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.

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. 

Perhaps in the short-term, according to Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Richard Fetyko. Yesterday, Fetyko issued a release via Barrons stating, “Based on our checks, the decline in consumer and business purchasing is having a dampening effect on search-engine marketing (SEM) — keyword prices are down 5%-30% from the third-quarter of 2008, traffic to ecommerce sites is also down year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, and click-through-rates on ad listings are declining as well. SEM is expected to be among the last places to see cuts, and we are there now. Advertisers are adjusting their keyword buys to protect their margins and returns on investment, which are under pressure as sales-conversion rates and average order value dropped, based on our checks. Google’s paid-click volume is also under pressure. Since consumers and businesses have reined in their spending, they are searching for fewer commercial items and are clicking on fewer ads (click-through rates dropped), which translates into slower growth in paid-clicks volume (key revenue driver). Weakness has also spread overseas. Domestic growth has decelerated in 2008, and we expect international regions to slow in the fourth-quarter of 2008 and 2009 as well. U.K. ad revenue was flat for the last three quarters, and the rest of Europe and Asia are seeing cutbacks in ad budgets as well.”

Not surprisingly, various research agencies are reducing their projections for online advertising growth going forward. Just last week, marketing research firm eMarketer reduced estimates for U.S. Internet advertising to $25.7 billion for next year, about $2.7 billion less than a forecast from just three months ago, but still a 9% increase over this year. EMarketer predicts U.S. search ads will generate $12.3 billion next year and that “display ads” will rise nearly 7% next year to $4.9 billion (less than the 14% growth previously suggested). Considering we’re in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, I would say that any growth at all is pretty good! The reason for continued growth in PPC advertising despite this crisis is because it works.

While “decelerating growth” may be a sobering reality for Google, it will not bring them to their knees. In the near term, Google may have to make some adjustments, but they appear incredibly well positioned to potentially dominate multiple marketplaces going forward, including organic search, sponsored search advertising, online video & the wireless market. Organic search, PPC advertising and online video (via YouTube) are already in the bag, at least for now, and Google’s wireless Android platform is new but already creating a lot of buzz. Actually, I personally think that what Google has already accomplished is amazing and I look forward to witnessing their future innovations. They always seem to be one step ahead of the competition.

Holiday Reminder- The busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday (this Friday) is followed by the biggest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday (next Monday). Happy Thanksgiving.

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Yahoo search volume is dropping consistently, down from nearly 22% in October 2007 to below 18% for October 2008. MSN took a drop from last year as well in their search volume, but it seems to be holding in the mid 5% range from month to month now. So that does beg the question, is it even worth running PPC campaigns on Yahoo and MSN? Clearly, there is some volume to be had on both of those search networks, so they definitely have some value to some advertisers. If your budget is tight, though, and you are testing the PPC waters, I would suggest starting on Google only and then see where you can go from there.

Another strategy to consider for Yahoo and MSN, which we have implemented and seen success with, is to start out strong on Google for a month or two and then only move your best performers over to Yahoo and MSN. Since Google does bring in the most volume by a large margin, their search platform can really give you a good indicator as to whether a certain product, or a certain groups of keywords, or specific ad copy, will bring you the ROI you are looking for. It isn’t always an apples to apples comparison, and what works on Google does not necessarily always work on Yahoo or MSN, but you can certainly get some strong indicators as to what might work on the other engines by analyzing what is working on Google first.

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The Keyword Tool at Google AdWords

I use Google’s Keyword Tool for a large majority of keyword research now.  Yes, services like Keyword Discovery or Word Butler will give us a longer list of long-tail keywords, but according to Google, bigger is not always better in a new campaign.

Google’s Keyword Tool has been improved greatly over the last few months.  We now get very detailed search volume numbers – be sure to change the match type of your results to “Exact” before taking those numbers seriously.

They have also fixed a problem they were having a couple of months ago where they were randomly presenting terms that were not as relevant (called “Additional Keywords to Consider”) before the relevant terms.  That has been fixed and we now see the Related Keywords first on every search.  They have also fixed little annoyances like the scrolling and the ability to download all the terms at once.

So, how is the new Search-based Keyword Tool different?

It’s main difference is that instead of taking your suggested words, Google will now go look at your website and provide suggested keywords based on its content. 

