As a PPC professional I actually make a point of looking at PPC ads instead of ignoring them like the majority of people on the internet. And while I occasionally come across a misspelling, this one bears special mention because it’s for a major brand. Behold the all new Bud Light Plain…um?
Anyone know who’s managing this campaign?
PPC ads only allow you 25 characters in the title and 35 characters in line 1, line 2 and the display URL. If you’re counting, that’s 130 characters of available space. Not even a full tweet or text message. Therefore, correct spelling shouldn’t be that hard and I can forgive an occasional error (I’ve made them myself). However, in certain situations you simply MUST get the spelling right; like when you’re using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI).
Congratulations Paramount Equity, you #FAIL.
While traveling to Costa Rica a couple weeks ago, I was doing searches for a rental car. Mind you, I’m in San Jose, the capitol of Costa Rica, searching on the term “san jose costa rica car rental deals”. Here is what I see:
How in the world does a big company like Avis, which should have a smart person or two working on their PPC, let that ad into the wild? I am in Costa Rica, so they must have targeted the country and I’m using Costa Rica right in the search string.
Congratulations Avis, you #FAIL on geotargeting!
The other day a buddy of mine sent over the following screenshot:
While the occasional PPC fail is humorous, this garners special consideration because the offending firm, eFrontier, actually provides PPC services. From their own site we read:
“Competition for market share is fierce. And campaigns are more complicated than ever with millions of keywords, geo-targeting, content options, and copy testing. For close to a decade, Efficient Frontier’s technology has helped some of the largest and most complex advertisers in the world lead successful SEM campaigns.”
I guess that their own PPC campaign was just too simple to justify using their awesome tool. #FAIL
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?”
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.
This guy would argue that your business card is crap:
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!)
You heard me correctly. Despite the fanboy love and media hype I intend to show you how humble PPC is better than the iPad.
iPad – Runs for 10 hours
PPC – Runs 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year (or any combination of hours, days & weeks you choose)
iPad – Plug in through the proprietary Apple docking port
PPC – Plug into your Analytics for better metrics, connect it with your SEO and email marketing to improve copy or plug in through an API
iPad – Have a problem? Only Apple can fix it (that includes changing the battery)
PPC – Have a problem? Fix it yourself or have any company you want fix it
iPad – Name could be confused for a feminine hygiene product
PPC – Name can be misheard as “Paper Clip” instead of “Pay-Per-Click”
iPad – Maybe a few million users by this time next year
PPC – Millions of PPC ads are seen EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
There you have it folks. What would you add?
Introducing the fighter in the blue corner. She’s a blogger known for her strong opinions and profuse Twittering. She’s the co-founder and Chief Branding Officer for Outspoken Media while regularly contributing on a number of top SEO blogs. Fighting out of upstate New York, I give you Lisa Barone!
And now, her opponent in the red corner. A former technical evangelist from Microsoft, current employee of Rackspace, and author of the popular Scobleizer blog. He’s 44 years old and is fighting out of Silicon Valley California. Give it up for Robert “Scobleizer” Scoble!
This mega-fight is one of those occasions where you get a hungry up-and-coming competitor calling out and established legend. Scoble established his reputation years ago as an evangelist for Microsoft. He was like Darth Vader, but from Return of the Jedi where you actually kinda like him. He’s an established figure in the industry and carries a lot of influence. Therefore, when he posted this blog: “2010: the year SEO isn’t important anymore?” (question mark included) a lot of people weren’t too happy.
Lisa Barone was one of those people, but she didn’t take this one lying down. She went public with a challenge post titled “Ignore the Silly Man, SEO Still Matters For SMBs“. With everything set up, Scoble came out swinging right from the bell.
Scoble led with a strong “you missed the point” argument, saying that businesses shouldn’t focus on only SEO. Lisa blocked with an “I didn’t attack you” and countered with a “you’re pretending SEO hasn’t changed in 5 years”. They traded a few jabs, but Lisa takes the round by getting Scoble to take offense at being called a silly man.
In this round Lisa tries to slow down the pace by focusing the fight on the headline of Scoble’s post. However, Scoble has no interest in slowing down and keeps swinging for the fences, even throwing an “idiot” into the mix. Lisa again tries to slow things down, but Robert keeps up the pace, even blocking a commenter on Twitter. The frantic pace continues throughout the round with plenty of blows hitting their mark, but in the end Scoble steals Round 2 on sheer persistence.
In this the final round we’re treated to even more fast-paced action with Scoble sticking with his “the title was a question” defense and jabbing with his “I just wanted to start a discussion”. Lisa gets a big boost from her corner as Rae Hoffman changes the title tag of Lisa’s post to include Scoble’s name and moves it into the top 100 Google results for Robert Scoble. While Scoble is distracted, Lisa unleashes the haymaker by calling out George Revutsky’s “I’m disappointed Scoble used our interview this way” comment.
The referee calls the fight at 2:30 of the 3rd round for our winner, Lisa Barone!
Photo by markhillary
The other day my friend sends me an email with the title “Funny PPC”. Knowing that I’m often quite critical of poor PPC ads, I anticipated some situation where dynamic keyword insertion had made a nonsensical ad. Happens all the time (courtesy of the now defunct YourPPCSucks.com). However, this one exceeded expectations.
If the image is too small for you, it says “Hideous, obnoxious condos – www.redlodge.com – lousy snow, lame nightlife and surly locals want your cash now”. And yes, my friend did click the ad, which goes to this very normal page about ski lodges. There are two possible reasons for this ad.
My friend clicked the ad because he just had to know what was on the other side of such a negative ad. We are so accustomed to ads that are positive and are trying to sell us something. Want to stand out from the crowd? Write ads that criticize your product. Your conversion rates might not be very good, but the CTR should be healthy.
More likely is the theory that someone at the Red Lodge made their PPC manager (or someone with access to the PPC campaign) very, very angry. In revenge, they changed the PPC ads. Simple, yet effective at making your old boss pay (literally). So what do you think? Bold PPC strategy or disgruntled employee?
Conversion rate optimization and PPC wizard. If I'm not out playing ultimate frisbee or golf you may find me hiking, skiing or mountain biking. [Read More …]