Industry News

Google Announces the new “Modified Broad Match” keyword match type

By: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) posted on 07/16/2010 

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Google has announced it's newest addition to the three existing keyword match types (exact, broad, and phrase).  This new match type, named modified broad match, is designed to give advertisers and businesses more controll over the queries their keywords are displayed for, while still giving Google some room to match their keywords with relevant variations.

Keyword Match Types: Explained

Keyword match types are considered one of the most important tools in limiting your Cost-per-click (CPC) while maximizing your Return-on-Investment (ROI).  However, match types also tend to be one of the most misunderstood topics in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Management.  Match types are utilized to help Google determine what search queries should be matched with the keyword you are bidding on.  For example, if you are bidding on "shoes," Google might assume that you are interested in search queries such as "men's shoes," "children's shoes," and "women's shoes."  It is up to the advertiser to help Google direct the correct search queries to the correct keywords.

Before the addition of this new "modified broad match type," there were three distinct match types available, broad match, phrase match, and exact match.

Exact Match: These keywords act just as you would expect.  If you have a keyword utilizing exact match, only search queries that appear exactly like the keyword you are bidding will be shown.  Example: only search queries that are "shoes," with no words before or after it and with the exact same spelling will trigger the exact match keyword [shoes].  This will not trigger "men's shoes," or "where can I buy shoes?."

Phrase Match:  These keywords give the advertiser some controll over what search queries trigger a keyword.  If you have a keyword utilizing phrase match, search queries must contain the exact phrase that you are bidding on, but are allowed to have anything before and after that phrase.  Example: if you are bidding on the phrase match keyword "tennis shoes," it will be triggered for ANY search that contains the phrase "tennis shoes," in that order, somewhere in the search query.  The search query "best tennis shoes" or "womens tennis shoes in CA" will both trigger the phrase match keyword "tennis shoes."

Broad Match: For many, this match type is the most difficult to completely understand.  Here is Google's official description of the broad match type:

"With broad match, the Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on relevant variations of your keywords, even if these terms aren't in your keyword lists. Keyword variations can include synonyms, singular/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords, and phrases containing your keywords." 

For example, if you are bidding on the broad match keyword "tennis shoes," your keyword will be triggered for search queries such as "blue tennis shoes," "running shoes, and "tennis shoe photos."

Modified Broad: Broader than Phrase, Phrasier than Broad

The modified broad match type has been created to provide more reach than phrase match and more precision than broad match, a happy middle ground.  While broad match keywords allow google to replace your keywords with relevant search queries, modified broad match tells Google that certain words must be in the search query, but Google can replace them with "misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings," but not synonyms.  This diagram by Google helps to vizualize this concept.

By utilizing modified broad match type keywords in conjunction with other match types, advertisers have yet another opportunity in Google AdWords to lower their CPC's while increasing their ROI.

Keep A Close Eye On Your Competition With The New “Analyze Competition Tool” From Google

By: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) posted on 06/24/2010 

Marketing 101 – Understand Your Competitive Landscape

It’s one of the first things taught in any intro marketing class; one of the most important aspects of your business is where you stand in relation to your competitors.  Who competes with you for your customers’ time and money?  How do you perform in comparison to them?  These questions are essential when preparing effective marketing strategies.

These questions and others like it are just as crucial for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketers as it is for traditional media marketers.  In the past, however, there have been very few tools to assist PPC marketers with their competitive analysis.  The most they could do was manually enter in the keywords they were bidding on to see their competitor’s ad copy, or use the Traffic Estimator tool to gauge potential traffic and Cost-Per-Clicks (CPC’s) of individual keywords.

To help fill this gap and assist AdWords advertisers and business owners in understanding their competition, Google has recently released the new Analyze Competition tool.

 

Analyze Competition – What It Does

Here is Google explaining the Analyze Competition tool in their own words:

There are three key benefits of the Analyze Competition tool:

1. Understand whether your performance is in the normal range for advertisers like you.
2. Identify areas of your performance that might be improved by optimization changes.
3. Explore new opportunities to grow your account and become more competitive in your market.

Essentially, by making this data readily available, this tool will allow advertisers and businesses alike to save weeks, months, and precious advertising dollars on costly market testing.

