Google Is Not Shaking Things Up as Much as We Thought

::NEWS FLASH::

I just received this emergency telegram from my high-level sources at Google:

"Matthew

AdWords blog was unclear -(stop)-
Rumors abound in POVs and the blogosphere about reduced ad inventory -(stop)- 
We plan to show the same number of 1st page ads as before -(stop)-
If 6 ads would appear in the right-side rail, they will not move to the bottom -(stop)-
CPCs should therefore not increase -(stop)-

Please stop calling us every ten minutes -(stop)-
Seriously stop -(stop)-

-Deep Throat"

So my previous take on this, and a number of POVs that agencies have already made public and sent to clients, appear to have been a little hasty.

The Google employee I spoke to seemed unaware of the industry's first take on this change, but seemed to understand how this could be misconstrued given the brevity of the announcement on the AdWords blog, as well as their general lack of transparency on exactly how and why ads would be shifting around.

Scooped!

Crowd-source This Contest! Update 2

So far, we have 3 comments/entries.  Here are some highlights:

1.) Geotargeting (but to where?)
2.) 3 pieces of creative per ad group
3.) Small kw list divided into ad groups of no more than 3-10 kws
4.) Exact match only
5.) Lower max bids as history creates CTR/quality score
6.) Bid to position 4
7.) Social integration
8.) Viral "real world" marketing
9.) Writing on $100 bill with a sharpie (this might be illegal)
10.) Gravy trains.

This is all good stuff, but we are still 7 entries away from anyone winning anything.  Do you disagree with these people?  Wouldn't you do it differently because you are smarter than them? 

Prove it.  Leave a comment with how you would advertise this blog with just $100 worth of AdWords and a ton of moxie, and you could win the Amazon gift certificate or whatever you people vote for.

Oh yeah, vote in the poll for what the prize should be.  As mentioned in the original contest post, value will increase with the number of entries.

Google is Shaking Things Up (Again)

What's missing in this picture? (Hint: paid ads on the right side)

The big news for advertisers to come from Google lately (and yes, I am ignoring the organic algorithm change for right now) is that they are changing where paid ads are going to appear on the search results page.  For all of the claims that Google is a power-hungry, money grubbing monster, I have to say that as an advertiser, I don’t generally see that being the case.  In fact, I am normally frustrated by things they do in order to improve the user experience because they run contrary to what I would like as a marketer.  This latest decision, to move paid ads from the right-hand rail to the bottom of the page is no different.

The first issue that we have to consider is user behavior.  Thanks to eye-mapping technology (they plop users down in a chair, tell them to navigate the search page, and have a camera mounted on top of the monitor to track their eye movement as they look around the page; not clear if they hold the lids open Clockwork Orange-style), studies have been done telling us how people actually view the SERP (search engine results page).  Combined with click data on the various links, we have a pretty good idea of how users see and interact with the search engine results, and as Google has changed the layout and result types that show up, user behavior has changed as well:

SEOmoz studied the effect of Local & Expanded Sitelinks

Basically, what we have seen in the past is that most people tend to view the page top-to-bottom, and only occasionally do their eyes wander over to the margin, unless it is a relevant part of the answer to their query (like a map or a video).  Thus, Google feels that putting those paid ads that don’t make it into the prime top-of-page slots will actually be better served at the end of the organic results, due to the natural progression of users through the listings.

I know that for organic results there is some basis for this, as listings in positions 9-10 often actually have a better click through rate than those in positions 7-8.  The idea is that we tend to gloss over the middle results, paying the most attention at the beginning, and then at the end when we are forced to decide to either click on something on the first page, or make the (increasingly rare) decision to see if page 2 of the results will have something more to our liking.

Google thinks that CTR will increase at the bottom of the page compared to the right rail, but we will see.

The other issue is a purely mathematical one for advertisers.  Where you once had 6-8 paid search results on a page, it will not be uncommon to only have 4 results, which is what I tend to see now when I get these search result layouts.  Two on top, two on bottom.  Now, if there are fewer first-page ads available, then simple supply & demand tells us that competition, and thus cost per click, is going to go up. 

Google is not saying that 2^nd page ads are going to see improved performance, so this is strictly a cut in inventory.  Everyone wants to be on the first page, so get ready to see your CPCs go up (and presumably CPA as well, all other things being equal). 

Now, I have already heard the argument that this is Google’s way to make more money from ad revenue.  Higher CPC = more fees for Google, right?  Probably not.  Think about it how much CPCs would have to increase in order for them to make up for the revenue lost by having their total first page ad inventory drop by as much as 50%.  If anything, Google is most likely costing themselves money, because people who find that their bids have moved their ads to the second page are just as likely to pause the keywords as they are to increase the amount they will pay for them.

I don’t love this change as an advertiser, but it is once again going to be hard to argue that it isn’t better for the user.

Crowd-source This Contest!

UPDATE:  The prize is an Amazon gift certificate.  Minimum of 10 people have to enter in order to trigger a prize.  Seriously, that's a low threshold, if you enter you basically have a 10% chance, since I doubt more than 10 people will.  However, that is an incentive for those of you in marketing to spread this on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn, so that your marketing peers will contribute and trigger the prize!

