Google AdWords Management & Pay Per Click Marketing Blog

Internet Marketing & Consulting by Windy City Strategies, Chicago Illinois. A full service Internet Consulting company specializing in Pay Per Click Management, PPC, Website Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Local Business Listings, Shopping Portal Management, SEO, and Social Media Marketing, SMM.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Google's CFO: ‘It's Been A Great Time For Us’

Patrick Pichette joined Google as its CFO on August 12, 2008, since then, he's seen the good and bad times with the company. Pichette has a lot of experience and said the company’s doing well again.

Pichette spoke during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, and according to John Letzing, stated, "[T]he mood at Google kind of continues to be electric.”

The CFO continued, "It's true there is a recession out there, but for the broad data world, everything that's the data space, there's really no recession. It's been a great time for us in the last 12 months, 18 months."

Pichette also shrugged off the idea that Google's being anticompetitive where he argued that large companies are often scrutinized where he also acknowledged that display ads, applications and mobile have become more important to the organization.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:33 AM

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Firefox Mobile For Android Due Out This Year

Android users can expect a new way to get around the Web should debut this year. Jay Sullivan, Vice President of Mobile at Mozilla, has indicated that Firefox Mobile for Android will be available sometime this year.

The nonexistence of this product might have troubled some fans of Mozilla and Google fans were not happy about the product not existing just yet and it’s not secret that these two companies have been growing apart since Chrome came out and Mozilla’s director of community development endorsed Bing over Google.

Sullivan, who's worked at Mozilla for about two and a half years, told Gareth Beavers that the big challenge with Firefox Mobile for Android was the rift between C and C++ code and Java.

He seems pretty happy about Android and about what Mozilla has in the works. "It's a modern OS, and it's a great fit with us," Sullivan said. "It's the type of platform that has a high affinity with the early adopter, and it's seen a lot of uptake."

Expect to see Firefox Mobile for Android "late this year."

Labels: google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:11 AM

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Google Apps Heading To Yale?

One of America's oldest universities is turning to Google for new software, according to a new report. Yale is supposedly getting the entire Google Apps for Education shebang, including email, Google Calendar and Google Docs.

Google's promoted Apps for Education as a cutting-edge and user-friendly solution for a while now. Since Yale is known as a well-regarded school, this is great PR for the Ivy League school. Other universities might accept Yale's decision as a smart one and follow its lead.

Yale administrators wouldn’t just be doing Google a favor. David Tidmarsh of the Yale Daily News talked to members of the Student Technology Collaborative and confirmed that the switch to Google Apps would save the school a lot of computing resources when compared to the current system.

Be on the lookout for this rollout, which is set to happen shortly. Tidmarsh wrote, "The incoming class of 2014 will be the first to go directly to the new Google system, and current freshmen and sophomores will have to make the switch. Upperclassmen will have the option of keeping Horde, but the University plans to phase out Horde by spring of next year . . ."

Labels: google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:51 AM

Google Linked To Australian Data Center Plans

There’s been a rumor circulating the Internet that Google is building a data center in Australia. Although construction crews haven’t been mobilized just yet, there has been a sign that Google hasn’t given up on this idea just yet.

Deepak Ramanathan, thread of Google's enterprise marketing arm in the Asia-Pacific region, recently spoke at an event in Sydney. Renai LeMay reported that people representing several Australian corporations expressed an interest in Google Apps while there.

According to LeMay, Ramanathan responded by saying that "the search giant was not ruling out an Australian datacenter for services like Gmail, and that discussions were ongoing."

Labels: google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:46 AM

Use QR Code to Increase Traffic and Sales

Quick Response (QR) code is nothing new in the technology world. It’s been around for 16 years, but with the popularity of smartphones and their support of QR-code-reading apps, it’s making the use of codes more popular. It’s easy to get the attention of potential customers with a scannable link to your Web site or the latest promotion. This QR code makes smartphone users want the scan them.

There are different ways to use the QR codes to increase your sales.

• Use them to drive traffic to your Web site. You can place a code in a print ad, on your signage, on your business card, etc. Pretty much any place where potential customers could see it, you can include it, and if you catch them in the right frame of mind, they may just scan it.
• Use one as a call to action. Simply tell people to scan it and link it to a special offer. Maybe it links to a printable coupon. Maybe it links to a promotion code for a discount on their next purchase. They don't have to be in prin. You can use them on your Web site.
• Get creative. Dana Oshiro at Mashable looked at 5 unique uses for QR codes a while back. One of them was self-branding through swag you pass out (hats, shirts, coffee mugs, etc.)

There are many different kinds of QR-Code reading apps. You can find a great list of them at Mobile-Barcodes.com. You’ll see that a lot of mobile devices that will support the technology. Also, there are several sites you can go to quickly and easily create a unique QR Code on the fly. If you search for "QR Code Generators" you will find a several of them.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:41 AM

Monday, February 15, 2010

Google: "Buzz Will Be Just Another Node"

Google made it perfectly clear when they announced that they were Google Buzz was as open as possible. Looking at the Google Buzz API page, you’ll notice the support for Activity Streams, AtomPub, OAuth, PubSubHubbub, Salmon and WebFinger are things that are "coming soon."

What this means is that Google is working hard to make Buzz content something that can be used in different ways, while letting as many services possible come into Buzz.

"The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle," says Google software engineer DeWitt Clinton. "The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, and the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format."

Google recently turned on WebFinger in Gmail (via RRW). WebFinger, which is described as being about making email addresses more valuable, by letting people attach metadata to them. According to the WebFinger page at Google Code, this includes:

• Public profile data
• Pointer to identity provider (e.g. OpenID server)
• A public key
• Other services used by that email address (e.g. Flickr, Picasa, Smugmug, Twitter, Facebook, and usernames for each)
• A URL to an avatar
• Profile data (nickname, full name, etc)
• Whether the email address is also a JID, or explicitly declare that it's NOT an email, and ONLY a JID, or any combination to disambiguate all the addresses that look like something@somewhere.com
• Public declaration that the email address doesn't have public metadata, but has a pointer to an endpoint that, provided authentication, will tell you some protected metadata, depending on who you authenticate as.

WebFinger is enabled for all Gmail/Google Profiles with public profiles.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:10 AM

Monday, February 8, 2010

Introducing Click to Call Phone Numbers in Google AdWords on Mobile Devices

Google announced today stating users whose mobile devices have full Internet browsers can now see your business phone number and call directly from your ads.

The cost of a click to call your business is the same as the cost of a click to visit your Web site.

Opting Out
If you’re not interested in your ads showing a clickable business phone number on phones, just follow these steps.

Getting Started
Just two things need to be done in order to ensure the ads in your campaign will show your business phone number on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

Set up location extensions and add your business phone number. Customers will be able to click to call your business location nearest to them.

Check that you've chosen to show your ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers in your campaign settings.

