As 2007 wraps up, we'd like to take a moment to send you our warmest wishes for the holiday season. We'll be taking the next week off, but look for us again in January when we'll countdown our annual top 10 must-read posts from the past year. And before we go, here's this year's holiday doodle, featuring someone you may recognize along with his new friend:


Have a warm and wonderful holiday!

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Before the ball drops on 2007, we've got one more AdWords Industry Newsletter to share. The latest issue of the Tech B2B Industry Newsletter has tips and resources to help you prepare your campaigns for the new year. You'll find the latest Tech B2B tips from an AdWords optimization specialist and learn how the content network can help you meet your marketing goals.

You can sign up to receive AdWords newsletters via email through your AdWords account.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Today we'd like to clarify a relatively common misconception, especially among newer advertisers: that the AdWords system will automatically match keywords to the most appropriate ad within ad groups that have multiple ad variations. Here's a fictional scenario, to illustrate:

A new advertiser, Hank, wants to increase traffic to his site, on which he offers 100 different house-cleaning products in six broad categories. Within his Standard Edition account, Hank creates one ad group which comprises six different ads (one ad for each broad category of products that he offers) along with a list of several hundred keywords which describe his 100 products.

He does this, feeling certain that the AdWords system will automatically match each keyword to the most appropriate ad among his many variations.

In reality, however, the AdWords system does not match keywords to ad variations in this way. Instead it does Hank make sure that the right ad shows for each keyword? A basic solution would be to create six ad groups, one for each of his six broad categories. Each ad group would cover one of the categories and have a list of keywords closely related to the products in that category.

Or, he could advertise in an even more targeted way -- by creating a multitude of ad groups, each of which focused on a single product.

Just how granular you choose to be with your targeting depends on your business and your goals, of course. But most advertisers would agree that it's always better to show a potential customer an ad about the exact thing for which they've just searched.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Today, we released version 5.0 of AdWords Editor, our free, downloadable campaign management application. Among other features, version 5.0 includes support for local business ads, an export picker that lets you select specific campaigns and ad groups to save to a CSV file, and the ability to save advanced search settings. You can read our release notes for a complete list of new and updated features.

If you haven't yet downloaded AdWords Editor, visit our website to get the latest version. If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically.

Important note: To avoid losing unposted changes or comments, export an archive of your account before upgrading. After you've completed the upgrade, download your account then import the archive file to get your account up and running.

Version 5.0 is available now for Windows and Mac. For more information about AdWords Editor, visit the AdWords Editor Help Center.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

As you might already know, AdWords offers a feature called location targeting that lets you specify where in the world you want Google to show your ads. You can target countries, cities, regions, or any other geographic area you'd like.

If you use the AdWords Standard Edition, you'll notice a new version of location targeting. We've added a new interactive map so you can see all the locations you've selected. We've also added more flexible targeting options that cater to your unique advertising needs. For example, let's say you run an online store, and you ship to all of the United States except Hawaii and Alaska. With these new targeting options, you can target your campaign to the U.S. and exclude those two states. Or, you might run campaigns that are relevant to markets across the United States and a few cities in Europe -- now you can target all of those locations in one single campaign.

If you'd like to learn more about the new location targeting features, please visit the location targeting section of our help center.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

In this third post of our content network series, we would like to share some content optimization tips for your keywords and ad text. In a future post, we will write more about other tips.

Contextual targeting on the content network happens at the ad group level, not at the keyword level. That means all the keywords in an ad group, along with the ad text, are evaluated when Google is deciding whether to show your ad on a specific content page. In other words, it's important for all the keywords in an ad group to belong to a common theme.

We recommend keeping separate campaigns for advertising on content and search. Please keep in mind that these tips below are specific to contexual targeting and advertising on the content network and may be different from your search network strategies.

• Create a manageable, targeted keyword list.
  Advertisers have found most success on the content network with ad groups of around 15 to 30 keywords.
  
  
• Use tightly themed ad groups.
  For contextual targeting, we look for pages that match most of the keywords in your ad group. For example, if your ad group has a number of keywords about lilies and tulips, we try to find pages about these two topics together. If you have an ad group with diverse keywords on different themes, it may decrease the number of pages on which your ad is likely to appear. When picking keywords, imagine what keywords would likely appear on the pages that you are trying to target, and create tightly themed ad groups around those keywords.
  
  
• Use duplicate keywords for appropriate ad groups.
  To continue the previous example, let's say you were creating a campaign for flowers and had ad groups for lilies, roses and tulips. Unlike search, we would recommend that the general keyword flowers be included in all three ad groups to help establish a floral theme.
  
  
• Use ad group level URLs instead of keyword level URLs.
  Because no one particular keyword is used to trigger your ads on the content network, keyword level URLs are not relevant. We recommend using ad group level URLs instead.
  
  
• Measure content performance at the ad group level.
  We've found that measuring your performance on the content network at the ad group level offers a better gauge of what strategies work best.
  
  
• Build a comprehensive negative keyword list.
  The more negative keywords you include on a particular topic, the less likely your ad is to appear on pages that match that topic. If a page is predominately about your negative keywords, while partially about your positive keywords, our system is not likely to show you on that page. If a page is principally about your positive keywords, but mentions a few negative keywords, then your ad may still appear on this page. We recommend that you include multiple negative keywords on topics you would like to avoid. If you sold camera film and wanted to reduce the likelihood of your ad showing on movie-related pages, you should include multiple negative keywords like -movie, -movies, as well as synonyms like -cinema, -cinemas.
  

We hope you found these tips useful. As always, we recommend that you track performance of your content network ads using Placement Performance reports and set up conversion tracking or use Google Analytics. And please let us know what content network topics you would like to read about in this blog.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

One of the most common questions we hear from advertisers is, "Why can't I see my ad?" As you may already know, the Ads Diagnostic Tool can help you determine why your ad might not appear on a Google results page. Now, instead of showing just one reason why your ad may not appear, the Ads Diagnostic Tool lists multiple reasons -- saving you time by listing everything that needs to be fixed in a single page of results.

