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flyingrose
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Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Mar-12 07:16
I've been scouring Google Analytics referrer files and looking at the individual sites that generate large numbers of clicks. Both Google and Yahoo are sending an ever increasing percentage of traffic from sites loosely called "search engines".
A common practice on these sites is to offer search phrase suggestions. Whenever your keywords are one of those suggested searches - and especially if that phrase has prominent placement - that keyword is going to get more traffic than it would if the user typed in their own phrase.
What would concern me most is if these types of sites give a preference to more expensive ads or intentionally show your most expensive ads for keyword searches OTHER THAN the phrases you have in your account.
For example, if a site displayed your ad for a specific brand and model of product that had a $2-$3 bid on it instead of the ad you have in your account for the generic search the user specified or one that was offered as described above.
I believe that may be happening but have not yet identified sites that are doing that. This is why I believe that is being done:
When I blocked brand and product specific keyword phrases from showing for specific generic searches and forced Google to show the less expensive ads there should have been an increase in impressions for the ads targeting those specific searches and a decline in traffic and costs in the specific brand/product ad groups.
That did NOT happen - impressions and clicks on generic keywords did not show measurable changes as expected. The impressions and costs for all specific brand/product ads DID go down. Cost per conversions improved dramatically.
During the several days I added negative embedded keywords the costs, impressions, and clicks for numerous campaigns hit record highs (3/3/7-3/5/7) that are clearly visible on the graphs provided on the Account Snapshot page (still in beta so most don't have this feature yet).
The down side is traffic and sales also went down. This one action which theoretically should simply have forced Google's system to do what it is supposedly doing in the first place caused a decline in week-over-week sales revenue of 10.6% attributed to Google CPC ads and because of how poorly Google Analytics attributes the correct sales source possibly more or even much more.
If this were because bids were insufficient to get the generic ads on the first page I would expect to see at least some average positions above 8-10 and I'm not seeing that. It appears that only those highest cost ads are being fed to some search partners or possibly even on Google.com itself.
I will theorize that Google and/or some or many Google Search Partner Sites are maximizing income by displaying only the ads with the highest bids. How precisely this is being done and whether it is on Google's end or the partners' end I do not know.
I did come across one site that displays only four Yahoo ads which is far more likely to get searchers to click on the top four highest priced ads. I am still searching looking for where incorrect ads are being displayed. I am also looking at more and more search partner sites.
Although I started this quest because of Google challenges I'm actually seeing far more of this type of site from Yahoo; HOWEVER, I suspect that Yahoo's might be split out more and Google's may be more difficult to dig out because there must be more traffic from Google's partner sites than I'm finding so far.
EXAMPLES SHOWING GOOGLE ADS
alltheinternet.com
EXAMPLES SHOWING YAHOO ADS
alltheindustrials.com (shows only four ads)
alcohol.com
alarmclockdirectory.com
allweddingworld.com
anniversarydirectory.com
There are many "search" sites purportedly about a particular subject that will return ads for any search on ANY subject. To see an example of this go to alcohol.com which says "For resources and information on Wine and Alcohol" and search for anything else.
[ Message was edited by: JimBot 04/06/2007 04:25 pm ... Reason: Edited Title ]
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Mar-28 10:51
Does anyone see traffic from www.myspace.com in their Google Analytics account?
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webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
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Posted: 2007-Mar-28 20:02
My AdWords campaigns only use Google search, so I wouldn't see myspace referrals. I believe that the world's largest search engine is a big enough universe for my search terms and business. As such, I am periodically skeptical of Yahoo! and their own so-called "search network", which YSM offers on an all-or-nothing basis. I couldn't shake the notion that I was paying for junk from unknown, dark corners of the Internet. To either confirm my suspicions or allow me to sleep at night I ran a test.
I assembled three months of YSM click thrus, and segregated them as originating from a Yahoo! search or some other place. To my surprise (and relief), the "other place" CTs were AT LEAST as qualified as the bona fide Yahoo! searches as measured by time-on-site and pages-viewed. And in many cases they were more qualified. That little voice continues to whisper to me, though, which will make me run another comparison in a few months. But for now I'm thankful that at least by my metrics, the YSM search affiliates appear to be performing at least as well as Yahoo! themselves.
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Mar-30 21:23
If you are opted into the Google Search Partner Network you are getting traffic from far more places than just Google search. Some of it must come from MySpace; however, Google Analytics lumps it all together under Google.
Unless advertisers are opted out of that network, they are indeed paying for junk traffic from the Google search partner network. Advertisers using Yahoo are also paying for junk traffic.
Some of us have been lobbying both Google and Yahoo to allow us to opt in or out of various types of traffic. If more advertisers request it perhaps some day it will happen. In the meantime Google advertisers must decide between giving up some quality partner traffic to get rid of this "junk" traffic or living with it.
As you have proven to yourself, some partner traffic converts. Overall sometimes Yahoo traffic actually converts better than Google; sometimes it doesn't. It probably depends on the mix of keywords which partner sites send each advertiser the majority of their traffic.
The quantity of online searches being done at Yahoo and Google is unlikely to increase while the percentage of ads appearing elsewhere will continue to increase. Continual monitoring of results would indeed be wise.