There are  a few new features that make this tool an interesting addition to our arsenal of research tools here at JumpFly:

1. A magnifying glass icon takes you straight to Google Insights for that term.

2. Ad/Search Share tells you how your ad is showing up for that search term

3. We can filter the results by search volume, competition and suggested bid.

I am disappointed that the search volume numbers are apparently from the broad match search volume – not nearly as useful as the existing keyword tool that allows you to change that to exact match for more accuracy.  I also feel that I get a much larger and comprehensive list when I use the Google Keyword Tool.  However, if we are looking for a single term or set of terms, this tool lets us narrow things down quite a bit and may help uncover some valuable new keywords.

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In a word, the PPC industry continues to look healthy.

After the closing bell today, Google, Inc. reported their most recent quarter’s earnings, including an impressive profit increase of 26% compared to the same quarter last year. This is pretty impressive growth, especially considering just about every other company seems to be slowing down.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said that the company experienced “revenue growth across all of our major geographies thanks to the underlying strength of our core search and ads business.” 
Google officially started generating more than half of its revenue from international markets. 
 
In regards to their paid click revenue, Google said Thursday that the number of paid clicks rose 4% from the previous quarter, and 18% compared with the same period a year earlier. Though the economy is hurting, people continue to search the web and click sponsored results with increasing regularity.

Google continues to grow its workforce, adding another 519 people during the quarter, though this is down from an increase of 2,130 employees at the same time last year. The company now has 20,123 employees.
We’ll see what Yahoo! has to say when they announce their quarterly earnings early next week.

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View more Google News articles from JumpFly

So one question to ask yourself when looking at these “top spenders” is – Are they also your top sellers?  They should be. 

You should already have a solid understanding of your top selling products or services.  And these items may change seasonally for you.

But you should also pay attention to your top spenders in your PPC advertising campaigns and be sure you are

1. Spending your advertising dollars in the right place and
2. Responding to the market.  If you find that certain terms have escalated in search volume and interest, maybe something needs to change with your product or service offerings.

Another question to consider:  Are your top spending keywords broad match? 

Be careful here.  Remember that broad match at Google AdWords is actually expanded match – Google shows your ad on “relevant” keywords.   While expanded match can be a very productive method to make sure you are showing whenever possible, it can also be difficult to tell what you are spending your ad dollars on.  The search query report is extremely important when you are running on broad match terms.  This report gives you insight into terms that are working well for your campaign and terms that should be excluded.

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This is not too surprising based on the increasing opposition this deal continues to face on various fronts. I knew the anti-trust investigation was serious back in July when the Department of Justice contacted us here at JumpFly. Some big organizations in opposition include the World Association of Newspapers, which represents over 18,000 newspapers, and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which represents over 400 companies and 9,000 brands (view previous article and video about this).

Looks to me like this deal is likely not going to ever happen. Google and Yahoo’s combined search market share would be a staggering 83%, a number that more and more parties are not comfortable with. The immediate loser that comes to mind here is Yahoo! as they stood to gain an additional $800 million per year in revenue from this deal. Ouch. However, this was a strange agreement anyway, where two arch- rivals were looking to work together. One winner here is Microsoft, who is hanging on to 8% share of the search market and trying to avoid elimination from the search engine marketing arena. They would love to see this deal permanently tabled. Time will tell, but for now, no deal.

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Recent Google News:
Google News Recap – New G1 Phone, Chrome Browser, Stock Madness and More

New G1 Phone/ Android Operating System News
Early last week, the first cell phone with Google’s Android software was released, called the G1. The new G1 Google phone will be available in stores October 22nd. It comes pre-packed with various Google services, encouraging use of the Internet on phones. Learn More.

Chrome Browser News
So far, Google’s new Chrome Web Browser is slow to be embraced. Various sources indicate that Chrome’s market share is about 1% and not increasing. However, it is just 1 month old. Here at JumpFly, analytics data informs me that 3% of our users access our website via Chrome.

Crazy GOOG Stock Price Swing
Apparently, a huge quantity of erroneous trades sent to the Nasdaq Stock Market, caused Google’s share price to swing wildly Tuesday afternoon, soaring as high as $485 per share and falling as low as $25! The errors were corrected the next day, but for those involved, this must have seemed like total insanity at the time.

