Just came across this while searching for a bear claw - a tool used to shred pork - and noticed that the Target paid listing has a drop-down option that when clicked will show products, descriptions, and pricing related to your search. Anybody else seeing this?

This could very well be old news, but this is the first time I've seen it.

Interesting.

Labels: google, paid-search

The other day, while on phone conference with a potential client, I was asked if I knew what the industry standard was in terms of Pay Per Click (PPC) management fees, and where All Web stood in relation to those standards. Honestly, I was a bit taken back by this question. I had never once been asked this and know very little about the pricing models of other PPC management providers. Although I couldn't really provide much value to the client's question - I certainly couldn't speak intelligently on the subject or bullshit my way through it - I was able to fork up the following response:

So I ask you... how accurate was my response? The few PPC management companies that I happen to know of either bill a flat rate for their services or a combination of a flat rate and a percentage of spend. For you PPC providers out there... what do you charge for management services? For you clients or individuals who've done some research lately... what kinds of pricing structures are you coming across?

Labels: commentary-rants, paid-search

There are numerous benefits to employing a Search Marketing firm to manage your company's Pay Per Click advertising. Two of the bigger benefits that easily come to mind are time-management and professional assistance.

Pay Per Click campaigns should be monitored multiple times throughout each day. If a merchant is going to be successful online, he or she will be responsible for many hours each week managing bid changes, writing and adding new advertising copy, reconfiguring daily, weekly, and monthly budget figures, and reviewing and acting on analytics data. There is a lot to do, and very little time to do it... especially if the merchant is a single-person or smaller operation.

In addition to that, PPC marketers spend a great deal of their time learning. We read industry focused blogs and newsletters, test new products and services offered by the search engines, and attend several yearly PPC seminars and conferences. Therefore, when you employ a Search Marketing firm to manage your company's advertising you are essentially buying their wealth of advertising knowledge as well as their past years of experience in dealing with PPC accounts, platforms, strategies, and techniques. The resources that professional PPC managers bring to the table are endless and are typically without additional costs.

Employing a Search Marketing firm to manage your PPC advertising means having the peace of mind that your company's campaigns are being run correctly, in addition to now having the necessary time needed to effectively attend to the many other daily tasks associated with running an online business.

Labels: commentary-rants, paid-search

There are a number of software products that condense statistical information from multiple Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns and platforms (such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask) and provide it in one single place for merchants to compare and review efficiently. These kinds of software products are definitely helpful... at least in the sense that advertisers can now view the details of their accounts from one central location, but I'm not quite convinced that there's even a need to purchase such a program.

If you're like 90% of the PPC advertisers out there, you're no doubt using some sort of ROI tracking and analytics tool to measure conversions. In my opinion, this is all one needs to review data from multiple sources. At All Web Promotion, we use Conversion Analyst, KeywordMax, and Google Analytics to provide conversion data to our clients, and, in addition, these programs provide us with every bit of the same statistical information (clicks, costs, etc...) that these PPC managing software products do.

Why would anyone foot the bill for a service they're, in most cases, already paying for?

Labels: paid-search, web-analytics

As common as these suggestions will sound, you'd be surprised to know how many PPC advertisers fail to understand even these few simple concepts. These suggestions may not apply well to every company, industry, or campaign, but I'm sure you'll find at least one to be useful in your Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing efforts.

• Don't Spread Your Budget Too Thin: Should your company have a small-to-medium sized PPC budget, it is best that you not divide it into too many parts... say Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask. Instead invest most, if not all, of your PPC budget into one search engine. Doing so will allow your company to adequately compete, in terms of getting top PPC positioning, in at least one front, as opposed to having borderline medium-level or poor positioning on all fronts.
  
