Legal Search Marketing

Archive for the ‘Google AdWords’ Category

I had blogged last week about a legal client who made the mistake of setting his bid to high for the term "chicago estate planning lawyer" and got charged $39.52 for one click. 

I got a response from Google adwords (see below)and like I thought there’s nothing that can be done because of the fact the maximum CPC (cost-per-click) was set so high and other variables were in play.  Once I took over the account, I was able to reduce the max CPC and got the click charge down to $1.30 per click, from $39 per click. 

Here is the response from Google Adwords:

After reviewing your client’s account, I found the keyword ‘chicago estate planning lawyer’ was charged $39.52 on April 3, 2005 because his maximum CPC was designated at $39.88. He was charged a lower amount of $1.30 per click this month because his maximum CPC is currently set at $2.00. These clicks are not charged the full designated maximum CPC because our AdWords Discounter automatically keeps your actual CPC at the lowest possible cost needed to maintain your ad’s position on the page.

Additionally, the position of your AdWords ad varies per keyword and is determined by various factors such as your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) for the matched keyword, your clickthrough rate (CTR), and your ad text in relation to other advertisers’ CPCs, CTRs, and ad text. Because Google AdWords doesn’t rely solely on your CPC bid to rank your ad, it is not possible to know what your competitors are bidding.

The bottom line here though is that if you set your max cost per click so high and have competitors that are also bidding high, there’s a very good chance you will overbid. 

I usually start with a lower bid and then see how the keywords perform and then raise the bid when needed. Google adwords is more complicated and harder to manage then Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing) but much more effective, if setup and managed correctly.

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When you setup a Google adwords account, your ads are automatically ‘opted in’ to run on the entire Google Network.

Search Total and Content Total, which appear in your Campaign Summary and Report Center reports, represent the two types of sites where your ads can be displayed within the Google network. 

Search Total shows the impressions your ad has received from search results pages generated by Google and by Google Network search partners. On these sites, your ads are displayed alongside the results from searches matching your keywords. (If you opt out of Google Network search sites, then the Search Total numbers will reflect results only from searches generated by Google.)

Content Total shows the impressions that your ad receives on content sites or products in the Google Network. On these sites, your ads are displayed alongside content relevant to your keywords. Your ads may appear on news sites, personal web pages, emails or many other types of content sites and products.

See examples of where your ads may appear on the Google Network.   You can opt out of the Google Network at any time by editing your distribution preferences.

You can get more exposure by leaving them as they are but sometimes you might want to turn off the content part.

Ive just always thought there’s more chance for click fraud and sometimes the cost per click is higher, which doesn’t seem right, plus you never know exactly where the ads are showing. Sometimes though you want as much traffic as possible and this does give you more exposure.

$39.52 for one click for the term "Chicago estate planning lawyer"?

I had a lawyer client who setup his own Google AdWords account and made the mistake of setting his maximum CPC (Cost per click) at $40.00 for every key phrase he setup.

The thing that stood out to me when reviewing and updating the account, was that he only got one click for Chicago estate planning lawyer but he was charged $39.52, which seems crazy since at Overture the top bid for that term is $1.51 and you can get into the top 5 for 14 cents.

Now once I took over the account and adjusted a few things, especially the max CPC, the average cost per click is now only $1.30. 

I’m waiting for Googles explanation but I think it comes down to setting the bid so high, then having competitors who were also bidding high on that term.

Its a valuable lesson for lawyers to learn that its important to understand just how Google AdWords works before setting up an account and bidding so high, otherwise you might be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Another story from Pay Per Click Universe talks about click fraud and how it only applies to Google Adword accounts because Adwords is the only PPC to use a complex algorithm to determine how high your overall ranking is.

This is where a lot of people get confused about Google adwords. Its not as simple as Overture, where whoever bids the highest, gets the top spot.   At Google adwords, its different because your CTR / click through rate determines how high your position is.  The article goes into more detail with a good example.

"For example, if you get a 5% CTR (50 clicks out of 1000 impressions), but your maximum bid is only 50 cents, and your competitor bids 80 cents but has 1% CTR, you WILL appear higher than him. With AdWords, though, if your CTR is less than 0.5%, your ad is disabled and disappears until you make some changes to bring your CTR back up."

The story goes on to talk about how certain click fraudsters will artificially inflate the number of impressions for certain keywords and what happens is your CTR will go down and if its under .5%, your ads will be disabled and then when your sites out, someone else moves into your position.      

Now I don’t know how illegal that is since they are not clicking on ads. I would be more concerned about your competitors who might click on your keywords.

Its key to have someone pay attention to the pay per click traffic and monitor the stats and make sure the same IP address isn’t visiting your site multiple times.  This is usually only an issue when you are bidding on high valued keywords like "vioxx" or "mesothelioma lawyers".

Pay Per Click Universe is a free resource dedicated to providing unbiased information to the small-to-medium sized business owner interested in exploring the world of pay per click advertising (PPC).

They have a section where they review each of the pay per click search engines and give what it considers the top ten pay per click engines.

They don’t really list them in order but give each PPC search engine a rating. Google ad words has an overall rating of 8.4, Overture 7.5, Findwhat 4.0 and Kanoodle 1.0. Those are what I always have considered to be the top 4 and really only Google and Overture seem to produce real results. So I would probably agree with those ratings, even though I would put Google at about a 9 and Overture a 7 at best.

They give Searchfeed a rating of 8.2 and the user reviews are all pretty favorable, so that might be one to check out. I will sign up for an account and see how it works out and write a review next month.

When doing pay per click projects for my legal clients, I usually try and test out the smaller pay per click engines, but normally what I find is that I get a lot of so called clicks and visitors but no real conversions.

I’ve also had problems in the past, where the pay per click engine says I got 30 clicks at 25 cents a click BUT my stats program doesn’t back that up.   Ive never had a problem with that at Google or Overture and no doubt those two are the ones to focus on when doing a pay per click strategy.

Forbes.com has a news brief about Google expanding their relationship with AOL in Europe. According to the story, Google AdWords will now be visible on search results pages from AOL in the UK, France, and Germany.

Click Fraud Looms As Search-Engine Threat 

In a recent AP click fraud article, it refers to the recent lawsuit Google filed against Auction Experts International, over the estimated $50,000 in "illegitimate commissions by clicking on the ad links that Google delivered to its Web pages."

The suit won’t be Google’s last to combat click fraud, said Palo Alto attorney David Kramer, who represents the company.

Estimates vary widely on how much click fraud is going on in the $3.8 billion search engine advertising market.

"Click fraud exists, but it’s mostly a big paranoia," said Chris Churchill, chief executive of Fathom Online, a San Francisco firm that studies the spending patterns on search engine ads.

I personally think click fraud exists, especially for keywords that have high bids. I always watch all of my clients pay per click accounts very cloesly and make sure to view the stats on a dailly basis to make sure theres nothing out of the ordinary.

Word in a Reuters story that Google has landed another large client for AdWords.

VNU Business Media (Billboard, AdWeek, The Hollywood Reporter, and many trade publications) will now use AdWords on their web sites. A bit more info in the news release.