Q1: Talk about unique messaging and/or formats you have used in search network text ads to make your ads stand out?

• I like leading off with questions from time to time, it seems to help people qualify themselves before clicking. – WordWatchPPC (@WordWatchPPC)
• Do what everyone else doesn’t. If they have keyword in the headline, put it in the body. Make your CTA’s & value props unique. – Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Not really unique, but numbers and symbols really help. And all caps if you can use them, ie company name, ESPN, etc. – Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Using the display URL, specifically "subdomains". Symbols help too. – Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Big fan of question leading titles/first lines. Particularly if creating adverts for a top 3 position. – Mackenzie (@MC1985FTW)
  • Opportunity to create a great headline with the extended headline feature. – Matt Umbro
    • Absolutely, the extended headline feature has a lot of power that is often unused in the niche marketplaces. – Mackenzie
• David Szetela (@Szetela) wrote about it a couple years ago, but he used bullets at the beginning of each line…I tried & saw couple conversions. – Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
  • Interesting. I wonder if Adwords still allows for bullets? They seem to be cracking down on things like that. – Luke Alley
• I try to relate in the headline and then sell (value props & CTA) in the body, followed by reinforcing in the display URL. – Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Use symbols, prices, a CTA & a USP, make it stand out from the competition. use sitelinks to extend your USPs. – Andrew Baker (@AndrewBaker72)
• Not sure unique, but #s and %s have done wonders. Others: Prove Results, Highlight Pain Points (w/& w/out ?s) – Crystal Anderson (@CrystalA)
• One of my pet peeves are questions in the ads, the search is a question so why answer a question w/ a question? – Chris Kostecki
• @SumoCreative have done some very nice stuff targeting ego searches with very specific ad texts (I don’t work with them). – Richard Fergie (@RichardFergie)
• It’s almost like an essay, the conclusion (display URL) should reiterate the Intro (headline). – WordWatchPPC
• Reverse headlines. "Waste Your Money" or "Don’t Call Us First" (It’s a rare client willing to accept really creative ads). – Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)
• (Official Site) for brand usually = winner. – Bonnie Schwartz (@bonnieschwartz)
• I use keywords that are similar, but not exactly the same in ad copy. Everyone else is using exact, makes mine stand out. – Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• Taking seasonal sayings and altering them to fit the offer. Also #s, %s and questions draw the user in. – Claire Remmetter (@cremmetter)
• Competitive specials usually do the trick. – Nicole Mintiens (@Tregesy)
  • What if your rates are the same as your competitors? How can you differentiate then? – Mackenzie
    • If rates are the same as competitor then you need a different selling point – why should they buy from you? – Claire Remmetter
      • Agreed, it’s an opportunity to stand out yet in the insurance industry everyone loves a % saving in their ads. – Mackenzie
    • Make it seem as if your special is better by offering perks, service & website usability. – Nicole Mintiens
      • Offer extensions are great for this. – Matt Umbro
• Jumpfly actually does a unique headline by saying "Don’t Sign Up For AdWords" & D1 says "Before you check us out." – Matt Umbro
  • Interesting. I’ve tried running headline into D1 as a sentence. Moderate success. – Michelle Morgan
    • If you can get free shipping or discount messaging as part of longer headline it works great. – Matt Umbro
• Don’t be afraid to be funny/silly, as long as it makes sense. Example ad that I love – http://t.co/ILvYoCWx . – Aaron Levy
• I like the question approach or common pop culture/meme phrases in the copy if it pertains to the message, humor. – Gladue (@gladue)
• Just started testing "offers" in the display URL. eg- www.example.com/FreeShipping. Saves me room in the ad text for other CTAs. – Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• David Szetela posted an ad this weekend that was very unique – http://t.co/dK93850a . – Matt Umbro
• Humor or alliteration can do wonders. Shows some creativity in the ads, and really makes them stand out. – Luke Alley
  • IDK, i’m all for a joke, but not in ads unless inline w prod/svc being sold, i’d rather be direct and qualifying, better motivation. – Chris Kostecki
    • Humor doesn’t make sense UNLESS it’s in line with ad, but that’s easier to do than you might think. – Aaron Levy
• Have to match the level of "creativity" to the product’s customer base. A 50 yr-old bs owner is not a 22 yr-old college grad. – Theresa Zook
  • I think the google builds are what turned me off, saw them as a waste of space. My tests have not shown good CVRs. – Chris Kostecki
• When I get too creative my ad usually loses – Explaining what your service is + KW in Bold often more imp. – Bonnie Schwartz
• Adding times, dates can play well if others not doing it. "Prices in January From Only". – James Hume (@zerospin)

Q2: Do you find your more "nonconventional" ads to improve CTR? How about conversion rates?

• Usually the most boring/factual ads seem to beat my funny & creative ads in my tests. – Melissa Mackey
• Improve CTR, but CVR/ROI is what matters (unless remarketing). – Chris Kostecki
• My best converting ads are the ones that use the word "free". – WordWatchPPC
  • Be careful. Just saw 2 accts for lawyers that did worse when free was in the ad. Experience beat Free 11 to 1. – Brad Geddes (@bgtheory)
• It’s a big tradeoff. If I can boost one while maintaining the other, yay!Look at imp-to-conv rate as true success metric. – Aaron Levy
• Extened Headlines and Site Links have shown to offer increases in CTR and customer engagement increases. – Mackenzie
• Have to be careful. Seems to me that "unconventional" works best in consumer retail. Don’t often use for B2B. – Theresa Zook
• Have seen mixed results – depends on industry, conversion goal, etc. – Crystal Anderson
• I find it depends on the product – more serious offers need more qualified clicks. – Claire Remmetter
• I think lead gen is difficult to do fun/cute ads sometimes. Takes away from credibility. – Michelle Morgan
• Creative + factual wld be best compromise. Just not enough chars available. – Theresa Zook
  • I disagree on using creativity for b2b. Depends on segment…works well if targeting marketers. – Jeremy Brown (@JBGuru)
• Best converting ads are down to the dest URL. – Andrew Baker
• Would not want to sacrifice: relvance, VProps, or CTA for humor or fluff, not enough space, especially if LP doesnt continue theme. – Chris Kostecki

Q3: How do you ethically distinguish yourself from the competition in ad copy?

• You need a USP (unique selling proposition). Otherwise it’s hard to stand out in 70 chars.- Melissa Mackey
• Use ad extensions as much as possible as not everyone utilizes them…or correctly. – Mark Kennedy
• If you’re the "official" site it’s easy. – Robert Brady
• Price, value, quality, trust, service. Find their weak points. – Jeremy Brown
• Use promotions that set you apart, state your price if it’s lower, etc. – PurePPCCom (@pureppccom)
• No general tips for this – it is all extremely specific to the client. – Richard Fergie
• Make sure you can back up any claim you make. – Robert Brady
• Geniuine offers that I also mention in my landing page. – Manoj Pandey (@_MAN0J)
• Solid benefit msging. Say only what is true. – Theresa Zook
• How about text that specifically speaks to choosing you instead of your competitor (ie: "Compare to others & save big"). – Matt Umbro
  • Depends on the market. Better customer service can be a huge selling point, much more than $. – Theresa Zook
• Ethics? All is fair in love and PPC! – John Lavin (@Johnnyjetfan)
• Also, positioning is a huge factor, may not want to be the top ad in highly competitive space, the tirekicker argument. – Chris Kostecki
• As said in Q1, do what the other guys don’t, and use the winning VP’s. No point in putting your price if you’re not cheapest. – Aaron Levy
• Show proof – # of clients, feature big name clients, etc. Probably didn’t get 100K+ clients being unethical! – Crystal Anderson
  • Usually need approval on client names, but #’s are good. – Jeremy Brown
• For an IT client we did top-reasons -we-stand-out ad and took them to a comparison LP. Conversion rate was okay, but not great. – Mark Kennedy
• Seems like the "ethical" standard is simply what Google will allow. May need a better definition. – Luke Alley
• I look at the SERPs to see what the competition is saying. If my price is not best then I focus on quality not price. – Bonnie Schwartz
• Use a granular approach-highlight benefits vs. each competitor. Ex: better $ than 1, better feature than another. – Crystal Anderson
• Research your site search, content before conversions & incorporate these messages into your ads eg reviews, delivery info. – Andrew Baker
• IMO its better to focus on my biz than what the others are saying. Unless you know they are reading them, dont want to send away. – Chris Kostecki
• If you’re not ethical in your ads, in the end conversion likely will not happen. People can see through things easy and fast. – Luke Alley
• Make sure to use a a benefit in first line and an action in the second line. – Lawrence Aaron (@lawrenceaaron)
• Focus on what you do well, not on what everyone else is doing! – Crystal Anderson
  • Absolutley, if you mention the competition a searcher may have to go verify and you lose their attention. – Chris Kostecki
• I have found the simple can beat out the complex. Simple is beauty. – Sterling Green (@sterlinggreen)
• Seller ratings extension gives you a huge leg up on the competition. – Matt Umbro
  • Most def – I think it’s about 20-30 third party reviews for the stars in the UK. – Andrew Baker
    • Yes and I believe you need all of those reviews to be at least 4 stars or higher. – Matt Umbro
  • I find seller ratings a big benefit but I dislike the system as it’s open to abuse. – Mackenzie
• Know your USPs & make them clear in your copy. Why should people choose you over your competitors? – Matt Hopson (@matthopson)

Q4: Talk about the types of unique messaging you have used in sitelinks and/or to present your ad in a more distinguished light?

• Had used special characters, but Google has been cracking down on them. – Jeremy Brown
• I’ve used value props in sitelinks, especially for non branded campaigns (ie: "Price Guarantee" "Why Buy From Us") – Matt Umbro
• Use sitelinks to drive to diff steps in funnel: learn more, apply now, features, etc. – Melissa Mackey
• As we’ve found, the actual sitelinks aren’t clicked as much but headline CTR improves. – Matt Umbro
• ‘Why Buy From Us?’ can be a great Sitelink on brand if the client has a page for that. – Jeremy Brown
• Links to video, links to what people are saying about us, delivery / return info etc. – Andrew Baker
• Use psychology. State what will be better for them if they buy from you. – Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund)
• Great way to highlight a unique feature.or send business vs individual searchers directly to right landing page. – Theresa Zook
• Use sitelinks for both value props & user actions. ie "Guaranteed/Instant Approval" "Apply Now" – Claire Remmetter
• Use sitelinks for branding efforts as well as conversions. Might not get the business today, but now they might come looking later. – Michelle Morgan
• Additional conversion types, diff product options, FAQ, tour. Every sitelink needs to have an easy path to conversion. – Aaron Levy
• Also use to up-sell & cross sell! – Crystal Anderson
  • Definitely can be used to cross-sell and related products. – Mark Kennedy
• Sitelinks are woefully underutilized. Good for us. – Melissa Mackey
  • Missing or bad Sitelinks are a strong sign of a mis-managed account. – Jeremy Brown
• Very true, higher CTR with site link ads but hardly any clicks on the actual sitelinks all on the headline still. – Andrew Baker
• You can also use sitelinks for different searches on the site, ie: "Shop By Style" "Shop By Size" etc. – Matt Umbro
• I have been testing working in high volume keywords within campaigns when applicable. – Bonnie Schwartz
• Embedded sitelinks that match your ad’s CTA. – Francis Shovlin (@fmshovlin)
• Working embedded siteslinks into ad text has worked well, and look good. – James Hume
• Selling points in sitelinks usually work great. If you can, use the {copy} ValueTrack Parameter & link to the same URL as the ad. – Martin Rottgerding (@bloomarty)
• Love using the sitelink Made in the USA. Support America!! – Lawrence Aaron
  • That can be a great USP in certain industries. – Jeremy Brown
• Remember to refresh / test your sitelinks just like your ad creative. – Andrew Baker
• For specific promotions or 24 hour deals, great to raise awareness of them on Brand terms. – Blair Kerrison (@blairkerrison)
• Another tip – include a discount code for check out in your site link. – Andrew Baker
  • Tests I’ve run show people don’t remember codes and it reduced CTR. Sitelinks may be diff. – Aaron Levy
    • Really? Interesting, I mirror the code on the landing page so I guess that’s not an issue. – Andrew Baker
      • I tested code in copy & LP vs just on the LP. #2 won every time – guess searchers have no short term memory! – Aaron Levy
    • Would need to test for sure. I think the sitelink with the code would automatically assign coupon code to user. – Alma Smith (@Alma_Smith)
      • That was my test – saw that people converted better when code was autoapplied, and only sale was mentioned (not code). – Aaron Levy
• With broader terms I have noticed more product specific sitelinks have strong conversion rates. – Bonnie Schwartz

Q5: What resources do you use to create more interactive ads (ie: rich media ads, video ads, mobile ads, etc) & are you at a disadvantage if you don’t have access to create these types of ads (aside from the display ad builder)?

