So a man got 668 clicks on his ads through one portion of his Google AdWords, and zero conversions. And for that, it's seen as good enough reason for a lawsuit. Ever heard of testing? Labels: google adwords
I'm no lawyer, but it looks like the complaint is shoddily written and inaccurate.
The thinking here is that the suit has limited merit because:
No, the program isn't perfect. Among other things, some of the ambiguous inventory is stuck in the "search partner" network where breakdowns and opt-outs aren't readily available (but just contact your Google rep and you can work around the problem, likely). A Googler recently told me that better reporting and opt-outs for the "search partner" network is forthcoming in the next few quarters.
Further reading: Revisiting Content-Phobia in Paid Search
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
When a certain kind of data is really close to your heart and mind, you'd like to think that some leading indicators are just too blatant to dismiss. Labels: google adwords, obama, youtube
To date, "Internet-inflated" political campaigns have often had that easily punctured quality to them. What turned out to be niche candidates had disproportionately strong donor bases and loyalties through cliquish but still impressive online channels. They got puffed up a bit in the early going, then proved to be paper dragons in the end.
The field is fast evolving, however. Top candidates today are employing real online marketing tactics to boost already solid campaigns, pushing themselves over the top with savvy, controlled, and tightly measured spending of campaign funds on the ads that we here know and love so well: paid search and contextual ads.
ClickZ News is reporting that the Barack Obama campaign spent a cool $1.7 million on Google ads in February alone.
I'll also go out on a limb and take this as a leading indicator for an Obama victory in November. It just doesn't seem that much different for me from customer acquisition in retail and B2B. Companies that are already strong, who add this targeted channel to their mix and pursue it aggressively before their competitors catch on, tend to pull away from the others. It isn't magic.
The only roadblock I see that could prevent this from happening would be a low turnout among youth voters. And by youth, I mean the entire 18-44 demographic that is currently most impacted by the online ad strategy. With unprecedented turnout in this demographic, Obama would win in a cakewalk. Without it, he could actually lose to McCain.
Hard to say what impact the wildly popular "Obama Girl" videos might be having on the candidates' fortunes, but again, if you compare what is happening -- and what *can* happen -- for McCain or Clinton at least in this social media realm... well... this Obama thing feels like a movement; yes, as some have stated, on a par with JFK (or PET for you Canadian viewers).
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Labels: google adwords
Now, it's more fun than Risk.
When you're setting your country choices in Google AdWords campaign settings, you may notice some new functionality. A handy map will visually display the countries chosen; and you can select countries in "bundles" such as "US and Canada," "Western Europe," "Latin America," "Caribbean," etc. A real time-saver as opposed to hunting and pecking from a long list.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Friday, November 09, 2007
Nag incessantly, and ye shall receive. Labels: content targeting, google adwords
I don't see this on Inside AdWords, so it must be new. I just stumbled on an opt-out functionality for the content network, being beta tested currently.
Two types of "content exclusion" have been added alongside site and page exclusion options: (1) topics; and (2) page types. Under "topics," advertisers will have the ability to opt out of certain types of content, like "edgy content" and "death & tragedy." More benignly, page types you can exclude include "image sharing" and "domain ads."
Wow. And in the opt-out interface, Google is really hitting me over the head with the recent conversion stats on some of the different types. In the campaign I chose, domain ads did just fine today - outperforming the campaign as a whole, in fact, from an ROI standpoint. There's no point in disabling something if it actually works, obviously!
So be cautious when this launches. If content is working fine for you, of course you'll want to avoid unduly limiting your exposure in the universe. In fact, if you can exclude unwanted content types, it might be wise to raise your bids on the rest.
