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Friday, February 10th, 2012
Microsoft has unveiled a number of new improvements to its adCenter platform, according to an article published by Search Engine Watch.
Changes have been made to campaign budget overview, mobile ad targeting and the character limit in ad descriptions.
The character description length has been increased by one – from 70 characters to 71 – to match the limit featured on AdWords; the expansion of the word limit is expected to make running PPC marketing campaigns on multiple platforms much easier.
Microsoft have also added a budget overview gadget to adCenter’s dashboard. This provides a simple overview of the campaign’s budget without the need to install extra plug-ins or programs.
Mobile targeting has also been improved; adCenter now has the ability to tailor campaigns to target specific mobile devices.
Campaigns can also be designed to target different types of phone, such as Windows Phones or iPhones, and tablets utilising operating systems such as iOS or Android.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, PPC, PPC marketing
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Thursday, January 26th, 2012
In their PPC marketing efforts, small, local businesses hardly ever use Google AdWords to its maximum potential. Writing for Search Engine Watch, Howie Jacobson has highlighted three ways in which local businesses can benefit from AdWords.
Here is just one of those aforementioned three ways suggested by Jacobson, in a summarised form:
Test Messaging For Other Media – AdWords can be used to test for the best possible ad copy for other platforms – such as print ads.
Jacobson states: “It’s not unusual for one a to perform two to five times better than another.” As most offline advertising is “of the ‘interruption’ variety” it is possible to use the Display Network, AdWords’ interruption arm, to test other ads.
According to Jacobson, the Display Network generates around 10 times the amount of traffic yielded by search and the clicks are considerably cheaper. He concludes: “So the Display Network is the perfect place to find messages, offers, and calls to action in offline media.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Google, Google AdWords, PPC, PPC advertising, the Display Network
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Friday, January 13th, 2012
The best PPC marketing managers are able to maintain a good level of communication with their clients, according to John Lee, writing for Search Engine Watch.
Lee suggests that all other elements of a PPC strategy are rendered null-and-void if there isn’t a good level of communication in place – regardless of the medium.
To achieve the best possible results he recommends the implementation of a communication plan. Here are just a few of Lee’s recommendations in a summarised form:
Schedule regular phone calls – A conversation over the phone can be great for building up a rapport and a significant level of trust; ideas can also be traded and issues raised.
For the first month of engagement, Lee recommends speaking on a weekly basis before then eventually moving towards a bi-weekly call. If your clients are comfortable with it, Skype and iMeet can provide the benefit of face to face video communication.
Responding the calls and emails – When one of your clients calls to register a concern or query, you should always try to ensure that you respond in a relatively quick manner.
If you choose to be tardy in your response you’ll most likely create a point of negativity in your relationship with your client.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: communication, emails, iMeet, phone, PPC, PPC marketing, skype
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Monday, December 5th, 2011
Having become a popular platform for publishing SEO copy, WordPress has revealed that it will be launching a PPC ads feature for its sites, according to an article published by The Drum.
WordPress has partnered with Federated Media to create the feature, which will be accessible to users of WordPress that meet a number of preset requirements.
It has also been revealed that the service will be accessible through a specifically designed application for the blogging platform.
Ads lead for WordPress, Jon Burke, writing in a post published on his blog, spoke about the upcoming introduction of PPC ads to WordPress.
He wrote: “Over the years one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads.
“We’ve resisted advertising so far because most it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into you blog and you deserve better than AdSense.”
Burke concluded by stating: “If you’re going to have advertising on your site, it darn well better be good and beginning with our partnership with Federated Media we’re ready to start rolling out WordAds here on WordPress.com.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Google AdSense, PPC, WordPress
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Christmas is once again nearly upon us – marking that period of year in which people spend a huge amount of time doing their gift shopping online; because of this, it is also a great time to implement PPC marketing initiatives.
To ensure you get the possible results from your PPC adverts, John Rampton, writing for Search Engine Journal has produced a checklist, specifically covering the festive season.
