Archives for category: Google
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Google Pauses Merchant Beta Test

November 13, 2008 //
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Google has announced it is pausing its foray into the world of the financial comparison market to make some necessary amends to the programme.  The Google merchant programme was first spotted by the digital lookout in June of this year and caused a stir in the financial markets by replacing the top 3 sponsored listings with the merchant tool, annoying some of Google’s higher spending clients.

But it has now decided it needs to go back to the drawing board with the programme and has put it on hold while it makes some changes.  These changes are thought to be around the way in which applicant information is provided to advertisers and moving from a situation where Google held the information to one where it is sent directly to the service provider.  It is also believed there will be some slight tweeks to the commission structure and on what basis Google receives remuneration for leads.

So moneysupermarket, go compare and confused dont have anything to worry about for now.  But by the sounds of it Google will be back, and once they get their model worked out and decide to occupy top spot on key results consistently, there probably isnt much which can stop them.

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Google to Use Commissions to Promote Growth in Non Search Products

November 9, 2008 //
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From Jan 1st 2009 the current Google Best Practice Funding programme will be no more.  The programme aimed at rewarding agencies who show growth of both clients and revenues by rewarding a % rebate on all spend with Google is being scrapped.  This move has been coming for a few years with Google gradually changing the programme and its conditions to slowly reduce the amount returned to agencies.  Originally set at the market rate of 15% for agency purchases Google has tweeked and changed their model to bring it down to a level where the bigger agencies are currently on receiving 6-8% commission on their sizeable Google budgets through the current Best Practice Funding Scheme.

This obviously as cause agencies to rethink their current commercial agreements with clients and could see some major shake-ups in the search marketing agency world as existing contracts become unmanageable without the commission in place.

What has become clear in the last couple of weeks however is what Google now plans to do with agency commission, they are going to use it to grow their non-search products.  It has been clear to see recently for those who deal with Google on a regular basis, that Google is desperate to expand their product mix outside of paid search.  They have launched media planning tools, display ad creation tools and have used every given opportunity to push the Google Placement Network.  Similarly with Youtube and their video advertising options, there has been national roadshows to agencies broadcasting the availability of their video advertising options.

And now this week Google has announced that they will be introducing agency commissions on all YouTube advertising (nma article here) and it is thought that the rebate amount is going to be back up to the 15% agencies enjoy on other media channels.  There are also rumours in the industry that a commission is set to be introduced on advertising across the Google Placement Network, although only for the largest players.

So it appears Google no longer feels it needs to compete in pay per click advertising due to its dominance, and that it is better placed rewarding advertisers in the areas it wishes to grow in.  You cant really fault them on that logic.  The removal of Best Practice Funding is unlikely to see agencies pulling spend from their Google Adwords campaigns, as it remains the best performing search engine around.  But by offering an incentive to broaden the products utilised they can begin to make headway in other areas.

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Categories Google

Google to Tweek Quality Score

October 31, 2008 //
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Google has today announced plans for further changes to be made to their quality score algorithm following the changes to the Google scoring system which took place in September.

The latest announcements as announced on the inside Adwords blog are not yet in place but are likely to be in the next week so it is considering how they may affect your Adwords campaigns.  The changes come in two forms:

Position Normalisation on CTR Influence

Reading between the lines on the release (it isn’t Google’s clearest ever announcement!) Google are going to be accounting for the position of an ad when deciding how significantly CTR should apply to the quality score.  Traditionally CTR has played a huge part in the quality score algorithm and I have no doubts it will continue to do so, but the problem with it has always been, it can be bought.  The big spenders, with the deep pockets, can afford to bid to position 1 and buy a good CTR in a short space of time.  Through this latest change Google are aiming (at least I hope) to reduce the ability to do this by accounting for position when judging what constitutes a “good” click through rate.  So for example a CTR of 3% in position 5, would be determined a better judge of quality than 5% in position 1 where the ad is the first thing is searcher sees.  This should allow for a much more level playing field for the lower spending advertisers and negate, to a certain degree, the spending power of the big players.

