Ultimate PPC and SEM
Expert Pay Per Click Consulting
Welcome to Ultimate PPC and SEM
Jun 1st
If you are looking for expert PPC advice and services, you have come to the right place. My name is Zac Heisey and I have extensive experience in the world of online marketing, as well as a passion for paid search. I’m also a Google Adwords Certified Professional and a Microsoft Advertising Accredited Professional. I’ve created this site as a resource for those looking for PPC information, news, updates, and tips. Please don’t hesitate to contact me regarding PPC consulting and maintenance services.
Please feel free to check out the site and thank you for visiting!
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5 Ways Search Engine Marketers are Like Auto Mechanics
Feb 15th
On a recent trip to my local auto mechanic, I started thinking about how search marketing and PPC professionals are similar to auto mechanics in the ways they are viewed by customers. Some of those views are good, some are bad. Here are 5 connections that I made between SEM professionals and auto mechanics:
1. People need expertise in these areas because they can’t do it themselves. I don’t know the first thing about cars. That is why I take my car to be examined and worked on by a professional, rather than risk doing things myself and ruining my vehicle. Marketing a website should be viewed the same way. Can you adjust title tags, create optimized content, build backlinks, explore paid search, and social media options all on your own? Sure, but unless you are an experienced professional, you are not likely to get the kind of results you are looking for—and you may even end up hurting your website or search engine rankings in the process.
2. There is often a negative opinion due to poor past experiences. I’m sure just about everyone has been overcharged for a tune-up, or told they needed an expensive part for their vehicle when they really didn’t. Unscrupulous auto mechanics prey on people like me, who have no real car knowledge, and overcharge for routine services and try to sell things we don’t even need. Unfortunately, the world of search engine marketing is filled with bad apples as well. I have worked with numerous clients who have been burned by search marketing “experts” in the past—in some cases, multiple times. These are the clients I truly feel for because I know how it’s like to think that you are being taken for a ride by a vendor.
3. References are important. A lot of people I know found their mechanic through a family member, friend, co-worker, or other acquintance. When these personal referrals aren’t available, online review sites serve as the next best option for choosing where to take your car. Word of mouth also matters when it comes to selecting an SEO company. Reading testimonials and case studies, and even reaching out to current or past clients of a particular company to ask questions is something I always recommend. Know who you are working with before you work with them!
4. Cheapest isn’t alwasy best. It’s the same old adage—”You get what you pay for.” When it comes to auto mechanics, skimping on the cost of parts of labor might save you a few bucks now—until your car breaks down again in two weeks because of shoddy work and cheap parts. In the industry of search engine marketing, the cost differences between companies can be vast. Rather than going with the cheapest option, shop around and find companies at a variety of price points—then call and ask them how they determine their pricing. There may be a good reason why a company is so cheap, or expensive.
5. Once you find a trustworthy partner, you are likely to stick around. For me, it was a great relief when I found an auto mechanic I could trust—not only to do good work, but also to not try and nickel and dime me because he knew more about cars than I did. Because of this, I will continue to take my car there for everything I need, whether it’s an oil change or a major repair. Good search engine marketing companies realize this, and will do all they can to deliver good results, but provide better service. If they recommend something that will cost you money, it should be because they truly feel it will help your overall web presence, sales, etc. Finding out a company’s client retention rate is a good way to know how they treat their clients.
For better or worse, I see many similarities in how auto mechanics and SEM professionals are viewed. For all of the SEM pros (and auto mechanics) reading this blog—treat your clients well, give them legitimate advice, and charge fair prices—the profession only stands to gain if more people out there trust us.
From PPC Hero: 145 PPC Must-Do’s for 2012
Jan 17th
Just read this great list of “must-do’s” for PPC marketers in 2012. Take a look at the full post here.
What’s Up With Google Dynamic Search Ads?
Nov 8th
On October 20th, Google officially released Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) as a limited beta. Basically, DSAs appear the same as any standard Adwords text ad, but are triggered by category selections rather than keywords. Advertisers can select specific product categories, site URLs, site content, or even page titles as their DSA targeting options. Once these targeting otions have been selected, some ad copy has been created, and credit card information has been entered, things are pretty much ready to go. Based on these parameters, Google will determine when to dynamically generate an ad for your site based on relevant search queries. Personally, I have a bit of a problem with this “fox gaurding the hen house” approach.
