If you’re running your own Google AdWords campaign, I can guarantee that you’re paying for clicks that you would not want to pay for. It’s just a part of search engine marketing. Whether it’s because of click fraud, incorrect geo targeting settings, match type or a multitude of other potential factors, you can’t stop it: you can only hope to contain it. Here are a few ways you can refine your campaigns and weed out those wasteful clicks that could be lowering your ROI.
1. Search Query Report — This report allows you to see what exact queries triggered your ad to show up for that particular search. If you are using broad or phrase match, your ad can appear on the results page for queries related to (or variations of your keyword). By running this report, you can uncover words or phrases you don’t want to show up for and add those to your negative keyword list. Your negative keyword list tells Google not to display your ads if a search query contains a particular word or phrase.
2. IP Exclusion — The IP Exclusion tools is another method to avoid wasteful clicks. The IP Exclusion tool allows you to block certain IP addresses from seeing your ads on their search results page. This is good for two reasons. The first is internal searches. If you or members of your company have to do frequent searches on your advertised terms (without clicking on your ads), your click through rate can go down, ultimately lowering your quality score, which is what Google uses to determine your ad position. To combat this, simply add your internal IP addresses to the exclusion tool. Another remedy is to utilize Google’s Ad Preview tool. The ad preview tool allows you to conduct searches without affecting your quality score.
The IP Exclusion tool is also useful to combat fraudulent clicks. Although, the major search engines have taken large strides in protecting advertisers, click fraud still exists. If you are able to monitor IP addresses of your inbound traffic, you could potentially find fraudulent click patterns and exclude those IP addresses from seeing your ads.
3. Site and Category Exclusion — This pertains to Google advertisers utilizing the Content network. If you’re not running a specific site targeted campaign, and are just running a general content campaign, your ads may be showing on non relevant sites or sites with content that you do not deem appropriate or would not want to be associated with. This could potentially do harm to your brand. The Site and Category Exclusion tool allows Google Advertisers to exclude certain sites from displaying their ads. To find out what sites you are running ads on, you’ll need to run an ad placement report, located in the report section of your Google AdWords account. This is very similar to the search query report but displays websites, not keywords.
The 2008 holiday season is right around the corner. There are many predictions about decreased consumer spending this season; but are you doing everything you can to minimize that effect? As a marketer, it is very important to get the most sets of eyes on your ads and products and it all starts with ad copy. Your ad copy is the first impression that you place on your customer. It is crucial to get the right message across and also make a genuine connection.
Here are some tips to improve your ad copy and overall paid campaign performance this holiday season and beyond….
1. What separates you from your competition? This is often overlooked by many search marketers. Rather than using ad copy that only describes what you are selling / promoting, tell your prospective customers why you are better. Do you offer a money back guarantee? Free shipping? Buy one, get one free? Complimentary gift? Whatever sets you apart….make it known in your ad copy!
2. Shoppers are looking for specific holiday discounts. Your ad copy should be tailored to your holiday promotions and should be run in place of your normal ad copy. Create different ad copy for different stages in the holiday season. Here are some important dates: (may vary for your business).
a. Black Friday — The day after Thanksgiving
b. 1st Cyber Monday — The Monday after Thanksgiving
c. 2nd Cyber Monday — The Monday 2 weeks before Christmas
d. Around December 14th — When many retailers end free shipping
e. December 20th — Usually the last day for 2-day shipping
f. Post Holiday — Don’t forget gift card redemption!
3. Prepare for an increase in click rates. As this is the busiest time of year for shopping, competition is also the greatest. Make sure to allow some room to increase your cpc’s during this time. It is not unusual for your cost per click to jump around 25% during this time.
4. Last minute deals. Don’t underestimate the power of procrastinating shoppers. Whatever the reason, there always seems to be a heavy amount of last minute shopping. Attract these shoppers by using ad copy such as “last minute deals,” “ships same day,” “guaranteed to arrive before…,etc”
Time is running out! The official holiday kickoff (Thanksgiving) is just about a week away. Make some tweaks to your campaigns and quickly gear up for this holiday shopping season, if you have not done so already. With an effective message and timely implementation, you can make the most out of this season.
This past week, Google unveiled its latest product; Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a web browser that was designed to “add value for users, and at the same time, help drive innovation on the web,” according to an official Google announcement.
There’s no doubt that Google dominates the internet with a 60% share of all web searches. So it is only natural for Google to make its way into the web browser arena. Google chrome is going up against some pretty tough competition, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox (the main competitors). Currently, Internet explorer is the leading browser capturing approximately 73% of all browsing activity. In second place is Mozilla Firefox powering the browsers of about 18% of internet users. Will Google Chrome, make a dent on the browser market share? It is a little too soon to tell, but the early feedback on chrome seems to be positive.
Here are some cool features that stand out:
Speed Dial:
One of my favorite features is the home page display. When you open Chrome, your 9 most requested web pages are displayed as small thumbnail screen shots; making it simple to navigate to your favorite pages.
Auto Completion:
In Chrome’s search and address bar, there is a feature called omnibox. Omnibox offers search suggestions, you’re most visited web pages, and pages you don’t visit but are highly viewed by other web surfers.
Load time:
The browser loads super quickly. Double click and boom, there it is!
Tabs:
Yes, all browsers now have tab features. Google switched it up a bit and put the tabs on top of the address bar. So it appears like each page has its own address bar, as opposed to one for all tabs.
Incognito:
Incognito is Google’s new “privacy mode.” Incognito allows you to surf on a “secret” window that does not log any of your browsing activity on your computer. Google cited an example use of this for keeping a surprise gift secret.
Keeping Your Computer Healthy:
Google Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites to protect you against malware and phishing attempts. If you try and visit one of these sites, Chrome will flash a warning and advise against visiting the page.
This is just a short list of features. Visit the official Google Chrome page to learn more. Keep in mind, Google Chrome is still in beta. There are many more features to come and many things to be improved upon. Stay tuned and in the meantime happy surfing!
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