by Steven LaLonde - PPC Manager at DragonSearch  

It is common knowledge that prices can be used in PPC ads to draw customers to your site - espically if you’re advertising prices lower than your competitors. 

Another thing to rememeber though, is that prices can be used to prequalify traffic as well.  By using prices in your ppc ads, you can essentially pre-qualify your visitors, and possibly increase conversion rates and reduce wasted ad spend on clicks that bounce or simply won’t convert.  

Prices in ads can help you prevent much of the traffic you never wanted in the first place.  They force the visitor to make a bit more of a commitment before ’stepping into’ your store.

You’ll get far fewer clicks from visitors who were looking for something cheaper or who simply weren’t seriously looking to make any purchase in the first place.

 By using prices and other pre-qualifying hints in your text, you may see a drop in volume, but a major increase in conversion rates, as you’ll attract be driving far more ‘likely to buy’ clicks.  This could be just the trick you need to rev up your ppc campaign.

Just remember that there is a time and a place for prices in PPC ads.  If you have the HIGHEST prices around, you’ll certainly want to avoid putting prices in your ads (and you may want to rethink your prices alltogether!).  So use your better judgement before advertising prices in ad text! Good luck preventing those unwanted clicks and increasing conversion rates!

 by Steven LaLonde - PPC Manager at DragonSearch

Google Ad Planner is here!  Google says that ad planner is a research and media planning tool.  So what is a PPC manager like myself doing with Ad Planner?  

Although i’m not a true ‘Media Buyer’, most PPC Managers are in some respects media buyers of sorts.  After all, if you’re running advertising on the Google Content Network, and selectively choosing sites to advertise on, you’re a Media Buyer of sorts.  Still, Ad Planner is most-intented for TRUE media buyers who buy a lot of display advertising on the web. 

 The Ad Planner beta was private, but anyone is allowed to request an invitation.  DragonSearch requested an invitation, and one day later, Google emailed us with the keys (link) to test drive the Ad Planner platform. 

Having never used any similar Ad Planning programs before, which have been available from companies like DoubleClick for years, it was really cool to explore Ad Planner.  I can certainly see how I may utilize this in the very near future to research and identify new content placements for our PPC clients, espicially those who use the Content Network.

Ad planner contains data on tons of sites that aren’t on the Content Network too, which is sort of interesting.  Ad Planner contains so much data in fact, that many people are now up in arms that Google has been invading privacy and collecting too much web data for years. 

Regardless, Ad Planner is cool and it’s a powerful research and discovery tool for anyone buying media space on the web.  You can find data for tons of different web sites, and you can do it many different ways. 

You can search and identify new sites by user demographic.  Will you be advertising to 24 year old males with income between 49 and $75,000 per year?  Ad Planner will show you some sites you may be interesting in advertising on.  You can also filter and find sites across a ton of different demographic variables, from age, to sex, to income and tastes. 

Once you’ve done all your homework, you can create an actual media plan which can be exported to Excel.  Pretty neat. 

All in all, Ad Planner is a really cool - FREE - site research and discovery tool.  And since it comes free of charge, wheras similar softwares have been expensive in the past, it’s sure to get a lot of attention from anyone who buys media on the web. 

 by Steven LaLonde - PPC Manager at DragonSearch

Google introduced the User Generated Review feature to Google Maps back in June 07 (about a year ago). It gives anyone the ability to review your business on Google Maps.  With more and more people using Google Maps to find things locally, local businesses should be very aware of how much of an impact these reviews can have.  

I’m convinced that for some local businesses who get ’searched and found’ via Google Maps, these reviews can really help - or really do some mega damage. 

Here I’ll briefly explain why local businesses should strive to maintain positive reviews on Google Maps, and then we’ll explain how you can quickly get legitimate positive reviews.  In a future article, we’ll talk about dealing with negative reviews (ouch!) on Google Maps Business Listings.  

Why You Want Positive Reviews  

Positive reviews are free advertising.  You don’t have to pay anything to get them.  With a little effort on your part, you can likely expedite the process, and have several real reviews from real customers - in no time, and free of charge.

