Search Marketing InsiderPay Per Click, Social Media and SEO Strategies – An Internet Marketing Institute Publication

Most of you probably know how to use the VLOOKUP formula for PPC, but chances are that you probably haven’t heard of the more powerful INDEX-MATCH lookup method.

Lookup formulas are an essential tool for every PPCer and are used primarily to add context and comparison metrics to your PPC analysis.  Here are a few of my favorite uses of lookup formulas:

• Date range comparisons
• What’s changed analysis
• Calculating Peer Comparisons in PPC Data
• PPC search query mining

Using lookup formulas to add context to PPC data analysis can really speed the discovery of insights.  The VLOOKUP is great for comparisons, but it does have its weaknesses.

One weakness is that, by default, the VLOOKUP returns an approximate match and not an exact match.  This can cause problems for inexperienced VLOOKUP users by returning false values.  If you are using the approximate match, then the sort order becomes very important.

Another weakness is that the VLOOKUP can only lookup values in the first column of a table array, and can only return values from columns to the right of the first columns—this can be annoying.

Of course, most of us have been using the VLOOKUP successfully for years now, and if it was the only option available we would still considered ourselves blessed.  However, there happens to be another lookup up method that doesn’t have these weakness and promises to be more powerful and flexible—INDEX-MATCH.

Using the INDEX-MATCH lookup method

I’ve just started to transition to the INDEX-MATCH formula, so I am by no means an expert, but you can use it for all of the analysis types listed above without having to worry about the limitations of the VLOOKUP.  The formula is actually made up of two Excel functions:

=INDEX(reference, row_num, column_num)

• reference—a range of cells
• row_num—the row in reference from which to return data.
• column_num—the column in reference from which to return data.

If reference is one row or column, INDEX can use this syntax: =INDEX(reference, cell_num)

=MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_array, match_type)

• lookup_value—the value to match in lookup_array.
• lookup_array—range of cells with data.
• match_type—specifies how Excel matches the lookup_value with values in the lookup_array. For exact matches, always use 0 for this argument.

Here’s an example of using the INDEX-MATCH formula that returns the sum of impressions for a previous time period:

=INDEX(reference, MATCH(lookup_value,lookup_array,match_type))

As you can see, the INDEX-MATCH formula is returning a value that is located to the left of the lookup array.  This is convenient because a primary key was created for the lookup value to the right of the both sets of data.  This keeps us from having to insert a column into the original report data just to get it on the right side of the reference column.

The INDEX-MATCH formula is quickly becoming part of my everyday PPC analysis.  I hope you also find in useful.

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This is a guest post by Chad Summerhill, Author of the blog PPC Prospector, provider of free PPC tools & PPC tutorials, and AdWords Specialist at Moving Solutions, Inc. (UPack.com and MoveBuilder.com).

Often times the biggest barrier for launching campaigns targeting mobile devices is that advertisers do not know where to start or they are worried they do not have the right tools to get started. Sometimes the best solution is just to jump in and get your feet wet. If you are using Google Analytics, you can already get information on how mobile visitors are interacting with your site, so learn from that data move forward and optimize your campaigns for mobile. The below 5 frequently asked questions will help you get started and hit the ground running for launching mobile AdWords campaigns.

1. What if I do not have a designated mobile site or landing page?

You are not alone! Majority of websites lack mobile specific sites or dedicated mobile landing pages, but that should not keep you from testing mobile campaigns. Test your campaigns targeting mobile devices to see how user friendly your site is. If your site is generally functional, mobile is another opportunity to target your audience.

2. How do the mobile visitors I currently receive interact with my site?

Google Analytics has mobile specific reports that will allow you to see how mobile visitors currently interact with your site – because remember, even if you’re not specifically advertising to mobile devices, users are still likely to find you via organic search or directly navigate to you on their mobile device. The Google Analytics mobile reports are broken down by device and carrier, so advertisers can see the difference in engagement metrics for specific devices. Before you launch any mobile campaign, first take a deep dive into the analytics and see how your current mobile visitors are interacting with your site. If your bounce rates from mobile are very high, then this likely tells you that your website is not providing an optimal user experience because they are quickly leaving.

