SMarT Marketing

We came across this interesting scenario with Google Adwords and how they are displaying some of their ads. I searched on the term, “orlando car accident lawyers”,  and received the normal Adwords ads. I then refocused my search on “nursing jobs orlando”. This is where it gets interesting. From the screenshot below you will notice that one ad is related to my search term “nursing jobs orlando”. All the other ads are being served based on my previous search, which does not relate to my current search. Thus the lawyer ads are receiveing impressions on a term that is no longer relevant to the ads being displayed. Since the relevancy is not there, the potential for a click on those ads decreases significantly. So the potential to hurt your quality score due to the fact that your impressions went up, but your click through rate did not increase.

Screenshot

Has anybody else seen this:

It appears for certain queries, Google is showing it’s Christmas spirit. As an AdWords user, I think initially this would help advertisers, as the new design should draw some eyeballs to the right.

On Oct. 15 - we got an email from Yahoo Search Marketing

“Block Sites Where You Don’t Want Your Ads to Appear”

Our expectation was high as this could really give advertisers a chance to control where their ads are shown.

We looked at the system during the first week and noted it was not what we expect. So we waited a month to see if time has improved this system.

Review of Yahoo Search Marketing’s Block sites Functionality:Usabilty: Difficult
The user must know which urls the want to block. So you must know which sites send you YSM paid traffic. YSM noted this can be found if you have their analytics program set up.

Set Up Time: Under Five Minutes (If you know the URL’s to block)
However, if you don’t know which URL’s to block you could spend hours.

Time Value as ROI: A Must Do if you spend over $10,000 a month.
I would have accounts spending $5K reviewing their stats, but for smaller accounts the hours spend putting together and maintain this list may be better spend building your business, adding keywords, and improving ad tiles.

Overall Experience: Disappointed
This is a great idea and needs to be made more user friendly. I want to be able to use the service, but there must be a better way.

Suggestions for YSM Blocked Sites Application:
Provide a list of Top 25 Content Sites that spend your PPC dollars
Provide a Search box where I can submit a url and you will let me know if it is in the network.

Overall, I like the idea and the goal in mind I just need YSM to provide the tools that allow the everyone to benefit from a service like this.

Yahoo high rollers are given an “import” link under the campaigns tab in their Yahoo Search Marketing accounts…available upon request. A user can convert their existing Google PPC account into an Excel file for upload to their Yahoo account. I commend Yahoo for making our lives easier…or at least trying.

As a sidebar, this is a feature that Yahoo only offers big spenders. If my competition holds the majority market share, would it not be in my benefit to let everybody know that they can “easily” convert their existing Google accounts into Yahoo accounts AND on top of that, we’ll give you $50 free bucks. That certainly would be an attractive offer, but I will attempt to get back on topic and slide on “easily” for now.

I think most would agree that this is a nice feature, importing one account into another. I’m not sure, however, if Yahoo has ever seen a Google bulk file. My Google bulk file which was uploaded had headers like this:

“Campaign | Campaign Daily Budget | Ad Group | Max CPC | Max Content CPC | Max CPM | Keyword | Keyword Type | Min CPC | Headline | Description Line 1 | Description Line 2 | Display URL | Destination URL | Campaign Status | AdGroup Status | Creative Status | Keyword Status | Suggested Changes | Comment”

Upon downloading and viewing the “converted” file, the header looked like this:

“Campaign | Ad Group | Max CPC | Keyword Type | Keyword Headline | Description Line 1 | Description Line 2 | Display URL | Destination URL | Campaign Status | AdGroup Status | Creative Status | Keyword Status | Suggested Changes”

The only suggested changes were that it balked at my negative keywords. When I attempted to upload my new converted file, Yahoo stated that I had changed my header, deviating from the template.

The Yahoo Search Marketing bulk upload file has headers that look like this:

“Campaign Name | Ad Group Name | Component Type | Component Status | Keyword | Keyword Alt Text | Keyword Custom URL | Sponsored Search Bid (USD) | Sponsored Search Bid Limit (USD) | Sponsored Search Status | Match Type | Content Match Bid (USD) | Content Match Bid Limit (USD) | Content Match Status | Ad Name | Ad Title | Ad Short Description | Ad Long Description | Display URL | Destination URL | Watch List | Campaign ID | Campaign Description | Campaign Start Date | Campaign End Date | Ad Group ID | Ad Group: Optimize Ad Display | Ad ID | Keyword ID | Checksum | Error Message”

So, in the end I had to copy and paste everything around, add a lot, and filter a lot. The converted file did not inherently pick up the component type. It did not delete duplicates duplicate, based upon the fact that Google allows for bidding on singular and plural forms of the word and Yahoo does not. It did not changed Keyword Type from Broad to Advanced. It did not realize that Negative Broad probably meant Excluded.

In closing, I was ecstatic. I am still thankful to the people at Yahoo for those 5 minutes when I thought bulk file conversion was possible. I was, however, somewhat disappointed with the converted file…and I’m pretty sure it cost me more time and certainly more emotion.

If you have a Google AdWords account, check it now. You may find their update to the algorithm has taken some of your main keywords offline, requesting that you either increase the bid amount to $10 per click or increase the ad quality. We have seen this before, but the instances were pretty isolated and often were for keywords that may have not been as focused as they could have been. But with the recent change (it seems to have happened last night), no keywords seem safe.

One account I manage was very suspicious. “keyword” was fine. “keywords” was not. Both terms had the same ad tile and same bid amount. They had a decent clickthrough rate and the only difference between the two was the “s”. It appears Google has put in place a very strict set of rules. The exact rule changes still elude me, but if anyone has some thoughts, please post.

I have a feeling this latest Google AdWords update will be refined. Since it is unlikely that many AdWords users will accept a $10 bid; there may be a lot of terms with no advertisers; cutting into Google’s profits. Here’s hoping the revisions come sooner than later.