Google Adwords

How does Google make money? 2011 Revenue Infographic

January 24, 2012 By DG Leave a Comment

We know that digital marketing has turned traditional marketing models upside down however has the global economic backdrop affected the trends? Who has been spending online marketing budget and on what?

To understand how Google makes money we need to look at the high level revenue trends and the team at Wordstream Inc have just released an infographic that tells a very interesting story.

With 96% of Google’s $37.9 billion revenues coming from advertising the big online spenders are revealed as are some of the very highly valued key words and phrases by industry sector.

Google Secures User Data: Mixed Messages, Mixed Feelings

October 31, 2011 By David Fothergill 2 Comments

Google recently announced changes which will see them redirect all logged in users to https://www.google.com. The reason given for this change given by Google is that it will make search data more secure for it’s users, ensuring private data remains that way.

From a web analytics point of view the main impact is that no keyword referral data will be passed for organic searches in the above circumstances. Although Google played down the impact, stating that this would affect less than 10% of data, there was much uproar from the whole SEM community (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many comments on an GA blog post or reaction blog posts), with much of the ire being directed towards what has been dubbed a highly hypocritical move: not applying the same user protection to keyword data for users clicking on AdWords ads. If user data protection is priority number one, then Google should have the courage to stick to it’s principles, especially when money is involved.

The reason for doing this is obvious – a great selling point of advertising through AdWords is the ability to accurately measure ROI and optimize performance at keyword level. To take this away would surely lead to a huge drop in revenue from the cornerstone of Google’s financial strength.

This lack of consistency is at the root of the frustration for the SEO community: by not committing fully to the cause which they give as the reason for the change, it clearly shows that Google is merely paying lip service to need to to show they are serious privacy issues. The move has all the hallmarks of a compromise; finding a middle ground to keep everyone within the Google team happy.

I specifically choose to say ‘reason’ rather than ‘defence’ in previous paragraph – in the big picture this is a positive move as you cannot deny that any move towards increasing the security of data around the web is hugely important. For anyone outside the SEM industry, it would be hard to find any negatives to this change. Ill feeling at this point from a minority voice is surely collateral damage that was expected and accepted before the changes was publicly announced.

With my web analytics hat back in place, I have to draw the conclusion that this change merely pays lip service to the idea that they are prioritizing the protection of user data.

This is a real shame, but I get the impression that no amount of outcry will change the stance Google has taken.

Change happens all the time and at the end of the day the best thing to do is to accept it, adapt and continue to do the best job possible with what data we do have. As Stephen Hawking wisely said “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”.

Filed Under: analytics, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, SEM, Web Analytics

July News Round up for Google

August 1, 2011 By Angela Wilkinson 2 Comments

July’s been a busy month for Google so we’ve rounded up some of the main stories that caught our eye:

The Bank of Google
Google reported impressive Q2 2011 results with revenues up 32% from Q2 2010, search and ads products is the core driver for the company’s revenue (over 96% of their revenue comes from advertising). Reuters reported that Google is starting to test a Google adwords credit card with select US customers. The card which is reported to have no annual fee and a competitive interest rate will allow small and medium-sized businesses to buy search advertising on Google.

Watch your CPC
Boost, (a simplified version of adwords) has also been renamed as Adwords Express, Barry Schwartz has spotted a help thread suggesting that the new advertisers gained by this name change campaign may have a negative effect on your CPC.

Google Places reducing reviews count
Matt McGee reported on Google’s updated place pages. Sites with local business reviews e.g. TripAdvisor had complained that Google had taken their content (reviews) and used it on Google’s own places pages. Google has now removed these reviews resulting in some businesses seeing a decline in their review numbers.

This move doesn’t seem to resolve the overall complaint as Google still appears to place their places pages above those of competitors in search engine results. Although the change makes it harder for researchers checking out citation sources, this article from Rand Fishkin describes the alternate ways for SEO-ers to research local citations.

