Google Partners Blog: June 2008

Allied Business Schools Success Story

Monday, June 30, 2008

Founded in 1992

Specializes in distance learning alternatives

365 employees, based in Laguna Hills, CA

Started using AdWords in 2002

What they needed:

To generate qualified leads and increase student enrollment

To target individual states with different messages

To improve website functionality and performance

What they accomplished:

Used AdWords to generate 30% of total leads, with a lower cost-per-conversion than other marketing programs

Implemented Website Optimizer and tested variations of their landing page, resulting in an increase in visitor conversion rates

"When we realized how well we could geographically target online, that made all the difference. It allows us to separate out costs, traffic, leads and cost-per-conversion from state to state."

download the PDFAdWords Success Stories Sitetell us your storyPosted by Maris Gersh, Creative Team

Travel Industry Knowledge Center

Friday, June 27, 2008

For some, the first day of summer marks a time for vacation and relaxation, but if you have clients in the travel industry things may just be getting busy. With more people searching for summer getaways, there’s no better time to check out the new Travel Industry Knowledge Center. Designed for advertisers in the travel space, you can get a list of recommended Google products, read stories about travel companies who have found success with AdWords, and get tips on making the most of your clients' AdWords campaigns. Here's an excerpt from the "Get more bang for your buck"section:

Posted by Laura Hood, Creative Team

Investigating with the Impression Share report

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Unlock the mystery behind a campaign’s low search traffic. Knowing how your ad stacks up against others in your market can help you make more effective changes to your campaigns. So, before you start restructuring the whole account, get clued in by running an Impression Share report (IS). The IS report will tell you the percentage of impressions where your client’s ads were shown out of the total available impressions in the market you were targeting. With insight into potential traffic, you can make more informed decisions by getting answers to these questions:

Do I have room to expand in my targeted market?

Am I losing impressions due to rank?

Am I losing impressions due to budget?

What's my impression share for specific keywords I'm using? (Hint: use the IS Exact Match report)

The next step is to learn how to improve your client's impression share, and the mystery is solved.

Posted by Josephine Tsay, Agency Team

Calling all MCC users: Feedback requested

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

complete the surveyherePosted by Gina Blohowiak, Product Specialist

Introducing Google Ad Planner

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Inside AdWordsGoogle Ad PlannerGoogle content networkGoogle Trends for WebsitesannouncedMediaVisor

(Click image for full size version)
apply herePosted by Cathy Bishop, Creative Team

Informed and industrious, volume 2

Friday, June 20, 2008

Test, test, test: Slow quarters are a great time to test and iterate.

Prepare for periods of peak traffic, like the Q4 retail season, by optimizing now. Test new ad groups, clean up keyword lists, and get in front of new audiences with content network campaigns.
Try products like Google's Website Optimizer to find the most optimal website design or Google Analytics to gain insight into how users interact with your site.

Be prepared: By staying on top of industry news and trends, you'll know when slow periods are ahead and you can plan accordingly.

Forecast quarterly budgets and make sure you've allocated your resources correctly.
When creating the industry calendar that I described last time, highlight periods of potential slow growth. Develop a plan for those weeks or months to make sure that you're using the time to improve campaign performance.

Room to grow: Review your client's account and focus on areas that may have growth prospects.

For example, if your client offers a variety of loan types, you may find that consumers are currently expressing more interest in student loans than they are in home loans.
Use Google Trends to help you identify markets that are expanding based on search volume.

Interest now can mean sales later: Examine the buying cycle.

In some industries, like business-to-business tech purchasing, the buying cycle is long, and has a predictable yearly cycle. Even if customers aren't converting on their clicks immediately, they may be doing research in order to plan for future purchases. Target these prospective consumers with non-branded search keywords and content network campaigns so they know where to turn when they're ready to buy.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Google Industry Analyst

New Tech B2B Industry Newsletter

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Tech B2B Industry NewsletterGoogle Trends

Posted by Cathy Bishop, Creative Team

Optimization 101, Part 2 in a series

Monday, June 16, 2008

blog post

Use negative keywords at the ad group and campaign level, as appropriate. If you have negative keywords that apply to all your ad groups within a content campaign, save time by adding them at the campaign level.

Get ideas for negative keywords from the Keyword Tool. For example, if you enter chocolates in the Keyword Tool, you'll see a number of related concepts. Select your negative keywords based on the traffic you're interested in excluding. In this case, you may not want to appear on pages related to the LG chocolate phone, chocolate Labrador dogs, or the books and movies Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Like Water for Chocolate. Add these terms as negative keywords to help target your ads.

Keep in mind that users are browsing content network websites rather than searching for specific terms, so you can still receive relevant traffic from sites that aren't directly related to your product or service. You may want your gourmet chocolate ads to show on sites for other gourmet foods, desserts, or gifts, so choose your negative keywords accordingly.

Posted by Danh Ly, Thu Nguyen, and Alice Lin, Optimization Specialists

Informed and industrious

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Posted by Vivek Tata, Industry Analyst

Subscribe to Google News Alerts. You can define a set of queries that will trigger an alert if a related news story appears, so you can keep track of a wide variety of topics without spending your whole day reading the paper.

Set up a Google Reader feed. Read up on industry news frequently to make sure you're on top of potential traffic surges. Blogs that track industry rumors can be a good place to start: for weeks before the official announcement of the Apple iPhone, technology blogs like Engadget were posting the latest buzz about Apple's secret new phone.

Create a Google Calendar listing major conferences and expos in your industry. For technology-oriented retailers, for example, that would include major events like MacWorld and the Consumer Electronics show. With Google Calendar, you can customize and share your calendar with your co-workers.

Plan your budget allocation around upcoming events. When a big event comes, you don't want your campaigns to miss out on all the targeted traffic.

Use your ad creatives to respond to market trends. Another advantage of being in the know is using advertising to proactively address industry announcements. For example, if your client's competitor is releasing a new version of a product, you can have ad text ready that highlights the advantages of your client's offerings.