Exclusive Concepts Blog » PPC Tuesday http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog The Source, featuring Daily Videos on SEO, PPC, Conversion and E-Mail Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:36:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 PPC Tuesday – Transfer Yahoo! Accounts to adCenter http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-transfer-yahoo-accounts-to-adcenter.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-transfer-yahoo-accounts-to-adcenter.html#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:36:09 +0000 Chris http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2400
While Yahoo ads are not being run through adCenter yet, there is now the opportunity to begin this process and get everything in order through your Yahoo account.

This will leave you in a strong position for when the switch is flipped. So far, all reports point to mid-October of being the go live date.

So lets jump right into it.

Now when you log into Yahoo, there is a new tab that is the default screen.

This screen will help you move your entire build to MSN, or setup the Account shell.

There are also additional resources including guides and help centers.

If you already have an adCenter account and don’t want it to be linked to this Yahoo account, you will want to choose the Download Campaign option on the right, then log in to adCenter and upload your campaigns through their UI.

For the purpose of this video we are going to go through the process of transitioning the entire account.

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Once you click the button to transition, you will be asked to link to an existing account or to create a new adCenter Account.

If you need to create a new account,then fill out all of the information, and follow the steps until you login to your adcenter account and then presented with the following screen. This is to confirm that the correct accounts are being linked, and it also allows use to opt in to Canada as well as set the date.

You will then be asked to confirm the previous screen settings. On this page there is an important link in the middle of the page.It points to a 24 page pdf outlining the compatibility between the two systems.It can be found at this link on the screen. This will be an important reference as you move forward and I would suggest you download it to diagnosis any issues that may arise after the new ads are running.

Once you confirm the accounts are linked Yahoo & MSN will take care of the rest. They state that it will take a few days, depending on the size of your account. Once the transition is complete, an email will be generated to notify you.

You can return to your MSN tab when you are logged into your Yahoo! account and review the progress along the status bar across the bottom of the page.

Once ads are running in adCenter and the transition is complete, you will be targeting both engines. So far there is no way to control targeting between the different networks.

I hope this video has been helpful!

To Learn More about Exclusive Concepts Profitable PPC product, or any of our excellent services in our suite of online marketing offerings including our Conversion Booster, SEO Foundation or Precision Email Marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have also launched our new Software As A Service destination, Conversions On Demand.com. Visit it today and see what we have to help your business.

Also, if you have specific questions about how your PPC Account is structured, sign up for one of our Profitable PPC Audits, they are quick and offer some great insight in how to optimize your campaign along with relevant recommendations.

We also want to open up the door to your feedback!

Do you have any lingering questions after watching this video…do you have a topic that you would like to learn more about? Then send an email to blog@ exclusive concepts.com.

If we choose your feedback for a video we will email you to let you know when it goes live!

Thank you, this has been Chris for Exclusive Concepts Daily Concept: PPC Tuesday. I look forward to talking to you next time. ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-transfer-yahoo-accounts-to-adcenter.html/feed 0 PPC Tuesday – The Holiday Pre-Season http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-the-holiday-pre-season.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-the-holiday-pre-season.html#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:38:40 +0000 Kevin http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2375
Today is the last day of August, Tuesday, August 31st 2010

My name is Kevin and I will be presenting today’s topic which will be The Holiday Pre-Season.

We here at Exclusive Concepts have already begun to prep our clients for the upcoming Holiday season and the increased traffic, competition, and business that comes with it.

But as we look ahead we should keep in mind that there are other Holidays coming up that can provide your business with a sales boost as well as provide a testing ground for the “Big One”. So today I thought I would offer some helpful hints for the Pre-Season Holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving that can be carried over into the primetime.

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The first holiday hint is to take some time and freshen up your ad copy. Take advantage of the season and work some holiday themed ad copy into your text. This will allow you to stand out from your competitors and engage the searcher on a personal level.

While your testing some new ad copy, why not try a special holiday offer? This can be a percentage off or a free shipping offer with a fun holiday coupon code.

One last tip for your ads is to make sure that you have taken full advantage of your ad extensions within your AdWord’s campaigns. Product Extensions, Site Links and all of the other ad extensions weren’t available last year so ensure that you are giving yourself a “turkey” leg up on your competition this season.

