Google highlights three important aspects that currently characterise the Web scenario:

1. The number of online users are growing
2. The number of mobile phone subscribers will double in a few years
3. The amount of digital information exchanged worldwide is destined to see a huge growth too.

During the event, Google representatives spoke in detail about these 3 aspects, and how developing countries are reacting to changes.

The UK is believed to benefit from this growth. The Internet contributes to 7% of the UK’s GDP, with a growth of over 10% each year (this, of course pales in comparison to Chinese growth levels, which are massive!)

The Internet levels the playing field, representing a great benefit for SMEs, which can now effectively compete with big players.

Google+ In The Ad Ecosystem

Presenters at the even went to pains to point out that Google+ is not just a platform. It is a project. Their mission is to organise information and make it more accessible. Google+’s 40 million users help make this mission more personal.

Google+ is also aimed at engaging people with brands, through the set up of a Google+ profile. Once people add your business to their circle, you can also add them to any circle and segment your audience.

Intel directly asks which circle you belong to, so as to target the right campaign to the right consumers.

The 1+ button was confirmed to affect ranking. The extent of the effect remains unknown as Google employees continue to dodge direct questions about it.

AdWords Express

Made for businesses that are not yet ready for Adwords – 40% of small businesses do not have a website – AdWords Express is simple to set-up and easy to manage.

Google are keen to drive adoption of the new system. They even offered to reward a credit of ₤250 to all agencies that bring in five new clients to AdWords Express by the end of the year.

The benefits of AdWords Express are as follows:

• Targeted – specific to the area where the business operates
• Simple – no need to create /manage campaigns
• Measurable
• Eligibility – no need to have a website

Tips and tricks for Insights:

Let’s assume that faster is better – Google Instant saves a lot of time in the long term.

In Google Images you can drop images into the search box to give similar related results on search.

Google Insights for Search – You can find the most searched terms in a certain period in a specific location. Also you can analyse the evolution of a specific KW during a concrete period.

Ad Planner gives you insights about the audience that uses a specific website, so you can target your audience accurately.

Mobile On the Rise

The Smartphone and mobile markets are growing fast. Mobile is transforming the retail market. This is because user reviews have a huge impact on customer decisions and behaviour.

• It’s a good practice to set a mobile-only campaign, as it provides better click-through rates and easier tracking.
• Ads with phone numbers included get an average 6% to 8% higher CTR!
• Mobile is local – More than 1 in 3 searches in mobile are local.
• It is advisable that for mobile campaigns keywords should be shorter.
• Top spots matter more on mobiles than they do on desktops
• Another good practice is to set location extensions. One should also be mindful of the huge power of CTC and site links.
• The audience spends only 5% of their online time on Search. Display is growing a lot and will be growing even faster.

4 top tips for mobile advertising:

1. Prioritise re-marketing and keyword contextual advertising
2. Run both display and text format
3. Use exclusions to control efficiency
4. Frequency cap & ad scheduling

Tips and tricks for measurement:

The 3 Be’s

1. Be found
2. Be engaging
3. Be accountable

You definitely need to have goals to measure against.

Mobile sites / apps are a huge opportunity that most small businesses are losing.

1 second delay in page load causes a 7% loss of conversions, 11% fewer page views and 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

Improving Ad Campaign Performance

Page Speed Online – pagespeed.googlelabs.com – check there for audit & suggestions.

Real-time (Beta) – New on Analytics

Flow visualization – user path graph – New on Analytics

Tips and tricks for driving conversions:

• Enhanced CPC
• Conversions Optimizer
• Focus on optimising conversions
• Use automated rules

As with any major change to the search results pages, this update has been rolled out after extensive tests. Google has been running tests on this project for some time now, and has come to a final decision in this regard.

Ads at the bottom of the SERPs

The decision to include ads at the bottom of the search results pages has been based on the fact that they find the performance of ads at the bottom of the page to be better than the performance of ads that run alongside the search results.

This improved performance is probably due to the fact that users scan a search results page from the top downwards and not from side to side. Hence, when they reach the bottom of the page, they automatically see the ads displayed at the bottom. On the other hand, it is very likely that they might miss the ads that happen to be on the side of the results page, partly because they are not directly in the page scan path and partly due to acquired “banner blindness”.

Organic results at the bottom of the page have been known to typically have higher clickthrough rates than ads in the second-last position. These results will now more than likely get fewer clicks, with such traffic instead flowing to the ads at the bottom of the page.

When ads are displayed at the bottom of the page, it increases the potential advertising space, making it possible to place more ads on page one, rather than when the ads are placed only above and alongside the search results. This too could have a major bearing on the overall performance of ad campaigns, as many users may scan only the first page of results.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and most other online advertising platforms have very strict editorial policies that prohibit the advertising of narcotics. AdWords’ editorial policy prohibits the promotion of drugs, drug paraphernalia and aids to pass drug tests. This includes drug accessories, drugs, and herbal drugs.

The medical marijuana industry is a multi-billion dollar industry in itself, and now, the Medical Cannabis Network, (MCN) is launching an online advertising opportunity in the form of a site called Cheeba.com.

“MCN was created to fill the gaps in the marijuana industry, and what we’ve been seeing over the years is that cannabis-based businesses are continually denied services from online ad networks,” said Jason Draizin, Chairman and CEO of MCN.

Cheeba.com will be the first search engine to allow users to search the entire database of medical marijuana related products. It will function as an advertising platform for all legal marijuana-based products and companies. It will also introduce a keyword-based advertising platform similar to Google AdWords.

Medical marijuana is legal in California and several other states in the USA. The new search engine will provide an opportunity for dispensaries and marijuana doctors as well as ancillary businesses such as law firms, consumer goods providers and educational institutions that want to target Americans who favour the legalisation of marijuana.

Google allows advertisers and marketers of different products and services to show their ads on the various sites of the Google Display Network, the real challenge has been to reach specific sections of the audience that would be interested in that particular product.

In order to do so in the past, advertisers had to estimate that visitors to a particular website might be interested in particular subject and hence they would be interested in products or services dealing with that subject. For example, visitors to a gardening blog might be interested in buying gardening tools. However, this isn’t always an easy way to target consumers.

Now, when a user visits a particular type of page on a regular and frequent basis, the browser is associated with that interest category by means of a number. Google stores that number in the browser by means of a cookie.

In addition to the type of sites that the user has visited, Google will also consider inferred demographics to judge whether that user is likely to be a male or female, if they are likely to belong to a particular age group and other such relevant statistics. Google will then show ads based on the interest category as well as demographic profile associated with that particular browser.

Adding interest categories in an AdWords ad group

Google maintains that this service is in keeping with their privacy policy, as no personal information about the individual is used for this kind of targeted advertising. When users visit a site from a different computer or browser, they will not be shown interest-based ads, as Google will not know that this is the same user. However, one could argue that a user’s browsing history on their office or personal computer is pretty personal too, and that information is being used by Google in order to target their ads.

Ads will not be shown based on any sensitive information such as race, religion, sexual orientation, health, financial status etcetera. Users also have the right to decide whether or not they want to be shown these ads. Those who do not wish to use the service can opt out of it by clicking ‘Opt Out’ in the Ads Preferences Manager.

Google Advisor provides a comparison of various financial products available in the market. Until now, the service was restricted to the U.S. only. However, searches for the word ‘mortgage’ on Google U.K. have now started providing interesting results:

Google Comparison ad for ‘mortgage’

At the top of the paid search results is an ad by Google promoting their own mortgage comparison service. Comparison ads were introduced back in May 2009, but were limited to a few states in the U.S.A. When users click on a comparison ad, they are taken to a list of details from various lenders, and users can fill in specifics to view a list of the services matching their requirements.

Google comparison of UK mortgages

An interested user can then call one of the Google pay per call numbers to connect to a specific lender for further information, or the user can request a call back from the provider.

The good thing about this facility from Google is that the user’s personal information and phone number are protected from the financial advisors. Users are given an 03-number from which they are indirectly connected to the financial services provider.

In most cases, Google provides detailed results about the amount of interest that would accumulate in various accounts, thus helping the user to decide what kind of financial arrangement suits them best. However, as far as mortgage deals are concerned, they seem to have a very limited list on offer.

