Google Enhanced CPC

Recently Google has launched its latest addition to the bidding, “Enhanced CPC”. It has been launched on August 16^th 2010. This feature is available in the bidding options under settings tab.

What is it – Enhanced CPC will automatically adjust your max CPC based on the likely hood that a click can convert.

How it Works – For each auction “Enhanced CPC” will be calculated based on the following factors (Google might also considers other factors that we have no way of knowing them)

• Match Type of the keyword
• Relevancy between the search query and keyword
• Historical performance of the keyword, ad
• User location
• Possibility of that click to become a conversion

If a click is likely to convert then the "Enhanced CPC" system will increase the max CPC up to 30% and if a click is unlikely to convert then it will lower you max CPC. Initially the “Enhanced CPC” system will only modifies the bids in 50% of the auctions. Based on the performance of the modified bids when compared to the unmodified bids the percentage will further increase.

Is it Useful – Enhanced CPC = Full part of (Automatic Bidding) + Half part of (Conversion Optimizer)

Automatic Bidding works to maximize the clicks for the targeted budget. Conversion Optimizer works to generate conversions with a targeted CPA.

“Enhanced CPC” system has the complete functioning of Automatic Bidding and “generate conversions” part of Conversion Optimizer (“Enhanced CPC” doesn’t work on target CPA).

So if you want to give it a try, keep hawk eye on the CPCs for few days, as this new system works primarily on Automatic Bidding concept. This is the best time to test this feature for your campaigns. As the holiday season is approaching you can’t experiment during the season.

Happy Experimenting :-)

Thanks,

Arun

Retargeting - Make Customers Don't Forget About You

Re-targeting allows you to show ads to users who have visited your website as they browse the Web and left without making a conversion (purchase, sign up etc.,).

Most of the advertisers spend huge amount of dollars in bringing the customers to the website.
According to few surveys and reports on an average 98% of the visitors will leave the website without making an action/ conversion desired by you either it could be a purchase, sign up, download etc., Don't let your investment in those customers disappear! The users have already shown interest in your products/ offers by visiting your website but they might have left the website due to various reasons. So how to make sure that those visitors don't forget about your website/ products/ offers.

In this case Re-targeting helps
Re-targeting helps to show your ads to visitors after they have left your site. Your ads will appear to them as they browse the web. Re-targeting works mainly based on the cookies. The re-targeting ads are not pop-ups, these are advertisements that customers would normally see as they visit the web pages.
You appear to them again and again in the right place at the right time.
Think of it as following a customer out the front door of your store and keep on showing him about your store which makes him to think,
a) Oh I have to purchase those products which I have thought to buy earlier
b) It seems this store has a brand value as it appears everywhere I go. (Its a myth but the truth is we are targeting the user specifically so he always see our ad)
c) I have visited this website once they sounds high/ they are not good, but again why does this ad appears through out the web, I think we need to check it once again.

You will stay top of mind and customers will come back to your site and purchase. Some studies suggest that you need seven contacts with a customer to make a sale. Re-targeting is an invaluable tool for developing that relationship with prospects, and turn them into customers.

Google is offering this feature in Ad words. Check the screen shot

Few other channels such as Veruta, Fetch back is also offering Re-targeting.

Thanks
A

Search Query Report in Bing (MSN)

Finally we’re getting more data about the search queries that trigger our ads to display in Bing.com. Google has had the search query report out for a while now, and Yahoo! has it but you have to request it personally from your Yahoo rep (if you have one). But now you can finally see raw search query data within your adCenter PPC account.

Search query reports show you the actual search queries that trigger your ads to show in the search engines results pages. Because you may have broad match keywords or even phrase match keywords, a user’s search query may not match exactly to what you have listed in your accounts. Therefore, this report will list common occurrences of a query that show your ads.
For example, you may have a broad match keyword in your PPC account for ‘pet album’ and MSN/Bing may end up showing your ad for, ‘pet store’ or ‘pet food’.
If you’re website doesn’t offer pet food or is not considered a pet store, you can add in these search queries as negatives – so the next time someone does type in ‘pet store’ or ‘pet food’ your ad will not show.
Advertisers can save a lot of PPC spend by running these search query reports regularly and adding in negative keywords that aren’t relevant to your product or services.

To run the search query report, simply go to the reports tab in adCenter, click ‘create a new report’, and using the drop down for report type, select ‘search query performance’.


To add negative keywords to your adCenter account, simply click on a campaign, click on a specific ad group, click ‘add or edit keywords’, and add in negative keywords in the negative keywords column at the bottom of the page.


