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There you have it; couldn’t be more to the point. Now go write some new ads and make sure you’re experimenting with at least 2 ad variations at a time. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, but I’ll hold onto them for now (search people are so private). These are just some basics that you can try out. If you have any questions – feel free to ask!

Figure 1

Google recently started pulling ratings from various services and attaching the *stars* to AdWords text ads. (See Figure: 1) I think that adding reviews directly to an ad is as close as you get to word-of-mouth, which we all know is hands down the best marketing medium out there. You instantly add trust by showing potential customers what people are saying about your company.

The only thing holding you back is that Google requires a few things. “If your online store is rated in Google Product Search, you have 4 or more stars, and you have at least 30 reviews, you’ll automatically get seller ratings with your ads.”

Figure 2

Seems easy enough; now all you have to do is start asking your customers for reviews. If you’re an eCommerce company, the perfect time to ask for a review (and include an easy-to-use link) is in the Shipment Confirmation email. Check figure 2 for a good list of review sites to look into. Good luck!

Today is April 30, 2010. I log into Microsoft Advertising adCenter to check an account. Then I click on the calendar to go back 1 day, to 4/29/2010. This should be an easy thing to do, but the option Microsoft gives me is pictured below.

They show today as May 1^st. Can they predict the future? This happens all the time, I have to go back one month with the drop down (no arrows to make it easy) and select the date. But today is special! They took me all the way back to January. Bing – that was not easy!

I just thought this was a ridiculous flaw so I had to point it out. So…thank you Microsoft / Bing for making things so painful. At least your desktop PPC editor is decent. The online UI is pretty annoying, please work on it.

Interested in Everything
I’ve marketed hard hats, concert wristbands, trophies, gas station nozzles, ear plugs, plasma TVs and water pumps. I now know way too much about every single one of those things. To write truly effective ad copy and target the best keywords, you need to know about the product you’re trying to sell.

Obsessed with Numbers
Maybe it’s a bit of the OCD kicking in. Maybe it’s a hidden need to stare at numbers all day. Whatever it is, I love to analyze everything SEM. Click through rates, bounce rate, open rates, return on investment, and conversion rate – they’re all exciting to track and improve. You won’t be able to measure and improve your campaigns if you aren’t addicted to the numbers. Plus, numbers will never lie to you. They are a trustworthy group.

Thinks Charts and Graphs are Sexy
Is that a data point on your line graph, or are you just happy to see me? Sure, you already love numbers and your brain is practically a virtual pie chart. What about your clients or your boss? They do not want to see a spreadsheet full of numbers. Dress it up! People love to see their numbers in chart form; it’s a scientific fact.

Intelligently Competitive
I grew up in a house with 4 brothers and 2 sisters, and played varsity sports all through high school. I know a little something about competition. It’s great to have a competitive nature in SEM. That’s what makes you want to have a higher CTR and Conversion Rate every month. It will help you succeed. However, you have to control it and pick your battles. You never want to get into a bidding war in order to be in a number one ad position. You will lose the ROI game. And that’s no good. More on emotional bidding.

Best Friend is a Thesaurus
Webster and I have had some amazing wonderful fantastic times! In addition to learning everything you can about the product, a thesaurus or the PPC equivalent Keyword Tool, is essential to finding more keywords and writing ad variations. You can never have enough keyword synonyms in an ad campaign. Customers use the craziest words to find your products. Make sure you’re bidding on those crazy words!

Good Enough is Not an Option
Wow, I have a 14% conversion rate! I look like a hero to my client.  I’m happy that she’s happy, but how do I raise that to 16%? What am I missing? Don’t beat yourself up, but never be completely satisfied with the current results. SEM is not an infomercial, don’t “set it and forget it”. There is always room for improvement.

Since the official Google Analytics blog didn’t mention anything about their new Annotations feature yet, I wrote a small blog post on my employer’s (Lightburn) website. Google Annotations: Great New Analytics Feature

A client recently contacted me because they were concerned that their former PPC bid management company overcharged them for their services and inflated bid costs. Since I’ve been managing their PPC accounts over the past 6 months, they have reduced costs by over 45%, increased their clickthrough rate by 30%, and increased their conversion rate by over 4 times – all while growing revenue by 37%.