• I wish it was easier. End up using in-house dev team or client creates ads, and they’re often copies of offline creative which is not always good for online/display. – Melissa Mackey
• I use @karenhawey and the display ad builder – a great combination. – Richard Fergie
  • I do like the display ad builder as Richard says, great in a pinch. – Melissa Mackey
• Great question. Mostly have the client provide. Can be a disadvantage if the client doesn’t have resources. – Jeremy Brown
• Internal client resources typically, or work w/design partner. – Crystal Anderson
• We were doing promoted youtube videos but the price/conv was way too high. – WordWatchPPC
  • Yeah, I’ve heard promoted videos have awful ROI. – Melissa Mackey
• Use our video, art, and programming departments. Makes for a long process, but the pay off is usually awesome. – Michelle Morgan
• In house designer, client provided designs. – Claire Remmetter
  • We’re smart with data, not pretty colors and pictures. – Aaron Levy
• Blush to say only Ad Builder. But don’t blush to say my ads do very, very well. Don’t see need for designer. – Theresa Zook
  • Ad Builder can work well also w/ remarketing ads that are branded. Not the best, but if no other option they are great. – Luke Alley
  • Nice! What type of industries/ads have you seen success with? – Crystal Anderson
    • Variety. Business services, consumer products, relationship-starters (B2B), one-off consumer purchases, etc. – Theresa Zook
      • Thx!! Haven’t used it much so good to know it has potential if we’re in a pinch! – Crystal Anderson
  • We’ve been in the same situation w/ low budget clients, and we’ve made ad builder work. – Luke Alley
    • Depends on what you try to do with it. I take a KISS approach. Yes. I think the simpler ads are sometimes more noticeable on the page. Prof designers create such "busy" ads! – Theresa Zook
• Google Display Ad Builder is subpar IMO (kind of like the text ads they write) not creative nor custom. – Chris Kostecki
• On kickoff calls I set expectation that down the line image/rich media ads will need to be created & client needs to find resource. Additionally, I believe Display Ad Builder somewhat cheapens the brand. – Matt Umbro
  • Yes & no. Sometimes these ads stand out better in sea of prof ads. – Melissa Mackey
  • I think it only does when ppl know it is Display Ad Builder. – Michelle Morgan
    • They can, and I’ve had a couple of clients do really well with Ad Builder, but my first choice would always be a designer. – Matt Umbro
• Seems as though ppl are "ad blind" to prof display ads in some verticals. – Melissa Mackey
• Use a list of designers and developers across the USA. Have a great Google+ circle of designers and developers. – Lawrence Anderson

Q6: What are some techniques you use to create attention grabbing display and Facebook ads?

• Images play a big role! – Crystal Anderson
• It’s all about the image. – Robert Brady
• For FB, pictures that look dirty but aren’t. Srsly. HUGE CTR. – Melissa Mackey
• Subtle overlays on images are great as well as bright borders around image when client approves. – Lawrence Aaron
• Single image & some text–you have to work it, but focus is good. – Theresa Zook
• Good color combination and Fonts can make Facebook ads more appealing. – Manoj Pandey
• Refresh OFTEN, and use goofy/fun (but clear) pics. I swear if any of you try to write a message in your pic… – Aaron Levy
• Try to clash a bit with where its being placed (display), for FB, short text. – Chris Kostecki

Resources

• Google AdWords Editor (version as of today’s PPCChat 9.7.1)
• Microsoft adCenter Desktop
• http://www.google.com/ads/answers/
• PPCChat Member List (Twitter)
• adCenter Feature Suggestion
• Another Reason To Advertise On Your Brand Name In Paid Search
• Seller Rating Extensions
• Embedded format now available for Ad Sitelinks
• Embedded Sitelinks and Conversions – Match Made in Adwords Heaven?

More PPC Chats

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next #PPCchat on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific and 5pm in the UK. Same Chat time, same Chat channel.

Participants

Check out the PPC Chat Twitter list to see and connect with all current and prior participants.

• Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Alma Smith (@Alma_Smith)
• Andrew Baker (@AndrewBaker72)
• Blair Kerrison (@blairkerrison)
• Bonnie Schwartz (@bonnieschwartz)
• Brad Geddes (@bgtheory)
• Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Claire Remmetter (@cremmetter)
• Crystal Anderson (@CrystalA)
• Dave Rosborough (@daverosborough)
• Francis Shovlin (@fmshovlin)
• Gladue (@gladue)
• James Hume (@zerospin)
• Jeremy Brown (@JBGuru)
• John Lavin (@Johnnyjetfan)
• Lawrence Aaron (@lawrenceaaron)
• Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Mackenzie (@MC1985FTW)
• Manoj Pandey (@_MAN0J)
• Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• Martin Rottgerding (@bloomarty)
• Matt Hopson (@matthopson)
• Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• Nicole Mintiens (@Tregesy)
• Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund)
• PurePPCCom (@pureppccom)
• Richard Fergie (@RichardFergie)
• Sterling Green (@sterlinggreen)
• Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)
• WordWatchPPC (@WordWatchPPC)

About the Streamcaptographer

This is a guest post by Paul Kragthorpe Jr; Search Engine Marketing Manager at WebRanking in Minneapolis, MN, #PPCChat Streamcap Grabber, Search Blogger … sometimes, Tweets Live from @PaulKragthorpe, and Google+’ing from PaulKragthorpe.

Q1: Aside from Google’s reporting, how do you track the authenticity of call metrics and mobile click to calls?

• We use Marchex which lists and records the calls. – Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
  • I use Marchex as well. I like their simplicity.- John Lavin (@Johnnyjetfan)
  • Ditto … Although I’m not a fan. – Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
    • Would love to hear more on why you are not a fan. Limitations? Inaccurate data? – Jessica Cameron Rudd (@camruud)
      • It has more to do w/ the interface than the data. #UX is pretty poor. – Cassie Allinger
• Phone number specific to paid accounts. All calls coming in on that line are attributed to paid. – Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• IfByPhone, Marchex, ClickPath, proprietary client systems – all record minutes, call volume to confirm with AdWords. – Harris Neifield (@HarrisNeifield)
  • Do you have a provider/solution that you favor a little more? – James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Not referring to AdWords Extension- We use a 3rd party for call tracking and measure length & inbound call location for quality. – James Svoboda
• Dynamic phone number insertions can help track all campaigns, including PPC. – John Ellis (@JohnWEllis)
  • Dymanic as in random, or as in unique by segment? – James Svoboda
• We also use an outside provider which lists and records the calls integrated within our platform. – Nicole Mintiens (@Tregesy)
• We have a proprietary system and use our client systems. – Claire Remmetter (@cremmetter)
• We can track calls…. MyNextCustomer.com – MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
  • I have used MyNextCustomer to track. – Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Depends on clients system of choice, but we’ll have them keep track of call quality by source, call accuracy. – Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Client internal tracking, dedicated lines, etc. Depends on the client. Google’s metrics are weird. I’m getting calls to campaigns shut down 2 months ago. – Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)
• I think phone numbers are like domain names, they will live longer than intended. – James Svoboda
  • I am uneasy w/long-term use of a number I don’t control and can’t use as I want. Love embedded metrics. – Theresa Zook
• They recycle numbers FAST. – Aaron Levy
  • Data tracks calls to specific Ad Groups inside the psd campaigns.I know people write down #s for later use. – Theresa Zook
    • Yeahh, I used the "write down numbers" example for a few weeks, but I get skeptical around month 3. – Aaron Levy
• We pull all phone call, SEO, PPC data into a single dashboard (instead of just pushing calls into Analytics). – MyNextCustomer
• Would use Google’s metrics for international client but not available even when targeting the USA…otherwise it would be reported. – Sterling Green (@sterlinggreen)

Q2: Which phone call tracking software do you find works the best? Why?

• If Matt Umbro were here he’d say Google AdWords call extensions DO NOT. – James Svoboda
• AdWords call metrics have produced very inaccurate and weird queries, but have also lead to some sales. – Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• I’ve only used Marchex, so not much to compare. I like it for my purposes. Clients have login to see and listen to calls. – Mark Kennedy
• Depends on the PPC budget and what’s budgeted for a tool or proprietary call system tracking system. You get what you pay for. – Harris Neifield
• I have not found a "Best" solution. There is so much room for improvement in the call tracking industry! – James Svoboda
• Not doubting the sales, but what I can’t accurately track, I can’t reliably repeat. – Theresa Zook
• Definitely NOT Google Voice. Have you ever tried to Export that data?! Had to make a custom Macro in Excel for it. – Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• We’ve only used our proprietary system in combination with our clients’ systems…. so not much to compare. – Claire Remmetter
• Marchex in tandem with our platform, multiple #’s per campaign & call tracking codes on keyword urls help track our leads. – Nicole Mintiens
• Still searching for a system that can track calls for long sales cycles and accurately track revenue. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
  • You would need a system that sets the cookie to expire 90, 120, or even more days later. We have some clients like UCLA Anderson Business school that have long sales cycles, so they needed us to add that feature. – George Revutsky (@george_revutsky)
• Desperately want Google’s embedded tracking to work well. Love running reports that include all-important call generation. – Theresa Zook
• We use a homegrown system. We tie inbound phone numbers to our lead ID’s every time someone calls. We also have several inbound numbers that change dynamically on the website depending on predicted profit, etc. – Chad Summerhill (@ChadSummerhill)

Q3: Do you include phone calls when calculating conversion metrics?

