Ecommerce Blog

It never ceases to amaze me how much Amazon packs onto its product pages. In addition to the products it sells, Amazon product pages include banner ads, links to the product from other sellers (Marketplace), forum links, Listmania, more banner ads, Sponsored Links, Customers Who Bought Also Bought, Better Together, reviews, customer tags, Amapedia…

Add “Related Items from External Websites” to this list, which shows “related” product thumbnails and links to other sites participating in Amazon’s Product Ads program. Product Ads is a pay-per-click program that allows any merchant to advertise products (with thumbnail images - depending on which browser the customer is using) right on Amazon product pages. Details here.

According to Amazon’s Product Ads description, PPC placements may appear close to the cart button:

As you know, Amazon is continually testing - so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m seeing different placements than others. Rather than the above, this is what I see when I’m on Amazon.com:

My concerns about this program:

1. Is this what customers want? “Product Ads is an advertising program designed to provide Amazon.com customers seamless access to products available on external Web sites.” Many customers choose Amazon for free shipping/Prime, the A to Z guarantee, they already have an account and the trust they have with this established retailer. When you roll over the related offer links, you can’t preview the destination URL, it’s an Amazon redirect which may confuse customers - they don’t know where they will end up, or they’re surprised when a new site opens up (yes, even if you mention “external websites.”

2. Right now, the recommendations are not very relevant. The above related items (candles and faucet) were suggested for this dog toy:

Irrelevant offers means lower click through rates for advertisers (yes, Amazon uses a combination of bid and click through rate to determine placement and final cost-per-click). It also means more confusion and clutter for customers. But I’m sure this will all improve over time.

3. These ads potentially take sales away from Amazon and Amazon Sellers in the marketplace. As a seller, I don’t appreciate Amazon pointing potential customers elsewhere.

Nevertheless, this is another traffic channel if you’re looking for a way to tap into Amazon’s gazillions of shoppers. I’d be interested to hear from any advertisers who’ve played with these ads. What’s the traffic quality? How does it convert compared to other PPC programs?

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Original post by Linda Bustos

Last January we held a webinar called 12 Things Retailers Must Learn from Christmas 2007. It’s basically a webinar on event marketing year-round, not just Christmas so check it out as Valentine’s Day is just around the corner…

I will add one thing we can learn from Christmas 2008 courtesy of Google Trends. Looking back at trends for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and what we call here in Canada “Boxing Day” (December 26) we find some interesting searches that savvy retailers can plan to bid on for next year in PPC.

Christmas Eve

The keyword “stores open on Christmas eve” is perfect to geo-target local brick-and-mortar stores or promote your online store open 24/7 with overnight delivery, especially considering search volume peaked at 4pm PST!

Christmas Day

“Stores open on Christmas Day” peaked at 9am PST and was even hotter than the Christmas Eve search. This NowPublic article was the top news result so do remember to reach out to your journalists and bloggers locally and nationally if your physical locations are open next year.

After-Christmas-sale and even December-26-sale keywords also were popular on Christmas day, so consider broad or phrase matching the following (of course you can expand this list, but you get the idea):

“after christmas sale”
“after christmas sales”
“after christmas sale 2009″
“after christmas sales 2009″
“after christmas clearance”
“after christmas deals”
“after christmas discounts”
“after christmas bargains”
“after christmas markdowns”
“2008 after christmas sale”
“december 26 sale”
“post-christmas sale”
“post christmas deals”
“after xmas sale”
“after xmas sales”
“after x mas sale”
“after x mas sales”

You can let these keywords run right into January, although trend data suggests these searches die at the beginning of the New Year.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Selecting the Right Ecommerce Software in Six Weeks or Less

When: January 21st, 2009 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists:
Bill Mirabito, Founder and Principal Analyst, B2C Partners
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend…

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Original post by Linda Bustos

Apparently Cyber Monday took JCrew and Bloomingdale’s down today, and a clever search marketer was quick to take advantage:

Bidding on the branded terms, Bonobos.com used “Big Retailers Site Down?” as the headline and qualified the ad by mentioning the site carries only men’s clothing.

Hat tip to Jamie Keaney, Get Elastic reader and Senior Search Strategist at Impaqt Search Marketing for spotting this clever PPC ad.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

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Original post by Linda Bustos

Last week Google introduced a new twist on its Google Keyword Tool, the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool.

