The ‘Google Customer Service’ Oxymoron

Posted on | July 8, 2010 | No Comments

A recent experience with a Google customer service rep left me appalled at the shockingly poor customer service. Google is not known for its customer service finesse – the number of complaints online abound. The other major search engines do not set much of a standard to overcome and with Google’s virtual monopoly on online dollars, the company appears to be entrenched in the old business model which Robin Sharma very accurately describes in his newest book, The Leader Who Had No Title’. Succinctly, it’s take the money and run. If you lose one customer there’s plenty more out there. Unfortunately Google’s monopolistic reign is heightened by the fact that most customers really need Google to run a profitable business. Ironically, it is the searcher who decides which search engine to use, and Google’s focus is on the searcher, not the advertiser.

Allow me to elucidate my experience…

The Problem

I emailed the Google rep explaining the dilemma and requested some assistance in the form of specific reports I was hoping to receive from Google, which I knew Google was very capable of generating. This is how the conversation started:

…. I have another request for an Impression Share report for a client

If there is any average CPC trending you could provide for the industry that would be great too. In May, we lost out on positioning heavily for this account and I would like to be able to see what the market is looking like.

A week later, after some to and fro to clarify the request, I was informed that I would be provided with useful information of market leader averages.

I was sent a category assessment based on leading advertisers, showing me the average Q1 spend of the category leader vs. the client in question. It was like comparing David to Goliath as the client is a relatively small player in the market.

The report compared standard metrics between the category leader and the client for the period Q1, first in search and then the content network.

Apart from further validating that the client holds a relatively small share in the market, there were two things that were very wrong with the report that was provided:

It was for the period Q1 – whereas the problem identified had started in May in Q2
The client does not advertise in the content network

No time was taken to listen and understand the problem, to provide an appropriate solution.

The Pain Continues

I indicated that the report did not address the problems the client had been experiencing and reiterated my original request:

What I was hoping for is an impression share report as I originally
indicated or some type of report showing the trending of CPCs over the last few months.

Following this request, I was then sent a CPC vs. CTR trending report for Q1 for the top converting keywords. This was sent by another rep that had seemingly taken over my enquiry.

Yet again, after clearly indicating the type of information I was seeking, I received client specific information, that was retrievable through the account itself. Again, it was for the period Q1. The problems started occurring in May and here I am being sent a report from January to March.

I then addressed the new rep and explained the problem in detail, again I requested an impression share report and finally, after a third attempt I did receive some insights into CPC trending and impression share data.

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Perhaps Google makes such easy money that it does not concern itself with ‘working for its money’ by providing quality customer service. I am not going to get into a philosophical monologue about this issue. If there was ever an opportunity to snatch market share from Google, this would be it. As the Yahoo! / Bing PPC transition begins to roll out in North America, they should most certainly pay attention to customer service. People are dying for a search engine that gives a damn and does not take dinosaur years and multiple explanations to provide a smidgen of value.

Category: Industry Standards
Tags: Google

Yahoo! Microsoft Alliance – What? How? When?

Posted on | June 30, 2010 | No Comments

Last week I tuned in to a webcast entitled SMN Webcast June 24: Yahoo! Microsoft Alliance – What? How? When? in the hope of receiving some answers about the impending Yahoo! Microsoft PPC transition which is going to impact all search marketers in the near future.

The presented webcast itself had no real surprises, it was the standard information that has been rehashed by multiple parties at both Microsoft and Yahoo! If the words ‘transition’ and ‘alliance’ are not ringing any bells, it is time to get updated and the easiest way to do so is to visit the official transition centres: Yahoo Transition Center and Microsoft Transition Center.

Of course, on these websites you will find official information, carefully crafted corporate speak that is designed to appear to tell you a great deal, without telling you much at all. These sites will not answer all those burning questions like ‘Will I be able to bid separately on Yahoo! and Bing?’ or ‘Will historic reports be available for my Yahoo! PPC account?’

Going back to the webcast – the most juicy part, when it is a controversial topic is the Q&A because it forces all those directors and managers to answer questions on topics that they would prefer to avoid. In this webcast, there was a deluge of questions and given it is not being made available on-demand I took the liberty of writing down the questions with accompanying answers.

Hopefully, you will find some answers and if you are lucky, you may find the answers you were hoping for. The style is short hand as I was doing my utmost to accurately capture the information. Please also note that these questions were answered by individuals from Yahoo! and Microsoft in a Q&A format. This means that some of this information has not yet been publicly shared on each company’s transition center. Ultimately, when it is shared, the information below may evolve as greater clarity is provided.

