Well, making LinkedIn work for your business to business marketing can be a challenging task. The design is still very much in-flux so you can expect a lot of things to change, perhaps even during a campaign (as happened with one of our own). But for now at least, if you want your LinkedIn advertising campaign to succeed you’ve got to work with it.

So what do you need to get started?

• Define the geographic location of your market. You can select by continent, country, state, all the way down to particular cities. Depending on what you’re selling you’ll need to be precise to maximize your LinkedIn campaign potential.
• Select the companies you want to target. You can target categories of company or specific companies and people within those companies.
• Select the job title or job category of people you want to target. LinkedIn can help you target that high-level executive.
• Write your ad content, make it snappy, and bring on the lead conversions!

By setting these requirements you could reach some proportion of LinkedIn’s 120 million users. That’s right 120 million users. But unless you have something 120 million people are all definitely going to like then reducing the number that you target is going to be important. Not least because there is one piece of critical information that will define how successful your business to business LinkedIn advertising campaign will be:

“Your click-through-rate is everything”

Now this seemingly innocuous phrase is loaded with every aspect of the success of your campaign. There are two critical factors you have to bear in mind when thinking about this and its application to your campaign.

1. How many people do you want to see your campaign (impressions)
2. How many people do you expect to click on your Ad (click-through-rate)

The number of people who see your ad (impressions) is defined by the audience you are trying to reach and the specifics of the first 3 items in the getting started list. By increasing the number of people in your audience you increase the number of impressions you get. Unfortunately, and here’s the rub with LinkedIn, you can’t define when that impression appears or under what circumstances.

The clearest difference between Google Adwords PPC campaigns and LinkedIn advertising is that with LinkedIn impressions are not content specific. They are end-user specific, but what good is it to you if your ideal user sees your Ad when they’re searching for a job online?

Another important factor is that once your ad has gathered a certain number of impressions (we’re not currently sure the threshold) LinkedIn begins to track it against an expected click-through-rate. Once your Ad drops below that level; then you’re in trouble. Best industry guesses put that figure at 0.025% CTR; although you can expect to see changes in this as LinkedIn becomes more of a platform for business-to-business sellers. Meaning that 2.5 people have to click your ad for every 1000 impressions.

So you’re ad is being seen by lots of people, but at a time when they might not be looking to buy. That places an incredible extra pressure on a LinkedIn campaign: exciting people out of their job-searching, social slumber and into a buying, business-to-business frame of mind. And that’s no easy task. You’ll need exciting copy, great images (50x50pixel optimized) and an offer that will blow their socks off.

“The Display Network Doesn’t Work”

The display network (renamed from the content network) is a large collection of websites where Adwords ads can appear. These ads (text, video or image) are automatically placed based on themes in your keyword lists but can also be placed manually.

The misconception here is that the display network produces low-quality traffic that has no intention to buy. This is simply not true; the display network reaches over 70% of unique internet users around the world and has the advantage of reaching customers at different points of the buying cycle.

For Example:

A user might begin a search for ERP software with the sole intention of researching their options and reading reviews. While on a review website for ERP software, though, the user might notice the ads of a solution provider and click on their ad eventually resulting in a sale for that advertiser. With search-only traffic this customer would have been missed.

It’s also important to understand that the Display network does allow for full control of where ads appear. To get the most out of your display network campaigns sites should be monitored regularly and removed if they are performing poorly.

“PPC Is Too Expensive”

It is possible to spend a lot of money in AdWords or other PPC platforms but the truth is that there is no other advertising platform that comes close to the same level of reporting, control and effectiveness. You only ever pay when someone decides to click on your ad (showing clear interest) and so if you spend $4,000 in a month you can rest assured that at the very least you got visitors to your site, the same can’t be said for a TV ad or a newspaper ad.

With PPC you also get online real-time reporting that provides statistics on the performances of ads, keywords and other details; this feedback allows for campaign optimization that is purely based on performance.

Campaigns should never be left unmanaged as there are always opportunities to make improvements. Poorly-managed campaigns will cost you and can lead to unprofitable marketing efforts. If you’re not seeing the benefit of your efforts you may require someone with experience to set up and manage your campaigns.

“PPC Is An All-In-One Solution”

If you have tried PPC and it just didn’t work for you then that doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t a good fit. In many cases advertisers expect PPC to solve all their problems when the reality is that PPC is only one link of a very long chain. If any particular “link” is broken then the whole marketing effort will fall apart.

