Being dynamic - keywords and otherwise
Looking at my schedule, it would not be obvious that I am that busy. But, man, this week has been a real bitch. I suppose it is a good thing and all the going-ons foretell good things to come. (Fingers firmly crossed.)
The most exciting thing is the fact that our lead flow is increasing a great deal. The question that I cannot answer is why. Two major suspects. One is that we got a nice write up on eWeek, a major IT trade journal. And, we definitely received inquiries noting that they saw the article. The other is that I have subscribed to the Findwhitepapers service which is basically like Google but they serve whitepapers and case studies. To tell you the truth, my original thought about Findwhitepapers is that it should have a nice impact on our lead flow. However, I am seeing a definite shift in percentage terms from Google originated inquiries to Findwhitepapers originated inquiries. The trouble is that I have set up all the tracking mechanism to see exactly where and how Google inquiries come from. But, I cannot do the same for the whitepapers and case study yet. So, I am happy with
the result but, the fact that I do not know the break down is killing me. For all I know, all these white paper and case study inquiries are natural searches and I am not actually getting much traffic for my money.
Of course, I am not just sitting here lamenting the lack of data. I am working on a series of replacement landing pages for whitepapers and case studies so that I can track them with some degree of precision. Time. I need more time. Fortunately, our engineers are first rate and easy to work with. I suppose the fact that I am buddy-buddy with the VP engineering does not hurt...
Oh, did a briefing with an analyst earlier in the week. This is the first time that I was going solo and I thought it went well. Sometimes I would work with the VP of Biz Dev as a team. But, this time he was not able to come. Fortunately, since it is the same story, I was pretty good at toting the company line and directing the analyst's attention to the particular area of mutual interests.
On the PR front, I have a fully loaded schedule. I am counting a minimum of four press releases in the various stages of readiness. There are two case studies in the offing, and one whitepaper waiting for final approval. My hope is to pump everything out at least a week before Thanksgiving so that we can catch the wave of year-end purchasing.
It is quite a bit of headache in coordinate all these PR activities. Need to talk nice to the customers so they can approve the work. Need to work closely with the PR agency to ensure that the deadlines and messages are met. Then, internally, the work never comes out quick enough...
Oh, I am also being chased by a bunch of on-line marketing vendors. they all offer some variation on the Google marketing theme. I am in talk with one and expect to pluck down a few grands for that program. Basically, it provides customized content with the idea that it will boost the natural ranking on the search. There are quite a few headache keywords that I am struggling to get good natural ranking placement. So, that is a particularly attractive offer. I do still need to get my arms around the financial numbers because it is presented as a licensing arrangement. But, if the content works, it would be more sensible to buy it outright.
Two other vendors that I am looking into basically offers similar solutions as Findwhiteppaers. The key difference, from my perspective, is that these vendors have a more business focus instead of technical. So, in addition to being placed on IT trade journals, I would get exposures on places like Forbes and WSJ (Wall Street Journal).
Oh, our engineers have implemented a solution where the on-line inquiries automatically get inserted into our CRM. A vital but mundane task that used to fall under my sphere of influence. Automation is a lovely thing. I now just need to inspect the entry and make some adjustments. Did I say that our engineers rock!
This is a long week and I am ready to take a break...
Oh, the Google program is going better. The good news is that the CTR and conversion rate is better than before now that I implemented a keyword focused ad format for all the campaigns. I also killed my Content network campaigns because the yield is simply too poor. So, the financial numbers are looking better. However, if I look at the Google campaigns specifically (my standard analyses lumps all on-line activities together), the performance number has been dropping. This is disturbing. I do not know what to make of this new observation just yet.
On a related front, Google AdWords has a few undocumented features. In the Silicon Valley parlance, "undocumented features" is usually a synonym to bugs. But, in this case, this is actually a feature that I would use had I read/known about it. I have heard some rumor about this feature a few weeks ago and decided to go to the source and ask how to do it. And, below you can find the the official response.
Oh, yes, I am referring to the ability to create dynamic keyword insertion into ad's. The reason this is important is because if you have hundreds or even thousands of keywords for a campaign, it is a real pain to create targeted ad's. With dynamic keywords, this helps a great deal. Of course, the drawback is that you now have to deal with key words that may not make sense with one ad format. But, first thing first.
You can use our keyword insertion tool to automatically populate a search term from your keyword list into your ad text. This tool automates the ad text creation process and minimizes the manual edits required to create unique ad text for accounts with large amounts of keywords.
Please use keyword insertion with the requirements detailed below. If your ad(s) and/or keyword(s) are not in compliance with all requirements, they will be disapproved.
KEYWORD INSERTION
Place {squiggly brackets} around one of the following, as shown, into your ad text:
{Keyword:Default Ad Text Here}
{KeyWord:Default Ad Text Here}
{keyword:Default Ad Text Here}
SPECIFICATIONS
- Default Ad Text: You must include default ad text in case your keyword exceeds ad text character limits. If you do not include default ad text, and your keyword exceeds character limits, your ad(s) and/or keyword(s) will be disapproved. The default ad text you choose must be 25 characters or less for the title and 35 characters or less for the description line (including spaces).
- Editorial Guidelines: Ad text using this tool is still subject to our Editorial Guidelines (http://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html). Therefore, if your inserted keywords are not in compliance, your ad(s) and/or keyword(s) will be disapproved.
- Character Limits: If an inserted keyword makes your ad text exceed the character limit and you have not included default ad text, your ad(s) and/or keyword(s) will be disapproved. Please be sure that the final ad text (including inserted keywords) does not exceed the character limits for each line (1st line = 25; 2nd line = 35; 3rd line = 35).
If you create text ads using non-Latin characters, please be aware that the character limit may vary. Ads in languages with double-byte characters, such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, can contain the following number of characters, including spaces: 12 characters in the title, 17 characters in each line of ad text, and 35 characters in the display URL.
EXAMPLE
Ad text created:
{KeyWord: See the Amazon} <- 'Keyword' shown with initial capitalization Gorgeous vacations for the entire family; try us out!
theamazonjungle.com
Ad text seen on keyword: amazon jungle
Amazon Jungle <- Keyword shown with initial capitalization Gorgeous vacations for the entire family; try us out!
amazonjungle.com
Ad text seen on keyword: travel to the amazon jungle (27 characters)
See the Amazon <- Keyword too long, default ad text shown Gorgeous vacations for the entire family; try us out!
theamazonjungle.com
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Legend: (at) = "@" (dot) = "."
posted by YF Juan @ 12:24 PM
4 Comments:
Thanks for posting this. It helped me and I didn't have to dig around for an hour to figure it out.
In your experience, does it matter if there is a space between the colon and your default text? It is shown both ways in this example. Thanks!
That is a fair question.
In my own use, there is no space between the colon and default text. So, if just want to know the exact usage, I would go with that.
Having said that, programtically speaking, I suspect that there is enough intelligence to parse the space.
I will confess to be too lazy to test it out. But, if you want to do a A/B test on the extra space and share your finding, it would be much appreciated.
As the saying goes, inquiring minds want to know (even if this inquiring mind is too lazy to get off his arse and do the work...)
Worked with the space. Thanks for documenting this
-Steve
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