Jun
22

Use AdWords Negative Keywords to Target Ads Better

WGHubris on June 22nd, 2011

I’m a professional freelance writer who makes money writing online in several ways, one of which is using Google AdSense on websites I own and publish content on.

I don’t do much (Ok, none) buying of ads via Google’s AdWords platform. However, an AdSense publisher I find it very useful to stay up to date on AdWords program features and developments. Just like a T.V. executive must have a firm grasp on what advertisers want in a T.V. show — and, more importantly, the audience it delivers — a successful online writer needs to have a grasp on what advertisers want in a website, and the readers it delivers.

What I have noticed is how many AdWords advertisers do a very poor job in using exclusions to keep their ads properly targeted. For advertisers paying per impression (CPM), this is throwing money down the drain, pure and simple. Even for cost per click (CPC) poorly targeted ads are likely to have poor conversion ratios and do nothing but chew up your online ad budget faster.

Negative Keywords for Better Ad Campaigns

The big national advertisers and the ads from online-focused endeavors tend to use the negative keywords feature of Google AdWords to exclude poor matches from eating up their ad dollars. Local businesses and those that are not as online savvy tend to be the ones who make poor choices in this regard. More specifically, local small businesses need better negative keywords to make their advertising perform well.

Here is an example.

I happen to live in Denver, Colorado. So far, no problem there.

I also happen to write a lot about computers, including Microsoft Windows.

Can you see the potential problem coming?

Take a quick look at the ads displayed on this very webpage. See any ads for a Denver company that sells or installs Windows? Glass windows, not software windows?

There might be some of those ads there right now, and there might not. I never know what ads will appear at any given time and it is completely in the control of Google, not me. However, I have seen on previous articles advertisements that seemed strangely out of place only to realize that the issue is improper use of negative keywords. In this instance, Denver window companies would do well to use microsoft as a negative keyword, especially considering that in the technical world of online publishing, it is at least 50-50 that on a given webpage, the text refers to the software and not the glass used in houses.

As an advertiser, there may be a fear that using negative keywords will exclude your ad from somewhere you want it to be. While that is always a concern, there are so many places for ads to be displayed that most advertisers have trouble with the dollars side of the equation and not the display side. Err on the side of too many negative keywords and adjust from there. You’ll find your ad budget goes further and your conversion ratios will go up.

Oh, and just as an aside, it works out better for us publishers too because people are so much more likely to click on a related ad than a random one that is poorly matched to the content.

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Marketing No comments »
Jun
20

Pop-Up Windows in Online Ordering

WGHubris on June 20th, 2011

I like to order pizza online from Pizza Hut. There are two primary reasons for this. First, I don’t have to go hunting for coupons because Pizza Hut shows both its current coupons and its advertised specials under “Deals” on the website. Second, I can see how much more an order ends up costing based upon changes in which pizzas I split in half for toppings purposes.

As an added bonus, I can double check and make sure that the right-half has olives and the left-half has ham, or vice versa, and not just hope that the person who answered the phone in a noisy restaurant got my overly complex order correct.

However, today I ran into a bit of a snag with Pizza Hut’s website. It seems the folks who designed it are from 1990.

Don’t Use Pop-Up Windows on Legitimate Websites

pizza-hut-website-failWhen I finished entering my order, I clicked to finish by entering my credit card information and clicked the button to submit my order.

Nothing happened.

This is a problem because clicking the order button more than once can end up submitting your order more than once.

I’m betting that the guys at Pizza Hut would probably notice that two identical orders for the same address came in seconds apart, but that doesn’t mean that the computer wouldn’t charge my credit card twice anyway. I waited a couple minutes to see if anything happened and then clicked the submit order button again.

Nothing.

Now, I’m frustrated and worried. Did I just order twice or did I not order at all?

Fortunately, Pizza Hut sends confirmation emails when I order online, so I checked my email. Finding no confirmations, I checked my spam folder to be sure and then tried again.

Still nothing.

At this point, I would guess that the average potential online Pizza Hut customer gives up. If the company is fortunate, those people call and place their order, but there are, no doubt, plenty of instances where potential customers are irked enough that they just don’t bother to place their order at all.

