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Archive for the ‘Google AdWords’ Category

Google is going extension crazy here lately with the release of site links, then location extensions, and now contact form extensions!

I got an email from my Google rep asking if I wanted to participate in a new beta from Google called, ‘contact form extensions’.

The gist of the beta is if you’re running a PPC ad in Google, and you’re in the top position, you can click on a plus sign next to a call to action (the name you give your contact form) and Google will drop down your contact form to be submitted right there in the Google search results.

According to Google, the rules for the contact form extension are as follows:

1. Only the position #1 will be available for the drop down contact form
2. Leads will be priced with your maximum cost-per-click bid during the beta test.
3. Google will be collecting the phone number and name from your contact form
4. You can provide Google with up to 3 custom questions they’ll include in your contact form in addition to basic information like name, address, phone, etc.
5. Google will show ‘some’ or ‘all’ of your custom questions based on a ‘quality algorithm in which they did not mention the details of.
6. Here’s the kicker, at the current moment, they’ll only take phone leads, so you must provide a contact phone number in your form in order for people to call in and ‘hopefully’ become a lead. In the future they do plan to provide leads through email or live chat.

How it all works:

When someone does a search in Google, and if your PPC ad is in position #1, the user will have the ability to click on the plus sign icon to drop down your contact form. If the user fills out the form by hitting the ‘please give me a call’ button that lead will be submitted to Google.

Once Google receives your lead, they’ll send you an email with the lead ID and information requested by the user.

However, you can’t contact the user yet, you have to call a special Google phone number and provide it with a lead ID, which will then re-route you to your potential customer.

If you get to sign up for the beta, or when it comes out of beta, Google will provide you with a list of questions you can put in your contact form, and Google essentially builds the contact form for you.

Some participation guidelines are of course recommended:

• You must contact your potential lead within 24 business hours.
• Only US based phones numbers are accepted so your campaigns should only be targeting the United States.
• Submission forms should be submitted by January 18^th, 2010. Late submissions are not guaranteed to be active in the first round of the beta.
• You can opt out at any time.
• There may be hiccups since it is a beta.
• Your account manager will give you reporting on your contact form extensions on a monthly basis.
• Provide Google with feedback!

So there it is, I’m super excited to be a part of the beta for some of my accounts. I really, really hope to see some good results from this. Of course I have to put this all in perspective as your ad has to be in the #1 position in Google in order to even show the contact form extension.

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.

This week Google began testing a new feature, Comparison Ads. The Google Comparison Ads tool enables searchers to compare multiple, relevant offers together on one search engine results page. While this new feature is still in the testing phase, that could give shopping search engines like Shopzilla and BizRate a run for their money.

While Google has strong metrics for assessing user intent, it is not always spot-on. The new Comparison Ads tool allows users to clarify exactly what they are looking for, and then view the relevant offers side-by-side. If a searcher is interested in your product or service, they are provided with a phone number (generated by Google) or can provide their contact information through a “Request Quote” link. It is a pay-per-lead model, so the advertiser is only charged if the number is called or if the quote request is completed.

In the example provided by Google, if a user searches for “mortgage”, Google will prompt the searcher to clarify if they are looking to “buy a home” or “refinance”. Once selected, the searcher is directed to a one-page view off all offers relevant to their search query If a search query interests them, then they can call a number provided or request a quote.

The Comparison Ads tool claims to boost the user experience in three ways: speed, transparency and privacy. First, the new tool will decrease user-time spent finding a relevant offer. The tool can serve relevant, specific offers in less than a second. Plus, all ads will be very specific offers, so there cannot be deception in the ad text, including gimmicky rates and savings. Finally, Google will keep the searchers personal information private from the advertiser, unless explicitly provided by the searcher.

If you ask me, this tool can be both good and bad for advertisers. I agree that it will enhance the searcher experience by providing relevant, transparent ads in a side-by-side view. Plus, many competitive industries would greatly benefit from a pay-per-lead system, as it will surely increase conversion rates and improve an advertisers return on investment.

However, there needs to be an opt-in feature for this tool if it were rolled out globally. What happens to pay-per-click advertisers that are purely volume driven? How would this roll out for ecommerce sites where browsing is encouraged? This tool can only benefit advertisers who are lead driven, as click volume will significantly decrease under this pay-per-lead model.

Right now Google has only made the Comparison Ads tool available to limited advertisers in the mortgage and refinance sectors. It will be interesting to see how this tool shifts the current pay-per-click model.

Do you think this new tool will help or harm you current pay-per-click campaign?

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.

