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Google is thinking small as it continues to grow. The search giant is focusing on mobile in 2010, according to CEO Eric Schmidt, who spoke during a conference call (full audio transcript) on the announcement of Google’s Q4 earnings.

Before he got into the nitty-gritty of this year’s outlook, Google announced that revenue was up 17 percent in Q4 2009 ($6.7 billion) and up $23.65 billion for all of 2009 (for a net income of $6.5 billion).

Where does Google go from here? Right in our pockets, it appears. The release of the Nexus Phone made a splash, but Google is concentrating on the red meat of advertising and search to really make its mark in 2010, especially on mobile devices.

In 2009, Google saw mobile search increase 5 fold. The advertising that goes along with mobile search is even more specialized for customers. According to Senior Vice President of Project Management for Google, Jonathan Rosenberg:

“The new formats, the targeting tools and the reporting we are giving to advertisers (are) making a difference. Click to call, letting advertisers target specific high-end devices or carriers (we are) seeing improved monetization across mobile.”

This goes along with the trend Google has shown in strengthening its geo-specific local search results and the goal of getting answers to search result question to the user quicker. The feature is especially appealing to marketers as more consumers are using their phones to research the pricing on a possible item before buying.

Beyond mobile, Google is banking on a boom in its revenue from display advertising, which goes beyond the AdWords/AdSense model to more enriched advertising content.

Said Schmidt: “We have said is that our next huge business is display. If I were to talk about absolute numbers that would be No. 1. But smaller ones (revenue growth opportunities are) growing faster. No. 1 there is mobile. We have a lot of evidence that people are moving towards data-friendly mobile devices quite quickly. 2010 will be a year of significant mobile revenue growth.”

Display advertising is growing market for Google as the integration of DoubleClick, which was acquired in 2007, has finally been completed. Coupled with DoubleClick’s vast inventory the type of  reporting Google Analytics is able to provide is very appealing to marketers. Especially when combined with interactive, call-to-action display ads (ie, click here to do this, go to our web site or become a part of our social network), there is a lot of area for expansion for Google. Google has already rolled out more ad templates to make it easier for small businesses to get into the game and is eager to have video powered display ads as well through YouTube which is the de facto leader in the space.

So it looks like the new ecosystem Google is building for 2010 and beyond will focus on display ads powering the revenue picture in a what that AdWords has done since Google’s beginning, along with a more local-oriented, geo-savvy search on mobile, with faster and better answers and targeted advertising that gets as specific as the device being used as the search.

It’s a plan that can fit in the palm of your hand, but one that Google is banking on for this year and the years ahead.

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Google Q4 Earnings Point To Changes in its Marketing Focus

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When setting up a pay per click advertising campaign, a very important key to success is to break your campaigns into tight, granular ad groups. One way to carefully segment campaigns is to identify customer personas.

As internet users, we don’t all search for the same products and services the same way. Different demographic groups may use slightly different search phrases and respond differently to offers. For this reason, it is important to understand what groups would be interested in your product or service and how to speak to them through your advertising.

Identify your customer subsets and give them names (i.e. high school students, soccer moms, etc). Think about the words each segment would search that would result in a sale/lead. Set up a different ad group for each customer segment and focus on the phrases that specific group would likely search. This will also allow you to present different ad copy/creative and landing pages to each segment.

Read the rest here:
Pay Per Click Advertising Tip – Define Customer Personas

Search Engine Keywords:

• wordpress blogs

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Remember having to go into the Adwords Report Center to find out what phrases people were searching to find your ads, what content placements your ads were appearing on, and whether your ads were performing better on search or content networks? Well, those days are near over as more and more advanced reporting is becoming readily available right in the Campaign Management tab.

It was always a hassle to go into the Report Center, set up a report, run the report, and analyze the report just go go right back to your Campaign Management tab to make adjustments. As part of Google’s latest Adwords interface, this problem is quickly being solved with great data being available without running reports.

For example, instead of running a report to see what keyword phrases people are searching, you can just click on the “See Search Terms” button on your Keywords tab and get the complete list of search phrases that generated clicks on your ads. Right from that screen, you can add phrases as negative keywords with a click. You can also add well performing phrases to your campaigns with all matching options very easily.

The new Networks tab displays all the content network placements your ads appeared on along with click and conversion statistics. You can easily remove any content placements that are performing poorly or you just do not want to be associated with.

I am sure that I am not the only Adwords advertiser that is waiting patiently to see the Adwords Report Center disappear altogether.

