Hidden PPC traffic killers
Is your PPC program behaving badly and blocking out perfectly acceptable traffic? Contributor Andrew Goodman looks at five ways to relax an over-tightened account.
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Andrew Goodman's latest articles
Sarcasm aside, how strict PPC advertiser policies may actually benefit us
Contributor Andrew Goodman suggests we may not like the way Google manages the AdWords program, but anything less and the SERPs and advertising ecosystem would have imploded long ago.
Google Attribution: Is Google stepping in because no one else would?
Advertisers would love to see unbiased attribution measurement that unifies channel reporting and moves beyond the last-click attribution model, but is Google Attribution the answer? Columnist Andrew Goodman discusses the likely impacts of this new product offering.
Beware these 7 sneaky PPC attribution tricks
You may think you're hitting your conversion goals, but columnist Andrew Goodman warns that faulty attribution can lead to inaccurate or misleading performance data.
The Death Of Search Marketing Expertise
Where have all the search professionals gone? Contributor Andrew Goodman explores the state of the search agency industry today and wonders if we can be doing better.
PPC Geo-Bidding, Simplified
Are you overthinking your geo-targeted bidding strategy? Columnist Andrew Goodman thinks you might be -- and he's here to help simplify your life.
Are Paid & Organic Distinct Channels? Not So Fast.
Search marketing channels are often both data-driven and siloed, but contributor Andrew Goodman notes that clients don't necessarily see it that way. To improve performance, he says, we must understand the greater picture.
PPC Ads Not Performing? Reduce Cognitive Load
Is your ad copy not performing as well as you'd hoped? Contributor Andrew Goodman suggests that perhaps you're making users think too much.
High-Priced Talent Letting You Down? PPC Moneyball Revisited
As the summer weather haltingly makes its appearance in my neck of the woods, thoughts turn to on-base averages, fielding percentages and all of that Moneyball stuff. My theme for this column is the woeful underperformance of the team known as the Toronto Blue Jays. Despite a wave of off-season signings and by far the […]
Search Engine Marketing & Economic Recovery: Don’t Get Caught Flat-Footed In 2010
My cat, Walter, runs under the bed when he hears footsteps—even if it’s only the mailman. Being risk-averse to that degree doesn’t make Walter a rational maximizer, so he’d probably make a poor tournament player in bridge or poker. But it does make him a survivor. Natural selection works on the principle of “better,” not […]
Attribution Wars: A Plea For Small-e Enlightenment (Part 2)
Pssst. Over there, next to the purple wing chair. Behind the foosball table and just beyond the 2002 vintage lava lamps. It’s a gaggle of digital marketers, munching on Pez, and screaming at the unfortunate Fortune 500 brand CEO who made the mistake of visiting this digital agency’s hip warehouse space conveniently located just steps […]
Attribution Wars: In Defense Of The Last Click (Part I)
I went to a party last week. It was put on by a big online player, mainly to thank agencies who buy large gobs of display ads for their clients. And strangely, one of the hosts began apologizing to me (over the gurgling sounds of me thanking him for the free drink—how they let me […]
Seven Compelling Reasons That Now Is The Time To Ramp Up Paid Search
Paid search accounts for about 50% of all digital advertising spending today in most major markets, give or take 10% (the UK clocks in as one of the most impressive English-speaking markets for paid search, clocking in at 58% of digital spend, according to econsultancy). For we diehards, the reasons for running paid search campaigns are […]
Google’s Bid Simulator Tool: So Transparent, It’s Deflationary?
Over the years, we’ve counseled advertisers to be wary of certain inflationary tendencies that are built into the very terminology and interface design of paid search. Experienced bidders know better but new advertisers can get tripped up. Inflationary tendencies in paid search auctions include: New accounts being opted into content targeting at the same bid […]
Geekynomics? Finding The Hidden Government Within Google’s Magic Money Machine
Joseph Heath, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, has published the timely Filthy Lucre: Economics for People Who Hate Capitalism (HarperCollins, 2009), a clever romp through formal economic theory. As even-handed as any intellectual inheritor of The Simpsons sensibility, it debunks six economic myths of the right, and six of the left. Heath […]
The Long Tail of Paid Search Account Effort
If you spend enough time sitting at your desk in summer, you can go slightly insane. That aside, daydreaming sometimes leads to back-door observations, studies show. Glancing out the window, it’s evident that it takes a lot of resources and coordination to run a neighborhood. Schools, crossing guards, street sweepers, garbage collection, public pool maintenance, […]
Paid Search Ad Testing: Manage To ROI Or CTR?
