Many of you have opted in to receive our customized suggestions about your AdSense implementation. When publishers opt in to this communication, we regularly send them best practice tips that are relevant to their specific site, to help them optimize and earn more with Google AdSense.
Take a look at how publisher Johnny Hayes now earns 51% more with AdSense on his site, funcheapsf.com, as a result of implementing one of the tips we sent him. You can also learn how publisher Eric Bort’s AdSense revenue increased by more than 200% on his site surgerysquad.com by making a change we recommended via email.
How do you sign up to receive personalized performance suggestions?
Step 1. Go to your account settings, and in the Personal settings section, click "edit"
Step 2. Check the box next to "Customized help and Suggestions"
Step 3. Click "Save"
For the publishers who’ve already opted in:
We'd love to hear your story as well. Tell us about your experiences with the tips we’ve sent you and the increase in AdSense revenue you’ve seen. Also, let us know any feedback you might have regarding our customized suggestions, so we can keep improving how we provide you with tips and advice.
If you haven't yet opted in, don’t miss out on additional earnings - opt in today! Make sure to check that the contact information in your account is up-to-date, so we'll be sure to reach you.
Showing posts with label Case studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Case studies. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
How integrating new ad sizes helped CareerPlanner.com increase revenue by 165%
In 1997, CareerPlanner.com founder Michael Robinson decided to pursue his passion of helping people discover their true career directions. He initially wanted to go into high schools and work directly with students, but decided instead to start a website so that he could keep his day job. Today, CareerPlanner.com helps high school students, college students, and adults alike discover their optimal career paths and learn how to start careers or make career changes.In 2007, Michael and CareerPlanner.com's top graphic designer realized that 2.5 million visitors per year weren't purchasing any CareerPlanner.com products. "These visitors were clearly looking for something, but it was not anything we offered," says Michael, so they decided to give AdSense a try. Today, AdSense is on over 95% of CareerPlanner.com’s pages and the site receives over 5.5 million visitors a year. The revenue from Google AdSense now helps fund CareerPlanner.com’s Research and Development efforts, IT expansion, as well as special marketing projects that they always wanted to try but could never afford.
Getting more out of AdSenseFollowing advice from the AdSense team, Michael decided to update his AdSense ad units with the goal of increasing performance. Instead of the three 120 x 600 skyscrapers that had been running one on top another down the right side of each page, Michael began running one 160x600 wide skyscraper on the left column, one 300 x 250 medium rectangle in the center, integrated into his content below the fold, and one 160 x 600 wide skyscraper on the right column. Michael also changed the color scheme of the ad units to match the color scheme of his webpages. Initially, Michael made these changes to 75% of his pages. Within one month, his AdSense for content revenue increased 80%.
The initial revenue growth CareerPlanner.com saw in the first month inspired Michael to take the time to implement the same changes on more of his pages. Today, Michael has optimized 99% of his pages and increased his AdSense for content revenue by 165%.
"The best news," says Michael, "is that since we have made the optimization changes, our Google AdSense revenue has been setting new records every month."Sign in to your account to upgrade your ad units like CareerPlanner.com today!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
New Interface Wednesdays: CrowdGather gets more efficient with the new AdSense interface
CrowdGather uses the new AdSense interface to efficiently track and improve performance across its large network of forums.CrowdGather.com is a leading, publicly traded network of online forums, consisting of tens of thousands of online communities. Sanjay Sabnani, CEO of Crowdgather, recently sat down with us to share his site’s story as well as some tips on using the new AdSense interface to track and improve performance.
Inside AdSense: Tell us about the origin of your site.
Sanjay Sabnani: In 2002 I acquired my first forum, GenMay.com (short for General Mayhem), a
place for off-topic humor, where gamers hang out. General Mayhem grew pretty rapidly and I started acquiring more forums, which ultimately led to the creation of CrowdGather one year later. CrowdGather now receives 5 million unique visitors a month and 90 million monthly page views across its tens of thousands of communities, including hosted forum sites Lefora and FreeForums.org.IA: What role does AdSense play in your business?
SS: I used Google AdSense from the get-go on GenMay.com, and began using it across the entire CrowdGather network once it was established. AdSense was the first ad network I had found that I actually understood and could implement and it became a very easy way to begin to monetize. These days, AdSense is a key component for us, and we’ve worked on optimizing it across our network. We’ve found that AdSense displays the most relevant ads out of any contextual partner we’ve worked with. Since forums are very text-rich and the ads are so relevant, AdSense converts very well.
IA: I understand you’ve recently started using the new AdSense interface. What do you like about it?
SS: The new interface is like a monitoring system to ensure that all goes well across the CrowdGather network. For a network like CrowdGather comprising tens of thousands of online communities, the detailed performance reports are important tools for tracking individual site performance. We’re always looking to see if any one particular site is acting differently than the rest of the network. With the new interface, we’re able to track traffic down to that individual subdomain level which is valuable for us, since before it was all lumped together as a blanket effective CPM.
Based on the quicker feedback, we’ve been able to adjust the overall positioning and placement of the AdSense units across our network more rapidly. Before, we’d look at aggregate data for a few weeks to decide if a certain location was performing better on a certain community. Now we’re able to play around a lot more quickly, and get that feedback much quicker, in terms of testing.
IA: If you had to sum it up, what would you tell other publishers about the new interface?
SS: We can see all this data more rapidly, and get an overview of the week to see the revenue direction. The new interface has made AdSense a bigger part of our analytics routine.