  
• Advertise Where It Makes Sense: It's quite common to know that advertising specific industries on certain search engines may actually work better than others. Take for instance the finance industry (stocks, taxes, banking, and investing). Because of the sheer nature of the MSN audience, these companies are better suited to advertise on Microsoft's PPC platform as opposed to Yahoo's or Google's platform. And vise versa depending on other industries. I suggest that you review your advertising options thoroughly and determine which PPC providers provide the best return for your specific industry... then simply allocate your budget accordingly.
  
  
• Hit 'em High, and then Hit 'em Low: If your company's products or services happen to revolve around specific seasons or other set time frames, I recommend minimizing your PPC spend during "off-season" months while increasing spend just before and during "in-season" months. Dividing your budget as so for each of your campaigns (across all PPC platforms) will ensure that you have the necessary funding available for when advertising becomes the most profitable.

I open the floor to you readers. If you have an additional tip or suggestion that is easy to integrate and will help others in budgeting for multiple campaigns, I ask that you please share it with us. My "comments" feature is open and very easy to use.

Labels: guides, paid-search

Managing campaigns across multiple platforms can be a little problematic in the sense that a company has to create and maintain an internet presence at multiple locations (say Google, Yahoo! MSN, Ask, and any other PPC provider). This typically translates into a larger work-load and more advertising spend. However, the benefits certainly out-weigh any of the hassle that goes along with doing so.

The most obvious benefit to advertising with multiple search engines is the sheer amount of additional exposure a company will receive. Each major search engine has its own advertising network consisting of smaller search engines and website partners. With only a few buys, one can literally have their brand or message exposed to hundreds of millions of internet users daily... rather than being limited to the reach of just one search engine and its network.

The same pretty much applies for niche and vertical search engines. Pay Per Click advertising is all about being where your target audience is. Setting up local PPC campaigns or those campaigns that allow you to advertise in niche areas is another opportunity for a company to gain exposure. As with all forms of marketing, the more exposure an advertisement receives, the more leads it will be able to generate, which, in turn, could ultimately mean an increase in sales or conversions.

Labels: commentary-rants, paid-search

So this is what it's like when worlds collide... totally freakin' sweet!

I happen to be a huge video game fan, and have been for most of my life. That shouldn't be a secret to most of you though as I've mentioned this several times here on the Klog alone. I even had an opportunity to outshine a few of you SEMs with my gaming talents this past June at Microsoft's adCenter party (during the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle).

Just in case you forgot... here's a picture to remind you:

Now with that being said, it shouldn't come as surprise to any of you to know how excited I am that just yesterday Microsoft, in all their greatness, inked a deal with Electronic Arts (specifically the EA Sports brand), one of the biggest developers in the gaming industry, to provide in-game advertising for a number of popular sports games. For you gamers out there, this translates to Madden football, EA's Nascar, Tiger Woods golf, NHL hockey, and several upcoming skateboarding games.

For those of you who don't understand how in-game advertising works, Microsoft will act as a broker (through "Massive" - a company they purchased sometime ago) between companies that want to get their ads in front of gamers and game publishers whom are eager to tap new sources of revenue to offset higher development costs for flashy new games... which can cost upwards of $20 million to make. It's actually pretty cool. As a gamer, I love seeing actual advertising in the background as I skate through the streets of a major city or play inside an official MLB park. It adds that realistic feeling.

Now I know what you're all thinking... buying ad space in a video game isn't exactly search marketing. Well, as true as that is, neither is utilizing YouTube, Digg, or any other social media platform for traffic... but you'll still find such services offered by many elite search marketers. Maybe, just maybe, All Web will one day be buying video game advertising for their clients. One never knows in this industry.

And for those of you out there who think I'm absolutely off-the-wall crazy for even suggesting that search marketers may one day manage in-game ad buys... you must have forgotten about Google's recent $23 million acquisition of Adscape last February. In that one single purchase, Google gained the technology needed to serve in-game video game advertising.

We all now that when Google, the king of search and online advertising, makes such a move the search marketing industry in most cases will always follow. And why wouldn't we, in-game advertising was worth just $50 million in 2005, now nearing $200 million in 2007, and is expected by many analysts and industry executives to increase to $1 billion over the next few years.

