Tag Archives: google adwords

Google AdWords Position Preferences

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AdWords Position
Here is a short tip with Google AdWords and position preferences. AdWords will allow you to request what position your advertisement is placed in. This can greatly impact your budget. In other words of the 10 positions, 1 being the top and 10 being the bottom you can choose where you would like to be.

Why would you want to do this?
Well, you can save on budget when you are initially testing a campaign. Many times the position you are in will determine the number of clicks you obtain. I have heard some speculate that the top position or second position may obtain a decent amount of clicks solely due to the fact that they are first and the level of interest of those individuals may not be as high. While the level of interest of those that read down to the advertisements to find the one that best matches their current interest may be a better quality lead.






Regardless of whether that speculation is true, the sole fact that the top two positions may obtain clicks much faster means that others will assure you burn through your budget faster. There are reasons why you do not want to exceed your budget every day which turns your ads off for the remainder of the day. You may want your ads to run all day and therefore need to control the number of clicks and the price to assure you do not have your ads turned off.

Where to Find Position Preferences
Within AdWords, while in a campaign you choose to edit your settings and you will see as you scroll down on the right-hand side you can check the box for adwords position preferences. Then save your campaign settings. Next go into a campaign and into the key words, you highlight all of the key words with the check box and choose to edit your keywords. The next page will have a column that allows you to choose the position from 1 to 10. Therefore you can choose to be, as an example, only in positions 3 through 6.

This is not the default so be sure that you edit your campaign settings. Give this a try if you want to limit your budget particularly in testing. You may find over time that this works for better quality leads across all your campaigns regardless of testing or not.

Google AdWords Changed their Display URL Policy

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In February, 2009, Google announced they are changing their display URL policy in AdWords. Recall that Display URL and Destination URL are two different things. The Display URL is as it sounds, the URL that is displayed when someone views your advertisement.

The change is that all the display URLs in one ad group must have the same top level domain.

Here is an example of what is allowed in one ad group:
deal.longest.com
www.longest.com
www.longest.com/brianiscool

Here is an example of what is not allowed in the same ad group:
deal.longest.com
deal.brianlongest.com

Google says it is for your own good because you do not know what you are doing so they are here to help. Thanks Google.

Learn AdWords | How to Target Keywords with AdWords

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AdWords is powerful and AdWords can be tricky. There are two main concepts to be sure you understand when you are advertising through AdWords. The two concepts that you need to fully understand are the where and how. Read on to learn AdWords.

Understanding the Where of AdWords

Quite simply, when I refer to Where I mean where are your ads actually being displayed. You can determine placement and sites, even pages on sites, however first understand the Search vs. Content placements. When choosing the type of network you have the option of the Search Network, Content Network or both.

Having your advertisement display on the Search Network means it will be shown on the Google.com site or a partner site. Therefore you can further specify only Google’s site or also Google’s search partners. To understand the difference, if you were to search on Google.com that is the standard search. An example of a search partner is the Google search results appearing on another website such as the search box on the front of Longest.com, if you search using that search box (as an example for affiliate marketing) you will see the Google results and advertisements displayed within the Longest.com site.






Content Network is altogether another animal. When you choose to display on the content network your advertisement is no longer appearing when someone searches on your keyword. Instead, your advertisement is displayed on a website page that Google considers most relevant to your advertisement. You can choose to have your advertisements only displayed on specific sites within the Google Network, which can be very powerful. Even more powerful, is the ability to target a portion of a site, for example you may target the finance portion of a site. However remember the person is not searching for your keywords but your ad is instead displayed based on the content which is on the page the visitor is viewing. I am not suggesting it is bad, just keep that in mind when targeting and evaluating success.

Understand the How of AdWords

The How is very important and often misunderstood. By How I am referring to the keyword matching that Google performs when you enter keywords in their Search network. When you enter a keyword, for example let’s use two words together new car. There are three matching types you can choose: Broad, Phrase, or Exact. Each type of match is very different.