For advertisers concerned about showing up in unwanted places, this is great news. Also great will be the fact that we'll be more armed with the facts about ad performance on different types of content. Heat gives way to light.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Litigants in anti-Google keyword cases such as this latest in Australia speak in one-sided "baby talk," acting for all the world like Google has set out to deceive and wrong them personally. I'd call it "food fight tactics," if I'd ever witnessed a food fight mostly involving applesauce, but I haven't. Labels: google adwords, keywords, trademark, universal search
This complainant blithely accuses Google of sneakily "selling off top spot" in spite of its reputation for ranking results based on relevance, not money. The sponsored results supposedly appear "in the same format" as search results. Car dealership Kloster Ford was "outraged" by its competitor's conduct... and hence, the ensuing lawsuit and brouhaha. Too bad for the complainants, but the outrage was not backed by, at least, brussels sprouts, or other food you can whip at someone, because applesauce thrown in anger is still applesauce. It was also not backed by facts or sound argumentation.
The overinflated sense of outrage and weak argumentation reminded me of my penchant for the helpful if opaque works of Jurgen Habermas, particularly his late work Between Facts and Norms. If the ideal for better understanding and progress in any problem-solving exercise is what Habermas might have called a "discursive situation," Habermas can argue that "communicative power" is merely pushy coercive power based on bluster and sometimes backed by money or illegitimate influence. "Real" power as embodied in the law (as it should be) would emanate from a discursive situation. Winning in a legitimate court case based on a proper weighing of facts and ethics as generally agreed in legal codes would be "legitimate power."
Luckily, Google wins most of these cases. Apparently, in many jurisdictions, "I was outraged" and blatantly manipulative descriptions of how Google "sells off top spot," are trumped by the more accurate argument that accurately describes the real workings of Google's advertising program, and the legitimate right of advertisers to buy space online.
At the entirely opposite end of the spectrum, I then read a nice piece by Mike Grehan in Larry Chase's WDFM newsletter that focuses heavily on trends in search and how Google Universal Search presents results to users based on search history or apparent intent. There is far from a single "list" of "most relevant" results in a given format. So kudos, Mike, for presenting deep-seated facts which lead us towards a "discursive situation" about search and ads, thus staying on Professor Habermas' good side. In an ideal society, the legal system would take account of such facts. Most modern legal systems attempt to do so, fortunately.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, August 16, 2007
...but it helps! Labels: ad quality, google adwords, nick fox
That's the t-shirt many paid search auction-grapplers have been mentally wearing for years.
In a few weeks, Google will be going live with a slightly altered version of the AdWords auction. Group Business Manager for Ads Quality, Nick Fox, was kind enough to go into considerable detail outlining the change, which as usual has been misinterpreted somewhat here in the ventosphere. The most common dismissal of any change Google has made to AdWords is "another cash grab by Google"... which I guess looks like a clever dig in pixel form, but I think the changes are definitely more interesting than that implies. Many of those comments tend to emanate from sources who still think all clicks should be free, so take them for what they're worth.
1. The Simple Explanation... Past vs. Present
a. OK, so the explanation isn't that simple if you've been doing this for awhile but not paying much attention, because Google has changed the way they sell the top-position "premium" ad slots several times in the past few years. Several years ago, the first major change occurred when Google started, then stopped, selling those ad positions completely separately on a costly high-CPM basis, using a dedicated sales team, 6-month insertion orders, and the whole nine yards. That was convoluted to administer -- and more importantly, divorced that type of ad buy from Google's traditional AdWords formula that focused on ad relevance and quality -- so they discontinued the practice. The top slots more or less joined the regular auction, but they remained distinct in look and feel, and were great to achieve due to high CTR's, high volume, and sometimes, higher conversion rates.
b. However, Google then began to experiment with how many ads it would show in those positions, and by and large, placed a higher threshold of quality [prior to August 2005, CTR (click-through rate) was the only measure of quality] and CPC (cost-per-click) before it would elevate an ad to the premium area. The exact thresholds were never publicized, but typically, ads with actual CPC's below .75 had trouble making the grade for premium positioning. Ads with CTR's below the averages for the keyword or industry sector had trouble making the premium spots too. I'm guessing Google tweaked the formula several times.
As Nick Fox told me today, because (1) "these ads get more attention from users," and (2) "push organic results lower on the page," to say nothing of (3) "being particularly valuable for many advertisers," it's important for Google to find the right balance here. Above all, the user response to the ads is paramount. Users must not become turned off by the overall perception of quality in their day-to-day use of the search engine.
