In a recent study published by InsightExpress, researchers found mobile ad campaigns were five times more effective than online campaigns.  This is probably why 97.8 percent of agencies see mobile advertising as a valuable part of the media plan and expect to see increases in mobile budgets across nearly all services, according to Mobile Marketer’s 2010 Mobile Outlook (which can be downloaded here).

While online campaigns still have their place in advertising, mobile campaigns were found to offer higher levels of engagement with more technical capabilities. When you couple that with a low clutter environment, you have a campaign that is more likely to increase brand impact, according to InsightExpress.

Right now, mobile web is the strongest mobile marketing tactic followed in close suite by SMS and mobile video.  Even thought mobile video is still fairly young, research showed it on par with SMS in terms of increasing brand awareness. According to the study, the following industries had a much higher response to mobile than online:

• Mobile entertainment purchase intent effect is four times higher than online entertainment intent.
• Mobile travel purchase intent effect is five times higher than online travel purchase intent.
• Mobile technology purchase intent effect is seven times higher than online technology purchase intent.
• Mobile automotive purchase intent effect is four times higher than online automotive purchase intent.
• Mobile retail purchase intent effect is eight times higher than online retail purchase intent.

We touched down in San Antonio and booked it to the convention center so that we didn’t miss the session, “How to Increase Online Visibility and Drive Traffic at No Cost.” Erik was involved in the development of this session’s content. He spoke with Moderator Philip St. Jacques and provided some background and tips on how franchises can manage local map listings. You’ll be happy to know that we made it to the session in plenty of time! The panelists were senior-level franchisors, offering real-life experiences and tips on developing online franchise marketing programs.

Philip St. Jacques, moderator
Our new friend Phil provided some background on the topic and explained what elements of online franchise marketing are free; however, he noted that while no money is exchanged for these strategies, they do require time and effort. You must determine if the effort is truly cost effective for our franchise. Phil also explained how to update maps for single-unit and multi-unit businesses through Google Local Biz Center.

Deb Evans, Pres/CEO, Computer Explores
Deb Evans spoke about social media and explained the toolkit that Computer Explores developed: “Guide to Establishing Your Social Media Footprint in 10 Days.” This portions of the session was essentially a 101 on social media with some great best practices and principles. She asked the audience how many were afraid that social media is going to suck up all their time. Many people raised their hands. Everyone’s afraid of the unknown; it’s really not that scary!

Deb said to concentrate on a few social outlets, typically Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. She said corporate and franchisees must work together to make it effective. She recommended putting links to your social media profiles on your email signatures and even business cards (just get rid of that street address, no one snail mails any more!). Phil asked what types of increased traffic or results she’s seen. Deb said they aren’t necessarily concerned with numbers. Rather, being aware of conversations about your brand is the most important result.

Bill Zinke, CMO, Tasti D Lite
Bill also spoke about social media; he explained the actual social media program that Tasti D Lite is running and the significant results he’s seen. He explained their social media mantra: Monitor, Mingle, Measure. That’s very similar to Location3’s MOM approach to social media: Monitoring, Outreach, Measurement. Looks like we’re all on the right page!

Bill said that Tasti D Lite uses Twitter more than other networks; it makes sense and works for them. He urged that the audience decide what makes sense and works best for them. He recommended connecting with influencers, including celebrities, mommy bloggers, food bloggers (or other niche bloggers that fit your product/service), media outlets and local bloggers. He recounted some great results that Tasti D Lite has seen, including concrete numbers and even some great celebrity endorsements (that they didn’t have to pay for, the celebs just really like their product!).

Grant Kreutzer, Jack in the Box
Grant discussed three aspects of online franchise marketing: SEO, website optimization and analytics. First, though, he said you must establish a concrete franchise program with clear branding and franchise marketing messaging. For SEO, he discussed site structure basics–titles, metas, alt tags, keywords–and link development fundamentals. He revealed some tools for checking the quality of site structure elements and measuring link quality. The benefits are threefold: increasing ranking, branding and establishing expertise. For website optimization, he discussed long versus short contact forms. The best form length depends on what types of pre-qualification your franchise needs. He briefly explained tracking capabilities for forms: you can see where users exit form path using analytics.