“Horror” is an apt term for how many experienced paid search practitioners respond to the newbie’s mistake of optimizing paid search ads solely to CTR. Before getting to the nuances of ad testing, though, it’s important to emphasize yet again that rapid setup of ad rotation, for testing purposes, was the gift given to us […]
PPC-Man Drowning… Too… Many… Keywords…
The keyword long tail is dead. Long live advertising. The first shot (heard ’round most of the search marketing world) in this war against busywork was actually fired in 2002 by Google, when they introduced powerful matching options for AdWords. Too bad some folks haven’t yet heard that shot. This may be an exaggeration for […]
Getting Core Paid Search Analytics Right (Part 1)
If you’re a diehard search marketer, you probably find web analytics conferences a bit strange. Many of the speakers are versed in the nuances of customizing third-party analytics platforms like Google Analytics, Omniture, and ClickTracks. But many of them seemed to have learned to sprint before they learned how to walk. I’ve been struck by […]
Paid Search Automation: Choosing A Vendor
In the previous two columns, I covered questionable assumptions and inconvenient truths related to bid management automation in paid search. With all those reservations and concerns out of the way, if you’re in the market for a solution vendor, you still have to form a relationship with one that meets your needs. Let’s look at […]
Bid Management Automation: Three More Inconvenient Truths
Last time, I covered some shaky assumptions behind bid management automation, including the assumption of an easily pinpointed target CPA. In this column, I’ll address some additional issues that don’t often come to light in industry discussions. While they may make some vendors squirm, they also might help advertisers select the tools that are just […]
Bid Management Automation: Fraught with Questionable Assumptions
Today, there’s no viable “con” position in the “paid search bid management” debate. Either you sing the praises of automated bid management, or you’ll be asked to sit in a dark corner (or cave) and contemplate what possessed you to enter the digital marketing arena. Unfortunately, there are few real debates on the advantages and […]
AdWords Landing Page Quality Refresher
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” This gem from heavyweight boxing legend Iron Mike Tyson also applies to AdWords account strategy, especially when starting a new account. Beginning in 2006, some advertisers in the affiliate marketing, Made-for-AdSense, and other spheres have referred to harsh quality score treatment — especially treatment […]
Wall Street Meltdown and the 2009 Digital Marketing Outlook (Part 2)
As promised in Wall Street Meltdown: 11 Ways It Affects Digital Marketers, I’m wrapping up with a continuation of the 60,000 foot view of our industry in light of current economic turmoil. No doubt I’ll get back to the close-up view next time, but for now, to get all the bad news talk behind us, […]
OK, We Admit It: Paid Search Works Best for High Intent Prospects
Since 2002, we who advocate the paid search niche of marketing have been pretty vocal about how much more this stuff can do than people realize. It’s not pure direct marketing, we’ve pleaded. It can do other stuff too! It can sing, dance, weld, flutter, soar, and giggle. It deodorizes, disinfects, scours, and scrubs – […]
Wall Street Meltdown: 11 Ways It Affects Digital Marketers
Tim O’Reilly (like me, as you’ll see below) seems to believe we’re in a bit of a bubble that’s set to burst, even though, as he walked in to deliver his keynote at the Web 2.0 conference, the stock markets were in the middle of a rebound, vaulting up about 7% in a 26-hour period. […]
Whither DART Search?
