2010 April

R.I.P – Google AdWords Professionals

April 29, 2010 By Robert

“She’s a goner.”

“Time of death?”

“Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 3:01 AM.”

And thus was the end of the Google AdWords Professionals (GAP) program.

New – Google AdWords Certification

Before the body was even cold, Google already had their new bride at the altar; Google AdWords Certification. According to the post on the Official AdWords Blog “the new program provides agencies and their employees with more up-to-date, comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts.” Here are the highlights:

More training materials for agencies so they can sell AdWords more effectively
Tougher certification tests
Advanced-level tests
New badges that link to a verification page

And here is what I think of them:

Training agencies better produces an army of volunteer AdWords sales reps who already have relationships with the clients. They’ve been trying to do this with Agency Land but this has a much larger scope. Makes great business sense.
The test is tougher than the previous test. The test browser doesn’t let you access the internet to teach, it’s 120 questions long and you only have 2 hours. However, I took the Fundamentals test in less than 1 hour, with no studying and passed easily. This should be no sweat to experienced PPC wizards.
I like this idea because it allowed them to ask very in-depth questions about more advanced features of AdWords. Still passed the test without studying, but it was a better test in my opinion.
New badges. Cool. Click to verify option. Cool. Anything that helps me sell my services to a client I welcome.

What have been your thoughts/impressions on the new Google Certification Program?

Filed Under: AdWords, Google, PPC Tagged With: Google AdWords Certification, Google AdWords Professional

PPC Farming – Planting

April 28, 2010 By Robert

Now that you’ve done your PPC soil prep its time to plant.

Account Setup

Setting up a PPC account is easy. For AdWords it can even be too easy. The first step in setting up AdWords is to decide if you would like the Starter Edition or the Standard Edition. Even though Google says that the Starter Edition is “recommended for those who are new to Internet advertising”, do NOT commit the Sin of Insecurity and choose Starter Edition. If you chose Starter Edition, just upgrade to Standard (no charge) so that you have full control over the account spend.

Okay, now that we’re on the same page, let’s talk about account structure.

Account Structure

PPC accounts have three main levels of organization. The highest level is the account. The next level consists of campaigns in the account. The lowest level exists in campaigns and is the ad group. Proper planting involves both campaigns and ad groups.

Campaigns

Several options are only applicable on a campaign level. Therefore, here are situations where you’ll need separate campaigns:

You offer different types of products/services. For example, Zappos would want separate campaigns for running shoes, basketball shoes, sandals, etc.
You want to target different areas with location specific messaging. For example, you want ads targeted to just San Antonio for your Spurs merchandise and ad targeted just to Dallas for your Mavericks merchandise. Geotargeting only works at the campaign level.
You want to target mobile devices. Again, mobile targeting only works at the campaign level and you should have separate campaigns for mobile since the customer will likely be in a different mindset.
You want to use the content network. Many people avoid the content network, but the content network is powerful if bridled. The key here is that you should have your content network efforts in their own campaigns.

Looking at your keyword research and using these guidelines you should have a good idea of where to start with your campaigns. Now what about ad groups?

Ad Groups

Here is where you’ll need to get your hands dirty. Ad groups are where keywords, bids and ad copy reside. Most of your time and effort will be spent here.

The ideal ad group has a handful of keywords that are all tightly themed. For example, San Francisco divorce lawyer and San Francisco divorce attorney would go in the same ad group. However, San Francisco DUI lawyer should be in another ad group because the person is looking for two different types of lawyer. Once you have your keywords grouped, you need to write at least 2 ads for each ad group. Use messaging that matches what the keywords. Consider using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) but make sure that the ad matches the keyword (and as we’ll discuss later, that the keyword and ad match the landing page). And why 2 ads? You want to test which one gets more clicks and more conversions. Get in the habit of testing now, because it’s a big part of PPC farming.

To recap, our planting efforts will give you the potential for a bounteous harvest. You placed your keywords in nicely themed ad groups that were organized into intuitive campaigns. Your ad copy is relevant to your keywords and you’re eager to see your seeds sprout. But what will help them germinate (sprout)?

Filed Under: PPC Tagged With: account setup, account structure

PPC Farming – Soil Prep

April 27, 2010 By Robert

Just like farming starts with the soil, PPC starts with your keywords. The first step in achieving a successful PPC harvest is to prepare your soil through appropriate keyword research.

Keyword Research

Your first step is to figure out what type of soil you have. First, look at your web content, promotional materials, marketing pieces, etc. to find the keywords that you are currently using to describe your service/product/offering. Open up a Word doc or pull out a pad of paper. Write these keywords/phrases down.

Second, log in to your analytics account (ie Google Analytics, Omniture, Statcounter). Run a report on your organic traffic for the last 3 months or so. Look at the top non-brand terms and add the best ones to your list.

Lastly, if your site has a search bar, look at your search log to see what people are typing once they are on your site. This is gold because these terms are exactly what users are looking for ON YOUR SITE! Add these to the list (if they aren’t already there).

