Microsoft adCenter Updates Sept 2007
Last Friday MSN adCenter updated their interface to include several new features including faster editorial reviews, a hew home page dashboard, and faster ways to copy and edit keywords and create campaigns. You can review the update notice below.
Microsoft adCenter will upgrade on Friday, September 7. The tools and functionality in this upgrade will include significant improvements in editorial efficiency, campaign creation, and campaign management.
During this upgrade, adCenter will be temporarily unavailable for up to 8 hours on Friday, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time. Your ads and keywords will remain live and continue to run as usual, during this time.
After this upgrade, reporting will be delayed for up to 72 hours. To see when your data was last updated, check the timestamp on the bottom of adCenter Reporting tab.
Upgrade highlights:
Save time with fast and thorough editorial reviews for new ad groups.
Create campaigns with ease by quickly importing campaigns directly from other paid search programs or by copying existing ad groups within adCenter to a new campaign.
Instantly navigate to specific accounts, campaigns, or ad groups with the new adCenter home page dashboard, a one-stop-shop for all of your daily campaign management tasks.
Update keyword bids in bulk and view keyword performance on the same page.
Visualize your campaigns' targeting settings with Microsoft Virtual EarthTM map integration for geographical targeting.
For details on how to use these adCenter improvements view the Feature Release Guide. In addition, the adCenter Blog will highlight detailed feature reviews after the upgrade occurs.If you have any questions, please contact our adCenter Support Team.
Sincerely,
The Microsoft adCenter Team
Technorati Tags: MSN, Microsoft, adCenter, PPC, Paid Search, Online Marketing, Ironvine
Creating Compelling Ad Copy.
I was reading the SEW news daily and they had a headline link to a Search Engine Land blog post about creating compelling ad copy. It is pretty basic steps on the makeup of ad copy but I thought it was a good refresher to help as we go into busy season.
SES San Jose ’07
SES was a pretty good conference. The event hall was pretty well staffed with vendors including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask, iProspect, and many more. There were lots of Search companies, link building companies, and various other web companies.
My conference was highlighted by the Google invite only Agency Lunch and the Google Dance at the Google Campus in Mountain View.
The Google Lunch was a small group of invite only agency people. I sat at a table with the CEO and a few other people from advertising.com. The presentation was basically all about the new Google offerings in addition to search, Print, TV, Radio, etc. Print as well possibly. I'm sure some of our clients already do radio ads and could be pretty easy to migrate over. The nice thing is that Google offers ways to track the performance, like dedicated phone numbers which they offer for free or by using dedicated trackable entry points.
Google Dance 2007 was a huge bash at the Google campus in Mountain Home.
You can see more pics from Google on picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/gdance2007/GoogleDance2007WeRockedIt
There were lots of product demos on all the Google applications, Meet the Developers, food, drinks, a huge dance party in the rec hall, green screen karaoke, and my favorite the Candy Bar.
All in all it was a great trip. Met lots of people in the event hall and the sessions had some decent information. Next time I hope to get into some of the other sessions to see what they are about.
Technorati Tags: SES, San Jose, Search Engine Stratagies, Search, Paid Search, Marketing, Advertising, Ironvine, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo
ChannelAdvisor Top INC 5000 Award
I am proud to announce that ChannelAdvisor debuted today as #835 on the INC. 5000.
You can view the award and information on the www.inc.com site. Way to go!
Technorati Tags: ChannelAdvisor, Channel Advisor, INC, Business, Marketing, Ironvine
Search Query Performance Report
New BMA tool in Google AdWords reports. It does lack a field for the actual keyword in the Google Report that it was triggered on, but it gives you the match type and new keywords as well as being able to go through and pick out negatives you want to get rid of.
You can only drill down to adgroup and ad level data
reports, they won't give you specific keyword data of course...
For those who haven't already noticed, we recently introduced the Search Query Performance report in the AdWords Report Center. This new report shows performance data for the search queries that triggered your ads that were clicked on to show. More importantly, this data can be used to gain a better understanding of how users are finding your ads and how they react to them.
Since the new report includes both search queries and the corresponding performance data, the report is commonly used to fine tune existing keyword lists. Specifically, you can use this report to identify both new keywords and negative keywords that you'd like to add to your account to better specify when you'd like your ad to appear.
Here's a quick example:
Say you're an online florist and you're working on adding some more keywords to your Anniversary campaign. Not a bad idea, since your campaign currently contains one ad group with the following keywords:'anniversary'
'anniversary flowers'
'wedding anniversary flowers'Rather than simply guessing which new keywords to add, you decide to first find out what users (a.k.a. potential customers) are searching on when they find and click on your anniversary-related ads today. To do so, you run a Search Query Performance report. Here's what your report looks like:
Based on the data above, your ads are showing when users search on 'anniversary flowers,' but they're also appearing on these queries:
anniversary bouquet
anniversary gifts
anniversary centerpiecesThe Search Query Match Type status for these queries is "broad." This means that keywords in your account that are similar to these queries are enabling your ads to be shown. Since 'anniversary bouquet' and 'anniversary gifts' are highly relevant to your product offering, you might consider adding them as keywords to this campaign. This will ensure that your ads will always show on these queries. Take it a step further, and create two new ad groups with ad text specific to gifts and bouquets.
