Pay Per Click Advertising Roundup
It’s been a while…and all I have to say is that we’re swamped and I’m sorry for not commenting on some of the most noteworthy posts of the previous few weeks.
We’re slowly transitioning to the Del.icio.us method of link posting…but here is a current roundup of some of the noteworthy posts every PPC marketer should read/has read within the past few weeks:
Official Blogs
AdWords
Introducing the AdWords Editor forum – Announcement only Google-group…
Website Optimizer Now Out of Beta – This was good news that buzzed around for a little while in mid-April…you can use the Website Optimizer without having an AdWords account now!
Improvements to AdWords Conversion Tracking – Track multiple conversions in AdWords now.
Green tips for the office – Earth Day. 5 tips from the AdWords Team about greening your office.
Place ads on television with Google TV Ads
Tips on converting last-minute Mother’s Day shoppers to customers – Good tips to use for any Holiday.
Additional TV Ads webinar now available for sign up
Landing page load time now available on the Keyword Analysis Page
Yahoo! Search Marketing
From the Ground Up – Find account organizational limits and fundamentals here.
Minimum Bids No Longer Fixed at $.10 – A good change? We think so…some of our clients are doing much better now than ever before and we hope the same happened for you.
Min Bid Changes in Your Account Interface
So Happy Together – 5 ways to integrate ppc and display ads.
Green Clicks – “Must read!” Excellent post about selling the ‘green’ side of our business via ppc.
adCenter
Keyword research: what can you learn from a word? – Interesting data you can find with the adCenter add-in for excel…but I think you can find this information with other keyword research tools too.
Ad Copy Testing: Systematically Improving CTR – A very well rounded article about why ad testing is important and a quick tutorial/step system to running a good test. “Must Read!”
Microsoft adCenter Add In For Excel – Overview Tutorial
Keyword research with the adCenter Add-in Beta for Excel 2007
Tips for preventing your budget from exceeding prematurely
Register to beta test the Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta – Awesome! Sign up using the interest form here.
Research Your Way To Business Success
Noteworthy posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
This is going to be a quick roundup because I am way behind…sorry if we missed your post in this roundup!
eVisibility Insider
When do Branded Terms not Work in Your PPC Campaign?
Help Searchers Find Their Way with Local Business Ads
How to Hold Your PPC Firm Accountable!
Future Now’s GrokDotCom
How to Increase Shopping Cart Abandonment – “Must Read!”
Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: March 2008
Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog
9 PPC Advertising Crimes Caught On Screen! – “Must Read!”
Top Online Retailers Not Showing Up in Google!
Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Make Web Analytics Actionable: Focus On “What’s Changed†– “Must Read!”
The “Action Dashboard†(An Alternative To Crappy Dashboards)
“Dear Avinashâ€: Stressed Agency Analyst & Robots Are Out To Get Me!
Own Page One
Why Search Engine Marketing can help you Beat a Recession – “Must Read!”
Yahoo! Raises Minimum Bids – I really liked the insight and commentary on the Y!SM min bid change in this post.
Post-Click Marketing Blog
Playing Russian roulette with your landing pages? – “Must Read!”
Your clicks won’t wait for your landing pages to be perfect
PPC Blog by Gordon Choi
Adwords Content Network Traffic Exclusion Options Explained – “Must Read!”
RedFly Marketing
Take The Guesswork Out Of PPC Campaign Setup
Use PPC To Dominate Your Typo SEO Landscape
SEOmoz
Florida Court’s Order on Negative Keywords Will Not Break the Internet
PPC Hero
Expand Your Keyword List For Free: 6 Keyword Tools You Should Be Using (but probably aren’t). – “Must Read!”
5 Pay-Per-click Myths You Shouldn’t Believe – “Must Read!”
the PPC Book
Keyword List Building – Take what the defense gives you – “Must read!”
User Effect
Expectations and Usability: Habits
Read MorePPC Roundup for Monday through Thursday 4/7/08 – 4/10/08
Today – every Friday – is a big review/reporting day for QualityScores…so there won’t be any commentary today:
Official Blogs
AdWords
Tips from our industry newsletters
Yahoo! Search Marketing
adCenter
Search For More Traffic & Conversions From Within!
Favorite posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
Conversation Marketing
5 Lessons Religion Can Teach Internet Marketers
How To: Get A Derailed Internet Marketing Project Back On Track
Future Now’s GrokDotCom
Bryan Eisenberg on Using Personas to Improve Sales
Stop Paying for Bad Keywords in Three Steps – “Must Read!”
Marketing Experiments
What “ugly duckling†landing pages can teach us – “Must Read!”
Own Page One – Pure Visibility
Stop trying to use Pay Per Click for branding
PPC Hero
Learn How to Track Your MSN adCenter PPC Keyword Data in Analytics – “Must Read!”