Google Offers extended
Groupon may not be worrying too much yet but Offers are now available in New York City, Oakland and San Francisco with additional cities about to be added: Austin, Boston, Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

The need for speed
Earlier this summer Google added site speed reporting to Google Analytics. Continuing this focus on speed, a limited number of Webmasters are now being offered Google’s new Page Speed Service for free and it looks as if price deals will be available for a bigger audience after this initial “pilot”. The webmasters will have to sign up and point their site’s DNS entry to Google and the service will fetch the content from servers and then serve it onto viewers. Thom Craver suggests that Google is wanting to become your web content hosting provider, what do you think?

…okay so that’s some of the other stories, now on with those relating to Google Plus!

+1 Button Changes, Google+ Help Center
Want to keep up to date with the latest changes to the +1 button? Enroll in the Google+ Platform Preview and you will be able to test updates before they get launched, the first set of changes feature hover and confirmation bubbles. Also updated is the load speed as Google has began to deploy changes that will make the wee sociable button render up to three times faster. Even better is that webmasters need take no action to gain this update, if you want it faster head over to Google to get the asynchronous code version.

Wanting more help? Frank Reed has spotted that if you click on the gear icon when you are in Google + you’ll see a new Help Center and Mashable reports that in response to user feedback Google has set up a section specifically for Google + feature updates.

Circles benefit SERPs, automated circles and bought +1′s
When you’re logged into Google, content from people you’ve circled ranks higher, Danny Sullivan shows this with his connection to Ford. With +1 annotations being shown in search to signed out users as well, it was only a matter of time before +1 clicks were up for sale and Frank Watson describes the pitch from the website offering this “service”. Meanwhile Sarah Perez reported on a bot which adds people to circles and Google’s response to such automation which could be put to good use by spammers.

Real Names and Brand Names
The reaction to Google+ insisting on real names thunders on and even the UK BBC website ran a feature on the issue raising some valid points for the discussion; including those individuals living in countries where expressing political opinions could have implications on their personal safety. Matthew Ingram looks at both Google and Facebook in his article on the question of identity v. anonymity.

Google+ appears to be allowing some brands to retain their online profile, Ford has been spotted as having a “Test Account” banner. Have you spotted any others? Google+ has said that brands will be allowed on later this year, but Facebook appears to be taking advantage of this by promoting https://www.facebook.com/business it isn’t a new service, but a gathering of existing guides and support materials for businesses wanting to get online with Facebook.

Google+ one month in
With the first month under its wing, Google+ has grown impressively to over 10 million users by the 15th July and was reported as exceeding 20 million towards the end of this month. We’ve included reviews from Mashable’s Ben Par and Search Engine Land Contributor Greg Finn on this month’s activity. Although there has been bugs and controversy including the privacy settings, anonymity vs real names & brands being blocked, we think the new social network’s performance over this month should be recognised as impressive, but this isn’t a short distance race so we won’t be closing our Facebook or Twitter accounts!

Filed Under: Google, Google Adwords, Google Maps, Google News, google social search, Google+

New Google Adwords Reports In Google Analytics – Now Live!

June 8, 2010 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Last month Google announced an enhanced integration of Google Adwords reports inside of Google Analytics. This included access to 3 new reports and the ability to segment by 10 new dimensions. The new reports include: Day Parts Report, Destination URLs Report, and Placements Report.

The video below provides a 3-minute tutorial on how to use the day parts, placements, and other AdWords reports in Google Analytics.

Filed Under: Google Adwords, Google Analytics

5 Best Practices for Google's Content Network

March 30, 2010 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Advertising in Google’s content network effectively is not an easy task to accomplish, so the Google Adwords blog has created a great set of best practices to help you get started on the right foot. Some of the best practices are detailed below, but check out the Adwords blog for the complete insight.