Further, 10 entries makes it a $25 prize, but the value will increase with the number of entries, so spread the word!

Ok, so let's pretend that I only have $100 with which to advertise on Google.  What would be your approach to maximizing this tiny budget in paid search?  Day parting?  Only run on one highly relevant keyword?  Conversely, run on a bunch of really cheap, long-tail keywords?  You have all dealt with budget issues, so take your solutions to their logical extreme!

Remember, this is Google only, so if your advice is to blow it all on Facebook ads, it will not be actionable.

Get creative.  Leave a comment.

Here's the kicker (I just came up with it): Contest!  Best response wins a real-life prize.*

*when I figure out the prize, I will update this post.  Also "best" is going to be ill-defined, but like pornography, I will know it when I see it.

Yahoo! & Their Social Media Integration

Yahoo has recognized that their value offering to the marketplace isn’t search, and it that this has essentially been true for a while now.  Since last fall, Microsoft has been serving Yahoo users Bing results, and Bing has been eating into their share of the search space as well.  Therefore, the decision makers have wisely chosen to focus on their core competency, which is being one of the most visited content hubs on the web.

They recognize that they can’t remain static though, and that social and sharing is the future of the digital space, especially for marketers.  Plain old banner ads will always have their place, but they just aren’t targeted or engaging enough on their own, and they lack the sexiness of more recent ad units to hit the market.  Thus, Yahoo decided that they would team up with Facebook, and create what is actually a pretty interesting experience platform that attempts to blend paid and earned media more seamlessly than any other.

Essentially, by linking your Yahoo login to your Facebook page, what you get is a carousel/toolbar that consists of your friends faces when you are anywhere in Yahoo’s properties.  If you hover over any of those pictures, it will show you what that friend has been reading/sharing (within Yahoo).  It also has a feature that will show you any comments that your friends have made regarding a piece of content, which allows you to essentially combine your content consumption with social dialogue, and will push your comments out to appear on your Facebook page as well.

The advertising part of this comes in the form of new ad units that they are creating.  Essentially these “road block” or “pause sign” ads will be branded banners set at the bottom of an article, which contain a question, or quiz, or other interactive feature based not directly on the products/services of the advertising company, but on the content that the user is looking at, in the form of a “sentiment slider” that the user can move along a continuum to express their level of agreement with a particular statement.  The example shown to us was in a travel article, and the unit asked the reader to choose which option was his/her dream vacation: skiing in Tahoe, laying on a beach in Hawaii, or hiking in [some good hiking place].

The ad featured a small JetBlue logo, but upon clicking a choice the user was given the option of sharing their choice in Facebook, which would link to the poll unit and tell all their friends that they like skiing, or hiking, or what have you.  This would then lead other users back to the content, which is theoretically relevant to them, and another small JetBlue sponsored item in the sidebar, as well as a traditional JetBlue ad at the bottom.  All very cleverly integrated so that the user can interact with the content and their social network without ever feeling like they are having a product pushed at them.

The product seems decent, and the integration itself feels like a well-built technology, in terms of user experience.  The automatic nature of the passive sharing part of this collaboration, the part that automatically tells your friends what you are reading on Yahoo, will probably be very popular, though I will be curious to see how many conversations occur in this space.  As an advertiser though, I have a few issues with the new unit.

First of all, and this is probably just my bias as a search marketer, I don’t really think that it should be a CPM (cost per million impressions) buy.  It is contextually targeted, though only at the vertical level, rather than keyword (this also feels like a missed opportunity for relevance), and Yahoo simply chooses a bundle of articles for the ad to run in.  Given that the entire pitch and idea is built around interaction however, between the brand and the user, the user and the content, the user and their social network, etc., it really feels like this media should be bought on a pricing system that is also based around interaction.  When I brought this up to Patrick Albano, who is Yahoo’s VP of social, mobile, and innovation, he said that that was something they might consider in the future.  I am not holding my breath.

The other thing is that the whole point of not having a regular ad unit that contains product/brand messaging to drive the user to the company’s online assets (either website or social platform), is that this unit is not really supposed to feel like advertising, it is supposed to feel like part of the content.  If that’s the case, and since they themselves used the “pause sign” terminology, I think that interaction rates would be much higher if they moved it to the fold, and plopped it right in the middle of the article, to actually make it feel like part of the content.  If you put something all the way at the bottom of the page, a lot of people aren’t going to take it in or associate it with their consumption.  When I made this suggestion, they were much more receptive and indicated that it could actually be something they change after it has been in the market for a bit, maybe Q2 next year.

The last issue, and this is often a problem with advertising in the social space right now, is measurement.  They seem a little unclear on success metrics, or even anything beyond clicks, but their idea is to build a brand favorability/purchase intent study into the cost of a buy.  Given that it will have to be survey-based, that seems like a rather ham-handed way of tacking “value” onto the offering in order to help justify selling in the cost to clients.  It’s a very non-scientific, ethereal thing to try and measure when onsite interaction seems like the obvious way to go. 

Overall, it’s an interesting new experience for users and advertisers, but it is a product that I will be happy to wait for, and just sit on the sidelines for the initial phase, instead of rushing to get in line for this.