Jack in the Box uses Google Analytics. Grant provided a brief overview of GA, briefly explaining how to implement, the capabilities and features you should look at, and he walked through some of Jack in the Box’s metrics.

It’s interactive marketing weekly roundup time. Before jumping right into the articles, I wanted to explain a new format I’m trying out. I’ve received some feedback that these roundups jump from topic to topic a bit. Since we’re covering the entire interactive marketing industry, this is inevitable. However, we’d like our readers to have a pleasant and enlightening experience when visiting expertSEM; therefore, I’ve broken the articles out into separate aspects of interactive marketing. Hope this helps with the organization of topics and makes reading more enjoyable.

SEARCH MARKETING/INDUSTRY GENERAL

A decade of search: a year-by-year recap

What does a trip down search’s memory lane look like? According to Danny Sullivan, “All roads seemingly lead to Google.” Danny is offering up a series of blogs about search in the 2000s. He’s tackling a decade a post over the next few months, discussing important events and revolutionary breakthroughs, key happenings and people within each engine and other interesting items. All of the decade recap posts will be linked to his introduction post. Travel the converging search transportation system—read them all!

How to use affiliates for brand protection in paid search

Don’t just use your affiliates to help you sell products—use them to help protect your brand in the paid search landscape. This blog explains how to determine if this is a good option for you and, if so, how to go about doing it. Obviously, clearly defined affiliate marketing parameters are a necessity. You should also hand-select the affiliates that you want to use and, naturally, monitor every element of the program. Read the full article to learn more details on using affiliates in paid search.

Google patent filings

To ensure that all roads continue to lead to Google, the search giant updated a number of patent filings in January that cover technologies for behavioral targeting, video content and maps. The behavioral targeting patents focus on methods for delivering ads across networks by compiling stats on individuals and those networks, and tracking capabilities. Video content patents focus on ad overlays and video promos on video-sharing sites. And the maps patent focuses on delivering more aesthetically pleasing maps and panoramic or 3D maps. Learn more about these patents on MediaPost.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky Digital Peep Show

In the first installment of the AMA Digital Dynamics series, Winston Binch of Crispin Porter + Bogusky will provide a look into the digital programs and campaigns developed by the ubiquitous agency. Winston is a partner at CP + B and the managing director of interactive. He’s discuss some of the creative tactics and strategies utilized to make brands famous, change culture , connect with customer and deliver business results in an ever-evolving digital landscape. The webinar is taking place on Wednesday, February 17 at 2:00 p.m. MST. Register for the free webinar today. Location3 Media is a proud sponsor of the Digital Dynamics series.

SEO

How to overcome the challenges of huge online commerce sites

Massive online retails sites offering thousands upon thousands of products can be a major challenge for an SEO. Duplicated content with other distributors, lack of in-depth product descriptions and confusing navigation are just some of the issues SEOs face. This article provides some solutions for making online retail sites SEO-friendly. Check out the full article.

New image SEO tool

A new SEO allows you to evaluate images on a website to determine if search engines can read them effectively. Image descriptions, called “alternative text” or “alt text,” tell search engines what is contained in the images, allowing them to properly index that image. Alt text also helps visually impaired searchers using a screen reader. The new tool actually analyzes the alt text and counts the number of words to ensure it’s descriptive and accurate, rather than just checking to see if images have alt text. Check out a more in-depth description of the new tool.

What’s a link worth?

