PPC Whiz

I received an email yesterday from the Microsoft AdCentre Affiliate program team stating that effective February 28th 2008, they are closing their affiliate program and coupons for Microsoft AdCentre. Anyone else recieved this?

I logged into the affiliate system to check for any messages there and didn’t see anything to state they are ending their affiliate program.

If this is legit… a few questions come to mind

1. Is this due to the “Microhoo” fiasco (yes, I used the word I hate… I feel so filthy!)

2. Does Microsoft have all the advertisers it needs? I expect we know the answer to that!

3. Was $35 per new account to much for the great Microsoft to handle?

4. Were people gaming the system? (Google AdWords example…but the principal applies)

Whatever the case… it makes for some interesting news!

Every now and again, I write down something I would really like Google to improve upon. As a regular user of Google AdWords and Google Analytics, I always seem to come across “fixes” that I would love to see Google make. Rather than sitting on them, I thought I would post them to this humble little blog and hope that one day in the not to distant future, some of them might be acted upon.1. Changing between profiles in Google Analytics.

1. Accessing Accounts from Google Analytics
I manage roughly 40 PPC campaigns though my MCC. Almost every one of them has Google Analytics running on the account. Every so often, I’m mucking about in an analytics profile and want to check another account’s Analytics data. Instead of jumping to the account through the drop down menu at the top of my screen (like the one in my MCC) I have to go back into my MCC client list, select the client, select the Analytics tab, profile and finally the data I want to see.

Trivial? Possibly, but this is my wish list not yours!

So, my first wish is to allow those with MCC access the ability to navigate between their accounts analytics data with ease.

2. Invoice Reporting

It would be great if I could schedule an invoice to be sent to me (or better yet, my clients accounting department) every time Google charges a credit card. They have a good reporting center already, how hard would it be to add a report generating feature in the Billing Summary page.

3. Multiple Conversion Codes

For some accounts, there are multiple conversion opportunities that should be tracked differently. Lets face it, a product purchase is more valuable to an account than a newsletter sign up. Granted, multiple goals can be set up using Google Analytics however having multiple conversion metrics would go a long way to helping optimize campaigns and keywords long term.

4. More than 4 Analytics Goals

Having the ability to track more than 4 goals in Google Analytics would help… a lot!

5. Adding the Sites I WANT in Site Targeted Campaigns

Running a content network campaign is a great way to find lower cost clicks on relevant sites. A best practice is then to take the sites which have produced good traffic and conversions and place them into a site targeted campaign. The problem? All to often, the system won’t allow me to add the site I wanted… and was available in my content network campaign (I might add). The solution? Calling my Google Rep and asking them to create a site pack is the current option – but why use up your valuable Google employee resources? Just allow me to add the sites I want!

Sorry for the rant…

Please feel free to add any features you would like to see in the comments (the link will be followed )

First, my apologies for not posting. There was a death in my family and the majority of my time was spent with loved ones as well as trying to stay on top of client work. January and February have been particularly busy with new contracts and clients over at my Toronto internet marketing firm, Spark Internet Marketing.

For those using Google Analytics and wanting to get an edge on your PPC competition, this filter and script is a must. This filter and java script file allows you to pull in the EXACT keyword string used by people coming to your website through PPC ads. As you might now, you are able to see this data from Organic searches but PPC traffic was another story. If you were advertising using broad match for the term Barbados resort but a user typed in beach resort in Barbados you ad would show. In Google Analytics, you would see a visitor attributed to the term Barbados resort in your PPC traffic stats. This filter pulls that data in and displays it in the user defined field.

I was using an old filter posted by a great PPC resource, and newly named Semvironment, but unfortunately it seemed to stop reporting data on January 15th. I then came across a similar tool over at ROI Revolution. The only drawback was it didn’t work with the new version of Google Analytics. Thanks to Michael and his team, they just posted a new version of their filter and script that works with Google’s new code.

In the coming days, I will post how I use this filter to help optimize my accounts.

I wrote up a nice post explaining the “Secrets to Success” for creating site placement campaigns and content network campaigns over at Spark Internet Marketing. Check it out, I think you will find it useful for your paid search campaigns.

Creating and managing a locally based PPC campaign for a client can be difficult, especially if you don’t reside in your clients area. I’m a Canadian who managers a number of locally based US clients. Though I like to believe my geographic knowledge of America is fairly astute, I still don’t know half of the smaller cities around major metropolitan centers in the US. Thus, I have compiled a couple tools to assist my “geographically challenged self” and to help you. Additionally, I have learned a couple of best practices when creating locally targeted campaigns which you might find helpful.

1. Local Adwords & Keyword List Generator

This tool is great! Simply add in your keywords, select the zip code and radius you are targeting to and presto – a list of keyphrases with the city names in that zip code. Whats even handier, is the ability to remove city names for areas you don’t want to target. It also has the option to wrap your keyphrases with phrase and exact matching parameters for Google AdWords.

2. IP Address Lookup

As you may know, Google’s geographic targeting is based on a users IP. Often a user may have an IP address located in a different geographic area than where they may be physically located. I’ve had a few clients call after their campaign has launched live, usually angrily asking “why can’t I see my ads!?” I find this tool helpful to diagnose the problem and ascertain their IP location.

When creating locally targeted campaigns, I employ the following technique which seems to cover all bases. For the sake of argument, I will use Google AdWords as my advertising platform. My example client will be a painting service in Buffalo New York.

1. Create a campaign using non-geographically targeted keywords and phrases (painting service, house painter, interior painting etc). Next, set the geographic setting to Buffalo.

2. Create a second campaign using geographically targeted keywords painting service Buffalo, house painter Rochester, interior painting Tonawanda) and set the geographic setting to the state of New York.

These two campaigns will cover the holes in Google’s IP targeting ability and still rope in the geographic traffic you are looking for. The next step is to monitor these campaigns and optimize for the higher performing CTR and conversion rates. Be sure to also pay close attention to your analytics data to ensure you are hitting the right traffic for your client.

John over at PPC Hero wrote a good explanation as to why these two campaigns are necessary when geo-targeting. I second his comments in the last two paragraphs and have had similar conversations with Google reps on the phone and at conferences about the best way to create these campaigns and how Google’s system handles searches like “Buffalo painting service” for searchers outside of your IP targeted campaigns.

What a day it has been for us people in search engine marketing. If you partied way to much last night and were passed out for most of the day, you may have missed this – Microsoft Makes $45 Billion Offer for Yahoo!

I can’t say this was a suprise and to be honest, it is long overdue. Given that Yahoo! has been struggling latley, laying off jobs, stock tanking and all… well, they were ripe for the taking.

There is mixed results in the search community and the jurry is still out if this is good for us or not. Strictly from a PPC perspective, here is the latest blog chatter – PPC Book is sceptical, PPC Advice is sitting on the fence but seems optimistic, the rest of the PPC blogs out there haven’t posted an opinion yet.

My thoughts? Well, I am happy this has happened and expect we won’t see any PPC impact for a while. My hope is that Microsoft migrates their system INTO Yahoo’s Search Marketing platform. Though I have never been a huge fan of either, Yahoo’s platform is slightly better to work with than Microsoft’s. Will that happen? Probably not, as a friend of mine said – “Microsoft’s ego will get in the way of making the right decision.”

What was my biggest laugh of the day? Microsoft’s platform was down this afternoon! Timing behind this outage was…well… delicious.

Guess I should probably take that advertisement for MSN off my blog!