If you’d like to see how the new AdSense interface can help reduce time spent managing and monitoring your account, sign in to your account and switch to the new interface (you can get there from the link in the upper corner that says “Try the new AdSense interface”). To learn more about the new reporting functionality, visit
Monday, March 28, 2011
An AdWords take on Search Stories
During last year’s Super Bowl, we did something unprecedented for Google--we aired our first Super Bowl commercial. Our television commercial, Parisian Love, is what we now call a “search story,” since it tells a user’s story through the eyes of the Google.com search box.
Since the first airing of Parisian Love, many new search stories have been created. While each story is unique, they all highlight the ways in which users are searching, whether it’s on Google.com, Google Maps, or mobile--and whether users are clicking on a search result or an ad.
We believe that ads are information and can be a vital part of the search process. As AdWords advertisers, we know you feel that way too, and we wanted to share with you three of our favorite search stories. These stories are all very different, but they all feature ads! As you watch the videos, can you spot them all?
For the full video playlist, watch here.
Since the first airing of Parisian Love, many new search stories have been created. While each story is unique, they all highlight the ways in which users are searching, whether it’s on Google.com, Google Maps, or mobile--and whether users are clicking on a search result or an ad.
We believe that ads are information and can be a vital part of the search process. As AdWords advertisers, we know you feel that way too, and we wanted to share with you three of our favorite search stories. These stories are all very different, but they all feature ads! As you watch the videos, can you spot them all?
A sweet ending to missed connections in the big city.
A hesitant traveler discovers he's born to cruise.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
UpTake.com Raises its revenue to new heights with AdSense
UpTake uses the new AdSense interface to perform 10 times more analysis in the same amount of time.UpTake.com is a search engine designed to take the time and guesswork out of the travel decision process by organizing, filtering, and tailoring recommendations on destinations, hotels, restaurants, and attractions from thousands of travel websites to individual consumer needs. UpTake’s Director of Online Marketing, Brian Piepgrass, recently shared the site’s story and gave us some tips on how using the new interface has helped the UpTake team save time managing their AdSense performance.
Inside AdSense: How did your site come about?
UpTake: We wanted to create a new kind of website for helping travelers find information they need, and take a lot less time doing it. We’ve become one of the web’s largest independent travel research sites, averaging 3 million unique users each month. Today, our vision is rapidly expanding to include family travel, international travel as well as pre-trip planning.IA: What role does AdSense play in your business?
UpTake: UpTake started using AdSense about two years ago, and the revenue generated from AdSense plays a key role in helping us grow. AdSense has the ability to deliver relevant ads in many more destinations for us, including in dozens of small- and medium-sized markets such as Modesto and Fresno. AdSense also picks up on the semantics of individual travel pages. On romance-specific pages, for instance, AdSense might include ads for hotels with Jacuzzi suites or honeymoon packages. Without AdSense, a lot of pages wouldn’t have ads and the pages would not be as relevant. We’d have to have our own sales force go out and sell all these ads.”
IA: I understand you’ve recently started using the new AdSense interface. What do you like about it?
UpTake: The new AdSense interface has been a key time-saver. It used to take a half-hour to pull the kind of report that now we can pull in a matter of 30 seconds. We feel way more in touch with how things are trending. If revenue goes down we can much more easily figure out why and where and then go fix it. One of our favorite features is the ability to take out-of-the-box reports and tailor them specifically to our customers. We can just click on the name of a report and update to today. The system is also smart enough to know we want to see what happened last month, and we can save 20-30 reports.
IA: If you had to sum it up, what would you tell other publishers about the new interface?
Uptake: We can do 10 times more analysis than we ever used to be able to do in the same amount of time.
If you’d like to see how the new AdSense interface can help reduce time spent managing and monitoring your account, sign in to your account and switch to the new interface (you can get there from the link in the upper corner that says “Try the new AdSense interface”). To learn more about the new reporting functionality, visit
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Advertisers save time and uncover new keyword ideas with the Opportunities tab
If you’re a small business, time can often feel like your most valuable and most constrained resource. While you’re doing everything you need to do to keep your business up and running, important tasks like AdWords account optimization can fall to the bottom of your to-do list.
Knowing that time is a key factor for all AdWords advertisers, we created the Opportunities tab to provide you with automated and customized keyword, bid, and budget ideas. Here are two stories of advertisers who used the Opportunities tab to find new keywords quickly and easily.
Fitness Singles
Chris Mattioli founded Fitness Singles, a fitness-focused online dating website in 2003. With Chris’s dedication and some help from AdWords, he has grown his business to over one million global members today.
Like many small business owners, Chris wanted to improve his AdWords performance, but didn’t have a lot of time to work on his account. When Chris discovered the Opportunities tab, he knew it was a good fit for Fitness Singles, since it allowed him to uncover new keywords quickly and easily.
Chris scans the keyword ideas in the Opportunities tab regularly to find terms related to fitness, online dating, and singles. He’s found many ideas that are similar to the keyword combinations and variations that are in his account, but that he may have accidentally overlooked. He’s also found completely new relevant keywords to include in his campaigns. In one instance, Chris saw terms such as promotion code and coupon among his keyword ideas. From there, he decided to add a number of discount-based keywords to his campaigns. Chris says, “The Opportunities tab can often find new keywords that are relevant our ads and that don't currently exist in our account. It also helps you identify new keyword areas--even when you thought you had it covered.”
resortsandlodges.com
Ryan Bailey, President and Co-Founder of resortsandlodges.com, describes his company as a full-service agency rather than a travel directory. "We have a rapidly growing client base of two thousand-plus and a business model that gives our clients turnkey marketing and advertising support.” While part of a large company, VEMGlobal.com, resortsandlodges.com runs as a small business and keeps its operations small and scrappy.
