To kick things off this week, I’d like to mention a promo we are running through our Twitter account (@ppchero – and yes, I did just promote a promotion). If you’d like to have your blog post included in our weekly roundup, shoot us a link through Twitter, explain you’d like to be considered, and you’ll have that opportunity. 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). This week we have submissions from our friends Shawn Livengood and Kristina Allen so read on and check out their posts!
To innovate or iterate? That really is the question. Iterating often appeals to us as the easiest or even safest choice for landing page testing, but Kristina Allen, with Post Click Marketing Blog, says we’re selling ourselves short if we don’t experiment with innovation. Allen gives a great comparison of the differences between these two testing options (with a chart even!) and she proves that contrasting innovation to iteration is like comparing apples to oranges.
Shawn, from PPC Without Pity, wrote his first installment on using the Google Keyword Tool. Good timing too as the new tool is finally out of Beta (this makes me sad as I like the old tool). Shawn covers the basics in this first installment while providing some key insights into what keywords are and how the Google Tool helps us choose them wisely. Google’s products are generally user friendly and the keyword tool is no different. This post helps us understand the results that Google is providing. Keep an eye out for part 2.
If you are like me you might have become frustrated once or twice while managing campaigns in Microsoft adCenter. Well Microsoft has been listening to what users have to say and designed the adCenter Fall 2010 Upgrade around our needs. Tina Keller outlines on the adCenter blog some of the most frequent user requests and the changes Microsoft has made in response. Most of these new features are aimed at giving us more control over campaign management as well as deeper business insight to maximize accounts. These features are available now and upgrades to the Desktop will be rolling out soon.
With the transition to Adcenter, many around the PPC world were wondering if MSN would add the popular filtering feature that allows advertisers to filter their search traffic to keep only the results from the core Yahoo and Bing interface. According to PPCBlog.com, this feature has been included. We here at PPC Hero are on to the trending topics like a 1920’s reporter. Be impressed, and also rest assured that Bing and Yahoo are trying to make this merger as simple as possible for advertisers.
October is here, and it looks to be an interesting month for PPC as Yahoo! and MSN start their transition to adCenter. If you’re anything like us at Hanapin, you’ve been preparing for a while now too. As the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog team points out, Yahoo! network distribution settings won’t automatically change during the transition, but you’ll be able to make those changes in adCenter with the help of this detailed article on the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog.
Sometimes it’s tempting to let our keywords run away with us. However, as Brad Geddes of BGTheory reminds us, ad groups are called ad groups for a reason. Writing ads focused on very specific services/products and then basing your keywords on this will help your ad appear more relevant to searchers, and so increase your CTR and conversions. From there, Google will smile down on your keywords by raising your Quality Score, and your ad will continue to do better. The downside? Getting to this happy place takes a bit of work. Geddes advises us to work backwards by writing ads first and then going through the keywords lists to clean up any participants that aren’t exact. It’s time-consuming, but well worth it!
