This issue hasn’t had much ink in this election season, but we in this industry should be voicing our opinions, loud and clear. Today is your chance - head on over to the freepress blog and leave a comment.
Google Beats Estimates, Stock Flies
Am I allowed to say I told you so?
Not so long ago I criticized analysts for not understanding Google.
This is a situation where Google is not listening to the street at all when making decisions about how they tweak their platform, and it will benefit them in the long run.
Thank goodness we have Henry Blodgett to tell us that Google has a good business after all. For you youngsters out there who weren’t hemorrhaging stock options through the dot com bust, Henry Blodgett was the pied piper of internet stocks in the big pre 2000 run up. He was later caught in a securities fraud investigation and is now banned for life. But that doesn’t preclude you from getting a great job on TV, of course.
Funny: He was caught by a randy fellow New Yorker - Elliot “Wire Transfers are Stupid” Spitzer
Call Tracking has become a very important part of PPC campaign strategy with many of my clients over the last year or two. This is especially true among the most chronically underserved business segment in the SEM industry - the successful small to mid sized regional business. This business often relies on the phone as the main booking mechanism for revenue/appointments, etc. Yet they are too small to pay high end SEM management fees, but large enough to spend a fair amount on paid search.
To date I have employed Voicestar with the majority of these clients. The ability to report phone calls, numbers, and length of call are critical to demonstrating the value of this advertising medium to companies that otherwise don’t have the resources to implement an effective website, robust analytics, and some of the other luxuries afforded to larger or more web-based businesses.
Voicestar does the trick and I’ve been pleased with the service. The interface is somewhat underwhelming, but it gets the job done. I have yet to try the Adwords solution, but have noticed this teaser from Google lately. It mysteriously pops in and out of my client accounts and I can never find it to go back and reference it. Either way, for those who haven’t seen it here’s what it looks like.
I’m interested to hear from those of you have have given it a run. Let me know what you’re finding. I’m also interested in what this means to the Voicestar folks. Yet another web analytics niche that Google is trying to offer for free?
Rule 1:
The campaign you think is the greatest thing to ever hit adwords will also be the client who is least impressed. “I don’t care if you show 482 leads in the last 2 weeks, I was getting that before you started working with us (even though I don’t have stats to prove it, I just know it).
Rule 2:
The campaign you aren’t able to do much tracking on and you think is doing terribly, that’s the one that the client is most pleased with. “We’re getting tons of calls and new business!”
Rule 3:
(affiliate campaigns) The day you finally decide to throw in the towel on that chronic underperformer and shut down the ppc campaign, you’ll show a couple sales out of nowhere tomorrow in your CJ stats, then you’ll turn it back on, and it will underperform for a few more weeks until you shut it down again.
I’m watching with some bemusement this morning at all the financial news surrounding Google’s ‘deceleration’. This absolutely kills me. Here are some snippets:
Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley: Meeker writes that she still thinks Google’s fundamental business trends are intact. But she also calculates that if ComScore’s data are accurate, and assuming international paid clicks are growing at a 35% rate, the company would have a blended click rate growth of 19%, or 4% sequentially. That, she says, would imply net revenue of $3.52 billion for Q1, or about $120 million short of the $3.64 billion consensus. Meeker, though, is sticking with her above-consensus estimate of $3.72 billion.
Youssef Squali, Jefferies: “While Google’s actual numbers are likely to be materially better than what’s being reported, ComScore’s less than flattering growth trajectory for GOOG does point to continued decelerating growth, and is likely to keep the stock under pressure short term.”
God forbid - DECELERATING GROWTH - AGHAST…
Did anyone catch the revenue number?
$3.52 billion for Q1
I wish I could decelerate like that.
These analysts treat Google like a manufacturing or retail company. They don’t understand online advertising in the slightest. Apparently everyone is up in arms over the fact that -
“The click-through rate grew 3 percent in February compared with a year earlier, and January saw no increase compared with January 2007. Several months earlier, the rate was growing 25 percent to 40 percent compared with a year earlier. The new data is in line with click-through declines Google reported last quarter.”
This is a situation where Google is not listening to the street at all when making decisions about how they tweak their platform, and it will benefit them in the long run.