“Exact” Match : is just as it sounds. Your advertisement will only appear when someone types in your keywords and only those words. Using the new car example your advertisement appears when someone types in new car but not buy a new car nor buy new car today or buy new blue car. To implement, if you type these directly into AdWords within the browser you would use the brackets – such as [new show], or in the AdWords Editor simply choose the drop down for Match Type as Exact.

“Broad” Match : is the default. There are many ways your keywords new car would invoke the display of your advertisement. With the default Broad match your advertisement could be shown when only the words car or new appear in any order and with any other words. Searches with other words, plurals, words in any order, and many combinations exist, as your advertisement would be shown with cars new engine broken or buy a car with a new alternative fuel, you get the idea. And also, know that other words can be replaced if they are similar such as new automobile as automobile is very similar to car. To implement you do not need to add any punctuation with your keywords as Broad match is the default.

“Phrase” Match : is a way to assure your keywords must be searched for together, but unlike exact match you can have words before and after. And also unlike Broad match you will not have words replaced with similar words. Therefore you would have buy a new car or buy a new car today but not buy a car with new engine invoking your advertisement. To implement you would add quotes before and after your words such as “new car”, or in the AdWords Editor choose the Match type of Phrase.

What Difference Does This Make?

Knowing the How and Why of AdWords will allow you to better target your advertisements, obtain the level of traffic you want, track performance better if you split the types of networks and types of keyword matching into different campaigns, and most importantly make sure you do not waste your money. We hope this has helped you learn the basics of AdWords.

AOL to Compete with Google and AdBrite

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AOL is launching what they call BidPlace. BidPlace will be a self-service service allowing you to manage display advertising campaigns in real time. As an advertiser you will be able to submit bids for CPM, CPC and CPA. It will have all the common features you would expect, those that Google AdWords and AdBrite have.

Launch date is the “first half of 2009″ , wow how is that for putting a line in the sand, haha. I wish I could say that, “sure I’ll have the car fixed in the second half of 2008 honey”.

Platform-A BidPlace Press Release

Inaccurate Display URL Driving You Nuts?

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Inaccurate display URL error from Google AdWords driving you nuts? This article explains the issues and how to solve them relating to the Display URL and Destination URL.

Affiliate marketing using paid search engine marketing needs to be understood thoroughly or you will become quite frustrated with the process. Most individuals use first tier pay per click (PPC) search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. As Google is the largest in terms of volume, and the most discussed, below is an explanation of the terminology Google uses and written for those new to Google AdWords and affiliate marketing.

If you are merely sending traffic to your own website you will probably not have any problems with your advertisements. However, when you are affiliate marketing you may have very different Display URLs and Destination URLs which can cause your advertisement to be disapproved by Google if you do not understand their rules.

Affiliate marketing can be very confusing, especially when you constantly receive a “disapproved” for your ad due to an “inaccurate display URL”.

Destination vs. Display
When you create a campaign in Google AdWords, there is a Destination URL and a Display URL. The Display URL is visible to the person viewing the advertisement, while the Destination URL is the actual page the person will be directed to when they click. As an example:

Display URL: http://longest.com/WordPress_Plugins
Destination URL: http://www.longest.com/2008/07/22/top-10-wordpress-plugins-you-must-have/

Google states you cannot use the following methods when affiliate marketing and using AdWords:

  • Redirect URLs – defined as a Destination URL which sends the visitor to a page and then then page automatically redirects them to the site you are marketing, an auto-redirect is not approved
  • Bridge Pages – defined as a page for the “sole purpose to link or redirect traffic”. The redirect makes it sound as if it fits under the above definition however it is referring to a non-automatic redirect. Confusing? Yes, sort of, they consider a bridge page to be a page that was solely created to have the individual click through to the affiliate site. This is a difficult one to explain, however let’s say that the page you sent the person to only has 3 links and all 3 links go to the affiliate site. That page would be considered a Bridge Page, however the difficulty lies in the fact that you have to send the person to a page and make sure it is not considered a bridge while you do want them to click through and buy to obtain your affiliate fee. There is no hard and fast rule but clearly some pages are allowed and others are not, as longs as there is other content and links you should be okay.
  • Framing – if you have ever created web pages you may think this refers to the frames you can create loading different and distinct web pages, however Google defines is as a page that replicates the look and feel of the site you are sending the traffic to. An example would be making a duplicate copy of the affiliate sites homepage with links into the affiliate site, of course that is the extreme but you get the idea.

