We take a look at an additional free traffic source that’s working well for our clients, Google Shopping Results.

Why List on Google Shopping Results?

• Listing and clicks are currently free – although we suspect that this might change at some point in the future.
• A high ranking would get you on the front page of Google for some search terms.
• You can hook up a good quality feed with your AdWords account and show products in your Google AdWords ads.
• Once you have a feed that works well, there’s more traffic available from other shopping engines using similar methods.

What you need for a Shopping Feed

• Either a dynamic feed output from your eCommerce store or a CSV file in the correct format. A dynamic feed works best as this should update the shopping feed with any price or product changes on your site rather than changing a file and manually uploading each time.
• Suitable access to your site to add validation tags.
• A Google Merchant Centre account.
• Preferably a Seller Rating from previous transactions on Google Checkout – although there’s a lot of conjecture about this improving ranking in the results, most of the top results do show a Seller Rating (draw your own conclusions).

How to Set Up a Google Shopping Feed

1. Open an account. There’s a site validation process that’s a little cumbersome, but bear with it.
2. Check the feed formats you can use and select the one that suits you best
3. Download a sample file if you’re not a techie.
4. If you’re automating the process, have your site output your products to your server and enter the file location in to Merchant Centre. If you’re doing it manually, upload the file.
5. Wait for Google to validate the format and products you’re listing. This might take up to 24hrs.
6. For manual uploads, remember to upload a new file at least once per month – it will expire and your products will stop showing.

As with any online medium, there are techniques and strategies for improving just where your products rank based on a relevance algorithm. More on optimisation techniques in another post, but suffice to say, make sure your main search terms feature in the Titles and Descriptions of your feed.

If you can’t measure the success of your campaign, how on earth can you make sure it’s effective?

Conversion Tracking is one of the most common points we have to explain to clients that are new to advertising online (and even some that aren’t). Simply implementing conversion tracking will provide invaluable data in your account, but there are more options you can use that you might not be aware of.

The most criminal point – the function comes free with your AdWords account, it just needs to be implemented.

What is a conversion?

If you’re new to advertising, we use the term, “conversion” to describe the objective of a campaign. This might be a phone call, or a sign up to a newsletter, a download of a guide like our one, use of a contact form, or for an eCommerce store and conversion would be a sale.

Why it is important

Once you have conversion tracking implemented correctly, you’ll see some additional columns pop up in your account; Conversions, Conversion Rate and Cost Per Conversion. This data is then available for the whole account, each campaign, each ad group and most importantly every single referring site from the Display Network and every single keyword in a Search Campaign.

You’ll be able to measure the cost of every conversion from every keyword in your account.

If you’re spending any amount of money on clicks or on SEO, this level of detailed analysis is essential.

How it works

Think of it as a simple process with an end goal; Click ad > browse site > conversion (fill in form, buy something or call) > “thank you” page.

The most important point here is that the goal or “thank you” page comes AFTER the conversion.
Only on this goal page, you add the conversion tracking code.

To generate the tracking code from your AdWords account, go to the Reports Tab, click “Conversion Tracking” and follow the prompts. You might need a friendly developer to add it in for you if you’re unsure.

eCommerce Options

If you operate an eCommerce store and you’re a little more technical, you should implement the value tracking too. With this method, not only can you track the number of conversions for every keyword and the average cost per conversion, you’ll also see the total and average value of the transactions. You’ll be able to directly measure the ROI from each and every keyword in your account and each and every referring site on the Display Network and optimise your account performance far more effectively.

You’ll most likely need a developer for this type of functionality. Full instructions are here.

In a fiercely competitive market, where clicks are £1.50 or more, together we established that he was wasting around £50 PER DAY on irrelevant clicks that had absolutely no chance of becoming sales.

Why? Keyword match-types.

You will hopefully be aware that Google Adwords provides three different keyword match types; broad match, phrase match and exact match.

Starting with the last first, Exact Keyword matching will only show your ad when the search term (what your customer types in to Google) matches your keyword exactly, no misspelling, no typos, no plural, no partial matching.

Secondly, Phrase Match will match the search term if it includes your phrase somewhere; the phrase “red dress” would be matched to searches for ‘ladies red dress’, ‘girl in a red dress’, ‘make a red dress’, ‘red dress design’, ‘red dress lyrics’. Now, of course some of these are relevant, but some are not and potentially waste your budget.

Phrase Matching is quite tightly targeted though, so the same phrase would not match searches such as ‘red evening dress’, ‘red cocktail dress’ or even ‘dress red’ or ‘dress red’. The words are in a different order or do not form the phrase you’re bidding on, so you should thoroughly research and include each variation in your campaign to avoid missing that traffic.

