Marketing on the Web

Google planning Human eyes to rank Adsense Sites

There are rumors roaming around the adsense world, that google is planning to rank the adsense websites through manual process like how DMOZ does to create the web directory. Unlike volunteered initiatives, Google is planning to recruit human website ranking analysts around the world and follow their recommendation on search result display order. This rank will be presented to Adwords publishers for higher bidding.

Google currently manages around 12 billion web pages and current page rank has been rated based on content, motive , organization credential such as government, educational institutions or Adsense sites.

For example, If you do the search by city name, you can infer my claim by analyzing the search result pattern. Google search give higher preference to government websites followed by pages without commercial intention and rest of them will be positioned at last.

As per new rating systems, Google not only assess the degree of commercialisms of sites, but different types of commercial intent (a catalog page versus an “About us” page). And ran the page accordingly, it might even look for data such as how long a company has been in business, how long a website has been operational without 404 error.

Google website rating force will be given analyzing tools and different rating metrics to rank a page they even allowed to attach comment with each page as part of ratings. This comments may appear in search result if viewed through Google enterprise tool bar.

If you are dreaming about making millions through Adsense income and betting on cheap SEO techniques then time to rethink your strategy. Please remember only contents! can convince the Google eyes.

Recommended Reading

Posted in Search Engine, Search Engine Advertisement | No Comments »

Emotional and Rational Search engine ads

In my last posting I was discussing the basic features of an adwords ad
1. value proposition
2. Third party endorsement
3. calling to action
4. Special wording that might relate to consumer perceived thinking.

But missed out the important characterstic of search engine ad that is “Appealing”.
As we know appealing is a fundamental concept of any advertisement. Appealing techniques that apply to
traditional advertising mediums (call them legacy ) like TV, newspaper and radio
will go good with Search Engine advertisement too.
Appealing comes with two choices, either it can be Emotional or Rational.
But that choice is depended on the product type, that advertiser is intending to sell.

Rational Ads

Writing Rational ads that sells cognitive related products in other words products related to thinking , analyzing and
Calculation will give higher click through ratio (CTR) and better conversion rate.
Product which requires higher involvement of customer time, efforts can be sold easily by rational adwords ads.
For example, selling book about Internet marketing Secret or ads for outsourcing or fixed wing aircraft part retail store.

Emotional Ads

Adwords ads, that sells / promoting emotional products (example Jeans, Valentines Gift, Music or selling Britney Spears’s hair )
should have the blend of both emotional and entertaining appeal.

Please aware, entertaining ads might attract visitors who has no intention of buying by expense of google adwords click.
It is very hard to sell visitors who is
• Seeking fun or curious
• Some kind of social interaction like pen pal, online dating
• Looking to pass time like chatting, forum posting, reading news
• Escaping from boring work or job, Information overload
Such users are good for implanting the Brand name but can not be counted for direct response.

As per Hoffman’s Network Navigational theory of internet Advertisement!

Extrinsic Searchers, who has motive behind the search ( looking to buy a product, researching a online service or product)
traverse (browser) more than one organic search result page before clicking on any search engine adwords ads.

Intrinsic Searchers (who is looking for entertainment or lost in world wide web), doesn’t care about adwords ads or organic search results.
They simply click on any hyperlink whichever attracts their attention first.

Posted in Google Adwords, Internet Marketing, Online Consumer Behavior | No Comments »

Writing better Ads for Google Adwords

Why Click is so important to Google advertiser?

If you are advertising through Google Adwords or Yahoo sponsored Search, you know how hard to generate the click from searcher. Writing high appeal ad not only increases web site traffic, it also reduces the search engine advertisement cost. Google elevates the best clicking ads to top  position among other low clicking ads. This will generate more money to Google and more clicks to advertiser. Marketers will not be charged for this top positioning even though they are bidding less than the competitor.

Also, Google will disable the bad performing ads, which generate less than 2% CTR. The Click through Ratio (CTR) is calculated based on how many times your ad has been displayed (called impression) and number of times it received click from customer.

For example, your ad has been displayed for 2000 (impression) and received 2 click.
The CTR is 1% ([2/2000] * 100). Even though the conversion ratio of your ad might be promising but if it doesn’t meet minimum 2% of CTR then Google will simply disable without any warning. Yahoo also does the same on its Sponsored search listing.

So it is very important to keep an eye on your higher conversion ads to prevent being victimized by lower CTR.

Writing better ad that generate more clicks!

Unlike other advertisement formats such as Banner, Email marketing, pop-up ads, you can not use any graphics, colors, font styles or nudging flashy movies. The only medium to impress the searcher is Text. Indeed, that’s what the searchers are looking for. Writing text only ads might be restricting but in reality it saves lot of time for the advertisers. The advertiser doesn’t need to worry about impressive color combinations, choosing correct images or audios etc. That way! Search engine’s text only ads help advertisers to focus on core value of advertisement, customer appeal.