• Absolutely – Theresa Zook, MyNextCustomer
• No doubt about it. – Andy Groller (@AndyGroller)
• Yes, IF I feel they are legitimate leads. Some of that decision is based on client feedback, so they have to agree. – Mark Kennedy
• Yes, broken out as a line item so client can see how many of the total is calls. – Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Absolutely. But they are broken out so the client can see web leads vs. calls in case one is more valuable. – Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund)
• Phone calls make up a significant amount depending on client vertical (i.e. real estate) but breakdown into web vs phone. – Andy Groller
• We measure call rates as well as sales rates when testing, etc. – Chad Summerhill
• Yes, but depends on the client. Sometimes treat them as a "nice to know" metric a-la view throughs – always broken out tho. – Aaron Levy
• What if the calls are only coming from call metrics? Do you present these calls to clients? – Matt Umbro
  • Call metrics depends on client and accuracy – as we’ve seen in past, call metrics stats are spotty sometimes. – Andy Groller
  • Yes – for some clients, that’s all the tracking we use. I listen carefully to their feedback in those cases. – Theresa Zook
  • I’ve inlcuded the Google call data IF the client doesn’t use outside system. But explain why data is hugely inaccurate. – Mark Kennedy
• Yes, we do for our clients. Plus, phone conversions can be tracked too using our software. – George Revutsky
• Yes. Keeping the tracking numbers clean and uncorrupted by other ad mediums is a priority. – James Svoboda
  • More for customer service. Dont list the number, target searches for why they are calling. Drive self serve. – Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Depends on the client, but to some, calls are much more important than written sales leads. Frustration w/no call metrics–clients complain abt low call volume but I can’t "fix" what we don’t track. – Theresa Zook
• I see 3x more calls than form fills in some efforts. Would be crazy not to. – Robert Brady (@Robert_Brady)

Q4: How do you impress upon clients the importance of tracking phone calls originating from PPC? Especially if they are unwilling to implement call tracking software?

• Simply put: We can’t attribute lead/sales to PPC if we are not tracking them. – James Svoboda
• Try A/B testing different calls to action around your phone number: "questions? calls us at 1800.." vs. just 1800. – George Revutsky
  • No editorial policies around CTA call messages…yet. Call now, call us, just don’t use "Click" – Lisa Sanner (@LisaSanner)
• Are you receiving calls? Do you want to know the true ROI of your PPC efforts? More nicely put of course. – Andy Groller
• Have them pull their own sales numbers from a "call in" vs. a form fill in (assuming its available). – Aaron Levy
• Show them examples of other clients, explain ROI and why phone conversions are important. – Mark Kennedy
• Plain and simple. Without it, they cannot possibly get a clear picture of their ROI. – Cassie Allinger
• Ask them, "Do you want your phone to ring?" – Theresa Zook
• It’s easiest when you want to show how PPC stacks up against $ spent in other marketing tactics (i.e. outdoor signage). – Andy Groller
• Calculate % of sales happening online vs. offline to show how inaccurate the data is without tracking phone calls. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
• Case Studies – Aaron Levy
• Some businesses don’t get online responses, but demand can be generated and captured online. To measure that use call tracking. – Harris Neifield
• Calls can be more important in our verticals than most online conversions so tracking is the best way to prove PPC value. – Nicole Mintiens
• Go at it from dollars & cents since it’s their money – ‘Do you want to maximize your ROI?’ – Andy Groller
• Different industries react better to different phone calls to action. education is different from loans, for example. – George Revutsky
• But let’s think about the client who can’t afford call tracking software…is this an applicable excuse? – Matt Umbro
  • No. There are $100/month solutions out there. What’s $100 against your PPC budget which is usually much larger? – Harris Neifield
  • I never accept $ as an excuse. There are very inexpensive services out there. SOME level of tracking is affordable. – Theresa Zook
  • Google Voice is free & You can isolate these numbers on landing pages so as to not corrupt metrics. – James Svoboda
  • There are multiple ways to track phone calls without purchasing something, including some simple JavaScript. – John Ellis
  • Microsite just for PPC with dedicated phone number – as long as don’t lock user in an option, but not cheap one! – Rachel Cassidy (@RachelCassidy85)
• If they pay for clicks they should pay for call tracking. There are some very affordable options. – Robert Brady
• To really measure the value of PPC and to ensure we are making the right decisions, call tracking is essential. – Bonnie Schwartz (@bonnieschwartz)
• Client education is part of the job description of managing PPC. Its required. – John Ellis
  • ou are completely right! We have to train our prospective clients ourselves! Special company blogs are ideal for this. – Bizz Click (@BizzClick)
• With respect–call tracking essential for clients wanting calls. Does not include all markets & industries. – Theresa Zook
  • Agreed, many ecomm clients are primarily looking for web sales so phone calls are secondary, but still good to track. – Matt Umbro
    • I have clients who want 0 calls–want to "weed out" less-committed inquiries by forcing the website experience. – Theresa Zook
• Anybody know of a way to "throttle" calls besides by budget, dayparting? Clients call center is worried about staff/being inundated. – Lisa Sanner
  • Hire more staff? – Theresa Zook
  • Rotate the landing page to have no phone line and just have a form for a while… but we don’t recommend this. – George Revutsky
  • Hack: Split-Test or ACE for LP where T.O.D. where volume is larger??? – James Svoboda
  • Lots of calls means folks want to talk to your customer – so they should get more reps. – George Revutsky
  • It always puzzles me why clients are afraid of call/click volume. Do they want the business or not? – Melissa Mackey

Q5: Do you write ads with a call to action of "Call Us" (or messaging along these lines)? How effective are these ads?

• Sometimes, if the client prefers to get them on the phone, then we plant the "call us" seed in the ad. – Mark Kennedy
• For home services this is essential when paired with click-to-call extensions, but for other biz types not as effective. – Michael McEuen (@lonohead)
• Depends. Have had success with this when trying to establish client is local against national comp. – James Svoboda
• Emphasis the positive features of the call center experience – friendly staff, no wait times, etc. – Harris Neifield
• Depends on content/CTA on LP. Is number prominent, easy to read, main CTA, etc? Is goal calls or any form of contact? – Andy Groller
• How about clients who don’t have mobile website, but still want mobile ad to show (option where headline isn’t clickable) – Matt Umbro
  • Really the only time I encourage phone calls in ad is when client doesn’t have mobile site but still wants mobile presence. And in that case I don’t make the headline clickable so it’s either a call or bust. – Matt Umbro
• Depends what’s more valuable. If forms are priority, bury the phone number below form CTA. Standard "contact us" works too. – Aaron Levy
• If the phone number is prominent on the LP "Call Now" messaging primes them for conversion. – Robert Brady
• I rarely encourage phone calls via PPC. Online conversion is preferred. – John Ellis
  • Preferred yes, but some searchers will still find a way to call. – Matt Umbro
  • I find that local service providers often prefer calls. – Robert Brady
• I use a "call us" tagline where the searcher might wonder if calling to ask ?s is acceptable. – Theresa Zook
• Online conversions certainly helps tracking, but also easier on call center. Goal is more revenue AND less phone calls. – John Elis
• Have you or your clients encountered issues when using multiple phone numbers, eg duplicate/incorrect Google Place Pages? – Andrew Baker (@AndrewBaker72)
  • Consider using image phone numbers combined with dynamic image replacement to avoid google places issue. – George Revutsky
  • Not sure what you mean? Places have "real" phone number, not tracking numbers, for my clients. – Theresa Zook
  • That will happen. Pick 1 phone number per physical location and use that combo consistently. – James Svoboda
  • Yes, and it’s painful to try to fix. – Lisa Sanner
  • Are you referring to tracking numbers when you say ‘multiple phone numbers’ ? – Cassie Allinger
    • Yes when they are included on landing pages. – Andrew Baker
  • Google Places scrapes landing pages for local phone numbers to create listings. – Andrew Baker

Resources

• Google AdWords Editor (version as of today’s PPCChat 9.7.1)
• Microsoft adCenter Desktop
• http://www.google.com/ads/answers/
• PPCChat Member List (Twitter)
• adCenter Feature Suggestion
• ifbyphone Call Tracking Case Studies

More PPC Chats

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next #PPCchat on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific and 5pm in the UK. Same Chat time, same Chat channel.

Participants

Check out the PPC Chat Twitter list to see and connect with all current and prior participants.

• Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Andrew Baker (@AndrewBaker72)
• Andy Groller (@AndyGroller)
• Bizz Click (@BizzClick)
• Bonnie Schwartz (@bonnieschwartz)
• Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Chad Summerhill (@ChadSummerhill)
• Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Claire Remmetter (@cremmetter)
• George Revutsky (@george_revutsky)
• Harris Neifield (@HarrisNeifield)
• Jessica Cameron Rudd (@camruud)
• John Ellis (@JohnWEllis)
• John Lavin (@Johnnyjetfan)
• Lisa Sanner (@LisaSanner)
• Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Michael McEuen (@lonohead)
• Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
• Nicole Mintiens (@Tregesy)
• Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund)
• Rachel Cassidy (@RachelCassidy85)
• Robert Brady (@Robert_Brady)
• Sterling Green (@sterlinggreen)
• Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)

About the Streamcaptivator

This is a guest post by Paul Kragthorpe, Search Engine Marketing Manager at WebRanking in Minneapolis, MN, #PPCChat Streamcap layer out’er, rare Search Blogger, Tweets Live from @PaulKragthorpe, and Google+’ing from PaulKragthorpe.

Q1: Why do you and/or your company blog about PPC?

• Because it’s fun and it helps me to hone my craft. Keeps the BS meter optimized. Thought leadership is a big part, too. – Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• It’s all I know. They can also serve as a reference point, instead of having to explain concepts over and over again. – Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• To show thought leadership and that we know what we are doing! Helps to build credibility and trust. – Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• Self-advertisement and know-it-all egotism. – Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)
• Keeps me connected to the community, and helps me learn. – Brennan Brooks (@brennanbrooks)
• When I started my blog, there were plenty of people blogging about SEO, but hardly anyone doing PPC. – Shawn Livengood (@slivengood)
• Finding new things to write about helps to stay up to date with industry happenings & keeps you on your toes. – Claire Remmetter (@cremmetter)
• I just started again recently… and I do it because it is an outlet for me to share insights and connect with community. – Bryant Garvin (@BryantGarvin)
• Forces me to think through my ideas in order to put them into words. – Richard Fergie (@RichardFergie)
• Everyone blogs to keep me up to date on the industry. – Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• Now that I’m independent/inhouse I feel like it has to be more substantial, I miss churning out the content regularly. – Chris Kostecki
• To share knowledge and thought leadership too. I still struggle to find information on multiple PPC topics online. – Ryan Campbell (@_ryancampbell)
• Keeps me up todate & great for sharing ideas. McCarthy-Stott (@mcstot)
• As someone pretty new to the industry it helps me find my voice a bit, putting my views down in ‘ink’ helps me form better ideas. – Jackson Edmonds (@Jackson_PPC)
  • It can also help get feedback from the community at large and open up conversation around topics. – Bryan Garvin

Q2: Is it a necessity for PPC agencies to keep (and consistently update) a blog? Why or why not?

