Because of Google’s new Call Metrics for AdWords, clients are starting to see custom unique dynamically generated phone numbers in their AdWords ads.

It only took one ping to realize we better get in front of this, because it looked like this feature was getting rolled out fast. And depending on how well it actually works, sounds like it may be a game changer in certain sectors. Cost-per-call metrics, phone tracking – free, and apparently relatively easy at first glance and set-up.

The heads-up on the new phone numbers I sent out to clients turned out to be a general heads-up that things were changing fast and significantly when it comes to AdWords. And we should be talking about that.

Here it is, with some admitted modification.

For instance, I left out the pandering for leads (bribery actually), suggestions that service expansion may well be recommended, and other such client-centric things.

Hopefully it will give some flavor nonetheless.

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Hello Clients!!!

AdWords is changing faster than ever. Too much for a single communication. So allow me to be relatively brief, and hit the high points for now.

1 – Google is instituting an important new feature called Call Metrics.
As a result you may soon start seeing “strange” phone numbers in your ads – we are instituting this new tool in campaigns/accounts as we can, when appropriate. This one could be huge, especially for those businesses of all kinds whose sales process involves phones.

2 – Google is really integrating services – and part of that push is further AdWords integration with things like Places/Maps and Merchant Center/Product Search. Not to mention new reporting and analytics tools. Not to doubly mention mobile marketing and hand-held devices which add an additional exploding layer on top of everything. Yikes!!!!!

These services and tools take communication and coordination between us, you, your staff, and other web service vendors if we are going to get the most out of them.

The following article from Greg Sterling does a good job of laying out how and why Google is stepping up AdWords integration. The focus is Mobile and Local, but the same type of integration is happening in Video, Product Search (shopping), and other cross-over Google channels.

Let’s talk.

Learn more about our AdWords Services

-T

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Tom Hale
AdWords Specialist
ThomasCreekConcepts.com
503-946-8109 (W)
503-961-5721 (C)

This is in response to comments in the thread by Todd Mintz and related article, also by Todd.

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Todd I couldn’t agree more that ideally you would have a unique landing page for each exact Keyword string. As behavioral targeting and the privacy wars heat up we may even be talking about a unique landing page path for each visitor, maybe even each visit.

But in my world of micro-business, service professionals, and e-cottage entrepreneurs that ideal is very much a pipe dream due to resources, i.e. time/money.

Also, as you note in your article, I have seem some real disasters from people that create landing pages designed to “force” visitors into taking particular actions by limiting the navigation choices. The results can be extraordinarily high bounce rates and a bad experience for the visitor, bad juju all the way around.

So for my client base I would temper the “PPC landing pages should be radically different from the rest of your site” to something a little more philosophical.

Like; If there isn’t a current website page that is acceptable as a beginning landing page, we have a real problem with the website and content in general. If we do have pages that “suffice”, then what are we doing, within the scope of resources, to move from suffice, to better than that, maybe good, even great

But overall Todd, you are as usual, right on the money. Be targeted, and be clever in navigation choices. Help the visitor as much as you can to stay focused on fulfilling whatever quest began with their Search Engine query.

That is worth saying again:

Help the visitor as much as you can to stay focused on fulfilling whatever quest began with their Search Engine query.

Without them feeling herded and bullied.

This is done with analysis, creativity, empathy, and time/money: not cookie-cutter dynamic insertion formulas, keyword overkill, or SEO tricks.

-T

Tom Hale
Internet Strategist – AdWords Specialist

http://ThomasCreekConcepts.com/

http://forum.sempdx.org/

“In my experience the content network is the fastest way possible to blow the largest amount of money in the shortest amount of time, while still getting the lowest amount of conversions. If somebody wants to show me any figures that say otherwise I’ll gladly look at them, but I’ll argue till I’m blue in the face that it’s pretty low value.”

First – Scott knows his stuff, plus he has wit and a great sense of humor which makes digesting his advice so much easier.

Second – Scott’s main beef in this post, is that Google is heavy handed in funneling people into Content Targeting. I couldn’t agree more, shows that despite their corporate creed, Google has some dark spots, evilish even.

Third – Without care, Content Targeting is indeed a monetary sink hole.

Fourth – In the interest of saving me some time, getting client permission, etc, I am going to speak from general experience, and sidestep the “figures” challenge.

Fifth – Mainly what I am pushing back against is the idea that Content Targeting is worthless at all times in all situations.

Here it goes:

I too once condemned AdWords Content Targeting outright.
Until I ate some crow.

I started seeing a pattern to these crow eating situations. Content Targeting has a better chance of out performing (lower cost per conversion) keyword search when the conversion strategy is early on in the buying cycle. In other words, the conversion isn’t a purchase or a direct lead.

