A note about why you might not want to only use Google Analytics to report revenue: Google Analytics attributes a conversion to “last touch” while Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search attribute it to “first touch.” What that means is if someone came to your website on a Monday through a paid ad, and didn’t buy anything, then returned a week later (either through a bookmark and manually typing in your URL) and bought something, Google Analytics would count that conversion as a Direct referral (the last way they came to your site), while AdWords and Sponsored Search would attribute it to PPC (the first way they came to your site).

It’s not a big deal when the vast majority of your visitors order on their first visit, but becomes a big deal when a large percentage of them don’t. I have several clients where over 50% of their visitors don’t buy on that first visit, which makes PPC look like it doesn’t perform that well. Once you factor in those “first touch” conversions, PPC certainly is a much more important piece of the marketing puzzle.

So back to how you track revenue in Yahoo Sponsored Search… I have to give Yahoo credit – they beat Google on this by including revenue right in the normal screens you use to manage your Yahoo Sponsored Search campaigns. Google only reports revenue on their actual reports, which makes it more of a pain to manage; Not impossible, just not as easy to analyze and then make quick changes.

To track Yahoo Sponsored Search revenue, you’ll just need to add one more tiny bit of code to your conversion tracking. Replace where I have ORDER.SUBTOTAL with your dynamically generated Order Subtotal field into this line of your Yahoo Sponsored Search Analytics code (You can also do Order Total, but I recommend doing the Subtotal which excludes tax and shipping, for a more accurate picture of your revenue.):

window.ysm_customData.conversion = “transId=,currency=,amount=ORDER.SUBTOTAL“;

That’s it. Pretty simple and pretty powerful. Now you can actually see what kind of revenue your Yahoo Sponsored Search campaigns are actually generating, and then make better informed decisions about where your PPC advertising dollars should be spent.

A note on this: I attempted to do it for a client that uses a Volusion cart and processes credit cards offline (meaning they don’t actually process the credit card at the time of order, but do it manually at a later time), but this won’t work for them. I’m guessing that this will hold true for any shopping cart; if you don’t process credit cards in real-time, it won’t work. In fact, for this client, it also prevented the number of conversions from tracking.

One last note: Unfortunately, MSN AdCenter does not have the same functionality. Here’s hoping they get that solved before they take over supplying Yahoo’s paid ads.

If you need help getting Yahoo Sponsored Search Revenue Tracking implemented and/or analyzed, contact a reputable PPC management company for assistance.

It can actually be overwhelming when you first start to poke around your PPC advertising campaign or your Google Analytics account to figure out what the most valuable data really is, so let me point you in a couple key places.

The new interface has some really great ways to view, filter and analyze your Google AdWords campaign data quickly and efficiently.  These options used to only be available in the reports area, but now they can be seen for every campaign and ad group.

With the new Google AdWords interface, you now have a great new data reporting tool on the right hand side.  It is a graph that will show you the trend for the time period you have selected on several different data values.  You can change the date range to view as many days as you like – I prefer either 30 or 7 depending on the campaign.  The two data items I keep an eye on from this “30 thousand foot” view are Impressions and Cost.  Basically we are looking for any trends – up or down – of the number of impressions your ads are getting and the amount that is being spent on the entire account.  If either one has an unusual spike, there is going to be some digging to do to be sure everything is running as planned.

Also, while you are getting that overview perspective for your AdWords account, go ahead and sort campaigns and ad groups by Cost (descending). This way, your attention is focused on the highest spenders at a high level.  This will also alert you to situations where your highest spenders shouldn’t be your highest spenders and you can make changes accordingly. If you have PPC advertising questions, you might want to consider contacting a professional PPC management company with questions or to plan a consultation.

Conversion tracking is one of the most important aspects of any PPC advertising account and you need to be sure that you have this installed correctly. Conversion tracking allows your account to be managed to the most important criteria for your business – and that is – “What am I getting out of this?”.