Viewing Results
You can now review how many calls you receive from your ads at the campaign, ad group or keyword level within AdWords.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:32 AM

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Google Celebrates Data Privacy Day

On January 28 Google celebrated Data Privacy Day (or known as Data Protection Day). To celebrate, Google decided to publish its Privacy Principles.

Google has five Privacy Principles and considers them important enough to capitalize the overarching term. The official explanation stated, "Our Privacy Principles help guide decisions we make at every level of our company, so we can help protect and empower our users while we fulfill our ongoing mission to organize the world's information."

The five principles are as follows:
1. Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.
2. Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.
3. Make the collection of personal information transparent.
4. Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.
5. Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.

It’s best to know that these Principles aren’t new. All Google did was make some longstanding guidelines public. On the Google’s official blog, it referred to "privacy-enhancing initiatives and features" this morning and promised, "[T]here is more in store for 2010."

Labels: google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-firm

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:44 PM

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Tips and Tools for Expanding Keywords Lists

Google Analytics is used to find the best keywords and move the budget to the highest converting keywords. However, what if you’re looking to expand the keyword lists? This is how you can leverage other free Google tools to optimize your marketing campaigns beyond Google Analytics.

1) Take a look at the best performing keywords from your Google Analytics Keyword Report.

2) Take these keywords and your Web site’s URL and put them into the Search-based Keyword Tool to find the keywords not in your AdWords campaign. This tool is helpful because they’re specific to the site and keywords you define are based on actual past Google queries.

3) For each keyword identified, you can then use Google Insights for Search to see trends in what the world is searching for. Optimize through geotargeting to see where regional interest is highest.

You can also enter your top-performing keywords from Google Analytics directly into Google Insights for Search to identify top-related and rising searches. This tool can also expand your keyword lists to keep them current by staying on top of current and related search trends.

Labels: adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 12:54 PM

Monday, November 30, 2009

Key Google AdWords Management Editorial Policies

When running a Google AdWords management account, knowing the key AdWords editorial policies is important. Today, we are going to discuss some that beginner Google AdWords users may or may not know.

1. Spacing - When writing an ad make sure you use proper grammar as far as spacing. Do not put hyphens between every word like F-r-e-e-s-h-i-p-p-i-n-g, or no space after a sentence like Free Shipping.Buy Now. Make sure you at least one space. You do not need to have 2 spaces.

2. Punctuations and Symbols - Do not use a symbol, letter or number is place of a word. Buy Shoes 4 Less is not acceptable. You must spell out "for." You also cannot use @ in place of "at," or U instead of "you." For punctuations, you cannot use more than one exclamation point in an Google AdWords marketing ad, and it can never be placed in the title.

3. Capitalization - Here is a very common policy that is broken quite a bit. You cannot capitalize a whole word. FREE is not acceptable, but what is acceptable is capitalizing the first letter of every word, and is highly recommended.

4. Repetition - Google AdWords editorial policy does not allow you to repeat a word to draw attention to an ad like Free Free Free.

5. Competitive Claims - It is great to think you are the best or #1, but this must be verified by a third party and shown on your website to be able to use this in pay per click campaign management.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and PPC help.

Labels: adwords-editorial-policy, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-campaign-management, ppc-help

posted by Bjorn Torling at 11:45 AM

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

AdWords Editor 7.6.1 Upgrade

Today Google made an upgrade to their AdWords Editor software, which will help with Google AdWords management.

Google AdWords Editor 7.6.1 was released today for Windows and Mac, so let's take a look at some of the improvements Google made:

1. Ad Scheduling and Location Targeting - The ad scheduling lets you update the times and days you would like your accounts to run, and the location targeting gives you the option to use radius targeting, exclude locations, and target a combination of cities.

2. Add and Update Multiple Campaigns - This is a great feature and must needed if you are an AdWords management company like us that deal with large accounts. Now you can update multiple campaign settings across multiple accounts at once.

3. Promoted Video Ads - AdWords Editor 7.6.1 now allows basic support for YouTube promoted ads. Download your ad into Editor and then you can add or modify ads with CSV imports.

4. Updated Keyword Expansion - With the Internet constantly growing it is no wonder that new searches are constantly popping up that a Google AdWords marketing team has to consider. Now Google AdWords has done an update to their Keyword Expansion tab that now has a link to "include additional terms" that can you can view based on your keyword results. Be careful though. Google likes to push some broad terms that can cause some serious damage to an account if not monitored properly.

For more information on the AdWords Editor 7.6.1 upgrade, check out Google's release notes here.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click campaign management.

Labels: adwords-editor, adwords-management-company, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-campaign-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:22 PM

Friday, November 13, 2009

Google Click Through Rate (CTR) And Pay Per Click Campaign Management

Today, I want to talk about click through rate (CTR) and how this affects your pay per click campaign management at Google.

Click through rate (CTR) is the number of times your ad was clicked on divided by the number of times the ad was shown (impression). Your ads and keywords have their click through rates unique to your own campaign, which is a common misconception.

So why is click through rate (CTR), so important to your Google AdWords marketing campaign? Well, according to Google, and I say this because I see a major flaw in their philosophy, which I will get to later in this blog, is a strong indicator of how relevant it is to a user and thus its overall success as a keyword in your account. A well targeted keyword that has a nicely targeted ad is going to perform better than a broad keyword with a broad ad. Pretty straightforward, and means you should group keywords about a certain product or service into an ad group with targeted ads, hence you have a nicely organized account, which should return high click through rates.

Now here is a problem that I have as an AdWords management company with the Google system when evaluating a low click through rate. According to Google, a low click through rate can point to poor keyword performance indicating a need to optimize the ad or keyword further. These low click through rates will affect your overall account quality score, so Google kind of forces you to not utilize these keywords. There are keywords out there that are that I believe have a huge search volume that are extremely relevant that Google will penalize you based on this system.

Let's look at an example. A Chicago realtor calls us for some PPC help. A term like Chicago real estate should be a great keyword for her. This keyword has 60,500 searches per month. To keep a 3% click through rate (CTR), she would have to pay for 1815 clicks. At a 2% click through rate, you would pay for 1210 clicks, 1% click through rate, 605 clicks and finally at a .05% click through rate, which definitely would be considered a poor keyword to Google, you would have to pay for 302 clicks. Now to be in the top 3, you would have to pay around $4.80 based on Google's estimates. So to keep a 0.05% click through rate, your budget would have to be at $1500 a month minimum, 1% click through rate, $3000, 2% click through rate, $6000, and finally at a 3% click through rate, $12000. This is just for one keyword!