The purpose of this information is to give you a snapshot into the implications of the transition and how it will very directly impact your day to day PPC management on Bing and Yahoo!

Will I be able to bid separately on Yahoo and Bing Search?
No, after the transition this will not be possible. There will be some other controls in place – for example, you will be able to create separate campaigns for Yahoo and Bing Partners

Historic reports available for Yahoo PPC?
13-months looking back reports will be available

Will my paid results look exactly the same in Yahoo.com and Bing.com?
Overall page design on Yahoo will look the same
Yahoo will be getting paid results from Bing engine, the order of the ads will be the same, but there may be differences in presentation on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Will there be a distinction between traffic coming from Yahoo vs. Bing?
We don’t know the exact way that we will display it, but there will not be a distinction within the AdCenter reporting interface. You will however, be able to see this in more complex Analytics logs and we do not yet know how this will be shared

Will reporting easily show what clicks/conversions occurred on Yahoo vs. which ones occurred on Bing?
No the reporting will not distinguish between the two search engines

Are there planned changes to the adCenter APIs? If so, what is the timeframe?
The adCenter APIs will be available in the next few days – that includes the broader adCenter desktop tool release. Marin Software is supporting these changes completely in its tool

Will the conversion tracker code remain the same?
We are working through the pain of having to retag a whole set of pages – working through with our Microsoft counterparts to see whether the same tags could be used so that the advertiser does not have to retag the pages (this is not final – still working through this)

Is the shift from 92 days to YOY reporting a historical shift or just from the transition moving forward?
Yes – will be able to look back full year – this change should be occurring shortly, it is not just transition related

Will there be a search query report?
Yes, this report is available in Bing

Will revenue be captured by the Microsoft adCenter tracking pixel?
In the current iteration it does not capture revenue but we are working on this and in the next version of adCenter this should become available

Are Yahoo & Bing keeping their own trademark bidding policies or will there be one single unified policy?
Currently both teams are working together to develop one unified policy – not yet available but this is being worked on by both teams

Will the negative keyword limit be raised in Bing?
Yes, the limit is 1024 characters in Bing. We are looking to increase this to several thousand (only in next iteration of adCenter)

Does that mean the Yahoo Campaign History will not be migrated over?
Correct, history will not be migrated over from Yahoo.

Will adCenter support a product feed for retail clients?
Marin Software has this functionality to manage product feeds. AdCenter does not currently have this functionality

When are you going to start the transition phases in markets outside US/Canada?
Timelines publicly announced: all markets will be transitioned over a period of 18 months
The first quarter of 2012 is when we expect everything to be migrated
Do not have specific markets locked down to timeframes yet – planning as early as next year to begin rollout plan for international markets

Category: General
Tags: Search Alliance

Reflecting on SMX Advanced

Posted on | June 17, 2010 | No Comments

I attended SMX Advanced 2010 in Seattle last week, it was my first time at the conference and I wanted to put my cards on the table, highlighting what I liked about the conference and what I thought could be improved.

What I Liked

Birds of a Feather Topic Lunch Tables – The opportunities to network and meet fascinating people in the industry were vast and well organised. In particular, I liked the Birds of a Feather Topic Lunch Tables that were topic based lunch tables for which you had to sign up, that were held in a separate dining area. You had to be quick on the uptake to register for these tables but topics ranged from influencing the C-suite on PPC advertising to meeting a Bing engineer, to name just two. On a side note, C-suite is not a programming language it’s used in the business world to describe the top honchos at the executive level.

Diversified Sessions – There were a wide number of topics from which to choose within each subject matter, with the usual suspects such as ‘Quality Score Optimization for the Pros’ but also some more focused sessions such as Microsoft’s adCenter Desktop Lab and Efficient Frontier’s Demystifying Search Data. Certainly the list was extensive and beyond learnings from the sessions themselves, the questions posed by the audience were often interesting and challenging.

More Presenting, Less Selling – It was refreshing to see most presenters shying away from selling their own product or tool, with only a few sales pitches being thrown out to the audience. Perhaps selling has become more subliminal or presenters have realised, by being told countless times, that attendees are not interested in who you are or what you do unless that information in some way benefits their business in the 1.25 hours they have dedicated to listening to you. If not, there’s always two more concurrent sessions to attend…

The Food – It must be stated that the diversity, quality of and frequency at which refreshments were provided was impressive. With some type of refreshment pitstop after each session it is a marvel we did not roll over and sleep after the delicious lunches.

