Google AdWords Experiments with a Click Count Feature

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by Rob Young, June 20, 2011

Google is never short on AdWords experiments, running numerous format and placement experiments of varying sizes at any given time. One recent experiment includes an extra line in the search ad: "X clicks for this advertiser."

There aren't a lot of solid details; while the experiment was spotted by multiple parties and officially confirmed by a Google spokesperson, the extent of the known data is what you can see on your screen:

Highlights added. Image courtesy of Vinny O'Hare.

This is just one of a few experiments being tried. Other formats reported include a shorter version that gave only the number of clicks (formatted as "X clicks").

Here are a few of the remaining questions for Google:

Are advertisers volunteering for this program, or are the ads just getting the extra line?Is there a threshold on the minimum number of clicks before this line is displayed?What factors determine if this format will be used?Does it seem to be impacting CTR, for better or worse?How is the number of clicks calculated? Total for the campaign, total for the ad, total for the advertiser over their account history, or something else entirely?

I've contacted Google to see if I can get those answers, or at least some more information, but haven't received word yet. I'll update here once more data becomes available.

Those paying attention to the industry know that Google runs experiments frequently, often running them – without the advertiser being aware – on a very small scale. If the format, placement, or other element seems to be helpful to advertisers or users, the experiment expands and can eventually become the status quo.

Other recent Google experiments have caused far more controversy. A display network format based on CPL (cost per lead) even led to accusations that Google was giving the Obama re-election campaign unfair access to experimental new formats. Google denied those claims, stating that no CPL ad packages had been sold to any political group.

The "X clicks" format is a somewhat less exciting format, but one that's more likely to impact the average advertiser. If the number of clicks ends up giving a positive CTR impact, top-heavy investment, larger campaigns, and long-term advertising will become factors in the success of individual ads.

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Google • AdWords • Advertising • Clickthrough rate • Cost per Lead • Political campaign • Barack Obama • Obama

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5 Ways To Make Google Analytics Benefit You

Google Analytics is absolutely free and there are many benefits that come with installing it on your site. We've listed the top five things you can do as soon as you start tracking your site with Analytics:

1. AdWords advertisers can make Analytics available right in their AdWords account as a separate tab through a simple linking process. Advertisers can review extra data for their online campaigns by tracking landing page quality and conversions (goals), and pick out their highest performing ads.
   You can also use Analytics to track other Google products including AdSense, Blogger, and Google Sites.
2. See which pages drive the most pageviews on your site from the Top Content report. This report can answer questions you have about your most or least effective pages - for example, a high bounce rate indicates a landing page that should be redesigned or tailored to the specific ad which links to it.
3. Which groups of visitors became customers or did something else important to the success of your business? You can get key insights for these questions by setting up goals.
   
4. Grant other people in your company or organization access so that they are restricted to viewing reports in a profile or given full access to help manage your entire account as an administrator.
5. There are over 80 reports with customizable, drag-and-drop interfaces. You can also create your own reports with Custom Reporting, create the segments you want to see with Advanced Segmentation, or view multi-dimensional views of your data with Motion Charts.

SEMRush GEO

How To Offer Local Businesses And Attract More Clients, How To Finds Local AdWords Advertisers? There’s an easy way today to find companies who are using AdWords locally and help their business grow.
For those who missed out the news, just recently was launched a free(beta version) tool from Semrush team called ‘SEMRush GEO‘ which let PPC Fans and SEO Professionals, and bloggers to find local AdWords Advertisers and clients with just a few mouse clicks.

The best part of this free tool is that shows sites advertising in Google AdWords and mapped on Google Maps by their addresses, so you have a full overview of all companies located in a particular area you’ve choosen and know what are the most profitable. For Whom SEMRush GEO May Be Useful?

For bloggers this tool can be useful to spy company that already buy AdWords and improving their AdWords campaign. E.g. you can offer them local businesses, help put their business online and attract more clients (e.g. help them to set up a blog, promote it, and so on). Even, you can offer local AdWord ads on your blog and help them reach a wider audience. How Does Geo Semrush Works?