What might these multiple reasons be? Consider a situation where your campaign has met its daily budget, causing your ad to stop showing for the day. Additionally, the specific keyword might be inactive for search. You'll now be able to learn about these multiple issues immediately so you can adjust your budget settings and modify the keyword based on the Ads Diagnostic Tool results.

You can start using the Ads Diagnostic Tool now by pointing your mouse at the magnifying glass icon next to an individual keyword in your ad group or by going to your account's 'Tools' page.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

As part of our ongoing effort to improve your AdWords experience, we've launched the AdWords Template Center.

Template Center is a free tool available via My Client Center (MCC). It allows MCC account managers to create templates for pre-defined AdWords campaigns and share them with their directly linked AdWords accounts. Advertisers with these linked accounts can quickly and easily view and select campaign templates from their Template Library, then customize them to run their own AdWords campaigns. The MCC account manager can also create policies to restrict the use of certain keywords as well as to restrict or require certain text for ad copy in each campaign template.

Template Center is especially useful for distributed marketing organizations (like franchises) that want to help less savvy or time-constrained marketing partners quickly build out their AdWords accounts and start running high-quality AdWords campaigns. It also helps ensure that marketing partners follow brand and messaging guidelines when marketing products or services through their AdWords campaigns by creating policies for keywords and ad text. The Template Center can also benefit agencies and SEMs that want to share campaign best practices with their clients.

If you are interested in learning more about Template Center, please visit the Template Center section of the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

In a post last month we told you about the location names that appear beneath locally targeted ads. We've recently made updates with the introduction of the AdWords Local PlusBox. The Local PlusBox is a feature that displays more geographical information for a local business ad that appears in the top position above Google search results. When users see the Local PlusBox and click on it (see the 'closed' screenshot below), the ad expands to include a map, address, driving instructions, and phone number, in addition to the location name that appears beneath the last line of ad.


We are in the process of rolling out this feature to AdWords accounts in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany. It should be available to all advertisers with top placement ads in these countries within the coming week or so.

Posted by Christina, Inside AdWords crew

According to Internet market research powerhouse eMarketer, the mobile search advertising market size is currently $13.5 million and growing - by a projected factor of 50 - within the next four years. With everyone buzzing about mobile these days, we wanted to tell you straight from the horse's mouth about some sophisticated new tools and features that we've recently rolled out to help you run a more successful mobile ads campaign.

AdWords Business Pages for mobile ads
Mobile ads can refer users to a business phone number, a mobile website, or both. Usually you need to be a web developer or contact your webmaster in order to create a mobile web page from scratch. However, AdWords Business Pages for mobile ads provides a friendly wizard that creates a page for you in minutes - which is available immediately after you create it. Google hosts the page for free.

Carrier Targeting
We've just expanded carrier targeting in more countries, which means you have more options to fine-tune who sees your mobile ads. Click "Advanced targeting and network options" to expand your options for carrier targeting from the "Create/Edit mobile ad" page. You can choose to show your ads to users on all mobile carriers, or check off the boxes next to the specific carriers you want to target.

If you don't already have a mobile ad running, learn how to create one.

Posted by Christina, Inside AdWords crew

Back in September and October, Fred Vallaeys, Product Evangelist for AdWords, joined us for a three part series on ROI (Return on Investment) and how to track it.

Now is your chance to ask Fred specific ROI questions, or questions about AdWords in general -- Fred will be speaking at PubCon by WebmasterWorld in Las Vegas, Tuesday, December 4th, as part of a panel discussing Major Search Engines. We hope you'll stop by and introduce yourself to Fred, if you're attending.

Fred is always interested in meeting advertisers and hearing feedback about all things AdWords -- check out Fred's bio for the event, complete with a photo, so you'll know who to look for.

If you do chat with Fred, let him know that the Inside AdWords crew sent you. ;)

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

In our first post in this series, we highlighted some of the most notable improvements we've made to the Google content network over this past year. Today, we wanted to focus on the range of options that the content network provides to make campaign management simple.

To ensure that our advertisers have increased flexibility and control across all aspects of their campaign, we offer multiple targeting options, a variety of ad formats, and hundreds of thousands of sites on which your ads can show.

Targeting Options
Ever wonder how we match ads to relevant pages? By scanning the millions of pages on the web, Google's contextual targeting technology analyzes the content of different web pages to determine the theme of a page. Then, by looking at all the keywords and ad text in your ad groups, our system matches the most relevant ads to the theme of that page. For example, if you have an ad for a digital camera, our system may place your ad next to a news article that reviews the latest digital photographic technology.

To ensure that you are targeting your ads to the right users, you can create tightly-themed ad groups. You can also try using negative keywords but remember that they work by exact match on the content network. The more theme-specific negative keywords you include, the less likely your ad is to appear on sites that match that theme. Following the example above, to decrease the chances of your digital camera ad showing up on pages related to video equipment, be sure to enter keywords like video, video camera, and video cameras as negative keywords. But keep in mind that doing so will increase your chances of excluding pages that review both video and digital cameras.

For further control, you can use the site exclusion tool to prevent your ads from appearing on specific pages, subpages, or types of pages that you don't think are a good match for your message.

If you want even greater control, you can use placement targeting to hand-pick specific sites or sections of sites you want your ads to appear on. If your goal is conversion-oriented metrics likes sales or leads, you can select CPC pricing and pay when users click on your ads. To increase brand awareness and maximize impressions among your target users, you may choose CPM pricing.

Environments
The Google content network has partnered with a variety of different websites, from news sites like Reuters and CNN, to social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster, to smaller niche sites like Ask the Builder and WhateverLife. This wide selection helps you match your message with the right audience. To find out more about how one advertiser found success through advertising on niche sites, you can read this case study.

