AdWords Optimization with Impression Share Data

Search Engine Marketing, Web 10 Responses »
Oct 032008

In the world of AdWords, I always bear in mind either money or relevance can help optimize campaign performance. In practice, before we do anything in our AdWords campaigns, we should first check if we should focus on the money components, e.g. max CPC, daily budget etc., or the relevance factors like Quality Score (QS), landing page and so on.

But how can we tell if we should narrow our focus to money or relevance? All you need is to run a campaign report with Impression Share (IS) data. Google has a definition for IS, but I often explain this term to clients by saying that it’s a precentage that tells you how many times your ads are shown on Google.com to all the users who searched with your keywords. If the IS of your search campaign is 60%, that means only 6 out of the 10 users who searched with the keywords you used in your campaign can see your ads.

Then why the other 4 users cannot see my ads?

The 4 users, i.e. the 40%, cannot see your ads because of either low ad rank or insufficient budget of your campaign. You will find in the report with IS data there are 2 coloumn called “Lost IS (Rank)” and “Lost IS (Budget)”. The concept is simply like this.

Impression Share + Lost IS (Budget) + Lost IS (Rank) = 100%

The Lost IS (Budget) or (Rank) give us a good insights on picking the right approach to start our optimization.

If IS is 60%, Lost IS (Budget) is 0% but Lost IS (Rank) is 40%, that means a poor Ad Rank (cost-per-click bid x Quality Score) is reducing your impression share. Adding more daily budget cannot help bring back your IS. You should then focus on how to improve Ad Rank by either raising CPC or editing your keywords or ad texts to improve QS.

If IS is 60%, Lost IS (Budget) is 40% but Lost IS (Rank) is 0%, that means your campaign is losing impression share due to an insufficient daily budget. Google wants to show your ads because your ad rank is quite OK, but, sorry, your campaign don’t have enough budget to get you more clicks.

Of course, every time before I run a campaign report with IS date, I do long to see 100% IS with 0% Lost IS. But it seldom happens; otherwise, I will lost my job.

Posted by jesslau at 8:20 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Google in January 2001

Google Products, Web 11 Responses »
Oct 032008

In honor of Google 10th birthday, they brought back their oldest available index. Take a look back at Google in January 2001.  Do a search with iPod and see what it was like back in 2001. Enjoy.   Google in 2001

Posted by jesslau at 3:54 pm Tagged with: , ,

How cool is Cuil?

Web No Responses »
Jul 302008

Cuil is a new search engine created by an ex-Googler that people are dashing to check out these days. Unlike the Google’s text-based search results, Cuil displays results with both text and images in columns, just like a magazine layout.

What excited me the most is its “explore by category” drop down menu on the top right of the search result page. Related queries of the keyword you entered will be shown in a tree diagram for your easy click to search.

If your satisfaction with Google is its relevance of search results, Cuil is far from winning your heart.

Unfortunately, Cuil is pretty unstable these day probably many people like me are playing around with it. Be patient and try again if you see error message instead of the magazine-like search results.

Search results of cuil on the search query “hong kong movie”

Posted by jesslau at 7:39 pm Tagged with: , , ,

The most dangerous domains to navigate - .hk

Web 3 Responses »
Jun 042008

It is sad to see .hk domains are found to be “the most dangerous domains” to navigate. The online world of Hong Kong could not be more notorious today…

New report identifies dangerous Web domains

New McAfee report identifies world’s most dangerous Web domains
June 04, 2008: 12:03 AM EST

McAfee found the most dangerous domains to navigate to are “.hk” (Hong Kong), “.cn” (China) and “.info” (information).

Of all “.hk” sites McAfee tested, it flagged 19.2 percent as dangerous or potentially dangerous to visitors; it flagged 11.8 percent of “.cn” sites and 11.7 percent of “.info” sites that way.

Posted by jesslau at 6:40 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Driving directions for Hong Kong on Google Maps

Google Products, Web 2 Responses »
May 272008

Google Maps has long been well known for its driving direction feature. People who enjoy self-drive tours will find this tool handy and saves much time to get around.

