Google AdWords Pay Per Action Beta Opens Internationally
June 22, 2007 by Gaman · Leave a Comment
Google has announced today that their Pay-Per-Action (PPA) pricing model for AdWords are now available globally in some 24 languages.
AdWords advertiser who use AdWords conversion tracking and receive more than 500 conversions from their cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) campaigns in the most recent 30-day period will be invited to join this beta test, on a rolling basis.
I think it’s important that Google deliver satisfactory level of ad impressions for Advertisers at this early stage if they want to encourage adoption of this pricing model. Coming from Google, I am certain they have a way to make it works.
I am looking forward to test drive this option for my AdWords campaigns and see how it could improve conversion rates for my own products. The obvious advantage of this pricing model for advertisers is that, they pay only when specific actions that they define are completed by a user on their site.
eBay Spent $26 Million Monthly on Google AdWords
June 20, 2007 by Gaman · 6 Comments
Last week eBay pulled all their campaigns from Google AdWords to protest a party planned by Google to promote Google Checkout that was coincide with the eBay Live event in Boston.
The eBay’s event was overshadowed by Google planned to promote Google Checkout to eBay sellers who used PayPal.
Google said eBay has been refusing to offer Google Checkout as a payment option for sellers and buyers on eBay even after Google had been approached by power sellers to obtain access to Checkout.
When I read the story I wondered how much cash Google lost after eBay pulled their ads.
Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land has written an interesting post of how much traffic eBay received from Google and Google cash lost.
Without citing a source, Did-it’s Mark Simon says in this MediaPost piece that eBay spends — or used to spend — $26 million monthly on Google AdWords in the U.S. market. If true that’s $312 million annually.
Google AdWords Introduces IP Address Exclusion
June 18, 2007 by Gaman · Leave a Comment
A few days after Google AdWords introduced Placement Performance reporting on the Google content network, another useful feature was recently unveiled.
In addition to controlling your ad placement through methods such as location and language targeting, site exclusion, and network distribution preferences, you can refine your targeting with Internet Protocol (IP) address exclusion. With this tool, advertisers can now specify if they do not want their ads to show up for specific IP addresses
The tool currently allows exclusion of up to 20 IP addresses, or ranges of addresses, per campaign.
This tool can be handy when you want to block someone like your competitors who have been clicking on your ads to sabotage your campaigns. You can also use this tool to block your own IP address so that you ads won’t be shown when you do a search for your own keywords. The purpose is to prevent your own impressions from affecting your ads click through rate.
AdWords Advertisers Can Now View Sites Where Their Ads Are Displayed on Google’s Content Network
June 12, 2007 by Gaman · 2 Comments
At last, Google AdWords has added the ability to allow their advertisers to see the domains where their ads are being served within Google’s content network.
The report which is called Placement Performance reports will include the domain, URL, impression, click, impression, click, conversion and cost data for each site and ads appears on.
This is an important move by Google that could help increase transparency and boost advertisers’ confident when using AdWords.
Some advertisers know that Google content network offers the worst CTR and ROI compare to the search network. As a result many are reluctant to give it a try, and that includes me.
With this new feature, advertisers could now make informed decisions on which sites to exclude from content network to improve ads performance and ROI.
Placement Performance reports are now available to all U.S. advertisers, and launching globally within weeks.
Receive Free Customized Help From AdWords Optimization Specialists
In case you haven’t read this, AdWords advertisers who are trying to improve their account performance (who doesn’t) can now request a free campaign optimization for your account from AdWords Optimization Specialists.
Before you get too excited though, sadly this service is currently available for advertisers in the U.S, Canada and the UK only. I hope it will be opened for the rest of AdWords advertisers outside these countries soon.
It’s a complimentary service that they offer to help their advertisers get mot of their AdWords account.
The reason why they are offering this service for free is because it’s really a win-win arrangement for both Google and the advertisers.
If Google can help you become successful with your AdWords campaigns. You’ll spend more money with Google which could attract more business for your.
A Closer Look At AdWords Bid Options
May 9, 2007 by Gaman · Leave a Comment
Bid options are advertising types available in AdWords for advertisers to advertise their products or services.
Currently there are four bid options available which are:
- Set maximum limits
- Preferred cost bidding
- Budget optimizer
- Pay-per-action
Set Maximum Limits and Budget Optimizer have been around for a while and currently the most popular bid options.
The recent introduction of Preferred Cost Bidding as well as Pay per Action (beta) bid options demands a closer study to ensure you are using the best method in accordance to your advertising needs.
Search Engine Land has published a useful article explaining the characteristics, uses, advantages and disadvantages of these bid options. If you are an AdWords advertiser, this is one article you should read.
Full article: Are You Bidding Correctly On AdWords? A Close Look At The Four Bid Options
Google AdWords Trick Video – How to Write Killer Ads
April 26, 2007 by Gaman · Leave a Comment
If you are doing Google AdWords, check out the following video from MindValley Labs for some tricks on how to optimize your ads for Google AdWords.
Some Google AdWords users may already be familiar with the trick described in the video which is basically teaches you about split- testing to improve your ads CTR (click through rates).
Check out this related article I wrote earlier about identifying successful ads using Statistical Significance.
Thursday 19 April 2007 Quick Links
April 19, 2007 by Gaman · Leave a Comment
YouTube Obeys Teen Prankster
A 15-year old sent a fake takedown notice to YouTube posing as ABC Television and they actually complied with the request!
Speed up Removal of Google link
You can now speed up the removal of your pages from Google search results via a new feature added into Google’s Webmaster Tools.
AdWords Introduces Preferred Cost Biding
Google AdWords has introduced a new feature to enable advertisers specify an average (i.e. preferred bidding ) CPC or CPM bid, as opposed to a maximum CPC or CPM bid in their campaigns.
Paid Links Are Spam
Interesting article from Phillipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped commenting about Google’s Matt Cutts recent post which tells people how to report paid links.
$77 Google Wealth Wizard eBook Download Page Indexed By Google
March 9, 2007 by Gaman · 3 Comments
A few days after someone discovered the download link for the Day Job Killer ebook via Google, it was revealed that another self proclaimed Guru is making exactly the same mistake.
This time, it’s an ebook called Google Wealth Wizard. I’ve never came across it before but it’s like many other ebooks that claim to teach you how to make $300 to $500 per day using Google AdWords.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Day Job Killer is a good ebook. While much of what’s written inside sounds like common sense, unless you’ve been doing what the ebook is recommending, you won’t realize the true potential of those seemingly simple ideas.
The saddest thing about Google Wealth Wizard is that the author has not realized that his ebook was downloaded freely since it release on July 15th 2006.
Thursday Quick Links March 08 2007
March 8, 2007 by Gaman · Leave a Comment
A handy tool for troubleshooting account behavior
Do you know that you can track any changes done to your AdWords account via the My Change History interface? This tool could help you troubleshoot any account related problem easily.
John Chow vs. Matt Coddington
Daily Blog Tips has posted another Blogger Face-Off and this time it’s John Chow vs. Matt Coddington. Unlike the previous post where he pitted Darren Rowse against Shoemoney, this one has a voting system so you can decide who the winner is.
How To Get Links from Bloggers
Getting links from bloggers to link to you can be hard sometimes. Loren Baker has listed several tips to help you attract quality links from blogs.
