So far, Yahoo I think has the biggest news.  In a blog post it announced a ton of big updates, include Rich ads in search, Network Distribution reporting (to show which websites are actually serving your ads), and my favorite, the Yahoo Desktop Publishing tool.  FINALLY!

Y! Desktop Publisher

I’ve been part of the beta for quite some time, and it’s been killing me not to talk about it due to NDAs, but now that it has been made public, I can go into a little detail.  It runs on the Adobe Air platform, which makes it look really pretty, but runs fairly slow.  Yahoo makes great use of the real estate with expandable tabs for research and side windows to display secondary–yet still important–data about the campaigns and ad groups.  It’s almost too busy with as much data displayed as possible, but I see that as a feature more than a bug.  In fact, there is so much data being displayed I couldn’t even show screenshots without making it look like a declassified government document that’s been blacked out that it’s virtually useless.  The downside is it’s slow, and still acts more like a Yahoo bulk sheet instead of Adwords Editor.  It’s still a huge improvement over having nothing, but my main warning is to check the error sheet in the upload section of your Yahoo account, because I occasionally find stuff that doesn’t pop up as an error in the Desktop Publisher.  Oh well, it’s still in private beta.

Google Mobile Search & Local Search

There has been a ton of announcements this week surrounding mobile search.  Adsense will allow website publishers to post mobile ads (Adwords has allowed iPhone/smartphone targeting for some time now in the campaign settings), and announced an Android deal with Verizon. This means that Verizon will be the largest American network to carry Google Mobile OS phones.   This also opens up the realms to much better location-based advertising.  However, for any of this to mean anything, Google’s location-based advertising needs to stop sucking.

Meta Keyword Tag is Dead

If you remember search in the 90s, relevancy was often no more than how often the keyword showed up on a page.  This led to someone trying to get to the top of a SERP for the term “shoes” to write a page that went something along the lines of “shoes, shoes, shoes.  We have lots of shoes. We have blue shoes, red shoes, old shoes, new shoes.”  Then they would stuff their meta keywords tag with all those same keywords so engines knew that’s what keywords you thought were important to the page.  Google was the first to stop using it, and even told people to stop sueing each other over it.  Well, during a SMX panel this week, Yahoo said that they stopped considering meta keyword tags for search rankings several months ago, which means none of the big 3 players use it.  What this means to you is if you have a limited time to do your own SEO and can’t afford a pro, don’t bother with the meta keywords tag.  It will literally be a waste of your time.

On a more humorous side, I got a kick out of this admittance from Google’s CEO about how sometimes Larry and Sergey buy companies and don’t tell him until after the fact. Apparently Sergey found Keyhole (now Google Earth) on the web, bought the company, then later walked into Eric’s office and mentioned it.  Eric’s response: “‘for how much, Sergey?’ And it turned out to be a few million.”

For more SMX coverage, you can check out Search Engine Land’s daily recaps for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Regardless of the tips I present below, I firmly believe that last statement.  The quality score is there for the engine’s benefit and not ours as advertisers.  It’s the engines grading us on how profitable we are for them.  If we’re not profitable enough with a high CTR, they charge us more.  However, is the quality score graded on a scale or on a curve?  If it’s on a scale then you can do everything right and get an “A” and be happy with your high score.  If it’s graded on a curve then your final grade is dependent on the performance of others.  If you do better than they do, you score high.  If you do worse, you score low.  In other words, your ability to write better ads with higher relevance than your competitor impacts your quality score.

Consider this: You have a quality score of 5 and your competitor with identical keywords and bids has a quality score of 10.  Since the keywords are identical the relevancy to the raw search query should be the same, meaning the only difference is the ad copy.  They have an awesome ad and you don’t, so their quality score is higher.  Typically, this means that they can get a click at the same position as your ad for a lower cost per click.  If they can spend less money per click, they can afford to go after more traffic, which means they have more opportunity to score conversions.  More conversions means more cash to fuel future Adwords spending and continued sales growth.

Do I have your attention now?  Good.  Here’s how to optimize your ad groups for quality score:

Keep your keyword count in ad groups between 25-50.  This includes match type variations of the same term.  This isn’t a steadfast rule, but is a good rule-of-thumb.  If you have more, make sure that they are keywords that focus around a very tight central theme.

Don’t bid on broad match.  Keeping everything to phrase and exact match will limit how likely it is for Google to match your keywords to an irrelevant term.  Remember, Google’s definition of relevancy may not be the same as yours.  (If you really want broad match, put it in a different ad group).

Separate your misspells.  If you use the dynamic keyword insertion in your ads, misspells will show up in the headline.  This will hurt your quality score, not help it.  Keep them separate and use the correct spelling of the term in the ad copy.

Don’t use dynamic keyword insertion in ads.  Surprised?  Why?  If you keep the keyword counts low in the ad group, you can write the ad to include those keywords.  Having an exact match term as a keyword and in the ad text without Google injecting it shows maximum relevance.  Besides, with everyone and their mother using the DKI these days, it doesn’t have anywhere near the CTR boost that it used to.

Now before you go off and redesigning your accounts to optimize for quality score, consider this: some of your terms will already have a high quality score.  If you have a couple terms in ad groups that score poorly (like 5-7) and some terms that score well (8-10), then simply remove those poorer terms and put them in their own ad group.  Copy your better converting ad from the original to include in the new ad group and bam!  You have a higher average quality score already.