DSAs appear to work the very same way that Google Adwords Express (formerly Google Boost) does—it removes full control from the advertiser and shows their ads for searches that Google thinks are relevant. The problem here is that Google is often not the best judge of keyword relevancy (anyone using broad match can attest to this). With DSAs, you don’t even have the option to create your own ad headline (this is another dynamic component of the ad that Google will generate). Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time turning over that much control to Google when it comes to paid advertising. For now, Dynamic Search Ads are in beta, and limited to a select number of advertisers. However, given Google’s recent history of rolling out automated paid search features, I’d expect DSAs to be available to all U.S. advertisers shortly.
Creating Product Listing Ads
Oct 26th
If you currently have a Google Merchant Center account, and are submitting a shopping feed to Google, you may want to consider running Product Listing Ads in your Adwords account as well. Product Listing Ads pull information from your Google Merchant Center account feed to display ads alongside other paid text ads. The main difference is that these ads are not triggered by keywords within your Adwords account, and will display your product image, price, headline, and description.
The first step to creating Product Listing Ads is linking your Google Merchant Center and Adwords accounts. To do so, first enter your Adwords Customer ID Number in Google Merchant Center by going to “Settings > Adwords.” Once that is completed, login to your Adwords account and create a new campaign that you will use for your Product Listing Ads. Within the new campaign, go to “Ad Extensions > Product Extensions” and select your linked Google Merchant Center account. From here, you will be prompted to create your first ad group within your new campaign. You can include both Product Listing Ads and text ads in this new ad group, although I prefer to keep these ad types separate for tracking purposes.
Once you have completed these steps, you just need to select what product information Google will pull from your merchant feed to display as Product Listing Ads. The default setting, “All Products,” will do just that—display all products from your merchant feed for that particular ad group. If you are testing our Product Listing Ads for the first time, or you only have a few products in your merchant feed, this setting will probably be best. However, if you’d like to refine how Google displays your products, you can use product targets and product filters.
In addition to utilizing Product Listing Ads, you should also be taking advantage of the other Ad Extentions available in Adwords.
Using Historical Search Queries to Predict Consumer Behavior
Sep 29th
Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, recently wrote a very insightful column entitled, “Predicting the Present”, which highlights how online advertisers can utilize historical search query patterns to predict consumer behavior. For PPC nerds like myself, this information is awesome! Check out Hal’s article here.
PPC Testing, Part 2: Are Your Tests Valid?
Sep 14th
In my last blog post, I outlined the two main types of tests that PPC marketers should use, along with some of the metrics they should regularly apply those tests to. Now that you’ve conducted your tests and gathered your data, you’re all done, right? Well, not unless the data you have gathered is statistically significant enough to base conclusions on.
First, let’s define statistical significance. Generally speaking, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance. The larger the sample size of your test or study, the more confidence you can put in the statistical significance of the results. For all of you math-centric people out there, I realize there is a lot more that goes into statistical significance. The goal here is to outline how statistical significance applies to PPC marketing in particular, and how people can use it to make decisions based on their PPC test results.
One way to determine statisical significance is to conduct a z-test. Z-tests are useful when trying to derive an average statistical outcome from a single sample size. Personally, I find z-tests a bit too complicated to use in most scenarios, so I tend to utilize automated tools like Split Tester (for ad copy split testing) to tell me whether or not some of my tests are statistically significant. Most PPC professionals agree that 100 conversions is the threshold for determining a “valid” test for ads, landing pages, etc. For any of your PPC tests, you should aim for 95% confidence level, which is the standard benchmark used in academic statistical studies. This means that you are 95% sure that one tested element is better than the other.
Experiment with different tests, analyze your results, and then test again. Just make sure you are picking winners based on accurate data!
PPC Testing, Part 1: What to Test?