Barry Schwartz has already posted a good overview on what the search-based keyword tool does last week. In a nutshell, the new tool shows you what the most popular keywords related to your site are that you are not bidding on, and suggested landing pages to go along with each keyword suggestion if you have access to the Google Adwords account for a given site.

The Ad/Search Share feature you see when logged in shows you what percentage of time you appear in paid search and organic listings which every PPC and SEO marketer loves to know.

Without Adwords or Analytics account access, you will only see a sampling of 100 keywords related to the site’s pages. As Barry mentions, that might leak what terms a website is bidding on to competitors.

How to Apply Google Search-Based Keyword Research

Pay Per Click Campaigns

Obviously, you can use this tool to identify new keywords to bid on in pay per click but I caution you, Google’s suggested landing pages are not always the best ones:

For example, “Bob Marley t-shirt” gets 6,600 searches per month so Google suggests a landing page for BustedTees.com which is actually for a Bob Marley poster, not a t-shirt.

Identify SEO Problems

If BustedTees did carry Bob Marley t-shirts, and Google suggested the poster’s page as the best match, that could be an indication that Google can’t “see” the Bob Marley t-shirt page, indicating a crawling and indexing problem, which may be affecting more pages on the site.

New Product Ideas

BustedTees may consider adding Bob Marley t-shirts to its catalog.

Prioritize Optimization

Another great way to use this tool is to prioritize which landing pages to optimize if you want to focus on terms with the highest potential keyword volume, not necessarily the most keyword referrals you actually receive (which your analytics would tell you). You could optimize for better search engine rankings (and increase your traffic) and conversion (to maximize ROI) together. A keyword research tool alone doesn’t match keywords to your specific site, so this is helpful that Google does both.

Site Search

You should also give your internal site search tool a quality check using the most searched for keywords. How people search in Google is often what they type in your site search box. Do you deliver the right, relevant products customers want to see or does your “searchandizing” need optimizing?

Use Your Noodle

As with any SEO or keyword research tool, use your judgment whether the suggested keywords (and landing pages) are relevant to your business. So what if “cheap cologne” gets 56,000 searches per month if you sell luxury brands? Or what if the average hides a seasonal spike in February? Do you want to pay more to advertise for cheap cologne in September?

So, my verdict is this tool is great if you’re logged in to a Google Account for your site and can have application beyond PPC, but is not so helpful for general keyword research or competitor research.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

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Original post by Linda Bustos

Motion Charts is a new visual tool from Google Analytics that launched today and will be rolled out across Google Analytics accounts over the next couple of weeks. Until you get access, here’s a preview:

May help in your decision which keywords to keep and to kill in pay-per-click without pouring over pages of numbers. Or show you which terms to focus on for SEO.

Excellent.

But before you pull the trigger on a PPC keyword, you might want to give this a read.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

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• How To Apply Google Search-Based Keyword Research
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• Should You Remove Keywords With Low Click Through Rates?

Original post by Linda Bustos

This is the final installment of our PPC copywriting series. Part one discussed the importance of unique selling propositions in ad copy to communicate why a customer should buy from you rather than competitors. We followed this up with strategies for continual ad copy split testing. Today’s post assumes you’ve found a clear winning ad by testing one variable at a time, and you now want to test it against radically different copy.

I learned of this tip through a fantastic free video from Stompernet explaining the AdWords Triangulation Method (38:50 minutes through the video).

Here’s the danger in testing a winning ad (as your control) against experimental copy - if your new creative is a dud, you could lose 25-50% of your click through rate potential if your ads are showing evenly, depending on how many ads you’re testing.

A smarter approach recommended by Stompernet is to create 4 identical copies of your control ad, and one test ad. This ensures that your “safe” ad will show 80% of the time, and your test ad only 20%. Plus, the control ad’s solid click through history will cause it to rank at higher positions than brand new ads, so creating new copies reduces this bias.

I think you could also pause the control ad, and create 4 new copies to eliminate the bias altogether. But it’s nice to have one copy that’s going to achieve better positions at lower click through rates, especially if you’re continually testing. If you can tolerate more risk, you could create just one copy of your control so you’re running 3 ads - 66% of the time you’re running your control copy, 33% of the time you’re getting higher positions and lower CPC from the click through history of the established ad, and 33% is your experimental ad. Then you can segment out the control ad with the history to compare performance of your control copy vs. new copy, without the ranking bias.