You will also want to make sure that you are aggressively bidding for the first page and that your budgets allow for you to do so. Halloween and Thanksgiving gives you the benefit of seeing how not only your customers react but also your competition. If you notice that your competitors are making adjustments now you can be assured that they will be doing the same come December.

Lastly, update your site with a holiday theme. If you have a mascot why not find a clever way to get them decked out for the holidays. Not only does this carryover the messaging of your text ad but returning customers will remain engaged with the site because you are keeping things fresh! One side note on holiday themes that I will make is to ensure that you never lose the site’s overall messaging and the main goal of driving sales.

Those are just a few helpful holiday hints for your pay per click campaigns. Remember, Halloween and Thanksgiving allows you to experiment and test your ad copy, landing pages, seasonal sales, and measure how your customers respond to your site during these holidays.

You can then take these lessons learned and ensure that you are in the best shape for the Big Game in December and have a happy holiday season yourself!

That’s going to wrap up today’s PPC Tuesday. If you are looking to grow your revenue through your pay per click campaigns why not give us a call. We offer Profitable PPC as a service to our clients.

If you would like to learn more call us at 1 800 504 4324. ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-the-holiday-pre-season.html/feed 0 PPC Tuesday – Using Google Services to Boost Your PPC http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-using-google-services-to-boost-your-ppc.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-using-google-services-to-boost-your-ppc.html#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:11:31 +0000 Chris http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2338
As online advertising continues to grow, and begins to mature into a transparent and measurable advertising means, it is getting more competitive. Budgets are growing to compensate for the landscape becoming more competitive. Clicks that cost only $0.15 a year ago can now be as high as $0.75 with all else being equal.

As the click prices rise, a greater investment is required upfront, and with that, the advertising needs to perform at a higher level. It is not as feasible to test unconditionally without a result.

At the same time, the nature of search is shifting to include more well rounded results. Instead of the most relevant webpages being served, there is now a range of content, including pages, images, video, shopping, tweets, and map results.

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This integration has changed the expectations of searches. Instead of hoping to find the best site out there to answer the search, now the answers are found directly on the results page.

Also, by serving content from different sources, conclusions can be drawn on the best content to show based upon the search terms.

This has caused Google to extend the integrated results to the advertising. Instead of just a headline, some text, and a URL; ads now show additional content culled from other services, including Google Places & Google Merchant Center.

Google Places is an important, free service for any business with a physical location, or even those that without a location that serve an off-line market. Google Places allows business owners to control their listing in the maps, including multiple locations as well as create a profile page that can aggregate information about your business, including hours, and images.

Business owners that advertise, can link their Google places account with their AdWords, allowing specific addresses to show up based upon where the search is being conducted.For instance if you had stores in San Diego, Los Angeles, & San Francisco you can have a campaign target California and linked to your Places account ensuring that the most relevant address will be displayed based upon the searchers location.

Two other pieces of contact information that can be independently linked through AdWords are different links in addition to the primary landing page, and a phone number, for mobile click-to-call ad experiences.

One of the most important Google services for online stores is Google shopping. This free service delivers high-qualified traffic to specific product pages, based upon feeds that are submitted. Google also actively indexes ratings and reviews from different comparison engines to the point where they are aggregated and presented on a page that resembles a merchant profile. To manage ones feeds and align different reviews, Google offers their Merchant Services. Within this service is a setting to integrate with AdWords (requiring the AdWords Customer ID).

Once the link is established on that side, you can log into adwords and link a merchant account with a campaign. If a store has different merchant accounts, they can be linked to specific campaigns (though each campaign can only be linked to one merchant account). This first produced Google Product Extensions, which displayed a link below the ads that can be expanded to show a selection products, including their images and prices. This went a long way towards qualifying traffic, eliminating sticker shock.

More recently, Google has started showing reviews and ratings, once a small threshold was met (25 reviews with an average rating of 80%). This is a huge step to build immediate trust early on in the buying process. If your prospective customers can instantly get an impression of how you do business, you can set yourself apart from the competition by building up a stellar reputation.

Google’s ads reflect the changes seen through out search and will only continue to integrate additional data points. This will continue to better qualify your traffic, and make your advertising more effective in the long run. At the same time this will raise the cost of delivery. Overall the advertising is becoming more valuable.

I hope this video has been helpful!

To Learn More about Exclusive Concepts Profitable PPC product, or any of our excellent services in our suite of online marketing offerings including our Conversion Booster, SEO Foundation or Precision Email Marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have also launched our new Software As A Service destination, Conversions On Demand.com. Visit it today and see what we have to help your business.

