All trademark infringement discussions aside, one of the most important things a business running a pay-per click (PPC) campaign must understand is that keywords are free game for all advertisers.  Yes, Google and the other search engines have policies in place that restrict abuse of trademarked terms in ad copy, but the keyword itself is available to bid on for any advertiser willing to pay for the click.  This stance by Google was further supported by Judge Morrison C. England Jr. of the California Eastern District Court.  In a recent case ruling of Jurin v. Google Inc., Judge England states that Google “does not provide the content of the ‘Sponsored Link’ advertisements” and further clarifies that “It provides a space and a service and thereafter charges for its service.”  Basically, Google does not sell keywords.  They sell the ad space and provide a service to bid on keywords for which they charge for that ad space and service.

I make mention of this ruling because it hammers down a point that many advertisers overlook when deciding on keywords for their PPC campaigns.  Anyone can bid on keywords and many times broad, generic keywords have the most competition.  The reason for this is simple, more than one industry (or individual company) may view a keyword as important to their business.  Even when the advertisers bidding on a specific keyword are not true competitors, they are still competing for the ad space that a particular keyword drives.  This increased competition on broad terms is great for Google and other search engines, but not for the advertiser’s cost per click (CPC).

When determining the right selection of keywords to bid on, keep in mind how those keywords are interpreted by other companies or industries.  If you find that too many of your keywords have companies outside of your industry bidding on that term, it is usually a red flag that the term is too broad.  The visitors who click on your ad, triggered by that keyword search most likely will be unqualified.  In addition, you may see higher CPC’s from those broad terms that relate to more than one industry.  You will be well served in understanding the ruling that Google sells ad space and not keywords, because you can not stop other companies from bidding on a keyword simply because you feel that keyword is more relevant to your business.

Sometimes it seems as if your Google Adwords budget can never be large enough to reach your target market or customer. There are ever changing factors involved in the bidding process such as, new competitors entering the market, a surge in demand for a product, seasonality of a product, etc. One important concern is how to maximize your online ad spend to reach its potential. Geo-targeting is extremely important and often overlooked.

If there is tracking software on your website, such as Google Analytics, you will be able to determine where the good quality and poor quality traffic is originating.

Geo-Targeting Campaigns at a Smaller Level

When looking at your analytics program it is important to notice where your sales or your set “goals” are performing in reference to geographic areas. This data will either show you where you need to cut back, increase, exclude, or consolidate ad spend.

Below is a 30-day snapshot of paid search traffic on Google Analytics’ Map Overlay feature at the city level, sorted by the number of visitors, for a sample client.

Looking at this table you can notice right away that New York City does not have any transactions from this particular account. This may or may not be a cause of concern depending on your business location, structure, etc. If it is a concern, consider excluding the New York metro area from your paid search campaigns to avoid spending your budget on a location that is not converting.

On the other hand, if you are receiving many orders and customers purchasing from your store located in New York, you may want to consider excluding New York City from your other campaigns and create a New York geo-targeted campaign and allocate a separate budget to this campaign.  This will enable you to better control how much you are willing to spend in this particular area and possibly pull back on other, lower converting areas.

Below is the same snapshot of paid search traffics on Google Analytics’ Map Overlay feature at the city level, sorted by the total amount of revenue.

In this situation if we had more data over a larger period of time, we could use this information to increase ad spend in areas where the average visitor is making larger purchases than the average sale on the website.

Below is the same snapshot of paid search traffic on Google Analytics’ Map Overlay feature at the city level, sorted by the total amount of transactions.

In this scenario you may want to give Syracuse, New York its own campaign. This would enable you to perform a test with a separate budget. Even though the average values of the transactions are low, you may be able to receive a high volume of transactions.

These are only a few examples of how to geo-target your ad spends to use your budget efficiently. Always remember, each aspect of a campaign, especially the ad copy to the geo-targeted location, is extremely important to kick off any successful paid search campaign.

With the arrival of the New Year, 2010 is the perfect time to evaluate your online campaigns and budgets.  It should come as no surprise that advertisers are allocating more of their budgets to support pay per click efforts.  According to eMarketer.com, it is projected that online advertisers will spend $11.4 billion in advertising for 2010; an increase of over $600 million from 2009.

When assessing your budget, try allocating more of your budget toward campaigns that indicate special savings.  By incorporating these promotions into your ad copy, not only can you make your brand loyal customers aware of these deals, but you may also acquire new customers. Simply offering a promotion on your site alone may not produce the exposure you are looking for.

Another way to maximize your budget is to analyze your ecommerce and conversion results per state.  Specific states that perform better than others should have their campaign duplicated and geo-targeted to concentrate on a certain area.  By breaking these campaigns out into area specific budgets, it allows you the opportunity to garner more sales within this designated area or areas.

With so many different opportunities to generate sales online sales, now is the time to increase your budget to support new, fun and creative promotions.  Having the budget to support new campaign initiatives can help make 2010 a great year for your online business.