Gifted to us by some of the online services, RSS feeds have proved to be just as beneficial as they were expected to. With them at our disposal, web monitoring, for the mentions of your brand, your competition or your key execs has become a cake walk.

I use Google Reader for RSS. Here are some of the searches I’ve set up to scan Blogosphere, The News Wires, Technorati, and Twitter:

While many of us are still gloomy about the downward graph, I am in quite an upbeat mood because of the encouraging signs reflected by comparative analysis. The client numbers were surely bad in April but if you compare them with those of February and March, the numbers were, after all, not that awful. For me, it is definitely an encouraging sign. There are quite a few more signs, which, now I am putting forward to get you in the same upbeat mood too. They are:

• • Conversion Rates seem to have rebounded: Where Q1 saw median CR across our clients 5% below the previous year, so far in April CR is actually up YoY by 3%.
  • Average Order Value seems to have stabilized: Consistent on the downward graph of 5%, as was the case in Q1. It is not falling lower. So be happy.
  • Downfall of competitive PPC Sales slowed down: While the PPC sales were down more than 20% in Q1, so far, in April, the median has moved in the right direction getting restricted at 17%.

However I am not hopelessly positive. I do know there are some discouraging signs as well; some of them being:

• • • Costs are only down 13% Year over Year in April, where they matched sales at over 20% down in Q1. Retailers are pushing the gas harder to try to drive the top line.
    • Brand Sales are still way off: nearly 30% down Year over Year. This is a combination of general traffic volume decline, heavy consumer use of coupons through affiliates and email promos, and in some cases pull back in other offline media channels that drive folks to the web.

Actually, according to me, retailers still face a sizeable drop in the number of consumers shopping, but those who are in the marketplace do not hesitate to spend big bucks. So we need to be neither too positive nor too negative. Adopt the middle path and keep going on.

Earlier, we could advertise our business on You Tube through Promoted Videos, and now we can advertise with Promoted Videos directly through AdWords.

If you have a video about your business, Promoted Videos allow you to drive viewership of your videos by targeting the hundreds of millions of searches that happen on You Tube every day. You can also use Promoted Videos to have your videos appear on the You Tube homepage, video watch pages, and across the AdSense network.

To get started in your AdWords account:

1) Select Display Ad Builder >>Video>>You Tube Promoted Videos Template
2) Create your ad text
3) Select your video
4) Choose your thumbnail
5) Save your ad

Google is introducing new parameter to measure the performance of a display ad. Google named it Campaign Insights. It would provide reliable data about improvement in campaign brand awareness, active user’s interest for particular product or service. Campaign Insights will compares data from two group sets: a large group of who saw a particular ad, with an equivalent sized group that did not see the ad. It would then measures the difference in searches and visits to your website between the two groups. With this insight, you can establish how well your display ad campaign is working beyond just clicks. As of today, Campaign Insights is available across the Google Content Network for larger display ad campaigns in the US and UK.

Many of you might have notice the image ads running on Google Content Network. At the bottom of the image ads there a notification “ Ads by Google “ that clearly states that the ads are being run by Google Network . It helps users in identifying from where the ads came from.

With each passing day more & more advertisers are using different format to promote their products. In order to boost creativity & productivity Google will now display an “i” symbol instead of “ Ads by Google “ This “ i “ symbol will expand when the user hovers over it. From now on this symbol will appear on all rich media ads that is being displayed in ad words & ad sense units.

You might be a proactive PPC manager but there could be elements of the account that may hurt your PPC performance.

When an account is performing well, then you should be most vigilant in searching for “Hidden killers”;

Killer 1: Incorrect Campaign Settings

When you launch numerous campaigns or if you keep adding campaigns frequently, campaign settings may get missed. It doesn’t mean that the campaign is broken but it may not be reaching to its full potential.

Pro actively, you should ensure that the settings have all the correct information related to your campaign’s goals like, bidding, budget, Ad targeting, location targeting etc..

Do a quick review of all your campaigns, If no errors then great! However, if you find even single setting that is incorrect then you can surely make great progress with few clicks :-)

Killer 2: Neglected Ad text split tests

If you are testing your PPC ad texts on regular basis then only you can have good click-through rate.

If your account is really performing well, then it is a good time to run an ad text report to check if there are any ads active which are under performing.

One should make sure that each Ad group has valid sample size in order to check the performance.

Killer 3: Poor Performing keywords that are hidden in Good Ad Groups

There are certain Keywords that hide in the better performing Ad group. Even though, your AD group is performing good then also there are certain keywords present that are generating traffic but few conversions.

Therefore, you must run a keyword report to delete such terms.

