We hope you enjoy the 4th of July!
Take just a minute to remember what this day represents…
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The United States Justice Department has stepped in on the Google/Yahoo! ad deal, opening a formal antitrust investigation. According to the Washington Post, “Google and Yahoo officials have said since the deal’s announcement that they would delay its implementation for a voluntary Justice Department review.”
In essence, the deal that the two search engine giants have worked out is that when Yahoo! runs out of ads to serve, Google will supply the rest. This will help Yahoo! to deliver ads for some of the more long tail search queries.
So it looks like there’s going to be some investigation, deliberation, etc., into the antitrust implications, and we of the PPC community will just have to see what happens.
Yahoo! and Google both say that the deal with be good for competition. We’re hoping that the deal turns out to be good for us. In fact, when it all gets sorted out, we kind of hope for the following sort of anti-trusty, merger-ific mistake:
Oh yeah! 
We know that’s probably not going to happen, but here’s to wishful thinking!
Note to people who are inclined to look at screen shots without reading the accompanying posts: The above screenshot is fake. We made it. This did not actually happen on a real Yahoo! search. Also, Ad #2 is very unoptimized, although we are thinking of testing it and see what kind of conversion rate we get…
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I was caught off guard this morning when I read Dave’s RedFly Marketing Blog post:
Free $100 Facebook Coupon Courtesy Of Visa
So I signed up - and you should too! It’s free and you get $100 in free Facebook ads!
Simply follow the instructions found in Dave’s post or visit the official Visa/Facebook network page and watch the intro video to find out more.
Now there isn’t a good excuse not to give Facebook Ads a shot to see if they will work for your clients or business!
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The AdWords Blog just announced a brand new blog today: Let’s Take it Offline.
Let’s Take it Offline is Google’s traditional media blog. Here is a quick excerpt from the announcement:
“Today, we’re pleased to announce that the TV, Print, and Audio Ads teams have launched Let’s Take it Offline, the official blog to help you get the most out of your offline ad campaigns. Our traditional media blog will keep you up-to-date on the latest feature launches, product updates, tips, and industry findings.”
You can learn more about the traditional media that is available from Google here: TV, Print and Audio.
Traditional media campaigns can be started directly through the AdWords Campaign Summary page - simply scroll to the bottom of the page, underneith all of your regular AdWords campaigns and you will see something that looks like this:
Click on the links to the right of each of the above menu items to start and remember to measure your offline efforts!
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With the announcement yesterday that Google now has improved indexing for Flash websites, the SEO world may see changes in the not so distant future. According to Google Webmaster Central, the new algorithm in place can index “All of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file. If your website contains Flash, the textual content in your Flash files can be used when Google generates a snippet for your website. Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.”
While the algorithm doesn’t read .FLV files, it does read the text and links in .SWF files and adds them to the Google index.
Besides the obvious ramifications for SEO, in which building a site entirely in Flash was previously detrimental, perhaps this will lead to a future integration of the Flash indexing algorithm with the Adwords algorithm.
Google AdWords’ Landing Page Guidelines state that having relevant and original content on landing pages is vital to an acceptable landing page and good quality score (which translates into lower cost per click). At present, if you use Flash for your landing page, in order to achieve a good quality score, “you have to build an underbelly,” as Search Engine Roundtable put it. Otherwise your flash content does not help your ad copy in terms of relevance.
Could this mean that all-Flash landing pages used with Google Adwords ads will soon be readable by the Adwords algorithm? If Google can read the text in Flash, then high quality scores can possibly be achieved on Flash landing pages (once they integrate this algorithm into Adwords). This will let advertisers develop highly creative, interactive landing pages while maintaining low minimum bids/high quality scores.
It remains to be seen what will happen with Flash and the Paid Search industry, but we hope these changes come over to the PPC side quickly and efficiently.
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David Szetela, the ‘godfather’ of ppc, interviewed me yesterday for the PPC Rockstar show on webmasterradio.fm.
It’s been archived now so you can listen to the show for free here!
I’m slicing up the slide show that we discussed in the show to give more details and I will be posting a series of 5-7 minute videos on expanding and contracting your keyword list.
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AdWords announced The Retirement of the Pay-Per-Action beta because of the new Google Affiliate Network:
“The Google Affiliate Network, previously known as DoubleClick Performics Affiliate, has been in operation since 1998. Through the network, advertisers can open their ads to all publishers in the network, or select specific publishers that match their criteria. You can set a CPA for your entire campaign or establish custom payment schedules for specific publishers — such as a higher CPA for a particularly optimal placement. The Google Affiliate Network is currently a separate product from AdWords and AdSense. As with AdSense, publishers must apply and be accepted into the network.”
Google’s Affiliate Network merges two services: DoubleClick’s Performics Affiliate network and Google’s Pay Per Action network.
A few opinions that have been posted about this change:
John of PPC Hero.com fame writes about the inconvenience of the PPA/Performics integration
Aaron Wall Says The Integration Has Been A Bit Haphazard So Far
PepperJam’s CEO Kris Questions Whether Or Not The Other Affiliate Networks Stand A Chance or Could This Move Simply Lend A Hand Of Extra Credibility to the Affiliate Industry?
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Barry Schwartz noted a couple days ago and again today on Search Engine Land that the Overture Keyword Tool is finally gone for good. Barry emailed Yahoo! and they confirmed that the tool is not coming back.
The original Overture keyword tool site now redirects you to Yahoo! Search Marketing.
Now you have to get a Yahoo! Search Marketing account to get an idea about how Yahoo! will match keywords or analyze urls for keyword lists…simply make a $30 deposit and you can have access to Yahoo!’s keyword research tools.
If you’re already signed up with Yahoo!, simply go into an existing ad group or create a new adgroup to use their keyword generation and bid/traffic estimation tools.
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Giovanna, wife of SEObook’s Aaron Wall, launched the website, ppcblog.com yesterday, and choruses of cheering Internet marketing nerds erupted from cubicles around the world. After reading great material that Giovanna has contributed at SEObook, like The Blogger’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization and her reviews of conferences like PPC Summit, it was only a matter of time before she dove all the way into the PPC world.
PPCBlog.com seems like a great way to do it!
We’re excited to see what happens, and hopefully to contribute as well. It’s refreshing to hear more voices in the PPC community, and we’d just like to raise ours in congratulations to Giovanna in light of her new launch.
Here are a few of Giovanna’s recent posts:
Review of Google Ad Planner: Site Targeting Cheat Sheet
Who Chopped off PPC’s Long Tail?
What Exactly Are You Marketing?
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David Szetela, of Clix Marketing and SEW fame, interviewed me today on WebMasterRadio.fm’s PPC Rockstars show - it was an awesome experience.
I think the show will air at 4pm EST!
After it airs, I’ll post a more detailed video including the slides we talked about on the show and a walk through of some of the techniques we discussed.
The topic was “Keyword List Management”.
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