AKA “WILD CARD”
Have you ever wondered how the ads you see when you look to the right on google search results pages are exactly what you typed? Have you ever seen an ad when you look to the right that makes no sense at all? Have you ever noticed the ad’s when you look to the right that have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with what you just searched for?
Yes, Those are the “Wild Card” ad’s Officially known as Dynamic Insertion. The exact thing Ebay & Amazon uses for a majority of their ad creative.
What IS it?
Dynamic Insertion is a great way to generate more traffic from your Google AdWords CPC campaign’s. Best used for grabbing the attention of the searcher. Also a great way to fit a large key word or key phrase into the 25 character limit top link line. Basically dynamic insertion takes the keyword or key phrase from your keyword list and throws it into the link line when it exactly matches the searchers query. You can also add other creative to the link line that will also show seamlessly with the dynamically inserted keyword.
Cautions
Be cautious in how you use this. It has the potential to harm your image. As stated above we have all seen how some ads that show for our searches have nothing to do with what we searched for. Especially in phrase searches. One example I have seen was someone searching for the band “The Dead Pets” and because someone had targeted pets as a key word their ad showed something like “The Dead Pets-In Stock”. Obviously not a great way to show up for an erroneous placement.
How to do it
Pretty Simple, Use the squiggly brackets, and depending on how you capitalize the word “keyword” will determine how it capitalizes the keyword you have targeted. See below for a Google example:

{Keyword: corporate catering} will show as: corporate catering
{Keyword: Corporate catering} will show as: Corporate catering
{KeyWord: Corporate Catering} will show as: Corporate Catering

For Product companies a cool way to use this and grab searcher attention is to ad text in after the brackets:

{KeyWord: Corporate Catering} Local
or for a specific part # {KeyWord: C77538} In-stock

I would encourage every company to at least try this out. See if there are any fluctuations in CTR’s. And always use the Ad Preview tool to review!

-Noah
Explode The Net - Community For Young Entrepreneurs

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising by Noah - No Comments »

If you are new to Create Business Growth, we close out each week with our “Who Said That?,” where we give some link love to other blogs and regular websites that we feel you may find interesting. Let’s get started!

Powerful PR for Small Businesses
In his post Small Business Newspapers Growing in Popularity, John Jantsch talks about the power of local newspapers when it comes to small business publicity. I’m so glad that John brought up this point. Most people may not realize how easy it really is to get featured or to write a story for a local paper. The first published item I ever wrote was for a local San Diego paper called the Coast News. I was terrified to go in and ask to write a feature, but mustered up the courage to go in and talk to the editor and walked out with an on-spec assignment. That article made the front page of the next edition. If you’re a small business, absolutely become aquatinted with the editor at your local community paper by introducing yourself and your business in person and send your press releases to the editor.

Capturing the Collective Consciousness of Freelancers (plus, a ton of rockin’ prizes)
If you haven’t heard of Freelancer Switch, head over now without passing go or collecting $200. Currently in it’s fourth month, this blog has already accumulated nearly 9000 subscribers – wow. Now they are using the power of those numbers to get some real data on the freelancing community in their upcoming survey. If you consider yourself a freelancer, you’ll want to take this survey not only for the benefit of contributing to and utilizing collective knowledge but also for a chance to win some really cool prizes!

Hey – winning prizes can happen! This week I found out that I won Erik Karey’s “Review Me and Win a Palm Pilot” contest – thanks again Erik!

FastPitch – we like to feature blogs from FastPitch members. You may know that David is a big advocate of FastPitch and has recently become a titanium member.

A Flash Page is Like Having a Performer at Your Retail Store’s Entrance…
I hadn’t ever thought of it that way, but this analogy in the post Blog Training Starts With Site Usability is so dead on and gave me a chuckle. Ann talks a lot of sense in this post about things that web users have become accustom to when they visit websites and blogs and offers a list of blog/site basics to follow.

If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed by Your More Established Competition Here’s a Positive Thought…
What new business owner hasn’t had that sinking feeling when pouring through the websites of all of their well-established competitors? In his post New Website Owners Have Ways To Increase Their Edge Over The Competition, Nick at Search Engine Optimization Journal offers some good reasons why you as a new business can have the edge over those old timers.

From our My Blog Log Community

Do you Hang Out In Your Reader’s Community?
In his post, Where Can I Find You? Jonathan at Smart Wealthy Rich asks his readers one heck of a Smart question – which social networking sites are they using most? There are so many… are you spending time in the same communities as your readers? At this time, the post has 36 comments (Jonathan’s posts are notorious for having tons of comments) where you may find some interesting insight about which social networks are attracting the most people. Of course, in order to find out where your target audience is spending their time, you might want to ask them!

Organize your Life with Style
If you’re an organizational nut, you’ll want to check out J David Macor’s post How to Stay Organized Web 2.0 Style where you will likely find enough cool tools to keep you busy all weekend.

From the BumpZee iFollow Community

Is Your ‘Subscribe to Comments’ Box Checked by Default?
It might be after you read this rant on Yack Yack titled Why every blogger should have subscribe to comments checked by default. If yours is, get ready to feel smart. If it’s not, get ready to get schooled or change it really quick and then go read this post.

