Google Ad Sitelinks

Last week, Google announced the launch of a new product called Ad Sitelinks, which is not available for all advertisers yet.  This is usually how they release new products, commencing a preliminary run with a select few advertisers before the product is even widely discussed.  Then they start expanding the reach more and more before it is eventually available to all advertisers through their normal AdWords interface.

This new product allows your AdWords paid search ads to include more links that can go deeper into your content, beyond your landing page.  It would look like the example above.

Advertisers may add up to ten links, although Google will only display up to four.  Google thus recommends that advertisers list their most important links first.

To employ this new feature, it is not necessary to write new ads.  Instead, Google will simply add these new Sitelinks to your current ads.  If you are eligible to participate, you will see the option in your Campaign Settings.  Right after the demographic and language targeting, you should see a section called Networks, Devices, and Extensions.  Within this section there are a few options, one of which being to edit your Ad Extensions.  If you do not see this edit option, then this is likely not available to you yet.

Ad Sitelinks Edit Option

This could prove to be very helpful for some advertisers, allowing more options to consumers.  Google recommends taking advantage of this during the holidays as an easy way to update seasonal promotions.

‘Tis the Season for PPC

Are you in the holiday spirit?  Well, if you have a product or service to be promoted this holiday season, you better get in it fast.  Hopefully, you’ve already thought about how you would like to go about your holiday promotions.  It’s important to get an early start on your holiday campaigns.  In fact, according to the Google Retail Blog, consumers are getting an earlier start on holiday shopping this year than ever before; this includes the researching and purchasing phase.  Here’s a chart to show expected holiday purchasing.  As you can see, there are many consumers to catch from now through Thanksgiving weekend.

Google Retail Holiday 2009 Chart

Early planning is essential.  It’s usually recommended to start planning in August or September at the latest, which will give you time for testing, expansion, and any necessary adjustments.  What’s more, your paid search ads and keywords can run for a bit to improve their quality score.  Ultimately, your campaign will be primed and ready to go for current holiday searches.

Some important dates to remember are…

  • November 27th – Black Friday
  • November 30th – Cyber Monday

Even Christmas Day is a big shopping day.  However, I believe that in-store purchasing this day is more substantial than online.

If you haven’t started your holiday campaigns yet, it’s time to get on the ball.

Photo: ‘Tis the Season courtesy of  bensonkua.

Paid Search Site Targeting and Exclusion

As mentioned in my last blog post, Microsoft adCenter Placement Reports, MSN commenced transparency, via specialized reports, of where your ads display within the content and search networks; namely, the Publisher Placement Performance report.  Since that post, Yahoo Search Marketing began sharing this same information, as well.  Their report is named the Ad Delivery Report.  Google’s original version, available since June of 2007, is called the Placement Performance Report.

These reports are very helpful when viewing performance of your campaigns.  To take this information to the next level, you’ll want to use it in managing your campaigns.  In these reports, you can view which sites are working well and then target them with higher bids to try for better placement in Google AdWords.  This does not seem to be an option at this point in Yahoo or MSN.  Conversely, in all three of the engines, you can see which sites are more costly with no return (conversions) and you can choose to block them.

In Google, you can adjust bids per site and exclude sites within the campaign or ad group.  In the new AdWords interface, you can view this information under the Networks tab.  You must choose to show the Automatic Placements to view all sites and you can choose any of interest for managed bidding or exclusion.  You can also exclude sites through their Site and Category Exclusion tool.

In Yahoo, you may submit sites in their Blocked Domain tool.  This can be found in the General Account Information under the Administration tab.  When blocking sites in MSN, you can do so under the Campaign or Ad Group Settings under Website Exclusions.

These are great tools to use when managing your Paid Search accounts.  Hopefully Yahoo and MSN will continue to improve these features to make them more robust.  Google has been working on this longer and has more functionality.  I encourage everyone to take advantage of these reports and use them wisely.

Photo courtesy of lorello.

