This video aims to inspire you into trying search marketing. It also could be good to give to an executive that is on the fence about trying search marketing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5YVCsVUCI0

Here are the links to the resources I referred to in the video:

http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/01/online-ad-spending-to-top-print-in-2012.html

http://searchengineland.com/infographic-the-top-three-us-search-engines-99036

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Why Search Engine Marketing Matters

People seem to like it. Here is a comment from Youtube about the workshop:

thanks for posting this, it has alot of helpful and money saving info for a newbie like me.

So, get a cup of coffee, sit back and take it all in:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5z5X3z54QQ

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Google AdWords Free Workshop

On Wednesday I talked about some of the horrors I’ve seen when people use the “free” Adwords services Google provides.

The longer I am in this industry and the more I see it from different perspectives (small business, big business, young students, older students) the more I feel for everyone.

Traffic from Google (paid or organic) is exactly like a drug. And not just like pot or beer. It’s a fierce drug like coke or heroine.

Entire businesses, families and individual livelihoods are relying on traffic (good traffic) from Google.

That, in itself, is a mistake. But so is developing a coke habit. Eventually you just need it to function.

On top of that, just like a drug, it doesn’t do what it used to do for you. Now it costs more and is harder to get the traffic because of all the competitors.

Google AdWords is not hard. But the problem is that no one guides you through using it. You are thrown into the AdWords interface and left to your own devices to figure out how to use it.

If you are using or thinking of using Google AdWords to promote your business I would really like you to come to this 90 minute AdWords workshop.

It will be held online. I am a pretty entertaining teacher. So I’ll do my best to not make it boring.

Time and time again I have gone into a new client’s AdWords account only to find it a total mess. It’s disorganized and unoptimized. And that means they are overpaying. Incidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is actually part of the strategy of AdWords: make the system seem easy so that people think they can do it with no help.

Imagine if you decided you were going to buy some TV spots on cable. You decide you’re going to save some money and handle the deals yourself. Don’t you think the sellers would see you a mile away? They’d try to take you for everything you are worth.

It makes sense that’s what is happening at AdWords. A sucker is born every minute.

Let me help you not be a sucker.

Come to this free online workshop.

Oh! And I have $100 coupons to Google AdWords. So if you are just setting up your new account you will get $100 of free AdWords traffic.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Free Adwords How-to Workshop

I mean look at happy Romi here:

“AdWords doubled my website traffic!”

Do you know who else could double your website traffic. This guy:

Please people! It’s not about more traffic. It’s about more sales!

When you call that super handy number: 1-877-721-1738 you are getting into a system that has one goal: Take as much money as you will give them.

AdWords is not about bettering humanity and making your dreams come true. AdWords is about making more money for AdWords.

Google is a publicly traded company that just wants to see this pretty blue line keep going up:

Let me tell you 2 stories.

Story #1:

We used to work for a very large cable company. They would spend boat loads of money at Google AdWords.

We would have quarterly meetings at this company. A minimum of 3 Google representatives were always there. The client loved this. They felt so important.

Google would get an hour to present. All it was about was spending more money:

• “We’ve compiled anonymous competitors in your industry and as you can see you are way below the industry average in advertising spend. You need to spend more money to be on par with what these other anonymous companies are spending.”
• “We think you should get involved in Google Radio, buy some spots on Google TV.”
• “We would like to talk to your chief marketing officer about all this.”

This cable company never once did any of these things. In fact, they eventually stopped directly advertising with AdWords altogether. But that’s another story. AdWords is a great tool when used correctly.

Story #2:

We had a small business client that is having a difficult time trying to figure out how to best promote their company online.

Take a look at this screenshot:

We (SageRock) were given access to the account on September 29. After completely optimizing the account, we increased the “General” campaign daily budget by $15.

By October 21 they had moved on. They let Google have at it. The first thing Google did was increase the company’s budget by $85 per day!

(I would like to say, we had worked on optimizing that account for weeks before we increased the budget by $15 per day. The very first thing Google did on the very first day they got in there was increase the budget.)

• On October 22 they increased it again another $50 per day.
• On October 26 they increased their budget another $25 per day.
• On the same day, October 26, they increased it another $25 per day.
• The company has now gone from a $465 per day budget to a $650 per day budget.
• On October 30 there were 2 decreases.
• Then an increase back to $625 on November 3.
• And now back to $550 on November 6. I have a feeling the company has probably taken over their paid search campaigns from Google at this point.

