Engine Ready Blog

One of my favorite movies growing up was Weird Science. I recall watching the film for the first time with my babysitter back in the 80s. Thanks to Netflix, I was reminded of this classic a few days ago and, as strange as it sounds, thoughts about the movie have popped into my head since. “What is the name of the actress who played the female lead?” “I was way too young to be watching a rated PG-13 movie” “I wonder if the premise of building a perfect woman from a computer infuriated 1980s feminists” and sitting at my desk today at work “what if I could build the perfect something”. And that last thought brought me to today’s posting idea: the perfect PPC Advertiser Platform.

Obviously there are other things I would like to make first if I could, such as my dream home or an amazing car, but an awesome PPC advertiser platform would diminish a lot of frustrations as far as my work is concerned.

A powerful Account Editor with Real-Time Stats

Don’t get me wrong, the Google Adwords editor is pretty great. Editing keywords, creating ad text, and just plain account organization is easy and efficient thanks to this desktop application. It is one of the main reasons I enjoy working with my Google accounts over other pay per click accounts. Although the Google editor is a huge time saver, what is the deal with the “Choose Stats Interval” feature? I hate it that I can only go back 30 days and the data hardly ever loads anyways. Basically, it’s a waste of space. In my perfect creation of an account editor, I would be able to pull live statistics for any date range.

Transparent Bidding

I remember the devastation that my colleagues and I felt the day transparent bidding died in Yahoo. That was always one thing we could all agree on: Yahoo’s bidding model exemplified a market that was reflected supply and demand principals. It was nice to know why my ad moved down in position and having the option of outbidding someone in order to get that position again. And unlike Quality Score, at least ad positioning and keyword pricing was straight forward. As long as Quality Score is determined in part by “other relevance factors”, I would prefer transparent bidding because at least I know exactly what is determining my minimum bid and ad position.

Phone Call Tracking

In general, conversion numbers are pretty dismal when it comes to selling high ticket items online. I think consumers continue to feel uncomfortable about using a credit card online to buy expensive goods and services. They also might have questions to ask the retailer before spending their last month’s paycheck. Although many ecommerce websites are now tracking lead forms or contact form submissions as separate actions, I am not aware of many websites that are tracking call-ins generated through PPC. Tracking this piece of information is important for keyword and advertisement evaluation because decreasing a bid for a keyword that doesn’t appear to be converting may not be the best move. That particular keyword could be generating a huge number of call-ins from interested customers. Having call-in information available in reporting would allow PPC marketers to see the true value of each keyword and advertisement.

Believe me, this list could go on. Quality scores column added to reports, customized cookie length and more precise ad scheduling would be great too. Clearly, there are numerous other elements that would make up a “perfect” PPC advertising platform, but these are the main three features I would personally love to see the next time I log in to an account.

A few months back, Google sent me Survey request email.  Normally I ignore them, basically because I’m fairly content with the current state of customer service and usability of the systems.  But this time Google offered a “Free Gift”.  Who wouldn’t give 15 min of their time for free Google Schwag?  So I participated. 

3 weeks later I get a package:

Being an avid outdoors enthusiast, I was ecstatic that I got a quality product with Google plastered over it!  This will go great with my: Crank Flashlight/Radio, Frisbee, Lava Lamp, USB drive, T-shirts and various other chotchskies they’ve given me over the years.

I was however dismayed to find out that Google was in-fact trying to scramble my brain, prevent me from having children, and ultimately kill me!  You see, I just recently read a report about Bisphenol contained in polycarbonate plastics and learned that:

“BPA mimics estrogens, binding to the same receptors throughout the human body as natural female hormones. And tests have shown that the chemical can promote human breast cancer cell growth as well as decrease sperm count in rats, among other effects.”

Any plastic which you encounter with a #7 listed on the bottom should be avoided.

Normaly I would be eating my red M&M’s & washing it down with my Google bottle full of milk, but I really believe that this one is not good for you.  I’m not sure why companies are making products out of this material but perhaps they could use some sort of a lead-based paint to seal the Bisphenol in and prevent it from seeping into the water.  Hmm… I’m sure they could outsourse the reconditioning to one of the many reputable manufacuring companies in Bejing for next to nothing.

 “Do no Evil”… pshaw!  I shall destroy my water bottle and save my brain cells so that I might find new and more innovating ways of lowering our clients average CPC.

Your move Google.

When signing on new clients we are often asked if we will be advertising in the Big 3 (Google, Yahoo, MSN).  Many clients like to be up and running in these three engines simultaneously, and right away.  But we always explain that we will start with Google, then Yahoo, then finally MSN. Why this approach?  Volume.

Hitwise recently released a report on overall search volume between its tracked search engines. 

Any person who has called a Cell phone or Internet Provider over a locked-up phone or loss of internet has heard this: “Turn off the Phone/Modem for 30 seconds and then restart it.”  I’m pretty sure they make you jump through this hoop before actually trying to troubleshoot what the problem is.  It’s like going to the doctor and being prescribed antibiotics even though they are not sure if it’s viral or bacterial… “We are not exactly sure what the cause of your ailment is, but we’re just going to treat it” - they told me.
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As a search engine marketer who sees both the client facing side and number crunching side, you may fully understand this common new client scenario. It all begins with that first kickoff call. The contract is signed. The SEM team is ready to improve results and make PPC a great success. The new client is ready to take on the world.

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If you haven’t checked lately, you may want to look into the display status of your long-tail keywords in your AdWords accounts. Seems like Google has decided that they would prefer not to bother with your keyword phrases that have a “low search volume”.

What does “low search volume” mean? Google doesn’t specify on their site, but we’ve heard less than 1 or 2 impressions per month. We haven’t confirmed this though.

Here’s the message you’ll see for those keywords that won’t trigger your ad:

So in this example, our ad will show, but only for a more popular and expensive broad match keyword phrase “bronze candle holders”.

By amputating the long-tail keywords, in most cases marketers will be facing larger average cost per click charges for what used to be low cost bargains.

You can ask almost any kindergartner in the world what their favorite color is and they will respond with a very decisive answer. “Blue”, “red”, “green” or “the whole rainbow” are just a few of the answers that I remember hearing in grammar school. Colors appeal to the senses and emotions in a very powerful way. I recently read about how mental institutions and hospitals have been using color therapy since the 1930s. The exposure to certain calming hues has had powerful results in many patients. If color can have this much influence in the offline world, image the role it plays in the world of Internet Marketing.

This design below has been converting between 6 and 8 percent…

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Problem: A PPC account needs to be built ASAP and activated.
Method: You build your account in Excel or the AdWords editor as opposed to the AdWords Interface.
Difficulty: You have many ad groups and don’t have the time to custom write countless creatives.
Solution: Setup the architecture of your campaigns in such a way that you can easily leverage the power of Excel to do the dirty work.
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