| What click fraud looks like in 2006 “If you’d told me two years ago that I’d be talking about click fraud daily,” says a security analyst from one of the major search engines, “I’d have laughed at you, now it’s the major focus of my job.” It’s not that click fraud didn’t exist two years ago. In one form or another, click fraud has been a part of the PPC advertising scene since the earliest days of the Internet. The sheer scope of the problem has exploded in the past few years thanks in large part to the success of Google’s AdSense program. http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/articles/84/1/Click-fraud-in-2006 http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
| Pay Per Click in 2006 :: The Latest News and Tactics Discussed at SES New York There are some really great sources of information on planning and executing a successful paid marketing campaign, from researching your audience and the keywords they use to managing your bid portfolio. Using the sessions from SES NY as a guideline, I'm going to introduce you to what the "experts" are doing in PPC. There is probably no one who doubts that PPC is here for the long term. And while many dismissed PPC in the early days, it is clear, based on earnings reported by the search engines, that PPC is here to stay. Therefore, online marketers need to understand what it is, how to use it and what your competitors are doing. It is also important to know what some of the most effective tactics are out there. The first thing to know is that PPC marketing is evolving just like organic placement. There are new players entering the market with unique ways to help you improve your PPC results. http://www.addme.com/issue375.htm http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
| Online retailing 'to grow 40%' Internet shopping is to undergo huge growth in the next year as more consumers are getting access to broadband connections, according to latest research. Sales over the net will reach £42 billion in 2007, up from £30 billion this year, according to the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and online consumption is predicted to break the £7 billion barrier over the upcoming festive period. This trend supports the findings from the latest research by the Office for National Statistics which said that the fastest growing part of the retail sector was in that of non-physical stores in the last three months. Its growth of 3.3 per cent is its strongest since July 2004 and is believed to be due to increased growth by specialist internet retailers. James Roper, chief executive at IMRG, said: "The take up of broadband is one of the main factors leading this. Shopping online without broadband can be a bit of a pain, but more and more people are getting quicker connections and finding it easier to do." He added that the growth of online retailing will continue into the long-term: "There has also been impetus from the extra investment made on the supply side. Big retailers, such as John Lewis, Comet and Tesco, are seeing the benefit, but it really is only just starting." http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Online retailing up 40% this Christmas Internet shopping is expected to boom this festive period as the Royal Mail predicts it will deliver 100 million items throughout the UK, some 30 million more than in the same period last year. Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) estimates that Brits will spend £7 billion in the ten weeks leading up to Christmas, averaged some £4 million every hour. Research by the mail group suggests that retailers should target their products not at the iPod generation but at baby boomers as 45-54-year olds are the biggest online shoppers, having spent £724 on average in the first eight months of the year. Catherine Campbell, head of multi-channel retail at Royal Mail, said: "The traditional catalogue has also seen an evolution with the emergence of the internet retailers are increasingly using catalogues and brochures to encourage people to buy from them online." Meanwhile, James Roper, chief executive of IMRG, said that over half of Brits will buy some goods online and "some will only shop on the internet for their Christmas presents". He added: "People are shopping more online because they want the convenience, choice and competitive prices that it gives them and many just do not have the time to go to the high street to find the ideal present." The survey also found that the most popular presents to be bought online were music products and downloadable tracks. |
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Navigating Your Upgraded Account
“What? You want a road map?”
It’s something you hear in old, gritty film noir movies when one of the protagonists asks too many questions. But the question is a fair one—sometimes you do need a road map, even when you don’t really want to ask for directions.
Those of you who have upgraded to the new search advertising platform have seen a lot of changes in your new account interface. While we have tried to make it as intuitive as we can, we realize changes are changes and you might want a little help getting around. We created the Upgrade Center at to help get you familiarized with all the new features and how they work.
On the home page of the Upgrade Center you will see a section entitled “Navigating Your New Account.” Here you’ll find the Flash Tutorial, a multimedia presentation that takes you through the new account interface, shows you where everything is, and how to use the different features. It takes less than eight minutes. In it, you’ll discover how your new account is structured (Campaigns, Ad groups, Keyword and Ads). It also covers your new interface and its basic tabs. These are:
Dashboard
Where you will find a summary of your account’s performance at a glance.
Campaigns
Here you will find detailed information on all of your campaigns and their performance, including your spending, click through rates, average CPC, total cost of each campaign, as well as the tools you need to manage them effectively.
Reports
This tab provides a summary of your campaign performance through a variety of analytic and financial reports. You can review reports at the campaign, ad group or keyword level.