• Not a necessity but a huge plus. Helps set companies apart, helps them stay up to date too. – Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Not necessary, but gives you ppc cred and keeps your employees thinking. – Michelle Morgan
• I think so — keeping fresh content and knowledge publicly available enhances credibility. – Claire Remmetter
• Yes…if I owned my own company blogging would be part of the job description. Feel very strongly agencies have to blog. – Matt Umbro
  • Not everyone can write, not everyone has something to say. Good blogger not necessarily = to good acct mgr. – Theresa Zook
    • Understood, but as an agency the company needs to display credibility & just getting certified isn’t enough anymore. – Matt Umbro
• No, I don’t think “everyone has to” by any means. Different agencies have different goals. – Theresa Zook
• I think its a must to display your knowledge and credibility to prospective clients. – Brennan Brooks
  • Agree with Brennan, it’s very important to demonstrate your own proficiency in the field. – Trada (@Trada)
• Not only PPC but any online marketing should be communicating with clients and prospects and staying current. – Chris Kostecki
• Blogs are a must for any company to channel expertise and thought leaders. Plus there is added SEO benefits. – Lawrence Aaron (@CrazyFingers)
• IMHO Our industry isn’t just about doing the work but also showing (and proving) thought leadership. – Matt Umbro
  • If you want to be a “thought leader” write from 10,00 feet. Or–think. (Don’t be afraid to write about your own questions.) – Theresa Zook
• To a point yes! It is a form of marketing and also shows depth of knowledge and experience. – Bryant Garvin
• To a degree. It shows that the agency pays attention to ideas/ changes in the industry. Regularity can be prob if v busy tho. – Matt Hopson (@matthopson)
• Absolutely. Making your ideas public keeps you accountable, and blogging is a great PR/lead gen tool. – Shawn Livengood
• If you are writing about the latest trends and developments it keeps you from becoming stagnant and outdated. – Chris Kostecki
• Yes and that is exactly why I’ll be blogging loads more about PPC in 2012 – essential as far as I’m concerned. – Andrew Baker (@SEOEdinburgh)
• I think its very similar to the strategy that Distilled has done in hosting all of these SEO conferences. Its flywheeling. – Brennan Brooks
• Yes but only if you are adding genuine value and not just filling space because you think you should. – Liam Lally (@ZaddleMarketing)
  • Agree, don’t need another “New iPhone” article every 6 months. – Chris Kostecki
  • Yes, content needs to be relevant, which great PPC specialists/agencies should be able to provide. – Matt Umbro
  • Agree as well, don’t need more of the same information in the blogospheres. – Lawrence Aaron
  • Another prob with scheduling posts is you find people blogging to fill quota not because they have info to share. – Matt Hopson
• Also, you’re always testing with PPC, you must be able to keep up with the latest trends and be knowledgeable about them. – Trada
• I think also there are so many changes & new features it’s a great way of understanding them yourself, whilst sharing knowledge. – Andrew Baker
• Also think if you are a small business offering multiple disciplines e.g. PPC SEO SocMed – can be very difficult to be regular. – Liam Lally
• You have to put your own spin on it: opinion, data/experience, etc. – Melissa Mackey
  • So many blog posts lack data though. – McCarthy-Stott
  • Added Value is essential backed up with real data. – Andrew Baker
• Blogs help companies to become thought leaders and provide valuable information for others as well as themselves. – Trada
  • Agreed, as perspective client I want my agency to live PPC. – Matt Umbro
• Never assume someone has already written it – you have a unique perspective! – Melissa Mackey
• Blogging about what you are learning about when working in your client accounts is a great way to come up with topics. – Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund)

Q3: What is your target audience(s)? Does this audience(s) influence how your blogs are written (ie: advanced topics vs. basic info)

• Surely your target audience is clients/prospective clients. Anything else is just for ego. – McCarthy-Stott
• I write for the PPC community. I want to engage my peers on topics, plus new clients are wow’ed by that advacned stuff anyways. – Brennan Brooks
• Mostly other SEMs – I like the networking value. Clients may also be interested. Oh, and my boss too. – Melissa Mackey
• Target audience is B2B Audience does influence how blogs are written as they need to be more about B2B and strategies/tactics. – Lawrence Aaron
• EVERY question you get asked on PPC should become your new blog post. – Liam Lally
• I write/record videos for clients and you guys. – Matt Umbro
• Most of my target audience is you folks, which makes it tougher – if it was a commercial audience it would be easier. – Chris Kostecki
• Probably beginning to intermediate PPC folks. I would like to do more advanced posts, though. – Shawn Livengood
• More often than not the target audience is other SEMs – It offers more community, thought leadership, and SEO value. – Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Mostly other SEMS, but have made targeted series of posts for verticals, like dentists, who we target. – Luke Alley
• Absolutely, understanding the content that matters is speaking to everyone on your team- sales, advertising, engineers. – Trada
• 1st rule of writing: “know your audience”. Majority of adC blog visitors are SMBs, that def. informs our content, tone, etc. – Tina Kelleher (@Tina_Kelleher)
• You should have multiple target audiences and message to them accordingly. Advanced content for peers, basic for prospectives. – Ryan Black (@rblck)
• Another great idea is to come up with personas for the people reading your content. – Trada
• Any PPC client who I believe I can make a significant difference to their account. – Liam Lally
• My target audience will be my peers, you guys, people that follow me here, I may do some basic tips for other business forums. – Andrew Baker
• Compelling content will always win, and sometimes compelling isn’t SEO perfect. – Trada
• Our audience is really our customers — businesses that are thinking about adding mobile to their marketing mix. – Claire Remmetter
• To be honest my first audience is me! I blog to get things off my chest or out in the open. Second is all of my #ppcchat tweeps. – Bryant Garvin
• Don’t think about target audience when blogging < fail > however I think you can only go so advanced otherwise not understood. – Liam Lally

Q4: Do you personally glean new info from blogs or do they act as more of a confirmation of your PPC tactics?

• I regularly learn from other blogs. It’s all about sharing thoughts & info. – Melissa Mackey
• You have to glean new info from blogs! It’s all coming out so quickly, there’s not text books that can keep up with it. – Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Rarely learn but often enough to keep me reading. Mostly get others’ perspectives. – Theresa Zook
• A bit of both – I love getting ideas and tips, but confirmation of your approach is always nice. – Arianne Donoghue (@ArianneDonoghue)
• I definitely get more information. Sometimes I agree with it, sometimes I don’t — But new ideas are always worth a test! – Claire Remmetter
• I love me some #ppchero they’ve always been a good resource for brushing up on basics and fringe knowledge. – Mark Jensen (@Just_Markus)
• If there weren’t blogs about ppc, I probably would have been fired by now. – Michelle Morgan
• Whatever will get me going on another blog post. I take pride in my original ideas but, they don’t come all the time. – Brennan Brooks
• New stuff I learn tends to be at the weird end of spectrum. Sometimes it comes in handy later on. – Richard Fergie
• Some (good) blogs yes I do learn. But I let the data confirm my tactics. – McCarthy-Stott
• I learn something new everyday and confirm my tactics in Adwords! – Chris Kostecki
• Mostly as a reminder. Easy to forget certain tactics and blogs serve as awesome reminders of old things I’ve learned. – Luke Alley
• A lot of it is confirmation, but there is always something to learn! – Cassie Allinger
• If you’re not learning from blogs, you’re reading the wrong blogs. There are always diff perspectives, ideas etc. – Trada
• Bit of both for me – especially if you guys+girls (US) get to do stuff before it becomes available over here. – Liam Lally
• I do get a lot of good info from blogs, especially if they’re trying a tactic or service I haven’t used yet. – Shawn Livengood
• I always scan through the blogs and can usually pick up one little piece of info to remind me or focus me and help me improve. – Bryant Garvin
• The vast majority of things I know about ppc has come from blogs. I’m just now getting to where posts confirm what I do. – Michelle Morgan
  • Really? The vast majority I know about PPC has come from doing PPC & experimenting. – McCarthy-Stott
    • Without the blogs I wouldn’t have know what to test other than ad copy. – Michelle Morgan
• It’s all part of the learning experience, trial and error, always good to learn other methodologies and new tools to try. – Andrew Baker
• Even if it is a small tip or 2 I’m always gleaning good info from blogs. – Matt Umbro
• Both. Try to stay on top of changes and quick tips. – Ion Interactive (@ioninteractive)
• The best blog posts go against conventional thinking and present new ideas that you normally would not have thought about. – Matt Umbro
• New info is rare, but it’s a great way to get new ideas from time to time. – Martin Rottgerding (@bloomarty)
• Important to stay on top of the latest news/tactics and keep learning. We also learn a lot by experience/trial and error. – MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
• these days – I’m catching up on how to use / why to use all the new adwords tools. – Bassovita (@bassovita)
• IMHO The most valuable SEM blogs are ones that stir up debate. I seek those ones out. Great lessons, ideas, and ways to connect. – Cassie Allinger
• I think people would be lying if didn’t admit to getting stuff from reading blogs -otherwise how do you find out in 1st place? – Liam Lally
• My initial education came from ‘Advanced Google Adwords’ book. That set the framework, blogs allow you to innovate strategy. – Ryan Black
• It is important to learn as much as you can from blogs. Always different POV’s. It can be overwhelming though sometimes. – Lawrence Aaron
• Side note: reading sem blogs can be tiring. Most everyone is marketing w blogs and I think that slows real discussion. – Mark Jensen
• Am I the worlds best PPC expert < no – therefore I will always get info from blogs otherwise I would be the source? No? – Liam Lally
• I think reading blogs is part of the job. You have to filter a lot though… lots of basics & repetition out there. – Martin Rottgerding
• For me, the big thing is not to get too insular, too invested in my own perspective. Blogs help me check myself. – Theresa Zook

Q5: Which PPC blogs do you find to be the best for a) advanced audiences and b) novice audiences?

• This is a list of Blogs we came up with
  • AdWords Help Experts
  • Beyond the Paid
  • Certified Knowledge
  • ClickEquations
  • Google Inside AdWords
  • MediaPost
  • Portent
  • PPCAnalytica
• PPCHero
• The PPC Blog (hint, you’re already here)
• Rimm-Kaufman Group
• Search Engine People
• Search Engine Watch
• SEER Interactive

Q6: How do you generate ideas for new PPC blog posts?

• I read other stuff and think how it can be applied to PPC. – Richard Fergie
• Get away from the PPC industry. See other industries, nature, people, etc. Great ideas out there. – Robert Brady (@robert_brady)
  • Agreed. New ideas in PPC come from other industries so often. Or at least perspective from other industries. – Trada
• Generate idea’s normally when fixing something that has gone wrong. – McCarthy-Stott
• Do what Pamela Lund said… Write down ideas as I’m optimizing accounts. Keep a list of potential posts. – Luke Alley
• Most of my blog post ideas come from internal brainstorm meetings with the @DragonSearch PPC team. – Cassie Allinger
• My Industry News Curation Dashboard that is on iGoogle does a great job when browsing for ideas. – Lawrence Aaron
• Case studies, client results. Tons of inspiration in the work we do for our services clients. – Ion Interactive
• Try to generate ideas that have not been discussed already – which makes it hard, maybe too hard. – Chris Kostecki
• Data on question volumes from Support, requests for info via comments, twitter, and of course, asks from partner teams etc. – Tina Kelleher
• New Stuff is often worth a post, so Inside AdWords is a good scource to watch. Add an opinion to the story and you’ve got value. – Martin Rottgerding
• I’m currently putting some behavioural economics theory into PPC testing. Always nice to pull some different areas together. Jackson Edmunds
• I keep a spreadsheet where I jot down ideas or URLs of stories/posts that inspire me. – Melissa Mackey
• Aside from news and stuff that just comes to me, disagreeing with other posts/opinions can lead to a new post quickly. – Martin Rottgerding
• When I run across ideas and how-to’s that I’ve not read before I add them to an outlook notes file. – James Svoboda (@Realicity)

Q7: What are some tips you would give others for blogging about PPC?

