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?
Over the weekend I was accosted by the following Facebook ad:
Where to begin with this grammatical train wreck? Let’s do a little play-by-play:
At least they did get a clear CTA in there with the old classic “Click here!” It almost makes the ad passable, but not really.
Last week the topic of #PPCchat (a weekly Twitter chat about pay-per-click marketing hosted by Matt Umbro) was client reporting. There were some pretty basic questions like “How often do you speak to clients to review reports?”, “Do you have a time limit as to how long an individual report should take?” and “How detailed are your PPC reports?” The answers were great and there was a lot of back and forth from a very smart and accomplished group of PPC managers. Then on the fifth question “When reviewing reports w/ clients discuss how you provide PPC education in order for them to understand what they are reviewing” I felt like my response really hit a nerve.
Keep it high level. You’re not training them, you’re reporting – Robert Brady
That was retweeted 11 times. Here’s why I think it resonated with this group of extremely smart and talented PPC managers.
Just like professional sports athletes or concert musicians, professional PPC managers have put a lot of time and effort into honing their skills. Expertise in online marketing requires constant self-education and hands-on experience. Clients may only pay for the time spent on their actual accounts, but the results achieved from those efforts relies heavily on this investment of time and experience.
During the process of selecting a PPC manager, it is understandable that clients want references and examples of previous work. That’s part of performing your due diligence and we’ll gladly provide you the information. We also understand that reporting is a key element of client service and contracts should include a provision for how often client reporting will occur. And here is where PPC managers can get a little fired up.
Take a second to read that again. PPC managers are astute, data-driven business people. We know that unless we provide value in excess of our fees we’ll get cut/fired/dropped/whatever. We also know that we have to communicate that value effectively or we’ll suffer the same fate. Therefore, we will report our results.
What we don’t want to do is explain every little tactic we’re using to achieve those results. We don’t want to give you reports so frequently that you panic on a small downtrend and and expect the moon on a small uptrend (even when the overall average trend is upward). We don’t want to argue with you over 1 or 2 keywords. We don’t want you reading one blog post about Tactic X (which made the tactic sound like the best thing since King Midas got his touch) and calling us to ask if we’re utilizing it.
In short, we work hard on your account(s) and will give you regular reporting. Just remember that time spent reporting is time NOT spent on your account(s).
Photo courtesy of Sybren Stuvel
Growing up on a farm, I would often hear my dad or grandpa talking to a neighboring farmer about the weather. I know it’s somewhat of a joke, but it’s true for good reason. The weather plays an integral part in the success or failure of crops. If you plant too early you run the risk of your seeds molding in the muddy ground without sprouting or the young plants freezing once they have sprouted. Plant too late and you don’t get the crop harvested before it freezes or is damaged in the fall. If you don’t get enough rain, crop yield can be decreased. If you get too much rain, crop yield can be decreased.
Farmers talk about the weather so they can make the best possible decisions. If the summer is going to be dry, you might plant more drought-resistant crops. If spring came late, you can switch to a variety that matures more quickly. Understanding the climate is critical to success.
I recently received the SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report in my email and it contains a lot of insight into the “weather” that the PPC world is going to be experiencing in the coming year. Below are a few of my observations and how I think they might impact your paid search efforts:
So how would a farmer summarize the PPC climate?
Looks like it’s gonna be a bit stormy and lots of these young bucks are gonna have a rough ride.
What do you think about the weather?
Pay per click (PPC), when it first came on the market, was hailed as exactly what everybody wanted – A great way of making money without actually doing anything. At that time, online advertising, SEO, and the realities of online business were lost in a hazy, feelgood hype. Not unlike the current market frenzy, which seems to believe that social network marketing will save the world, PPC started off in a blaze of glory and then hit a brick wall in terms of performance.
In fairness, PPC is on balance a reasonable working methodology. It does provide the mechanisms for effective online advertising. Flat rate and bid-based PPC are actually pretty straightforward commercial propositions for advertisers. PPC is also a transparent methodology, and advertisers do have the ability to choose how they approach using it.
That said, the internet is definitely and irrefutably the most fickle advertising environment in history. One of the original bases for determining cost per click (CPC) was the possible value of a click to the advertiser. That means the bid based PPC ads, in which the highest bidder on a search engine results page is on top of the ad listings have the potential to be highly expensive. Given that statistically, of all the actual clicks, only a certain percentage are likely to result in a sale, the value of PPC has to be measured in relation to cost-effectiveness.
Commercial indications are that PPC has a direct relationship to the market values of search engine optimization. The fact is that what people search, when they search it, and the search terms used vary over time. These search methodologies are also strongly affected by market perceptions and consumer usage.
The name of a movie, for instance, or a character in a movie are highly probable search terms. PPC ads related to the movie for things like merchandising will do well while these search terms are in vogue. For other products, things like brand names are the most likely search terms. In either case, advertisers using PPC can expect stiff competition on search engine results pages. The commercial returns however may be quite low in such a highly competitive market.