Other sites such as Bankrate, Money Supermarket, Wells Fargo and Quicken Loans offer similar but much more comprehensive services, so users are not likely to switch to Google’s comparison service immediately. However, the appearance of Comparison ads could signal the upcoming launch of Google Advisor, which could gradually turn into a significant source of competition for many of the currently popular financial service comparison sites.

In the past, advertisers were charged their average cost per click amount every time a user clicked on a promoted video ad, irrespective of whether or not the user then actually viewed the video. This system obviously was not ideal for advertisers and is therefore due to be changed.

From the 25th of May, promoted video ads on YouTube will be charged on a CPV basis, which means that the advertiser will only be charged when a user actually begins to view the promoted video. This change will benefit advertisers as the number of times they will be charged for clicks could be reduced, giving them a better return on investment.

Promoted video ads on a YouTube search results page

Now, when a new promoted video campaign is created, advertisers will be required to set a maximum CPV, which represents the maximum amount they are willing to pay per view of the promoted video.

AdWords will continue to use the old format of charging only one cent more than the next advertiser who is competing for the same slot on the page, with similar keywords. Advertisers can continue to set up the campaigns in AdWords or at ads.youtube.com as before. From the 25th of this month, the billing terms for all the video campaigns will officially be converted from the CPC model to the CPV model.

Advertisers may continue to see the CPC terms in their campaign for some time as additional CPV reporting formats are introduced gradually.

The DOJ is trying to ascertain whether or not Google knowingly allowed the pharmacies based in Canada and The U.S. to advertise through their advertising site Google AdWords, thus violating U.S. laws.

While several websites are known to sell prescription drugs, some of them do underhand things like selling fake drugs or drugs which have passed their expiry date. Some of them also dispense the drugs without a valid prescription.

The investigation, which is being conducted by the Food and Drugs Administration in Rhode Island, aimed to uncover whether the executives at Google were aware of these illicit activities, and if so, how much money Google has generated through this means.

In the past, Google has done its bit to prevent rogue online pharmacies from advertising on their site. In 2003, Google banned pharmacies that dispensed medicines without valid prescriptions.

Google’s competitors, Yahoo! and Microsoft, have also had to undergo similar investigations in the past.

After the present investigations were started last year, Google decided to allow only U.S. pharmacies accredited by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and pharmacies accredited by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association in Canada to advertise on their site.

They have already brought in a court order preventing the pharmacies named in the lawsuit from advertising on their site.

While spokespersons from Google, as well as the DOJ, have refused to comment on the issue, Google has set aside $500 million, while filing their quarterly results with the Securities And Exchange Commission, for a settlement with the DOJ. While this is a large amount for a settlement it isn’t big by Google’s standards - the company is expected to generate $30 billion through advertising this year alone.

Until now, ad targeting was done by adding specific target sites to a list of Managed Placements or with the help of keywords. Whenever a keyword appeared on a webpage, ads from advertisers targeting that keyword or related keywords were displayed. But now, it will be possible to target ads not only in relation to particular sites or  keyword themes, but also in relation to a much broader topic or category.

The new AdWords targeting option will look at all the words on the web page in order to decide what the topic is about, rather than depending on a single keyword. Ads will now be displayed more often and will reach a wider audience.

Google already provides a list of 1,750 topics and sub-topics for advertisers to choose from.

Google AdWords choice of topics for ad targeting

Even if ads displayed in relation to a broad topic do not result in a direct sale, they can build awareness of the product being advertised, which is the first step towards making a sale. This display advertising option makes it a lot easier for advertisers to target wide audiences for branding, rather than having to list thousands of placements or rely on contextual keyword targeting.

Advertisers can use both the keyword and topic-based targeting methods. They can also specifically exclude certain topics or sub-topics from their campaigns.

This method of targeting is available for all ad formats including text ads, banner ads and video ads. Advertisers will also be able to decide, whether they wants to pay on a cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-acquisition (CPA) basis.

A report from the banking firm Macquaire Group, using data from Efficient Frontier, has found that at present, mobile paid search spend accounts for 5% of paid search spend in the U.S.

It has also been estimated that this could further increase to 10% by the end of 2011. In actual terms, mobile paid spend could then be worth $1.1 billion.

Quite expectedly, it has been found that Google is the major stakeholder in this market with about 97% of the market share, while Yahoo! and Bing jointly hold about 3.2% of the market share.

95% of searches on the iPhone come through Google. Of these, 50% are from the tool bar, 42% from Google’s home page and less than 10% from Google Apps. On Android devices, the number of searches through Google is likely to be even closer to 100%.

If Bing manages to tie up with Apple to become their default search engine, a large share of the mobile search volume could automatically go to Bing. Or, iPhones could lose favour with some users for providing a poorer search experience.

CPC for mobile search is currently higher than that for PC searches in some markets, while click through rates for mobile search are lower than for PC searches.

A Growing Monopoly

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that mobile search is growing very fast. It now accounts for about 15% of search across all categories.

This underscores the importance of mobile search. The fact that Google’s starting off in this growing market with such a strong position can only mean one thing – its position will get stronger, at the expense of all competition, and as a result, CPC rates will go up.

Advertisers stand to lose in such a situation, as the lack of a viable alternative will leave businesses with no choice but to advertise on Google AdWords if they wish to build a mobile search presence.

Users too will suffer in the long run, as the lack of competition will stunt development in mobile search, as the incumbent, Google, will have little reason to continue to innovate in that space.

The accusations have come from a researcher, Ben Edelman, who is an associate professor with the Harvard Business School. He carried out a study titled ‘Measuring Bias In Organic Web Search’. The study was conducted last August along with another Harvard professor, Benjamin Lockwood. A report on the study can be viewed at:

www.benedelman.org/searchbias/

Edelman claims that Google gives much more weight to its own sites and products than is deserved. He also found that Bing search results were more fair and reliable.

For instance, when the term ‘email’ was searched, the results gave Gmail as the top-ranked email site, and similarly, YouTube was the highest ranked site for the search term ‘video’.

Google is already facing enquiries by the European Commission and the Attorney General of Texas, regarding claims of manipulation of search results.

Google has strongly refuted the claims made by Edelman, and said, “Mr. Edelman is a longtime paid consultant for Microsoft, so it’s no surprise that he would construct a highly biased test that his sponsor would pass and that Google would fail,”

A spokesperson for the search engine has added, “Google never artificially favours our own services in our organic web search results, and we perform extensive user testing to ensure that search results are ranked in a way that provides users with the most useful answer.”

A number of other websites and bloggers have also spoken in favour of the authenticity of Google results.

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land has said, “Statistics can easily be turned to whatever you want them to be. I feel like Edelman is turning his study into the most negative view possible.”

The Huffington Post has also defended Google saying that the study size (32 search terms) is too small a sample. They also add that while favouritism should remain a concern, Google runs on an algorithm, which favours relevant results over irrelevant ones.

One needs to keep in mind the fact that since Google is the market leader with a huge majority, its own sites and products are bound to be more popular than most others and hence deemed more relevant and ranked higher.

While promoting one’s own product is not necessarily a crime, anti-trust commissions in Europe and the U.S.A.  might consider this fair grounds for an investigation if someone complain that Google was abusing its dominant position in search to push its own products.

Microsoft had to separate Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player sufficiently from the Windows operating system, as a result of a similar anti-trust investigation. Could Google face a similar fate?

Until now, Google provided most AdWords specialist agencies, with a dedicated contact person or account manager, who would provide support to the agency and act as a single point of contact to answer questions regarding Google AdWords campaigns that may arise from time to time.

Some of the most commonly asked questions are about payment options, quality score, the reason why an ad did not show up and AdWords advertising policy. Whenever a supported agency faced any problem with the AdWords accounts they managed, they could contact their account manager and the account manager would personally attend to these queries and help solve them.

The number of agencies using Google AdWords is increasing rapidly. While this is a good thing for Google, it also means that they have to improve their infrastructure in order to provide support to all of these agencies.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for Google’s current agency management team in Dublin to provide each agency with a specific contact person. So, instead of investing money into recruiting more account managers, Google has decided to take a giant step backwards and return to their previous model of poor support.

Making Cuts Without Making A Big Deal Of It

As with any negative development, Google has not made a big announcement about this change to their agency support structure. Instead, they’ve sent an email and when questioned about the change, have provided scripted answers about “striving to improve the way agencies are supported” and having “invested heavily in improving” the agency online support resources.