• Add value to the community, don’t just blog to sell/market. People can see it. Use data. – Mark Jensen
• Be confident in what you are writing…it will show and make the post better. – Matt Umbro
• Bullet points make it easier for me to digest the information. Often skim long paragraphs or lose focus. – Luke Alley
• Spell check, and link out. Blogs are not only just words, but a discovery tool. – Chris Kostecki
• Just start writing. Don’t worry about perfection. Invite discussion. – Robert Brady
• Read others work & do’nt to duplicate it. Add new perspective. Link to cited sources. Make it readable -> Not 1 long text post. – James Svoboda
• Make time for blogging. Take a stand and stick to it. Use good grammar. Speak with data if possible. Ask for feedback. – Melissa Mackey
• Keep it short but helpful. Just start. – MyNextCustomer
• Provide solutions, solve problems, be helpful. And fun. Inject personality. Use lists and how tos. Keep your paragraphs short and scannable. – Ion Interactive
• I like screenshots that are easy to read. – Andrew Baker
• Sit down and write for 15 minutes. If you can’t get a good start on the post done in that time, get a new topic. – Melissa Mackey
• Be honest and provide a well thought out post that is backed by real information and data to prove your hypothesis. – Lawrence Aaron
• Have a hard time starting? Get a Google Voice #, set it to translate messages to email, call yourself and talk about your post. – James Svoboda
• Know your audience, welcome constructive criticism, look for trends in feedback for opportunities to provide more info/improve. – Tina Kelleher

Resources

• Google AdWords Editor (version as of today’s PPCChat 9.7.1)
• Microsoft adCenter Desktop
• http://www.google.com/ads/answers/
• PPCChat Member List (Twitter)
• adCenter Feature Suggestion
• What’s Your “Reason Why?”

More PPC Chats

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next #PPCchat on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific and 5pm in the UK. Same Chat time, same Chat channel.

Participants

Check out the PPC Chat Twitter list to see and connect with all current and prior participants.

• Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Andrew Baker (@SEOEdinburgh)
• Arianne Donoghue (@ArianneDonoghue)
• Bassovita (@bassovita)
• Brennan Brooks (@brennanbrooks)
• Bryant Garvin (@BryantGarvin)
• Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Claire Remmetter (@cremmetter)
• Ion Interactive (@ioninteractive)
• Jackson Edmonds (@Jackson_PPC)
• Lawrence Aaron (@CrazyFingers)
• Liam Lally (@ZaddleMarketing)
• Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Mark Jensen (@Just_Markus)
• Martin Rottgerding (@bloomarty)
• Matt Hopson (@matthopson)
• McCarthy-Stott (@mcstot)
• Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
• Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund)
• Richard Fergie (@RichardFergie)
• Robert Brady (@robert_brady)
• Ryan Black (@rblck)
• Ryan Campbell (@_ryancampbell)
• Shawn Livengood (@slivengood)
• Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)
• Tina Kelleher (@Tina_Kelleher)
• Trada (@Trada)

About the Streamcaporal

This is a guest post by Paul Kragthorpe, Search Engine Marketing Manager at WebRanking in Minneapolis, MN, #PPCChat Streamcap layer out’er, rare Search Blogger, Tweets Live from @PaulKragthorpe, and Google+’ing from PaulKragthorpe.

Q1: What filters do you setup in Google Analytics to provide additional insights into your PPC campaign?

• There is a filter you can setup to view traffic from search partner networks…though you can’t really do much about it. – Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• Use coremetrics more, with segments applied to site interaction and products sold, ga is just pulling the Adwords structure. – Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• I don’t really filter down my ppc campaigns. – Bassovita (@bassovita)
• Filters for ignoring internal traffic from client’s, employees and similar. – James Svoboda (@Realicity) ++
• Break out PPC from organic, brand from non-brand but besides that I mostly just manipulate ad-hoc. – Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea) +
• Filters in GA aren’t absolutely necessary, but will help with the bottom line. – Matt Umbro
• Alright, seems we use a couple filters…everyone’s homework is to find more and share sometime in the future with the class. – Matt Umbro
• Not specifically a filter, but I set-up a PPC Only profile that provides an additional level of depth during analysis. James Svoboda
• Filter out internal IP addresses to rest assured that I’m not looking at test traffic from inside the company. – Shawn Livengood (@slivengood)
• Keywords that triggered an event on site (Micro Conversions). – Jessica Cameron Ruud (@Camruud)
• Internal traffic (IP) filters. Also handy: brand vs non-brand filters. Need to learn how to set up though. – Bart Schuijt (@BartSchuijt)

Q2: Do you import Google Analytics goals to AdWords? If so, do you report event tracking/virtual pageview conversions to clients?

• Yes and Yes. Usually. Sucks having to wait for Analytics goals to start appearing in AdWords sometimes. – James Svoboda
• Yes to goal imports to track micro conversions (contact, downloads, etc) in addition to ecom sales. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
• Generally I don’t include virtual pageviews as conversions but they certainly can be. – Matt Umbro
• Only when absolutely necessary. Usually use Analytics goals to track "well that’s good to know" conversions. – Aaron Levy
• No – but I’m going to now. – Bassovita
• I keep the reporting separate, then bring together in excel. They measure differently so I have a prob w reporting GA in Adwords. – Chris Kostecki
• I treat Analytics data as separate–don’t import to AdWords. (I tend to use Analytics for cross-checking, not embedding.) – Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)
  • I tend to do this for the most part as well. – Matt Umbro
• Most of my clients only care about revenue so event tracking goals are nice, but not the bottom line. – Matt Umbro
  • Agree. Clients want to know bottom line. Goals are more "nuts & bolts" – more in-depth than they want. – Theresa Zook
  • True. Clients care about two things: revenue and spend. – MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
• Sort of. But we use LiveBall. 100% agree that it’s important to measure engagement/micro-conversions in PPC. Ion Interactive (@ioninteractive)
• Multi-Channel Funnels tell me that Events can be important to the Search Marketing Ecosystem. – James Svoboda
• Virtual pageview/micro-conversions are more for lead gen campaigns IMHO. Though I will say with Communication and Offer extensions we will need to reassess how we think of conversions. – Matt Umbro
  • Marketers should really measure microconversions for both transactions and lead gen. Discover what people are engaging with, and whether that positively or negatively influences conversions. – Ion Interactive
  • Might weigh differently for Value of Initial Conversions & Life Time Customer Value. – James Svoboda
• I wish AdWords would play with other Analytics programs (or other data sources) to help control delivery. – Chris Kostecki
• There are certain instances when a clients form does not have a unique page/click to chat, where it is helpful. – Bonnie Schwartz (@bonnieschwartz)
  • I run into the click to chat issue quite often. I think I may have to start tracking that. – Bryce Bertola (@brycebertola)
• Yes/Sometimes – Virtual PVs and ET’s are more client specific & whether the client see’s those as leads. generally no though. – Cassandra McClure (@imcassy)
• We often keep analytics vs. adwords goal/conversion tracking separate in order to compare the two & watch for discrepancies. – Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)

Q3: @Bethany_Bey recently wrote “5 Questions You Need To Answer About Your PPC Account Using MCF” about the new multi-channel funnels report in Google Analytics in relation to understanding the role of PPC in the conversion process. How are you making use of the multi channel funnels report?

• Assisted Conversions FTW! – Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
  • Yes, but I find that it can be hard to make clients really understand the relationship. – Theresa Zook
    • Yep, I know exactly what you mean. Hard to convince people that they’re valuable. – Michelle Morgan
      • We know, because we live in the data, but correlations that jump off the screen for us look tenuous to the noob. – Theresa Zook
• How both search queries and keywords impact the buying funnel – outside of just last click. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
• It can be incredibly insightful to understand the % of Lift received by each source to the other channels. – James Svoboda
• I think ‘not using them enough’ probably covers it. – Dennis Petretti (@Denetti) +
• I’m finding major inconsistencies between MCF reports and Search Funnels report in AdWords, anyone else? And when I talk about the inconsistencies I’m only looking at all paid conversion funnels. – Matt Umbro
• How organic and paid both contribute to a sale in a longer buying cycle. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
• Looked at them, decided I didn’t have space in my brain at the moment, ran away. *sad* Must go learn. – Theresa Zook
• MCF report comes back to micro conversions/virtual pageviews; client only wants to see so much info and the bottom line up to us to explain importance of these additional reports. We also have to weigh how many clients we have and time given to each…MCF reports are awesome, but are they absolutely necessary? And when I say absolutely necessary I mean for PPC client management. In ideal world would love to have time to use for all clients. – Matt Umbro
  • There’s only 1 of me. I can manage the account or teach the client–they’re not paying for enough of my time for both. – Theresa Zook
    • Totally agree, we have to set priorities and manage expectations. – Matt Umbro
      • Yes! For smaller accts using a simple approach? Waste of time. It’s "long cycle" clients where increments matter. – Theresa Zook
    • It’s true. I think a little education can go a long way in helping them understand what you are doing too. – Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
  • Having some trouble bumping into other channels, which are managed by others, trying to educate & work w them (& not step on toes). – Chris Kostecki
• They give me insights in whether or not to pause kws, ad groups and campaigns in AdWords. Further: they [MCF] help to set up the attribution model for clients. – Bart Schuijt

Q4: What insights do you glean from the paid keyword report in Google Analytics and what actions do these insights lead to?

• Determine quality of traffic from keywords and search queries. Bounce Rates, Goal Completions, etc. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
• Along with conversion metrics in AdWords/adCenter helps me determine whether I should pause keywords. – Matt Umbro
• Bounce rate helps determine which keywords need improved landing pages, better content or navigation. – Luke Alley
• Depth of traffic, and what keywords drop what users into what purchase phase. Also helps evaluate 3rd tier networks. – Aaron Levy
• Matched Search Queries actually matched up with keyword that triggered them. – James Svoboda
• GA offers much better e-commerce paid keyword data than AdWords, even after custom conversion event setup. – Shawn Livengood
  • Do you set dynamic revenue value through your AdWords conversion code? – Matt Umbro
    • I want my product-level data! – Aaron Levy
    • Yup. Can’t get GA to match the number exactly, even though the data source is the same though *shakes fist at Google* – Shawn Livengood
      • I hear that, I think problem sometimes comes down to the conversion being double counted in AdWords. – Matt Umbro
• It shows me which PPC keywords have the best conversions, which means they will be good keywords to target with SEO. ‘best conversion rate’ to be clear. – Dennis Petretti
• Probably my favorite Analytics report, for all the reasons others are mentioning. – Theresa Zook
• Exactly which goals each keyword triggered. – James Svoboda
• Bounce rates! Helps to measure success on kw lvl. Then you can pause kw or regroup. – Bart Schuijt
• My overall Analytics issue is that managing a lot of small PPC accounts doesn’t leave much time for Analytics analysis. – Luke Alley
  • Nor does the traffic to the site necessarily warrant in-depth analysis. – Matt Umbro
    • Right. Great to hit on some of the Analytics data. Can be super helpful. – Luke Alley
      • Not analytics, but find new keywords through search terms originating from product feed campaign. – Matt Umbro
  • Harvest converting organic keywords. Freeeee longtail data! – Aaron Levy
  • Important to focus on key metrics then. – MyNextCustomer
• Search query reporting provides new ideas for campaigns and landing pages. Huge fan. Bounce rates can also tell you if there is mismatch between the keyword and landing page. Bounce rates are a good indication of quality of traffic and/or quality of landing page. – Ion Interactive
  • One issue to be aware of with LP Bounce Rate is % of visitors who called and did not click forward. Some sites get huge call %. – James Svoboda +
  • Agreed on bounce rate-also imp. to keep eye on lps-ie: if option is to conv or bounce, br likely high. – Crystal Anderson

Q5: Aside from PPC post click data, how do Analytics help you to optimize your PPC campaigns?