Incidentally, I see people making these erratic moves constantly. They are based on nothing. They are simply fear based moves.

Let me show you their conversion rates.

First, here are the conversion rates we had while we were running the campaigns:

• 97 conversions.
• $88.36 cost per conversion.
• 3.25% conversion rate.

Here are the results Google got after they took over:

• 80 conversions.
• $132.92 per conversion.
• 2.62% conversion rate.

I would also like to point out that SageRock got them 92 conversions in 19 days for a cost of $8,621.79.

Google got them 80 conversions in 19 days for a cost of $10,648.27.

It cost them $2026.48 for the pleasure of getting “free” AdWords optimization work from Google that got them 12 less conversions.

The SageRock monthly maintenance fee for them was $750.

If they don’t change course they will basically be overpaying Google about $3000 every single month.

I wish they had just fired us and done nothing at all.

Fixing what Google has done will be a mess.

I can’t stand this. Google would make more money if they would just focus on conversion. But they simply won’t. It’s all about burning up these little companies at any price.

So you say you can’t afford me. Fine. Let me give you something for free.

I’m going to do a 90 minute Google AdWords clinic. Plus I’m going to give you $100 Google AdWords coupon that you can use in setting up a new Google AdWords account. It doesn’t work with existing accounts. But if you are setting up a new account it will work.

Here are the details:

• This will be held online. (Workshop access information will be sent out closer to the event.)
• Date: December 1, 2011.
• Time: 1:00 – 2:30 pm Eastern Time.
• Cost: FREE

I will show you exactly how we were able to lower their cost per conversion and increase their conversion rate while Google wasn’t.

I hope to see you at that webcast.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Why You Should Never Use Google’s “Free” AdWords Service

Let me set the stage:

Have you ever gone to a Web site and then, rather mysteriously, you started seeing ads for that Web site on various other sites?

It happened to me with BigCommerce.

I went to their site because I was researching hosted eCommerce platforms. They got a lot of good reviews.

But now I see their ad all over the place. Chances are, I’m being remarketed to.

I probably went to a page on their site that they felt deemed that I was interested in their product. That page triggered a tag in Google AdWords. And now, with the help of Google AdWords and all the sites in the Google Content network, I am being shown BigCommerce ads.

Now I don’t know this for sure. It’s not like I can go somewhere to see who is remarketing to me. But it seems very strange that I am now seeing these ads all over the Web where before I had never seen a single BigCommerce ad.

Here’s how it works:

First, you want to make sure you can see your “Audiences” tab in your AdWords account. You might have to select it while in the overall “Campaign” section. You’ll see that here:

Google Adwords Audiences Tab

Once you see the “Audiences” tab, click on that and then scroll down to where it gives you the option to create a remarketing list. Like this:

AdWords Remarketing Lists

Once you have selected “Remarketing lists” you will see a link that says “Create and manage lists»”. Click that.

You will then see this:

The next page of the AdWords Remarketing Lists setup.

Fill that out.

You will then be given a tag to put on the pages that you want to trigger a remarketing campaign.

Over time you will be able to see how many unique users have seen the remarketing campaign within the Shared Library. It will appear here:

Number of Users

It’s a fairly easy process and could yield interesting results.

This brings up an interesting topic: Privacy.

Did you know that you, as a Google user, can set your Ads Preferences. You can do that here. 

This is what my Ads Preferences page looks like:

Google Ads Preferences

You will see near the bottom of the page where you can add categories. You can also opt-out of the entire system.

If you opt out of these ads you would never be remarketed to.

This all amuses me because I’m quite sure most of humanity never knew this page existed.

These sites (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, etc) want it that way. They know you will be a more satisfied customer if you get more targeted advertising. They are probably right. But it seems to creep people out.

I’m honestly not sure what the concern is.

The advertiser doesn’t know the individual people that are being retargeted to. Google technically knows. But they really aren’t interested in knowing the deep dark secrets of one person. They want to know the deep dark secrets of everyone on the Internet. They just want to serve you ads.

As face recognition gets better I’m quite sure there will be a day where you’ll walk into a store, you will be photographed and your entire buying history will come up on every store employee’s iPhone.

“Hi Sage (the notes will say I prefer to be called Sage and not ‘Mr. Lewis’). How are those 2 suits working out for you? Do you need a new shirt to go with them? I have all the matching color palates here. I see you like blues. We just got this great new blue shirt that will go great with your charcoal gray suit.”