Lastly, Broad Matching is the widest possible match type, and matches any search which includes the words in your keyword, misspellings, plurals, the words in a different order.

This is fine in some circumstances, but we would advise caution; research all possible search variations which might match your keyword. In the example broad match ‘red dress’, this matches; red head dress, dressing in red, red gingham dress, red white and blue dress, red or dead dress, red dressing gown and many other, potentially wasteful clicks which aren’t relevant enough.

Some of the terms may be relevant, and you want that traffic anyway. But matching one broad match keyword in this way will make it difficult to target that keyword with a relevant ad and to land that searcher on the right page on your site, impossible to measure the success of each search term and you’ll pay a lot more for each click.

Worse still, Google AdWords also uses what it calls, ‘expanded matching‘ on broad match keywords, often using synonyms. In a recent example, fujitsu bracket might match ‘mount fuji’ and ‘monitor mount’ matches a search for ‘shower screen bracket’! Completely irrelevant.

So, what should your keyword strategy be?

Depending on your market, budget and your personal preference, we might recommend bidding on phrase matches to begin with, researching as many variations as possible, or using only exact matching to start. In either case, a small number of broad matches should also be included to pick up anything you missed in your research. You can then frequently monitor the search query report for your account to add more phrase or exact match variations, or use negative keywords to exclude the irrelevant searches you find.

CAUTION: if you have been using broad match keywords in your account, removing them all in one go can upset the ecology of your campaign – be very careful before implementing a policy change such as this.

For advanced keyword strategies, try live one on one coaching – guaranteed satisfaction or your money back.

Alternatively, have one of our professionals carry out a free audit of your campaign and tell you where you’re going wrong.

Many of our clients and coaching students have asked us about their obligations surrounding their use of competitors’ brand names in Google ads and as keywords to generate traffic and sales. We interviewed top commercial technology lawyer, Frank Jennings to field those common questions.

Mark Tillison: Although Google disapproves some Google ads because they include trade marked terms, this isn’t true of all trade marked terms. If Google lets you include the terms, is it OK to use them?

Frank Jennings: It does depend on how you’re using the trade mark. If you are using a competitors’ trade mark to divert traffic away from their site to your site, this is a clear infringement of the Trade Marks Act 1994. In principle, the trade mark owner has a right to seek compensation from the advertiser.

However, the law is less clear where you might include a trade marked term in an ad because you sell an accessory product, rather than a competitive product. An example of this might be mobile phone ringtones or tyres – the intention here isn’t to divert traffic away from the trade mark owner but to use the mark descriptively.

Mark Tillison: So what about bidding on those same terms as keywords?

Frank Jennings: The same principle applies. The law does provide for the trade mark owner to seek compensation for damages through your unfair use of their trade mark and does include bidding on keywords, including them in any part of your ad text and/or including them on your web site.

In the landmark Mr Spicy case against Yahoo!, the judge concluded that the search term was used by a member of the public and that Yahoo! used it to produce results and that Yahoo!’s use did not constitute infringement of the trade mark.

The result of this is that in essence the search engines decided that they had no legal responsibility to block the use of trade marked terms, leaving the market to self-regulate. The responsibility would be for trade mark owner to make a claim against the person using their trade mark in key words.

Mark Tillison: Google’s position is that it will allow you to bid on keywords, but may block some trade marked terms from being used in ads where it has received a complaint from the trade mark owner.

Frank Jennings: Google has been looking into this whole area recently but their policy appears to exceed the legal requirements, allowing certain parties to block use of terms unnecessarily. Such action prevents a site selling mobile phone accessories or ring tones using trade mark terms with the words “ring tones” although there is not necessarily competition with the trade mark owner nor an attempt to divert custom from that trade mark owner.

Mark Tillison: So if the brand is not a trademarked term, is it OK to then use it?

Frank Jennings: In principle, the law still applies, although in such an example the claimant would have to demonstrate that their investment in the term entitles them to claim compensation in the same way. This is a more complicated and lengthy proposition. I’d recommend that companies register their trade marks using a filing agent, or you can register it yourself at http://www.ipo.gov.uk.

Mark Tillison: What about natural search?

Frank Jennings: The Trade Marks Act would prohibit use of the mark to unfairly divert sales away from the trade mark owner, so yes, work to increase a natural search ranking for a trade marked term would be subjected to the same legal test.

Mark Tillison: What about beyond the UK?

Frank Jennings: Google has expanded its new policy to 194 countries but not yet the other EU countries (other than Ireland). However, there are different trade mark laws for different countries, so beware.