Go here to read the rest:
Adwords Report Center On Its Way Out

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Anyone advertising in Google Adwords probably knows that Google typically only displays text ads on their search pages, while other ad formats (video, image, etc) can be shown on Google’s content network. Well, somewhat behind the scenes, Google has been testing additional ad formats to be used in search, so don’t be surprised when you start seeing videos, images, and products in the paid search listings.

For example, you may start seeing individual products with prices and links within a single Google ad as this is something they have recently been testing aggressively. Another ad format Google is experimenting with is the comparison ad. Great for consumers, comparison ads are designed to compare rates/prices of different advertisers within an ad.

As most of these new ad formats are of great benefit to the consumer, they can hurt the advertiser who does not stay on top of the changing landscape. Being competitive in paid search will require staying aware of new ad formats and using them effectively to reach your audience.

More here:
Google Introducing New Ad Formats for Search

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You may have seen a plusbox below some AdWords ads that displays several products right on the Google results page. This is because Google has been giving certain advertisers a chance to participate in their beta test of combining AdWords ads with Google base to display product feeds directly below ads.

If you want to be a part of the test, however, you are out of luck because the test is coming to an end. Google will now be assessing feedback from the advertisers that participated. Look out for availability of this feature in the near future.

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Product Plusbox Beta Test Commencing

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Thinking about starting a business? A great way to test your business model and get some quick data is through Google Adwords. Using the AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool, you will be able to see how competitive the phrases related to your business are, and how much it will cost to generate traffic from them. For example, let’s say you were interested in starting a search engine optimization company. Using Google’s Keyword Suggestion tool, you would know that the phrase “search engine optimization company” would cost you about $11.69 per click, there is a high amount of advertiser competition, and the phrase is searched about 27,100 times per month. You will be able to find all of this data before you spend any advertising money.

By running some small test campaigns with conversion tracking, you will quickly be able to see the return on investment of bidding on keywords. This is also a great way to test your creative, including ad copy and landing pages, because you can control your budget.

In addition, research has shown that of pay per click traffic in general, 80-90% of the visits are new visits. This indicates that there is little overlap with other advertising channels so you will be bringing in a high percentage of fresh leads.

Source:
Test Your Business Plan in AdWords

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For those of you who are new to Google AdWords, there is a free workbook that will help you get started using the AdWords interface and creating pay per click advertising campaigns. The free downloadable pdf file is a bit lengthy, but provides some great insight into the basic steps of using AdWords.

The main topics covered in the workbook are organizing campaigns, picking the right keywords, writing targeted ads, and putting it all together. Each topic is complete with definitions, tips, and screen shots.

The workbook is by no means your answer to getting the most out of your advertising, but it is a good way to get started if you have a small budget and are doing things on your own. For a more in depth strategic guide to online marketing, try the Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Book.

Originally posted here:
Free Workbook for AdWords Beginners

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PPC plays a significant role in almost every affiliate campaign. While you might think running a great AdWords campaign starts and ends with choosing the right keywords, you’re wrong. Keywords are only half of the battle. The other half is writing great copy that makes buyers click.
What can you do to create powerful AdWords copy? You can start by following these simple tips.

Identify Your Main Benefit — Your headline needs to immediately connect with the customer. Remember, consumers just want to know “What’s in it for me?” That’s why your PPC headline needs to focus on the main benefit your product offers. Let’s say you’re selling an e-book for students taking the SAT. A good benefit-driven headline would be “200 Points SAT Increase.” Why is this headline effective? Because it clearly states the benefit of the product. And the fact that it has a specific number makes the benefit less vague and more believable.

Be Different — One thing I’ve noticed about PPC ads is they’re often all the same. Usually, there’s no compelling reason to click on one ad over the other. That’s why you need to be different. Take a look at the competition’s PPC ads, and try to figure out what you can do differently. If their headlines are statements, make your headline a question. If they all focus on the same benefit, choose a different benefit to target. Do everything you can to make a searcher’s eyes lock onto your ad instead of a competitor’s.

Create Urgent Call to Action — Now that you have a powerful headline, you need to seal the deal by following it up with a strong call to action. Use powerful ad words like: save, free, you, now, and today. For instance, on the earlier SAT e-book ad, you could follow up the headline with “Save 25% when you order today.” Or, “Get Your Free SAT assessment today in under 10 minutes.” The point is this: potential customers need to feel like they need to take action right now.

Don’t Forget the Keywords — By now, you know the importance of including the right keywords in your PPC copy, so I won’t insult your intelligence by exhausting this topic. Just remember to seamlessly blend your keywords into your copy and url.