Google Adwords has implemented yet another new feature for Adwords PPC advertisers, and this time it’s pretty cool. The new feature is called ‘ad sitelinks’, and it allows PPC advertisers with high quality ads to add four additional links under their main PPC ad. This allows users easier access to deeper content of your website.

The sitelinks also provide advertisers with a good way of promoting seasonal services or products. Unlike organic sitelinks, the advertiser can pick and choose which campaigns get sitelinks and what those sitelinks are and where they link to. So they can be changed out as frequently as you would like.

Of course this new feature isn’t available to all Adwords advertisers. Google is being fairly vague when they say their new ad sitelinks are “available to ads that meet our quality requirements”, but do not go into any further detail than that.

To find out if your PPC account qualifies for the new sitelinks, simple go into your Adwords account, click on a campaign, click the settings tab, and scroll down to the ‘networks, devices and extensions section. If the sitelinks are available to you, there will be an additional ‘ad extensions’ option under this category. Simply click the edit button to add your sitelinks.

I think having the sitelinks is a great way to take users directly to a contact page or form page if that is your lead type. A few of my clients do qualify for the sitelinks and I’ll be adding them into today. My advice is if you do qualify, be sure to add tracking to the additional links so you can track data separately for the sitelinks to see if they’re actually helping.

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.

View through data in Adwords is actually pretty cool, but only for people who run Adsense or a lot of display ads on the content network. This tool provides conversion data if you have display ads running via the content network. It’s not relevant for simple text ads running in your PPC account.

With that said, the new view through conversion data shows how many conversions were made within 30 days after a user viewed, but did not click on one of your display ads via the content network.

It’s very important to note, that if there was a click at any point from that user within 30 days of their initial ‘view’, then that conversion will be counted as a click conversion, not a view through conversion. View through conversions are tracked by the AdSense cookie on the content network. Meaning if your ad shows up on the content network, AdSense will track that users cookie, if that user did not click on that display ad, but came back to the website in some other fashion, then that one conversion will be counted as a view through conversion.

This is really great for people who have ads running and do a really great job branding for their clients, but then the user just ends up going back to the website through typing in the company domain name and the PPC display ad never gets the credit. I wish Google could somehow do this for all PPC ads, on the search and content network, but maybe that’s in the works!

The view through data is available in all Adwords accounts as a new column on the far right hand side of the page. Again, you will only see the data if you’re running a display ad on the content network.

The good things about seeing this data is to know which ad and on which website is truly generating the most conversions. If you can increase your bids on a particular placement on the content network or copy that display ad and add it throughout other CN campaigns you’re likely to see the same positive results.

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.

Last week Google expanded the beta test of the ‘Opportunities Tab‘ in the AdWords interface. It is now fully available in all English-language accounts. According to Google, this new feature is designed to help advertisers find more cost-effective traffic in their pay-per-click accounts. This new tab surfaced in many of my accounts last week and I started testing it. Overall, I found this new feature to be pretty effective for keyword expansion. However, I do have some cautions for the tab moving forward.

To access the ‘Opportunities Tab’, login to your AdWords account. It is now located in the main navigation in your account.

The tab has replaced the ‘Tools’ section within the interface, and will act as a stepping stone for further optimization tool expansions in the near future. However, it did not replace any existing Google AdWords tools. You can still find all the other keyword and ad tools in the left-hand navigation within the ‘Opportunities Tab’.

The ‘Opportunities Tab’ acts as an ad group level version of the keyword tool. It provides keyword suggestions at the ad group level, including estimated monthly search volumes and advertiser competition. Similar to the Google Bid Simulator, you can also select to view the proposed cost-per-click for each keyword.

Google also allows you to filter keywords by relevancy. If a keyword is not relevant to your ad group or account, you can ‘rate’ that keyword and eliminate it from the suggestion tool in the future.

With this tool, Google makes it very easy for advertisers to expand keyword targeting in pay-per-click accounts. Last week I used this tool for many clients, and found it to be useful. The keyword suggestions identified many holes in my accounts. It also helped me identify new targeting opportunities. Plus, Google makes keyword expansion easy, if the keyword is relevant to your ad group, you simply check the box and save the changes.

Now some words of caution. Keep your account structure and quality score in mind when adding new keywords. The keyword tool does not always take into account your ad group structure. In many cases, this new tool suggested was not always the best fit for the recommended ad group. For example, for an ad group that just focuses on ’shoes’, Google suggested I add the keyword ‘buy red shoes’. While this keyword would be good to add if I sell red shoes on my website, it should live in its own ad group for the sake of quality score.

