We’ve just finalized a test of the theory, and the results exceeded our expectations. We operated on a keyword-targeted content ad group that contained five different banner ads and one text ad. We split this into six new ad groups, one for each ad type.

They suggest splitting your content ads into specific Ad groups. This technique offers several benefits:

The main reason for isolating ad types into their own ad groups is that you can set separate max CPC bids for each one. Then you can optimize each ad group for maximum CTR and cost-per-conversion. There’s another side benefit: testing ad variations becomes easier to manage and track.

The complete story from SEW

We suggest creating a separate, fine-tuned winter holiday campaign with specific, narrowly focused ad groups and relevant keywords to attract potential customers.

Again, I could be wrong but I don’t think that many Pay Per Click advertisers focus on holiday optimized ads. We have run a few in the past for holidays like Mother’s Day but never for the Xmas Holiday Season. Mostly because, the results were not glaringly different than that of the non holiday ads. Maybe we will test a few for the 07 Holiday season.

Using product specific detailed ads with mention of the holiday in question may help create holiday specific ads. This link contains a list of holidays and instructions on writing targeted product ads.

Executing a “long tail” strategy is critical to campaign success, but don’t let it distract you from the power of searches “short head” — that handful of keywords that drive most of your cost and conversions.

If your monitoring your account closely, you may see this type of behavior. The long tail keywords are less likely to triggered as they are more unique, take longer to type into the search engine, etc.

the 5 highest spending keyword phrases in a typical account comprised 52% of the total account spend. The 10 highest spending keyword phrases meanwhile accounted for 60% of the total PPC account spend

This graph shows most of a pay per click’s campaign goes to short keywords and key phrases. It would be nice to know what sample size was used for this study.

Read more about Pay Per Click Customers are taking longer to make a purchase
According to an article by MediaPost , a study done by ScanAlert shows that customers are clicking on PPC ads and completing the purchase at a later time. The study does not get into details about why this happens. I believe that during this gap in time between clicking the ad and making the purchase, customers are taking other steps toward completing the purchase (i.e. evaluating the site, reading the product description, comparison shopping. etc) .

ScanAlert found that “cautious shoppers are becoming more cautious than ever: 26% took more than three days to complete their purchases, 18% more than one week, and 6% more than two weeks. Compared with 2005, ScanAlert said, these figures represented increases of 23%, 28% and 50%, respectively.

In 2005, the average time between a consumer’s first visit to a Web site and the time of purchase was just over 19 hours, the study showed. Now it’s 34 hours, 19 minutes–an increase of about half a day

Sample used for this analysis:

ScanAlert analyzed 2.6 million online sales generated by more than 128 million visitors to 470 Web sites over the past two years–for an average site conversion into sales of 2.07%

Today, Google’s cookies placed on the customers computer, last for 30 days when advertisers are using conversion tracking. Not to mention that the customers who’s browsers do not accept cookies are not trackable. If this trend continues, at some point this time frame may have to be extended by Google.

Or, an optional or additional solution to Conversion Tracking could be to use Google Analytics which is JavaScript based and not cookie based.

Google Analytics uses 1st party cookie technology to track visitors and generate reports. 1st party cookies require that the JavaScript code be called from each web page to avoid breaching the security settings in your visitors’ web browsers.

Read more about Pay per click specialist

1. Paid search marketers are good at math. This doesn’t mean that all successful paid search marketers have a PhD in applied mathematics from MIT, but understanding numerical trends is essential to understanding what is going on in a paid search account. I’ve seen creative individuals with weaker mathematical analytical skills fail miserably simply because they had a hard time understanding how the numbers were affecting the account.<br><br>
2. A high tolerance for change is mandatory. There is no avoiding the fact that change is probably the only constant in search marketing and always will be. Assume for a moment that time travel was a reality. If I started my journey one year ago and landed today, it would take me a while to get acclimated upon opening the major search engine interfaces. The rules of paid search change constantly, and the features of the tools paid search marketers use change daily. The theories of what works in paid search seem to change as fast as the latest guru can get his/her new book on the Internet. If you’ve got a paid search marketer who says, “Well, that’s just the way we’ve always done it…” you need to run as fast as you can.
3. A passion for knowledge is imperative. Because of the dynamic nature of the search world, there’s always something to learn. Every successful search marketer I know reads everything they can get their hands on. They want to learn more about the industry and see what others are doing. Keeping abreast of industry trends is not only a good habit, it’s a job requirement for those who dabble in the PPC space. Truly successful paid search specialists live, eat, and breathe search. They talk to their husbands and wives in terms of ROI, CPC, CTR and other TLAs (OK, three letter acronyms). Hopefully these husbands and wives will not divorce them for this behavior.
4. Paid search marketers roll with the punches. There is no doubt that paid search management can be a very stressful job. Anytime you are dealing with large sums of money that can literally make or break a company, you’ve got to be a little stressed. But a little stress is a good thing. It keeps you on your toes. However, if you see a potential search marketer with two Xanax bottles, fingernails chewed to the quick, and a roll of Tums, you might want to think twice. If you don’t handle stress well, you should probably find another field – like brain surgery or skydiving.
5. Intiative drives success. The term “thinking outside the box” may be a cliché, but it applies well to most successful paid search marketers. You have to think of new ways to do things, and have the initiative to set those plans in motion, monitor them, and react to the results. I see many mediocre search marketers who are content to change a few things, but don’t want to put the work into making huge changes that can have big impacts on an account. You can’t wait around for someone on your team to come up with the idea and send it around for committee approval; you’ve got to do it, test it, and react to it.

I think this list is reasonable although it includes a small misspelling. I personally would consider requesting current or previous customer references from a pay per click specialist in addition to these 5 characteristics items.

For your information:

These charts show that Google took MORE search market share away from Yahoo and MSN

“Now when a prospect visits your website you can get an instant text message on your cell phone with all the information you want about your potential customer. You can call them or text them right back, usually while that prospect is still on your site and before they have a chance to visit your competitor,” explained Pender.

TextCall offers a service that provides text messaging from individual webpages.  The service allows customers to send you a text message from your landing page, while there still viewing the page. There are several plans available, including a reseller plan.

• Objective / Goal – You need something to measure your success against. How many clicks are you seeking per day? How many customers should convert? Even if your goals are set using an estimator, like the AdWords traffic estimator, it is better than not having an goals.
• Daily Budget – Campaigns with large daily budgets will likely require shorter test windows because they are receiving several clicks. As little as a hour or so may be all that you need. This of course depends on the popularity of the keywords being used in the campaign. Less popular keywords may result in fewer click, meaning longer test windows.
• Keywords Popularity – Less popular keywords may result in fewer click, meaning longer test windows. Long tail keywords may not get as many clicks.

Conversions - This is the most important variable of any advertising test. Its the primary objective of any marketing campaign. Run the campaign until you get your first conversion, then stop analyze and begin the next test. At a minimum you’ll know what was required (clicks, impressions, budget spent) to convert .1 person.