Ad Guideline Voilation

Maybe it's just me but I find more and more ads that seems to violate the Adwords guidelines of text ads.


If the guidelines have changed, all advertisers should be informed and educated properly.

I very recently came to know that a click to call ad can have a phone number in it. I was a little shocked at this. Anways today I find and ad, that instead of a website URL in the display URL, has an email. Now I clearly remember that 2 years ago this was strictly forbidden. What happened? I mean this ad not only has an email adress but also has a call to action in its display URL.

Social Networking and all of that...

Well I am not old enough to say that I have out grown these websites (Orkut, Friendster, Hi5 et all) so I will very openly admit that I have been on Friendster since the last 40 minutes.

I must say as a user of Orkut, I find a few of the others not very user friendly. Of course I am sure it's more of a matter of getting use to the other interfaces.

Anyway 2 very striking things.

1) Google creates and manages all its properties separately (even though you can log into all with just one account) instead of integrating them. I like most people of course believe that this is why they do so well as a Search Engine - no confusion like in the case of Yahoo and MSN which are like portals.

2) The lack of privacy shocks me to some extent. So the reason I was on Friendster in the first place was to find someone there so I could find pictures of my kid cousins. I ended up finding at 9 people in 15 minutes (but not the person I was looking for), some of them who are my internet friends from light years ago, none of whom know that I am on Friendster. I have access to pictures of these people, where they live, what school they went to, and any other details they readily give out. Honestly it's outright scary because cyberspace is not monitored like the real world but cyber crimes are just as horrid as those in the real world. It's even more dangerous because younger and younger people are getting onto the internet.

Live Support

Was setting up a campaign and came across something that's new to me. It gives Common Questions on the right, but whats interesting is 'Live Support' below it. It says Google Reps aren't available to chat.

This is interesting because just image someone walking you through how you should set up an adgroup. Very cool.

Of course knowing google, they don't want something like that. They would love to have everything automatic. The less human dependance, the better.

Adwords Reports

Adwords now stores the last 15 reports created instead of just 5 (which was the case previously).

This is good news.

Short and Sweet...

An Ad in my MSN chat window. I must say I like the concept a lot.




There are lots of things I don't like about the ad too (from an advertisers perspective). For instance there is 0 branding. I don't know which company this is etc.
Which is also a draw back from the viewers perspective too as they don't know if it's a trustworthy website or not.

The other glaring problem is that it doesn't state that this is an ad unless you mouse over it and a box opens over it that says 'Advertisment'. This is a problem because people might click without realising that they are clicking an ad.

For an ad like this to work, there needs to be a strong enough offer that will entice someone to click without even knowing where they will land up (no brand right).

Since I am already going beyond just PPC...

[Apologies for this post being all over the place, sometimes there is lots to say but it just doesn't come out right]

I uploaded my first YouTube video to my Nicks Blog today. I still cannot believe how easy it was.

While Google might fall into a lot of lawsuits (and I would sue them too if I was a copyright owner - I am actually surprised that I haven't heard much on this front), it's totally obvious why users would actually love all these videos. They get for free what they would have had to pay for otherwise or they get what they want now and not just when it comes to them.

The other reason for YouTube's popularity I think is the ease of creating and putting up a video for free too. So any one can create a video and upload it and share it at no cost and with super ease. Anyone can have their 15 seconds of fame.

The other things that strikes me so profoundly is the seemingly seamless integration of the Google products. I mean all one has to do is copy some html code and just paste it in the 'Edit Html' version of a post. It doesn't take more than 30 seconds to take a video from YouTube and upload it onto a blog at Blogger.

Which will obviously lead to a spread of YouTube Videos all over the place. Which leads to this huge potential for Google - I am dying to see how they monetize YouTube, like I have said before. They have tons of people generating content (User Generated Content - the buzz word for 2007 if you ask me) and tons of people consuming this content. And between those 2 this potential to advertise. I love the Google strategy - make everyone go nuts over using your product / service (part of the deal is offering it for free to the end user) and then when you know you have people who cant live without you, make money in innovative ways out of the product / service.

Think about it - how difficult would it be for every video on YouTube to start with a 20 - 30 seconds ad (for a short video. Longer ads for longer videos) before a video starts or in between it. And the ads would be RELEVANT. Which is the one thing Google keeps harping about.

The only hindrance is that video viewing would require high speed internet but there are enough advertisers out there whose TAs only use high speed internet.

How such advertising would be different from your text and banner ads is that this is rich media. It also works on the lines of TV advertising. I would assume advertisements on YouTube would actually be better than TV ads as an option for advertisers cause there would be a sense of flexibility and measurability like the PPC system has (of course I am not talking about products whose TA will not be on YouTube).


P.S. I wouldn't die of shock if I learned that Google will never monetize (don't know if this is even a real word) YouTube.

Navigation Extreme

While it's VERY important that users find what they are looking for, having the sort of navigation on the website below will just confuse users and will make the site look cluttered.

Case in example -


I do like some of the navigation styles. Tag based navigation isn't very common unfortunately. Also they have some highlighted articles which is cool.

What I find very odd though is the navigation in the header (marked in white). Usually this area is reserved for 'branding'. Of course its great space utilization but it's so alien a concept that other than 'new', I can't say much. It's not like I hate the idea, but I don't like it much either.

Conversion Rates?

Sometimes I really wonder if people actually bother about ROI or not.

The ad below is one of the top 'travel sites'. If I remember correctly the keyword used was 'rail ticket'. I would expect much lower conversion rates (maybe even click through rates) when compared to an ad that said lower prices / easy booking etc.

[Click to enlarge image]

So much for guidelines

This site very obviously violates the AdSense guidelines by saying 'Click our ads'
[Click on the image to enlarge]

Expanded text ads

Now expanded text ads are also possible in keyword targeted CPC campaigns.