What Google AdWords has changed is the name of “Conversions” to “Conversions (1-per-click)” and they have added a new metric called “Conversions (many-per-click)”. The Conversion (1-per-click) field can only be filled once per customer and the Conversions (many-per-click) is incremented whenever any conversion occurs within 30 days after a click.

This can mean a couple of things to you depending on what your conversion structure is.

First, if your conversion is strictly measuring sales, it can mean that you have customers that come back within the first 30 days after their first purchase to purchase again. This is especially common in stores that sell commodities or that cross-sell a customer with more accessories to compliment their first purchase. (By the way – that begs the question – what kind of follow-up do you have with a first time customer to be sure they have everything they need and are you measuring the success of that follow-up?)

Also, if you have setup several types of conversions to be tracked on your site – for example, mailing list sign-up, contact form and sale – the “many-per-click” field will give you information about customers that have performed several goals on your site. You may have customers that do all three and that will show up in the many-per-click field. There are additional fields regarding the type of conversion that will give you the information you need to micro-manage these conversion types as well.

And don’t forget, Google AdWords revenue tracking can be exceptionally powerful for tracking specific revenue achieved for each specific product sold. This is certainly not for everyone, but can be incredibly valuable when applicable and is usually very easy to implement. If you have questions or need help with this, contact a professional PPC Management Company for asssitance.

The bottom line is this – understand what these Google AdWords conversion tracking numbers mean to you and use this valuable information to enhance your sales-funnel on your website.

Google has begun, more than ever, pulling regular search ads into the Google maps display – especially if there are limited competitors running local business ads.  They have also started to default the maps display to the small map with many more local listings and sponsored listings displayed on the screen.  This has created a need for more ads to run in this space – typically there are only three that run when a full map is displayed.

Despite that, a Local business Ad is much more powerful because of the actions the user can take to interact with your ad and find your business.

When you run a Local Business Ad:

1. An icon that you design is displayed on the map.  If done correctly, this can cause your location to stand out from the crowd.
2. Your address is displayed in the ad.
3. Your ad has a link that says “Show on Map”.  As I discussed in my last post about Google Local Business Ads, if your audience is particularly sensitive to location, seeing your location on the map can be a great selling point.
4. Once they have select the option to show your information listing on the map, the user can get directions, show the street view, save to their saved map locations or send the listing to an email address or even a GPS system!
5. Also on the information listing, you can display your phone number and an image.

How do I run Local Business Ads?

First, you must have a Google Local Business Listing  – this is something you should have regardless of whether you run ads.  It is free and when you have a local business listing, properly optimized, your listing can show up on the first page of Google maps for your targeted key phrases.

Second, once you have created a local business listing, you can add a local business ad to any ad group from within the Adwords Editor interface.   Simply select the Ads tab, the Local Business Ads tab and Add Local Business Ad.  You can add the business location, the ad copy, an image to be displayed on the Information listing and a small little icon to be used as a Map Marker on the map.

For more information on creating and managing local business ads, contact the PPC Management Professionals at JumpFly.

Google Local Business Ads – or Maps Ads – are similar to search ads but they appear on the Google Maps platform.  This platform has been growing in traffic since its inception and is now available on many other devices beyond the desktop/laptop including the popular iPhone.

The significance of local business ads is that they satisfy the intent of the search when it comes to local business.  Most local businesses thrive on location – in other words – if someone is looking for a new dentist and you can show the visitor that you are minutes from their home or work, they are more likely to click through or give you a call than if they discover you are an hour or more away.  Therefore, showing your ad in the context of your location on a map gives the visitor that much more incentive to contact you.

Should I be running Local Business Ads?

Perform a search on one of your top keyword phrases from the regular Google Search screen – for example, “find a dentist”.  You will notice that one of the first natural listings, if not the first, is a large group of local business listings next to a map.  There is a large link at the top that says “Local Business Results for <search term> near <your location> and another smaller link at the bottom that says “More results near <your location>”.  When the visitor clicks on either of these links, Google Maps is displayed along with the first several local business ads. 

