Check Out My Guest Post At AdMedia

I’ve had a blast lately contributing guest posts to some of the best digital advertising blogs around. In my last post, I highlighted a cool AdLift Guest Post. Today, I’m thrilled to share another…

I’m great friends with the AdMedia team. AdMedia is one of the best ad networks around. They also happen to have an incredible blog. When they presented the opportunity of contributing a guest post, I brainstormed topics that would be relevant not only to the digital marketing professional but also specifically to someone considering advertising on AdMedia and other ad networks. In an industry that’s incredibly focused on the big three (which, of course, makes complete sense), I decided to write a post about Diversifying Beyond Google, Yahoo!/Bing, and Facebook.

I absolutely love Google, Yahoo!/Bing, and Facebook. They are to the digital media portfolio what large cap blue chip stocks are to the investment portfolio. The cornerstone of any great investment portfolio (or digital marketing portfolio) is diversification. What about the mid cap and small cap equivalents within digital marketing?

There exists great opportunity for the savvy marketer to diversify and add to the big three with complementary media sources. Manage your digital marketing program like a well-diversified portfolio of investments, and you will find new levels of consistency and efficiency. I hope you enjoy my post!

Image of guest post © AdMedia

Fun Times At The Yahoo! Sunnyvale Headquarters

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 2 3

On Friday, I had the pleasure and honor of visiting the main Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale. Check out the picture below of yours truly and Justin, the absolute best Senior Account Manager ever. (Justin just wrote this great post on the Yahoo! Advertising Solutions Blog about expanding your keyword list – make sure to check it out!) Being Yahoo!’s 18th birthday, we picked an amazing day to visit Yahoo!

When we arrived, the guard at the front gate directed us to special VIP parking right up front that was blocked off with cones. Talk about feeling like a celebrity! Next, Justin headed down and greeted us. We went up to the Yodel conference room. Honestly, I cannot believe what I saw there! Our company logo was all over the place! I’m talking about on a sign in front of the door, above the massive TV monitor, etched onto the window, even on the name placards where we were to sit. The room had all the beverages and snacks one could want. The Yahoo! purple was all over the place, even down to the delicious Yahoo! chocolates. It even had some really great gifts! I have never experienced anything like this before. Sure, SEM is an industry where large advertisers are treated really well. However, this experience takes it to a whole new level. Wow, Yahoo! thanks for treating us so well, you are the best!

At this point we were so pumped up that the strategy session was unparalleled. At least 50 actionable ideas were generated. We had senior leaders from Yahoo! stopping by. It truly was a meeting made of greatness. SEM is all about energy and energy is what drove our meeting.

After our strategy session, we headed downstairs to the URLs cafe. I was blown away. The steak teriyaki dish was among the best I have ever hard. This place was pure heaven. After lunch, we went upstairs for more strategy, and then a trip to the Yahoo! store on the way out.

I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few important things:

Yahoo! absolutely rules. I love Yahoo! and am so excited for their 18th birthday!
The Yahoo! account management organization is among the best I have ever worked with. They are so strong. I’m especially impressed with their actionable, tactical tips and overwhelming energy in helping clients implement and enjoy the benefits of those strategies.
Yahoo!’s campus is amazing. The food is among the best I have had in any cafeteria. If you are considering a career in online advertising, I highly recommend looking into opportunities at Yahoo! because they already rule and are also expanding fast.

Justin and team, thank you so much for the best Friday ever!

Image of PPC Ian and Justin © PPCIan.com

Are You Ready For Google Enhanced Campaigns?

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Feb 20 0

Recently, Google AdWords announced the largest update to AdWords in recent history: Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns. The pay per click blogosphere has been buzzing with posts about Enhanced Campaigns. Some bloggers love Enhanced Campaigns and others are a bit more skeptical.

When my good friends at AdMedia presented the opportunity to write a guest post, I immediately decided to post about Enhanced Campaigns. I decided to take a unique approach and provide tips about “Getting Started”. Enhanced Campaigns provide a unique opportunity for search marketers and right now is the time to prepare for the change. Head on over to AdMedia’s blog and read my post today – Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns: Getting Started. AdMedia has a truly awesome blog and it’s my honor to guest post. Thanks AdMedia for the opportunity!

Image in this post © AdMedia

I’m Seeing New Gmail Message Ads

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 4 3

Google is always innovating. I’ve been super excited lately about the entire Google advertising ecosystem: Google AdWords, Google Display Network (GDN), YouTube, Gmail, and Google+. All of Google’s products are intertwined. Because of the reach of the Google ecosystem, there is truly power in a holistic online marketing approach. I recommend maximizing your business presence on each and every one of Google’s products. Today, I’m excited to highlight some awesome new Gmail message ads.