• I’ve seen verrry limited success with feeds- lots of them are auto-suggest based so I get the same thing. – Aaron Levy
  • Really? I’ve seen just the opposite. Some of my best performing campaigns within accounts are feeds. – Matt Umbro
    • May just be that the product feeds I was using in the past weren’t very well set up. – Aaron Levy
• Seeing what the traffic actually does when it reaches the site? Priceless when troubleshooting. – Theresa Zook
• Look at referring sites and see if any are in Display Network for a managed placement campaign. – Matt Umbro
• IMO better trend / month over month comparison data in GA for Ecom sites. – Jessica Cameron Ruud
• To monitor behaviour at landing pages (e.g. bounce rates, conv. rates). – Bart Shuijt
• Allows us to focus our efforts on the most profitable AdGroups. – MyNextCustomer
• Geographic data from GA is extremely helpful in deciding where to set up locally-targeted PPC campaigns. – Shawn Livengood
• I have used GA to show to a client the relative success I new they were spending more on media. We were drove more conv. – Bonnie Schwartz
• Analyze organic kws/placements, compare perf. for trends, analyze opps-mobile, remarketing etc. – Crystal Anderson (@CrystalA)
• Also if I see PPC traffic/metrics fall, I like to see if it is across all mediums or just PPC so I know if I need to worry. – Bonnie Schwartz
• I like being able to compare any time-frame to another time-frame quickly right on the screen. Metrics and graph. – Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• Helps me know if it is just ppc or problems across the board. – Derek Ostler (@DerekOstler)
• Expanding on that, one of the best metrics for checking if you matched the searchers intent or not is the bounce rate. – Dennis Petretti

Q6: How much time do you spend reviewing analytics for your clients? If not much time what is the obstacle(s)?

• In our analytic programs throughout the week, looking at different traffic & product impacts, have also been hooked on GA real time. – Chris Kostecki
• A lot of my clients like to look at their Google analytics, so we will review it together. It helps them see how it all works. – Mark Kennedy
• Much less than I should–time. Also, have clients who wouldn’t "fix" website issues even if it would make them millionaires. So, what’s the point in identifying on-site weaknesses? Why do people view changing their website as a major problem? – Theresa Zook
• I get all the time I need to review analytics and make informed decisions. Working in-house is pretty sweet. – Shawn Livengood
• Minimum for smaller campaigns is monthly analysis & reporting where tracking & analyzing Specific Performance Data Points. – James Svoboda
• Bigger the client the more time i spend on analytics and other for them. I give each client a certain time lot for all. – Derek Ostler
• Depends on the acct, but in comparison to how much time is spent in interfaces, I’d say on avg. its an 80(inter)/20(ga) split. – Crystal Anderson

Q7: What are your analytics Must Haves/Dos for any size PPC account?

• Focus on conversions, not clicks. – Ion Interactive
• Incorporate your analytics with spend data for CPA – a must for the lead gen campaigns I run. – Justin Freid (@Justin_Freid)
• Stable Goal & Conversion tracking. Must. Have. – James Svoboda +++
• KW positioning, kw & page bounce rates, long-tail, traffic sources, & love in-page view. – Theresa Zook
• Obviously goal tracking, filtering out in-house traffic. Revenue tracking if you’re e-commerce or have a fixed conv value. – Shawn Livengood
• Use GA to track convs. you can’t w/interface codes. Ensure other media is tagged!!! – Crystal Anderson
• Revenue & cost data. Landing page engagement / BR. Monthy / yearly trending data. – Jessica Cameron Ruud

Resources

• Google AdWords Editor (version as of today’s PPCChat 9.7.1)
• Microsoft adCenter Desktop
• http://www.google.com/ads/answers/
• PPCChat Member List (Twitter)
• adCenter Feature Suggestion

More PPC Chats

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next #PPCchat on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific and 5pm in the UK. Same Chat time, same Chat channel.

Participants

Check out the PPC Chat Twitter list to see and connect with all current and prior participants.

• Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Bart Schuijt (@BartSchuijt)
• Bassovita (@bassovita)
• Bonnie Schwartz (@bonnieschwartz)
• Bryce Bertola (@brycebertola)
• Cassandra McClure (@imcassy)
• Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Crystal Anderson (@CrystalA)
• Dennis Petretti (@Denetti)
• Derek Ostler (@DerekOstler)
• Ion Interactive (@ioninteractive)
• Jessica Cameron Ruud (@Camruud)
• Justin Freid (@Justin_Freid)
• Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
• Shawn Livengood (@slivengood)
• Theresa Zook (@I_Marketer)

About the Streamcaperer

This is a guest post by Paul Kragthorpe, Search Manager at WebRanking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, #PPCChat Streamcap transcriber, rare SEO Blogger, Tweeting from @PaulKragthorpe, and Google+’ing from PaulKragthorpe.

Q1: What 2011 PPC update have you found to be most beneficial, either for your clients or your own PPC management?

• Broad modifier match is my favorite, but I do like sitlelink extensions, too. – Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• Top vs. Other Segment. Hands down. – James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Modified Broad Match by a country mile. – Andrew Baker (@SEOEdinburgh)
  • Technically Modified Broad Match came out in 2010: http://t.co/DXCqXVDT – James Svoboda
    • OK James, in that case – AdWords integration with Google Analytics v5, MCF’s, better MSQ reporting, Mobile/Tablet Segmentation. – Andrew Baker
  • Modified broad match has led to different strategies at times (for the best!) – Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• Tough one, but I’m gonna go with Broad match modifier. Saves soooo much time in SQ town. – Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Broad modifier has given us so much more access and leverage for 2011. – Lawrence Aaron (@CrazyFingers)
• Extended headlines! Extended headlines! Love this feature. – Matt Umbro
• Broad Match Modifier and Longer headlines. – Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• sitelinks, MBM, dimensions tab. – Crystal Anderson (@CrystalA)
• Am I the only one who’s really happy the reporting tab is gone? I greatly prefer the new layout. – Aaron Levy
  • I think they are both good options, but I do like the new layout. – Matt Umbro
• Concurring with modified broad match. – Shawn Livengood (@slivengood)
• @adCenter UI and desktop tool updates have been very helpful in reducing frustration levels on my team. – Lisa Sanner (@LisaSanner)
• Product Listing Ads look promising – new here in Germany. – Martin Rottgerding (@bloomarty)
• I’d say all the ad extensions. Generally more ad copy room, but also more control. – Jeremy Brown (@JBGuru)
• How about URLs in headlines? Anyone see performance skyrocket with this new feature? – Matt Umbro
• Also really happy about product extensions for e-commerce clients. – Lawrence Aaron
• We’ve used product listing ads and we’re getting great CPA. pain to set up properly though. – Mark Jensen (@Just_Markus)
• It might be fair to say that Modified Broad Match was one of the greatest features USED in 2011. – James Svoboda
• Really loving instant preview for ads—it can really help qualify clicks. – MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
  • I wonder how many people using Instant Preview. Seen any recent stats on that? – Jeremy Brown
• My fav addition to PPC this year is PPCChat, a really great collection of smart marketers! – Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
  • True. Generally worth extra traffic on main terms. Plus, ppc has positive effects that can’t always easily measure. – Jeremy Brown

Q2: What 2011 PPC update has shown negative ramifications in your accounts or was an update that you just don’t agree with?

• I’ll say it again. I hate that they took away custom shape targeting. – Mark Kennedy +++
  • I think that custom shapes are gone is a good thing. It probably never worked. – Martin Rottgerding
• “Other” Ads … Grrr – Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• All lower case letters in display URLs anyone? Though uppercase will show when URL is in headline. – Matt Umbro
  • Lower case in URL was annoying. PenIsland.com. – Jeremy Brown
  • I like the lowercase URL & get better results, in most cases, when I convert ads to a completely lowercase display URL. – Dennis Petretti (@Denetti)
• Top page minimum bids. Even though they are totally inaccurate, it feels manipulative that they are there & a bid option in AWE. – Lisa Sanner
• Google deciding what ad rotation options are best for us. – Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Not digging #google making broad match…broader. – Mark Jensen
• Not being able to see conversions in the UI for product extensions real time. – Lawrence Aaron
• I don’t like that you have to put the radius pin in a formal city or town now either. – Mike Shollenberger (@webjock)
• Sin of Commission – (not provided) in GA. Sin of Omission – Separate Search Partners still not n Adwords. – Jeremy Brown
• Creating tablet specific targeting, then opting all of us in. you know, because they’re the same as computers. – Aaron Levy
  • Performance has been very similar to desktops. Agree in concept, but don’t think did much damage. – Jeremy Brown
    • Depends on the campaign; I’ve seen HORRIBLE performance from content-tablets bc of in-app placements. – Aaron Levy
      • Oh yeah, completely agree on Content network. I had my folks shut them off on those. – Jeremy Brown
• Not new for 2011, but just modified a bit – call metrics are highly inaccurate and cause more trouble than good. – Matt Umbro
• +1′s – Andrew Baker +
• I can’t come up with an update that really bothered me. – Martin Rottgerding
• Automated sitelinks have not provided a meaningful lift for me, and are a pain to have to go back and correct. – Mike Shollenberger
• Anyone look at the “Free Clicks” option in the dimensions tab? – Matt Umbro
  • I used to but not much to look at these days to be fair. – Andrew Baker
  • You mean “$hit We Shouldn’t Have Charged You For”. – James Svoboda

Q3: Talk about a surprising trend (good or bad) that you noticed this year.

• Google+ Really excited about what it can do for SEO and PPC. Really excited for 2012. – Lawrence Aaron
• I guess I’ve been doing PPC too long – nothing surprises me any more. – Melissa Mackey
• Well, it’s definitely been the year of PPC advancements. – Mark Kennedy
• Top vs. Other and Search Partners segments have completely changed the way I analyze everything. – James Svoboda
• At the beginning of the year it was declared “the year of mobile”. It hasn’t quite turned out that way, but it’s getting there. – Dennis Petretti
• Kind of surprised at the weight #google threw behind +1, after Google Wave died I guess it’s hard to see another project fade. – Mark Jensen
• Not surprising–but more focus on ROI is always a good thing. – MyNextCustomer
• Seeing rebecca black, steve jobs and dr oz take over search queries. Gotta use Insights people! – Aaron Levy
• Quite simply the “Top vs. Others” report, knew top ads could have more features, but CTR numbers were astonishing. – Matt Umbro
• No big surprises for me. My job is to be not surprised. – Lisa Sanner
• A rise in one-word search query frequency. – Shawn Livengood
• More competition especially folk who don’t know how to target effectively making it tougher for us all, sign of the (hard) times. – Andrew Baker
• How about #ppcchat? This sure has been a nice surprise meeting all you smart folks. – Lisa Sanner
• Mobile traffic is up quite a lot and if you count tablets, then it’s definitely mobiles coming out party. – Dennis Petretti
• The full benefits aren’t seen yet, but +1 annotation I think will be huge if Google+ can takeover. – Peter Gent (@PeterLGent)
  • I don’t think they need to takeover Facebook, just get greater adoption. Social signals in search are important. – Jeremy Brown
• The shift Google has made in making paid more predominant and Organic less so. Have seen Canibalization because of it. – Bryant Garvin (@BryantGarvin)
  • Good point on Google making #ppc more prominent over organic. Large change. – Jeremy Brown

Q4: How has the “Top vs. Others” report in AdWords altered your view of ad placement (if it has)?