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webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
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Posted: 2007-Apr-02 19:47
I opted out of the Google Search Partner Network. My visitors are only Google Searchers -- I hope.
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Apr-03 02:14
That is safe but will cost you many potential sales. I highly recommend that all advertisers work at diversifying the sources of their traffic - and the sooner the better.
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webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
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Posted: 2007-Apr-03 22:33
"...and the sooner the better." Why?
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Apr-04 02:59
PPC click costs are likely to continue to increase. There are many reasons they would continue to rise rather than decline including:
1) More corporate advertisers with large budgets will continue to increase their online advertising spend. They can afford much higher click costs than smaller businesses.
2) Serious online businesses will continue to improve their conversion rates and as they do they can afford to bid higher.
3) As buyers have more online businesses to choose from conversions for all advertisers in that business tend to decline unless demand is increasing faster.
4) Google's system "learns" what keyword phrases are related and over time those that originally have low competition, low click costs, and high conversion rates are "assimilated" into other more general keywords.
5) The percentage of traffic coming from search engines like Google is likely to decline in relation to the amount of traffic coming from parked domains, social networking, and other sites that usually have lower conversion rates.
Here's an example of how that last factor can affect sales:
Let's use an example of 1000 clicks:
[NOTE: I chose these percentages at random and used 50% to make it simpler. I do not know what percentage of Google's traffic comes from Google and what percentage comes from their search partner network and that will vary depending on what is being advertised and due to natural traffic variances across different sites.]
For this example, let's assume these conversion rates:
50% Google search converting at 1.5%
50% Google search network partners converting at 0.7%
1000 x 50% = 500 x 1.5% = 7.5 sales from Google search
1000 x 50% = 500 x 0.7% = 3.5 sales from Google search partners
Total sales 11.0
35% Google search converting at 1.5% sales
65% Google search network partners converting at 0.7%
1000 x 35% = 350 visitors x 1.5% = 5.25 sales from Google
1000 x 65% = 650 visitors x 0.7% = 4.55 sales from partners
Total sales 9.8
Decline of 1.2 sales from each 1000 visitors
Use your average number of sales and average revenue per sale to calculate how much that type of change will affect your revenue:
Number of visitors divided by 1000 times number of sales per 1000 times average revenue per sale
EXAMPLE:
100,000 visitors divided by 1000 = 100 x 11 = 1100 sales
100,000 visitors divided by 1000 = 100 x 9.8 = 980 sales
If your average sale is $60
1100 x $60 = $66,000
980 x $60 = $58,800
This is a decline of $7,200 (almost 11%) and equates to a higher decline of profit percentage because the cost of advertising is spread across fewer sales and lower revenue.
When using PPC advertising you must continually be increasing conversions and profitability and adding new products/keywords/ads just to maintain your current level.
To grow a business you must be able to increase results faster than the natural tendency for them to decline and then some.
It is always best to have as many sources of traffic as possible so that an issue with any one of those sources does not decimate your business.
Search engines are likely to become less critical to driving sales as Internet users use various forms of recommendations such as friends who are now online, reviews, social networking sites and as they make repeat purchases from businesses they have previously patronized.
There is a definite advantage in getting established early and developing continuing relationships with buyers.
[ Message was edited by: flyingrose 04/03/2007 07:10 pm ]
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webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
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Posted: 2007-Apr-05 15:27
Okay, your argument makes sense. However, I believe that the Partner/no Partner selection process needs to be tempered by the kind of product being sold. If I sell ink and toner cartridges, something nearly everyone needs, I'm more inclined to use the Partner network to cast as wide a net as possible. But what if I make machine tools or turbine blades? Does the Partner network make sense here?
Call me simplistic, but I imagine myself as a spectator at a parade when making these kinds of decisions. If I can raise a sign over my head advertising any given product and expect to make sales, I use the Partner network. If I believe instead that I will get nothing but peculiar stares in return, then I opt for highly targeted Google-only searches. My products are most definitely in the latter category, so I focus only on Google.
This said, I admit to a certain degree of ignorance about the network. If I could determine a precise group for which my machine tool and turbine blade ads would resonate, I'd be willing to give it a try. But it seems to me a lot like trying to catch squid in Lake Erie.
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Apr-06 22:47
The ideal situation for advertisers would be for Google to be more transparent about where their ads appear and allow them to opt out of locations that are unprofitable for them.
At a minimum I would like to see them allow advertisers to opt in and out of different types of search partner networks. There are basically three types:
1) ISPs defaulting to Google search (AOL, Earthlink, AT&T, etc.)
2) Social networking sites such as myspace.com that offer true search but also show Google search ads for searches of their site. (I consider those high risk especially for any advertiser whose keywords might also be popular lyrics or fads unrelated to what they sell.)
3) Parked domains
By understanding how Google's system works and where ads appear advertisers can maximize their results. That is one reason I share what I learn here. Strategies that are obvious to me are not to most advertisers.
You (webconfusion) are fortunate that you have thought out your strategy. I like your analogy and believe it would work for most advertisers.
An important part of strategy is prioritizing. I will start a new thread where I will share my strategy for prioritizing sources of traffic.
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