Righteous Marketing

Yesterday I was reminded of a paradox in PPC management. As you expand your PPC efforts beyond a single campaign with a single ad group you too have encountered the paradox, though in varying degrees. This paradox is caused by the collision of two commonly accepted best practices: testing and tightly-themed ad groups.

Testing v. Granularization

Anyone worth their salt in PPC knows that you should always be testing. You test two to three versions of ad copy to get a better CTR. You test two different landing pages to improve conversion rate. You also know that these tests require a certain amount of clicks or conversions before they achieve validity.

Another best practice (and Google pushes this a lot) is to create small, tightly themed ad groups. By having only a handful of keywords in your ad group you can write extremely targeted ad copy and send traffic to a more targeted landing page. This practice improves the chain of relevancy (and your QS) while optimizing the user experience. The paradox, however, lies at the convergence of these concepts in practice.

The Paradox

The genesis for this post was a Powerpoint sent to me by one of our Google reps. The recommendations were solidly based on best practices like the two mentioned above, but the part that got me was when the slide said that by making more ad groups that were small and tightly themed I would have “easier campaign management.” On the surface that seems accurate; the ad groups have fewer keywords and the copy would be more specific, but what about tests?

To reach validity tests need to achieve a certain number of actions or responses. This particular client already has their campaign divided into nearly 100 campaigns with hundreds of ad groups. They spend a lot of money, but even with the existing account structure tests can take weeks or months to achieve validity. And now Google wants me to INCREASE the number of ad groups, further spreading out my traffic into more tests? This could potentially slow our test iterations to a virtual standstill.

Perhaps I’m tripping out about nothing, but I’m curious what all of you think. How do you balance testing and granularization?

PS I would especially appreciate someone from AdWords to chime in here, so consider this a challenge Google.

Just a couple of tidbits this morning:

The AdWords team has decided to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, so to keep up with “the latest industry trends and information, Google insights and news & relevant product information and updates” just follow these Twitter accounts:

• Auto
• Media and Entertainment
• Financial Services
• Retail
• Tech
• Travel

Also, I would like to give a big thanks to Bridgette over at Google. My impression is that Google is making a more concerted effort to assist agencies and since that gives me more support, I’m all for it. Quite frankly the move seems a little overdue considering that agencies have multiple clients and efforts directed at an agency are effectively multiplied…but I’m not complaining.

Lastly, Google held an excellent webinar yesterday on Website Optimizer yesterday. The recorded version isn’t up yet, but if you’ve ever wanted to try the service I recommend watching this webinar. It goes through every step of the process at a level that even a relative noob can understand. Have a great weekend everyone.

PS I’m looking for a guest post in October. Hit me up if you would be willing, robert (at) righteousmarketing dot com.

One of my friends (in his late 20s) bought a couple pairs of orthopedic shoes a few months ago and since then has been receiving promotional offers from Haband.com. The target demographic for Haband is obviously the 50+ crowd and there marketing reflects it. However, the most recent promotion my friend forwarded to me was an epic fail.

My Beef With This Ad

Let me start by saying I understand the importance of custom messaging, but this crosses the line in my opinion.This is a refurbished computer (they call it “factory serviced”) that only has 512 MB of RAM and they have the nerve to say “Sells for $799.99 elsewhere”. If by elsewhere they mean 2005, sure. While I think the $299.99 price tag is a little overpriced my main beef with this ad is that it assumes older computer users don’t know anything about computers and attempts to exploit that fact to sell lame computers that will frustrate the owners with their lack of speed and capabilities. What do you think? Am I being too harsh on Haband?

This week has seen some big news from Microsoft’s new search engine Bing. On Monday Bing launched their new and improved visual search feature. To make it work you need to have Silverlight installed, but I’ve played with it and it is really cool. It operates like a Rolodex of pictures and once you click on a picture you like it brings up a page of search results based on that picture. So say you scroll through their celebrity pictures and click a picture of Natalie Portman (a very attractive lady IMO). Bam, you get the search results for Natalie Portman. Same for movies (District 9 looks intriguing) or dog breeds.

