AdWords Is Testing A New Match Type

One of my clients’ account got an invitation to take part in a beta test of a new feature in AdWords called ‘modified broad match’.

If you ever got upset over the extremely wide range of search queries that trigger your broad match keywords (and my guess that 99% of PPC managers and affiliates did), this new feature is made for you.

Modified broad match gives you better control over which search queries trigger your broad match keywords. Adding a plus modifier (+) immediately before a word indicates that word must very closely match a word in the user’s search in order to trigger the keyword.

This is the example AdWords provided in their email:

If you have leather shoes in a campaign as a broad match keyword, your ad could show when someone searches for “leather shoes,” “leather sandals,” “blue suede shoes,” “athletic footwear” and other related searches because broad match attempts to match your keyword to a wide range of relevant variations.

However, if you have +leather shoes as your keyword instead, the range of searches that trigger your ad is much narrower. Only the exact word, very close variations (e.g. plurals), or a common spelling mistake of the modified word (+leather) can trigger a match. Synonyms do not trigger a match.

Based on this example, when using +leather shoes, these queries will trigger your ad:

• dress shoes men’s leather – “leather” and “shoes” appear in the search.
• leather sandals – “leather” appears in the search, and “sandals” are closely related to “shoes”.
• leathr sandals – “leathr” is a common misspelling of “leather”, and “sandals” are closely related to “shoes”.

These queries will not trigger your ad:

• blue suede shoes – “leather” does not appear in the search.
• athletic footwear – same reason.
• leather belt – “leather” appears in the search, but “belt” is not closely related to “shoes”.

The really great thing about it is that now, unlike the time before this new feature, I don’t need to be worried that if I raise the bids on my broad match keywords more irrelevant queries will trigger my ads and I will pay too much for irrelevant traffic. Now I can enjoy the great power of the broad match without the negative sides of it.

Learning to use this feature properly will, without a doubt, push your PPC campaign to the next level.

PPC news & Great PPC posts

As usual when I don’t have much time to write a post I am posting some of the latest industry news and some cool PPC blog posts. If you are wondering why I don’t have the time is because besides all the PPC work I’m doing I just moved to a new apartment and it’s a time consuming project. Anyway…

Here are my favorites from the last 2 weeks:

• Yahoo is changing some things making the control of your ads distribution easier. Plus, and that’s a big PLUS!, they also added a campaigns import tool. So you now can upload your Google AdWords campaigns into Yahoo. I plan on using this one ASAP. Read about it here.
• Google is apparently pushing their new phone, Nexus 1, in a way that is taking impressions from content network advertisers. There are some reports that the Nexus 1 banners are spotted on many sites that are irrelevant to cellphones therefore pushing a side relevant advertisers who once claimed those spots. It’s funny how Google is talking about relevancy and how important that is and will even kick your A** away from AdWords if you are not relevant enough, but if it’s a product made by Google everything is legit. Read about it in this PPCBLOG post.
• 2 great articles were posted on search engine land that can really help you see that PPC, and Search Marketing in general, is not all about Google. There are many other opportunities like mobile advertising and ad exchanges. Though neither of those articles are actually trying to say what I wrote here, but this is what I decided to take from articles. One of those articles also contains great information about AdWords mobile campaigns.
• Brian Carter from Search Engine Journal wrote a nice article about an experiment he did checking if Google’s geo-targeting is accurate. I don’t want to ruin your surprise when you find out the results so go and read about it here. On the other hand, if you actually thought Google’s geo-targeting is accurate, then I should ruin your surprise – it’s NOT.

The PPC Toolbar

You probably all heard of toolbars that are made especially for SEO’s and SEO purposes, right?

So now there’s is a toolbar that is made just for PPC’ers, and it was created by yours truely.

