Pay Per Click Blog

Google Analytics - Find Route of Your Site Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:33:00 +0000

If you have access to your client's site, include urchin code (Google analytics). Simply including the code is not enough. You have to monitor it on a daily basis. Set goals in analytics. That will help you to find where your targeted users are coming from and where they are dropping. If you have an OsCommerce site, you can set a goal for your checkout success page. You have an option to set steps for this goal. Keep login, login success, payment and checkout as your steps. Even if your visitor is not reaching till checkout success, you can see the visualization of steps and number of visitors comes to each step and their entry and exit points. If you see many people are exiting in a particular page, check that page thoroughly and make the desired changes.

Make a Light Home Page

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:57:00 +0000

One of my clients home page was too heavy. He was spending $1200/day and getting min of 1100 clicks/day. But conversion was only few conversions.We requested them to give access to their server. With my boss's help I started to examine the pages. That website home page was filled with heavy flashes and images. the header image was 3MB in size!!!!!!!!! There were 5 javascrip files and 2 style sheets calling in that page. Out of that 7 files only 4 were actually using by the home page. We created a dummy home page and removed the unwanted pages and flashes. We changed all flash files to gif anf jpg. Thus we could make the file size by less than half. We used that dummy home page for PPC adverting and checked the conversions. The page was working perfectly and we started to get better conversion. So we replaced the original homepage with this dummy. So from organic search also my client started to get nice conversions.

So always careful about your landing pages. If your landing page is not loading fast, create your own dummy landing pages with less stript and images. Nobody has time to wait 2-3 minutes to load your page.

Target Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:37:00 +0000

Always keep in mind that people from which countries are going to see and click on your ads. Setting geographic location is not enough many times. The language and slang of your ads also should be geo-targeted. What I mean by this is if you are targeting people in US, your ads should contain their slang, common phrases and so on. Ads with an Indian taste will not digest for those people. So be specific when writing ads for your clients.

Conversion tracking - Verification code failed

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:14:00 +0000

One of my clients was complaining that her conversion tracking code Verification has failed and she couldn't see any conversions.

I told her that verification failed doesn't mean that conversion tracking is not working. If your conversion tracking page contains dynamic code it is not possible to check the conversion before an original conversion happens online. Another thing is if page is in a secure layer (https://www.example.com/loginsuccess.php) when adwords tries to verify code in this page, it will be redirected to https://www.example.com/login.php. So it is not possible to verify the code without a login. It's sure that loginsuccess.php will show conversions when people reach loginsuccess.php via adwords PPC. You can try that by click on one of your ads comes in Google sponsored search.

Google Keyword Tool now Provides Approx Search Volume

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:48:00 +0000

Happy news. Google keyword tool started to provide approximate search volume of a keyword for the previous month. Before it was not possible to get the actual search volume value. At last Google changed their mind to disclose the statistics. Now the keyword tool provides a better service and all other paid keyword search sites and tools became outdated. If you are doing adwords PPC only, go blindly. This tool is enough for you. Who else can give you a better report than this?

Check it

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

PPC Advertising for the Right Product

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:07:00 +0000

We were running a perfume campaign for many months. At the first stage, we were not getting any clicks. There were huge impressions. My adgroups were not in the top 10. So i kept keyword bids as $2 to get them in the 3rd or 4th position. Then we started to get nice clicks. So we increased our daily spending limit. After that only we stated to track conversions. Unfortunately there were only few conversions. I started to modify the adcopies and bids and filter for more negatives. No use. Then I checked with the client's website. That is working perfectly. Nice bottles, nice description and easy purchasing steps. This also didn't help much. At last, I came to one conclusion. The first time buyer of a unique brand will not buy a perfume by reading its description online. They may like to smell and buy. It's nice if there were a hardware which can help us smell things online. Hope the conversions seen in ppc have come from the regular users of branded perfumes.

Heyyyyyy is there anyone who's profitably running a perfume campaign? I think perfume is not the right product to advertise online. So I have paused the campaign temporarily.