Ad Formats
Text ads are a great way to reach your audience with a brief, pointed message. When you want to communicate a simple, visual message, try image ads, which are accepted on over 95% of content network sites. And if you're looking to engage your audience with sight, sound, and motion, or if your product requires a demonstration, Google click-to-play video ads offer an effective way to connect your message to the right users. You can read this case study on how one advertiser engaged with customers and increased revenue by using click-to-play video ads to demonstrate his robotic guitar tuners.

You can also check out demos of video ads and learn more about the Ad Creation Marketplace, where you can find a professional to help create your video ad.

Altogether, Google's targeting options give you full control over the parts of the content network where your ads appear, and AdWords reporting gives you insight into how your ads perform in different environments. By matching the right ad formats with the right environments, you can reach the audience that matters to you most when they're engaged with content that's relevant to your business.

As always, you can read more about the content network here. And if you have specific questions that you would like answered in upcoming blog posts, we invite you to email us. In the meantime, stay tuned more information on optimizing your content network campaign in the coming weeks.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

It's that time of year again. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, and we'd like to take a moment to thank you for your continuous support and readership. Before we take the next couple of days off, we'd like to share with you our latest blog doodle -- you may even notice a cameo appearance by a certain hand turkey from last year!

We hope you'll have a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!


Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

The holiday season is underway, and people are on the lookout for the perfect presents. If you're hoping to take advantage of this shopping season, you won't want to miss out on our AdWords holiday campaign tips in the latest Retail, Entertainment & Media, and Automotive industry newsletters.

We also invite you to check out the brand new Tech B2C Industry Newsletter, designed for advertisers selling consumer electronics as well as telecommunications and technology products and services.

Remember, you can sign up to receive AdWords Industry Newsletters via email through your AdWords account.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

We're excited to let you know that the AdWords Optimization Team is offering a new round of campaign optimizations. As we've mentioned in a recent post on the subject, requesting an optimization is easy. Simply fill out this request form and tell us about your specific business and advertising goals. Our optimization team will review your website, campaign structure, ad text, and keywords -- then, within 10 day or less, they'll send you customized recommendations to help you reach your goals. You'll have complete control over which of these recommendations you choose to implement.

If you've had us complete an optimization before, we encourage you to submit a different campaign now. Whether you are a first time or a repeat customer, please be sure to specify which campaign you'd like the team optimize. You can do this in the 'Your Advertising Goals' section of the request form. Also, please keep in mind that this service is currently available for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada, for campaigns in English.

Depending on your business, it may be a bit late in the game to request an optimization for a campaign focused on the winter holidays. If the timing makes sense for you, though, please be sure to let us know of the seasonal nature of your campaign.

The optimization team is looking forward to hearing from you.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

We're pleased to announce a change that we've made to the incidence of clicks on text ads on the Google content network. Previously, users could click anywhere on text ads running on the content network, including the ad's background and any part of the ad text, for their click to be registered. Now only clicks on the title or URL of text ads will be counted.

This change better aligns what is considered a click for ads on the Google content network with what is considered a click for ads shown on Google.com. By changing the clickable area on text ads, we hope to increase user satisfaction with both our advertisers and our publishers.

As a result of this change, some advertisers may notice a decrease in both the number of clicks and the clickthrough rate (CTR) in content network campaigns -- along with an increase in the average return on investment (ROI) of content network traffic. For insight into the ROI you receive from your AdWords ads, you can install conversion tracking or Google Analytics to measure whether the clicks your ads receive lead to valuable actions on your site. If you use a third-party tracking service, you can use ValueTrack tags to identify the traffic coming to your site from the Google search and content networks.

We hope that this change will result in better user experience with Google content network ads, along with potentially improved ROI for advertisers. If you have any comments on this change, please let us know and we will forward your thoughts to the content network team.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Many of our readers have emailed us asking for more information about the Google content network. As you ramp up your advertising efforts for the holiday season, we wanted to provide you with an overview of the content network, including recent improvements, tips, and examples of how others have used the content network to grow their business. Today's post is the first of a three-part series on the content network that we'll be sharing with you over the next few weeks.

The Google content network is a wide network of AdSense partners, ranging from household names such as the New York Times, to sites that cater to niche audiences, such as blogs, forums, and social networks. Together, these sites reach more worldwide Internet users than any other online property or network.

As an advertiser, you can use the content network to achieve goals across the buying cycle, from raising awareness to driving conversions. However, the impact of your content network campaigns can extend beyond the content network -- these content network campaigns can raise awareness for your business and create demand among your potential customers that can be captured later by your search campaigns. Here is what we heard recently from an AdWords advertiser:

There is no doubt that if we were to take our clients' campaigns off of the content network today, we would see a decrease in their conversions on search tomorrow."

- Edward Llach, founder, SearchRev SEM agency.

You can read more about Search Rev’s experience with the content network in this case study.

Over the past year, we've made numerous changes to the ways you can manage, monitor, and optimize campaigns on the Google content network. Here are the most notable features we've added recently, based on your feedback.

Transparent reporting
The Placement Performance report provides site-by-site performance metrics for your contextually-targeted campaigns -- tracking clicks, impressions, cost, and conversion data at the URL level. When coupled with Google’s conversion tracking, the Placement Performance report becomes a powerful tool that can show you the placements where you’re meeting your objectives, and those where you aren't. You can read tips on how to use these reports effectively to boost campaign performance here.

Targeting and pricing improvements
We're constantly making changes to our contextual targeting system to ensure that we place your ads next to the content most relevant to your message, and as a result, measured more than a 25% increase in well-targeted ads over the last year. We've also made improvements to our smart pricing technology, which discounts the price of clicks on specific sites based on their likelihood to result in strong advertiser ROI. All together, these changes have led to more relevant ads for users and better results for advertisers.

More bidding choices
As we mentioned last week, we also released cost-per-click bidding for placement targeting. You can now hand-pick the parts of the content network where you’d like your ads to appear and choose the bidding option (CPM or CPC) that fits your needs.

Let us know if there are specific topics on the content network that you would like to hear about. In the meantime, keep your eye out for posts in this series in the coming weeks.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Recently we posted about a common misconception regarding Minimum CPC (cost-per-click) and how it is determined. Today we'd like to expand on the theme of CPC, and define the other CPC types that you'll see in your AdWords account.