Before I took over the account, I was able to get a keyword report from the company that I stole the business from. Their report was full of over-priced and under-performing keywords. It was a classic case of a PPC management company just paying for position and not worrying about ROI. They carelessly spent 10’s of thousands of dollars of my client’s money on poor keywords.

By focusing on conversion and ROI, I have made such huge improvements to their PPC accounts that my client is actually auditing their former PPC manager. They feel that the company must have been inflating bid cost and passing the cost along to them. I really hope that they don’t find fraud, because the poor bidding job they did in the past was bad enough.

What’s the takeaway? Make sure you hire someone that will care about your profitability. Also make sure they are open with their information. No one should be denying you access to your own AdWords account; that’s where bid inflation can easily be hidden. Finally, the number one easiest way to avoid bid inflation is to use your own credit card and don’t let the company invoice you for the click spend. There is nothing more legit than a charge straight from Google.

Happy bidding!

Emotions tend to run high when involved with any type of bidding. Be it a fine piece of art, classic car, or a keyword. Many people cannot let go of the human emotion when they are trying to outbid the person next to them. All common sense is out of the door. They turn the bidding into a full out competition. Winning is the only option their ego will allow. This is a very well known phenomenon in the auction house and eBay setting. How many advertising professionals realize that they are partaking in the same type of competition?

The advertiser is not always the one to blame.
If you have the luxury of working in an organization with a big online marketing team, then perhaps the individual is responsible for her own accounts. Blame away! But, in many cases there is one person in the company who controls all PPC and online marketing. If this person was in control 100% of the time, emotional bidding could be blamed on him as well.

However, in many of my experiences there is an outside influence…coming from the inside…from behind a nice desk….in the largest office in the building. Yes, it is our beloved CEO / business owner. This woman built the company from scratch and knows the product inside out. When she searches Google for a product that she sells, she wants (needs) her company to show up before all of her competitors. She’s invested too much time and energy to be “beat” by her competitors in the PPC game. It’s purely an emotional ad position competition.

Fact: An ad in the number one position does not necessarily mean it’s the number one performing ad.

The next step our CEO takes is walking down to the one man team that manages her company’s PPC bids. She will demand that her company is in the number one position for all of her favorite keywords. Some PPC managers will listen and do whatever their boss says and blindly raise bids; others may put up a fight. I’m telling you now, put up a fight.

How to fight the CEO and not lose your job:
Bidding for position is important. And testing the number one position should be part of your everyday practice. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it’s a hole in your wallet. You won’t know what works if you don’t test. But if you blindly aim for the number one position every time, you’re not effectively doing your job as a PPC bid manager. So when your boss asks you to make sure your ads are number one in the search engines, put up a fight, an intelligent fight. All you have to do is show your boss the numbers. Numbers don’t lie.

Win the fight with a 1 stat: Ecommerce Conversion Rate based on Ad Position. The stat is already available to you in Google Analytics if you have your AdWords account properly linked. You can easily show your boss which position your ads earn the most conversions. That should be enough information to show your boss that you know what you’re doing. And at the same time it should earn you the respect you deserve for being an intelligent PPC manager.

Use this list of 50 states (and capitals below) for any project where you need to easily copy and paste them. I searched everywhere for a simple text list to copy for a PPC campaign I was working on and had no luck. Hopefully this is useful to someone other than myself.

50 States

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

50 Capitals

This is a list of state capitals in order of the states, alphabetically. If that doesn’t make sense, you can always sort it out yourself in Excel.

Montgomery

Juneau

Phoenix

Little Rock

Sacramento

Denver

Hartford

Dover

Tallahassee

Atlanta

Honolulu

Boise

Springfield

Indianapolis

Des Moines

Topeka

Frankfort

Baton Rouge

Augusta

Annapolis

Boston

Lansing

Saint Paul

Jackson

Jefferson City

Helena

Lincoln

Carson City

Concord

Trenton

Santa Fe

Albany

Raleigh

Bismarck

Columbus

Oklahoma City

Salem

Harrisburg

Providence

Columbia

Pierre

Nashville

Austin

Salt Lake City

Montpelier

Richmond

Olympia

Charleston

Madison

Cheyenne