Title with Most Searched Keywords

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:08:00 +0000

How to make your adcopy more attractive? While starting a campaign, you are not sure about what are the main keyword phrases which will be searched by your targeted visitors. Many people will give the same adcopy for all the keywords in an adgroup. Why don't you try different adcopies with different titles? At least, you can give different titles. Because title is the first line noticed by a user. Keep the titles you feel ok in the first stage. Monitor the campaign for sometime. Then you can check the report and find which the most searched keyword phrases are. Keep them as new titles for your adcopy. If people see the keyword which they have searched as the title of an adcopy, 99.99% of them will click on your ad. I have tried this and my campaigns are working better than before. Any other suggestions? Share it here.

Concentrate more on AdCopy

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:03:00 +0000

In my "Eco Alliance Waterless Campaign", suddenly I could see many clicks but few leads. I started to check each adgroup. Then Icould find that the ads which have a word "Cost" in title are getting more clicks. As the keywords like "ariticial grass cost", "artificial turf cost", "waterless lawn cost" etc were getting maximum impressions, I have given those keywords as title for my new ad variations. Actually the landing pages were not telling about the actual cost for the product. So people who wanted to know about the price before purchase might be clicked on my ads. So be careful. Don't give the term "Cost" in your adcopy if the landing page doesn't say anything about the cost for the service/product. Another main word to avoid is "free". Use this word in your adcopy only if you are sure that the product or service is absolutely free. Many people use "free shipping" in their ads. But most of the time there will be a cost for shipping or free shipping is available only if the purchase cost is above a particular amount. It seems that ladies are more attracted by the term "free shipping". If people come to your site and see that the shipping is not free as advertised, 90-95% people will drop purchase and go back. What's the point in paying Google again and again without any leads? SO concentrate more in your adcopy. It can strengthen and spoil your PPC.

Fun in PPC Training

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:42:00 +0000

Last 2-3 days I was busy with PPC management. A new girl came for PPC training. I had to train her, check and correct her ads and very busy schedule. She is a fresher and a story writer. Pay per click was a new term for her. Still she managed to understand many things. First day she was struggling to differentiate "adwords" and "adgroup". I told her that "adwords" is the advertising service by Google and "adgroup" is a combination of similar keywords, their ad variations and bidding. In between the training our boss came that way and told her that he wanted to know how much she understood. He asked "what is adwords?" Suddenly she replied "It is a combination of similar keywords, their ad variations and bidding". Boss stared at me and asked. "This is what you taught her?" I just smiled and tell him to give her some more time. Then I told her - Adwords is something like "Property Times" from "Times of India". That got clicked. If you wake her up in the midnight and ask, she will give you correct answers for "Adwords" and "Adgroups". She picked up PPC very fast and started to write ads for our client's account.

Adwords Account Down

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:23:00 +0000

2 days before I saw an alert in my eco alliance waterless grass account that my client account has run out of balance and my ads wouldn't be no longer visible. I was sure that my client has done a payment recently. Suddenly I checked it in Account details tab and I could see that the last payment done by my client using an AmEx card was declined. Google send a notice that we have to pay $350 immediately to make the campaign active. Suddenly we contacted the client. Then only we could realize that he has changed his AmEx card after that payment. We explained him the situation. Suddenly he gave us the new card details and we settled down the issue. It didn't take much time for the campaign to become active. Now everything working perfectly.

Page with 2 Conversion Tracking Codes

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:16:00 +0000

Hi friends,

I was thinking to write something seriously. But I didn't get any idea. So now planning to share something that is happening with my PPC accounts. This week I was trying to fix conversion tracking code in purchase page of my client's web site. When I opened the purchase page surprisingly I could see one conversion tracking code already presented there. But I couldn't see that conversion tracking label in adwords. May be the client has placed it long time back. My confusion was if I place a new conversion code whether it will work or not. I ran to my boss. He told me to place the code and wait for sometime. As this purchase page is dynamic and redirect to login page when we give the URL, we have to wait till a real time conversion happens. Anyway I uploaded the page. Hey... but it really worked. From the very next day my adwords tracking code started to register conversions. Do you think the presence of 2 different tracking codes prevent adwords to show the actual number of conversions? Whether you had such experience? Please share with us. Anyway I am monitoring it in a daily basis.