I have to say, Adcenter is impressing the hell out of me lately with their support. I’ve had 2 issues recently which were both resolved with 1 day, by actual humans who called me. 2 important points:
They spoke clear english (with a little canadian, ya)
They understood their product quite well
Can’t ask for anything else.
This is an update from March 6th, but an important one, so I’ll link to the post from Adwords.
In the next couple weeks Google will start to measure your landing page load time. I’m actually surprised this wasn’t being done already, so no complaints here.
2 things to keep in mind:
1. Load time ’scores’ will be displayed on your keyword analysis page
2. After the load time scores are displayed, there will be a 1 month review period for you to make adjustments
Yes, it’s another thing to keep an eye on, and Google just keeps raising the bar. For those managing client campaigns this will be a bit more of an issue, as addressing client hosting is a messy proposition. A smart strategy in that case would be to bring it up when you’re in the setup stage of a campaign. Load time is generally ‘visible’. You shouldn’t have to wait for Google to tell you that your page loads slowly.
More information here.
Okay, this is one of those 3-4 day runs where I’m seeing wild conversion rate swings in multiple campaigns. These are campaigns that I know better than my own family.
Mr. Adwords behind the curtain, I know you’re doing something over there with your hog wild broad matching.
Cut it out…
***Update - It appears the Adwords dropped the ball a little bit yesterday, which partially explains what we were all seeing.
Please note that conversion tracking data collected during this brief period may under-report the number of actual conversions achieved.
However, this has been going on longer than 1 day, so I still think there’s something else going on.
Are we all being unwittingly opted into the not-so secret borderline fraudulent unsold inventory firesale Automatic Matching beta?
‘Imagine there’s no Adwords, it’s easy if you try’ - John Lennon
The macroeconomic slump has finally broken through and touched the impenetrable wall of The Google. While I’m not a financial analyst, I know that share price often has little to do with anything other than the psychology of outsiders. Nor am I worried that the world of search marketing is just around the corner from impending doom.
HOWEVER - there are a few tidbits that give me pause. If only because of the wee little fact that almost every single dollar in my bank account is generated from the existence of, and my salable skills using, Adwords and other search marketing vehicles.
Here are those tidbits:
the number of clicks on ads next to Google’s search results fell by 7% between December and January. Google’s ad click performance was also down 0.3% on January last year, according to comScore.
Does this represent a slowdown? Or are we just seeing a reflection of ’shopping’ in general. Who buys anything in January?
So much for that thought…
Google had seen the same 7% decline between November and December. ComScore’s data also showed that Yahoo saw a 1% month-on-month fall in paid search ad clicks in January, but Microsoft saw a 4% rise.
OK, this is worrisome, 7% drop 2 months in a row? During the holiday season? What’s going on? Did the clickable area decision come back to bite them?
The speculation will continue, and smarter folks than I will debate the topic.
Let’s not get crazy though. Some facts to calm us all down:
$16.6bn revenues from search advertising
$8bn in cash and the liquidity of its shares
Analysts at Citigroup also said that Google’s efforts to improve the quality of leads for its advertisers, by trying to reduce accidental clicks, may have impacted the volume of search clicks as well as the wider macro-economic climate.
Moving towards quality is always a good thing. Google is fine, thank goodness, but as we’re seeing, nothing is immune to a really bad economic slowdown.
Darn.
So my original question - what would you do if this niche went away? Personally, being in this business since the mid 90’s, I’ve moved from web development, to email/permission marketing, to coreg, to search. I suppose I would just adjust and move to another area of online. Mobile marketing maybe? Or maybe I’d sell trailers. Something different.
What about you?
Yahoo announced Friday that they upped the limit from 50 to 250 for excluded, aka, negative keywords:
Excluded keyword limits have increased from 50 to 250 to help relevance
• Go to your Ad Group Settings page.
• Click on “Tactic Settings.”
• On the “Tactic Settings” page the “Excluded Words” feature is displayed.
• Click on “Excluded Words” to open the entry field.
• Add your excluded words but do not to use any commas or semicolons after each word.
• Click “Save Changes,” to process the Excluded Words list.
By all means, take advantage!