3. What keywords are people searching for on their mobile devices?

Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool allows you to understand mobile search volume for your target keywords. In the advanced settings of the Keyword Tool you have the option to select different devices under the “Show Ideas and Statistics for” section. For mobile keyword research, select the “Mobile devices with full internet browsers” to best understand keyword traffic from mobile devices.

Google Analytics is also a valuable tool to determine what current keywords are bringing traffic to your site from mobile devices. Create a custom report in Google Analytics, like the one below, for keyword data from mobile devices.

4. What types of AdWords campaigns should I test with mobile targeting?

If you are hesitant to launch mobile AdWords campaigns because of site usability concerns, try testing your branded campaign first. Since branded visitors tend to convert better than non-branded, testing a branded campaign can be a safe way to begin. If after launching your mobile campaign you determine that branded visitors are not interacting with your site in a positive way, this is an indicator that you might need to consider developing a dedicated mobile site. If branded customers can not navigate around your site, just think how customers unfamiliar with your brand will feel…

5. Ok, I’m ready to try it – now how do I create mobile AdWords campaigns?

If you are unsure where to start with AdWords mobile campaigns, Google recommends creating a mobile campaign that mirrors your existing desktop/laptop AdWords campaign. In AdWords Editor simply copy and paste your existing campaign, update the device targeting settings to mobile devices, then optimize for mobile performance (make updates to ad text, update bidding strategy, etc).  Once you have created the mobile campaign in Editor you can then go into the AdWords interface to define your targeting settings even further. For example, if you only want to target Android devices because you are promoting a product specific to users of the Android operating system, make sure to only check the Android box, as shown below.

When it comes to your PPC campaigns, testing is key and mobile campaigns are no exception to this rule. I hope the answers to these 5 frequently asked mobile questions will help in launching your new mobile campaigns. Still not sure about launching mobile AdWords campaign? Feel free to ask your questions in the comments below!

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Heather Schwartz, has been working as an Account Executive with Anvil Media, a Portland based SEM agency, since 2008 specializing in B2C ecommerce clients such as lucy activewear and non-profit clients like The Nature Conservancy, developing SEO, Social Media and PPC campaigns to increase clients’ online visibility and ROI.

Is your March Madness Bracket destroyed? Mine is. I had Ohio State walking away with a championship and VCU out in the first round! If there was any method to the “Madness”(get it?) then I would still have some hope in the office tournament.

Although you can’t predict or influence the NCAA basketball tournament you CAN influence how well you manage multiple PPC clients. Here are 8 things that I have found that help make managing multiple PPC clients easier:

• Create To Do Lists- Do you ever find yourself without a specific task and end up wandering from account to account checking on that days statistics? Do you do that multiple times a day?? If so go make a list now! I’ve found that making “to do” lists daily help focus me on important tasks, prioritize those tasks, then execute them. “Our priorities are most visible in how we use our time”, said Dallin H. Oaks. Make sure your time is being spent on your priorities!
• Focus On One Task at a Time- It takes time to shift your mind from one project to another. When you are doing that dozens of times a day it can add up to a lot of wasted time. Instead choose one task to focus on and complete it before you start or get distracted by anything else.
• Perform Audits- You may be checking on key performance indicators like cost, clicks, or conversions daily but you don’t take a deep look to make sure everything is running smoothly. To make sure there are no issues with our clients we perform scheduled audits for every client. This helps avoid any problems when things appear to be running smoothly.
• Calender Notifications- If your clients are like mine they often have explicit instructions on when and what they need for PPC. For starting and stopping projects for specific accounts I’ve found that setting calendar notifications that are sent to my email is the best way to remember these things. I use Google Calender which is connected to my Gmail account. As soon as I hear a specific date for any project I immediately add that to the calendar.
• Use a Customer Relationship Management(CRM) – We use a CRM in order to keep track of all the specific notes for the accounts. Some of the things we keep track of in there are: contact email, billing email, are they active, usernames, passwords, etc. You get the point J. We use Salesforce for our CRM but there are others out there. Wikipedia does a good comparison of them all.
• Use Client Management Interfaces- If you’ve got more than one client likely you are already doing this, but each search engine offers a client management center where you can have access to all your accounts in one place. Google has the My Client Center(MCC). YaBing has Agency Management. Facebook also has a type of client center. If you simply add your Facebook email address to any account you can then access that account from your advertising page.
• Have a Team Behind You- Often I’ll find myself in analysis paralysis from staring at the screen too long, and looking at one too many accounts in a day. It is incredibly helpful to just have someone to bounce ideas off of and get their input on a situation. Sometimes I’ll even find a solution to a clients issue when I’m explaining out loud what is going on. Having a team lets you strategize and get ideas you may not have thought of before.
• Where Does the Rubber Hit the Road?- What I mean by this is think about what really is going to help a client’s account out. Is looking at the conversion stats one more time during the day really going to help? Or is getting down and dirty with keyword bids a better use of your time? I don’t want to downplay analysis of an account, because that is absolutely necessary. But if you are analyzing accounts all day and not actually making any changes, nothing is going to improve. Where does the rubber hit the road?

By using these tips you can make sense out of the “madness” that is managing PPC. What other tips have you found useful in managing your PPC accounts? I would love to hear!

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Luke Alley is a PPC account manager and owner at www.GetFoundFirst.com, based out of Rexburg, Idaho. He is an up and coming search engine marketer and loves working in the search marketing industry. He is a happy husband and a proud dad. You can find him on Twitter at @lukealley.

I’m a go getter. I love setting and reaching goals and always have a couple projects that are in the works. But every now and then I’ll sit down on the couch and ask myself, “What should I do with my time?” and nothing comes to mind. For the life of me I can’t think of any of the dozens of goals or projects that I usually have spinning through my head! Have you ever had this happen with a pay per click account? Have you sat down and looked at your campaigns and thought, “What should I do today?” and had nothing come to mind?

So what can you do to avoid that glazed over, analysis paralysis look? Focus on keyword research by category. Perhaps that sounds different than any research you’ve done before. I’ve compiled a list of categories that you may or may not be using in your campaign. If you ever are at a loss for more keywords review this list and see what else you can add:

• Industry Keywords- these keywords exactly describe what the company does. Ask someone what they do and these are the words they will use.
• Predicament Keywords- describes an issue or problem someone is having. Finding these words takes a little more effort. Try putting yourself in your customers shoes and think about what kind of problem they may be having.
• Competition Keywords- competitor’s names or URLs of competitors. You may step on some toes here but Google does allow for advertising on trademarked terms.
• Navigational- searches done in a www or .com format. PPC Blog did a great post on navigational keywords. Surprisingly a lot of people type website addresses in the search bar rather than the address bars. You may be shocked to see how much traffic comes this way.
• Typos- take any of the above keywords and misspell them! You could come up with endless variations of typos but we’ve found that misspellings come up more often in most cases.
• Technical Keywords- describes features of products or services. Many searchers don’t know exactly what brand or product they are looking for, so the search for things they do know. If your product or service has a unique attribute add it as a search term and see how it does.

With personal goals it’s always good to review them and remind yourself what you are shooting for. The same goes for your PPC campaigns. As you are reviewing your accounts keep in mind these keyword categories and see where you might be able to expand your current keyword list. You may find yourself with more keywords and organizing to do in a day than you have time for!

Image via Atenga.com

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Luke Alley is a PPC account manager and owner at www.GetFoundFirst.com, based out of Rexburg, Idaho. He is an up and coming search engine marketer and loves working in the search marketing industry. You can find him on Twitter at @lukealley.

The formula behind Google AdWords’ all-important Quality Score is a mystery to many PPC marketers, who have to guess what Google means by terms such as “relevance” and “quality.” This mystery leads to speculation on how to improve Quality Score, and much of that speculation is misled and confused.

Here, we’ll debunk three commonly perpetuated myths about Quality Score and how you can raise it to achieve better results from your AdWords campaigns.

Myth #1: Exact match keywords will always have a higher Quality Score than broad match keywords.

False!

This is one of the most widely repeated myths about Quality Score. In fact, Quality Score is not dependent on match type. If you use the same keyword in the same ad group multiple times, but with different match types, they’ll all have the same Quality Score.

This is because Google calculates Quality Score based on exact matches only. Even if a keyword is set to broad match, the Quality Score for that keyword is based on your click-through rate (CTR) and other relevance factors for exact matches. So don’t be led down the path of using only the exact matching option, thinking it will boost your performance. You could be missing out on lots of valuable long-tail traffic.

Myth #2: To improve your Quality Score, you need to improve your conversion rate.

False!

Google doesn’t care at all about your conversion rates; in many cases it doesn’t even know what they are. If you think about it, there’s no reason Google would care. Google gets paid when people click your ad. What happens after that is your problem.

To raise your Quality Score, focus on improving your click-through rate, not your conversion rate. Tips for raising CTR include:

• Using the keyword in your ad’s headline, text and display URL
• Writing more compelling, specific ad copy
• Testing different headlines, calls to action and other elements of your ad

Conversion rate is important for your business, but it doesn’t affect your Quality Scores.

Myth #3: Higher Quality Scores result from higher bids at the initial launch of your campaign.

False!

This may have been true in the past, when higher bids would ensure a higher ad rank and hence a higher click-through rate, allowing you to then make lower bids while maintaining high positions with your keywords. But now, Google accounts for ads placed lower on a page being less likely to be noticed and clicked. Google expects your click-through rate to be maintained relative to other ads placed in the same page position. In other words, a lower CTR in a poor ad position could be considered great.

Different keywords may also have click-through rates different than you’d expect. Commercial words that are highly specific are expected to achieve a click-through rate higher than that for generic keywords about the identical subject. And remember that CTR on Google’s own search results page are the only ones that count.

So don’t bid up to the top position of the page – just be happy with the position where your ad’s click-through rate is doing well. Of course, low-positioned ads won’t get as many clicks, so if you think the keyword is worth it, raise your bids. Just know that it won’t affect your Quality Scores.

Image via KeywordSearchPros.com

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Larry Kim is the founder and VP of products at WordStream, a provider of PPC software and Quality Score management tools for AdWords advertisers.

When Overture and AdWords first launched over a decade ago, advertisers and consumers were shocked by how non-invasive the ads appeared to be. Under 100 characters and text only, these ads were the antithesis of the flashy and often intrusive banners many surfers dreaded. Indeed, text ads were so “un-marketing” that the FTC made Google and Yahoo place a disclaimer next to them, so that consumers understood that these were not organic results.

Text ads were a natural fit with Google’s early business philosophy of “search results first, monetization second.” If you read the original Page Rank algorithm paper written by Google’s founders, it’s easy to see why they embraced text ads over banners:

“Advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline’s homepage when the airline’s name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want.”

Flash forward to today and the reign of the minimalist text ad appears to be ending. In the last couple of years, Google has aggressively experimented with a variety of enhancements to simple text ads. The list includes:
• Map extensions
• Product extensions
• Consumer reviews
• Google Checkout logo
• Click to call phone number
• Video extensions
• Offer extensions

On top of these visual enhancements, Google is also experimenting with more characters in the headline, different colored background to ads, and more ads above organic results. All of these changes to AdWords are done for one reason – to increase revenue for Google. Let me just state up front that increasing revenue does not necessarily mean a poorer user experience for searchers. Allowing consumers to instantly see a map to a store’s location provides additional relevance, as does showing the actual products for sale (product extensions), and all of these other options.

There’s no denying, however, that Google is not making these changes out of altruism – all of these additions have two revenue-increasing impacts: first, they increase click-through rate (CTR), which increases Google revenue per thousand impressions (RPM); second, because these enhancements often only show up in the first three to five sponsored results, they increase competition (i.e., bids) on the top placements.

From an advertiser perspective, SEMs who fail to move beyond text-only ads are likely to gradually be pushed out of prime positions by competitors who take advantage of these features. While it is never a good idea to optimize ad text exclusively to CTR, if you can maintain or improve your conversion rate (CR) while also increasing CTR, you need to do so. Providing more relevancy to consumers via non-text marketing is become a must if you want to compete for coveted keywords.

My experience with non-textual enhancements suggests that not every new feature will work for all advertisers. For example, a map extension is worthless to an ecommerce retailer, whereas “offer ads” currently only make sense for “clicks to bricks” retailers. Click-to-call is great, but if you don’t have equally great customer support, you might want to think twice about this feature. And product extensions can be awesome, but make sure you have your product feed set up properly, or else an ad for “blue widgets” might end up showing images of “yellow flowers.”

The bottom line for SEMs is that text ads are still our bread and butter, but there’s no time better than the present to start preparing for a future where text alone will not suffice. AdWords has changed a lot since the days when Google’s founders ridiculed other search engines for having too many ads. Will we ever see Google search result pages filled with banners? Probably not in the traditional sense, but the days of text-only ads are over.

Image via MST.edu
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David Rodnitzky is CEO of PPC Associates, an SEM agency in San Mateo, California. If you are currently spending $25,000 or more a month on SEM, contact David at david@ppcassociates.com to learn how his agency can optimize your SEM campaigns.

It is very easy to get caught up in the day to day, you start your week off Monday morning with your coffee in hand and you even get into the office a little earlier than expected, then all of a sudden it is Friday afternoon and you haven’t done any new keyword research for your PPC campaigns. Is this an ideal scenario? No. Is this a realistic scenario? Yes. Is this hurting the performance of your SEM campaigns? Most likely!

When it comes to your SEM campaigns there are several 101-type action items you need to perform every single day of the week to ensure killer results. Unless you’re a dedicated PPC manager, there are probably some to-do’s that slip with your PPC campaigns like negative keyword research and keyword expansion. Here are some tips to help *semi-automate (*”semi” because a little bit of brain work is still required) and streamline those critical PPC tasks, making it easier to stay on top of your to-do list while improving your campaign’s performance.

1. Negative Keyword Research using the Search Query Report

Don’t spend your money on keywords that are not relevant to your business, not only are you wasting money but you may be hurting your brand image by having your ad displayed on unwanted search queries. Look to your Search Query Report to find the keywords visitors used that lead to a click-through on your ad. Now that AdWords has this report directly tied into the interface you can add negative keywords to your campaigns easier than ever. AdCenter also has a version of this report called the Search Query Performance. Since the AdCenter report can only be accessed through the reporting center and not the interface, schedule the report to be emailed to you once a week to make it hassle-free. It is important this task be executed on a weekly basis, if you left this as a monthly action item you could be losing hundreds of dollars.

2. Keyword Expansion using the Search Query Report (again!)

Not only is the Search Query Report helpful for negative keyword research, but the insights you gain can be invaluable for keyword expansion. If certain keywords start reoccurring in the report that are relevant to your business, let the testing begin! Why not build out new ad groups and start testing new keywords. This is an opportunity to learn about new trends and jargon your target audience is using and start capitalizing on them. Within a week you can determine if the expansion is successful and choose to build it out further or pause the expansion if it isn’t generating conversions.

If you start seeing several opportunities for testing, create a testing schedule and implement a few expansion opportunities at a time, budget allowing. Managing this on a weekly (if not daily) basis is a great way to gain ground over your competitors, be the first one to target new industry trends. Sometimes the physical task of building out the new ad groups for testing can monopolize your time, but Google has updated existing tools and released new ones to help you with keyword expansion.

3. Semi-Automated Keyword Expansion with the Opportunities Tab

There are two additional tools in AdWords, besides the Search Query Report, that will help you with keyword expansion and ad group creation.  The first is the Opportunities tab in the AdWords interface. In this tab you will find a list of bid and keyword suggestions based on three different goals: increase traffic, balance cost and traffic, and maintain or decrease cost. Upon your review of the suggestions you can choose to directly upload the keywords or bid changes to your ad groups. In the past a lot of these suggestions have been irrelevant to my account and it was more work to comb though the suggestions then to do the research on my own.

However, Google has added a rating system into the tool, so you can tell AdWords if the suggested term is irrelevant to the specific ad group or to your entire account.  If you identify a keyword as irrelevant, Google will learn this and not recommend the term in the future, which makes the tool more helpful and allows you to concentrate on only targeted ideas.  By using the Opportunities tab to identify new keywords to test, your job may not be automated, but Google is certainly putting the information and recommendations right at your fingertips.

4. Using the Contextual Targeting Tool to Streamline Keyword Expansion

The second tool, now available in all AdWords accounts, is the Contextual Targeting Tool. While the tool may be meant to help you create granular ad groups for the Display Network, who’s to say you can’t use it for the same purpose on the Search Network. If you haven’t already played around with this tool, you are going to love it! You can find this user-friendly tool under the Reporting and Tools tab in AdWords and all you have to do is type in your keyword suggestion(s) you are looking to target.

Next, the tool will automatically group similar terms into themed ad groups. You can choose to expand the ad group, making it more granular, by clicking on the “Expand” button to the right of the suggested ad group, shown in the below screenshot. The tool even incorporates max CPC recommendations for Search and Display and allows you to export in AdWords Editor format. Having tightly themed ad groups will allow you to do a better job of including your keywords in your ad text, in efforts to increase your CTR and improve quality score. The Contextual Targeting tool helps *semi-automate the process of grouping keywords into ad groups and significantly streamlines your management time.

AdWords is providing you with the tools to efficiently manage your SEM campaigns, the Search Query Report, the Opportunities tab and the Contextual Targeting Tool are just three on the list. While these tools help *semi-automate some of the most important PPC tasks like negative keyword research and keyword expansion your judgment is still needed.  Test these tools out (if you’re not already doing so) or use them in a new way and see how they streamline your daily management to allow you to tackle other items on your weekly to do list.

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Heather Schwartz has been working with Anvil Media, a Portland based SEM agency since 2008 specializing in B2C ecommerce clients such as lucy activewear and non-profit clients like The Nature Conservancy, developing SEO, Social Media and PPC campaigns to increase clients’ online visibility and ROI.

In the Dark Ages of internet advertising, bidding was done on a cost-per-mille (CPM) basis. “Hits” and “Page views” ruled the land. Soon however, a new day dawned. Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing was born and Google AdWords emerged as the advertisers’ knight in shining armor. You only paid for actual visitors to your site and you controlled your position by simply increasing or decreasing your keyword bids. Alas, the simplicity didn’t last and Google AdWords bidding is now much more complex.

The 4 Types of Bids

Google AdWords offers four different options for bidding; manual bidding, automated bidding, CPM bidding and CPA bidding. Each of these methods has both strengths and weaknesses that should be considered.

1. Manual Bidding – This is the classic, auction-style bidding we grew to love when AdWords was first launched. You set a default bid at the ad group level that applies to all keywords in the ad group. You then have the option of setting a custom bid for every keyword if you wish.Manual bidding offers the greatest control of your cost-per-click (CPC) and allows you to see how changes in bids affect position, CTR and even conversions. However, this control comes at a price. Manual bid management can be very time consuming, hence the abundance of 3^rd party bid management tools on the market.
2. Automatic Bidding – This is Google’s attempt to make bidding easy for even the newest AdWords advertiser. The user sets a daily budget and then Google tries to get as many clicks as possible with the given budget.While this option requires virtually no effort to manage, you also have virtually no control over what time your ads are being shown, what search queries are triggering your ads or the position of your ad. Unless you trust Google 100% with your money, I don’t recommend this option.
3. CPM Bidding – This is the oldest method of bidding. You tell Google how much you’re willing to pay for 1,000 impressions and they start showing your ad. While some would view this as a step backward in internet advertising, if an advertiser has proven ad copy that delivers a high CTR, this can actually deliver clicks cheaper than PPC, especially for brand terms.
4. CPA Bidding – Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding is the newest addition to Google AdWords bidding. Another name for the feature is Conversion Optimizer. With this feature you must first install conversion tracking (which you already have installed right?) and have at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days. Then all you have to do is go to the campaign settings and under “Bidding and budget” select the “Edit” link for bidding options. There you select the “Focus on conversion” radio button and set your desired CPA.

The benefit here is that Google is able to use all its available data to obtain conversions at the desired CPA. Google can alter position or time of day, try more broad search queries or different geographies. You relinquish a lot of control, but you can see phenomenal results.

As you can see just choosing your bid type is quite a decision. However, you should also consider the other factors that Google considers along with your actual bid. These factors are rolled up into the mysterious Quality Score (QS).

Enter Quality Score

Perhaps the least understood metric in the otherwise robust reporting of AdWords is Quality Score. It affects where your ad will appear and more importantly, how much you will pay for a click! There are many factors that influence QS. Google lists the following:

• Historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword/ad pair on Google
• Overall account history
• Historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
• Quality of your landing page
• Relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• Relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account’s performance in the geographic area where the ad will be shown
• Other relevance factors

As you can see, QS is very complex and constantly changing as Google adds and subtracts “other relevance factors.” Google has also had issues with incorrectly reported QS, though they assured advertisers that it was only an error in reporting, not in actual calculations.

Golden Era Over?

Though simplicity is long gone from the realm of Google AdWords bidding, PPC is still a smart investment of marketing dollars and provides performance metrics that are second to none.

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Robert Brady is the owner and head PPC wizard at Righteous Marketing, a Google AdWords Certified Partner for PPC management. He has worked for 6+ years in PPC with a variety of companies ranging from a small grass-fed beef grower in Idaho to a large B2B data storage provider.

The holidays are officially over. Whew. For eCommerce businesses this typically means a return to normalcy and a sharp drop in online sales. As such, this is actually a perfect time to reflect on the last few months of holiday-driven PPC activities and start planning for Holiday 2011.

Wait, start planning for December NOW? In January!? Absolutely! Everything you struggled with, wished you’d planned more effectively, questions you wished you’d asked, things you wished you hadn’t done – these are all fresh in your mind now. So instead of washing your hands of Holiday 2010, take a few minutes to debrief and think about how your experiences will impact the coming year’s PPC activities.

In case you are still in an eggnog induced state of lethargy, here are a few ideas based on my experiences that anyone can use to help ensure PPC efforts during 2011 lead up to the strongest holiday season yet.

1. Focus on Generating Reviews in 2011 – If you sell a product or service online, then your PPC ads may be eligible for Google’s Seller Rating Extensions.

Example of Ad with Rating

This ad extension can appear in ads for retailers that have at least 30 aggregated reviews recognized by Google, which aggregates reviews from a number of online sources. Ensure your business name and URL are consistent across all of these sites – this is how Google matches your AdWords ads to these reviews. Having a Seller Rating Extension can set you apart from other advertisers and generate a lift in click through rates due to the trust that the star rating conveys. Come holiday time this can be a key differentiator, but if you are a small retailer it may take some time to build up enough reviews to qualify. In your post-transaction correspondence, start encouraging your customers to go online and post reviews.

2. Analyze Promotion Performance, Start Testing – It may sound obvious but promotions are a key element in PPC year round, not just at holiday time. Unless you don’t have any competitors online, shoppers are almost always going to do some pricing comparisons and they often factor in shipping costs. By doing some number crunching and testing now you can understand how a free shipping offer, for example, can help or hurt your business. Know what promotions you can offer without killing your profit margins but that will still be attractive to potential customers.

3. Budget Now, Plan for Growth – Many businesses are setting budgets for Q4 now. Understand how much you spent and how much you could have spent in 2010, factor in growth and earmark that total for your 2011 budget. Growth projections will be industry and business dependent, but a 10% lift year over year could be a conservative baseline.

4. Get Comfortable with Google’s Automated Rules – Though still in limited release, Google’s new Automated Rules feature can take some of the stress out of PPC management year round, not just at the holidays. There are many ways that advertisers can leverage Automated Rules, but the biggie for me right now is scheduling ads. Many advertisers have promotions that start and expire promptly at midnight. Use this tool to automate the pausing of expiring ads and the activation of new ads so that you don’t have to be babysitting your campaigns at all hours of the night. Take the time now to test this tool and get comfortable with it so come holiday time, you can schedule your ads and take off for that island in the Caribbean.

5. Planning Site Updates? Not After October 31^st. – This is less PPC specific, but a word of advice from someone who has seen things go terribly, terribly wrong at the absolute worst time possible – do not plan any site updates during the holiday season. Get all of your testing and optimization done before October 31^st, make sure your landing pages work, your product pages and shopping cart are in top form and that your site can handle the influx of traffic that can come at the holidays. Set this expectation now with your IT and Marketing teams and save yourself a lot of heartache in 2011.

I know it is tempting to come back after a whirlwind of PPC activity in December and rest on our laurels in January, but trust me: a little bit of reflection and planning now will pay back tenfold later in the year. Happy 2011!

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Leisa Hall is an Account Director at Anvil Media, Inc. – a full service search engine marketing agency in sunny Portland, Oregon. Leisa directs Search Engine Marketing strategy for B2C clients ranging in size from start-up to Fortune 500.

Google has rolled out a lot of new stuff lately and two pay-per click platforms (adCenter and Facebook) control significantly more advertising inventory than they did when we rang in the new year in 2010. The pace of innovation and the way that the pay-per click space is evolving means it’s imperative that advertisers evolve their approach for 2011 as well. We’ll walk through five ways you should consider altering your approach in 2011:

1. Be Less Google-Centric
2. Leverage New Features (But Not ALL the New Features)
3. Think Local
4. Add Context to Your Data
5. Don’t Forget to Be a Marketer

1.    Be Less Google-Centric

The adCenter platform now has a significant amount of search traffic running through it (particularly in some verticals) and limited competition. Not only that, but the management costs of getting access to the same ~25% you used to have to wrestle with YSM and adCenter to tap into is significantly lower. The new year is a great time to start to think more seriously about leveraging adCenter more in your paid search campaigns.

And what about Facebook? The site gets more traffic than Google and offers a unique set of controls for advertisers that you can’t get on many of the sites available via Google’s content network. If you’re running content network campaigns through AdWords because your campaigns are already there, you may be leaving a lot of prospective traffic, leads and sales on the table by not leveraging Facebook PPC.

2.    Leverage New Features (But Not ALL the New Features)

AdWords in particular has been pushing out a ton of interesting new features, and as the Facebook PPC platform matures and adCenter becomes a more formidable #2 player in the paid search space you can expect a lot of new options from those platforms as well. It’s important to stay up to date with new innovations so that you can make the most of valuable features, so blogs like:

• The Official AdWords Blog
• The Google Ad Innovations Page
• The Official adCenter Blog
• The Inside Facebook Blog
• The All Facebook Blog

Can be great tools for generating more and better qualified traffic, but it’s equally important to sort the signal from the noise. While things like AdWords Campaign Experiments can be help you to get the most out of your campaigns, seemingly helpful options like the AdWords opportunities tab may be more of an opportunity for Google than for you. Understand the new tools available, but be sure to focus on the specific tools that can help you to move the needle in your campaigns and ignore the lower impact features and those that are more advantageous for the platform than your account.

3.    Think Local

Google has been focusing pretty intensely on local search and local advertising – you probably should too. Even if your business doesn’t seem local, there are likely opportunities in certain markets and you should understand the geo-targeting opportunities available to you and the impact that Google’s focus on local will have on your paid search accounts.

4.    Add Context to Your Data

Being data-driven certainly shouldn’t  be a new focus in 2011, but better understanding the context of your data should be. As online advertising evolves being able to understand data not only in relation to multiple channels, but also being able to understand PPC peer calculations will be crucial: having a solid grasp on how your keywords, dimensions, and ads are performing in relation to different time periods and the rest of your account is the only way to make genuinely informed decisions within your PPC campaigns.

5.    Don’t Forget to Be a Marketer

While understanding data is certainly important, with the increasing number of metrics available to PPC advertisers, it’s important to remember to be a marketer in the midst of all of the analysis. Successful pay-per click is still about great creative, effective headline writing, and persuasive messaging as much as it’s about strong analytical skills and effective data analysis. Understand the intersection of data and creative, as well, and focus on when to test and what to test in your ad copy, landing pages, and even account structure.

Being data-driven in 2011 will be great for your ROI, but understanding when to be driven by traditional marketing techniques and creative messaging will be even better for your bottom line.

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David Greenbaum is the CEO of BoostCTR. BoostCTR is an ad text service that guarantees improved ad performance. The platform is like Mechanical Turk for expert pay-per click copywriting: Boost makes its marketplace of high-quality copywriters available to advertisers risk-free by guaranteeing improved performance. You can learn more about how Boost CTR works here.