In other words if the solution you’re offering is outmatched by competitors or if your website is outdated and hard to navigate then PPC is like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound that needs 20 stitches.

So if you’re doing PPC then you need to be looking at every single thing that PPC relies on such as your landing pages and website, the solution you’re providing, the offer (if you’re doing a squeeze page) and most importantly your lead/sale nurturing process and if you don’t know how to do these things well then you need to consult with someone who does.

Incorporating a complete marketing strategy alongside PPC will definitely help yield the type of results you’re looking to achieve.

If you’re new to PPC advertising then you may be finding it difficult to determine the size of your budget. There are no easy answers for setting up an initial budget; however, there are certain things you should consider before starting.

The most important factors your will want to think about are:

 
• Account Size
• Industry Cost Per Click (CPC)
• Conversion Rate
• Conversion Goal

Let’s break these down a bit further…

Account Size

The size of your account is one of the biggest determining factors when it comes to setting your budget. How many campaigns, ad groups and keywords will there be in your account? The bigger the account the more you will likely need to spend to keep your ads active throughout the day. The other factor is the geographic location(s) you’re targeting; if the areas you’re targeting have a high population then your budget will need to be higher.

To get a rough idea of the estimated traffic for a particular geographic location you can use the free Google Traffic Estimator.

Industry CPC

The average cost per click can vary depending on the industry or niche you’re targeting. Some keywords may cost as little as a few pennies but more competitive keywords can range anywhere from $5-$25. The more expensive your advertising space is, the higher your budget will need to be to stay competitive.

To get a rough idea of the average cost per click in your industry, use the free Google Keyword Tool, search for a related keyword and locate the “Estimated Avg CPC” column.

Conversion Rate

When you’re selling a physical product, the conversion rate is likely to be lower than when you’re giving away a white paper in exchange for personal information. It is also unlikely a brand new account is going to get anything above 5% without at least a few months of optimization. Of course there are exceptions but the general rule is to expect a lower conversion rate when starting out.

Conversion Goal

A conversion can be anything from a viewed page to a sale. In PPC, a conversion tracking script is typically placed on a thank you page where the visitor will end up after a desired action. This allows us to track the conversions.

What are your expectations? How many leads or sales are you looking to achieve?

This is where it helps to have an idea of the average estimated cost per click and the estimated conversion rate. By having these numbers you can apply some basic math and get an idea of what is achievable with the budget you have established.

For example, let’s say the average cost per click is $3, and the average estimated conversion rate is 2%. Using these numbers the cost per conversion will be $150. If you are looking to achieve 20 leads for the month then your estimated monthly budget would need to come in around $3,000. Go ahead and use the formula above to get an idea of what your budget will need to be to achieve the desired amount of leads.

Final Word

Because this is a guideline to determining an estimated PPC budget, it is not 100% dead on. The idea is to set the budget using the data at hand then adjust based on performance.

Keep in mind that if you set your budget to low, it may take much longer to see the results you want. PPC is a data-driven platform meaning that the more data coming in, the quicker certain aspects can be tested and improved. If the data isn’t there then the improvements and ultimately conversion will take much longer to show.

First impressions do matter, especially when potential customers are visiting your website. Your prospective customers will start making assumptions about your organization at the first glance of your website. If your website has an unattractive user interface or poor navigation, potential customers will immediately leave your website in search of something better.

So what factors do prospective customers evaluate on your website to decide whether or not it’s worth their time? Is all the content on your website relevant to your business? Do you think it’s time for a website redesign?

Knowing When to Start Over

Obviously, all websites need continuous improvement. Just surf through your competitors’ websites or any website for a few minutes and discover that they are looking at old and obsolete graphics and content. But there are so many other reasons to redesign your website; some of them not so obvious, but are at the core of your website.

Making Your Website Your Priority

It is common for all businesses to neglect their website just dealing with the day-to-day business activities. It is not enough just to have some random information and few contact phone numbers. These days, to stay ahead of your competition you need to pull your customers in with an interesting website design and relevant content. This will not only attract the first-timers, but also make them repeat visitors.

Website Redesign Checklist

Here is a simple checklist to help you evaluate and then decide if it is time to redesign your website:

• Are your current business goals and strategies consistent with your website?

• Does your offline and online marketing complement each other?

• Is your website constructed of CSS and XHTML, as well as HTML?