First at all, go on geo.semrush.com. If you drag the map and zoom in and out you can view regions with lots of AdWords advertisers and zoom in to view their exact locations. In general, the map show you three main simbols:

    * A red circle
    * A Gold circle
    * A little windows with all company informations

Start this typing the key term “Jersey City”(ps: the image below show ‘New York’ as key term, it was a mistake). As I said above, this tool let you see red circles in the map. What does it means? In brief, they represent regions where AdWords advertisers are located. The bigger the circle are, the more advertisers are located in this region. Simple right? You can drag and zoom the map to find regions you’re looking for, with a maximum of 100 regions, sorted by number of advertisers, are shown for current map.

Now, click on the region “Jersey City”

Next, you should see Golden coins in the map which show locations of AdWords advertisers. The bigger the coin are, the more AdWords Ads this advertiser has. If you move the mouse over each Golden coins, a windows will appear with all details about the company, in particular it show you:

1. Company name(e.g. TheLadders), 2. Company domain name(e.g. TheLadders.com), 3. Link to Google Maps for this domain name, 4. Company address(e.g. 137 Varick street, New York, NY 10013-1105), 5. Number of AdWords keywords that SEMRush knows for this domain name (e.g. 41961). 6. Report button.

Any Adwords ads in the left sidebar(image above) link to SEMRush’s AdWords report which let you track many things about the company sites you’re interested in. Here are just a few element you can check through this strong tool:

    * Pos: It show you any position ranking for the keyword you select.

    * Volum: Average volume of searches for this keyword per month.

    * Cpc: Cost per click based Google Adwords keyword tool.

    * Url: You can know which url of the site is ranking for that keyword.

    * Traffic: For each keyword you know the percentage of traffic that refer that keyword.

    * Cost: Cost of traffic in percentage that the website get for a particular keyword.

    * Competition: Advertisers activity in Google Adwords for this keyword.

    * Results: Number of results for this keyword known by Google.

    * Keyword: You can know for what keyword your site competitors is ranking for. If you are intoaffiliate marketing you can also know what are the company is ranking.

How Does To Use All This Data? A Pratical Example: For instance, in little time you could create a list of local, hotels, restaurants and other shops advertising on AdWords and start contacting them with an offer they can’t refuse. You could say something similar…

    “Hi. My name is Harry. I want to help your company attract more clients and sell additional products and make you increase your montly income stream. I’d like if we can working together. I can provide proven blogging services and I’d like to schedule a 30-minute consulting call with you to see if I can help with your specific business needs. Hope in a quick answer. All the best, Harry”

Using online marketing with offline marketing is a perfect mix to improve profit. As I said above if you’re offering blogging services, then this is a great opportunity for you to help clients make more money. Also, with the free(beta version) you can also see local AdWords advertisers in some country, say like in US, UK or India.

Where Should I Put My Ads

Today, there are thousands of  sites which you  can put your ads for free. The trick is to find the ones that work best for you. Not all that sites are  created equal  and  the  most active ones or biggest ones are not necessarily the best ones for your needs.


Traffic Exchanges, Safelist  and Social Site  are a great  marketing tool  for a  variety of  reasons. The  most obvious  reason  is that you get  lots  of  people  looking,  and  hopefully  clicking  on your website or promotional pages.

If  you are an  affiliate marketer,  then you need  to make yourself a good  splash page  to capture the leads attention and get them to click through  to your site.  You must always  be watching your results.  If or  when sales  start falling,  it is time  to  change your splash  page or  design another one.  Always  design  2 at  a time and  measure  the  results from both. This way you can scrap the ones that  don't  get a very good click through and keep the ones that convert.


If you  are going to be using  multiple free traffic  exchanges, and I recommend  that you do, your first priority should be to pick up a multi-tab web browser such as Mozilla Firefox.

Getting  free traffic  to your website is a  lot of work.  If you don't have  the  money  to  spend  on  full  blown  PPC ( pay-per-click ) campaigns  like Google  AdWords,  free traffic exchanges,  safelist and  social  site  are a great  way  to get  the traffic  you  need to succeed.