What’s a link really worth? It’s an arbitrary issue, but so is every value placed on marketing efforts, we’ve just come to accept the numbers. So it’s time that we really understand and agree on how to determine the worth of a link. This series of articles helps to explain how to value linking activities and determine ROI. Read part one and stay tuned for the remainder of the series.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

European firms try out twitter

Twitter doesn’t have quite the same following in other countries as it does in the United States. But not for long. European firms have recently jumped on and begun to embrace Twitter, according to the Wall Street Journal. Finally. Sheesh!

Five thing true social media experts do

The moral of this article: Don’t be an expert at social media, be an expert at communication. So these five tips will help you become great at social media, but only because you’re becoming a better communicator. The five tips are: 1. highlight others; 2. listen harder and listen to everyone; 3. adapt; 4. get passionate; 5. ignore social media “experts” and checklists. Read the full article.

Measuring social without tools

Can’t afford expensive tracking and measuring tools? Or just want to measure your results more organically? Check out this brief article where industry pros explain, via Twitter, how they measure social media results manually. Well, mostly manually.

Social media is not all roses

Naturally, we think social media is the bees knees. But nothing is perfect and even social media has its flaws. The Copywriter Underground offers some examples of social media gone bad, and how to avoid these pitfalls (awareness being the strongest weapon).

INDUSTRY RESEARCH

Report: 2010 digital marketing budgets increase in 2010

According to a report released by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, digital marketing will account for 24% of overall marketing spend this year. Report findings come from a survey of more than 1,000 companies worldwide. SEO budgets will increase for 64% of companies , PPC budgets will increase for 51% and social budgets will increase a whopping 70%. Download a free sample of the report or you can purchase the full report.

Complete the SEMPO Survey

The Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) is currently seeking participants for their annual survey, “State of Search Engine Marketing,” which helps to document industry spending and investigate new trends. Both in-house and agency SEM pros are encouraged to complete the survey and you don’t need to be a SEMPO member. Complete the survey before February 22 .

PewResearch: Social media/mobile use among millennials

What are those cooky millennials currently doing online? It’s not blogging, that’s for sure. According to a report by PewResearch, blogging popularity has declined since 2006, especially among teens and early twenty-somethings. Nor are they tweeting much. While teens typically use most other online networks more than adults, Twitter is an exception: only 8% of 12-17 year olds use Twitter. Discover more social media stats from PewResearch.

LOCAL SEARCH MARKETING

Google Maps personalized search

On Tuesday, Google announced personalized suggestions and staring capabilities for Google Maps on the Android. Personalized suggestions and starring allow you to save places and access them later, and will be synched between desktop and mobile devices (as long as you’re signed into your Google account). Read the official announcement on the Google Mobile Blog.

Google Maps adding store view

Continuing on their quest to map the entire world and everything in it, Google is now taking photographs inside stores to provide “Google Store Views” on Google Maps. According to a tip received by Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land, Google is taking 360 degree shots every six feet inside stores. Other than stating that they’re always experimenting, Google had “nothing further to announce at this time.” Read Barry’s full article.

Trespass lawsuit again Google affirmed

The U.S. Appeals Courts has allowed a trespass lawsuit against Google to move ahead, after dismissing a handful of other claims related to the case. In early 2008, a PA couple sued Google for taking pictures of their home for Google Street View, stating that their residence was clearly marked with a private, no trespassing sign. The couple filed claims for trespassing, invasion of privacy, punitive damages and others. While they’re expected to win the case, they won’t received much from Google for damages. Read the full article.

How to engage in Google “Mapvertising”

http://searchengineland.com/six-odd-tactics-for-getting-ads-into-google-maps-33883
The prevalence and popularity of Google Maps has gotten the creative juices flowing for digital marketing pros. Search Engine Land recently posted an article discussing six unique methods for advertising on Google Maps, including “roofvertising” and “land art” (think crop circles but with branded messaging). While these tactics are not yet being used, they have potential and could be the norm in the near future. Read the full article.

