Make Mine Instant!

So Google announced yesterday the launch of a service they are dubbing “search faster than the speed of type”! Calling itself Google Instant, it has had Twitter and the blogosphere flooded with people from the search industry fretting about how this innovation could affect their campaigns.

If you haven’t tried it yet, Google Instant automatically populates the results page (known in the industry as SERPs) whilst you type. No longer do you have to press the Enter key on your keyboard, or the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button to see the results of what you’re searching for. Google themselves estimate that Instant will save users anything up to 5 seconds per search. This may not sound like a lot, but these seconds all add up when you consider how many searches we conduct through the search engine each day.

But let’s face it; Google has done this for several reasons. Firstly, it’s innovative, and part of Google’s brand is based on their innovative and intuitive products. Automatic search suggestion as you type has long been with the three main search engines, but none of them have hitherto showed a full search result based on the first letter typed into the search box!

Secondly, it’s a time saving tool which will lure users back to the Google home page. Google search has been increasingly appearing on different corners of the web for a while (perhaps more prominently, in the right hand corner of our web browsers), and these handy shortcuts have steered people away from using the Google homepage as their search starting point.

This tool is highly dynamic and potentially game changing for those who work in search or even advertise on Google. It means that some Pay Per Click (PPC) adverts may only appear for a split second on the results page, as Google changes the visible results according to what the user is typing. This could affect PPC and SEO campaigns in three main ways. Firstly, it could mean lower Click Through Rates (CTR) on Google Adwords. For SEO, It could also mean increase the importance to rank high on short tail organic keywords. Finally, it could also further decline the importance of misspellings as Instant automatically corrects

At present, Instant is only available to users logged into a Google Account, who are located in certain countries, and who are searching from the Google home page. And because of its current level of restricted access it is hard to see Instant changing anything from an SEO and PPC perspective in the immediate future. But as with all things that Google does, the proof is in the pudding. Time will tell as to how this ground breaking change to Google’s core product will affect those who advertise with it, and wish to rank high in its search results.

Earlier this year, Google announced that they were retiring the old Google Advertising Professionals Programme (GAP) that recognised search marketing individuals/agencies as competent and qualified to manage AdWords PPC campaigns on behalf of other clients. It has been replaced by the Google Certified Partner (GCP) Programme as of July 1, 2010.

To be qualified under GAP as a company/agency previously, you had to meet Google’s eligibility criteria, including qualification requirements for at least 2 individuals in a company. This has been changed to require companies to have at least 1 individual to have attained a pass in one of the advanced level qualifications, in addition to the ‘Fundamentals’ exam, which is similar to the previous GAP qualification.

Following the changes introduced, Gravytrain has recently become qualified as a Google Certified Partner by meeting the new requirements under the GCP Programme. You will find our brand-spanking-new certified status logo below and on our website homepage.

Gravytrain remains committed to providing clients with superior online marketing services and continues to keep up to date with developments in the market to deliver effective results.

A Brief History of PPC

The pay per click model came about in the late 1990s and differed from previous methods of advertising which were based on CPM (cost per thousand impressions) rather than cost per click. GoTo.com (later Overture, now part of Yahoo) were the first search engine to offer PPC in 1998.  Google were a little late to the party, adopting the PPC model in 2002.

Back in the bad old days it was literally an auction with the advertiser who was willing to pay the most per click securing the top position.

However, it quickly became obvious that this wasn’t the best model – a pretty irrelevant ad which gets only 1% of the clicks @ £10 per click generates less revenue than a relevant one which gets 10% of the clicks @ £2 per click.

As such in the mid-noughties Google introduced quality score – an algorithm which essentially ensured that most relevant ads (i.e. the ads which generated the most revenue) would get pushed to the top of the results. Yahoo and MSN later followed suit with algorithms of their own.

This changed the face of PPC – as instead of fighting an auction war, PPC-ers had to get a little bit cuter and make sure their ads were as relevant and attractive to users as possible in order to secure a decent position on the page and (potentially at least) reduce the cost they pay per click.

Quality Score Explained

Quality score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query – that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad.

So, how is it calculated?

Quality score on the search network is calculated based on the following metrics:

1. Historic click through rate of the keyword, ad and display URL
2. Relevancy of the keyword and ad to the term which is being searcher for
3. Relevancy of the keyword to the ad copy
4. Relevancy of the keyword to the landing page
5. Landing page quality
6. Historic account click through rate

You can read more here.

For obvious reasons Google don’t reveal quite how these factors are weighted, however it’s easy enough to guess

It’s pretty much all about click through rate.

This a nice metric as high click through rate indicates that users think that your ads are relevant/offer an attractive proposition AND of course clicks = money for Google.

Should you *always* worry about Quality Score?

Frankly, no. Whilst having a high quality scores is good from a cost per click point view (as you’re likely to be paying less per click) – you shouldn’t necessarily let it bother you overly. Obviously Google want you to play by their rules and create relevant ads that people want to click on so they can continue to rake it in; however – on some occasions you might want to bid on certain keywords, but limit the number clicks you get.