The Clix Marketing Blog
The Best Content Keyword List Method: The Files
The Invesp Blog
Challenges of optimizing an enterprise e-commerce website
the PPC Book
The Search Insider
(4 Letter) Keyword Insertion – “Must Read!”
Social Media/News Feeds That Posted Stuff Related to PPC -
Search Engine Land
Spy On Competitors, But Don’t Copy Their Mistakes – “Must Read!”
Yahoo To Acquire IndexTools Web Analytics Service
Confirmed: Yahoo To Test Google AdSense For Search Ads
Study: 80-Percent Of Searches Or Informational, 10% Are Navigational & Transactional
Search Engine Roundtable
Will PPC Ever Reach a Tipping Point?
Is Google AdWords Really Enforcing The URL Policy? No!
SearchEngineWatch
A Look at Demographic Bidding for AdWords
Read MoreBIG Pay Per Click Advertising Roundup for Saturday through Sunday 3/29/08 – 4/6/08
I hope you have a successful week this week – don’t forget to check out the following stories:
Official Blogs
AdWords
Google Analytics 101 (Part 3) – This is a quick overview of the Google Analytics dashboard.
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Common Enemy – Y!SM is teaming up with Click Forensics to combat click fraud. It looks like Yahoo! is adding a “click filter” report soon so we can see how many clicks we aren’t getting charged for due to suspected fraud.
Make Your (Mother’s) Day – Take advantage of the Holiday trends when you can. Check out these 8 tips on improving profitability around Mother’s Day.
adCenter
Dynamic Text in adCenter – You can add these dynamic variables to your destination urls to better understand adCenter paid search traffic in Analytics packages. “Must read!”
Focus on Non-Brand Terms to Boost Performance & Revenue – Find out a little bit about the Purchase Funnel, Keyword Expansion, Account Structure and Targeting.
Favorite posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
(EMP) E-Marketing Performance
Aren’t Dogpiles Supposed to Stink? – Did you know that your ads are probably being displayed in the regular search results from DogPile.com? “Must read!”
Conversation Marketing
Internet Marketing Training Course, Lesson 1 – Feedback please – Check out this content while it’s free and give Ian some feedback please. 
In Marketing, There Are No Guarantees – The best way to comment on this post is to simply quote the author: “A internet marketer can no more guarantee the results of a campaign than predict the weather.” “Must Read!”
Avoid Featuritis: Selecting the Right E-Commerce Package – Manage the customer experience from the beginning by choosing the right cart package.
Copyblogger
Copywriting Maven’s Creative Plan Marketing Makeover #1 – “Must read!”
Future Now’s GrokDotCom
Net Gain: Latinos Are Going Online More Than Ever – This is a very well written, relatively in-depth post about the Latino market on the web.
How Virgin America’s Banner Ads Work, Even on Facebook! – Virgin is a fantastic example of how to improve and increase results from banner ads. “Must read!”
Big Impact, Small Changes on Amazon
Jennifer Slegg
Increase pay per click conversions & ROI by including a price in your ad
Using geolocation targeted keywords in PPC ads for consumer confidence
Own Page One – Pure Visibility Blog
How to Get a Big Pile of Cash – Excellent summary of how to jump start your profitability on the web through pay per click ads and analytics.
PPC Blog
Google Changing Trademark Policy In The UK – The change will simply reflect the US policy…UK advertisers can start advertising on trademarked terms but will not be able to include those terms in the actual advertisement.
PPC Discussions
Dear AdWords, Please Change These 2 Things – 1. Display the Quality Score column by default; 2. Don’t automatically enable the content network when we start new campaigns. “Must Read!” Jeremy outlines some excellent thoughts behind these two requests.
PPC Hero
The Secret of Tracking Yahoo! Keyword Data in Google Analytics – This post is very easy to follow and should hopefully take less than 15 minutes to implement. “Must read!”
Want Your Business to Be Around in 450 Million Years? Manage Your PPC Campaign Like a Shark – I love the analogy. ‘Predatory ppc management‘ has a nice ring to it. 
The Invesp Blog
New white paper: The state of online marketing and advertising
the PPC Book
Murphy’s Law of campaign management – This post made me lol. “Must read!”
The Search Insider
The “Brand†Effect – Outlines the idea that search marketing is making headway for a branding model on top of the relatively lucrative direct response model.
Pay Per Call – The ‘Other’ PPC – We have been doing pay per call tests for quite some time now…and the volume isn’t as high as we would like and the impact hasn’t been noticeable yet. There are still several things we can and need to do to prove/disprove that statement as a fact instead of a mere observation.