So last night before heading to bed I logged on to Facebook, an all too common occurrence with me. Lo and behold, what’s this, a new homepage design?! It seems like just yesterday we were all in a flurry over the last homepage redesign that we thought ended our relationship with Facebook as we knew it. Of course we all adjusted and can hardly remember what it was like before and why we were so mad about it. However with this new redesign I am seeing more of the positives rather than the negatives. First off, my favorite reason for visiting Facebook is to see the pictures posted by all my “friends”.  Now when you sort your feed by photos, there is a much more efficient use of space, showing around 24 photos above the fold rather than the maybe 5 you would see before.

Facebook Homepage Photo Sort

Another great feature is the ability to email friends without leaving your homepage. Actually, there seem to be a lot more activities to engage in without leaving home, such as searching through applications, groups and games. In fact, click on the games button and find out which games your friends are playing, just in case you want to join them for an exciting round of Fishville or Roller Coaster Kingdom. The chat function has also taken up new real estate on the left hand navigation, showing the top 5 friends online, reminding you that it’s just that easy to say hello in real time to your ex boyfriend from elementary school, or that girl that looks relatively familiar but you just can’t figure out from where.

So all in all, I’m liking the new layout, or at least what I’ve seen so far. Let me know what you think. What part do you like the most, and what feature has inspired you to write a strongly worded letter to Mark Zuckerberg telling him how he owes you and the entire Facebook community and apology?

Samantha Bedford, Location3 Media’s recently-dubed SVP in charge of account services, discusses web analytics. Samantha talks about why analytics is so important for online marketing campaigns, which analytics provider she prefers, the new features released by Google Analytics, interesting projects she’s worked on and much more.

Often an agency will get a contract to manage a paid search campaign that has previously been managed in house or by another agency. One of the first things the new account manager should do is audit the current campaigns including ad text, keywords and landing URLs, etc.

As there is no one standard way of running a successful campaign, more often than not the new account manager will start to restructure the account in a way that suits their optimizing and reporting needs.

Here are a five things to consider before you start moving, deleting and creating campaigns, ad groups and keywords:

1. Download the original account set up from AdWords editor and save it.

2. When you start a restructure I recommend that you do not overwrite the old campaigns or delete them. You don’t know if you will need to revert back to the old structure for some reason in the first few days, weeks or even months of managing the campaign.

3.Google’s quality score is key to a successful campaign. There is some thought that even though the keyword seems out of place in one ad group it’s historic performance within that ad group will essentially allow it to gain a very high quality score.

For example an ad group can be running a set of “online” themed keywords, and within that group there a a few non-online keywords that have been added over time via the search query report because they have converted. With a high quality score in a performing ad group these keywords can be set to fairly low bids and still remain in the top ad positions.

If you restructure the campaign and separate these keywords out in to their own ad group, you might lose the high quality score for each of the keywords, forcing CPC bids up and losing position status in the sponsored ad results and ultimately losing conversions.

Someone mentioned that Quality Sore is set at the account level, but I have seen a keyword moved into a new ad group and drop from an 8/10 to a 3/10. Plus this is Google, you never know when they change things up.

4. The ad approval process. I don’t know about you, but I have found that the approval process for text and image ads has become, in some instances, painfully slow. This essentially stops your campaign cold.

Where I have restructured a small part of an account after auditing landing pages and keywords of one campaign I have waited over 24 hours for the new ad groups to have their text ads approved. If you are making changes over a span of a few days or a week you can see a noticeable reduction in traffic and conversions.

5. Losing important keywords in the reshuffle – I have done this, I admit it. If you take on an account that is fairly narrow in terms of campaigns, ad groups and keywords and you decide to concentrate on building it out to try and cover every variation you can think of, you can still overlook fairly generic terms that previously worked.

This can happen to you whether you like infinitely long keyword builds with each keyword having a broad, phrase and exact variation or; if you’re like me, you like specific small keyword builds where the exact and phrase matches actually make sense.