I completely understand that this realtor should target specific areas in Chicago to keep the click through rate higher, but my point is this keyword is a great starting point for a customer that does not know the area. Now one thing that I did not point out is the $4.80 is based on the account having a nice quality score. As your quality score gets worse, you have to pay more per click, which makes it even harder to play in that space.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-management-company, click-through-rate, ctr, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-campaign-management, ppc-help

posted by Bjorn Torling at 7:20 AM

Monday, November 9, 2009

Easier Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Provides PPC Help

Google AdWords is providing even more PPC help with a new even easier conversion tracking interface. Implementing, monitoring and troubleshooting the way you track conversions is now as easy as it has ever been. With conversion tracking being so important to quantify your results it is no wonder that Google decided to make it as easy as they possibly could.

Now let's take a look at how Google decided to make their Google AdWords marketing even better by updating the Google AdWords conversion tracking interface.

First, let's login to your account. At the top of the page you have several categories. Go over to reporting and then scroll down to conversions, and click on it. Once you are on the conversions page, you are going to see 3 new tabs pop up. Conversions, webpages, and code. Let's discuss these.

1. Conversions - This is where you can see all the information about the Google AdWords conversion tracking you implemented, but there are other sections to discuss. "Tracking Status" is where you can look to see if you are tracking properly. "Tracking Purpose," which let's you know what you are tracking. A lead, signup, purchase/sale, or view of a key page. Lastly there is "Action Name," which you can name the conversion you are tracking.

2. Webpages - This is where you will see where on the website the conversion tracking was placed and coming from. This is great information for a PPC management company, because we do not place that code on the site most of the time, so now we can see where it came from.

3. Code - Lastly, but certainly not least, this is where the code is. Without the code, everything we have talked about does not work. Here you can also change the value of a conversion based on price increases or decreases.

If you are not currently utilizing conversion tracking in your Google AdWords management campaign, now is the easiest it has ever been to do it right. If you ever need help or have questions, please contact Google and they can help you, call Windy City Strategies and we can help you, or get more information from this Google blog post.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization, website design and development and pay per click management.

Labels: conversion-tracking, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-management, ppc-help, ppc-management-company

posted by Bjorn Torling at 4:24 PM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Google AdWords Marketing Translator Toolkit

When running a Google AdWords marketing campaign for many countries and languages, translating your keywords and ads are typically a big problem unless you have someone that you work with or know that speaks that language. Even with that kind of help it becomes quite a process. Well Google is coming to your rescue again with the Google Translator Toolkit.

The Google Translator Toolkit will help you translate faster and easier with tools like translation search, custom terminology databases and bilingual dictionaries. This will dramatically improve your Google AdWords management process.

To utilize the Google Translator Toolkit, go into AdWords Editor and download an AdWords Editor Archive (AEA) file with your keywords and ads, and put it into the Translator Toolkit and it will automatically translate them. Pretty simple. From there you can utilize the multilingual optimizers and professional translators who will help optimize and localize your campaigns.

Now you are ready to download your file and upload it back to AdWords Editor.

The Google Translator Toolkit only translates your ads and keywords, so to make your targeting work better, make sure you create landing pages that are translated and the payment and support systems are ready for international customers.

For more information about the Google Translator Toolkit visit this Google blog.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization, website design and development and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, google-adwords-translator-kit, internet-marketing-consulting, search-engine-optimization, seo

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:06 PM

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

AdWords Conversion Tracking Setup For Optimal Google AdWords Management

Continuing where we left off on our last blog, we are to the point where we are setting up the Google AdWords conversion tracking. The first step is deciding on the conversion tracking security level and language settings.

Let's start with the security level for your Google AdWords marketing campaign. This is simple. What is the security level of your conversion page? It is either https:// or http://. Most carts use the https:// level, and you can check by going to your conversion page and looking at the address bar in your web browser. If you are not sure, it does not hurt to just use the https:// security level. If you have any questions on this, a Google AdWords consultant could give you tips, so you do this properly.

Now the last step is setting up your language. For most people reading this blog, you will select English, but this is really up to what language the vast majority of the visitors to your site are. There will be a link on your conversion page that says "Google Site Stats Link," and whatever language you choose is what users get information about conversion tracking. Not a huge deal, since most people won't read it, but still should be done properly.

On our next blog, we will discuss the conversion types you can utilize to make the most out of your Google AdWords management.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-conversion-tracking, conversion-tracking, google-adwords-consultant, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 4:56 PM

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Google AdWords Image Ads

Today we are going to discuss image ads that can be placed on Google to supplement your Google AdWords marketing, their features, how to create them and guidelines. First off, image ads are a great way to differentiate yourself from your competition because many companies don't do them, but more importantly they look better than a regular text ad.

Image ads are only shown on the content network, so you can either use a placement or keyword targeting. If you use keyword targeting, make sure you opt yourself into the content network, and is in a separate campaign, so you can track results better. This is important when using the content network versus search, because Internet marketing is quantifiable, and you want to know what works and what does not, and proper organization is extremely important. Please consult with an AdWords management company to get this right

Now, image ads are graphic ads that can be motionless or animated, and are shown on content sites that have opted into the Google AdWords image ad program. Static (motionless) image ads can be formatted in .gif, .jpg, and .png, while animated image ads can be in .gif or Flash. Make sure you image ads reflect your site, and advertise your product or service.

Here are the sizes your Google AdWords image ads can be in for static and animated:

* 250 x 250 Square
* 200 x 200 Small Square
* 468 x 60 Banner
* 728 x 90 Leaderboard
* 300 x 250 Inline Rectangle
* 336 x 280 Large Rectangle
* 120 x 600 Skyscraper
* 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-management-company, google-adwords-image-ads, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, image-ads, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:07 PM

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Google AdWords Management Quality Score

If you are doing any Google AdWords management you are quite familiar with the term "quality score," but do you know what it means? Well today we are going to discuss what Google's quality score is and how it affects your AdWords account.

Quite simply, quality score is Google's way of measuring keyword relevance. It is based on your keyword's click through rate, ad text relevance and landing page among other things. This quality score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query made at Google.

Now how does Google use this quality score? Well, they use quality score to influence how much your cost per click's (CPC) are going to be, along with first page bid estimates. They also use it to determine if your ad is even eligible to enter the ad auction, so essentially the higher your quality score the better your ad position, and the less you pay per click.

Google says this helps that only the most relevant ads show at Google and its search partners.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, google-adwords-quality-score, pay-per-click-management, quality-score

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:05 PM

Monday, August 17, 2009

Why Do Google AdWords Management?

So why would you utilize a Google AdWords management program? Well, it is quite simple. 80% of Internet users see Google AdWords ads each month in the United States, and hundreds of thousands more across seas. That is what you call instant access to a large audience.

Now some of the benefits of doing Google AdWords marketing is that you can target your ad to an audience looking for your product and service. This is critical because every day people are looking for your product or service and you want to engage those customers at that exact moment. This also means that a proper setup of your Google AdWords management is critical, so you make sure you do not stray from your target audience, which will impact your overall return on investment.

