AdWords advertisers know that Google has plenty of policies by which you must abide, like Ad Sitelinks extensions can’t have two links that point to the same page, and sitelinks can’t have the same destination page as the text ad’s headline. These rules seemingly apply to everyone except… Google itself. The rule-breaking was spotted by […]
Yahoo Advertising is introducing something of a groundbreaking new ad unit, inserting a cost-per-lead ad just under a site’s listing within the organic search results. It also allows Yahoo a new way to earn off search separately from its deal with Microsoft, which has proven disappointing for the company. The new ad format, which can […]
Last week, search marketing software provider Raven decided to stop using scraped data after Google’s AdWords API team threatened to revoke the company’s token. Now, a second tools provider, Ahrefs, says it, too, will remove functionality that uses scraped data, to maintain access to the AdWords API. A third provider, SEOmoz, has said it has […]
While there has been lots of talk about a Google crackdown on developer access to the AdWords API, there have been few details about what the disputed issues may be — and why they’re coming up now, with tools-makers like Raven and SEOmoz that have had access to the API for years. Now, Raven Tools, […]
In a nod to consistency across platforms and the growth in mobile usage, Google has overhauled its AdSense text ads to be more mobile-friendly, adding a large arrow button to each ad that should make it easier for “fat fingers” to click effectively on tablets and mobile phones. The buttons will also appear on desktop […]
Everyone knows China is one of the hottest, fastest-growing markets for consumer goods, but how does a U.S. company become known by Chinese consumers via search marketing? One Silicon Valley-based company by the name of Glogou is working to bridge that gap with two new offerings — an English-language interface to the ad market on […]
In the last couple of weeks, two well-known search tool providers — Raven and SEOmoz — have had their access to the AdWords API revoked, with little public explanation, as was reported by Kahena Digital Marketing. But Google denies that this is a “crackdown” or widespread enforcement activity, saying it’s all in a day’s work […]
Ever wondered exactly what keywords in a searcher’s query resulted in your ad being triggered? Google has added a feature in AdWords to give advertisers that information, allowing them to adjust their keywords and bids accordingly. Meanwhile, the company has made other interface changes — including account diagnostics and new impression share reporting. The new […]
As consumers prepare to get serious about their holiday shopping, Google is introducing new features to its pay-for-play Shopping search engine, including 360 degree product images, deals and discounts, and a collaborative shopping list. 360 Degree Views Start With Toys The company has started its effort to get 360 degree images of products with the […]
Anyone who works in interactive advertising can testify to the tedium that often accompanies even the seemingly-simplest of campaign changes. That’s the problem Google is trying to address in its latest AdWords feature — bulk editing. The feature is being rolled out in a few accounts for final testing, before Google eventually rolls it out […]
Only 89.33% of internet searches in the UK were conducted on Google sites last month, according to Experian Hitwise. It’s the first time in the last five years that Google search market share in the UK has ever dipped below 90%. While Google’s share dropped, other players — especially Microsoft’s Bing — picked up market […]
After last month’s major change to Google Shopping, making the service solely pay-for-play, the company is exploring ways for affiliates to participate via Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in the US. Google Shopping has been testing ways of working with affiliates for nearly six months in alpha and is now opening up the beta to additional […]
How valuable would it be to work on improving your paid search keywords’ Quality Score? And which keywords should you focus on first? Bing Ads is introducing a new feature called “Quality Impact” that will tell advertisers how many new impressions they could gain by improving their Quality Score on each keyword. The feature looks […]
One of Google’s most well-funded and tenacious opponents in the legal arena, Rosetta Stone, has agreed to settle its trademark suit against the search giant. The language learning software company had contended that the use of its trademarks as “keyword triggers” infringed trademark law and confused consumers. Terms of the settlement agreement weren’t disclosed. The three-year-old case was […]
In the third quarter of 2012, click share on the Yahoo Bing Network rose to 21.3%, the fourth quarter in a row the network has posted gains. Google dropped to 78.7% in share, though based on click traffic, Google still outpaced YBN. These are stats from the Search Agency’s State of Paid Search report for the […]
Again following rival Google’s lead, Bing Advertising is introducing the capability to specify different landing pages depending on the match type chosen. The idea is that the change will enable more effective bid management, tracking and changes (pausing and resuming) of keywords at the match type level. This is the latest announcement of efforts aimed […]
Though investors seemed disappointed by Google’s third-quarter numbers, its core AdWords business is going like gangbusters, according to a new study by WordStream. The software company found Google earning $100 million a day through AdWords in Q3, serving 5.5 billion impressions per day on search pages and 25.6 billion impressions per day on the Google […]
Bing Ads has released updates to its reporting interface in a bid to make it faster and easier to use. The new interface (and back-end) lets users run multiple reports simultaneously. It also allows advertisers to create related reports that share the same settings more easily, since settings like date range are carried over when […]
Google is tweaking some default options in AdWords that apply when people are using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC, to encourage advertisers to optimize for conversions. Both Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC are methods to dynamically change advertisers’ bids based on how likely Google thinks the ad is to convert. Starting the week of November […]
We recently received an email from a reader who’d made an inquiry with Google AdWords support. Why, this reader had asked, is Ask.com allowed to buy AdWords and rank for certain surprising terms, when its landing page features mostly ads above the fold? Doesn’t that violate Google’s policies on arbitrage? All About Arbitrage Arbitrage, when […]