Check out the image ad to the right. I have been seeing this State Farm ad each time I log into Gmail. It shows up above the standard Gmail text-based ads we are all so used to seeing. When you click the State Farm banner, it opens a Gmail “message” with State Farm’s offer (see screenshot below). It’s sort of like a mail message. Essentially, Google is allowing State Farm to sponsor a cool hybrid ad/message ad unit. I’m really impressed with these new ads because they extend far beyond the typical paid search ad. We’re talking about a lot of creative freedom here. You get to craft an entire email message. If you’re interested in testing these Gmail message ads, I recommend contacting your Google AdWords reps today. Now, if Google would open up advertising on Google+ – hopefully it’s only a matter of time!

Images in this post © State Farm and Google

Innovative Search Engine Election Results

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 8 1

There’s no doubt about it: This was a really exciting week. With the 2012 election officially over, I wanted to do a recap of the event, searching engine marketing style. In addition to following the election, I was also following how search engines kept us all up-to-date on the election progress. Below, you will see three screenshots. They show the search results for the keyword “election”. As you can see, all three engines, especially Google and Yahoo, did an amazing job displaying the election results in rich format.

I’m the biggest proponent of ad extensions around. I’m talking about extensions like sitelinks, call extensions, social extensions, and more. All of these extensions make the user experience better. They offer more ways to reach and dazzle your target audience. I view these custom “election” results (within organic search) as ad extension-like functionality. Organic search is not just about traditional text-based search results anymore. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are now offering new ways of viewing data. They are not just offering links, they are offering answers. I hope you enjoy the screenshots below: Way to go Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Aside from the 2012 election, have you seen any other neat examples of search engines providing a rich organic search experience?

Images in this post © Google, Yahoo, and Bing

Google AdWords Launches Compare Dates Feature

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 19 1

Google AdWords now offers a new compare dates feature. Check out the screenshot to the right. Whether you are on the keywords tab, campaigns tab, or any other tab for that matter, you should now see the compare dates functionality. Today’s post offers some quick tips on getting the most out of the compare dates feature.

Using compare dates is quite easy. All you have to do is pull down the date selection menu and then opt into the compare dates by turning in from “off” to “on”. Next, you need to select how you want to compare dates. There are three options:

Previous Period – Looks at the number of days in your base date range and then selects the same number of days immediately prior to your base date range. Does not match up days of week. Just looks at raw number of days.
Same Period Last Year – Looks at the same calendar days from the prior year. Does not match up days of week, but compares the base range to the comparison range based on calendar days.
Custom – Compares your base range to any custom comparison range you choose.

Once you enter the comparison option, remember to click “go”. At that time, your graph/chart will update to include both your base range and your comparison range. When you mouse over the chart, you can see the data behind both date ranges.

Personally, I find the most value in the custom comparison. It’s really difficult in online marketing to compare two periods unless the days of the week match up. Why? Otherwise intra-week seasonality may skew the comparison. If you’re looking at much longer time periods (such as full months or quarters), you can look at calendar days. However, most of the time, I’m comparing same days of the week. As such, it’s all about the custom comparison. Check out the screenshot above. I’m comparing the same days of the week for 2012 versus 2011 leveraging the custom comparison.

To the best of my understanding, the custom comparison just updates the graph/chart at this time. I hope in the future Google AdWords extends this comparison to the grid view as well. Google has been innovating like crazy and it’s great to see new features like this, great work Google!

Image in this post © Google AdWords

Turbocharge Your PPC Beta Testing Initiatives

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 10 0

I’m a huge fan of beta testing. If you’re a large spending advertiser on Google AdWords, Bing Ads, or both, you probably have had (or will have) opportunities to get involved in beta tests. What are beta tests? They offer the opportunity to help search engines by testing brand new features before they get released to the public.

I have developed an entire strategy around beta testing and am thrilled that my good friends over at PPC Associates ran my guest post today about Getting The Most Out of Beta Tests. This post covers the basics of why beta tests are great and then goes into six specific beta test tips. The tips cover beta testing strategy and how to achieve the best possible results (both in the short run and long run). Moreover, the post covers ways to give back to search engines so you continue to get invited to exciting beta tests. I highly recommend checking out the post, it’s one of my best guest posts (in my opinion).

I wanted to sincerely thank PPC Associates for running my post. Their blog is amazing and is part of my daily reading. Make sure to head on over there and bookmark their blog. If you’re looking for an SEM agency, PPC Associates is one of the best so you will certainly want to reach out and schedule a consultation. Also, you may want to check out my other recent guest posts on the PPC Associates blog:

Image in this post © PPC Associates

Combining Ad Extensions For Optimal PPC Ads

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 7 3

A few years back, ad copy testing was all about optimizing your titles, description lines 1 and 2, and display URLs. If you were really savvy, you’d take things to the next level and write granular, custom ads for your account of tightly-themed ad groups. Today, however, ad copy testing has evolved. You still need to do all of the great stuff just mentioned, but now there’s a new dimension of complexity: ad extensions. Some of my personal favorite ad extensions: phone extensions, social extensions, and sitelinks.

