Neil Lemons’ Blog

I just received two emails in two days stating that Google will be doing away with two features and/or conversion measurements — Pay-per-action Beta and Cross Conversion Tracking.

By doing away with the Cross Conversion Tracking, I’m sure they hope you choose to engage more with their products by becoming a Google Analytics user which allows the site owner to set up “Goals,” which can measures conversions from “non-Google pay-per-click services.”

From the beginning I’ve done both. Using Cross Conversion Tracking I enjoyed being able to see conversions and traffic from MSN adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing by only having to log into one interface, AdWords. Although, that pesky extra tracking code had to be added to every destination URL in every ad from other ‘”non Google” ppc platform was cumbersome for someone who uses multiple tracking URLs and creates new adgroups often.

Unfortunately I bought some domains the day I heard Google was starting a pay-per-action platform that will go to waste. I also renewed this year. $60 gone. Luckily I didn’t buy them for more than one year at at time (which you should always register for at least two years at a time if you have a site you are actually developing, according Rand Fiskin’s interpretation to small variable in the Google algorithm patten).

Entrepreneur’s Domain Graveyard
R.I.P. : ADWORDSCOSTPERACTION.COM
R.I.P. : ADWORDSCPA.COM
R.I.P. : ADWORDSPPA.ORG

I probably would have received a cease and desist for using AdWords in the domain anyway. Read Google’s PR Spun “Dear John” letters in here:
Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t typically like to cover Adsense, but this is different. Seth McFarlane has done it a again. What an innovator! To escape the “Taste Police” he is creating an Internet only cartoon series called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.”

Google plans to syndicate the program using AdSense on the already thousands of websites specifically targeted for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static text ad on a webpage, Google will place a “Cavalcade” a drop down video clip.

Advertising will be incorporated into the clips in varying ways. In some cases, there will be “preroll” ads, which ask viewers to sit through a TV-style commercial before getting to the video. Some advertisers may opt for a banner to be placed at the bottom of the video clip or a simple “brought to you by” note at the beginning.

MacFarlane is receiving a percentage of the ad revenue and the series will be served up in 50 two-minute episodes a whole slew of new characters.

In an interview, he described the installments as

“animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier.”

Read the whole article on The New York Times Website

Back in March the South By Southwest (SXSX) Interactive conference (not to be confused with the music showcase) was a stir with everyone and their mom “Tweeting” on Twitter, the micro-blogging site that allows you to interact with friends and conversations under 140 characters. Although Twitter had been around for six months by that time, this is when it gained momentum on a wide scale. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is giving Twitter his vote of confidence by becoming an angel investor in order to get Twitter the engineers it needs to keep up with the traffic they are experiencing. Read the whole story in Businessweek.com’s technology section.

Follow me on Twitter.com

The FBI and other government agencies have been using handwriting analysis to profile criminals as well as determine forgery for over 50 years. There are certain attributes that show up to the trained eye that reflect a person’s honestly level, whether he or she is self-consciousness, a good diplomat, depressed, likely to have sarcastic humor, or just an outright sociopath. On the other side there are common traits that exist among the top performing people in the world in the areas of business, leadership, and even in their own personal lives.
Read the rest of this entry »

When asked about any major blunders over the years, Stan Richards told an interesting tale. A Dallas Morning News Reporter recounted the story. “After 19 hours of travel, he got home, took a shower, put on his ‘blue new-business- presentation suit,’ jumped in his car and drove to Liquid Paper’s headquarters, ‘wired for work and excited as hell.’This introduction was supposed to be a formality. The board wouldn’t vote on his election until the following day, and Mrs. Graham had explained that it was a done deal.

The second he took his seat and looked down the long table at Mrs. Graham, Mr. Temerlin knew he was in deep trouble. ‘I could not keep my eyes open. I’m biting my knuckles, pinching my skin, bending my toes back – I literally had bruises the next day to prove it.’

‘I thought I might be able to fake it by covering my eyes and holding a pen like I was taking notes. But the next thing I knew, my head was on the table. God knows what sound it made when it hit.’ Read the rest of the story at the Dallas Morning New’s site.

Today I noticed in one account interface a message that if ignored could radically change how often ads are triggered and for what keywords. I thought they had a similar match type already implemented called “extended match,” but this possibly takes the liberty at which Google will trigger your ads for search (related and sometimes unrelated) queries even further.