On a hunch, I tried one more thing. I went into the settings for my browser and added PizzaHut.com to my exceptions list for the pop-up blocker. When I clicked the order button, a small window popped up saying that my order was processing.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?!

Everyone Blocks Pop-Ups

Dear Pizza Hut,

I know that you guys make pizza, but I assume that you have an IT guy on staff somewhere that handles some of that “computer stuff” for you. You either paid someone a lot of money for your website ordering system, or you built it in house with some full-time employees. Either way, someone doesn’t know their head from their butt when it comes to building usable websites. I suggest you get them some training right away, or at the very least, that you remind them that EVERY SINGLE WEB BROWSER THERE IS currently blocks pop-up windows by default.

Signed,

The Customers Who Actually Use Your Website

 

Seriously.

  • Internet Explorer blocks pop-up windows.
  • Firefox blocks pop-up windows.
  • Google Chrome blocks pop-up windows.
  • Opera blocks pop-up windows.
  • Safari blocks pop-up windows.

See the pattern?

The worst part is that the pop-up window on Pizza Hut’s website does NOTHING. It’s a dialog box that says it’s processing, only this is an online application and not a desktop application. Apparently, if that window won’t display, the order won’t process.

At least when other companies insist on using pop-up windows, they are smart enough to tell you that you need to allow pop-ups. Pizza Hut’s website just sits there.

Don’t Use Pop-Up Windows

I already “dumb down” my web browsing when placing online orders with non-online companies like Pizza Hut. I make a special effort to use Internet Explorer with no plug-ins or add-ons and not Firefox or Chrome because I have had too many experiences where the clowns who end up designing and implementing big brand websites never bother to test anything other than IE.

In other words, pop-up windows are so out of date, and considered such bad practice that even Internet Explorer blocks all pop-up windows by default. That means that Pizza Hut’s online ordering system is failing for everyone who has a recently purchased computer but who doesn’t know that they have to go in an make a special settings configuration change for Pizza Hut online orders to work.

Note to Pizza Hut: If you are wondering why there are an abnormally high number of users who fill in an order but never complete the transaction, turn on some tracking to show whether or not the pop-up window fails to display. You’ll find that is a major contributor.

Or, just get with the program. No one uses pop-up windows anymore.

What other websites do you use that require pop-ups be enabled to function properly?

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Computers - Internet No comments »
May
27

Allow All Third-Party AdSense Networks

WGHubris on May 27th, 2011

I’ve been micro-managing which Google certified ad networks have been allowed on my websites. However, lately, I remembered that there was a time when I allowed them all and saw my earnings go up. I did not click the AdSense publisher option to automatically allow new third-party AdSense networks.

The idea is that by enabling each new third-party advertising network manually, and then watching my AdSense reports to see if my earnings go up or down, I should be able to tell which networks hurt my earnings by either lowering the click-through-rate or by lowering the average cost-per-click. The catch is that my AdSense earnings naturally increase and decrease even without making any changes. Some times the end of the month generates higher CPC and sometimes lower CPC. In some cases, the click thru rate goes up on Fridays and sometimes it goes down.

I noticed recently that I had a couple of dozen third-party ad networks still blocked on my Google AdSense account. Some I determined to have a potentially negative effect, but many others had never been tried at all, let alone for more than a day or two.

So, today I enabled all ad networks, including the Google AdSense third-party networks lowering earnings in my previous tests about how well the 3rd party ads perform for my websites. We’ll see if there is a major impact, or if there is no impact at all.

Read this: Is Credit Karma a scam or not?

Hopefully, Google knows what they are doing and using all of those additional third-party ads makes my AdSense income double! Actually, I solid increase of AdSense income would be nice, but I suspect that for all my efforts manually adding and removing the new ad networks, that everything stabilizes pretty much the way it was before.

How have you handled your third-party ad networks on AdSense? Do you enable them all or only a handful? Have you tested how the 3rd party ads hurt your earnings or boost your AdSense profits?

Time will tell how things work for my small network of websites.

 

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Entrepreneur 1 Comment »
May
25

Getaround Scam or Good Deal?