What I Disliked

Temperamental WiFi Access – It must be said that the Internet connection fell out more frequently than would be desired at a search engine marketing conference. One would expect that the Internet connection would be able to accommodate 1,500 tweeting, blogging, sharing, search engine marketing junkies. Power outlets were also sparse which made things difficult for people like myself with a battery deficient laptop, which bodes the question, either more power outlets should be added or I should investigate upgrading to the iPad? Tough decision…

Encyclopaedic Sessions – Most sessions were of high enough quality to warrant being featured at SMX Advanced but there were some that had an encyclopaedic nature to them in that they skimmed over the topic at surface level rather than diving deep, sharing lessons learnt, case studies or experiment results. Don’t give me the basics of attribution, I know what it is, tell me what your business is doing to tackle the problem, share ideas, brainstorm.

Would Have Liked

Certainly, we cannot all get what we want all the time, but I would have liked to see some REAL answers provided by Bing/Yahoo about the paid search transition planned for the end of Q3 this year. It would have been great to see either search engine equipped with both some answers and a willingness to share. It was the right platform to do it – with some of North America’s leading search marketers in the room, this would have assisted in streamlining the process somewhat, disseminating information effectively and perhaps alleviating the stress search marketers are feeling.

The issue of privacy, though recently a hot topic in the media, particularly with Facebook not playing nice with its privacy settings was not really touched upon. Granted, session topics are proposed months in advance but Europe appears to be more concerned with this issue. Given the number of lawsuits underway relating to privacy, perhaps this is being discussed at conferences held there?

This last point is a prickly one but it would have been fantastic to see an industry leader touch on the point of industry maturity and evolution. The search industry continues to change at an unprecedented rate but maybe it’s time to pick up on that topic of standards, accreditation and training. It would be interesting to see how the industry is divided on the issue today.

Originally posted on AskEnquiro

Category: General
Tags: Conferences

Reap What You Sow: SMX Advanced

Posted on | June 7, 2010 | No Comments

I think I should say it now, so that no one is surprised later when they do not see me live blogging or Twittering about SMX Advanced… my laptop is more like a desktop, making it cumbersome to carry and use at a search marketing conference. And no, I do not currently own an Apple iPhone (even if I did, Canadian telecommunications providers do not exactly make it viable to own an iPhone given the exuberant costs involved).

Any thoughts I share will be in hindsight rather than in real time, offering the opportunity to ponder and reflect prior to writing about the experiences. I would like to indicate that I am not a conference aficionado and this is in fact my first conference in the US, so anything you read about SMX Advanced will be through the eyes of someone who has been in the industry for a few years, but a newbie to the conferencing world of North America.

Observation 1: Network Your Butt Off
It must be noted that this is the first evening of the conference, registration night, even before any sessions have been held. A ‘meet & greet’ type event was held on this first evening. I have ascertained on night one of this experience that networking is one of the key elements to a successful conference. Though this may sound arbitrarily obvious, it is quite blatantly critical – you will not learn more honestly and candidly from a search marketer than when they are relaxed and comfortable. Sessions are one thing, face to face, one-on-one is a different ball game.

If you are afraid to introduce yourself in a room full of strangers, a conference is not a place to succumb to those fears. You may find yourself alone at one end of the room, holding your “free” drink, anxiously peering at the crowd, hoping someone comes to speak to you, when you should in fact be deciding whom you wish to converse with and making the first move.

Learning from the conferencing experience comes from speaking to people from which you can learn and listening to what they have to say. Sometimes this information comes in between the lines, during a conversation rather than through an orchestrated presentation.

Clay, Hoffman and Weintraub are three names with whom I became personally acquainted tonight. Don’t sound familiar, how about Bruce Clay, Outspoken Media and aimClear.

Category: General
Tags: Conferences

Getting Excited about SMX Advanced Seattle 2010

Posted on | June 2, 2010 | No Comments

SMX Advanced 2010 According to some SMX Advanced conference regulars, this is the conference to attend in North America. They say, if there’s one to check out, it’s this one. The appeal lies in a smaller venue that limits numbers and allows for more intimate networking to higher level topics that excite industry professionals rather than putting them to sleep in 101 type sessions. This conference has a reputation for impressing and creating a buzz, we’ll find out in a week whether it will deliver.