Sep 13th
In PPC (and most other forms of marketing), the name of the game is “testing.” If you don’t test different variables within your campaign, you will never be sure that the results you are getting are the absolute best. But what types of testing should you be doing? And what things should you be testing? Below are some of the basic testing strategies used in PPC that advertisers use to refine their campaigns and improve performance.
There are two main types of tests that PPC advertisers will run in their campaigns – A/B testing and Multivariate testing:
- A/B Testing (aka A/B Split Testing) – These types of tests are normally the starting point for advertisers looking to refine their campaigns. Basically, an A/B test involves the implementation of a single change to whatever element you are looking to test, and comparing that against the original version of that element. An example here would be changing an image on a landing page, or switching the headline of an ad copy variation. A/B tests are easy to create, and are ideal for smaller campaigns. The major downside to A/B testing, however, is that by only testing one variable at a time, finding a winning version can take a long time.
- Multivariate Testing -With multivariate testing, you are testing multiple variables within a single element at the same time. For example, if you were testing two separate landing pages, one using headline A and image A, and the other using headline B and image B, you are carrying out a multivariate test. These types of tests allow you to try out many different variables in a short amount of time. The more complex the multivariate test, however, the more difficult it can become to determine a clear winning combination.
Once you’ve determined which type of test you will be conducting, you will need to choose some elements to test. Below are a few common test areas for PPC advertisers:
- Landing Page – Your landing pages tend to be the most tested components of your PPC campaign, and for good reason – this is the element that will ultimately drive (or turn away) a user toward a conversion. Practically everything on your landing pages can be tested, and depending on whether you are carrying out an A/B or Mulitvariate test, you might be testing several elements on your landing pages at once. Some of the more common landing page elements that are tested include title tags, H1 tags, calls to action, button/form placement, images, colors, text length and format, and navigation structure.
- Ad Copy – Within your PPC account itself, ad copy is likely to be something that is tested on a regular basis. (If it isn’t, it should be!) Everything from headlines to body copy to display and destination URLs should be tested. The only time you should ever stop testing ad copy is when you’ve reached a conversion rate of 100% – and since that is not likely to happen, ad copy testing should be a regular part of your on-going PPC campaign maintenance.
- Keywords – From bids to match types, your PPC keywords offer up ample testing opportunities. For brand new campaigns and ad groups, one strategy you can implement is including multiple match types of the same keyword. Once you are able to gather some data and see which match type performs best for that keyword, you can pause the other match types. Along the same lines of this strategy, you can also adjust your keyword bids per match type to see how it affects performance. Generally, I will set the exact match version as the highest bid, the phrase match about 15-20% less than the exact match bid, and the broad match about 35-40% less than the exact match bid.
Experiment with different testing types and testing elements. At the end of the day, as long as you are continuing to test things in your campaigns, your PPC performance will improve.
Bidding On Keywords that You Rank For Organically
Aug 11th
The question that search marketers are asked over and over again: “Should I bid on keywords that I already rank well for organically?”. This article from Brad Geddes at Search Engine Land helps you determine the answer to that question. Check it out!
Google to Make In-Ad Phone Numbers Clickable
Jul 29th
The cat and mouse game continues between Adwords advertisers trying to get ahead of the game, and Google trying to make as much money as they can. Google alerted Adwords advertisers today that any instance of a phone number within ad copy will be automatically converted to a click-to-call number.
According to Google, this changes will “help our mobile users connect more easily with advertisers, all non-clickable phone numbers displayed in AdWords ad text will be automatically converted into a Click-to-call number. Currently when advertisers enter a phone number directly into their ad text instead of using Call Extensions, the phone number is not clickable and will not generate a call. This can be a frustrating experience for mobile users who attempt to initiate a call to this phone number.”
It should be interesting to see how this feature interacts with Call Extensions. Along those same lines, you should ensure that any in-ad phone numbers you have match up with Call Extensions you may be using.
Awesome Adwords Info-Graphic from WordStream
Jul 21st
WordStream produced a very cool info-graphic today displaying the top 20 most expensive keywords in Google Adwords advertising. Check out the info-graphic below, and read the full post from WordStream here.