Measuring your Progress is the Key to Moving Forward
So it only makes sense to know as much as you can about your stat tracking tools. Get a whole lesson from Andy Beard in his post Important Tips On Using Feedburner Pro - Now Free.

A community that we just joined: Yahoo! Groups - Blogging Network
If you are a blogger, you may want to join the group. Also, keep an eye out for featured bloggers from the group in future “Who Said That?” posts.

Check out our “Who Said That?” archives!

I’d also like to give a sincere thank you to all of our readers and to all of you entrepreneurs working hard each and every day to follow your dreams. Have a great weekend!

If you would like to show people your post was featured in “Who Said That,” you can copy the following code and paste it at the bottom of your post: <a href="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that/who-said-that-friday-july-6th-2007"><img src="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that.jpg" alt="Who Said That" border="0"/></a>

Tags: Who Said That?, Pay Per Click Advertising by Adam - 5 Comments »

Get Your Structure Right!
I can’t tell you the amount of times I have heard and said that!
To have a successful AdWords Campaign you must have them structured properly. First make sure you have a Standard Edition NOT a starter edition. The Standard Edition gives you much more control and better functionality. And don’t worry, it’s not any harder to navigate and edit.
Each campaign should have its individual:
1. Daily Budget
2. Language Targeting
3. Location Targeting
4. Ad distribution preference
5. Start and end dates
Each Ad Group for each Campaign should have its individual:
1. Set of keywords that are relevant to each other.
2. Relevant Ad’s/Ad creative/Ad Copy for the keywords selected

If you have key words that have high CTR% ideally you should break those high performers into their own ad group so the entire ad group has the highest CTR% instead of being brought down by the other low performers. And even full campaign if you so choose. DON’T FORGET to use the “Copy or Move Keywords and Ad Text” tool to rearrange things if there is any positive history for the keywords and Ad’s.

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising, Internet Marketing by Noah - No Comments »

At the TIMA seminar here in Raleigh NC I had the opportunity to meet 3 Reps from Google and learn some great new info. Here are some of the highlights.

New Stats: 1 billion+ people on line currently, 555 million since 2000. 2-3 Billion more anticipated in the next 2-3 years. 50% of the USA has broad band access. Google Reaches 88% of internet users, 4.5 Billion page views per day.

“Alleged” Gadget Ad’s in Q3?: Interactive media ads that are open source type of interface. Basically from my understanding an interactive ad that you could say rotate the product they are advertising to see all angles of the item. Applications such as a series of interactive button questions to yield a product based on your answers. Like a small window of another site with an advertisement focus.

Radio Ad’s: Are now available. And those of us with AdWords accounts can already see the new tab at the top of our campaign management screen that says Audio Ad’s, also the $400.00 credit for free Radio dollars till the end of June. You can target major cities, Time of day, Age, Music preference, 100 of the top 100 radio stations. You can even control which ad’s run based on weather, temperature of day, pollen count. Google will also generate a phone number that you can use to track the calls you receive from your radio advertising. No political ad’s are authorized yet. Co$t Per thousand (CPM) impressions. Only terrestrial for now. Cost Competition is within Google only not according to the station, although the stations may have a base cost to reach before they will fill the spots. I found that Greensboro, High point area are exponentially higher than Raleigh, Greenville and charlotte when I was pricing some things out personally. It seems VERY affordable to roll out some Radio advertising via Google. Also There are some very affordable 3rd party ad providers that can create an ad for you with voices, music and script if desired with quick turnaround! You may soon hear some LookToTheRight.com commercials on the air waves soon! So keep your ear tuned in to Create Business Growth!

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising, Marketing, Internet Marketing by Noah - 1 Comment »

For those of you that are currently using Google AdWords here a few tips and tricks to use for keeping ROI high and CPC low. Some of these may just be refreshers and some may drastically change your campaigns. These will be listed in no order of importance. Also remember that this is not advice custom fitted to your site and or your site’s goals. Having stated that disclaimer here are some of my best tips and tricks. But not all…

If your campaign is costing too much: Analyze and make sure that your ads are not showing on the content network. Especially if the content network ads are not returning a desired result. When you set up a new campaign the content network traffic is automatically turned on due to the amount of clicks it can produce. The option out is under the “Edit Campaighn Settings” page on the right hand side under the Networks box on the upper right hand side of the page. (You would be surprised how many people are overpaying for unproductive clicks!)

Cutting Costs and Increasing Sales: Huge tip, Make sure your high performing Key words (high CTR) are in the same Ad Group under the same Campaign for the same product and landing page. The lower performing key words can hurt the overall ad-group performance. It would be better to have a solid group of 10% CTR Keywords, and a separate group of 3-4% CTR Keywords. In my humble but very accurate opinion. If you have to edit/move keywords or ad’s don’t forget to use the campaign management tools! (I wish i had known that when i got started!)

Don’t Forget To Be Negative! If you don’t offer free widgets make sure to have the proper negative keywords buy putting a - in front of the key word you don’t want to show and ad for. In this situation “-free”.

