Google: AdWords
Weekly Round-Up: Freedom Loving, Bar-B-Qing, Fireworks Lighting, Independence Day Edition
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Written By Noah Mallin | July 3, 2008 | Share This
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Thank you Thomas Jefferson for winning us Americans the freedom to do our weekly wrap-up posts a day early. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Oh yeah and blowing off your pinkie with a firecracker – what, just me? So here’s your big ground meat patty full of search goodness hot off the grill:
Google and Family Guy Creator Sign Pact – One Participant Away From Being Described as an Axis of “Something”
Dirty purveyor of snigger-inducing non-sequitors and Seth MacFarlane joined forces this week to deliver ads in what was described in some quarters as a leveraging of Google’s ad network into a broadcast medium. Ahem. Really it’s more like when Ridley Scott is hired to bring some
SEM: Blogging from the Personal Democracy Forum – Republicans Have Issues, Democrats Have Questions
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Written By Noah Mallin | June 23, 2008 | Share This
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The Personal Democracy Forum is a chance every year for advocacy and political groups to find out how the internet can help them connect to their audience. I had the pleasure of attending Day One of the conference today at
Google Adds Secondary Search Box on Result Pages
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | March 6, 2008 | Share This
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Google has added a secondary search box on its organic search result pages. The search box will appear for sites that Google has noted frequently experience refined searches once a user goes to the site. For instance, Google notes that a user searching for information on NASA’s Hubble Telescope might type “NASA” in Google, and then go to NASA’s site and type in “Hubble Telescope.” From the Google blog:
Through experimentation, we found that presenting users with a search box as part of the result increases their likelihood of finding the exact page they are looking for. So over the past few days we have been testing, and today we have fully rolled out, a search box that appears within some of the search results themselves. This feature will now occur when we detect a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site. Like the rest of our snippets, the sites that display the site search box are chosen algorithmically based on metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users.
Here is a list of some of the sites that get a secondary search box, among them the NY Times.
It’s important to note the secondary search box also increases the chances that Google makes more money via Adwords. It’s one less page view for the destination site, but one more opportunity for Google to serve ads. John Battelle calls this as Google going after the second click.
Will Google Replace Some Ads with Organic Search Results?
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | December 13, 2007 | Share This
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Tech-gossip site Valleywag today caught a Google search results page that featured organic search results, videos and products, in its right-hand sidebar, which normally features high-position AdWords ads. Click to enlarge the below screenshot:
Though Valleywag notes the results were probably part of a very limited test, will Google replace some ads on its search-engine result pages with organic, universal search results that include video, images, and other non-text results? Ask.com has this feature for some search results (see Britney Spears), but I’d be very surprised if Google replaces above-the-fold ad space with organic search results. First, that’s prime advertising real estate. Second, as Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim notes:
It’s always fun whenever someone discovers one of Google’s many experiments with their search interface. 99% of the time, the discovered tests never materialize as a major rollout for Google…
Then again, the way that Ask.com integrates ads on that Britney Spears results page, right in the main body of the results, would likely increase click-through rates, which means more cash for Google. Search Engine Journal also notes the Google results page does look a lot cleaner with the universal results off to the side:
Google has become cluttered with too much media overflow in its results, and these changes are overwhleming the average user. The tests it is conducting seem to address this issue, and in line with its original Universal Search plans, Google is testing alternative yet monetarily efficient ways to better their user experience.
Google has recently made a few notable changes to AdSense, its program for publishers, as well. Last month, it changed ad click-area to reduce invalid clicks. Yesterday, reports popped up that Google is experimenting with buttons to allow end users to scroll through AdSense ads. Also yesterday, last week’s report from Search Engine Land that Google dropped its AdSense “Advertise on this site” feature was confirmed by Google’s Inside AdSense blog. Marketers can still target individual sites, but they have to go through AdWords to do it:
Our recent findings indicate that the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up feature, which allowed advertisers to sign up for AdWords campaigns on your site, hasn’t been performing as well as we had hoped. We’ve elected to gracefully retire this feature and focus our efforts on developing and supporting features that drive better monetization results for you. Call it time management, call it ROI, call it our unwavering commitment to our publishers. We want you to earn more revenue, and sometimes that means “sunsetting” certain features we created.
Google Stays Mum About Australian Revenues
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | November 15, 2007 | Share This
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The Sydney Morning Herald today reported that Google won’t disclose its Australian revenue figures, making it difficult for industry analysts to make accurate estimates about the size of the Aussie search market and its growth rate (all amounts in this post are in Australian dollars):
The search advertising market was estimated to be worth $399 million for the year to June. However, there is industry concern about the accuracy of the figure because Google controls an estimated 80 per cent of the paid search market and will not release its figures.