On the site, you can 'book your spot' to save your travel information, plan your next trip, and more
click for full size image
Like Fitness Singles, resortsandlodges.com uses the Opportunities tab to find new keyword ideas and save time. Ryan says, “The Opportunities tab provides high-quality keywords--and a lot of ideas we wouldn’t have thought of otherwise, which is the whole point! It’s great that you can easily scan through the ideas and find hidden jewels and then apply those insights for both keyword selection and site optimization.”
Mollie Moore, the company’s interactive marketing manager, also used the Opportunities tab to help with a website redesign project in March 2010. The previous version of resortsandlodges.com had dozens of links at the bottom of the page, and Moore was tasked with de-cluttering and limiting these links to the most important content. Looking at the number of keyword ideas associated with a particular theme as well as the traffic estimates for each keyword idea, the team learned that “the most effective content sections were top destinations, popular resort types, popular trips, and so forth,” says Moore. “We also used ideas from the Opportunities tab to build out our meta titles, descriptions and keywords embedded in the back-end of every page on the site. Using the Opportunities tab, we can reduce guesswork in determining the most effective content."
To learn more about Fitness Singles and resortsandlodges.com and how they use the Opportunities tab, read their full case studies in the AdWords Help Center. You can learn more about the Opportunities tab in the AdWords Help Center or our YouTube video series.
Knowing that time is a key factor for all AdWords advertisers, we created the Opportunities tab to provide you with automated and customized keyword, bid, and budget ideas. Here are two stories of advertisers who used the Opportunities tab to find new keywords quickly and easily.
Fitness Singles
Chris Mattioli founded Fitness Singles, a fitness-focused online dating website in 2003. With Chris’s dedication and some help from AdWords, he has grown his business to over one million global members today.
Like many small business owners, Chris wanted to improve his AdWords performance, but didn’t have a lot of time to work on his account. When Chris discovered the Opportunities tab, he knew it was a good fit for Fitness Singles, since it allowed him to uncover new keywords quickly and easily.
Chris scans the keyword ideas in the Opportunities tab regularly to find terms related to fitness, online dating, and singles. He’s found many ideas that are similar to the keyword combinations and variations that are in his account, but that he may have accidentally overlooked. He’s also found completely new relevant keywords to include in his campaigns. In one instance, Chris saw terms such as promotion code and coupon among his keyword ideas. From there, he decided to add a number of discount-based keywords to his campaigns. Chris says, “The Opportunities tab can often find new keywords that are relevant our ads and that don't currently exist in our account. It also helps you identify new keyword areas--even when you thought you had it covered.”
resortsandlodges.com
Ryan Bailey, President and Co-Founder of resortsandlodges.com, describes his company as a full-service agency rather than a travel directory. "We have a rapidly growing client base of two thousand-plus and a business model that gives our clients turnkey marketing and advertising support.” While part of a large company, VEMGlobal.com, resortsandlodges.com runs as a small business and keeps its operations small and scrappy.
On the site, you can 'book your spot' to save your travel information, plan your next trip, and more
click for full size image
Mollie Moore, the company’s interactive marketing manager, also used the Opportunities tab to help with a website redesign project in March 2010. The previous version of resortsandlodges.com had dozens of links at the bottom of the page, and Moore was tasked with de-cluttering and limiting these links to the most important content. Looking at the number of keyword ideas associated with a particular theme as well as the traffic estimates for each keyword idea, the team learned that “the most effective content sections were top destinations, popular resort types, popular trips, and so forth,” says Moore. “We also used ideas from the Opportunities tab to build out our meta titles, descriptions and keywords embedded in the back-end of every page on the site. Using the Opportunities tab, we can reduce guesswork in determining the most effective content."
To learn more about Fitness Singles and resortsandlodges.com and how they use the Opportunities tab, read their full case studies in the AdWords Help Center. You can learn more about the Opportunities tab in the AdWords Help Center or our YouTube video series.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Display both text and image ads for an easy change with big impact
FunCheapSF.com is an online resource for finding free or affordable events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founder Johnny Hayes recently shared his 
site’s story with us and gave some tips on an easy and high impact way that he’s optimized his revenue -- by enabling both text and image/rich media ads.Inside AdSense: How did FunCheapSF.com come about?
Johnny Hayes: I moved to San Francisco without a job and couldn’t find much work, so I had a lot of time on my hands. I spent my time hunting down cheap and free things to do in the city and, starting in 2003, began emailing my friends with a weekly list of activities. More friends found out and wanted to be added to my email list, so I decided it was time to make a real website.
IA: How did you get started with AdSense?
JH: I began using AdSense in March 2007. It was my first source of online advertising revenue. As content developed on my site and traffic grew, my AdSense revenue grew as well.
IA: Why did you decide to opt in to both text and image/rich media ads?
JH: Several months ago, I received an email from AdSense letting me know that I hadn't opted in to displaying text ads and was only displaying image ads.
I had originally chosen to only show image ads because I figured they were more aesthetically appealing to my readers. But Google’s reasoning – which made sense to me – was that even though there’s tons of advertisers using image ads, there’s a bunch more out there who are specifically bidding on text ads. If I’m only showing image ads then I’m leaving the text advertisers out of the auction. And since these text ads would only be shown on my site if they outbid image ads, why not offer this space to them?
So I decided to give the text ads a shot. It seemed like an easy thing to do that might have a positive impact on my revenue with virtually no downside.
IA: What were the results? Would you recommend this strategy to other publishers?
JH: After enabling both text and image ads on my site, I saw a 51% revenue increase and nearly a 60% increase in average eCPM. It was an easy change with a big impact. And using AdSense means I don't have to worry about the laborious task of finding and managing advertisers myself and can instead focus my time on what I like to do – writing good content, putting together a great site and growing my business. I just plugged in the AdSense code and rarely have to think about it again.