I look forward to hearing what Microsoft has to say about its search alliance with Yahoo in the keynote on Day 2, by Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business.

On the flip side, I do ponder whether there is anything truly unique that can be shared about Quality Score. What is Quality Score Optimization For Pros? How many times can we hypothesize about Quality Score before reaching diminishing returns on the time invested in the exercise?

There are a number of exciting sessions that I look forward to attending, but almost more exciting than the sessions themselves, are the people who will be attending. There promises to be an impressive and sophisticated array of search marketing professionals, congregating under one roof from all over the world, multiple industries, agencies and in-house specialists alike. I look forward to meeting you there. Catch you in Seattle!

Category: General
Tags: Conferences

Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance: Preparing for the PPC Transition

Posted on | May 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

In the last few weeks as more information has started to trickle its way from Yahoo! and Microsoft about the search alliance, I have started to share some information on this blog to facilitate this knowledge transfer. Ultimately every single advertiser who is managing a PPC account on both Yahoo! and Microsoft should be aware of the impending changes in order to best prepare for them.

I should also correct myself as in a previous post I called the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance a ‘merger’ when in fact, the new relationship between these two companies cannot technically be called such.

Why It’s Not a Merger

Yahoo and Microsoft will still exist as separate entities and the companies will be working together on some things, while competing on others.

The collaborative efforts will have the following impact:

All advertisers will use Microsoft adCenter to centrally manage their PPC account. Your ads will appear on both properties, the Yahoo and Bing search engines, but this will be managed via Microsoft adCenter.
Microsoft will provide the search algorithm for the organic and paid search results for both companies
The Microsoft team will support standard advertisers, ultimately those smaller advertisers with lesser budgets
Yahoo! will support the premium advertisers, agencies and resellers

Both companies will still compete:

Each company will maintain its own display advertising program
Web properties and products, email and instant messaging will not be affected by the Search Alliance
Both companies will own and innovate their own consumer search experience to compete for searchers and search queries
Both companies will service their respective affiliate search partners and Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships

Transition Planning

We know that the transition will be happening, now it a question of when. According to Yahoo! the plan is to transition US accounts before the 2010 holiday season, which translates to roughly November 2010. Should the transition not succeed in this timeframe, it will be left for the start of 2011 to protect the holiday season. We know that the transition period will be initiated in late summer, so you should ensure that all your ducks are in a row by early August to prepare for this.

One can assume that the advertisers spending more money will get priority service and may thus be privy to more options and information. However, even without knowing exact dates, it is important to think about and develop your transition strategy. There are a few options to consider:

- Keep your existing AdCenter account and optimise: you may have an existing account that has a suitable structure, a good click history and simply requires some focused attention as you build the account to handle significantly higher volume and budget.

You should begin optimising this account NOW – start adding ad groups and keyword baskets from your existing Yahoo account. Focused attention now, will result in a higher quality score that will be beneficial in a more competitive and expensive market. (Click costs will go up on AdCenter – this is inevitable, we just don’t know by what percentage, so prepare for this).

- Create new AdCenter account and import from Yahoo / 3^rd party: You may wish to cut your losses, scrap that old AdCenter account and start fresh by setting up a new account and importing either your Google structure or Yahoo structure to the new account. This will ensure that your strategy is more streamlined because you will be working with similar structures – this might not be optimal from a demographic perspective because we’ve learnt that searchers act differently on the various search engines. However, we are all entering the unknown with this search alliance so copying a more optimised and better built out structure in Yahoo to AdCenter, might be a good alternative.

At this stage, there is still a lot that we do not know, but what is important is for advertisers to begin thinking about this PPC transition and planning accordingly. Advertisers should also follow updates closely so as to stay on top of this story as it develops. One handy way of doing this is to set up Google Alerts for relevant search terms so that the pertinent information is delivered at your doorstep so to speak.

Category: PPC
Tags: Search Alliance

SEMPO Needs to Get Sexy

Posted on | May 13, 2010 | 11 Comments

When I started in the search engine marketing game I put SEMPO on a pedestal because some of the industry’s greats were behind the organisation, from Kevin Lee to Bruce Clay and Gord Hotchkiss, to name a few. To young search marketers these are the rock stars of the industry, they were there in the trenches when it all started with Alta Vista and Geocities websites and they have continued to lead us into the next era of online marketing.

