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.

Although Silverback Strategies has been a Google AdWords Qualified Company for years, Google has recently revamped their certification program.  According to Google, the new certification program was developed to "offer better training and more rigorous certification in AdWords proficiency, and to lower costs for those who help advertisers and businesses get the most out of AdWords."  When Google announced this change, all previously qualified companies were required to re-qualify for this status.

The new Google AdWords Certified Partner Logo, presented only to the agencies that meet the new certification criteria.

As the Internet Marketing industry has grown and evolved over the past several years, Google has looked to give their advertisers the most up-to-date and relevant information to aid Advertisers and Marketers with their Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns.  A few of the benefits of this new certification include:

• Up-to-date, comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts
• New training materials to help agencies better understand recent changes in search marketing and AdWords functionality, available via webinar series, learning center, or on-site training at Google
• More challenging certification exams to test practical application of knowledge and best practices (rather than simple recall of knowledge)

About Silverback Strategies

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.

Silverback Strategies is made up of an obsessively focused team of online marketing strategists, SEO specialists and elite Web designers – all Google-certified and as experienced as they come. One thing they all have in common is a commitment to understanding our clients’ businesses inside and out. Some clients choose Silverback Strategies for turnkey SEM solutions. Some look to them for consulting to support their internal SEM efforts. But every client stays with Silverback Strategies because they deliver hard-data results.

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.

Teams from JMU dominated the 2008 and 2009 Google competitions, which give university students a chance to test out their Google AdWords management strategies on a real business in a real online campaign.

JMU students Rachel Bruton, Meredith Rauh and Brandon Sockwell, working with local tour operator mobiletours.org, took first place in the Americas region in 2009. Two other JMU teams were ranked in the top 50 in the Americas region, and in 2008, JMU placed five teams in the top 10% globally. More than 2,000 student teams from 57 countries around the world took part in the 2009 challenge.

The JMU teams are students of marketing professor and renowned Internet communications expert Theresa Flaherty, who invited the Silverback experts to speak to her classes about their experiences with Google AdWords management, pay per click management and careers in Internet marketing. Erfe is a JMU alumnus and former student of Dr. Flaherty’s. He offered the students real-world examples of how AdWords campaigns are planned and executed based on the work Silverback does for its clients on a daily basis.

“This is my third year implementing the Challenge with JMU marketing students. It’s a very enriching and practical educational experience for students as they develop an understanding of online marketing strategies, Google tools, client relationships and marketing analytics,” said Dr. Flaherty.

In addition to teaching courses at JMU, Dr. Theresa Flaherty is co-editor of Advances in Electronic Marketing, and her research has appeared in a broad range of elite journals related to technology, marketing and the Internet. She currently serves on the Google Global Academic Panel and runs the Twitter account and Facebook Fan page for the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

The annual Google Challenge enables students around the world to gain practical online marketing experience. Student teams receive $200 of free online advertising with Google AdWords and then work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns. Teams outline a strategy, run a campaign, assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing. Teams submit their reports and are judged by a panel of independent academics from around the world.

"The Google Challenge is a great way for students to get practical experience managing an AdWords campaign – we love engaging with groups like this who will steer the future of online advertising,” said Erfe. “My own experience at JMU clearly influenced my career path, and thanks to Dr. Flaherty, the school is well ahead of the curve when it comes to education in online marketing – I know they’ll do well in the Google competition again this year.”

“With growing interest in pay per click management and Google AdWords campaign management in particular, we’re getting a lot more speaking opportunities like this one,” says Neil Welsh.“The skills these students are building in their coursework and through competitions like these are becoming more and more valuable – it’s phenomenal to see how astute these kids are about Internet marketing and where it’s headed.”

Click the links to read more about the Google Online Marketing Challenge and James Madison University's College of Business and Department of Marketing. 

Here’s the lowdown on our jam-packed trip to ad:tech NY this year: Google, Affiliate Marketing & Social Networking Trends, Facebook…and more Google. 

ad:tech is one of the top advertising and technology conferences, with worldwide shows and a mix of talented keynote speakers, informative panel discussions and workshops.

The ad:tech 2009 conference in New York had more than 250 exhibitors, 200 speakers and 60 panel discussions, each one loaded with information to help organizations to not only improve their marketing and advertising techniques but to also get the latest on up-and-coming products and services.

Sessions we loved

Two conference topics I was eager to learn more on were “Affiliate Marketing:  A better Alternative” and “Social Media Strategies:  How to Take Advantage of a Huge Opportunity.”  Here are some highlights from these phenomenal panel discussions.

The Affiliate Marketing panel discussed how billions of dollars are paid out to affiliates globally, yet there are still a lot of growth and opportunity for affiliate marketing whether you’re an advertiser or publisher.  With companies tightening budgets while individuals are spending more and more time online, it is important that both parties know the benefits of advertising or publishing on Affiliate Networks.  Quality control is set for the market when performance-based models are provided for both publishers and marketers (better ads get better payouts).  If you’re an Advertiser, make sure that you’re providing the right commission to your publisher.  When you are fair with your commissions, you can then leverage quality publishers to carry your ads. They’ll have better sites, more relevant content and can be trusted.  Advice for publishers: when you have relevant sites that don’t spam the system, you’re more likely to make more money and acquire better advertisers on your site.

