WebSavvy - Online Marketing and Consulting

Jun 11, 2008

Running Content Ads - do know which sites are hurting you?

If you’re running Google Ads on the Content Network then here’s a really useful report for you to run. Once you log in, go to the ‘Reports’ tab in your AdWords account

1. Under ‘report type’ choose ‘Placement Performance’

2. Settings as follows:

Level of Detail = Campaign
Domain or URL = Domain
View = The largest date range you can (at least one month, preferably a quarter)
Date Range = this will be set automatically for you based on View above
Campaigns = manually select each campaign that you have. It’ll be easier to read if you produce a new report for each campaign (ie if you have a different content campaign for different countries)
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Jun 10, 2008

Do you need to know SEO for AdWords?

If you’re already using AdWords then you probably know that the Quality Score feature has a lot to do with the Landing Page that you take your visitors to. In fact your whole website is being judged by Google for its relevance to your potential users.

Which really means that if you want to keep your AdWords costs as low as possible you need to read up on SEO best practices. Yep it used to be that SEO & SEM were at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of online marketing, but these days they’re two sides of the same coin.

If you need some SEO help, here ’s a great post by Matt Cutts (THE SEO legend)

I can also highly (very highly) recommend you get yourself a copy of the SEO Book by Aaron Wall. He also has a huge range of free tools at the website

Small changes can have huge impacts. We recently suggested a few (fairly) minor changes to a client’s site. It took her 30 minutes to implement & CPC for her main dozen keywords dropped by 30% overnight. Add this to some simple changes that boosted conversion on the page by about 90%, and some work with AdWords Editor to setup different campaigns for each major country (more on this later in the week) that helped her better control costs in each area… all up she’s now making about $10k a month instead of $5k with the same spend! Not bad for a couple of hours work. Let us know if you’re interested in doing the same for your site.

Jun 6, 2008

If you’re sending emails next week, read this

Regular readers will know what I think of Seth Godin - he’s probably the person who most gets marketing in the 21st century. If you don’t own The Dip or Meatball Sundae I urge you to buy copies.

In the meantime, here’s a great checklist to read before you send your next email.

Have a great long weekend!

Mike

May 30, 2008

(yet) More Corporate stupidity from NAB

Yes this is a whinge, but it’s also a lesson on how not to treat your customers.

If you provide an online application process (like NAB do for corporate credit cards) please don’t call your potential customer (more than a week later) & say “congratulations, you’re approved for that card - I’m going to email you a form to complete & sign so we can send your card out”

Why Mike? What’s the problem? Can’t see a problem so far… in fact this all sounds quite good.

Except “complete & sign” means start from scratch! What they mean is “Fill in a completely blank form even though you spent 15 painful minutes a week ago completing 28 pieces of information … we’ve managed to ignore all of that & would like you to go through the entire painful process again, but with a pen this time, not a keyboard.”

Your prospects (& hopefully customers) deserve better. If you’re going to treat prospects as a commodity, please turn off all of your advertising now. Today. Before the weekend. Save us all the hassle of dealing with you. Argh.
Of course I know that only big businesses are this dumb. I know you business isn’t… but please do me a quick favour. Try walking through your site this weekend from the Landing Page to the Thank You page… and see how easy you are to deal with. Have a great start to Winter/Summer

May 25, 2008

What is Automatic Matching?

Google AdWords has just launched a new wrinkle to its system & it’s called Automatic Keyword Matching.

Basically, Google will look at the keywords you’re bidding on, the Ads you’ve written & of course the Landing Pages you send people to. Then for a “short period of time” (hours? days? who knows!) it will have a ponder - then it will start showing your Ads for additional keyword phrases that you’re not bidding on - but that Google thinks are relevant to what you do.

The Pros are pretty clear - you get to show your Ads to more people that you otherwise would. Plus Google “aims” to only show your Ad for phrases that will get you a CTR & CPC close to that AdGroup’s average… also these additional keywords won’t affect your Quality Scores (& you can easily opt out of this feature - it’s in Campaign Settings)
The Cons may be bigger than you first think. You’ll have to use the (sometimes excellent, sometimes infuriating) Search Query Performance Report to find out which keywords Google has chosen. And of course you’ll spend more - but not an amount that will push you over your daily budget.

As ever - TEST! - and watch those results carefully.

May 9, 2008

Are you feeling lucky punk?

Speed is critical. How fast can you draw? Well ok, how fast can my computer draw your website?

Yep, page load times are increasingly important & as of mid-June, they’ll be factored into your Quality Score - so get cracking now to reduce those load times & get ahead of your competitors.

landing page load time affects quality score
To find out if you might have a problem, click the little magnifying glass next to each keyword in your account & check the Keyword Analysis page.

May 9, 2008

Should you advertise on Sensis.com.au?

That’s the question posed to me almost daily by clients & prospects this week. It seems that a number of Australian small businesses are being offered a package deal that guarantees a certain number of clicks (they’re people damn it! but more on that another time) for a set price. It might seem easier to manage, but what’s really going on?

Basically (in my opinion which might not be right Mr Lawyer) what Sensis are trying to achieve is getting more people to advertise on their platforms (sensis.com.au being the one they need the most help with), the problem for you as a business is that a tiny fraction of the population use that site to search for answers to their problems.

80-90% of your prospects are using Google (some markets might have a slightly higher proportion using live or yahoo, most not many)
With a package deal (from Sensis or whoever) you have no control over the proportion of your budget that goes on Google & how much goes on yahoo, Sensis & ninemsn (also not used by many people anymore!)

You are much better off having control of your own spend,
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May 7, 2008

Ignore this email - it’s not from Google

If you get an email that looks like this:

————————————————————————-
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
————————————————————————
Dear Google AdWords Customer,

We were unable to process your payment.
Your ads will be suspended soon unless we can process your payment.
To prevent your ads from being suspended, please update your payment information.

Please sign in
to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login,
and update your payment information.

———————————————————————-
We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
Thank you for choosing AdWords.
—————————————————————————-

Please just ignore it. It’s not from Google. Roll your mouse over the link (not live here! but in your email) & you’ll see it links to http://adwords.google.com.djk2s.cn/select/Login which is a Chinese domain with a contact email address in Cameroon!

Just another bunch of crooks looking to ruin someone’s day - there’s not a lot you can do .. just delete the email.

May 2, 2008

Wanna advertise on TV - the easy way?

First it was radio, then print, now Google will let you buy Ads on TV via the AdWords interface (for US advertisers only).

Don’t have a commercial ready to go? Not a problem, as they did with radio they’ll point you in the right direction to get one created & (for a limited time only) will reimburse you the cost (up to $2,000 with a few conditions).

Sign up for the upcoming webinar to learn more & you can even request a free campaign prop to help you target the right demographics.

If you’ve already maximised your AdWords campaign & picked the low-hanging fruit by optimising your website to improve its conversion rate, then this might be a useful way to find new prospects via a traditional medium.

Apr 5, 2008

Thank You ARN for another Great Conference

Thanks to the Australian Radio Network for flying me to Fiji last week to talk to some very smart small businesses about all things Internet.

Two keynotes, 19 hours of consulting, 5 gorgeous sunsets & 1 cocktail party made for a very rewarding week. And special thanks again to all those businesses (listed below) for coming along with an open mind & willing to work and play hard. The keynote from day 1 is viewable online

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=ajj4mtf9dckm_199k4h2q6fm

Companies that attended:
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