If you are Targeting Geo-location: Remember to make the area large enough to include ISP’s that might be just beyond the initial target area. No one wants to miss out on thousands of potential customers over just a few miles.

Speaking of Local Targeting: Or national for that matter. Try running an ad that contains Your Business Phone number. Ideally a phone number strictly dedicated to this type of marketing so you can review the exact amount of calls. Great way to make your ad stand out and why pay for a click if you can get them to call direct.

Again This is not custom advice. Handle with care. In the right situations this advice can drastically change your ROI and CPC rates. One particular client doubled their CTR and Halved their CPC.

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising by Noah - 2 Comments »

…And why you should have gotten an A instead of that C-.
While recollecting the pain and agony of English class I realize how bad wrong my educators were at seeing the totality of educating and preparing future sales and marketing reps for the digital world that was soon approaching. Obviously they did teach me how to put together half decent sentences and grammar that at least is good enough to not to always get the green underline from Microsoft Word.

As I took the stroll down memory lane for writing and text communication I remember very strongly getting the reprimand and the classic bright red tipped felt pen marks and circles for addressing the reader by using “you”, “your” and”you’re”.

Back then, using the “you-Orentation” was a huge no-no, and I was never educated on proper times and uses for “you-Orentation”. One of the best books I have read on Copy-writing has been “The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells” Which you can Pick up at your local Barns and Noble or online of course. In my PPC, SEM, Text Ads field I have to make relevant ad copy that grabs attention right off the bat in a fraction of a second even.

One of the most effective ways of doing that is appealing to the readers interests and emotions directly. After all, one of the points your copy should answer is the classic “What’s In It For Me” question your reader is thinking, By specifically answering this using “you”, “your” or “you’re”. Just imagine if the title of this post was “Why One’s High School English Teacher Was Wrong.” Obviously not nearly as attention grabbing.

I know I couldn’t really care less about someone else’s english teacher. But by making it personal with “your” that directly addresses my situation and sparks emotions from my past experiences. So, to all of us who were at the mercy of the red pen we can now rest assured that we are now justified in knowing deep down we were always right.

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising, Marketing by Noah - 4 Comments »

The New Look for the Google analytics is in full effect! And Boy is it hot. Much more simple to understand. Easier to navigate. Highly graphical for those of us that are visual learners (probably 90+% of us guys). Although lots of stats and numbers for logical and mathematical analyzing.

Much more user friendly interface that gets two thumbs up. Also Great feature for generating reports to send via email. Great for keeping clients/management/sales up to date on key data. Site Overlay works way better, especially on poorly designed sites (I am sure none of us have any). All in all this layout is more functional, easier to use, gives you more data per page, and very informative! Best of all Still FREE!!!!!!!!

For me here @ LookToTheRight it will help out big time on data mining for better targeting of campaigns, Keeping Clients informed, and keeping CTR’s, ROI’s High and CPC’s Low.

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising, Programming Help by Noah - 1 Comment »

Google will be coming to Raleigh NC in June. They will be having an informational panel format seminar in coordination with TIMA-Triangle Interactive Marketing Association. All the details are not final. There is usually a cost associated whether or not you are a TIMA member. The format will allow for some Q&A I believe however there will be a stronger focus on SEM and Local Search, things of that nature rather than getting into a situation of SEO and algorithm questions that could yield to an endless string of technical information that they wont reveal anyway.

The scheduled date is Wednesday June 20th. I will for sure be there and glad to meet any one else that would like to say hello and find out any more about customized Adwords campaigns from LookToTheRight.com. As of yet I believe I am the only Certified Google Advertising Professional associated with TIMA. See ya soon!

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Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising, Marketing, Internet Marketing by Noah - 1 Comment »

I am not one to speak from a stance of a fearful or negative mindset about anything. I do however believe there are windows of opportunity to take advantage of great benefits and potential windfalls in Creating Business Growth. In a recent article I read that I unfortunately forgot to Digg or post to my del.icio.us, there were reports of key words ranging up to $69.00 per click.

Thankfully most of us don’t have bids that are half that. In consideration of those costs and the other facts that are starting to get noticed and paid attention to i.e. the fact that Google over shot earnings by 69%+- ($1Billion+-) the first quarter of 07 with a LARGE majority of their revenue being AdWords PPC charges.

Most of us can enjoy the results of 300-900% returns from our PPC, SEM, Google AdWords budgets currently. Although the day is coming when more and more of our competitors become enlightened to the new ways in which to Create Business Growth. As the world turns and as our competitors bring there business into the 3rd Millennia our minimum bids will turn into our maximums and our 300-900% will turn into thankful 300%.

I believe we have a good amount of time before these windows begin to become smaller and smaller. And I feel confident that if you are on this site and reading this post you are ahead of the ball in comparison to your competitors in Creating Business Growth with SEM, PPC, Google AdWords. My wish is that you take full advantage of the time to grab low bids and high ROI. I look forward to us all Creating Business Growth together!

Noah @ LookToTheRight.com

Tags: Pay Per Click Advertising, Marketing by Noah - 1 Comment »