When you audit the campaign make sure you are aware of exactly which keywords work and make sure they are in your new structure. Or keep them in their old structure to maintain the historic relevance they have (and by that their quality score).

As things get keep busier and busier here at Location3 Media, I’m finding myself getting constantly pulled in seven directions, and failing to stay on task. Not that I’m wasting time – I just feel as if I am hopping from one thing to the next as someone ‘pops-by’ and needs something that I know I can give them in a moment. (Just now I find myself tearing away from this blog post to answer to someone calling my name across the room – bad!)

So. In hopes that I’m not alone – I decided to cover some tips for staying focused at work for my tip of the week. Being my profession, I took to Google and found some GREAT tips from a blogger/software engineer/entrepreneur Dave Cheong. He has two great posts “18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work” and “11 Ways of Staying Focused“

Here were some of my faves (including stuff I already do) and those I hope to move on quickly:

1. Write out a daily task list - a classic that I have sort of lost the habit on. Better start with this one.
2. Allocate time slots colleagues can interrupt you – wow. I can’t even imagine how this one would work around here. I’m putting this on my list just so I can work towards allowing less interruptions – however I’m pretty guilty of this one, so maybe I should start with how much I barge in on my coworkers.
3. Having well defined goals – an important one that many of the other suggestions build on. I find that having goals and initiatives (that are formulated from top management down) helps me prioritize tasks for day to day activities as well as track progress, which ultimately helps people stay on task as well as provide motivation to see things through.
   
4. Common Sense – I’m not finding myself tripped up on things like personal email or calls, a messy desk, hunger, thirst, shopping websites, Digg, Facebook, etc. – but those things are common intruders on your day that can easily be closed and saved for lunch or winding down after work. As Dave says, “What seems to work for me is making the distractions difficult or inconvenient to access. Because it takes too much effort to indulge in the distraction, I find it less likely for me to give in.” I know it’s hard when we get placed in front of the magic box that can provide limitless entertainment – but you’re a big kid, you can do it.
5. Focus on results, and reward yourself when warranted – Lastly, Dave reminds us to keep the end in mind. The task you are working on this moment may seem mundane and pointless, but remember the big picture (your well defined goal) to keep motivation. As well, when you are feeling particularly restless and lost – remember how far you have come, and when it makes sense, reward yourself for staying on task and completing your goals.

What are some of your tried and true methods of staying on task and avoiding distractions?

Another busy week in the search, social media and online marketing industry. In this week’s interactive marketing roundup, you’ll discover if Twitter has reached it’s peak in popularity, if Facebook has finally developed a way to value fans and what Google now plans to do in China. You’ll also learn how many Americans actually Google themselves, tips on developing successful local, mobile and SEO campaigns and much, much more.

1. 30 Black Hat SEO Techniques You Can Use Ethically

You’ve heard the warnings before: Be wary of black hat SEO. If you use black hat methods, Google will find out, you’ll wind up forever banner from the SERPs and you’ll grow a tail like a donkey. Yeah, it’s that bad. But what if you could use black hat for good? Well you can and this blog post tells you how. Money quote: “[It’s] like knives: You can slice bread with a knife but you can kill with it as well. It’s your decision how you use the knife.” Read the full post. Black hat is back!

2. Has Twitter peaked?

According to Compete, Twitter’s visitor number has flatlined, if not decreased, since mid-2009. Twitter had approximately 22 million visitors in December 2009, which was nearly 770,000 fewer than its highest number in August. Twitter and analysts are saying the numbers look bad because grow was so significant in the beginning of the year. They’re also saying it’s not a failure because the people who use it are using it more than ever. My humble opinion: No one goes to Twitter.com anymore. They use applications like TweetDeck, HootSuite, Tweetie, or the numerous others out there. Read the full article on CNN.