Examples:

Simple Opt Ins: (free membership, newsletters, etc)
Downloads: (white papers, widgets, link bait, etc,)
Reputation Management: (views of Message, Point of View, another side of story, etc)

It is widely written that content targeting is a lousy direct response channel. Doesn’t mean it has no value in the larger value chain. I believe there is an AdWords bubble right now, for a lot of reasons. Mainly advertisers bidding on clicks without good valuation systems in place (conversion tracking, analytics), and then doing a poor job with that traffic once they have paid to get it to their site. Because of this bubble, give Content Targeting a second, careful, look.

Mind you it is still a tool with some built in peril. Placement Reports, site exclusion, super-tight ad groups and the like are all important in making Content Targeting work. But it can work.

Here are two examples where I found content targeting to be just as valid, if not more valid, than keyword search targeting.

A cross-platform chat widget: conversion goal – downloading the widget
A beta social site: conversion goal – signing up for an account

Wrap up analogy: Content Targeting is like a chain saw: if not used properly, you are going to bleed, badly. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a useful tool under the right circumstances.

Popular Posts:

Unintentional AdWords Evil
Strategic Truth

-T

Tom Hale
Internet Strategist – AdWords Specialist

http://ThomasCreekConcepts.com/

http://forum.sempdx.org/

And it just so happens, I recently addressed some of the features of my practice in a recent Client Newsletter. So here is that info, with a few revisions for blogability.

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The question I want to address, is one that I am sure most, if not all of you (my clients), have asked at some time. What do I get from Tom Hale? What’s the value?

I think this is a different question than “what do I get from AdWords”. Related, but different nonetheless.

Ultimately both AdWords, and I, will be judged by your cost/profit calculations. As it should be; although I would like to point out that AdWords advertising alone doesn’t generate a lead or close a sale, a website or a person does that. Still, if you aren’t making money, or are not on the road to making money, accomplishing your goal, etc, – then what good is the advertising. So let’s state the obvious, the bottom line metric is always bucks in the bank.

How you measure value along the way can be trickier. It takes work, and smarts, to get those bucks in them there banks. No “get rich quick with AdWords” crap served up here thank you. The AdWords jungle is fiercely competitive.

Now with AdWords you also get a tangible of sorts, in that the traffic going to your website can be easily measured and verified. The Quality of the traffic, as we all know, is a little trickier. But still at the end of the day you paid for so many clicks/visits and it cost you so many dollars.

But what about me? What do you get from me? How do I help you not just survive, but hopefully thrive.

I’ll try and break it down a little;
Into three categories, plus.

Communication
I communicate with you, the vendor (Google), and your technical people. For those eager to learn – education, coaching, consulting, all fall in this category.

And as you know, part of my approach entails getting to know you and your business; because my work has a much better chance of success if we are on the same page as far as goals, message, target market, and the like. Also every client situation is unique, if for no other reason than each client has a different website. Therefore the traffic you are paying for may react differently when it lands on your website, than it will when landing on some different website

If the communication channels are open, so much the better for finding your “unique” key to success.

Hands on Management
This is the obvious one I guess: building ad groups and campaigns, wrangling keywords, budgets, and bids, etc. etc. I have a hunch this is what most of you would consider my job description.

Believe me though, the magic isn’t in the mechanics.

Expert Analysis and Strategy
This is the one that is hard for some clients to appreciate. It is far less tangible. I can spend a lot of time scratching my head and pulling my chin while pouring over data, analyzing the kw-ad-landing page-result matrix, just flat out attacking problems with my gray matter.

Some such sessions are more productive than others, but this is also where the breakthroughs come, the leaps forward. Analysis is the secret sauce that can make it all work, or makes it all work better.

Plus, like many professions, but probably even more intensely in this field, there is an incredible amount of continuing education that goes into staying ahead of the competition. My competition (others bidding on AdWords), is your competition. Your profit hinges on my expertise giving you the edge over others, whether they be professionals or do-it-yourself types like many of you once were.

You blink, and before you know it, the strategies and tools with which you once generated profit are obsolete. And I am talking just about the world of AdWords, let alone the broader fields of search and internet marketing.

I can’t bill clients individually for continuing education, but the time I spend reading, going to seminars, conferences, and such, does result in value for my clients nonetheless. It takes time and money to be an up-to-date expert. That has to be built into the value equation.

In fact, what all three of these things, plus, have in common is time, they all take time. So that is what you get: to twist an old maxim – your money buys my time.

So you say, “fine Hale, wrap it up will you. Who says you are an expert anyway?”.

Hard to answer, without sounding like a blow hard.
But I attempted to so, in a previous post. Follow the Love.

AdWords Link Love

Oh yeah, there is that Certification from Google thing also.
Qualified Google Advertising Professional

Tom Hale,  AdWords Specialist