Personalized ads have more appealing power and conversion rate. Such ads will give impression to the searchers (customer), that specific ad has been published only for him. By visiting the recommended page or site through click, he can resolve his problem or can fulfill his seeking.

So the search engine placement (Adwords) ad should a have words or phrase that will imply all of those qualities above. It must be very simple and not technical.
Should standout from others ads as well as the organic search results recommended by Search Engines.

For example,

Typing the broad keyword “search Engine advertisement” on Google
(Feb 17 2007), brought me following paid listings

Which one is the best ad?

The most appealing Ad
Start from searcher motivation. What is the motivation behind of my search “Search Engine Advertisement”?

I want to know more about it?
Or looking for a best way to do it?
Or wanting to know who can do it?
Or want to know who is doing it?
Or looking where to do it?
Or seeking the best one to do it?

From the above paid listing, I preferred to click the ad “Yahoo! Search Marketing”.

1. Because it associates with well known brand name “Yahoo” so I can trust and expect the better quality.
2. Ad is connecting with my perceived knowledge about “Search engine advertisement”
keyword through “cost-per-click“. So it is informative.
3. It induces me an offer worth of $50 credit.
4. Calling me to give a try means I can walkaway if I don’t like it.
5. It has the convincing appeal, that site is dedicated to only for search marketing by displaying “searchmarketing.yahoo.com”

So this Yahoo search marketing ad has more appealing qualities.
• Endorsement by known brand Yahoo.
• Free Credit of $50 value proposition
• Calling for my action with trial with no string attachment.
• Also promising it will be more informative and fulfilling for my knowledge seeking.
• Also has special wording “cost-per-click” which increase my perceived knowledge about internet advertisement.
The keyword “Search Engine Advertisement” not very specific about buying anything rather it is more cognitive oriented looking for information. The ad3 and ad2 are very generic, looking for a buyer and are not interested in educating or informative. Not asking the searcher to interact with them either. Ad3 has unverified claim as “Industry leader” also asking visitor to spend $29.9

Posted in Google Adwords, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Advertisement | No Comments »

Consumer Trust and Google Adwords

Consumer Behavior on Google Adwords

I am bit surprised to see Microsoft adCenter advertisement appearing on Google Adsense site.

Recent study Search Marketing Shows Strength in 2006 by searchenginewatch.com quotes that Microsoft Adcenter revenue has jumped to 68 percent, compare to 29 percent of last year 2005. But Google! still rule the search engine advertisement market accounts 96 percent, followed by yahoo 82%. Advertiser who uses Google Adwords also advertises in Yahoo. But marketers bet more money on Adwords than Overture.

Is there any reason why Google is on Top?

Google traffic provide more CTR (click through ratio) and higher conversion rate because,

Google audience are more target oriented, looking for a way to accomplish their task. (such as seeking some information, looking to download something and etc.)
Google visitor have positive attitude towards Google listings.

Buy from First Ad

Nico Brooks’s How Search Engine Rank Impact Conversions (Published in American Marketing Association, 2005) article highlights few interesting points.

The conversion potential between position one and position two ad varies significantly among Google and Yahoo listings.

In Google Adwords listings, advertisement placed at top most position (#1) has 100% conversion potential. Where position two ads attract only 54.5%

In yahoo listing, conversion difference between position one and two ad is 27% (100% and 73%)

This Buy from first ad attitude might have been adopted from consumers perceived thinking about Google Search result. 92% – 96% of the consumer think that Google Result is more accurate and relevant compare to other search engine. Which eventually influence them to click and buy from the first ad listed by Adwords.

It is worth to bid more for top most position in Google Adwords. There is an Search Marketing Tool , which can help you managing the Ad position. That tool may not work with Google adwords.

Posted in Consumer Search Behavior, Google Adwords, Search Engine Advertisement | 1 Comment »

Search Engine Advertisement - $9.4 billion market

Search Engine Ad Steady Growth

The search engine advertisement spending at North America has reached $9.4 billion on 2006, 63 percent more than last year 2005 ($5.75 billion). By 2011 this spending will be doubled to $18.6 Billion as per clickz.com prediction.

Out of $9.4 billion $ 8.0 billion has been spend on Search engine paid placement service (Google Adwords & Yahoo Search Marketing), remaining $1.4 billion spent on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Although corporates are yet to be convinced by the performance, Search engine ad market is confident in getting more fund in coming years. Most of the Search Engine marketers are betting on Direct Response as a outcome of Paid Placement advertisement, shows little interest in Branding.
The inferred success factors over other marketing medium is

• Target ability
• Tracking
• Deliver ability and Flexibility
• Pull Technology
• Cost effective
• Customer- centric marketing

Based on the “Behind the Numbers: Measuring Up.” article by Loechner, Jack (OMMA Magazine, USA today jan 2004), Business To Business (b2) has accounted 87% of new sales lead generation compare to Business To Customer (B2C) 70% of new customer lead.