Also, if you have specific questions about how your PPC Account is structured, sign up for one of our Profitable PPC Audits, they are quick and offer some great insight in how to optimize your campaign along with relevant recommendations.

Thank you, this has been Chris for Exclusive Concepts Daily Concept: PPC Tuesday. I look forward to talking to you next time. ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-using-google-services-to-boost-your-ppc.html/feed 0 PPC Tuesday – As The World Turns: Rotating Ad Copy http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-as-the-world-turns-rotating-copy.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-as-the-world-turns-rotating-copy.html#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:10:57 +0000 Kevin http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2305
Today is Tuesday and that means one thing here at Exclusive Concepts, PPC!

Today is Tuesday, August 17th and today’s topic is an important one for online retail advertisers. Rotating your Ad Copy!

My name is Kevin and I will be discussing why such a simple step should not be overlooked.

When most people start up a Google AdWords account they are excited to get going and drive traffic and sales to their site. More often than not when new accounts are launched people are spending a lot of their time focusing on the right keywords and creating compelling and unique ad copy within their campaigns. These advertisers are correct in doing so but one important step may be overlooked.

That step is to change the default setting in the Campaign Settings for how their ads will be delivered. Let’s think back to a moment ago when I started discussing this topic. People start an AdWords account to drive traffic and sales to their site. The default setting of Google AdWords focuses more on the traffic than the sales side of the equation. The default setting in AdWords is set to Optimize ads by displaying the highest performing ad over time based on the various ads Click Through Rates.

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While this is not a horrible thing it is indeed something to keep in mind if your objective is to drive sales through your PPC account. By running your ads with the default setting you are not seeing true conversion rate data in terms of testing your messaging for maximum performance. To no fault of Google’s this default setting’s goal is to drive clicks not sales because for them clicks are sales.

But for those of us that wish to focus on the latter part of the traffic/sales statement there is a quick fix that can be done in order to rotate the ads evenly at all times. This will ensure that each ad will have a chance to be displayed evenly and in turn generate measurable performance data. Why is this important? Because you are able to test different value adds for your site and identify what resonates with your target audience. The true measure of an ad’s performance is sales generated. By rotating your ads evenly you are now able to measure multiple ad text by conversion rate data and not determine success by CTR data that is determined by popularity.

The change is quick and easy but the benefits are huge when it comes to measuring your return on investment with PPC.

First you will need to log in to your account. You will then need to click into a campaign. Once you are in the campaign you will see the Settings tab available. Once you are under the settings tab you will want to scroll down to the Advanced Settings and look for the Ad Delivery section and expand the plus box in order to view the options. You will then see the Ad Rotation setting and the ability to edit this feature. Once you select Edit you will want to change the setting from Optimize to Rotate. Once you have selected the selection you will want to be sure to save your changes.

One important note is that you will need to follow these steps for each and every campaign within your account.

Once this has been enabled for your campaigns you will now be able to measure your ad performance by the metrics that are most important to your business. Those metrics being your conversion rate and your ROI.

But as any good online marketer would tell you, your job isn’t over. Now the fun begins. Once you have seen which ad achieves a high ROI your next step should be to create an alternate version using elements from the high performing ad but testing alternative text or a new value add.

Ad Copy provides the environment for a perpetual test. At Exclusive Concepts we have a saying of Always Be Testing. Hopefully you can work that into your account as well.

This is often the advantage that will lead to success. Just because one ad works does not mean that it’s the end of the road. Rather use it as a blueprint and see how your ad stands up to your competitors and look for ways to continue to separate yourself from them with unique value adds and experimenting with landing pages.

That concludes this PPC Tuesday’s Daily Concept. If you would like to learn more about our Profitable PPC service feel free to give us a call at 1-800-504-4324.

Thanks so much for spending a bit of your Tuesday with us and have a great week! ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-as-the-world-turns-rotating-copy.html/feed 0 PPC Tuesday – Google Campaign Experiments Tools http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-google-campaigns-experiments-tools.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-google-campaigns-experiments-tools.html#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:52:52 +0000 Chris http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2259
My name is Chris and today is PPC Tuesday.

Last week on PPC Tuesday, my colleague Kevin talked about a new keyword match type that is now available in Google Adwords called Modified Broad Match. If you missed it, be sure to go check it out.

