| Adding
Value to AdWords Advertising
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth
Placement Inc., January 21, 2005
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This is a breaking story about Google AdWords based on several rumours,
readings and conversations. There is a fair likelihood that some information
here is erroneous. In an email, Google Advertising PR Michael Mayzel
stated, “We
are not providing comment.” If correct the implications are huge
and might provide Google advertisers critical protections they've been
asking for.
Google is about to announce significant changes in the way it does business
with its advertisers.
As owner of the most successful pay-per-click search business, AdWords,
Google wants to continue its dominant role in the sector's accelerating
growth phase. Revenues from contextual advertising account for over 90%
of Google's annual income and are the bedrock their stock values are staked
on.
Having read a growing number of articles and blog-posts describing poor
experiences with AdWords over the past six months, Google has grown concerned
about the publics' confidence in the AdWords/AdSense model. Reports of increasing
click-fraud and decreasing ROIs have advertisers looking for other options
and competitors are emerging from all directions.
Starting this week, Google appears to be taking steps to radically improve
their relationship with their clients by offering advertisers more control
over their AdWords campaigns.
While most of the world thought it was away skiing in Lake Tahoe, Google
rented a large conference hall in San Francisco and treated 1800 of its
sales staff to a day long seminar detailing changes to the AdWords advertising
environment.
According to the Silicone
Valley Watcher blog Google is about to give advertisers
and SEMs who have achieved Google Advertising Professional certification
a lot more control over their AdWords accounts. Sometime soon, Google is
going to announce the release of an application-programming interface (API)
that will allow advertisers or their third-party representatives control
over the delivery, timing, geographic distribution and costs of AdWords
advertising.
This move comes at a time when Google is facing increasingly stiff competition
from well-known rivals Overture and Kanoodle and new arrivals, AOL and MSN.
AskJeeves and Lycos also present growing challenges to Google’s dominance
of the PPC sector in North America while eSpotting continues to offer European
alternatives.
Google is hoping that by offering advertisers a greater sense of control
over the costs of campaigns and contextual delivery options, they will retain
current advertisers and win back the loyalty of advertisers experimenting
with competing systems. Allowing advertisers the ability to effect where
and when an ad appears, gives them the ability (and responsibility) to limit
the damage from click-fraud. If the number of click-throughs from a geographic
area suddenly increases without a sudden increase in sales, the advertiser
can simply remove that geographic location from their campaign targets.
One of the sub-rumours making the rounds says Google will allow advertisers
to automate their interactions with the API.
Giving this level of control to advertisers will require a new set of reporting
tools that should make it much easier to determine the micro-effectiveness
of AdWords campaigns. After fears of click-fraud, advertisers noted a lack
of account management and reporting as their biggest problem with the AdWords
program. Better reporting tools that offer a strict accounting of monies
spent and strong estimates of monies needed should alleviate many of those
concerns.
Allowing advertisers to determine the size, scope and distribution of their
campaigns could provide the tonic Google needs to successfully revamp its
most successful offering. Not being known to do smart things in halves,
there is an expectation Google will now set to work out kinks in its relationships
with AdSense distribution partners.
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