Article Categories

• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogs & Podcasts
• Branding
• Business
• Cloud Technology
• Ecommerce
• Email Marketing
• Facebook
• Google
• Keywords
• LinkedIn
• Linking Strategies
• List Building
• Local Search
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• Mobile Applications
• Page Rank
• Pay Per Click
• RSS
• Sales Copy
• SE Optimization
• SE Positioning
• SE Submission
• SE Tactics
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Security
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• SPAM
• SPN Featured Articles
• Technology
• Video Marketing
• Virtual Office/Telecommuting
• Web 2.0
• Web Design
• Web Development
• Webmasters
• Website Promotion
• Website Traffic
• WordPress
• Writing

SiteProNews Blogs

• Editor's Corner
• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• John Sylvester
• Kalena Jordan
• Mel Strocen
• Titus Hoskins

Clever Use of AdWords Lands Man Top Advertising Job

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

What’s a job at the top of your field worth to you?

To unemployed advertising executive Alec Brownstein, it was worth around USD 6. That’s what Alec paid Google AdWords to get the attention of New York’s top advertising agencies and score himself two job offers.

Alec decided he wanted a job at one of New York’s top ad agencies. But to get an interview via the regular channels could take months. So he decided to bypass normal job application procedures and appeal to the egos of the Creative Directors instead.

How did he do it? He set up PPC ads using Dynamic Keyword Insertion that would appear whenever one of the Creative Directors Googled themselves, otherwise known as a *vanity search*. So a Google search for Gerry Graf, David Droga, Tony Granger, Ian Reichenthal or Scott Vitrone would trigger Alec’s ad to appear.

The ad read:

Hey [Director's Name]
Googling yourself is a lot of fun.
Hiring me is fun, too.

A click on the ad led to Alec’s site and contact details. According to Brownstein, nobody was bidding on the names, so he was able to achieve the top ad slots for around 10 cents per click.

The result? Alec scored interviews with 4 out of the 5 Creative Directors and job offers from both Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone of Y&R Advertising. He took one of the offers and now has a permament gig at Y&R New York.

Clever eh?

Google’s Adwords Top Tactics For Tough Times

By Titus-Hoskins in Featured

Like anyone who’s using Google Adwords in their
online marketing, I received Google’s small booklet
in the mail entitled “Google’s Adwords Top
Tactics For Tough Times.”

In it Google lays out 6 Adwords Tactics for tough times…
helpful tips to help their Adwords users get
through these hard times and keep using Adwords
in the process.

These tactics include: (quoting directly from the
mail-out)

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.

6. Focus your money on your high-performers.

These are all good tactics for the tough times ahead…
I especially like the emphasis on low-prices and savings.
Everyone will be looking for bargains in these rough times,
by focusing your marketing on fulfilling that need will
make your campaigns more profitable.

You can learn more here:

http://www.google.com/adwords/tactics2008

Now I am first to admit I am not a PPC expert, the majority
of my marketing is done thru SEO with first page listings
in organic search (mainly Google) for my keywords. So take
everything that follows with a large grain of salt.

My main beef with Google Adwords, they won’t send you
enough traffic. If you’re in a competitive niche market,
the big players will obviously outbid you… no matter
how good or bad your landing pages are. I know that
your quality score is supposed to lower your costs and
if your ads have high CTR click-thru-rates, your Adwords
costs should come down even more and you get more traffic.

Still, it’s difficult to make a profit especially for
an affiliate marketer who only gets a percentage of the
sale and not the full sale price. I counter this by picking
affiliate products that give you residual income, make one
sale and get paid for years or the life of that client.
Even with using this tactic, Google Adwords is very risky
for the online affiliate marketer – you better know what
you’re doing or you can waste a lot of money.

Slap Yourself Silly!

Actually, that statement is not really true because it
has been my experience that Google Adwords simply won’t
deliver the traffic you want. Unless you want to make
outrageous high bids on keywords and slap yourself silly;
Google won’t give you the traffic. Unlike Yahoo Marketing
which will supply you with traffic to meet at least 60% to 80%
of your daily PPC budget – no such luck with Google Adwords.

They simply won’t give me the impressions, let alone
the traffic! Again, I am speaking from my own experience
here, and it is wrong to make a general consensus just
based on one person’s findings. I believe the main
reason is because the competition is so stiff and
Google traffic is so highly prized. Get a high
conversion rate and throw in this quality traffic
from Google and you can print your own money.

In several proven profitable campaigns, I would like
to spend 3 or 4 hunderd dollars a day but Google simply
won’t deliver the traffic at my bid levels… you have
to raise your bids so high, you can’t make a profit.
These are not minimum bids and my ads are placed
in the second or third spot on the right hand side
in Google Search. Even if you have first page placement
in Google’s organic SERPs for the same site and keywords
you’re bidding on – it’s still difficult to get the traffic.

I know you have to pick niche markets and campaigns
that are not so competitive that you can make a profit.
But I am not so sure… I believe Google Adwords are
way too strict regarding who they do business with.
Maybe Google is used to handling clients with budgets of
3 or 4 thousand a day and can’t be bothered with the small
guys.

You Must Establish A Good Credit History

Google Adwords also uses something called a proven track
record or history… unless you can establish this good credit
history, forget about getting large amounts of traffic from
Google. It’s much like SERPs where you have to prove yourself
before they will consistently list your site. The old
SandBox issue.

To be fair, you really have to view this situation from Google’s
standing… they give out all this traffic on a “pay-later”
basis, they have to make sure any traffic delivered will
be paid for by the receiver. It could all boil down to
a simple business procedure. Again, I am no expert at
Adwords.

However, I am hoping in these harsh economic times, Google
will have to become more open and give more impressions
and traffic to the smaller fry. Obviously, by sending out
the booklet, Google must be concerned with a drop in business
in these uncertain times. Maybe their numbers have already
dropped, maybe not. Only Google knows.

Better yet, if times get very dire, competition just might go
down and this will open up new opportunities for the small
marketers out there, including in Google Adwords. Now that’s
one tactic I hope Google will adopt. There are probably thousands,
if not millions of other small marketers ready to take up the
slack, Google would just have to work harder dealing with many
more advertisers rather than centering all their efforts on
the large corporate clients with huge pockets who I am now
assuming get the majority of Adwords traffic.

In any case, it sure would be nice to have more PPC traffic
from Google. Give me the traffic first, and I’ll worry about
the other Adwords Tactics later, after I get the traffic
flowing.

That’s my response to this Google Adwords Mail-out.
http://www.google.com/adwords/tactics2008