By the way, did you know that we deliver? We actually deliver Your Daily Concept, our daily video series, by e-mail to people who sign up – and it’s all free. This way, you’re guaranteed to get your dose of smart each day.

This week I am going to take a look at a feature just launched by Google that can have a lot of impact on optimizing your PPC targeting and delivery with the Campaign Experiments.

The campaign tester allows you to create a mirrored version of any existing campaign, which can then be adjusted to test different theories. A Control & An Experiment.

Within the experiment you can adjust the ad groups, including their structure and targeting, along with the keywords including bids/positioning & match types. This allows you to even test the effectiveness of making changes on the ad group level as opposed to the keyword level.

Any campaign level changes including budgets, ad extensions, as well as network, device & geo targeting, will be applied to both campaigns.

You can then specify how they are delivered (50-50 or 90% vs. 10%) and the date range to begin and end the test.

This powerful feature will be rolling out to advertisers throughout the month. To see if it is enabled in your account, go to the bottom of the Campaign Settings tab, and look for the Experiment–Beta feature.

You can then expand it to set your delivery and date range, and name the experiment.

You then get a new dialogue to adjust your keywords and/or ad group targeting. These links then go to the specific tabs, and every row is marked with the experiment Icon.

After you make your changes you click the button to start running your experiment.

After your experiment runs, you can then measure the performance between the two campaigns. If your experiment beats your control you can apply the changes. If it doesn’t, you can remove the changes.

Google argues that this tool is necessary because measuring performance before or after a benchmark is not the most effective. Even looking at performance 2 weeks before a change and comparing it to 2 weeks after, does not take into account fluctuations in that month’s traffic or any other outside events that could have played a role in ads performance including changes with respect to competition and market events. This tool allows you to test you theories over the same period of time drawing from a more pure sample.

Google also makes note to point out statistical significance, which is very important and can’t be understated. Whenever you are testing performance, you need to make sure there is enough data to make the findings relevant. 1 out of 4 is 25%, but you would hate to make a decision on only 4 opportunities, or only 1 response. Many times for the tests we run we like to see 10’s to 100’s of thousands of impressions before we make decisions. This also has to take into account the size of your market.

Testing has always been an important component of PPC Advertising, and now Google has introduced a powerful tool to enable better tests.

I hope this video has been helpful!

To Learn More about Exclusive Concepts Profitable PPC product, or any of our excellent services in our suite of online marketing offerings including our Conversion Booster, SEO Foundation or Precision Email Marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have also launched our new Software As A Service destination, Conversions On Demand.com. Visit it today and see what we have to help your business.

Also, if you have specific questions about how your PPC Account is structured, sign up for one of our Profitable PPC Audits, they are quick and offer some great insight in how to optimize your campaign along with relevant recommendations.

Thank you, this has been Chris for Exclusive Concepts Daily Concept: PPC Tuesday. I look forward to talking to you next time. ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-google-campaigns-experiments-tools.html/feed 0 PPC Tuesday – Google AdWords Broad Match Modifier http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-google-adwords-broad-match-modifier.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-google-adwords-broad-match-modifier.html#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:24:18 +0000 Kevin http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2217
Today is Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010. My name is Kevin and I will be your presenter for the day as we discuss the Google AdWords Broad Match Modifier feature.

Historically, Google AdWords has had the paid search standard of three match types for their keywords. This allowed advertisers to control costs by refining their audiences while still advertising on keywords that were more general terms rather than long-tail terms. Recently, they have introduced Broad Match Modifiers. Before I blow your mind on what this is, let’s quickly explain the main differences of the three match types.
While Broad match allows for misspellings, spelling variations and word order variations, it often drive a high volume of traffic that may not be in the buying phase. This ends up costing the advertiser a lot with receiving very little in return regarding sales.
Phrase match allowed the advertiser to take keyword targeting a step further by requiring the keyword terms to trigger your ad when used in the original word order but allowing other words to precede or follow the keyword phrase. This gave you more control over your audience and many saw their click thru rates dip but their conversion rates increase. Which makes sense since what you were beginning to do was bring a much more motivated shopper while reducing your spend.
Exact match took this refinement a step further by allowing advertisers to simply have their ads be triggered when a search is made using the exact keyword being bid on and not allowing anything else within the search. This gave the advertiser explicit control over what keywords should trigger your ad further reducing traffic and controlling one’s cost.
This has been the lay of the land in AdWords for years. All match types have their place in a PPC campaign and many advertisers learn by trial and error. One topic that has been debated over the years has been how to utilize broad match effectively without turning to phrase match in an effort to capture new searches and in the end new sales.