[PricewaterhouseCooper’s] online advertising report for the September quarter is expected tomorrow. Mr Temsamani countered recent guidance from the Internet Advertising Bureau suggesting market growth of 30-40 per cent was more likely for next year than forecasts of continuing market rises of 50-60 per cent. PwC has forecast average annual growth of 25 per cent until 2011.
“We think the online market overall has been growing extremely strongly,” Mr Temsamani said. “We have seen the numbers that have come out earlier this year and the predictions for next year, which are a little lower than the growth numbers that have been touted for 2007. We believe the market is going to grow as fast next year as it did this year across the total market.”
Australian IT notes the search giant’s reticence is aligned with its policy of not revealing market-by-market figures.
This comes just a couple weeks after Australia signed off on the Google-DoubleClick deal, but perhaps folks down under will be placated by Google’s Australian election map (which looks really cool). Taking 2004 filings and growth rates into account, Computer World estimates Google’s Aussie revenues are above $500 million:
Its most recent Australian Securities and Investments Commission filing was made in 2004. That filing revealed that the company’s local online advertising revenue was A$206 million, a figure that was estimated to have grown 108% year-on-year from the previous reporting period.
The equivalent New Zealand filing appears to only contain a fee paid to the local subsidiary for sales and marketing services and so throws no light on overall revenue achieved.
However, if Google has maintained the same Australian growth rate, its revenue from advertising sales would now top A$500 million.
Google Quality Score Gets More Transparent
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | October 23, 2007 | Share This
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Google AdWords’ black-box quality-score system has opened up just a little. Search Engine Land reports that if your quality score is poor, Google may now tell you why (and how to fix it):
The reason can be found by viewing your keywords tab, then clicking on the magnifying glass icon beside any keyword, and then clicking on the “Details and recommendations” link. On that page, you can find out if your quality score is low due to your landing page, due to your ad copy, due to the relevancy of your keywords to your pages and other reasons.
The new feature is called Keyword Analysis, and it should go a long way in demystifying quality score. Here’s a screenshot from the Inside AdWords blog:
Keyword Analysis should make for more relevant ads, which means better results for AdWords advertisers, and ultimately, more money for Google. Makes you wonder why Google didn’t add this functionality sooner; Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal wonders if perhaps Google’s Keyword Analysis was influenced by Yahoo’s slightly more open Quality Index.
Can You Digg It? Google Dropped for Microsoft in Advertising Switch
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Written By Drupad Sil | July 26, 2007 | Share This
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Digg and Microsoft today announced the creation of a new advertising partnership between the two. While no price was confirmed, the deal is to begin in August and last for three years, allowing Microsoft to serve both text and graphical ads on the well known community-based popularity website.
Before partnering with Microsoft, Digg utilized Google for text ads while working with the smaller Federated Media for more selective high-yield Cost Per Mille (CPM) ad sales. While Federated Media will collaborate with Digg and new partner Microsoft on integrated sponsorships and custom programs, Google Advertising has been shown the door. As a premium Adsense publisher and one of the web’s hottest Web 2.0 properties, Digg’s departure will hurt Google’s image much more than its wallet. In its partnership with Digg, Google found it difficult to generate revenue from ads on the site, but as a part of its overall advertising service, Digg was hardly a blip on the radar.
It seems likely that Microsoft will run into the same problems that Google did on Digg. Digg’s audience doesn’t reflect the average web demographic. According to Federated Media, Digg’s audience is predominantly composed of business and IT influencers working in technology, 91% male, and 88% between 18 and 39. This group has proven highly resistant to Cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, possibly due to being tech-savvy. More on this from Digital Inspiration:
“I was listening to Tim Ferris of The Four Hour Week here and he said that his blog has been on the Digg home page at least half a dozen times in less than a month. Whenever that would happen, he would see an avalanche of visitors coming to his website but the conversion ratio was negligible… On the other hand, if that same post was linked/recommended by some influential blogger like Robert Scoble, Tim felt much better as far as the conversion ratio was concerned.”
Also, Digg posts usually have a very high organic search ranking, often appearing higher than the original subject matter in major search engine queries. Unfortunately, this doesn’t translate into high conversion rates because people go to Digg and then go to the article linked from the Digg post - all without looking at the advertisements on Digg. This all adds up to a probably tough initial experience for Digg’s new partner.
However, Microsoft may be expecting to take a loss on Digg. According to Nate Mook at BetaNews:
“Microsoft likely offered Digg a minimum revenue guarantee as it had reportedly done for Facebook. This means the company will be losing money in the near-term, but such deals are crucial if Microsoft wants to establish itself in the marketplace. It needs high-profile sites and big visitor numbers to attract ad dollars away from Google, Yahoo and AOL.”
Digg, with its 17 million unique visitors a month and favorable status among the tech-savvy, certainly raises Microsoft’s profile with other sites looking for advertising alternatives. Microsoft has finally set its advertising base with the launch of adCenter (essentially the same as Google’s AdWords) and acquisition of advertising agency aQuantive - now it just needs some high profile clients. Digg is not a bad start, but it’s not going to let Microsoft catch up to Google’s market dominance any time soon. Looking at the numbers for advertising revenue in Q2 2007, Google made out with about $3.2 billion, Yahoo had nearly $1.5 billion, and Microsoft just reached about $500 million. It’s pretty clear that Digg represents an image boost and learning experience for Microsoft, and not much else.
While Microsoft’s advertising standing may be helped by its partnership with Digg, there is speculation that Digg’s users won’t take kindly to the switch. Even a casual Digg user can see that the topic of Microsoft is the Great Satan of posts. Lisa Barone at the Bruce Clay Inc. blog writes:
“It’s surprising to me that Digg would partner with Microsoft knowing that the community hates Redmond almost as much as they hate us search engine optimization folk. Kevin, what if the kids revolt again? If I were you I’d keep an eye on the comments starting to flow in at Digg where users don’t seem at all too happy about this. It’ll be interesting to see how the site is affected by the new deal. Heck, it was hard enough getting the community to accept Digg’s new Microsoft category. What are they going to do now that the evil MS is invading their space? Stay tuned.”
I really doubt that Microsoft taking over Digg’s advertising will lead to a mass exodus from the site, even amongst the tech-savvy. The real question is whether Microsoft will be able to capitalize on a rare victory in the online advertising arena, and how this will translate for Google, Yahoo!, and the industry as a whole.
eBay takes on Google
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Written By Mohammad Usman | July 9, 2007 | Share This
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In the ongoing battle between Google Checkout and Paypal, eBay recently delivered another blow by publicly denouncing Google Checkout’s performance. On Friday, Bloomberg published an article quoting eBay CEO Meg Whitman, in which she calls attention to both Google’s poor user ratings and PayPal’s revenue contribution. From Bloomberg,
“In recent surveys, the world’s largest auctioneer found that less than one out of five users of Google’s Checkout online payment service was happy with it. At EBay’s PayPal, the figure was more than double that. Meanwhile, PayPal, bought by EBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, has widened its lead over Checkout since the holiday season.”
Granted, eBay owns PayPal - it’s no wonder they support their own online payment service.
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eBay and Google play nice… for now
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Written By Emily Koh | June 26, 2007 | Share This
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Just a few days after their dramatic withdrawal from Google Adwords, eBay will resume paid search advertising on Google. But, “in a much more limited way than before,” reports eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.
Last week, eBay announced that it was “experimenting” with paid search providers outside of Google — a move that many people interpreted as an abject response to escalating competition between Google Checkout and eBay’s PayPal.
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Google AdWords: Now with IP Exclusion
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Written By Emily Koh | June 18, 2007 | Share This
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Google AdWords has finally released an IP Exclusion option, allowing advertisers to block their ads from showing up for specific IP addresses. From the AdWords Help Files:
In addition to controlling your ad placement through methods such as location and language targeting, site exclusion, and network distribution preferences, you can refine your targeting with Internet Protocol (IP) address exclusion. This feature enables you to specify IP addresses where you don’t want your ads to appear.
You can exclude up to 20 IP addresses, or range of addresses, per campaign. All ads in the campaign are prevented from showing for users with the IP addresses you specify, so we recommend you choose your list carefully.
IP exclusion helps tackle the issue of competitor click fraud: if your competitors are clicking on your ads, you can filter them out so they don’t see your ads. That way you won’t end up paying for clicks that don’t yield to a conversion. Search Engine Roundtable points out that if you frequently search for your own keywords, you can block your own IP address to keep from affecting your click through rate.
In a related vein, last week Google started delivering Content Placement Reports to let advertisers control to a degree where their contextual ads appear. Like Content Placement reports, IP Exclusion will help advertisers manage where their ads are showing up.