Google makes it very easy to find and add new keywords with the new ‘Opportunities’ tool. But you need to be careful. Make sure the keyword suggestion makes most sense in that ad group. If it doesn’t, start a list of new keyword opportunities and add them to existing relevant ad groups, or launch a new ad group and expand on the keywords. Don’t let this quick-add keyword tool affect your account organization and quality score.

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.

One thing here at PPCHero we make sure of is that all of our writers pass the Google Adwords Qualified Professional Exam before writing for the blog. We just added four new people to our team and we’re still growing. But now that they’re finished with their PPC training, it’s time they prepare for the Google Adwords Exam.

The Google Adwords Qualified Professional status can be obtained at either the individual level or the company level. In order to receive the company level status at least 2 employees have to pass the exam. Unfortunately, your status expires after 2 years, so you may have to take it multiple times in order to keep your individual or company status. The exam costs $50, and yes, you have to pay that each time you take the exam for each person.

Here are just a few tips on how to successfully pass the exam with flying colors – without giving away any answers.

1. Utilize the learning center – You do have an hour to take the exam, and I believe there are 75 – 100 questions in the exam. With that said, you can use your notes, use Adwords, or look up answers online. However, most of the questions, if not all of them, are taken from the Adwords learning center itself. So take the time and go through the learning center tutorials and reading material. It will make a serious difference.
2. Know Google Adwords ad text policies – t\The one thing I remember most is they ask you a ton of ad text guidelines and policies questions. What can you say in your ads, what can’t you say, how many characters are in the title, description, destination URL, etc. Know your ad rules!!!
3. Put yourself in scenarios – Especially for the ad text, when studying for the exam, test yourself by using scenarios. Example, Here is an ad text – tell me all the items that violate the GA ad text guidelines. Then you have to choose between a. b. c. or d. Also, there are scenario questions about ROI and CTR and how to know when you need to pause an ad or keyword and when you should increase or decrease their bids.
4. Know how to calculate ROI – If you only work on lead based PPC accounts or click only accounts, you better learn how to calculate ROI. There are questions that put you in a scenario where they show ads or keywords with a certain ROI, and you have to know which ad or keyword to pause. So, if you don’t understand ROI, learn it now.
5. Know where things are – You will be asked questions on which reports you can run for certain information and where you access conversion tracking codes, etc.

Although there is a separate Google Analytics exam, you should know the essentials of Google analytics reporting, goals, funnels, etc.

Taking and passing the Google Adwords Qualified Professional exam is great to have on your website and resume and can be a great selling tool. As we talk about trust symbols and certifications to put on your landing pages to increase conversions, this is one of them! Just be sure you adhere to the Google certification logo guidelines before posting it everywhere.

If you think you need more explanation or teaching other than the tutorials you can watch these great videos on YouTube called the Google Business Channel. They give you videos obviously and offer more of a visual representation of the learning material. If you have more questions about the Google Adwords Qualified Professional exam and their qualifications you can check out their FAQ.

Good luck!

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.

Ever wondered how a bid change is going to affect your AdWords account? Will it send my costs through the roof? Will it sacrifice clicks? What will happen to impressions? You’re in luck! The days of bid uncertainty are behind us, sort of. Google has made it a little easier to estimate the potential impact of bid adjustments with the Bid Simulator. While this tool can’t predict the future, it gives advertisers insight into the potential impact of changing a bidding strategy.

Google has been testing this tool for awhile now, but just last week the Bid Simulator was made available to more AdWords accounts. To find out if you have access to the tool, go into the AdWords interface and navigate to view all campaigns, then click on the keywords tab. Sort your keywords based on click volume. If you have access to the Bid Simulator, you will see the blue icon next to the current CPC for all high-volume keywords. Google does not provide this option for low-traffic keywords because there is generally not enough data on low-volume keywords to draw meaningful results.

The Bid Simulator bases its projections on past account performance. It uses data from the previous seven days and recalculates the number of impressions, clicks and costs based on a chosen CPC. This number tells you the estimated amount of clicks and impressions you could have gained/missed had the CPC been different.

The tool adds some transparency to the AdWords bidding process, showing advertisers what could happen to impressions, clicks and cost for selecting a particular CPC. This information can add more insight into bidding strategies and takes some uncertainty out of the bidding equation. Depending on your pay-per-click advertising objectives, this tool can help guide you in the trade-off between increasing click volume versus having higher costs. However, Dan Friedman of the Inside AdWords blog warns that while the Bid Simulator tool can help you explore the possibilities with a different CPC, “past performance does not guarantee future results.”

Don’t see it in your accounts yet? Check out the Google Bid Simulator video to learn more:

Check out The Adventures of PPC Hero: Heroic Feats of Pay Per Click Management at http://www.ppchero.com/. Copyright © 2007-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.