When you see a text ad that has expanded to take up more of an ad unit or the entire ad unit, you may be seeing either a site-targeted or a keyword-targeted text ad.
Site-targeted text ads appear when advertisers select specific sites on which to run their ads, on a pay-per-impression basis. Their ads are then expanded to fill an entire ad unit, making site-targeted ads even more appealing for advertisers, and resulting in higher bids, meaning higher earnings for our publishers.
Keyword-targeted text ads may also be expanded when we determine that a larger ad will perform better for a particular page. Our AdSense technology will automatically determine the optimal number of ads to display and will only show fewer ads when it improves monetization.
Please note that at this time, it isn't possible to opt out of displaying expanded text ads. The number of ads shown in your ad units is automatically determined in order to maximize clickthroughs and revenue.

Source - https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17948

A website home page I dislike

This post isn't about any sort of bashing but just a general feel I have about the website.

I came across the Lowe Worldwide website the other day and I dislike their home page.
[Click on the image to enlarge]

It has one 'strong line' and then some pictures at the bottom (which is the work done for their clients), and some navigation on the top, which I realised only after a few seconds.

Some of the things that I think are wrong with this website -

• There is hardly any content. While I hate too much copy myself, what about Search Engines?

• Their branding is not the regular branding spot. Now I understand the whole "we make our own rules business", but this is a website and there are reasons there are certain standards or rules to how things are done. Their logo is not clickable either. Usually your logo should be a link to the home page.

• Their home page has a home page link. I actually clicked it thinking this might be like in intro page and their home page might have some other stuff. No prizes for guess that it brought me back to the same page.

• Their client list is neither named nor is it stated that this is a list of some of their clients. When you click on of the clients cell, it takes you to the 'our ideas' page but load nothing except the links for the type of 'ideas'.

• What they did for the specific client or campaign gets no mention, you can just see the ad. They don't even mention the category or the product. Only the company gets named along with either the ad name or the product name - I am not sure.

• The page does not even make full utility of the available space.

There other details too like -
I love their 'beliefs' but the page is badly designed because I at least kept expecting something to get loaded on the right.

Their 'our people' shows the picture of the person you select but when you go to see the biography, the picture disappears even though their is enough space. The biography too is only half of the page and instead of the scroll bar to read more by scrolling down they have this back and forward pointing triangles, which will give you more data.

Now I understand that I may not be their "target audience" and I also understand that they don't drive their business via their website, but what is the harm of having a good website? Good being one that is creative and appealing but also one that explains their work, is search engine friendly, easy to navigate, etc.

Adwords Ad Guidelines

I find more and more ads that violate the Adwords Ad Guidelines.

Worth a shot?

So my previous post was about credibility based on the age of a website / company and therefore I though I would make another post on the home page layout of American Bridal. A major part of their page seems to be just selling credibility.
[Click the image below to englarge]


You would think that a home page would be the best place to display some of your best product and that place on the home page is the most precious asset on your website, yet American Bridal has used a lot of their space to state why "brides buy from them".

They also state that they are in existance since 1997.

They have their Yahoo Shopping logo along with their phone number and email link right at the top.

They have a 'Hackers Safe' logo.


While I feel that over all the site looks a little too cluttered, all elements that try to push credibility of the website, seems to be laid out very cleanly.

I think it makes sense to try a strategy that builds credibility.

I neither work for American Bridal, nor gain by promoting them. I just happened to come across their website via MarketingSherpa and found the website interesting in the above stated way.

Credibility by virtue of age

Well I came across something interesting. The website American Bridal, has the sub-line "Helping brides find wedding favors & bridal party gifts since 1997".


At first I found it silly as 1997 doesn't seem that long ago. Then I realised it is now a decade since the company started. I also realised that even if it had not been 10 years but just 5, there is still huge value in that since it builds credibility for visitors. Especially when the Internet seems so new (on it's return after the bust), 10 years seems a long time.

There is great re-assurance value to potential customers as they would believe that the company knows what it is doing and that is why they are still in business today - Survival of the fittest. I think its a good idea to promote the age of your company (if it has existed for some time), if not in your tag line, then somewhere where visitors can see it.

On-site Search

According to MarketingSherpa data, consumers turn to a site's search box before any other navigation tool, yet 52% of marketers rated their internal search as a 'D' or an 'F.'

I am actually not surprised by this. If a visitor already knows what he / she wants (is close to the end of the buying cycle), they would prefer to see the product they want right away instead of trying to figure in which category (and sometimes sub-category) is would appear in, and then try and figure which page would have the product (if there are so many products in that category), and then try to figure the colours available etc.

Everything about the internet seems to be about instant gratification (thanks to all the search engines in my opinion), and if I don't find what I am looking for on the website I am on, I can find a hundred other such websites.

Sure it is important to show a visitor how great you are and how great your product are, but not when the visitor already knows what he wants and wants to find out if you have what he is looking for. Price comparison, product specifications, customization, etc all come after the product is found.

The important thing to not is that results must not only be accurate but must also be fast and MUST appear in an appealing fashion.

The Yellow V changes

Well small changes are still changes. The small yellow V box for copying the same to every other similar field (seen in campaign setting or changing of bids across adgroups and editing of keywords etc) has changed to the new button below.

More Errors

Below is results from the traffic estimator. Though the column titles got cut off, the second column is Max CPC.
It is clearly seen that the Max CPC is $0.10 but the estimate shows that Avg CPC to be in the range of $0 - $0.13.

Strange

I have been noticing since the past 2 days that if I type blogspot.com in the address bar, I go to Google search instead of Blogger. Only when I type in blogger.com is it taking me to Blogger.
I wonder what's going on.