• Have you eliminated all broken links and/or typos from your website?

• Is your website easy to read – legible font sizes, colors and style?

• Is your website information and contact information up to date?

• Is your website’s appearance clean and simple (i.e. not jumbled up with flashing images/graphics or overwhelming content)?

• Does your website display properly in all the web browsers, specially the new ones (e.g. Apple’s Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome)?

• Does your website have a low visitor bounce rate (i.e. visitors click to your website and do not leave immediately from the first landing page)?

• Does your website rank on Google and other search engines?

• Is your website updated regularly with blogs, news releases, newsletters, video demos/webinars and white papers?

• Is your website mobile friendly (e.g. accessible to iphone and blackberry users)?

• Is your website easy to navigate (i.e.it’s easy to get from one page to another with top and sidebar navigation, including breadcrumb navigation)?

• Does your website generate PPC leads with capturing mechanism to collect emails, like a form?

If you answered NO to most of the questions, then it is highly recommended that you immediately consider redesigning your website.

Act Quickly & Cautiously

Once you are aware that your website requires a redesign, you need to do your homework.  There are many web designing companies offering expert solutions, but not all website architects and designers are worth their price.

Look for those that use latest market trends, have a portfolio of website redesign projects that they are willing to share with you and take the time to understand your needs before making blanket recommendations about what your website should look like.

Little Updates Can Make An Impact

Make sure to ask for the simple solutions that can make a big impact at a fraction of the cost; like adding conversion forms, contact forms and other interactive elements that will allow you to collect leads.

Make Your Redesign a Priority

These little updates will save time and get you moving forward until you are ready for a complete redesign. These subtle changes should not take the place of a much needed website redesign, but will get you headed in the right direction until you have allocated the funds needed for a complete overhaul of your online presence.

Let’s take a look some of the information that was put forward that business software resellers can use in their inbound marketing strategies.

SEO For Google Vs. Bing: How Different Are They?

Speakers: Matt Cutts, Google Inc. | Janet Driscoll Miller, Search Mojo | Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz | Sasi Parthasarathy, Microsoft

Description:

The event opened with this excellent session that covered how different the SEO ranking factors were for Google vs. Bing.

The question came up, should you build “Google specific” and “Bing specific” pages on your website to target each of the engines differently. This was a common technique used years ago when there wasn’t a clear, dominate player in the search engine space.

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz used real-world testing data to analyze specific ranking factors and their effect on both Google and Bing. His comparison data/results were fantastic, but not for the feint of heart. Rand analyzed how specific factors influenced the ranking of sites within Bing compared to Google. Some of the factors explored included query matching in the domain name; exact match domains by top-level domain (TLD) extension; keywords in subdomains; on-page keyword usage; link counts and link diversity; TLD extensions; length of domain, URL and content; website homepages; and anchor text link matches.

Takeaway:

While there was some minor differences between the engines, there wasn’t anything that would give an existing site a glaring advantage. The experiment proved, if anything, that Bing’s algorithm has come a long ways in the last 2 years. The consensus was that marketers should focus their strategy on what the search engines are trying to achieve, the best possible user experience, as this is where both Search Engines are heading anyways.

Emotional Rescue: What You Need To Know About The B2B Buying Dynamic

Speakers: Jenny Dibble, SearchMarketMe | Gordon Hotchkiss, Enquiro | Brian Lewis, Engine Ready

Takeaway:

• In the information age of today, buyers have the same info, if not more info,  than sellers.
• Users buy product (features) and buyers buy the purchase (trust in the vendor).
• Very rarely are sales lost to price.
• Brand = perception, perception = emotion. Uncover the buyers feeling-based pain points.

Show Me The Links: Real Life Link Building

Speakers: Chris Bennett, 97th Floor | Arnie Kuenn, Vertical Measures | Debra Mastaler, Alliance-Link | Roger Montti, martinibuster.com | Gil Reich, Answers.com

Takeaway:

• Use advanced queries like, allintitle: “dynamics ax” site:.org,  in Google to identify topical sites that would be good to get links from.
• Competitor backlink trolling is still a popular strategy using Yahoo OpenSite Search.
• .us domains can’t hide domain ownership details so marketers are finding they are less likely to be spam.
• Example strategy time breakdown:
  • 50% Content development & promotion (social);
  • 20% Blog post & article placement (guest blogging, sponsored posts, etc);
  • 10% Basic link development (directories, comments);
  • 20% Targeted link requests.
• Infographics are very successful as linkbait. Data, complex ideas combined with aesthetics.
• Submit to RSS directories.
• Do media releases as well or instead of press releases.
• Add an attractive person at the end of your videos asking for a link.