So until now, the function that determined whether an ad would show in a premium position or be placed in the right-hand margin was weighted heavily towards quality score, but also included actual cost-per-click. That made it different from the rest of the auction, which went on the basis of quality score and max bid. Max bid can often be much higher than your actual CPC because of the discounter built into the pricing method.
c. Now, there will be a small change to the formula. The downside of the "actual CPC" part of this was that it stopped certain advertisers from getting in premium slot due to a lack of what Nick Fox called "auction pressure." Other advertisers simply might not have been present or bidding high enough to push the actual CPC up enough for the leading advertisers to qualify for premium spots. Worse, I'm guessing that this might mean that slightly lower-quality ads could creep into premium positions, because they *did* pay more on an actual basis. They wouldn't be *poor* quality ads, but they might not be the highest quality. This actually reveals a flaw in the previous formula because it unwittingly relaxed quality standards slightly in the area where it should have been heightened.
My interpretation here is that advertiser control and overall user satisfaction rise with this change, but yes, it does seem that some advertisers might experience price increases.
2. Unforeseen complexity.
Unpredictable effects might occur to some advertisers who find they suddenly get promoted to premium position, or who have been bidding very high and changes in the auction dynamic cause other advertisers' positions in the auction to change.
Will you pay more in those cases? Probably, if your actual CPC has in the past been coming in below what the new minimum price for premium placement is set at.
What, did I just say "new minimum price for premium placement?" I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. There is no set reserve price that Google is implementing here, but rather, a dynamic minimum that is a little bid difficult to grasp at this stage.
I guess the throbbing feeling I have in my brain about now comes from the fact that by adding this wrinkle, Google appears to be adding a second "minimum bid" - I'd liken it to a larger rung partway down the auction ladder. If you qualify to be in the premium slots (let's call this the treehouse), then you can stay up there, but you'll potentially pay more. The rope ladder down to the ground has the usual auction dynamic, but if you fall below that familiar minimum bid, the bottom rung on the rope ladder breaks and you fall into a big pile of leaves on the ground (out of the auction entirely). Potentially, your best friend's dog, Scrappy, licks your face as consolation, while you muster the courage to "improve quality or bid higher."
The minimum bid to be on the rope ladder (active in the auction at all) is *published* right next to the keywords in your AdWords account. But it doesn't look like your price of admission to the treehouse (the premium positions) is going to be published. One minimum bid, disclosed; the other, not. And a real dilemma for Google as to how they could possibly publish that given the limitations of the AdWords user interface as complicated as it now is.
So while the change may be minor in practice, advertisers are counseled to watch their bids, particularly if they've mucked about with high maximum CPC's (aka bids) in low actual CPC zones. You might begin paying more than that low level you've been accustomed to, in those cases. You should always be prepared to pay the full amount of the max bids you set, so it's never a good idea to bid wildly high, counting on a lack of auction pressure to make up for your laziness in bid management.
Let's ditch the passive voice, just to be clear. I counsel you to watch your bids!
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, April 26, 2007
I've noticed that Google's emphasis on the radio ads marketplace has been particularly strong - even amidst all of the other things they seem to be pumping all at once. Some client accounts have this tab visible (Account Snapshot); others, that tab (try this beta); and others, still, the other (Radio Ads). Or so it seems. Labels: commuting, google adwords, new yorker, radio ads
Google's testing a lot of stuff right now, but you keep hearing about the radio part.
I wonder why?
One reason seems to be the surprising growth of radio in the United States. As the most urbane members of the Creative Class and Yelp Gen have completely neglected to notice, "extreme commuting" has become ever more rampant in the U.S., as noted in a riveting recent piece in The New Yorker. As Nick Paumgarten, the author, points out, the long car commute is often very lonely. You have "cup holders for company." And the likelihood of you listening to the radio: increased. Think Google knows something?