Now that Google’s new pay-for-play Shopping is in full swing (the changeover took place October 17), the company used its earnings call to share thoughts on its success thus far, and its future vision for the product. Additionally, Google execs came out with some tidbits about the status and future of other elements of its […]
Spending on Search Marketing continues to be the biggest contributor to online advertising revenues in the U.S., according to the latest report on the first half of 2012 released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Search ads represented 48% of the overall interactive advertising market in the first six months of 2012, bringing […]
After several months of beta testing, Bing Ads is releasing Sitelink Extensions to all advertisers in the U.S. It’s now available through the Bing Ads web interface, the desktop editor and through the API, under “ad extensions” under the Campaign tab. Advertisers may enter up to 10 Sitelinks to accompany their ads, and help prospects […]
At a time when small businesses may have trouble getting access to credit, Google is partnering with banks in the U.S. and U.K. to offer credit cards that can only be used to buy AdWords advertising. The company has been piloting the AdWords Business Credit program since July in the U.S. and says 1400 small […]
Remember all that uproar over Google’s removing “Rotate indefinitely” as an option in AdWords? Well, after Google opened a form allowing people to ask for it back, fewer than 1% of AdWords users did so. But Google decided to bring back “Rotate Indefinitely” for everybody, anyway. The company has also made changes to impression share […]
As the crucial holiday etailing season approaches, Google is pulling out all the stops to get merchants on board to the new pay-for-play Google Shopping. Today, the company announced that it will switch to all paid listings as of October 17. Previously, Google product results were fueled by product feeds provided by merchants, at no […]
Google’s decision to eliminate free product listings in favor of paid Product Listing Ads (PLAs) for Google Shopping has reverberated through the ecommerce world. One consequence: online marketplace Etsy has decided to pay for its U.S. sellers’ products to be listed in PLAs through the rest of the year. The ecommerce company, known for facilitating […]
Google has always banned the use of duplicate landing pages for AdWords sitelinks extensions. It just hasn’t been particularly aggressive about ensuring compliance, until now. This because the company has noticed many advertisers including two or more sitelinks that go to the same landing pages, or different pages with substantially the same content. Starting this […]
Google’s AdWords has released a new feature that will let an advertiser share daily budgets between multiple campaigns in a single account. The idea is that a marketer may have a set daily budget to spend across multiple product lines, or channels, and this feature lets them dynamically reallocate that budget if one campaign falls […]
Bing Ads (the new moniker for Microsoft Advertising) is testing an ad format that should be very familiar — they’re combining the first two lines of text on search ads to make a much longer headline. The US market test is currently running on a small percentage of searches on Bing and will be rolling […]
As Google shifts its Shopping search to a pay-for-play model, one key commerce company appears to be sitting on the sidelines — Amazon. As noted in a New York Times feature that ran over the weekend, consumers who search on Google Shopping can find Kindles from a variety of stores via the listings, but Amazon isn’t […]
It’s official. Nielsen’s Designated Market Areas (DMAs) are becoming the paid search targeting standard for metro areas. Microsoft’s adCenter has announced it’s adopting DMAs as its method for targeting metropolitan areas, a little over a week after Google announced the same shift. The change, in adCenter’s case, will take place in late September and October. […]
Microsoft AdCenter advertisers have longed for some way to verify that their ads were running, and a solution is coming, promises a blog post from Microsoft Advertising. The fix will come in the form of an updated ad preview tool, which will let advertisers see whether their ads are showing generally, or to a targeted […]
Google is introducing some new geographical targeting options and tweaking others within AdWords, including making the switch to Nielsen DMAs for US metro areas and releasing postal code targeting for Canada. The changes come as the company rolls out city-level targeting and location extensions to new countries. In the US, the change means goodbye to […]
Search marketer ears likely perked up to hear that Facebook launched search advertising this week. But anyone who’s expecting it to be similar to AdWords or adCenter is going to be disappointed. Actually, it’s more akin to other forms of Facebook advertising, despite appearing in search results. Consider these typical AdWords ads: They appear above […]
The Microsoft AdCenter rotation feature — which lets advertisers optimize for clicks or rotate more evenly — is live today, having been announced back in July. The option will be available through adCenter online or through the adCenter API (version 8). It’s seen at the ad view level where keywords are connected to ad copy. […]
Microsoft has updated adCenter to enable advertisers to change or add agencies without losing their entire account history. With what they’re calling “Agency Enablement” features, adCenter now makes it possible for agencies to link or unlink to client accounts, onboard new clients via email requests to access accounts, control billing preferences and manage client accounts […]
Just in time for upcoming elections, Google has released an AdWords feature that lets political candidates (and anyone else, for that matter) target their campaigns by Congressional District. Given how difficult it is to pinpoint audiences within particular districts by ZIP code or municipality — and the fact that district boundaries change every 10 years […]
Ever wonder what it’s like being an intern at Google? Well, don’t look to an upcoming film, called “The Internship,” to provide much insight, even though the movie, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, is set at the search giant, as reported by Search Engine Watch. The comedy, which Vaughn expects to garner an “R” […]
What do you do when you figure out that a lot of self-reported data you’re using to target ads is inaccurate or just plain sparse? If you’re Microsoft adCenter, you remove that targeting capability — in this case, age and gender. In a support thread from last week, a representative gives the reasoning behind a […]