Google’s Keyword Opportunities (Beta) tool is a gem of a keyword idea tool integrated into AdWords Editor. I recently rediscovered this tool and have been tearing through my clients’ accounts, adding keywords. The tool generates suggestions similar to the Web-based tool, but is integrated into Editor quite nicely. Suggested use: Launch AdWords Editor and open […]
When working with AdWords Keyword reports downloaded from the Web interface, you may come across Keywords with their Match Types signified by special punctuation, rather than a separate column indicating Match Type. In this post, we will use some Excel VBA code that will help us work back and forth between this format and the […]
Regular expressions are a powerful computing tool, with near-mythical status in some programming circles (here is one of my favorite online comic series’ take on the topic: https://xkcd.com/208/). This article demonstrates some useful ways to use regular expressions with PPC, by adding new dimensions to our typical Account/Campaign/AdGroup hierarchy of data. Another use for regular […]
Microsoft adCenter recently launched an improved version of Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI). MAI is a keyword research tool that helps Advertisers find related keywords and their historical and projected traffic and performance data from the available adCenter traffic. As an Excel add-in, it offers powerful API-based access to data, right in the familiar Excel environment. […]
adCenter recently launched Share of Voice (SOV) metrics to their standard reports. SOV reporting helps advertisers optimize PPC campaigns by providing information about how often they are earning impressions; for example, when the ad is placed on the first page in the auction. In general, if you have a high SOV, you have an opportunity […]
Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI) is one of the SEM tools most Advertisers don’t even know they wish they had. MAI provides API access to keyword extraction and generation, and historical and forecast metrics, all wrapped in a softward add-in that integrates with Excel. It is in some ways better than AdWords’ equivalent tools, and the […]
This article presents a rules-based approach for Keyword Generation using Dictionaries, Grammar, and Feeds. Essentially, Dictionaries define the various groups of words that are relevant to an account. Grammar defines how to combine them. Feeds define the data that may be changing regularly, like e-commerce inventory, store locations, etc. Readers may be able to generalize […]
The adCenter team recently released some features aimed at improving Advertiser Time-Efficiency. These features are live right now, though they may not be officially announced at the time this post is published. During a recent trip to adCenter headquarters, Eric Enge was able to get some insight into these new features, and what we can […]
Optimizing Keywords and Negatives is a task I recommend to my clients that they do regularly. In this How To, I will include some real-world experience along with the basics of how to use the AdWords Search Term View to optimize keywords and negatives. What Is Search Terms View? The AdWords Search Terms View shows […]
One of the opportunities we have as Paid Search Marketing professionals is to help business people communicate their marketing ideas without burdening them with the details of Paid Search. A few months back, I came across a tool that helped tremendously. We adopted it in-house, and tested it with a few client engagements. It is […]
In this post, let’s look at the Canonical Form that Search Engines use behind the scenes when matching our paid keywords to actual user queries. What is it? Why do they do it? So what? Or, more importantly, how can we use it to our advantage? We will answer each of those in turn. First […]
Microsoft adCenter today is releasing Negative Exact Match as part of the series of upgrades and improvements adCenter is delivering for its customers this Fall. The change comes at an opportune time — right before the holiday season begins. AdCenter’s negative-keyword handling has been near the top of the list of core differences between AdWords […]
We use a number of PPC shop tools in our everyday work as PPC campaign managers; today, I’d like to focus on the PPC Permutator. We use the PPC permutator to help us rapidly expand keyword lists from simple ideas. Let’s work with an example. Consider the following keyword ideas related to a hypothetical bicycle […]
Most of us in the PPC world know that testing ads is a great idea – almost necessary optimization work. There are plenty of articles around the web expounding the benefits: increase QS, lower costs, boost conversion rate … all good stuff. In this article, let’s tackle the basic block and tackling necessary to get […]
AdWords recently introduced a new feature to their Ad Rotation Settings called “Optimize for Conversions” (February, 2011). AdWords Advanced Settings Ad Rotation – Optimize for Conversions To find this go to: Campaign Tab | Settings | Advanced Settings | Ad Rotation (expand by clicking the “edit” link) Many advertisers may find this to be a […]
So, you think you created a campaign structure that covers all the bases. You added broad, phrase, and exact match keywords with distinct keyword roots defining meaningful AdGroups. You have ad copy that leverages those core words for that important boost in CTR and conversion rate, and targeted landing pages to match. And you have […]
Many advertisers use keyword level tracking in AdWords destination URLs. This allows your server to track the source of paid search traffic hitting the site. Recording this data with each inbound paid click allows you to collect your own data for analysis. It is possible to track the search engine, account, campaign, ad group, keyword, […]
In this post I present some intermediate level landing page optimization tactics. I toss in a couple of real-world scenarios and we will work from some basic assumptions. This article is targeted for Google AdWords advertisers with direct marketing goals in mind, although the same principles apply to other search engines just as well. Landing […]