Large ad groups can negatively affect your performance. Poor performing keywords drag down the Quality Score (QS) of better performing keywords in the same ad group. This ultimately impacts impression share and raises click costs.

QS helps determine your actual Cost-Per-Click (CPC). Google assesses the relevance of your keywords, ad text, and landing content, as well as the click-through rate (CTR) of the keyword and ad group. Optimizing an account can be difficult to do with ad groups that include too many keyword themes. To help keep QS up and CPCs down, you will need to draw as straight a line as possible from search query to keyword to ad copy.

Try distributing keywords into smaller, more tightly focused ad groups. There is no “magic” number of terms per ad group, so organize keywords into new groupings based on logical themes. For automated assistance, use the Keyword Grouper tool available in Google’s free Adwords Editor, which can identify keyword themes, create ad groups, and copy existing keywords and ads into them.

Once tighter ad groups are developed, write ad copy focused solely on the keyword themes that include the keywords in the ad group. More specific ad text attracts a more targeted audience.

One way to optimize your Google AdWords Content Network performance is to monitor the domains you are being placed on. Knowing where your clicks are coming from and if they are helping you to be profitable will give you the upper hand in optimizing performance.

Google’s Placement Report shows which domains are hosting your ads and how the placements performed. Keep in mind that impression, click and cost data can be dangerously misleading without conversion data attributing accrued leads or sales to each of the domains.

If Google conversion tracking is installed, conversion data will be included in the report. If you use a separate conversion tracking system, pull a report that includes the referring domain.

First, identify domains not consistent with your service, company or industry. Next, identify poorly performing domains by calculating each domain’s cost-per-acquisition and projected profit. Keep in mind that the Content network often requires more flexible expectations than the Search network due to its lower volume. Block these sites immediately to avoid further wasted spend.

To block domains, head to Google’s Tools page and choose Site and Category Exclusions. There you can add the domains to exclude.  Your CPA should improve.

Working Planet was mentioned in a recent Reuters Special Report on America’s Route To Recovery.  Working Planet was interviewed as one of Providence’s many tech-driven companies that are providing job growth and opportunity in the Ocean State.

All of us at Working Planet wish you the happiest of holidays and a very profitable 2010!

In an attempt to ease web designers’ on-going frustrations of determining what content is “above the fold,” or visible on a page without scrolling, Google has launched its latest tool, Google Browser Size. Since users are surfing the web with such a wide range of browser sizes, monitor sizes, and screen resolutions, it has become difficult to know exactly where the fold is. Enter Google Browser Size. Using a multicolor, transparent overlay, the tool provides contour lines showing the percentage of users who are able to see the content of a webpage without scrolling.

To use the Browser Size tool, enter a URL in the search box, click ‘Go’, and the site will be displayed beneath the Google contour lines. If the content of the web page is centered, simply resize your own browser to a given percentage to view the page as a certain percentage of users view it.

Regardless of precision, the tool is an invaluable resource for identifying where key content should be placed on a page. After all, if a site has great content, but nobody is willing to scroll to see it, that content does them little good.

Here‘s how to leave profitable business on the table:

1. Ignore offline leads/sales

Most companies advertising on the web can accept phone calls, and often these calls result in the most valuable sales, partner relationships, or opportunities.  Ignoring this activity when evaluating PPC performance can lead to keywords that result in calls being poorly positioned and therefore unable to take advantage of the highest volume of truly profitable activity.  Track your phone activity and record the method of company contact in your customer/lead database. Use this information to help you evaluate your PPC spend.

2. Be literal about tracked leads or sales

There is always uncertainty in web marketing, even with highly trackable Pay-Per-Click marketing.  A percentage of people who see PPC ads won’t click on them, opting instead to visit the advertised site by typing in the domain name (this is “No Referrer”, or “Direct” traffic).  In a consumer campaign that number may equal 10%-20% of the tracked PPC traffic, however with a highly technical B2B audience, that may grow to 50%-100. Excluding No Referrer/Direct actions from your analysis means the PPC numbers will always be conservative; it also gives a false sense of the actual return on PPC spend.

3. Use average values

Average values are the enemy of a performance-based Pay-Per-Click program.  Evaluating your PPC program in aggregate, or by ad engine, means missed opportunities.  You are allowing low-performing terms/ads/networks to drag down the positioning of your best performers.  Be granular.  Unless you allow the best performing pieces of your campaign to be evaluated independently, you won’t tap into the high value and the higher volume that you get in high ad position on your best terms.

4. End assessment at the web site

The interaction with the web site is the beginning of the sales conversation, not the end. If you are not feeding post-lead or post-sales data back into your campaign optimization, you are likely missing opportunities to optimize on any number of things that relate to true profitability. Yes, it is hard.  Do it anyway.

5. Don’t stay in contact with leads/customers

You just paid X dollars to capture a lead.  Why only have one conversation with them?  Companies that lead the way in maximizing the return from their Pay-Per-Click investment nurture the leads that don’t lead to immediate sales.  Keeping in touch with them will keep your company on their radar.  A percentage of aged leads will convert down the road, which raises the return value of the marketing you have already paid for.

Dan Friedman at Google recently posted that conversion rates don’t vary much by position.  This is one of the few times where Google has posted an analysis of this type with which we disagree.  We have conducted a study that looked at conversion based on individual keywords in varying positions and analyzed the conversion trends.   We came back with several conclusions:

1. First position will generally have significantly worse conversion rates than lower positions.  We believe that this is because of what we call “reflex clicking”, which simply means that a certain segment of the population will always click on the first sponsored link even if the search result is clearly un-targeted to their need.  Whether first position is a good decision for any keyword is determined by whether the substantial increase in volume at this position improves aggregate profitability given the higher cost of acquisition created from the combined increase in click cost and lower conversion rate.