3. Facebook Develops Conversion Tracking Tool: What’s A Fan Worth?

Sure, managing a Facebook Page is fun and often a nice reprieve from other more tedious duties. But if you don’t measure the value and determine what a fan is worth to you, what’s the point? Answer: There is no point. That’s why Facebook is working on a conversion tracking tool to measure clicks that should be available by end of March. Read more about Facebook’s plans at MediaPost. I smell a new initialism! CPF – cost per fan.

4. OMMA Social Coverage

MediaPost’s OMMA Social took place on Tuesday in San Francisco, covering all things social media management, from Facebook ads and Twitter predictions to social measurement practices and mobile implications for social. A few attendees and speakers offered coverage of the show: Mike Boland, BIA/Kelsey; Blake Cahill, VisInsights; and Jason Heller, The Digital Blur.

5. SES London Coverage

Search Engine Strategies is holding their annual London show on February 15-19. To generate some excitement for the event, they’ve gathered some pre-show press. Check out the advanced blog coverage of SES London 2010.

6. Video SEO Tips

The search engines want to index videos but few people are submitting it correctly. That leaves tons of room for the rest of us to get videos ranked prominently. This article provides some tips for optimizing your videos, properly submitting them and the best video platform providers to use. Read the full article on Search Engine Watch.

7. Google claims they will remain in China

We’ve all said things we didn’t quite mean in the heat of the moment. Or maybe we did mean them, but realized later it would not be the best course of action. Google has recently found themselves in this situation with regards to China. Two weeks ago, the search engine staunchly stated that they would pull out of China if they cannot end censorship of search results. Now, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is saying that even if Google.cn doesn’t remain, Google will stay in China to run its research center and/or ad sales division. Says Schmidt: “We have made a strong statement we wish to remain in China…We like the business opportunities there and we would like to do that on somewhat different terms than we have.”

Google isn’t the only one discussing the issue of censorship on the internet. This week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shared his opinions on the matter in a blog post on The Microsoft Blog. Writes Ballmer: “We have done business in China for more than 20 years and we intend to stay engaged, which means our business must respect the laws of China…At the same time, Microsoft is opposed to restrictions on peaceful political expression, and we have conversations with governments to make our views known.”

8. How to Win the Local Search Trifecta

Local is becoming the main focus for every aspect of search—PPC, SEO and maps. But to win the local search trifecta, you must use different techniques than you would with general/national search. This Search Engine Journal blog explains how local and brick-and-mortar businesses can leverage these three areas of local search marketing to build their businesses. Although I don’t agree with his reference to all areas as local SEO, the author offers some great tips for building a local online presence on the SERPs.

9. Only 42% of Americans Have Googled Themselves

I call bluff! A survey commissioned by Microsoft polled 2,500 consumers and recruiting pros in the United State, United Kingdom, Germany and France asked if consumers used a search engine to find information about themselves. I know what you’re probably thinking; I was perplexed at first, too. Apparently, the survey inquired about all search engines in general, not just Google. Anyway, only 42% of U.S. consumers claim that they Google themselves. U.K. consumers are at 36%, France at 56% and Germany at 59% (some might call that narcissism, I call it honesty!). But recruiting pros are name-Googling fanatics—79% review online info about job applicants and 70% admit they’ve rejected a candidate based on what they learned. Read the full article on Search Engine Land.

10. How to Create a Mobile PPC Game Plan

Everything is going mobile, including paid search marketing. If you are a smart cookie (and we know you are cause you’re reading this blog!), you already have mobile marketing PPC on your list of things to tackle in 2010. Now’s the time to get started on your campaign. This Search Engine Journal post walks you through a short checklist of items to get your mobile PPC campaign off and running. The steps are 1. Start with the user; 2. Extend current media buys; 3. Advertise within apps; and 4. End with user. Read the full article.

