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

Google has been busy perfecting their automatic billing matching feature the past few months.

While you’re away on Memorial Day travel this weekend, do you mind if we just slip into your account and make some minor adjustments?

We didn’t think you would mind. Have a great weekend!

In all seriousness, this is a fairly controversial feature and should be measured closely.

What to do first:

Turn it off

Opting in and out: Automatic matching is applied at the campaign level. You can opt your campaign in and out of automatic matching on your Campaign Settings page.

Or Leave it on: Do nothing, it’s conveniently already running for you

Should you choose to leave it on, you will want to measure the performance. You can do this via 2 reports:

• Performance statistics: Aggregated performance statistics for automatic matching will appear in each ad group’s Keywords tab, in a line item labeled Automatic Matching Total.
• Search Query Performance report: You can see the search queries that triggered your ads due to automatic matching by running a Search Query Performance report. The queries will be labeled Automatic in the Search Query Match Type column.

Now that I’m thinking of it, this would be a great strategy to try with my clients. While they’re gone this weekend I’ll email them with the great news they’ve been selected for the ‘double management service’ where I increase their billable hours as I see fit (only when it’s relevant, of course). I’ll let you all know on Tuesday how it worked out.

Adwords raises the bar yet again. A newer feature from the folks at Das Google, we can now see our campaign changes mapped against performance metrics. This is quite simply a brilliant feature.

Performance slowed down?

Check the graph.

Need to check your campaign analyst performance?

Check the graph.

Wondering which of the 42 changes you made this month increased your sales?

Check the graph.

It’s a visual cause and effect, basically. Very, very useful. Love it!

Just a reminder that if you missed the 1st episode of PPC Rockstars with Dave Szetela you can download the show at webmasterradio.fm.

The first episode covers dynamic keyword insertion with Matt Van Wagner:

Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Matt Van Wagner of FindMeFaster discusses dynamic keyword insertion , including if DKI can improve marketing score, click through rate and ad relevancy.

All this and more on the premiere episode of PPC Rockstars. The visual presentation can be found here www.clixmarketing.com/blog/ppc-rockstars-stuff/

I know a lot about about paid search. I know nothing about home renovation related activities. Put me in front of a paid search campaign and I’ll slice and dice and segment like the Iron chef. I’ll bring out the beef, cut with conviction and tell you bad jokes while I prepare your meal. I’ll flip knives high in the air while I laugh at your campaign quality score. I’ll break your campaign benchmarks over the vegetable tray and still remember to ask you if you want white rice or stir fried.

Now…Put me in front of a patio door that needs to be installed and I stutter, stumble, and twiddle my thumbs like a 3rd grader waiting for the school bus at a busy intersection. After 12 hours on Saturday, and my family scurrying to the warm shelter of their rooms, with a huge 9 foot hole in our room facing the balcony, I finally understood, I am not, and never will be Bob Villa.

It’s just not my thing. I’m not awful, that would be an insult to someone who is awful with at least a remote understanding of what is going on. Granted, that doesn’t keep me from trying. I hack around and cobble together bits and pieces, but it generally looks awful and causes mild danger for people nearby. When it was over I wasn’t defeated or discouraged. Just at peace with my awfulness.

What else am I terrible with?

Web design. Not quite as bad as patio installation, mind you. I can chop around and tweak and existing template. Who can’t? The thing is, I have the vision of what needs to be done. That’s quite a bit of the battle right there. Point is, I am resigning myself to my strengths. You may have noticed a new design today for theppcbook.com. It’s just a template I found to be a placeholder while I arrange for a professional and unique design all my own. With the impending Pay per Click Book release I need a new look for my little blog home. I’m putting a call out to anyone who is or can recommend a good blog designer. I know the usual suspects, but am looking for something new.

If you have any recommendations they would be greatly appreciated!

Per the Adwords blog, landing page load time is now visible from the keyword detail page:

This is especially useful when a client needs a little encouragement towards optimizing their site performance. A picture is worth a thousand (key)words.

I’m a guy, and a husband, which means among other things, I can’t remember important dates….at all. So today I go to search ‘mothers day’ because, don’t laugh, I couldn’t remember what the exact date was. I know it’s soon, so I get points for that right?

Anyway, I expected a barrage of flower and gift PPC ads at Das Google, but there was hardly a whisper. Maybe 8 ads?

Flower people, what are you doing? Or am I the only guy who can’t remember what day Mother’s Day is?

According to marketingcharts.com consumers will spend $2.0 billion on flowers, and we only have 8 PPC ads for the term ‘mothers day’???

Yes, it’s short tail, but come on people. Are there any paid search people out there running mothers day offers that can enlighten me as to the conversion rate on ‘mothers day’ exact match, google-only, not the search network? It can’t be THAT bad, can it?