Labels: commentary-rants, paid-search

Yesterday while catching up on some blog reading, I came across a very interesting video on the Did-It blog. The video was created by the "Click Quality Council" (CQC), a group of individuals, agencies, and click-quality monitoring firms that seek "click-standards" in the PPC arena.

As a marketer who works for an agency that provides Pay Per Click management services, I've always felt that the more transparency between PPC Providers (the search engines) and advertisers/agencies the better both parties would be at achieving their goals. In the long run, search engines would of course continue to profit from a pay per click platform that delivered relevant sponsored advertising, and advertisers would have the information needed to make more in-depth and accurate marketing decisions.

This video highlights 8 core principles that the CQC organization believes Pay Per Click providers should follow as a basis for their platform's methodology. After watching this video, and hearing these 8 core principles, I'm certainly in agreement with the group.

Here's the video:

RSS and email readers click here to see the video.

Labels: paid-search

I was doing some of my daily Blog reading earlier and came across a very cool article on Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim Blog. It's titled "Creating an SEM Sidekick that Would Make Batman Jealous", and it focuses specifically on what can be gained from analyzing the different areas of your website's analytics. This is a perfect read for anyone new to search marketing analytics and tracking.

The article was written by my buddy Taylor Pratt, and apparently after catching the last paragraph, it is also his submission entry for the Marketing Pilgrim's spring SEM Scholarship Contest. The winner of the contest is entitled to a Search Marketing scholarship package valued at a whopping 10Gs. That certainly is a GREAT prize for anyone in the industry, n00b or veteran. Best of luck to you Taylor.

Here's a short excerpt from his post:

"Most websites today have some type of analytics installed that their SEM is overlooking (Holy missed opportunity Batman!) While your eyes are glazing over at the thought of reading an article about analytics, I'd like to make an argument that they are more than just numbers. Analytics tell a story, and they just might be the sidekick you're looking for."

Go check it out!

Labels: paid-search, web-analytics

Labels: guest-posts, paid-search

It seems as of late that all the major search engines are eyeballing the mobile advertising market, and who can really blame them... it promises to be a very worthwhile and rewarding market. Yahoo!, on Wednesday, launched a beta version of their sponsored search program for mobile phones in the United States and United Kingdom. Of course, being in beta means that only a "select group" of advertisers will be able to test/use it. Bummer!

Similar to their current sponsored search platform, advertisers will have an opportunity to bid (in auction format) on keywords that will display their ads on the search results page. As of now, this service will work on most mobile phones and handhelds that have web-browsing capabilities.

With more and more consumers using their mobile phones to perform searches on the web, most of which are local-related, it's a great idea for companies like Yahoo! and Google to offer some sort of mobile advertising platform. There are several times when I've personally performed searches on my cell phone, typically looking for restaurant information or specialty shops, and wished for better results.

Paid ads are definitely the way to go with mobile search! Putting the information that is desired in front of those that desire it is what a search engine is all about. Adding advertisements to mobile search results is a great way for search engines to see that it continues to happen, while making a little something-something on the side.

Do you or your clients own a brick and mortar business? If so, consider tapping into mobile search advertising via Yahoo!. I imagine that local businesses, such as restaurants, bakeries, taxi services, day spas, bowling alleys, or other shopping centers and venues, are the perfect fit for such a service.

Labels: industry-news, mobile-marketing, paid-search, yahoo

There is only one major downfall to being gone an entire week attending any kind of conference or trade show, and that is dealing with the amount of work that awaits your return. And not only that, but after attending a show like SES, I've got a few ideas that I'd like to test, try, and work on but am unable to do so until I address the mountain of emails and tasks that reside within my inbox. I guess these "grand" ideas will just have to remain scribbled out in my notebook until I can find the time to check into them.

