July 2011 adCenter Upgrade – Intital Reaction

Microsoft announced today a new upgrade to the adCenter user interface. I was particularly excited given that I’ve been frustrated with adCenter’s interface and I’ve also given feedback to Microsoft on how it could be improved. Did they hit a home run or did they strike out(again)? Here are the changes they made and my thoughts:

1. Campaign Management
   1. The Answer Bar- This has quick links to Support/Videos/Chat. meh. Seems geared towards someone who has never done PPC in their life. I tried chatting but it said “No Representatives are Available”.
   2. Bid By Position- Google got rid of this a few months ago for a reason. No one uses it.
2. Budget Management
   1. “There will be just three budget options: Daily Standard, Daily Accelerated and Monthly Accelerated.” I really like the idea of “Monthly Accelerated”. Most of our clients are on monthly budgets so this will be helpful.
3. Account Management
   1. Simpler navigation to billing info, multiple accounts associated with one credit card, and “adCenter will increase the number of email alerts sent to customers”. In the blog post they state “these features will be particularly helpful for self-managed advertisers”. I’m at an agency. Enough said?

What they should have changed:

• Improved Dashboard- Their campaign trends/performance graphs on the Home tab are clunky and frustrating to use. I feel like I get better information when I am in the campaigns tab. It would have been helpful to have the graphs and campaign info in one tab so I don’t have to go back and forth(like Adwords).
• Data on the Customer Selection Page- Microsoft’s comparison to the MCC is useful to have your clients in one place. Now if they would just toss some data for individual clients in that view we all would be happy!
• Better Navigation- navigating between campaign/adgroup/keywords/ads is frustrating. I DON’T want to have to save whenever I make bid changes(just save them automatically). Creating ads is a pain also because I have to write them from scratch every time(give me a copy of an existing ad).

Overall I’m disappointed with the changes. This announcement has been months in the making and it was a let-down. I was hoping for more practical changes specifically in the UI. Maybe next year we’ll get them?

-Luke

Avoid PPC Disaster – Get a 2nd Pair of Eyes on Your Account

Have you noticed how much HUGE mistakes have resulted from TINY errors around the world recently? Anthony Weiner accidently sent a public message instead of a direct message on Twitter and now his career and possibly personal life is ruined. It happens often now with rapid-fire social media and it can happen with rapid-fire PPC too!One of the most important and underutilized tools for any PPC manager is a second set of eyes. Imagine if Weiner had a second pair of eyes looking at him tweeting… for one they may have stopped from being stupid at all, but they definitely would have told him to DM it.

Having a second set of eyes can save your from big or little mistakes that could simply lower your CTR or cost your client 1,000′s of wasted dollars. Here are some ways we avoid these mistakes at GFF and take advantage of a second set of eyes:

• After a brand new setup we have another PPC manager review every setting/adgroup/ad/bid to make sure everything is in place.
• A few times each month we have look over every account to make sure things are on track.
• When we feel like we’ve optimized an account perfectly we have another PPC manager look over it and find something else we can improve. This always works!

No matter how much experience you have this can help you avoid mistakes. When you are dealing with dozens of adgroups, hundreds of ads, and thousands of keywords it’s easy to make small mistakes.

Any other advantages you have found in having a second set of eyes check your account?

-Luke

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How To Pick The Best PPC Management Company

Too often, potential clients come to me unprepared.  If you manage PPC, or work for or with a PPC Management Company, you know what I am talking about.  They call, email, or fill out a form, and all they know is that they need to be advertising or improving their current advertising on Google and that your company’s website says that is what you do.  More often than not, they haven’t thought through exactly what the PPC Agency will need to do for them in order for them to be happy.

When a company goes to hire a new employee, they have set questions they ask the candidates after they have seen their qualifications in resume format.  We’ll consider the website the resume of the PPC Agency.  Once they come to you to request a proposal as an agency, here are the 10 questions that I think they should ask:

1. How long has your agency been handling pay-per-click marketing?
2. How many dedicated account reps do you have managing PPC campaigns hands-on? Do they work on anything outside of paid search?
3. Do you offer other services (SEO, web design and development, etc.), and, if so, what’s the ratio of people who work on those services to those who focus on PPC?
4. How active will you be in sharing data with me and my organization?
5. Does anyone at your agency specialize or have experience doing PPC in my particular business niche?
6. Do you offer services across multiple PPC platforms, or just AdWords?
7. What standard reports do you provide, and what types of metrics will I be able to ask for “on demand”? Will I have independent access to reporting?
8. What types of tools do you use to manage campaigns and generate reports? Are they proprietary? If I were to switch agencies or move PPC management in-house, what
would happen to my campaigns and the processes and reporting you’ve put in place?
9. What if there are specific tasks or components of my campaigns that I want to manage in-house while you handle other components? Is that possible? How do you typically
handle that situation?
10. How do you determine which metrics and goals equal success for my PPC program? How do you plan to work with me to refine and ultimately reach those goals?

(Source: wordstream.com)

Unlike an interviewee for a job position that hopes and prays they can hide any flaws they have by the way they simply respond to the questions asked, I strongly believe that as a ppc management company and a Google Adwords Certified Partner Company, we have an ethical obligation to help the potential client think through everything before they blindly get signed up for something they are too unfamiliar with.  I would even go so far as to say that if the company doesn’t ask these questions, we should be so kind as to go ahead and tell the potential customer the answers.

Some may disagree, and most sales books teach otherwise.  You know, they say things like, “strike while the iron is hot,” and “Close! Close! Close!”  Well, yeah, if you don’t close sales you won’t make any money.  I don’t disagree with that, but I do disagree with closing a sale with a client that due to lack of understanding, puts 90% of their decision base on trust, and 10% on sound knowledge of what is going to happen once they sign the dotted line.

There are mutual benefits in taking time to answer these 10 questions for the client, whether they care to hear them or not.  For example, if you have not determined which metrics and goals equal success for their PPC program with them, then one or two months later they will be calling to complain that they aren’t seeing the results they hoped for, and it will be simply because no time was taken to set goals together.

What do you think?  Am I over the top?  Are the questions over the top?  Am I missing any questions you think are critical?

-Stu