Helpful Tools

This picture is a Troy-Bilt Horse; a 1HP tiller that chews through the toughest soil and leaves behind a path of soil nirvana. Tools like this allow you to prepare more soil with less time. Here’s a list of my favorites:

Google’s Keyword Tool(s) – Google currently has 3 versions of their keyword tool, but their info is based on the most search data and so I recommend starting with Google.
SpyFu - They show you the ads, the natural results and give estimates of how much clicks are costing advertisers. This is great for seeing what your competitors are doing.
Wordstream – Easy to use, great UI and they’ll email you your keyword lists.
Wordtracker - They don’t have as much search data as Google, but this will help you get insight into searches being done outside of Google.
Suggester - This is a newer tool, but kicks out some pretty good results. Warning: Their servers are in Texas, so some of their Top Terms are biased.

Proper keyword research will help you create an environment where the seeds of your PPC efforts can grow. So how do we get started planting?

UPDATE: Just yesterday Brad Geddes wrote a great piece on 7 keyword tools. Great supplement!

Filed Under: Google, PPC Tagged With: Google Keyword Tool, keyword research, keyword tools

Has LinkedIn Killed The Business Card?

April 22, 2010 By Robert

Preparing to attend Conversion Conference West in two weeks, I am doing all the usual stuff; get a hotel, plan which session to attend, queue up some blog posts for the days I’ll be gone, etc. Then I realized that I don’t have any business cards and I started thinking, “Do I need business cards?”

Are Business Cards Dying?

My first reaction was “Of course I need business cards.” That’s how you do business. But then I started to think of how I use the business cards I receive.

I put them in my pocket or notebook.
I add them on LinkedIn/Twitter when I get back and then the card goes in a drawers somewhere.
I pull one out once in a while to get contact info.
I forget who the person was 2 months later and throw their card away.

This guy would argue that your business card is crap:

So Should I Still Have Business Cards?

I’m really a bit torn here, so I’d appreciate your comments. If you support business cards, give me links to a good printer who can turn the job over in a week. If you don’t use business cards I’m interested in hearing what alternatives you might suggest (like Pokens).

PS If you decide business cards are obsolete, you could make them into modified ninja throwing stars like the kid in this video. (Warning: Awesomeness may overload your brain!)

Filed Under: Funny, internet marketing Tagged With: business cards

Google Places = New Revenue Source For Google

April 21, 2010 By Robert

Just yesterday Google announced that their Local Business Center would be renamed to Google Places. No big deal really. Even my dad’s grass-fed beef has a listing. But what is Google’s motivation?

Follow The Money

Questioning Google’s motives has become a hobby of mine. Working with AdWords has taught me that Google is always looking out for their bottom line. Regardless of how altruistic they try to paint themselves, they are in the business of making money. Lots of it. Using this point of reference it was easy to see the reason for Google Places.

A new, simple way to advertise: For just $25 per month, businesses in select cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags. As of today, we’re rolling out Tags to three new cities – Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. – in addition to ongoing availability in Houston and San Jose, CA. In the coming weeks we’ll also be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco,

How magnanimous of Google to give SMBs a new way to spend money.

Filed Under: Google Tagged With: Google Places, Local Business Center

PPC Farming – Introduction

April 20, 2010 By Robert

I grew up on a small farm in Southeast Idaho. School was a vacation and vacations meant it was time to work. Waking up at 6 am to move irrigation pipes was how every day of my summer began. I know farming.

During college I got into PPC. I was excited by how fast PPC moved. You set up a campaign, plugged in some keywords, wrote a couple ads and you saw results within a few hours. While farming was tedious and slow, PPC was fast-paced and exciting. However, speed kills too.

I’ve seen many AdWords and adCenter campaigns fail because of speed. They were set up too quickly and/or corners were cut. The great potential of PPC was lost and often these clients were jaded by the experience. Speaking with these clients I often found myself using farming analogies. The more I thought about it, the better the analogies fit.

How PPC Is Like Farming

Over the next couple weeks I will be writing a series of posts comparing PPC account creation, management and optimization to farming. You’ll learn how to prepare the soil (research), plant (account creation), grow (testing) and harvest (landing pages) your PPC crops. So go buy your Wranglers and straw hats now, because we’re gonna be getting our hands dirty!

Filed Under: internet marketing, PPC Tagged With: farming

Creative Relevance in PPC Ads

April 15, 2010 By Robert

News Flash: To get better CTR and conversion rates, your PPC ads need to be relevant to the search term and the user intent.

Okay, so that’s not really news so much as it is common sense. But before you dismiss this post, consider the following PPC ads for the search term “Food Inc DVD” (which is obviously a very specific product name):

As you can see, Barnes & Noble and eBay hit the nail on the head. My exact term is in the headline and therefore bolded. eBay even takes the extra step and puts the search term in the ad copy to reinforce the relevance of their ad. However, look at our friends from DealOz.com. They may brag about their 70% off DVDs and free coupons, but I don’t even know if they have Food Inc. (in their defense, all three ads go to a search results/product page for Food Inc.)