The Toolbar includes:

• Quick access to RSS feeds of all the great PPC blogs out there.
• Quick access to my twitter – I’m working on an option to follow more people through it.
• Quick access to many tools that will help you with your keywords lists.
• Quick access to many text ads tools that  you are sure to use.
• Competitors research tools.
• Landing pages (LP’s) optimization tools.
• URL shortener
• Quick links to your favorite social media sites.
• One click website translation
• Quick access to your emails. You can also add an email notifier.
• Open a Microsoft office document right from the toolbar.
• Coming soon – Affiliates tools and quick links

If you think there is something missing in the toolbar that will make it even better then how it is now, please let me know!

You can download the PPC toolbar here: http://PPCisme.OurToolbar.com/

Google Browser Size Tool

When going over my Google Reader today, I found that Google has released a great tool called Browser Size.

As you all know, in your landing pages there are some elements you just don’t want the users to miss and therefore you design your landing page in a way that those elements will be above the fold.

Also, as you all know, Internet users use different types of screen resolution, different sizes of monitors, and also a big part of the Internet users use a toolbar. All the factors I mentioned are making the users’ first look at your website a bit different for each. That way, not everyone will get the same “fold” line as you.

This is why you should try to use Browser Size by Google. It let’s you see what is the % of users that can’t see the main elements (like the “click here” button) in you landing page.

What I found using this tool is that 30% of Internet users can’t even see my RSS button if they don’t scroll (and I have a big RSS button). Lucky for me, most, if not all of my readers are using a “normal” screen size and resolution. But what if your site is about selling health insurance that is mostly visited by “old guys” (no offense )

PS

Can you recommend a free screenshot software that won’t write “unregistered version” all over my image?

PPC news – 11/26/09

This post has no specific subject, but I just wanted to share some things with you.

Recent blog posts and news:

New search ads formats – Google published a post where it’s describing all the AdWords text (not just text) ads you might come a cross. If you’re into PPC, you got to know it all.

Popular PPC pitfalls – Great post by Melissa Mackey. She describes some of the common PPC pitfalls one should be aware of. This one is mostly for the beginners out there.

Products extensions for AdWords ads available to all US advertisers – Mostly for the PPC managers, affiliates will probably won’t care.

Misinformation in affiliate marketing – Affiliates, don’t listen to everything you hear on blogs and forums. You can listen to what this post is saying though.

New feature of site links in AdWords text ads – Great new feature from AdWords lets you add more links to you PPC ad. Note though, that 99% of the times, you will see these extra links only on your brand name.

There’s a new editor for Yahoo search marketing – Finally! I personally didn’t get the chance to use it. Let me know how it works out for you.

Google campaign insights – Another feature by made by Google to make you spend more more money on the content network help you understand your content network campaign better.

On another note, I get a lot of traffic from people looking for information on the change Google is making on their advertising fundamentals exam. I am still gathering information on this myself and will post my findings here soon.

Google is rewinding AdWords bans

The AdWords banning saga continues.

After I was banned from AdWords and got back a few days after, I hear that I’m not the only one who got back on AdWords after being banned.

My friend, of whom I told you about in the last 2 posts, that came up with the idea that Google shut me down because they connected our accounts to each other, also got his ads running again. Since yesterday I noticed that this series of bans is in fact automated, and it got me thinking that Google must have realized that something went wrong with their machine. I wonder what caused them to notice it. I think it’s either Google decided to pay attention to all the noise the banned advertisers made, or, something that I find more likely, that Google noticed that their bank account is growing slower than they hoped. They even banned a million dollars per month affiliate. This affiliate has some really good notes and comments about this issue in general.

So are we going to see a mass of banned advertisers gaining back access to AdWords? Will Google kill this EVIL machine that they have created? God I hope so, because this entire chain of events got me to a place where I’m afraid of trying to promote new stuff on AdWords. How know? Maybe their algorithm wouldn’t like my landing page and will ban me again, killing all the other “good” campaigns I got running.

I got banned from AdWords

I’m not sure what just happened, but today when I looked at my account I realized that I didn’t get any click for 4 days. I got nervous since I know Google is on a crusade to find affiliates and kill their accounts. So before I freaked out I checked my keywords, and all of them were with QS higher that 6 when most of them with quality score higher than 8. Then, I checked if my ads were disapproved for some reason, but all my ads were on “active”. This is when I thought to my self that my account is probably under review and my ads will run again soon. After all, I didn’t get any warnings about low quality score. Boy was I wrong!