Mark Tillison: So if a trade mark is being used to sell an accessory product, and the trade marked term is blocked for use in a Google ad, what can the advertiser do?

Frank Jennings: You need to ensure you are using the third party’s mark correctly under the Trade Marks Act and this is a fine balance. Once you are compliant, contact Google and show them you have a legitimate business selling accessories which complement the trade mark and you are using the mark descriptively and are not competing with the trade mark owner.

Frank Jennings is a Partner within DMH Stallard LLP’s highly-rated Technology Group and head of the firm’s Commercial Team in Gatwick. He has extensive experience of the technology sector having previously worked at Psygnosis (part of Sony) and Vodafone and regularly writes and gives presentations on intellectual property rights and IT.

We’re here to help: 08000 47 47 14, or Email us:

We spotted this neat video which demonstrates the value of CTR and explains in simple terms how Google ranks your ads amongst competitors’ ads.

Learn more about quality score here.

Get one-on-one coaching from an expert.

To effectively lower your cost-per-click (CPC), and therefore your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) or cost per sale, you need to first appreciate Google’s perspective. If you understand what motivates Google, you’ll understand better how to manipulate the system to your advantage:

1. Obvious, perhaps, but Google is a SEARCH engine. Its job is to make sure that the user finds the most relevant results, first time, every time. Google leads the search market by a very wide margin because it focuses so hard on this principle. If users consistently see results irrelevant to their search, there’s a strong possibility that they’ll switch to another search engine that works better. That’s not what Google wants.

2. Whether results on Google are natural listings or paid ads, this same principle applies. Google wants your ads to be relevant to the keyword on which you are bidding. The ads that are most relevant WILL appear in the higher positions because that’s what motivates Google. Not how much it earns for each click fee, but how relevant your ad is to the keyword.

3. Google measures your ad’s relevance to each keyword in a number of ways; the keyword appearing in your ad, the keyword being mentioned a number of times on your landing page. But most importantly, Google measures the relevance using the most reliable method: users vote with their feet every time they click – generating your click-through-rate (CTR) statistic.

4. When your keywords achieve a high CTR, Google will promote them up the ranking without you needing to increase your bid. More importantly, once you reach those top one or two positions, you can begin to lower your bids and still achieve position 3-4 and continue to retain a good CTR.

5. Maintaining a good CTR in positions 3-4 will again push your ads to positions 1-2, and again you can reduce your bids, repeating this cycle as often as possible whilst still maintaing those important top positions.

To lower your CPC and CPA – you must first satisfy Google’s first rule – RELEVANCE.

Learn more about how to lower your CPC by reading the AdWords Success Guide.

Take the fast track to Success.

But there’s a little-known element that’s really beginning to annoy me and a lot of the other search community: the Search Network.

You’ll be familiar with the two primary networks; Google Search – essentially, the Google you know and love, and then there’s the content network where your ads are showing alongside some forum or blog that contains the keywords on which you’re bidding.

The Search Network is somewhere in the middle of these two and relates to sites that technically are search engines like Google, and merely send the visitor’s search query off to Google, and then get Google’s data back. And your paid for ads too. And yes, you’re still paying per click the same way you do on Google Search.

It’s good idea in principle, at least for sites like www.sky.com and www.orange.com. These are search engines where the audience will behave in a very similar way to the audience on Google.

However, this is where it starts to get a little concerning. Google doesn’t publish a list of its “Search Partners”, so there’s no way of knowing in advance which sites will be carrying your ads, and where your money is being spent.

Depending on your market and your product, for example, you might not really want your ads to show on www.ebay.co.uk, or Amazon.co.uk. Or perhaps you do? Either way, you really want to be able to measure the effectiveness of each of these sites carrying your ads and the clicks that come from them – how many Amazon clicks does it take for you to achieve a sale?

Right now, the only way of knowing this is to use Google Analytics or similar software to check the source of visitors to your site, how they behave, and if they convert to a sale or not.

It isn’t currently possible to run a campaign only on the Search Network, or to see where your ads are showing, or which site individual clicks are originating from. You can’t currently calculate your Cost Per Aquisition, the average ad positions or the average cost per click. All of these stats are rolled up in the stats for Google Search in your campaign.

So what happens if you don’t want your ads showing on a particular property like www.FreeIndex.co.uk or www.DoorOne.co.uk? A nice simple site exclusion tool like the one provided on the Content Network? No, I’m afraid not – you have to actually call Google and request that they manually exclude your ads from showing on those sites.

Maybe some of these sites perform really well and have a great CTR and awesome CPA figures. And maybe they don’t. But without the ability to individually target ads for the audience, without the ability to measure it’s effectiveness, it’s difficult to make a case one way or the other.