Minimum CPC - also referred to as Min CPC or Minimum CPC bid:
As discussed in our previous post, a minimum cost-per-click (CPC) bid is assigned to each keyword in your account based on its quality (as measured by its Quality Score). The minimum bid is typically the least amount you can pay per click in order for your keyword to show ads. It is important to note that minimum CPC is set by the AdWords system, and not by the advertiser.

Maximum CPC - also referred to as Max CPC:
Maximum cost-per-click (CPC) is set by you, the advertiser, and is the highest amount that you are willing to pay for a click on your ad. You can set a maximum CPC at the keyword or ad group level. If you're interested in a deeper look at Max CPC, you'll find more information here.

Average CPC - also referred to as Avg. CPC:
This is literally the average amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad. The Avg. CPC you see in your account is determined by totalling the cost of all clicks and dividing that total by the number of clicks.

For example: if your ad receives three clicks, one costing $0.33, one costing $0.38, and the third costing $0.49, then your average CPC for those clicks is $1.20 divided by 3 clicks, or $0.40.

We hope this information will shed a little light on a topic that is sometimes unclear to advertisers, particularly those who have just started with us and are new to the somewhat specialized vocabulary of AdWords advertising.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

On Saturday, November 10th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST due to our regularly scheduled maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times. We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but you may want to take note of our intended dates and times to help you plan for any scheduled downtimes further down the road.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

We'd like to announce two changes to site targeting in Google's content network. First, because site targeting now offers more precise targeting options, we've given it a more appropriate name: placement targeting. Second, we're introducing a new cost-per-click bidding option so you can now pay per click or per impression.

Introducing placement targeting

When site targeting was first introduced two years ago, advertisers could search for specific URLs or topics to find individual sites in the Google content network and run their image and text ads on these sites. Over time, we've introduced other features like targeting by demographics and richer ad formats such as click-to-play video ads. Now, advertisers can target not only websites but also precise subsections of sites, such as the football pages of a news site, the show times section of a movie site, and even a specific ad unit (a block of Google ads) on a particular webpage.

Because of these new changes, we've changed the name from site targeting to placement targeting. The term "placement" can be used to refer to any site or subsection of a site that you choose to target. As the number of placements available for targeting continues to grow, you'll have even greater control over the parts of the Google content network on which your ads appear.

Cost-per-click bidding for placement targeting

With the launch of cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, advertisers can now choose the bidding option that best matches their needs. If the purpose of your placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay when users click on your ads. If you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your target audience, you can select cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding. And you can specify either the maximum price or the average price (with preferred bidding), that you'd like to pay for each click or 1000 impressions.

Along with Placement Performance reports, CPC bidding for placement targeting was one of the most common advertiser requests we received for Google content network campaigns. We're excited to make this feature available as part of our ongoing efforts to increase the flexibility and control advertisers have when advertising on the content network.

If you'd like to get started on placement targeting, you can read more about it here.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Earlier this year, Google announced an important agreement with Clear Channel Radio, the largest radio station group owner in the U.S., to bring access to guaranteed inventory on top-rated AM and FM stations to AdWords advertisers. We're excited to report back that Clear Channel's inventory is now available through Audio Ads in AdWords. AdWords advertisers can reach their target customers on over 1,700 AM and FM radio stations, including almost 700 Clear Channel AM/FM stations. Our entire network averages 12 stations per market in each of the top 50 markets and covers every major station format. Advertisers will also have access to a guaranteed amount of premium inventory across these stations in all prime dayparts and in "Top 10" stations in all of the top 25 U.S. markets.

With access to this premium inventory, advertisers can broadcast their messages to millions of potential customers in markets like San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, as well as markets like Boise, ID, Madison, WI, and Spokane, WA. Audio Ads allows advertisers to continue to increase the impact of their AdWords campaigns, even when potential customers aren't online.

Here's a recent comment from an advertiser who's been successful with Google Audio Ads:

Google Audio Ads has allowed us to expand our advertising into new markets we otherwise may not have reached. For our business, small, rural markets are extremely important: Audio Ads makes it easy and efficient to get our message out to these customers.

- Karl Kelman, Marketing Manager, US Airport Parking, www.USAirportparking.com

If you're interested in Audio Ads and you'd like to learn more, you can visit the Audio Ads Beginner's Guide or check out the Audio Ads website to listen to sample ads and read success stories.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

If you follow our series on Optimization Tips, you know that we frequently encourage using negative keywords to improve your ROI. Specifically, adding negative keywords to your account can help better target your ads, increase clickthrough rates, and lower your minimum cost-per-click. You can read more on how to brainstorm negative keywords as well as how you can use them to improve your account performance in an earlier post. Today, we wanted to bring attention to an important feature of negative keywords that many advertisers frequently overlook when composing their negative keyword list: keyword match types.

You may know about the different keyword match types (broad, phrase, and exact) for the keywords you want to show your ads on. But did you know that negative keywords also run on these different keyword match types? Many advertisers use broad match for their negative keywords, and accidentally filter out too many search queries, including ones that they would have wanted their ad to show on. Let's check out an example below.

Say you own a men's clothing store and you would like to increase traffic to your site by running a special winter holiday campaign for your men's accessories line. In the Search Query Report you recently ran, you noticed that the ads in your holiday campaign for men's accessories are also showing up when users are searching for women's silk scarves. You have the broad match keywords silk ties, wool scarves, and men's gifts in your keyword list, and now you want to add the negative keyword of silk scarves. But which negative keyword match type should you choose? Below is a graph illustrating what would happen if you chose negative broad (-silk scarves), negative phrase (-"silk scarves"), and negative exact (-[silk scarves]) match types.
As illustrated above, different match types for negative keywords can seriously impact when your ads show. In the first column for negative broad match, you would be losing out on relevant search queries such as silk ties wool scarves, simply because the broad match type filters out queries that contain words both silk and scarves. In the last column for negative exact match, search queries containing items that you do not sell like silk scarves gifts and women's silk scarves still cause your ad to show because you are only filtering out the exact match silk scarves.