• Grab the searcher’s attention against 10 organic links and 9-11 other paid links
• Describe the product/service you provide in a manner relevant to the search query
• Have an enticing call-to-action that tells the searcher what is expected of them after they click on the ad.

The ads need to be attention-getting and relevant, but also describe who will benefit from the site after s/he clicks on the ad. As an example, imagine each ad being a closed door with a peephole. The relevance of the ad determines the size peephole to look through, and the quality of the ad is how many appropriate people will be enticed enough to walk through the door. If all these are being performed correctly, it should provide the optimum combination of clicks and conversions, which leads to cheaper CPAs, cheaper clicks, and lots of profit.

TIP: It is very rare to want as many people to click on an ad as possible. Writing copy that qualifies an ideal visitor will tell some people that the site is not for them.

There are several online marketing metrics that don’t have the same relevance in search that they do in other fields. For example, CTR is important to banner ads because the advertiser pays for each 1,000 impressions. CTR in search varies based on each client’s goals, and sometimes won’t play a large role in making decisions within an account. The primary reason to use CTR is if you don’t have conversion tracking enabled. If this is not the case the conversion rate and the Return Of Ad Spend (ROAS) should be your key performing indicators.

Character Limits

The engines are more similar than different when it comes to ad display requirements. Here is a basic list of each engine and their maximum requirements:

Writing Effective Ad Copy & Headlines with Calls to Action

Headlines are in a different color and will be the first part of the ad a person sees. Having this stand out will be ideal to get attention. The best method of standing out is to do something that the other advertisers aren’t doing. This may require using a keyword insert function, but it may also mean to not use a keyword insert when everyone else is. It may also simply be to use a unique style of writing that others aren’t incorporating, like asking a question or even being a little silly. Always keep in mind that it has to be copy that you won’t mind if the client sees while doing their own search, so keep it clean and inoffensive. You should also avoid the use of fragment ideas or concepts, because the short number of characters should be used to complete a full sales pitch.

The description line is the place to back up a claim made in the headline, and/or to give detail about the advertised product or service. It is also the ideal place to add exclusive language to ensure that only the quality traffic is coming to the site. For example, if a client is a networking company for large businesses, a lot of the keywords used by a large business will also be used by consumers and small businesses. By saying “Designed for businesses with 200+ employees” a consumer and the small business will instantly know the ad is not for them. At the same time it will make a searcher at a large business more interested since they know they are the targeted audience.

The display URL acts as a mini-branding function by telling the searcher where the ad will take them. It doesn’t have to be the same as the landing page URL (which will sometimes be very long) and gives some leeway into bending some of the editorial policy rules.

Exclamation points and capitalized words are not allowed in ads. Only one exclamation point can be used within the ad copy of an ad, and one shouldn’t use superlatives like “best”, “greatest”, “lowest”, or “cheapest” without the claim being backed up on the landing page of the ad. This can be worked around, since Google only actively monitors terms like “#1″, “Top”, and “Lowest”.

TIP: If you upload ad copy via AdWords Editor for Google, you can bypass some of the regulations for a limited amount of time. It will let you upload individual words as capital letters. So try saying “FREE” instead of “Free”, and see if it has any impact on your conversion rates.

Using KeyWord Insert Functions

All three engines allow the option to include the search term into a headline or ad automatically to increase relevancy. Studies by Google suggest that using keyword insert increases the click-through rate (CTR) for an ad by varying amounts. The search engines want a high CTR because that’s what they get paid on: clicks. Otherwise the ads take up valuable screen space and don’t generate revenue, which is why the engines typically penalize low CTRs.

By adding the Keyword insert function into an ad, it usually guarantees a part of the ad will placed in bold, which often catches the eye of the searcher. However, as the practice has grown and is being used by less experienced advertisers, some use it as a shortcut for not creating tight ad groups and to still get parts of the ad placed in bold.

TIP: Creating a tightly knit ad group gives more reason to use keyword insert because it will make the rest of the copy more relevant to the keyword being included in the copy.

Keyword inserts don’t always work. One must always consider the character limits on the ad copy while considering using the keyword insert feature, since some search strings can go beyond the 25 or 35 character limits. The engines require a backup to display in case the search query is too long. He backup is the description after the colon mark within the brackets:

{KeyWord:Buy Black Shoes}

A space is not needed after the colon because that would tell Google to place a space before the word “Buy”, which will waste a character and will get chopped off anyway.

Google Ad Copy

Google requires two unique lines of text that can run up to 35 characters each. Previous experience shows that ads usually perform better when each line is an independent sentence instead of one sentence running across both lines. Typically the headline serves as a stand-out function that tries to separate it from the other ads. The goal is to be relevant to the search query and visible to the searcher. When an ad has the same keywords as the search query, Google puts those keywords in bold within the ad. This is often done by using a keyword insert function that takes the search query and inserts it into your ad and instantly making it bold. However, as everyone tries to stand out by using this function, they all begin to look the same. In order to truly stand out one can remove that common factor and be a successful ad without having anything in bold.

Yahoo Ad Copy

Yahoo currently allows 40 characters in the headline with 70 characters in the description line. There are two primary differences between Google and Yahoo copy:

1. Google breaks its 70 character limit up into 2 lines of 35 characters, where Yahoo has one line of 70 characters that automatically wraps to a second line as space requires.
2. Yahoo allows for alt text for dynamic headlines. These allow for more control over what appears with a keyword, if the search query exceeds the character limit.