Because of the location within the natural search results, these links are much more likely to be clicked than any of the sponsored search results.  Creating local business ads to be shown on Google maps can greatly increase your exposure. Contact a professional PPC Management Agency with any additional questions.

More in my next post on How to run Local Business Ads.

That has all changed. And that is great news for many e-commerce sites that sell branded items. If you are a reseller of goods that have a trademarked brand and if your landing pages give significant focus to the trademarked term, then most Google AdWords ads within the United States will now be approved to run on Google. Also, make sure the trademarked term is used in a text format on your website, as opposed to only flash, so Google can recognize the use of the trademarked term on your page.

The approval process for ads the contain trademarked terms is a separate process at Google AdWords. The ads are first approved to run for all other Google policies, and then they are checked so the use of the trademark and the landing page are in alignment with Google’s new trademark policy guidelines. This approval process may take a bit longer than the normal time you may have seen in the past for non-trademarked ads, so you will need to give Google AdWords ads containing trademarks a bit more time to show up on Google.

Also, you might notice that these trademark ads may show a status of “approved-limited.” This means that Google recognizes that the ad contains a trademarked term and that the advertiser was not given direct permission from the owner of the trademark to actually use it in Google pay per click ad copy. This does NOT mean that the ad will only show for a limited time or in limited regions, but it does mean that Google will check this ad continually to make sure it aligns with the new trademark policy. The content of your landing page will be constantly assessed by Google to make sure the trademark is still featured prominently, so be careful of any changes you make to your landing pages, especially after your trademark ads have been approved and are receiving click traffic.

This change is a real plus for anyone doing PPC management because we all know that if someone is searching for branded items, it certainly is nice to have that trademarked brand name in your ad. If I’m looking for Lexmark ink, I’m certainly more inclined to click an ad that has the Lexmark trademarked term in the ad, than on a generic ad that does not.

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Now that there are so many more ways to interact with your local business ad, also referred to as “Google maps ads”, because they appear on the Google Maps site, wouldn’t it be nice if you had some insight into how visitors are interacting with your ad?

Now you do.  Google has given us the ability to see the analytics behind how users interact with your ad.  There is a new feature in the Google AdWords reporting feature – as a part of the Placement/Keyword Report – that allows you to view data on the following actions:

• Info window open from left hand side
• Info window open from map marker
• “Get Direction” clicks
• “Street View” clicks
• Clicks to website from the info window

They are missing my favorite – “Send” – but hopefully that is coming soon – no word from Google yet.

How can you best use this Google Maps ads data? Use it the same as you would when analyzing your site analytics – figure out where to focus your attention based on user activity.  For example, are visitors clicking Street View? Consider putting a picture of your actual location/building on the info window. 

The numbers behind opening from the left hand side vs. opening from the map marker signify to me whether your visitors are typically responding to your brilliant ad copy or if they are more concerned with the exact location of the business.  Google Maps ad data can give you insight into a visitor’s search intent and mind set.  Then let it help you to write even better ad copy for both your maps ad and your regular pay-per-click (PPC) advertising ads.

For more information on the new Google Maps ad reporting features, check out Google’s blog post on this announcement or contact a professional Google advertising agency.

I’ll have to admit that this is something relatively new to me (and a thank you to Michael Whitaker at Monitus for telling me it was possible). A search through Google AdWords help files comes up with nothing, nor did my Google reps ever explain that it could be done – they always pointed to Analytics as the tool to track revenue. And the answer is really simple – when you add conversion tracking to your thank you page, you can alter the code slightly to capture the revenue generated by an order.

You’ll need to change the YOUR-ORDER$ to be the field name of your order subtotal which can differ by shopping cart.

One note on this: I attempted to do it for a client that uses a Volusion cart and processes credit cards offline (meaning they don’t actually process the credit card at the time of order, but do it manually at a later time), but this won’t work for them. I’m guessing that this will hold true for any shopping cart; if you don’t process credit cards in real-time, it won’t work. In fact, for my client above, it also prevented conversions from tracking.