To learn more about Affiliate Marketing:  Check out Shawn Collin’s “Affiliate (Tip)” at:  http://blog.affiliatetip.com/

The social media panel discussion was also very interesting.  There are billions of page views monthly for social networks, yet a lot of companies don’t advertise on them.  Here are some hot topics on whether Social Network Advertising is right for you:

First, let’s talk about volume and connections.  Social network usage continues to grow, and more and more pages are being viewed.  It’s all about the getting a slice of social network “Pie.” By connecting people online, service/product reviews, advice and information can now be dispersed instantly.  The beauty of instant connectivity is that consumers can network prior to making any decision to buy. Take a new video game, for example. One good mention on a well-connected user’s Facebook page can entice dozens of friends to purchase the game. 

Reggie Bradford, CEO of Vitrue and Rich, remarked that that before the internet, advertising was more promotional. Today it’s about creating a story and letting end users decide for themselves.

Face to Facebook

We spoke with the Facebook folks at ad:tech and will be following up with more discussions on how we can use Facebook to our clients’ advantage.  With Facebook advertising, we can create targeted ads to promote products, sites, events and more – tapping into the more than 300,000,000 active Facebook users. 

Dinner with Google

Before we left New York, we had one more stop, a dinner meeting with Meg and Joe from Google to discuss cool new features for our AdWords management at Silverback Strategies.

The Google team was kind enough to share some info about one of the latest services, “Google AdWords: Display”, a new image-based feature to drive visibility for your business using Flash, video and other rich media graphics. Call us, and we’ll tell you more.

This conference was a great place to learn new techniques and ideas from the best minds in the industry.  If you’re a business professional or even a student, definitely check out upcoming ad:tech conferences at www.ad-tech.com.

Better Brain Center provides the most comprehensive selection of neurotherapy and brain enhancement protocols for a more individualized treatment approach. They offer: full quantitative EEG maps, mini qEEG mapping, traditional neurofeedback utilizing both traditional and low frequency protocols, passive infrared hemoencephalography neurofeedback.

With the new site re-design, we have completely updated the look and feel of the brand; a new logo was created, while implementing the latest landing page design trends.  We also organized the navigation to make the overall site experience user friendly.  The Better Brain Center has been featured in several highly regarded publications, like Men’s Vogue, Alternative Medicine, Washingtonian, The Washington Post and more.  With the new design, we feel that image, experience and expertise of the Better Brain Center can now truly shine online as well. 

To learn more about Better Brain Center, visit them at http://www.Neurofeedbackconsult.com  

FitOne offers unique personal training programs that provide the latest fitness techniques in a boutique fitness environment. Their clients can partake in a variety of training programs that include individual, buddy and small group training.  Clients can also participate in specialized programs like, nutrition education, pre- and post-pregnancy exercise, post-rehabilitation, bridal programs and much more.

With the new site, user navigation, brand awareness and search engine compatibility were taken into account.  Aside from having the FitOne brand be reflected throughout the overall page designs, we also made sure that the site was not only easy for site visitors to navigate through but also for search engine spiders.  We wanted to make sure the site looked great and that fitonestudio.com continued to rank for search terms like “Alexandria Personal Trainers, Alexandria Personal Training,” and more on major search engines.

To learn more about FitOne Studio, visit them at http://www.fitonestudio.com  

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.

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/

Artina Sheikh, who leads Google’s National Agency Team, had this to say about our visit: “Spending time face to face with the Silverback team was very productive and enabled us to partner even more closely with them. We discussed opportunities on both our Search and Content networks and reviewed new strategies for increasing conversion rates.”

We thank the entire Google team for their time and ongoing support.

We believe their new web design and development goes along with the image and atmosphere that Harry's Tap Room portrays to each patron -- one of sophistication and elegance. The new site also features the latest updates to their delicious menus, renowned bar and wine lists. Social networking has also been added to the site; patrons can now stay connected to get the latest news and specials via Harry’s Facebook page.

To learn more about Harry’s Tap Room, visit www.harrystaproom.com and check out the locations located in Clarendon, Pentagon City, and Dulles International Airport

To learn more or to get involved with these great charities please visit the links below:

Silverback was hired by Greenwood Marketing to professionally design the e-commerce website, in addition to offering pay per click management with complete visitor conversion tracking to optimize the Terrene Jewelry’s traffic. With the e-commerce website, visitors can now purchase handmade or hand-finished products from around the globe with just a simple click of the mouse and have authentic, exotic jewelry shipped right to their homes.

Check out Terrene Jewelry to find out more at www.shopterrene.com.

The Challenge allows teams of four college students to test their online marketing skills by spending $200 in Google-provided AdWords vouchers on the real-world business of their choice. Each group works with their professor and chosen business to set up an AdWords account and structure an effective online marketing campaign. Google and a panel of independent academics will select the winning teams based on the success of the campaign and the quality of the competition reports.

The 90 WVU students involved in the Challenge selected small area businesses to promote - ranging from law firms to restaurants to the University’s own School of Business.

We think the Challenge is a great way for students to see how dynamic this kind of marketing is. They get to manage a real AdWords campaign and interacting with a real client – all good stuff if you want a career in marketing today. We were thrilled to meet Dr. Michael Walsh and his students, pass out advice, and of course sniff around for a few good recruits.

If you would like Silverback Strategies to Guest Speak at your next event, please visit our Guest Speaker Info Page.