TIP: Yahoo strongly recommends the use of keyword insert to all advertisers. If your conversion rate is starting to dip on otherwise strong copy, try replacing the dynamic headline with a static headline .

Try using the same ad copy on all three engines simultaneously. This will limit the amount of time needed to run statistically relevant ad copy tests due to the higher impression, click, and conversion data.

MSN Ad Copy

MSN took the basic concept of Google’s ad system like testing, geo-targeting, and keyword-insert, and expanded it. The character limits are the same as Google’s, but instead of two description lines of 35 characters MSN has one description line of 70 characters that will automatically wrap to the second line. Visually this makes all of the ads look left justified compared to Google’s which look force justified. Along with keyword insert, MSN allows for a new feature called dynamic text for each keyword. The premise is that one can change the standard order-level ad copy to better fit a specific keyword. This will typically benefit eCommerce sites with large volumes of product pages that want each product page as a landing page for a keyword.

MSN Dynamic Text Example

In the above example the name of the order group was put in the headline as a Parameter to emphasize a larger sale than one that would only benefit the searcher, and help the advertiser know what sale language caught the searcher’s attention. The keyword insert function was used early in the ad to draw attention and increase relevancy to the searcher, showing that the site has exactly what she is looking for. Finally, a third parameter of price was included so that the searcher knows exactly what she will find when getting to the site.

Using Price in Ad Copy

There is a debate of whether one should or shouldn’t include the price of an item in the ad copy. The argument against is that if the searcher has seen it for less somewhere else, regardless if it is not an exact item match, then she will ignore the site completely. This can be bad for both parties if there are additional rebates or other offers that the searcher wasn’t aware of before clicking on the ad. The argument for including cost is it tells the searcher up front what they’re expected to do and what it will cost them, which should increase the conversion rate. However, one would have to test different ad copies to see if the overall revenue generated with mentioning cost is greater or lower than not mentioning the cost. This will be shown in more detail later. Generally speaking, if the price is above certain psychological levels, or above the price of competitors in the same advertising space, don’t put the price in the copy. If the price is lower than competitors, and the average shopper knows that price is a good deal, then put it in the copy.

Whatever you write for your copy, keep in mind that the headline has to relate to the keyword, the copy has to relate to the headline and sell, and the landing page needs to relate to the copy to avoid a disconnect between you and the searcher. If you have suggestions beyond what is written here for successful copy, please feel free to share it via the discussion.

Ad Group Organization:

As in Google this should be done by the similarity of keywords (as opposed to similarity of definitions), however, it should also be done by keyword volume.  For example, if you have a campaign featuring all the colors of cars and trucks in your showroom, you should not just have and ad group for “car colors” and “truck colors”, but break these down even further to “High Volume Car Colors” and “Low Volume Car Colors”.  I haven’t found an advantage of cutoff points at specific limits, but for ease of design, I use 10,000 queries per month as my litmus test.  Keywords with more than 10,000 get into a high volume ad group, and keywords with less than 10,000 go into another ad group.  The query count can be found within the keyword tool in your account.

Ad Copy:

Yahoo has 40 character headlines instead of Google’s 25 character limits.  Use the headline as your call to action, with the body including your normal marketing message.  This inspires those who are attracted to the headline to follow through with the called-upon action.  Calls to action typically include a verb like “buy”, “save”, “order”, and can also include a time connotation like “now”, “today”, or “before 9/05″.

Also, no matter how tightly knit your ad copy is to your ad groups, you should almost always include the keyword insert.  Their systems love keyword inserts and it will almost always raise your quality score.  Like Google, higher quality scores mean better positions for cheaper clicks.

Landing Page:

Keyword-level landing pages is ideal.  Your conversion rate will be higher and Yahoo will give your ads higher quality scores if ALL the keywords within an ad group have a keyword-based landing page.  It can be the same page for all keywords, but they should all have it.  Remember what I said about high quality scores on ads?

The Long Description

Back in the day Yahoo had two types of ads: a short description and a long description.  The long description would allow 180 characters and be shown when your ad ranked high enought to be seen above search results instead of along the right side of search results.  It would also be the default ad copy for the content network.  This is no longer the case.  It’s dead.  Even if you fill it out you still need to write the short description ad, which will be shown for everything.  Don’t waste your time and just leave it blank.

Ad Testing:

Yahoo loves for ads to be tested, even if you know one will perform better.  Try to always have 2-3 ads in there, as it having a test ad does seem to impact quality scores of both ads.  Naturally they want the ad optimizer to be turned on (which optimizes based on how they’re paid: CTR), but I prefer to leave it off.  Play with it and determine which works better for you.

Hopefully this helps you optimize your Yahoo ads.  If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them for all to see.

Google:

In the past I always had to submit a claim via my rep at the customer service number. However I recently discovered a specific page buried within Google’s support section that allows you to submit a claim directly to the ad click quality team. It should be done on an ad group basis, but in some cases it is definately worth the time involved.

Check all the boxes that you think may be signs of click fraud. Once you hit the continue button you’ll see links to the help section that might contain articles that explain what you’re seeing. At the bottom you’ll see a question with radial buttons asking if the articles answered your questions. Even if your question was partially answered, click no. Doing so will expand the window to include a submission form. Now it’s time to get down to business:

Fill out all the applicable areas and click submit. You’ll get an automated confirmation from the click quality team and a response several days after their investigation.

