The IAB has just released their 2010 search marketing barometer which makes for essential reading if you operate in the digital marketing or search engine marketing arenas.

A total of 144 questionnaires were completed by 91 top brand (chosen as they are were the top advertising spenders for April/May this year).

A summary of the IAB findings are as follows:

1. Integration opportunity – only 28.7% of advertisers said search is fully integrated with the rest of the marketing mix, yet 99% said there is a greater opportunity to integrate and 100% of Search Council agencies felt all of their clients could do more to integrate.
2. Brand building – 78% respondents said search can build brand either directly or as part of the full user journey, reflected by actual use. 70% include brand building as a primary objective of SEO and over 50% for PPC.
3. Budget – 99% of SEO budgets and 90% of PPC budgets will stay the same or increase in 2010 (55% and 43% increase respectively).
4. PPC Activity – Only 14% of respondents DON’T employ a PPC agency; and 72% of respondents are restricted by their PPC budgets.
5. Website effectiveness – only 37% of websites are ‘good’ at achieving objectives, leaving much room for improvement once consumers reach their destination.
6. Advanced testing – 19.4% of respondents carry out A/B testing with 5% carrying out MVT (multi-variate testing); 35% carry out both. 39% of respondents do not carry out testing – so clearly there’s room for improvement.
7. Strong understanding of search? – the majority of respondent claim to understand the main principles of SEO and PPC (only 38.6% feel teams outside of digital also understand the importance of search); but few have enough information about new or advanced tools and data. This would indicate that knowledge is not being filtered to all levels, which is also hindered by an ever changing IT landscape.
8. Efficiency of search – cost, value and resource are clear concerns at the moment, indicating a shift in advertiser attitudes to search where reviewing and optimising activity is currently of greater importance.
9. Finding skills – 37% of respondents said they found it hard to find staff with skills in search marketing; and search qualifications were considered unimportant for 53%.
10. Social Media and mobile – 39% of respondents believe social media will be more important than search in 2015; 49% believe mobile search will overtake desktop search by 2015.

With the Google content network reaching more than 80% of Internet users and serving more than 6 billion ad impressions per day, as an advertiser you’d want to know what kind of CPA (cost per acquisition) performance you’re likely to get compared with the search network.

The report published by Google in November 2008 was based on results from 25000 Google AdWords accounts with a statistically measurable number of conversions (tracked using Google AdWords) over a 12 month period.
A summary of the findings were as follows:

1. Ads published on the Google Content Network are likely to be as cost-effective – or possibly even more cost-effective – than ads appearing on the search network. Half of the advertisers had a content network CPA at least 2.6% lower than their average found on the search network.
2. The Content Network accounts for around 20% share of total conversions.
3. Conversion rates tended to be improved when advertisers used either of the two available campaign management controls namely:
   1. the Conversion Optimizer and 2. site exclusion.

Take what you will from the findings! Contributors to the various digital forums such as Webmaster World have inevitably raised eyebrows as to the validity or accuracy of these findings, as many PPC experts consider the content network to yield little in the way of useful CTR or conversion metrics.

I am also rather sceptical of the results not necessarily because they may be inaccurate, but because I tend to find that the vast majority of AdWords advertisers have little experience of the content network.

These advertisers tend either to leave the content network active (accidentally in most cases) or have made little attempt to target their content network campaigns using site exclusions, negative keywords, placement targeting and the interpretation of reports.

If you’re interested, the full report can be read at: http://www.google.com/ads/research/gcnwhitepaper/#utm_source=fyiagencynews&utm_medium=blog

Last week, Michael Grade, Executive Chairman for UK based broadcaster ITV scrapped the financial targets he set 18 months ago commenting that the outlook was “as bad as anything I have seen in 30 years of broadcasting*”.
*(Source: Financial Times, Thursday March 5 2009).

The future of traditional TV advertising appears equally bleak among other advertising reliant broadcasters as well, with lack of further investment currently leading to potential merger talks between UK state funded Channel 4 and privately owned Channel 5.

The Start of a New Era
I believe that we are in fact now entering a new era of opportunity where the very powerful visual impact of precisely targeted online “TV advertising” now becomes a freely available and highly relevant marketing tool to any business whatever the size of their marketing budget.

It’s no secret that Google’s largest source of revenue in its 10 year history to date has come from the “2 lines of text” AdWords™ pay per click ad delivery system.

If highly targeted AdWords™ adverts (that all look exactly the same as one another on the screen) have proven so successful in the last decade, then what if the “2 lines of text” ads were replaced by unique (300 x 250pixel) click-to-play “TV adverts”, targeted in the same way as traditional text based AdWords™?

Surely no SME (especially in the current economic climate) is going to risk £20k+ to produce their own TV ad on the off chance that their CTR may improve a little?

It would make far more sense to invest a fraction of that cost on a pay-per performance basis. This takes the idea of “pay-per-view” one step further and becomes “pay-per-quality view”.