11.Click to Call in local ads on Mobile devices

Google officially announced the ability to include click-to-call phone numbers in local ads on mobile devices with full internet browsers. Rather than clicking on your URL then sifting through your entire site to find contact info, users can simply click on a unique phone number in the ad to be connected to the nearest location. And you can easily view results of click-to-call numbers so you can determine performance. Check out the Google AdWords blog for more info.

Working with these advertising platforms every day for the past four years means I have come across several things that just generally frustrate me about each one of them. I am not sure if any of their developers will read this blog post but if they do, (hello) I would like to note that this isn’t a tirade, it is meant to be constructive criticism. Even with all my experience I may have just missed some of the functions on the interface, so feel free to leave comments.

Yahoo! Search Marketing
Managing a lot of large campaigns on Yahoo! is a frustrating experience. In general, the interface is slow and the transparency that is offered by Google AdWords makes YSM look like China. You want to do business with them, but who knows what is exactly going on in the factory that is making your products.

1. GEO Targeting Interface — There is no ability to select the USA as a whole and exclude one or two states
2. No ability to hide paused campaigns or ad groups
3. Although Yahoo! had graphs before Google, there is no option to see two metrics and it only appears at the campaign and ad group level (not the account or keyword level)
4. When trying to sort by Campaign or Ad Group it will display Z-A first and if you sort again to display by A-Z and then go into a campaign on ad group and then go back it will again be sorted Z-A
5. Content bids — the interface will force you to enter a content bid if you update any settings within the campaign even if content is off
6. Any of the reporting, especially the lack of a Search Query Report, maybe because they know how dodgy the advanced matching can be
7. Lack of an offline editor (OK I know there is one available but you have to be granted special permission by the Yahoo! gods to access it)
8. Default keyword bids — once keywords have been given individual keyword bids there is no way to bulk edit back to the default bid
9. Updating multiple ads with new ad copy is laborious due to the fact that you cannot save one ad change and stay on the same interface to edit the next ad
10. Individual keyword bids – really, do I need to see an individual dialogue box for each keyword bid change?

Bing MSN adCenter (Desktop & Web Interface)
I have always viewed MSN to be the weaker child of the three large engines when it came to advertising. Even with the release of their Desktop Editor nearly two years ago things didn’t improve due to the fact that the editor was slower than than the web interface. Things are starting to improve and I enjoy working with it more than Yahoo!, although a few gripes remain.

1. Do I call it Bing or MSN?
2. The web interface does not work on Google Chrome
3. The Home tab of the interface is redundant due to the sizing of the Account and Campaign information
4. Uploading changes from the adCenter desktop does not allow you to select which accounts and campaigns to sync
5. No pretty graphs — I am a visual person
6. The Desktop Editor in some ways behaves like a web interface instead of a text editor; like most geeks, I like the uncomplicated white space style of Notepad
7. Keyword insertion — if you would like title case keyword insertion to appear in your ads you need to have the keywords in title case in your ad group
8. The ability to run a search query report is great, but the inability to interact with it by adding keywords and negatives from it directly to your ad groups or campaigns is a little frustrating
9. When writing ad copy you don’t know if you have hit the 70 character limit until you hit save
10. Negatives cannot be assigned a match type

Google AdWords (Web Interface & Editor)
As Google is the most transparent of the three advertising interfaces, and the most advanced, my list will seem fairly nit picky to some. I have worked extensively on both the old and new web interface and have used the Editor since 2007. If you know a solution to any one of these points then please let me know!

