In the land of Pay Per Click advertising, competitor bidding remains a controversial topic. Questions regarding ethical business practices come into play as well as the effectiveness of such keyword strategies.

It has been my own experience that apart from being a costly exercise, it most often yields poor results, certainly not worth the herculean effort put into it nor the barrage of angry competitors threatening to sue you , no matter how feeble their claims are. The simple fact is that bidding on competitor brands terms is completely legal and allowed on major search engines, provided you don’t mention your competitor’s brand in your own ad.

However competition is all about options and by not bidding on competitor’s brands some may think that you are taking away the consumer’s right to choose. By positioning your ad next to your competitor you are proving that you are offering the public alternative choices.

Competitor brand bidding would work to the advantage of the start up businesses who place their ads alongside their well established counterparts, thus gaining exposure while riding on the coattails of the bigger brand. However you should note that if you are planning on bidding on competitor terms that your own brand’s website is up to standard and that you offer competitive products otherwise you could do more harm than good to your brand reputation.

Bidding on competitor keywords is a practice to follow with caution, and needs to be evaluated depending on the type of product or service you offer.

Happy Marketing!

Take a look at these three exact and phrase match keywords in Adwords:

[car insurance]          “car insurance quote”          [car insurance quotes]

At the moment only these search queries will show ads for the terms stated above.

Car insurance                        need car insurance quote                car insurance quotes

The changes will allow close variants of the search terms to appear as well like the following:

Car inseurnce                        need car insurance quotes              car insurance quote

From mid May phrase and exact match keywords will match close variants, misspellings, singular and plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations.

Based on Google’s research and testing they believe these new features will greatly benefit users and advertisers.

At least 7% of search queries online contain misspellings and the longer the query the higher the rate.

Even with perfect spelling variations occur between users that are searching for exactly the same product such as “climb Kilimanjaro” and “climbing Kilimanjaro” or “mens hiking shoes” and “men’s hiking shoes”.

Google’s organic search systems detect and compensate for misspellings and close variants.

Google has been testing these new changes with advertisers and the participants have seen positive results.

I believe this will help all advertisers as we spend a lot of time making sure that misspelling of keywords and other close variants are included in our keyword lists.  You will still have an option in advanced settings to use the original setting or make use of the new matching behavior.

Try it out and tell us what your findings are.

Google has added an array of innovations to their advertising platform.  Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) is one of them. Dynamic Search Ads are created for you based on content found in your landing pages. These ads offer an opportunity to reach potential customers using Ads which are always fresh.

Dynamic Search Ads target relevant searches, serving Ads generated directly from your website dynamically.  Google is constantly indexing pages on your site, they have now found a new way to use the freshness of content to reach users. When a search occurs, an Ad is generated with a Headline based on the Search Term & Ad Text based on your most recent/relevant landing page. The Ad competes in the ad auction as normal & is displayed if a winner, searches where the campaign has an eligible targeted Ad the dynamically generated ad will not be entered into the auction.

In this way, Dynamic Search Ads offer increased exposure for your product, clicks & conversions are increased on your Ads without much effort & Ad serving remains relevant as ever without interference to your existing keyword campaigns.

16% of searches which appear on a daily basis Google have never seen before, so though your keyword lists might be quite lengthy & well maintained, user behaviour can be a moving target. Dynamic Search Ads now offer a way of capturing these previously un-targeted users.

Dynamic Search Ads like normal ads offer maximum control of ad serving. Negative’s, location settings, network settings, bids & budgets can still be used to control spending, where & to whom your Ads are shown.

Most advertisers saw 5-10% more clicks & conversions in the testing phase of this innovation, so it should show results for your own.

http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/dynamicsearchads.html

Any PPC manager worth his salt will agree that Google Adwords sitelinks are a powerful optimization tool. So how exactly does this seemingly minor change impact so greatly on ad performance?

The enhanced ad offers the user more choices, for instance if you are advertising a small business such as the local supermarket, your ad could offer the user alternatives such as vegetables, fruits, canned good etc, making it more targeted and more relevant for the user.

Adding sitelinks to your ads has proven time and time again to lower CTR and thus improve quality score.

An Ad with sitelinks also takes up more of the Google real estate, making it more visible than your competitors’ ads, thus enticing users to click on your ad instead.

Here is an example of what an ad with sitelinks looks like on the Google SERP’s

Previously adding sitelinks meant that users would see a set of four links beneath the main ad, but recently Google unveiled their enhanced sitelinks, that has certainly gotten PPC advertisers excited.

Now instead of merely displaying links beneath your ad, you can now feature all your alternate ads, provided that they are located within the account and are closely related. Another criterion is that the ad is ranked number one on the Google SERP’s.

The enhanced Google sitelinks will look like this:

You can be certain that an ad like this will definitely grab the attention of the user and also allow PPC managers an opportunity to optimize their accounts further.

Google has announced that in testing they found that people reported that the ads containing the enhanced sitelinks performed better than those with the traditional sitelinks.

So if you aren’t already using Google sitelinks, you should get started.

Happy Marketing!

Christmas is just around the corner, and that means that the Shopping frenzy is well underway. It is this time of year that holds the most promise for all online stores, provided they are quick enough to sharpen their online campaigns to grab the attention of those eager buyers out there. So here are the few tips that can help strengthen your PPC techniques to get those high ROIs this Christmas.

The festive period means shops are selling Christmas trees, stockings, advent calendars and singing Christmas collectibles; all of which signals that the countdown to Christmas has begun.

So what should you be doing now in preparation for a lucrative Christmas?

Here are a few things you can do during this festive season:

The first step is to look at your account’s history:

Analyse your accounts past metrics such as cost per click, impressions and conversion rate in order to plan your strategy effectively. One metric that is pretty useful is the average position of the text ads and the related performance, so you will know more or less how to position your “special ads” to achieve the best results.

Choose relevant keywords and match types:

Ensure that you add festive keywords to your keyword list such as “Christmas gifts, Christmas hampers, Wine for Christmas” etc. Be sure to also include variations and misspellings as well, in this case it would be prudent to include search terms such as “Xmas gifts, Holiday activities, Xmas table decor” etc. You could even further improve relevancy, if for example you sold Christmas trees online, you could include keywords that include a clear call to action, such as “Buy Christmas Trees”. This type of keyword is great for your ROI. Another key point is to be aware of match types, if you are operating on a large advertising spend, a campaign incorporating all match types would be feasible, however if you have a smaller budget, you can try limiting the campaigns to exact and phrase match keywords.

Inject some glitter to your ad text:

This is the time of year where the competition is quite stiff, so in order to grab the user’s attention, you need to have ad text that really jumps off the page. Include call to actions, free offers and special discount prices in the ad text and more importantly include the “Christmas” terms as well.

Landing pages and website:

It’s important to keep the Christmas feel and theme on your landing pages and website, Christmas is a significant time for many people and these little touches can make a big difference in persuading users who have clicked through to convert by making a purchase.

Happy Marketing This Christmas Season!