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At Exclusive Concepts we have spoken in past videos of utilizing Search Query reports for new keyword opportunities and implementing negative terms to refine exposure. Often times we find highly relevant keywords that led to conversions and will add them to the ad group. With 20% of daily searches still being completely unique this will continue to be an essential part of running a successful campaign and growing your keyword list.
These keywords could be different stemming variations such as “discount flooring“ when you have “discount floor” as a broad match. “Discount floor” on phrase or exact match would not have triggered your ad thus you may have missed the opportunity to grab that conversion. You may also find that people performing searches often use abbreviations or simple misspellings. Again, using Phrase or Exact eliminates these conversions from occurring.
So now you may be wondering what can you do in order to capture this target audience but yet control your costs? Well Google now has an answer and it comes in the form of it’s Broad Match Modifier targeting feature. This feature allows you to run your keywords on Broad match in order to allow these variations to trigger your ad while requiring that certain terms must always be present within the search.

To implement the Broad Match Modifier in your campaigns it is a simple one step process. Google suggests creating a new keyword rather than editing a current keyword. We agree because you don’t want to lose all that valuable historical data! So when you create a new keyword you will need to add a plus sign directly in front of the term that you wish to make “permanent” within a search query. You can apply as many plus signs as you wish to maintain control over the traffic that will trigger your ad. In this example, we are adding the keyword phrase “leather shoes” and making both words a requirement for the ad to be triggered. This will ensure that our ad will be triggered even if these terms are used in a search but are misspelled, used singularly, or out of order.
Make sure that you don’t place an unneeded space in between the plus sign and the term that you wish to modify. That’s all it takes.
Is the Broad Match Modifier feature right for your account? Well, I do have one piece of advice. If you are currently running all broad match keywords by implementing the Broad Match Modifier you may end up seeing a drop in traffic and sales. Although if you are utilizing phrase and exact match types, you may end up finding by extending your reach in a controlled manner will increase your traffic and in turn hopefully increase your sales!

That completes today’s Daily Concept on this fine PPC Tuesday. I hope that you enjoyed today’s topic and be sure to check back in tomorrow for Conversion Wednesday!
Thanks for watching and have a great day! ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/ppc-tuesday-google-adwords-broad-match-modifier.html/feed 0 MSN AdCenter PPC Tools – PPC Tuesday http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/msn-adcenter-ppc-tools-ppc-tuesday.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/msn-adcenter-ppc-tools-ppc-tuesday.html#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:51:45 +0000 Chris http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2196 My name is Chris and today is PPC Tuesday.

Last week on PPC Tuesday, my colleague Kevin showed an easy way to move a build from Google AdWords to MSN’s adCenter in anticipation of the migration in the coming weeks. If you missed it, be sure to go check it out.
By the way, did you know that we deliver? We actually deliver Your Daily Concept, our daily video series, by e-mail to people who sign up – and it’s all free. This way, you’re guaranteed to get your dose of smart each day.

This week we are going to continue our focus on MSN’s PPC offerings and dive into the tools they have developed. While Kevin covered the biggest tool in their arsenal, the AdCenter Desktop tool, there are many other ones that give different points of insight.
Data is power, and by utilizing tools from a range of different providers, you can get a better picture of how your market is shaped, and how you are positioned within it.

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Microsoft has long fostered insight tools through their development center: AdCenter Labs. This is where ideas are tried, tested, and released for public use, relying on user feedback to refine and better their delivery.
Some of the best ideas from here have graduated to adCenter. Others have been retired, while some still exist but seem to be outdated.
The tools here are classified in 4 sections:
  • Audience Intelligence
  • Keyword Research
  • Content Analysis
  • Video & Interactive Media
There are 21 tools listed in the labs. I won’t go into all of them here, but highlight the most useful ones I find handy in my day to day account management and research.