Effective 1st January 2011, the AdWords Support System will work in a call centre like manner, where the caller from any agency will be assigned to any one of many agents. The agent should be able to answer most of the questions raised by callers but will not have any history or prior understanding of the agency’s client accounts.

Low Level Support

An Agency Help Center has also been created to provide agency-specific self-service. Educational materials to help agencies manage their client accounts have also been devised. A Google Agencies programme will also be launched soon. Those who sign up for it will receive educational information and newsletters in this context.

From January onwards, most agencies will have to visit the Contact Us page in the AdWords Help Center. The technical support team will provide responses in due course. As in the past, this could mean waiting for days before getting any sort of response back from Google. The support numbers will also remain active, except that instead of dialling an account manager’s extension, the caller will only have the option to enter their MCC (My Client Centre) account number.

The new feature, called AdWords Call Metrics, is a combination of Google Voice and AdWords. At its core, the service is an integrated call tracking facility for AdWords campaigns.

With this feature, a unique telephone number is assigned to each online ad campaign targeting desktop computers as well as on smartphone devices. Ads will be displayed along with this telephone number.

AdWords ad with Call Metrics number

When users calls on that telephone number, they are automatically transferred to the advertiser’s business and the call is recorded by AdWords.

During the initial beta testing of this feature, advertisers found that they could track a significant percentage of calls that translated into a purchase, which would otherwise not have been attributed to sales originating through AdWords ads.

At present, the AdWords records of these calls will only provide the number of calls received and the duration of these calls. The caller’s area code will also start being reporting in due course of time. These details will help advertisers further optimise their ad campaigns with a more accurate measure of ROI.

AdWords- reporting Call Metrics for campaigns

At present this call metrics feature will be free, but in future, it will be chargeable. The exact extent of benefit of this feature to the advertiser can be judged only after the charges for this feature have been finalised.

Although this call tracking service has only just been introduced by Google, similar facilities are already available through a number of other companies.

AdWords Call Metrics is currently available only to a few advertisers in the U.S. and it will be some months before it is available to all advertisers.

AT&T Mobility was at the top of the list with $8.08 million spent in the month of June. All of the top 10 companies have spent over $2 million on AdWords advertising that month.

It is understandable that AT&T went all out in that month as they had to promote the iPhone 4, for which they had the sole supplier rights in the U.S.

Some of the other companies in the top 10 list are Apollo Group, Expedia, Amazon, and eBay. While these companies have consistently spent large amounts on Google AdWords, the presence of BP in that list, with a spend of almost $3.6 million was quite surprising, as in the past they have spent only as little as $57,000 a month on Google AdWords.

The obvious reason for the sudden change in BP’s advertising policy was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which was big news at that time. BP obviously had to do all they could to protect their reputation, and buying several related keywords on Google AdWords was one of the best ways to do that.

While the document gives a clear indication of how important Google has become for businesses of all sizes, the big surprise here is that the top 10 spenders put together account for only about 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue in the month of June. Only 47 advertisers were found to have spent over $1 million in June, 71 spent between $500,000 and $1 million and 357 spent between $100,000 and $500,000.

The thousands of smaller advertisers, who use pay per click marketing on Google, still contribute to the lion’s share of Google’s $23 billion annual global revenue. While this is great news for small businesses, it also means that when more big brands start spending significant portions of their total marketing budgets on Google, the smaller businesses might just get squeezed out.

According to YouTube officials, advertisers have requested the addition of such a feature often. This feature is almost the reverse of the above feature, as it will allow advertisers to decide which videos or channels their ads should not be shown on.

This new feature will help advertisers to better target their ad campaigns to a select audience, thus giving them better value for money through a higher Click-through rate.

YouTube senior product manager Baljeet Singh says this feature will give more control to advertisers by allowing them to decide which videos and channels their ad should not appear on.

In the past advertisers had to depend on YouTube’s own marketing services to decide which ad should be shown at which juncture.

For instance if someone is advertising a vegan product, they would obviously not like to show their ad on a TV show or channel which concentrates mostly on meat products.

Even is the advertiser feels that a certain type of audience is inappropriate for his product, thus giving him a low conversion rate, he can optimize the campaign to suit his requirements.

Enhanced CPC is an automated bidding feature that will make use of the keywords’ historical conversion rates to adjust the Max CPC bids on various keywords within a campaign. The Max CPC bids will thus be based on the likelihood of an ad actually converting into a sale.

It is expected that this new feature will help clients to lower their overall CPA, while at the same time increasing the number of conversions they receive.

When a client uses several different keywords within an ad campaign, as most advertisers do, the Enhanced CPC tool will consider which of these keywords have converted well in the past. The CPC for these keywords will be hiked by a maximum of 30% over the set Max CPC. On the other hand, keywords that have not performed too well will have their CPC lowered accordingly.

Unlike CPA bidding, where the advertiser sets a target cost per acquisition and AdWords then adjusts Max CPC bids without any CPC restrictions, the average CPC that the advertisers will pay for various keywords through Enhanced CPC will remain more or less the same as before, but the likelihood of conversions will increase, thus improving the ROI and also making it easier for the client to manage Max CPC bids more easily.

The Enhanced CPC feature will take into account various factors while deciding the new CPC. In addition to adjusting the CPC based on past performance of a keyword, the tool will also recognise variations or modifications to the keywords. Factors such as the user’s location, language settings, browser and operating system will also be taken into consideration while deciding the possibility of an ad converting into a sale.

Enhanced CPC bidding will be available to all advertisers without any restrictions such as the minimum number of conversions required per month to qualify for CPA bidding.

Bid management software providers face yet another threat from this new tool. The Enhanced CPC tool has the advantage of knowing a lot more information about the searcher than any bid management system could possibly know. However, as with all Google AdWords tools, this one too will eventually be aimed at driving more business for Google AdWords – albeit by making advertising on their system more profitable for the advertisers.

Businesses have been known to use the names of their competitors to advertise through AdWords, and some companies have taken quite a strong exception to this practice and have gone to court to appeal against it, and prevent Google from selling their brand name as a keyword.

Earlier, this month, Europe’s Court of Justice the highest legal authority in Europe has ruled in favour of Google in one such case.

The specific case being referred to was between two competitors who made temporary or portable cabins. The names of the companies concerned are PortaKabin and Primakabin respectively. Primakabin was using the words, Portakabin, Portacabin, Portokabin and Portocabin among its keywords to advertise on Google.

The competitor Portakabin has objected to this.

The judges have finally ruled that, companies, using the names of competitors as Internet Advertising keywords, is not an infringement of Trademark laws in the European Union.

This judgment will be a big victory for Google as it will indirectly boost the revenue they can generate through advertising.

This judgment also upholds another ruling passed earlier in a similar case between Louis Vuitton and Google. The court maintains that as long as the internet service provider is neutral about the content they display, there is no infringement of trademark laws.

The French Supreme Court where the case between Google and Louis Vuitton was first heard, has also sided with the ruling given by the European court according to sources from Google.

Sources from Louis Vuitton however, have claimed that the French Court has held Google ‘liable for the sale of trademarks as AdWords on the grounds of civil liability.’

Clearly it looks as though there will be some more debating required in such cases.

The tool is known as AdWords campaign Experiments or ACE. As the name suggests, the tool will allow advertisers to experiment with their campaigns, to test and measure the effect of any changes which they make to keywords, bids, Ad Groups and placements on the performance of the campaign.

Earlier, the best way one could gauge the performance of the ad was by comparing the results obtained before and after the changes were made. But this system was often inaccurate due to various uncontrollable factors such as holidays, weekends, changes to end user and advertiser behaviour.

With ACE, advertisers will be able to have more accurate information, by running the new experimental campaign concurrently with the original campaign. This simultaneous split test will enable advertisers to judge more accurately, the impact of the changes in the ad campaign.

Advertisers will be able to use ACE in any combination with changes in the bid, keyword, Ad Group, or placement changes.

It will be possible to measure the impact of adding new keywords or changing the keyword and Ad Group level. They can also restructure the content campaigns using more tightly themed Ad Groups. They can also check the change in volume by using different keyword match groups, or use an Ad Group default bid versus keyword-level bids etc.

ACE is still in the beta testing stage and Google has invited only their U.S. advertisers who use English to participate in the test.