Demystifying Online Attribution

Speakers: Jonathon Colman, REI | Cameron Cowan, Omniture, An Adobe company | Dennis Goedegebuure, eBay, Inc. | Richard Zwicky, Enquisite

Takeaway:

• Most Partners aren’t attributing conversion ROI properly.
• 6 different attribution models:
  • Last Click;
  • First click;
  • Linear;
  • Decaying;
  • Reverse Decay;
  • U-Shaped. Which one is right for your business? Most likely U-Shaped.
• Use a proprietary permanent cookie to track your visitors over lengthy buying cycles that exceed 30 days.
• Start simple, attribution is difficult.
• 53% increase in conversions when B2C company’s URL appeared in both PPC and Organic results for brand name keyword.

You & A With Matt Cutts

Speakers: Matt Cutts, Google Inc.

Full transcript.

Takeaway:

• Caffeine, the anticipated Google algorithm update, is live (rolled out live while the event was on!).
• Uniqueness and editorial control of content bigger factors.
• Video sitemaps are available now. Perfect for sites with self-hosted videos, not reliant on youtube.
• Javascript processing announcement. Good for sites with bad navigation, bad for sites hiding links in Javascript.
• Bounce rate is apparently not used as a ranking signal at this time – but that may change.

Build It Better: Site Architecture For The Advanced SEO

Speakers: Adam Audette, AudetteMedia | Maile Ohye, Google Inc. | Lori Ulloa, R2integrated | Brian Ussery, Search Discovery Inc.

Takeaway:

• Increasing the load-time of your site can not only improve your rankings, big retailers have found an increases of 7-14% in conversions!
• Use microformats for reviews, recipes, contact details and events for inclusion in Google results.
• For catalog sites, make the “View All ___” page the canonical version for max SEO and no duplicate penalties.
• Google says it’s not recommended to use text-indent to hide text over images.
• The URL specified in your sitemap will take priority over other potential versions of duplicate content on your site.

Final Notes

• Yahoo Search will be powered by Bing’s algorithms by end of 2010. Your website’s rankings in Bing will be the exact same in Yahoo (so we’re told).
• Microsoft’s AdCenter PPC platform will display your ads on both Bing and Yahoo for a combined total of 30% search market share. It will finally be worthwhile to advertise on PPC networks other than AdWords.
• Microformats for events are now mandatory for Partners who want their events showcased in the Search Engine results.

Mobile devices target a more specific audience than that of the traditional web.  These days the majority of executives use smartphones and companies are still spending on mobility and productivity tools for small to medium-sized businesses.

According to a Nielsen report in 2009 more than half of the smartphones on the market today are used for business.  Apple recently announced selling 50 Million iPhones/iPods and Google has announced they are making 100,000 activations per month of new devices.  With only those two statistics combined you have a HUGE emerging market of business users to target.

While executives are using their phones for business, they are also using them for pleasure, installing games and applications.  Ignoring this advertising channel is eliminating an emerging revenue stream.

How do you advertise on mobile devices?

There are many different forms of advertising available on mobile devices:

Mobile Organic Search/PPC – Traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or PPC (Pay-Per-Click) with custom landing pages developed to be smartphone friendly.  Users on mobile devices need landing pages that support their web browser and don’t have a lot of complex form fields to enter.

Social Media– Advertising on large social media sites, like Facebook, with a fully  developed ad platforms has not quite matured in this market yet.  Methods to access Facebook on mobile devices rely on custom applications that do not show ads on mobile devices, yet.  Also the demographics for the majority of Facebook users does not necessarily include your target audience, the business professional.  That said, Facebook does have tools that allows you to target personal information which may allow you to find exactly who you are looking to target.

YouTube – All smartphones have a YouTube player which overlays a banner style text ad over the video as it plays.  These ads are purchased by advertisers using the traditional YouTube advertising format.  Ads can be targeted towards videos and keywords relative to your services.

Ad Supported Freemium – Application developers who want to get their apps in as many hands as possible will typically have an ad supported version along with a premium paid application.  These freemium applications typically hook into the ad network, provided by the platform to display a small contextual banner style ad with clicks, taking the user to a mobile landing page.  Some freemium application functions that your potential customers might be using today are: Expense Management, Budget Management, Flight Tracker and Task Management.