Administration
View or edit your account information, analytics settings and tracking URL settings, your daily spending limit and so forth.
If you haven’t viewed the tutorial, we recommend you take a look at it now. In addition be sure and check out the PDF, which will show you the difference between the old search advertising platform and the new one, with all of its new features and benefits. If you need help, feel free to consult our “Have a Question?” page.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Yahoo Search Marketing Bid Management Changes
Yahoo Search Marketing just sent out the following email which alerts its advertisers to the changes in bid management from the current ‘auction PPC’ format to the new Yahoo Search Marketing ‘Estimated Average Position’ and Bid Range for Top Positions.’
| Google’s Secret Display Advertising Network Google has created a ’secret’ Google Display Advertising Network to attract Fortune 1000 companies into the Google advertising realm. Google’s Display Advertising Network is exclusive and invitation only, and based upon high CPM (cost per thousand impressions) rates and not cost per click, like Google AdWords or the current AdSense network. John Chow describes the Google Display Advertising Network: While Google won’t tell normal AdSense publishers what the revenue split on their account is, they are much more open with the display network. As a matter fact, every display network members negotiates a flat CPM rate with Google. The contracts are one year long and publishers have to guarantee Google that they will provide a minimum amount of ad inventory each month. Publishers can serve more than the minimum amount and still receive the same CPM rate for the overage. Reporting by the display network is currently via weekly emails from Google. The information is extremely limited. The only information shown is your weekly ad impressions and page views. Take that ad impression figure, multiply it by your CPM rate and you’ll have how much you made. |
| Ad Preview column for Ad Performance reports With so many ad variations available in AdWords today, it's easy to lose track of which ads or types of ads you're running in your campaigns. To help keep things straight, the Report Center team recently introduced a cool new feature called the Ad Preview column. The Ad Preview column is viewable in the HTML version of Ad Performance reports and shows your text, image, video, mobile, or local business ad alongside the ad’s performance statistics. To include the Ad Preview column in your Ad Performance report, simply check the ‘Ad Preview’ box under the Attributes section in Advanced Settings: Add or Remove Columns on the Create Report page. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Will using Website Optimizer improve my landing page quality? Using Website Optimizer to experiment with your landing page does not have any impact on your Quality Score or your landing page quality. Website Optimizer evaluates your conversion rates to tell you which marketing messages are converting most often on your landing page, whereas the Quality Score doesn't incorporate any conversion information. Please remember that once you've made a change to your landing page based on tests run with Website Optimizer, the Quality Score may change as with any other changes to your landing page. We hope this helps to clear up some of your questions about this recent change. If you have additional questions, please let us know and we'll answer as many as possible the next time we write about landing page quality. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Can a page that has a high CTR or conversion rate be considered a poor quality landing page? In short, yes. Though the Quality Score incorporates the CTR of your keyword, when our system is specifically evaluating your landing page quality, it does not consider the CTR of your keywords or any conversion tracking or Google Analytics data in the account. Instead, it's focused on the actual content and relevance of your landing page to a user who clicks on your ad and ends up on your site. It is well worth noting that not all ads with a high CTR provide a good experience for users. For example, an ad may promote a new home for sale in San Francisco for the query 'San Francisco homes', but after clicking on the ad, the user is taken to a page that shows houses in Seattle. This is not a particularly good experience for the user -- but the ad itself could still be highly relevant to the keyword, and thus is likely to have a high CTR. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Answering your landing page quality questions (part 1) On November 6, we let you know that we would soon be making changes to the way that AdWords evaluates landing page quality. These changes are now live and we'd like to follow up with a two part series to answer some of the questions that we have received. Why did you make this change right before the holiday season? As more and more holiday shoppers turn online to find gifts, we want to do everything we can to serve the most relevant and highest quality ads to our users. By making improvements to landing page quality, we're not only able to help users (who are your potential customers) find what they want, but also help you maximize your leads because your ads will no longer have to compete with ads that are providing a poor user experience. To give a bit more background, we had an internal debate about when to release these changes. We ultimately decided that since our focus is providing the most relevant advertising, it was best to launch these long-planned improvements as soon as we were ready to go, technically speaking. |
| Ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally known as "Black Friday" – the busiest shopping day of the year, and what many retailers consider the official start of the holiday season. While you're busy marking down your products in preparation for the in-store sales, don't forget to think about your online customers, too—especially since "Cyber Monday" is just a few days after Black Friday. Now would be a good time to take a look at your AdWords campaigns, and perhaps even create new Ad Groups that have keywords and ad text related to your promotional items. Be sure to use a Destination URL that takes shoppers directly to the most appropriate product page so that they can easily find your discounted products. These small adjustments to your AdWords campaigns can make quite a difference in helping you attract even more online bargain hunters to your site. Oh, and did we mention that there are only 38 more days until Christmas? |
| New Features in Ads Diagnostic Tool We know that one of the most common problems you face when managing your AdWords account is trying to figure out why your ad isn't showing for a particular keyword. If that sounds familiar, you'll be glad to hear that we've released a new feature that provides one-click troubleshooting for this problem. Here's an update on the feature from Peter H. on the Ads Diagnostic Tool team: We're making the Ads Diagnostic Tool more accessible by incorporating it into the Ad Group details page. You can access this new feature via the new magnifying glass icon next to each keyword. If you are concerned that an ad is under-performing because of a particular keyword, you can point your cursor at the magnifying glass to get an instant diagnosis for that keyword. If the Ads Diagnostic Tool finds an issue that may be related to that keyword, you can receive troubleshooting suggestions by clicking the "What can I do now" link that appears inside the help bubble. If there are no issues with your keyword, the bubble will tell you that your ad is running normally on Google.com. We've also added some very useful features to the full Ads Diagnostic Tool on the Tools page. Now you can request diagnostics for ads running in a specific geographic location. Another new feature in the Ads Diagnostic Tool is a direct link to the ad preview page for specific keywords. By clicking on "Preview search results" link for each keyword, you can now view what your ad looks like and where it's showing up on the search results page without creating an impression. We hope that these improvements will make it easier for you to diagnose and resolve keyword performance issues! http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
a day to give thanks and rejoice with family and friends. Those of us on the Inside AdWords crew would like to offer our thanks to you, for your continued interest, readership, support, and feedback. And before we take the next few days off for our Thanksgiving holiday, we'd like to share with you our latest holiday doodle -- a little something that's become somewhat of a tradition on the blog. :-) |
Introducing Google Analytics.Sophisticated. Easy. Free. Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You'll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.
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Integrated with Adwords.
Google Analytics has the enterprise level capabilities you'd expect from a high end web analytics offering and also provides timesaving integration with AdWords. Of course, Google Analytics tracks all of your non-AdWords initiatives as well.
Free.
Google Analytics is one way we invest in our advertisers and everyone else who wants to create quality content on the web. With Google Analytics, you can get started today creating targeted, ROI-driven marketing campaigns and improving your site design and content.http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html
http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
IN 2007 In 2007, US marketers will spend more than $10 billion on search engine marketing. If you are seeking a specialist agency to help you manage either paid search advertising (PPC) and/or search engine optimization (SEO) http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Table of Contents: Search Benchmark Guide 2007: Executive Summary: Top 7 Search Marketing Insights for 2007The Search Marketing Glossary Chapter 1: The Business of Search – Budgeting, Issues & Outsourcing Search Chart: 2006 Search Spending Chart: Projected Search Spending in 2010 Chart: Spending on Search by Tactic Chart: SEO Spending as % of Paid Search Chart: Marketers Look at 2007 Search Spending Chart: Where is Search Spending Growth Focused? Chart: Online Share of Marketing Budget – Averages Chart: Online Share of Marketing Budget for B-to-C Companies Chart: Online Share of Marketing Budget for B-to-B Companies Chart: Business to Consumer Companies – Search Share of Online Budget Chart: Business to Business Companies – Search Share of Online Budget Chart: Many Hats – the Roles of Search Marketers Table: Why Search Marketers are Mobile (Salaries and Demand) Chart: Impact of the SEM Labor Shortage Chart: Challenges in Search Marketing Chart: How Marketing Investment is Changing |
| Top 10 questions you can answer with the Search Marketing Benchmark Guide: #1. How many keywords should I be advertising under? Plus, what are my peers and competitors spending on SEO versus PPC ads? #2. Should I buy PPC ads for keyterms that I already have high organic rankings for? #3. What critical data do I need to raise ecommerce sales via search? #4. How does cost per click vary between search engines? #5. Should I worry about search engine arbitrage with my affiliates? Should I block affiliates and resellers from advertising under certain keywords? #6. How does B-to-B search marketing and budgeting differ from mass consumer marketing? #7. Do search users eyeballs look at organic or paid results mostly? Do results near the bottom of the page or on the right column get seen at all? #8. How can I measure my search campaigns more effectively? #9. What's the trend for delayed conversions? How about consumer cookie-wiping? #10. What should my conversion rates be for PPC versus SEO listings? |
| 5 ways MarketingSherpa's Search Benchmark Guide makes your job easier: The 2007 edition is 262-pages long, and packed with charts, tables, heatmaps, and analysis you can put to use right away to: #1. Budget more accurately for the coming year. #2. Defend your search marketing plans to the boss (or to clients if you're an agency.) #3. Compare your results to the norm, including clicks, conversions, and costs. (Also includes practical tips on measurement.) #4. Determine which SEM tests you should try to improve results for your current campaigns -- and which may not be worth the work or investment. #5. Train new staff more easily on what's proven to work in SEM. |
Monday, November 27, 2006
| What is PPC Maximization? Paid search is unique to online advertising. Because of its inherent functionality, paid search shares many benefits and in some cases expands the benefits of targeted direct mal marketing. Paid search is effectively measurable (in real-time), conducive to controlled testing, increasingly targeted, and dependent on creative/ad text persuasiveness. Due to these benefits, paid search is an extremely effective direct response strategy. Although many paid search engines advertise otherwise, industry research challenges the value of paid search as a branding strategy. PPC maximization; therefore, is the systematic process of generating a greater return from your paid search investment. How it is achieved is through leveraging the advantages of paid search to their maximum capacity. PPC maximization aims to achieve two, overall objectives: (1) to reduce spending costs while (2) generating more actions (however you define your desired action.) It’s a concentrated effort for achieving more from less. Proven strategies for maximizing paid search include: |
| Reduce Click Fraud Exposure Although industry statistics fluctuate on the percentage of spending impact caused by click fraud, we can be certain that is exists and should be monitored. Although specific strategies for monitoring click fraud are constantly evolving, there is effective and affordable click fraud technology currently available to help. The most effective tools track not only unusual IP traffic patterns but also monitor log files to catch what JavaScript misses. Monitoring click fraud is a situation (in my opinion) where doing something even at a minimum is better than doing nothing at all. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Pay Per Click Analyst Pay Per Click Analyst reviews the top Pay Per Click Search Engines offering up to date There are many pay per click search engines to choose from - It is our goal at PPCA to bring you the facts by an in-depth look into the pros and cons of each service. Together we can increase the return on your advertising investment. US Reviews: MIVA - Highly Recommended!!! Google AdWords - Highly Recommended!!! Yahoo Search Marketing - Highly Recommended!!! LookSmart.com - Recommended Kanoodle.com - Recommended Enhance.com - Recommended Lycos Insite Adbuyer - Recommended ePilot.com - Recommended goClick.com - Recommended Search123 - Recommended Searchfeed.com - Recommended 7Search.com - Neutral UK Reviews: MIVA UK - Recommended Mirago.com - Recommended Turbo10.com - Neutral Splut.com - Not Recommended Bid Management Reviews: Atlas OnePoint - Highly Recommended!!! BidRank - Highly Recommended!!! Web Analytics Reviews: Clicktracks - Recommended |
| Pay-Per-Click Not-So-Easy A November survey by “shopper-centric, e-commerce consultants” the e-tailing Group and eMarketer has outlined the approach retailers use when managing their own search marketing campaigns, contrary to the automate-it-with-technology solution that we preach here at WebVisible. The burdens of self procurement are many, according to the survey. 99% of those that manage PPC campaigns in-house have three or fewer people working on the job. One third of businesses spend 21 or more hours a week managing PPC campaigns and another third spend five or less hours a week. 40% of the respondents reported that they manage more than 5,000 keywords. To accomplish the task, 59% manage internally, 18% outsource and 24% use a combination of internal and outsourced solutions. “It is clear that merchants see value in this marketing method,” Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group, told Internet Retailer. “However, resource constraints plus limited time availability and skilled personnel to dedicate to PPC were frustrations.” Some businesses appear to spend enough hours managing pay-per-click campaigns as to dedicate a full-time staff person (or persons) to the task. Astonishing, considering the conveniences that technology can provide. |
| Running a Profitable PPC Campaign Your main consideration in running a successful PPC campaign is your return on investment (ROI). The ROI is calculated by working out how much you are making on the click-throughs (and purchases) from your PPC visitors minus the amount you are spending on advertising. If your ROI is low or worse still, negative, you have to tweak your ads to increase traffic or opt for less expensive keywords. If you have chosen particularly competitive keywords and paid a premium for those words, you may have to consider keywords that are less competitive. Your position in the search engine listings is determined by the bid price you have paid. Obviously, the more you are willing to pay “per click” the higher up in the search engine rankings you’ll be. The trade-off is that you need to have a high ROI to make the cost of your keyword bids worth it. Most PPC search engines automate the bidding process so you only pay the maximum amount required to get you to the top of the search engine listings. However, it is imperative that you follow your own PPC campaigns to ensure you aren’t being out-bid or that the PPC search engine has declined your ad. (This can happen if your original maximum bid price becomes uncompetitive). Once you have mastered the basics of running a PPC campaign and have discovered the various tools and software available to help you run a profitable campaign, you will be in a position to fine tune your campaigns. Although PPC marketing is an effective and instantaneous way of generating targeted traffic to your site, it doesn’t work for everyone. Factors like the competition in your market, the cost per bid, the number of actual click-throughs you are getting and your return on investment (ROI) must all be factored into your results. But when you consider that the only alternative is to wait for your site to be organcially listed and ranked by the major search engines, which could take anywhere from one day to three months or more, running a PPC campaign is certainly a more viable option. Good luck! |
| How to Set Up A PPC Campaign Your most important considerations in putting together a PPC campaign are how much you intend spending and what keywords you plan on targeting. Obviously, the larger PPC search engines like Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN have the widest coverage, so the cost for bidding on their keywords is going to be more expensive than if you try the smaller, niche PPC search engines. Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) provides a free search tool that not only provides you with a wide range of keywords, but also a tool which indicates the current bidding price for those keywords. However, you'll find a better free tool here: http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/. This tool will help you determine how many and which keywords you should plan on using in your campaign. [EDITOR'S NOTE: This free tool gives you a good ROUGH guide. It does not give you sophisticated, accurate research. For example, it combines singular and plural and also combines word order. It shows the same number of searches for "cheap books" and "books cheap", which is nonsense. You need to know which phrases people are REALLY using. For in-depth reviews of keyword research tools, see KeywordWorkshop.com.] If you are new to the industry, it’s advisable to take it slowly to begin with. Set yourself a small budget and choose keywords that are well searched for and as cheap as possible. The first step is to choose the PPC search engine you are going to use. You can choose from the “Big 3” - Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or MSN, or one of the smaller PPC search engines. When choosing your keywords, choose wisely (the more focused and targeted the better) and keep bids within your budget. Just because a keyword has the most searches does not necessarily mean it will be the most profitable. For example: the keyword “batteries” might have a large number of searches, but it is too general. How do you know if the visitor wants the batteries your site is going to sell? More targeted keywords and phrases, even with fewer searches can be profitable. Example: the keyword “buy rechargeable AA batteries” is much more focused and more likely to result in a sale. Tip: Do not target only keywords with the highest number of searches, especially if you are just starting out. These will be the most sought after keywords and phrases for PPC and they will cost you more to bid on them. Don't be afraid to use keywords from the middle, and even lower end on the list. Fewer click-throughs that convert to sales are much better than paying for a lot of click-throughs and fewer sales. Remember, you want quality targeted traffic. The next step is to design and implement your ad. This will depend on the PPC search engine you have chosen. Incorporate your keyword or key phrase into the Title and if possible, either the main keyword or a secondary keyphrase into the description. Create a number of versions of your ad so you can split-test them to see which one works most effectively. PPC Marketing requires a good deal of tweaking – especially when you are starting out – so tweak, test and monitor until you find the right word combinations that not only draw you visitors but make the sale. |
| What is Pay Per Click Search Marketing? A simple definition of Pay Per Click (PPC) is the placement of an ad on a search engine results page or web page that appears for specified keywords or key phrases. The advertiser pays a pre-determined price (or bid amount) whenever a visitor who lands on that page clicks on the ad you have placed there. That’s why they are termed “pay per click” because you only pay when the visitor clicks on your ad. A PPC ad usually consists of a heading, a short summary and the URL which is the landing page you have selected. Some PPC search engines strictly control and monitor the title and description you can use in your ad while others are more open to the type of ad you can place. In some cases, once you have devised your PPC ad, decided on the amount you are willing to bid and lodged your application with the PPC search engine, your ad will appear within minutes, other PPC search engines may take a couple of days for your ad to appear. So unlike organic SEO, PPC marketing can generally give you immediate results. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| A basic introduction to using PPC search engines for marketing The basic goal of any webmaster is to have his or her website found by as many searchers as possible. Any venture into online marketing involves two major tactics – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and PPC (pay per click advertising). SEO is the art of getting your website noticed and ranked by the major search engines so it can be found by organic (natural) search enquiries. This is discussed in more detail in other sections of this website. PPC is the favored method used by many Web marketers because it usually guarantees immediate results. The aim of Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine marketing is to drive targeted traffic to your website and that’s exactly what it does if used correctly. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| MSN Shows Off New PPC Ad Platform Following several days of media hype predicting MSN's imminent launch its own pay-per-click ad network, Microsoft today will reveal more modest plans. The company will demonstrate a prototype of a new paid search advertising platform at an event for ad clients in Redmond. At the sixth annual MSN Strategic Account Summit, Microsoft plans to show off to 500 of its top customers the new MSN adCenter, a platform that will eventually be used for ads throughout its network. The first component of adCenter is the paid search piece, which will be piloted within the next six months in Singapore and France to gather customer feedback. Eventually it will be launched worldwide. "We're rolling out the pilots to demonstrate and learn what value software can add to the search platform," said Eric Hadley, senior director of advertising and marketing for MSN. "Right now, everybody thinks search is just about clicks, but it's about more than that. It's about connection with the customer." The platform promises in-depth analytics and audience intelligence, including geographic location, gender, age group, lifestyle segment and time of day. Advertisers will be able to access this information before placing their ad, so they will know what to expect before launching their campaign. "This will really help drive ROI and the effective results of a search campaign beyond just knowing if somebody clicked on it, but to know if someone is likely to click on it. We think that's a huge step forward in this category," Hadley said. While the full-scale deployment of the platform is not likely to happen before the end of the year, MSN is getting some early praise for providing advertisers with more control over their campaigns. "Microsoft has laid out a roadmap for a product that looks to be a leap forward," said Fredrick Marckini, CEO of iProspect. "By raising the bar, we're likely to see Google and Yahoo raising the bar to keep up." Providing advertisers with more variables for targeting will potentially make campaigns more efficient, Marckini said. For MSN, an unintended side effect of increasing efficiency may be to reduce revenue -- with fewer wasted clicks, advertisers pay less for the same number of qualified clicks. "Having inefficiency in search is a moneymaker," Marckini explained. "But improving efficiency by doing what's technologically possible, despite it being slightly less profitable in the very short term, is real long-term thinking because great results will ultimately attract more advertiser dollars." "Advertisers are looking for control, and one thing is clear, Microsoft is looking to provide advertisers with more control," added Kevin Lee, executive chairman of Did-it.com. MSN's agreement with Yahoo to provide ads alongside its search results is set to expire in June 2006. MSN renewed the deal in November, extending the three-year-old agreement, which previously ran through June 2005. A key element of the new deal allows Microsoft to begin selling and displaying its own ads on search results pages, a move that allows it to begin ramping up its ad sales program while still maintaining service levels and garnering revenue from Yahoo-supplied ads on its site. Microsoft already offers a fixed-price featured ad unit that appears above the search results. http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Setting Up Overture PPC Account Overture pay per click advertising is one way for making search results page for a specific keyword or phrase which is used by your customers or clients to buy your products online or offline.For top listing on major search engine including yahoo, lycos, altavita and MSN.As far as PPC is concerned you are not going to pay for placing ads, you will pay only for the clicks by your audience and there visits to your website.You can find two different signup optionsOne is self serve option and other is Fast Track option.Self serve option; in this you can do keyword research. Keyword research can also be done through http://inventory.overture.com, then setting up your bids for the specific ads related to keywords researched by using the tool. Keyword titles should be related to your business and should be targeted towards the audienceFast Track option, in this to have help in setting up your account you will get a support by call and assistance like keyword selection, Writing good titles and descriptions, Budget management, Account optimization and Setting up tracking URLs.You have to fix the bid to at least $25 per month .Over all keyword prices are $0.10 per click depends on which keyword you choose.My suggestion is to pick a low cost bid with high rankings popular keywords, you can make this by using keyword phraces.Do not buy a high bid keyword and no need to keep your keyword title in top, it can also be on something like in second till fifth place. If your title and description is good, your audience will automatically click your add and come for business. Like wise you can minimize the budget for your bid and invest on more keywords. |
Thursday, November 23, 2006
| Who Powers Whom? Search Providers Chart Some search engines get their results by turning to third-party "search providers" to "power" their listings. To make matters more confusing, these search providers may run their own search engine sites, as well. The chart below explains who the major providers are. Knowing who powers whom is helpful for those who are wondering which companies are "winning" in the competitive market of powering search. Information is for users visiting the US/global version of the search engines listed, unless otherwise noted. http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156401 http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings
Share Of Searches: July 2006
The chart below shows the percentage of online searches done by US home and work web surfers in July 2006 that were performed at a particular search engine. Internal site searches, such as those to find material within a particular web site, are not counted in these totals. The activity at more than 60 search sites makes up the total search volume upon which percentages are based -- 5.6 billion searches in this month.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156451
http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/
| Paid Search Marketing (PPC) - Best Practice Guide Paid Search Marketing (aka PPC / pay-per-click) networks such as Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing are becoming increasingly complex to optimise, and it isn’t getting any easier. Many billions are spent around the world by advertisers seeking to maximise search engine visibility, but when your competitors have deeper pockets than you how can you possibly compete? And where do you start? You start here, that’s where. Our Paid Search Marketing (PPC) Best Practice Guide will help beginners and experts implement and execute PPC strategies to maximise return on investment. http://www.e-consultancy.com/publications/paid-search-marketing-ppc-best-practice-guide/ http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
Hitwise Search Engine Ratings
Hitwise uses a combination of anonymous web surfing data provided by ISPs in various countries and its own panel-based measurements to determine which sites are most popular on the web. The data encompasses the surfing activities of 25 million people, worldwide.
Share Of Searches
The chart below shows the percentage of searches each search engine listed is estimated to have handled of all searches within the United States. Samples are for a four week period corresponding to the months shown at the top of the columns and ending as per the date shown at the bottom. Searches include those done on 57 search engines measured by Hitwise. Dates are m/yy or mm/dd/yy.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3099931
http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/
Google v. Yahoo! Predicting the Intercept
I came across Ben Charny's article that cited Citigroup's (Mark Mahaney) prediction that Google would overtake Yahoo! to be the top Internet property some time in 2007. I decided to pull the chart below on market share of visits to the top twenty properties for both Google and Yahoo! to see what insight our data might provide on a potential intercept.
Currently, when we look at our U.S. sample, visits to the top twenty Yahoo! properties are more than double the top twenty Google properties (I've excluded YouTube from this analysis). Over the last year (November 19, 2005 to November 18, 2006), Yahoo's market share declined 10% while Google gained 18.6%. If we apply those growth rates, and assume no material changes in those rates over the next three years (a big assumption), Google would not surpass Yahoo! in market share of visits until mid-2009.
Finally, by popular request, the table below indicates the percent market share for each domain or sub-domain relative to the top 20 properties for both Google and Yahoo!. As the table indicates below one of Yahoo's advantages is the distribution of its visits over several properties, where Google has over 87% of its top 20 visits in home page and image search visits.
New Sitemaps For Google News
Is your site included in Google News? Is your site in English? If so, you just got new support from Google Sitemaps. You can submit your news articles for inclusion and also monitor crawling stats. More from Google in http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/11/introducing-sitemaps-for-google-news.html
| Google As News Archivist Until recently, it was difficult to find news archives on the web more than 30 days old. That's changed in a big way with the advent of Google's News Archive search.Researchers and info pros know that everything is not available for free on the web, although sometimes it feels that way. One area in which it is evident that information comes with a price tag is news from more than a month or two ago. Sure, you can get the latest news from The New York Times from its web site, but you'll have to pay $4.95 if you want to read anything from more than a few weeks ago. Google News and other news sites don't offer any greater depth; if the news is older than a month, you're out of luck. http://news.google.com/archivesearch, |
| Maximum Website Promotion through Pay Per Click Bid Management Tools for Internet Marketing have been rising to popularity these days because of cost-effectiveness and the possibility of measuring increase in profits and sales.Pay per click (PPC) is a means to advertise business through the use of keywords/phrases in the search engines. The advertiser is required to only pay for each click that sends a visitor to his website. Search engines such as Overture, Google Adwords, Search Yahoo and Miva are just some examples of search engines. They offer top positions among the sponsored listings for particular keywords/phrases you choose. The idea for bidding is you have to buy/bid on keywords/phrases relevant to your business. The highest bidder gets to be on the top of the search result listing and the second highest bidder, of course, gets the next top listing and so on. Every time a visitor clicks on your website, you will have to pay the same amount that you bid on that particular keyword. http://www.content-articles.com/article.aspx?i=45314 http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/ |
| Five Proven Ways to Waste Money With Pay-per-Click Advertising Mistake No. 1: Use your homepage as the landing page - Fix No. 1: Always take clickers to a well-crafted landing page, distinct from the company homepage. Mistake No. 2: Don't bid enough to secure a top spot - Fix No. 2: Choose search terms and manage bids in such a way that you'll consistently appear in one of the top three spots. Mistake No. 3: Don't make your ad copy specific - Fix No. 3: Be specific and unique in your ad copy. If you've got patented or otherwise unique features, a particular market or application expertise, unusually friendly return policies or warranties, or something else that sets you apart, this is the place to mention it. Mistake No. 4: Don't align your landing page with searchers' keywords - Fix No. 4: Make sure your landing pages stay focused on the key words which bring clickers there in the first place (you may have several landing pages, simply to ensure Keyword Flow). You'll increase clicks, increase conversions and as a result, increase ROI. Mistake No. 5: Don't bother with testing - Fix No. 5: Test, test, test. It's easy to do and with a bit of focused attention, you can improve your results dramatically. PPC has a tremendous amount to offer the small and midsize business owner or marketer. Keep these five guidelines in mind as you establish your PPC campaigns, and you'll be turning clicks into profits in no time! |
| Pay Per Click Analyst Pay Per Click Analyst reviews the top Pay Per Click Search Engines offering up to date Pay Per Click News, Fresh Reviews and Helpful Articles by Industry Leaders. There are many pay per click search engines to choose from - It is our goal at PPCA to bring you the facts by an in-depth look into the pros and cons of each service. Together we can increase the return on your advertising investment! If you have a question on pay-per-click or a pay-per-click service, just go ahead and ask the PayPerClick Analyst! Your question will be answered as quickly, accurately, and thoroughly as possible. http://www.payperclickanalyst.com/default.asp |
| Pay Per Click News and Tips We need an Adsense 12 step program or a version of Adsense/Toastmasters to help aspiring entrepreneurs that are trying to make a living with Google Adsense and YPN – There are three camps when it comes to someone trying to carve out a niche website and make some cold cash from Adsense: http://www.ppcfix.com/ |
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing
Add another channel to your online marketing mix - PPC! A subset of Search Engine Marketing, PPC enables you to drive more and better traffic to your website while easily managing budget constraints and determining ROI. It also provides a strong complement to traditional search engine optimization efforts.
Search engine optimization can take a long time to show results. The Google sandbox alone can delay optimization results by 6 to 8 months. So, what can you do to get traffic while you wait? Pay-per-click [“PPC”] campaigns fill the time gap. This article discusses the basics of PPC advertising.
What Is A PPC?
A PPC search engine allows you to bid for placement in search results. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and most others bolster their organic search results with sponsor advertisements. If you search on Google, links in blue across the top and the little ads down the right side of the search results are PPC listings. In one form or another, similar listings appear on every major search engine.
How Does It Work
When you use a PPC, you will bid for placement in the search results under particular keywords. Instead of optimizing your site to appear high in the listings, you simple pay for the position. While this may sound great, keep in mind you are paying for the listing and have to watch the return on investment closely.
To get started, you must open an account with the PPC in question. The two biggest PPCs are Google Adwords and Overture. You will need to register with the PPC, provide a credit card number and, depending on the PPC, deposit money into the account. Next, create ads with a title, body text and link to the landing page of your site. The title of each ad should correspond to a particular keyword you want to promote. If at all possible, include the keyword in the actual title. Finally, you will be asked to bid on placement in the search results.
Bidding for placement is not as simple as it my sound. Ideally, your ad should be in the top 3, but never below the 10th position. This has to be balanced, however, by the return on investment of the campaign. If you sell a product that produces a $10 dollar profit per sale, you probably can’t afford to pay $.90 per click. If your site converts 1 visitor out of every 100 into a sale, you will spend $90 for every sale. Obviously, that is going to work out very well. The one caveat to this situation is a business with reoccurring revenue.
If you site charges clients a reoccurring monthly fee, you can bid in excess of your immediate profit margin. To do this safely, you must determine how long the average customer will stay on your site. For example, if you make a $10 profit per month and the average customer pays for 5 months, the total profit is $50. In this situation, you can spend $20 or $30 to obtain a customer and still turn a profit. To properly manage a PPC campaign for a reoccurring charge site, you must recalculate the profit per customer ever week to protect yourself.
PPC Cons
Why not just use a PPC campaign instead of pursuing search engine optimization? There are a number of reasons. First, you are paying for each click with a PPC, which requires a budget and may impact your cash flow. Second, PPC bidding is competitive and that translates into higher costs, so much so that a profit may be hard to make. Third, many people simply do not click on PPC ads with the figure being as high as 20 percent. Fourth, you run the risk of having people click on your ads with no intention of buying, whether they are just browsing or are trying to exhaust your advertising budget.
PPCs definitely have a place in the online marketing field. Manage your campaigns with an eye for detail and you should fine.
If you don�t know the basics of PPC, you risk throwing your money out the window unnecessarily. Learn what it takes to create a successful campaign and how to measure success!
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