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
You know you're doing something right when a speaker hanging out in the green room here at SES NYC unplugs his laptop and wanders over to show a fellow marketer a marketing campaign, as sort of a 15-second case study. This Coffee Fool appears to be a fairly heavy user of contextual advertising at the moment, showing up adjacent to GMail and such. (Not a really surprising semantic match given that you probably type a lot of messages like "meet for coffee?" in email.) Labels: coffee, content targeting, contextual ads, google adwords
I'm not sure what "coffee secrets" are really "exposed," but hey.
Disclaimer: I don't endorse or know much about their marketing methods. I don't know the company. I just noticed them.
Very important disclosure: I was not paid to post this!
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, April 05, 2007
Google refers vaguely to the "need for a new look" in shifting their top sponsored ad background color from blue to yellow today. Were CTR's declining? We know that rotating ad design in banner campaigns sometimes props up CTR's. Personally, I haven't seen much evidence of declining CTR up there at the top, but you never know. Labels: ctr, google adwords
Another significant shift is not triggering a clickthrough unless the user actually clicks the link. It's been a bit cheesy that clicking anywhere in the box caused a click. So the result of this shift should be a noticeable improvement in ROI out of the top ad spots. Fewer clicks, but more clicks that meant to click.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Google has been testing a "pay-per-action" ad model since July 2006. Labels: cost-per-action, google adsense, google adwords
Today they're announcing a wider rollout of the service, but still in "limited beta release."
In a brief chat yesterday with Rob Kniaz, product manager for Google advertising products, I learned that AdSense publishers will be able to add the pay-per-action units in addition to their current AdSense (CPM or CPC) ad units. They'll be able to shop for potential offers in a variety of ways, either by selecting a specific advertiser's offer or by incorporating keywords into their code and letting Google's system smart-match from their advertiser list.
From the advertiser side, there will be a dedicated interface that allows them to upload creatives as well as the parameters for payout (eg. $3 per sale; $35 per lead, etc.). I'm waiting to see the full implementation, but at this early stage it looks like there will be a couple of things to look out for:
There are some clear positives in this experiment. In potentially opening up a CPA marketplace to all of its several hundred thousand advertisers, with tens of thousands of publishers on board as well, it instantly gains the clout of a service like Commission Junction or Amazon Associates, but with less friction and lower cost (and over time, greater variety to choose from, for both sides in the transaction). It gives publishers a new way of experimenting with maximizing their monetization efforts (with better targeting, not user overload as shown in the last post), and allows advertisers to explore a new way of buying content-targeted exposure through Google. Put another way, it allows merchants to set up an "affiliate program," but with considerably less hassle than with other affiliate systems.
To be clear, the cost-per-action test has nothing to do with the search results or ads next to them. It's an additional marketplace being built to facilitate cost-per-action ad payments between AdWords advertisers and AdSense publishers.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007
CBS Marketwatch is ahead of the curve with this item. Google is releasing more detailed information about click fraud. Last time around, they were somewhat transparent in their approach as they chatted with Andy Beal. However, some stats never got fully examined - so now Google is redoubling its efforts to explain both the magnitude of the proactively refunded clicks (it amounts to over $1 billion per year in forgone revenue), but also the relative tininess of the proportion of clicks that get refunded by request in investigations after that (below 0.1%, well below). Recently I had an opportunity to speak at length with Shuman Ghosemajumder to discuss some of the stats and also Google's fraud detection methods. IMHO they have some pretty interesting tricks up their sleeve on the detection front. Labels: click fraud, google adwords, page zero, podcast, shuman ghosemajumder
Having gone over some of their info so far and reflected on how it squares with current opinion in the industry, I just completed an audio interview (a PZCast to be exact, hosted as always by Mona) with some detailed comments on the click fraud controversy. The MP3 file will be posted to the member area for Page Zero Advisor subscribers by noon Thursday. If you listen, remember as always, the initial 90 second throat-clearing banter is only outdone in its inanity by the official banter lasting three full minutes. Fast forward past both if you prefer content to yuks.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Monday, February 26, 2007
Search Engine Land has it. Expect more Google announcements re: click transparency in the near future. Labels: content targeting, contextual ads, google adsense, google adwords
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Monday, February 19, 2007
Excuse my giddiness, but it's definitely addictive to look at your keyword quality scores. You could have guessed them before by the assigned minimum bids, but these are fun to look at anyway: Labels: ctr, google adwords, minimum bid, quality score
Yet confounding, too - no doubt seeing this stuff will cause some advertisers to overthink and to try to divine the impossible. The one with 5.1% CTR today is called "great" but there is one with over 10% CTR that is being assessed as merely OK. Presumably, that's based on some predictive stuff around the generic nature of one of the keywords (the OK one is too general maybe). And presumably it would only be a few hundred more clicks over a week or so at a high CTR and it might kick into "great" territory. We'll see. I guess that would be my advice in the "avoid overthinking" department: realize that an established CTR history will give you a more stable quality score than the stuff you see on new keywords.