Google Trademark Update

I wanted to add an update to a past blog post I wrote, Trademark Infringement in PPC.  Last week, Google updated their trademark policy in the US.  More ads will be allowed to use trademarks in their ad text with these new criteria.

This change will be mostly helpful to AdWords advertisers that are resellers or informational sites.  You can now use a trademark in your ad text if you are using the term in a descriptive way, reselling the trademarked product, selling components for the trademarked product, or providing non-competitive information on the trademark.  Your landing page will have to back this up, too.

If you are advertising your site on Google AdWords for any of these reasons, and have run into problems with declined ads in the past because of trademark policies, you should edit your ads now.  You can resubmit these ads with the trademark terms and they could start running as soon as June 15.  This is only the US, but pertains to both the Search and Content networks.

This is a big change for Google, as this has been a problem that many advertisers have run into the past.  Fortunately, I think this should allow for the proper sites to use trademarked terms appropriately, without their use being abused.

Photo courtesy of gurms.

Google Team Advice

Our Google Team, from the Boston office, came for a visit today.  It is always nice to put faces to those voices that you hear every week.  It is also invigorating to have them throwing ideas our way and really being able to brainstorm for clients and an overall strategy.  Plus, they came bearing gifts!  We were each given a Google apron and a Google cookbook.  I’ll have to test out some of these recipes and let you know how they are.

The main thing they were interested in discussing was the Google Content Network.  This is their big selling point currently.  It has evolved into a more dynamic system and they are constantly learning how to master it.  The way they recommend structuring campaigns and ad groups have changed over the last year, now lauding the advantages of separating the Content and Search network campaigns; doing so helps to better monitor and manage the two networks individually, as they are two very different animals.

You may have different budgets in mind for these strategies, and the bidding is easier to manage this way.  In Search, Google recommend using up to 50 keywords in an ad group.  In Content, however, they once recommended throwing upwards of 40 keywords into a Content campaign ad group, but things have changed as they become more knowledgeable and perform more tests.  They now recommend using only 5-10 keywords.  These keywords are going to be broader than keywords you would be willing to use within the Search network since Content terms define campaign themes and subjects where the audience may be browsing.

The ads you want to use for Content may be very different than those used for Search also, because you are potentially reaching an audience at a different time in the buying cycle.  You may want to show a different message to this audience.  If you are using display ads, it is also helpful to create a separate campaign once again for these.  The bids are often times more expensive than those for text ads in the Content network.  This is because of the placement that you should be aiming for with display ads.

In the end, we learned of some new ideas and new ventures, but the main point remained the same: Content is going places and we need to keep up.

SageRock is Hiring: PPC Jobs

SageRock is looking for a full time PPC position. Do you have someone that you feel would be a good candidate?

Company: SageRock
Job Title: Web Marketing Specialist — Entry Level
Description: SageRock is hiring a full-time web marketing associate to assist our PPC and SEO specialists in overall web marketing campaigns for clients.

Responsibilities include Paid Search account setup and maintenance, market and industry research, strategy planning, HTML and CSS code modification, ROI management, and more.

Job Responsibilities:

Assist Paid Search Media and SEO specialists with:
• Competition, phrase, market research
• Management of day-to-day client relationships
• Creation and Management of PPC campaigns for current and new clients
• Operating management tools to maintain ROI goals
• Writing / Designing ads and landing pages
• Modifying websites for SEO
• Monitoring, measuring, and reporting metrics to clients
• Developing and managing Social Media promotions


Skills and Experience:

• Self-motivating, quick-learner
• Bachelor’s degree in applicable field
• Certification with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Ambassador program, etc.
• Strong organizational and analytical skills, plus ability to manage simultaneous projects and demanding deadlines
• Proficiency with Excel, HTML, and CSS

Excellent benefits package includes generous vacation; flex time; medical, dental and disability insurance; simple IRA matching. Come work in a collaborative, enriching environment in an exciting, fast-paced industry.

Please send resume and salary requirements to greg@sagerock.com