User Effect
Expectations & Usability: Introduction – “Must read!” This is a fantastic post by Dr. Pete. Quote from the post: “…expectations are the unconscious predictions we humans constantly make…
Social Media/News Feeds That Posted Stuff Related to PPC -
Search Engine Land
Will You Be Sued Over Your Ad Copy Usage?
Search Engine Roundtable
Is it Better to Be Ranked #10 or #11? – This question is universal in terms of PPC or Organic results. I suppose everybody will have different results so this is more of a relative question.
Is an SEM Ranking System a Bad Idea?
SearchEngineWatch
Content Ad Campaign Keyword Strategy Revisited
A Look at Demographic Bidding for AdWords
Read MoreMassive PPC Roundup for Tuesday through Friday 3/18/08 – 3/28/08
Limited commentary again on this one…
Official Blogs
AdWords
Demographic bidding now available
CPC: Maximum, average and minimum. An earlier post re-visited
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Vote for Better Search in ’08
New Guidelines for Questionable Products – lol…I guess Fake ID makers have to stop using Yahoo! now…dang it (tongue completely in cheek Napoleon Dynamite style!)
Chasing our Long Tails – Interesting thoughts about effectively targeting the long-tail keywords so they don’t weight down the quality level of your ad groups and campaigns. “Must read!”
adCenter
Your adCenter Questions Answered: Part I – Negative Keywords, Excel Bulk Uploads and Editing
Understanding goals part 2: keyword metrics and the buying cycle
Use dynamic text to keep your ad text within limits
Your adCenter Questions Answered: Part 2 – Demographic Targeting
Favorite posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.com
How to Sell Remnant Ad Inventory
Conversation Marketing
Internet Marketing Is About Discoverability (Not Yelling)
The Internet Marketing List: 59 Things You Should Be Doing But Probably Aren’t
Future Now’s GrokDotCom
Can Marketers Keep Their Eyes on the Ball?
Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: February 2008
3 Steps to Recession-Proof Your Online Marketing – “Must read!” I really like the second step entitled “the cost of NOT improving your conversion rate”. I think marketers and business owners forget to weigh the opportunity costs involved with choosing not to do something about conversion rates.
Get Eleastic Ecommerce Blog
Tips for Tracking Offline Orders: PPC & Catalog
Bare It All Online for Male Shoppers
Marketing Sherpa
How to Use Personas to Lift Revenue 500% in 7 Easy-to-Follow Steps
Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Context Is King Baby! Go Get Your Own.
Excellent Analytics Tip #13: Measure Macro AND Micro Conversions. “Must Read!”
Own Page One – Pure Visibility
Quality scores: padding Google’s bottom line, or protecting consumers? “Must Read!” This post is very well rounded, even sounding and thoroughly enjoyable. Check it out!
Post-Click Marketing
How trustworthy is your post-click marketing?
Google Quality Score vs. Human Quality Score
PPC Blog
Yahoo Promoting Viagra – lol! I wonder if this will affect the MSN bid…
PPC Discussions
Paid Search Resources: The List
Oh the Irony – New Guidelines for Questionable Products
SEOmoz
Paid Search Lessons from David Szetela
I Hate the Advertising Bait-and-Switch, But There’s a Lesson Here
StraightUpSearch
The Tortoise Didn’t Win the AdWords Quality Score Race
Google To Prohibit Bidding On Competitor Names?
PPC Hero
Get More Business on Business.com: How to optimize your business.com campaign “Must read!”
Who Else Wants to Increase Conversions From Their Landing Pages?
Use these 5 Tips to Increase Last Minute Traffic, Conversions & Sales!
The Clix Marketing Blog
10 Lessons Learned about Paid Search
The Invesp Blog
DaveRamsey.com: Optimization review
the PPC Book
Unrealistic Expectations Jeff shares his thoughts about Google’s “decline” in click volume. My favorite quote from this post is this: “Google is not listening to the street at all when making decisions about how they tweak their platform.” I second Jeff’s thoughts about this – the moves Google is making right now will pay off in the long run…at the same time, there are a few things that overtly appear that they are designed for the street – one example that comes to mind is the extended/advanced broad match beta.
Traffik
The Long Tail Not Always Good, If Quality Score is Your Thing
Social Media/News Feeds That Posted Stuff Related to PPC -
Search Engine Land
Don’t Click Here: Pre-Qualifying B2B Clickers
Lowering Your Quality Scores To Increase ROI
Ten Strategies For Avoiding Search Marketing Burnout
Google AdWords Video Ads Now Live & In the Wild
Drilling Into Google’s Decline In Paid Clicks – “Must Read!”
Search Engine Roundtable
Quality of Microsoft adCenter Traffic Falling?
Do You Know the Breakdown of Your Competitors’ Paid and Organic Traffic? Hitwise does.
Google AdWords To Limit Site Exclusion Feature To 5,000
An Update on Yahoo Search Marketing
Microsoft adCenter Keyword Limits
Have You Ever Recovered from a $10 Google AdWords Quality Score?
Read MorePay Per Click Advertising Roundup for Thursday through Monday 3/13/08 – 3/17/08
No commentary this time…
Official Blogs
AdWords
Webinar: Introduction to AdWords Editor
Webinar: Getting The Most From Your Print Campaigns
Yahoo! Search Marketing
adCenter
Microsoft adLab Tools Review Part 2 – Keywords & Content
adChamps 2008 Interview: Jonathan Hochman
Welcome to the new adCenter Blog
Favorite posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
(EMP) E-Marketing Performance
trackur Online Reputation Monitoring Tool
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.com
By 2009 Google Will be More Dominant in Online Display Ads Than Search!!!
Conversation Marketing
Multivariate Testing: What it Is, Why You Need It – “Must Read!”
ExpertSEM
Hispanic Search Marketing – in English?
Future Now’s GrokDotCom
Using Funnel Reports to Get a Head Start on Optimization
Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: January 2008
Website Optimization and the Price of Perfection
Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog
Checkout Process Split-Testing Tip from Bryan Eisenberg – “Must Read!”
Marketing Experiments Blog
PPC seasons’ greetings: It’s never too early (or too late) to plan
PPC Discussions
I assume this was a joke (SES NY)
Search Engine Guide
28 Resources For Paid Search Strategies – “Must Bookmark!”
PPC Hero
The Google Content Network Isn’t So Scary: Here’s How To Make It Work – “Must Read!”
7 Things I Learned From Enquiro’s B2B Expert Series Webinar, “Coaxing the Conversionâ€
The Clix Marketing Blog
Google’s New Ad Manager: Accelerating the Growth of the AdWords Content Network
Social Media/News Feeds That Posted Stuff Related to PPC -
Search Engine Land
Google Tests More TV Ads With AdWords Integration
Utah Backtracks Search Ad Trademark Keyword Law
Keyword Intent: Tidy Campaigns Avoid the ‘Dump and Chase’
10 Tips For A More Effective Paid Search Campaign
Search Illustrated: The Anatomy Of Successful Paid Search Ads
Google Expects To Be “Very Significant” In Display Ad Segment
How To Improve Site Conversion, Minimize Google Ad Cost, And Reduce Your Carbon Footprint – “Must Read!”
Read MorePPC Advertising Roundup for Friday through Wednesday 3/7/08 – 3/12/08
Official Blogs
AdWords
Google Audio Ads, Meet Google Analytics
Google Closes DoubleClick Acquisition
Helpful tips on our new content network tools – Good tips that can be implemented quickly with the new content tools released within the past year or so. “Must read!”
Yahoo! Search Marketing
More (Keyword) Power, Please – This feature is similar to what AdWords has had at the ad group Keyword level for a while…Yahoo! keeps Googlizing themselves and I love it.
Crunch Time – Excellent advice on how to prepare for and handle the minimum bid changes that are going to roll out for the next month or so. “Must Read!”
The Good, the Bad, the Creative – Seven tips to help you make sure you are on target with the search queries. “Must read!”
adCenter
Focus On Exact Match – Outlines the benefits of using exact match.
adCenter Analytics – How To Run Basic Traffic History Reports
Favorite posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
MindValley Labs
Speedup or kiss AdWords goodbye – Commentary on the update/addition of landing page load speed to the AdWords QS.
Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Standard Metrics Revisited: #5 : Conversion / ROI Attribution – Excellent post, albeit a little salesy surrounding the great content. This is a “must read!” Find out who gets “credit” for a conversion when there are multiple ways somebody may have visited/viewed your website.
PPC Blog
Understanding When To Bid On Your Own Brand – There are always exceptions to bidding on your brand.
PPC Discussions
AdWords Quality Score FAQ – Definitely one of the best, most up to date posts on the current state of AdWords QS. “Must Read This Post!”
Small Business SEM
Game On: March Madness contest for SEO/PPC folks – Have a little fun this month!
PPC Hero
How Landing Page Load Time Affects Your Google Quality Score – Commentary on the load time QS change in AdWords.
Save Time in AdWords – Copy Your Campaign Settings – Yes! Yes! Yes! I use Copy & Paste constantly…I love it. “Must read!”
2 Major Reasons Why You Should Run a Search Query Report Today! – Keyword expansion is a very important part of consistently improving your competitive edge and ROI.
The Clix Marketing Blog
My 10 Biggest Mistakes – Sign up for the March 25th webcast where David Szetela shares his biggest PPC mistakes. I think this will be an excellent webcast – a “must attend” event!
the PPC Book
Load Time and Quality Score – I like the concise reminders in this post. “Must read.”
Read More