In-App Advertising – This is a new form of advertising which typically starts with a simple banner like ad, instead of a click taking the user to a mobile webpage, more options are available.  A mobile smartphone knows more about a user than a typical web page.  Information like their current location, address book, calendar and call history can be accessed by custom applications to provide new advertising opportunities like never before.

Some ideas presented by Apple and Google include:

• Using location information to include Click to call banner ads.
• Application takeover where a small banner expands to display the ad.
• Full application functionality with game like user interaction.
• Map integration using location information to show local data/services or direction.
• Delivery of ads relative to the app content.

Mobile Application Ad Platforms:

Today, the three major phone vendors are each hedging their bets on their own ad platforms:

1. Google’s AdMob (AdSense for Mobile) – Just last week the FTC approved Google’s acquisition of AdMob the largest mobile advertising network which provides an open ad framework currently available for iPhone and Android Applications.  This framework currently only supports small banner style ads, but Google has announced major changes at the recent Google i/o conference indicating support for a wide variety of In-App Advertising options.

2. Apple’s iAd – Announced at the latest Apple keynote during which Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO, stated he thinks search on phones is a dead end and that In-App Advertising is where ad requests will be generated on mobile devices.  Apple’s iAd supports small banner style ads along with full blown native iPhone only applications for in-app advertising.  The majority of applications on iPhones use AdMob today.

3. Blackberry Ad Network – Blackberry application advertising is segmented, as AdMob does not service this market. Blackberry recently announced it will create its own ad network, with SDK available in the second half of 2010.  No further details are available, but it’s assumed that this network will support in-app advertising.

Who should you target?

Your first strategy should be to extend your advertising to the traditional web outlets.  A traditional SEO and PPC ad strategy with custom and tested landing/squeeze pages for mobile devices are essential.  Also advertising on other web networks that receive significant traffic, like Facebook and YouTube, will also end up on mobile devices eventually.

In-app advertising is still in its infancy, which means there area to explore not yet saturated with advertisers.  When Google AdWords was first launched, the Costs-Per-Click (CPC) was much lower due to a lower demand for paid clicks.  As demand for in-app mobile advertising rises, so will the CPC of the ads.  Based on the smaller number of advertisers doing in-app advertising, you should be able to get a cheaper cost-per-acquisition ratio on mobile devices than on traditional ad networks.

With three different networks, each providing a different method of getting your ads onto mobile devices, it may be best to start with one.  Looking at the statistics of your website, this should give you some accurate numbers of the devices people are using that are interested in your business.  Here is a screenshot of Google Analytics showing a breakdown of visitors to a site based on mobile device:

A typical trend is that while visits by mobile devices are small in comparison to desktop devices, it’s a growing statistic typically lead by iPhone/iPod devices and followed closely by Android.

Apple constantly exceeds expectations with its products and technologies and iAd should be no different.  With a brand new ad network, early adopters will get first view by millions of iPhone/iPad/iPod users.

Blackberry’s roots are in corporate and business smartphone development with arguably the largest install base in corporate America.  Look for more information about their ad network, along with iAd early adopters, this ad network will get first crack at millions of dedicated blackberry users.

The network with the most potential is Google’s AdSense network.  Google already has established partnerships with large marketing firms and delivers tools like AdWords and Doubleclick to monitor and track your campaigns.  Google’s open nature and over 10 years of experience in the ad space should earmark them to be the largest ad network. This may eventually lead to inclusion blackberry devices with the continued success on iPhone and Android Devices.

Not ready to believe the demand for mobile advertising?

Here are recent statistics taken from the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report – (http://metrics.admob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/AdMob-Mobile-Metrics-Apr-10.pdf)

*Note: These statistics are skewed in favor of iPhone and Android devices, as these are the only platforms AdMob currently serves.  The Blackberry install base is much larger than the number of ad requests, since the advertising market is segmented they are not accounted for.

Over 7.4 Million ad requests in the US in April 2010.

Android, iPhone and Blackberry are the clear leaders in ad requests.

Top Phone model ad requests in the United States is clearly the Apple iPhone.

Ad request traffic relative for Apr 2010 relative to Apr 2009.

Are you planning to do mobile advertising?