SES San Jose 2008 is now in the books and another Google Dance — that annual bash that provides us all with so much safe, clean YouTube fodder — has come and gone. Among the various features and benefits — upscale backyard barbecue fare, free beer, modified karaoke, dancing, and light shows — is the […]
Google Ad Planner: Another Disruptive Technology From Mountain View
When I tried out the new Google Ad Planner recently, I had no idea my reaction would be so out of step with the reactions of various observers on the scene. Has this ever happened to you? It’s like being in an episode of The Twilight Zone, as you pass by the horrified shouts of […]
Revisiting Content-Phobia In Paid Search
While I am on holiday this week, through the magic of Internet time and custom tubes, my column isn’t. During this time off I’ll be taking time out for rest, reflection, and especially, a hiatus from one of my several jobs: Designated Undercompensated Google Ad Salesman. What, you say? Google ads sell themselves? $14 billion […]
Instant (Bad) Karma’s Gonna Get Ya: AdWords Account Quality At Startup
This one’s for all of you consultants, agencies, and in-house SEM’s who find themselves “inheriting” a sloppily-built account started by someone else. It’s also a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about “casually” starting out an AdWords account. Hopefully I’ll save you some cash today, but in particular I hope to save you time.
Make Your Ads Better: Three Powerful Techniques
Tomorrow I’m giving a talk at the eMetrics summit in San Francisco. A search marketing perspective can often seem “refreshing” in the context of the discipline of marketing in general; it even seems to go against the grain a bit. I’ll be telling the eMetrics audience a bit about how I use core stats in […]
Spy On Competitors, But Don’t Copy Their Mistakes
Maybe it’s just me, because I’ve spent years ingesting the Purple Cow Kool-Aid. But I can never get over the number of cookie-cutter, copycat businesses that spring up online. Choosing the exact same business model as someone else almost appears to be a favorite pastime in North America these days. Kind of a macho, or […]
Keyword Intent: Tidy Campaigns Avoid the ‘Dump and Chase’
Another bundle of advertising flyers just landed on my front porch, only to go straight into the recycle bin. Although I merely dream of the distant day when such lazy and wasteful advertising methods will be punishable by death or a day spent shopping with Paula Abdul, I hold out some hope that search marketers […]
Danny Sullivan Tackles Search 3.0 And 4.0 In SMX West Keynote
I thought I’d gracefully retired from the Danny Sullivan Keynote Review business. Comparing Danny to Edward R. Murrow, assessing how the attendance stretched the room capacity… ahh, they were good times. Then I awoke to find myself in a large hall at the Santa Clara Conference Center. It wasn’t a dream! Turns out I was […]
What, Exactly, Are Google AdSense “Other” Relevancy Factors?
It’s been well established that a core—predominant, even—component of the Google AdWords quality-based bidding formula is historical CTR (clickthrough rate). New keywords get treated a bit differently, though; the algorithm must predict CTR based on the similarities of your ad group’s characteristics to historical data in Google’s vault. If you read through Google’s official descriptions, […]
Website EKG A Must for ROI
I was casually chatting with a super-savvy Web 2.0 friend – we’ll call him Mac – about a website I work closely with. We’d spent the last year overhauling the strategy and the design of the site, though there are still several features waiting to be built, and the content growth is just at the […]
Search Industry Nostalgia: A Reminder of How Far We’ve Come
If I were writing the local County Cross Country Ski Club newsletter, a retrospective might cover two or three minor changes in the field, and a watershed moment or two. Primitive skis were used by Vikings as much as 5,000 years ago. In about 1460, someone in Scandinavia discovered that you could climb hills easily […]
The Mysteries of Ad Quality Revealed (Yet Again)
Perhaps it was lucky fate that Anders Hjorth (of Relevant Traffic, a European SEM agency) and I didn’t have too much time to compare notes going into the panel “Tuning Ads for Quality Score” at SMX Stockholm last week. Fortunately, the presentations didn’t overlap too much. The interesting thing is the overlapping conclusions we drew […]
Confessions Of A Lapsed Analyst: Joey Metallica Goofs Off, Gets Rich Faster
If you’re like me, you often figure out ways to work smarter on your marketing campaigns in the time allotted. In fact, you secretly suspect that you can actually be more successful if you reject some of your more conscientious habits and just get the job done. As the saying goes, perfection is the enemy […]
AdWords Quality Score: Can Your Business Model Be Banned?
Let’s get this uncomfortable truth out of the way up front: Google’s actions, manifested through a variety of methodologies to rank (and sometimes ban) listings and content, have regularly irritated, angered, and alienated some webmasters, website owners, and advertisers. The outcry is more vociferous if you can give an initiative, a cute name, and get […]