Using negative keywords effectively requires carefully thinking about how negative keywords will impact your campaign. In addition, you should always monitor your traffic, clickthrough rate, cost per conversion, and search queries to make sure that you are seeing the desired result.

We hope that you've found this tip on negative keywords to be helpful. As always, please let us know which optimization tips you would like to read about in this series.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Online advertisers have noticed that CPCs tend to increase during the holiday season and have asked us why. We turned to Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, for an explanation:

Many advertisers track their average cost-per-click (CPC), but what really matters for the bottom line is the average cost-per-acquisition (CPA): how much you have to spend on advertising to make a sale. The third factor to watch is the conversion rate, which is defined as conversions (sales) per click.

Note that these numbers are neatly tied together by the convenient formula:

CPA = CPC/Conversion rate = (cost/click)/(conversions/click).

Clicks, cost, and conversions all go up during the holidays. As it happens, conversions increase more than clicks, so conversion rates tend to rise. This makes the clicks more valuable, so advertisers raise their bids to reach more consumers. As a result CPCs get pushed up.

(Click image for full-size version)

The plot above shows the median CPC, the median conversion rate, and the median CPA during the 2006 holiday season for those Google AdWords advertisers who use conversion tracking. The series have been normalized so they all start at the same point on November 1.

Last year, Thanksgiving fell on November 23. Note how the conversion rate (green) and the CPC (blue) both dropped on that day which means CPA (red) went up. Perhaps watching football and eating turkey trumped online shopping on Thanksgiving?

Right after Turkey Day, people started on their Christmas shopping so conversion rates started to rise. During this period, advertisers raised their bids in order to get more prominent positions in the ad auctions so they could attract those shoppers. That increased the median CPC (blue). But the conversion rate rose more than the CPC, which pushed CPA (red) down. Even though the clicks cost more, the conversions -- what really matter -- cost less.

The conversion rate peaked on December 11, somewhat before the peak of overall retail sales, since it takes time to process and ship the online orders. By December 23, things were pretty much back to normal. Once Christmas Day arrived, conversion rates dropped to their lowest point of the year -- people were just too busy opening presents to think about buying more things… at least for the next few days.

The bottom line is that is that the cost of clicks does tend to rise during the holidays. But since those clicks are more likely to turn into sales, the CPA goes down, making those seemingly expensive clicks quite a bargain. If you are interested in tracking how your own conversion rates and CPAs change during the holiday season, you can set up AdWords Conversion Tracking on your ads and see how these metrics work for you.

Thanks to Hal for his explanation on how the holiday season can affect the ROI for an AdWords campaign. And remember, you can always visit the AdWords Help Center year-round to read up on tips on how to improve your ad performance.

Posted by Christina, Inside AdWords crew

Today, we'd like to revisit a common misconception, about which we receive quite a few questions. In the first part of the post, we will very briefly cover the most important facts and in the second we'll take a more detailed look at four related questions.

The common misconception: Many advertisers believe that if they have no competitors for a keyword, their minimum cost-per-click (CPC) will automatically be lowered by the AdWords system to $0.01, the lowest possible CPC.

How it actually works: The minimum CPC for a keyword is not related to the number of competitors one has that keyword. Instead, minimum CPC is dependent on the Quality Score of the keyword, as it's used in the advertiser's account. This functionality was introduced in August 2005, when keyword bidding evolved to a quality-based model.

Are there really no competitors?
If you look for your ad and see no competitors, this does not necessarily mean that there are no others advertising on that keyword. For example, many advertisers choose to show their ads only during particular times of the day, so you will not necessarily see them when your ad appears. Or, while you might be targeting the entire United States, competing advertisers may be regionally targeting and not including the area in which you are located -- in which case you'll not see their ads.

Why doesn't Google show ads for every keyword?
We are often asked if we wouldn't prefer to make additional revenue, rather than allowing keywords for which no ads appear. In point of fact, Google would prefer to show no ads for a user's search query, rather than to show ads which provide a poor quality experience for users who click on them -- and which might damage long-term user trust in the the quality of information delivered by AdWords ads.

How do I lower my minimum CPC?
To achieve the lowest possible minimum CPC, make sure your keywords, ads, and landing pages provide an excellent user experience for those who search for those keywords, click on your ads, and visit your site. There is a great deal of useful information to help you reach this goal in the Ads Quality and Performance section of the AdWords Help Center -- so much so that we've heard advertisers say it takes a fair amount of time to read and absorb it. However, for those who truly wish to improve their Quality Score, improve the experience of potential customers who click on their ads and visit their sites -- and lower their Minimum CPCs -- this is likely to be time well spent.

Should I search for my ad on Google.com to see who my competitors are?
If you are an advertiser who searches for your own ad to judge the competitive landscape, we recommend using the Ad Preview Tool, rather than searching for your ad on Google.com. Using this tool, you'll see your ad (and the ads of your competitors which are showing in the moment you check) as they actually appear on Google.com -- but you won't accrue an impression. Please take a look at this very straightforward tool here, and try a sample search. You may even want to bookmark the page.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Many advertisers have asked us to provide more information about the Quality Score for their keywords. So we've answered by recently launching a feature that does just that: the Keyword Analysis page.

The new Keyword Analysis page gives you a detailed breakdown of your keyword's Quality Score and how it might impact your ad's visibility. Specifically, you'll learn how keyword quality and landing page quality are performing and receive recommendations for improvement.

For example, let's say a keyword has a poor Quality Score because your landing page doesn't relate to your keyword. On the Keyword Analysis page, we'll alert you that your landing page quality is low and provide tips on how to improve it. You'll also see your Quality Score rating, your minimum bid, and whether your keyword is showing ads.

To launch Keyword Analysis page, click the magnifying glass icon beside any keyword in your account; then click one of the 'Details and recommendations' links.