Positive reviews are extraordinarily powerful.  Just last week, I tried a new chinese food place, admittedly based soley upon glowing reviews I saw on their Google Maps listing.  The reviews sold me.  Best of all, they sold me for free.  The business didn’t have to pay for anything.  Many marketers agree that positive reviews and testimonials are one of the most powerful forms of advertising.  Even as a PPC manager, I must agree.

Positive reviews build brand credibility.  If you have a lot of reviews (more than one) you’ve built up brand credibility for an audience that may not know you yet.  This could make local customers choose you over other businesses.  (Think ebay ‘feedback’).

How You Can Get Them Pretty Quickly:

Ask Your Customers To Review You On Google Maps.  It really is this simple.  Say you’re a florist.  Next time a customer legitimately compliments you, or your beautiful flower arrangements, ask them if they would be willing to reproduce their compliment on your Google maps listing.  Briefly explain that they could find your business on Google Maps, and leave a brief comment if they would like, and that you would appreciate their feedback.  You’d be surprised as to how many happy customers would be willing to take a few seconds out of their day to leave a glowing, legitimate review on your Google Maps listing. 

Don’t Try to Cheat by Writing a Fake User Review.  Customers aren’t stupid.  Even if you try to make it look like someone else wronte the review, you’ll probably get caught.    Plus, it’s just plain wrong to do.  Get real, honest reviews from real customers.

 Is asking customers for Google Maps reviews ethical?  I think so! Businesses ask happy customers for testimonials all the time; for websites, marketing materials, and so on.  Why can’t this be translated into the Google Maps medium?  Just be polite, ask nicely, and let them leave their comments.  As long as you don’t bribe the person, you shouldn’t feel bad about asking customers to share their business experience on Google Maps.
 

What about existing bad reviews?  If your business has some bad reviews on its Google Maps listing, you may certainly want to do some ‘damage control’.  (You may also want to think about why your business is getting bad reviews). Thats a topic for anoher blog post - stay tuned!

By Steven LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch

Apparently adCenter has dropped a beta version of its very own downloadable editor. 

It’s called adCenter ACE.

A select group of advertisers has been invited to test the beta.  Over here at DragonSearch, we’re excited to hear about a new adCenter editor, as the adCenter interface can be daunting. 

We weren’t invited to try the Beta yet.  Fortunately, adCenter advertisers can sign up for this and future Betas and Pilots. 

Can’t wait to test this editor.  If it’s anything like AdWords Editor, it will be a very welcome addition to the adCenter family of tools. 

I must say, it’s refreshing to see the folks at Microsoft really trying. First it was their announced Live Search CashBack program a few weeks ago, and now a new downloadable editor.  Keep it coming guys! 

Check back soon for a full review of ACE!  

By Steven LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch

If you’re reading this article, you probably already know what dayparting, or ad scheduling, is. 

But before you set up dayparting schedules, there are a few, often overlooked things to consider. 

Here are two very basic things you should certainly consider before setting your ad scheduling ( day parting ) schedules.

1). Remember that time zones matter! Think about where your visitors are coming from. 

When you set day parting in Google AdWords, you can select times to run and pause ad display.   Always remember, the times you choose are based on your chosen time zone! 

This is a big deal if you’re an advertiser in New York, with eastern EST time zone setting, but many of your ideal visitors come from California.  

Think about what time it is where your customers are coming from, not just where you are, and set your scheduling accordingly.

If you don’t know where your customers are coming from, head on over to analytics and take a look at your map overlay to find out!

2). Make an educated Day Parting decision.  

Instead of just choosing dayparting times you think will work best, get a bit informed.  The best way to get an understanding of how your campaigns behave throughout the day is by running a campaign performance report for a given time frame.  To do so:

1). Go to your report center in Analytics. 

2). Run a Campaign Performance Report.

3). Make sure you select your desired time frame.

4). Choose ‘Hourly, Regardless of Date’ under your ‘View’ options (Important).

5). Viola! Look at the report and note how your campaigns behave throughout the day.  Daypart accordingly.  

By following these two tips, instead of aimlessly choosing and testing day parting time frames, you’ll have a far better shot at crafting an ideal day parting schedule.  Good luck and remember, test, test, test!

by Steven LaLonde - PPC Manager at DragonSearch  

Microsoft recently unveiled a new program, which they’re hoping will help build their search audience.  