Top 10 Pay per Click Search Engines

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:17:00 +0000

Google AdWords - https://adwords.google.com/select/Login

Yahoo! Search Marketing - http://sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/searchenginemarketing/onlinemarketing.php

Microsoft adCenter - http://advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising

ABC Search - http://www.abcsearch.com/advertisers.php

SearchFeed - http://home.searchfeed.com/rd/index.jsp

7Search - http://7search.com/advertise/

MIVA - http://www.miva.com/us/content/advertiser/overview.asp

Enhance Interactive - http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1465425-9777481

Findology - http://home.findology.com/business/advertisers.html

Ask.com - http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com

Political Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:32:00 +0000

I haven't ever thought about running a PPC campaign for political campaigning. Found an interesting article by Greg Meyers. Worth reading.

www.semgeek.com

What about adding negatives to your AdGroups?

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:09:00 +0000

It is seen that people are adding all broad-matching keywords without negatives. Broad match can create thousands of search results and majority of them will not be relevant to your ads. So its a powerful way to include negatives. You can include -ves either in campaign level or in adgroup level. That will help to stop your ads from showing for irrelevant searches. So find maximum negatives for your keywords.

Targeting homepage only?

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:51:00 +0000

It is not advisable to send all your traffic to your home page. Suppose you are a florist and running an online floral ordering site. It will not convert much if you are dropping people who are searching for "orchid" in your homepage which contains details about hundreds of flowers. It is better to drop them in a page which contains details about most wanted orchid species like Anguloa, Cattleya, Cymbidium, Laelia etc. Give website user the opportunity to find their result at first click. A messy home page will tempt them to close that site and go back for a new search. Remember you have to pay for each click. Better send the visitors to the page they asked for in the first click itself.

What you think Content Network should be on in adwords?

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:57:00 +0000

In Google's default settings, there's a content search and bidding option. If you want to use that, my recommendation is to give a lower bid than the search bidding. Content network is not right for every business. If you are keeping the place for content bid blank, Google will assume your maximum CPC of search network as content bid and a significant portion of your daily spending limit will flow that way without much conversions. Place a lower CPC for content network when you start your campaign. If it seems working effectively, you can gradually increase your bids. It’s better to review daily report of your keyword performance in search and content networks.

Is it possible to mention a keyword or phrase after display url?

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:12:00 +0000

Whether it is possible to mention a keyword/phrase after display url? I had this doubt till yesterday. Because when we read the google adwords adcopy guidelines, we see - "Display URL must be accurate: Your Display URL must accurately reflect the URL of the website that you are advertising". I posted this question in google forum and got some replies.

Yes. Now I understood. Google doesn't mind anything that we put after the slash(/) in display url. So just give your important keyword after the display url to make it more clear. I donno how long google will allow this. :)
If you have time create a page for that important keyword or phrase and target that also.

This link will give you a detailed explanation about this issue.

http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-help-advanced/browse_thread/thread/ba1f15a47d2f7569/3340710e3077ffcb?lnk=st&q=euphoria#3340710e3077ffcb

Recent changes in Adwords My Client Center

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:43:00 +0000

Some changes have made to Google Adwords - My Client Center (MCC) Dashboard

"We've made some changes to make managed account information more accessible and useful from the highest levels of the MCC. Performance and Budget statistics for managed accounts are now broken into separate tabbed pages, giving you a faster view of key stats across managed accounts without requiring you to drill down for further information.

On the Performance page, you'll find stats on clicks, conversions and conversion rates, as well as separate columns for Search and Content CTR, allowing for easier comparison of performance based on network placement. On the Budget page, you'll find detailed information about start and end dates, percent of budget spent and total spend for each account. MCC performance statistics will now be more frequently updated (within 2-3 hours). Please take some time to put the new MCC Dashboard to the test, and tell us what you think by following the feedback link on your MCC."

Track your Adwords TV Ads Campaign with Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Search Engine Genie) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:08:00 +0000

Couple months back we reported Google announcing TV Ad Campaigns. People can advertise their product on TV with the help of Google. This works similar like the Adwords campaign that is run online. Adwords run online in Google search results or content partner sites but TV ads will be produced for TV channels. After it was first introduced now Google has provided an effective Monitoring system where the Ads can be tracked online.

If you have Google Analytics connected to your Google Adwords campaign you can view the TV ad campaign in Google Adwords Control panel and also monitor the progress of the Ad, potential conversions etc. This is an effective progress in the right way.