You can see the problem – PPC imposes an ongoing cost on an indefinite commercial outcome. This is far from satisfactory for many businesses, and at best is sometimes is just a nuisance.
PPC is definitely far more effective using distinct terminology and keywords for SEO. This is the PPC version of “branding”, effectively creating higher value out of the combination of search terms and ads. This is a very basic marketing principle, but it seems to have taken forever to catch on in PPC-land.
Perhaps more disturbingly, the association between product identity, PPC and marketing best practice doesn’t seem to have registered with the market at all. Keywords can only reasonably be expected to do so much. When associated with good strong brand identities, keywords can be extremely effective. When associated with bland, low-grade search terms, they’re practically useless.
PPC has several strengths, but many weaknesses. It is naive to assume that PPC advertising is effective without comprehensive support from SEO values and good marketing practices. What’s obvious is that the market needs to understand PPC much better to use it effectively.
Author Bio: Tim Millett is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including SEO and Search engine optimization.
No one is surprised when Google products show up as the top result for searches involving Google branded keywords. For example, here is the SERP for a search on the keyword “google adwords”:
As you can see, Google grants itself the top paid ad (with 4 sitelinks as an added bonus) for this search and relegates other advertisers to the right sidebar. No big deal. Run searches for other Google tools and you’ll see similar placement, but they always show up in the barely visible, highlighted box that reads “Ad” in the upper right hand corner. However, I spotted an interesting result yesterday while searching.
I was doing some research and using the “site:” search functionality in Google. First of all, I was surprised to see an ad at all because I couldn’t imagine a PPC manager in his right mind that would be bidding on “site:www.realestateproarticles.com”. However, if you look in the upper right corner of the highlighted box you’ll see the “Google promotion” text:
Obviously this is a different class of ad. But does Google pay for the click like everyone else? Would another advertiser actually show up if they were to bid on this extremely specific phrase? What do you make of it?
The other day, a friend of mine ran a search for “marketing plan software” and got the following SERP:
He sent me the screenshot because he thought that the third ad looked a little odd, and boy was he right. Here is a closer look at the ad in question:
You’ll notice that the highlighted ad shows both the Title and Line 1 in large blue, underlined text. Then you have Line 2 in the regular small black font and the Display URL is in green. I haven’t been able to replicate an ad in this format, so I was wondering if anyone else has seen a similar result? What impact do you think this might have on CTR?
UPDATE: I talked with the advertiser, Marketing Plan Success, just to confirm that yes, the 1st line of ad copy is what is showing after the hyphen in the title.
As a long-time Facebook user (I joined in 2005) I can remember when I saw the first PPC ads inside Facebook. There weren’t many and as a PPC wizard myself I was excited to put a few of my own ads out there. With the initial success Facebook decided to add more ads to the ever-changing interface. First is was putting two on the same page. Then it became three and now four. However, it isn’t the number of ads that I hate.
Back in 2008 Facebook quietly launched the feedback option on ads. At first it was like StumbleUpon and had a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” which would ask you what reason you had for disliking the ad. Now they have a little “X” in the upper right hand corner and radio buttons for giving your reason. After giving them feedback they even give you this cute little message:
I love the customer interaction, but IT’S A LIE! I’m a 28 year-old guy who is single. I’ve set my relationship status to single. Therefore, I see ads for dating sites, dating sites, and more dating sites. Based on my ads there must be at least a bazillion different dating sites that feel I am exactly who they want on their site. Asian girls, girls who golf, christian girls, desperate girls. You name it, I’ve seen an ad for it. Here’s an screenshot from Dec. 7, 2010. Two days ago.
The only problem: I don’t use dating sites. So I give Facebook my feedback and hope for some different ads. Something I might be interested in. Every time I see that little message and have a little hope that my ads will improve. Do they? No. Facebook may get a lot of heat for their privacy settings and policies, but I would really like a little honesty. If you tell me that my feedback will improve the ads, please improve my ads.
When I was little, a common form of “brotherly love” was when my older brother pinned me down and started tapping me on the forehead. Not to hard, but over and over. The only way to get him off was to name 5 candy bars (or some similarly easy task when someone isn’t sitting on your chest tapping on your forehead). Of course I couldn’t think in those situations, so after a minute or so of tapping I would be released with a massive headache. I didn’t have a headache because he hit me hard, but because he kept tapping incessantly.
Facebook ads are the same way. I consistently have the same ads tapping on me. Over and over again, the same thing. And I’m not talking about a theme like dating. I’m talking about ads from the same website, pushing the same thing, often on the same page like so.
Yep, that’s two ads from the same dating site, on the same page, RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER! You’re killing me Smalls. But it gets even better. Check this one out that I found on December 3, 2010.
It’s like Robert Kiyosaki took over my Facebook. Three ads in a row!
Come on Facebook. Help a brother out.
Yesterday I noticed a new addition to the Google search results page; a little blue triangle next to the #1 paid listing.
With the spartan nature of Google’s results pages this is a big deal. My guess is that CTR could increase 25% for the top listing since the blue triangle/arrow will draw the eye of users.
Anyone know how long this has been live?
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.
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 …]