Current Reach of Google Video Advertising
Google video ads are currently broadcast on The Google Content Network™, the largest online advertising network in the World reaching over 75% of unique internet users.

Google has also been recently beta testing a “video plus box” button for a company’s own video advert to appear next to its text based AdWords ads on the Google Search Network™. (This is similar to the idea of “map plus box” or “share price plus box”).

What about the Quality of a Google Video Ads CTR?
By the time a user has clicked through to your web site from your video ad they have been filtered 3 times entirely by their own actions.

The user firstly types in their user query and a product or service relevant web site from The Google Content Network™ then appears.

If your Google Video ad “wins” the auction because the user query matches the keywords or phrases that you agree should trigger the ad, your ad appears within the relevant article as a still impression or “holding image.”

The user must then click to play, if they wish to view the video ad. Then the user must click the ad a second time if they wish to be taken to the advertiser’s web site.

Google Costs
Google charge the advertiser nothing for their “holding image” to appear on screen or for their Google video ad to be clicked and played.

They only charge for any secondary clicks on the video ad that takes the user through to the advertiser’s chosen landing page.

This makes Google video ads hugely powerful as no video advertising is ever “pushed” in front of a viewer like “pre-roll” video advertising on a news video for example.

I believe that the outlook for TV advertising or “VideoAdwords” created and delivered in this way is “as good as anything I have seen in 30 years of broadcasting”.

This article was written by Chris Baillie, CEO and Founder of admoogle™: a digital media company that specialise in creating and delivering bespoke Google Video Ad campaigns.

Visit Emarketeers’ Google AdWords training course for further information.

Imagine someone giving you $10,000 a month to do with it as you please. Sounds good? Well if you like the sound of that and you’re a charity, you should check out Google Grants.

When we were re- developing our website last year (www.msf.org.uk), we were introduced to the Google Grants system by our web project manager who had worked for Google previously. The grant had been arranged by our US office on behalf of all the international offices of MSF some time before, and she was amazed that we had not made use of it before then.

What is Google Grants?
Google Grants is a scheme that provides charities with free PPC (pay-per-click) advertising using the Google AdWords System. It provides up to $10,000 per month, possibly more if you apply for the extended Grants program, for charities to spread their message and solicit donations online. Any registered charity can apply to be a part of the scheme, and based on our experience over the last year, my advice would be to get involved!

Restrictions using Google Grants
There are of course some restrictions placed upon advertisers using the Grants scheme as opposed to a standard Google AdWords Account.

The first restriction is that you are limited to a $1 maximum CPC (cost per click) bid. This means there is no chance to buy your way to the top of listings (or even anywhere near the first page for many keywords!); instead you have to focus on the enigma that is “Quality Score”, which in itself is not a bad thing. We don’t just want to drive traffic to our site, but rather we want quality traffic that will result in an action.

The second is that you are only able to use the search network (google.com or Google.co.uk) and not the content network or site placement. This is understandable as Google is basically handing out free cash to charities, so they don’t want this passed around.

You are also faced with a few problems when it comes to Google’s editorial policy for the adverts. I am sure that these problems are encountered by standard AdWords users as well as recipients of the Grant, however they are worth noting here. The most common problem that we have, and I am sure many other charities would have as well, comes from our field of work, namely medicine. Google editorial policy prohibits the advertising of pharmaceutical products and unfortunately this seems to cover our French name (Medecins). Luckily there is an appeal process, so that you ad can be referred to a human being (I guess?) rather than the automated clearing process.

Getting started with Google Grants
Whilst the idea of using the Grants system was a bit intimidating at first, lots of jargon and new concepts and no previous experience of online marketing, we slowly started to make use of it. A bit of guidance on the basic principles and how to structure a campaign was all that we needed to start getting our ads out there. And that is the beauty of the Grants system; it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. I can’t think of any other way that a complete novice would be given $10k per month advertising budget and told to go and “have a play” with it!

How Google Grants has helped us
Over the last year our use of the grant has grown and we now spend our budget most months. We have used the grants for general communication, soliciting donations and also recruitment of office staff and volunteers. We have doubled traffic to our site and increased our online revenue significantly; quite an achievement in the current climate.

“From sceptic to convert”
So, you may think that we would be happy to leave it at that; loads of free advertising that increases traffic to our site and also increases revenue. But this is just the start. I have been transformed from e-marketing novice (with a rather sceptical opinion of it) into some who now cannot get enough of CTR’s, CPC’s and conversion rates. The learning is continuing with a focus on converting the traffic that we acquire from our AdWords in a more efficient manner. We are continually A/B testing our Ads and refining our keywords with a view to ensuring that we can always place high despite the $1 CPC limit.