• Definitely makes me want higher ad position. – John Lavin (@Johnnyjetfan)
• New accounts MUST get the top spot or else their QS is doomed. – Melissa Mackey
• Honestly the results aren’t surprising, but it’s interesting to be slapped in the face by data. – Aaron Levy
• For me, it means being Statistically Significant with fewer impressions & clicks by gauging where searchers are looking. – James Svoboda
• Not much. Already knew there were big differences. Mostly for analysis…you change bids and drop position. – Jeremy Brown
• It hasn’t it just confirmed what I assumed wrt to ad position and CTR. Top 3 spots offer so much more (especially e-commerce). – Andrew Baker
• One interesting note is that conversion rate & cost per conversion can remain consistent top vs side. – Matt Umbro
  • Google always claimed that conversion was generally consistent, but good to see more data. – Jeremy Brown
• Shows the power of Top and gets us all competing to be there, which helps GOOG$. No surprises here. – Lisa Sanner
• It shows one more reason why calculating statistical significance with total numbers is useless. I find Top vs Others especially helpful to view Google and Search Partnerss separately. – Martin Rottgerding
  • I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this as well. – James Svoboda
• Do you think the flashiness of tops ads (vs side ads) results in less qualified visitors (vs those who take time to view side ads)? When I say flashiness of top ads I mean searchers see these first and might not necessarily read the whole ad. In other words, these are the first ads they see and don’t take time to view others which may be more relevant.- Matt Umbro
  • Possibly, but the #’s are so much smaller w/side ads, it almost outweighs the benefit. – Melissa Mackey
    • Almost a haves vs have nots situation where top ads get more features. – Matt Umbro
      • For sure. Seems like the barriers to entry are a LOT higher now than they were even a year ago. – Melissa Mackey
  • More tire-kickers and browsers, but top does get bounce from authority (higher = more relevant). – Jeremy Brown
    • if top ads drive tirekickers, then I’ll remarket the hell out of them (w freq caps of course). – Chris Kostecki
      • Yup, remarketing is good for recapturing initial browsers. – Jeremy Brown
  • Not if you do Top ads “right.” Need to think about your flash without being annoying. – Lisa Sanner
  • Our job is to make it so that’s NOT the case! – Aaron Levy
  • I’ve not really seen this. It all depends on relevancy. I like my ads keywords to be highly relevant. AKA no Broad. – James Svoboda
  • Not really Matt, my ads are highly relevant to a product & display the specific product being searched so high Conv. – Andrew Baker
  • Top features get balanced by people doing more hunting (more effort to see/click side ads). Thus, similar conv. rates. – Jeremy Brown
  • Display is flashy interruption marketing, best practice is prequal on ad, more flash = more prequal on ad. – top ads. – Mark Jensen

Q5: Did remarketing and/or display advertising play more into your PPC strategy in 2011? Why or why not?

• Remarketing is definitely a growing strategy for some clients. Depends on the product/services. – Mark Kennedy
• Remarketing absolutely. I now discuss remarketing with all clients. – Matt Umbro
• I don’t think any more so than previous years, just nice that we can do it all in google now. – Aaron Levy
• Lovin’ display. Great for small local clients that need more reach. – Mark Jensen
• Because of scope for existing campaigns, they did not play a big role in 2011. Will in 2012 though. – James Svoboda
• Re-marketing definitely, second bite at the cherry and will be an even bigger & complex part of my strategy for 2012. – Andrew Baker
• Remarketing is a huge part, and is actually doing more to redefine my role as a “search marketer” to get more business. – Chris Kostecki
• Display playing in more for sure. Remarketing is harder to explain to SMBs so have had less uptake w/that. – Melissa Mackey
• We have loads of e-commerce clients, so it’s vital for us to use various remarketing strategies. – Stephen Harrington (@harrington82)
• Display is growing, especially as Google has given more control. Google sees this as their next growth area. – Jeremy Brown
• Yes …especially Topics & Interest targeting in Display Campaigns. – Manoj Pandey (@_Man0j)
• These days if your clients AREN’T doing remarketing they are behind. – Matt Umbro
  • True, but it’s easier said than done unfortunately. – Melissa Mackey
    • No doubt, especially because you have to almost always get a designer for the image ads (unless you want to use G’s tool). – Matt Umbro
      • Exactly; and a developer to set up tagging… gets overwhelming for small to mid size clients. – Melissa Mackey
        • Some platforms are now partnering with co’s like criteo to offer remarketing mgmt and optimization too. – Lisa Sanner
      • True…hard to get clients to take the time to insert remark code. Especially hard if expanding remark into segments. – Mark Jensen
• I’ve learnt a lot from my own re-marketing experiences as well this year, ie be specific, don’t over do it. – Andrew Baker

Q6: Did you run more FB & LI campaigns in 2011? Do you believe the effort was worth the reward (brand awareness, etc)?

• HELL YES, and def worth the reward. Huge results for the right clients. – Melissa Mackey
• Yes & ehh a little. we saw better ways to engage & grow the social channel that outpaced advertising. – Chris Kostecki
• Yes we ran a lot of them. Reward was more branding and increasing client awareness of how important social is. – Aaron Levy
• HUGE payoffs in FB stories, but only when clients are socially active. – Mark Jensen
• Mixed bag. Some were okay, some were great, some underperformed expectations. Really case by case, but will continue to test. – Mark Kennedy
• Their ad mgmt interfaces are like Google circa 1995. So much more to do, but I do see the potential. – Lisa Sammer
• Yes and yes. Both are not always good for B2B or B2C, but when used correctly… – James Svoboda
• If you’d asked me that 3 months ago I’d say no, however recently I’ve seen some successes for clients who are social savvy. – Andrew Baker
• I’m pretty confident with FB ads for brand awareness ..it was success for my clients. – Manoj Pandey
• I’d say we ran about the same amount of Facebook campaigns as the previous year. Better engagement this year though. – Dennis Petretti
• 100% Yes! LI and FB have been amazing for ua All worth it. LI backed out the best for B2B clients that are lead gen. – Lawrence Aaron
• Did the new Google Analytics multi channel funnel report help justify the costs and exposure?- Matt Umbro
  • It helps a little. – James Svoboda
  • MCF reports are ok. Generally useful for highlighting channel interaction, but not useful for actionable attribution. – Jeremy Brown
• Follow-up: How are folks charging for FB? %of spend? Set fees? Much of client spend still seems small. – Jeremy Brown
  • Good question, we are wrestling with that too for clients who aren’t doing other PPC at the same time. – Melissa Mackey
  • For us it is Set Fees based on Predicted Hours. – James Svoboda

Resources

• Google AdWords Editor (version as of today’s PPCChat 9.7.1)
• Microsoft adCenter Desktop
• http://www.google.com/ads/answers/
• PPCChat Member List (Twitter)
• adCenter Feature Suggestion
• Understanding Google AdWords Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types: Exact, Phrase, Broad, and +Modified +Broad
• One-Word Searches: Search Engines Doing More With Less
• The Secret of the Quality Score
• Paid Search Conversion By Position

More PPC Chats

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next #PPCchat on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific and 5pm in the UK. Same Chat time, same Chat channel.

Participants

Check out the PPC Chat Twitter list to see and connect with all current and prior participants.

• Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro)
• James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Andrew Baker (@SEOEdinburgh)
• Bryant Garvin (@BryantGarvin)
• Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Crystal Anderson (@CrystalA)
• Dennis Petretti (@Denetti)
• Jeremy Brown (@JBGuru)
• John Lavin (@Johnnyjetfan)
• Lawrence Aaron (@CrazyFingers)
• Lisa Sanner (@LisaSanner)
• Manoj Pandey (@_Man0j)
• Mark Jensen (@Just_Markus)
• Mark Kennedy (@markkennedysem)
• Martin Rottgerding (@bloomarty)
• Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• Mike Shollenberger (@webjock)
• MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)
• Peter Gent (@PeterLGent)
• Shawn Livengood (@slivengood)
• Stephen Harrington (@harrington82)

About the Streamcapturer

This is a guest post by Paul Kragthorpe, Search Manager at WebRanking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, #PPCChat Streamcap transcriber, rare SEO Blogger, Tweeting from @PaulKragthorpe, and Google+’ing from PaulKragthorpe.

Q1: What are your favorite things about PPC in general?

• Return on Investment (ROI) – Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• I can see if my ideas are good or bad within days. Easily measured. – Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• I like the challenge of trying to target the right people at the right time with the right message. – Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• Actionable, quantifiable, optimisable DATA & RESULTS. – Eloi Casali (@Eloi_Casali)
• The ability to target messages at the specific intent of a searcher. They have questions, you have answers. – Dennis Petretti (@denetti)
• When a new client signs on and we improve their results significantly. That is always the best. – PurePPCCom (@pureppccom)
• The ability to directly influence the campaign in a timely manner. – James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Finding incremental optimization. Whether a new kw, or a new negative. – Michelle Morgan
• Complaining about google! – John Lavin (@johnnyjetfan)
• Speed and measurability. – Richard Fergie (@RichardFergie)
• Favorite thing is probably the challenge. Your work is never done. Always some improvement to be made. – Michelle Morgan
• It’s always changing! – Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Favorite thing about PPC are the results. The profitable niche is always there. Finding it is awesome. – John Ellis (@JohnWEllis)
• Not seeing “Not Provided” in analytics for PPC Keywords! – Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• In combination with Analytics, PPC can provide almost real time results to campaign efforts which can feel extremely rewarding. – Nicole Mintiens (@Tregesy)
• The speed at which you can get a campaign live and active for a client. – Mike Williams (@mwilliams20)
• You can’t beat responding to demand on the scale that PPC does…I feel for those broadcast folks. – Chris Kostecki
• It’s incredibly easy to measure, and correlate spend to revenue. – MyNextCustomer (@MyNextCustomer)

Q2: What do you love about @AdWords? In other words how does GA make you days brighter?

• I have a job because @adwords exists. So that’s a big one. – Michelle Morgan ++
• Running new tests, optimization, measuring results in real time. – MyNextCustomer
• Real Time Analytics! – John Lavin
• Smooth operation, usability and transparency. I can see where every cent I spend goes & use that data everywhere. – Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• It gets my ads on The Google and tells me how they are doing…and it doesn’t time out. – Chris Kostecki
• AdWords makes my day brighter by giving me a job. The more complex it gets, the more people need help. – Robert Brady (@robert_brady)
• The interface, in general, and AdWords Editor makes me very happy. – James Svoboda
• AdWords has a better reporting interface with more details on user behavior than other platforms. – Harris Neifield (@HarrisNeifield)
• Makes it so easy to show clients that you help them make more money! – Stu Draper (@GetFoundFirst)
• Change history, AdWords Editor and the Editor sharing functions like aes files. – Harris Neifield
• One of the best ways to advertize to exactly who is looking for your products/services. Also very cost effective if managed prop. – Warren Jensen (@ppcWarrenJ)
• I also love the Top vs. Other reports dearly! – James Svoboda
• They have done a lot to make the delivery more transparent than other systems, and that is commendable. – Chris Kostecki
• Restructuring accounts/ campaigns, adding keywords or negatives in Adwords editor – such a time saver. – Jackson Edmonds (@Jackson_PPC)
• I don’t know why, but i always loved it. hard to explain. really passionate about it. I do love structure. – Eloi Casali
• The interface, adwords editor, and it’s complexity (giving me a job I love). – Mike Williams
• I like that @adwords makes changes that help advertisers. Top v Side. Imp Share. (Holding that (not provided) is an organic issue). – Michelle Morgan
• Love the symbiotic relationship. Google helps us, we help our clients, our clients spend more, $GOOG explodes. – Aaron Levy
• I guess I also love the easy analytics tie-in. That helps out a lot, especially for smaller clients. – James Svoboda

Q3: What is your favorite thing about @adCenter?