 

Analyze Competition – How It Works

The Analyze Competition tool takes all of the guesswork out of understanding your competition.  It's simple, graphical interface allows you to get the data you want in a form that will make sense.  There are three steps to using the Analyze Competition tool:

1. Choose A Metric:
   Currently, Google allows advertisers to compare four key campaign metrics with their competitors: impressions, clicks, clickthrough rate (CTR), and average position.


2. Review The Categories:
   By crawling your web pages and AdWords campaigns, Google determines which categories (50 top-level categories made up of 7000 total categories), or themed groups, that generally describe the subject of your advertising.  This allows you to compare your performance against that of other advertisers who advertise similar products or services.


3. Review the Data:
   Google provides two types of data.  The first is the “competitive range,” represented by the bar broken into five sections, of which you belong to one in each category.  This range places you into one “bracket” of advertisers, from lowest to highest.  The bar graph allows you to see how you compare with your competitors within your competitive range.

 

Conclusion – Get A Leg Up On Your Competition

Google has added yet another intuitive and informative tool which should be included in any PPC Marketing strategy.  In conjunction with the several other tools and reporting options Google has developed, the Analyze Competition tool allows advertisers to see information and data which would have normally taken much longer to attain.  The correct analysis of this data will no doubt create new and recently unseen opportunities for advertisers and businesses to refine and optimize their PPC campaigns.

 

 

Silverback Strategies Invited to 2010 Google Content Network Seminar

By: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) posted on 04/15/2010 

Last month Silverback Strategies was one of only 14 companies in the country to be invited to the 2010 Google Content Network Seminar at Google's NYC Office. The 2010 GCN seminar offered a full day of hands-on workshop sessions covering how the Google content network can be used to generate more traffic and more conversions for advertisers (as if the free lunch from the Google cafeteria wasn't enough). 

As the worlds largest advertising network, the Google content network not only offers a unique opportunity for boosting online exposure but also a 6% lower cost per acquisition than the search network. With a new Google study attributing 20% of the median advertiser conversions to the Content Network, it's looking as though Google's 3.1 billion dollar Double Click acquisition is starting to pay off.

Joe and Neil show off their Google passes

News Release Picked up by USAToday.com

By: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) posted on 10/07/2009 

Evolving Markets:  Businesses, Consumers, and Search Engines

Industry expert Silverback Strategies will be presenting an educational seminar for DC Area businesses on how the Internet has changed the way people shop and look for information.

Business owners understand that in order to grow their company, they need to target customers. However with more and more people going online to research and purchase goods or services, business owners must also understand the importance of web presence and leveraging Internet marketing, especially SEO Management and Pay Per Click Management.

Silverback Strategies, one of the leading U.S. online marketing firms will hold the “2009 Internet Marketing Seminar” for DC Area companies on October 8, 2009 in Alexandria, Virginia.  Silverback Strategies will be presenting important statistics and reporting from Google to help business owners and management gain a better understanding on how the market has evolved.  Companies that attend the engaging seminar will learn where consumers spend most of their time searching for products and services; they will also learn how online marketing can help grow their business.

“More and more people are looking online first whether it’s for information or to purchase products or services.  I think that the statistics and reports from Google will help the seminar attendees gain a better understanding to properly attract new customers or members,” said Kurt Lambert, Account Manager, Silverback Strategies.  “With the seminar, businesses will definitely learn how to save more on their marketing budget by cutting back on ineffective tactics that don’t provide strong return on investments.”

To register for this seminar, visit:  http://www.silverbackstrategies.com/seminar

About Silverback Strategies:

Based in Alexandria, Virginia, Silverback Strategies partners with businesses large and small to provide state-of-the-art web design, search engine marketing and pay per click campaign strategy, consulting and execution. The company is privately held.  For media inquiries, speaking engagement and interview requests or additional company information, please visit: http://www.silverbackstrategies.com/ or call (888) 434-7775.

USAToday.com even decided to pick up our news article.

Advertising Week DC session attended by Silverback

By: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) posted on 09/16/2009 

 

Advertising Week DC (ADWKDC) Session and New York Information-

Washington DC 9/16/2009 Morning Session:

2009 marks the 6^th year of Advertising Week DC.  ADWKDC is hosted by the Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington for professionals in the communications industry.  It is a week of celebrating creativity around the DC Metro Area. Even though it’s been super busy at the Silverback Strategies office, we were glad that we had some time to sneak out for a few to attend the Wednesday morning session of ADWKDC 2009.  

