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

My observations on this hoopla over Cuil, the most hyped search engine in history.

1. I want the name and phone number of the PR company that got them on the first page of CNN.com yesterday.

2. What is it EXACTLY, other than the thumbnails, that makes this search engine different from Google? Oh, revenue…marketshare…adwords….adsense…other than that too…what is it they’re doing here?

I’m all for competition, it makes my job easier, but please, unless you REALLY have something to offer, don’t blow your horn until you’re ready for prime time.

David Szetela from ClixMarketing and Search Engine Watch interviewed me recently for an episode of PPC Rockstars.

The topic of the day was ‘The Virtues of Starting Small’ and we also covered some useful tools that we use to manage accounts. I had a blast on the call and enjoyed the opportunity to talk shop with one of the great innovators in our industry.

Don’t forget to tune in at 4pm Eastern!

While on the phone with my top notch Google rep I was reviewing a particular account where a company name was a keyword (in an adgroup of maybe 4-5 variations of the company name). 3-4 of the keywords had a quality score of ‘poor’. This is one of those quality score quirks that drives people up a wall.

My rep’s response - paraphrased - If organic serps pull an inordinate percentage of clicks and the sponsored listing is getting a low ctr, it’s perceived to have low quality and can acquire a poor QS over time. Not because it’s an irrelevant keyword, but rather because it’s performing poorly. In this case, this company name has no other bidders, so the organic listing is a universal one with the map, etc., so it makes perfect sense no one is clicking on the ad. Not much we can do in this case.

This is an interesting situation and the explanation raised a lot of questions for me…

This post is so good I almost didn’t want to link to it…it’s well worth your time. You may want to tattoo this tutorial on your arm, kind of like PrisonBreak

http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/how-to-use-the-google-content-network-to-invest-in-domains/

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with another PPC guru last week. I asked why he didn’t author a blog and his general feeling is that he doesn’t want to create more competition for himself by giving away secrets.

I tend to agree, but then again, I have learned quite a bit from others online so it’s only right to keep it going both ways, right?

Things are heating up this summer, even in hockeyland USA. Temperatures reach the high 80’s and everyone in a house older than 30 years struggles with the same problem. Temperature variations on multiple floors. When the central air is running our basement could freeze buffalo, the main floor is comfortable, and upstairs we wonder when the winter will come back. Someone mentioned ductless air conditioning to us the other day so I did some research online, of course.

As you can see, this is fairly representative of small business PPC advertising. Of the 11 total ads showing, only 2 knew what I was searching for exactly and crafted their message correctly. Every other ad focused on AC REPAIRS, not Ductless AC.

AC is no cheap niche, especially for a regional service business. Wasting money, clicks, and impressions will hurt all the way around - ROI, Quality Score, and Revenue. This is such a common affliction that I decided to make it the focus of my conversation with David Szetela on Webmasterradio’s PPC Rockstars (airing July 21st)

The old way of PPC is completely irrelevant and actually quite harmful. Build 10,000 keywords, set low bids and see what sticks? No, that will ruin your account and render it useless due to the ACCOUNT QUALITY SCORE

What's the solution? Well, at the moment, here's what I recommend, and it's exactly what David and I discussed.

START SMALL -

The idea behind starting small is to build a good quality score, little by little, both at the keyword/campaign level as well as the account level. Even if you’re not a small business, here’s a good rule of thumb if you’re just starting out self managing a campaign:

1 Keyword per adgroup
1 Match type - start with exact
5 Ad versions minimum - try different calls to action, feature, benefits, etc
1 Separate landing page for each ‘theme’

For example, if your niche is volkswagen jetta repair - here some keywords grouped into themes that can share the same lander:

volkswagen jetta repair
vw jetta repair

vw jetta brake repair

vw jetta transmission repair

Remember to keep them in separate adgroups and exact match to start, but landing these 3 types of visitors on separate pages with relevant content will make a huge difference.

Starting small in this manner allows you to:

Segment themes
Segment visitors
Customize messaging
Diagnose problem areas in the campaign more quickly

I’ll cover this more in a future post as it is the way of the future in PPC. I’ve seen this trend in the smallest campaigns as well as some of my accounts in the most competitive niches online. It works. So remember -

When it gets hot - go small!

And don’t forget to tune in to David Szetela’s PPC Rockstars.

No big surprise here, Google is phasing out their ill-executed PPA network. Managing an affiliate network is obviously not Google’s forte. It doesn’t have to be, and it’s a smart business decision to leave it to the pros at Performics/DoubleClick. The new entity is called Google Affiliate Network

The Google Affiliate Network, previously known as DoubleClick Performics Affiliate, has been in operation since 1998. Through the network, advertisers can open their ads to all publishers in the network, or select specific publishers that match their criteria. You can set a CPA for your entire campaign or establish custom payment schedules for specific publishers — such as a higher CPA for a particularly optimal placement. The Google Affiliate Network is currently a separate product from AdWords and AdSense. As with AdSense, publishers must apply and be accepted into the network.

Isn’t it ironic though that Google HATES affiliates, yet they own the best affiliate network on the planet? Some are worried that the existing affiliate networks will be destroyed by the 800lb gorilla. I tend to lean the other way. Google and Performics want nothing to do with the data driven direct response offer networks (azoogle, cpaempire, etc). Performics is the ‘brand’ affiliate network. This move gets them one step closer to their most valued advertisers. The big brands (Ford, Comcast, Target, MTV, etc).

It’s an interesting development for our industry. I don’t think anything will change so drastically. Performics and the other affiliate networks have always co-existed well because they have different publishers. Nothing will change except the names. That is, unless the government gets involved….

ahem.

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