We'd appreciate your feedback on the Keyword Analysis page. If you'd like to share how the tool is working for you, just click the 'Send feedback' link on the Keyword Analysis page.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

There's been a lot of buzz around Website Optimizer lately -- last month, we announced some new features and we also outlined some tips and a new testing strategy. Now, to answer even more questions you might have, we're inviting you to join Website Optimizer's Product Manager, Tom Leung, for two online seminars. Registration is free, and open to everyone.

The first online seminar, Introduction to Website Optimizer, will be geared towards those who are unfamiliar with website content testing and optimization. Tom will discuss the importance and benefits of optimizing your website design and content, and he'll provide a detailed introduction to Website Optimizer and review the product's latest features.

The second online seminar, Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments, builds on the first and is designed for those who have previous experience with Website Optimizer or other site testing tools. Tom will deliver a step-by-step demonstration of how to successfully launch multivariate and A/B Split experiments, and he'll also answer your questions.

Google's Website Optimizer experts will be available during both online seminars to chat individually with attendees, and to answer questions in real time. We also encourage you to submit ahead of time any questions you'd like Tom to discuss.

Online seminar schedule and registration information:

Introduction to Website Optimizer (New or inexperienced users)
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 10:00 - 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.

Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments (Intermediate and advanced users)
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 10:00 - 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.

Once you've registered, you'll receive an email from WebEx with participation details. We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

The routine AdWords system maintenance originally scheduled for October 13th, has been rescheduled to occur this coming Saturday, October 20th. The AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT on that day. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the times mentioned above -- with an occasional exception as noted here. We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but you may want to take note of our intended dates and times to help you plan for any scheduled downtimes further down the road.

Update: Fixed typo

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

If you're a Business to Business (B2B) advertiser, one of your biggest marketing challenges may be finding the right leads and filtering out consumer traffic. The AdWords Tech B2B team knows this isn't always easy, and they're happy to help. The team will be at the Interop conference, in New York City, on October 24th and 25th -- to share how Google advertising can help your technology B2B company generate more qualified leads.

If you're interested in chatting about B2B advertising with someone from AdWords Tech B2B, please let us know via this short form. Whether or not you choose to meet with someone from the team in person, you'll still receive a code for a free expo hall pass, or 20% off of the regularly priced conference pass when you fill out the form. (Please note that the code cannot be retroactively applied.)

The team looks forward to meeting you in NYC.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Today is Blog Action Day, and we’re excited to rally with hundreds of bloggers around the world to write about one topic: the environment. Since this issue is close to our hearts, we were very pleased to learn that some online advertisers were using AdWords to educate others about innovative ways to help green the planet.

Nate Petre, the CEO of Veggie Wheels, used AdWords to spread the word about the alternative energy movement. He ran ads alongside search results for his company on Google.com as well as on the Google content network, so that people looking to convert their diesel-run cars to run on vegetable oil could get connected to Veggie Wheels.

On his site, Nate explains why vegetable oil is the perfect ingredient to reduce climate change:

• Sulfur, which causes acid rain, is eliminated
• Co2 emissions, a major contributor to global warming, are nearly eliminated because vegetable oil is a renewable fuel
• Emissions of others pollutants like HydroCarbons and Carbon-monoxide are reduced by about 30% - 50%
• Black soot (particulate) is significantly reduced by 50-70%

Thanks to people like Nate for using Google in creative ways to connect others to eco-friendly solutions.

Posted by Christina, Inside AdWords crew

Welcome back to our series on AdWords Optimization Tips. We recently received an email from an Inside AdWords reader, asking how to keep up with the latest trends in her ever-evolving industry of cosmetic dentistry. She wanted to make sure that her keywords were capturing all of the new, different ways potential customers are searching for her business. Previously, we covered how to first develop your core keywords and then create a list of modifier keywords. Today, we will discuss some other ways you can continually brainstorm new keyword ideas.

Google Trends
Have you tried Google Trends yet? As an advertiser, you can use Google Trends to look at the search volume for different keyword ideas. Perhaps a new medical procedure was introduced to your field -- you can use Google Trends to figure out how users are searching for it. On the same page, you can also read the latest articles related to your industry so you can keep up to date on all the important, well, trends. Simply enter any search query or compare two or more queries and Google Trends will return a graph of search volume and related articles. Google Trends statistics are updated daily and you can look at specific periods dating back to 2004. You can read more about how Google Trends works here.

Search Query Reports
The Search Query Report shows performance data for the search queries that triggered your ads that received clicks. Since this report includes search queries and their corresponding performance data, you can use this report to fine-tune existing keyword lists. Specifically, you can use this report to identify both new keywords and negative keywords that you'd like to add to your account to better control when you would like your ad to appear. You might also want to enter these terms in the Keyword Tool and see if users are searching for other similar terms. You can find a step-by-step guide on how to run a Search Query Performance report here.

Forums and Wikipedia
Discussion forums related to your industry and online information sources like Wikipedia are other ways to learn how the general public perceives your product or service. Browsing different discussion forums is a great way to keep track of all the buzz related to your industry. If there are misconceptions about your industry, you can use this information to your advantage. Say you work in healthcare, and you realize that many are concerned about a new treatment option -- you can then try to address these concerns in your campaigns.

Google Search
Last but not least, use Google search to your advantage. Perform Google searches to see what the most relevant results are for both natural and sponsored search results. You can check out the sponsored results to see what other people are advertising and use natural search results to find sites you can browse for new ideas. Looking at these results can also help you brainstorm new negative keyword ideas so that you can better target your audience.

We hope you've found these tips to be helpful. And as always, please let us know which optimization tips you would like to read about.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Important Update: The Saturday, October 13th AdWords maintenance has been canceled. We'll let you know when it has been rescheduled.


On Saturday, October 13th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to our regularly scheduled maintenance. While you won't be able to log into your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times. We'll continue to update you here as we always have, but you may want to take note of our intended dates and times to help you plan for any scheduled downtimes further down the road.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Lately we've received some inquiries about the locations that are often displayed beneath the last line of text in AdWords ads. Here's some helpful information that explains when we display locations, and how we determine what to display.