One more thing to know about tracking Google AdWords revenue: you can’t see results within the Google AdWords interface, you have to run a report to actually get the data. You’ll need to select the field “Sales Conv. Value (many-per-click)” in order to add that data to a report, and then you’ll be able to see revenue by Account, Campaign, AdGroup and even keyword by keyword, and learn how profitable your PPC campaigns really are. If you need help getting Google AdWords Revenue Tracking implemented and/ or analyzed, contact a reputable PPC management company for assistance.

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The confidentiality of our clients is important so I am not revealing any names here, but I would like to share some actual numbers that we have seen here at JumpFly as a result of our efforts. I looked at some PPC advertising data samples from the first quarter of 2008 and compared them to the first quarter of 2009. Sure, I can make these numbers up, but it’s just much easier to show you the real numbers as they truthfully exist.

JumpFly Client #1

1st Quarter 2008 – 139 conversions at $351.55 each with a total spend of approx. $49,000.
1st Quarter 2009 – 295 conversions at $125.51 each with a total spend of approx. $37,000.

Yes, they spent about $12,000 dollars LESS but more than DOUBLED their number of conversions. True story.

JumpFly Client #2

1st Quarter 2008 – 205 conversions at $62.82 each with a total spend of approx. $21,000.
1st Quarter 2009 – 301 conversions at $32.47 each with a total spend of approx. $10,000.

Yes, they spent about $11,000 dollars LESS but increased conversions by nearly 100 more. True story.

JumpFly Client #3

1st Quarter 2008 – 252 conversions at $9.87 each with a total spend of approx. $2,500.
1st Quarter 2009 – 1,859 conversions at $5.91 each with a total spend of approx. $11,000.

Yes, the spend is greatly increased as we took their business to a whole new level, while bringing their conversion costs down. Huge sales growth with conversions growing over 1,500 compared to the same time period a year earlier. True story.

JumpFly Client #4

1st Quarter 2008 – 4,027 conversions at $9.04 each with a total spend of approx. $36,000.
1st Quarter 2009 – 5,204 conversions at $6.36 each with a total spend of approx. $33,000.

Yes, they spent about $3,000 LESS while growing conversions over 1,000 at a lower cost. True story.

And the numbers above don’t take into the account the time and worry these business owners took off their shoulders by outsourcing their PPC management.

I’m not saying that professional PPC management will produce the same results for every company, but very positive results certainly can come from having a professional pay per click management company like JumpFly assisting you along the way. During these tight economic times, can you afford not to?

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We all know about Google’s Keyword Tool which provides traffic information for your terms but a limitation on the Keyword Tool data is that it is either global or country based (the column labeled “local” now, means U.S. or whatever country was selected at the top of the page). 

This traffic data is good if you are running a national campaign – but not as useful for geographically targeted campaigns.  It can be used to determine relative traffic between keywords (i.e., what gets more traffic? Car dealer or Auto dealer?), but it falls short if you are trying to figure out what to expect when you when you are running campaigns in just Dallas or Los Angeles.

So, what I use for local traffic data is the Google Traffic Estimator.  You enter your keywords (however many you want) and a specific region – anywhere from a country, to a state, to a city or even a zip code with a radius.  If you like, you may also enter your desired daily budget and your CPC. 

The results? The traffic you can expect in one day for each keyword in the region you selected!  Now, keep in mind, there are the same limitations to this data as there are with the Google Keyword Tool – I find the traffic data to be more accurate than the estimated CPC. But it’s a good starting point.

