FeedPay Per Click Advertising Weekly Roundup
This week was an amazing week – with 40+ blogs in our blogroll, this one’s gonna be a big one…it will probably be too big so we decided to try a Daily Roundup starting Tuesday Morning. We will review and post the previous day’s PPC advertising activity each morning. Enjoy!
Official Blogs
AdWords
Our top 10 of 2007 – I really enjoyed this one. I think AdWords made amazing strides last year and we’re looking forward to an even better 2008!
The Conversion Optimizer: Increase profits and save time – Hooray! The Conversion Optimizer came out of beta.
Yahoo! Search Marketing
You Oughta be in Pictures – Interesting post with some research stats on the fact that active movie goers prefer to search for the movie a while before it comes out to get the “skinny” on the show…
Predictions for 2008
New Search Marketing Webinars
Ciao, Bella! – Yahoo! Search Marketing’s chief blogger is moving to bnet – the c|net’s business community.
Live Search’s adCenter (aka MSN)
The adCenter Add-in Beta for Excel 2007 is ready for download! – This one made the rounds and the early reviews look like it’s a decent tool.
Google Analytics
No time like the present! – Get some form of Analytics on your site if you don’t already have it!
Favorite posts from the people/bloggers/companies we admire (alphabetical) -
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.com
The Difference Between Selling Something and Giving it Away – It’s a funny concept, isn’t it? When you charge for something there is automatically a sense of value and interest in the product/service vs when it is given away for free.
PPC vs SEO Debate Quitely Dies -Quietly, yes. We are going to stick with PPC though – let the SEOers do what they do best!
Ad Intellegence – New Slick Free Microsoft AdCenter Keyword Tool – Very nice review with screenshots!
19 Insider Secrets to Polishing a Turd (or Social Media vs Influencing Thought Leaders)
Bruce Clay, Inc.
Do You Have Any Control Over Your PPC Management? – I noticed the cre8asite thread too and thought this was crazy!
4 Reasons Your Mobile Web Site Sucks
Conversation Marketing
10 Steps to a Sound Internet Marketing Strategy – I really like this simplified approach to making an Internet Marketing strategy. Read it, do it, no excuses.
3 Signs The Pitch is Slimey
11 Recession-Proof Internet Marketing Methods – I’m starting to like lists of 11.
Copyblogger
Copywriting Maven’s Landing Page Makeover Clinic #10: HowtoWriteBio.com – I’m a big fan of these landing page makeovers, even if I don’t agree with everything.
A Three-Step Approach to Strategic Content Development
Future Now’s GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog
Should You Cancel All Your Advertising? – I really enjoyed this one. Word of mouth is extremely powerful and I would argue that it is the best way to market a product in the entire world.
Marketing Experiments Blog
The Prospect’s Protest and The MarketingExperiments Creed – Love the prospect’s protest because I feel that way when I’m browsing around.
MindValleyLabs
Testing PPC Ads: What Matters Most – Very interesting stats.
Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords – Brilliantly Innovative! – Love the screen shots, this would be an awesome stunt if Google would allow it again but it appears they don’t allow this anymore…
Google AdWords Tips | Triple Your Conversions With This Tip
Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Standard Metrics Revisited: #4 : Time on Page & Time on Site – Extremely interesting and useful for any analytical mind. I will be using one of the techniques mentioned to better track the time a user is on my site.
PPC Discussions
The AdWords Content Network – Better Than Ever – I agree that for some industries, the content network is amazing and the cost per conversion can be significantly lower.
The Worst Summary of AdWords You Will Ever Read – Ugh…only listen to the real pros.
Search Engine Land
New Year’s Resolutions For Your PPC Campaigns
SEMPO Releases In-House SEM Salary Survey Results
When Small Businesses Shouldn’t Act Like A Small Business
Google Launches Google Checkout Trends
Yahoo Directory Places Images On Sponsored Ads
Search Engine Roundtable
Skype’s Browser Extension Converting Phone Numbers in Google AdSense Ads
Microsoft Refers German Advertisers to Yahoo Search Marketing
Google AdWords Tries “Show Product Results For” Again
What Was the Most Improved PPC Program in 2007?
Google Testing Local Results At Top Right Position, Above Ads
Beware of Google AdWords Phishing Email
SEOmoz
Which Do YOU Need: Traffic or Customers? – Great post. Sometimes, if you are making money from ads then traffic is what you need…but most small business need more customers and that can mean less traffic.
Seth’s Blog
How to title stuff – These few tips can help with Blog headlines and ad headlines too.
Small Business SEM
The SEO Success Pyramid – Somebody should make one about PPC…Matt made an awesome illustration that ultimately leads to building a trustworthy site. Is your site trustworthy?
StraightUpSearch
Paid Search Marketing Price Fixing
PPC Hero
PPC Hero had a few great posts this week that nicely rounded up 2007.
Top 5 PPC Developments That Made News in 2007
What We Did to Make it Work: 3 Account Management Achievements in 2007
Our Favorite PPC Blogs of 2007: Our PPC Hero Allies! – We are honored to be on their list! Thanks! 
The Clix Marketing Blog
Guest Blogger Shelley Ellis on PPC Hiring – Good advice about hiring a PPC pro.
Clix Marketing’s Favorite PPC Blogs – Probably one of the best list of PPC related blogs we have seen!
Stomp the Google AdWords Expanded Broad Match Problem – Awesome advice that works. I like the strategy outlined in this post.
the PPC Book
What are you doing this year? – I really enjoyed this down to earth, personal post from Jeff this week. He presents an excellent way to outline your year and what you want to accomplish. Highly recommended!
vector modeling and lsi – Very interesting thoughts and observations about how the on-page elements weigh in on a PPC campaign after a short period of time…
User Effect
Four Reasons to Use Unique Product IDs – Not entirely certain I agree with this post but it was interesting and comes from an expert we admire…definitely worth linking to.
And that is one huge wrap up for the week of January 5 through January 11, 2008!
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Thanks for the mention! I’m curious, though, which part you disagree with? I think some people thought I was arguing against using product names or meaningful URLs, which I may not have communicated well. The unique IDs were simply an alternative to using your internal dB IDs (when displaying to users).
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go into the mini-experiment in depth, as it would give away some proprietary work with the client. I wish I could’ve shown what we actually did, because it’s pretty nifty.
Dr. Pete,
I should post my questions directly to your blog – but my biggest question was probably this: why use product ID’s when you could simply use the product name instead of any ID?
-James
James: Yeah, that seemed to be everyone’s question, and I realized I didn’t explain it well. In this case, I’m using both. The client is essentially an affiliate, and the “product” names aren’t unique and can be long. We are testing using the name in the URL as well as on-screen, but also wanted a unique and easy-to-recognize product ID that wasn’t just a dB-assigned number.
Thanks for sharing