They’re going to give searchers cold hard cash whenever they complete a purchase with a merchant who is participating in their CashBack program. 

In other words, if you find sneakers from a search on Live, and the merchants is participating in the CashBack program (look for the logo), and you make the purchase, MSN will deposit money into your account. 

This is a win-win idea in theory. 

Advertisers get to stand out, with the cashback logo below their ads, offering a compelling reason for a customer to choose them. 

MSN gets to – hopefully – attract more users to their search engine.  This will build their audience, and in turn, their advertiser base. 

Bam – increased MSN revenue.  Watch out Google?

Microsofts goal is simple.  By incentivizing searchers to use their engine, they can build an audience.  By building a bigger searching audience, more advertisers will move to MSN. 

The idea sounds pretty good in theory.

But will it work? 

For this to work, people who don’t already use MSN as their search engine need to know about it.  (I feel like the only reason I knew about this is because I work in the industry.) 

The regular searching masses need to know!  Microsoft should tell the masses via some major TV network ad blitzes or something.  Who knows, maybe they’re going to.   Either way, Microsoft needs to really invest in getting the word out if this things going to have any real chance.  (Their LiveSearch homepage has no mention of the program either.) 

The thing is, building a search engine customer base has never been about bribes, ahem, incentives.  It’s been about delivering good results to user search queries.  Google has thus far been the best at this.  (I’ve conducted far too many MSN searches which have turned up crappy, ridiculous results, but i think their getting way better.) 

Even further, Google has been ingrained so far into consumer culture already.  I’m thinking it’s going to be tough to overcome this. 

After all, you don’t hear many people saying they ‘LiveSearched’ something.  I hear ‘googled it’ daily. 

Google IS search to the majority of the searching population.  How can Microsoft overcome this?  Will bribing searchers really work?  That’s the multi-billion dollar question that nobody has been able to successfully answer, outside of the those guys at the Googleplex.

by Steven LaLonde - PPC Manager at DragonSearch

Bidding on branded keywords is always very tempting for PPC managers.  We know that the clicks are (usually) dirt cheap, and the conversion rates are often stellar.  

I mean, branded terms are probably the most relevant terms you can put in your campaign.

Still, we want to do what is best for the client, and spend our client’s budgets in the most effective manner – and  bidding on branded terms is often, but not always the way to go. 

What’s best for you or your client?  The answer is, it really depends!  

Does the client already come up organically for the brand name?  This is the obvious first question to ask when thinking about advertising on a brand name.  Often, your client will already list high or at the top of organic searches.   This could have a major impact on the decision to advertise – and if so how aggressively – on the brand name.

Is the competition advertising on your brand name? This is a big one.  If competitors are advertising on your own brand name, you may want to hop in and ‘steal the spotlight’ away from those sneaky competitors. 

What about misspellings? We love advertising on often overlooked misspellings of branded terms.  Advertising on common misspellings of the branded terms is definitely worth testing in many cases. Especially because you may not list organically for many common misspellings of your or your clients brand name.    

What about all the possible variations?  If you’re going to advertising on branded terms, don’t forget about all the crazy, often overlooked variations that could work for you.  If my clients website is www.widgets.com , I might get relevant paid clicks on widgets.com, widgetscom, widgets dot com, etc.  We’ve seen some pretty wild, but highly relevant, search queries, so these oddball terms are certainly worth researching and considering.

Wont bidding on branded keywords cannibalize some of my ‘free’ organic clicks?  This depends.  If you already come up first organically, you will ‘cannibalize’ some of these would-be free visits.  So you’ve  gotta think about all of the above and really weigh this one out.  It still may be (and likely is) worth it to advertise on the branded terms. 

Fortunately, it doesn’t cost much to ‘own your name’ in the paid listings, so for many clients, advertising on branded terms is good, cheap insurance.  What do you think?  We’d love to hear thoughts! 

by Steven LaLonde - PPC Manager at DragonSearch  

Some of you may have noticed a new feature within your AdWords account called ‘Automatic Matching’. 

This new AdWords feature is in Beta so you may be one of the lucky (or not so lucky?) people who have been selected to test this new feature.  Note: If you see the message in your AdWords account, you’ve been automatically opted in to this feature. 