According to Google:

“Automatic matching is an optional feature that helps your ads reach targeted traffic missed by your keyword lists. It works by analyzing the ads, keywords, and landing pages in your ad group. It then shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information.
Read the rest of this entry »

When Andrew Goodman talks about AdWords I listen. I read his book back in the summer of 2006 and my eyes were opened to many AdWords techniques as well as many direct response advertising principles in which I had forgotten. I look back at my first attempts at Overture in 2005 and realize how much has changed and how much I have learned.

In the following article Goodman gives some sage advice on what to do with when you inherit a bad AdWords account. This quote seems to appropriately reflect his point..

“No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.” -Turkish Proverb

Individual account history combined with Google’s own historical assessment of keyword success gathered from advertisers over the last seven years (since 2001) plays a role in AdWords Quality Score. So does those crucial first 1000 impressions for getting a good click through rate.

So what do you do when your account bombs or you inherit one with bad set up/history? Start over with a new account or you will be facing an uphill battle for a long time, and possibly forever. Start by creating tight adgroups and bidding higher than you normally would in order to obtain a high Quality Score. Don’t expect the account to instantly pay for itself the first week or even month. If you follow the path of the diligent and knowledgeable you will outlast the lazy and uninformed and eventually be rolling in ROI bliss.

Read the rest of Goodman’s commentary on his Monday Search Engine Land column.

I’ve heard this advice before from two other Gurus whom I follow.
Micheal Reining of MindValleyLabs.com in his The Coming AdWords War ebook.
SEOChat Forum posts by the legendary GarytheScubaGuy.

Edit:
Jon Rognerud from Entrepreneur.com also mentioned this technique today.

To combat dwindling advertising revenue and readership due to companies spending their advertising and marketing dollars on the Internet, The Dallas Morning News is now experimenting with giving away a smaller version packed with more graphics, brief stories, and more coupons. I thought they already had the Quick news which was already free, but I guess it’s geared more toward entertainment/tabloid style. Sometimes major news networks are the worst about reporting Hollywood news, which isn’t really news. That’s just my $.02

Read the whole story here at the Houston Chronicle ironically.

Pre-Wordpress’ birth and the critical mass of blogs, Internet Marketing Professionals used many other tactics, one of which was writing value-based informational articles and submitting them to several article directories for online publishers and website owners to repost. This type of article marketing was done for years before blogging.

What is Article Marketing?

Wikipedia defines Article Marketing as:

“A type of advertising in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article contains a bio box and byline that include references and contact information for the author’s business. Well-written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of increasing the authoring business’ credibility within its market as well as attracting new clients.”

Over the last few years it has become harder and harder for those starting fresh in the Internet Marketing arena to separate the wheat from the chaff, the noise from the signal. Of all the 100s of techniques and gurus touting the latest trends, it’s hard to know what works and what’s a waste of time.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the measures of search engine marketing success is getting keyword targeted traffic through organic or natural listings. This is obvious. Being able to see the difference in paid and unpaid traffic is not so obvious to the beginner, but it is where the truth of success comes. It is no secret that paid traffic can actually have more value per visitor in some industries (if you know what you are doing), than unpaid traffic, but you should never throw the baby out with the bath water. In other industries pay-per-click inflation has gotten the best of bidders. In any case, it’s very important that you tag your paid search campaigns.

Tagging is a fancy word for naming something unique to identify its origin, and it’s highly important to tag your ads through AdWords. For most analytics or web stats programs you have to tag ads manually in which you should use a dynamic string attached to the destination URL. Google Analytics makes it easy on you (in exchange for being Big Brother) and will tell us the difference between paid and unpaid traffic automatically IF one default setting is changed through AdWords.

Here are the easy steps to making this change:

1. Login into AdWords

2. Go to the “My Account” tab, 4th Green Tab on the right

3. Then go to “Account Preferences”

4. Under “Tracking” on the right side, edit and set “Auto-tagging” to “Yes”

By default it is set to “No.”

In the future if you decide to use Yahoo! Search Marketing or MSN adCenter (which I recommend you do), you have to manually tag the ads (adding a bit of description to the destination URL). This way you will be able to tell what is ppc traffic and what is organic from Yahoo and MSN. Use this tagging URL builder.