For many clients we use ad text to pre-screen clicks. For example, we may bid on a term like ‘taxi insurance’; but because our client only wants to insure taxi drivers over a certain age we might elect to run an ad like this:

Low Cost Taxi Insurance

Over 25? Compare Leading Taxi

Insurers & Find the Cheapest Quote!

TaxiInsuranceExperts.co.uk

Now here, we’re actively trying to limit the number of clicks which we’ll get – which of course may impact our quality score – however it’s far more important for us to deliver the right sort of leads to our client. So it’s not necessarily something you ought to be tyrannised by

Questions, comments, etc? Hit up the comments my dears.

Image credit KB35

For a long time, advertisers on Google AdWords have struggled to cope with the large variance of traffic volume and ROI in using Broad Match keywords versus Phrase Match or Exact

The general industry-accepted idea is that while Broad Match keywords are useful for new and old advertisers alike, there are many situations in where using them may not be in the best interests of the advertiser.

Whilst Broad Match keywords promise to give the advertiser maximum exposure, exactly how relevant that exposure is often called into question. The result is that many advertisers will get left with numerous mismatched impressions that negatively affect their campaign quality score and worse, clicks that result in no material gain; as in some instances searchers will click on these mismatched ads, but not go on to convert once on the site. Hence, the cost of that click may not be realised now or ever.

While the more restrictive Phrase Match option covers this issue to a large degree, it achieves that by compromising on ad exposure which means lower traffic and conversion volume. Increased ROI at the cost of significantly lower volume of conversions is not very appealing to businesses/marketing professionals.

The accepted norm in the search marketing community until now has been to start with Broad Match keywords with an extensive list of accompanying negative keywords to manage exposure to relevant searches. Search marketers will then identify the keywords/phrases that perform to the desirable level of ROI and subsequently move them to the stricter Phrase and Exact Match types. In all this, the start of the campaign has been most crucial and the precision and accuracy with which the initial selection of Broad Match and negative keywords work has been of great impact on the success of the campaign.

The search community has long debated over the usefulness of Broad Match and demanded an alternative for and more control over the random search queries their keywords end up getting impressions for. Google have finally answered by introducing a new match type in the arsenal. It’s called the Broad Match Modifier (BMM). Essentially, it fits somewhere between the Broad Match and Phrase Match keyword types. The object it satisfies is to stop individual words from Broad Match keyword phrases from triggering impressions on ‘deemed’ related words in user searches. Google have released the graphic below to explain exactly how BMM differs from all other match types.

Click for larger image

With Broad Match, the words ‘formal’ and ’shoes’ will both be independently considered and matched to singular/plural versions, synonyms and other related words not included in the campaign keyword. ‘Formal’ triggered impressions for ‘Evening’ and ‘Men’s Dress’, while ‘Shoes’ triggered ‘Footwear’ and ‘Wingtips’. If the advertiser earlier only wanted people searching for shoes and Phrase Matched ‘Formal Shoes’, they would lose impressions on searches like ‘Evening Shoes’ and ‘Black Dress Shoes’ because their ad will only show if the phrase ‘Formal Shoes’ was part of the search query.

However, by introducing a “+” sign just before the word shoes, they can achieve exactly what is desired, without losing on a possible load of other search queries that are not part of their campaign.

Google has reported that advertisers who used BMM during beta testing of the new match type reported seeing higher clicks and conversions than before. However, Google reported their findings from advertisers who earlier mainly used the Phrase and Exact Match types. Clearly, the increase in exposure lead them to receive more traffic, but with greater control over click-quality – this probably led to the rise in conversions. The report clearly shows the BMM as a means to entice cautious advertisers to have a more bullish approach with their marketing without losing too much control. But what does it mean for the rest of the advertising community that already uses Broad Match?

Other beta testers have independently revealed that on introducing BMM keywords into campaigns with existing Broad Match keywords, BMMs had significantly higher CTRs and conversion rates than the traditional Broad Match terms. We experienced similar results on testing the BMM with one of our clients.

Overall, we observed average conversions on BMM keywords to be double that of the Broad Match keywords.

All in all, Google seem to have hit the right note with search marketers with this release, although it will be interesting to see how keywords utilising these matching options perform in the longer term.

Please note, for now, the release has been made available to advertisers in the UK and Canada only.

Are you confused about Pay Per Click Advertising?

Don’t feel bad, whilst the overriding concept is simple, in practise PPC Campaigns can quickly become complicated.

This free whitepaper explains all the key concepts you need to understand, and provides an easy to follow guide to create your own PPC campaign.

Click here to download our Introduction to PPC whitepaper.

If you’ve any further queries or questions feel free to post them here, likewise if you’ve any feedback on this whitepaper, or suggestions for other whitepapers you’d like to see in the future we’d love to hear about them!