In discovering SEMPO and seeing that these were the people that pioneered the organisation, I thought, this is where you need to be to dive into the industry, meet other search marketers and grow professionally. So, that’s what I did – I started to explore the companies that were members of the organisation, I read the blogs and articles featured on the SEMPO website and I decided to invest in one of the courses, Advanced Search Advertising (now appears to be discontinued).

SEMPO: Taken Off My Pedestal

I found that even though many large players in the industry associate themselves with the organisation and are even circle members, the SEMPO fan base appears to be shrinking rather than growing. I’ve met more than one company who has decided to drop membership level because they do not feel the value justifies the membership cost. I realised that even though there is a niche group of people who are intimately familiar with SEMPO, there is an greater number of search marketers who have never heard of SEMPO and others who do not understand its value.

In exploring the resources on the SEMPO website, they seemed to be lacking and out of date, with the most recent media center articles frozen in 2005. I was dismayed at the results and so found myself using SEMPO as a resource less frequently.

In the midst of all this, I was undertaking a SEMPO course that dubbed itself ‘advanced’ so I had high hopes for the skills that I could develop. The basics were covered well but the examples and industry references were out of date, referencing as far back as 2004 with no follow up references. I began to wonder how frequently these courses are updated. Working in an industry that thrives on change, SEMPO courses could certainly do with an infusion of some heavily overdue changes.

Where to From Here?

On Twitter, sempoglobal has 573 followers and is itself following 25 people. Need I say more?

How hard is SEMPO trying to engage with search marketers or make itself known?

SEMPO needs to decide what it wants to be and for whom? If it wants to serve search marketers, the approach needs to be more sophisticated and valuable – remember, these are people who pore through blogs, webinars, conferences, books, networking, you name it. Where does SEMPO fit into this educational picture? Its courses need to be cutting edge for it to even make sense for agencies and companies to invest in the material.

What is SEMPO really? Where’s the direction? The passion? Search marketing is not an industry of half measures; people love what they do. If search marketers could see where SEMPO wants to go, they would certainly be more willing to help it get there. We need to kickstart SEMPO’s engine, because in this industry, if you stand still, you start moving backwards and then it’s game over.

Category: Industry Standards
Tags: SEMPO

Getting the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance

Posted on | May 6, 2010 | 3 Comments

Recently, I wrote about one of the main impacts of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance being the transition of Yahoo! Search to the Microsoft adCenter platform. For search marketers this is a fairly significant consequence of the Search Alliance, but for the searcher, the changes will not be as drastic.

So is anything going to change for the searcher? If yes, what? More importantly, when?

Ins & Outs

The short answer is, not really. The searcher is still going to benefit from Yahoo! and Bing, with their individual offerings. Yahoo is not going to suddenly become obsolete and transition completely into Bing.

Quote from the Search Alliance website:

When the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, both companies will continue to have differentiated consumer search experiences. However, Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results.

What this means is that Yahoo will still look like Yahoo, but the search results will be ‘powered’ and thus syndicated by Bing, much in the same way that Google syndicates its search results to AOL.

Yahoo will try to give its search results a bit of a twist ‘by innovating around the listings it receives from Microsoft by integrating Yahoo! content, shortcuts and tools.’

The really simple answer for consumers is that unless they plan on buying shares in either of these companies, the intricacies of the search alliance will not be that obvious to them. The implications of Microsoft receiving a 10-year licence to certain Yahoo! search technologies thus making Bing and Google the principle ‘big II’ search engines will be interesting to say the least.

On the flip side, the search advertiser who is putting their dollars into Yahoo has a little bit more to worry about. The ramifications are slowly starting to become clear – more on that soon!

Category: PPC
Tags: Search Alliance

Yahoo & Bing Merger – The Pain Awaits

Posted on | April 28, 2010 | 9 Comments

The Pain Awaits

In mid-2009, the Yahoo-Bing merger became final and a wave of speculation hit the market about what it meant for the search industry, searcher experience, market competition, SEO & PPC implications etc.

We are now in Q2 of 2010 and the hype has died down, people got used to the merger and the key focus seems to be on Bing market share relative to Google. The irony is that slashing two engines into one was deemed the best strategy to give Google a run for its market share. Currently, market share figures for the US look as follows:

According to results published by Experian® Hitwise® on March 10, 2010 Bing’s share of search increased for a 3^rd straight month, with share of search sitting at 9.7% compared to Google’s 70.95%.