So I'm going though the hundreds of Blog posts (no lie) and news emails that currently have my attention, and I found an interesting, Blog-worthy announcement that took place last week and figured now is a good time to share it with you.

Apparently on that Monday (7th) Google inked a deal with MySpace.com, outbidding Yahoo! in the process, in which it will serve its web search and advertising listings to MySpace's nearly 100 million members. That's right... for those of you who are among the millions of MySpace users you can expect a change in scenery, as far as your search box is concerned, because Google will be implementing itself into your sites very shortly.

Under the terms of the agreement, which will begin in the fourth quarter, Google must guarantee Fox Interactive, MySpace's parent company, minimum payments of $900 million over a 3 year period of time. This is of course if MySpace can meet certain traffic expectations set forth by Google.

MySpace, for those unaware of it, is a social networking website which offers an interactive, user-submitted network of Blogs, profiles, groups, photos, MP3s, videos, and an internal e-mail system. In fact, in July of this year MySpace became the #1 ranked website in the United States (according to research performed by Hitwise)... which is probably what led Google to bid in the first place.

With this deal, Google is simply doing what they've always done... and that's move Google to where users are, as well as user-generated content. Great job Google, you've secured an important source of traffic and ad revenue by exposing it to a thriving young audience of millions on MySpace.

Labels: google, industry-news, paid-search

After numerous class action lawsuits and criticism from advertisers, the major Web search companies, such as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Ask.com, LookSmart and others, have announced on Wednesday their plans to work together with two industry groups, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the nonprofit Media Rating Council, to quantify click fraud. Together, they will be known as the Click Measurement Working Group.

The group's mission is to establish guidelines for what constitutes valid clicks and invalid clicks on ads. Guidelines can help the industry measure how prevalent click-fraud really is. Third-parties who sell click-fraud-combating services to advertisers claim that click-fraud rates are as high as 30 percent. Google and Yahoo, however, counter that click-fraud rates are minimal.

This announcement comes a week after Google kicked it up a notch and began offering invalid click stats to their Adwords advertisers. For those of you not familiar with click-fraud it occurs when online ads are intentionally clicked on, either by websites who get paid for hosting the ads or by companies trying to deplete the ad budgets of rivals. This is typically done so that fraudulent clickers can buy the search keywords themselves and steal the business.

Since day 1, I've questioned whether or not search engines should be the ones to police click-fraud issues simply because of all the incentive and profit that goes with it. Let's face it, search engines make money on click-fraud... and I mean good money. Would you expect a company to take serious action against their primary source for revenue? I'd think not.

To me, it's always been the "fox guarding the hen house" scenario. Even though Google, Yahoo!, and others are some of the most respected and trusted companies of today, one would still have to wonder whether or not they're as honest as they should be when it comes to click-fraud.

With that said, I firmly believe that forming the "Click Measurement Working Group" is a step in the right direction for Pay Per Click advertising. The newly formed group will ensure that marketers of all sizes are provided the highest possible level of transparency when dealing with invalid PPC clicks.

Labels: paid-search

Do you remember back in January when Google purchased the radio ad company "dMarc Broadcasting"? Well if you don't... don't sweat it because not many will.

I, for one, do remember reading about the acquisition; however, I never got around to Blogging it simply because there was so much other Blog-worthy stuff to post instead. If you remember, at that time I was only posting once a week and I guess this subject had been trumped a couple of times by more important posts. Eventually, I must have just forgotten about it... until now that is.

So what has made me think about Google and dMarc Broadcasting after all this time? Well, this past Wednesday, Google inked a deal with XM Satellite Radio... a deal that will eventually allow the search giant's AdWords advertisers to promote their products and services through XM spots.

With the dMarc platform in its possession, Google has made what otherwise would be complicated radio advertising procedures, such as sales, scheduling and tracking, automated and simplified. Currently, the platform is available only to dMarc advertisers, and not AdWords clients, but Google estimates that dMarc will be integrated into the AdWords software by the fourth quarter of this year.