Then yesterday I came across the most recent Nielsen report on search market share. Low and behold Bing has over 10% all by itself. Add in Yahoo’s additional 16% and Bing effectively has over a quarter of the market. Not to shabby for an engine still in its first year of existence. What was the last search engine with this type of growth? Oh yeah, Google!

What Does It Mean Though?

You may be thinking “So What?” Well, in the SEO world we now have a legitimate contender to Google. There will be two mysterious algorithms to guess at and we may even find areas where the tactics to improve rankings in one engine will hurt you in the other (not likely, but possible). For PPC this means that the Big 3 just became the big 2, a la Coke v. Pepsi, which I’m fine with since I’ve never been a fan of Yahoo’s interface and they don’t have an off-line desktop editing tool.

Where Does Bing Go From Here

First, they need to keep pushing their image search because right now they are way ahead of Google in that area. While everyone loved Google for getting rid of the clutter that portals presented, Bing can get traction by making search results “pretty” (yes it sounds lame, but ask people what they like about Bing and the cosmetics are almost universally top of mind).

Second, they need to improve their algorithm. Results are good, but not great. I know they’re making tons of changes already but the only way to win over new users is to present great results when people inevitably visit Bing and run a regular old text search.

Lastly, Microsoft needs to stick with it. Over the last couple years Microsoft has changed the name of their search offering too many times. MSN, Live Search, Bing. Now that they have some traction they need to stick it out (and likely keep forking over millions in advertising, but that’s a given. This is Microsoft after all).

What else would you like to see from Bing?

Despite the Bing buyout, Yahoo launched a new report last week; the Ad Delivery Report. According to Yahoo:

Our new Ad Delivery Report will show the sources of your traffic—whether that be Yahoo! or some of our partners—but also how that traffic performs. Combined with one of our analytics options, you can track measurements such as impressions, click-throughs, conversions and return on ad spend. You can also filter the results by account, domain and tactic.

First Impressions

To find the new report, log in to your Yahoo account and click the Reports tab in the top navigation. At first I didn’t see the report, but on closer inspection you’ll see it in the “Traffic Quality Reports” section near the bottom of the left nav (see picture).


Voila! You now have a list of all the different sites where your ads are showing with their relative statistics so that you can eliminate poor performers. But…

Close, but No Cigar

I immediately started seeing domains that I wanted to block, but alas, I couldn’t find a way to do so. I had to log in to the same Yahoo account in another browser, go to the Administration tab and add domains manually to the usual Blocked Domains section. Come on Yahoo! Really?

Also, you can’t block subdomains of Yahoo. Therefore, if you find that answers.yahoo.com is racking up the impressions with no clicks or tons of clicks with no conversions, you can’t put them on the list. Lame!

So what do y’all think of the new report? Another disappointment from Yahoo? Do you like it?

I read an interesting article over at Search Engine Land on Tuesday titled “Coming Soon: Paid Search Without Keywords.” The author, Mona Elesseily, was commenting on a keynote address she heard at SES San Jose where Nick Fox was discussing that in the next 5-10 years paid search would operate without keywords. The reasoning was that as search users get smarter they use longer search terms (20-25% of searches on Google in the last 6 months were unique) which makes PPC a game of generating and managing increasingly longer keyword lists.

Benefits of No Keywords

The main benefit of this system would be the simlification of AdWords. Google has always played up the fact that anyone can use AdWords to drive traffic to their site. While true, doing a good job is beyond most users. I agree with this benefit (though it gives me concern, which I will get to in a minute). Better relevancy on natural language searches and better connections are also mentioned, but these seem too fluffy and undefined to mean much.

The Drawback

While Mona seemed excited about the possibilities I couldn’t ignore the impression that Google was trying to take AdWords, the product where Google is most transparent and where the levers are fairly well understood, and make it another of their famous black boxes. Nobody knows exactly how the search algorithm works (and it’s changing all the time). Nobody knows the revenue split in AdSense. Nobody knows how PageRank is calculated. Am I taking crazy pills?