Looking at market share data is fairly rudimentary and no less painful than when there were three major search engines in the ring. What many of us may have forgotten or chosen to block out is the fact that there are far more tangible implications of this merger awaiting us. Bing and Yahoo have 24-months to make the merger complete.

According to the Yahoo website, the split of services will be as follows:

Microsoft will be the provider of web, video and image results to Yahoo!, and the basic list of results provided will be the same as those displayed on Microsoft’s Bing engine. Microsoft will provide the search advertising platform (adCenter) that will be used by both companies, and will manage the search advertising marketplace.

Ultimately this means that Bing has 2 years to roll Yahoo’s Search Marketing program into its own, making Yahoo’s Paid Search obsolete.

Whoa, No More Yahoo Search?

A reality that all advertisers will have to face is that Yahoo Search will merge into Microsoft adCenter. What this means for both advertisers and agencies is that more focus should be placed on Bing to begin understanding the interface better, increase budgets and develop a more advanced Microsoft adCenter strategy.

Currently, the reality for many advertisers is that Microsoft adCenter gets the left over budget, while Google and Yahoo receive the bulk – this will need to change when Bing becomes the 2^nd major paid search marketing platform after Google.

Expecting More from Bing

There are a number of reasons that advertisers and agencies alike may feel a sense of trepidation about the implications of this merger and Bing certainly should consider doing something about it in the near future. Otherwise Google AdWords may simply take the lion’s share of Yahoo Search’s previous budget allocation.

Search Volume: Getting volume out of Bing is sometimes like pulling teeth.

Poorer User Interface: The user interface is not intuitive, nor is it user friendly. In fact, between the big three, it is quite possibly the worst user experience.

adCenter Desktop Tool: The tool does exist but a number of technical issues plague it thus often rendering it useless. This is incredibly frustrating as it becomes virtually impossible to work on large accounts without the possibility of doing bulk uploads. A Microsoft tool riddled with bugs… what a surprise!

Customer Service: Getting anything organized with Bing requires the utmost patience because turnaround times are incredibly long. If it is billing associated, don’t hold your breath.

Category: PPC
Tags: Search Alliance

Ad Sitelinks – Better for You or Google?

Posted on | April 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

In late 2009, AdWords launched a new feature designed to ‘increase choice and relevancy in search ads’ by allowing you to provide additional links to deep content on your website.

If you are not yet familiar with sitelinks or you have seen it and wondered how to set up something similar in your AdWords campaign, the reason may lie in the fact that sitelinks is only available ‘for advertisers whose ads meet a certain high quality threshold.’ That is Google talk, in layman’s terms, if you are not spending enough money on your AdWords account, you shall not get access to sitelinks quite yet.

Here is an example of sitelinks in action, for the search phrase ‘hilton hotels’:

You can see the ad sitelinks in the top circled ad which happens to be the official Hilton website. Looking at the SERP result, the Hilton brand covers the most important page real estate with the paid search SERPs as well as the organic SERPs. Given the authority of the Hilton website, there are also organic sitelinks visible in the SERPs, which then bodes the question:

If the search is for a branded phrase, which indicates intent and knowledge of the Hilton brand and the organic SERPs are already strong, is it really necessary to spend more money on PPC sitelinks?

Warning: Proceed with Caution

Sitelinks may do wonders in increasing click-through rate (CTR) on branded and non-branded terms but is it capturing the right type of searcher?

Ad sitelinks will not be a panacea for all advertisers, so if you do implement this feature monitor and test carefully. You cannot simply switch on the ‘on’ button and leave it at that – if you do, you may see expenses increases without a direct correlation in sales increase.

Think about the following 3 factors when implementing site links:

Organic links vs. paid links – the reality is that these new paid search ad sitelinks so closely mimic organic results that searchers may not themselves recognise the difference. This may result in repeat visitors who are perhaps already customers or not in the market to buy, clicking on your paid sitelinks.

Beware of Tire kickers – suddenly you are giving searchers more options to click on your website. Even though this may have an initially positive impact in increasing your CTR, pay careful attention to your cost-per-acquisition. If this number starts to increase, you may have a problem on your hands.

How optimised are your pages – traditionally you have one landing page link in your paid search ad, now you can have up to four. Before you go crazy adding sitelinks to your paid search program, consider very carefully the pages to which you will be driving the searcher. Will they capture the attention of the searcher, do they have a clear path and some type of call-to-action or will these pages ultimately lead to a wasted click?

Category: PPC
Tags: Google

keep looking »