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How can we know if paid search advertising works?

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Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#71

Post by chii »

misterbwong wrote: post #49
tempestn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've found exactly the same thing. It's extremely important to differentiate between branded and non-branded keywords. (And to be diligent about filtering out all variations, misspellings, etc., of branded searches from non-branded campaigns.) While our testing didn't show 100% waste in branded advertising, we did find approximately 80-90% of branded clicks would otherwise have come through organically. So we do sti…

The branded keyword game is very sneaky, though, and one place where google can (and does) make a killing. The trick is, if you have a particularly strong or unique brand, you can count on being the number one organic result. HOWEVER, if competitors bid on your brand and you do not, they end up above your brand in results as part of the the paid/promoted position. This usually forces brands into competing in paid pos…

i wonder if competitors bidding on your brand should be construed as trade mark violations - after all, if a user searches a brand and a competitor's site or product is shown as part of advertising, then aren't they making use of your brand to confuse the consumer (a classic trade mark violation)? The only problem is that the user isn't "seeing" the brand and confusing it, but instead is searching the brand and the search result is confusing deliberately.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#72

Post by tempestn »

chii wrote: post #71
misterbwong wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The branded keyword game is very sneaky, though, and one place where google can (and does) make a killing. The trick is, if you have a particularly strong or unique brand, you can count on being the number one organic result. HOWEVER, if competitors bid on your brand and you do not, they end up above your brand in results as part of the the paid/promoted position. This usually forces brands into competing in paid pos…

i wonder if competitors bidding on your brand should be construed as trade mark violations - after all, if a user searches a brand and a competitor's site or product is shown as part of advertising, then aren't they making use of your brand to confuse the consumer (a classic trade mark violation)? The only problem is that the user isn't "seeing" the brand and confusing it, but instead is searching the brand and the s…

That's an interesting idea. I'd certainly like to see that case made.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#73

Post by ClumsyPilot »

kbos87 wrote: post #60

This article tackles one small and specific portion (bidding on branded keywords) of what paid search advertising is all about, so I think it’s fair to say that the title overstates the scope of the content. Paid search advertising has been subject to hit pieces for the past 15 years, often authored by people who are resentful of Google for some reason and happy to cite a bunch of statistics that don’t actually prove…

So you entire argument is "I refuse to actualy engage with any of the presented facts and claims, big and rich institutions can't be wrong".

The author could have presented a cure for cancer and you woild have dismissed him just the same.

Before 2008 banks were handing multiple mortgages to strippers.

Does that mean that major banks with entire departments filled with analysts running their risk analysis and loans efforts can be debunked in a couple thousand words?

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#74

Post by tempestn »

charcircuit wrote: post #48
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, once you realize the most profitable Google search terms are already the top organic result paying to be on top, you realize Google's business is the guy who shakes down storefronts for "protection" to avoid their windows being broken in by the local gang on a global scale. "That's a nice brand you built there. Ya know, it'd be a shame, a real shame, if one of your competitors was to end up above you on the sea…

>Yeah, once you realize the most profitable Google search terms are already the top organic result paying to be on top What if you aren't the top organic search and you want to drive traffic. For example "mesothelioma lawyer" is a very profitable keyword that'd you would want to show up on top. If there weren't any ads you would need to out SEO other law firms and hope Google doesn't screw you by adjusting the rankin…

The problem is specifically with branded searches. When someone searches not "mesothelioma lawyer", but rather, "Kirkland & Ellis LLP.", and they get an ad for some other law firm above that.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#75

Post by nradov »

cwkoss wrote: post #61
cwkoss wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can use a trademark as an ad targeting term... which feels a little trademark-violation-y to me.

https://veritasbusinesslaw.com/trademark-and-google-adwords/ Looks like several companies have tried to sue Google for this, but Google threw a lot of money at the problems to prevent them from winning.

Trademark litigation can be expensive, but you can't win every trademark case just by throwing more money at the problem. If there was a legitimate IP violation then someone would have won a case against Google by now.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#76

Post by passivate »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #66
passivate wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I care which plumber paid Google the most money? I just want to find plumbers. Yes, exactly! Also, To your second point, its in Google's interests that customers have no other way except paid ads to look you up. IMHO, Google has become a company that wants to install toll booths on the internet.

