Vancouver PPC

There is a common misconception that nobody ever clicks on PPC ads. Well if that were true then Google wouldn’t be making billions of dollars each year. Plus we wouldn’t be in business…

Facts:

• The top 3 spots get 41.1% of clicks.
• Organic results only account for 14.8%  of pixels above the fold (the fold is the screen real-estate that you don’t have to scroll to see).
• PPC Ads take up 85.2% of pixels above the fold on highly commercial intent keywords.

Check out this great infograph by WordStream:

© WordStream, provider of a Google Keyword Tool for Search Marketing.

The Vancouver PPC team just got back from the Google Engage event in Seattle. Google Engage is a program for Google Certified Partners, that helps agencies stay up to date on the ever changing Adwords platform. This event was geared towards advanced PPC strategies and client relations. Overall the event was a huge success and we got to meet a lot of cool people.

Check out some of the free swag we got from the event.

If  you need help implementing Advanced Adwords strategies please contact us.

We have successfully gone through the audit process to become compliant with Google’s Third-Party Policy. The policy is designed to weed out the companies who do a poor job of representing Google. It turns out that there are a lot of unqualified companies who are misleading their clients into thinking that they have some special affiliation to Google, when in reality they don’t.

The main points of the policy are as follows:

• Third parties should at minimum provide advertisers with monthly data on AdWords costs, clicks, and impressions at the account level.
• All third parties primarily serving small to medium-sized clients are required to provide the Google Disclosure Notice.
• Third parties may not engage in unclear, deceptive, or harassing sales practices.
• Third parties may not misrepresent their relationship to Google.
• You may not make improper guarantees about Google to your clients.
• You may not violate Google’s branding guidelines.
• You may not improperly use AdWords accounts, or AdWords marketing or sales material.
• The following violations will lead to immediate suspension: Pretending to be Google.

The full policy can be found here

I am very happy that this policy exists because it will increase the value of being a Certified Adwords Partner.

The Vancouver PPC team just got back from SMX Advanced in Seattle. For those of you who don’t know, SMX Advanced is one of the premier search engine marketing conference in North America. We had an amazing time and met some pretty cool people.

I just got back from the first ever PPC Hero Conference in Indianapolis and it was absolutely amazing.

While at the conference I had the opportunity to meet most of the staff at Hanapin Marketing. They were extremely friendly and very gracious hosts. I was actually surprised to hear that they had stopped offering other online marketing services eg, SEO. They were very adamant about specializing in PPC and how offering other services just distracted them from their PPC clients. I agree 100%, as specialization has always been the key to Vancouver PPC’s success. Although we still have SEO clients, we are not taking on any new SEO or Website Design clients in the future.

One of the best seminars was the real time landing page optimization. There was a panel of speakers, including Brad Geddes, who reviewed a hand full of landing pages right in front of our eyes. The interesting thing was that all the pages needed work. Some more than others, but the moral was that landing page testing should never stop.

Probably the funnest part of the seminar were the drinks at the end of the day. It was a good chance to meet a lot of cool PPC geeks. There were a few guys from Amsterdam, who had made the jump over the ocean just to be at the conference. Their agency was massive and had some pretty big banks on their client list. Then there were the team members from an online education company, who were awesome to have drinks with. One of their roadblocks was finding “good” PPC managers. I think this is a real problem in the industry because there isn’t enough formal training.

Even on the flights back from the conference I got to talk PPC. I met a guy from an agency in Utah, who’s agency was on the smaller side of things, but was still getting big results for his clients.

All in all it was a very good conference and I look forward to next year’s event in Texas.

The big thing about SOPA is that it opens up the flood gates for mass copyright infringement, which would cripple the internet. On the surface it just seems like recording studios want to protect their property. However, due to the SOPA bill’s ambiguity it would allow any site to be shut down if it contains any user generated copyrighted material.

For example say you upload a video to YouTube and it contains the latest Justin Bieber song in it. Well according to the new bill that would be copyright infringement and allow all of YouTube to be shut down. I can’t imagine an internet without YouTube.

Check out the video below for a better explanation of the bill.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.