You could always opt out of the Search Network, of course, but there’s definitely some good quality traffic in there you’d be missing out on.

If only we could tell which traffic it was.

From: Google AdWords [mailto:reactivation@google.com]
Sent: 25 March 2008 02:58
To: [removed]
Subject: Please Update Your Billing Information

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
——————————————————————————–

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update your billing information.
Your account will be reactivated as soon as you update your payment information.
Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit
or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive
your signed debit authorization before your ads start running,
depending on your location.
If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your
first payment.


We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,


———————————————————————————-

The Google AdWords Team

The link, were he to click on it, actually goes to http://adwords.google.com.0k8ujd.cn/select/Login/ – nothing to do with Google at all and is just trying to harvest personal financial data from you.

My advice; don’t click links in Emails like this – just log in to your AdWords account in the usual way. If Google needs money from you, you can guarantee that authentic messages would be in your online account too!

Send me a note about this or learn more about AdWords success.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that the content network is a bad strategy, far from it. But remember that to be successful you need to test, measure and refine what works and what doesn’t, and mixed together in one campaign, you’ll find it tough to understand where keywords are generating clicks and turning in to sales.

Google search is simple; it’s Google. You type something in to it, you get results, and sponsored links across the top and down the side. The audience here is specifically searching for a solution to a problem or to fulfil a need. If it’s a product or service, they probably have a budget and are ready to part with it.

The Google Search Network is a little different. The same principal applies; someone has a need and they are actively searching for a product or solution and have already identified their budget. But search network partners include Amazon and e-bay, Sky.com, Orange and many others, no doubt. A different audience, right? Firstly, you’ll appreciate that ads are shown in a different way on these sites, in different positions on the page. Secondly, this is a different audience: yes, they are searching, but a searcher on e-bay isn’t compelled by the same messages in your ads as a searcher on Google. Ditto for Amazon.

Let’s put it this way: identical products are sold in some swanky boutique in London and in your local car boot sale or market. They will be sold for a vastly different price. I appreciate the argument about overheads, but that isn’t the driver here – if your market trader could sell for the same price, he surely would! The audience’s perspective and expectations are different, and so is the surrounding competition.

Thirdly, there’s the Content Network, also known as AdSense. AdSense is an easy program to sign up to for any blog publisher or site owner to monetise their web site through displaying and generating clicks on Google ads. You’ve seen them all over the place, and probably ignored them, mostly.

The main principal is the same though, you bid on keywords (much broader ones) and Google matches your ads to pages that feature those keywords. So the mere fact that Suzie reads Helen’s blog about Helen’s friend who bought a Prada bag at the weekend means that Google might just match your keyword bid on ‘Prada bag’ and show your ad.

That’s OK? Sure, it’s OK. Will Suzie click on your ad? Well, perhaps, but unlikely. That doesn’t really matter, Google doesn’t measure your CTR here or judge your overall campaign performance on it either. What does matter though, is that what compels Suzie to click your ad will be a different message to that which compels someone to click it on Google Search, or its Search Network. It will achieve a different CTR, and more importantly, a different number of sales, or conversions for the cost of the clicks.

Even if Suzie were to click your ad when it appeared on Helen’s blog, do you think she’d be more, or less likely to buy than our friend who searched on Google?

The best way to tackle this is to split your campaigns. You’ll then be able to test, measure and refine what works for each audience, what you’re spending and what’s converting to sales. Depending on your product, service or market, you might want to split it three ways for each media network, or perhaps just Search and Content.

Learn more stuff like this.

Or turbo charge your AdWords campaign.

Even if you don’t want to target specific demographics, there could be an incredible amount of value in the new reports you’ll get to measure and compare your success across a demographic spread.

Inside AdWords: Demographic bidding beta test

Google says:

Demographic bidding and reports are available to advertisers who run contextually targeted or placement-targeted campaigns (with CPC or CPM bidding) on certain sites in the Google content network. Here’s how it works: Some publishers in our network, such as social networking sites, know the gender and age of their users because their users sign in with that information when they create a profile or fill out registration or subscription forms. Participating publishers anonymize this user reported demographic data and then send it to Google in aggregate form, allowing us to adjust which ads are shown to members of specific demographic groups. (To protect user privacy, AdWords receives this data only from publishers that have permission from users to share their data according to the site’s terms and conditions. Users are never identified personally, but only as anonymous aggregated data in the demographic reports. And to protect the privacy of minors, users under 18 can’t be targeted demographically.)

Bear in mind that this only applies to the Content Network, not Google Search or the Search Network.