I also think it's cool (laugh if you like) that Google makes it slightly difficult to display this, so it doesn't confuse newbies. You have to drill down a fair bit to find the place to turn on QS info.
At the campaign summary level, if you click on "customize columns," the only non-default column you can add here is "CPM." (I find this cool too. You don't need to do the math - you can measure the eCPM on your campaign by enabling it in the interface. On this ad group - a brand new campaign - we're getting a rock-bottom $0.85 CPM. So far, so good!)
Anyway, once you drill down past the ad group level to the "keywords" tab you can "customize columns" and enable the extra quality score information in the interface.
Speaking of new stuff... at the bottom of your keyword list in the available options is a button for "pause" and "unpause". Shut up! I'm pretty sure Google slipped this in without telling us. Some time ago they added a feature that allowed you to pause an ad (handy for testing and sharing info internally), but this pause a keyword was something I'd been hoping for. Heck, who knows what you'll use it for, but power users always come up with something.
UPDATE: OK, so via the Inside AdWords blog I see the "pause keyword" feature was added on Thursday. I spent Friday on an airplane... So by now it's still only five days old. And my spidey sense tells me that my colleagues here in the office are already pausing keywords! LOL, gotta love 'em. The "pause ad" feature was added some time ago, as I recall.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, February 15, 2007
Kevin Newcomb's take on the latest incremental update on ads quality. As Kevin does, I interpret the changes to mean an increase in transparency (obvious, because that's what Google tells us); and a more relaxed minimum bid status for "unknown" type new keywords where Google has little data to go on. Here, they might be less likely to punish you for the trends seen with other advertisers trying similar keywords for similar offers, and let you create your own good or bad track record on your own. (It's not a black and white change, more of a tweak in emphasis.) Labels: google adwords, quality score
At the same time, they also allude to the new algorithm being tougher on bad ads and nicer to good ones, so basically just further refinements based on machine learning and so on. If you're on the receiving end of the additional toughening up, it'll hurt even more. The majority of advertisers will likely feel the new regime to be slightly more liberal.
The increased transparency will lead to more questions. Once I'm absolutely sure of what keywords or groups of keywords are low quality, how should I respond. Google explicitly advises that you do not raise your bid, but rather, optimize your campaign. (So much for the "cash grab" theory.) And they point in particular to the relationships between your keywords, ads, and offer. This is what I was getting at in the last post.
Creating more granular campaigns will potentially boost quality for those who do have available content and offers on their sites, but who have been lazy in how they build the campaign structure, for whatever reason.
