To kick things off this week, I’d like to mention a promo we are running through our Twitter account @ppchero. If you’d like to have your blog post included in our roundup next Friday, February 25, shoot us a link via direct message on Twitter, explain you’d like to be considered and you will be! While we can’t guarantee we’ll run every submission (we’re looking for something relevant, compelling, accurate), if it’s good stuff, it’ll make the cut (space providing). We’d love to hear from you! …Now on with the roundups!
What’s been your experience with the Yahoo/Bing merger so far? Melissa Mackey of Searching Beyond the Paid stresses that since the collaboration went live a few months ago, her clients are still not receiving as much traffic as they were pre-merger. In addition, the billing issues she’s run into leaves a lot to be desired from adCenter. Here at Hanapin, we’ve had similar billing-related issues. On the bright side, Melissa’s initial worries for dropped conversion rates and CPL hasn’t happened in her accounts.
There’s a new option for advertising on Facebook: sponsored ads. As Christopher Heine of ClickZ reports, Facebook’s new sponsored ads offer a personalized advertising experience for viewers, where the activity of their friends is converted into Facebook’s PPC ads. Some of its four forms are similar to approaches Facebook has taken elsewhere, such as the “like stories” option – ads that show which friends of the user have liked a brand or page. However, other sponsored story ads are more complex, such as the remarketing-style “page post stories” advertising, which shows viewers who already like a brand the posts and status updates from that post’s business page. Get the full scoop on the new ads from Heine’s post!
Beginning March 3, Bing and Yahoo will permit trademarked names to be used as keywords in text ads on their SERPs. As Cynthia Boris of Marketing Pilgrim points out, the change is merely an end to investigations into complaints and trademark owners will now have to take it upon themselves to contact advertisers if their rights are violated. Google has been allowing this for years, but it is new to Bing and Yahoo which makes one wonder if this is just another way for them to assimilate to Google’s practices.
The issue of whether or not Facebook ads have a quality score is the topic Geordie’s newest post on PPC Blog. In a nutshell, the answer is yes—Facebook ads do have a quality score—but it is much more based on account trust and reputation as opposed to relevance. He then goes on to explain the major aspects of Facebook’s “quality score.” The three factors are user experience, whether or not you directly obey what Facebook administrators tell you if they email you and if you cause the same “problem” again and, lastly, if your ad is doing well Facebook will scrutinize it much more than a poor-performing ad. Geordie’s post is a great resource for current Facebook advertisers and those who are considering it.
With the growing importance of social media to search marketing, people are wondering if social and search are butting heads or complimenting each other’s efforts. Simeone Schuurer of the adCenter Blog says they’re working quite well together, “in tune and complimenting each other in a way identical twins are said to behave.” She recaps some top tips on PPC and Social Media from Microsoft’s ‘Hit Me, Optimise Your Search’ event this week. She also covers a prediction for 2011 as well as some key points from the conference about how social and search work together.
Are you a small business owner managing your own paid search accounts? We have news for you! In a two part series offered by the Microsoft adCenter Community, Erin O’Donnell outlines and explains a few PPC concepts small business owners frequently ask about. The article elaborates on topics like keywords, bids and cost per click, which must be thoroughly understood to get the most out of your campaigns. Erin then dives into more specific questions focused around those primary topics. For the full recap, check out both articles!