Here's a snap shot of today's morning session:

The morning session kicked off with Liz Dolan, CMO for The Oprah Winfrey Network.  Liz's presentation showcased her past experiences as VP of Global Marketing for Nike along with her "Favorite Mistakes."  "The team that makes the most mistakes wins," Liz stated, explaining that even large companies like Nike make mistakes and that it's okay (as long as you learn from it).   Liz also commented that we as communications professionals are innovators, and we have to convey a message or try new tactics that have never been done before in order to sell or promote anything, whether it be a product, a service, a person…etc. (and sometimes trying things may lead to mistakes but remember it's "OK").  She also shared some epic Fail and Winner commercials as examples for her topic.  A great commercial that took a big risk and eventually turned out to be extremely successful for Nike was when the company first signed Tiger Woods; it was a gamble at the time and the big question was, "How do you promote a tremendously talented amateur that’s never won a major pro competition?"  The Answer: Nike launched a commercial (Tiger Woods’ – Hello World Campaign) that broke boundaries; Nike understood their core value of sportsmanship (Just Do It) and it evoked a lot of "I'm a winner attitude" which helped paint the stage for Tiger and Nike's partnership/sponsorship even before Tiger won the Masters. According to Liz, the feeling of risking it all on an amateur eventually disappeared after Tiger won his first pro competition a few months after the commercial launched.

The "Truths and Myths of Mobile" discussion was held after Liz's presentation.  The topic covered trends for mobile devices.  Even though there's huge growth for mobile device usage, mobile devices are still classified in a wide variety of buckets and only a small fraction have smartphone capabilities.  So within these buckets you have non-smartphones vs. smartphones, plus there are different sub-groupings within the buckets based by phone type and service providers.  With the much larger non-smartphone user base in the mix, it is often difficult to communicate or market to these mobile devices since the phones can't handle the technology.  And what about the small group that use smart technology?  The Panel explained that even with smart technology this market segment is still fragmented, for example the iPhone vs. BlackBerry vs. the Palm Pre…etc. markets are all unique in their own way that it is often difficult to cater and update applications on a timely manner.  Just like Liz, the panel touched upon making mistakes and learning from it for the mobile industry.  The mobile industry is still a work in progress and there is a major need for a more streamlined way to reach out to consumers; the good news is that a lot of groups are working to make it better. The mobile industry is and will continue to be a hot topic, not only from the marketing and advertising but also from the usage and consumption stand points.  We as communication professionals should definitely keep an eye on this fast growing industry.

The next topic, “Adventures in Social Media:  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” was moderated by Online Marketing Expert, Tim Rudder and Discussion Speakers:  Claire Alexander, COL Mike Jones, and Chris McGill provided their feedbacks.  The panel discussed the importance and adventures in Social Media.  Claire, VP for Discovery Communications said that social media should be engaging and should be used to drive loyalty to the product, company, brand, etc.  She also added that companies need to have clear, set goals prior to jumping into social marketing and that users need to be rewarded.  Chris Jones, Founder and CEO of Mixx said that social marketing is not temporary and needs to have a long term investment.  COL Mike Jones, a Commander in the Army National Guard explained that one of the biggest mistakes that companies fail to comprehend is that they treat Social Networks like a Website, he said that users drive Social Networks and it should be tailored for them.  He also added that if the Social Networking site fails to answer the questions on what people are looking for, then it becomes a waste of money.  “People are looking for a community, answers,” COL Jones said.   

Overall there are nothing but positive comments for ADWKDC.  If you’re in the marketing and advertising industry, a student, or in the communications field, check out the conferences.  We're definitely doing the whole package next year and we hope to see you there too.  We highly recommend people to attend ADWKDC next year and also check out New York's Advertising Week. Thanks again to the organizers.

 

To register or to get more information about ADWKDC and Advertising Week in NY, visit their Websites:

www.advertisingweek.com/

www.adweekdc.com/

A shot of the panel of experts during DC Advertising Week 2009

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