The Quality of Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Over in PPC Discussions an interesting question regarding dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) was posed:

“What I want to know is this – since having the search term in your advert improves its relevance (particularly in the headline), does DKI ensure a very relevant advert, or the opposite (does Google penalise you or reward you for using DKI to put the search term in, rather than writing a genuinely relevant advert)?”

Good question. There are two topics to touch upon here: dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) and Quality Score (QS). DKI within your ad does not directly affect your QS (positively or negatively). Your QS is determined by the relevancy of your ad text, keyword, and even ad group, to the user. This relevancy is derived from your ad’s click-through-rate (CTR). As long as you are improving your CTR, then you are improving your QS. If DKI does this, then keep doing it!

However, here’s a rule-of-thumb (and I called Google to confirm my suspicion): if your ad group is set up so that it contains related keywords then you should be able to compose relevant ad texts that do not need to utilize DKI. If you find yourself having to use DKI in order to get every keyword in your ad group within your ad text, then you may have too many keywords in your ad group. Google rewards specificity & relevancy within ad texts with a higher QS. Perhaps you could take that one ad group, find themes among the keywords, and break it down into 2-3 ad groups? Then you wouldn’t need DKI. And if you wanted to, you could run A/B testing within each of these ad groups to see if DKI actually does increase your CTR. It’s an idea.

Your Target Audience Maybe Larger than You Think

I have been managing an account that is geographically targeted to the Midwest (Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Kentucky). I created a geo-targeted Adwords campaign, and about a week later I also initiated a campaign that was distributed to the entire US. I loaded this national campaign with the same keywords as my regional campaign except I added geo-qualifying terms such as ‘Indiana’ and ‘Indianapolis’ to each keyword (example: ‘Indianapolis widget maker’). This way if someone in Texas needs a widget maker in Indiana, then our ad would appear. Simple enough.

After allowing my nationally focused ad group to run for two days I noticed I wasn’t getting any impressions. So, I put in a call to my friendly Google Relationship Manager and did some additional research. I learned that when you geo-target an ad with the keyword ‘widget maker’ to Indiana, AdWords can interpret that as if you’ve listed ‘Indiana widget maker.’ Since the new keywords I added to my national campaign were keywords that already existed within my geo-targeted campaign, with geographic terms tacked on to them, AdWords was interpreting them as the same keywords. Whenever two ads in the same account are running on the same, or those interpreted to be the same, keyword Adwords shows the better performing ad. Since the ads from the geo-targeted campaign have more account history Adwords was showing the ads from my geo-targeted campaign.

When using geo-targeting, users in California, for example, who search for ‘Indiana widget maker’ are able to see my ads. Users in Indianapolis who search for ‘widget maker’ are also be able to see my ads. But, users in California who search for ‘widget maker’ will not.

I still need to look into this more in-depth, but this was an interesting find…

Blog round up!

Yahoo announces click fraud efforts

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3625316

 

DoubleClick research shows higher click rate with video ads

http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/press_releases/default.asp?p=568

 

Google definitions show related phrases

http://searchengineland.com/070322-084755.php

 

Google’s Plus Box allows “related info” in search results

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-than-meets-eye.html

Panama is Coming Again!

I don’t know if any other international PPC agencies, or individuals, have received their notification, but we received our first one this morning: Yahoo’!’s Panama is coming to the UK! The migration letter is the same one distributed to US advertisers (aside from being slightly anglicized) so there aren’t any new developments regarding the migration process. Finally, the USA has an export of epic proportions to volley back at those Brits… of course, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and Eddie Izzard are going to be hard to beat, but I think Panama is up for the challenge.

Find your targeted, specific keywords and you’ll find cheaper clicks

The more general your keywords are, the more they will cost you per click because there is more competition. It is in your best interest to ditch those general keywords, or at least move them into their own ad groups, and focus on your targeted keywords that are more specific to your product, service or brand.

Recently, I was bidding on general, non-specific keywords, and there was no competition for them what so ever. Mine was the only sponsored ads being shown, and my quality score was rated either ‘ok’ or ‘great.’ However, I was being asked to pay up to $0.50 per keyword bid in order to show ads for these general keywords. If I tried and lower the bids, they became inactive. I emailed Google for a solution to lower my bids, and this is what they came up with:

“Effective keywords are relevant to your products and accurately reflect the content of your website. You might consider deleting general keywords, or moving them to a different ad group, as it’s important that an ad text and landing page are closely tied to the keyword list.

