10
Recently Google and Yahoo published tips on how to defend yourself from scammers who are always looking to get sensitive information including your pay per click account details. There are some useful tips which you can find here:
Google : How to avoid getting Hooked
Yahoo : Anti-Phishing Reminders
08
Google just announced that it has launched CPC model for it’s Site targeting campaign. It even renamed their model from “Site Targeting” to “Placement Targeting”. This would be welcomed by many advertisers since most of them felt comfortable with CPC model as compared to CPM model. Advertisers will be given a choice whether to opt for CPC model or CPM model. More information can be found here:
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/11/two-updates-to-site-targeting.html
05
| I just received invitation from Google to try out Google TV ads. Anybody interested in Google TV ads can apply for beta test here. Below are few screen shots on how to setup TV ad camapign. Please click on individual pictures for larger image. | ||||
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| 1) In case if you want some professional agency to create video ads for you then you can click on the first option “Go to Ad Creation Market Place”. Those who are already familiar with Audio ads need no explanation regarding this. It is very similar to Audio ad creation marketplace. | ||||
| 2) In audio ad creation marketplace, a button of “TV” alongside “Audio” button can be seen. Click on the “TV” button and you will see the following: | ||||
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| 3) After you select few of the specialist, you ask them to bid for your requirements. Each specialist will get back to you with price quotation based on your requirements. Google will recommend you to select at least more than one specialist. Before submitting for bids, you will have to fill out form where you can specify your requirements like goal of the ad, any key messages and other important questions. As said earlier, the process is very similar to Google audio ads. | ||||
| 4) After you get the final creative from Ad Creation Market place, then you will have to upload the video in your AdWords account. The procedure is given here. | ||||
| 5) It’s not necessary that you have to get the creative made by the specialist. If you already have digital video or you can create video on your own/in house staff then you can skip the first part and simply upload final video in your AdWords account. Make sure that final video follows Google Editorial Guidelines for TV ads. You can find the guidelines here. | ||||
| 6) The second option (please refer first picture) is for advertisers who already have video ad on physical tape. Google will get your 30 second ad convert into digital form for you. You just have to post your tape to Google complex in California. Details given here. | ||||
| 7) The last step is to select and submit final video ad to different networks. Click “Create TV Campaign” (refer first picture). After that you will have to select various options like whether to run ads nationally or in Concord and Walnut Creek, CA local market or both. | ||||
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| 8 ) You can select the networks, day and time to run the ads or you can ask Google to recommend a schedule. | ||||
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| 9) I made selection of Men aged between 25 to 54 which gave me following results. Not all results are displayed in below picture. It typically showed more of news & sports channels. | ||||
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| 10) The next step is to select the video Ad from your AdWords account. | ||||
| I didn’t went through the entire process. The next step was “Set Pricing” and “Review and Save”. It may also be possible that your ad may not be accepted by the channel/network which you selected (just like audio ads). | ||||
| The rates are bound to be higher than audio ads. Let me know if someone has more information on this. | ||||
| Useful Links: | ||||
| FAQs | ||||
| https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10644 |
10
Our Pay Per Click team had a brainstorming session in which we were thinking of reasons why sometimes one cannot see ads on Google.com. We tried to think of every possible reason which we can. There was once a very good link at WebmasterWorld Forums. You can Click Here to visit that link. It was originally posted by eWhisper in Jan 2004 but Google AdWords has come a long way since. There were many updates in AdWords system and I thought why not try to post a new one. We came up with following reasons. Let me know if we have missed anything:
| 1. Account Inactive: As long as the billing information is not submitted and the account not activated, the delivery of ads will not begin. |  |
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2. Review Process: Sometimes although the account has been activated but the ads may not be seen in Google as they are in the “Review Process”. So here the ads will be seen only after they are reviewed and approved by the AdWords specialist. |
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3. Not on 1st Page: Some times the ads’ rank may be very low and so it may not appear on the 1st page. But it may appear on next page.
4. Inactive Keyword (Minimum Bid) : If the keyword required minimum bid is higher than the actual bid set, then the keyword will be inactive and not appear in search results.
| 5. Daily Budget Depleted: If the daily budget is depleted then the ads will not be shown for the rest of the day. |  |
6. Ad Delivery Method (Recommended Budget More than Set Budget): There are two possibilities here.
7. Disapproved Ads: If the Ads are disapproved, let’s say there are 2 ads in an Ad Group and both are disapproved due to some reason not meeting the Editorial guidelines in AdWords. So when the keywords belonging to that Ad Group are searched for, the ads will not be shown.
8. Network Selected: If you have selected only Content network and you are searching in Google.com then you won’t see your ad.
| 9. Ad Scheduling: If the Ad Scheduling feature is ON, then the ad may not appear at the time when it is searched for as the time may be outside the scheduled time. |  |
10. Position Preference: If the Position Preference is enabled in the Edit Campaign Settings then the ads may not be seen if the bid is not high enough for the ad to be placed in the position that we have selected.
