Below is a screenshot from a display network campaign that was running for about 16 hours. All the default setting were in place, meaning that ads were set to optimize instead of rotate.
So unless Google is omniscient (and the algorithm may be approaching that level) I’m pretty sure they should have showed the other ad at least a little bit before making that determination. Has anyone else seen this?
If you haven’t seen it yet, just run a Google search. Most likely you’ll see the new light purple background on the ads directly above organic results. It looks like this:
Subtle, isn’t it? On my monitor it’s so subtle that I didn’t see it at first glance. However, after sliding Firefox over onto my laptop screen I saw it more clearly. Rimm-Kaufman actually got the following quote direct from Google:
“Starting today and ramping up to 100% globally by the end of this week, we’ll be changing the background color for ads that appear above the search results on Google.com as well as our local domains. The ads, which currently have a pale yellow background, will change to have a pale purple background. This change is part of the ‘look and feel’ update to our color palette and logo that we made back in May of this year to keep the Google results page looking fresh and modern. This is purely an aesthetic change to our ads and won’t have any impact on the way we target or serve advertisements on Google.com.”
Look and feel? Here’s why I think they did it?
Don’t forget that Google makes billions of dollars in advertising revenue EVERY MONTH! Even the smallest change can have a huge impact on their bottom line and they test a lot. Based on what I see, this helps the top ads blend into the organic results. That means more people, even ad-averse people, will click on search ads, thus padding Google’s pockets.
As a PPC advertiser I like it a lot. Accounts with high QS will get rewarded even further by showing above organic results and getting an even higher CTR. For companies in competitive spaces (where high bids are also needed to hit the top 3) it sucks. They’ll have to work that much harder to make their PPC work.
But make no mistake, even though Google says this is “purely an aesthetic change”, I’m sure that dollars and cents made a difference.
Google reported $6.82 BILLION in revenue for Q2 2010 and most of it comes through AdWords. Awhile back I wrote a series of posts detailing some of the most serious mistakes I’ve seen in AdWords accounts. I call them the 13 Deadly Sins of AdWords.
These mistakes can kill your AdWords performance, so I made a convenient checklist to quickly diagnose any issues. Consider me your priest and this checklist is your confession.
On a point of personal privilege, I wanted to take the opportunity to announce that Righteous Marketing is now an AdWords Certified Partner. According to Google, “This qualification demonstrates that the company employs individuals with deep AdWords knowledge, and has experience in assisting clients with their AdWords campaigns.” The small print says that I’ve managed over $10,000 in spend over the last 90 days and have passed the new, more rigorous certification exams.
(Imaginary award speech)I’d like to thank Paul Allen for getting me started in PPC during my college internet marketing class. I’d also like to thank Robert Stevens of WriteExpress for taking me on as an intern and then giving me great experience managing a large PPC account, Vizad for letting me manage multiple accounts, and all my current and former clients for trusting me to spend their money (and lots of it) wisely. Oh, and my mom and dad, and my friends, and God for giving me this talent. (Queue music that kicks me off the stage)
The merger of Yahoo and Bing into a single interface is the most anticipated PPC event of 2010. We talked all about it in 2009 and I’ve been quite excited because I’m not a fan of Yahoo’s interface. Information has been a bit lacking, but last week we got a video on the Microsoft Advertising blog about the topic.
Okay, lot’s of fun pencil drawings and clever animation…blah, blah, blah…”WE ALSO MAY CONSIDER POSTPONING THE TRANSITION TO EARLY 2011″. What? Go back to the 1:30 mark and listen to it again. What you hear is Microsoft giving themselves an escape hatch to push this implementation to next year.
Dang! Six more months of Yahoo’s crappy interface.
If you read big internet industry blogs like Search Engine Journal or PPC Hero, you’ll notice a lot of guest posting. The articles are high quality and inevitably contain a self-serving link or two. So how do you get high quality guest posts for your blog or the chance to write them for other blogs? Here’s my suggestion:
Started by Ann Smarty, MyBlogGuest is a “community of guest bloggers.” This community takes shape as a forum. Once you’ve registered (there is a free membership as well as a paid premium membership) you can browse through the different categories and threads. Most are blog owners soliciting guest posts or writers looking for guest post opportunities. The general topic area is usually included, so it’s easy to find a good fit.
By no means am I a power user. Actually, Ann might not even give me the title of Regular User. However, I have utilized the service both ways with great results. I needed a few posts to help me keep my blog going over a vacation and I easily got a couple quality posts. I also found a couple blog owners looking for content and was able to get some articles of my own out there.
The site is dead simple and it’s easy to make arrangements through private messages. You can even ask for some social media promotional love in the Help Needed thread (a big help if you don’t have thousands of friends and followers on every social media site). Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Google announced the feature back in May and today the Rimm-Kaufman Group is announcing that broad match modifiers are now available to all US customers. So what’s the big deal?
Ever since AdWords went to expanded broad match (that’s Google-speak for “we’ll show you ad if we feel it is within 100 miles of being relevant to a search”) advertisers have been adding using more phrase match, exact match and negative keywords to avoid less qualified impressions and clicks. Frankly, experts have been bitching about this since it was pushed system wide. Of the 13 Deadly Sins of PPC, I rank it #3. Broad match modifiers is Google’s response to all the complaints.
This visual should help explain, but basically you add a plus sign to let Google know which word(s) are required.
Basically, if you add a plus sign in front of every word you can revert to the basic broad match. While most most beginner/intermediate users will go this route, advanced users will continue to test and optimize to find the best combination. I hate on broad match plenty, but Google has a lot of data and may help you discover profitable keywords you might have missed.
AdWords is famous for saying that you can reach millions of potential customers in just 5 minutes. They have taken every step possible to make signing up easy. Now, they appear to have taken it even further:
As you can see, Google is actually giving you a phone number for a free consultation and offering to set up your first campaign for you, FREE!
Google is somewhat famous for not having good customer support. Sure their products are free, but if you needed help good luck actually getting a person on the phone (unless you had an account rep, which translated to “if you spend enough money”). Now they are volunteering to talk to you and even lend a hand?
This is all about the money. AdWords is the engine that drives Google’s profit. Google obviously is looking for some more revenue, so they will help advertisers set up new accounts. Pretty simple.
My only concern is the quality. I have gotten quite a few campaign and ad groups from Google reps and I haven’t been impressed with the results. They group the keywords tightly (good) and use the keywords in the ad copy (also good) but they don’t usually do enough research to write compelling ad copy. You get cookie cutter ads that get decent CTR and send generic traffic to your homepage. Not a real recipe for success.
Has anyone out there took them up on this deal? How did it go?