Monitoring our AdWords campaigns
And again the great thing about Google Grants is that we don’t pay for it and so we don’t need to be obsessed with its management. It can be set up and run when you have a few spare minutes in your day. In general I check how things are going daily and may make minor adjustments that take a few minutes. In addition to this monitoring, we spend a couple of hours roughly once a month to go through each Campaign, Adgroup, Keyword and Ad more thoroughly.
Obviously the more that you put in to it the more you will learn and get out of it. I am sure that we are not harnessing the complete power of our Google Grant. We are however improving all the time, becoming more sophisticated and we are not paying anyone for the pleasure!

This article was written by Sam Knight of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

See more information on the Google grants programme.

Learn more more about Google AdWords training.

To inspire you to strive for better PPC results (making particular reference to Google AdWords), have a read of our top tips for PPC success:

1. Location location location
Geo-target your relevant audience(s). Be sure not to include territories that aren’t relevant to the products or services you are advertising.

2. Target your ad groups
One of the golden rules: ensure your ad groups are well targeted. Avoid creating a generic ad group with a list of non-targeted keywords. Aim to limit your keywords to around 10-20.

3. Get your keyword matching strategy right
Combine broad matching with phrase or exact matching in order to balance volume for precision targeting; the latter will reduce your CPC (cost per click) in the long run.

4. Negative words are a positive step!
Build a list of global negative keywords especially if you are using a plethora of broad matches. Negative keywords will filter out unwanted searches and will improve your targeting.

5. Dynamic keyword insertion
Use dynamic keyword insertion on some ads and measure against other ads. Dynamic keyword insertion will often improve your click-through rates (CTR) as the displayed copy within the ad will match the search term. However be sure that all your keywords work correctly when published dynamically. Finally make sure you get your capitalisation right!

6. Content versus search network
Firstly make sure you understand the differences between the content and search networks. Bear in mind that clicks from the content network are well known to be impulsive as visitors are usually not in “purchase” mode but are in “browse” mode.

As a result of this, be wary of the content network and separate bids between the content and search network. Alsouse different messaging between the two.

Finally, consider the content network if your keywords are not regularly used in searches.

7. It’s not just about clicks
Remember to track your conversions and ROI (return on investment) not just CTR (click-through rates). At the most basic level you can use Google’s website optimizer to track your cost per sale and conversion rates.

8. Aim to meet your profit targets
Work out your CPA (cost per acquisition) and profit targets and compare against other channels with cross channel tracking. Remember that you can generate brand awareness and various forms of offline value for every click as well as direct online sales or leads.

9. Avoid bidding wars
Don’t enter into bidding wars especially if you wont meet your profit targets. Aim to increase your quality score and ad position through good targeting.

10. Test, tweak, measure
In Jim Sterne’s book “Web Metrics”, when referring to website design, he recommends adoping the “Try It, Measure It, Tweak It” approach. Apply the same approach to your PPC campaigns. Don’t rest on your laurels. Test different creative copy and offers and measure your click-through rates religiously.

11. Monitor the competition
Watch your competitors; aim to figure out their bidding strategy.

12. Bid management software
Consider adopting bid management software if you are running large or multi-network campaigns.

13. Work on your listing position strategy
Aim to modify your listing position and monitor fluctuations in click-through rates. Remember that you might achieve a good CTR at position 1, but your may well achieve better conversion rates in lower listing positions.

14. Dayparting
Monitor your dayparting strategy (i.e. the time of day and day of week your ads appear). Aim to display ads when conversions are at their highest. Avoid switching ads on and off as this might affect your ad performance history; instead consider getting your bid management software to reduce bids at times when conversions are at their lowest.

15. Don’t forget the last hurdle: landing pages
Optimise your landing pages to achieve the best possible conversions. Consider A/B testing or multivariate testing to improve your conversion rates.

If you find the above baffling, why not enroll on our Google AdWords course?

When setting up a list of keywords in Google AdWords, we are prompted by the Google AdWords system to choose from “broad match”, “phrase match”, “exact match” or “negative match”.

But what about “expanded match”? What is it and when does it apply?

Expanded match applies only to broad matched keyword and implies that Google may publish your ad(s) with search terms that are similar to your broad matched keywords even if they aren’t exactly the same.

For example, if your keyword list contains “internet marketing”, Google may well publish your ad for searches such as “writing for the web” even if the latter is not included in your keyword list.

You might immediately conclude that the concept of expanded match contradicts the targeted nature of PPC marketing, but Google argues that it not only helps Google AdWords novices, but it also offers searchers a more well-rounded series of targeted ads.

Whilst we can appreciate Google’s point of view, the secretive nature of expanded match has certainly not helped education, particularly at the novice level.

The easiest ways to avoid the expanded match algorithm are:

1. use exact or phrase matching rather than broad matching (but of course this might not suit your keyword matching strategy)
2. build a list of negative keywords either within your ad group or as a global list.

If you want to see if your ad has been the victim of the expanded match algorithm, run a search query report and you will soon see whether the search term that resulted in your ad being published was contained in your keyword list.