Changes in Position 1,2 and 3

Traditionally the top 3 positions which appear above the natural search results are determined by whether the top 3 advertisers in the max CPC x QS model had a sufficient quality score to merit inclusion in the top bar (what quantifies sufficient is unknown).  These three positions are highly valuable and get high CTR due to their prominence on the page.  What the latest changes are going to do, in essence, is to place more emphasis on ad quality and QS in this equation and less on max CPC (see a trend here?).  So that if an ad in position 1 doesnt have the necessary CTR and ad quality to appear in position one, but wins the general auction, it wont stop the ads in position 2 and 3 from leap-frogging into these prominent positions.

My general feeling is that these changes will normalise the market for the benefit of the small business PPC marketer.  Obviously Google will still make their money as a lot of clicks at a medium CPC is better than a couple of clicks at a high one.  it could also prompt the big PPC spenders spend even more as they try to achieve the positions they previously hold, win win for Google!

I expect a pretty turbulent PPC landscape over the next week so Ill be keeping a close eye on things, I advise you to do the same!

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Categories Google, PPC

Google Trialling Post Code Functionality for Maps Listings

October 30, 2008 //
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A new feature appears to have been released by Google recently (I only noticed today but it may have been around for longer) which brings up a post code selection box on some generic, product/service based keywords, which could be deemed location specific.

On a search for doors a postcode input box appears beneath the top 3 paid search listings, and above the natural search results.  On input of your postcode maps listings are brought up around the specified location.

This is a nice little tool from Google and will certainly bring a lot more traffic for their maps listings.  In the past they have only been able to display maps listings when it was clearly identified through the search phrase what area the person was looking in (i.e. hotel Manchester) but with this new tool they have the potential to get traffic from any generic keyword which could be location specific.

The tool also gives you the option to save your location which also means that once this is done, Google will serve maps listings for your location on a lot more search phrases as it knows exactly where you are.  it could potentially also be used for location targeting PPC ads.  The only problem with this is if your are searching for a service you don’t want in your locality, e.g. a hotel somewhere you are visiting, you aren’t going to get the most useful results.

Google Post Code in Search Results

Google Post Code in Search Results

Categories Google

Google’s Gambling Uturn – whos does it affect?

October 22, 2008 //
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as you all should be aware Google made uturn on their gambling policy at the end of last week and now allows gambling advertisers, who can produce a valid gambling license, access to the Google Adwords programme.  I thought Id produce a quick list of the people this is going to have a major impact on as the change takes hold and more gambling websites start to go live on Adwords.

Google: Obviously this going to have a slight impact the company which made the change!  This is a massive market for online and is bound to generate a large amount of revenue for Google with some stories quoted figures as high as £300 million.

Gambling Companies: Google has opened up a huge new revenue stream for gambling advertisers which had been frustratingly out of their grasp in the past.  Having to make do with traffic and registrations from Yahoo and MSN had meant that these companies, who were willing to spend large amounts on new sign ups, were unable to reach all the available users.  This has all changed now and gambling companies are rubbing their hands together at the prospect of all the new sign ups they are set to receive from this new channel.

Affiliates: Affiliates willing to push the rules had for a long time been making the most of Google’s ban by employing out of hours bidding and trademark bidding to cash in through the gambling affiliate programmes.  With the new changes, and the requirement of a gambling license, affiliates will find it harder to bypass the system, but will also be priced out by the gambling companies as their returns are lower and so they wont be able to compete on CPCs.

Search Engine Optimisers: I’m not sure how big an impact this will have but I just wondered how the introduction of PPC listings is going to reduce the SEO volume in gambling on Google.  In theory it should remove about 20-30% of the available traffic which could impact the time and money invested in SEO by the big gambling companies.

Agencies: If you have gambling clients, rejoice!  Their value has just increased 10 fold.  So long as you are quick off the mark and get them live you could be looking at a good Q4.

Yahoo and MSN: Gambling has been a large part of Yahoo’s revenues for a while as they have made the most of the Google ban.  Now this is lifted they could see a large dent in their revenues from this channel as gambling marketers allocate more of their spend to Google.  The affect will be two fold, with advertisers looking to free up budget for Googled so reducing overall spend, and a natural reduction of competition on Yahoo and MSN which will  bring the market CPC levels down, so its a double edged sword for them.

The market is yet to settle down, and we wont know the full extent until it does but it is certainly one of the biggest announcements google have made in a while and should help their share price a little!

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Categories Google, PPC
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