Here are some of the items featured on Rampton’s checklist in a summarised form:
Give them an incentive with deals – Deals attract people; it can encourage them to buy when they hadn’t originally had any intention to. Offering something like “free shipping or “50 per cent off everything today only” in your PPC ads, Rampton suggests, will have people rushing to your site.
He concludes by stating: “You will get millions of low cost clicks to your site that should convert very well.”
Change your ad text – Altering your ad text everyday can seem to be something of chore. However, different ad text will, if done properly, help potential customers have a greater understanding of their questions.
The text should specifically cater to the intent of shoppers and how they go about making purchases online, Rampton adds. He also states that you should try to let consumer know what you’re selling and how much you’re selling it for.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: adverts, John Rampton, PPC
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Thursday, November 17th, 2011
Wordstream.com have created an infographic showing how Google Adwords auctions work. For many, the auction may be a mystery, but this graphic shows quite clearly how it works.
If you have not yet read our PPC book (available from Amazon), you may want to check out Tips 66 – 68 about keeping your Quality Score as high as possible, just for starters. Maintaining your Quality Score could save you a fortune in successful bids for a high ranking, and although there are multiple factors which affect your PPC campaigns, QS is one of those which should be a top priority.
The fact that PPC is now an extremely complex subject that requires time and dedication (Tip 9 in the PPC book) is one of the reasons why involving a specialist/ PPC internet marketing agency with experience should be considered (Tip 100).
However, never put all of your eggs in one basket. PPC can help you to quickly find the search terms and keywords for your on and off page optimisation, link building, social media activity, and more. Understanding how your potential customers and audience search, and which terms trigger a click, can be researched through PPC, and then the results of this research can be deployed in your other internet marketing activities.
Understanding the search queries that Google enters your keywords and phrases into for the auctions is of paramount importance, and for this you should spend as much time as possible studying your analytics. (Tips 78-80) Or your agency should.
This will help to build a picture of the audience with whom you are having maximum success, as well as which long tail terms are leading consumers to you. There may also be unexpected markets for your products which you can remain unaware of if you ignore your analytics and the in-depth information available to you. For instance, once you have set up goals for visitors to your site, you may see results of goal completion from referrals you had not sought nor been aware of.
So, a website, forum, blog, twitter or social media user may be regularly feeding customers to your site who complete an action, such as a purchase or download, from a target market that you had not considered. Harnessing these actions by actively engaging with that market and creating PPC ads specifically for those that complete can help to keep your QS high.
The following infographic will help you to understand Google Adwords auctions and benefit from the simple steps (outlined in the 101 Guide) or suggested/utilised by your agency to ensure Value For Money from your PPC budget.
![What is Google AdWords? [ infographic ]](http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-google-adwords.jpg)
© 2011
WordStream
Tags: adwords, Auction, Google, Pay Per Click (PPC), PPC, quality score, value for money
Posted in Blog, Google, Pay Per Click (PPC)
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Monday, November 7th, 2011
Google has announced that the PPC adverts, previously positioned on the right side on an SERP (search engine results page), will now appear in some instances at the bottom of the page, according to an article published by Search Engine Watch.
Click-through rates for adverts positioned at the bottom of an SERP are said to be higher than those displayed at the side, Google has stated.
Although the change itself is unlikely to impact PPC marketing campaigns, it has resulted in some changes to Google AdWords.
These ads appearing at the bottom of the page will now fall under the “Other” category when classified in an AdWords account – a category used to cover experimental impressions.
Whilst it isn’t clear whether the change from side to bottom will be fully implemented in the near future, Google has stated that ads will be displayed either at the side or at the bottom – but not both at the same time.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Google, PPC, SERP
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Friday, November 4th, 2011
Acting as one of the biggest platforms for PPC marketing campaigns, Google has, this week, made the move to allow users to only see the adverts they find most relevant.
According to an article published by Search Engine Watch, users will now see “Why these ads?” above the column featuring PPC adverts on the SERP (search engine results page).
When clicked, a pop-up will appear stating that: “This ad is based on your current search terms, Visit Google’s Ads Preferences Manager to learn more, block specific advertisers, or opt out of personalized ads.”