Once you learn a bit more about the feature and what it does, you may want to opt out.  Or at least give it a chance while keeping a close eye on it and the affects it has on your account. 

So what is it? 

Automatic matching is a new feature which, when enabled, lets Google ‘extend’ your campaign’s reach by displaying your ads for search queries that are relevant but are not already triggered by your keyword list. 

To a PPC newbie this may sound great! Another exciting new Google feature! After all, Google makes it sound exciting enough…. Here’s the exact message:

 “New! Automatic Matching has been enabled in your account.Your ads will now show for additional relevant search queries based on the keywords, ad text, and landing pages in your ad groups.  You can opt out by visiting a keyword-targeted campaign, and then clicking on edit campaign settings.“                                                    

Now here’s the – potential - problem.

 I hate to say it, but Google isn’t always the best at ‘Automatically’ determining relevant keywords to display your ads on.  If you’ve ever looked at the ACTUAL search queries which have triggered your ads and clicks, you already know this.

Google has been known to display some ads for totally irrelevant searches, especially if you’re using broad match without extensive negative keywords. 

Further, Google states that Automatic Matching will monitor performance and work to show your ads on new relevant queries which yield a high CTR and Cost per Click, similar to your other keywords.  

Problem is, Click-through-Rate and Cost per Click are sort of lame performance metrics for Google to concentrate on.  At the end of the day CTR doesn’t mean much to most of our clients.  Conversion rates do!    

Worst of all, it looks like Google won’t even be showing us the actual keywords which have triggered the Automatic Matching!  What good is automatic matching if we can’t see the new, supposedly ‘relevant’ keywords and phrases which have been used to trigger our ads? 

I suspect Google doesn’t want to show advertisers this information since many of the words and phrases which trigger automatic matching will be completely irrelevant.  This would really irritate many advertisers, and Google would not want to have several thousand advertisers up in arms over the totally irrelevant clicks Google is displaying and charging them for.  “You showed my ad for what search query?!” 

Hate to say it, but Automatic Matching sounds like a sneaky new way for Google to drain PPC budgets.  I hope I’m wrong.

Automatic matching was set to begin displaying ads on June 3^rd for those - automatically - opted in. We can’t wait to see what happens with this one.  It looks like only time – and solid conversion data – will tell.   

I decided to create a quick and easy Pay-per-click calculator.  By experimenting with different variables, you’ll be able to see the range of possible outcomes.  There are several variables you’ll need to input:

Cost per click - this allows you to see different profitibility scenarios based on average CPC.

Total Clicks - adjust this, along with your CPC, and you’ll see a monthly spend.  I need to recreate this spreadsheet with Budget as the input, automatically showing clicks, as another way to use the sheet.

Percentage of Users Buy - Here is another place you’ll just need to make assumptions.

Average Total Purchase Amount - how much does the average user spend on this website.

See the attached Excel spreadsheet:  Pay-per-click estimation worksheet

I gave a workshop at our local SCORE chapter (http://www.scoreulster.org) last Wednesday - and had a blast.  The room was filled with lots of entrepreneurs, both budding and established.  The questions were flying like crazy.  The net result was an invitation back to provide another workshop - althought this time the focus is going to be on SEO. 

This workshop will cover the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and how you can effectively make changes to your website to help make your web site more prominent in the search engines. Look at Google search results…

• what’s a sub listing
• Company listing?
• Google local
• Organic vs. PPC
• Yahoo –  brief overview

Keyword research:

• Competitive and Seed list
• Intro to tools
• Creating a keyword matrix

Optimizing pages

• Review of page structure
• Title and meta tags
• Body changes
• H1, H2, H3, paragraph, images, etc
• Writing effective copy

Back Links

• Directories
• Social networks
• local

Monitoring

• SERP (Search Engine Rank Position)
• Google Analytics
• Google Webmaster review

Q&A This workshop will be taught by Ric Dragon, CEO of Oxclove Workshop and a founding partner in Dragon Search, a search engine marketing company in the Hudson Valley.  www.oxclove.com and www.dragonsearchmarketing.comDate: To be announced – Fall 2008Location: To be announced

This workshop is sponsored by SCORE Chapter #533, and SUNY Ulster & Ulster Chamber of Commerce