I would say to other publishers that it’s worth giving the option for both text and image ads a try. It's pretty easy to set up – I just followed the instructions in the email I had received from AdSense and it took just a few minutes. Also, set up channels to track your ads so you can see specifically which of your ad locations and ad types are monetizing well, and continue with that.
If you want to give text and image ads a try like Johnny, click here to upgrade your units now!
- Once you're signed in to your AdSense account, click the "My Ads" tab in the new AdSense interface
- Select all ad units
- From the "Actions" dropdown, edit ad type to "Text & Image / rich media ads"
- Set up custom channels to monitor the impact on your AdSense performance
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A success story made possible by AdSense
Today, we bring you a success story from India, CarDekho.com, an auto portal, who made it big in the Indian online space thanks to AdSense.
Cardekho.com is one of the top auto portals in India that assists new and used car buyers to make informed buying decisions by offering them a variety of research tools and reviews. Co-founders Amit and Anurag launched Cardekho in March 2008, like every new business venture, were struggling to monetize. Luckily, Anurag discovered AdSense and was delighted by the prospect of finding revenue without needing VC funding.
They experimented with various products and features, and found the most success using the features highlighted below:
Amit, co-founder, shares, “AdSense is a must-have for all sites looking forward to a sustainable and profitable business model. It may not be the primary source of income as you scale your business model to earn from other sources. AdSense does add to considerable amount of revenues generated without having to worry about hiring a sales team to sell inventory...Had it not been for AdSense, CarDekho would not have come this far without VC funding.”
Have a success story of your own? We’d love to here it. Fill out this form to let us know how AdSense has helped you and your business!
Cardekho.com is one of the top auto portals in India that assists new and used car buyers to make informed buying decisions by offering them a variety of research tools and reviews. Co-founders Amit and Anurag launched Cardekho in March 2008, like every new business venture, were struggling to monetize. Luckily, Anurag discovered AdSense and was delighted by the prospect of finding revenue without needing VC funding.
They experimented with various products and features, and found the most success using the features highlighted below:
- Filtering options help them eliminate irrelevant ads. They use this feature carefully and intelligently so they don’t unnecessarily block good revenue.
- Top banner above-the-fold (beside the logo) ad placement is the top earning slot for them.
- Placing ad units in the “F pattern” helps them optimize visibility of ads.
- Showing text ads when content on the page is mostly images and image ads when content on the page is text-heavy. This helps make the page look better and improves ad visibility.
- Channels tell them how their ads are doing and how well they can perform if placed somewhere else on the site.
Amit, co-founder, shares, “AdSense is a must-have for all sites looking forward to a sustainable and profitable business model. It may not be the primary source of income as you scale your business model to earn from other sources. AdSense does add to considerable amount of revenues generated without having to worry about hiring a sales team to sell inventory...Had it not been for AdSense, CarDekho would not have come this far without VC funding.”
Have a success story of your own? We’d love to here it. Fill out this form to let us know how AdSense has helped you and your business!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Going Global with Google
AdWords started with the idea of connecting you with customers searching for your goods and services - wherever those customers may be. Today, we're announcing the launch of Google Global Market Finder, a free online tool that helps you find new markets overseas, and Google Ads for Global Advertisers, a new website that brings together Global Market Finder, AdWords, Google Translate, and other tools that can help you find, engage with, and support your customers worldwide - whether those customers are consumers or businesses searching for suppliers online.
Global Market Finder helps you answer the question: who are my potential customers overseas?
To use the tool, enter keywords that describe your product or service and select a market or region you'd like to explore. You can choose from regions such as the European Union, the “G20” economies, or the Americas.
Global Market Finder automatically translates your keyword into languages used in each of your selected markets. It then ranks each location by market opportunity by combining search volume, suggested bid price, and competition for each translated keyword. With this tool, businesses can answer questions like “how competitive is this market?”, “how does demand in one location compare to demand elsewhere in the world?”, and “how much would it cost to start advertising in this new market?” Since automatic translation is not perfect, be sure to confirm that the translated terms are appropriate for your business.
The second resource we're launching today is Google Ads for Global Advertisers, a website where you can learn more about Google tools that can help expand your business overseas. Google Ads for Global Advertisers contains step-by-step guides and tools that take you from local to global: from finding the right markets to expand your business, to localizing your website and campaigns into another language, to running ads in a foreign market, and finally, to monitoring your global ad spend.
This website pulls together resources for you to:
Both Global Market Finder and Google Ads for Global Advertisers will be available in 43 languages. There are more than 1.9 billion people online. Wouldn’t you like to add some of them as customers?
Global Market Finder helps you answer the question: who are my potential customers overseas?
To use the tool, enter keywords that describe your product or service and select a market or region you'd like to explore. You can choose from regions such as the European Union, the “G20” economies, or the Americas.
Global Market Finder automatically translates your keyword into languages used in each of your selected markets. It then ranks each location by market opportunity by combining search volume, suggested bid price, and competition for each translated keyword. With this tool, businesses can answer questions like “how competitive is this market?”, “how does demand in one location compare to demand elsewhere in the world?”, and “how much would it cost to start advertising in this new market?” Since automatic translation is not perfect, be sure to confirm that the translated terms are appropriate for your business.
The second resource we're launching today is Google Ads for Global Advertisers, a website where you can learn more about Google tools that can help expand your business overseas. Google Ads for Global Advertisers contains step-by-step guides and tools that take you from local to global: from finding the right markets to expand your business, to localizing your website and campaigns into another language, to running ads in a foreign market, and finally, to monitoring your global ad spend.