In short, I agree that PPC is getting more complex as search users get more savvy. I like that Google is an innovator and is looking for new, more efficient ways to handle paid search (that means more efficient ways to make money, but that’s another story). However, I do not like working with a black box when it’s my money going into the black box. Anyway, that’s the end of my rant. Any Googlers out there who want to come to the defense of Nick Fox? Did I miss something?

I am a huge BYU football fan and on Saturday I was in Dallas, Texas for the BYU vs. Oklahoma game. The game was a hard-fought battle and I was overjoyed when my Cougars pulled out the win. However, if you pay attention to college football even a little, you know that reigning Heisman trophy winner Sam Bradford was knocked out of the game just before halftime with a separated shoulder. This got me thinking – What is my PPC backup plan? Do I have one even?

Why Do I Need a Backup Plan?

You need a backup plan because you never know when something may take out your primary PPC account (99% of the time, that’s AdWords). Your account could be hacked requiring your account to be shut down for days before the issue is resolved and your account is reactivated. You could violate the ToS and have your account suspended (with Google this means indefinitely). Put succinctly, you never know.

What Options Do I Have?

When your AdWords account goes down you do have options:

1. Yahoo and MSN (Bing) – In the next 12 months they’ll become the same deal and 25-30% of the search market ain’t bad
2. 2nd tier PPC engines – Though they have a lot less traffic, don’t forget about smaller PPC engines like Miva, Ask.com or Business.com. Each of these has different demographics and specialize in different areas, so look for a good fit.
3. Affiliate networks – I know this is kind of a stretch, but don’t mock affiliate marketing. If you set up a good campaign and offer competitive payouts, affiliates can keep the traffic flowing and the cash register ringing

Take a moment to map out a strategy for your website/business. Like Oklahoma you need a Landry Jones on the bench that is ready to go on a moment’s notice. Of course, I hope you don’t have to use this plan, but you definitely should have one.

Any other ideas that you’ve found?

This weekend I will be in Dallas, Texas. The main reason is to see my BYU Cougars play the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday in the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. However, I have some extra time to enjoy the area and I need advice on what’s must-see in Dallas. Here is what I’ve been told so far:

• Six Flags over Texas
• Hurricane Harbor
• The place where Kennedy was shot
• The cattle yards

Are there any companies that would entertain a blogger? Any tweetups going on in the area? Leave me a comment with your suggestions and I’ll report back next week. Thanks.

Over the weekend I was doing a little competitive research with a potential client. We ran a couple of searches in his space and looked at a couple of the “landing pages” his competitors were using. The quotes are to emphasize that they weren’t using a landing page at all but just sent clicks to their homepages. I pointed this out as poor practice and he asked why the homepage wasn’t a good choice. So here is the answer:

You Know User Intent

Sending traffic to the homepage is bad practice because you should be able to send them to a BETTER page. If your customer is searching “buy Nike shoes” you should land them on a page where they can buy Nike shoes from that page with one click. If they search “what Nike shoes are best for running” you should land them on an informational page that talks about the different types of running shoes. Say you have “Nike shoes” as a keyword and send traffic to the homepage. You’ll make purchase harder for our first searcher and you’ll have searcher #2 wandering around your site looking for the right information. Remember these tips:

1. Based on the search term, where is the searcher in the buying cycle?
2. Which of my pages answers their question?
3. Does that page make conversion (sale, lead, etc.) as easy as possible?

By answering these 3 questions you’ll land your users on a much better page. If you have a hard time answering these questions, you likely need to create some new landing pages. Just do it because the results are worth it.

When Is The Homepage Okay?

The only exceptions I would condone are for VERY broad keywords (if they are really this broad you probably should consider dropping them from your PPC, but that’s another discussion) and searches for your company/brand name. The reasoning behind this exception is that a search for your company/brand name doesn’t answer the above questions. Any others you can think of?