Google AdWords is also extremely cost effective, because you can set your own budget, the amount you would like to pay per click at a keyword level, or you can pay based on impressions. The choice is up to you. Of course, all of these can be changed at a moments notice.

The Google AdWords management system is quite flexible also. When you edit your ads, you can see the change online within 20 minutes. The system is available to you 24 hours a day, and you can see your listing on Google almost immediately after you have entered your credit card.

Now remember that if you chose to outsource your AdWords account, make sure you find a certified AdWords management company, as they have the knowledge to take your account to the next level.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-management-company, google-adwords, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:11 PM

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Organizing Your Google AdWords Management Account

Today we are going to discuss how to organize your Google AdWords management account better. The way you setup your account is the difference between success or eventual failure. So here are some tips to organize your Google AdWords account more logically at a campaign and ad group level.

Google AdWords marketing gives you the basic structure to work with, so really it is up to you to decide how you want to organize your campaign and ad groups.

Every keyword targeted account starts with a campaign. Each campaign, whether you have one or more needs to reflect a goal. Ask yourself, "What you would like to gain from this campaign." Are you trying to sell more product, a service, information, a certain audience, or more leads?

Well, here are some ways to organize your campaigns:

1. Product or Themes - safety vests, specific vitamin, etc

2. Use your website structure - Use the categories you have on your website as campaigns or ad groups.

3. Brands - If you sell jeans, use Levi, Lee, Gap, etc

4. Geography - Organize by the city or state that you target.

5. Language - Target the different languages that you target.

6. Distribution Preferences - Separate your search based keywords from your content network.

7. Budgets - Have different budget based on your campaigns.

Try mapping your account structure on paper first, and then you can get a good game plan when you translate it over to your Google AdWords management account.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords advertising with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:26 PM

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Local Business Advertising and AdWords Customized Targeting

Using customized targeting on Google AdWords for local business advertising is a great way to reach more qualified leads if you have an audience in a specific area to target. If you do choose to use the customized targeting option for your campaign, your ad will only show to searchers whose ip address are within the area you have defined.

Customized targeting is nice, because it does not limit you to cities and regions, so if you own a restaurant in Chicago you can target only the North Side. Here at Windy City Strategies, we recommend that you pick cities also if you choose to use the customized targeting, so you don't miss an area, and is recommended by Google too.

When you setup customized targeting, you have three options:

1. Enter a physical address - Enter your street or business address along with the distance, and it will show the radius of a circle around the address you entered. Now you will want to have at least a twenty mile radius as ip addresses are sometimes further away than you think. Google also recommends this. Only users in this circle will see your Google AdWords management ad.

2. Select a point on the map - Here you can define your own radius by dragging the interactive map to place a pointer on your place of business. This point will then automatically create a longitude and latitude, and Google AdWords will target your ad based on this. Not an ideal situation for advertisers. You probably want more control than that.

3. Multi point - This is great as you click on three or four points on a map to create the outline of a region that you would like to target your pay per click management ad. With this feature you can create any kind of size or shape. Have used this many times, and again we recommend to click cities also.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and ppc bid management.

Labels: adwords-customized-targeting, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, local-business-advertising, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 12:44 PM

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Google AdWords Management and Data Report Center

Your report center in your Google AdWords management account will be your best friend when you have to make critical decisions. Continuing on with our last blog, which talked about the basics of what you get when you activate Google AdWords conversion tracking, we will discuss the report center and how it will help in these decisions.

The report center in your Google AdWords management account gives detailed and specific conversion tracking information. You can create custom reports that will get you any conversion statistics that you will need like number of transactions, conversion rate, cost per transaction, and the related keywords that brought in these numbers. This is extremely important, and if you are to take anything away from this blog this is it. You must evaluate your keywords, because what you believe to work is not necessarily the truth, and you could cost your business a lot of advertising dollars that could be spent in better places. The careful evaluation of your actual conversions is the key to making your Google AdWords marketing optimized.

After you have created a custom report with the conversion tracking metrics you would like to track, you can evaluate the performance of your Google AdWords account. Conversion rate and cost per conversion are important numbers, but each individual conversion can lead to other transactions or they may come back later and purchase more items. So take a look at your transactions and cost per transaction as they may serve you better, since acquiring regular customers is more important than one conversion. Tracking these transactions will let you know how effective your advertising is along with the effectiveness of your site and product values.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and ppc bid management.

Labels: google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting, ppc-bid-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 7:37 AM

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Using Conversion Data To Improve Google AdWords Management

To improve your Google AdWords management account we need to analyze conversion statistics, determine your rate on investment or ROI, and improve your campaign performance by analyzing this data.

Once you have activated conversion tracking and implemented the code on whatever page you would like to track, two new columns will appear on your campaign management screen. The two columns are cost per conversion and conversion rate. These two columns will give you a quick rundown, but nothing like the report center will get you.

The conversion rate will let you know the percentage of clicks that become conversions in your Google AdWords marketing account, while the cost per conversion lets you know how much it cost to get a conversion. Again this data only gives you an overview of how your account is doing. The next blog will discuss how to utilize the report center to get specific and detailed information on your conversion tracking.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-conversion-tracking, conversion-tracking, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:34 PM

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Verify A Company Is A Qualified Google Advertising Professional

So you are looking for an AdWords Management company, and of course everybody says they are the best, but how do you know for sure? Well, do your research is what I tell people, but there is one constant that you should always look for when working with a Google AdWords marketing firm, and that is, make sure they are a Qualified AdWords Company.

How can you tell if they are a qualified company? Well Google AdWords takes many measures to make sure that users are not conducting business with unethical individuals and companies, and that they truly are a Google advertising professional.

The best way too make sure that they are qualified is to look for the AdWords Qualified Individual or Company logo that is visible from the individuals or company's website. Click on it, and it should direct you to a page hosted by Google, with a prefix starting with http://adwords.google.com/select/professionalstatus. This page will contain Google's validation that the individual or company has attained Qualified status through the Google advertising professionals program.

It is important when looking at Google's professional status page to see the name of the business, make sure the url is hosted by Google, and that Google's validation for the individual or company is present.

If you do not see the logo or status page, you can ask the professional for the page, but that should be a cue for you to not deal with this individual or company.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-management-company, google-advertising-professional, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:44 PM

Local Business Advertising and Your Website

So lately I have been discussing the many flaws that I believe are the case for using Dex Knows, Yellow Pages, Yellow Book, Super Pages, Reach Local or Yodle for local business advertising, but this one cuts the cake for me. They don't use your website!

I am going to use an example in this blog, so you can see what I mean, but let's discuss what a business owner would do once they have a website. This is simple. You want to brand yourself in your local area, and offer information to potential or current clients. Now how do you get traffic to your site? Well as most may know, there are 3 main search engines to use, Google AdWords marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter. With many local business owners trying to stay as lean as they can, most do not have the time to do their own advertising, so they hire a professional Internet marketing company to get traffic to their site. For as low as around $400 a month for management fees, you can't hire an in-house individual.