Correlations with your existing Adwords campaign and the TV ads campaign can be effectively compared and monitored into your Google Account.

What is Google TV Ads?

Google TV Ads is a flexible, all-digital system for buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising. Using the familiar AdWords interface, you can launch a TV advertising campaign in minutes.

Google now offers a promotion campaign where you can have upto 2000$ off on your Ad creation this is a very good option since creating ads are a costly option these days. To avail the Adwords promotion campaign please go to this URL

To read more about the Analytics tracking option announcement from Google please visit this URL

PPC Blog Team

What is pay-per-action (PPA) advertising?

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:41:00 +0000

Pay-per-action (PPA) advertising is a new pricing model by Google. It allows advertisers to pay only when specific predefined actions are completed by a user on their site. Normally an advertiser is charged for clicks in PPC program. But in PPA, an advertiser can choose to pay when -

-a user makes a purchase
-signs up for a newsletter or
-completes any other predefined action that they choose.

Google content network will show Pay-per-action ads in two ways as:

In publisher-defined ad units
Individual publishers those who feel that a PPA ad will give well appeal to their users. Chosen ads will display in selected ad units of the publisher.

In standard AdSense for content ad units
Ads will be targeted to publishers' websites & displayed automatically in AdSense for content ad units. There will be a competition among these ads, cost-per-click and cost-per-thousand impression ads.

I will update more about this topic later.

Adwords editor 6.0 Released

noreply@blogger.com (power) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:41:00 +0000

Adwords editor 6.0 released with lots of new features and upgrades.
Following changes are in Adwords editor

"

Account statistics
Export statistics to CSV: You can now export a CSV file that includes performance statistics. First download the statistics, then go to the File menu > Export to CSV.
Update minimum CPC bids: To refresh the minimum CPC bids for your keywords, click 'Get Recent Changes > Include Min. CPC Bids.' Note that this option takes more time than the basic 'Get Recent Changes' option.
Improved stats download: When you select an interval with 'Choose Stats Interval,' AdWords Editor downloads fresh statistics and displays a progress bar during download. Editing tools
Spell check: Check the spelling of text fields (such as keywords and ad text) by right-clicking the field and selecting 'Spell check this field' in the right-click menu. Available for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Dutch.
Append text: Add text before or after existing text in a specific column, for all selected rows. Select the rows you want to edit, then click the 'Append text' link at the bottom of the edit pane. For example, add the word 'New' at the beginning of the headlines in your selected text ads. Learn more about this tool.
Drag and drop: Now you can drag and drop ad groups within the tree view. To move an ad group, select it in the tree view and drag it to another campaign. To copy an ad group, select it and drag it while holding the Control key.
Use formula words in the Replace Text tool: Review these instructions before using this advanced feature. AdWords feature support
CPC placement targeting: Create a new CPC placement-targeted campaign or edit your CPC bids for placements. Placement CPC campaigns are labeled [Placement CPC] in the tree view.
Conversion Optimizer campaigns: You can download Conversion Optimizer campaigns and edit their contents (keywords, bids, ads, and ad groups). However, it isn't possible to enable or disable the Conversion Optimizer in AdWords Editor. Learn more about support for bidding options in AdWords Editor.
Ad group negative sites: Add and update negative sites at the ad group level. Duplicate keywords
Select duplicate keywords: After running Find Duplicate Keywords, you can now quickly select all the duplicates that meet certain criteria. Click 'Select duplicates by' in the tab tool bar and choose one of the menu options. For example, select all the duplicates with the lowest CTR, then edit or delete them as needed.
Sorting duplicate keywords: Now when you sort duplicate keywords, the groupings are preserved. AdWords Editor sorts within each group, and also sorts the groups themselves. AdWords Editor settings
Diagnostic logs: Diagnostic logging is a troubleshooting mode. When enabled, it creates reports that can help our engineers better understand technical issues you may encounter. Go to the Tools menu > Settings.
Show posting progress: When this option is enabled, AdWords Editor displays a progress bar when you post changes. You can also disable this option to help decrease the time it takes to post your changes. Go to the Tools menu > Settings. Other updates
Advanced search: Add and remove restrictions for your advanced search. In the dialog, click 'Add' next to the Settings or Performance Statistics fields. Once you've added one or more restrictions, click 'Remove' to remove them.
Tab structure: The four tabs for ads (text, image, local business, and mobile) are now grouped under a single 'Ads' tab. This update was also included in version 5.0.1.
Backup archives: AdWords Editor automatically creates a backup, including unposted changes and comments, when you re-download an account with 'Get Full Account.' You will also be prompted to back up accounts before upgrading from version 6.0 to a subsequent release.
Updated keyboard shortcuts:
Replace text in selected items with Ctrl+H (formerly Ctrl+F).
Append text to selected items with Ctrl+Shift+H.
Move to basic search box with Ctrl+F.
Open advanced search with Ctrl+Shift+F (formerly Ctrl+Shift+S). See more updated shortcuts for Windows and Mac.
www.google.com/support/adwordseditor/bin/static.py?page=release_notes.html