I contacted AdWords support, asking them when will my ads be active again. I got an email saying that I got banned! :

Hello Erez,

Thank you for your email. I understand that you are concerned about your
ads not running. Please know that your Google AdWords account has been
disabled due to multiple violations of our advertising policies, including
violations after final warning, related to Landing Page and Site Quality,
in a related account. As a result, your ads will no longer run though the
Google AdWords system and we are unable to accept advertising from you in
the future. Please note that future AdWords accounts you open will also be
disabled.

As part of our commitment to making the AdWords experience safe and
effective for our users and our advertisers, we routinely review the
landing pages that our advertisers promote through our search and content
networks.  If we find that an advertiser has submitted poor quality
landing pages that do not comply with our advertising policies, including
the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines, we reserve the right to take
account-level action.

Landing pages advertised via AdWords must have relevant, original content,
and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted.
Further, advertisers are prohibited from promoting certain types of sites,
which include, but are not limited to:

* Data collection sites that imply delivery of free items, etc., in order
to collect private information
* Arbitrage sites without relevant and original content that are designed
for the purpose of showing ads
* Affiliate sites without relevant and original content that are designed
to drive traffic to another site with a different domain
* “Get-rich quick” sites that make unrealistic promises
* Sites that are deceptive
* Sites that distribute malware or spyware
* Extremely misleading/unverifiable or inaccurate claims

Please note that this action is related to sites that have recently been
advertised through your related account. In a review of your related
account’s history, we found that your related account had submitted
multiple sites that merited poor landing page quality evaluations.
Although these sites may have been corrected or removed since our latest
review, advertisers that have a history of promoting poor quality landing
pages are subject to account-level disabling.

Then I got really nervous! and angry! I didn’t get any warnings! Ever! . Not only that, but I really had no active campaigns that where promoting any of the site they mentioned as prohibited for promoting. I did try to promote the acai berry once but this campaign ran for about a week and that I paused it. I was promoting everything “by the book” and didn’t use any method that an SEM agency wouldn’t use.

I was really clueless, and I still am. Google won’t return my emails since then.

A friend of mine, that was banned last week, came up with a theory that Google some how noticed that his account was once used from the same PC as mine, and then they thought they are linked to each other and this is why I got banned. But I guess I can’t really know.

I guess what I need to do now is find a way to get back on AdWords. I heard some people managed to do that, but it might be just a rumor. I also heard of people that tried many times but Google always got on their tracks.

This is a real pain in the ass. I got tips from people that I need to open a new company and use its CC, change my IP and billing address, and even replace my computer. Oh, and I not can’t use any Google product so they won’t get on my track. Seems difficult, but i worth the shot. I hope it works.

Few things are on my mind right now:

• Is this the end of affiliate marketing in Google? Or just the end of the lazy, scheming, and just wrong affiliate marketing? Anyway, I’m sure things are going to change.
• I guess that more people will promote their affiliate offer in Bing and Yahoo. Maybe these engines will get more search volume because of it. After all, if many affiliates are now using Bing and not Google, other people might start using it too.
• The final and most important thing that is on my mind is – will I ever get back on AdWords or will I need to find income from other sources. I hope that the answer is yes for both parts of the question.

If anyone that is reading this post has ever got banned and managed to get back on AdWords, please contact me. I would appreciate it.

Internationalize Your PPC campaigns with Google Translator Toolkit

Have you ever thought of selling your product or service in other countries beside the countries you advertise in now? This option could mean more sources of revenue, and who wouldn’t like that?

For a PPC manager/optimizer, it’s important to be able to target more than the English speaking countries. This is something that is getting more and more attention as the world of PPC and online marketing in general evolves.  By not holding the skills of multilingual PPC marketing you are missing really big clients and you are very limited. The internet is all about being global, so why can’t you?

