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How To Add Sitelinks To Your Google AdWords Ads

June 30, 2010 By
AdWords sitelinks settings

Have you seen an AdWords ad that looked like this, with the links across the bottom?

Picture of AdWords ad with sitelinks

This is an example of Sitelinks, and as of June 24th, all AdWords advertisers can use them. But in typical Google style, they’ve buried the feature so that most basic users won’t find the option. Therefore, I have put together this step-by-step guide:

Google AdWords Sitelinks

  1. Choose Your Campaign – This feature exists at the campaign level, so login to your AdWords account and select the campaign where you’re going to add sitelinks.
  2. Go to the Settings Tab – Along with lots of other goodies, here is where you’ll find this golden nugget.
  3. Find Sitelinks under Ad Extensions – Click EditAdWords sitelinks settings
  4. Fill in up to 10 links – AdWords sitelinks interface
  5. Click Save

The Catch


For now Google claims that sitelinks will only show for “the single top-ranked ad for a given user search” (but lower position ads also have been seen with sitelinks too). So make sure and take the time to add these valuable little guys to you campaigns, but remember that the links should be relevant for the entire campaign.

Filed Under: AdWords, PPC Tagged With: ,

AdWords Reporting Keeps Getting Easier

June 24, 2010 By

Google logoWhile Google has been called out recently to release ad and campaign QS data, they have been taking steps to make other data more easily obtained in AdWords.

More Reports in the Interface

I was a big fan when the Search Query Report functionality was moved into the interface. Not only did it make obtaining the information so much easier, it made it easier to act on that data by adding new keywords, new match types and negative keywords.

Google is continuing to build on that success by moving even more reporting functionality into the interface. A recent post from Inside AdWords blog details the changes, which includes the ability to “segment your data by things like keyword match type and day of week, and email and schedule downloads of the data you want to share.”

If you haven’t been using reports, don’t blame Google, because they’re making it easier all the time.

Filed Under: AdWords, PPC Tagged With:

SMB Dropping the Ball with Email

June 23, 2010 By

Email marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing methods, especially when using an in-house list. However, a recent report by GetResponse indicates that the SMB market is underutilizing the tool.

Social Media in Email

The findings of the report are quite convincing. Emails with a social sharing option get a 30% higher CTR than emails without, emails with 3+ sharing options generate 55% higher CTR and even just a Twitter sharing option generates a 40% boost.

However, despite the boost social sharing options can provide to email marketing campaigns, only 13.5% of SMBs include clickable sharing links. Do they just not know?

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , , ,

Will Facebook PPC Never Learn?

June 16, 2010 By
Annoying Facebook Ad

Ever since June of 2008 (yes, 2 years ago) Facebook ads have allowed you to “rate” the ad. At first it was a simple thumbs up/thumbs down approach where you would then be prompted to select the reason for your rating.

Facebook Ad Feedback

Initially I believe this feedback was used primarily to punish ads that users didn’t like, thus helping Facebook promote a better user experience and keep a handle on “spammy” advertisers. However, the current Facebook ad ratings also promise that my ratings will help Facebook serve me more relevant ads in the future.

Annoying Facebook Ad

Facebook Ad Removal

Facebook Ad Removal Thank You Message

When Will Facebook Learn?

As a single male in my mid-twenties, I get targeted by every major dating site on the web. I understand that I match their demographic info, so I’ve been “rating” their ads as uninteresting or repetitive for quite some time. However, as you can see from the screenshots above (taken from my account today) I still see dating site ads. It drives me crazy. Facebook asked for my feedback, I gave my feedback with their promise to improve the relevancy of my ads, but I still get the same lame ads. Come on Facebook!

Filed Under: PPC Tagged With: ,

LinkedIn PPC – Should You Be Using It?

June 15, 2010 By
LinkedIn PPC Ad

The other day I was in my LinkedIn account and came across the following ad:
LinkedIn PPC Ad
I was surprised because not only is the ad personalized with my first name, but it even uses my profile pic. That’s some heavy-duty personalization. So I decided it was time to go give LinkedIn a shot by setting up a campaign.

Step 0 – Big or Small?

After clicking the Advertising link in the footer I was presented with the following two options:
LinkedIn For Large Budgets
LinkedIn for Small Budgets

At the moment I don’t have $25K/month to blow on LinkedIn ads, so I chose the 2nd option.