AdWords Campaign Experiments: Introducing Google’s Split Testing Tool

The company is paying for sponsored placement in search results for several phrases such as ‘oil spill’, ‘Gulf oil spill’ and their own brand name on Google, Bing and Yahoo!

BP are paying enough per click to secure the top spot on the search engines for these search terms. It has been estimated that they could be spending over $10,000 per day to retain the top position on all the search engines.

Sponsored link from BP on Google SERP

BP’s explanation for this move is that they would like to guide people to the “correct information” about the incident and the efforts they are putting in to clear the mess, as well as to help people to file claims where applicable.

The description placed alongside the ad reads, “Learn more about how BP is helping.”

Spokesperson for BP, Toby Odone says, “We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer.”

While the money spent on these searches may be money well spent to protect their brand reputation, it would not help if it is used to just pull wool over the eyes of the public. If the public feels that BP are not doing enough to correct the damage they have done, and are just trying to send out a ‘positive message’ they could damage their reputation even further.

Users on Facebook and Twitter are already sending out messages calling the spill an act of ‘accidental terrorism’ and are asking for the boycott of BP.

The current Google Advertising Professionals qualification, which was launched in 2004, will be discontinued. It will be replaced by the Google AdWords Certification programme.

Google Certification Programme

Google AdWords Qualified Companies will now be called Certified Partners. Individual qualifications will be offered to professionals, irrespective of their association with an agency, making it easier for employees to port their qualifications when they change employers. 

The single qualification exam will be replaced by an Advertising Fundamentals exam and three advanced-level exams – Search Advertising Advanced Exam, Reporting and Analysis Exam, and Display Exam. In order to qualify, each individual must pass the fundamentals exam and at least one of the advanced exams.

Agencies will need to have at least one qualified individual associated with their AdWords My Client Centre account and a minimum spend of U.S. $10,000/quarter. Previously, the minimum spend figure for Qualified Companies was $100,000/quarter. This lower number will make it easier for small businesses to qualify.

Agencies that fulfil the required criteria will be given a ‘Google AdWords Certified Partner‘ logo or badge that they can display on their site. This will include the words ”Click To Verify”, which will prompt visitors to click on the logo in order to verify the company’s actual qualified status, thereby reducing the number of false qualification claims.

Google has also made it easy for advertisers to decide which agency they would like to work with through the Google Partner Search platform. This platform will provide information about the agency’s experience, location, budget spend etc.

Lastly, Google has also introduced a Preferred AdWords API pricing model that will allow Certified Partners free access to the AdWords API, based on the client spend they manage. To avail of the free API credits in this pricing model, agencies must have an active agency profile page, their tool must satisfy the minimum functionality requirements for third-party bid management tools and they must, of course, agree to the terms and conditions required by the AdWords API.

This new feature will allow advertisers to reach visitors that had already shown an interest in their product, service or brand by accessing their ad or website in the past, but did not proceed to actually make a transaction or purchase.

This service is not the same as retargeting, as it does not require any data from Google.com.

To make use of remarketing, the advertisers can tag pages and use cookies to identify a visitor or a category of users who can later be shown an ad or offer, based on their interests.

Google AdWords explains this system, by giving an example of a basketball team wanting to sell tickets. By putting a code on the tickets page, they can later show relevant ads to all visitors to their site. The relevant ad could be in the form of discounted tickets or could be an offer for VIP hospitality or team merchandise and so on.

Even though, in essence, this new feature uses behavioural targeting to show ads to users, Google has chosen to call it “Remarketing” rather than simply “behavioural targeting” in order to avoid any controversy involving user privacy and the FTC.

Users can still opt out of personalised or behavioural targeting  via the Ad Preferences Manager. Alternatively, users can specify ad categories, which they would be interested in, on the Ad Preferences Manager.

The remarketing feature was run in a limited beta test for the past one year. It has now been opened up to all AdWords advertisers. It could be a very effective way for advertisers to reach consumers who showed an initial interest in their content, but stopped short of making a purchase.

Advertisers can now add a location specific business phone number in mobile ads that appear on mobile devices with full Internet browsers, such as the iPhone. When users want to call a business, instead of visiting its website, they needs to simply click on that phone number.

Since customers on mobiles are more likely to prefer to call a business than to browse through a big website, this feature will be an added convenience users. The feature will be good for advertisers as well, as it enables customers to contact them more easily.

For businesses with outlets in several locations, the number of the outlet closest to the user’s geo-location, as determined by the mobile phone’s location detection service or via Google’s My Location service, will appear on the screen. If a user wishes to call an outlet in any other location, he can do so by entering that location in his search query.

The cost per call will be the same as the cost per click for the advertiser.

Advertisers have already reported better click-through rates and increased phone calls during the beta tests of this service.

To show this ‘click to call’ number alongside their local business ads, advertisers will have to set up location extensions and then add their business phone number. They must then check that the option to show ads on smartphones has been selected in their campaign’s settings.

AdWords reports will show the number of calls they receive, thus allowing them to judge the effective the service is. In order to see click to call statistics separately, advertisers must go to the ‘Campaign Summary’ tab in the AdWords account, click on ‘Filter and Views’, then select ‘Segment by’ from the drop down menu and ‘Click Type’.

Google has now launched a beta search platform that provides a list of these certified professionals.

Google Professionals Search

Individuals or agencies that have been certified by Google can help businesses to better manage their AdWords campaigns and thus advertise their products or services more effectively.

An interested business owner or marketing person can go through Google’s list of certified professionals and select any one of them according to the location and weekly budget that their campaign runs on.

These certified professionals offer various services such as online display advertising, search engine optimisation, web design, web analytics, affiliate programs, advertising on traditional media such as print and TV, as well as on new media like mobiles and social networks.

Professionals who are certified by Google have to keep appearing for periodic tests, which Google conducts, and they also have to pay a fee of $50 every 18 months.

In the past, many people who have been certified have neglected to renew their certification. With the introduction of this new list, agencies and individuals who want to to be featured by the programme will have to renew their membership by taking the exam and paying the fees regularly.

While big agencies are automatically listed in multiple cities, individuals and small shops will have to register separately for each location.

To be fair to Google, their Learning Center does provide very thorough information on the subject, and certified professionals are definitely able to make up the money they spend.

In addition to traditional sponsored links, users will soon be able to view lists of targeted products, retailers offering those products, their prices and a product image when they search for shopping related terms on Google.

The best part of this ad format is that it is based on a Cost-Per-Action (CPA) pricing model. This means that the merchant only has to pay Google when a user clicks on his ad and completes a purchase on the site.

Product Listing Ads will be especially useful to merchants selling a large variety of products. Advertisers don’t actually need to create any additional ad text or keywords.

Whenever a user enters a search query relevant to an item in an advertiser’s Google Merchant Center account, Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the associated image, price and product name.

While this new system would make it very easy for merchants to advertise all their products on Google, it could also take control away from the advertiser. Google has not currently specified any details about how participating retailers will be able to specify CPA bids or exclude certain products from being included in Listing Ads.

The service is in beta at present, but will gradually be made available to more and more advertisers. The launch has been timed to gain popularity very quickly, with the approach of the holiday shopping season.

AdWords Comparison Ads

As the name suggests, this new service will make it possible for users to compare offers provided by various advertisers.

Google Comparison Ad unit

The basic Comparison Ad allows users to specify what they are looking for, in a bit more detail than is normally possible on a regular search query, and then delivers a comparison of different offers side-by-side.

Users that engage with a comparison ad will now have to click on a promotion listed within the comparison table that they think is of interest to them. If they are not satisfied, they can provide some more details about what they want, to see better targeted ads.

When the user identifies a satisfactory offer, the advertiser can be contacted directly on the phone – making it a pay per call ad – or a quote can be requested.

Google will anonymise the user’s number with a unique code, through which the advertiser can then contact the user. Advertisers will not receive any user information unless the user wishes to release it. Advertisers will pay Google only if a user calls on the phone number allocated for that advertiser or if the user fills out a form requesting a quote.

The comparison ads feature is very speedy, as it provides relevant offers in less than one second, and the ads will only be for real products. There will be no teaser rates or bait and switch offers.

At present, the service is only available to a few users in some states in the U.S.A and it is only for advertisers in the mortgage and refinance field.

