Big Google Change Takes Place Next Week

Starting April 1st Google will enforce that the display url, destination url & landing page url all sync up.  For example VistaPrint Coupons has a display url of VistaPrintCoupons.com but Lands on VistaPrintCoupons.BlogSpot.com, this will be acceptable because the top level domain matches.  This will most likely affect re-directs and thin affiliates.

Demographic Bidding Now Available

Google has announced that Demographic Bidding will be available.  For more information check out the Adwords Blog! http://adwords.blogspot.com/

New Google Content Launch

Google has made a significant change to their Content Network.  They are now calling the product placement targeting which allows the user to target specific sites and verticals and also pay on a CPC.  With the reporting tools and the ability to block out undesirable sites and pay at a CPC basis, this might be the best opportunity users have to make Content Ads Profitable.

Google Top Placement Formula more Money for Google?

Google has announced its plans to change the way it places ads at the top of search results.  I am skeptical about this becuase it seems that it is a way to charge the advertisers that show up in the top spots more per click.  It will be interesting to see how and which advertisers are affected by this. For more info check out the Adwords Blog: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/08/upcoming-change-to-top-ad-placement.html

New Version of Adwords Editor Available

Adwords Editor 4.0 is now available.

 http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/08/introducing-adwords-editor-40-for.html

Click Fraud on Google

Google has laid out some more info about how they are tracking click fraud and ways to exlcude sites and even IP addresses for your Adwords Campaign.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/07/whats-new-in-world-of-invalid-clicks.html

 Update: Google has dedicated this webpage http://www.google.com/adwords/adtrafficquality/index.html to the fighting fraud issue.

SEM Best Practices

Here is a small business Blog started by a friend of mine.  It has to do with all aspects of small business marketing as well as reviews for all types of products and services.  Check it out. http://startupguide.typepad.com/startup_guide/

Search Engine Marketing Abbreviations

• PPC – Pay-Per-Click
• CPC – Cost Per Click
• PPA – Pay Per Action
• CPO – Cost Per Order
• COCA – Cost of Customer Acquisition
• CTR – Click Thru Rate
• CR – Conversion Rate
• OV – Order Value

Guide To Ad Copy Testing

1. Decide how many copies that you would like to test.  Use the control as your baseline, and for ideas to test check out the competitive landscape.  Also, You can test ad copies based on what you are looking to get from your test (increased CTR, Branding, Improve Conversion Rate or Order Value.) Leverage product/service competitive advantages or what sets you apart from everyone else.  You can call out sales, LTO’s, or a Free value added service.
2. Once you have decided on the number of ad copies to test, make sure you can track each one independently from start to finish using tracking links, in-house reporting, or a Console Analytics Program. 
3. Launch the test, but make sure you test the ads on a rotating basis, this will ensure that each ad gets nearly the same amount of impressions and makes breaking down the results easier.
4. Allow the ads to run for enough time to get relevant and accurate results. 
5. Do not select the winner solely based on CTR but look at the results from start to finish for each ad.
6. Breakdown the ads versuses the control ad that had been running before the copy test.  Look at all aspects from the results and remove any and all outliers.  Select a winner based on a combination of CTR, Conversion Rate and Order Value.  Also look at the costs associated with each ad. 

Users Taking Longer to Convert

According to the following study it is taking longer for users to convert in terms of both actual time and site visits.

http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-commerce/41848.html

This is making paid search conversions harder to track because some users are buying weeks apart from their inital click/visit.  Patience and in-depth tracking are the keys to succesfully managing a paid search campaign.  There is more than just conversion tracking offered by each console that is needed to track the behavoir of users because they only are able to get a certain % of all the orders.  The full analytics packages or in-house reporting should be used to give you the visibility into customer behavoir and time between orders.