If you don't want your ads showing on queries like 'anniversary centerpieces' because you sell bouquets and not arrangements, you might consider adding 'centerpieces' as a negative match keyword. However, keep in mind that users may find your ad relevant even if the query they used to find and click on your ad didn't correspond exactly to the product(s) advertised. For example, in the report above, you'll see that users who found your ad using the search query 'anniversary centerpieces' clicked on your ad and also converted on your website.
Finding new keywords and new negative keywords is just one way use this new report. You could also use it to:
Delete existing keywords and replace them with better targeted keywords
Create more tightly knit ad groups based on common groups of search queries
Ensure you've selected the correct match type (i.e. broad, phrase, exact, or negative) for existing keywords
Lastly, it's important to keep the following points in mind when analyzing a Search Query Performance report:The report only includes queries for ads that were shown and clicked on
The report includes search network data only
Search query performance data is available from May 2, 2007 and onward
Search queries are different from keywords, so data from this report will most likely not match up to a Keyword Performance report or your Campaign Summary pageInstructions on how to run a Search Query Performance report can be found here. For more information on the new report, check out the AdWords Help Center.
Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, Search, Paid Search, Reporting, PPC, Ironvine
AdWords Ad Preview Tool Update
The Improved Ad Preview tool is now easier to use!
» We've recently updated the Ad Preview tool to include easy drop-down menus to select different locations and languages. This improvement will make performing a test search that much easier.
As a refresher: The Ad Preview tool enables you to view ads and search results as they would appear on a regular Google search results page. With the Ad Preview tool, you can also adjust the location to see locally targeted ads--no matter where you are located. Plus, you won't accrue extra impressions!
Visit the Ad Preview Tool to give it a try.
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, Paid Search, PPC, Search, Marketing, Ironvine
Google Experimental
Check out some of the new features in development over at Mountain Home.
http://www.google.com/experimental/
Some of the new features include:
Timeline and map views
Keyboard Shortcuts
Left-hand search navigation
Right-hand contextual search navigation
Ask.com Contextual Advertising Launches June 11
Ads are automatically defaulted in unless you opt out (Brutal!)…. You may start spending more on Ask.com advertising if you don't pay attention!
The Ask Sponsored Listings Team is pleased to announce that contextual targeting is now available. With contextual targeting, you can seamlessly extend your pay-per-click search campaigns to the web sites in our content network.
There's no need to do anything to take advantage of this new targeting capability.
Ads that are currently live will automatically be opted-in to run across the Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) content network. If you would prefer not to run your ads on the content network, it's easy to opt-out at any time. Simply log into your account, select the ad(s) you'd like to opt-out and deselect "Contextual" on the campaign detail page; you may also opt-out through the bulk upload tool. For assistance managing contextual targeting via the ASL API, please send inquiries to APISupport@ask.com.
Ads will start running on the ASL content network on June 11th.
To learn more, please watch the ASL contextual targeting webinar. The webinar will be posted to the ASL website (http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com). Once the webinar is posted, a notification will be sent out.
If you have any questions about ASL contextual targeting, please contact client services.
Thank you,
The Ask Sponsored Listings Team
Technorati Tags: Ask.com, Ask, Advertising, Sponsored, Ads, Marketing, Online, Paid Search, Ironvine
New Google Analytics Release
Some happy news this morning for those who do any reporting with Google Analytics. Google has released a new version of Analytics that will be rolled out to users. You can see immediately some of the changes right from the dashboard design.
This is the first major update to the Google Analytics program in some time, and the first I believe since the program went public and out of beta.
Technorati Tags: Google, Analytics, Reporting, Search, Marketing, SEO, Ironvine
AdWords Editor 3.5 Released
Google has released a new version of AdWords Editor (3.5) for windows. As usual it will be delayed a few weeks for the Mac version.
The new version includes support for image ads, campaign targeting by region and city, and a drag-and-drop feature that makes it easier to move items from one location to another.
You can download it for free at Google AdWords Editor.
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, AdWords Editor, PPC, Online Marketing, Marketing, Search Marketing
MSN AdCenter Downtime and reporting issues
This weekend MSN AdCenter had a 27 hour downtime. As a result the reporting data is delayed by several days.
“AdCenter Reporting: As a result of the upgrade, adCenter reporting data will be delayed through May 1. Note that reports pulled before April 28 will be complete. Please re-run all reports for data between April 28 and May 1 on or after May 2. For partners in the UK and France, please pull data on or after May 3.”
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, MSN, AdCenter, PPC, Paid Search, Search Marketing
AdWords Preferred Cost Bidding
This quote from the SE Forums Spotlight just struck me as very true and simple explanation of Google's new Preferred Cost bidding. Google's bidding already revolves under a max bid, so really all it allows is Google to spend more of your money whenever they want to, up to a certain %, along with making it almost impossible to plan a budget shorter than 2 months (due to Google's 20% overage).
Google AdWords New Preferred Cost Bidding
Webmaster World
"Sounds like a great way to overspend. I wouldn't touch this one with a 10-foot pole."
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, PPC, Search Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Bidding, Ironvine