Importance of Keyword Research

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:56:00 +0000

Keyword research is simply the selection of best performing keywords which can bring visitors to your website. You may have wasted thousands of dollars on page ranking and conversions if the right keyword phrases are not targeted. Keywords are the back bone of both PPC and SEO. Even if you attain high search engine rankings, you may not get appropriate traffic if the selected keywords are not right.

So, the key steps in any PPC or SEO campaign are as follows

1) Identify your target audience
2) Imagine yourself as a visitor and think what keyword phrases you might be searching and list them.
3) Identify the site focus
4) Now implement your keywords effectively.

4 Important steps of keyword research process

1) Discovering Keywords

2) Analyzing Keywords

3) Selecting Keywords

4) Set up Keywords

In discovering phase, we have to focus on identifying as many keywords as possible that are related to your website and target audience. In analysis phase, add information about existing competition and limitations. In selection phase, we have to choose the most relevant keywords (keep target audience and site focus in mind). In set up phase, make maximum use of your selected keywords on your Adcopy, website content, HTML code and tags.

Webmaster reports decrease in Adcenter conversion.

noreply@blogger.com (Search Engine Genie) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:54:00 +0000

A webmaster world member reports that he sees decrease in conversion rate in Adcenter advertising.

"Well, i'm just about over my excitement for adcenter. I have campaigns that are product relevence targeted and pushing a specific deal. For example keyword "widget brand model" "buy now at #*$!x"
I've received over 200 clicks and not a single conversion on adcenter.
Yahoo its a 2.2% conversion rate - break even. Adsense is 3.9% conversion rate - break even. (higher cost) Adcenter is a 0.0% conversion rate.
Adcenter = darn near 100% bounce rate and less than 30 second visitor rate
Yahoo and Adsense both had very LOW bounce rates and often more navigation pages - view TOS/Warranty/Refund policies and such.
Yahoo had a 100% first day purchase (thus far) Google had a 60% first day purchase, 10% second day purchase and 30% > 3 day from first visit purchase.
So with that said, yahoo seems more spontaneous, google users like to shop around and dig around the site more and adcenter doesn't appear to be human visitors for my targeted electronics/technology/home audio/video/gaming/entertainment spectrum :)
adcenter did work "ok" before - it was a low enough cost but i'm wondering if that was just random traffic from a now defunct traffic partner or incentive adcenter may have had. "

webmasterworld.com/msn_adcenter/3596353.htm

Useful Links Related to PPC

noreply@blogger.com (Jinu Sunil) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:37:00 +0000

Google Adwords Login Page
http://adwords.google.com/select/Login

Google Adsense Login Page
https://www.google.com/adsense/login

Google Keyword Selection Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Yahoo Search Marketing Login Page
https://marketingsolutions.login.yahoo.com

Microsoft AdCenter Login Page
https://adcenter.microsoft.com

Yahoo Search Marketing will edit your account without your permission.

noreply@blogger.com (Search Engine Genie) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:54:00 +0000

Yahoo search marketing recently made major change to its TOS where it allows their employees to edit ads without the users permission

"OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request. If you would like any of such changes reversed, please reply to such email within 14 days of the change(s), and we will make commercially reasonable efforts to reverse the change(s) you specifically identify. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made. It is your responsibility to monitor your account(s) and to ensure that your account settings are consistent with your business objectives. "

Don't know how ethical it is but i am sure this is not the right thing to do since its a blatant invasion of account privacy