Now all the R.H. Donnelley companies are out there like Dex Knows, Yellow Pages, Yellow Book, and Super Pages advertising on the TV, Internet, radio, and even call you on the phone, and with the phone books being so popular for years, people still flock to get service from them. That is fine as long as you understand what they are doing to you.

Let's look at an example. Search on Google for Algonquin Illinois dentist. Many searches will come up, and it will change constantly, but let's see if you can find this ad:

Overmyer Brian DDS

Need a dentist in Crystal Lake?
Help with all your dental needs!
www.overmyerbrianddsyp.com

This a Dex Knows ad, and you know that because they add yp or dex to the end of the url. Now, let's go to the website they are promoting; www.overmyerbrianddsyp.com. Right off the bat you will notice this is a Dex Knows storefront page, because of the logo at the top left. I believe the storefront is great for people that do not have websites, because it does provide some good information, but it is not personable. Now in blue, there is a link for website, which is Dr. Overmyer's real website that he paid for. Click on it and you will see that it goes to www.crystallake-familydentistry.com. A beautiful website that Dex Knows has decided not to use. Why? I don't know. In fact once you leave Dex Knows you lose that storefront, and now you are back to a site that most likely has not gotten a lot of clicks, because they did not use that site. You pretty much wasted advertising dollars, and now may be soured on ppc bid management.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting, local-business-advertising, pay-per-click-management, ppc-bid-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 6:59 AM

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Local Business Advertising Companies

With local business advertising being such an integral part of the Internet, a lot of companies try to capitalize, but most are not doing it well and cheating the customer.

Some of the larger companies for local business advertising is Dex Knows, Yellow Book, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Reach Local, Yodle, etc. These companies take on as many customers as they can, and enter you into one of their already made templates of keywords, and get you online as fast as possible. There are several problems though. The biggest problem is customer service. What do they tell a customer when they are doing Google AdWords marketing, and they want to be listed higher? Now what if they do list you higher, and then another one calls? It is a revolving problem that will never stop until the client quits and goes elsewhere. I guess this explains why R.H. Donnelley declared bankruptcy.

At Windy City Strategies, we only take one client doing the same service in a geographical area, so we don't have to deal with these problems, and more importantly be fair to our clients.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting, search engine optimization and ppc bid management.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing, local-business-advertising, ppc-bid-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 12:32 PM

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Google AdWords Management Contexual Targeting

The key to a successful Google AdWords management account is to understand the key differences between search and the content network. Today, we are going to talk about content network targeting and strategies for building and tracking your contextually targeted campaign.

Contextually targeted ads appear on content pages and properties, while search targeted ads appear on search sites. For contextually targeting, Google AdWords marketing looks for themes of the keywords in an ad group, and then decide whether they will show your ad for relevant content. If your theme matches the content theme of a page, then your ad may show.

Since keywords for search and content are analyzed differently, it is best to separate your Google AdWords advertising two campaigns - one for search and one for content. Remember that Google AdWords automatically activates you for both when you turn on your campaign. You manually have to turn off content or search depending on the campaign you have created.

In our next blog, we will discuss the do's and don'ts for content targeting.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: content-network-tips, contextual-targeting, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 12:29 PM

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Google AdWords Marketing Daily Budget

Your Google AdWords marketing budget is the amount of money that you want to spend on a specific campaign daily. Google will make sure to show your ad as much as possible to maximize your budget.

Now to make sure you maximize your daily budget Google AdWords advertising gives you a recommended daily recommended budget to within your account. These numbers are based on Google's historical data that they have on the search terms that you are bidding on. This recommended daily budget is only a recommendation, so it is not set in stone. Searches continue to increase every year, so if you need help with this, try to utilize some AdWords management services.

If you don't utilize the recommended budget, you can still advertise of course, but your ad may only show intermittently. Google is great at budget smoothing, which means they will not show your ad sometimes, so you can show for the whole day, instead of spending all of the budget immediately.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-management-services, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consulting, internet-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 6:18 PM

Microsoft Bing Tries To Unseat Google AdWords Advertising

You have seen the ads lately with Microsoft attacking Apple, and now Microsoft is trying to unseat Google AdWords advertising's stake in search engine marketing with Bing. The software giant is set to launch a $80 million to $100 million campaign to try and gain back some online marketing share. This is an extremely large budget for a national roll out, so Microsoft is putting in a lot of effort to make waves in the Internet marketing world with the budget being spent on radio, TV, print and online.

To compare advertising dollars, Google spent a total of $25 million dollars with almost half of it going towards recruiting, so this is by far the largest assault they have ever seen. Now the problem is how they are going to get consumers to change, and insiders have said that Bing is not going to attack Google AdWords marketing and Yahoo directly, but convincing people that search is not working as well as thought and Bing solves this problem. A big challenge for Bing indeed.

So the question I have for everybody is, "Do you think search sucks?" If you don't, will you still try Bing? Well the latest statistic says that 65% of people are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with online marketing. Good luck Bing.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: bing, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consulting, internet-marketing, microsoft bing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:35 PM

Monday, June 8, 2009

Google Adwords Advertising and Google Adwords Link Policy

The Google AdWords link policy pertains to the display URL and destination URL, and more specifically how your website performs once someone is on there. Now when we say perform, that could mean a lot of things, but here we are talking about functionality with your Google AdWords advertising and website.

First off your display URL should give potential customers a clear idea of where they are going once they click your ad. Don't sell books and say you are amazon.com or sell insurance and be allstate.com. Google AdWords advertising will stop the ad your are running, which means unless you have another ad with the correct URL, you are not showing.

Now let's say your display URL is fine, but your destination URL is not. Is the page they are landing on not working or under construction? If so, you are paying for clicks that are useless. Also make sure that you don't need a program to open the page.

Now once they are on the page, is there a pop-up? If you do, you can get around the Google AdWords marketing editorial team for a little while, but you will get caught, and your ad will be disapproved. Pop-ups are annoying and most people have software to stop them anyhow, so don't use them.

Make sure the back button works once customers are on your site. The customer should make it back to where the Google ads are located within one or two clicks. If not your AdWords management services are going to be disapproved again. Remember not to mislead customers.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: adwords-management-services, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-link-policy, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 2:08 PM

Pay Per Click Management and Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Matching Types

Today, I am going to discuss Yahoo Search Marketing keyword match types. Yahoo is very different from pay per click management with Google AdWords and MSN AdCenter, as there is a lack of control with keywords, because they try to automate this on their end. Google and MSN believe that you should have several different variations on keywords, and each will bring a different result, and they are right. For example Jackson Hole real estate and real estate Jackson Hole are the same customer, but real estate Jackson Hole has a lot less traffic, and you can really capitalize on this. Yahoo believes these are the same keywords. They are wrong. We will get into the two keyword match types they use, but here is another example. Safety vest and safety vests are considered the same word. If you were a business selling safety vests, with Google AdWords advertising and MSN AdCenter we can keep safety vests higher than safety vest, because we want the bulk orders over the single order. With Yahoo Search Marketing you don't have that option.