9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

Yesterday we talked about persuasive copywriting for PPC ads, and as promised, today we’re going to talk about strategies for split testing ads.

I’ve heard most PPC experts recommend you test headlines first, because they are most visible and are believed to influence click through rate more than body copy (because people have a tendency not to read things if they don’t have to). But I’m going to go against the gurus and suggest how you could test offers and value propositions first, using a hypothetical campaign for “wireless headphones.”

The Strategy

This approach uses Dynamic Keyword Insertion in headlines for your first few rounds of testing. You have more room to market yourself in ad copy than in the headline. You can test offers, calls to action, value propositions — copy that answers the question “why should I buy from your site?”

Dynamic Keyword Insertion means Google will match your headline to the searcher’s query. If Jimmy searches for “wireless head phones” or “cordless headphones” the ad would adjust itself accordingly for maximum relevance so long as that keyword is in your Ad Group and fits in the headline. If Jimmy searches “I’m looking for killer wireless headphones” (a long tail term), as long as “wireless headphones” is broad or phrase matched, a default keyword would display as the headline. In this case, simply “wireless headphones.” You’ll see an example of how to use this feature in the first screenshot, or read more in Google’s DKI tutorial.

But we’re not going to use keyword insertion in the ad text - there’s no need to keyword stuff. We want as much space for testing compelling offers, not redundant keywords. It’s not SEO, it’s not the year 2001 and we speak English here. Here’s an example of totally useless keyword repetition (real ad):

Alright, let’s get started with a hypothetical example of 5 rounds of PPC ad testing:

Round 1

First you’re going to pick 2-4 versions of an ad to run evenly against each other.

Headline: Use DKI for your headline

Ad Copy Line 2: Make sure you have your best unique value proposition included in the ad. I recommend using it as your second line, and using the top line as your testing line. A unique value proposition is the most compelling strength or offer you as a retailer have that sets you apart. If you offer free shipping, free returns, flat-rate shipping, no hassle returns, money back guarantees, have won awards, or anything else that builds trust or adds value - use it!

Ad Copy Line 1: Here’s where you microtest your ad. Many tests have found including numbers - whether a price, percentage or otherwise makes your ad stand out and improves click through. If you offer low prices, it may make your ad more attractive than others. If you want to deter bargain shoppers, a higher price can save you money on clicks and improve your conversion rate. You could here test price vs. non-price, but for this example, we’re going to test variations of showing a price.

Display URL: Some advertisers use dynamic keyword insertion at the end of the display URL (so long as it fits) to boost the keyword relevance, and it may or may not improve click through. An argument could be made that shorter URLs have higher click through. Also, www and non-www URLs may be tested. You really need to test this yourself, but not in round one. If you have too many variables in your testing, you won’t know whether it’s the ad text or the display URL that’s performing better.

In round one, we’re going to use www URLs for every ad variation, with capitalization, as there has been many studies that do suggest this gets higher click through. Since I want to play it safe here, we’re going to always use capitalization in every round.

Okay, here are the ads we’re starting off with - but there’s an error, can you spot it?

Answer: We’re testing pricing offers, so we want all else to be identical. We can test “name brands” in a later round.

Don’t forget to edit your campaign settings and select “show ads more evenly” so you can properly split-test.

Now we get to make up some results. Let’s say that “$29.99 and Up” had low click through rate of 0.41%, but the other two versions had 3.0% and 3.72%. And let’s assume a quick check with SplitTester.com’s confidence tool declared “From $29.99″ the statistical winner. Before you decide it’s a winner, make sure that it also has a good conversion rate - that these clicks end up buying. You don’t want to pick an ad only costs you money and doesn’t make you any.

If you have an ad that rocks click through rate AND conversion rate, you can move on to round 2.

Round 2

Pause the ads that didn’t “win,” and let’s ad new ads to test. If you delete your ads, you’ll never be able to see their history again.

Now I want to know the impact of URL versions as follows:

I’m going to pretend that the non-www, non-trailing keyword version performed best. On to round 3…

Round 3

I’m trying out more creative copy in the first line. I want to know what seems to be most compelling about wireless headphones. Is it range and clarity of sound? Is it better bass? Is it cool styles? Are name brands important?

OK, again, totally arbitrary - let’s assume the test resulted in “Stylish, Wicked Bass” as the winning creative. Can this be further tweaked?

