Thus far, most accounts chosen for the Beta have been enabling the links for their branded Campaigns.  Branded keywords will most likely trigger the Sitelinks versus non-branded.

An advertiser can log into their AdWords account, choose a Campaign, go to the Campaign Settings tab and post up to 10 Sitelinks.  Once the links are named and assigned landing pages, they may show along with your Paid Search ad in Google’s results.

Here you can see an example for First Response pregnancy tests:

And here is another example for Arm & Hammer Cat Litter:

While you can set up to 10 links to be included, keep in mind there is no guarantee any or all of them will show.  A maximum of four links can show at any given time.  For example, First Response has four implemented while only two have shown for this query.  Cat Litter also has four implemented and all are showing for the above query.

We have already seen some amazing lifts in CTR for many of our accounts running Beta Sitelinks.  On average, our clients have seen around 75% – 90% increases in CTR.  Some accounts are even lucky enough to see 100%+ lifts in CTR.

While there are obvious improvements to CTR, conversions are another story.  Preliminary results for only a couple clients do not show us an increase to CVR.  I must stress these results are preliminary.  Over the next month, we will be looking at a larger client based opted into Sitelinks and will then be able to determine the affect they’ve had on CVR. 

Sitelinks are good for searchers because they help them find the page they are looking for more easily.  They are also great for Google because a higher CTR means more clicks, and more clicks means more money for the engine.   From what I can tell so far, Sitelinks do not have an affect one way or another for clients tracking to a conversion, however, I hope to find that some clients will see a lift over the next month.  Be sure to check back for Round 2! 

Do you have any results you can share?  Are you seeing the same average lift in CTR as we have?

Google Local Listing Ads have been launched in Beta for the San Francisco and San Diego areas.  These are not to be confused with Location Extension Ads, formerly known as Google Local Business Ads (LBAs).

Previously, Local Business Ads were managed through the Local Business Center Interface.  Now that LBAs have been converted to Location Extension Ads, they are managed through the AdWords interface.  For more information on Location Extension Ads, click here.

The new product, Local Listing Ads (LLAs), is in Beta, will be managed through the Local Business Center interface, is free only for the first 30 days, and the listings will be shown in Google.com search results as well as Google Map results.  You can view a short LLA tutorial on YouTube here. 

The Questions

The launch of the Local Listing Ads Beta brings two main concerns:  Placement and Pricing (I feel like I’m jumping back to the 4 P’s of Marketing in College.)

Placement:  In the video, the example shown on the Map results page looks exactly like an AdWords Paid Search ad, with the alternative colored background and label of “Sponsored Links.”   Given this, I’m curious to know how they will visually differ from Location Extension, Paid and Organic listings.  If they will indeed serve in this form, there’s not a solid way to differentiate them from Paid or Location Extension Ads.  When the Beta is over, maybe they will be labeled properly?  Back lit in a different color?  Higher character limits than traditional paid ads?

Pricing:  Advertisers using LLAs will be charged a flat monthly fee which Google determines based on what type of business it is and where it’s located.  Um…okay.  I guess?  That sounds a little vague to me.  (Kind of like cost-per-click, but we’ll go there another time.)  How will Seamus McDaniels, a pub in the Dogtown area of St. Louis, know they aren’t being charged more than Nick’s Pub located just down the street?  Same type of business…same area…will they pay exactly the same monthly fee?  What goes into determining an appropriate price?  And as the space and volume changes, how will these factors affect pricing?

The Concerns for Paid Search Advertisers

Now let’s jump into this from a Paid Search Marketer perspective.  In Google’s official statement, they say:

“Local Listing Ads will be displayed in separate ad slots, independent of the AdWords auction.  Due to this separation, Local Listing Ads should not affect the AdWords auction dynamics, ad ranks or quality scores.”

“Auction dynamics” are the important words here. 

I understand LLAs will be managed outside of the AdWords interface and will not directly affect Paid Search ads, however, no one can tell me that putting something new on the Google SERPs isn’t going to impact searcher behavior and take some clicks away from Paid and even Organic listings.  It’s like telling me your Organic listings don’t affect your Paid and vice versa.  Or sticking your logo into your Paid listing isn’t going to get you a few extra clicks.  And so on and so forth.  Therefore, we can assume if searchers click on LLAs, Paid search listings will lose those clicks, resulting in lower CTRs, and on down the hill we roll.  Naturally, this will not be the case for every query, nor every advertiser.  However, you have to admit it’s possible any time you throw something else up there.