Tell me you wouldn’t prefer that. That’s remarketing in person.

We did it when I worked at the Ritz-Carlton all the time. If a guest liked Dr. Pepper we would walk to the store down the street and buy him Dr. Pepper for his room. It would be there by the time he got to his room when he checked in.

He only had to ask once. It would be there for him on every other visit.

He could go to any Ritz-Carlton in the world and get that exact same treatment. This was 15 years ago (at least). I can only imagine what it’s like today.

We called it “fulfilling even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.”

Remarketing is a better experience.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Google AdWords Remarketing. Have you given it any thought?

One of the things that I see time and again with people that are new to paid search is that I feel they put emphasis on the wrong numbers. They are looking at the wrong paid search metrics.

The metrics that should guide the vast majority of your actions is the cost per conversion and conversion rate.

In order to accurately gauge the success of your paid search campaigns you need to establish one or more (preferably more) conversion metrics on your site.

This could include things such as:

• Filling out a form.
• Buying something.
• Downloading a white paper.
• Spending a certain amount of time on the site.
• Watching a video.
• Making a phone call.

Anything that is measurable and has value to you can be a conversion.

This may seem fundamental and basic to some but I see this as a hurdle for many time and time again.

I wanted to spend the rest of this article explaining why the other numbers are far less meaningful and how they can be misread.

Here is a typical dashboard report of some paid search campaigns.

Clicks.
We all want clicks. The more clicks that we get the more traffic to come to our website. The overarching issue however is we don’t need just any clicks. We need the right clicks.

If you are in the real estate business and you want a ton of clicks, simply bid on the phrase “real estate.” I assure you, you will get clicks. But that has nothing to do with your business. You very likely would be spending a ton of money on traffic that is too general and not ready to buy.

You need to look at the exact traffic that you have coming into your site and determine if it is good traffic or not. You don’t do this by just looking at clicks. You do this by looking at your cost per conversion. The cost per conversion determines whether or not the clicks are good or not.

Impressions.
I once did a campaign for a large brand that the key metric was impressions. They didn’t so much care about clicks. They just wanted people to see their ad.

If you are a big brand name that is a possible metric. But for most of us nobody knows our name. So impressions are pretty much meaningless.

Incidentally, this is how banner ads have always been sold. You pay for the impressions. Banner ad salespeople always talk about “eyeballs.” The goal is to get people to see your ad. Again, if you are a brand name that everybody knows then this has value. But if nobody has heard of you, you need people to get to your site. And furthermore you need them to engage in your site in a measurable way.

Even getting people to come to your website is not a good enough metric. As we saw in the first column, clicks can do that for you very easily. You need to get people to engage in your site in one way or another. That’s conversions.

CTR or Click through Rate
I’ve seen many people base all decisions on this number. They look at this percentage and decide whether or not the campaign is working.

Here is an example of why this is not a great determining metric:

Let’s say you sell a welding machine. But it isn’t a metal welding machine. This welds plastics and vinyl. However, you would like to come up for the phrase “welding machine.” So you create an ad that says: World leaders in vinyl welding. If you weld vinyl check us out.

An ad like that very likely will have a low click through rate. That’s because most people are looking to weld metal and other materials. The vinyl welding market is just a percentage of the overall welding market. So if people read the ad they are likely to only click on it if they are looking to weld vinyl. In this example we would actually be looking for a relatively low click through rate.

You will also see a low click through rate when your ads are displayed outside of the search network of the search engines. This doesn’t mean that it is a bad campaign. Again, you determine whether or not you’re having success by conversions and cost per conversion.

Cost
Who knows if you are spending too much or too little? Obviously, if things are working within an agreeable return on investment you could spend tons of money. This number by itself is meaningless. Whether or not you’re spending enough or not enough depends on whether or not the traffic is working for you. And you guessed it, you figure that out by looking at your conversions and cost per conversion.

Average Position
This is a number that you should experiment with. You might try raising it and lowering it. You’ll get different results based on the position you’re in. It will effect all the numbers. But what position you should be in will be determined by conversions and cost per conversion.

Conversions
I have seen people obsessed with total conversions. They want as many conversions as they can possibly get. This can be a feasible strategy if you are looking to get significant growth in market share and capture a larger percentage of your industry. Some people are in that point of their business.

I’ve also seen people frustrated because their competitors are always in the first position and coming up for every phrase imaginable. This is painful because you know that you are losing customers to them. But you have to play your own game. If you are looking for top line growth where you are just trying to take over the market then fine. Plow as many conversions into your site as you possibly can.