There is also a chance that your keywords that are well targeted may be too specific. Although specific keywords are usually better than general ones, keywords that are too specific can limit your ad exposure. For example, few people will likely search for the phrase “minocycline rifampin impregnated catheter.”

This worked for me to an extent. I did break out my keywords and put them into their own ad groups. About a week later I did notice that I was able to lower bids on some of my keywords, but not others. I’m still working on the issue however.

Blog Roundup!

SEO New Crawl Test Tool
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/crawl-test-seo-tool

Search Arbitrage: Web blight or brilliant marketing strategy?
http://searchengineland.com/070320-050000.php

Adwords Site Targeting with CPC
http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchbrief/senews/009649.html

Jimbo Wales & People Powered Search: A long Shot
http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchbrief/senews/009645.html

Make Word Press search engine friendly
http://www.wolf-howl.com/video/make-wordpress-search-engine-friendly

Google pay-per-action ads in beta testing.
http://adwords.blogspot.com/index.html

PPC Management – How to write titles and descriptions
http://www.ewhisper.net/blog/ppc-title-description-writing

PPC Management – B2B newsletter
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/03/new-technology-business-to-business.html

PPC News – Per per action beta test
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/03/pay-per-action-beta-test.html

SEM General
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-temporal-trends-in-content-and-link-growth

5 Ideas for A/B Testing Your PPC Ad Text

With the new algorithm changes from Google and Yahoo, having a good quality score is an added challenge in the PPC world; and your ad text is a big part of having a great quality score. Here are 5 tips that I have used personally, that helped me gain control of my accounts through ad text testing.

1. Call to action: Speaking with Google and Yahoo quite frequently, they suggest when leading customers to a page where they need to fill out a form or download a whitepaper, tell them that’s what they’re going to be doing in your ad text. For example, “Download our whitepaper on email marketing today.” That way, users know what they’re getting into before they click. I think it’s a great idea if you’re working for conversions, if you’re just driving clicks, it may turn someone away. Use your ‘calls to action’ wisely. This test seems to be working on some of my accounts. However, nothing dramatic yet.

2. Keyword Smothering: Yahoo has been very adamant about having your keywords smothered in your ad text title, short description, long description and URL in order to get a great quality score. These guidelines make it harder to get creative and pull people in. I tested Yahoo’s theory on keyword smothering. In one instance, I cleared stats for all three of my ad texts for one ad group. #1 had my keyword in every line of my text, including my URL. #2 had just one instance of my keyword. And the #3 only had the keyword in the title and URL. The results…strangely enough #3 ad text had a CTR of 1.19%. The #1 ad text with the keyword smothered had a ctr of .93%. And the #2 with only one instance of my keyword had a ctr of .55%. Since this seemed to prove Google and Yahoo wrong for the time being, I will be testing this theory more in the future. But it’s something to try for yourself.

3. Dynamic ad text: Make sure you learn how to use dynamic ad text correctly before putting it into place or your ads could look quite strange to the user. If you have a lot of different types of keywords within one ad group, this is the best time to use dynamic ad text testing. (Although if you have many different keywords in one ad group, they should really be broken out into separate ad groups but that’s another discussion.) 4 out of 5 cases that I have tested dynamic ad text it proved to work better than non-dynamic ad text. Although I don’t usually use dynamic ad text in the descriptions, only in the title. I feel the user may catch on to our logic, and be turned off.

4. Get creative: Take a look at your competitors ads. Are they just like yours? If you’re testing, you shouldn’t be afraid to get creative, you want to find the ad that works best right? Use punctuality if you can. Question marks or exclamation points. But most of all get into your customers head and think of some words that might catch their attention. Marketing studies show that men tend to follow high tech, buzz words where women are looking for deals.

5. Numbers: I’ve heard this has worked for some people but not others. Putting phone numbers in your ad text just might help your click through rates. Some people may be looking online just to find a phone number, this might catch their attention and they may possibly click through. Or the number may just catch someone’s attention more than another ad. You can also put in percentages or money values. I have an ad that consistently performs better and the text goes something like this…Over 40% of emails don’t reach the inbox. If something is on sale, put the sale price in the text. Ex. Personalized Vases on Sale, $24.99…you get the point.