Ad Sitelinks

Just like certain organic results include sitelinks, certain ads can now also feature sitelinks via a new feature called Ad Sitelinks.

Advertisers with extremely high quality ads will be able to specify up to 10 links to deeper pages on their site. These can be links to special offers, featured products, support pages or other popular pages on the site.

Up to 4 Ad Sitelinks will show up below the regular ads for keywords that meet certain quality requirements:

1. The ad should have the first position above the organic search results
2. The ad should have a very high quality score, typically 10/10
3. The Ad Sitelinks URLs must direct users to pages that are part of the main website, and allow users to navigate freely

The links can be updated without changing the ads, as frequently as desired. The option to add sitelinks shows up in the campaign settings tab, under the “Networks, devices and extensions” section, and is labeled with the text “Show additional links to my site within my ad”.

Display ads have long been an important tool used by marketers to influence users and to create brand awareness. This new tool from Google will now enable marketers to measure the effect a particular ad on their target audience, even if it is not immediately clicked upon after viewing.

The new service will be able to measure the number of conversions that occur within 30 days from the date of viewing, even if no click was recorded at the time of viewing.

If a user sees an ad on a given site without clicking on it, but later visits the ad site within the next 30 days and converts into a lead or sale, this conversion will be reported in the AdWords campaign tab.

This facility will also allow marketers to better compare the performance of their ads on the Google Content Network, vis-à-vis its performance on any other content network. Marketers can then decide for themselves, which is the best place to advertise and thus get the best value for the money they spend on advertising.

To make use of this service, marketers will need to ensure AdWords conversion tracking works for their accounts. Google Analytics goals are not compatible with View-through Conversion reporting, and this service is not available for search campaigns and for text creatives.

Mobile search volumes have been a long-requested feature that Google representatives have been historically reluctant to share. Speculators always concluded that this was due to the low volume of mobile searches.

The new feature is not immediately obvious in the new keyword tool. Advertisers need to click the “Advanced Options” link and then check the “Show stats for: Mobile search” box.

The network statistics setting allows advertisers to change search volume data to show mobile device statistics only. This setting changes only search performance columns and does not affect traffic estimate columns.

Mobile website owners and mobile search marketing agencies will welcome this new feature as it finally gives them the ability to estimate PPC costs and traffic volumes they can expect from search.

A quick review of the mobile search volumes shows that even in popular mobile search categories such as local information and gaming, the volume of mobile searches is a mere fraction – as low as 0.3% – 0.6% of traditional Web searches for the same 1-word keyword queries.

One of the reasons for their low adoption rates could be the complexity involved with display advertising. Display ads are available in several formats, such as images, videos and interactive gadgets. It can be a laborious task to manage the organisation of such varied ads across thousands of Google Content Network sites. Hence, advertisers have not been too keen on this form of advertising.

Publishers on the other hand, are left with a lot of unused ad space on their sites.

To help simplify this process for both the parties involved, Google has now launched the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange. This ad exchange will be a platform from which publishers can sell and advertisers can buy the required ad space via their existing Google AdSense and Google AdWords accounts.

The exchange will function as a real-time automated auction market. Advertisers will try to get better ad space, while publishers will try to extract better rates from the advertisers and also sell more of their available ad space.

The exchange will also allow advertisers to measure the performance of their ads, thus offering a degree of accountability. It will also make display advertising more accessible to all advertisers.

In 2008, the total revenue generated from online advertising was $23.4 billion, while display advertising accounted for only $7.6 billion of that total. Hopefully, the new, better integrated Google AdWords / DoubleClick Ad Exchange will help to increase the revenue generated by display ads.

So far, Yahoo! remains the market leader for display ads ever since they bought RightMedia in 2007 for $680 million. Google, no doubt, hopes to be able to now overtake Yahoo!

Introduction to the new, open Google Ad Exchange

Advertisers can make use of Google Spreadsheets to make the necessary changes to the keywords in their AdWords accounts.

By making use of the copy and paste facility in an external spreadsheet, advertisers can make several changes in their AdWords accounts such as changing the bid, creating a list of keywords, editing destination URL’s etc.

Users can edit keywords within an Ad Group and also edit the keywords with external AdWords tools.

In order to make bulk edits with a spreadsheet within the ad group, the steps are as follows:

1. Sign in to AdWords and navigate to the Ad Group that needs to be edited
2. Next, select the ‘Keyword’ tab and then the ‘More Actions’ command, which is at the top of the ad group table
3. Select the ‘Spreadsheet Edit’ operation from the drop down menu
4. Make the necessary changes
5. Lastly, click ‘Save’.

After these changes are saved, errors occurring in any of the cells are highlighted. When the cursor is placed on such a cell, the error is shown and can be corrected. Once all the errors have been corrected, the changes can be submitted to AdWords.

While using a spreadsheet within the ad group, users can make employ common keyboard shortcuts as well as spreadsheet formulas, with the Formula Autocomplete feature. These formulae can be used to change bids based on the performance stats in the spreadsheet.

All the cells in the column can be modified, but only columns with text in black will apply the changes that are saved. These columns are ‘Keyword’, ‘Max CPC, ‘Destination URL and ‘Status’.

Bulk editing of keywords with external AdWords tools can be done using either the ‘AdWords editor’, which is a free downloadable application for managing the account or by using AdWords API.

Click fraud has reduced not only compared to what it was in the first quarter of the year, but also compared to what it was in the second quarter of 2008. At present it is 12.7%, while in the first quarter of 2009 it was 13.8% and in the second quarter of 2008 it was 16.2%.

According to Click Forensics this data has been collected from ad campaigns of large as well as small advertisers spread over all of the leading search engines and over 300 ad networks.

The president of Click Forensics, Tom Cuthbert says, “The increased diligence of online ad networks to detect and block invalid traffic sources has contributed to the decline in the over all click fraud rate this quarter. However increasingly sophisticated attacks, such as publisher collusion fraud, continue to be a concern. Ad networks should pay close attention to such threats in the coming months.”

Publisher collusion fraud is a lot more difficult to track as publishers make use of bots and rotating IP-addresses to click on their own ads, thus raising their rankings and also increasing the commission which they earn from the ad networks, which cannot easily detect such invalid clicks from the valid ones.

These ad networks consist of lesser known sites that still manage to reach large audiences, at a much lower cost than the bigger, well known internet sites.

Webguild.org reports that Google is in the process of selling off Google Radio Automation. They had acquired this business for a total of $1 billion, inclusive of both cash and stock components. However this section of Google has been a complete failure right from the start as it failed to take off at all.

Now Mr. Vinod Khosla and Mayfield have raised $25 million to take over the Google Radio Automation business.

About one hundred employees working in the hardware and software departments of Google Radio Automation as well as those offering support to it are likely to be laid off.

In other areas of the company also Google has been laying off employees, and now their full time employees number 19,786 after 378 others were laid off in the second quarter of 2009.

On the other hand there are also reports that Google continues to hire highly skilled and talented professionals in some of its departments. But even this process has not been easy as the professionals have been asking for their market price, in spite of the recession and the consequent unemployment.

These demands have been putting Google in a rather tight spot as some of the older and senior employees are earning smaller amounts than what these new candidates are asking for, and that would eventually lead to unpleasantness among the old and new employees.

The bid simulator can be accessed in the new AdWords interface by clicking on a CPC value to adjust it, or clicking on the tiny graph-like icon next to the current bid value, as shown in the screenshot below:

Accessing AdWords’ bid simulator

When the tool opens up in a new layer (on the same page), it shows a simulation of the estimated clicks, cost and impressions that particular keyword will get if the bid values are increased or decreased. The tool also includes a graph to illustrate the change in number of clicks as CPC changes.

AdWords bid simulator in action

Documentation provided by Google describes the function of the Bid Simulator: “It doesn’t predict the future, but it estimates the click, cost and impression data that your ads would have received over the last seven days had you set different keyword-level bids. ”

The tool does not work for all keywords, and the graph does not show up for all keywords that have the bid simulator enabled. Search volumes are the determining factor for whether or not the simulator and the graph within the simulator are enabled or not.

According to Google, “The bid simulator requires historical information in order to provide click and cost data for different bids. If a keyword didn’t receive many clicks in the last seven days, it isn’t possible to simulate clicks and cost.”