Always Try New Copy — Never just write one ad and stick with it forever. The only way to know you’re running the most profitable AdWords campaign is to always be testing. Try new headlines and new calls to action. Keep experimenting with different copy until you find one that achieves the highest profit for your campaign.

Deliver on Your Promises — Of course, the best AdWords copy is meaningless if your landing page doesn’t deliver on the promises you made. In other words, if you promise a “200 Points SAT Increase,” your landing page better tell the reader how that’s going to happen. Make sure to include testimonials that drive this point home. The best PPC campaigns include ads that are unified with highly targeted landing pages.

Do you write powerful Adwords copy? Share your Adwords copywriting advice with us in the replies!

Continued here:
Is Your AdWords Copy Powerful?

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The potential that AdWords has as an acquisition model should be determined by your pre-existing business model. For instance, any acquisition channel can be approached in one of three general ways: (1) as a top priority, (2) as a necessary evil, or (3) as a robust component to a comprehensive acquisition strategy. In leveraging AdWords then it’s important you do so in the context of your greater acquisition strategy.

AdWords as a Top Priority
If your business model demands a constant and high volume of new customers, then managing your AdWords will require a comprehensive solution. That solution, in turn, should feature a resource (PPC manager, 3rd party agency, etc.) that is experienced with PPC and very knowledgeable about your industry. In addition to monitoring campaign performance, your chosen resource should be providing in-depth analytics on conversions so that your campaigns can be optimized on an ongoing basis.

AdWords as a Necessary Evil
Conversely, if AdWords is a channel that you plan to leverage just because your competition is doing so, you should consider a solution that can maximize returns on your limited investment in PPC. Here, you will want a resource that can quickly identify the most appropriate keyword sets according to (1) your budget, (2) your niche, and (3) your main competition. In this case, you require an AdWords solution that is intimately familiar with your product and experienced with PPC in general.

AdWords as Only Part of the Picture
Finally, if PPC is just one component to an already comprehensive online acquisition strategy, then you should consider how to both leverage AdWords as a standalone channel, and use it to shore-up your other channels. For instance, you may want to weigh the pros and cons of allowing your affiliates to leverage the channel as well.

Although there is an opportunity here to encourage your affiliates to leverage PPC in doing so you will also need to offer your affiliates additional support and tools so that they can produce results, and not just clicks. Affiliates will require tools and support to optimize their own PPC campaigns.

For example, Google provides excellent analytics on click-through-rates, but it cannot help your affiliates determine the value of each keyword they bid on. If you’re going to encourage your affiliates to use PPC then your affiliate marketing platform should be able to track referrals according to keywords. After all, optimizing a PPC campaign requires that you have detailed reports on all you KPIs. These include referred customers, average transaction, and the long-term revenues generated by each AdWords ad.

Maximizing Your Return on Clicks
Optimizing your PPC strategy requires that you consider how PPC will relate to and affect your overall acquisition strategy. After all, PPC is just one of several acquisitions channels, and should complement your other acquisition efforts.

As with any powerful acquisition channel, PPC has the potential to generate either great returns or great losses. Making sure that your Adwords campaigns are managed with the right experience and supported by tracking software that can collect ongoing intelligence on campaign performance, then, are key components to PPC success.

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Fitting AdWords into Your Acquisition Strategy

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The release of the new user interface for Google AdWords is in most areas a large improvement from the previous interface. The question is, how easy will it be for AdWords users to transition to the new interface? Well, if you use AdWords Editor, the transition will be virtually seamless. The new interface is structured almost identically to AdWords Editor and gives more features with less clicks than the previous interface.

Some of the key improvements include

• Viewing all ad groups, ads, keywords, or placements at once – now you see all the keywords in your account without drilling through campaigns and ad groups, allowing you to quickly find that keyword that is driving up your overall conversion cost.
• “See Search Terms” button replaces the need to run a search query report. You can use this on selected keywords or all keywords and it returns all of the phrases searched that resulted in clicks. With the results, you can easily add phrases or add negative keywords to your list simply by clicking the check box next to each phrase.

There are a number of other improvements expected as the new UI continues to mature. All in all, I give the new interface a thumbs up.

Read more here:
New AdWords UI a Hit

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Many pay per click advertisers are now using dynamic keyword insertion in their ad copy. Many, however are no getting the most out of this trick because they do not understand the capitalization techniques. The way you use capitalization in your keyword insertion command will directly affect the capitalization in the ad that appears. Here are some ways to control capitalization in your keyword insertion ads.