When you use regional targeting in your campaigns, Google users searching from your targeted areas will see the city or region name (whichever is more specific) displayed directly beneath your ad. This alerts users that your product or service may be especially relevant to them due to your proximity, and it helps you reach local users. Check out this example ad:

We show the name of the region or city based on the actual search query or the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the user, if available. Learn more about how AdWords knows where to show your keyword-targeted ads.

With regional targeting, it isn't possible to prevent locations from appearing underneath your ad. Visit the Targeting by Location section of our help center to learn more about targeting your campaigns.

Update: Revised content to provide clarity on regional targeting.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

We've got two new resources for advertisers: the latest edition of the AdWords Tech B2B Industry Newsletter and the brand new AdWords Entertainment & Media Industry Newsletter.

In the latest issue of the Tech B2B Industry Newsletter, you'll find tips for connecting with small businesses and ways to expand your reach using Google's content network and Google Print Ads. Also, be sure to stop by the newly revamped Tech B2B Industry Knowledge Center for more tips, guides, and industry news.

The first issue of the Entertainment & Media Industry Newsletter features stats about trends affecting online entertainment and media, as well as industry-specific optimization tips to help you apply this knowledge. It also covers how you can use Google's content network and Google Audio Ads and Print Ads to reach a greater audience.

You can sign up to receive AdWords newsletters via email through your AdWords account.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

In part two of this series, Fred Vallaeys, Product Evangelist for AdWords, discussed how to set up the conversion tracking feature available in every Standard Edition AdWords account -- and how to use conversion tracking information to track your ROI. Today, in the final installment of the series, Fred is back with tips on how to start using that ROI data to your advantage.

Once you have a week's worth or more of conversion tracking data, you should have enough information in your reports to start adjusting your bids to improve your ROI. Here are two strategies to improve bids using your new data.

When ROI is less than 100%

Using the type of report I described last week, sort the data on the “Value / Cost” column (which is your ROI expressed as a percentage) and look for keywords that have a negative ROI (i.e. less than 100%), but enough clicks that you'd reasonably expect some conversions to have happened. These are keywords for which your advertising costs exceed your profits, so your bids for these keywords may be set too high. (Please see the Notes section near the bottom of the post for further discussion on why I say 'may' here.)

In most cases, you should lower the bids for keywords with ROI less than 100% to the amount in the “Value / Click” column from the report. The “Value / Click” amount reflects how much profit you gain per click, so if you set your maximum CPC to this amount and the performance remains consistent, you will at least break even on these keywords.

When ROI is more than 100%

For keywords that have a positive ROI (i.e. greater than 100%), consider increasing your maximum bid -- but not higher than the amount in the “Value / Click” column. By increasing your bid, your ROI will decrease but you may end up making a greater total profit because you’re getting more clicks when your ad moves to a higher average position.

Consider the hypothetical situation shown in the table below. To begin with, your max CPC of $1.00 puts you in position 6.0 on average and your ROI is 200%. Then, suppose there are two possible scenarios when you raise your max CPC by $0.20 to $1.20 to improve your average position to 5.0; in scenario A, the higher position gets you 10 extra clicks and in scenario B, you get 15 additional clicks.

Because you’re paying more for every click, your ROI decreases and you need more clicks to make the same profit as before. As you can see, in scenario A, your net profit has declined from $50 to $48 so you should keep the old bid. In scenario B, your net profit has increased from $50 to $52 so you should keep the increased bid and experiment with raising it even further.

	Avg. CPC	Value / Cost (ROI)	Value / Click	Avg. Position	Clicks	Cost	Total Value	Net Profit
Current	$1.00	200%	$2.00	6.0	50	$50	$100	$50
Scenario A	$1.20	166%	$2.00	5.0	60	$72	$120	$48
Scenario B	$1.20	166%	$2.00	5.0	65	$78	$130	$52

About this table:
Cost = Avg. CPC multiplied by Total Clicks
Total Value = “Value / Click” multiplied by Total Clicks
Net Profit = Total Value minus Total Cost
Note that only the “Net Profit” column is something you have to calculate. All other columns are available in AdWords reports.

If your competitors aren’t looking at ROI data when setting bids, they won’t know which keywords are costing too much, nor which keywords could have delivered greater profits in a higher position. Now that you’ve got the data to see the complete picture and make smarter bidding decisions, you’ll have an edge over competitors who are bidding without being fully informed.

In addition, enabling conversion tracking is also the first step toward using two products which let you bid directly using Cost Per Action (CPA) bidding: the Conversion Optimizer beta and Pay-Per-Action (PPA) beta. These products may make it easier to reach your ROI targets, as well as help you to spend both your time and your advertising dollars more effectively.

Notes: for when you have ROI-negative keywords.

I don't say that you should definitely decrease bids for ROI-negative keywords, because it is also important to factor in the lifetime value of a customer. Also, a keyword may have been used in combination with other keywords before leading to a conversion.

The lifetime value of a customer is probably greater than the one-time conversion event. For example, if you’re selling flowers, it’s quite likely the customer may buy flowers annually for every birthday or anniversary. If you factor this in, the customer may be worth far more than the profit you make on their first purchase.

There is also the possibility that some of your keywords are used while customers are comparison shopping, and once they've made up their mind, they find your site again using another keyword. For example, if someone searches for “flowers”, they may just be researching their options. Once they know what type of flowers they want, they may do another more specific query such as “buy red roses”. If this happens, the conversion will only be assigned to the last keyword they used and you may want to keep the more general keyword to ensure potential buyers are aware of your site early in the purchase cycle.

This concludes Fred's ROI series, which we hope will help you improve your advertising results. Should you have any unanswered questions, or if there are particular areas you'd like to see covered in more detail, please let us know. We'd be pleased to invite Fred back for more posts in the near future.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Welcome back to our series on AdWords Optimization Tips. A number of our readers have written in to ask about managing and optimizing their bids for best performance, so that is the topic we'll address today. Please note that some of today's tips are directed towards readers who also use Google Analytics, while others are general tips for all AdWords users.

