What The Google Analytics Query Update Means For PPC

Posted on October 24, 2011 by

Well, it looks like the SEO community has collectively flipped their lid over the Google Analytics search query data update announced last Tuesday. For those of you out of the loop, here’s a short recap. You used to be able to see all of the search queries that users used to find your site within your Google Analytics reports. Now, thanks to a privacy/security update Google made for it’s users, you will no longer be able to see the search query data from users who are 1) signed in to their Google accounts, and 2) using organic results to reach your site. Google states that this change will affect less than 10% of searchers on Google.com, but industry observers remain skeptical.

Fortunately for us PPC folks, search query data from clickers of paid ads remains unaffected. While this has some disturbing implications regarding Google selling out private user information for the sake of earning a few bucks, it’s great news for people who use PPC and Google Analytics in tandem.

But, that doesn’t mean that PPC will be completely unaffected. Organic search queries are a gold mine for keyword expansion. You’re never going to guess all of the keyword combinations that people use to find your site, so reviewing organic search query data in Google Analytics is the best free user-generated keyword research that you can get. This privacy update is going to make all of us lose a chunk of that, which will make it a little more difficult to get the query data you need to do effective keyword research.

The most perilous implication of this change is that Google is willing to remove the tools that SEO specialists and PPC marketers need to succeed. Google has always been forthcoming with valuable (and free!) keyword and analytics tools to help search engine marketers succeed. This may be the most significant pull back they’ve done on that account. It’s still uncertain what the future holds after this change. Will Google remove keyword data entirely, or maybe just for organic traffic? How far are they willing to go to thwart people trying to game their algorithm? And how much advertiser good will are they willing to sacrifice in order to appease the privacy concerns of their users?

If Google continues to reduce their Google Analytics offering, I predict that there’s going to be a much stronger market for paid web analytics tools. Or maybe another paid search network (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) will step up their game and build an even better free analytics tool. Either way, it couldn’t hurt to start shopping around for free alternatives to Google Analytics right now.

Posted in Analytics, Google AdWords, Keywords, Search Engines, SEO | 1 Comment

Why Use Microsoft AdCenter?

Posted on October 17, 2011 by

I’ll admit that I spend a lot of my time talking about Google AdWords here at PPC Without Pity. Since it’s the big dog of the pay per click marketing space, it probably deserves the most attention. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore all of your advertising options. Microsoft AdCenter does offer a pretty decent product, even though it’s nowhere near the traffic driver that AdWords is. Here are a few compelling reasons why you should be spending some of your PPC dollars with Microsoft:

1. AdCenter reaches about 30% of U.S. search engine users – Numbers differ depending on who you get them from, but most search engine surveys agree that Bing and Yahoo combined claim about 30% of U.S. search engine market share. While Google is standing strong at about 65%, that’s still a pretty sizable chunk of search engine users. Remember, AdCenter serves ads to both Bing and Yahoo users after the 2010 search alliance, so if you’re not running PPC ads in AdCenter, you’re missing out on traffic from two major search engines.

2. You’ll probably get a lower cost per conversion – Many PPC managers (including myself) have observed that Microsoft AdCenter tends to drive a significantly lower cost per acquisition than Google AdWords, both before the search alliance and after the search alliance. You can get this because advertising with Microsoft is much less competitive than advertising on Google. Almost everyone who does PPC does it on Google – that means you’ve got a lot more competitors in each keyword auction. Sure, you’ll get a lot less traffic than you would with Google, buy you’ll get a much better ROI with the traffic that you do get from AdCenter.

3. Importing your Google account into AdCenter is stupidly easy. – I remember a time when Microsoft still liked to pretend that they were a head-to-head competitor with AdWords, as if you had to choose between one or the other. Thankfully, they gave up on that nonsense and decided to position themselves as a service complementary to Google instead. Since that change, they’ve made it a lot easier to transition elements from AdWords to AdCenter. I mean, right on AdCenter’s homepage they have a link that explicitly states you can import data from a Google AdWords account. That may be a little humiliating for them to admit, but that’s good news for us PPC managers. Your Excel template may take a little massaging to get it to work right, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than creating a brand-new AdCenter account.

4. AdCenter has a lot of the same tools that make AdWords great – Conversion tracking? Check. Desktop editor? Check. Keyword research tools? Check. AdCenter’s selection of tools isn’t as robust as what Google offers, but you’ve got more than enough to get the job done.

So there you have it. Four compelling reasons to make Microsoft AdCenter a part of your advertising arsenal. I’m not encouraging anyone to ditch Google by any stretch of the imagination. But if you want to pick up a couple extra conversions on the cheap, AdCenter is the way to go.

Editors note: Adjust your calendars, I’m switching to posting from Sunday mornings to Mondays at noon, starting with this post.

Posted in Bing, Microsoft AdCenter, MSN AdCenter, Search Engines | Leave a comment

It’s Holiday PPC Time Again…

Posted on October 9, 2011 by

Well, folks, it’s that time of year again. You know what I’m talking about – the time when you have to dust off the old holiday campaigns in your PPC account (if your business is consumer focused) or twiddle your thumbs as your search traffic volume heads into the gutter (if your website focuses on business-to-business services). I’m just kidding, B2B folks. Now’s a great time for you to review this year’s performance and put into play structural changes and optimization plans for when things pick up in January. Sorry about the plummeting conversion volume, though…

Anyway, this post is a wake up call for all you B2C advertisers out there. We see the same pattern every year as the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus season creeps up on us like a fat burglar in a red suit and fluffy beard. It’s so regular you can set your watch to it. Take a look at this chart from Google Insights For Search, detailing yearly trends in search volume for gifts and gift ideas:

That huge spike you see is November and December search volume. But, we start to see the increase as early as October. So sound the alarm – if you haven’t already though of your holiday PPC plan, you had better get cracking this week.

So what should you do? For starters, think about adding some “gift idea” ads into your rotations. Do you have a product that could make a great gift? Tell the internet why! Maybe someone who usually buys your product is looking for a gift for that special someone and could use a little extra nudge to give you their holiday shopping dollars.

You might also think about introducing some “gift idea” keywords. But don’t go whole hog and just add “gift idea,” “gift ideas,” etc. Keep it specific to your product. If you sell sports memorabilia, use keywords like “sports fan gift idea.” If you sell fancy shaving kits, use something like “gift ideas for dad.” Bid only on keywords that hint at a need that your product, and only your product, would be able to fulfill. That way, you’ll benefit from the upswing in gift idea searches without getting a lot of junk traffic from people who probably aren’t looking for the thing you offer.

And finally, don’t forget about those landing pages! Put together a special “gift ideas” page featuring your products, and send your “gift idea” traffic toward that. You can feature a lot of different products that would make a good gift, but omit ones that might not work as a holiday gift.

If you’re an online retailer, your PPC costs are about to go way up due to increased e-commerce search volume. But if you’re smart about it, you can ride this wave of traffic to record profits instead of being swamped by a tsunami of irrelevant traffic. Review those search query reports, stay on the ball with negative keyword additions, and use your ad text to filter out clicks from irrelevant searches. Let the holiday season begin!

Posted in Analytics, Bing, Google AdWords, Keywords, MSN AdCenter, Search Engines, Text Ads | Leave a comment

Dynamic Keyword Insertion: Friend or Foe?

Posted on October 2, 2011 by

One pay per click advertising strategy that I hear a lot about is dynamic keyword insertion. For those not familiar with the method, it’s the practice of entering a variable into your PPC ads so that the user’s search query shows up in the space you specified. It looks something like this:

Buy {KeyWord:Blue Doodads}

So if a user typed in something like “azure widgets,” then the phrase “Buy Azure Widgets” the keyword you’re bidding on that the query triggered would appear in that text ad. But if someone types in a search query that matches a keyword in your ad group that’s way too long to fit in the character limits (for example: “I would really really like to purchase some blue doodads please”), then your default text – the text you specified after the Keyword: operator – would appear instead.

At face value, this seems pretty useful. If a user sees their search query in the ad, then they’re likely to click on it, right? And the truth is that this is absolutely correct. But is increasing click-through rate really what you want?

Your landing page is going to have a much larger influence on your conversion rate than your text ads. So if you increase the CTR of your ads via dynamic keyword insertion and your landing page still sucks, you’re going to end up paying for a lot more non-converting traffic. This will increase your CTR, your cost per acquisition, and your PPC costs in general.

Another consequence of dynamic keyword insertions is that your ads will appear relevant to non-relevant search queries. For example, let’s say you’re bidding on the broad match keyword “buy a yard sign in austin.” The search engines really suck at matching broad-match queries sometimes, so you might end up getting traffic for “online banking sign in” queries. If you use dynamic keyword insertion in the ad headline, then the user will see “Online Banking Sign In” as the headline instead of something relevant to yard signs. If the user is particularly dim (and a lot of people on the internet are), then they’ll click on your ad thinking it’s the login page for their bank. This costs you clicks, and they will never, ever convert since your page was not what they were looking for. In this case, dynamic keyword insertion would be a terrible choice that could end up costing your hundreds or thousands of dollars.

So is dynamic keyword insertion useful? Yes, if your ultimate goal is to increase CTR. But if the main goal of your PPC account is to get the most conversions for the least amount of money, then dynamic keyword insertion in your ads can really throw you off track. Personally, I prefer to manage my ad text on my own and only use DKI in special cases, but I have seen it used to some success when it was set up well. Think carefully about what might end up in that dynamic space before you launch this feature in your accounts.

Posted in Bing, Google AdWords, Keywords, MSN AdCenter, PPC Basics, Text Ads | 3 Comments

Does the Google +1 Button Really Affect PPC?

Posted on September 25, 2011 by

Okay PPC people, we’ve got to talk about this Google +1 thing. This week, Google announced their newest stage of the +1 button taking over the internet: the +1 button will now appear in your display ads. Frankly, this is getting pretty ridiculous. For the life of me, I can’t imagine why anyone would ever, ever +1 an ad. I mean, I love web advertising as much as any marketing guy, but really? Have you ever seen a PPC ad and just felt like you had to tell all your friends about how awesome it was?

“Hey guys! You have got to see this!”

“What is it?”

“This ad! Look at that keyword-rich headline! The smooth, poetic value proposition and call to action! THE WORLD MUST KNOW!”

Come on. Really.

If anyone out there has ever seen someone +1 an AdWords ad, or has +1′ed an ad your self, I’d love to hear about it. I want to know what you were thinking. I’m not trying to be condescending – I just honestly want to know why you or your customers did it.

Every time Google introduces a new doodad into AdWords ads (reviews, sitelinks, location extensions et al.), you have a new opportunity to stand out from your competitors by including the feature. And to be honest, most of the time you will see a lift in CTR for your ads if you can include something in your ads that your competitors don’t. However, we’re fast approaching a saturation point when it comes to PPC ad features. AdWords works because it is a simple and elegant solution to a complex problem. A user types in a search query for something they want to find, and advertisers have an opportunity to place an informative, non-flashy ad to help answer the user’s query. It’s not an eyesore for users who are already browsing a text-heavy search results page, and it’s highly targeted traffic for advertisers: a win-win. But now, ad content is starting to include a lot of non-text elements – review stars, +1 buttons, and product feeds are just the start.

Will AdWords ads evolve like the Facebook interface, which has (arguably) stayed pretty clean and simple throughout it’s successive iterations? Or will they go the way of MySpace, where vast amounts of user flair and visual noise ruined the user experience and made people leave in droves? Or will my overwrought analogy turn out to be completely off-base? I guess only time will tell.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment