the PPC Book|Pay Per Click Blog | Long Tail Thoughts in a Short Tail World

A wicked good tip from the guys at apollosem on how to break through the generic search query data that Adwords would rather you didn’t see.

This has been covered previously, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this particular alert in one of my accounts….

Well it’s been one wild ride this year. Most all of the campaigns I’m managing are fine tuned for the holidays and we are entering what I generally feel is the home stretch of 2007. By the end of this week activity will slow considerably for many advertisers.

2007 brought a lot of change in our industry. Google Adwords has continued to raise the bar with continued Quality Score enhancements as well as improvements to their platform usability. Many have felt the wrath of the QS, deservedly or not. Others feel Google is doing a poor job of quality control in regards to broad match. Google is asking more from it’s advertisers, and at the same time giving them more tools to leverage and improve their results. Google is leading the way, shaping the market this way and that, exacting their will on the rest of the industry.

On a micro level, what I’m seeing is:

Pay Per Click is still the most phenomenal advertising medium I’ve ever seen. While they used to be a source of information, people need to almost completely disregard what they see in the forums these days. They are overrun with uneducated and ineffective marketers who run out their front door screaming everytime they encounter something unknown. Not one of my campaigns has taken a step backwards this year. 95% are performing at higher levels than they were this time last year. However….

Pay per Click campaigns require more work and knowledge than ever to manage effectively. Adwords has added many new enhancements that will help maximize ROI. Search query reporting, placement performance reporting, quality score indications, adwords editor improvements, etc. At the same time, they are corporation, and it’s their job to make more money than ever before, meaning, Google is getting more aggressive about monetizing traffic. They are tweaking sponsored serps, broad match algo’s, and a million other little things along the way.

Set it and forget it PPC management is long gone. Hasta la bye bye. I now have 10 ads running constantly for every ad group. Ad copy testing is no longer a special event, it’s required everyday. The content network takes enormous time to monitor if you want to reap the benefits. On top of this, Google no longer gives you a free pass if you are a local retailer/serviceperson with a website. If your landing page sucks, so does your campaign. What’s happening as a result? SEM agencies are now having to incorporate web development and design to keep their clients above water. In fact, SEM agencies are having a hard time keeping themselves above water. I’ve been doing this for years, I bring a lot of knowledge to the table, and I still have to work my a*@ off to get my clients results. The talent pool just isn’t deep enough to staff up a large SEM agency.

Weak SEM agencies are getting filtered out, just like weak PPC advertisers. Even strong agencies are facing enormous challenges in growing and sustaining revenues. I remember how stunned I was to see the revenues of one of the ‘leaders‘ of the SEM micro industry in 2006. They saw the writing on the wall in 2007, and have now changed business models.

Decisions need to be made. Will you continue to service clients as a core business, or will you develop your own properties? In 2008 we will see many SEM’s choose the latter. Small shops will be acquired or shuttered, in favor of domain development. Whether it be domaining, seomaining, retail, or affiliate. For some folks growing an agency is not a desired path.

What else do I see in 2008?

That’s it. That’s everything that will happen, or should happen, in 2008. You don’t have to read another blog now. Fast forward to Jan. 1 2009.

Google released an updated version of Adwords Editor this week. I have been on the road for a few days and haven’t had a chance to play around with it. Per their blog, new features include:

* Local business ads: View, add, and update your local business ads on the new Local Business Ads tab.
* Export picker: Select specific campaigns and ad groups to export to CSV.
* Save your searches: Use the ‘Name this search’ feature in Advanced search to save the settings for up to eight searches.
* Draft account: Like a draft campaign, a draft account may be shared with other AdWords Editor users. To post, export the account for archiving, then import it into a non-draft account.
* Default campaign targeting: In the Tools menu > Settings, specify a language and location for your new campaigns to target by default.
* Find errors quickly: If your campaigns contain items with errors or warnings, you’ll see splats at the top of the affected tabs.
* Maximize work space: View more rows in the data view by minimizing the other panels, such as error descriptions or ‘Review Proposed Changes.’

More release details here…

Jeff Behrendt from domainbits.com put together a quality post that gives readers a rundown of the top players in the industry and their philosophy about what it takes to be successful. Jeff also throws in his personal take. All in all, a very useful article, the kind of content that deserves a link.

This post is almost 2 months old, but I promised myself I would comment on it…

Oh lord how I love these articles. Steve Rubel, a popular blogger, claims to see in his crystal ball a ‘pay per click recession’.

For the last several years, search engine marketing has been on a tear. While the big advertisers sat on the sidelines in the beginning, they have lately been ramping up their spend on pay-per-click advertising, primarily on search engines but also affiliate sites like those that run Google Adsense.

However, I am calling a top to this market now. Here are five reasons why a pay-per-click advertising recession looms.

A recession? You must be kidding.

It actually only takes about 2 seconds of research to find Steve’s underlying angle.

Steve works for Edelman, a ginormous PR Firm. One of the biggest in the world.

I bet they would LOVE LOVE LOVE a recession in the pay per click industry.

Here are some of Steve’s insights:

1) Clutter
Have you shopped for a car lately? I have. And I did a lot of Google searches in the process but largely ignored the ads. The reason - clutter. Take a look at this search. Ads are stacked on top of each other. There are 10 ads in my browser. Advertising clutter is a known deterrent to advertising effectiveness. TV advertising suffers from clutter and there’s no reason why search engines are immune. The New York Times touched on this today.

Steve did “A LOT” of searches…and through this scientific method found a LOT of clutter.

Steve, advertisers are better than ever at serving relevant ads, and the quality score is keeping them in check. Google is doing a great job of balancing revenue and relevancy. Just check their revenues if you’re doubting that…

2) Declining Relevance of Traffic/Transition to Cost Per Action
OK, you have heard this from me twice in a week now so I won’t spend a lot of time here. Traffic is becoming irrelevant unless it results in action. There will be some pain as search engine marketing moves to a cost per action model, rather than one based on sometimes irrelevant clicks. This will contribute to a search engine marketing slowdown.

If you can’t find good traffic you are using a poor search marketing analyst. There is more relevant traffic now than ever before, and it will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

3) Rising Costs
According to a five-year Forrester interactive marketing forecast published last week, costs per keyword rose an average 33% each month in Q1 2007 compared with the same period in 2006. As a result, some marketers are buying lots more Long Tail terms. Further, Forrester says that “many still spend with abandon.” The reason is that search outperforms other advertising - but for how long? And again, how do you define perform (see point #2)? The madness will end as soon as the economy tightens.

Steve said it himself, via Forrester: “search outperforms other advertising”. That may never change, ever….unless Google suddenly turns into a library. What, radio is suddenly going to overtake search? Please.

Steve also says, “The madness will end as soon as the economy tightens.”….Um Steve - the economy tightened last year. It’s in a full on recession already. Foreclosures at an all time high, oil near all time highs. Housing market on the verge of insolvency. We’ve seen not a blip in search advertising. Why? Because it is the most cost effective form of advertising and people know it.

4) Marketers Spread the Ball Around
Move over search, you’re not the only game in town. Marketers are increasingly investing in behavioral targeting, webisodes as well as more social channels like blogs and soc nets studies say. These formats are becoming more targeted and effective too.

Steve’s only lucid point in the whole article. Yes, we know how you big agencies love to spend money without measuring effectiveness. It’s less accountable that way. Webisodes convert really well. You should put all your best clients in them.

5) Search Ads Are Viewed as Untrustworthy
If there’s anything that Enron, Bill Bellichick, Marion Jones, Worldcom and Barry Bonds taught us, it’s this - trust is king. Google CEO Eric Schmidt knows this - note his comments this week to AdAge. However, according to a study published by Nielsen last week, search engine advertising suffers from low trust.

Comparing Google to Enron is an interesting delusion.

Again, see my relevancy point up top. People always say - “I never click those ads on the side”.

Sure you don’t….

I don’t either…

A nice try by Steve, some seriously good linkbait. But the argument as a whole is weak, and I’ll make sure and remind him this time next year.

TiaWood.com is asking you all to participate in an upcoming auction where you can win a 2003 Hummer. Benefits proceed Linda Bauman’s health care. She suffered a head injury and the family is trying to raise funds for proper therapy and treatment. You can read more and participate here…

Announced yesterday on the Adwords blog:

Template Center is a free tool available via My Client Center (MCC). It allows MCC account managers to create templates for pre-defined AdWords campaigns and share them with their directly linked AdWords accounts.

I’m not sure yet what the point of this is now that we have the Adwords Editor. I’ll play around with it a bit and see if I can find anything useful. According to Google, the benefits are:

* Run pre-made campaigns.
* Mass-distribute streamlined campaigns for similar clients.
* Create high-quality supplemental campaigns that mimic existing offline advertising.
* Gain more control over partner campaigns.
* Reduce misuse of brand assets and identity and instances of poorly written or conceived

At first glance this would seem to be a tool that serves large advertising consolidators who run high volumes of advertisers at very low spend and sophistication levels. Think, IYP and IYP wannabees.

The Pay Per Click book is close to launching. It’s been a great learning experience. One of the primary questions to ask when producing a book is ‘who is your audience’? My intended audience for this book is professional paid search marketers. The last thing I want to publish is a get rich quick scheme aimed at desperate beginners. That market is handily served already. There will be no promises of ‘instant riches’, 2 hour work weeks, cash from google, ’secrets’, instant profits, guerrilla tactics, or jerks.

What I do want to produce is a solidly written, comprehensive, accurate book that covers the fundamentals of paid search. In short, I want it to be a ‘real’ book. We’re in the final stages now, and I expect to be live sometime in December. If you want to be notified when the book is launched please sign up here…

This is also the last chance to request specific content or subjects you would like covered in the book. Leave a comment or email me with any topics you absolutely want to see. I will be more than happy to oblige.