Well let's get into the two keywords variations that Yahoo Search Marketing offers:

Standard Match Type: A standard match happens when a customer enters a search term that is the same as the term you have bid on.

If you advertise on the keyword “safety vest,” your ad may be displayed for the following search queries:

* safety vest (same)
* safety vests (singular/plural variations)
* saftey vests (common misspellings)

Advance Match Type:

The Advanced match type displays your ads for a broader range of searches related to your search terms, titles, descriptions, and/or web content.

If you advertise on the keyword “safety vest,” your ad may be displayed for the following search queries:

* safety vest (same)
* safety vests (singular/plural variations)
* saftey vests (common misspellings)
* buy a safety vest (in a phrase)
* safety or economy vests (separated by word(s))
* vests for safety (in a different order)
* economy vests (sub-phrase query)
* vests (general/broad query)
* economy safety vests (specific query term)
* ‘Brand A’ safety vests (specific query term)

As you can see Yahoo Search Marketing takes away most of the creative that you need to have a successful Internet marketing campaign. What would happen if safety vest converts well, but only single orders, so you have to lower bids, but economy safety vests converts great? You can't split those keywords up which Google AdWords marketing and MSN adCenter allow you to do to make your rate on investment increase. This is why Yahoo is losing more and more share in the pay per click management world.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management, yahoo-search-marketing

posted by Bjorn Torling at 9:47 AM

Monday, June 1, 2009

AdWords Editor 7.5.1 For Windows and Mac

Google AdWords has released version 7.5.1 of AdWords Editor to make your Google AdWords marketing much easier to use. Let's take a look at several of the new features that is now being offered.

1. CSV File Imports - You can now import csv files directly into AdWords Editor after you have downloaded a file and done changes on a spreadsheet.

2. Downloading or Updating Selected Campaigns - Sometimes you just need to do a few things to a campaign or more, but you had to download your entire Google AdWords advertising account and that just takes a long time if you have a large account. Well Google AdWords Editor to the rescue, as now you can download the campaign or campaigns that you want to edit only.

3. Keyword Opportunities Tool - This is by far the best part of the new update as you can now view and organize new keywords by categories, so you can quickly find keywords that are relevant to your Google marketing account in the search based keywords tab. Also volume and competition are now included when you export or copy keywords, and you can add terms as negative keywords, keywords or campaign negative keywords.

Well that is the main updates for AdWords Editor 7.5.1, and if you have more questions on some of these great tools, please visit this Google AdWords blog post.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-editor-7.5.1, google-adwords-marketing, google-marketing, internet-consultant, internet-consulting, internet-marketing-company, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:41 PM

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Pay Per Click Management and Google Adwords Advertising

As a pay per click management firm, we have to analyze a client's website and industry and create a customized account to bring in relevant and qualified traffic. The problem is that most people don't understand why pay per click management is so important to them.

Let's say that we are going to advertise for a dentist in Algonquin, Illinois. We know that the most popular term for this client would be dentist, dental clinic, etc, but what good would it be if you were showing all across America? That obviously would not bring in relevant traffic. Google AdWords advertising allows you to set up a certain mile radius and/or pick specific cities in the area that you would like potential customers to see your ad, which in turn will bring in qualified customers to the website. This seems simple enough to do, but this is only for keywords with no location targeting associated to the keyword. There are many other factors to look at when creating a local Google AdWords advertising campaign, but this is one scenario that will improve your marketing greatly.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: google-advertising, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-marketing, google-adwords-professional, internet-consultant, internet-consulting, internet-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:25 PM

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Google Adwords Advertising Navigating The Tabs

After you have logged into you Google AdWords advertising account by entering your email address and password you will notice that you have 4 tabs at the top. They are campaign management, reports, analytics and my account. Each can have one or more sub accounts, and will be listed underneath the main tab once it is clicked. Now if you have a signed up to be a Google AdWords Professional, you will notice that you also have a pro center tab, but for the most part most Google AdWords advertising accounts will only have the 4 tabs.

Let's take a look at what information each of these tabs offer you when you are advertising on Google.

1. Campaign management - Here you will see a summary of how your account is performing. There are also some great tools that are offered to you to help make the account run more efficiently, and you can edit your campaign and ads throughout this tab. The sub section that you will use the most is campaign summary, which will allow you to see the campaign details along with the corresponding ad groups once you click into the google advertising campaign.

2. Reports - Here you can create reports based on your account. Very important section as you need to know how the account is performing, and there are many reports to give you as much detail as you would like.

3. Analytics - Google analytics is a free tool that will let you know your website performance and rate on investment (ROI) with an easy laid out platform. You will know where your traffic is coming from, where they go, and how much time is spent on the site and/or web pages.

4. My Account - Here is where your billing information is located, along with account login information. Here you can see when you have been billed, along with updating your credit card if needed. This is also the area where you can allow access into your pay per click management account, and disable access too.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: advertising-on-google, google-advertising, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-marketing, google-adwords-professional, internet-consulting, internet-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 11:38 AM

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Google Adwords Advertising Account Structure

When creating a Google AdWords advertising account you need to understand the structure of the account, and what each part does. Think of the account as being structured as a pyramid, which is broken into 3 main levels with account being at the top followed by campaign and lastly ad group.

Let's take a look at each level:

1. Account - This is where you have you have all the Google AdWords marketing information like unique email address, passwords, billing information and the preferences you have for the account. The preferences could be another email you want notifications to go, language, time zones, and administrative access that you allow for clients.

2. Campaign - The campaign is the most important part of the pyramid, as this is where you set the daily budget, targeting preferences, start and end dates, Google advertising network preferences, and other advanced options. A Google AdWords account contains up to 25 campaigns. The campaign is important, because you want to make sure you are targeting customers in your area with a budget that you can work with, and making the most out of it. This means finding your best converting keywords and placing them into a Google AdWords advertising campaign with a specific budget, while you brand or test in another.

3. Ad Group - This is where your ads and keywords/placements are located along with the bids. For the most part this is where you will be managing the account, and seeing how much you spend on a certain keyword. Of course all the keywords and ads in the ad group are shown based on what you have setup at the campaign level, which is why the campaign is so important. You can have 100 ad groups in a campaign.

Hopefully this rundown of the account structure helps your pay per click management account go to the next level by understanding how each level works with the other.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: google-advertising, google-adwords, google-adwords-advertising, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consultant, internet-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 7:34 AM

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Google Adwords Billing Cycle And Google Adwords Marketing

As more and more people are moving their advertising dollars to online marketing, I wanted to take a moment to help you understand the Google AdWords marketing billing cycle. At Windy City Strategies this comes up as a fairly confusing topic to clients, because it is based on thresholds for the most part, but like any business owner you want to know when you are billed.

