JumpFly Blog: AdWords, Yahoo & Microsoft Advertising

The holiday shopping rush is under way. No doubt, you have already made some improvements to your website and your offers. But have you given any thought to your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns?

Here are some tips to making the most of your PPC Ads at Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter:

1. Highlight Your Holiday Specials

In your ads, be sure to mention any holiday specials you are running.  From price reductions to coupons to free shipping.  Include it in the ad.  People are looking for bargains this holiday season.

2. Set Your Budgets Higher

This time of year there will be more traffic on all of the product search terms.  Make sure your ads are showing consistently all day by setting the right budget and the right keywords bids. 

You should double-check your positions as well.  There are some terms that become highly competitive this time of year.  You may have been running happily at positions 2-3 for the last few months and all of a sudden drop to 10 because of increased holiday competition.  Keep an eye on this through the end of the month. 

For most B2C retail businesses, the holiday makes up as much as 60% of their total revenue for the year.  Your advertising spend should reflect this.

3. Consider Gift Terms

Be very cautious with the vague, generic gift terms.  However, you may find that gift terms specific to your product line will help you.  For example, if you sell coffee, consider “coffee gifts”, “coffee gift ideas”, etc.  As with everything, watch your cost per conversion on these terms.

The Google AdWords Team talks about some of these tips in their Inside Adwords blog. Applying proven PPC Management techniques is always critical, but especially during the holidays.

More about Kristie

Has the faltering economy finally caught up with Google and their lucrative AdWords platform?

Perhaps in the short-term, according to Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Richard Fetyko. Yesterday, Fetyko issued a release via Barrons stating, “Based on our checks, the decline in consumer and business purchasing is having a dampening effect on search-engine marketing (SEM) — keyword prices are down 5%-30% from the third-quarter of 2008, traffic to ecommerce sites is also down year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, and click-through-rates on ad listings are declining as well. SEM is expected to be among the last places to see cuts, and we are there now. Advertisers are adjusting their keyword buys to protect their margins and returns on investment, which are under pressure as sales-conversion rates and average order value dropped, based on our checks. Google’s paid-click volume is also under pressure. Since consumers and businesses have reined in their spending, they are searching for fewer commercial items and are clicking on fewer ads (click-through rates dropped), which translates into slower growth in paid-clicks volume (key revenue driver). Weakness has also spread overseas. Domestic growth has decelerated in 2008, and we expect international regions to slow in the fourth-quarter of 2008 and 2009 as well. U.K. ad revenue was flat for the last three quarters, and the rest of Europe and Asia are seeing cutbacks in ad budgets as well.”

Not surprisingly, various research agencies are reducing their projections for online advertising growth going forward. Just last week, marketing research firm eMarketer reduced estimates for U.S. Internet advertising to $25.7 billion for next year, about $2.7 billion less than a forecast from just three months ago, but still a 9% increase over this year. EMarketer predicts U.S. search ads will generate $12.3 billion next year and that “display ads” will rise nearly 7% next year to $4.9 billion (less than the 14% growth previously suggested). Considering we’re in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, I would say that any growth at all is pretty good! The reason for continued growth in PPC advertising despite this crisis is because it works.

While “decelerating growth” may be a sobering reality for Google, it will not bring them to their knees. In the near term, Google may have to make some adjustments, but they appear incredibly well positioned to potentially dominate multiple marketplaces going forward, including organic search, sponsored search advertising, online video & the wireless market. Organic search, PPC advertising and online video (via YouTube) are already in the bag, at least for now, and Google’s wireless Android platform is new but already creating a lot of buzz. Actually, I personally think that what Google has already accomplished is amazing and I look forward to witnessing their future innovations. They always seem to be one step ahead of the competition.

Holiday Reminder- The busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday (this Friday) is followed by the biggest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday (next Monday). Happy Thanksgiving.

More about Brad

I have certainly read many PPC advertising articles and blog posts regarding the importance of landing page text and it’s relationship to Sponsored Search keywords. While there is no arguing that the landing page should be highly relevant for the keywords used in order to facilitate the action of a conversion, there has also been some debate regarding the landing pages text and its relationship to Google’s Quality Score, and ultimately the price you pay per click. Let’s set the record straight.

Our friends from Google stopped by the JumpFly offices yesterday and we had a long discussion on the AdWords Quality Score process. So, this information is straight from the source. I’m only addressing the Quality Score and Landing Page relationship today, and will leave the other important aspects of Quality Score for other articles. Trust me, there is a lot to know when it comes to learning about Google AdWords Quality Score.

First, it is important to understand that there are actually two separate Google AdWords Quality Scores: QS1 & QS2

The first Quality Score, QS1, is the score to see if the keyword is even qualified to show. In the Q1 score, the quality of the landing page is factored into this algorithm. The biggest factors being relevant and original content, how you intend to use a visitor’s personal information, and navigability. Mostly, Google is trying to eliminate the type of poor quality websites that have shown a history of consistently providing a poor user experience from advertising on AdWords.

Once the Q1 score is factored and the keyword is able to enter the auction, the process moves along to the Q2 score.

The 2nd Quality Score (QS2) determines AdRank and CPC. I could go into great detail on all of the aspects of this very important Quality Score, however for this topic it is important to note that landing page quality is absolutely NOT a factor in QS2.

This was sure news to us, and I’m sure many of you might also find this to be unbelievable, however it is true. We spent a great deal of time talking about this and even watched a nice PowerPoint presentation to back it all up.

Of course, this new information directly contradicts some of Google’s online help documents. For example, on the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines page it says:

Furthermore, following our site guidelines will help improve your landing page quality score. As a component of your keywords’ overall Quality Scores, a high landing page quality score can affect your AdWords account in three ways:

Decrease your keywords’ cost-per-clicks (CPCs)
Increase your keyword-targeted ads’ position on the content network
Improve the chances that your placement-targeted ads will win a position on your targeted placement

So, what does this all really mean?

Well, it doesn’t change the fact that a well optimized webpage that is focused on a particular keyword will definitely help convert that visitor. It doesn’t change the fact that a landing page that falls short of Google’s initial Landing Page Quality guidelines might not even trigger the keyword.

It does mean that no matter how many times you stuff your keyword into a webpage, or change the keyword density, it will not help lower your cost per click for that keyword at Google AdWords. That, I’m afraid, is determined by other factors involved in QS2.

The bottom line here is that a well designed and focused landing page is a very useful and much needed aspect of any Sponsored Search campaign. Nothing will change that fact. All this simply means is that your groovy new landing page is not going to influence the price you pay per click for that keyword.