This deal is the latest of what seems like a series of moves to expand the AdWords program beyond a strictly online medium... and such a partnership with XM radio is definitely a major step in that direction.

Just take a moment and think about what Google is doing. With the use of their dMarc Broadcasting system and this partnership with XM radio, Google has opened the doors for its advertisers to more than 7 million radio subscribers throughout the U.S. alone. That, combined with the already powerful distribution of their current Adwords program, offers several different marketing avenues for small, medium, and large companies to explore. Not a bad move if you ask me.

Labels: google, paid-search

I just wanted to take a quick second to announce that Microsoft is planning a pretty big adCenter update... one that will offer a few new features that are geared towards improving their advertiser's overall online experience. The new features, as highlighted in an email I received from the Microsoft adCenter team, include:

• Compatibility with the Firefox 1.5 browser.

• All data (daily, weekly, and monthly) will be updated on a more frequent basis to help advertisers to view results and optimize campaigns more efficiently.

• An option to set and view your campaign and order summaries based on a specific time frame, as opposed to only showing summaries in the life-to-date format. Currently both Yahoo! and Google offer this features and my only comment for Microsoft is that IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME! Looking at summary stats in "life-to-date" was getting really annoying.

• A user-interface change, specifically to the "reporting" tab, that is said to make it easier to use.

This upgrade is expected to take place this Saturday (August 5th) and between the hours of 7:00am and 9:00pm Pacific Time.

During this time, all campaigns and ads will continue to run, however, advertisers will not be able to access or make changes to their adCenter accounts. Therefore make sure you make all necessary account changes before-hand, because your're going to be very limited on time for Saturday.

For more information on this and other adCenter updates, check out the adCenter Blog.

Labels: bing, paid-search

Google's "kicking it up a notch" in their PPC click-fraud efforts and has now decided to reveal some of its key click-fraud stats to its advertisers. As of last Tuesday, Adwords advertisers have been given the option to view the number of invalid clicks (that's right... invalid) that Google finds within their account, as well as the percentage of overall clicks deemed invalid.

For those of you not familiar with Pay Per Click advertising, click-fraud occurs when website publishers click on ads on their site to boost their revenue or when companies click on rivals' ads to eat away at their advertising budgets. Obviously, click-fraud is a very big thorn in the sides of PPC advertisers, and until now they have not had a great deal of data to use in defending their accounts from fraudulent click activity.

Industry reports say fraudulent clicks range from about 14 percent to as high as 20 percent of total clicks. Without relevant click-fraud data from Google and other search engines, advertisers have had to rely on estimates from third-party companies. Under this new system, AdWords customers will now have a better understanding of the amount of invalid clicks that exist within their campaigns, as well as being able to compare Google's information with that of their third-party provider.

Here are 2 small snap shots that highlight the recent Google reporting changes.

This image highlights the newly added click-fraud options in which users can select to see "invalid clicks" and "invalid clicks rate"

This is a sample of how the "invalid clicks" and "invalid clicks rate" sections will appear in a report after one has been generated.

There's no doubt (at least within my mind) that this is a step in the right direction for PPC advertising. As PPC advertising continues to be an effective way of marketing websites, advertisers will continually need more and more click-fraud support from search engines, in terms of reports, tools, and other resources. Hopefully other PPC search engines will realize what Google has - the need for releasing invalid click information - and will follow in their foot steps.

Labels: google, paid-search

The time has finally arrived... Yahoo and MSN are partners' no-more. As of July 1st (this past Saturday) the MSN / Yahoo! agreement regarding the distribution of Yahoo! paid search listings has ended. That's right! Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers will no longer have the luxury of having their PPC ads reach MSN's search result pages. Instead, MSN will be employing their own PPC program, MSN adCenter, to fit the bill.

