One of the reasons (aside from great performance) that Google Adwords and other search advertising has become so popular is the ability to optimize campaigns “on the fly”. With unprecedented control in a self-service interface, the user controls budget, pricing, targeting and creative within a simple, easy-to-learn interface. But with all this control comes the downside of “over-optimization”.

Have you ever been too hot and turned down your air-conditioner only to find that you are too cold later? And then you turn the AC back up only to find that you are too hot later? The difficulty getting it just right is, in effect, what happens with over-optimizing search: The user logs in, changes all the parameters (keywords, bids, creative, etc.) to improve results and then finds that they did too much. So they log back in and make a number of similar changes to correct the campaign; except the campaign quickly goes back the other way. This happens to too many search campaigns and the following is intended to provide a brief guide on how to avoid over-optimization: Continue Reading »

Client: Uplifting Athletes, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that operates as a national charter and serves as a uniting force to help change the perception of rare diseases. They have created a network of university chapters within major NCAA Division 1A football programs to enhance the current football student-athletes’ academic and playing experience with real-world job skills. Each chapter partners with a charity that supports one of these rare disease and engages in a grassroots effort to connect millions of passionate and loyal college football fans with people affected by these diseases.

Challenge: Thrivepoint was hired by Uplifting Athletes in June-2008 to help generate donations for an upcoming event at Penn State and to help launch the Ohio State chapter. Uplifiting Athletes had created a Google Adwords campaign with a Google Grant that was inactive due to poor Quality Scores. With the key events coming in July, Uplifting Athletes was under a looming deadline to generate awareness of the pledge drive and donations before and during the events. The situation was especially urgent given that the events only take place once per year ahead of football season.

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In the last post on Line of Sight Marketing, the focus was on capturing website visitors contact information for an email marketing program. In this post, we explore how advertising buys that are intended to prospect for new customers can employ line of sight marketing without requiring the user to register or login.

One of the key tools in an advertiser’s toolbox is the “cookie.” Cookies are a common component of most website tracking and online advertising targeting systems and are defined as: “A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.”

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Google offers a unique program for non-profit organizations to advertise for free on Google.com’s keyword advertisements – Google Grants. From Google:

“Designed for 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, Google Grants is a unique in-kind advertising program. It harnesses the power of our flagship advertising product, Google AdWords, to non-profits seeking to inform and engage their constituents online. Google Grants has awarded AdWords advertising to hundreds of non-profit groups whose missions range from animal welfare to literacy, from supporting homeless children to promoting HIV education. Google Grant recipients use their award of free AdWords advertising on Google.com to raise awareness and increase traffic. “

Google was recently shown to have more than 70% search engine market share and is routinely touted as marketer’s #1 performing advertising placement. The upside is the program is free, the downside is that there are some limitations and hurdles to getting it to work properly. Whether you have a Google Grant or want a Google Grant, here are three things to look out for with your Google Grant program:
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The age-old marketing question “How much should I spend on Marketing?” has recently turned into, “How much should I spend on Google?” Over the years, many different methodologies for determining budgets have been promoted, discussed and employed as different businesses try to perfect their marketing. Some of the most popular techniques are to allocate a percent of sales or an overall percent of total budget. Others go with gut instinct or a shoot-the-moon approach to maxing their credit card out. In search marketing, people often promote building a big keyword list, setting it live and ‘optimizing it to results’.

Whatever approach you have heard in the past, its worth considering a completely unique approach to Google budgeting – demand-based budgeting.
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Quality Score is the measure used by Google to determine the placement and cost per click of your search ads. Quality Score is calculated using a number of factors related to your keywords, creative and landing page in each ad group. One of the most frustrating parts of launching and managing a search campaign is when keywords are disabled and require a higher bid in order to be active. It is especially frustrating when seemingly obvious terms that should rank brand or product names are disabled due to low Quality Score. Why does Google do this? And how can you avoid it?

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What is the difference between good creative and bad creative on Adwords? The strength of your testing regimen.

Great campaign results are the goal but if you do not understand why results are good or bad, then it will be impossible to scale your marketing for profitable growth. Testing provides you a framework for understanding why your campaign behaves in certain ways so that you can continually improve and scale your campaign profitably.

There is not a simple formula that you can apply to magically create great search advertising results, but here are five standard practices that you should incorporate into your Google Adwords practice to test and improve results:

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