In terms of Keyword research there are two tools that are pretty helpful, including Keyword Group Detection, which finds terms related to a keyword you enter. There is also a keyword Mutation tool, which recognizes misspellings for terms. These can both be used when building out a keyword list, or when you are trying to expand your visibility for certain terms. There is also a tool for investigating acronyms, and their different possible meanings, and an English to French keyword mapping tool.
MSN tools can also give you insight into how your pages are perceived. The Site & Product Categorization tools can show you how your site and inventory is categorized. There is also the Commercial Intent tool that measure the intent of a site or page. The best analysis tool comes from the Ad Text Writer. You can put in a URL and it will come up with automated ad copy based upon page language. Now the ads won’t win any awards, but they can provide inspiration when you are trying to find relevant language to use in your ad.
The last tool I wanted to touch upon graduated from adCenter Labs, but can be download when you go to ksp.microsoft.com. It is an add-in for Microsoft Excel, giving you a range of insight in tools that can be leveraged with a keyword list, that leverages the scalability of Excel.

While there is a lot of insight to be gained from the tools, there are some drawbacks as well. Though they are available to the public, they are not highly supported, and sometimes you come across some instances where the data does not seem as fresh. For example the Keyword Forecast tool predicts into 2007’s 4th quarter and does not show any data into 2008 and beyond. With all that has happened in search between then and now, the tool is left obsolete.
On the whole many of the tools are helpful, and help you look at specific data from a variety of angles.
To see all of the tools in adCenter labs, go to: adlab.microsoft.com/alltools.aspx

I hope this video has been helpful!
To Learn More about Exclusive Concepts Profitable PPC product, or any of our excellent services in our suite of online marketing offerings including our Conversion Booster, SEO Foundation or Precision Email Marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have also launched our new Software As A Service destination, Conversions On Demand.com. Visit it today and see what we have to help your business.
Also, if you have specific questions about how your PPC Account is structured, sign up for one of our Profitable PPC Audits, they are quick, free, and offer some great insight in how to optimize your campaign.

Thank you, this has been Chris for Exclusive Concepts Daily Concept: PPC Tuesday. I look forward to talking to you next time. ]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/msn-adcenter-ppc-tools-ppc-tuesday.html/feed 0 Offline Tools for PPC – PPC Tuesday http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/offline-tools-for-ppc-ppc-tuesday.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/offline-tools-for-ppc-ppc-tuesday.html#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:48:04 +0000 Kevin http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2169
This is quite a relevant topic these days in the PPC world and one that I think you will find useful. As we have discussed in previous PPC Tuesday posts, Yahoo! and Bing are going through with their merger and they have begun to reach out to Yahoo! Search account holders to prepare for the move over to adCenter.
For those that do not yet have an adCenter account I would like to take today to show you the most efficient way to get your new account set-up and running. Yahoo! is offering help in transitioning their campaigns over to adCenter but I feel that using your AdWords account will be much more effective. The reason being that as many of us know Yahoo! Search uses Advanced and Standard match types for keywords while Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter use the standard Broad, Phrase, and Exact match types for keywords.
By using the Yahoo! campaign structure for your transition you will have to make sure to add spelling variations, plurals, and other variations on keywords that Yahoo! automatically included within their Advanced match type. These variations are all present in your AdWords account so it makes sense to use that as your foundation for your new adCenter account.
So let’s show you the how by utilizing AdWords Editor and adCenter’s Desktop that you can quickly transfer your fine-tuned AdWords account over to adCenter.

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First, if you do not have either AdWords Editor or Microsoft adCenter you will need to download them. In AdWords you will want to login to your account and select the Opportunities tab. From there you will want to select More Tools from the left hand side navigation. You will then see an option to Download AdWords Editor. Simply follow the Set-Up Wizard and you will be all set.

Microsoft adCenter is similar in set-up. You will need to create an account first but once you have done so and logged in you will be brought to your account’s dashboard page from there you can scroll down to the bottom and download adCenter Desktop. Again you will be prompted by a set-up wizard and soon have another PPC tool in your tool box.

