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Comment on Is Online Lead Generation Bubble Proof? by afandina

afandina — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:42:25 +0000

good blog

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Comment on Google vs. eBay: All Out War! by La guerra | Jose Alejandro Patino Online

La guerra | Jose Alejandro Patino Online — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:25:41 +0000

[...] aquí dejo este articulo, el cual es una joya de blog. Útil para entender lo que está pasando en el mundo del comercio y [...]

Comment on Google’s Foray Into Cost Per Action (CPA) by cheep checks

cheep checks — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:34:36 +0000

cheep checks

Shoots assortment of cheep checks from supercooled nitrogen to superheated liquor.

Comment on Random Observations from SES in San Jose by searchquant

searchquant — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:05:00 +0000

Great writing, as usual. With regards to 8 (Mr X and the War at Google), I think there’s another possibility, which is that Google makes more money by activity booting out certain advertisers. The following logic comes from ‘rbacal’ on WMW, who responds to someone who posits that bidding aggressively to get spot #1 is the only surefire way to avoid Google’s QS penalty:

[Post rbacal quotes before his response:]
Actually, as far as I can tell, the best insurance against getting hit by the QS seems to be bidding aggressively at spot #1, regardless of cost. Bidders who insisted on being at the top rather than exploring higher return spots down the panel seem to have escaped harm….at least in my relatively small sample of observations. Anyone have info to the contrary?

[rbacal's response]
No. I don’t believe there will be much evidence to the contrary. I think you are correct that bid amount is a critical component (but one that interacts with the QS itself).

Once you understand the google reasoning, economically, it makes sense. Low bid ads have an “opportunity cost” to google. As such, it’s in their interests to discourage those, UNLESS those ads also supply “quality” to visitors, thus improving the viablity, long term of the program and its reputation to VISITORS.

The opportunity cost refers to the idea that, from google’s perspective, let’s say there are eight ads for a keyword ranging in bids from .01 cent to $10.00 (that happens in some of the areas I work in).

By showing 3 low bid ads, you LOWER the probability that a visitor will click on a high bid ad. And you don’t recoup that cost. By getting rid of the 3 low bids, you increase the chances that a high bid will be clicked, and even if the probability increase is small, with a large bid range, google wins (as do we on content if the same conditions hold).

Google may be willing to show lower bids IF the ads provide “value” in other ways to VISITORS — hence the QS.

So, QS will “hit” those at the low end, AND particularly those that have junk sites.–>

Comment on Do Keywords Matter Anymore? by Kro

Kro — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:28:00 +0000

To add to DWhite’s observations and comments:
- The search engines are increasing their monetization of long tail search term by showing ads from “head” keywords, but that is only making the problem of managing these tail terms more important (as cpc’s on these tail terms increase).
- It is still important to understand the ROI on these tail terms and manage bids for them because even though your ads will show up for these tail terms the cpc that you are paying may not be commensurate with the ROI.
- For advertisers with proper KW tracking in place, they can then decide which terms should be added as negative keywords and which ones should be made exact match
- Efficient Frontier (the firm I work for) can do/does all of the above for our clients

Comment on Do Keywords Matter Anymore? by David White

David White — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:40:00 +0000

Interesting post! Although the calculations are correct, I’d question the bid assumptions – looking at the words “mortgage rates” and “alabama low mortgage rates”, I think that the second term could justify a higher price. The traffic could be driven to an Alabama-specific landing page with relevant offers that convert better than the generic mortgage rate offers.

Therefore, it may be more realistic to use a $5 CPC for mortgage rates and a $10 CPC for alabama low mortgage rates. If you run the calculation for this scenario, you’ll see that the new eCPM for mortgage rates is still $250 but it would be $1000 for alabama low mortgage rates. Even if you assume that the bids are equal ($5 for alabama), the alabama term would still win with an eCPM of $500.

Tail terms may no longer be a gold mine, but they still make sense because they allow you to outbid the broad-match advertisers on the terms where you convert best.

Comment on Random Observations from SES in San Jose by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:36:00 +0000

I enjoyed your vitriol against Google, and agree with most of your points. I sure hope that their engineer’s smug know-it-all attitude hurts their business.

However, it is amusing that your whining has reached peak after they ruined your business. I didn’t see such passionate critique of plate sizes while the lead-gen was humming along nicely.

Comment on Changes to the Google AdWords API: Why It’s Not About The Money by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:54:00 +0000

Seriously ignorant in places. Look at the quota rates for ‘operations’ in the Adwords Api and see how reasonable it seems. How many people build lists of just 100 keywords? Operations on lists of that minute size will eat a quarter a pop.
Google’s standard plan is to habituate users to service, monetize it and then enforce unreasonable restrictions and grant themselves new rights over it. With the PItA factor of the API (changing API on semi-standard built on semi-standard – that is SOAP and XML – so many variations to choose from…) and now the cost. I expect a lot of people to go back to scraping Google. Would you mind telling me how that improves the service for anyone?
However, you are completely right in that the cash grab shouldn’t overshadow the monopolistic rights grab.

You know when you’ve been scroogled!

Oh yeah, just one more thought… are the Chinese learning from Google or Google from the Chinese? When you read about your restrictions and Google’s ‘rights’ you have to wonder. Free speech, free trade and democracy have spawned a totalitarian corporation… I guess the lawyers have decided the risk/reward balance doesn’t justify jumping in the way.

Comment on Google’s Mixed Messages: Eric Schmidt Says We Are Rational, But the AdWords Team Objects; or Eric Schmidt is a Liar and Google is Playing God! by Gopi

Gopi — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:32:00 +0000

It seems a lot of non-arbitragers (merchants & affiliate marketers) are affected… How are the accounts you are managing doing?

Comment on How Many Perfect 10s Are There For Page Rank? by John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:03:00 +0000

Adobe and Macromedia have had many inbound links for “Get Flash Player” and “Get Adobe Reader”… I think this is the type of thing which pushed those sites into PR10 a few years ago.–>