Step 1 – Write an Ad

Pretty simple format. Looks like the character limits match up with AdWords limits and you can add a 50×50 image to the ad as well. The unique feature is the ability to say who the ad is from. You can choose either your personal profile or your company for additional “credibility”.

Step 2 – Target Your Audience

They have a dynamic “audience ticker” like Facebook with a starting value of just under 70 million. There are 7 areas to target, of which you may choose 3. I’m choosing geography (Salt Lake City Metro Area has about 190K people in it evidently), gender (Male takes me down to 98K) and seniority (Director, CXO and VPs leaves me with about 17K). There is an option to reach LinkedIn members on the “LinkedIn Audience Network” but I’m unchecking it for this little experiment. Also, the geographic targeting isn’t very advanced yet. They only had about 20 countries and in the US you only had about 30 metro areas to target. Not very precise yet.

Step 3 – Budget Info

You get to pick between CPC and CPM bidding (LinkedIn is throwing out some really high suggested bids), set a daily budget and give the campaign an end date if you so desire. WARNING: Though I classified myself as having a smaller budget, they won’t let me proceed on CPC bidding unless my bid is at least $2.00. Might be the demographics I chose, but dang LinkedIn!

Step 4 – Billing

Evidently they’ve got good user experience people because they asked for the meaty info last, after I’ve put in the time and effort to create an ad, choose targeting and set a budget. Pretty basic stuff so they have a CC on file for you.

Overall the setup was really easy. Nothing too fancy, but as a small advertiser using their “DirectAd” format, I didn’t have the ability to personalize my ad with the user’s name or profile picture. That must be a feature reserved for the big guys who are cranking through at least $25K/month. Figures! Well, I’ll keep you updated on how things turn out, but the only real interesting part of the process was the demographic info you could glean from the targeting section.

Who else is experimenting with LinkedIn right now? Would love to see some comments.

Filed Under: PPC Tagged With:

Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com)

June 7, 2010 By

Delivering HappinessInevitably, if you’ve ever heard someone talk about providing awesome customer service online, you’ve heard about Zappos. Maybe you heard about how they offer employees $2000 to quit during their first four weeks of training. Maybe you’re a customer and have been WOWED when they upgraded your shipping for free and got you your stuff within 24 hours of your order. Zappos is in the business of Delivering Happiness.

Delivering Happiness: The Book

The book is on shelves starting today and I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy (which actually made me quite happy) for review and one copy to give away (winner announced at the end of the post). So, what did I think?

Good Points

  • The book has a very personable, conversational style that makes for easy reading.
  • Tony is a smart guy, with two major successes under his belt. He’s lays out his successes and failures, so you know he’s not perfect.

Weaknesses

  • The narrative flowed well up until chapter 5. That 70-page behemoth really bogged me down.
  • It seemed like most of the cultural emphasis didn’t happen until they secured money to survive. For businesses still struggling to make payroll, these initiatives can be a hard sell

Why I Recommend You Read It

  • Zappos has hundreds of employees and has retained its small-company feel. Tony lays out exactly how they did it, so if you want a road map to help you retain/regain the culture you want, this is it.
  • Tony is inspirational. He focuses on the positive, but also mentions the negative. It’s authentic and refreshing. If you’re feeling down about your business/job, read this book for the lift.
  • Hidden gems of wisdom: Here is an example that rings so true to me:

“As unsexy and low-tech as it may sound, our belief is that the telephone is one of the best branding devices out there. You have the customer’s undivided attention for five to ten minutes, and if you get the interaction right, what we’ve found is that the customer remembers the experience for a very long time and tells his or her friends about it.”

Yes, you read right – undivided attention. In today’s media-saturated world how often do you get that? Virtually never. That’s some wisdom.

Now, to the fun part. The winner of the free copy is Michael Cooney. Look for an email today.

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With:

PPC Spell Check #Fail

June 2, 2010 By
PPC Spellcheck

Hey! Whoever is doing PPC for www.ThemesPress.com. You should probably run spell check on your PPC ads. #justsayin

PPC Spellcheck

Anybody come across any other good ones lately?

Filed Under: PPC Tagged With: ,