergo some tests to make sure it holds true for your account.

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Qualifying (Part 2/4) Writing Effective Adwords Ads

Posted onJuly 31st, 2009 byadministrator

Qualifying Buyers (Part 2/4)

The second purpose in writing effective ads is to qualify buyers. There are two reasons why you want to qualify your buyers, 1) to make sure they are actually buyers and 2) to make sure they want something you have. Some of the actions you will take in this part may already be done by virtue of taking action to attract your buyers. Nevertheless, it is important that you make a mental note that you have qualified your visitors as your buyers before letting the ads run.

Make sure they are buyers and not just information hungry visitors. (Writing catchy ads can be very similar in task.) As an advertiser, it seems common knowledge that the sponsored links area of a search results page will hold only ads whose sponsor is looking to sell something. In other words, people searching, who are not advertisers, may not know the sponsored links are there for more than information usually. How can we make sure that people clicking on our ads are really out to buy something?

We have already done this if we inserted some “call-to-action” language or description that implies a purchase. In the example ad, there were 4 things that do this; all of which were in the description.

20% Off All Whole Bean Purchases.
Free Fast Shipping, Order Online!

20% Off means off of a price which implies a purchase. The actual word ‘Purchases’ is more littoral than implied. In case you were wondering, it states, “You will be making a purchase.” Shipping information implies purchasing or buying. And the best way to imply a necessity to buy (especially when you have more product description in the ad) is to put in a call-to-action; Order Online, Order Now, Buy Now, etc. Don’t use “click here.” Google does not allow this call-to-action and it doesn’t imply the necessity to buy.

Make sure they are looking for something you can offer.

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Hello world!

Posted onDecember 11th, 2007 byadministrator

Welcome to Real Search Pros Official Blog Page!

Here you will find helpful tips and advice for PPC camapigns in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. We strongly encourage advertisers to subscribe to the blog as we’ll be dishing out new ideas and concepts that will help make your ad campaign the winning one. Real Search Pros want you to ask questions about whatever poses a challenge to you in your day-to-day marketing ventures.  The best part about this is it’s all free! So don’t wait, begin using Real Search Pros blog page to aid in your company’s PPC success today!

Editorial: Yahoo’s drama end in clear win – for Google

Posted onJune 18th, 2006 byadmin

Mercury New Editorial – June 18th, 2006- The 4 1/2-month drama over Yahoo has ended in momentous defeat for the Sunnyvale Web portal. Yahoo may have succeeded in fending off Microsoft, but it’s in danger of being further eclipsed by a younger, nimbler Google. After repeatedly spurning Microsoft, Yahoo last week struck a partnership that will make it dependent on Google in the key business of Internet search advertising. The deal gives Google, already the dominant player with more than 60 percent market share, even more power. That’s worrisome for competition and innovation in Internet services. The pact that unites the No. 1 and No. 2 players deserves serious scrutiny from antitrust regulators. The rebuff of Microsoft by CEO Jerry Yang and Yahoo’s board also will go down as one of the most blatant dismissals of shareholder interests in corporate history. Yahoo was worth $19 a share before Microsoft revealed its $31 a share offer, later raised to $33 a share, or $47.5 billion. Today, the stock is at $23. With angry investors like Carl Icahn agitating, leadership changes at Yahoo are still possible. Yahoo is a damaged company with a dicey future. It’s likely to remain a pawn as Google and Microsoft continue jostling for strategic advantage. Under the outsourcing deal, Yahoo will publish Google text ads alongside some Yahoo search results, generating up to $450 million a year, but ceding key ground to Google. The deal could make Google’s ad technology an even bigger draw for advertisers, further undermining Yahoo’s ad platform. That could push Yahoo further toward irrelevance and threaten its long-term viability. Microsoft’s unsuccessful pursuit of Yahoo exposed the software giant’s own weakness as a distant No. 3 in Web search and advertising. It showed a befuddling lack of commitment to getting the deal done. And Microsoft is left grasping for a bigger, better foothold in Internet services. Google emerges as the only winner. It’s poised to widen its lead over Microsoft, the aging one-time monopolist, and Yahoo, the first-generation Internet icon. In Silicon Valley, leadership in the market remains the province of those who continue to innovate.