• I’ve always been lucky to have rockin’ reps at @adcenter. The people there rock. – James Zolman (@jameszol)
• How @adCenter has been trying to adapt with our expectations. – Nicole Mintiens
• It’s a good value! Cheap clicks and a nice way to reach a different audience. – Aaron Levy
• My favorite thing about @adcenter is the ability to set search partners at the ad group instead of the campaign level. – Harris Neifield
• They’re working really hard to make their product a better competitor. Interface changes, Rich Ads, etc. – Michelle Morgan
• That @adCenter listens in on PPCChat. – Paul Kragthorpe
  • Indeed we do. – Bing adCenter (@adCenter)
• Lately they’ve been participating & listening in on PPCChat. – Cassie Allinger
• They way they talk to us on twitter. – Richard Fergie
• Absolutely..params. – Mark Jensen (@Just_Markus)
  • Params can be more effective than DKI. – Harris Neifield
• They added charts, & brought some necessary metrics to the forefront. Srsly tho, they’re listening which is good. – Chris Kostecki
• Lower cost per conversion then Google (due to lower competition.) And the new import system is big step up. – Dennis Petretti
• My ROI in @adCenter is hands down better than GA, pennies vs. dollars. Volume, however… – Steve Bitter (@stevebitter)
• I love @adCenter because it keeps me employed in a job I love. – Tina Kelleher (@Tina_Kelleher)
• I never actually use it other than for running reports, I manage all Bing/Yahoo through DoubleClick. – Jackson Edmonds
• I love the @adcenter campaign import feature. I was able to login to my Adwords MCC and copy across the campaigns I needed. – Mike Williams
• Also, having @adCenter around decreases the Google monster’s ability to monopolize us. – Nicole Mintiens
• @adcenter’s online chat support has been helpful to me on more than one occasion. – Mike Williams
• I love that @adCenter is reaching out to PPC professionals in order to learn and improve more than *cough* other platforms. – James Svoboda
• CPCs can be cheaper than Google. – MyNextCustomer
• The reps for @adCenter really do try harder to help. Also less competition. – Robert Brady
• Likewise. I prefer to centralize our reporting in one dashboard. – MyNextCustomer
• I love that we can add negative sites to @adcenter search network! – Bryant Garvin (@BryantGarvin)
• My PPC rant and rave since @adcenter is here is about the poor user experience for those who are on MAC’s, specifically with tools. – Gladue (@gladue)
• I love that we can rearrange and choose columns in @adwords interface. the simple things in life I guess. – Warren Jensen

Q4: What other PPC platforms have you come to appreciate and why? FB? LinkedIn? 7Search?

• Both FB and LI have performed great when used for the right purpose and for the right client. – Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Love the targeting in Facebook. Great results. – Robert Brady
• LinkedIn is great for #B2B. Love Facebook for #B2C and some #B2B. – MyNextCustomer
• Big fan of FB. Been using it a little over a year. Love the advancements and the results. – Michelle Morgan
• I’m starting to see the benefit of shotgunning shopping search engine ppcs for retail. Esp. holiday seasons! – Mark Jensen
  • What PPC Shopping engines are working for you this holiday season? – James Svoboda
• @7Search (free money, active in social). FB (fun targeting, huge audience, great metrics) Marchex (fancy placements). – Aaron Levy
• Facebook Ads reminds me of Google AdWords circa 2004. Cheap, huge opportunities. – MyNextCustomer
• I have actually been really liking the Twitter Ads system. their reps are also awesome. love the reps i work with. – James Zolman
• Love the Demographic Targeting of FB & LI. – James Svoboda
• I’ve enjoyed using FB. It’s a completely different animal from Search, but can be highly effective for the right client. – Mike Williams
• Marchex. My rep there is awesome. Replies to every email I send in about 30 seconds. – Harris Neifield
• Targeting and segmenting in FB is awesome. ROI always struggles, but SUPER cheap branding method. – Steve Bitter
• Facebook marketing has performed great for me. Like AdWords, if not optimize well, it can go bad really quickly. It takes work. – John Ellis
• Not that recent anymore but LinkedIn business accounts were a huge plus. – Harris Neifield
• Adblade brought us some super low cpc and GIANT reach. – Mark Jensen
• LinkedIn also lets you target by company, members of groups. – MyNextCustomer

Q5: What is are some things about @AdWords that just F’n piss you off?

• Lack of separate bids for search partners, can’t pause sitelinks, changing ad rotation on our behalf. – Melissa Mackey
• What the F%*^ are these queries?!?!? http://t.co/ABDxET9i How do you combat that?! And yes, I do already have the language setting for English only. – Michelle Morgan
• Sitelinks! Biggest underdeveloped feature on the whole platform. – James Svoboda
  • So much more potential. – Lisa Sanner (@LisaSanner)
• The lack of transparency within search partners! – Cassie Allinger
• Not being able to split out search partners add negative sites. – Bryant Garvin
• When I’m in MCC and I click a client, and it goes back to the MCC 3 or 4 times. KILLS ME! – John Lavin
• Let us target/exclude search partners. Please please please for heaven’s sake let me get my ads off Amazon! – Aaron Levy
• Stupid f^%($ng search queries, should I go on? – Melissa Mackey
• If you don’t have a dedicated rep, good luck getting any worthwhile help. – Robert Brady
• Other search terms in SQR’s. I’d also like to be able to split out search partners. – Jackson Edmonds
• Pushing targets away from long tail to head terms..that really grinds my gears. – Chris Kostecki
• No longer being able to sort accounts by Search CTR in MCC! – Nicole Mintiens
• When GA tells me min 1st pg bid is $x.xx, I talk myself into paying that much, change my bid, and then the bid increases AGAIN! – Steve Bitter
• Also, in Search Query Reports – WTF are “Other Keywords”? – James Svoboda
• I want better AdWords mobile/tablet management options. C’mon I should be able to manage all of this with an app. – John Ellis
• Content network- I wish I could set some campaigns by domain extension only, like .com .ca .net sites only. – Gladue
• Finding out about new ad copy or placements from the “industry” not @adwords. – Bryan Garvin
• In short, their arrogance. – Lisa Sanner
• How the fvk do they not know how to advertise effectively? – Chris Kostecki
• I get tired of educating a new set of reps every few weeks. NONE of them know half as much as I do about Adwords. – Melissa Mackey
• I hate the search term report only shows a small % of actual searches. – Michael McEuen (@lonohead)
• Also, those F’n Ads for “SEO” keywords! F.U., you don’t do SEO! – James Svoboda
• Why do I have to export to Excel for ROI?! (points to MSN). – Chris Kostecki
• They take forever to review your site and content if they have flagged it! – Derek Ostler (@DerekOstler)
• I hate when you have a phrase match keyword that matches query exactly but AW chooses to trigger a broad KW in another adgroup. – Warren Jensen
• All those f^%($ng “this keyword is the same as another kw with a diff match type” warnings in AE. – Melissa Mackey
  • Isn’t it a Google recommended thing to have more than one match type?! – Michelle Morgan
• When my bid are “below the 1st page bid” but have 1.6 ad position. – John Lavin
• That GA doesn’t offer Mod Broad match as standard KW targ? – Michael McEuen

Q6: What are some things that drive you F’n crazy about @adCenter?

• Still have 3 mins: Their default campaign settings really suck, go against blatant best practices! – Chris Kostecki
• WHERE IS ALL THE TRAFFIC? Takes 5 steps to do what takes 1 in Adwords, HUGE billing fiascos, reporting still sucks. – Melissa Mackey
• “We don’t match you to single keywords on broad match. ‘pretty pink shoes’ will never match to just ‘shoes’” YOU LIE. – Aaron Levy
• Lack of integration with Google Analytics … C’mon now! – Cassie Allinger
• Can’t set separate bids for Bing vs. Yahoo. – Robert Brady
• Adcenter doesn’t drive me nuts anymore, I’ve gone numb…but if I get started w their conv/revenue tracking all bets are off. – Chris Kostecki
• I get fraud LEADS, with Search Partners. Not just clicks. Costs money AND wastes time! – Michelle Morgan
• Clunky interface. Redesign it already. But make it look less like a “Microsoft” website. – James Svoboda
  • Is this in reference to the redesign that just released last month? – Bing adCenter
    • It was a good step, but a website is never done. – James Svoboda
• What they hell is SilverLight? And why do I have to have it? – Michelle Morgan
• Don’t log me out every time I look away for 5 minutes. – Luke Alley
• KW match type pausing is….uh…problematic. – Lisa Sanner
• Also, is advertising spend from a Mac user not as good as from a PC user? Give me a desktop tool and make chrome compatible. – Michelle Morgan
• “Your browser is not compatible” every day when using Chrome! We’re in 2011 people! – James Hume
• @adCenter ‘s interface and features have gotten better. THE problem is people don’t use @bing because the SERPs aren’t relevant. – Warren Jensen
• Also don’t take 10 million hours to load adCenter Desktop. – Nicole Mintiens
• I think it’s safe to say that we LOVE things that make our jobs easier and with less friction. – James Svoboda

Q7: For any PPC Platform or Tool, finish this sentence: What would make my job easier would be if _____________ .

• @adCenter & @AdWords were mirrors of each other for campaign structure and keyword matching. – James Svoboda
• it is flexible to meet my needs without sacrificing transparency into delivery. – Chris Kostecki
  • Transparency is needed when reporting to bosses and clients. – James Svoboda
• AdWords implemented monthly budgeting features. – Nicole Mintiens
• the platforms are designed for advertiser goals, not to increase platform’s revenue…I’m looking at you Google! – Chris Kostecki
• bulk editing, if I could up all selected keyword max bid by a specific %/dollar amount. IE: upping all selected KW by 15 cents. – Warren Jensen

Resources

Google AdWords Editor (version as of today’s PPCChat 9.7.1)

Microsoft adCenter Desktop

http://www.google.com/ads/answers/

PPCChat Member List (Twitter)

Bursting Google’s New Bubble Ads: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

adCenter Feature Suggestion

More PPC Chats

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next #PPCchat on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific and 5pm in the UK. Same Chat time, same Chat channel.

Participants

Check out the PPC Chat Twitter list to see and connect with all current and prior participants.

• James Svoboda (@Realicity)
• Paul Kragthorpe (@PaulKragthorpe)
• Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)
• Bing adCenter (@adCenter)
• Bryant Garvin (@BryantGarvin)
• Cassie Allinger (@_CassieLee_)
• Chris Kostecki (@chriskos)
• Dennis Petretti (@denetti)
• Derek Ostler (@DerekOstler)
• Eloi Casali (@Eloi_Casali)
• Gladue (@gladue)
• Harris Neifield (@HarrisNeifield)
• Jackson Edmonds (@Jackson_PPC)
• James Zolman (@jameszol)
• John Ellis (@JohnWEllis)
• John Lavin (@johnnyjetfan)
• Lisa Sanner (@LisaSanner)
• Luke Alley (@LukeAlley)
• Mark Jensen (@Just_Markus)
• Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
• Michael McEuen (@lonohead)
• Michelle Morgan (@michellemsem)
• Mike Williams (@mwilliams20)
• MyNextCustomer.com (@MyNextCustomer)
• Nicole Mintiens (@Tregesy)
• PurePPCCom (@pureppccom)
• Richard Fergie (@RichardFergie)
• Robert Brady (@robert_brady)
• Steve Bitter (@stevebitter)
• Stu Draper (@GetFoundFirst)
• Tina Kelleher (@Tina_Kelleher)
• Warren Jensen (@ppcWarrenJ)

About the Streamcaptain

This is a guest post by Paul Kragthorpe, Search Manager at WebRanking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, #PPCChat Streamcap hunter & gatherer, rare SEO Blogger, Tweeting from @PaulKragthorpe, and Google+’ing from PaulKragthorpe.