• “Get Girl Love Hiking!” – Is it supposed to be 2 sentences? Get Girl. Love Hiking. Because that would at least be a benefit (Get Girl) and then they’re just trying to build a little rapport. Right?
• “Wanna get a girlfriends that like hiking?” – Yes, I want a girlfriend (in the committed relationship kind of way) but I don’t know if I could handle more than one. Newsflash: “a” is a singular article. You actually could have saved characters by getting this right.
• “Only on meetsinglesonly you can get that!” – Why are you adding your URL here? It’s already right below your title. #wasteofspace

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.

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.

You Hired An Expert, Now Trust Them

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.

Reporting = Time Not Spend Optimizing & Managing Your Account

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

The Current Climate of PPC

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:

• Companies are spending more on search engine marketing – You thought the $16.6 billion spent in 2010 was a lot? In 2011 spend will go up 16% to $19.3 billion. This most likely means higher CPCs so you’ll need to get more revenue from every customer or convert your clicks better just to keep your head above water.
• Facebook definitely has a seat at the grown-up table – 74% of agencies say their clients run PPC campaigns on Facebook and with over 500 million users you can’t blame them. Have you tried Facebook advertising?
• Even the big boys need outside help – Last year 47% of companies were managing paid search in-house. In 2011 that number is down to 38%. I’ve talked about how complex PPC has become, and the big boys are no exception. I know plenty of companies that insist on having an in-house resource, but you might be hamstringing your 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?

PPC and Marketing

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.

Google Promotion – A New Class of Ad?

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?

Facebook Lies

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.

Overkill

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.