Three Reasons You Should Test PPC in YouTube.
The life of a pay-per-click (PPC) advertiser just got a little easier… kinda. Earlier this week Google activated a new feature in AdWords, which provides additional insight into keyword quality score (QS). Actually, “additional” isn’t really the right word, since there was absolutely no insight provided prior to this feature. Over the years, QS has remained somewhat of an enigma. Advertisers have always known which factors affect it (Click Through Rate, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Quality), but until now optimizing a keyword’s QS has felt a lot like shooting in the dark.
Well, advertisers can now easily identify the factor or factors that are dragging their QS down. Within the AdWords interface, when you hover over the status box of your keyword, you will see your quality score appear along with three indicators as mentioned above. These indicators are rated Below Average, Average and Above Average.
Overall, the new insights into quality score, while helpful, are still somewhat vague and leave plenty of work to be done making small tweaks to fine tune QS. Additionally, the process for obtaining these insights is incredibly time consuming, as one can only check a single keyword at a time. Nevertheless, this is a substantial step in the right direction and should help focus the efforts of advertisers when it comes to improving performance.
If you’re a PPC Manager you’re well aware of the Google AdWords Policy, and when you see the dreaded “disapproved ad” you think you’ll easily diagnose the issue.
But, sometimes you can still learn something new. For example, did you know your ad could be disapproved if you have images on your destination URL that are not hosted on your server? This happened to one of my client’s accounts recently and it took a bit of trying to figure out why the ads were disapproved. It turns out that some of images on the destination URL were hosted elsewhere. While this may not seem to make a lot of sense, it’s what Google wants so be aware of it.
If you run into this issue you’ll have to work with your web developer to get all your images on your own server.
The New Hampshire Business Review print and online edition published an article today written by our CEO, Susan O’Neil. “Why should you be interested in Pinterest?”
By Susan O’Neil
Friday, April 20, 2012
Pinterest is a social media network with the stated goal of connecting “everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” It is an online organizational tool, a bulletin board where people “pin” visual representations of their personal interests found browsing the Web or uploaded from their computers.
Pinterest launched in March 2010, and partly fueled by the fact that social sharing on Pinterest can occur simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter, it has created a seemingly “perfect storm” of early adoption. According to comScore, Pinterest drew 11.7 million visitors in January, making it the fastest stand-alone site ever to exceed 10 million visitors per month….more
Former Red Sox co-owner Les Otten spoke at a recent conference on disruptive thinking and technology. He addressed issues of entrepreneurship and how, essentially, all entrepreneurs disrupt the status quo. He said:
Yet, interestingly, Otten, whose rich history includes changing the skiing world with his American Skiing Company, can be celebrated today for his leadership in opposition to changing one emotionally charged status quo: Fenway Park.
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A longtime member of Red Sox Nation, in 2001 Otten was a prime mover in a group with Tom Werner vying to purchase the Red Sox. There were a number of groups competing but …”the media were lining up behind a local hot dog vendor (Joe O’Donnell) or a parking lot baron (Frank McCourt)…” and treated the Otten group like interlopers. What eventually helped turned the tide and win the hearts of the fans was the fact that the Otten group was fighting the prevailing wisdom that it was time for a new Fenway Park.
Otten described a seminal event in his understanding the importance of Fenway Park. At a home game in 2001 about an hour before the first pitch, he noticed a middle-aged man wearing street clothes walking about in the outfield. As he walked, he had his hands in his pockets and moved them about like a man jingling coins. And here and there the man would kick out a foot and slightly shake it.
Otten turned to his friend, a longtime box holder, and pointed out the outfield visitor. Turns out it was not an uncommon sight – someone walking around the outfield with a couple of small bags inside his pants slowly releasing ashes onto the ground. Ashes of a longtime fan who could now forever bear witness to the tragedies and triumphs that are the Sox.
When he understood this, Otten understood that Fenway Park was more than just a place to play baseball. And saving Fenway became the theme song of his group’s campaign to own the Red Sox.
Now, as we celebrate Fenway’s 100th Anniversary, it’s also a time to celebrate entrepreneurship and disruption. Sometimes disruption simply means challenging the general wisdom and doing what our hearts tell us to do.