These advertising networks will establish themselves in the last two quarters of 2010.  Is your business planning to take advantage of these new advertising outlets?  Do you see value in focusing a percentage of your ad spend on mobile devices?  Do you have web statistics that support advertising on mobile devices?  I’d love to hear your individual success or failure story and offer help with your mobile advertising strategy.

Further Reading

If you are interested in checking these facts yourself, here are some articles and videos used to produce this blog post.

Google IO 2010 – http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/

Apple iPhone 4 OS Event – http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/specialevent0410/

Nielsen mobile device statistics – http://bitbriefs.amplify.com/2009/09/20/smartphone-and-iphone-demographics-from-nielsen/

What does Facebook’s Open Graph mean for businesses who use Pay-Per-Click advertising?

Here’s my understanding of Open Graph’s potential:

If you’re logged into Facebook on a computer, and you visit *any* website that has the new “LIKE” button installed, Facebook (and ultimately Microsoft, AdCenter & Co.) will know exactly which website you’re on, what you did there, etc.   The Facebook “LIKE” button is actually a bit of code the webmaster put on each page and when visited, it queries Facebook’s servers. That query is the gateway for tracking and you better believe they are mining that data.

What would happen if your demographic info from Facebook and your browsing history, from every site you’ve visited that had a Facebook “LIKE” button on it, were tied conveniently into an SEM/PPC advertising platform?

Online marketers would have the ability to serve you ads on the site you are visiting which are tailored to your personal activity history, gender, age, browsing prferences, likes and dislikes etc.  Who better to become the advertising platform for that new extensive network but Microsoft’s AdCenter?  They are a shareholder in Facebook after all.

Imagine for a moment as a marketer, being able to selectively show your advertisements on a particular website based on the demographics of the individual who was visiting. Being able to know that that visitor had a vacation to ____ scheduled because they mentioned it in their Facebook profile, or that he/she liked a specific restaurant because they gave it a positive review in Yelp, or perhaps you could see that they had stocks in ___ because their activity history showed they frequented that stock’s page on the NYSE’s website.

This is a new dimension of targeted advertising that we haven’t been able to achieve outside of small pockets of membership-based websites.

Facebook’s Open Graph is a marketers dream, and privacy issues aside, could change the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) field forever. If my understanding is correct, this could be the golden ticket for Microsoft AdCenter’s SEM network which has struggled to keep up with Google and Yahoo since it’s inception.

Update:

I came across an article stating that Microsoft’s AdCenter contract had expired with Facebook and that, apparently, Facebook has not renewed their advertising partnership. Interesting…perhaps there will be a new SEM network on the horizon?

What do you think?

Is Facebook Open Graph evil or ingenius? As a business owner, do it’s pros outweigh it’s cons?

Additional Reading:

• What Facebook’s Open Graph Means for Marketers
• The Ultimate Guide To 11 BIG Facebook Changes–And What They Mean (PHOTOS)
• Are Like Buttons Evil? The Open Web Reacts To Facebook’s Not-So-Open Graph
• Facebook’s Open Graph: It Depends On What The Meaning Of The Word “Open” Is

Update: December 15, 2010

Bing has announced that Facebook “Likes” influence rankings in Bing.com searches.

Not using Geo-targeting

If I had a nickle for every time I’ve asked a B2B partner, “who is your target market?”  and they responded with, “EVERYBODY!”….

While you can certainly reach just about anyone with Google Adwords, you have to be realistic about the types of businesses you work with and the proximity to a service provider for which they will do business. Businesses like to do business locally; it gives them confidence and a sense of accountability.

Unless you have an office in every state in the USA, you should not be targeting your ads nationally.

Not using Geo-targeting is the fastest way to burn through your ad spend.

While our recommendations vary drastically depending on the size of your organization and your particular niche, we generally recommend isolating your PPC to the state/province that you operate in.

If you’re an up and coming partner working in a busy metropolitan like LA, our recommendation would be to target just LA and perhaps cities within a 50m proximity. Don’t target all of California! You’ll lose your shirt in adspend, driving prospects you would have to drive 12 hours just to introduce yourself in person.

If you have 5 offices, you could target the 5 states where the offices are located. If you have a $100 million dollar a year business with 50 locations, then sure, you can target nationally.

Stick to the little pond and be the big fish, for now at least.

Keeping the Content Network On

Look carefully at the screenshot above. If your Networks, devices and extensions settings don’t look like this, than you may be paying DOUBLE for leads aquired through the Content Network!