Don’t expect a full 100% credit for the clicks in that ad group. Google will more than likely say that a percentage of the traffic didn’t meet their expectations, and give you that percentage as a credit, or possibly even a portion of the percentage as a credit.

Keep in mind that Google will only investigate claims that are filed for traffic received in the last 60 days. Put a reminder in your calendar to do this task every two months to get the maximum benefit and decrease your billable clicks.

Yahoo:

Yahoo offers online data to learn about click fraud and how to navigate it via their Traffic Quality Resource Center. To file a claim you need to log in to your account and click on the customer service link at the upper right hand of the window.  A new window will open up that will allow you to write a message. Be sure to click on the drop down box underneath the type of inquiry request and select “Traffic Quality”.

It also gives you the ability to add attachments like spreadsheets or log files to back up your claim. What I like about the Yahoo system over the Google system is that the response email tells you when you can expect a time frame to have your case reviewed and completed.

To combat future inadvertent traffic–whether it be from click fraud or other unqualified traffic–you can request to receive a raw query search report every 30 days to look at the raw search queries that are producing the impressions for your ads (yes, I’m still talking about Yahoo, not the Google report).  Look this over and see what terms you don’t think should be there. Add those terms as excluded words at the ad group or campaign level and let your money be spent on better quality traffic.

So even though there aren’t daily articles on click-fraud anymore, know that it’s out there, and chances are you’re affected by it.  Fight it, because every dollar saved is one extra dollar towards your next conversion.

All I really care about is how this affects advertisers like you and me.  What does this mean for our accounts in the near future and beyond?  For right now, nothing.  Before anything happens the deal needs to get regulatory approval by the Justice Department.  And considering how hard Ballmer’s lobbyists fought the Google/Yahoo deal a couple months back, you have to assume Google will be more than happy to return the favor.

Assuming all that goes through and everyone is happy, then there is still a 24-month implementation process before all Yahoo SERPs are powered by Bing. During that time frame it appears that the Yahoo Panama interface will be retired and all advertisers will purchase ads by auction for both Yahoo and Bing through the adCenter interface.  Self-serve clients (whcih is almost everyone) will do everything through adCenter, while premium clients will be handled through the Yahoo sales team, but also do everything with Microsoft’s technology.

Make no mistake, this is huge.  As Danny pointed out yesterday in a seperate article, Yahoo is bowing out of search.  In the meantime, here are some suggestions on how you can better prepare yourself for this transition:

• Get Used to the Bing Interface: It is mighty quirky, so learn your way around it.  I’m sure changes will be made in the future, but learning the system now will shorten your learning curve as updates are made in the future.  If you haven’t opened an account, do so here.
• Download the adCenter Desktop: It’s still in beta, but I can only assume this tool will get better and better, just like the Adwords Desktop tool did, so learn it, live it, love it.
• Play around in the AdLabs: I’m always surprised that people don’t know about this fun sandbox for potential features and tools, but this is a great way to see what crazy stuff those engineers are thinking about for future improvements.  Familiarizing yourself with them today means less time figuring out how to use them tomorrow, if/when they get incorporated into full features within adCenter.
• Read the Help Guides & Forums: This may sound too newbie-like for expert advertisers like yourself, but it really does help understanding the wording differences between the engines.  It also helps you understand a little on why things are organized the way they are, and from a logistical perspective, these documents are updated the most frequently.  If you are a newbie, then you NEED to read it.  Login to your account and click on the help link in the upper right above the search bar.

Change is coming, as it always does in the dynamic world of SEM.  All we can do is prepare.  Doing the above steps will put you one step closer to readiness than your competitor.  Even though this may not happen for several months, start learning today and squash the competition tomorrow.

Courtesy: BusinessInsider.com

You probably get them as much as I do: those sales calls from people who can “guarantee top positioning in Google and other search engines”.  Little do they know that when they call me, they’re talking to someone who doesn’t mind showing them just how little they know about search engines and business in general.  Heck, if I can keep them on the phone a couple seconds longer, that’s hopefully someone else saved from hearing their snake oil spiel in the first place.  On one such call, I let the gentlemen finish his whole script and he proceeded on the hard sale.  I asked him one question: “What kind of ROI can I expect to see from your services?”

“Oh, our ROI is AWESOME” was his response.

Um…no it isn’t.  Last time I checked, ROI was a calculation where you take earnings minus cost divided by cost multiplied by 100 to get in percentage terms [((E-C)/C)*100], which I’m pretty sure leads to a number…not AWESOME!  The analysis of how that number meets expected goals may lead to the label of “awesome” and high-fives all around, but ROI itself is simply a number.

If you’re wondering why I’m ranting on this, it’s because this is the perfect example of mixing up the difference of results and the interpretation of the results.  This is critical when it comes to monitoring PPC performance.  You could have a 500% ROI, which some might consider awesome, but what if your break-even point required a 750% ROI compared to other activities you could have done with those resources?  Ladies and Gentlemen, in this case “awesome” has left the building and you have some explaining to do.

