This PPC Management Tip everyone managing ppc campaigns should know about:

If you need someone to implement this tip for you, give us a call at (800) 920-1985. You’ll be glad you did. Here’s the tip;

All the search engines produce a steady stream of PR about new “innovations” but real professional campaign managers in the trenches know that when you actually use these things they don’t always work as intended.

Nevertheless, one innovation that received almost no fanfare is the automation settings now rolling out as a beta in most Google accounts.

They allow ppc campaign managers to automatically make adjustments if a certain event happens, like if the ads drop in position during a certain time of the day, automatically bid more to keep them in that position. Some of these changes used to be only available with really expensive ($10,000 and up per month ) software bidding platforms, but now an average small advertiser can take advantage of this same automation right within their Adwords account.

One other innovation that is really worth mentioning is the new Retargeting feature that Adwords implemented. This allows you to show new ads to people that have previously visited your site. You can even define custom audiences such as people that visited but didn’t sign up before, or people that visited one key page of your site.

Really good stuff, and very effective.

If you need someone to implement this for you, give us a call at (800) 920-1985

You’ll be glad you did.

Technorati Tags: advertiser, Audiences, Automation, beta, Campaign Managers, campaigns, Fanfare, Good Stuff, Google, Innovation, Management Tip, New Innovations, Platforms, Ppc Management, Professional Campaign, Retargeting, Search Engines, Steady Stream, Time Of The Day, Trenches

Like many  companies we got to a point where we started looking to technology to help with efficiencies. When you start managing campaigns with 20,000 keywords or more, its not enough to use Adwords editor and keep on top of all the changes you need to be doing, even though Adwords editor and Adcenter desktop are indeed great tools to have.

I went down the rabbit hole and talked to almost every bid manager out there. One thing for sure is, if the vendor can’t even list the price on their site you know its going to be darned expensive. Are they worth it? There is some debate about this. Is the cost of the tool really justified in improved efficiencies? These are questions you will have to answer yourself of course, and with most agencies charging 10 percent of the ad spend and many tools charging up to 6 percent of the ad spend, its not a small decision if you are going to hand over so much of your gross income, just to use a tool.

One word of advice, everything is negotiable in this world so if you are on the fence, you might be able to get a concession in base cost, and almost all the bid manager companies will give you a discount if you sign with them for a year or more.

Ok, here’s all the tools I’ve looked at and what I think:

Clicksweeper

Clicksweeper is the first that comes to mind because it has the lowest barrier to entry. Its not a true agency tool in that the reporting is really crappy, and it has no analytics of its own, but if you use conversion tracking at Google or Bing, it will use the conversion data in making its bidding decisions. The interface is really bare bones and I would never share it with a client. You also can’t create your own bidding strategies which is something that the more robust bid managers can do. However, the 4 or 5 basic bidding strategies are well thought out and let you be able to do a lot, and they have a nice way of reviewing the performance of the ads which is based on profit and not CTR, and it can automatically pause the worst performing ads for you based on a number of criteria. Basically as a bidding engine behind the scenes with a great band for the buck in terms of cost. For most agencies my guess is it will run you around 1-1 1/2 percent of your adspend, although the price by the number of keywords, not adspend. So you can keep the cost really in line if you don’t use a zillion long tail keywords in your campaigns.

Clickable

Clickable is going crazy and hiring a lot of people from India right now, has a lot of features, including facebook ads, really nice reporting, and automated suggestions. They don’t have true bidding algorithms though. (This is in process) They also include a call tracking solution that will track phone calls to the keyword level for not too much extra, and they have an analytics that you can install at no extra charge. Its pricey though for an agency, and you can’t white label it. Its basically 5 percent of the ad spend under $30,000 per month and then a graduated scale up from that, so you are going to have to spend around $100,000 before you can get the cost down to a reasonable level. For an agency to use it and not have access to really good bidding algorithms and the ability to create your own, plus no white labeling its a no go, but for individual advertisers it can be pretty good, particularly if they don’t have a lot of experience running their campaigns. They have automated suggestions which the real pros sometimes know to ignore, but the suggestions are overall not bad. They private labeled their software for american express at searchmanager.com which is worth checking out for individual advertisers doing it in house.