Values for the bid simulator only apply to the search network – that is, Google search and other search partners.

Research from the UK Trade and Investment government offices has found that despite favourable circumstances only 75,000 businesses in the U.K. are engaged in exporting their products and services.

Chief among the reasons for this low turn out are language and cultural barriers, apart from other factors like administrative restrictions, cross-border logistics etc.

To help businesses overcome these obstacles, Google has tied up with Applied Language Solutions, HSBC, Royal Mail, Institute of Export, U.K. Trade and Investment and Alibaba.com, to launch a new comprehensive solution called Export Adviser.

Google Export Adviser

UK-based businesses interested in export can now avail of this service.

The Export Adviser will help novices to start an export business by guiding them through various steps like identifying and evaluating target markets, judging the market demand, creating an English language keyword list, translating that list and forecasting a cost per click for those multilingual keywords.

The opportunity finder tool offers a neat tie-in between three Google tools to translate keywords, mine keyword data and predict demand in the market, as demonstrated by the simple example below, where a search for ‘seo’ brings up a map showing where most opportunities lie among emerging markets, along with suggestions for related keywords and rising keywords in various languages.

Google Export Adviser’s opportunity finder tool

For those who wish to expand their export business, the Export Box, created in partnership with Applied Language Solutions offers a slightly expensive (considering the target market is SME) solution: For a price of £3,000 users will be provided with the following:

1. A translated website, built as landing pages for specific search terms
2. Keywords and Adverts specially researched and designed for the target country in the target language
3. £1,000 worth of paid advertising on Google AdWords using Multilingual PPC, plus a free Google voucher worth £200
4. A free online shop front and discounts on Gold Supplier membership for Alibaba.com to market products to over 8 million international buyers
5. £1,000 worth of language support
6. Membership to the Institute of Export and discounted international banking with HSBC.

SMEs that don’t want the full support of this £3,000 package are lured by an alternative £200 AdWords voucher, the details of which can be found from AdWords account managers.

Screenshot of Google Export Adviser website

The email sent out yesterday informs advertisers that if they wish to continue running ads on Google AdWords, they will need to use Visa, MasterCard or American Express credit cards or switch to direct debit payments before the end of the month.

In their own words…

“We are writing to inform you of an upcoming change affecting the use of Switch cards with AdWords. As of July 31st, 2009, we will no longer accept the use of Switch cards. Please select an alternative form of payment to fund your AdWords campaigns before July 31st, 2009 to keep your ads running. Google currently accepts Visa, MasterCard, and American Express credit cards. ”

No reason has been supplied for this change in policy.

The move could be to drive more advertisers to pay via direct debit, rather than credit cards. Google introduced the ability to pay for AdWords accounts via direct debit in the UK only in August last year. Current postpay users paying by credit cards can switch to direct debit.

Instructions for switching to direct debit can be found on the AdWords Help centre at:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50328

Google still does not allow pre-pay users to switch to postpay or direct debit.

The message prompts webmasters to give Google AdWords a try, as an alternative means for sending traffic to their website and even offers 100 € free AdWords credit to get them started.

Like all Google promotions, this one is cleverly interwoven into a helpful email. They start by pointing users to the Webmaster Support / Help page and their search engine optimisation starter guide. Only after that do they add that the AdWords programme is just another effective way to drive traffic to a site.

The message ends with a quick run-down of the advantages of advertising via AdWords.

Google has not remained unaffected by the economic downturn. This promotion is just one more example of the various new means they are trying to drive advertisers expenditure. The search giant is continuously testing ways to broaden its advertising platform’s reach, prompt more users to click on ads and convincing more advertisers to spend a greater portion of their media budget on AdWords.

Screenshot of message promoting AdWords to Webmaster Tools users

Google Suggest is a drop down menu that provides a list of query suggestions when a user starts typing in a query. The feature was added to the search engine’s home page last August and is now being updated.

To begin with, links are being added to Google Suggest. If a search query appears to be navigational, that site will appear in the drop down menu itself, thus saving the users time when he conducts the search operation.

Another new feature is the addition of Sponsored Links or ads among the search suggestions. Such related ads will now appear directly in the search suggestion box. The ads will be marked ‘Sponsored Link’ and will be on a coloured background to differentiate them.

Thirdly, when a user who is on a particular results page starts another search, he will receive certain search suggestions which will be related to the previous search which he has carried out.

The last feature to be added to Google Suggest is a personalization of suggestions. This means that when a user signs in to his Google account and if his computer has ‘Web History’ on the ‘Enabled’ mode, search suggestions will be sent to him by Google, based on his past searches. Google has found that users who are signed in often repeat their searches. In fact the figure for repeat searches is as high as 25%. Users have however been provided with an option labeled ‘Remove’ which they can use if they do not want a past search to show up in future.

The final change being made on Google Suggest is the deletion of the number of searches that have been conducted for a given query, as Google feels that this data has been of no use to their users.

Filters on Google AdWords are equating the word ‘gay’ with obscenity. Because of this, an ad by poplar Gay news magazine, BGay.com containing the term ‘gay’ could not be uploaded as it failed to meet their editorial guidelines.

The advertiser concerned received a message saying “Gay – Unacceptable Content”. Adding insult to injury, a further message goes on to say “We’ve detected that your ad may contain words often associated with pornography. Google policy prohibits the advertisement of pornography unless it involves consenting adults. Related content is not permitted on the website or as ad text or keywords.”

AdWords editorial policies seem to suggest that the word ‘Gay’ relates to non-consensual sex or sex with minors, which is certainly out of line, and their homosexual clients are bound to be extremely upset with this.

A campaign called ‘Amazon.fail’ was launched on Twitter after this incident came to light. Eventually, Amazon issued a statement saying that due to an error in their system, sexual orientation had been classified as adult content and hence the gay titles had been erroneously deleted. They even promised to restore the titles at the earliest.

Google’s pro-gay stance on California’s proposition 8 has shown them to be very politically correct and mindful of equal rights for everyone. While this is an automatic error caused due to the way their keyword suggestion and association algorithms work, they would do well to set the record straight by correcting this immediately, and also resetting their filters, before they are subjected to a PR nightmare similar to what Amazon is currently facing.

According to the Google AdSense blog, the AdSense video unit, which enables publishers to show YouTube content and ads on their pages, on a revenue sharing basis, has not performed as well as it was expected to do, and Google will discontinue the service at the end of this month.

Publishers who wish to continue publishing video content from YouTube can do so directly through YouTube.com, but they will not earn any revenue for this.

Video ads will remain functional and will continue to appear on AdSense-enabled pages of publishers who enable the the image ads option.

Google will continue to accept ads from registered publishers until the end of this month (April). New publishers will no longer be able to incorporate video units on their sites.

While Google says they are taking this step to better focus on other opportunities, to help their publishers earn better, it seems suspiciously like yet another move to beat the recession.

Only last month Search Engine Round Table had pointed out that AdSense publishers were upset and complained on two separate AdSense forum threads that their sites were generating very little revenue from AdSense video units. Some of the comments posted on the AdSense forum were:

“My revenue is down more than 50%. There were people who were expecting to earn $200 in January and instead earned $80. I was expecting $1000-$2000 and earned a little over $80.”

“I had $67 in Content Host earnings (63,600 views/1000 clicks) and only $17 in YouTube earnings… sheesh”

One reason for this poor performance could be the current economy. Another could be the fact that it is difficult to target ads consistently based on videos.

It is relevant to note that Google is struggling to monetise YouTube, and this could be the first sign that Google is accepting the fact that it might never be as successful with video advertising as it is with search.

As the name of this feature clearly suggests, ads will now be delivered to users depending on the interests of the user.

User interest will be judged based on Google’s previous interactions with the user. This will not be limited only to direct interaction with Google Search and Google Software but will also extend to tracking sites that the user visits frequently.

Each users will be segmented under one or more categories, based on the web pages visited. Users will be able to view, edit or opt out of the interest categories through the Ads Preference Manager (shown below), which is available on most AdSense ad containers.

AdSense account holders will not need to change their ad code but they will need to make some changes to the privacy policy of their website in order to use this new facility. Google requires AdSense publishers to make all necessary changes to the privacy policy need to be completed before the 8th of April 2009. Publishers will have to make these changes in accordance with the laws of the country they operate from.