Killer 4: Irrelevant Search Queries

While using broad match or phrase there are certain Keywords/ phrases that are not at all relevant to your business, therefore, you should run a search query performance report in order to build your negative keyword list.

Killer 5: Poor converting sites on Content Network

Similar to poor performing keywords, your campaign is doing good in the content network but still there are a few sites that are not generating conversion/ potential clicks, therefore, these sites must be excluded from your list.

Always Remember “ If your account is doing Good – It can always do better!”

For maximizing return on investment, all PPC advertisers must have dedicated list of techniques that they follow on a regular basis. Negative keyword research has to be one of the most important to have maximum return on Ad spend.

Negative keywords help advertisers to refine their Ad copies that are served for target keywords in their PPC accounts.

There are various free tools available to know/ identify the unrelated search queries which could be added to your PPC accounts and would potentially save you dollars :-)

Google Adwords Keyword Tool:

It will not only help in identifying Keywords for your target campaign/ad group but also help in identifying various irrelevant keyword phrases.

Search Query Performance Reports:

It is one of the most important tools which would be used for a running campaign. The ‘Search Query Performance Report’ can be pulled from Adwords reports section which will provide in detail the performance data for majority of search queries that triggered to your Ad copies.

Google Analytics:

The Google Analytics advanced filter will provide the details of actual search query in Google Analytics.

Related Searches:

The Related Searches feature could be discovered by clicking on the ‘show options’ box in Google search results pages and then selecting “Related Searches “option. This will provide list in detail of various top performing keywords/ Key phrases related to specific search query.

The Wonder Wheel:

The Wonder Wheel is another feature which could be discovered by clicking on the ‘show options’ Google search results pages and then selecting the Wonder Wheel option.

The Wonder Wheel refines and identifies additional keywords/ Key phrases areas to target in your PPC account, including list of many related long-tail and niche keywords.

Above mentioned tools are helpful in identifying all the irrelevant keywords/ Key phrases that could be costing you a lot!

Basic thing like Budget Caps can make a real difference to your Ad performance and Return on your Investments.

If your campaigns are hitting their daily budgets and you are not getting good ROI (Return on your Investment) for your paid search campaigns then simply put budget caps.

Also, it is fruitful for those campaigns where monthly budgets are reached before the month is over.

But, you should not use it as a performance effective method of controlling your spend. It is often a sign of a lazy online marketer.

If you are putting budget caps, your ads will go offline i.e, when you reach your caps, you will miss out on conversion/ potential clicks.

This cap will surely make it a challenge when you’re advertising on engines like Superpages.com, as they don’t offer daily limits :-(

Therefore, you must plan your strategy from the starting of each month, just ensure that your spread dollars throughout the month to avoid any down time. Always monitor your campaigns on regular basis in order to get better ROI.

Budget caps surely prevent you from overspending. It should be used as a safety measure and not as a primary method to control your spend :-)

Budget caps are very helpful for those who are new to PPC, however, experts should know better and must be able to control the spend by reducing/ monitoring the cost per click (CPC) and not by using budget caps!!!

As discussed before, during the series of new interface Webinars some important changes were discussed and highlighted. Click here to read PART I of Top Changes of the New Interface: Adwords.

Here are more of the points discussed in the Webinar.

Ads : Pending Review Status

Anytime you update new ads or make changes to the existing ads, those ads will automatically be submitted for review. However, an Ad with a pending review status would run on Google search pages but it would not run on the search partners or on content network placements until the ad is reviewed and approved.

Spreadsheet Editing : New Interface

This option is available for Ad Group Level. For switching into spreadsheet editing mode, navigate to the keywords tab of any ad group, then select Spreadsheet Edit under the More Actions menu.

Delete Keyword.

Click the checkbox next to the keyword and then select the Change status menu at the top of the table. You will find the option to delete.

Do you have any queries regarding Changes of the New Adwords Interface?

Click here to Ask anytime by typing “Adwords New Interface”.

Hello everyone…During the series of new interface Webinars some important changes were discussed and highlighted. So, I wanted to share the same with you with a little brief. This should help in managing things in a better way.

So here you go…

• Now you can view Destination URL’s for all of the keywords.

For this you need to customize your columns. Just go to Keywords tab, click Filters and views and select Customize Columns. Then turn on the column for Destination URL.

Here is the snapshot for your reference:

• Ad Scheduling, Frequency Capping & Ad Rotations

Go to Campaign Settings tab, there are a few sections labeled Advanced. At the very bottom of the page, you will find some additional advanced settings like ad scheduling, ad rotation settings, and frequency capping.

Click here to read PART II of Top Changes of the New Interface: Adwords.

Do you have any queries regarding Changes of the New Adwords Interface?

Click here to Ask anytime by typing “Adwords New Interface”.