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The pages under the 'My Account' tab will be temporarily unavailable this Saturday from 12:00 to 2:00 pm PDT and next Saturday, August 6th, from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm PDT due to maintenance. While you'll still be able to log into your accounts, you won't be able to view invoices, change your billing address, or update your credit card during this time. Don't worry, your campaigns will still be running normally while you're out enjoying the summer sun!
Google does a good job directing people who are interested in your product or service – or need help getting direction to your site. But how can you afford to miss the users who are reading a product review on CNET - or reading about Machu Picchu in The New York Times? How do you reach them to tell them about your camera, or to inform them of the great fares to Peru? Well, you have two options: you can either go out and buy placements on all of those sites you think would drive relevant traffic to your site, or you can more simply use AdWords to target content sites in the Google advertising network. The network includes sites such as About.com, Lycos, The New York Times and many more.
Here's how it works: we take the words in your Ad Groups, decipher the overall meaning of the Ad Group, and make sure that the ads, represented by those keywords, show up next to relevant content. For instance, there can be an advertiser who is advertising on terms like basketball, NBA, NBA finals, basketball tickets, and courtside tickets. (Screenshot below) Because our system knows that the advertisers are looking for users who are interested in basketball, the ads will be displayed next to relevant content about basketball. Therefore, just like search, our targeting makes it so advertisers receive extremely targeted clicks.
During the last year we have launched new features that have made the program even better: Smart Pricing automatically discounts the amount you pay for the clicks received from content sites based on the likelihood that the click will convert. Also, the Site Exclusion tool will allow you to prevent your ads from being served on the sites that you pre-select. You can add these sites to the Site Exclusion Tool in the same manner that you would add keyword negatives. Our content network provides a really exciting opportunity for additional coverage. To get the most out of it, it's just important to understand how it works and then use it to your advantage.
What do the numbers in "Avg. Pos." mean? I found myself trying to explain what it meant to our marketing guy and realized that I didn't really know. - Stewart F.
Is there anyone I could hire to manage my AdWords account so that I don't have to do it myself? - Jennifer R.
I am involved with a charity that sells baskets produced by third-world weavers. 100% of our profits are reinvested in the weavers’ communities and paid as wages to the weavers. All of our overhead is supported by donations. Is there a discount offered by AdWords to support charitable organizations? - Robert W.
On July 22, 2005, advertisers will be unable to login to their AdWords accounts from approximately 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. PDT [?] due to system maintenance. Please rest assured that your campaigns will continue to run normally during this short downtime, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
We heard from you that trying to advertise with our current keyword states is like playing keyword roulette. You never know what keyword state will be assigned, and you sometimes can’t run on your most important keywords. In the coming weeks we’ll make changes to simplify our keyword states and give you more control to run on the keywords that you find valuable. Here are the improvements that you’ll see:Simplified Keyword States: Keywords will be placed in to one of two states – active or inactive. People like the idea of something that’s a little more binary - on/off, day/night, hot/cold – you get the picture.Increased Control: We’re replacing the static USD $0.05 minimum bid for all keywords with a minimum bid that varies based on the quality of your keyword and ad text. High quality keywords (determined by the Quality Score) will have minimum bids as low as $0.01, while keywords with a lower Quality Score will be assigned higher minimum bids. As long as the maximum CPC meets the minimum bid, your keyword will be active. You no longer have to worry about on hold, in trial, or disabled keywords.We’re giving you the control you asked for so you can run on the keywords that are important to your business.
One new tool that I would like to see from Google in addition to the new Find/Edit CPC, the Find/Edit Ad Copy, and the Find/Edit Display Url, is a Find/Edit Destination Url tool...
The 3 tools described would benefit greatly from having more powerful search options. You can look for ads that contain "roses" but not ads that contain "roses" but do not contain "sale" as just one example. Being able to search multiple terms, with a mix of phrase matching, broad matching and negative matching capabilities would boost the helpfulness of these tools substantially.
Since the launch of AdWords, a large ecosystem consisting of customers, service providers, developers and other industry experts has sprung up around the product. We created the Google Advertising Professionals program last year to provide support and recognition to those service providers who have dedicated their businesses to helping others become successful with AdWords. These service providers range from the largest multinational advertising agencies to the small home businesses managing AdWords for their neighbor’s plumbing business. What they all have in common is experience in using AdWords. The Google Advertising Professionals program aims to validate this expertise.The main components of the program are training, testing, qualification and marketing resources such as promotional credits. The free Learning Center contains in-depth tutorials on every aspect of AdWords. After passing the exam and meeting other criteria, Professionals become qualified and receive a logo. Professionals also have access to a professional status page and marketing tools to help them build their business. Companies in the U.S. that have multiple qualified individuals may also be eligible for company level qualification.One of our goals is to empower anyone who has AdWords expertise to participate in the AdWords ecosystem (and make a living, too). For our advertisers, we hope that the high standards that we have set for Qualified Google Advertising Professionals will help you, should you ever need to hire someone for your AdWords needs.
Last week I got back from the WebmasterWorld conference in New Orleans. I just found out that Ian Turner, a well-known moderator and search engine optimizer, hasn't been seen since last weekend. If you've seen Ian more recently, could you contact his family? There's more information here.Everyone is hoping that he's safe and sound somewhere.
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