Constantly changing and ever on the move, Google has been seen Beta Testing a new ad extension on their results page.  Check out a sneak-peak here:

Not only are you presented an opt-in within a paid listing ad, but it is also pre-populate it with your Google AdWords Login!  Upon logging out and revisiting the same SERP, the field no longer contained my email address.  This new addition to the ad extension suite of options has yet to become standard in all accounts.  Since it is in Beta, there is not much more information available to us at this time.

I for one do not see the value this offering can provide in comparison to the extensions currently available.  A person who would provide their information to sign-up for a newsletter would probably have to be convinced to do so based on the content of the site relative to their interests.  I have a hard time believing a person would use this feature and then continue on elsewhere without visiting the actual site.

What do you think?

• Under what circumstances would you find this feature helpful?
• Would you personally submit the form if you were presented this option?

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It’s a new world these days when we think of businesses.  If people didn’t trust corporations & the financial industry 10 years ago, what must they think of them now?  The only way to earn back the trust of the masses is by doing business transparently.

Comedian Louis CK showed us all this week how much that point drives-home with all of us.  On December 9^th, Louis released an online comedy special which he produced, promoted, and without utilizing any distribution channels (RIAA and MPAA).  For the cost of $5.00, you could download his comedy special which has no DRM(Digital rights management) or regional restrictions & comes with the freedom of 100% ownership.

“The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?”

In the age of P2P & Torrent networks, would there even be enough people in the world paying $5.00 to cover production costs?  The result was staggering.  In just 12 days, Louis CK’s special grossed over $1 million dollars.  That’s over 200,000 paid downloads.

Continuing the transparency with his customers, the comedian released the following statement:

“I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden and since we’re all sharing this experience and since it’s really your money, I wanted to let you know what I’m doing with it. People are paying attention to what’s going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.”

250k is going to pay back what the special cost to produce and the website to build.

250k is going back to his staff and the people who work for him on the special and on his show.

280k is going to a few different charities

220k is going to Louis CK

It’s not often that you feel so good about a person making a million dollars in 12 days without despising them just a little bit.  It’s interesting how our perspective changes when people are open & candid with you.

We have heard from many of our clients over the years who have worked with other Search Marketing Agencies. We have heard how they are neither given ownership nor logins to their own accounts, shown key data metrics from the actual interfaces, nor ever presented with auditable billing information.  Why is this not shared? Is there something to hide?

Engine Ready prides itself on our transparency.  We will walk our clients through each search engine and show how each dime is spent, each refund attained, and when the time comes, transfer ownership and  logins for every account we built or managed (if they didn’t have it already).

It’s your money and you have stake in how it is spent.

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Google is stepping up their updates for the adwords editor.  Hit the link to read all about it.  http://www.google.com/support/adwordseditor/bin/answer.py?answer=1409692. The editor is nearly at the point where all account modifications & management can be performed off-line.

Here is a breakdown of the newest features:

• Campaign experiment Support

• Location extensions support

• Background download:  One or more accounts can now be downloaded in the background while you’re working on another open account.

• Additional campaign settings:
  • Enhanced CPC (enabled/disabled
  • Delivery method (standard/accelerated)
  • Ad Rotation (optimize for clicks/optimize for conversions/rotate)

• Destination URL links:  Test your destination URLs when you click the icon

• Unlimited number of search conditions:  Advanced Search now allows you to add an unlimited number of search criteria

• Additional image ad dimensions:
  • 320×50 (now valid for mobile image ads as well)
  • 300×50
  • 425×600
  • 300×600

• Item status and disapprovals:  AdWords Editor now displays item status in the Status column and allows you to manually pause or enable an item by editing the status icon. In addition, you can now see specific ad disapproval reasons by mousing over the disapproved status.

• Updated first page bid estimates:  AdWords Editor v9.5 supports the updated first page bid estimates

AdWords Editor

Here is a great article outlining some of the things the FTC is going after Google about.  We hope that in the least we will  get a glimpse beneath Google’s Shroud of secrecy surrounding their Quality Score rating system.

Jump over to ClickZ for the article: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2086712/ftc-regulation-google

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