By logging into their Gmail account, a user can choose for any specific ad appearing on their previous SERP to be blocked. These preferences can be tweaked at any time, but the impact on PPC marketers could be considerable.
Although Google has pointed out that a user blocking a company’s ad will not affect its quality score or ad rank, it remains to be seen whether the ads will be affected in other ways.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: adverts, Google, PPC
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
In PPC marketing, for any campaign to be successful, it is important to ensure that you keep the basics at the front of your mind – as they form the foundations of a good campaign.
Writing for Search Engine Watch, Melissa Mackey has produced a list of what she defines as “the four pillars of a successful PPC campaign.”
Here are just two of those aforementioned “pillars” in a summarised form:
Set Your Goals - If a campaign is to be built on a solid foundation, there will need to be goals – goals that are measurable.
Mackey states that before even logging into AdWords, you should think about the purpose of your campaign – are your selling something? Increasing brand awareness? Generating leads?
Use this to help you define what you aim to eventually accomplish with your campaign:
Ad Copy – As many keywords will be relevant to many advertisers, it is important that you stand out by creating solid ad copy.
To make your ad copy stand out, Mackey recommends including your USP (unique selling point).
In order to coax those seeing your advert into making a possible purchase, you need to make a “call to action.” With this the copy should contain a “Buy Now!” call to action, or something similar.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Melissa Mackey, PPC, Search Engine Watch
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Thursday, October 20th, 2011
A recent report by YouGov states that less than a fifth of SMEs using Google Adwords recoup their costs, and the remaining 82% do not appear to know whether they are getting any benefit from PPC or even recovering their ad spend in sales.
One of the problems is undoubtedly that many SMEs use Pay Per Click as a marketing tactic before understanding what needs to be achieved and how to do so. Whilst PPC is a potentially effective strand to any marketing bow, the temptation may be to rush in before fully understanding how the system works, and then it is also undoubtedly too simple to presume that you can use it as a “Set It and Forget It” service.
Yet, PPC is like anything in that it improves the more time you dedicate to it. So, a mere 30 minutes per week to review your campaign and try out new ad ideas and text/copy can pay dividends.
The fact that such a large number of businesses do not appear to be recovering their costs is not reflected here at ClickThrough Marketing amongst our clients. Amy Bott, Head of Paid Search & Affiliates at ClickThrough, stated, “It’s not uncommon to see ROI of three, four or five times spend. For example, one of our larger clients, Norgren, has generated £9 in sales for every £1 spent on PPC. But it’s not just big companies who can benefit. Small companies can also start to see increased returns on their ad spend by adding in keyword negatives, following best practice in account structure, limiting spend on broad match, controlling CPCs and by thinking carefully about keyword selection.”
Even companies who are spending in the tens of pounds rather than the tens of thousands of pounds on PPC can achieve similar results by understanding the mechanisms behind PPC.
In our 101 Guide to PPC we cover many of the issues such as Quality Score, campaigns, ad copy, keywords, relevancy and much more of the essential tips and tricks which will help any SME to ensure a return on the marketing spend for PPC.
This basic understanding of PPC could mean all the difference between throwing money down the drain and increasing online sales. For instance, is your business setting a cap on spending, especially during the hours that your target audience is least likely to be online? Google will happily spend your advertising budget showing ads when the clickthroughs are least likely to result in a sale, so you need to ensure that this does not occur. Low clickthroughs will also affect your Quality Score, which tends to have a knock on effect over time, lowering the likely placement of an ad in the rankings, amongst other undesirable consequences.
In addition, it is important for SMEs to realise that the competition being faced may be amongst the largest corporates, particularly for certain highly desirable terms, and spending your precious budget on these terms is likely to result in lower sales. There is also too little attention paid to making sure that the terms being used lead to the appropriate landing page and a call to action relevant to the ad copy.
Tags: ad spend, Pay Per Click (PPC), PPC, roi
Posted in Blog, Pay Per Click (PPC), Small Business Resources, Tips & Tricks