Round 4

At this point (or in any round), there might not be a clear winner. You might want to keep testing different micro-variations until you get a definite star ad before you move onto the next round - testing headlines. Or, you might decide that they’re all performing decent and you can choose one you like best and move on to the next stage.

Round 5

Now I’m ready to test headlines. There are common modifiers PPC advertisers will use in headlines - the ones I’ve seen most are:

• unique

• discount
• cool
• cheap
• find
• buy
• compare
• on sale
• sale
• save on
• for less
• get
• need [keyword]?
• reviews
• [brand] [keyword]
• [keyword] [country]

You might want to try these, but remember that once you add the bargain hunter modifiers, you could attract clicks you don’t want (that’s why including price, even if higher than competitors helps). But definitely avoid testing different brand names. Unless they are doing specific branded search, you don’t want to use brand names in your headline. It makes your selection seem too restricted like you only offer one brand (less selection) or you have made a decision for them. Unless the searcher is familiar with the brand, it’s not effective. Your branded products should have their own Ad Groups, anyway.

If you’ve had a clear winning ad copy in previous rounds, you might want to inject these words into your headline, or try your unique value proposition in the headline, like “$0 Shipping” to stand out. Just make sure you’re not wasting ad copy by repeating your offer again in the lines of text. And use your dynamic keyword insertion headline as the “control” version - you want to see if headline variations outperform it.

Here’s an example test, can you spot the error?

If you noticed that one of the ads does not have “wireless headphones” in the ad text or headline, you’re correct. You don’t want to sacrifice keyword relevance for catchy headlines. Double check your ad text, it’s easy to forget the details.

Conclusion

Again, there are many ways you can approach your testing, this is just an example of how you could go about it. This strategy involves testing micro-changes. You can also test really different copy against each other. Tomorrow we’re going to show you how to reduce your risk when doing such tests.

Until tomorrow, here are the key points:

1. Keep testing. You can always “beat the control” - so long as you keep trying.
2. Don’t test more than one variable at a time.
3. Use your unique value propositions whenever you can.
4. Use prices when it makes sense, or other numbers.
5. Use SplitTester.com to check if your test has produced a winner or not.
6. Don’t make your decision based on click through rate alone. Make sure the ad converts.
7. Capitalize The First Letters of Your Words And URLs, It Is A Proven Strategy.
8. Avoid using brand names in headlines unless your ad group and landing page are targeted to only that brand.
9. Triple check your work for spelling and other errors. Make sure your landing pages are tied up correctly.
10. Keep reading Get Elastic for more tips for online marketing. Subscribe if you haven’t already!

9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

With PPC, unless you’ve tapped into niche long-tail keywords your search ads compete with 20 other links per search result page (organic and paid ads) - or even more if you count Google Maps or Google Shopping results.

And often the products and offers are so similar between retailers, what makes a shopper ultimately buy is which retailer he or she prefers.

That’s why you should include some statement that explains why someone should buy from you in your ad copy. You’re not just selling the product, you are selling yourself as a retailer. Most ads don’t do this at all, they just focus on the product.

What if Ads Were Ranked By Persuasion?

Let’s have a look at search ads for “coffee mugs.” If you search for this and refresh the page a few times, you’ll notice results bounce around quite a bit (we’ll explain why this is later). The left screenshot is how Google really ranked the ads when I performed the search, and the right side how I would rank the ads by effectiveness.

Now let’s deconstruct the ads:

(more…)

9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

Thanks again to Ryan Gibson from the Rimm-Kaufman Group for sharing some top-notch tips on paid search. If you missed the call, we will be posting the full length replay on the Elastic Path website. Until then, here’s a recap of the main points:

Keyword Development is 50% of Your Success

Keyword research is essential because it ultimately determines which searches your ads will appear for. Keywords must be appropriate, specific and capture the variations of how people search for the products you sell.

“Long tail” terms are desirable. Although they don’t get a lot of clicks, there is not much competition and it’s the specificity that makes them high-converting. You can also get them low-cost, and the lower the cost, the lower the risk. You’re not spending anything unless they are clicked on. Long tail terms in aggregate may be attracting a small percentage of clicks but be driving the highest number of sales because they convert highly.

General (and shorter) queries may indicate one is in research stage and thus, convert lower than more specific searches, when customers are aware of exactly what they are looking for.