Setup the same starting CPC bid as your Search campaigns: We recommend starting with the same maximum CPC bid as your Search campaign ad groups. Once AdWords has collected enough data, our smart pricing technology will automatically optimize your bids on the Content Network to give you more profitable clicks.
Set up AdWords Conversion Tracking on your website: Install Conversion Tracking on your website to measure the sales and leads (conversions) you get from each ad group and placement.
Exclude poor-performing sites: Get more qualified traffic and boost conversions by excluding sites that perform poorly for your campaign, based on the number of clicks, the average CPC and the number of conversions.
Focus your keywords and exclude less relevant keywords: Add more keywords that describe your product and ad group theme in greater detail. Also, add negative keywords to refine your targeting and prevent impressions on irrelevant sites.
Expand your keyword list to get more traffic: Once you have finalized your ad group themes, use the AdWords Keyword Tool to get keyword ideas. Enter ad group theme descriptions or keywords under the ‘Descriptive words or phrases’ tab. Select the 5 to 10 most frequently searched keywords and save them to your ad group This will help to ensure that your list stays highly relevant to your ad group theme.

Filed Under: Google Adwords

Why the Adwords Top Spot Should be Your Bottom Priority

July 1, 2009 By Sidra Condron Leave a Comment

In pricing PPC keywords, competing for the top spot could be your biggest mistake. Capturing the #1 position is not always realistic, and it is a likely waste of your money. The waves of information we see for search marketing has clued us in to smart concepts that pay off when put into practice. We’ll show you exactly how to stretch your ad dollars without sacrificing exposure to your domain.

Often, search marketers spend hours carefully pouring over data in a concentrated effort to hit that trophy—the top ad position. There is value to that position, but that value usually means more to a deep-pocketed advertiser, fighting to close the gap against an aggressive competitor.

For most advertisers, shooting low is smart. Position 6 or 7 is the better answer. Not only does a lower bid still bring in respectable traffic, but it stretches your budget once clicks start adding up.

Devote your attention instead to building your click through rate (CTR) with relevant ads for the keyword. This carries more weight with Google and allows your ad to show up at a higher position than what your bid alone would have delivered.

By analyzing SpyFu data, we found that advertisers getting clicks in these middle positions are usually paying between 35-45% of the top domain’s bid. (You will want to determine the difference in your specific niche between the two, but 35% can be our working model.)

When you reset your bid prices to reflect this play on the top money-guzzlers, you have a more competitive strategy that keeps you in line with a mid to low range position.

Follow through to the end of the post to see how to get a better idea for the range of keywords that you use.*

Experienced Adwords managers are starting to cringe at where this is leading. The idea of calculating new pricing for dozens or even hundreds of terms might start to sound like a task that isn’t worth the pain.That could be, but there is an easy solution.

SpyFu has constructed a new interactive keyword viewer to manage strategies just like this. With a built-in export function created specifically for Adwords users, it takes the pain out of practices that savvy search marketers rely on most.

You can enter your pricing pattern as a multiplier of the max bid price.In one move, your entire ad group is individually priced and ready to start getting you results. For our example, your multiplier is “.35″ for 35% of the max bid price. Don’t worry about one size fits all.S hould you spot few keywords where you’d like to rank higher, you can make individual updates. The built-in multiplier just helps you buy time when you are setting up your group.

As you start to get clicks and results, you can always measure your CTR to determine if you need to adjust your bids up to take advantage of more competitive keywords and ads. Starting low and raising your bid is a better position to be in than wringing your hands over lost dollars you’re trying to salvage.

Try it for yourself:

Enter your own domain into SpyFu to pull up your paid keyword list, or choose about 5-8 PPC keywords that represent the niche where you plan to advertise.

Choose a term where you ranked about 5, 6, or 7^th. In our example, candyfavorites.com ranked 5th for saltwater taffy.

Select the keyword to retrieve its stats, and find the cost per click in the top left corner.

Divide the top end of the range by the low end of the range. Here, the CPC ranges from .28 to .60. The low end is about 47% of the high end. Continue this pattern on selected terms until you come up with an average percentage of low range bid trends you would like to use.

Filed Under: Google Adwords, SEM, SpyFu

Google Adwords Segmentation Video

June 17, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

The latest Google Analytics in 60 Seconds video shows how to create a segment that includes only AdWords traffic and then how to refine that segment to include only a specific set of keywords. Google’s team illustrate how to isolate brand related keywords in the video, but with a little experimentation, you can create the AdWords segments that are most relevant to your business.