Google has made a point of addressing privacy issues that will definitely arise as a result of this announcement. They say they will continue to use user information in accordance with their privacy policy, i.e. they will not use the information to identify the user personally or display ads based on personal or sensitive information unless the user has opted in.

Opting out of the Interest-based Advertising service is not as obvious as Google makes it out to be. This could turn into a point of contention with privacy advocates.

Publishers will obviously benefit from this service as they will be able to better suit their website by increasing the value for advertisers. If the beta test phase of this service goes well, it will be expanded to others later in the year.

The larger ad will, of course, advantage advertisers as it will allow them to provide more information about the product or service to consumers, thus engaging more potential customers.

These ads can include rich media within the content. They can contain videos, flash content or social interaction. The ads are designed in such a way that they can automatically expand in that direction where maximum place is available on the screen.

Users must click on the ad in order to expand it and then click on it again to contract it to its original size. Accurate ad engagement metrics are provided to prevent accidental ad expansion by mouse-overs or rollovers. The user can decide to contract the page, which opens as a layer on the original page, at any time. Thus, these ads provide a more user-friendly interaction, which is good for the publisher, rather than ads that automatically expand and start playing video or audio on mouse-overs, which can be quite irritating.

Publishers can choose to block contextual ads by using the competitive ad filter. They can also use the Google AdSense Ad Review Center.

Advertisers using the CPC pricing model will be charged only when the users visit the site’s landing page, and not when they just expand the ad. Expandable Ads can also use CPM pricing.

At present these ads are in the beta testing phase in the U.S. and only advertisers and agencies that are part of the 3^rd Party Ad Serving Program have access to it. DoubleClick is one of them, and its clients can place their ads on the Google Content Network.

Expandable Ad Specifications

Google AdWords support guidelines state that Expandable Ads are currently available in 728 x 90 to 728×180 size, which expand up or down and 160 x 600 to 320 x 600 banners and 300 x 250 to 600 x 250 boxes that expand left or right. The size limit for the 50K, 1.2MB polite and expanded panels must contain a prominent “Close X”, in 16 point font or larger, on the corner of the unit. Audio for the ads can be user-initiated only.

An example Expandable Ad, provided by Google AdWords, is shown below:

Google SearchWiki was launched only last year to all users signed in on a Google account. The programme allows users to re-rank organic search results and comment on them. Now, adding SearchWiki to AdWords will mean that users have the ability to delete or reposition an ad as per their choice and requirements.

This is a good feature, as far as individual users are concerned. What is worrying to advertisers, however, is the fact that if several users delete or lower the ranking of a particular ad, it may eventually affect the Quality Score of the ad.

It is a fact that Google already knows a lot about user preferences towards various ads based on the click through rates of any given ad. This data allows Google to reward sites with higher click through rates and hence higher quality scores by lowering their costs per click.

SearchWiki on AdWords does the reverse in some ways. It will allow Google to identify which of the ads that weren’t clicked were especially irrelevant or offensive to the user.

Such a system could leave Google SERPs open to manipulation akin to what happened in the early days of PPC advertising - unscrupulous companies hired low-pay workers in third-world countries to click on competitor ads, making them bleed through their budget.Such companies could now hire rogue teams to vote down competitor ads repeatedly.
On the other hand, genuine users who do not like a particular ad might just not bother to waste their time deleting or re-ranking it. They might just ignore it.

A Google spokesperson is supposed to have replied to Peter Young, an advertiser from the UK, saying, “This is a small experiment to show the SearchWiki “X” next to AdWords ads on Google.com search results pages … The experiment triggers for a small number of SearchWiki users. SearchWiki is launched to most (but not all) signed-in US English users … Ads that users remove will no longer trigger for that user on that query … At this time the experiment does not affect Quality Scores, CPCs, ranking, or anything else … It it too soon to say how we will use the data in the future … Any time an ad is shown to a user, an impression is counted … [advertisers cannot opt out of this experiment] … [advertisers cannot see reports on ad removal].”

Google’s response to Search Engine Land was more typical of the tight-lipped search giant: “As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we are currently running an experiment in which users can customize the ads that appear in the Sponsored Links section of the search results page by deleting ad results. This experimental feature is only visible to a small number of users and we have no news to announce at this time regarding developments in our AdWords product offering.”

It goes without saying that since AdWords is a major source of income for Google, they will definitely think long and hard before making any move that their advertisers might not like.

The audio ad service was launched in 2006 to enable the buying and selling of radio ads via Google AdWords. However, the search company now feel that in spite of investing a lot of resources, these services have not actually managed to create the kind of impact that was expected and it would be better to discontinue these services.

Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio will be phased out by the 31^st of May. Until then, publishers will be able to continue publishing their inventory. Google Radio Automation will be sold off to an interested party.

All is not quiet on the audio front, though. Google plans to concentrate on developing technology to deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio, where the audience numbers are increasing.

While it may be remembered that Google has also decided to shut down their Print Ads division only last month, they have stated that they will continue with their TV advertising initiatives as they can measure the audience response here and their advertisers can therefore judge ad effectiveness.

While some staff may be reassigned after the discontinuation of these services, it is expected that about 40 people will find themselves jobless as a result of this decision.

Even though Google executives maintain that they are closing the audio ads service due to failed expectations, if one looks at all their other recent cut-backs – print ads, followed closely by the closure of Jaiku, Dodgeball and Notebook – it looks suspiciously like a move to try and keep up the profit margin and tide over the financial meltdown by sticking to what they know best – search.

The updates are supposed to make account organisation more intuitive and help users find the right tools on the right account screen. Navigating through accounts will be faster, editing keywords, ads, bids and placements will be easier and users will get more detailed statistics and in-context reports within the campaign management screens.

Some of the updated features are as follows:

• Easier account navigation
  New tabs have been added in the main navigation bar providing direct access to AdWords Tools and Billing. Secondary navigation between active campaigns can be done via a menu on the left – paused and deleted campaigns are not represented on this tree.
  
• Easier Account Monitoring
  Users can easily check on the performance of all the elements in a campaign by clicking on Keywords, Networks or Ads, thus displaying all the keywords, placements and ads in a single table. Graphs provide a quick overview of the performance of the segment being viewed. Users can then decide how much to bid on specific keywords or placements.
• Details and Filters
  Dynamic roll-ups give a broad view of the overall performance of a campaign within the same page. It is also possible to set up filters to display only certain ads or keywords by clicking on ‘Create Filter’ under ‘Tab Options’, thus focusing on selected parts of the account only. Detailed information about particular ads can be viewed by clicking ‘Show Query Report’ or ‘Automatic Placements’ on the ‘Networks’ tab.
  
• Dynamic Keyword, Bid and Ad Updates
  Users will now have more flexibility to expand accounts. They can create ads, add keywords and set bids in any order on the same tabs used to manage campaigns or ad groups. Users can also use a one-page creation process to build new ad groups. Fast, in-line editing by clicking on any bid or keyword enables users to make quick changes in the account.
  
• Networks and Placements
  The old ‘Placements’ tab is now the ‘Networks’ tab. It summarizes the performance of ads on Google Search and Partner sites. Domain and URL level reports for content network placements are also visible here. Users also have the option to have ‘Managed placements’ or ‘Automatic Placements’.

Google is still working on certain updates, such as campaign settings, position preference, demographic bidding and certain specialised ad formats.

Google has forged into a new deal with online video advertising company, SpotMixer, that allows advertisers to use SpotMixer’s video creation technology to create television commercials for their products free of cost, and then air them on TV as well as online.

Ads can be made either in the form of images, audio and / or video content selected from a vast database provided by Google, or from the advertisers’ own uploaded content. There is also an adjustable soundtrack so that advertisers can record the ad in a voice of their choice if they so desire.

The service can be accessed from the “Submit Ad” page when creating a Google TV ads campaign. Google has provided the short video clip shown below to teach advertisers how to use this service.

Creating a new TV ad with the tool is quite a simple procedure really. After logging into the AdWords account, users have to select an appropriate categories for the industry concerned or the type of product to be advertised and then select from relevant images, audio or video content using a drag and drop interface. Advertisers can customise the ad to their requirement by clicking the link to “Add more images and video”. They can also dynamically change the templates to give the ad a more personal look. Completed ads need to be downloaded and then added to the TV Ads Campaign.