Here is an official quote from the Yahoo! Search Marketing division:

This shouldn't come as that big of a surprise to many... the MSN / Yahoo! days have been numbered ever since MSN first announced its plan to create a PPC program. In addition, for the past few months MSN has been serving many of its own adCenter ads, in place of Yahoo! ads, on its search results pages. This was most likely done to help search users and advertisers adjust to this weekend's transition.

So what exactly does this mean for Pay Per Click marketers? Well, if you haven't done so already, you should definitely consider breaking-down your overall Pay Per Click budget to accommodate MSN's new program. Most likely you've already split your advertising budget between Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords but now you really should consider "slicing the PPC pie" a third time. Even though MSN's reach is no where near that of Google's and Yahoo's advertising networks, MSN still rakes in over 40 million searches a month... and quite frankly, that's search engine traffic that no one can afford to miss out on.

In fact, now would be a great time to begin an MSN capaign. PPC competition isn't at its fullest and the per-click costs usually associated with competitive keywords are, for the most part, dramatically less. Of course, this is until the word spreads farther about the MSN adCenter program and the ending of the Yahoo! agreement.

For more information on MSN's adCenter program, including how to sign up, check out the adCenter home page.

What do you think? Does MSN have what it takes to compete on the frontlines with Yahoo!'s and Google's already established PPC programs, or do you think that they'll fall short? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Labels: bing, paid-search, yahoo

Up until last week, Google sold text, flash, and image-based online advertising to online merchants and those looking to buy a little bit of search traffic to their websites. This week Google has taken the next step in what they believe is moving-forward and now offers "click-to-play" video ads which are set to show throughout its publisher network (but not its own sites).

Unlike many video ads that automatically play when a visitor goes to a web page, Google's ads will not start until the user clicks on them. Viewers can advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser's site.

Via Google's automated auction system, advertisers will bid on a cost-per-click basis, where they pay when a user clicks an embedded link, or on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis. Fees on a CPM basis are expected to range between $5 to the low double-digits, compared with the current online video prices, which can run as high as $100.

There's no question that video is becoming more and more popular on the Internet as the success of YouTube and viral videos illustrate, however, I'm not yet sold on the fact that video advertising is necessarily the next generation of online advertising.

I mean do people really want to be bothered by video ads? I don't believe they do. I think people want to find the information they are searching for and find it quick... not watch some 15-30 second "online commercial" that may or may not help them in their search.

Does Google believe that people want to see video ads, or that video advertising is even at all helpful to its users? Well, I'm not a spokesman for Google, but I'd say no, they don't. If they did, than one must ask why aren't they placing these ads on their own site (search, local search, maps, news, etc.), instead of just their publisher network? My guess is that Google had discovered during early testing that people aren't all that interested in clicking on video ads as often as is seen with text ads, and their probably not ready to disrupt their gravy-train to know for sure... which by the way pulled in more than $6 Billion last year.

What do you think? Is video advertising the next phase in online marketing?

Labels: commentary-rants, paid-search

It's no shocker to anyone following the Pay Per Click industry that Yahoo! faces some very stiff competition from Microsoft, which launched its new AdCenter system in the United States a few weeks ago, and Google, which has the largest share of the search ad market. Simply put, Yahoo! is a bit behind, and now seeks to catch up.

This past week Yahoo! announced their plans for implementing a new ad system, which is said to offer enhanced ease of use, advanced testing features, geo-targeting, and automated analytics. Yahoo!'s new ad system, scheduled to launch in the third quarter, is designed to let marketers target prospective consumers not only by the search terms that people use, but also by their demographics, location, and most importantly what they do on other areas of the Yahoo! network.

That's right, Yahoo! plans on leveraging its millions of registered users and broad network of services to improve its advertising sales. There are so many things a person can do on Yahoo!'s network with a Yahoo! ID, and with that there is so much the network can tell Yahoo! Search Marketing about each of its users. The new ad system will allow Yahoo! to analyze its users, based off of information found on its network, and then distribute advertisements according to each user's intent to buy products and services.