Acquisio

Acquisio is a more full featured bid manager that is basically a minimum of 1000 bucks a month to use. Like many other bid managers its 5 percent of adspend at lower levels below 30,000 ad spend per month and then the percentage goes less the more you spend. Acquisio has their own analytics pixel you can use free, and has very robust bidding features, and allows you to make your own custom strategies. You can also white label acquisio so it looks like your own bid manager for your agency, and it has really nice reporting with really cute pie charts and all kinds of reports you can make. On the minus side almost every extra module you would want with it costs a setup fee and an additional 350 per month, so if you want to use google analytics in your bidding strategies ( i.e. pausing keywords with high bounce rates ) or pulling in all your call tracking data from Marchex thats another 700 bucks added to the base cost, so for practical purposes its 2-3 grand a month minimum to use for most agencies. At least acquisio is honest about its pricing and actually has it listed on their website, which is more than I can say for most other companies out there. If you are considering Acquisio, keep in mind the modules because there are a couple other companies where you get the equivelant of those modules for free even though they have a higher base cost per month

Lyris HQ

Lyris HQ is a bit of a sleeper in the field but they have a nice dashboard that combines email marketing, analytics, SEM stats and a little bit of social media starting at $500 per month for 3 seats. They purchased the web analytics company Click Tracks which is pretty robust, and recently purchased $30 percent of the company Site Wit, which they plan to integrate with their software in 2011. Its got good reporting, and we just have to wait to see if the integration with Site Wit goes smoothly. For smaller agencies there is a good bang for the buck here, but it really isn’t to be compared with the bigger badder bid managers out there.

Soon on my list, is Omniture, recently purchased by adobe, searchforce.com and I am also thinking out of the box a little bit by looking at maybe using just clicksweeper for the bid management functions, and affiliatereporting.com or mashablemetrics.com to pull in all the stats and make reports.

So far, its been a real pain because it takes at least an hour to go through the sales spiel with all these guys, and its a lot of money some of these platforms cost. Right now I am losing a lot of productive time looking at all the platforms, and then if I choose one I then have to learn the platform myself, plus many of them require you to change all the destination urls to use analytics within their system, which means for every single client there is a big migration process.

Next week I look at more. I’ll keep you posted.

Technorati Tags: adcenter, analytics, Bid Manager, Bidding Strategies, Bones, campaigns, Concession, Conversion Data, Decisions, Efficiencies, Fence, Google, Great Tools, Gross Income, interface, ppc, Rabbit, Rabbit Hole, Tool, Word Of Advice

OppenheimerFunds Selects conceptClassifier for SharePoint Houston Chronicle Working with Project Performance Corporation (ppc), a Concept Searching Partner, OppenheimerFunds evaluated several solutions. They selected conceptClassifier for SharePoint because of its ability to meet their requirements. Their key requirements were … and more »

Local Search Tool from Advice Interactive Group is a Lead Generation Tool for … EIN News (press release) The detailed, easy readable report shows clients exactly where their business stands and more importantly; it shows they need help! Guess who they call? Me; that's right! Thanks to LST." Todd Bryson, Managing Partner at Advice Interactive Group, … and more »

Chinese giant eyeing PPC network Kathimerini … transmission networks, with a reliable source saying that representatives from the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) traveled to Athens two months ago and held meetings with the management of ppc and Energy Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou. … and more »

Daily Job Lead: ppc Specialist The Root All applicants must have a bachelor's degree in account management, advertising or Internet marketing and at least two years of business-related work experience. The ideal candidate should be knowledgeable about paid search and the building and …

Social marketing gems: Tools to make sense of chaos BtoB Magazine and the service will list Twitter users who appear to be strong ppc people. (Presumably this also works if you just want to know about hotels in San Francisco or the best recipe for a mojito cocktail.) InboxQ also serves as a self-promotional tool. …

IndustrialWebSolutions.com Helps Local Propane Delivery Company Grow Business DigitalJournal.com (press release) To learn more about the company and its fuel delivery services for home, commercial, agricultural, and business, visit http://www.mooresvilleoil.com. To learn more about Industrial Web Solutions ppc management services for lead generation, sales, … and more »

6 Ways Online Marketers Can Survive The Christmas Lull PR Web (press release) As many online marketing specialists wind down in anticipation for 2012, SEO Positive offers six tips for SEO and ppc professionals who don't want to watch their campaigns nose-dive over the Christmas period. Christmas is a tricky time for SEO and PPC … and more »