Easy Way – Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI)

Our eBay and Barnes & Noble ads weren’t written with my exact search term in them. They use DKI to insert my term. For those of you not familiar with the syntax, in AdWords you simply put {KeyWord:Default Copy} into your ad and AdWords will automatically put the exact search term into your ad (as long as it fits the character limits). Instant relevancy, but be careful. Make sure to monitor your negative keywords or you could end up with an embarrassing faux pas like this:

Last time I checked Target didn’t sell infant body parts and they definitely didn’t qualify as furniture.

Hard Way – Static Ads in Tight Ad Groups

Every PPC campaign has a handful of top-performing keywords. You know, the 20% of your keywords that deliver 80% of the results. Take these keywords and place them in very tightly themed ad groups (like 2 or 3 keywords/ad group). Then right static ads using the keywords directly. This will ensure relevancy and allow you to put 2 or 3 relevant mentions in the ad (headline, ad copy, even the display URL). With a highly relevant ad, you can then work on your landing page to make sure you’ve established a strong chain of relevancy.

Filed Under: AdWords, PPC Tagged With: Ad copy, chain of relevancy, Relevancy

3 Golden Questions Your Customers Are Asking

April 14, 2010 By Robert

Imagine a technology that would let you know exactly what your customers are thinking when they see your ads, landing pages and emails. Lets call it Google PsychoAnalytics. One day you look at your Google PsychoAnalytics reports and see that a majority of your visitors have the same 3 questions:

Question 1: Why You? – Every SERP has 10 organic results and up to 12 paid results. Your potential customers are asking themselves why they should pick your listing over all the other options. Are you giving them a clear, simple answer?
Question 2: Why Now? – Maybe they see your banner add on their favorite site or perhaps an email lands in their inbox. They might even be on your landing page right now, but they have a million things to do today and are asking themselves if this is what they should be doing right now. Look at your own pages and calls to action (CTAs). Are you conveying the immediate benefit?
Question 3: What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)? – This is closely related to Question 1 & Question 2, but is more broad. Make sure you’re connecting the dots from feature, to benefit, to benefit of the benefit. For example: Your CRM software saves sales reps 30 minutes/day which means each salesman closes 1 more sale/week and earns $5000 more commissions/year. Make sure they know what’s in if for them as an individual as well as the company.

As you may guess, Google PsychoAnalytics isn’t coming anytime soon, but you can ask these questions already. What other questions are your customers asking?

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: 3 Whys, Google PsychoAnalytics

Now Marketing Experiments Certified!

April 13, 2010 By Robert

Not to brag, but Robert Brady (yours truly) is now certified by Marketing Experiments in Online Testing.

Marketing Experiments Professional Certification Program

The course involves 8 sessions covering all the basics of online testing, from formulating a research question to validating the results to interpretation. Flint McGlaughlin provides most of the training and his tone is so conversational that you almost forget it’s prerecorded. Most sessions include case studies to help you see the principles in action and a quiz to quickly test your mastery of the material. This was a big help for me since I totally botched the Session 7 quiz, causing me to go back and review the material again prior to the exam.

The exam is straightforward with two portions. The online portion is multiple choice & fill-in-the-blank questions to test general knowledge and the written portion has you go through an example optimization from start to finish. You demonstrate that you have mastered their methodology and can interpret results to produce a deliverable for a client.

Need Conversion Optimization Help?

Just a reminder, but this newly certified conversion optimization wizard is available for hire. Email me – robert “at” righteousmarketing.com – or reach out to me on Twitter – @robert_brady

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: Certification, Marketing Experiments, Online Testing

Getting Started with Conversion Rate Optimization: Momentum

April 7, 2010 By Robert

mo-men-tum: force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events: The car gained momentum going downhill. Her career lost momentum after two unsuccessful films.

While reading Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath they discuss a local car wash that had a fairly typical loyalty card. You paid for 8 washes and got one free. However, they tested two different variations. One card was 8 blanks before the free card. The other card was 10 blanks before the free card, but the first two stamps were “gimmies”. What happened?

After a few months 34% of the “gimmies” had received a free wash, while only 19% of the normal cards had received a free wash. That’s right, a 79% increase simply by creating a little momentum.

Creating Momentum in the Conversion Process

The goal is getting a conversion. To accomplish the goal you have to get people from Point A to Point B. If the goal is newsletter registrations you need an email address. If the goal is a lead, you need a name and contact info. If the goal is a sale, you need their name, shipping address and payment info. So how can you create a little momentum?

Make them feel like they’re joining the cool kids (SEOMoz)
Pre-populate Forms – For example, if the user clicked a link from an email, have their name and email pre-populated in the conversion form since you already know it.
Keep ‘em Rolling (MailChimp)

Yes, you can sign up for an email marketing solution (and a dang good one) with only 4 fields!

Now go create some momentum and don’t get in their way once they’ve got it.

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: momentum