For instance, if a registered Yahoo! user were to search "things to do in Illinois", Yahoo! Search Marketing will now be able to consult with its network sites such as Yahoo! Travel, learn that this user is planning a trip to Chicago, and thus provide him/her with advertisements tailored to Chicago, Illinois... instead of say Springfield, Illinois.

A great idea if you ask me.

There are 2 facts to consider. One... online advertising is estimated at more than $30 billion a year and growing, and two... Yahoo! has more users than any website on the net. This new kind of advertising targeting, if harnessed correctly, will outdo every other PPC advertising model available and deliver relevant advertising better than keyword searches ever could.

We are no doubt seeing the beginning of what we can expect in the future from PPC search advertising and individualized / personalized searching. I just never would have thought that it would have come from Yahoo!. Kudos to you, Yahoo!.

Labels: paid-search, yahoo

Looking to get involved in MSN's adCenter, the new Pay Per Click program allowing advertisers to buy search ads directly from MSN? Until now, participation has been limited and only a handful of "invited" search advertisers have been able to take part... that is until yesterday.

From 9am until noon Pacific Time, MSN opened a 3-hour window and allowed anyone willing and wanting to create an account the option to do so. Like all other PPC programs, registers had to provide basic company/affiliate information as well as some general billing-type information... a process that took at most 10 minutes to complete.

So why am I Blogging about this now... after all, the window has been shut and sealed? Well, I am happy to announce that I was fortunate enough to have learned about this ordeal just in the knick of time and was able to register an account. That's right! As of today I am officially taking MSN PPC clients and if your one of the many interested in buying PPC advertisement on MSN... I'm your hook-up.

As an advertiser, the obvious benefit is that not too many advertisers and Search Marketing companies have access to MSN's adCenter. This detail alone allows you the ability to pick up top-choice keywords for fractions of what you're currently paying at Google and Yahoo!, and I may add without a bidding war with your competitors.

In addition, there's no telling how long the current partnership between Yahoo! and MSN (the agreement that allows Yahoo! to show its paid advertisement on MSN search results) is going to last. I can easily see MSN buying out the rest of that agreement at any time and thus leaving Yahoo! advertisers exiled from MSN. Not a good place to be when you consider that MSN is 1 of the 3 biggest search engines in the game today.

If you're interested in getting your MSN campaign going, check out my Pay Per Click Management page for further details.

Labels: bing, paid-search

Labels: google, paid-search

Labels: paid-search, yahoo

Labels: ask, paid-search

As I am sure that everyone is well aware of, a few months ago Google developed an Adwords training program that if completed would grant you the title of "Adwords Qualified Professional"... a title that could be used to promote yourself in your business' marketing efforts.

For those of you unfamiliar with the program, Google basically threw together a list of credentials that an ideal "professional" would need to have in order to be first considered. Then, if you happen to be one that meets all requirements, you need to pass a timed, multiple-choice type test with about 100 or so questions.

This past week I finally had the opportunity to prepare (yes study and thankfully so because it was a bit tough) and take the test. You're all thinking "I spend hours on end each day managing Google Adwords accounts, how hard can it be?" Well... that's exactly what I thought, but was soon set straight.

Google requires that you score a 75% or higher and I barely made the cut with a score of 80%. This test was created around questions that I either found to be tricky or just plan non-relevant, which leads me to wonder what Google had hope accomplish with this program.

Personally I see no benefits from being an Adwords Qualified Professional and do not recommend that others join the program. In the end, All Web paid $50 so that I could take a one an a half hour test to reap no proven benefits? I didn't earn anything from this program, I still manage accounts with the same techniques and strategies, and I really don't foresee potential clients throwing us their business just because we now have Google's approval. All in all... in my opinion, Google's "Qualified Professional" program is a true waste of time!

Labels: google, paid-search

Labels: paid-search, yahoo

Labels: bing, industry-news, paid-search

Labels: google, industry-news, paid-search, yahoo