This website pulls together resources for you to:
- Find the right market for your products and services, by using tools such as the Global Market Finder
- Translate your websites and ad text using Google Translate Web Element and Google Translator Toolkit
- Reach new customers with relevant online ads
- Understand options for international payment, shipping, and customer service
Both Global Market Finder and Google Ads for Global Advertisers will be available in 43 languages. There are more than 1.9 billion people online. Wouldn’t you like to add some of them as customers?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Great tech support and good karma found with Google AdWords online
Cross-posted from the Google Small Business Blog:
When Uday Challu noticed a growing dissatisfaction with avenues for technical support, he was inspired to create a better way for people to get help with their tech troubles. So in 2007 he founded iYogi.com, India’s first direct-to-consumer remote technical support company. Founded on a belief in good karma, iYogi aims to mitigate frustrations with technical products and services by delivering a high-quality customer service experience.
iYogi provides round-the-clock, 24-hour service on a wide variety of technical products and issues, in Australia, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Uday uses Google AdWords to reach these international customers.
Uday says he saw search and, in particular, AdWords as a way to reach customers in need of technical support. He says, “iYogi services are currently available in multiple geographies and advertising with AdWords seemed like the most obvious way to reach customers who were turning to the Internet to find and fix their problems.”
With the intent of starting small and building to scale, Uday targeted his first campaigns to the U.S. only. Using location and language targeting, iYogi launched a U.S.-only campaign with general keywords related to customer support, and honed his campaign over time. “We gathered lots of intelligence from the Search Query Report, which helped us identify other keywords people in the U.S. were searching for,” says iYogi Vice President of Online Marketing K.R. Sreejith. “We also tested new ad texts and customized these ad texts to highlight popular keywords.”
Then, using lessons from his experiences in targeting the U.S., Uday expanded into the Canadian market. He found his experience in the U.S. helpful for the Canadian campaign, but didn’t see similarly high volume. After examining the global competitive landscape, he decided to expand to Australia and the U.K.
“We quickly learned that ads in the U.K., for example, had to be different than ads in the U.S.,” says Sreejith. “Using the Search Query Report, we noticed that the popularity of certain keywords was different in the U.K. and that there are differences in the spelling of these terms. We also learned from our sales teams that U.K. customers spend more time on the phone than do U.S. customers. So, we edited our ad texts and landing pages to reflect these different keywords and values.”
Today, iYogi is one of the fastest growing remote tech support providers in the world. As Uday continues to expand his business internationally, he’ll continue to use insights gained from his ad campaigns and to provide the rest of the world with similarly karmic technical support experiences!
Posted by Anand Devsharma, Team Manager, India
When Uday Challu noticed a growing dissatisfaction with avenues for technical support, he was inspired to create a better way for people to get help with their tech troubles. So in 2007 he founded iYogi.com, India’s first direct-to-consumer remote technical support company. Founded on a belief in good karma, iYogi aims to mitigate frustrations with technical products and services by delivering a high-quality customer service experience.
iYogi Founder Uday Challu
iYogi provides round-the-clock, 24-hour service on a wide variety of technical products and issues, in Australia, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Uday uses Google AdWords to reach these international customers.
Uday says he saw search and, in particular, AdWords as a way to reach customers in need of technical support. He says, “iYogi services are currently available in multiple geographies and advertising with AdWords seemed like the most obvious way to reach customers who were turning to the Internet to find and fix their problems.”
With the intent of starting small and building to scale, Uday targeted his first campaigns to the U.S. only. Using location and language targeting, iYogi launched a U.S.-only campaign with general keywords related to customer support, and honed his campaign over time. “We gathered lots of intelligence from the Search Query Report, which helped us identify other keywords people in the U.S. were searching for,” says iYogi Vice President of Online Marketing K.R. Sreejith. “We also tested new ad texts and customized these ad texts to highlight popular keywords.”
Then, using lessons from his experiences in targeting the U.S., Uday expanded into the Canadian market. He found his experience in the U.S. helpful for the Canadian campaign, but didn’t see similarly high volume. After examining the global competitive landscape, he decided to expand to Australia and the U.K.
“We quickly learned that ads in the U.K., for example, had to be different than ads in the U.S.,” says Sreejith. “Using the Search Query Report, we noticed that the popularity of certain keywords was different in the U.K. and that there are differences in the spelling of these terms. We also learned from our sales teams that U.K. customers spend more time on the phone than do U.S. customers. So, we edited our ad texts and landing pages to reflect these different keywords and values.”
Today, iYogi is one of the fastest growing remote tech support providers in the world. As Uday continues to expand his business internationally, he’ll continue to use insights gained from his ad campaigns and to provide the rest of the world with similarly karmic technical support experiences!
Posted by Anand Devsharma, Team Manager, India
Monday, November 15, 2010
Live webcast: 5 Tips to Turbo-Charge Your Online Marketing Campaign With YouTube
Event Date: November 16, 2010 at 02:00 PM East/12:00PM Central/11AM Pacific. Register today.
As a dentist, Dr. Bob Wagstaff knew he had a better way to cure bad breath than most other solutions in the market. So he founded Orabrush to sell a tongue brush to help consumers more easily clean their tongues of the germs that cause bad breath. When Dr. Bob first tried promoting his new invention, many forms of traditional advertising failed him. A $50,000 infomercial went nowhere. Then, Jeffrey Harmon suggested a marketing campaign built around a YouTube video. That first video cost $500 and has since earned the company over 13 million views, setting Orabrush on the path as an innovator in online video marketing.
Join this live Webcast with AdAge to hear from Jeffrey Harmon and Abe Neiderhauser, the team that has helped earn Orabrush more than $1,000,000 in sales through YouTube, AdWords and online marketing.
