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
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
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
AdWords Preferred Price
Google is adding a new bidding option. An average preferred price. What this means is that you can add an option to bid around a certain price. So having a preferred bid of .50$ means that the bid can go over or under around that price.
Honestly it seems lately that Google is stretching and pushing to find any way it can to have advertisers spend more on ads rather than less. It is a neat addition, but its usefulness could be in question unless you want to make sure you are in 1st position.
Just my 2c.
Today, we are introducing a new bidding option called preferred cost bidding -- a feature designed to help you save time while achieving your advertising cost goals more consistently. Instead of setting a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) bid, you can set a preferred CPC or CPM bid that represents the average price you want to pay.
For example, suppose you want to pay an average CPC of $0.50. Currently, you need to regularly monitor and adjust your maximum CPC bids to keep your costs at or around $0.50 per click. Using preferred cost bidding, you can simply tell us that you want your average CPC to be $0.50, and we'll manage your bids to reach that goal.
This feature will be released to all advertisers over the next few days. You'll find it on the Edit Campaign Settings page. For more information on preferred cost bidding, please refer to the FAQs.
--
Posted By Inside AdWords crew to Inside AdWords at 4/17/2007 11:05:00 AM
AdWords Downtime
On April 14, 2007, AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM Pacific Time due to system maintenance. Please note that your campaigns will continue to run normally during this short downtime.
Blue is Out, Hello Yellow
Big news from Google about how AdWords ads are displayed.
There are 2 changes.
#1 - Google AdWords has decided to switch the background color of the top ads from blue to yellow. By changing to a brighter color it will help ads stand out more on the page. Personally I liked the cool comforting of blue.
#2 - Instead of clicking anywhere in the box, users now need to click on the link in the top line of an ad in order to be taken to an advertiser's site. Together, these changes help decrease the likelihood that a user will unintentionally click on an ad, while making our highest quality ads more visible.
Now my question is, does this affect all Google ads or just the Premier section ads? And how will this affect performance since it will almost look like a natural result (or like Yahoo's paid placement)?
Good, or bad we will see.
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, Search, Marketing, Paid Search, Online Marketing, Sponsored Search, SEO, SEM, Ironvine
AdWords Share of Voice
NEW! Impression Share (Share of Voice) Reporting for Search
» Impression share is a new metric that represents the percentage of times ads were shown out of the total number of page impressions (i.e. pages where your ad appeared or could have appeared) in the targeted market.
Available through the Report Center, impression share can be used to gain insight into an AdWords campaign's share of voice and identify missed opportunities.
Impression share is available at the Campaign and Account-level for search. Reports will not penalize impression share for competition amongst one's own campaigns.
Advertisers can try improving ad quality, increasing bids or budget, and refining regional or time-targeting settings to increase their impression share.
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, Search, Paid, Marketing, Reporting, Metrics, Campaign, Ironvine
Google Website Optimizer Open to Everyone
Google has opened up its Website Optimizer for public use (sign-up to use) now, and it will be rolled out to all AdWords accounts in the next few weeks. Google is definitely beefing up its AdWords program to insure its #1 advertising position.
Last October, we put out the call for beta testers for Google's new website testing application, Website Optimizer. Today, Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager for Website Optimizer is here with some news many of you have been eagerly anticipating:
Since October, we've worked closely with our beta testers to improve the application and today, we're happy to offer the latest version to everyone who signs up through the Website Optimizer homepage. If you're not quite ready to sign up right away, don't worry -- Website Optimizer will be available in all AdWords accounts within the next few weeks.
If you're unfamiliar with Website Optimizer, it is a free multivariate testing application built into AdWords that helps online marketers increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction by enabling them to continually test different combinations of site content. Why guess what site content you think will work best, when Website Optimizer can save you time by telling you what worked best based on visitor data collected from experiments on your site?
To sign up or learn more about Website Optimizer, please visit the Website Optimizer homepage.Technorati Tags: Google, Website, Optimizer, AdWords, PPC, Online Marketing, Marketing, Paid, Search
AdWords Promotional Credit Change
For all those search marketers out there, be aware of the new change in the promotional credits policy in Google AdWords. As of March 31, 2007 AdWords promotional credit coupons will only be available to Qualified Individuals and Qualified Companies in the Google Advertising Professionals program.
Two fold win for Google. They get to cut off all the free promotional credits to non-qualified parties saving them revenue, and/or they get more people to become certified in their Google Advertising Professionals program, which has a minimum required spend to qualify for. This means you have to spend more to get the free stuff.
Recent Features in Google AdWords
Pause your keywords, sites and ad creatives
Have you ever needed to pause certain ads and keywords when your inventory was low? Or have you ever wished you could temporarily stop serving image ads on certain sites during the weekdays? Now you can pause and unpause keywords (for keyword-targeted campaigns), sites site-targeted campaigns), and ads.
The image below describes in the shortest way how this feature works. You basically check the affected ads or keywords you want and then pause or resume them.
Technorati Tags: Google, AdWords, Marketing, PPC, Online Marketing, Ironvine