You are billed based on a Google AdWords billing cycle, which starts when you create and activate your Google AdWords marketing account with a debit card, credit card or direct debit. They will now charge you every 30 days unless you reach a certain threshold. The first time your account reaches $50 within 30 days with either clicks or impressions depending on what kind of Google AdWords marketing campaign you are running, Google AdWords will charge you. Then they will allow you to reach $200 within that same 30 days before charging you again.

If you do reach that $200 in the 30 days, you will be charged again, and now your threshold is raised to $350. Now if you accrue $350 worth of clicks or impressions, you will be charged again, and now your threshold is raised to $500 in your Google AdWords marketing campaign, which is the maximum.

You won't be billed exactly $500 because you will still accrue clicks in your account between the time the billing cycle is triggered and the time the charge is processed, but it will always be around $500.

Your account will now stay at this $500 threshold, and you will not have to repeat the other thresholds the next billing cycle. Google AdWords wants to make sure you can pay for your clicks, which is why they have implemented this system.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-billing-cycle, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consultant, internet-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:38 PM

Sunday, April 5, 2009

New Beta Google AdWords Interface

Being a leading pay per click management firm, we were asked by Google AdWords to test a new interface back in November. Last week, Google AdWords announced that they are expanding this new beta to more U.S advertisers along with additional countries like the U.K. and Australia.

The new interface makes your Google AdWords pay per click management campaign faster, clearer and more intuitive. This will help to find your most important keywords across ad groups, go through and change things in your account faster, and get to your reports quicker and then act on them.

Now here are the features that the new beta Google AdWords interface is testing:

1. Performance graphs - Custom graphs on every campaign page. This is great to see trends over time and act on them quickly.

2. Ad Group Insight - This is a great feature. Here you can see all your keywords across all ad groups on a single tab. You can edit your keywords, ads or placements in one spot.

3. In line editing - Another great feature to help your Google AdWords marketing. Now instead of opening a separate page to change a bid, you can make the change in-line.

4. Easier Content Network Management - Here you will be able to see statistics on where your ads have been placed, and from the report you can set unique bids or exclude placements. Much easier than the system Google AdWords had in place previously.

Now Google AdWords wants to remind anybody using the new beta Google AdWords interface that not all features in the previous interface are currently supported, so you still need to use both interfaces, and that is easy to switch between.

For more information about the new interface, check out this Google blog.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: beta-google-adwords-interface, google-adwords-interface, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consulting, internet-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 4:49 PM

Monday, March 23, 2009

Internet Marketing and Google Trademarks

Almost every client that we come across here at Windy City Strategies has had concerns about doing internet marketing and how to protect trademarked terms on Google. Just so we are all the same page, a trademark is a logo, phrase, word or symbol that distinguishes a service or product from others in a marketplace. Now Google does not want to arbitrate trademark disputes between trademark owners and the person advertising on the trademark terms. The Google trademark team would rather have the trademark owner settle the dispute by contacting the advertiser in violation, because the advertiser is responsible for the keywords and ad they create. This sometimes does not work, so Google will investigate some complaints that are reasonable, but this only applies to Google Adwords marketing on the sponsored links and not the natural listings. If you have a concern about someone using a website, you must contact the advertiser directly to get this resolved. Google will not get involved.

To get your complaint heard by Google, you have to fill out a Google Trademark Complaint, and provide them certain information about the trademark. Once the complaint is reviewed and you win, no advertiser can use your trademark in their ad text. They can use the trademarked term as a keyword, because of freedom of speech, but because of the quality score formula, it will be tough for an advertiser to continue to use the keyword, because a low click through rate is inevitable. Now you the trademark owner is in charge, and you can allow advertisers to use your trademark if you allow them. This is also in the complaint form to allow certain customer id's the permission to use your trademark. I hope this helps answer some questions about Google trademarks.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google Adwords marketing with our top of the line internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, google-trademark, google-trademark-complaint, internet-marketing

posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:56 PM

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Internet Consulting Google's Editorial Policies

When Windy City Strategies is doing internet consulting on ads, we always go over the Google Adwords editorial policies, because it helps the client understand what cannot be done. Some of them are self explanatory, but there are others that clients want to use in their ad. Let's take a look at a few of Google's Editorial policies.

1. Spacing - Correct spacing is important. BuyNow or Buy.Now are not correct and your ad will be disapproved.

2. Punctuations and Symbols - Punctuation cannot be repeated 2 times in a row to attract a users attention. No exclamation point can be used in the title, and only one can be used in the description. Also numbers and letters cannot be used in place of words like 4U.

3. Capitalization- Capital letters can be used for the first letter of each word, but all the letters of a word cannot be capitalized to draw attention to it.

4. Repetition - Repeated words are not to be used in your Google Adwords marketing, like Deals, Deals, Deals for a promotion. There are different ways to write this instead to get past the editorial review.

5. Unacceptable Phrases - Call to action words are great, and should be used, but if they don't describe your product or service you cannot use them. An example is Click Here Now.

6. Superlative Claims - This is something all customers want to strive to and say, which is why Google has decided to not allow subjective phrases like "best" or "#1," unless verified by a 3rd party and shown prominently on your website.

Hopefully you found some of these tips useful.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google Adwords marketing with our top of the line internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, google-editorial-policy, internet-consulting, internet-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:44 PM

Monday, March 16, 2009

Google Adwords Marketing Destination URL Policy

When creating your Google Adwords marketing account you need to have a destination URL to run an ad, but do you know the policies set forth by Google Adwords? The rules are fairly self explanatory, but here at Windy City Strategies we see accounts from time to time manipulating the rules. First off the destination URL is the web address that an ad will link to, which is called a landing page. These guidelines set forth by Google Adwords are made so that users find what they are looking for quickly and easily. All destination URL's have to meet these 3 rules to be approved, otherwise they will be disapproved.

1. It must link to a webpage that works. You do not want someone to click on your ad, get charged, and getting nothing out of your pay per click management campaign. This seems simple enough, but clients forget that creating a new website or updating the site can change the URL's, and this can go undetected for quite a while, and that is frustrating for the client and pay per click manager.

2. The landing page must not be under construction. Well at least the page works, but there is no content to get the potential customer to bite. This again will cost you money with nothing to show.

3. The webpage must not require a program other than the browser to see it. The destination URL must be in HTML. Do not create landing pages that are in MS Word or Adobe Acrobat. If the page needs to have another program to get more information, you need to remember that not all users will be able to view the site, and that definitely will detract from the user experience.

Windy City strategies account managers have been in the internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google Adwords marketing with our top of the line internet consulting and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:40 PM

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Internet Consulting and Invalid Clicks

When Windy City Strategies is doing internet consulting for a client, the topic of invalid clicks seems to come up quite often. Rest assured, all the search engines have measures in place, but today I will discuss Google's policy, since they get around 70% of the search engine traffic.