All of the above are types of Landing Pages, which is the page that the Destination URL sends the person to.

What if you want to send the individual directly to the affiliate website?

Here is where it gets tricky. Notice the Display URL and Destination URL above both have the same domain name longest.com, that is Google’s default rule. If the Display URL domain and the Destination URL are different they will disapprove, reject, your advertisement.

There seems to be a simple answer, if you are advertising for coke you would just use the Display URL as coke.com as the Destination URL to their site is coke.com also, however there are two problems here, one is that coke may not want you to use their name as it is their Trademark and two chances are that if you are affiliate marketing the link you have received to track the activity back to you in order to pay you looks more like this http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2812243-10525860, notice that if the Display URL is coke.com or even your own site landing page longest.com, the affiliate link domain of anrdoezrs.net (a cj.com affiliate link) does not match.

Important Note
Even if the site coke.com allowed you to use their domain in the Display URL, Google will only show one advertisement with that Display URL. If someone else is bidding more for the keyword then you and has spot number 2 you will never show up using that Display URL. Due to this you will likely want to use Fix Number 2 below.

Here come the solutions.

Fix Number 1
If the affiliate does not mind you using their domain name and you are sending traffic to coke.com Google will allow you to use coke.com in your Display URL and the non matching Destination URL http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2812243-10525860 as they state they will know that the Destination URL is sending the person to coke.com ultimately.

Fix Number 2
If you cannot use the domain of the site, or do not want to due to the fact that Google will only show one Display URL at a time, you will need to send send the person to your site. Therefore you will create a landing page on your own site but be sure not to create a Redirect Page, Bridge Page, or be considered to have a Framed Page. The most difficult rule is the Bridge Page rule.

First of all, this solves the issue of the Display and Destination URL domain not matching as both show your domain. The affiliate URL will be in the landing page you create, not a problem there.

Secondly, you need to assure it is a page on your site that is not solely there for the affiliate program, chances are you will need to make sure it is part of your site, more content than just the affiliate information and more links into your site, no hard fast rules here just use your best judgment.

There are other reasons your advertisement may not display in Google AdWords, however you should not have the inaccurate Display URL issue anymore.

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Understanding Google AdWords and Google Analytics for Conversion Tracking and Business Intelligence

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I find metrics and business intelligence to be extremely telling and cannot live without them. The ability to test, optimize, re-test and ultimately obtain the desired action of a user or customer at the best possible price is something only afforded to online advertising and marketing as long as you use the right tools.

I am sure you have heard of conversion tracking, and Google’s tools within AdWords and Analytics make it very easy. Here is my guide to setting up, finding the data, and understanding the differences between Google AdWords Conversions and Google Analytics Goals and Filters.

First Setup Google AdWords to talk to Google Analytics

Be sure to tie your Google AdWords account to your Google Analytics account. To do so you need to have the email that you use as your AdWords login the same as an email of a user of your Google Analytics. Once you have an email that is the same for both AdWords and Analytics you login to your Google Adwords account. On the top menu click the Analytics tab (see graphic below).

Google Analytics Tab Picture

The Analytics account will be listed as long as your Analytics has a user with the same email as your AdWords account. Follow the steps and you will then see your Analytics reports available via the “Analytics” tab within Google AdWords.

How to Setup Conversion Tracking within Google AdWords

To set up the conversion tracking within Google AdWords click on the “Conversion Tracking” submenu underneath the “Campaign Management” tab.

You then “Create a New Action” and you need to name it, such as “Registrations”, other data can be associated to it also. Once you save the action you will be given code to put on the page.