Keyword List Tips

Test 3-10 Keywords per SKU

Modifiers don’t count, such as “buy widgets” or “buy widgets online.” Also, branded terms don’t count. Rather, you want to test out unique terms. So start with a URL (product page, right down to the sku - so if you sell blue and red widgets, they have their own keywords, as do different sizes). 2 benefits to this approach are:

1. Ensures you have the product you’re creating the term for
2. Makes it easier to tie up correct landing pages

(more…)

9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

It’s not hard to find examples of PPC best-practice violations. In fact, it’s darn easy - too many online retailers have sloppy paid search campaigns. As you will see, it’s often the advertisers with big budgets that are “doing it wrong.”

Though these retailers will not be ticketed, fined, jailed or suspended for these offenses, the lost revenue and poor campaign performance they experience may be far more costly.

#9 - Stupid DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion)

Big-budget advertisers often bid on so many keywords, they often use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to show the keyword the searcher has queried in the ad text. Good idea, since click through is typically higher when there’s that extra keyword relevance. Unfortunately, many lists are so big they include nonsensical keyword phrases most likely scraped off some keyword research tool that picked up automated rank check software queries.

“Sally Hansen nail polish”

Nothing moisturizes and refreshes the skin like a coat of nail polish!

“home hair cutting”

“Duhahhhh…I was just on my way hair cutting home, officer…” Sounds like Shopzilla’s had a few too many highballs. Guilty on both counts of DKI.

(more…)

The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Free webinar: May 15th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

While in London this week, Jason Billingsley spotted something different in Google search results.

If you look closely, you’ll notice the display URL in Adwords ads are above the ad copy, not below. Ad copy also appears on the same line as the display URL in some cases.

I did a quick search in Google Blogs (search within only blogs) to see if anyone has blogged about this yet or may know what’s going on. Over here in Vancouver, I still see the traditional ad display so all I can do is speculate that Google is shakin’ things up and testing the impact of different ad structure.

Jason also observed that the text appears larger than usual which indicates Google may be testing out new formatting of not only paid search but also organic.

Of course it could be handywork of an internal prankster at Google, or the equivalent to Jason’s computer trying to drive on the opposite side of the road while across the pond. (PS, if you’re wondering what the stars are, that’s a feature of StumbleUpon - you can see which pages have been reviewed and rated by Stumblers, and if one of your friends gave it a “thumb,” that will show up too.)

Anyone have more information on this?

The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Free webinar: May 15th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

It was a privilege to have esteemed author, researcher, consultant and speaker Eric T. Peterson join us for this months webinar: Web Analytics for Online Retailers - Technology & Satisfaction 2008

Eric is the founder and CEO of Web Analytics Demystified, where you can find more helpful information and research on the strategic use of web analytics, staffing issues, business process and measurement.

As always, if you missed the live call we will be posting a replay to our webinar archive at ElasticPath.com.

Eric presented the findings of a study of web analytics practitioners and I highly recommend you watch the replay to see the full charts because there is a lot of data you may find interesting that is not covered in the highlights below.

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Web Analytics for Online Retailers: Technology Use & Satisfaction 2008
Free webinar: April 17th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Eric T. Peterson, CEO, Web Analytics Demystified
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

Today is my first day back at my desk here in Vancouver after a lovely week in the Canadian Rocky mountains. While at the CWC/Corus Digital Media Career Accelerator program, I enjoyed the best green tea I’ve ever had in my life. The brand is “Higgins & Burke” and this is the only green tea I’ve tasted that hasn’t given me a bit of nausea after drinking it. I must have it here at my home office!

So I turn to my trusted Google search engine to find out where I can get my lips on more of this tea. Typing in “Higgins and Burke” into the search engine delivers these results:

(more…)

Web Analytics for Online Retailers: Technology Use & Satisfaction 2008
Free webinar: April 17th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Eric T. Peterson, CEO, Web Analytics Demystified
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

I thought it would be really interesting to have a chat with Mel Carson, the Microsoft AdCenter Community Manager for Europe, to see what his thoughts were on the position of AdCenter in the UK, what differentiates them from their competitors, their policy on gambling ads, affiliate landing pages and much more.

Not only did Mel provide some really comprehensive answers but he has also agreed to give away 10 codes enabling adCenter users to take their newly launched adExcellence exam for free. If you complete the exam then you will be entered into the membership directory where you can showcase your company and your expertise. More details of that in the following interview.