As a dentist, Dr. Bob Wagstaff knew he had a better way to cure bad breath than most other solutions in the market. So he founded Orabrush to sell a tongue brush to help consumers more easily clean their tongues of the germs that cause bad breath. When Dr. Bob first tried promoting his new invention, many forms of traditional advertising failed him. A $50,000 infomercial went nowhere. Then, Jeffrey Harmon suggested a marketing campaign built around a YouTube video. That first video cost $500 and has since earned the company over 13 million views, setting Orabrush on the path as an innovator in online video marketing.
Join this live Webcast with AdAge to hear from Jeffrey Harmon and Abe Neiderhauser, the team that has helped earn Orabrush more than $1,000,000 in sales through YouTube, AdWords and online marketing.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Measure the phone calls you get from AdWords
What if you found out that your AdWords campaigns were bringing you more customers than you realized?
Zac Stafford, Senior Search Strategist at Nina Hale Search Marketing in Minneapolis, MN, recently discovered that this was true for his client, modern furniture retailer Room & Board. Stafford saw some encouraging results as an early beta tester of AdWords call metrics, a new feature that automatically includes a unique phone number in your ads to measure the calls that you receive from AdWords.
“By cross-checking our call metrics reports with our sales records, we saw that half the people who called the toll free number in our ad purchased online but the other half purchased in a store. Before using call metrics, we determined our ROI just by looking at the online sales numbers. Now we have proof that online search ad campaigns drive in-store purchases.”
Today we're announcing that AdWords call metrics is available for more advertisers, making it easier than ever to measure the phone calls that AdWords generates for your business. Using the technology behind Google Voice, call metrics assigns your campaign a unique phone number which is automatically inserted into your ad on both desktop and high-end mobile devices, where the number is clickable.
When a user calls the number in your ad, the call is automatically routed to your business, and AdWords notes that this call took place. Then, when you look at your AdWords reports, you’ll see the number of calls generated by each campaign, call duration, and in the near future, caller area code. You'll still only pay for clicks on your ads, but we intend to charge for call metrics in the future.
Once you know where your calls are coming from, you can refine your marketing strategy to make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads. For example, you could test different ad text variations to see which results in the most calls or reallocate budget to campaigns that truly bring you the highest ROI.
Currently, call metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers. We plan to make the feature available to more advertisers in the coming months. To find out if call metrics is available in your account and to learn more about the feature, visit Google Ad Innovations.
Additionally, if you want to see call metrics in action, watch the video above.
Zac Stafford, Senior Search Strategist at Nina Hale Search Marketing in Minneapolis, MN, recently discovered that this was true for his client, modern furniture retailer Room & Board. Stafford saw some encouraging results as an early beta tester of AdWords call metrics, a new feature that automatically includes a unique phone number in your ads to measure the calls that you receive from AdWords.
“By cross-checking our call metrics reports with our sales records, we saw that half the people who called the toll free number in our ad purchased online but the other half purchased in a store. Before using call metrics, we determined our ROI just by looking at the online sales numbers. Now we have proof that online search ad campaigns drive in-store purchases.”
Today we're announcing that AdWords call metrics is available for more advertisers, making it easier than ever to measure the phone calls that AdWords generates for your business. Using the technology behind Google Voice, call metrics assigns your campaign a unique phone number which is automatically inserted into your ad on both desktop and high-end mobile devices, where the number is clickable.
Call metrics ad at the top of the search results:
Once you know where your calls are coming from, you can refine your marketing strategy to make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads. For example, you could test different ad text variations to see which results in the most calls or reallocate budget to campaigns that truly bring you the highest ROI.
Currently, call metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers. We plan to make the feature available to more advertisers in the coming months. To find out if call metrics is available in your account and to learn more about the feature, visit Google Ad Innovations.
Additionally, if you want to see call metrics in action, watch the video above.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Grow traffic with help from YouTube videos and AdWords
Editors note: Today’s guest bloggers are Troy Olson, Digital Advertising Manager, and Jeff Loquist, Search Marketing Manager, for ShoppersChoice.com. ShoppersChoice.com owns and operates a family of web stores with a wide selection of products, from barbecue grills and accessories to patio sets.
We started out with search-based advertising using Google AdWords. It helped us get traffic to our site BBQGuys.com at a relatively low cost – AdWords has been a great way to help us capture customers when they’re looking for a “BBQ grill” and other items we offer.
We happened upon marketing on YouTube almost by accident. In response to customer service calls, we started creating instructional videos to show people how to best use their BBQ grills. We were getting a lot of traffic and great comments. So we decided to build out our Brand Channel and add more content, such as recipes by Chef Tony. YouTube is great for conveying our company image, and distributing unique content that people can relate to, especially people who enjoy food and eating! Learn more about our “secret sauce” for success that combines YouTube and AdWords.
Posted by Gordon Zhu
We started out with search-based advertising using Google AdWords. It helped us get traffic to our site BBQGuys.com at a relatively low cost – AdWords has been a great way to help us capture customers when they’re looking for a “BBQ grill” and other items we offer.
We happened upon marketing on YouTube almost by accident. In response to customer service calls, we started creating instructional videos to show people how to best use their BBQ grills. We were getting a lot of traffic and great comments. So we decided to build out our Brand Channel and add more content, such as recipes by Chef Tony. YouTube is great for conveying our company image, and distributing unique content that people can relate to, especially people who enjoy food and eating! Learn more about our “secret sauce” for success that combines YouTube and AdWords.
Posted by Gordon Zhu
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Even More Reasons to Join the Sitelinks Party
Since launching Ad Sitelinks last November, more than 100,000 of our advertisers have made use of the format to provide deeper access to their sites’ relevant content directly from ads on Google.