11. Server Delays: When new account is activated, sometimes due to server delays the ad may not appear online instantaneously.
| 12. Geo Targeting: If you are searching any ad outside the targeted geo graphical settings then the ad will not be seen. As an example if the geo targeted area is only set to USA and if someone is searching in UK then the ads will not be seen online. |  |
13. Sensitive keywords: There are keywords which can trigger Google’s red flag. Google content policy can give you some idea of keywords which are flagged by Google. However one cannot know exactly which keyword can trigger the red flag.
14. Billing Problem: Because of the Google billing issues or credit card problems ads stops running online.
15. Active Campaigns and Adgroups: Campaign and adgroup must be active for ads to appear online. If by accidentally someone pauses the ads or keywords or campaigns then the ads may not appear online.
16. Campaign Scheduled End Date: As an example if the campaign was scheduled to run only till June 10th and if you are searching for ads on June 11th onwards then you may not see your ads online.
17. Affiliate Policy: Due to new affiliate policy, Google displays only one ad for affiliates and parent companies sharing same display URL. The most performing ad is selected and shown on Google results. If you are an affiliate and share same display URL with the merchant and your ad is not top performing then chances are that your ad will not be seen on Google search results.
18.Negative Keywords: Sometimes when negative keywords overlap with the searched keyword then Google will not show your ad. So check again for all negative keywords inserted at campaign level and at ad group level. Remove any unnecessary keywords which can bring you potential customers.
These are the ones which we can think of. If there are any more then do feel free to inform me. I would add those reasons here.
06
Few years back managing Pay per click engines wasn’t so difficult. There were less players but bidding system wasn’t so complicated. Google AdWords at that time was ranking ads based on a combination formula of Maximum CPC (cost per click i.e. in simple word your bid) and Click Through Rate (CTR). While other players like Overture (now Yahoo! Search Marketing) had a simple system of ranking ads based on purely bids. The highest bidder was given No.#1 position.
Whether few years back or today, Google AdWords was the most complicated system and yet today it has complex rules of ranking ads. But most importantly even Yahoo! and Microsoft adCenter have started giving more relevance on performance and quality based results. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s Live Search are the three major search engines who have started weighing more relevance on landing page, performance and other non CPC factors to rank ads. All this rules and system which are introduced can mean one thing – to improve search results.
This may be bad news for Mr. Money Bags who had to previously only throw money (except in Google) to gain high rankings. But it may also work to your advantage if one can understand the rules & system properly and accordingly design the campaign. Let’s have a brief look at what is being introduced here:
Google AdWords
By far the most complicated and interesting system to be designed. To make it simple the ads are ranked on two factors – Quality score and maximum bid. And on what factors does the Quality score depends on? Most importantly what is Quality score? To keep things simple let’s not divulge in much details. Quality Score is a qualitity which is determined by factors like
1) Keyword click thorugh rate (Keyword CTR)
2) Ad Copy click through rate (Ad Copy CTR)
3) Account history
4) Most Recent history
5) Other Relevancy factors (there can be many other relevancy factors but advertiser can focus on the above mentioned 4 factors)
In essence what Google tells you is that if you excel and perform better in all the above mentioned factors then your overall performance would be considered better and that would work in advantage for you. This could mean that with good performance in Quality score you can gain higher position with less bid with respect to your competitor.
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Google uses the term “Quality score” then Yahoo uses the term “Quality Index”. Yahoo ranks it’s ad based on two factors – Quality Index and Bid. So what is this Quality Index? It sounds similar to what Google AdWords has been using. Is it same and complicated? No! It’s not same, but complicated? – well that depends from person to person
Let’s take a look at Quality Index. Quality index is determined by two factors:
1) Ad’s CTR (click through rate) historical performance relative to it’s competitors.
2) Ad’s expected performance which is determined by Yahoo’s ranking algorithm compared to the existing competitors displayed at same time.
To make it simple, it is the CTR and bid which determines the ad ranking in Yahoo’s Panama system.
Microsft adCenter
Well, Microsfot adCenter hasn’t used any specific terms like Quality score or Quality index but they have specified certain guidelines which affects ad ranking. Apart from bids following factors determine the ad ranking:
1) How close keyword (user search query) is relevant to Ad Copy
2) How close is the user search query relevant to the landing page
3) How close is the query relevant to both ad copy and landing page
4) How unique is ad copy as compared to other ads. In essence adCenter tries to remove duplicate ad copies from it’s search results to improve user search experience.
Overall these systems award high rankings and less cost for advertisers who give hard work. I don’t foresee smaller tier engines introducing such “Quality based” rankings in their sponsored system, but one can never know.