To win one of the 10 discount codes that will enable you to take the adExcellence exam for free (normal cost $50) then just email me via the contact form with the answer to the following question. Note: Examinees need to be adCenter customers for 30 days or more.

Tailspin Toys is offering a variety of discounts for different types of toys. For example, electronics are 25% off and books are 15% off.

What is the best way for Tailspin Toys to create ads that reflect these different discounts?

a) Create a generic ad and use dynamic text placeholders for custom information.
b) Create an ad for each type of toy.
c) Create a generic ad and place the specific discount information on the landing page.
d) Increase the bid for specific keywords.

Interview with Mel Carson:

I see you have recently launched adExcellence in the UK, can you tell us more about it?

adExcellence.com is a place for our advertisers or potential advertisers to go and access some really great training and educational materials to help them get the best return on their marketing spend with us. If we empower our users with tutorials on getting started, selecting keywords, editorial policies, demographic targeting and such like, they can get campaigns live faster and join the thousands of happy customers we have who are getting fabulous ROI from adCenter.

Is it the same principle as the Google Advertising Professionals programme?

It is the same principle, yes. At the moment you can access the training for free, you then have the option to take the exam and get entered into our membership directory where you can showcase your company and your expertise. We allow you to use the adExcellence Member logo on your site. The program will be further developed to include membership tiers. I’m interested to hear what direction your readers would like to see us head with it….

Why do you charge $50 for people to take the adExcellence exam?

We do have costs to cover including the exam itself, updating the modules and the investment in future iterations of the program. We figured it a reasonable price to pay for the service.

How do you feel Microsoft adCenter is being received in the UK?

We’ve been live now for more than 18 months and the reception has been great. We know that we had “opportunities” to improve right from the start, but with every release the platform has got better and better. You’ll continue to see improvements in editorial turnaround and usability as we tweak algorithms and the UI, but one thing we won’t compromise on is the quality of the traffic. From day 1 we’ve heard the ROI customers get from adCenter to be second to none. MSN and Windows Live users are savvy, loyal and buy lots of stuff online and we want them to keep coming back. Our advertisers want to see them coming back too, so waiting a little longer to have an ad go live or to change a keyword shouldn’t be seen as the end of the world. However, we’re continuing to strive to streamline and improve the system.

One criticism I have read is that the interface isn’t as fast as your competitors, are there any plans to improve on this?

The UI has come in for a bit stick, but advertisers have told us it has got better in recent months. Future releases will see it improve. There’s always a balance to be struck between funky innovation and usability/latency. Maybe we’ve not got that balance quite right just yet….but we will!

What will help is the release of the adCenter Desktop Beta – it’s an awesome offline campaign management tool. It’s in Beta in the US and will be with us, in the UK, in a few months time.

On the flip side, I have personal experience of calling adCenter customer support and I must say the service was excellent. I got to speak to a real person who actually knew what they were talking about (competitors listen up) and although the issue couldn’t be resolved immediately he rang me back within an hour with a fix. Does customer service play a big part of the overall strategy for adCenter?

It’s great to continually hear that one of the core pillars of our entry into this market – customer service – has been hitting the mark. We have 100s of people in Europe and The US dedicated to servicing our customers. We know that search can be time consuming for seasoned marketers as well as newcomers to the channel, so it’s important that we’re seen to provide timely and accurate responses to questions about their casmpaigns.

One of the reasons why I and other webmasters I know use adCenter is that you have no restrictions on gambling ads here in the UK. Do you think this will continue or do you feel there will come a time whereby you will ban gambling ads?

adCenter’s objective regarding gambling is to ensure a responsible environment for our users and high quality results. Gambling advertisements are regulated here in the UK and there are various legal and regulatory restrictions relating to the advertising of gambling products or services. Our approach is to ensure that advertisers in this industry participating in adCenter are complying with all relevant legislation and current regulatory guidelines where appropriate, as well as not accepting bets from US residents.

The UK gambling industry is a fast moving industry and adCenter guidelines may change moving forward based on developments in regulation of these businesses.

What is adCenter’s position on Affiliate Landing Pages? I.e. websites that are usually no more than 1 page in length and whose sole purpose is to send the visitor to a retailer (merchant) via an affiliate link?