You copy the code and paste it into the page that the user will see after they take your desired action. For example if you have a registration page named “register.php” and it collects their name and email with a button to “register” and the next page once registered is “welcome.php” then you put the code on the “welcome.php” page.

Example of how the flow of data works with AdWords: an individual searches on your keyword within Google, the Google network, or Content Network (depending on how you set up your AdWords campaign) then they see one of your advertisements (you can create many different variations) and go to your landing page, submit the information to register with you, then the next page which has the Conversion Tracking code is presented to the user “Thanks for Registering” and the code pings Google AdWords to register a conversion.

You will now see which Campaign, AdGroup, Keyword and Advertisement within Google AdWords generated that conversion. Cost per conversion and other useful information is provided as well.

How to Setup Conversion Tracking within Google Analytics

To set up the conversion tracking with Google Analytics you create what they call “Goals”. To set up a goal you first look under the “Website Profiles” and next to your Domain you will see the “View Reports” and “Edit” under “Settings”.

Google Settings Picture

You will see under the “Conversion Goals and Funnel” heading a list of Goal Names, starting with sequential numbering of G1 G2 G3 etc. Click the “Edit” link under settings to set up a Goal.

Note: What is different about the Google Analytic Goal tracking code as opposed to Google AdWords Conversion Tracking is that you do not need to set up code on your pages for the Goal Tracking. However, you must have the generic Google Analytics code on all your pages for it to work.

There are a list of fields to fill out, the question marks provide information on what is needed. Two main items to understand, Goals and Funnels. Goals are set up by simply putting the URL of the page that as the Goal page. Every visit to that page will be counted so you need to be careful and assure that is a unique page that can only be accessed the way you want. For example if the Goal page is your home page because a new registrant is taken to the home page after registering you will not only have the total of new registrants but it will also show the total number of visits to the home page for that day. The total will be inflated. This is the major difference between the accuracy of the AdWords Conversion tracking and the Google Analytics Goal tracking. However, the Funnels, which are optional, assist in removing the inflated Goal counts.

To utilize Filters, which are incredibly helpful and powerful, you define the path you would like to see a person take. In other words your Goal may show 10 registrants, however you may want to know if they went to the Goal page by first going to the registration page as this would remove all the inflated visitors. For example, if the Goal shows 20 visits to the Goal page and only 10 came from the registration page then you know there were 10 registrants. Utilizing filters can be used for many purposes.

Here are two powerful uses of the Goals and Filters, for internal site development and optimization as well as external advertising campaign testing.

First, internally you can use the filters to show the paths that are taken to registration. Is it home page –> registration or content page –> registration, any path you may suspect or see within Analytics you can filter here.

Also, internally if you have a multi-page sign up process you can determine exactly which pages potential registrants drop off. You may have individuals drop off when you ask certain questions or on certain pages, great to be able to test.

Second, to monitor external advertising campaigns that use unique landing pages you create, you can show filtering from page1 –> registration or page2 –> registration etc. This is a great way to determine, in a process of pages, which campaigns work best.

Where to Find the AdWords Conversions within Google AdWords

You can also find the AdWords conversion data within AdWords. Total number of Conversions are listed by Campaign Name, by Ad Group Name within the Campaign, by Advertisement Variation and by Keywords. The data will always be listed under the “Conversions” column.

Where to Find the AdWords Conversions and Goals within Google Analytics

Before we discuss how to use the Goal and Conversions, here is where you find the data with Google Analytics. The image on the left shows the data for AdWords is found under the “Traffic Sources” menu item. While the image on the right shows the Goals information is shown under the “Goals” tab, a lot of great information.

Now You’re Ready!
That’s it, now you are up and running and know the differences between the Google Conversion tracking with AdWords and the Google Analytics Goals and Funnels. The above is meant to get you started, however does not even begin to touch on the various ways in which you can use the data. Begin to use the tools, use your imagination and you will be wondering why you never used them before.


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