But if your goal is bottom-line growth, where you are looking to make a profit, then this number is not where you need to be looking. You need to look at the next column, your cost per conversion.

Focusing on total number of conversions is for people who are looking for growth and increasing topline. It is a valid strategy for a business at a certain point in their evolution. However, most people I work with are not looking for this kind of growth. They are looking to make money now. If that’s who you are then seen me in the next column.

Cost per Conversion
For people who are looking to get a good return on investment this is the column that matters. Is this an acceptable cost per conversion or not? The answer to this question will be individual to your specific business. I can’t tell you in this article what your cost per conversion should be. But my experience has been once businesses understand this cost per conversion focus they already have an idea of what a good cost per conversion should be.

You will typically find that you can get a very low cost per conversion by finding very targeted, specific phrases. The problem with this is that there is typically a small amount of traffic in those niches.

The more general the phrase typically the more expensive the cost per conversion. But you also will find that you get more total conversions with these phrases.

The best campaigns usually have a nice mix. They will have more general phrases that cost more per conversion. And they will have niche phrases that are a lower cost per conversion. When you average the two together you oftentimes come up with an acceptable cost per conversion price.

Conversion Rate
This number is also very useful and can be a guiding factor. I’m oftentimes asked what a benchmark of the conversion rate should be. The bar I usually set is 2%. If your conversion rate is under 2% I feel that the campaign is probably underperforming. And if it’s above 2% I’m usually quite happy. That’s not to say that I don’t try to get a higher conversion rate. But 2% is the number that determines for me whether or not a campaign is healthy.

When I am looking at a campaign to determine success I typically look at the cost per conversion and conversion rate. Those numbers together tell me if I am on the right track.

While the other numbers are certainly not invisible to me, they are almost always secondary. I only start to make decisions on those numbers after I have worked on my cost per conversion and conversion rate.

If you are focusing this way already then congratulations. You are on the right path. But if you don’t have a conversion metric within your paid search campaigns you are probably not spending your money wisely. I would strongly encourage you to set up some conversions as soon as possible. It will change the way you think of your paid search campaigns.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

How Not To Track Paid Search

When you go to Disney World and stay at one of the resorts you will very likely come across the “the human exclamation point”, Stacey J. Aswad.

She does the 24/7 show of Walt Disney World’s Must Do’s.

So that’s my inspiration for today: Google AdWords Top 3 Must Do’s. Definitely not as fun. But they will make you more money and that’s a lot of fun!

Google AdWords Must Do #1:
When in doubt make Campaigns not Ad Groups

This was a recommendation a group of Google AdWords representatives gave us when they came to our office. It makes complete sense.

Campaigns give you the most control.

At the campaign level, you choose your daily budget, geographic and language targeting, Google Network distribution preferences, and end dates.

I really like breaking everything into campaigns. Different products definitely get different campaigns. But then so does most everything else:

• Search network is separated from content network.
• Exact match, phrase match, broad match all get separate campaigns.
• When in doubt I make a new campaign.

I like doing this just so I can easily control my budget. If the content network is sucking I just lower the daily budget.

Apparently I’m a control freak because I love the control, baby! Campaigns give it to me.

Google AdWords Must Do #2:

Start with Exact Match

AdWords has 4 different keyword matching options:

• Exact match
• Phrase match
• Broad match
• Negative match

Here is the Google AdWords help file explaining the differences:
What are keyword matching options?

It is no surprise that Broad match is the default. It is like turning on a fire hose full blast. AdWords will decide for you what you really mean when you say you want to bid on a key phrase. It gives you the largest reach but the least amount of control. Broad match is my least favorite match type. It makes a lot of money for Google but probably not a lot of money for you.

If budget is a big concern I like to start with Exact match. That means that your ad will only appear if someone types in the exact phrase you bid on.

If I’m running a big AdWords program I will start with using all three match types, along with making a point of putting in negative keywords too. But if I divide them all at the campaign level I can easily decide what is most effective.

If my broad match campaign converts at a higher level than my exact match and phrase match campaigns then color me wrong. I’m happy to be wrong. I just want to know I’m wrong. I don’t want to guess and speculate.

Google AdWords Must Do #3:

Track conversions

If you don’t have a conversion in mind or you don’t know what I’m talking about, forget everything I just said. STOP!

You don’t have any business bidding in paid search if you can’t determine, in some way, the success of the campaigns.

There are all sorts of ways to track success:

• Lead generation
• Time on site
• Page views
• Purchasing
• Downloading a whitepaper

I’m cool with all those (any pretty much any other) metrics. But you have to have a metric.

If you are sending traffic to your site and the way you plan to measure it has some sort of recipe of click through rate and impressions please just put that money in an envelope and send it to me. You will most likely get the same results. Except I will probably do something with it that you can track… like get pictures of me and my family from Disney World Better yet… just take your own family to Disney World. Don’t hand it over to Google. They have plenty of money… mostly from people who don’t know what they are doing.

If you do get results using that method it’s pure luck.

And yes… you can track branding.

If you are already doing these must do’s, awesome! If you aren’t, please consider it. They are going to ultimately make you money and get you better results.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Top 3 Google AdWords Must Do’s

These campaigns are some of the most affordable and targeted advertising options we have probably ever seen.

You don’t need a presence on Facebook to take advantage of these ads. They can be sent directly to your main Web site.

We have created an introductory Facebook Ad campaign setup and management program at SageRock. Additionally, we have a promotion in April that takes $400 off the SageRock setup fee.

You can learn more about our Facebook Ad Management Service here:
http://www.sagerock.com/facebook-ads/

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Facebook Ads – Innovative, Super Targeted & Affordable

So… what should I do if I had $200, $500, $1000, etc.

This is a common interest. And a very valid request.

I will say this, however, you probably should know your marketing budget going in.

It’s similar to buying a car. If you don’t know what you are willing to spend you might be overspending or even underspending. I mean, what if you could actually afford that Mercedes you’ve always wanted?

As a quick guide, I personally try to spend 10% of my gross income (based on the previous year) on marketing.

Marketing is important to our organization and I feel that 10% is a good amount to keep the ball rolling.

Virtually every time I do a proposal I ask what the company’s budget is. I would say 95% of the time they tell me they don’t know. Of those people I bet it’s 50-50. 50% of the time they don’t know and the other percent don’t want to tell me.

I understand why they don’t want me to know their budget. Maybe they’ll get something for a good deal. But it doesn’t actually work that way. Yes, I will use all the budget you tell me you have. But knowing your budget will effect how I recommend you spend it.

And no, it won’t all go to me. Knowing your budget will tell me how much should go towards consulting, how much should go to education and how much should go to advertising.

Let me show you a few examples of how my recommendations would change based on your budget.