When you are optimizing your bids, you should test how adjusting your bids and changes in your ad ranking affect your return-on-investment (ROI). Below, we cover a few tools and tips that can help you measure these results so you can make the best decisions for your campaigns.

AdWords Keyword Positions report from Google Analytics

If your AdWords account is linked to a Google Analytics account, the easiest and most effective way to optimize your bids is to use Google Analytics. (You can find out how to link the two accounts here.) You can use the Google Analytics Keyword Positions report in the Traffic Sources section to see where your AdWords ads appear on Google search results pages as well as in which position your ad performs best at in terms of total number of visits, conversion rates, etc. To access this report, sign in to your Analytics account, then go to Traffic Sources > AdWords > Keyword Positions. Positions T1 through T3 mean your ad was promoted to the top of the search results page. Positions 1 through 8 indicate placement or location in the right-hand column of ads on the first page, with 1 being the top position, and so on.

You might learn from this report that your ad actually converts better when it is at a lower position than a higher position and you may want to consider adjusting your bid to achieve the best performing position. However, if you do decide to increase or decrease your bids, you should still check back in a week or two to make sure that your keyword is performing similarly since changing its average position.

If you wish to automate the process of testing and adjusting bids, you can use the AdWords Keyword Positions report in conjunction with the Position Preference feature within AdWords to actually optimize your ad's position. With the Position Preference feature, you can select a specific position as a target. If you have determined that you achieve highest ROI with positions 3 through 4, for example, you can set your position preference to these positions. The system will then try to show your ad in positions 3 through 4 by increasing or lowering its bid. You should keep in mind though your changes may improve the ROI of your campaign because your ads are converting well at a lower cost, it could decrease the total amount of traffic to your site if you've specified that you'd like your ad to be in a lower position on the page. Be sure to check out tips in our Help Center on choosing settings and pricing for Position Preference.

If you use Analytics, you can check out more ROI tips from the Google Analytics Conversion University.

Traffic Estimator Tool

If you don't use Google Analytics, you can still adjust and optimize your bids using the Traffic Estimator Tool. For each keyword you select, you will be able to see the minimum bid, maximum CPC, the search volume bar, Estimated Ad Positions, and other information. The most relevant column for the purposes of testing ad ranking against ROI is the Estimated Ad Positions information. The Estimated Ad Positions column shows your ad's estimated position on each of your keywords with your current maximum CPC. If you're unhappy with the estimated ad position, enter a new maximum CPC in the Maximum CPC field and click 'Get New Estimates.' You can follow a step-by-step guide on how to use Traffic Estimator here.

Testing again and again

Lastly, you can always measure results without any special tools by simply looking at your conversions and your position, and then manually adjusting your bids until you achieve your optimal ROI. We want to emphasize that bidding higher CPCs for the keywords that you want isn't always what's best for your ROI. Instead, we recommend that you find out where the keyword is converting the best for the optimal cost. In this experimentation process, you may lower your bid too much and see conversions go down significantly or you may raise it too much and see no changes in conversions. Through testing and measuring, you should be able find the sweet spot where you are most effectively reaching your advertising goals.

For a more comprehensive range of topics related to managing bids, we recommend that you visit the Managing Cost-Per-Click and 'How do I strategically maximize my ROI?' topics in the Help Center. And you may also want to read more about the Conversion Optimizer beta.

As always, we want to know about the optimization tips you're interested in. Please email us to let us know and you may see your question answered in a future post.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Over the past several years, Google has encouraged academic research and participation in the area of click fraud detection. Our Ad Traffic Quality team is excited to continue this support and recently participated in the AdFraud 2007 workshop at Stanford University. The workshop was attended by more than one hundred participants from academia and industry, and provided an open forum for discussing the technical and social aspects of fighting click fraud.

Dr. Kourosh Gharachorloo, who leads Google's Ad Traffic Quality engineering team, presented the opening talk at the workshop. Kourosh's talk focused primarily on the economics of online advertising and click fraud. The talk presented two frameworks modeling advertiser spend against Google's incentives to help advertisers achieve better ROI. The first framework illustrates how Google's incentives are aligned with those of our advertisers - i.e. our click fraud detection techniques improve advertiser ROI, which then leads to increased advertiser success with AdWords. The second framework shows how low-quality sources of traffic in the Google Network directly reduce Google's revenue along with the revenue of our content partners. The combined frameworks demonstrate that Google has strong economic incentives to fight click fraud, in addition to the extremely important goal of earning and maintaining advertiser trust.

Kourosh's talk also included an overview of Google's approach to detecting invalid clicks. In addition, he described the limitations of the metrics used by the click fraud detection industry to evaluate the impact of click fraud. He concluded the talk by discussing the additional data that Google discloses to advertisers, which uniquely enables AdWords users to reconcile their web server logs with the statistics in their AdWords accounts.

The Ad Traffic Quality team will continue to collaborate with the academic community on research projects and events such as the Stanford AdFraud workshop. For the latest on what this team is up to, please visit the Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center where you'll find Kourosh's presentation [PDF] and a 70-minute video of his talk.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

We'd like to ask anyone still using AdWords Editor 3.5 to upgrade to the latest version (4.0) before October 3, 2007. After October 3rd, 2007, version 3.5 will no longer be supported. As you may already know, old versions of AdWords Editor are retired 60 days after new versions are released in order to optimize our resources and provide the best user experience for AdWords Editor users.

To upgrade, just follow the automatic download prompt that appears when you start AdWords Editor. Important note: To preserve any comments or unposted changes, you will need to export an archive of your account before upgrading. After you've completed the upgrade, simply download your account and import the archive file.

For a complete list of version 4.0 features, please see our release notes. And, if you're not sure which version of AdWords Editor you are using, here's how to find out: Within the program, go to the 'Help' menu then click 'About AdWords Editor.'

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew