JumpFly PPC Management Professionals

Google recently published a Retail Holiday Study that we found very interesting here at JumpFly. Granted it was conducted in September, and some answers might be different now, but there were some key findings I wanted to share.

1. Researching Starts Early: 31% of consumers planned to start shopping before Halloween, and 57% are researching right now, before Thanksgiving.

2. Research is Increased Due to Economy: 43% of consumers say they plan to spend more time this year shopping and researching gifts because of the state of the economy.

3. Online Research is King:54% of people go online to research than go to the store to buy, 49% research online and purchase online and another 28% research online, go to the store to check out the products and then go back online to actually buy the products.

4. The Internet is Key Influencer of Holiday Purchases: 86% of users will use the Internet to plan their holiday shopping and 63% of users plan on paying attention to advertising while planning or doing holiday shopping.

5. Post Holiday Sales Are Important: 63% of consumers say they plan on taking advantage of holiday sales.

A few other key nuggets of information, online shopping will gear up right on Cyber Monday, which is the first Monday after Thanksgiving, or December 1st for 2008. It continues to climb until right before Christmas.

And what are consumers looking for when they are online? 86% of users are looking for and plan on taking advantage of price discounts and sales, while another 75% of consumers are looking to taking advantage of free shipping. What does that mean for you? Unless you are the only player in your market, you better be offering some kind of special like a discount or free shipping or you are going to miss out on customers, plain and simple. Now is a great time to adjust your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising ad copy to reflect any available incentives.

The holidays are coming, so be ready. Plan now because waiting even a bit longer will be too late.

About Nikki

One of the most critical aspects of Google AdWords management is your ability to understand Quality Score and how it affects your account (and your business).

In this article, I am addressing the Quality Score used during a Google Search. 

Google’s AdWords Quality Score is used to determine how relevant your ad is to a visitor searching on a given term.  Google has developed, over time, algorithms to help them present the most relevant results to visitors based on many historical performance factors and on existing relevance factors.

In their quest to present the most relevant results to their visitors, Google rewards high quality ad / keyword combinations with higher positions and lower costs.

When a search query is performed there are two steps. 

1. The first page bid + your keyword (including match type) are used to determine if you are eligible to be shown on a particular search phrase.  In other words – “Are you In the Game?” 
   • The “first page bid” is an estimated metric that exists in your account with each keyword and is only displayed if your particular bid does not equal or exceed the bid estimate.  When Quality Score is used to calculate the first page bid, it does not consider your ad copy or the search query itself. 
2. Once you are eligible, your Quality Score + your Max CPC are used to determine where your ad will be positioned on the page – “Ad Rank” and how much you will be charged for the click – “Actual Cost Per Click (CPC)”.

Quality score is calculated at the Keyword level and is affected by:

• The relevance of the keyword and the ad copy to the search phrase
• The Historical Click Through Rate (CTR)
  • CTR in your current account
  • CTR of the keyword throughout all accounts
  • CTR of any account using your URL in the ads
  • CTR in your account in the geographic region you are targeting
• The Quality of your Landing Page

The algorithm takes into consideration the effect ad position has on CTR and adjusts the importance accordingly.

It is important to note that quality score is used differently within placements on the content network and we will discuss that next week.

If you’d like more information on the Quality Score, check out Google’s Improvements to Ads Quality Post or contact a professional PPC Management Company.

More about Kristie

Just last week one of my pay-per-click (PPC) advertising clients got hit by fraudulent Google activity; someone logged into their Google AdWords account, set up a new campaign and in a matter of 12 hours, spent $26,000. Google contacted us about the activity, and my client is not liable for the amount spent, but it’s certainly made for quite a bit of frustration, as their AdWords account is off and will be off indefinitely until the write-off gets posted to their account.

How did this happen and how can you prevent it from happening to you?

While we’re not 100% positive how exactly the perpetrators got a hold of the client’s Google AdWords login and password in this particular case, here’s how you can protect yourself:

1. Don’t Get Caught by Phishing Emails (three examples of Phishing emails are at the bottom of this Blog): if you get an email that looks like it’s from Google, and requests that you click a link within the email to login, DO NOT click the link. Phishing emails are emails that are web forgery designed to trick you into sharing logins, passwords, personal or financial information. They look official, but are devious. As a general rule, you should never click a link within an email and login to your account. Always open a browser window and type in the desired URL or use bookmarks.

2. Change your password: if you’ve never changed your password before, now is a great time. I know it’s difficult to remember all those passwords, but it’s a better alternative to getting scammed. We’ve started changing our passwords here at JumpFly on a monthly basis.

3. Hire an Experienced PPC Management Company: then you can forward any emails that look like they are from Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter to your account manager and not have to deal with it at all.

Three Google Phishing Emails that are making the rounds:

~~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #1 - Start ~~~~~~
From: adwords-noreply@google.com
Subject: Your AdWords Google Account is stopped

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login , and update your billing information.

Your account will be reactivated as soon as you update your payment information.

Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive your signed debit authorization before your ads start running, depending on your location.

If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your first payment.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team
~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #1 - End ~~~~~

~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #2 - Start ~~~~~

From: reactivation@google.com
Subject: The Google AdWords Team request you to update your
billing information

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information. We will reactivate you account after you update your billing information. In order to reactivate your account, please sign it to your account at http://adwordsgoogle.com/select/login, and update your billing information. Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed, any your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.

You will not be asked to submit your billing information every time you create a new ad or campaign. If your payment has been declined and you’d like to resubmit the same credit card information, you may also do so by clicking the Retry card button on your Billing Preferences page. After updating your credit card information (regardless of whether or not you use a different card), it can take up to 24 hours before your ads start running again. You also have the option of providing a backup credit card to help ensure that your ads run continuously in the case that your primary payment method fails.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team
~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #2 - End ~~~~~

~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #3 - Start ~~~~~
From: reactivation@google.com
Subject: Our programme terms have changed.

Dear AdWords Customer,

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the Google AdWords programme for advertisers and users, we have updated our Terms and Conditions.

Please review the new Terms and Conditions below, then indicate your acceptance.

Yes, I accept the Terms and Conditions. [LINK]

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #3 - End ~~~~~

More about Nikki

More from Google about avoiding phishing