by mtraphagen | Aug 17, 2011 | Google, Paid Search
The Google AdWords Blog announced the results of a fascinating study: Advertisers often wonder whether search ads cannibalize their organic traffic. If paid search ads were paused, would clicks on organic results increase and make up for the loss in paid traffic?...
by mtraphagen | Aug 2, 2011 | Analytics, Google, Paid Search
Whether trying to make decisions about account optimization or trying to generate accurate reports for clients, one of the most frustrating and disconcerting anomalies occurs in comparing conversion results between Google AdWords and Analytics. In both number of...
by mtraphagen | Jul 27, 2011 | Analytics, Google, Paid Search, Social Media
Almost overnight it’s everywhere on the web. It’s the Google +1 button, and if you’re an SEO-conscious webmaster and/or site owner, you’ve already got it on yours. It’s already abundantly clear that Google has big plans for this little...
by mtraphagen | Jun 13, 2011 | Google, Paid Search
A friend of mine saw the following ad in her Gmail account recently: (Hint: she sends and receives a lot of email about horses.) What happened here? How did such a large company produce such a nonsensical ad? The answer is what I call “DKI Abuse.” DKI...
by mtraphagen | May 25, 2011 | Google, Paid Search
Google announced recently that they will be changing several parameters in the Location Targeting feature available in the Adwords interface (see “Location targeting updates in AdWords”). These changes will begin rolling out after July 8, 2011, and will...
by mtraphagen | Apr 1, 2011 | Paid Search
When you hire an agency or individual to manage your paid search advertising account, you are trusting that the account is going to be professionally managed to produce the best, most cost-effective results for your business. It’s likely that you hired a manager in...
by mtraphagen | Mar 28, 2011 | Paid Search
When you hire an agency or individual to manage your paid search advertising account, you are trusting that the account is going to be professionally managed to produce the best, most cost-effective results for your business. It’s likely that you hired a manager...
by mtraphagen | Mar 23, 2011 | Paid Search
In Is Your Paid Search Agency Ripping You Off? (Part 1), we showed you how to look into your AdWords paid search account’s change log to evaluate the amount of management activity that has occurred (or worse, not occurred). Today we’ll look at how to...
by mtraphagen | Mar 22, 2011 | Paid Search
Google announced this morning that they will be rolling out “in the coming weeks” an option for AdWords advertisers to target tablet devices, such as the Apple iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the Motorola Xoom. Here are some details from the Google...
by mtraphagen | Mar 21, 2011 | Paid Search
I knew it might be bad out there. I had no idea how bad it was. My entire life as a paid search advertising account manager has been here at Virante Inc. This company trained me in state-of-the art paid search management, and then supported me in getting certified by...
by mtraphagen | Jan 24, 2011 | Paid Search
It’s out of beta and stage center in your AdWords interface: the new and improved Ad Preview Tool! In case you weren’t familiar with the Ad Preview Tool, old or new, it allows you to view ads for your keywords as they appear on Google’s search...
by mtraphagen | Jan 21, 2011 | Google, Paid Search
It’s no secret that negative keywords are one of the most powerful paid search marketing tools. By weeding out undesirable search terms, negative keywords can enable you to increase CTR and ROI by driving the right, pre-qualified traffic to your site. In many...