2. For most campaigns, conversion rates improve as position declines, down to about 4th-6th position, where it levels out.  However, this improved profitability on a per-unit basis is offset by a significant loss in volume as position drops. Campaigns managed solely on a per-transaction CPA basis will likely undervalue keywords because the volume component will be ignored. Again, aggregate net profit is the right metric to look at.

3. For some markets, a high position sensitivity means a drop in both volume and conversion rate below a certain position. These position-sensitive campaigns can be dangerous, as your cost-per-action will rise considerably as you drop below the optimum converting position.  For this type of campaign (and many financial services or lead generation campaigns fall into this category), it may be necessary to pause keywords that are unprofitable at the optimum position while conversion improvement is addressed through landing page/site testing.

So why are our findings different than Google’s?  Our guess is that this is one of those cases where evaluating performance across all advertisers can be misleading.  The trick to evaluating position influence on performance is to isolate the analysis to the same keyword/ad and vary only position.

The big news all over search land is the just-inked deal between Microsoft and Yahoo to combine search delivery and ad-selling forces in order to combat Google.

The deal makes sense for all parties.  Yahoo gets better search technology by powering their web search properties with the Bing algorithms, and Microsoft taps into a network that is many multiples larger than its own.

From our point of view this is mostly good news.  Better, more relevant search results will make the Yahoo/MSN ad network that much more valuable, and hopefully provide a better qualified audience, especially in markets like high tech, where the valuable portion of the audience has tended to use Google.  More volume in the network also means we can perform faster performance assessment and testing, and more rapid optimization.

The only worrisome note is the talk of centralizing ad sales on the Microsoft AdCenter platform.  AdCenter has always been much more difficult to manage than AdWords, or Yahoo’s Panama platform, however API-driven tools may largely make these differences moot for agencies (aside from their development teams). Should AdCenter be the ad management platform of choice, expect to see small and local advertisers alienated by any migration away from the Panama platform.  We would strongly suggest that Yahoo/Microsoft integrate Panama as the ad management platform of choice for the combined network.

With an estimated 24 months of integration to execute this almost-a-merger, we don’t see any rapid changes in daily management, but the road ahead will be interesting as Yahoo and Microsoft address the thorny details implicit in this deal.

In a surprise move, Google has changed it’s U.S. trademark policy today.  The move was announced to agencies under NDA but the information was leaked to the press and they moved the time table to today.

The details can be found here.  In a nutshell, Google will allow some use of trademarks in ads within the US, which meet certain criteria.  These include:

• Ads which use the term in a descriptive or generic way, and not in reference to the trademark owner or the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term.
• Ads which use the trademark in a nominative manner to refer to the trademark or its owner, specifically:
  • Resale of the trademarked goods or services: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the goods or services corresponding to a trademark term. The landing page of the ad must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the goods or services corresponding to a trademark from the advertiser.
  • Sale of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the components, replacement parts or compatible products relating to the goods or services of the trademark. The advertiser’s landing page must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the components, parts or compatible products corresponding to the trademark term from the advertiser.
  • Informational sites: The primary purpose of the advertiser’s site must be to provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term. Additionally, the advertiser may not sell or facilitate the sale of the goods or services of a competitor of the trademark owner.

We were told that if you have ads in your account which were previously disapproved for trademark policy and that comply with the aforementioned criteria, you may submit those ads for re-review and eligible ads would begin showing in the US starting June 15.

I have received so many links to Tuesday’s New York Times article on click fraud “Per-Per-Click Web Advertisers Fight Costly Fraud” from people that my inbox is full.

Pay-per-click advertising is on the rise.  As reported in the article, this is the only form of advertising that grew during the economic debacle that was 2008.  The attraction of this highly measurable form of advertising is more keen now than it ever has been, as companies shift their marketing dollars to the most accountable form of advertising.

It’s no surprise that the lure of those dollars attract the nefarious, with 17% of all clicks in 2008 deemed fraudulent per Click Forensics, according to the article.  The search engines are trying to keep up. They continue to improve their click fraud algorithms and do catch a fair amount of it.  It’s not a perfect science, however, and while they do offer credits for fraudulent traffic, it is still incumbent upon the advertiser to defend themselves.

While click fraud is a serious problem, it is rarely reported on accurately. Click Forensics and other panelists at the Search Engine Strategies conference in NYC last year reported that much of the click fraud that Google and Yahoo experience is in their content network. Reporters are typically blind to the difference between the content and search networks and don’t distinguish between the two. Click fraud is also a pet topic for reporters since it sounds exciting.

As an agency, we have been monitoring click fraud for our clients since the day we opened our doors in 2003.  That’s possible because we track the performance of every keyword and monitor every click.  The data we receive are analyzed every day for patterns and activity that constitute fraud and we use those data to champion our clients with the engines.  We have had countless thousands of dollars returned to clients.

Is click fraud a problem? Absolutely. Is it going away? No. And so we constantly keep vigil and protect our clients.

(If you do not track your own PPC campaigns, then let me urge you to do so ASAP and to analyze the data you obtain.  There is an outstanding standalone tracking service called ConversionRuler that you should check out.)