To help us with that Google has released a new feature to the Google translator toolkit. Why Google is helping us with that? well, obviously if you target more countries and more languages, Google is making more money.

The new feature is intended to help you translate your PPC campaigns into other languages in a fast and easy way. All you need to do is export the campaign from your AdWords Editor with the “export backup” option (AEA file) and upload it to Google translator toolkit. After that it should be easy to follow the instruction and translate your campaign.

The interface is not perfect, and I think a bulk edit of some kind is a must here, but it’s still pretty impressive.

You should be really really careful though, since although Google is translating the keywords fairly well, full sentences are not translated well, so the text ads translation is far than perfect, and for some languages I checked, the translation doesn’t make sense at all. I suggest that you won’t count on this machine and send your text ads to a professional translator.

Image by Patrick Q.

Google is Changing Google Advertising Professionals (GAP) program

I got an email from Google’s representative saying that Google is planning to change the Google Advertising Professionals program.

This is part of the email:

“We’re launching a more advanced training curriculum and have partnered with industry experts to build a more rigorous set of exams with an increased focus on best practices techniques and application of knowledge.

The changes begin with replacement of the existing exam in Q1 with a new Advertising Fundamentals Exam. This will be followed with a set of Advanced Exams allowing professionals to showcase additional skills and expertise.

Passing the new Advertising Fundamentals Exam along with one of the advanced exams will be a requirement of retaining certification under the new program.”

Basically, this means that the GAP exams, that are required in order to get a Google Adwords Certified Professional, are going to be changed. I’m not sure if it’s going to be harder & more complicated, or perhaps we’re just going to see less questions about billing options and questions like “where I can see who has access to the account” and more questions about best practices and bidding management.

Another big change is that from 2010 onwards, there are going to be more than 1 exam. Is Google planning on creating exams for specific topics? like one exam for “bidding management” and one exam for “understanding AdWords algorithm and quality score”?

If some of you know, please share it with me. Anyway, we will all find out soon since no matter when your certification is suppose to be terminated, you will need to take these exams on Q1 in order to renew it. Good luck everyone!

AdWords View through conversion

I Don’t know if you have noticed, but 2 weeks ago Google has added a new column of data to your “networks” view on the interface. This new data is view-through conversion.

What is view through conversion?

view through conversion data tells you how many conversions occured in the last 30 days from visitors who viewed you image ad on the content network but didn’t click it. So if someone saw your banner ad on a certain site, and then, sometimes in the next 30 days got to your site and  converted into a lead/sale, you will see this conversion on the new column.

This change will probably also effect the placements report. Since until now Google showed only sites that generated clicks, but maybe now we will see sites with no clicks but with conversions.

Note that if someone, after seeing your ad, clicked on another one of your PPC ad, you wouldn’t see this conversion as a view-through conversion, rather the regular click-through conversion.

Google is collecting this data using the AdSense cookie. This is the first time Google is using a cookie of a different Google porperty in order to collect and show data on AdWords. Can you think of new ways of using other cookies that will benefit the advertisers?

How can you use view-through conversion?

This new data now allows you to better understand the performance of your content network campaign. Now, you might not exclude sites that are not converting users into sales with click-through conversion because this sites users mighht be converting without clicking the ad.

But I’m not sure you can fully trust it and claim the sale. First, this is something that of course will benefit Google since now the advertisers think that their money is being spent on more conversions and that their CPA is now much better. Thinking that, of course the advertisers will go ahead and spend more money. Also, luck is playing a role here – a user might have noticed your ad but didn’t click it since he didn’t need what you are offering at that point or didn’t think it’s worth it, but then he gets a recommendation from a friend telling him to go and purchase your product. There is the option that since your image ad was on the buttom of the site (below the fold), the user didn’t even see your ad, but eventually, just by chance, after 2 weeks he needed your service and found you through organic search.

Overall I think it’s a nice data to see and it does help you understand better the performance of your campaign, but since the volume of view-through conversion that I’m seeing is very high, I have doubts on how accurate is this data and if I should really trust it. What do you think?