Just before for the peak shopping days of the year Google released a new feature called Ad parameters. This feature, which was initially know as Live Ads enables advertisers to update numeric fields in their ad copy without actually deleting the existing ad and creating a new one (which is how the standard Adwords ad editing works under the hood). So why is this such a big deal?

Well it is very important for performance driven marketers since previously every time they updated an ad they would:

a. Have the new ad go through a review process again which could delay the campaign

b. lose the Quality Score and performance history related to that ad copy

With the new ad parameters, one can write really compelling ad copy highlighting real time pricing and stock levels without losing the ad performance history which is perfect for aggressive marketing.
There are however two important caveats to using this issue that affect a lot of advertisers:

1. Your product data needs to be up to date, i.e. don’t advertise a price or product that is not on your site or you will get plenty of dissatisfied customers. Sure, this sounds like common sense, but you would be surprised how many companies cannot provide this functionality

2. If your campaign is overly reliant on broad match terms (as more and more companies seem to do these days) you cannot control which ad is shown next to a search term. In effect, by having the wrong ad displayed you might actually be harming your campaign more than by showing a very generic, less targeted ad.

At the moment, Google is only releasing this feature via the API which means the people using it should be technically able to also use it correctly.

Clicks2Customers have been using this feature for a few retailers and the results are very promising, especially when the retailer is able to compete on price, and responds quickly to his competitors’ prices.
Updating tens of thousands of ad copies with cut throat live pricing has proven to lift CTR and CVR significantly. It will give an even bigger edge to savvy marketers, which is why we like it so much.

Google recently (and quietly) introduced a new match type in it’s Search query Match Type Report that gives advertisers a bit more insight into a user’s search behavior. For a long time Google has been personalizing the adverts shown to a user based on the other (previous) searchers that user made during a session. Although this could give an advertiser wider exposure to their potential target market, it also took away control over their keyword portfolio as Google would show ads that technically wouldn’t correspond directly to the keywords the advertiser is bidding on.

At least now with this addition to the search query report, advertisers can see what extended search queries Google thinks are relevant to their campaigns and you can either add those keywords or negative match them if you think they’re irrelevant.

A quote from the official help page:

“A feature of Broad match also looks at other queries that the user has entered durng their current search session to target ads — these queries are marked as “Broad Match (Session-Based).” If you like the query, consider adding the query to your account as either a Broad, Phrase, or Exact match keyword. If you don’t like the query, you should consider adding it as a negative keyword to prevent your ads from appearing on that search query.”

Read the complete Adwords help page here.

After its CEO publicly endorsed Barack Obama, Google is now urging Adwords advertisers to get out and vote in the upcoming elections (see screenshot below). Personally I doubt Adwords users will be swayed by Google’s call to action and I even find it slightly annoying that the company uses this platform for non-Adwords related messages. (Note: I’m not a US citizen so the message is completely irrelevant to me).

Is the company performing a civic duty here or are they blurring the line between business and politics (Although in reality there never is a clear line to start with)?

When Google launched Chrome last week, I noticed a download link on its homepage. I didn’t think too much of it and assumed it was a launch stunt. But more than a week later, the link still occasionally appears. Given Google’s resistance to putting a privacy link on its home page, I wonder why they don’t seem to apply the same purity principle when it comes to promoting their own products? Or perhaps international versions of their homepage (which is where the links seem to appear) are considered to be experimental playgrounds?

And strangely enough, the link only seems to appear when I visit Google using Firefox, not when I use Opera (which is my preferred browser) . Is Google actively trying to poach users from Firefox because it knows Firefox users are more amendable to trying new browsers?

When the gorilla in the room develops a new web browser, you cant help but pay attention. That Google was working on a browser was not really a secret, they already hired a lead developer from Firefox nearly 3 years ago. Nevertheless the entry of Google into this market is bound to ruffle a few feathers.

I installed the Chrome Beta as soon as it was released, and I uninstalled it again within the hour for various reasons.