The Google AdWords Traffic Estimator provides extremely powerful data for your Google AdWords campaign efforts. You should use this data to decide where to spend the majority of your time.  Any reputable PPC management firm would always suggest the majority of your time should be spent on keywords that can drive the most targeted traffic to your site.  Don’t waste your valuable time on terms that don’t deliver direct benefit (because they just aren’t searched on very often). That doesn’t mean don’t have them in your account, just don’t spend the majority of your time on them. Focus your attention on the top terms.  Yes, you would have seen this data yourself once your campaign was running for awhile, but this gives you the boost to focus on the right terms from the very beginning. 

Google Analytics provides great information, but one issue that can arise is when Google Analytics transaction numbers and the Google AdWords conversion tracking numbers don’t jive. I know that different packages are not going to track exactly the same, but most of the time, they are close enough that it’s not a big deal. However, a big issue arises when you have an e-commerce site and a decent percentage of people don’t order on their first visit, but come back and order at a later date.

Here’s the problem: Google AdWords tracks “first touch” – if someone searches on a term, clicks on your ad and comes to your site, does not order at that moment, but comes back a week later, AdWords will log the conversion back that first date and attribute the sale to AdWords. Analytics on the other hand tracks “last touch.” In our same scenario, if someone were to search, click an ad, visit the site and leave, then come back a week later, Analytics would attribute that search to organic or other, unless they did a search and clicked on an ad again. Not a big deal if a majority of visitors order on the first visit, but if you have a large amount of people who order at a later date, this can be present a huge problem.

I have two clients who have this issue. For one of them, 40% of visitors don’t order on their first visit, and the other is 50%. And you guessed it, there’s a 40% and 50% difference in AdWords conversions and Analytics transactions. They can’t get a true picture of their PPC ROI with Google Analytics because they only see the revenue for anyone who ordered the first time they visited the site.

The big question is why is that? You would think that, both being Google products, they would track the same way, or at least have an option to track that way, but they don’t. Frustrating for both me and my clients!

But, I’ll explain how to get around this dilemma in my next Blog.

More about Nikki

In May, Google announced an enhancement to their search query report.

The search query report is a great PPC management tool that we use to fine tune an account.  It allows us to see, for phrase and broad match search terms, what the actual term was that the visitor typed in.  It shows only those terms that resulted in a click-through so you can focus your efforts on your cost areas.

Since inception, this report had a flaw.  For all the low volume terms, Google would lump them into “Other Unique Queries”.  Sometimes the majority of the traffic seemed to fall into this field which could be very frustrating.

Now, Google removed this field all together and we can see all terms that were actually searched for going forward.

Here is how I use the Search Query Report.  You can do this on a weekly or monthly basis. I choose weekly to be sure to catch all the terms possible.

Keep in mind that this information is also now available in the new interface.  However, I am finding that for large campaigns with many ad groups, I can still save some time with using the report itself.  The actionable report within the interface is good for quick spot checks and focusing on the highest spending ad groups, though.

1. Generate a Search Query Report – in fact, create a report that is generated automatically on a weekly basis so it is already there when you are ready to work on it.
2. Download the report into a CSV file and Open it in excel
3. Sort largest to smallest on the cost column (this keeps you focused on the keywords of most importance if you are short on time).  Don’t feel compelled to go through every single one.  Stick to the top 20 every week.
4. Create a list of negative keywords to add and a list of new keywords to add.
5. Import the list into Adwords Editor and Post.

Quick.  easy. and it really tunes up the account and can save big $ for your business.

For more information on the enhancement, See Google’s Search Query Enhancement Announcement.

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Here at JumpFly, we’ve been a bit hesitant to use Business.com because of some poor results in the past, coupled with the fact that they didn’t have their own simple-to-use conversion tracking system. I’m happy to report that situation has now changed on both fronts. I am currently working with a client who is now advertising on Business.com and we are seeing both a good volume of traffic as well as good quality traffic. Conversions are coming in on a daily basis, with a cost per conversion very similar to the results we are seeing from Google. All in all, it’s working well and we will definitely continue utilizing their PPC program. Their new conversion tracking is just as easy to implement as Google’s — just copy the code they provide and paste into the appropriate “thanks for your order” or “thanks for contacting us” confirmation page. That’s it. Then you’re off to the races.