Well now that you have them what’s next? The first step will be to open up AdWords Editor and download your account by signing in using your Account User name and password. Once you have your account downloaded you can then export your account in CSV form. Google gives you the option of exporting your whole account or selecting specific campaigns and ad groups. Once you have exported the campaigns be sure to save the file somewhere easily accessible.
Now you will need to open your adCenter Desktop account and when prompted sign in using your adCenter username and password. Once you are logged into your adCenter Desktop account you will see an option to Import Campaign Data. Once you have selected this option The Import wizard will ask you if you wish to import campaign data from other online advertising programs. For this example you will select the “Import from Google” Option.
Next you will select the file that you had downloaded from AdWords Editor and then select the Next button. You will then be prompted to Map your data, in other words you now have the opportunity to select which fields you wish to carry over from your AdWords account. Once you are finished mapping your data columns you will then click the next button. adCenter Desktop will then convert the CSV file into adCenter campaigns. It is important to note that while adCenter Desktop has been making improvements to the tool that you may find yourself having to make adjustments to your ads or keywords in order to comply with adCenter advertising guidelines. They do a great job of listing the errors and usually editing text ads to fit their requirements or adjusting keywords and their bids.

Once you have made these adjustments you will be ready to Sync your adCenter Desktop campaigns to your adCenter account. adCenter will then let you know if there may have been errors during the upload process and again they give you direction in how to correct these errors.
You will now have your new adCenter account ready to go with the Yahoo!/Microsoft transition! This is process can be difficult with larger accounts because you will have to mindful of any editorial changes that may need to be tweaked when converting from AdWords to adCenter. This is something that the PPC team here at Exclusive Concepts is performing for our clients and have already begun the early stages in order to stay ahead of the curve.

That’s going to wrap up today’s Daily Concept. I hope that you found it useful and that it can aid you with the Yahoo!/Microsoft transition period.
If you would like to learn more about our Profitable PPC Service or any of our other services please feel free to contact us at 1-800-504-4324.
Thanks for watching and have a great day!]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/offline-tools-for-ppc-ppc-tuesday.html/feed 0 Yahoo/MSN Transition Update – PPC Tuesday http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/yahoo-msn-transition.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/yahoo-msn-transition.html#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:44:54 +0000 Chris http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/2149.html Last year, MSN & Yahoo decided to merge their Search Advertising efforts to create a stronger product for those looking to advertise outside of Google.
This is going to transform the PPC landscape for many advertisers, and shape how search engine advertising is executed going forward.

Yahoo has been around longer than Google, providing a web portal that remains the source of web content for thousands of surfers. MSN has seen a steady rise in the popularity of its new search engine, Bing, and seems to be taking some attention away from the market leader, Google, which still controls over 70% of the search space.
The search alliance takes away the need for advertisers to choose where to spend their budget. Instead they have an alternative to Google to invest in. Yahoo will still maintain some relationships, but all PPC management and work will be done in MSN’s system. You will still be able to advertise on Yahoo.com, but it will be MSN delivering it. There are resources on either end to track the progress of the alliance, with Yahoo’s located at: Advertising.Yahoo.com/Transition/en_US and MSN is posting information And Microsoft’s can be found at: http://advertising.microsoft.com/learning-center/microsoft-transition-center
Basically, all of the advertising will be run through Microsoft, on both Bing & Yahoo search engines.

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If you have never advertised on MSN, we suggest you watch last weeks video to get your feet wet. If you have worked in MSN’s adCenter, then there will not be much of a learning curve with the transition.
If your MSN advertising already has similar targets as your Yahoo! advertising, there will not be much to change. If your Yahoo is different, then you will need to create new campaigns in MSN to house the new targets. If you do not currently have an MSN account, you will need to establish one prior to applying any Yahoo builds.
If you do need to move advertising over to MSN, there are some slight changes to Yahoo! advertising that will need to be adjusted in Yahoo!, before porting it over to MSN. This includes making sure ad headlines are less than 25 characters, as opposed to the 40 you are used to in Yahoo. You also lose a character in the ad body, going from 71 in Yahoo! to 70 in MSN.

Also, if you watched last week’s video, you will learn that MSN does not have conversion values, or the ability to measure revenue, like Yahoo does. This is an issue we take seriously and are trying to get solved as soon as possible. We are hopeful it will be in place in time for the transition.