Since PPC can be factored down to the penny at a keyword level, don’t consider ROI as a goal, but as a floor to build on.  Look at your daily or weekly reports and ask yourself “Can I be happy with these results if they continued for X amount of time?”  If the answer is no, then you just reviewed the actual results, and interpreted them to be insufficient (aka “not awesome”), regardless of what the actual ROI is.
If you know that to break even after shipping, commissions, taxes, and all other costs that you need a 250% ROI from PPC (or $2.50 ROAS…same thing) then you should set your floor at 250% and not your goal.  Set goals in three forms: Ideal, Expected, and Acceptable.

• Ideal is shooting for the moon and really worthy of being called “Awesome”
• Expected is profitable and sustainable.
• Acceptable is north of break-even but you really want it higher.

This is especially critical if you work with agencies because agencies will ask you what your target is, and if you say 250% they’ll give you as much volume as they can at the 250% to spend as much as they can (assuming their compensation is based on percentage of spend).  So remember…awesome is a goal, not a number.  ROI is a number, and not a goal.  Setting a given ROI as a goal is awesome, so long as you know what your results should be.

It’s not uncommon for me to meet people who are interested in getting started with paid search, but have no idea how to get started.  That’s usually why they come to me in the first place.   More often than not, there is one question that trumps all others right out of the gate:  How much can I afford to pay?  It’s one of the toughest questions in search marketing, and it usually comes from a conversation that goes something like this:

I can spend $500 each month on advertising on Google and other search engines. But, what do I set my bids at? Where do I start?  How do I know what I can afford to pay for a sale?

If you’re like most people who have asked themselves this question, your answer is probably similar to theirs:  Less than what I’m paying now.

I’ve determined that the easiest way to answer this question from the beginning is to start at the end and consider how much profit we want from PPC, and using that to determine how much we’re willing to pay for a sale or conversion (typically referred to as a Cost Per Acquisition, or CPA).  So grab a pencil and some paper, or open an Excel window, and prepare to think about your goals.

Things to think about:

We need to consider a few things before figuring out what a reasonable CPA is:

• How much margin is gained from each sale?
• How often does your site convert visitors to buyers?
• Is your margin the same amount regardless of product or quantity, or does it vary per transaction?

Once you have considered this information–even in just ballpark terms–then you can begin working backwards to find out what you can afford to pay per sale and then determine your ideal cost per click.

First of all, how much of your margin are you willing to reinvest into the business in the form of future PPC advertising? This answer is based solely on your objectives and intentions, so there’s no way I–or anyone else–can tell you what this number should be.  As a starting point, you may want to consider this number in terms of a percentage. This will allow you to adjust your budgets over time so it’s easy to calculate modifications when you make changes in your pricing or cost structure. As an example, let’s assumes an advertiser is willing to invest 30% of her margin into PPC advertising to determine her ideal cost per conversion.  (I keep emphasizing PPC advertising because if you consider all advertising you will have a lot more volume from higher CPAs than you intentioned, and this will lead to a lot more money spent than you planned, and leave your original goals useless.)

EXAMPLE:  A website sells a product for $299.99, with a cost of goods sold of $194. This means the sale has a margin of $105.99. If she reinvests 30% of her margin, she would have $31.80, which would be your acceptable CPA.

Ta da! Now this advertiser knows how much she’s willing to spend for this $300 sale, roughly 10% of the sale total, or $30-32.

Determining Costs per Click

Once you know how much you can afford to pay on a sale, then you need to know how often you can sell a product to someone who comes to the site. This is where your site conversion rate comes in. If you don’t know this number already, simply take the number of sales (S) you receive on your site and divide it by the number if unique visitors (UV) over a given length of time, usually a month. Multiply this number by 100 and you have your conversion rate in percentage form.  As a formula, this would look like:

Conv Rate =(S / UV) * 100

To continue our example, we’ll assume that our advertiser has made 20 sales from 1000 visitors, which would be a conversion rate of 2% [2%=(20 / 1000)*100].  After you know your site’s conversion rate and your acceptable cost per conversion/sale, then you have the information to figure out what you can afford to pay per click to get those visitors to your site. Take your conversion rate in decimal form, (the conversion number you have prior to multiplying it by 100), and multiply it by your acceptable CPA.  In our case 2% is the same as 0.02, so the formula would look like this:

0.02*$31.80=Max CPC

Our advertiser has determined that her max CPC to meet her CPA is $0.64 per click. Voila!

WAIT! Don’t set bids to be $0.64! That would be too easy. Remember that your bidded CPC is rarely the same as your actual CPC, so you can go as much as 20-40% higher than your acceptable CPC to get close to $0.64 being your actual CPC.  In this case that would make the bidded CPC somewhere around $0.75-0.80.

DOUBLE WAIT!  There’s one other problem: This method doesn’t take into account competitive factors, ad copy changes, or landing page conversion rates, which all can have huge impacts on your costs per click AND your PPC conversion rates. So what do you do then?  Well, the honest answer is you test everything.  First of all, given the products/services you sell, is $0.64-0.80 a high CPC or a low CPC?  If you’re selling insurance you’re not going to be able to play ball with the big leaguers (unless you follow my advice on how to compete with bigger advertisers), and if you’re selling buggy whips, then your ads may be crammed in position 1, which is usually a good sign that you’re over-paying.  So test, and re-test again to see which of the variables, or combination of variables, gives you the best outcome.  You can always go lower and get cheaper CPCs and CPAs, but if you want to max out what you’re willing to pay to maximize volume, then this is how to get a good start.

The original purpose of day-parting was to let advertisers turn their ads off when they don’t want ads within a campaign to be seen. This could be due to call center hours, or perhaps a drop in the conversion rate. Here’s a better idea: Use day-parting across multiple mirrored campaigns to make sure you get exposure at different parts of the day. Let’s walk through it step-by-step:

1) Go into Google’s reporting interface and run an hourly report regardless of date for a sufficient time period at the campaign level, preferably for a single campaign. Be sure to check the boxes labeled “impression share”A sufficient time period is usually at least 30 days, but possibly up to 90, depending on your conversion volumes. Make your report screen look like this:

2) Export to Excel, and sort by hour of day. You should have 24 entries, ranging from 0-23. You need to look for a couple things:

• At what hours of the day is your impression share lowest?
• At what hours of the day is your conversion rate the highest?

Your impression share is what percentage of search queries are you getting for the keywords within the given campaign. Low numbers mean you’re losing out on opportunities. High numbers mean you show up often.

3) For example’s sake, let’s say that our busiest hours are 6:00-7:00am, 12:00-2:00pm, and 5:00-7:00pm on weekdays. For these hours we’d set our ad scheduling to look like this:

The above example is an extreme where you only run the ads during these peak times. However, if you’re using advanced day-parting also allows you to change your max bids during these different periods within a day. So if you know the 12-2 hour is where you’re going to make all your money, you can dictate that those bids automatically be raised any percentage over the Max CPC at the keyword level that you’re comfortable with. During the other hours of the day you can run the ads at a lower percentage than the max CPC, so you don’t get charged as much per click. Keep in mind that your average position will decline.

This seems pretty thorough as-is, so why use mirrored campaigns? For some really competitive keywords, you may not even last through these small peak hours to get the exposure you’re looking for. In those cases you need more than one campaign with different daily budget caps to make sure your traffic is getting spread across the times that you want, and not whenever Google thinks its best.

Expect to spend 2-3 hours of research per campaign in reports before deciding which hours are best suited for your campaign. Due to that time requirement, I’d recommend doing this on only your top 1 or 2 campaigns, and only if you see your daily budget being maxed out constantly, but can’t afford to raise it. Another good sign is when Google suggest that you should at least double your daily budget to get max exposure.

Remember, the goal is not to get more impressions or clicks for the sake of getting traffic, but instead to maximize conversions at peak times of the day. If you execute this tactic and you’re not seeing an overall increase in sales within a month or so, don’t bother with the extra management. Kill the test and go back to what you were doing originally.

I’m a PC bib: Microsofties are proud to be PCs, so their kids better be too.

Yahoo Pint Glass: Congratulations for surviving the layoffs. Have a drink

Google Dodgeball: I wouldn’t recommend playing when the goats are doing their thing

Yahoo Insta-Yodel: Whenever you need to hear the classic Willie call phrase.  Did you know if you go to Yahoo’s homepage and click on the exclamation point in the logo you’ll hear the famous Yahoo Yodel?  Try it!

Microsoft Golfbag: What better way to finish the day than a quick 9?

Yahoo Ninjas: I have no idea what a mimobot is, but I want one

Google Bike Jersey: How many programmers do you think could actually wear this skin-tight outfit?

Microsoft Binary t-shirt: It’s all Geek to me.

Google Bean Bag Chair: If this was at my desk I’d be asleep in no time.

While some of these may be pricier than a pen or a frisbee, they too can be yours to show off your search engine love!  Find something better that I missed, or have your own favorite item? Share it in the comments field.

Roughly two years ago when Yahoo started announcing what features would be available in the Panama interface compared to the old one, I was excited for one in particular: 3rd party campaign imports. This means that you could take an account you built in Google and with “very little effort” and have Yahoo convert it to their format and instantly upload it! Wonderful!

Until I started trying to use it, because then I started hating it.  There were constant errors, file rejections for no apparent reason, unconverted output files from the conversion tool. I got so mad and wasted so much time I was convinced it was faster to write new campaigns by hand.  The most infuriating part is the system apparently reads the files from right to left instead of left to right, and stops at the first error.  So you go and fix the error at the end of the spreadsheet only to find another error when you try to upload, and so on and so on.

Being the obsessive and persistent person I am, I couldn’t stand knowing there was a tool that’s supposed to work and save me time, but isn’t. After lots of experimenting I finally got the right combination of steps to make it work.

Indeed it is possible! Without further adieu, I present to you the 30+ step process to achieve this. Oh…and that’s 30 steps only if you don’t get an error message.

Ready? Here we go:

1. From Adwords Editor, Download Any Changes That Might Not Be In Editor
2. Export The Desired Campaigns (If Not All) To A .csv File
3. Open the File in Excel
4. Remove All Negative Terms Without Sorting
5. Save As a .csv File, by saving as unicode text with quotation marks around the full file name, including the .csv extention, and Hit Yes On The Warning Window. (i.e. “YahooUpload.csv”)
6. Close The File Without Saving Changes
7. In Yahoo, Click On The Campaigns Tab
8. Click In The Import Sub Tab
9. Click On Convert 3rd Party Campaigns
10. Hit The Browse Button And Find The File To Upload
11. Click Once And Add .csv To The End Of The File Name
12. Highlight The File And Hit “Open” To Add The File Into The Converting Box
13. Put In Any Desired Name In The Appropriate Box And Hit Convert
14. Once You Receive The Confirmation Screen, Click On Return To Import History
15. Download The Converted File
16. Open The Converted File And Look At The Error Columns. If You See “Please Be Sure To Update Your Tracking URLs If You Are Passing The Source Of The Click As A Parameter Or If You Are Using A Third Party Analytics Provider.” Then You Don’t Have Any Issues
17. If You Do See Other Error Codes then Scroll Down
18. Go Back To The Yahoo Interface And Click On The Import Campaigns Tab
19. Even Though The Converted Form Is In The Appropriate Format, Download The .csv Template From The Interface
20. Copy And Paste The Data From The Converted Campaigns File To The Template File
21. In Excel, Click On “Save As” And Save The Template File As A .Csv File With A Different Name Than The Imported Campaign (Even If You Haven’t Saved The Imported Campaign)
22. Again, Click Yes On The Warning Window that Says Formatting May Not Be Compatible With Unicode Text
23. Close The File Without Saving Changes
24. In The Yahoo Interface Click On The Browse Buttons On The Import Campaigns Tab
25. Hit The Browse Button And Find The File To Upload
26. Click Once And Add .csv To The End Of The File Name
27. Highlight The File And Hit “Open” To Add The File Into The Importing Box
28. Give It Any Import Name (Can Be Identical To Your Conversion File Name) And Click Upload
29. Once You Receive The Confirmation Screen, Click On Return To Import History
30. You Will See The Status Be Labeled As “In Progress” For A While. Refresh Every 10-15 Seconds Until Completed
31. If All Goes Well, The Comments Section Will Say “File Processed Without Errors”
32. If You Have Errors, Open The File To See What Got Loaded And What Didn’t

POSSIBLE ERRORS

Error Message: The Short Description Is Too Long. Please Enter A Valid Short Description. This means that your 70 character ad in Google turned into a 71 character Ad in Yahoo, because Yahoo forces a period at the end of every ad. Play with your ad and get it to fit within the 70 character limit with a period. Yes, exclamation and questions marks are fine too.

Error Message: The Keyword ________ Was Not Added Because It Is Covered By An Existing Keyword In Your Ad Group.

This means that your keywords is already somewhere in the account, and Yahoo won’t allow duplicates. If you really want it in there twice, call your rep and ask to have your account switched to an umbrella account, with a new account opened as a child account (there will probably be small fee involved). Redo the campaign import with the new account instead of the original account. (Remember you’ll need to load conversion tracking for the new account)

Error Message: Cannot Determine Which Campaign/Ad Group Is The Parent

I really hate this one. It means that you probably tried sorting the columns when working on a project and didn’t put it back precisely the way it was. Unless you’re working with only one or two accounts, it’s usually fastest just to start over.

After you correct these errors you need to re-download the Yahoo template and paste ONLY the corrected items. Then…

• In Excel, Click On “Save As” And Save The Template File As A .Csv File With A Different Name Than The Imported Campaign (Even If You Haven’T Saved The Imported Campaign)
• Again, Click Yes On The Warning Window That Says Formatting May Not Be Compatible With Unicode Text
• Close The File Without Saving Changes
• In The Yahoo Interface Click On The Browse Buttons On The Import Campaigns Tab
• Hit The Browse Button And Find The File To Upload
• Click Once And Add .csv To The End Of The File Name
• Give It Any Import Name (Can Be Identical To Your Conversion File Name) And Click Upload
• Once You Receive The Confirmation Screen, Click On Return To Import History
• You Will See The Status Be Labeled As “In Progress” For A While. Refresh Every 10-15 Seconds Until Completed

It’s possible that you get an additional error file, but it should be smaller than the original. Keep repeating the above steps until all errors are gone and you’ll be done! Congratulations!

Keep in mind some important issues:

• Bulk uploads are limited to 10mb/day/account.
• A day is defined by 24 hours, not a business or working day.
• If you are making account updates instead of 3rd party conversions, DO NOT try to upload anything that you don’t intend changing. Attempts can kick back error messages that will make things tedious.

Even though Google is the dominant player, you can still get a lot of conversions from Yahoo, and this should help you expand quickly and easily.

And that’s why the website guest book is pretty much obselete now – because it’s a haven for spammers. Now that the emphasis is moving more towards blogs rather than static websites, sites such as Yahoo-owned MyBlogLog are shooting up in popularity. It’s basically the Web 2.0 of website guestbooks or to put it another way, it’s the social network for bloggers.

The beauty about MyBlogLog is that it is a closed community in the sense that you have to register to be a member and then to join a particular community, you have to apply to each webmaster to join. They then have to approve you. So no-one can spam a MBL community the way spammers used to spam my website guestbook back when Jeffrey was signing it. The moment someone starts spamming me, I can just kick them out and block them. Everytime someone applies to join my blog community, I get an email asking me to verify them or deny them entry. So I like the control that MBL gives me over the people in the blog community, something that an ordinary text guest book never gave me when spammers were running riot.

I’ve heard the usual comments and complaints – that MyBlogLog isn’t a social network, that it’s just a gimmick. Well I beg to differ. As I said previously, it’s a social network for bloggers. MBL allows you to put a face to each of your visitors. You can see who has been to read your pages, your visitors can see your face and it adds a whole new dimension to the blogging experience.