If you’re still on the fence about using Sitelinks, or haven’t looked into it yet, here’s even more reason to add them to your campaigns: on average, campaigns that have used one-line Sitelinks have seen an increase in CTR of more than 10 percent, and those with two-line Sitelinks continue to see the bump of more than 30 percent that we noted back in June.
Others are seeing even larger performance boosts. After implementing Sitelinks on their branded campaigns, Nationwide Insurance saw their CTR rise by 73 percent and conversions increase 60 percent over a 90-day period. Check out their full case study here.
Sitelinks offer a great way to give users a variety of paths to take based on their interests. For instance, if you search for “engagement rings”, Blue Nile gives you three different additional links that they think will help meet your needs. Maybe you’re trying to get ideas for what’s popular right now in engagement rings, or already have something in mind that you’re ready to craft. In either case, this ad directs you the appropriate way.
If you’re looking for more information on how to implement and get the most out of Sitelinks, check out our new online course on the feature and read the FAQ in the Help Center.
Post
If you’re still on the fence about using Sitelinks, or haven’t looked into it yet, here’s even more reason to add them to your campaigns: on average, campaigns that have used one-line Sitelinks have seen an increase in CTR of more than 10 percent, and those with two-line Sitelinks continue to see the bump of more than 30 percent that we noted back in June.
Others are seeing even larger performance boosts. After implementing Sitelinks on their branded campaigns, Nationwide Insurance saw their CTR rise by 73 percent and conversions increase 60 percent over a 90-day period. Check out their full case study here.
Sitelinks offer a great way to give users a variety of paths to take based on their interests. For instance, if you search for “engagement rings”, Blue Nile gives you three different additional links that they think will help meet your needs. Maybe you’re trying to get ideas for what’s popular right now in engagement rings, or already have something in mind that you’re ready to craft. In either case, this ad directs you the appropriate way.
If you’re looking for more information on how to implement and get the most out of Sitelinks, check out our new online course on the feature and read the FAQ in the Help Center.
Post
Monday, October 11, 2010
Custom shoes made possible with custom AdWords campaigns
Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.
Mike Knapp and Michael Fox had always dreamed of founding a start-up. Jodie Fox (Michael’s wife) had always loved custom-made shoes. When her friends started asking her to design shoes for them and to bring these handmade shoes back from her travels, she, Mike and Michael saw a business opportunity. The trio founded their online custom shoe design company Shoes of Prey to share the design experience with the rest of the world.
The business first took flight in Australia, where the founders live and their company is headquartered. Their first customers were trusted friends, who tested the online creation tool and proudly wore their personalized designs. The ability to create custom shoes quickly went viral. It seemed that with each step they took, the initial testers received questions about where they found their fabulous footwear. Soon strangers began making purchases, and when the website spread to overseas locations, the team began offering different currencies to allow for international sales.
The team had already created an AdWords account to promote Shoes of Prey to online customers in Australia. As they expanded internationally, they created new AdWords campaigns targeted at English-speaking countries with currencies they could process. They used AdWords location-targeting to show ads in new locations: Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Michael says, “Despite being based in Australia, it took only a matter of days for our first orders to start coming in from the other side of the world. It was exciting to see!”
Currently, about 10 percent of Shoes of Prey’s shoe sales come from AdWords customers—and about 40 percent of those sales are from international buyers. One of the main reasons they’ve been successful in reaching international audiences is the ease with which they can edit ad texts for each location. “Gift certificates have been really popular on our site,” Michael says. “So we use AdWords to promote our gift certificates. Key events for us are Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas.”
Michael then uses Google Insights for Search to identify each country’s peak search traffic dates for these occasions. “We time specific AdWords campaigns to target each of these events. Mother's Day is on a different day in different countries, so AdWords lets us run ads at different times of the year for the various countries, and edit the ads so they speak to users in those countries. For example, we’ll mention the price of our shoes in euro in Ireland and in dollars in the U.S.”
After only a year of operation, the founders have hired three new employees and have formed partnerships with local firms in Japan and Russia to localize their offering in those markets. “Early on in the life of our business, AdWords showed us the potential our business has for growth outside Australia, so we now offer Japanese and Russian versions of our website, complete with local marketing and customer support in those markets,” says Michael.
With AdWords, Michael, Jodie and Mike have been able to share their passion for custom shoes with international customers who share their love for customization. Their next step is to inspire all shoe lovers to design their own footwear. Michael tells us: “We're starting to experiment with the Google Display Network to help us find those first customers while they're browsing the web.” And they’ll continue to use AdWords location targeting and ad text customization to reach new international customers who might not know just how much fun designing shoes can be!
Mike Knapp and Michael Fox had always dreamed of founding a start-up. Jodie Fox (Michael’s wife) had always loved custom-made shoes. When her friends started asking her to design shoes for them and to bring these handmade shoes back from her travels, she, Mike and Michael saw a business opportunity. The trio founded their online custom shoe design company Shoes of Prey to share the design experience with the rest of the world.
The business first took flight in Australia, where the founders live and their company is headquartered. Their first customers were trusted friends, who tested the online creation tool and proudly wore their personalized designs. The ability to create custom shoes quickly went viral. It seemed that with each step they took, the initial testers received questions about where they found their fabulous footwear. Soon strangers began making purchases, and when the website spread to overseas locations, the team began offering different currencies to allow for international sales.
The team had already created an AdWords account to promote Shoes of Prey to online customers in Australia. As they expanded internationally, they created new AdWords campaigns targeted at English-speaking countries with currencies they could process. They used AdWords location-targeting to show ads in new locations: Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Michael says, “Despite being based in Australia, it took only a matter of days for our first orders to start coming in from the other side of the world. It was exciting to see!”
