Okay so I’m getting a little carried away. Google are lifting one of their layers of secrecy within AdWords. Allow me to explain. Google have a complex and incredibly effective strategy in place within their AdWords system. With one hand they calm their advertisers down and gently point them towards the information they need. And with the other hand they … Read More

The Inside AdWords blog details an update to Google’s US ad text trademark policy: “Imagine opening your Sunday paper and seeing ads from a large supermarket chain that didn’t list actual products for sale; instead, they simply listed the categories of products available – offers like “Buy discount cola” and “Snacks on sale.” The ads wouldn’t be useful since you … Read More

Google are renowned for their incredibly long BETA testing cycles, but it appears that the new Google AdWords interface is now more or less live. I have to admit to being surprised by this, as our own experiences have uncovered many issues with the new system, often resulting in the interface “crashing”, kicking us out of the client’s account and … Read More

Here’s the beauty of AdWords in four lines: Most AdWords account holders don’t know what the content network is, or even that they’re using it for their ads. Most AdWords account holders using the content network are paying far too much for their ads. Many AdWords account holders think the content network is a waste of time and turn it … Read More

The Placement Performance report provides data detailing ad performance on specific domains and URLs in Google’s Content Network.  Similar to what a Search Query report does with keywords, the Placement Performance report allows advertisers to weed-out poorly performing sites, so that ads will only appear on the best performing domains and URLs. This is accomplished by adding those poorly performing … Read More

If you are using AdWords conversion tracking on your website, you might not have been aware that only one conversion will be counted for a particular visitor. For example, if you have the same conversion tracking code set up on each of your software downloads, you will only see one conversion for a particular visitor, even though they may have … Read More

I’ve recently noticed a frustrating AdWords trend. It seems like every new ad I create takes longer and longer to actually begin running. Depending on the client, and which AdWords GUI format they’re using, the new ads assume the label of  ‘under review’ or ‘Active’, but in either case the ads exist in a state of limbo, unable to accrue … Read More

Being the AdWords guru that you are, you already know why you’re not supposed to mix search and content campaigns when it comes to AdWords. Well you might be surprised to find that your search only campaign’s ads are being displayed on Parked Domains even though you have disabled the content network. Have a look and see. Within your AdWords … Read More

Some of the Google AdWords accounts we’re handling are showing a useful new keywords feature. Go into a campaign, and next to the Opportunities for improvement, you might see a link to Diagnose keywords: When you click on the link, you are taken to the Ads Diagnostic Tool, where you can choose specific keywords, campaigns or ad groups, and can … Read More

If you are running an AdWords keyword campaign, using keyword types other than exact match and you’re not using negative keywords, you need to read this. If you are familiar with negative keywords you might find this blog post useful because I will explain how to identify new negative keywords that you never thought of. What are negative keywords? They … Read More