1. some sites I frequently visit didn’t work.
2. some sites only work if I am willing to accept all cookies (yeah right)
3. the functionality is a bare minimum, although this could be a positive in some cases
4. the incognito feature is cool, but i wish it could be my default setting

and lastly -call me paranoid- after installation Chrome listed as ‘recent bookmarks’ sites i last visited two years ago for a research project i was doing at time. I regularly remove private data from my computer (or so i thought) so i have no idea where chrome retrieved that information from. My Google account has browsing history disabled, so it shouldn’t have gotten it from there?

In fact, having Chrome record all my activities by default makes me uneasy. Think of it, even when you set your default search engine to e.g. Yahoo, Chrome (i.e. Google) still knows about your searches and the links you click.

Sure, every browser has that ability, but Google has a vested interest in actually using that information, unlike Firefox or Opera. Microsoft (IE) could use that data too, but I have faith in their inability to actually do something with it.

So basically it comes down to: how much information are you willing to give to a company whose aim is to index your life?

When Google introduced the concept of a minimum bid into the Adwords platform, I guess few advertisers and perhaps not even Google realized the effect it would have on their business.

Publicly, Google always maintains that relevance and user experience take priority over revenue generation and so the minimum bid was introduced to ensure that search engine users would not be bombarded with poor quality advertising. By raising the bar, Google forced advertisers to reconsider the ROI of their Adwords campaigns rather than spam the search results with ads by bidding en masse on cheap, non-commercial keywords in the hope of getting a few extra clicks.

Noble as the minimum was intended to be, most Adwords advertisers will be able to tell tales of being ‘slapped’ with minimum bids of up to $10 per click. Needless to say that very few businesses would be able to pay those prices and Google was never very forthcoming with a helpful explanation in order to lower them again.

On a bigger scale, the minimum bid also completely negated Google’s argument that it does not behave as a monopoly in the search engine advertising market. By setting a bottom, the free market auction for keywords becomes a whole lot less free and Google theoretically can tweak the minimum bids to squeeze the most out of its advertisers and boost its revenue. That is a factor the company cannot ignore as it keeps increasing market share and attracts ever greater scrutiny from governments and competitors.

By abandoning the minimum bid for a ‘first page’ bid Google hopefully will introduce again greater transparency into its advertising platform. More practically, Google’s move will reactivate a sizeable portion of ad inventory that currently sits dormant on its platform and give the company a boost in revenue in time for the upcoming holiday season.

So although as an advertiser we welcome the perishing of the opaque minimum bid, we will be keeping a close eye on our costs as a mass of previously inactive keywords comes back online.

What do I want from Google? There is one thing that I have ALWAYS wanted for as long as I can remember and it is a simple little thing.

A RANDOMIZE BUTTON next to search results. Not the crumby “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that makes me think “I‘m Feeling Like Kicking Your…” . Instead when I search I want to be able to RANDOMIZE my results COMPLETELY. If I am doing research for something I don’t like combing pages and pages of links sorted by Google’s algorithm. To be honest, I have little faith in the fact that the results are truly independent. Money makes the world go round and Google’s algorithms wouldn’t want to make a dent in the billions, so you get Google results.

I don’t disagree with this practice, they’re just looking after their own interests, HOWEVER, being able to randomize the results order for the same search phrase not only improves the depth of the current search (you view a variety of results that otherwise gets lost by a sorting algorithm) but also gives the proverbial ‘man on the street’ much more of a chance to show his stuff and I think it would improve research a lot.

I don’t think revenue would be lost as advertisements could still be displayed next to the search results - unless Google is using its algorithms to ’streamline’ the results order for its own financial benefit.

(original post by nicholas.simon in ad copy)

The fog of war has lifted from Yahoo: Microsoft has walked away, Yahoo claims victory and Google ends up with the spoils. In response to the failed Microsoft bid Yahoo announced a “Non-Exclusive Search Agreement” with Google. In short, this means that Yahoo will outsource a portion (whatever that means) of its search and display advertising business to Google in exchange for a lot of cash.