WGHubris on May 25th, 2011

I stumbled across this company called Getaround while reading through one of my less focused RSS feed lists. Basically, the way Getaround works is that you can (but do not have to) rent out your car when you are not using it to someone else who wants to rent your car on an hourly basis. The idea is that if your car sits parked in front of your house most of the time, or if you don’t use it on weekends, or whatever, you can earn money renting your car out, and if you need a short-term car rental (something regular car rental companies are horrible for) you can rent a nearby car for a reasonable rate.

Getaround Business

automobile expenses deductionIf you have ever tried to rent a car from a rental company for a single day, you know that it is not worth the expense and hassle. Don’t even think about trying to make it worth it to rent a car for a few hours. It isn’t really a scam or conspiracy on behalf of the car rental companies, it just doesn’t make sense for their business model. Between reserving, delivering, returning and cleaning the car, the costs are just to high to be able to offer a reasonable hourly rate.

Getaround gets around this (Hah!) by not doing any of those things. Instead, Getaround signs up car owners to rent out their cars rather than buying and maintaining a fleet of cars. No Getaround personnel are involved and the company has no responsibilities during a problem-free rental. Nice low overhead.

If this sounds like a lot of risk for the car owner, you’re thinking. The company works around this issue by doing two things. First, ever rental includes full coverage car insurance including comprehensive and underinsured coverage. Second, the company offers a kit that is installed in your car that acts as a monitor and, if you have an iPhone, can even handle the rental and drop off without any face-to-face meeting with the renter.

Theoretically, if a renter gets in a car accident or you car gets stolen while someone is renting it, you are covered. Of course, that isn’t much comfort if your car gets totaled by a renter the day before a big job interview. Much more likely, than losing your car or having it wrecked, however, are those little things that aren’t quite so obvious. Was that scratch on the door before the rental? How about that flat tire? What about the chain-smoking renter who says that they never smoked in the car? Those kinds of things might be problematic to collect on and/or prove.

The biggest risk for renters, is those unseen things. While most renters are reasonable drivers, even when renting from Hertz, there are always those who view a rental car as a chance to squeal the tires and punch it from every red light they hit. Think of the guys joy-riding the car in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off. They don’t wreck the car in anyway, but it certainly is worse for the wear when it comes back.

The company relies on the standard internet quality mechanism, user reviews, as its guard against such things. Until there are a lot of regular renters, however, this will be little help. Most renters will be first-time (and likely only one time) renters during the startup period.

Getaround Rentals

For the renter, the risk is lower. In fact, at first, the toughest part is probably finding a rentable car. The company says it has thousands of cars available, but they aren’t available at all hours of the day because their owners are using them some times. As a new techie-type business, rental offerings are sure to be clustered in certain cities like San Francisco, Austin, and other high-density, high-tech cities.

The service might prove especially tough to take advantage of in less compact cities. Here in Denver, for example, you might need a rental just to get to your rental.

Of course, the included insurance helps, but there is no guarantee that a rentee won’t claim that you did something to their car while you had it.

Getaround Insurance and Local Laws

The biggest potential problem with Getaround, however, isn’t what happens between the company and the renters, but how this all flies in the event something goes bad.

Many cities and states have strict rules and regulations when it comes to offer a car for hire, which this type of rental may very well fit into. Owners probably won’t get a visit from anyone while everything is working, but an unpleasant visit may occur if there is an auto accident. Sure, the car is covered, but are you covered for operating a rental business without a proper license and how big is the fine for not keeping proper maintenance records?

While Getaround’s insurance covers your car while it is being rented, does offering your car out for rental affect your own normal car insurance? Most specifically forbid activities such as renting the car out.

Finally, what about the tax implications? Is this a business? Do you owe taxes on the revenue? If you deduct car expenses or take the standard mileage deduction for your business, offering our your car for rent may cause you a big IRS headache down the line. (Of course, if you fold renting out your unused automobile into your business that is a different story.)

Getaround sounds like a great idea, and frankly, I hope it works out. I’d love to rent out the second car that sits in front of the house most of the time, but I’ll be waiting to see how it goes for a while before signing up.

On second thought, if someone in the Denver area is renting out a sweet car, I wouldn’t be above a fun drive around Denver and back.

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Business No comments »