Google AdWords News:

New Quality Score Improvements
Per Google, new Quality Score improvements are getting rolled out this week. The three main improvements are:

1. Quality Score calculations will be more accurate
2. Keywords are no longer marked ‘inactive for search’
3. ‘First page bid estimates’ replace ‘minimum bids’ 

View Nikki’s recent article about Google’s quality score update to learn more.

Google Site Statistics Logo News
Attention everyone using Google AdWords conversion tracking - As of this week, conversion tracking users are no longer required to display the “Google Site Stats” logo on the conversion pages of their web sites. Learn more.

Google AdWords Launched Smart Positioning Beta
The goal of Google AdWords Smart Positioning is to place an ad in the most cost-effective position each time it is displayed on Google and the search network, with the end goal of achieving more clicks for the same total cost.

And to cap it off, Google just announced an ambitious $4 trillion plan to “transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy”. Well if anyone can pull it off, it’s these guys. So what’s next? Maybe Google for President? The way things are going right now, they just might get my vote!

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Recent Google News Video

Google Chrome is a free “Open Source” browser, borrowed in part from several other open source projects including Apple WebKit and Mozilla’s FireFox. This means that it is free to download and use, however it also free for other parties to use as their own source for development, or to use to help develop add-on’s and tools specifically designed to work with Google Chrome, much in the same way we can now download thousands of cool add-on’s for FireFox.

At first glance the appearance of Google Chrome seems light and stripped down. Visually, most people will not find anything very noteworthy about the initial BETA release of Chrome. It’s color scheme seems to be fairly flat and non-dimensional, which isn’t uncommon when compared to most of Google’s online administration interfaces. To quote Google, “we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple”.

The traditional administrative menu featuring commands like; file, edit, view, tools, help, are all missing. Most of this old functionality is now included below two icons located to the far right, along with some new and very interesting functionality like “Incognito” and “Developer Tools”.

The popular tabbing feature, which allows multiple pages to be open in the same browser, is now located prominently at the very top of the application. This might throw some users at first, although I quickly became accustomed to the new layout and actually grew to enjoy it. Tabs can actually be dragged and dropped from one window to another, or simply dragged to create a new window in itself. All in all the tab functionality takes a nice step forward in Chrome.

The new home page layout provides a very visual representation of your recent history and most visited website’s. Links with Favicon’s are located above a large thumbnail version of these pages. The content of this homepage updates as your history builds. I found it to be a somewhat useful feature for quickly jumping to my most frequently viewed web pages. Another nice feature is that you can customize this homepage with your own chosen web pages or use a traditional web page as your home page.

A short list of recent bookmarks appear at the right of the home page along with the brand new ability to search your history. This makes for a great way to find those pages you recently visited or locate an article or product that you saw recently but can’t remember the exact location. I was surprised to find out that the search history results page was not laced with Sponsored Search ads. In fact, it provided honest results from several search engines, directories, and even website’s that I had recently visited that contained data related to the search term I used in my search history query. Since I had visited Yahoo, MSN, and eBay, the results from all 3 of those sources were provided, along with an additional ecommerce website that I had visited.

Many of the common features introduced in Google Chrome will also be available to some extent in the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 8, which is also available for BETA download, however the real power behind Google Chrome is located behind the scenes, under the hood, in the fundamental design. Basically, Google started from scratch and has taken the technology that powers a web browser and made it more efficient in the hopes of providing a faster, safer, more stable, browsing environment. You can actually read about this new technology and the amazing engineering used in Chrome by viewing Google’s Chrome Comic Book. You won’t find any superhero’s or arch villains in this comic book, although you will find a fairly detailed, all be it dry, explanation into the thought processes and ingenious solutions that the Google wizards have brought forth in this new browser.

The bottom line here is that Google knows that it lives on the Internet and it has chosen to give back to this community with a new Open Source free browser that is designed to provide faster downloads, more security, and a more efficient and stable browsing environment. What’s more, since it is an Open Source software, it is available for anyone to download and customize to their hearts desire. Considering the complete lack of embedded advertising, and non-partial integration of other search engines and website’s, I find this act to be a very generous offering to the online community as a whole. Just like my old 79 Trans Am, Google Chrome might not give you a visual wow factor upon your first use, however I believe that you will enjoy the unseen power that lurks under the hood.