Currently, about 10 percent of Shoes of Prey’s shoe sales come from AdWords customers—and about 40 percent of those sales are from international buyers. One of the main reasons they’ve been successful in reaching international audiences is the ease with which they can edit ad texts for each location. “Gift certificates have been really popular on our site,” Michael says. “So we use AdWords to promote our gift certificates. Key events for us are Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas.”
Michael then uses Google Insights for Search to identify each country’s peak search traffic dates for these occasions. “We time specific AdWords campaigns to target each of these events. Mother's Day is on a different day in different countries, so AdWords lets us run ads at different times of the year for the various countries, and edit the ads so they speak to users in those countries. For example, we’ll mention the price of our shoes in euro in Ireland and in dollars in the U.S.”
After only a year of operation, the founders have hired three new employees and have formed partnerships with local firms in Japan and Russia to localize their offering in those markets. “Early on in the life of our business, AdWords showed us the potential our business has for growth outside Australia, so we now offer Japanese and Russian versions of our website, complete with local marketing and customer support in those markets,” says Michael.
With AdWords, Michael, Jodie and Mike have been able to share their passion for custom shoes with international customers who share their love for customization. Their next step is to inspire all shoe lovers to design their own footwear. Michael tells us: “We're starting to experiment with the Google Display Network to help us find those first customers while they're browsing the web.” And they’ll continue to use AdWords location targeting and ad text customization to reach new international customers who might not know just how much fun designing shoes can be!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Finding your hidden treasure: international campaigns with AdWords
Cross posted from the Official Google Blog.
In 2000, Antoine Assi founded Middle Eastern export website www.aldoukan.com—it was one of the first e-commerce businesses in the Middle East. He was just 20 years old and he made time to develop the business in between computer science classes at his university. He needed a way to advertise his website from the comfort of his own dorm room, so he decided to test out Google AdWords.
His friends didn’t believe him when Antoine said he was going to sell and advertise traditional Middle Eastern foods and goods online. However, by 2004, his business had grown so rapidly that he decided to take leave from school to run it full-time. He then started his second company, www.mosaicmarble.com, which sells handcut decorative tiles online internationally.
Antoine believed there was a gap in the mosaic market and he wanted to share these artistic and historic decorations abroad. He knew there was a market for these tiles internationally—he just didn’t quite know where the opportunity existed. To identify these international growth opportunities, Antoine built on his knowledge of AdWords: He ran several AdWords campaigns, each targeted at the location and language of the test country.
From there, Antoine measured sales and percentage of website traffic from each country and campaign. He ended campaigns for countries with low sales volume and invested in campaigns for countries with higher sales volume and greater return on investment. Where he saw steady product sales, Antoine even had the company website translated into the language of the successful host country. As you can imagine, translating the site to the language of a country in which he’d already seen success only further promoted sales in that location.
Antoine refers to his AdWords campaigns as his hidden treasure, telling us that “the second month we started advertising on Google, we started feeling overwhelmed by the orders and the inquiries... We had to hire new employees on a weekly basis.”
Mosaic Marble quickly grew from two employees and eight artists to more than 40 employees and 120 artists. And the company’s website is now available in seven languages: Arabic, English, Finnish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French.
In addition to helping him expand his business, these international campaigns helped Antoine and his colleagues share these cultural icons with a larger part of the world. There are now homes and public spaces adorned with these ancient Greek creations in more than 50 countries worldwide. “Due to Google,” says Antoine, “we have customers such as the President of Congo, the Dubai Minister of Internal Affairs, the Princess of Jordan, and the Royal Music Academy of London.”
In 2000, Antoine Assi founded Middle Eastern export website www.aldoukan.com—it was one of the first e-commerce businesses in the Middle East. He was just 20 years old and he made time to develop the business in between computer science classes at his university. He needed a way to advertise his website from the comfort of his own dorm room, so he decided to test out Google AdWords.
His friends didn’t believe him when Antoine said he was going to sell and advertise traditional Middle Eastern foods and goods online. However, by 2004, his business had grown so rapidly that he decided to take leave from school to run it full-time. He then started his second company, www.mosaicmarble.com, which sells handcut decorative tiles online internationally.
Antoine believed there was a gap in the mosaic market and he wanted to share these artistic and historic decorations abroad. He knew there was a market for these tiles internationally—he just didn’t quite know where the opportunity existed. To identify these international growth opportunities, Antoine built on his knowledge of AdWords: He ran several AdWords campaigns, each targeted at the location and language of the test country.
From there, Antoine measured sales and percentage of website traffic from each country and campaign. He ended campaigns for countries with low sales volume and invested in campaigns for countries with higher sales volume and greater return on investment. Where he saw steady product sales, Antoine even had the company website translated into the language of the successful host country. As you can imagine, translating the site to the language of a country in which he’d already seen success only further promoted sales in that location.
Antoine refers to his AdWords campaigns as his hidden treasure, telling us that “the second month we started advertising on Google, we started feeling overwhelmed by the orders and the inquiries... We had to hire new employees on a weekly basis.”
Mosaic Marble quickly grew from two employees and eight artists to more than 40 employees and 120 artists. And the company’s website is now available in seven languages: Arabic, English, Finnish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French.
In addition to helping him expand his business, these international campaigns helped Antoine and his colleagues share these cultural icons with a larger part of the world. There are now homes and public spaces adorned with these ancient Greek creations in more than 50 countries worldwide. “Due to Google,” says Antoine, “we have customers such as the President of Congo, the Dubai Minister of Internal Affairs, the Princess of Jordan, and the Royal Music Academy of London.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)