• You have $1000 – And that’s all you have. Once it’s gone it’s gone.
  • Ultimately, you are going to have to do the work… to get the biggest impact.
  • If you have people who are technically savvy but don’t know where to start, then I’d probably recommend you get some consulting. A consulting meeting will give you a good perspective of your strenghts and weaknesses. You can then take that information and go from there.
  • If you don’t have technically savvy people, I’d recommend you become technically savvy. Take an html course. Take an SEO course. Invest the money in training.
• You can spend $200 per month.
  • This isn’t going to buy you much consulting. I’d probably recommend training. The SageRock System would be a good fit for you. This would give you a guided Web marketing strategy and all the tools you need.
  • In the past, I might have also suggested you go to someplace like Odesk.com and get some cheap work there. But now with Google really on the warpath of poor quality content and bad links, I think you better just stay away from these kinds of places. Quality links and quality content has to be the focus.
• You can spend $500 per month.
  • This is a tricky point.
  • You probably could start to get SageRock to begin working on your marketing. If all you have is $500 then you don’t have any paid search going. So you could probably get either monthly consulting to get the most out of your Web marketing efforts (that you do yourself). Or you could get us to do some optimization of your content, key phrase research, monitoring tracking of growth. It won’t be a lot of work. But it probably could be enough to make a difference.
  • At this point you are going to have to be careful not to get caught up with less then reputable agencies. This is actually always a problem. But there are a lot of people at this price point that will either just take your money and do nothing or they will do spammy things that will ultimately do your site damage. Get references! Talk to past clients.
  • We probably could do some content writing for you at this point as well.
• You can spend $750 per month.
  • At this point you can get some pretty solid SEO work from SageRock.
  • You could get content written and some quality links.
  • You could also get some pretty good guidance of how to implement a content management system (if you don’t have one) that would help you easily add content to your site.
  • We probably couldn’t setup a WordPress blog on your site at this price point. But we could definitely setup a Blogger or WordPress.com blog and help you tie it into your site as a sub-domain of your site.
  • I don’t think most people should do paid search at this price point.
• You can spend $1000 per month.
  • At this point you probably could do a small paid search campaign.
  • I think you probably would want to consult and/or train with us and do the actual maintenance of your paid search account(s) yourself. Otherwise, you probably will be spending too much on outsourcing the maintenance.
  • There are many variables but it’s possible you might consider spending most of this money in paid search.
    • Variables could be:
      • How new your site is.
      • How immediate your needs for sales are.
      • How saturated your industry is from an SEO perspective.
      • How much work is your site going to need to get it driving traffic from SEO.
      • I’m sure there are many others. But these are the ones that come to mind.
  • I strongly encourage you to do something to get your site into SEO shape. You should be doing some sort of content building strategy and getting people to link to your site. It doesn’t have to be a lot. But it should be consistent. You don’t want to get stuck down the road where you are priced out of the paid search arena because of too much competition and you don’t have any other outs.
• You can spend $1500 per month.
  • At this point you start to have some options.
  • I would probably suggest a blended approach of doing both SEO and paid search. What you do depends a lot on your organization. As an example, SageRock is a marketing-based organization. We have our best luck converting prospects into clients by getting leads through marketing and PR. If that’s the case for you then you should spend most of your money on SEO and probably social media. But if you are a sales-based organization then heavily relying on PPC might be right for you.
  • You probably can outsource a fair amount of the work at this point. But again, that depends on how heavy you are into PPC. If you are doing a lot of pay per click you are going to want to spend as much of that money in the engines. To give you an example, it’s not until you get to about $5000 per month on your paid search budgets that completely outsourcing your management to us makes sense. If you are spending $1500 per month you might want to consult with us for an hour or two a month or even a quarter.
• From $1500 – $5000 per month the general theory remains pretty similar.
  • You can outsource your search engine optimization to SageRock.
  • But you probably should manage your paid search yourself.
  • If you have long-term goals of bringing these things into your organization then you might want to invest some of that in training and consulting.
• You can spend $5000 – $10,000 per month (this includes your online ad budgets)
  • When you start to have $5000 and above for all your search marketing then SageRock makes sense for managing your paid search.
  • We can help you really refine your conversion costs in a meaningful way.
  • It’s possible that at this level you are mostly doing paid search. But I strongly encourage you to do at least a little SEO. It will really make you much stronger over the long run.
• You can spend $10,000 and beyond per month.
  • At these points you can then seriously look at outsourcing all of your online marketing and advertising.
  • You will have enough money to spend on your paid search and also implement a search engine optimization plan.
  • But the specific plan is going to depend on your goals, your industry and the kind of organization you are.

Now keep in mind, I’ve seen a lot of different scenarios over the years. There are many instances where these guidelines are not the case. But as a very general rule, these typically are the levels I see for doing different work.

The moral of the story, however, is: don’t be afraid to tell me your budget. It will significantly help me shape the best plan for you.

If you are interested in learning more about how we might help you, fill out this form (it goes right to me) and we can talk:

Picture from: http://www.wordle.net

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

How Much Should I Spend On Web Marketing?

In short, adCenter is growing. Because many people are new to the platform, I thought it would be helpful to do a comparison between AdWords and adCenter so that people just getting started on this platform would know a little better what to expect.

Rather than write a dissertation, I instead decided to make this at-a-glance chart:

*MSN has said you can have 50 campaigns if there is one ad group per campaign and 2,000 keywords in each ad group. They have said that the grouping limits are mostly set by how your account is structured, just be sure to keep in mind the overall account keyword limits.

*Each negative keyword at this level can contain up to 100 characters. The entire negative keywords list at this level, including commas, can contain up to 1,024 characters.

*MSN counts the body of your ad as one line that is comprised of 70 characters. Your line breaks are always at 35 characters.

*MSN uses a more advanced {Param} function. Check out Jeremy Hull’s awesome guide to adCenter {param} function.

As I built this chart out I realized that I would never be able to do either tool it’s fair justice, so I tried to keep things simple and based solely around what you could find in each tool directly. As there are many shifting parts and changes taking place on the regular, this data here is a snapshot in time.

Additionally, MSN has been vague in the past about some of the numbers present above. If you have personal experience that changes any of these numbers or figures, or if you have additional insight or questions just drop them in the comments below. Hope you find this helpful!

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Google AdWords vs MSN adCenter – Comparison Chart