Category: Google

Here at Advent we manage Google AdWords accounts for clients all over the world. Principally our clients are in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. We even have a few clients here in Spain (gasp!). One would think that this would be just the kind of business that Google would welcome - the global village in action. Strangely, however, it seems to be a case of do as I say, not as I do...

A few days ago there was a debate on the Spanish Google AdWords Community Forum about ad scheduling. Some of the comments were misleading, others simply incorrect. I weighed in - after all I had spent some time getting my head around this issue a couple of years ago. So here's a break down of the problem.....

As we build our remarketing lists, so we develop audiences to whom we can present our ads as they later surf their favorite pages. We have previously referred to these ads as "the ads that follow you around" - we are all familiar with them, and they walk the thin line between welcome and stalking - often failing to stay on the right side of a searcher's sensibilities. The advantage of remarketing campaigns is that we know that these people have previously visited our site - presumably they have an interest in our product or service. And if we have segmented our lists then we can target our campaigns effectively. But there a couple of factors that take away from the effectiveness of remarketing...

Bounce rate measures the percentage of people who leave your website having visited only one page. Basically, they arrive on your site and don't visit any other of your site's pages - they simply leave. For many marketers, this is the number they focus on the most - after all, you want engagement - and someone who arrives at your site and then leaves hasn't engaged - or have they? Let's look again at the definition...

When you buy a book on Amazon you get a message - People who bought this book also bought these books... it's part of the up sell. And when you select the "artist radio" on Spotify - basically the same thing is happening - Spotify know that people who listened to Bruce Springsteen also listened to Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes (showing my age....) It's called profiling and it makes sense. Through our online interaction we are telling these companies what we like, and they are responding. In their interest? Of course. But also in ours. Google Adwords have recently started offering something similar to advertisers within the area of remarketing. Advertisers (in the main) love remarketing. someone visits your site and you can then target them with your ads as they surf other pages on the web. We explain how remarketing works in this article: Remarketing - the Ads that Follow You Around. What Google are now doing,..

Go back in time... it's 1980 and you're working for an advertising agency on an account for a new line of high heeled women's shoes. They are classy - and expensive. You've got some very cool photos and some awesome creative form your art department and they are ready to run out the color separations (remember those?) They just need to you to tell them which titles you are booking. Depending upon your budget you're probably looking at Cosmo, Harpers and a couple of others as your prime market. Why? Because that's where your audience is. you're not looking at Auto Mechanic's Weekly. Pretty obvious, isn't it?..

Here is a quick summary of a recent U.S. Court of Appeals judgement on the use of using competitor's trademarks as Google Adwords keywords: The purchase of a competitor's trademark as a trigger for advertising through Google's AdWords program was unlikely to create confusion on the part of consumers and thus did not give rise to a claim of trademark infringement through initial interest confusion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled July 16 (1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Lens.com Inc., 10th Cir., No. 11-4114, 7/16/13). (Source: http://www.bna.com) Simply put - it means that it's OK to use your competitor's trademark as a keyword to trigger your ads. As per Google policy, you still cannot use a competitor's trademark in your ad copy - and that makes perfect sense - but for some time there has been a heated debate as to the legality of trademarks as keywords. So, let's ask the question again : Are Your Customers..

As Sergey and Larry prepare to throw the switch on Enhanced Campaigns, so the chatter on the wires of the PPC community is hotting up. Enhanced campaigns offer a lot - all sorts of clever tweaks and adjustments at all kinds of levels, a veritable array of possibilities which it is hard to assimilate, let alone manage. And yet, as the signaled date approaches and we are beyond the point of no return, I for one, am seeing more and more parallels with Y2K - remember that?..

When was the last time you needed the dentist? And - When was the last time you needed a locksmith? And - What did you do in each case?..