Lets say a user is searching “ten golden rules”. Here is how it will look using different keyword insertion capitalization variations:

If your ad uses this command: {keyword:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read “ten golden rules”. (no capitalization)

If your ad uses this command: {Keyword:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read “Ten golden rules”. (only the first letter of the first word is capitalized)

If your ad uses this command: {KeyWord:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read “Ten Golden Rules”. (the first letter of each word is capitalized)

If your ad uses this command: {KEYWORD:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read “TEN GOLDEN RULES”. (all letters are capitalized)

In most cases, it is best to capitalize the first letter of each word (KeyWord:). Play around with some different variations and see how they work for your campaign.

Excerpted from:
AdWords Trick – Dynamic Keyword Insertion

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When advertising in Google AdWords, quality score can mean the difference between profitable and break-even campaigns. Small tweaks to your campaign can be enough to improve your quality score enough to lower your cost per click. Especially if you are in a field with growing competition, you may see the cost per click of your keywords rising to the point that you just can’t make any money. By raising that quality score, you may just be able to get the cost back down and start making money again.

The simplest way to improve your quality score is to take the time to break your campaigns down to highly specific ad groups. Instead of a single ad group with 20 somewhat similar keyword phrases, break it into four or five ad groups with four or five keyword phrases in each. For the ads in a specific ad group, include the keyword phrases in the ad copy. On the landing page for that ad group, include the wording you used in the ads. By simply separating keywords into ad groups, you will improve the relevancy of your ads and landing pages and effectively lower your cost per click.

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Improve Your Quality Score

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In an attempt to create some buzz around their new Display Ad Builder Tool, Google began a contest to see how creative advertisers can be using this tool. The tool was created as an easy way for advertisers to create static image and animated ads for use on the AdWords content network. Using professionally designed templates, people with little or no design experience can build display ads for their business in minutes.

The first place winner, based on the creativity of their ad and innovation in using the tool, will receive $1,000 in AdWords credits. Put on your creative hats and enter the contest by simply filling out their entry form. Hurry up because the contest ends March 24.

Credit:
Get $1,000 Worth of Advertising from Google

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If you are advertising in Google AdWords, you may have a new task at hand. A recent policy change now in effect by Google is disallowing multiple display URL domains within a single ad group. If you currently advertise multiple domains in a single ad group, you will have to go in and change your ads.

This policy change only applies to ad groups that display different domain names. Different subdomains and domain extensions are still acceptable. For example, if you have an ad group with the following display urls:

www.tengoldenrules.com
marketing.tengoldenrules.com
tengoldenrules.com/marketing

You will not have a problem because all of the above urls have the same root domain (tengoldenrules.com).

However, if you have an ad group with display urls like these:

www.tengoldenrules.com
www.10goldenrules.com
www.tengoldendeals.com

The ads are no longer accepted by Google because the root domain differs in each.

Fixing your ads to comply with this new policy could be a large, arduous process, especially if you have a large scale account. The easiest way to find out which of your ad groups cause an issue, you can contact your Google rep or call 1-888-246-6453 and they will be able to tell you exactly which ad groups you need to change.

Read more here:
More Work for Google Advertisers

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A useful PPC optimization strategy that is often overlooked is including negative keywords in your campaign. Negative keywords are used in AdWords to prevent your ads from being served for irrelevant searches. To paint a clearer picture, assume you are bidding on the term “bass” because you sell bass guitars. If you are bidding on “bass” with broad match, your ad could be served in searches for “bass fishing”. Anyone searching for “bass fishing” is unlikely to purchase a bass guitar from your site. If you included the term “bass fishing” in your negative keywords, you would not be wasting the impression and possible click. In addition, by adding negative keywords, your cost per click is likely to decrease as your click through rate increases.

Understanding negative keywords is only half the battle. Many advertisers know about negative keywords but do not utilize them because they have trouble identifying them. Common sense can certainly get you a starter list of negative keywords, but to really be effective, you will need to constantly be adding negative keywords to your campaigns.

The first way to identify negative keywords is to look for them in your current campaigns. Run a keyword performance report to see which keywords convert poorly over time. Add those phrases to your negative keywords.

There is also a very simple way to identify negative keywords you may not have thought of. Just run your broad keywords through any keyword suggestion tool, like the one provided in AdWords. Look through the list and identify any phrases that include your keywords but are irrelevant to your business. For example, you may have never considered that when bidding on “packaged food”, your ad will be showing up on searches for “packaged food poisoning”. However, if you ran “packaged food” through a keyword suggestion tool, “packaged food poisoning” would be right there for you to see.

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AdWords Tip: Identify Negative Keywords

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