There are 2 primary types of Networks you can display your Adwords ads on:

• Search Network
  Your ads show up in Google search results as well as in the search results of some major sites.
• Content Network
  Your ads show up on Publisher websites in the form of Google AdSense.

You want to be on the Search Network, but not the Content Network.

Why?

The cost per conversion through the Content Network vs the Search Network, in this example, is more than 100%!

Publishers, aka website owners, are hosting your ads as a method of generating revenue for themselves. They generate revenue based on the number of times the ads on their site are clicked. This creates an incentive for publishers to mislead and encourage visitors to click on your ads accidentally. Due to widespread fraud and abuse on the Content Network we no longer recommend this platform unless you’re prepared to be absolutely diligent with cracking down on your referrers.

If Google were to change their Content Network model to CPA (Cost per Acquisition) to function more like an affiliate referral system, then we would certainly revisit it.

Poor Continuity Between Keywords, Ad Copy and Landing Pages

Imagine this scenario…

You’re searching in Google for “make to order manufacturing software” and see an ad that says something along the lines of,

Manufacturing Software
Accounting, cost control, sales,
inventory control, MRP, eBusiness
www.number1partnergold.com

You click on the add and it takes you to a page that looks like a replica of a Microsoft Dynamics NAV brochure.

There’s no reference to Manufacturing…

There’s no reference to Make to Order Manufacturing or Engineer to Order Manufacturing…

It’s just a sales pitch for Microsoft NAV, followed by a “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the page…

This campaign lacks continuity! The ad copy is decent, however not specific to make to order businesses, and the landing page is a complete disconnect. We’ve seen this time and time again with Business Software Resellers who have been lured to PPC by its sweet temptation of instant traffic.

To make matters worse…

A few years ago Google introduced Adwords Quality Scores to measure this continuity at a pretty basic level.

In short, if your ad copy doesn’t match the keywords you’re targeting and your landing page was copied directly off Microsoft’s website (or worse, your competitors) then that will affect your Quality Score for that campaign.

And it gets EVEN worse…

If you have poor quality scores in one campaign Google has a habit of lowering the quality scores of ALL your campaigns. Even after you purge your entire account, Google has a history of your quality scores which can affect FUTURE quality scores.

Why does this matter?

Because Quality Scores are used across your Adwords account in the following ways:

• influencing your keywords’ actual cost-per-clicks (CPCs)
• estimating the first page bids that you see in your account
• determining if a keyword is eligible to enter the ad auction that occurs when a user enters a search query
• affecting how high your ad will be ranked

Which translates into:

Above average CPC. Yes, you’ll have to pay more than your competition for the same keyword, at potentially a LOWER position. You might have to pay top dollar just to show up as #8 on the first page of results!

For more information on how Google calculates your Quality Score and CPC check this post out.

Overbidding for the top positions

The screenshot above shows some examples of highest Click Through Rate (CTR) ads within a specific adgroup. Take a look at the CTR column and the Average Ad Postion (Avg. Pos.) Notice the lack of correlation between CTR and Ad Postion?

We used to believe in the “Golden Triangle” theory which dictates that users scan search results in an “F” pattern as seen below:

However, this theory was put forth in the early 21st century when PPC ads were new and users weren’t very familiar with the internet. Half a decade later and people have figured out that the first few results are going to be ads and they have adjusted their scanning patterns. The advent of multimedia embedded in the results is changing the users focus even further. New evidence is showing that users are now scanning search results in an “E” pattern, taking a deeper look at individual results, reading the entire title and spending a bit more time prior to clicking.

See the example below of the new “E” scanning pattern:

Source for images

In short, climbing over each other trying to bid your way to the #1 Ad Position is no longer financially viable. In our experience you’ll be able to lower your CPC significantly, while maintaining good CTR, if you aim for the positions #3 through #8. All this translates into a lower Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) which, at the end of the day, is what really matters.

Please note: For this to work your entire PPC strategy must be fine tuned; great ad copy, excellent keyword choices and solid continuity through to your landing pages.

Not tracking Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Sure you know how much you spend on AdWords every month… but do you know what kind of return you’re getting on your ad spend investment?

The beautiful thing about online analytics is the finite level of detail you can extract from your marketing efforts. To monitor your AdWords performance, and your investment, you need to setup Conversion Goal tracking. This can be done through the AdWords interface or within Google Analytics.