When the ads are shown on Google.com SERPs, there can be up to four shown on the top rail and up to four ads shown on the right rail.  When they are on the top rail, they will show below the Paid listings and above the Organic listings.  When on the right rail, they will show above the Paid listings.  What?!  So that means my Paid ads are going to be pushed down up to FOUR places on the right rail?!  What about all those studies that show the impact on placement for Paid search ads?  So instead of being in position 1 on the right rail, I could now be in position 5 on the right rail. Do YOU want to be in position 5 when you’re shooting for 1?  I typically do not.  I’m sure the argument which could be made here is that the LLAs are not going to take ad slots from Paid Search.  Right.  They’re just going to go before the Paid slots.

And let’s also not forget about those Organic listings getting pushed down the page up to four places.  As an advertiser, how will you feel about four more pieces of real estate showing before you can get a word in edge wise?

By setting aside prime positioning for Local Listing Ads, Google is putting an emphasis on the importance of local businesses.  (Economy? Politics? We won’t go there.)  What the searchers want?

Am I totally against Google Local Listing Ads? Nah.  I’m all for whatever makes a better search experience.  After all, I’m still a searcher, too.

A very specific example that I have of this is one of my clients saw a 100% increase in their CPC for their brand term in MSN over just one week. We probed MSN to see what the possible reasons could be for this huge increase in one week – their answer was “could be competition.” My first problem with this answer is the could part. Don’t they have a better understanding than could? My second issue with this answer is the competition part. I went online and checked who the competition was, and to my surprise, there was none. I hit the refresh button; again, no competition.

The above is just one example of the increase of CPCs in MSN without a solid explanation. I have seen through another one of my clients our branded CPC has increased from the $1.00 range well into the $3.00 range in a very short period of time, without any obvious changes in the SERP environment.

Yahoo! is not immune to this problem either. They actually had started to show large increases in CPCs about 3 or 4 months ago with no explanation. I have my own explanation – Jerry needs to hit quarterly expectations… I know I said it, it is out there.

Google has increased the CPCs the best so far, and I am not going to go into detail about their Real Time Quality Score. Please read Erika Moersch’s “Google’s Real Time Quality Score Changes Your Query Results” post for more on how this changes the current landscape. I have noticed CPCs go up for a majority of my clients all for the benefit of user experience.

Now when I stated that there is a CPC conspiracy happening, I say it half-jokingly. I am not completely sure that I believe it, but without a tangible explanation for these dramatic CPC increases, I have no option but to entertain the notion. We as an industry need to have a better understanding, and I put this onus on the engines, on what is effecting the CPC fluctuations. We all are or will have to answer the client when they ask why are my CPCs fluctuating so drastically. Right now I don’t believe I have a strong belief in why this is happening and the engines up to this point have not given me a tangible answer. I know from experience that there are many factors that change the CPCs, but none of them seem to be in play of late.

I would be very interested in what your thoughts and experiences are, and hopefully this opens a can of worms. The truth is out there…

(Image credit: Artist: Chris Madden. Thanks to http://flinchbot.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/conspiracy-theory.gif for the image.)

When I first heard about the rolling out of this update to the calculation of Quality Score, I was hopeful it would be beneficial to both searchers and advertisers alike.  For searchers, it would allow for instant determination by Google’s system to serve up the most relevant query results.  Thus, in theory, giving searchers exactly what they are looking for each and every time they search.  For advertisers, I was crossing my fingers we would also see a lower cost-per-click (CPC) since our ads should be showing in higher positions when they are more relevant, with an increased QS to help boost them up there.  Also, since results being served will be real-time relevant to what the searchers are looking for, that should then mean advertisers will see more qualified traffic, creating more clicks, a higher click-through rate (CTR), and a lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA).

I hoped and waited impatiently for our first sign of changes.  And then the reports started coming in; they were not pretty.

We have a few clients who saw immediate increases to the CPCs and decreases to QS.  While it wasn’t what I wanted, I can understand how it happened. There could be a few reasons.  If ads that were previously showing in search query results were not as relevant as they could have been, Google is now judging them more closely, and determined that for them to show, the CPCs would need to be higher since the QS is lower.  If we have more terms in our account that fall into this situation rather than falling into my ideal situation, it’s quite possible we will see the overall CPC increase.