With the map data for Hong Kong enriched on Google Map, the driving direction feature is also available for drivers in Hong Kong. Though Hong Kong is a small place, if you do need a driving guide showing you around, the Google Maps for Hong Kong could serve the purpose.

Well, I know this Google Maps feature for Hong Kong is under-promoted. You know, it’s always Google style to do it with word of mouth marketing.


View Larger Map

Posted by jesslau at 1:45 pm Tagged with: , ,

Support earthquake relief in China

Current Affairs, Google Products 2 Responses »
May 192008

Donate to the Tsinghua Foundation online using Google Checkout.

The following black box was displayed on the home page of Google.cn today.

Google_CN_mourning_19may08

Posted by jesslau at 12:44 pm

Google's Torch Relay Map

Current Affairs, Google Products 1 Response »
Apr 172008

You can track the torch in your country and around the world on the following Google Map gadget. If you have Google Earth installed on your PC, you can open the kml file and track it down on Google Earth. As the Games will take place in China, of course a Chinese version is also available.

Posted by jesslau at 3:04 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

My favorite AdWords Report Type

Search Engine Marketing 4 Responses »
Apr 152008

When you start optimizing an AdWords campaign, usually you would have an objective in mind, e.g. lowering CPA, increasing CTR and so on, before you run any reports to collect data for your optimization. Among so many types of AdWords report you can run, I’d say the Search Query Report is very likely to be able to help regardless of your optimization objectives. Usually, I run a Search Query Report to dig out keywords that users searched on and clicked on my ads. I need to know these keywords so that I can do the following 2 things.
1. Develop some negative keywords to exclude irrelevant searches
2. Add keywords with high CTR but are not yet included in my existing keyword list

In practice, you need to filter the following info before you can get a smaller list of search queries to find the potential keywords to include or exclude more efficiently.

1. “other unique queries” in the column “Search Query”
2. “Exact” in the column “Search Query Match Type”

You may also want to descend the “clicks” column so that you can look at the high click keywords (very likely high cost as well) first to develop your lists.

Lastly, open your eyes big. Read all the filtered search queries one by one and pick those you want to kill or add. Afterall, there’s no solution called “one click does it all.”

Posted by jesslau at 6:10 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

Best practices for keyword-targeted campaigns in Google's Content Network

Search Engine Marketing 2 Responses »
Mar 102008

Like it or not, keyword-targeted campaigns in Google’s Content Network usually gives you a cheaper click than your search-only campaign. Some advertisers dislike the Content Network and opt their campaigns out of it because they feel insecure about where exactly their ads are displayed. The feeling of lack of control of what you pay for really hurts. But there are ways for us to minimize the feeling of insecurity and maximize the ROI of your keyword-targeted campaigns on the Content Network.

1. Set content bid
2. Separate a campaign for content network from search network
3. Run Performance Placement Report to suggest site exclusion or placement targeting
4. Use 5-15 keywords in each ad group

Posted by jesslau at 5:42 pm

Don't fool me, GoDaddy

Web 2 Responses »
Feb 062008

I tried to get a domain name for this blog at GoDaddy yesterday. Despite the fact that Google partners with GoDaddy on Apps for Your Domain to help bloggers get their domain names, GoDaddy’s trick on domain name pricing is no difference from other small players in the domain name business. I went through the step-by-step wizard to buy a .net domain, and after hitting many “next” and “continue” and entering so much personal particulars and billing info, only did I find the total price was not US$9.99 as shown on the page of my step 1.

They had the so-called “ICANN fee of 20 cents per domain name year”. So the total price was actually $9.99 + $0.20. Do they indicate this ICANN fee at any part of the registration process? Yes, they do. But it’s somehow on places I failed to spot. I was not sure whose mistake this was, but I decided to get the domain name with some other companies.

I turned out go to Scicube. The first domain name I bought with this Hong Kong based company is in February 2006. The features and the customer service they provided, as far as I remembered, were not bad (actually they are good if you take the price into account). Hopefully, it’s still great this time.

Posted by jesslau at 4:21 pm Tagged with: , ,
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