Keep in mind that tracking conversions is only one piece of the puzzle.

Working those conversions back to your costs, and constantly reducing those costs, in what separates the amateurs from the PPC experts.

Here’s the formula used to calculate CPA:

• ( Total Ad Spend / Quantity of Leads generated ) = Cost Per Acquisition

At the end of each month we highly recommend you compile your AdWords statistics and throw together a report that allows you to see your PPC ROI at a high level.

We recommend that you segment your CPA by AdGroup as well as at the Keyword level. This will allow you to take decisive action when you see that a specific AdGroup/Keyword is costing you dearly and not producing results.

We also recommend that you do the same calculation for your campaigns as a whole so that you have a CPA Avg. By examining this data over several months you’ll be able to monitor your progress, and hopefully the fruits of your labor.

Has this been helpful?

Let us know by posting a comment below.

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As you may or may not know, Gmail shows ads from Adwords PPC advertisers.  “Relevant” ads are generally displayed based on the content of the page (come to think of it, this seems like a bit of a privacy issue, but that’s another story).

Usually, I don’t pay attention to the ads but, this time, one caught my eye:

Here’s a detail of the PPC ad:

LOL.  At first I thought it was some kind of clever trick to pull in clicks, so I clicked on it.

Unfortunately for the advertiser, it isn’t a clever gimmick.  Clicking on the ad takes you to http://www.site.com/main/index.htm (link opens in new window).

I sent the ad around to a few PPC associates I know, and one of them mentioned that he’d seen the ad previously — about 6 months ago.

Lessons to learn:

1. Double-check your ads before your run live with them
2. Review your ad performance on a regular basis to see how well individual ads are performing (you are testing different ad variations, aren’t you?)
3. Don’t write “test” ads in the first place
4. Don’t indiscriminately opt in to Google’s Content Network for ads

Have you seen any other bad PPC ads?  Let us know, and leave a comment below!

In essence, account Quality Score is based on the overall performance of the account, and Google’s perceived relevance of the keywords, ads, and landing pages to each other.  The relevance of the ads to the keywords is first calculated in a similar way to one component of how search engines rank pages — keyword visibility.

For example, if the keyword you’re bidding on in Adwords is ‘red widget’

• Is the keyword included in the ad? If so, the ad is relevant.

• Is the keyword included in the landing page? If so, the landing page is relevant.

It all ads up, so the keyword is “good” and receives an initially “good” Quality Score.

Though, historical account performance is also taken into account here…

After the initial Quality Score is assigned, campaign performance takes over and it’s all about maximizing the clickthrough rate (CTR, measured as a ratio of the number of ad clicks to ad views). For keyword Quality Scores, once ads start running, a big portion of the keyword Quality Score is decided by CTR.

The system can be seen as “democratic”. From Google’s perspective, a keyword / ad combination that has a high CTR must be relevant, as people take notice of it and click on it. If the keyword / ad combo has a higher CTR than competitor’s ads, you get awarded with a higher Quality Score for that keyword.

This can result in a lower minimum CPC, and higher ad position.

All of this is an oversimplification of the system, but I hope it makes sense.

Campaign optimization comes down to structuring the account’s campaigns and ad groups in a way that facilitates the above.

If a keyword / ad has a high CTR, it can overcome low “relevance” over time. If the Quality Score  for most of the keyword in your campaign is 1/10, and other keywords have a very low CTR, dragging overall ad group performance — and account Quality Score — down.

You may even have some high performing (relevance and CTR) keywords in an ad group, but if there are a lot more keywords that are poor, it drags down the overall relevance of the ad group itself — incurring another hit.

This is where we’ve run into issues in the past after picking up a clients existing PPC campaign that has a low Quality Score.

Google’s “trust” of the account is down due to the low Quality Score and now new campaigns are seen with a slight measure of “suspicion”, if you will.

To fix an account that has been severely affected by poor “Quality Scores”,

• Set up some good campaigns and build back Google’s trust to get everything back up to normal.
• Go through and trim out (delete) poor performing keywords and unpause the campaign.

This will help the account along its way to recovery.

Once you’ve rectified the initial issues creating your low Quality Scores, read up on 10 Ways To Increase Your Adwords Quality Score.

It’s easy to make expensive mistakes when it comes to PPC Advertising and it’s in Google’s favor that you do! Get your Pay-Per-Click campaigns started off on the right path by working with our experienced PPC experts today.