Some people seem to think this is a good deal but from a search marketer’s perspective, it is not. At first sight I would welcome a standard advertising platform that allows marketers to target specific search engines. But the terms of the deal are half-baked. Yahoo will not abandon its Panama platform in exchange for Adwords but do they really think advertisers are going to bother to use 2 different systems to achieve the same goal? I really can’t see that happening and unless Yahoo is prepared to over time outsource all its advertising to Google it should realise it just rolled in the Trojan horse.

The deal also stifles competition in the market even further. The Big Three (Google, Yahoo, MSN) have distinct characteristics and different users. Most marketers for instance will tell you that MSN has much better converting traffic than the other two and that Google is definitely the most expensive to advertise on. By effectively swallowing Yahoo, Google gives marketers even less choice of where to spend their budgets.

Perhaps, if Microsoft plays its cards right, it could gain something from this after all. Now that Yahoo has made itself irrelevant in terms of search advertising, marketers only need to distribute their budget between Google and MSN. A much easier decision to make than having to split a budget three ways.

Your thoughts?

At SMX advanced in Seattle the question was put to the attendees: “how many of you use bid management tools?”

And that was the most surprising part of the session: nearly everyone in a room with hundreds of people raised their hand. Of course technically speaking using Excel to increase your prices by 10% also makes it a bid management tool. Nevertheless people in the industry seem to take bid management really seriously - as they should. I couldn’t help shake the feeling though that the panelists conveniently touted all the wonders of bid management without touching on its many shortcomings. Only David Rodnitzky from PPCAdBuying.com played the devil’s advocate and warned against the dangers of being sold an expensive, complex system that may not actually offer a return on investment.

I have to agree with David that bid management tools often over-promise and under-deliver and for a very simple reason. bid management makes sense for large PPC campaigns where it is unwieldy to set prices manually. But it is exactly for those large campaigns that the data you have available for each keyword is very sparse. Long tail keywords may contribute a significant portion of your revenue but by their very nature each individual keyword gathers information in a fairly random manner. No matter how smart your bid management system, it cannot make assumptions from data that doesn’t exist. To get around that most system group long tail keywords in clusters and aggregate their data. How you cluster the data though will greatly influence of the system and as far as I know there is no one optimal way of doing it.

A comment made by search marketing veteran Kevin Lee (and with which other panelist Chris Zaharias from Omniture agrees in spirit) also illustrates another difficulty faced by automated bid management. Kevin said that half of the paid ads in top positions are put there by idiots, not rational beings. How would a bid management system incorporate the behaviour of an irrational market into its decision making algorithm?

When choosing a bid management system be careful not to over-complicate things. For small to midsized campaigns you probably don’t need any fancy systems. Choose a tool that is flexible and that lets you override its bid adjustments. That way you can control for events such as special promotions or sudden increased competition in the market. And remember, bid management tools are only an aid, not a solution.

Finally. That was my first thought when Microsoft announced the existence of an MSN Adcenter desktop tool at the SMX advanced conference this morning. We knew something like this was in the pipeline but never knew when it was supposed to become publicly available. Well now it is, almost. The tool will initially only be launched in a private beta so you better apply quickly if, like me, you dread working with the Adcenter web interface. In combination with with the other initiatives MSN has taken recently, such as their cash-back program and the deal to pre-install Live Search on all new HP computers, today’s announcement sends a strong message that Microsoft is determined to go after Google head on.

Google dominates the PPC market not just because it has the most users, but for a large part because it is so easy to advertise on its Adwords platform. But many advertisers don’t like Google’s grip on the market and are just waiting for an opportunity to move a larger part of their budget to alternative search engines. Hopefully Microsoft’s tool will facilitate this.

update: you can signup for the adcenter beta here