Automating AdWords as much as possible is every advertiser’s dream, especially when dealing with the massive accounts we see in enterprise-level SEM. This article provides a few examples of how we at Top Tier Marketing have automated some of the more laborious tasks of running AdWords. Hopefully, these examples will give you some ideas for your own accounts. There’s even a full script that should work by simply copying it into your own account toward the end of this post.  Automate AdWords Ad Creation From Your Catalog [caption id="attachment_158965" align="alignright" width="212"] F [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Enterprise SEM | Google: AdWords | How To: SEM | Search Ads: General

Every year, Ad Age ranks the top performing U.S. search marketing agencies based on the previous year's U.S. and worldwide revenue. This year, the top three agencies held their 2012 report rankings, with iCrossing, 360i and iProspect coming in at No. 1, 2, and 3 on the list of largest U.S. search marketing agencies. 360i was responsible for the fast-thinking Oreo tweet during the blackout at this year's Superbowl. The agency also received a Facebook Studio Award for an Oreo social media marketing campaign. iCrossing recently received a Shorty Award for their Maker's Mark #CocktailParty2012 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: Analysis | Magazine | Search Ads | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing | Search Marketing: Branding | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Awards | Social Media Marketing

Bing Ads has launched a redesign of its search advertising site. The site is designed to provide a single access point for content and resources about Bing Ads and search advertising on the Yahoo! Bing Network. It consolidates materials from the Bing Ads Community site, the Bing Ads search advertising support center and the help files found within the Bing Ads platform itself.  The Bing Ads blog, forum and training materials  as well as vertical insights (which covers the finance, health & fitness, home & garden and travel industries) and tool downloads like Bing Ads Editor are [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: General | Top News

We may have seen the end of CPC stagnation. Covario's Global Paid Search Spend Analysis for Q1, released today, suggests that the cost-per-click trends of the last six quarters have reversed with CPC prices rising 7% from the previous quarter and 23% year-over-year. Overall paid search spend grew 9% quarter-over-quarter and 33% year-over-year. The following chart shows global paid search activity for Q1 ‘13:                   Google CPCs Rise 39% Year-Over-Year The study suggests that rising CPCs on Google a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Marketing | SEM Industry: Stats | Stats: Spend Projections

Bing has announced updates to its Bing Ads Accredited Professional Program for search marketers looking to get certified as “Pro Bingers”.  Among the changes, Bing transitioned the training segments from video based to text based content. Users can now view the training on the Bing Ads website or print out the training materials, a frequent customer request according to a Bing spokesperson. The number of training sections increased from 25 to 29 to provide more in-depth content. Users can share the trainings via Facebook, Twitter, and email with the new social media bar. The co [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: General

“If we were going to build AdWords today, what would it look like?” That’s the question Google’s Nick Fox, VP of Product Management, and his team began asking last year. The result is AdWords enhanced campaigns, a major update announced today that is designed to simplify campaign management across multiple devices, and to increase adoption rates of mobile advertising among small and medium sized businesses. PPC managers have become accustomed to the time-consuming workarounds needed to target ads by device type and location by cloning campaigns and managing granular settings and bid [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Ads: Pay Per Call | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Mobile | Top News

Google is entering the B2B shopping segment with Google Shopping for Suppliers. CPC Strategy reported yesterday on the quiet roll-out, noting that the beta is open only to electrical and electronics industries at this time. The beta started about two weeks ago and is showing in the US only. Google has built Google Shopping for Suppliers to accommodate the unique aspects of B2B selling that has limited supplier participation on Google Shopping. Recognizing that B2B transactions often involve negotiations on shipping costs and volume discounts, many Google Shopping policies on Pricing and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google | Search Ads: General | Search Engines: Shopping Search Engines | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Shopping Search Marketing | Top News

Google Product Listing Ads generated 28% of Google non-brand clicks in Q4 according to RKG's latest Digital Marketing Report released today. PLA CPCs were 26% lower than CPCs for competitive text ads. RKG also found a larger than average gap between bids and actual CPCs for PLAs, suggesting competition is still relatively light. Product Listing Ads are also having a big impact on non-brand Google ROI when compared to Bing. RKG reports, “As Google CPCs have declined overall and compared to Bing, the non-brand ROI for Google now stands 22% higher than that for Bing.” Google Nonbrand Paid [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Top News

Advertiser spending on paid search rose 18% in 2012 according to Covario’s Global Search Advertising Spend Analysis, which tracks paid search spending in more than 45 countries. That growth trend is down just slightly from the 21% annual increase Covario reported for 2011. In Q4 Google commanded 86.5% of global paid search spend and a whopping 93% of impressions.  Advertisers spent 13% more on search spending with Google than they did a year ago.  Spending on the Yahoo Bing Network increased 23% over the past year, however spend fell 6% from Q3. Source: Covario Regional Outloo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Stats: Spend Projections