Businesses have to pay to advertise in phone directory already so I don't think this is much different and as other commenter suggested presence of a paid ad suggests service provider may be more reputable.

Sure, but then the framing is "we're just as bad as these other guys".

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#77

Post by nextaccountic »

tempestn wrote: post #72
chii wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if competitors bidding on your brand should be construed as trade mark violations - after all, if a user searches a brand and a competitor's site or product is shown as part of advertising, then aren't they making use of your brand to confuse the consumer (a classic trade mark violation)? The only problem is that the user isn't "seeing" the brand and confusing it, but instead is searching the brand and the s…

That's an interesting idea. I'd certainly like to see that case made.

This was shared in another comment in the thread: https://veritasbusinesslaw.com/trademark-and-google-adwords/

> Google has been sued frequently for trademark infringement because it allows advertisers to purchase trademarked names for use in AdWords by competitors.

> Google has never lost one of these cases.

> Google derives 97% of its revenue from advertising, annual revenue that was over $109 billion as of 2017.

> These conflicts illustrate a serious problem with how internet advertising is conducted.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#78

Post by RubyRidgeRandy »

chii wrote: post #71
misterbwong wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The branded keyword game is very sneaky, though, and one place where google can (and does) make a killing. The trick is, if you have a particularly strong or unique brand, you can count on being the number one organic result. HOWEVER, if competitors bid on your brand and you do not, they end up above your brand in results as part of the the paid/promoted position. This usually forces brands into competing in paid pos…

i wonder if competitors bidding on your brand should be construed as trade mark violations - after all, if a user searches a brand and a competitor's site or product is shown as part of advertising, then aren't they making use of your brand to confuse the consumer (a classic trade mark violation)? The only problem is that the user isn't "seeing" the brand and confusing it, but instead is searching the brand and the s…

Not a chance. Google is trying to match search intent and so are ads. If the ads are relevant to what's being searched, then it receives a low quality score and isn't shown often, if at all depending on how irrelevant it is. If I am a lawn mowing company, I can't just show my ads whenever someone tries to lookup apple because they're a popular company.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#79

Post by RubyRidgeRandy »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #34
vgeek wrote: post #2

The article fails to mention that shortly after this made the rounds in the marketing communities, eBay suddenly got a very large SEO penalty. Conspiracy theories aside, I once inherited a large Adwords account with nearly 25% of spend dedicated to branded KW bidding. Simply dialing back bids by 90%+ dropped impression share from 95% to 80%, but the paid branded clicks just shifted to organic branded clicks-- confirm…

Yeah, once you realize the most profitable Google search terms are already the top organic result paying to be on top, you realize Google's business is the guy who shakes down storefronts for "protection" to avoid their windows being broken in by the local gang on a global scale. "That's a nice brand you built there. Ya know, it'd be a shame, a real shame, if one of your competitors was to end up above you on the sea…

Except your storefront is on Google's land...and people find your website using their services...and you are free to not ever do any kind of ppc or seo work on your site at all.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#80

Post by RubyRidgeRandy »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #69
kbos87 wrote: post #60

This article tackles one small and specific portion (bidding on branded keywords) of what paid search advertising is all about, so I think it’s fair to say that the title overstates the scope of the content. Paid search advertising has been subject to hit pieces for the past 15 years, often authored by people who are resentful of Google for some reason and happy to cite a bunch of statistics that don’t actually prove…

> Does that mean that major brands with entire departments filled with analysts running their paid search efforts can be debunked in a couple thousand words The old "all the successful companies are doing it, so it must be doing something" argument. Even within companies, incentives are skewed - do you really think a CMO would ever say, “maybe online ads don’t work, I don't need so many staff reporting to me anymore,…

You can talk to pretty much any ecommerce site or ppc specialist - open up linkedin and message away. I had clients triple their yearly revenue with well implemented ad campaigns.

Do you really think these things are implemented without any kind of tracking in place? We have people who only run ads with a targeted ROAS of 10x. That's not something you can do or track effectively with a magazine, billboard, or radio ad. There's a reason online search advertising makes Google so much money, because it's damn effective.

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