Hopefully, soon we’ll be seeing many more features coming out of MSN/Bing.com.  But this is one feature that I know can help advertisers save money but not having their ads displayed for irrelevant search queries. Adding negative keywords is a great way to weed out unqualified traffic but still use broad match keywords.

Happy Advertising :-)

Thanks
Arun

Ad Site Links - Google's New Feature

Ad Sitelinks is a new AdWords feature that allows you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within your sites. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to 4 additional Destination URLs on your search-based text ad for users to choose from. By providing users with more options, you can create richer, more relevant ads that improve the value of your brand terms and other targeted keywords.
The sitelinks also provide advertisers with a good way of promoting seasonal services or products. Unlike organic sitelinks, the advertiser can pick and choose which campaigns get sitelinks and what those sitelinks are and where they link to. So they can be changed out as frequently as you would like.
Of course this new feature isn’t available to all Adwords advertisers. Google is being fairly vague when they say their new ad sitelinks are “available to ads that meet our quality requirements”, but do not go into any further detail than that.
To find out if your PPC account qualifies for the new sitelinks, simple go into your Adwords account, click on a campaign, click the settings tab, and scroll down to the ‘networks, devices and extensions section.  If the sitelinks are available to you, there will be an additional ‘ad extensions’ option under this category. Simply click the edit button to add your sitelinks.

I think having the sitelinks is a great way to take users directly to a contact page or form page if that is your lead type. A few of my clients do qualify for the sitelinks and I’ll be adding them into today. My advice is if you do qualify, be sure to add tracking to the additional links so you can track data separately for the sitelinks to see if they’re actually helping.

Note: The content has taken from PPC Hero

Thanks
A

Is Google Experimenting on Ad Title Length

I was just checking the ads for one of my clients and have noticed that few of my competitors ad title is so long than the allotted 25 characters. I have made many searches for other business keywords as well and have noticed that there are few ads with more than 25 characters in the title and 35 characters in description.

Here is one for you, for the keyword "Air Conditioning Contractors"

I have no idea why few ads are appearing with more than 25 characters. When I tried to add more than 25 characters to the ad copy title in ad words interface and ad words editor, none of them accepted.

Later I have tried using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI).
And after sometime I Googled and it was eureka moment, my ad was showing with more than 25 characters. However I just paused that ad copy.

I have taken this to Google, but it seems they were not known of whats happening with it. Its been there since March 2009.
Have to see what Google's answer would be for this. Either they might be testing to increase ad copy character limit or a bug in Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

Thanks
A

Is Search Query Report useful?

Is Search Query Report useful?
I have noticed that for one of my client's CTR has decreased, so I tried to know the reason so generated a search query report for one keyword (i guess you all know, we can generate search query reports at keyword level in the new interface).

Search query report shows the data for search terms that ultimately lead to clicks. All other data will be reported under "Other search terms".
A brief about "Other search terms". Other search terms are the search terms resulted in impressions for your ads.

Some examples of why a term would be calculated in the "Other search terms" row:

• Search term resulted in an ad impression but not a click.
• Search term didn't receive a significant number of impressions.
• Search term triggered your ad within the past 24 hours and just hasn't yet been listed individually.

Google considers CTR while calculating the quality score, if I am not able to stop showing my ad copy for the unwanted terms (which might just result in impressions but not a click) obviously my CTR will decrease and my quality score.
Any suggestions?

However, search query report is one of the best report which makes you spend money wisely on the campaign.

Thanks
A

Keep Yourself in User's shoes

To analyze the performance of any campaign you need to think yourself as a user, keep yourself in the user's shoes and analyze the following,

Ø What user is looking for (keyword) – The no of impressions that your keyword received.

Ø What you are offering the user (ad copy) – In this aspect, the metric “CTR” will help you out to check the performance.

Ø Does the user find what he is looking for (landing page) – To analyze this aspect, you need to consider bounce rate.

Ø Are you able to satisfy user needs (conversion)

For the tasks to do,

Ø For a) - you need to re-look at the list of keywords, if your campaign is receiving less number of impressions, as well the maximum bid you are paying to the search engine.

Ø For b) – If your keyword has got good number of impressions, but if the CTR is low, then you need to check updating the ad copies, as they are not attracting users.

Ø For c) – If the bounce rate is higher, then you are not landing the users on the appropriate landing page. Try different landing pages to know, which works better.

Ø For d) - Majority percentage of the Internet users, do comparison while shopping. Comparison in terms of price, quality, brand name of the store, offers, shipping etc., you need to consider all of the above, if a user didn’t convert at your website.

Hope it helps!!!!!

Happy Advertising :-)

Thanks,

Arun