Another feature that I absolutely love about Business.com’s PPC program is the way they have structured their ads. You can use up to 60 characters in title and 150 keywords in the description. Sure, short is sweet, but sometimes you really do want those extra words in there to really punch up your message. Another cool feature is the ability to use their Multilink functionality. You can use these other links to drive traffic deeper into your site. For example, let’s say you are a printing company and you are bidding on the keyword “printing company”. You can use the main link in the ad to drive traffic to your home page, but your ad can also display a sublink to your magazine printing page, your brochure printing page, and to your postcard printing page. That way, one ad can possibly drive traffic to five different pages on your site depending on the needs of your new potential customer. It is very cool.

If interested in learning more, contact a professional PPC management firm to assist you.

Learn more about Jack

Katherine Egbert, an analyst at Jefferies & Company, says that Microsoft is planning an advertising blitz to publicize its search efforts, stating, ”Microsoft is set to spend $80 million to $100 million to advertise ‘Bing’… The budget for the ad campaign suggests that Microsoft plans to go head-to-head with the Google brand.” They need to do something if they actually intend to compete with Google, which commands about 70% of all search queries, while Microsoft currently serves less than 9% of searches, a number that has been shrinking. However, advertising alone cannot ensure success, as learned by those behind Cuil, the last new search engine to receive significant media and advertising exposure. Unfortunately for everyone involved, users decided it was not so cuil after all.

Is Yahoo on Microsoft’s Agenda? 

Several sources indicate that just last week Microsoft registered a limited liability company (LLC) in Delaware, a move that often precedes acquisitions or joint ventures. Microsoft also raised $3.75 billion in its first-ever debt offering this month. Coincidence? “The timing of the registration and recent debt raise indicate to us that it might be more likely Microsoft uses the LLC to force a partnership or to boost the amount of traffic flowing through its search engine,” wrote Katherine Egbert in a note released Tuesday.

The newly registered LLC could be the precursor to a Yahoo! deal. Just yesterday, when questioned about a possible Microsoft alliance, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz confirmed ongoing Microsoft-Yahoo talks and stated, “if there’s boatloads of money, and there’s the right technology, and the information we would have to have, then yeah… it’s that simple.” Of course, there is also speculation that Microsoft is interested in various other potential acquisitions as well.

So what does Bing promise to bring? Well, that remains to be seen. In the meantime, we’ll see if Microsoft can first push Bing.com’s traffic past that received by bingo.com or even bingcrosby.com, each currently receiving considerably more traffic than Microsoft’s new proposed venture (view stats). To date, Microsoft’s search platforms failed to achieve wide public appeal, with Google basically controlling the market. Microsoft is desperately trying to challenge Google’s dominance. Is Bing the answer? And will Yahoo somehow be part of it? Internet history and the search marketing landscape continues to evolve and develop before our very eyes.

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Google AdWords Content Campaign Strategy

Step 1: Filter out the top performing keywords in your current Google AdWords Search campaign, putting the greatest emphasis on the keywords that are most relevant to the products you sell or most relevant to the services you provide.

Step 2: Individually type each term into a Google Search, using the standard Google search box you find at Google.com. For this example, we will use “golf shoes” as our keyword.

Step 3: Copy the Google URL that is generated in the address bar from the search. In this example, it would be –
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS259US259&q=golf+shoes&btnG=Search

Step 4: Using the Google Keyword Tool, make sure you have Website Content checked, then enter the URL above into the text box. Be sure to check the box labeled “Include other pages on my site linked from this URL.”

By following this process, Google analyzes the organic results, paid ads, and the sites being linked. You will then get a list of keywords that are grouped together by theme. You can then take these lists and create a Google AdWords Content campaign with a similar thematic structure.

Again, not the only way to create an AdWords Content campaign, but it is an interesting process to try and could generate some productive results for you to use as you see fit.

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