Speaking of time, I am sure you are asking: “When are we transitioning?”
It should begin, in the United States, in a few weeks, probably around the beginning of August. It is hoped to be completed by early September, leaving everyone in a strong position for holiday shopping.
Other countries will follow after the new year, so as to not interrupt the holiday shopping season.
While this is the path that has been sketched out, we will see what happens when things start rolling out.
I hope this video has been helpful!]]>

]]> http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/yahoo-msn-transition.html/feed 0 adCenter Updates for MSN’s Bing – PPC Tuesday http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/adcenter-updates-for-msns-bing-ppc-tuesday.html http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/adcenter-updates-for-msns-bing-ppc-tuesday.html#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:20:38 +0000 Chris http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com/blog/?p=2127 By the way, did you know that we deliver? We actually deliver Your Daily Concept, our daily video series, by e-mail to people who sign up – and it’s all free. This way, you’re guaranteed to get your dose of smart each day.
Today we are going to venture away from all things Google, and start looking at MSN’s adCenter, which manages placements in Bing, and related networks.
As most of you probably know, last year Yahoo & Microsoft entered into a Search Alliance which will be culminating (in the US) at the end of the summer, in anticipation for the holiday shopping season.
In anticipation of this we will devote a few of the next PPC Tuesday to dive into adCenter and explore it fully for you, our viewers.

We spend a lot of time talking about Google & their AdWords platform in our daily concept video, but we cannot forget about MSN’s adCenter, which is the console to manage Bing ad placements, and soon Yahoo’s.
Recently, some updates were announced to the UI, and this presents us with a great opportunity to take a closer look at the application, and how to best leverage it.
Though both AdWords & adCenter control advertising on search engines and subsequent networks, they are very different in how they execute this. It would not be fair to compare the two, Google is much more advanced from nearly every angle: navigation, depth of data, advertising control, and countless other factors.
Bing represents a viable market for many advertisers so it is worthwhile to learn the system and what it can and can’t do.

The setup is similar to AdWords, you can have one or many accounts associated with a login, which are then comprised of campaigns, with market targeting and budgets, ad groups with controls that can let you segment your campaigns by each ad group having its own market targeting. This can allow you to build larger campaigns that encompass different audiences under a single budget. The keywords are just like the other search engines, with 3 different match types, and the ads are just about the same, except there is one description line of 70 characters, instead of 2 lines of 35 (this is actually a net loss of one character, since there is an automatic space between lines 1 & 2 in Google).
The navigation is not as fluid as Google, and on page changes must be saved, causing the page to reload. This can clear any filters or sorts that were applied to the screen. Late last year, they introduced a handy left nav option, that lets you drilldown to specific adgroups, but it still is laborious to apply account-or-campaign-wide changes, having to click into each, and then save changes before moving to the next one.

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In addition to the campaign management, there are also reports which can be scheduled to run and distributed via email; there is the accounts and billing interface that lets you manage your relationship with MSN; as well as a tools section, that is similar to AdWords opportunities tab, showcasing applications they have developed to give insight into their advertising network.

So now the updates. Most were made to the reporting section, expanding date range capabilities, allowing for time zone settings when scheduling, and giving visibility to bidded match types (in addition to delivered match type, or in other words, how you targeted search in addition to how the search matched your keyword). Another improvement came to the importing feature, most likely in anticipation for the transitioning of Yahoo accounts to adCenter in the coming months.
There are also 2 features that directly effect the UI, and make managing advertising through the system easier. The first is a list of all disapproved keywords & ads, so you can quickly find and fix any errors in you targeting. This is helpful since MSN is much more strict on what are acceptable keywords to target in respect to trademarks and such.
The second one is an improved performance tab that finally brings some graphs into the UI, allowing for the ability to track performance over time, including one or two of the following metrics impressions, clicks, click through rates, spend, cost per click and conversions. There are also 2 tables, one a snapshot of performance by campaign, and the second showing how much budget is left. What is noticeably absent are conversions values. As Kevin covered in last weeks PPC Tuesday installment, Google made great gains recently by bringing conversion values directly into the UI, so they can be compared line by line with other important metrics. MSN not having this vital feature This has been a thorn in our side since we rolled out our Profitable PPC product, but one that should be addressed soon. We certainly hope so!

I hope this video has been helpful!
To Learn More about Exclusive Concepts Profitable PPC product, or any of our excellent services in our suite of online marketing offerings including our Conversion Booster, SEO Foundation or Precision Email Marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have also launched our new Software As A Service destination, Conversions On Demand.com. Visit it today and see what we have to help your business.
Also, if you have specific questions about how your PPC Account is structured – and whether you are collecting the appropriate data, sign up for one of our Profitable PPC Audits, they are quick, free, and offer some great insight in how to optimize your campaign.

Thank you, this has been Chris for Exclusive Concepts Daily Concept: PPC Tuesday. I look forward to talking to you next time.]]>

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