Paid search's growth rate slowed a bit in the second quarter of 2012, but it still increased 29% year-over-year -- down from a 32% year-over-year growth rate in Q1. That's according to the RimmKaufman Group's latest report on digital marketing, released this week. Generally speaking, CPC's were down (6%) as compared to the same period last year, but click volume increased fairly dramatically (37%). RKG put together the report using stats from its clients, which include more than 30 of the top 500 etailers. Trends varied from engine to engine. Google's paid search spending grew only 32% i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Stats: General

The paid search part of the Search Alliance has conquered three more countries. Both Bing- and Yahoo-owned and operated properties, as well as publisher networks, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are now powered by Microsoft Advertising's adCenter, the company announced today. Now both the algorithmic and the paid search portions of the Alliance have been rolled out in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The remaining European countries -- Denmark, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden -- are expected to be transitioned later [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General

In a world where lots of search marketers are still reluctant to use broad match type due to its lack of relevance and control, Google has released two features to have more advertisers show their ads on all those very long tail queries: The broad modifier feature was rolled out in July 2010 in the U.S and was mostly aimed at scaling up those accounts not already using regular broad match type. Search marketers have to then build new broad keywords using "+" signs to effectively unlock the broad modifier feature. Because it requires some time and effort, not all advertisers have actually [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: AdWords | Search & Conversion | Search Ads: General

Microsoft and Yahoo -- the Search Alliance -- have announced the completion of the migration of advertisers to the adCenter platform, from Yahoo Search Marketing, in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. Since they previously migrated all Yahoo algorithmic search results to Bing, the transition is now complete in these countries. The migration has been underway since February. Next up for the transition comes Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Yahoo and Microsoft will start working with partners to make the change this month. The companies have typically offered migration assistant soft [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

There's Microsoft, there's Bing, there's Yahoo, and there's the Search Alliance. How can any small business search advertiser figure out what's what? That's the thinking behind the rebranding of Microsoft Advertising to Bing, announced this week. Besides the name change, marketing collateral and web sites will incorporate the large beautiful images that the Bing consumer site has become known for -- to unify the brand experiences. "Previously, there was just a lot of confusion around our brand," Matt Lydon, general manager of Microsoft's SMB Advertising group, told me. The brandin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General | Top News

Social media marketers are much more likely to also use SEO in their marketing efforts than PPC, according to a new survey out today. Social Media Examiner announced the results of its fourth annual survey, which this year had replies from more than 3,800 social media marketers around the world. When asked what other marketing channels they use, search engine optimization (SEO) was the No. 2 response behind e-mail marketing. Paid search -- or "online ads" as the survey called it -- was far down the list at number six. Sixty-five percent of social media marketers say they use SEO, compare [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Stats | SEO: General | Social Media Marketing | Stats: General | Top News

MediaPost reports that Blekko, the slashtags search engine, has started testing monetization efforts through search ads. Currently, the ads are provided through ad fees from Google and Bing. Blekko has yet to build out their own ad network. Rich Skrenta, Blekko founder and CEO said, "we're still ironing out the kinks." They are testing out the RPMs, page revenue per 1000 ad units. Skrenta said he expects the CPMs to be worth between $50 and $100 because of the targeted nature of search ads. I have yet to see any signs of ads on the search engine but they are indeed testing it. If [...]

Related Topics: Blekko | Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General

Over the past couple of days, numerous stats and figures have been published about how Super Bowl advertisers took advantage (or not) of social media this year. But commercials also drive people to search engines, which in turn (when things go right) can lead potential customers to advertiser web sites where rather than talk about a brand as they can on social media sites, they can watch the commercials again, cementing brand messaging, and take a closer look at the products being sold. (Which is presumably why a company would spend $3.5 million dollars on a thirty second spot in the first pla [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Search & Society: General | Search Ads: General | SEO - Search Engine Optimization | Top News

Borrell Associates has come out with an extensive new report about small business ("SMBs") and social media adoption. It contains forecasts and spending estimates as well as other data about SMB usage of social media as a marketing tool. There's a great deal of data already in the market about SMB adoption of social media. What they show is that between 45 percent and 70 percent of SMBs say they already have a presence on social media sites (mostly Facebook). Borrell reports that between 60 and 64 percent of SMBs have a formal presence on social media sites. An earlier 2011 study by [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Facebook | Google: AdWords | Search Ads: General | SEO: Local

In life, timing can be everything. But in marketing, it can make the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity. That’s why the topic of recency is so important to marketers. Fortunately, search retargeting can help marketers capitalize on recency to drive performance. Understanding Recency & The Window Of Opportunity The concept of recency has been a key element in marketing for decades. It speaks to customer engagement in relation to time. For example, a consumer who interacted with your brand two days ago is more engaged and has a better recency score than someone who di [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search & Display | Search Ads: General

We talk a lot in the digital industry about the overlap between search media and display media, and how when planned and operated in unison, there is a 1+1=3 benefit model that magically appears, resulting in higher returns than could be generated by those channels on their own. But does this overlap really exist, and does 1+1 really equal 3, or does is it actually just equal 2? In order to find out the answer, I recently asked several experienced figures within our industry for their insights and comment. AKQA Media – Drew Wahl, Director of Business Development Booyah Advertisin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search & Display | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General