Take a look at the awesome Nextag ad to the right. This ad appears when I search for their trademark, “Nextag”. I’m quite impressed to see three ad extensions showing up: sitelinks (six of them), seller/store ratings, and social extensions. The really key point here is all of the ad extensions are incremental. They do not cannibalize each other, but show up in parallel. This is what I call the “combined effect” of ad extensions and why they’re so critical to anyone’s paid search program. The more extensions you combine, the more presence you will have on the search results page. The net effect: higher click-through-rates, more traffic, and ultimately lower cost-per-clicks (since Google and Bing Ads reward those with high CTRs via lower CPCs). In 2012, ad copy testing involves all of the fundamentals but also a focus on combining multiple ad extensions for truly rich ad units.

Google AdWords – Your AdWords Are Now Running

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 3 0

On 5/31, I got a bunch of emails from Google with the subject line, “Google AdWords – Your AdWords Are Now Running”. I have a lot of accounts with Google, many of which have been paused for years. Honestly, I didn’t have much time to look at it on 5/31, but just assumed it was a mistake and that Google would fix it. And, I knew I had already taken precautions to protect myself – I always set my daily budget to $1/day for all paused campaigns that I don’t anticipate reactivating right away. Following is the email I got from Google on 5/31 (I got this for several paused campaigns/accounts):

Dear AdWords Advertiser,
Your ads are now running.
Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
————————
Your AdWords account number: xyz123

Today (6/3), I got some more emails from Google. This time, they said there had been a technical issue on 5/31 that is now fixed. They explained that they will be crediting back all money that may have been spent by the accidental reactivation. Here’s the email I received today:

Dear AdWords advertiser,

Because of a technical issue, some of your campaigns might have mistakenly resumed running on May 31, 2012. You might also have received an email titled, "Google AdWords – Your ads are now running."

We’ve fixed this issue and are crediting your account for the amount you accrued. Once it’s been applied, the credit will appear on the Transaction history page, located on the "Billing" tab of your AdWords account.

If you’d like your ads to run in the future, follow these steps to re-enable your form of payment:

1. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
2. Click the "Billing" tab, then the "Billing settings" link on the left.
3. Find your disabled form of payment on the page.
4. Check that the payment details are correct, then contact your bank or credit card provider to see if the form of payment can be used.
5. Click the "Re-enable form of payment" link to make it usable again.

After you re-enable your form of payment, your ads will start to run again. Keep in mind that once you re-enable your form of payment, you may be billed for unpaid advertising costs that you accrued before this error.

We apologize for the technical issue, and thank you for understanding.

Sincerely,
The AdWords Team

© 2012 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You’ve received this email to update you about important changes to your AdWords account.

There are three main reasons I wanted to share this post with you. When you manage many Google AdWords accounts, you always want to take proper precautions with paused accounts/campaigns. If you have paused a campaign and don’t anticipate reactivating it in the near future, make sure to set a really low budget (I recommend $1/day). That way, you have a safety measure in place in case something ever happens. Sure, it’s likely you will get a refund if Google (or adCenter) ever makes a mistake, but why worry when you can mitigate risk. Also, you never know when that refund may come and you don’t want to have any cash flow issues should it take a while to process the refund.

Second, I wanted to share this post because it’s probably a good time to look through all of your old accounts and campaigns on Google AdWords. Do a thorough audit on Monday. Make sure to check if anything got reactivated accidentally. If yes, make sure you get the proper refund you are entitled to.

Third, always make sure to have an up-to-date email address in your search engine accounts. If your email is not up-to-date, you may be missing such messages. Hope you are having a super weekend!

Poor Organic Results Taking Over Insurance

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 14 2

Check out the screenshot below. It’s the Google organic search results for the keyword cheap auto insurance. As you can see, three out of the top six results are low quality affiliate sites. The savvy online marketer can tell right away. For me, it was the excessive use of caps and the fact that the sites are non-brand names. These days, especially for competitive insurance terms, it’s typically the brands that rank (with maybe one or two really high quality affiliate sites mixed in).

While the screenshot below highlights the Google organic results, I am experiencing the exact same phenomenon on Yahoo!/Bing as well. Someone is definitely going aggressively after the insurance industry. And, it’s been going on for a while. I have seen such results for at least 3 to 6 months.

A few key takeaways from this situation:

If you’re in the insurance industry, keep a very close eye on your organic program. It may be suffering due to these low quality results pushing down your organic program.
The search engines need to figure out how to stop this stuff, it’s just embarrassing from a user standpoint.
I dislike seeing this stuff because makes a bad name for affiliate marketers and affiliate programs.

So, what do you think? Have you been noticing similar low quality results in your vertical?