Invalid clicks are clicks that are completed by methods that Google prohibits. Some methods are manual repeated clicking, and repeated automated clicking by use of robots, software or clicking tools. These clicks are intended to drive up the costs to someones Google Adwords marketing. Now Google closely monitors these scenarios among others to protect advertisers from receiving these invalid clicks.

Here are 3 powerful tools that Google also uses to stop invalid clicks:

Detection and filtering techniques - Each click on Adwords is analyzed by the system, and they grab information like IP address, time of click, duplicate clicking, and other measures to isolate and filter out potential invalid clicks.

Advanced monitoring techniques - Google has proprietary technology to analyze clicks and impressions to see if there are patterns that may drive up an advertiser's clicks. This technology catches most invalid clicks prior to them even reaching your reports, but sometimes a pattern is noticed too late, so credits are issued into the Google Adwords marketing account.

The Google team - This team uses specialized tools and techniques to examine invalid clicks. When the system detects potential invalid clicks, this team will gather information from the affected account to see where the source of invalid clicks is coming.

Windy City strategies account managers have been in the internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your pay per click management account with our top of the line internet consulting.

Labels: google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consulting, invalid-clicks

posted by Bjorn Torling at 11:44 AM

Monday, March 9, 2009

Google Adwords Marketing And Display URL's

When Windy City Strategies does internet consulting with a client, and we are looking over their Google Adwords marketing account we always give advice on little tricks that will get their ad noticed more. The one I would like to discuss today involves the display url.

As you may or may not know, when a search is made, Google will bold the search query in ads which helps with click through rates, and gets the ad noticed. This is something Google does to reward clients that take the time to create quality ads, and it works well. Now here is a trick that most people do not use.

The display url is the url displayed on your ad to identify your site to potential customers, and you have a max 35 character limit. Use it all. You should have ad groups with specific ads per product or service already, so if you sell Nike shoes, make your display url www.Example.com/NikeShoes, instead of www.Example.com. Your title in your ad and the end of your display url will be bold. That is one extra noticeable part of your ad, and it works great with your Google Adwords marketing, so take advantage of it.

Labels: display-url, google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, internet-consulting

posted by Bjorn Torling at 3:56 PM

Monday, March 2, 2009

Google Adwords Marketing With Keyword Matching

When doing Google Adwords marketing it is critical to understand the different ways to market a keyword. The three different variations are exact, phrase and broad match. Now let's use the keyword red car and see what the three different variations can do to help your Google Adwords marketing. First off, we can use this keyword as a plural, so we are going to have exact, phrase and broad match based on red car and red cars, so you will have a total of six keyword variation. The exact match variation of red car(s), are for searchers that are actually only typing in those words. This is great to see clicks going to this because you know you are right on target with your potential clients. The phrase match version are for searchers that are adding words in front, behind or in front and behind of red car(s). Red car(s) has to be in that order though. Broad match is by far the keyword match that you need to watch out for, as this can hurt your internet marketing. This keyword match picks up all the variations of a keyword that you don't have, but also matches you with keywords that can pertain to that keyword. Terms like car(s) red, blue car, car seats, truck, motorcycle and rear view mirror can show for that keyword, so you need to make sure you do reports to find out what you are being shown on and create negatives on keywords you don't want to show, while adding keywords that can help you. Hope this helps you understand the different types of keyword variations in Google Adwords.

Labels: google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, internet-marketing, keyword-match, keyword-match-variations

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:42 PM

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Click Through Rate and Google Adwords Marketing

Click through rate or CTR is a way of measuring how well your Google Adwords marketing campaign is doing. The formula to measure click through rate is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad has been shown, which is called an impression. Each keyword along with the ad that is displayed will have its own unique CTR. Now what does this mean to your Google Adwords marketing account?

A keyword's click through rate is a great indicator of how well your keyword relates to the user of a search query. A click through rate of more than 3% is considered excellent and highly relevant. Typically the more specific the keyword gets, the higher your click through rate will be, but does that mean that a keyword with a low CTR is bad? Yes and no. If you are selling Nike basketball shoes, and you are advertising on a keyword like Converse basketball shoes, and your CTR is 0.5%, I would say yes, you need to do changes. Searchers looking for Converse basketball shoes want Converse basketball shoes, which means your relevance to the user is low.

Now what about a keyword like basketball shoes? This keyword is searched about 600,000 times a month, so getting a 3% click through rate would get you 30,000 clicks, which is most likely not possible due to budget restraints. Is this keyword considered a bad keyword for your account if you had a 0.25% CTR? I would say no, because you sell basketball shoes, and it is a great starting point for a customer to see what basketball shoes are available. Now there are other factors to look at to see how well this keyword performs, but this is an example on how you can't completely look at click through rate to measure the success of your website marketing.

Labels: click-through-rate, google-adwords, google-adwords-marketing, pay-per-click-management, website-marketing

posted by Bjorn Torling at 8:26 AM

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Google AdWords Marketing Content Network Tips and Pay Per Click Management

One of the greatest way to increase traffic to your site is to use the Google content network. The problem is that most customers don't know how to use it right, and I can understand why. When you first create your Google Adwords marketing account, you are automatically included into the search network and content network, so you would think, well that has to be the right way. This could not be further from the truth. When we do internet marketing consulting we tell our clients to separate your content network and search network into two separate campaigns, and that is how Google recommends to do it anyway.

First off, you don't want to combine the data. You are going to see all the data between the search network and content network, and then you are going to have to go into the account and thumb through everything to find out how things are going. By separating the campaigns, you can log in and see how the campaigns are doing without having to go into the campaign, and see which network is getting you the better results, and then make changes. This is going to make everything run much smoother for your pay per click management account, and give you more precise data.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: content-network-tips, google-adwords-management, google-adwords-marketing, google-content-network, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:03 PM

Monday, February 23, 2009

Google Search Based Keyword Tool

When we are doing internet marketing consulting with clients that have not had success in their internet marketing campaigns, one big frustration is that keyword targeting is difficult, and that there are million up millions of searches, but they don't know if they have hit their right audience.

Well, Google is here to help out once again with the Google search based keyword tool. With a traditional keyword tool, you do searches for keywords that you think potential customers would use to get to a landing page, which could be confusing and feel like a guessing game. Now the Google search based keyword tool goes in the opposite direction and looks at your website, and shows a list of keywords that a potential customer may search for to get to your product or service.

Using both keywords tools can get you a bunch of keywords that are highly relevant, and increase your exposure. This Google blog can give you some more insight on the Google search based keyword tool, so take a look at it.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

Labels: google-adwords-marketing, google-blog, google-search-based-keyword-tool, internet-marketing-consulting, pay-per-click-management

posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:37 PM

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