1. I am a fan of the new feature in Editor where you can apply keywords, ads and almost anything else to multiple campaigns and ad groups; however, they forgot to make the list view on the left resizable so your campaign and ad group names are cut off if they are too long
2. Also a new addition to the Editor is their Keyword Opportunities area — here you can dump a huge list of keywords and allow Google to filter them for low traffic before adding them to ad groups; a small complaint about this new dialogue box is the lack of a Select All function before being able to add the match type to an ad group (currently Ctrl+a gets a work out on my keyboard)
3. The keyword tool is hidden on the Opportunities tab in the new web interface
4. The Keyword Opportunities area on the web interface would be a better tool if you could select to ignore its suggestions for each ad group or even mark some of them as “what are you thinking?”
5. Cannot hide paused campaigns or ad groups in the Editor
6. As extensive as the help is from the Google Account Managers, even they don’t know the details of new features when they are released and, on few occasions, a copy and paste from a Google Help article that you have already read is all they are able to provide
7. Current broad matching standards — a recent search query report showed the phrase “i miss u music songs” matching an IT-related keyword; Did it broad match to the “i” in IT?
8. Unlike Yahoo! and MSN, who allow a total string of 71 and 70 characters respectively in ad copy, the 35 and 35 character limits for each line on Google becomes a little frustrating
9. Image ad reporting — there are some smart cookies at Google so why can we not have a report that collates the data of image ads which run across multiple campaigns and ad groups if the name of the ad is the same across the campaigns and ad groups?
10. The link at the bottom of your Campaign list titled “Create a TV Campaign” takes you out of your normal AdWords interface and at this moment I am still trying to get back to my normal AdWords interface.*
^{*At the time of publishing I had found my way home – on the left nav bar (which I never have open) you click on All Online Campaigns.}

Last week I posted how easy it is to migrate a Google AdWords campaign to Micrsoft’s adCenter. At the same time Yahoo! Search Marketing announced a new import feature that allowed you to take the same AdWords CSV file and dump it directly into their web interface without any modifications or converting it to a Yahoo! CSV. This has made my account manager life just that little bit easier. It was a long time coming and with the advent of Yahoo! and Bing’s merger later this year it may be a little late but it will make the last few months on Yahoo!’s ad interface less frustrating.

Unlike the adCenter Desktop, Yahoo! will strip what is considers duplicate keywords (plurals, similar phrases) and all keywords are set to advanced match. You will have to go through an reset any geographic targeting and set the campaign to run on Yahoo! Search only as it defaults to the Yahoo! Network (which is not considered high quality). It will also import any tracking (analytics, etc.) that you have set on your text ads so you may want to change this in the AdWords CSV before continuing (Google Analytics needs the keyword tag to be set to YSMKEY for Yahoo!).

As with adCenter you will need to have the client account already created on Yahoo!

Start by exporting your campaigns from Google’s AdWords Editor (File – Export Spreadsheet (CSV) – Export Selected Campaigns and AdGroups). Log in to the Yahoo! Search Marketing interface and navigate to the account you will be importing the campaigns in to. Even if you already have campaigns running in this account with the same names you will be given the choice to either create brand new campaigns, merge or overwrite.

On the right hand side of the screen you will see a Import Campaigns button. This will take you to the Import screen.

Import PPC Campaigns in to Yahoo

Browse for the AdWords CSV file from the Choose File button. Once this is selected you will be shown additional options for your import including how the system should handle duplicate campaign names, campaign budget settings and negative keywords.

Importing Options on YSM

Advanced Import Options

You also have the option to create a converted file. This will convert the AdWords CSV to a Yahoo! CSV that you can edit offline before importing.

Convert AdWords CSV to YSM

When you have selected your options click Import File. Like with adCenter, it takes a little while if it is a large campaign but there is a handy status bar to let you know where you are at with the procedure. After the import has finished you can review the summary including any errors that occurred during the process. It will tell you that 0 campaigns were imported but you will have to ignore this. I did try and download the error file it generated but I had better things to do than to wait for an 18mb CSV file to download.

Campaign Import Summary

Unless you have set the campaigns to Paused in the Google CSV before starting the process they will be live on Yahoo! Search and on the Yahoo! Network as soon as the import is finished. Any campaigns that were imported that had the same name as an existing campaign will be appended with “New_CMPGN_” if you chose to create a new campaign instead of overwriting or deleting the old.

Reset your targeting and you are good to go!