Posts Tagged ‘adwords’

Connect Your AdWords Account To Google Plus

Saturday, November 12th, 2011

If you thought Google+ was just another social network, think again. It’s more than that. In fact, Google has said all along that it intends to connect all of its services with Google+. And it looks like that is happening slowly but surely.

One way that Google+ users can benefit from the service on a sister property is by connecting their Google+ account with their Google AdWords account.

If people respect the recommendations of their friends and families as the latest polls show that they do, then it makes sense to show how many +1s your ads receive. People who conduct a search on Google and see your ads on the search results pages will see which ads their friends and families have +1ed. That will act as encouragement for those searchers to either +1 your ad or click the link.

But here’s the catch: You have to turn this feature on in Google AdWords account.

Google calls this “social annotations” and they could become a key metric for your PPC advertising. It’s also a way for your pay-per-click initiatives to take on a flavor of social media marketing. In the 21st century, social media marketing could become the standard by which all other marketing initiatives are judged. Including PPC.

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Posted in PPC for Small Business | 5 Comments »

Google To Change Display URLs In AdWords Ads

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Google has been known for its constant testing and tweaking. As a result of this constant testing with AdWords, the Inside AdWords blog has announced that it will change the way display URLs look in AdWords ads.

Here’s what the blog says the change will look like:

Following the change, the domain portion of your display URL will always be shown in lowercase letters. For example, if your display URL is Subdomain.Example.com/Subdirectory, it will appear as subdomain.example.com/Subdirectory.

Will this subtle change make a difference in click throughs? Google is claiming that it will. What do you think?

In related news, Google has introduced a new way to manage negative keywords across multiple domain names with negative keyword lists.

What this change effectively does is allow you to more efficiently manage keyword lists for more than one domain name. Negative keywords are important to any pay per click campaign because these are keywords that generally result in high click-throughs but low conversion rates. Or they could be non-related keywords that are typically associated with your keywords.

For instance, if you are a car dealer and you sell Corvettes and one of your keywords is “red Corvette”, then you might add “little red corvette” and “Prince” to your negative keyword list because you don’t want your ad to appear for these search phrases and run the risk of getting click-throughs on non-related searches.

During this time of great change in Internet marketing, pay per click marketing is a method of advertising online that has been effective for many small businesses and Google AdWords has been a major influence in the success of many of these businesses.

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Posted in PPC for Small Business | 1 Comment »

Can Social Media Advertising Provide A Better ROI

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

One of the difficulties that many small businesses face is that of competing with larger businesses, especially when it comes to PPC advertising. Larger businesses often work on smaller margins so they can afford to bid a little higher for keywords. This can see smaller businesses priced out of the popular PPC markets. Social media advertising could well be an option worth exploring.

Facebook is a prime example where advertising can be targeted based on demographics rather than keywords. You will often find that social media advertising is also less restrictive when it comes to issues such as quality scores and the tight rules that search engines like Google often apply.

If you are struggling with PPC campaigns through traditional outlets like Google, then a little research in what social media sites require is definitely worth considering. StumbleUpon, while not always delivering traffic that converts, can deliver traffic at just five cents per click.  Facebook traffic will be a little more expensive, but often far cheaper than Adwords for example.

There are a lot of coupons around at present offering $50 or even $75 trials of Facebook ads. If you haven’t trialled Facebook yet, or any of the other social media sites, check them out; give them a trial run (especially if you can find one of those free coupons); and compere them to your current campaigns. There are many businesses that are now reporting much better conversions and a much higher ROI when compared to traditional PPC.

We are in period where the online world has become extremely competitive. As a small business, you need to find every opportunity available to gain that edge on your competitors. While they are bashing their heads with Adwords campaigns, you could be cleaning up through social media advertising.

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Posted in Social Media | 5 Comments »

Online Marketing Boot Campe – Sign Up, Fall In

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

If you have $2,200 laying around then you might want to consider taking the Online Marketing Boot Camp. This looks like one action-packed week.

The boot camp will cover analytics and pay per click advertising, social media marketing, and a host of other must-have information on Internet marketing. Speakers will come from Google, EPIK, and elsewhere from around the world. It looks like the bulk of the training will be on Google Analytics, but there should be some useful information on the other topics as well.

I get no commission if you sign up. The downside is travel and hotel expenses. The boot camp will take place in Burlington, Vermont and run for four days. But the knowledge and information you gain about Google Analytics and Google AdWords (the boot camp is sponsored by Google) from experts like Avinash Kaushik appear to be invaluable. Only 70 seats are being offered so you better get in early because it looks like they’re going to sell quickly.

Get more information on the Online Marketing Boot Camp here.

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Posted in PPC for Small Business, Tracking & Analytics | 1 Comment »