Microsoft does accept affiliate advertising and affiliate advertising can be a useful resource to users. However, we are continually looking for ways to improve how we determine relevance and quality, the aim of which is to ensure the highest quality ads are provided to our users. These improvements check the quality of keywords, ads and landing pages from advertisers. The more relevant the ads, keywords and landing pages are to the user’s likely intent, and the more substantial information of benefit to the user searching on those keywords, the more likely the ad is to be displayed.

If an affiliate page is limited in content and does not contain sufficient information which is of benefit to the user, it may be subject to additional checks or displayed less frequently in the live results.

Tell us a bit more about the adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007, I’ve been playing with it and at first glance it looks very useful.

It’s a very powerful tool! The Add-In is a FREE Excel tab which is built on our Keyword Service Platform (KSP). You download it and it sits in your Excel program till you’re ready to do some keyword research.

It helps you with:

• Keyword expansion
• Keyword forecasting
• Keyword data mining – CPC metrics, demographic & geographic profiling

The data is US-centric at the moment, but still gives you some great insight. We’re working hard to inject UK data very soon. It’s just another way we’re achieving our commitment to bring great tools and actionable data to the search marketing community.

Check out the Add-in tutorials for more information.

What is the purpose of the newly launched adCenter Community? Maybe it’s a response to other PPC networks who are often accused of only communicating to their advertisers via templated emails?

It’s all about service Kieron! The guys I work with – The adCenter Community Team – have been running the adCenter Blog and the API Blog since we launched.

Because we take outbound communication and feedback very seriously, we thought it better to bring all our blogs and the adCenter Forums under one roof. So we invested heavily in bringing adCenter Community to our customers. We now have a two way dialogue with adCenter users on one platform. The reception has been great and we’ve had hundreds of users actually register on the site to chat and let us know how they want to see our adCenter products develop.

With the launch of the adCenter Analytics Beta, we’ve also set up the adCenter Analytics Blog too.

Can you share one tip on how to get the best from adCenter?

Check out the Demographic Targeting and Reports functionality. Take any campaign and run an Age & Gender report. You’ll be amazed what trends you may see with regards to the different profiles interacting with your ads.

Use this information to tweak your ad copy and up-weight your bids. If you don’t really want 18-24 year-olds clicking on your ad then add a little extra CPC to the older demographic so those ads rank higher. You can’t exclude a particular demographic but you can play around with the tools to make sure your ads appear more prominently to your target audience. Targeting is always rewarded in PPC.

Check out these Demographic Targeting Case Studies!

Although by no means scientific, a lot of people say that conversion rates from adCenter clicks convert better than other search engines. What do you think this can be attributed to?

As I said earlier, we have a loyal and savvy audience, some of whom have been with us for well over 10 years. We don’t have a publisher program yet which can have an effect on advertisers ROI. It is piloting in the US at the moment, but when it does launch we’ll still maintain the ROI through the great targeting tools and algorithms that adCenter provides.

What is the current estimated market share for adCenter?

Between 4 & 5%

Do you have any plans to roll out Microsoft’s publisher programme in the UK so that webmasters can earn from displaying adCenter ads on their site.

We’re working on it!

What are you listening to right now?

The traffic outside my Dublin hotel window – I’m speaking on a panel with Google & Yahoo! tomorrow at Search Marketing World!

Mel will be keeping an eye on this blog over the next couple of days (between conference panels) and is very keen to answer any feedback on AdCenter, adExcellence or anything else related to Microsoft’s search products. So if you have anything to say or any specific questions then please leave them in the comments.

What I’m listening to right now: Estelle - “Shine”

Post from: Affiliate Marketing Blog Here.org.uk

Interview with Mel Carson, Microsoft adCenter Community Manager Europe

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Original post by Kieron

Hats off to Microsoft adCenter for the launch today of their official Support Community.

The site replaces the old adCenter blog and will be the place to visit for all sorts of adCenter goodness from feature reviews and how-to’s to adCenter news and info on tools such as the adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007 (very useful) and adCenter Labs.

The community promises lots of interaction with the adCenter team so hopefully we’ll see some good 2-way dialogue between advertisers and the MS team. Nice one guys, its good that you are open to discussion with your advertisers.

What I’m listening to right now: Estelle ft Kanye West – “American Boy”

Post from: Affiliate Marketing Blog Here.org.uk

Microsoft adCenter launch new support community

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Original post by Kieron