What still confuses me is how Google can know what score to apply if you're running a complex test that includes multiple ads and multiple destination URL's, where you're actively trying to understand the best places to send users on the site, the best wording to use in ads., etc. for any given keyword. Or does the mere act of doing more systematic testing of this nature possibly give you some brownie points? I think I'll have to ask them about that. By and large, I think the answer is this: the system is designed to be punitive to campaigns that have some aspect that falls really far outside the normal, relevant, user-friendly range. Most campaigns are going to run unimpeded, or in other words ranking and status are largely based on the old standbys of historical CTR and your max bid. That's what I call AdWords 2.0. The current iteration, 2.7, is probably not too far from 2.0 for the vast majority of campaigns, keywords, ads, and sites.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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In one of the paid search sessions yesterday here at SES London, one audience member gave his account of the "death spiral" that seems to afflict certain keywords in his AdWords account. "I wake up and Google's asking for £2.50 for a keyword, so I raise the bid. The next day, they've put it up to £5.00. (etc.)." Labels: google adwords, minimum bid, quality score, relevance
Obviously this is a signal that the relationship between this keyword, ad, and landing page is seen as "very low quality."
So I asked roughly what industry he was in - turns out it's related to debt relief. The keyword in question? "Lottery tickets." Yup, I thought to myself - in the new Quality Based Bidding regime, that's seen as just too far off the mark in terms of relevancy to the service being offered to the consumer.
This might have fallen flat at any stage of AdWords history, though, by virtue of the low CTR it would likely attract. A "popular culture" type word (people looking up lottery listings is a very common navigational function) will be so high volume that the proportion of users who are thinking "transactionally" and willing to check out an offer is so low that it will lead to a CTR that is below any threshold of reasonability as far as today's PPC auctions go.
You admire the lateral thinking here: people desperate to dig themselves out of debt might be more inclined to buy and look up info on lottery tickets. If so, then an advertiser should probably try to get placement on relevant websites through direct media buys and various banner and text ad targeting tactics (one being Google's Site Targeting option).
But you'll have much more trouble doing this type of "loose targeting" if you're using AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, unless of course you have a strong, established CTR and user experience history.
So is an ad for debt relief next to search engine results for lottery tickets really "low quality"? Yes, moderately so, because in the user's eyes, search is special. They want even the ads to be tightly targeted, or let there be no ads at all.
Google is no doubt going to continue to modify the Quality Score algorithm to fine-tune the balance between advertisers' needs and the user experience. Stay tuned.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007
At least one panelist (David Szetela) on the Ad Program Strategies: Compare and Contrast panel here at SES London, argued that while he liked the control of Google's Site Targeted flavour of content targeting, he wasn't so fussy about the CPM-based pricing model. Labels: content targeting, contextual ads, cpm, google adwords, paid search
Coincidentally, today Google is announcing that they're beta testing a CPC-based version of Site Targeting, so advertisers who like the idea of paying by the click (that's pretty much anyone who is used to PPC as it's implemented in the rest of your account, and on YSM and MSN adCenter too) can do so.
Seems like advertisers just don't like switching to CPM-based thinking inside of a CPC-oriented platform.
Related Traffick posts:
Note, even if we go entirely over CPC's, it's always a snap to track the associated cost in CPM, if you're into apples to apples comparisons. In previous posts I had argued that even in traditional CPC-based content targeting, some of my favorite campaigns were successful precisely because of the price - which was effectively about $0.25 CPM.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Monday, February 05, 2007
In a densely-written post about click quality on the Inside AdWords blog, Google provides a surprising amount of information in a short space. They combine an informative approach to different types of click fraud and the steps advertisers need to take to document it, with a new, consistent approach to communications that includes a dedicated contact form. Labels: click fraud, google adwords
Google has been opening up its communications in several areas. For example, a member of that team took the trouble to chat at length with Andy Beal about the invalid click detection process. And Nick Fox of the Ads Quality team has commented directly on this blog on issues relating to arbitrage and the adwords ranking algorithm.
Permit us one small note of churlishness however, by way of defending conventions of ordinary human conversation the way we remember them pre-Google. "Meet the Click Quality Team" as a post title gives the impression we'll be hearing attributed commentary from identifiable individuals. We might even get names, or a group photo. Here, we're getting nothing of the sort, so we haven't in fact "met" anyone, although information has been disseminated. Also, there is a big stylized "open quotation" mark, and the use of the first person (singular as well as plural), but the quote is never closed and the person(s) is/are never identified. Am I the only one confused by this?
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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