But the icing on the cake has to be a WordPress plugin made by an Italian developer. The plugin is called MyAvatars and it puts MBL avatars inside people’s blog comments. I think this is really great. Not only does it personalise and brighten up the comments page but right away you are connecting with your readers on a personal level. A couple of people have complained that the plug-in has slowed down the blog but I haven’t noticed any such delays.

MyBlogLog also gives you the equivalent of an email mailing list by giving you the ability to send out a message to your community members which will be sent to their email boxes (an ability which obviously should be used responsibly).

But MBL have also introduced a few new widgets which are worth a mention :

With Me Sidebar Widget : if you fill in the usernames of the online services you use, you can have a widget that tracks your activity around the web and aggregates it to a widget that you can put on your site. A bit like Friendfeed.

With Me Full Page : same as the sidebar widget but this one fills a whole page. It really gives Friendfeed a run for its money.

About Me : I use this one on my own blog. This widget provides links to your various online websites that you participate in, provided you have filled in those details beforehand.

Email Signature : allows you to make an interactive HTML email signature for Outlook, Thunderbird and Yahoo Mail.

Signing up for MyBlogLog is absolutely free. If you have a blog or if you regularly visit blogs, it is definately worth signing up for a MBL account. It could completely change the way you look at blogs from now on.

Written by Mark O’Neill

There’s now no doubt now that Google is gradually building a social network to rival all other social networks but it all seems to be in dribs and drabs and it’s a bit confusing how they are going to eventually connect it all up. I mean, let’s look at the various strands :

1) iGoogle : Google’s personalised search pages. As yet, still rather underrated (Google is not really pushing people towards it) but it is nevertheless slowly gaining a cult following among Googlers. Developers are becoming a lot like Facebook developers and are pushing out a lot of applications to users. There may come the day however when Google DOES start pushing people by default towards their personalised iGoogle pages and we may not have a plain no-frills Google.com page anymore……but let’s wait and see on that one.

2) Picks For You : Google’s version of Stumbleupon (but without the profiles, thumbs up, commenting and close-knit community that makes Stumbleupon unique). “Picks For You” is a Google Toolbar button that needs (obviously) the Google Toolbar installed and your Google search history enabled. So you need to trust Google a great deal to use this feature. “Picks For You” works by studying your Google search history stored inside the toolbar and then bringing you alternative webpages that it thinks you might like based on those past searches. But unlike Stumbleupon, you cannot specify particular subjects to include or exclude. It just goes by what you have searched for in the past. So bad luck if you previously searched for how to treat your STD problem.

3) Gmail : Many people have commented that with a bit of work, the Gmail contacts section could be leveraged into a social networking area of its very own, especially since Gmail 2.0 came equipped with the ability to add instant messaging usernames. Then Zoopit (not connected to Google) launched its private beta which gives users the chance to show photos from their email in their Gmail inbox (which I eventually uninstalled because Zoopit demanded my Gmail password).

4) Google Reader : and so we come to Google Reader which seems to me to be the jewel in the Google social networking crown right now. They hit a major snag at first when they announced that Reader shared links would be visible to all other contacts and I have to admit this soured me on Reader for a while (it also caused a bit of an uproar in the Google Help Forums) . But I soon decided to forget about it and work around it instead. Instead of worrying about what links people can see, just let them see what you want them to see.

The first hint of a social network in Google Reader is the basic profile and you can invite your Reader contacts to share in your RSS feeds.

This is all old hat though. It’s the new feature that has made me realise that Google Reader is on the verge of kicking some serious social ass.

A lot of the time, while I am stumbling around, I find great webpages that I want to share with my Google Reader contacts but at the same time I do NOT want to subscribe to the whole damn feed just to show off one page. In these circumstances, I tend to think “oh forget about it!” and move on.

There are also (believe it or not) websites without RSS feeds (gasp!). It’s 2008 but these sites are still stuck in the mindset of 1998. One of my favourite websites doesn’t have a RSS feed which irritates me immensely – The Straight Dope. I have always wanted to share pages from that site with my Reader contacts but how can I when I can’t get it to show up in Reader? But now, thanks to Google Reader, I can!

First, just go “Your Stuff” in your Reader sidebar and then “Notes”. You’ll then find a draggable javascript link that you can pull up to your browser bar with your mouse.

Now I went to the Straight Dope to try out this link. I found this page on tornadoes in North America and decided to send it to my Reader contacts. So I clicked on the Notes link to see what happened.

It opens up a small Reader box in the top right hand corner of the screen, asking you if you want to proceed and it also gives you the opportunity to attach a note with the link. After doing all that and pressing the confirm button, the link then appears in Google Reader right away :

Absolutely neat! No hitches whatsoever!

There is one other new feature as well – the ability to send notes to your Reader contacts. Again, just go to your Notes page and start typing in the notes box at the top of the page. Then click “post note” :

With features like this, you have to wonder what other RSS services have to do to compete to stay relevant. If they bring out similar services, they’ll be accused of copying. If they do nothing, they’ll be accused of giving up. But if you compare what Google is bringing out these days and then look at My Yahoo, Bloglines, or a similar service, is there any real competition in the RSS business anymore?

Someone asked me just now if there is any need for Google to connect all these various services up and what is wrong with them all being disconnected. Well maybe it’s my orderly neat mind but Google has always seemed to me to be a neat organised company and having scattered pieces of a “social network” doesn’t fit their psychological profile. Do you agree? I really am interested to see how it all comes together in the future and how they intend to take on Facebook at their own game.

Written by Mark O’Neill