US Ad Spending Growth Rates on Internet

More reading about Search Engine Advertisement

• Targeting usage demographics to increase paid
• How much should you budget for search marketing in 2005,
• The holistic approach to search Engine marketing,
• How to get a bigger marketing budget approved
• Is your paid search advertising generating positive financial results?
• Search optimization,not search engine optimization

Posted in Search Engine Advertisement | No Comments »

Internet Marketing and Web Log analyzer

Generating Sales Lead from Web site log

Marketing division integrated with internet technologies (E-marketing) allows firms and marketers to identify the potential sales leads from specific geographical area. One of the effective techniques is analyzing the corporate website Log.

By analyzing the visitor behavior on corporate website, such as keyword used to find the site on search engine, Visitors IP address, number of pages visited on each visit, type of contents on the visited pages and duration spend on specific page can reveal enormous details about each visitor need. This can be used as a parameter to identify the potential buyer.

There are lot of web log analyzing tools are available, the best one in the market is Google Analytics (free to use) and web Trends
Using Google Analytical tool, an internet marketing team can track

Visitor type

• (whether daily visitors, details about Visitor Recency , corporate employee or individual),
• Network Location (whether Comcast or microsoft)
• Referring web sites
• Top Content (Most visited pages)
• Depth of each visit (How many pages have been visited by a visitor)
• and many more..

Using these parameters, the marketing team can effectively prepare list of companies or individuals who might be interested on their services. Even can be used as a sales forecasting for coming years.
For example, assume Double Click the internet advertisement company looking to buy more business in West Coast. In order to find the list of interested companies, all they need is 12 months of web log history.

By analyzing the web logs of each visitor, such as IP address, network location, number of pages visited, contents on the visited pages will help preparing the potential customer list who might be interested on DoubleClick.com advertisement service.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Type of Searches performed on Search Engines

What made me to think about this! Ha, It was about 6 years ago me on my way to work to Manhattan. When I happen to ask the fellow commuter for the direction and name of subway station that I need to use to reach British consulate office, which I was planning on doing in couple of days. He gave me a weird look why are you asking me about that and why don’t you search on net!. Today! I will have the same look if somebody asks me similar question. So that brings me to write this….
According to Internet Marketing Association, the usage of Search Engine is rising 9% every year, on 2003 it was 35%. Thought I can give a try to find all the type of search performed on Search Engines.

My immediate reaction was reaching Google and typing keyword “search types on search engine”. My eyes were glued on the first result http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/ToolsTables.html for a while until I found it is not specific. The rest of the first page results are either some search tool or adsense affiliate marketing sites with page full of shouting “Buy Now” and “Click here”. Then tried yahoo, considerably good links but most of them were outdated say 5 to 3 years old.

Then turned my search to scholar.google.com ? voila! Presented with useful link primarily research and thesis papers …Google is Google. ( I hope the researchers and scholars don’t turn themselves to search engine optimization for higher visibility).

My learnings on Search Types given below

Navigational
Looking for a specific web site that I have in mind. Although I can guess the URL , the only reason I am searching through Search engine is that it is more convenient than typing the URL. Or don’t know the URL. Scholars call such searching as Navigational

Example:
Easy Jet airline
University hospital Chicago
Car blue book

Directed
When someone want to learn something in particular about a topic. From our example, rather looking for generic terms “keyword search types” say I want to know type the of search performed only in google or in Yahoo. Such cases can be called as Directed.

Search engine usage analysts further categorize the Directed search type in two.
Closed Search and Open ended Search. In closed search, the browser (I mean consumer or user) determined to get an answer to a question that has single unambiguous answer.
For example,
Type of search performed on Google between 2004 to 2006

The open ended search queries, normally doesn’t have definite answer. Or one with unconstrained depth.

Undirected
When user want to learn anything/everything about a topic. A search query for topic x might be interpreted as “Tell me about Clinton and monica”

Advice
When searcher seeks advice, ideas, suggestions or instructions.
For example How to stop the frequent checking of my google adsense income.

Locate
Looking for information whether / where some real world service or product can be obtained.
For example: Internet Marketing e-books
List
When user want to get a list of plausible suggested web sites. Each of which might be candidate for helping the user to achieve some underlying unspecified goal.
For example:
Travel to Seattle
Universities in Oregon
Portland Newspapers

Resources
Seeking web pages where I can obtain the resources. Can be further divided into three

Download
For example Download free Search Marketing teaching book,

Interaction
Interacting web page which has resource to resolve my problem
Simple example is looking for currency converter from dollar to Pounds.

Obtain
Goal is to obtain a resource that does not require a compute use. I may print it out, but I can also just look at it on the screen. I am not obtaining it to learn some information, but because I want to use resource itself.

Perfect example is “Internet Information Act Page 12”

Posted in Online Consumer Behavior, Search Engine | No Comments »