CTR optimization is all about testing. The synergy between the keyphrase someone looks for and the ad that you present them is vital (not forgetting the keyword that triggers the ad in your account, and the space between the search term and searcher intent left by match-type). [Read more...]

The definition of Quality Score, as provided by Google themselves, seems to almost revolve around this mysterious ineffable quality called relevancy:

“The AdWords system calculates a ‘Quality Score’ for each of your keywords. It looks at a variety of factors to measure how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query.”

There are relevancy factors in your account beyond the ones used to calculate the on-the-fly Quality Score that comes about each time a search triggers an ad auction. In fact, the conspiracy theorist side of my brain [Read more...]

It goes without saying that most PPC management professionals are pretty well versed in how keyword match type settings affect ad display (if not, read up!), but what about the flip side of the information, when a PPC campaign builder or an SEO is doing keyword research in the first place? [Read more...]

Return on Ad-Spend, or ROAS, is a metric calculated by dividing the revenue generated from an ad campaign, by the cost of that campaign. It can be applied to any sales situation that has an advertising spend, even a bake sale:

Lets say your mother gave you a pan of brownies to sell at the bake sale, but it costs $50 to get your booth and marketing materials set (we’ll call $50 your ad-spend).

If your brownies manage to produce a total revenue of $50, you’ve broken even, or gotten a full return on your ad-spend.

If you had made the brownies yourself, and they’d cost you $50 to make (we’re talking primo brownies here), [Read more...]

While slurping hot chocolate (Montreal is frikkin’ cold!) this past week, I’ve been trying to write an epic post on how searcher intent is all too often ironically ignored in the search marketing world. I wanted to write big, elegantly placing keyword based advertising in the larger framework of the all encompassing field of marketing. I failed. Maybe it will become a book someday, written by someone else entirely, but it won’t be a post today.

Instead, I’ll take a slim sliver of the concept embedded in my previously lofty goal: negative keywords in PPC – and try to offer something more solid than philosophy. [Read more...]

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Have you ever had a client who is crazy for PPC, but is so addicted to the instant gratification it brings that they don’t want to dabble in long-term SEO work? PPC can actually act as a tool to help you ease them into the world of organic search – a little duel-edged work which compliments both efforts can go a long way towards educating site owners in the basics of search engine optimization.

[Read more...]

During the 2004 US Presidential election race I was actively practicing the art of the American dream, crashing on a friend’s couch on the Big Island of Hawaii. In the two weeks leading up to the vote, as I lazed around on the lanai watching literal local surfers, laptop on lap, marketing things to non-literal remote surfers, the phone rang.

It was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

THE Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the big arms. And he was calling little ole me to say:

“This is Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I’m here to PUMP… YOU UP! About President Bush”

I wish I was kidding. By the fifth call or so the novelty had worn off and I began to hope secretly that all the marijuana consumed in the governator’s Mr. Universe days had seriously affected his non-political performance abilities. [Read more...]