My point overall, perhaps smothering your keywords in your ad text won’t always do the trick. In my experience, when I get creative is when I see the majority of my ads performing better.

Google Apps Invitation Distributed to AdWords Users

I’m a huge fan of Google and their new Apps software package. It’s truly fascinating to me to watch them take the idea of a web-application to new heights. This week, in an effort to continue growing in this new market space, Google began distributing emails to AdWords advertisers. The email boasts the new programs (email, calendar, spreadsheet, etc) and offers examples of how they can be easily used in any office environment.

Considering the massive email list Google has from its AdWords advertisers, this campaign will surely bring in a solid number of new users. Admittedly, I don’t know how well Google Apps would work for a medium to large sized company. But for those small businesses out there, the basic price tag (free) is really hard to beat! As an added incentive, Google is offering free live webinars for new users of the Apps suite. I suppose this is why Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer thinks Google is insane!

The Long and Short of It (ad text lengths within Panama)

Within the old Yahoo! interface, users were allotted one ad text and it could contain up to 180 characters. Every keyword was assigned a title, a description, and a destination URL. In Panama’s ad groups, keyword groups are served with specified ad texts.

Each ad description is allotted one headline, two lines of ad text, a display URL, and a destination URL. Advertisers have the option of using a short ad text and a long ad text. The short description can be up 70 characters in length and the long description can be up to 180 characters in length.

The short text appears within Yahoo! search results. The long text appears within Yahoo! partner sites, via Yahoo!’s content distribution network, that can accommodate longer ad text descriptions. The content distribution network includes sites such as CNN, ESPN, USA Today, AllTheWeb, eBay, National Geographic, iVilliage, and many others.

We suggest utilizing both the long and short description options. If you’re going to use one description, though, we suggest using the short one. If you opt to use only the long text, your ad texts will be cut off at 70 characters within Yahoo! search results as well as within quite a bit of the content network. This means your entire description will not be displayed.

Being #1 Doesn’t Always Mean You Win

This is the first in a series of case studies we will be publishing. These case studies will focus on the work we do for clients. In particular, we will dissect the strategies we implemented to solve certain problems within a campaign or goals we wanted to attain. We will discuss the strategy and the outcome (positive or outcome).

Client: Indian Math Online (IMO) is an online tutoring system that helps students with their math skills. The theory behind their business model is that there is an art to teaching math, and teachers in India have mastered this skill. The methodology used in Indian classrooms is implemented within IMO so when students sign-up they are not only getting math help, they are learning a whole new way to approach math.

 

Issue: We were in a heavy testing phase at the time within Google. In one ad group they had only a handful of keywords (3-5 keywords). An aggressive standard bid was set which placed each keyword at position #1. Within this campaign our CPA was over three times our goal, but the client wanted to be in the top position. We were also running 4 different ad texts at the time (all going to same landing page).

Solution: I decided to make a few changes to the ad group because I was certain we would have just as many clicks and conversions in position #3 or 4. Also, I was certain that we could retire two of our under performing ad texts which would then funnel more traffic to our better ads, resulting in a higher CTR & lower CPC. Here are the two changes I made:

• Lowered our standard bid slightly
• Used Google’s ad position preference tool and set our keywords to #3 (highest) to #5 (lowest)
• Retired two of our ad texts

Outcome: On the 25th of January I made the two pre-mentioned changes and my theory proved itself out. Our CTR stayed steady, our CPC dropped, our conversion rate remained study and our CPA decreased.

Summary: The theory that being #1 is not in the client’s best interest holds true (however, there are instances when being in the first position is fine for certain clients, but not for most). Two practices that we implement frequently worked well: optimal ad placement is not position #1, and continue to test ad text because it can affect your ad group’s performance (especially CTR and CPC, which in turn effect your quality score).

Graphs: Below are a few graphs that reflect the changes we made to the campaign. The monetary information has been removed, but you can see the positive trending. Click each image to enlarge graph.

Average ad position:

Click-through-rate

Cost-per-click

 

Cost-per-lead