The other possibility (do I dare say it?): Google’s Real Time Quality Score calculation has some bugs to work out.  I’m going to put my money on this one.  Why?  Here is just a sampling of what we’ve dealt with this week:

• New accounts we launched after RTQS went live have had to set their max CPCs at upwards of $100 just to meet the “quality-based min bid.”
• The account interfaces are not giving you a warning message that your bids are too low to meet this quality-based min bid until you’ve tried to increase them.  This means you can have your max bids set at $3 with no warning messages.  If you try to increase your bids to $5, you’ll get a warning that says your max bids are not high enough for your ads to show.
• For some keywords, for example, that previously had a $3 bid to show on the first page, we’ve now had to bid $50 – and then find we’re only paying a $2 CPC for second position.

Typically, my recommendation when red flags such as these arise would be to focus on optimizing your accounts as best as you can.  However, in this case, before trying to solve the issues on your own, advertisers and search strategists should look at every detail in their paid search accounts and take any of these issues you find as far up the Google flag pole as you can.

One of the reasons search works so well is because it’s the most-efficient advertising medium available.  If the search engines keep making changes like this, it is not going to stay that way and then you have to wonder – will search still be as popular or will advertisers give up on it?

And who knows, Real Time Quality Score has only been in effect for less than two weeks.  We may see some drastic differences in the next month than what has been reported here.

Have you seen more relevant ads when you’re searching on Google?  As an advertiser, how have your results changed, if at all? Feel free to post your answer below or Contact Us with your thoughts.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

I’ve never been one to partake in the legendary browser wars of the last five to ten years. To me, it’s just a BROWSER. If it works, is easy to use and is on my computer- great! Most common Internet users feel the same way. If you’re not a designer, programmer or tech-geek (and I say this with great affection), how much does your browser choice affect your life? I would dare to guess not that much.

Well, my fellow readers, I was quite surprised when I made it my default browser.

When I downloaded the open source beta Chrome, it conveniently auto added all of my bookmarks from IE. After doing a few test searches, I was able to see how the speed dial feature works. Below is a snapshot that shows some of my favorite sites that were saved to my homepage as “Most Visited:”

My first thought was, “That’s helpful,” then followed with, “Well, maybe I don’t want the person sitting next to me to see all of my business.” Many people consider their bookmarks and most recently viewed sites as personal information. However, Chrome thought of that already. Problem solved! Since Chrome is so easy to use, I was able to figure out how to customize my experience without even needing a user manual. The more time I spent using it, the more I warmed up to the idea of expanding my browser horizons.

At first glance, Chrome seems to have all of the major features users will look for- tabbed browsing, a clean look, ease of use, customizable interface, speed dial and bookmarks, password captures, and history privacy options. One of my favorite features is the integrated address and search bar.

It will be interesting to see the impact Chrome has over the next six to 12 months on the browser market share. Will you add a little Chrome to your daily routine?

I’ve never been one to partake in the legendary browser wars of the last five to ten years. To me, it’s just a BROWSER. If it works, is easy to use and is on my computer- great! Most common Internet users feel the same way. If you’re not a designer, programmer or tech-geek (and I say this with great affection), how much does your browser choice affect your life? I would dare to guess not that much.

Well, my fellow readers, I was quite surprised when I made it my default browser.

When I downloaded the open source beta Chrome, it conveniently auto added all of my bookmarks from IE. After doing a few test searches, I was able to see how the speed dial feature works. Below is a snapshot that shows some of my favorite sites that were saved to my homepage as “Most Visited:”

My first thought was, “That’s helpful,” then followed with, “Well, maybe I don’t want the person sitting next to me to see all of my business.” Many people consider their bookmarks and most recently viewed sites as personal information. However, Chrome thought of that already. Problem solved! Since Chrome is so easy to use, I was able to figure out how to customize my experience without even needing a user manual. The more time I spent using it, the more I warmed up to the idea of expanding my browser horizons.

At first glance, Chrome seems to have all of the major features users will look for- tabbed browsing, a clean look, ease of use, customizable interface, speed dial and bookmarks, password captures, and history privacy options. One of my favorite features is the integrated address and search bar.

It will be interesting to see the impact Chrome has over the next six to 12 months on the browser market share. Will you add a little Chrome to your daily routine?