This is a great idea for a cheap, do-it-yourself system to advertise products and service to a wide audience. It should help start-ups with limited budgets advertise on television alongside big brands without needing to spend a lot on ad production. The service was launched in beta back in September 2008, for a few clients and they are already reporting positive feedback.

The advertisers will not be required to create special mobile landing pages, or ads in mobile formats as the ads will be pointed to the desktop landing pages, thus saving the advertisers a lot of time effort and money.

These ads will continue to have the advantages of the standard mobile ads. For instance, they will have delivery of mobile specific calls-to-action. In addition, they will reach users who are conducting related mobile searches, which is an activity that is fast gaining in popularity.

Earlier, Google Search was running desktop results pages, which were modified to suit these phones. Now Google has launched results pages, which have been specifically formatted for the iPhone. Hence, it will now be possible for advertisers to create ad campaigns for mobiles only, and these ads will receive separate mobile performance reporting.

The advertisers will have the right to choose, whether they wish to start displaying their ads on mobiles, or continue advertising only on desktop and laptop computers.

In order to start displaying ads on the iPhone, G1 etc, advertisers will have to access their AdWords account where they can go to “campaign settings”. From there they have to go to “Networks and Bidding”, which has the option “Device platform”. Lastly, they select “iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers”.

This will mean that as and when newer mobiles with full internet browsers are released, the ads will be launched on these handsets as well.

For further assistance, advertisers can visit the AdWords Help Center.

Beer manufacturers will be allowed to directly advertise the sale of their products.

Manufacturers of hard alcohol and liqueurs, on the other hand will not be able to directly advertise the sale of their products. They will only be allowed to provide information about the hard alcohol or liqueurs, such as providing the recipes, which are available on their websites or sending brand messages.

To give an example of this new policy, AdWords explains, that hard alcohol and liqueur can be marketed to people who are on the lookout for relevant alcohol related information. In other words, search advertising will be allowed. They can suggest ideas for cocktails to be served during the holiday season and the calorie content of these drinks etc.

While beer manufacturers have been given a free hand to market their commodity, even the manufacturers of hard alcohol and liqueur will be able to take advantage of the upcoming holiday season, to reach their target audience.

These changes to the policy have been made keeping in mind, the feedback received by Google AdWords, from their advertisers over the years. It is obvious of course, that it will also help AdWords to generate some much needed revenue.

In the coming weeks Adwords will also expand this new policy to cover other countries, keeping in mind the local rules and regulations regarding alcohol.

For further details on the alcohol policy, interested users may visit AdWords’ Advertising Policies Page.

Back in 2007, Google had announced that they were missing out on as much as $200 million per year because they were not monetising their Image Search product. After that, there was no report of anything being done about this till some users spotted a single Sponsored Links result among the images, as reported on TechCrunch.

Today, though, a full line of three Sponsored Links are showing for most searches carried about by a handful of user accounts that have been selected to participate in the test.

The paid search listings that appear on Image Search results are not the same as those on the Web Search results page. The reason behind the difference in ads delivered is not yet clear. The ad copy of the ads that are common to both is the exact same, which makes one think that Google has some other selection criteria for delivery of these ads.

The presentation of the Sponsored Links above the organic search results here is different from that on the Web Search pages. The 4-line ad format with 3 ads placed side-by-side in the images results looks better than the 2-line format with 3 ads placed one below the other on regular search results as the organic image results are also shown side-by-side rather than one after another.

Why Google hasn’t done this earlier is a question worth asking.

Automatic matching uses Google’s language processing capabilities to identify other keywords associated with the account, based on their analysis of the current keywords, ads and landing pages. The advertisers ads will then be shown for these keywords as well, even though they are not actually listed among the advertiser’s target keywords.

Keywords queried on Google and the Search Network will triggered ads through automatic matching. The new system will not affect ad delivery on the content network.
Cost per click for automatic matched keywords will approximately match the Ad Group’s current average CPC. Traffic delivered through automatic matching will not affect the Quality Score.

Advertisers can view the exact keyword queries that triggered their ads by running a Search Query Performance report in the AdWords reporting centre.

The new system has come under a lot of criticism since it went into expanded beta in May 2008. The main criticism being that Google is once again trying to make advertisers spend more money in ways that they’re not clearly aware of. While the feature requires users to opt in, not all AdWords advertisers are savvy enough to understand what it could imply and how they can keep track of which keywords are triggering their ads.

Microsoft and several advertisers and publishers had objected to this deal, citing anti-trust laws and raising concerns about the possible rise in ad prices for advertisers.

At the time, both Google and Yahoo! had maintained that this was neither a merger nor an acquisition, and hence there was no question of violating the anti-trust laws. They also said that ad prices would continue to be determined by the usual auction process, so there was no need to worry about increased ad rates.

Their stand obviously did not pacify their opponents, who continued to lobby against the deal, and eventually, in September, the Justice Department appointed Sanford Litvack, the ex-Vice-Chairman, of Walt Disney Co. to look into the matter and prepare an anti-trust case if applicable. This development not only generated a lot of publicity regarding the issue, but also caused the stock prices of Google to fall.

Even though Google and Yahoo! maintained that their deal was not subject to government approval, they decided to cooperate voluntarily with the Justice Department. They even decided to put the deal on hold for a while. The two companies have been holding meetings with the Justice department in this regard but so far they have not reached any solution. One of the major stumbling blocks here is the reluctance of these firms to sign a consent decree, stating the terms of the partnership. Agreeing to sign such a decree would, in effect, mean agreeing to be constantly monitored by a judge, which they would not like for obvious reasons.

In their withdrawal statement Google said that a protracted legal battle and the possible estrangement of relationships with other partners were the main factors influencing their decision to end their relationship with Yahoo!
Google has seen a further fall in their share prices, but contrary to expectations, Yahoo! shares jumped up. The rise in YHOO stock could be due to announcements from Microsoft and Yahoo! saying they were now open to merger talks as well as Wall Street’s expectation that with Google out of the way, Microsoft is bound to step in and acquire Yahoo!

Until last week, click summaries were divided into two parts – Search, which included Google and its search partners and Content, which included all sites in Google’s content network that featured contextually targeted and placement targeted display ads from Google.

The change is expected to benefit advertisers, as it will provide a more detailed account of the performance of the ad campaign on different channels. Advertisers will now be able to see track performance on each of the channels from which traffic flows, and advertisers can then decide which partners they should continue advertising on.

A drop down menu on the top right corner of the box allows advertisers to review the campaign summary or ad group summary with any combination of results that they choose. Users can opt to split Google, search partners and content results, split just search and content results or view Google, search or content results only.

Reports providing separate Google and aggregate search partner statistics will also be made available in the near future.

Search Partners v Google

For the first time advertisers and everyone interested in search is able to accurately and easily gauge the contribution of search partners to the total number of clicks, and the numbers are pretty significant in some cases.

• Depending on the industry, the search partners can contribute anywhere from 15 to 50% of the total number of impressions.
• Click through rates from the search partners seem to be consistently lower across all verticals.
• Mobile traffic on the search partners seems to be very low compared to Google Mobile – accounting for less than 5% of total mobile searches on our accounts.

This comes as a sudden change after they had issued a ban on paid search advertising for gambling sites about 16 months ago. The ban will however continue in Northern Ireland and outside U.K.

Previously, online gaming sites including Bingo and Betting shops were not allowed to advertise on AdWords, but that has changed now, and it is very likely that these sites will make a dash to get themselves registered with Google in an attempt to cash in on this new avenue now available to them. They will however have to go through all the correct licensing procedures before they can advertise on Google.

This is a very lucrative move for Google, with millions of pounds expected to come their way through this channel.

It is very likely that the policy change has been effected keeping the current financial crisis in mind. However, Google insists that they have been reviewing their policy for almost a year, and have also consulted with the Gambling commission on this issue, and the timing is just a coincidence. Google’s industry head James Cashmore says, “this is not a decision that’s been made quickly; its been something that’s been under discussion for months.”

Google has also decided to classify gambling ads under the non-family safe category, and hence they will be automatically blocked for users that have turned on the safe search option.

This change of policy could be bad news for Google competitors Yahoo! and Microsoft, who have picked up most of the ad spend that Google turned away in the past. Advertisers may now move away from these search engines and return to the more popular Google.