Jerry Nordstrom

8 ways to find your way to the WC

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:37:00 +0000

It's 2 AM you're seeing double and desparate to find the John in a croation basement bar....Bing can you translate?

Funny, Scheisshaus translates to Shit house.

Project Natal - One Giant Leaps

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:04:00 +0000

If we look back at the technologies which allowed us to interact with the virtual world we will certainly note the significance of the keyboard, the OS, The mouse, the web cam and of course game controllers like the Wii. These controllers, combined with incredible bandwidth speeds and innovative companies building products around them have made our virtual experiences very rich, productive and rewarding. It's easy to forget how entire industries are shaped and even created because of a new way to interact with our world in a virtual way. Other times we wait for a great number of promising innovations to finally mature and come together to create a cohesive and amazing experience.

Microsoft's new Natal may have achieved just that. A completely new, innovative and amazing way to experience our virtual world.

Announced just yesterday at E3 in Los Angeles, Project Natal is not a future conceptual model, it is here and now. Games are being developed for it and other industry leaders are building applications and services around it.

Watch these two videos below to get and understanding of what Microsoft's Project Natal is all about. If the technology works as smoothly as suggested in the demonstration we may be witnessing the start of a new era in virtual reality.

The Great Steven Spielberg has partnered with AE to develop "games" for the new Project Natal controller.

Does the Truth Pay?

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:26:00 +0000

No Room for the Truth
When Circuit City recently went out of business they had liquidation sales to unload their inventory. Sign spinners on the street held signs that read 70% off the entire store. And in the small writing on the sign, blurred by the spinning, there was a notation "limited exceptions apply". I go into the store and everything is 10% off retail and a couple ink cartridges for 70% off. Basically the same as any other technogadget retailer. But at the entrance of the store stationary signs have a clear disclaimer that not everything in the store is 70%* off.

Consumers know damn well that when a business advertises a "entire store is 10%-70% off sale", that the majority of stuff is 10% off, and that a few items will be 70% off. Legally, if nothing is 70% off, that would be False advertising. If everything is 10% off and only a couple items 70% off that would be deceptive advertising; the average is way below the 70% claim in the ad. If they did not have a disclaimer, or put the disclaimer at the back of the store where nobody would see it, that could be misleading advertising.

In direct marketing, TV, Radio or within a physical store marketers have the ability to clearly state their pitch and frame it right in their ad so that it is not misleading or deceptive. Online, marketers have a measly 95 characters to do the same.

Due to this Online Marketers have to be very precise about their wording, words do matter, and to be ethical and honest they must fully disclose anything about the 95 character text ad which they feel MIGHT lead a consumer to the wrong conclusion. Where should the disclaimer be? Clearly noted in standard size font on the landing page of course.

Turning a Blind Eye To Profit
It is only logical that Search Engines such as Google only want to display ads that get clicked on the most. The more relevant the ad is to the search, and the more enticing the ad's offer, the more frequently that ad will be clicked on and the more money Google makes and in theory the advertiser makes to. So Google, Yahoo and MSN all use a ranking formula to determine which ads and advertisers have the best performing ads (ads that get clicked on a lot).

The technical specification for Google's formula looks like this:

Ad Rank = $Cost Per Click bid × Quality Score

The Quality Score for Ad Rank on Google and the search network is determined by:
• The historical Click Through Rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google; if the ad is appearing on a search network page, its CTR on that search network partner is also considered
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
• The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account's performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown

Bottom line: If you have a high CTR then the Cost Per Click that Google charges you goes DOWN and the RANK your ad gets goes UP. More sales at a lower cost. That is a huge reward for advertisers and a powerful incentive to create advertisements that get clicked on. Google claims that this model promotes healthy competition, more relevant ads to the visitors search better serves the visitor, thus is makes sense to reward the advertiser. This does make sense and is the primary reason Pay Per Click has grown so large.

But there is one failing; What if the Advertisers start lying?

• If an advertiser ranks below the first page for their most profitable keywords what will they do?
• If an ad agency is losing clients because of poor performance what measures will they take?
• If truly sinister people see that they can make huge profits simply by lying in a small text ad what do you think they will do?

Lie, Lie and Lie some more.

But wait, if they lie and get caught by Google then they will certainly have their account turned off, or face some type of repercussion correct?

Wrong. Google has virtually no policy or team in place to identify, remove or punish companies using false and deceptive advertisements. Generally they refer plaintiffs to submit a generic complaint form to "the support team"

How do I report poor service by an AdWords advertiser?
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en-uk&answer=61214

Bottom line: There is little to no consequence from Google, Yahoo nor MSN to running grossly exaggerated ads. Search and view ads for any of the following:

Free Government Grants, Google Cash Kit, Teeth Whitening

What Honest Marketing Companies are Faced With:

A highly competive term is "Debt Consolidation" for which we have an ad.

Our ads are not showing because there are a limited number of ad positions. Even though we have a solid Keyword quality score, other ads perform better. Why? Because they are making false, deceptive and misleading claims.

Let's take a look at what the FTC has to say about Debt Settlement and consolidation advertising:
FTC: "In March 2007, the FTC filed a complaint against Debt-Set, an affiliated company, and their principals who marketed debt reduction services online and in television and radio ads with claims such as “Reduce Debt Now” and “Stop Harassing Calls.” The FTC alleged that first,14 these defendants falsely promised to obtain lump-sum settlements, such as “fifty cents on the dollar” or “50 to 60 percent” of consumers’ total unsecured debt. This was false and deceptive advertising. "

So claiming 50-60% can be false advertising. Since then over 30 companies have been sued and or shut down by either the FTC or a State AG for this very reason.

• 70% Claims are absolutely deceptive or false.
• Free Non-profit Debt Counselors - Absolutely misleading or false.
• 12 month debt settlement? = Misleading at best.

Now take a look at the competition's ads which is keeping our ads from running

We review hundreds of ads and websites. Virtually none of them have a disclaimer, nor justify any of the claims made in their ads. For over two years we have submitted complaints to Google regarding the false and deceptive advertising we are up against. We have seen absolutely no change.

To make matters worse, take a look at the text ads on the right column. Two ads are from the same company. FreedomDebtRelief.com and FreedomFinancialNetwork.com are the same company. Again, we have reported this for nearly 2 years. NO Response from Google. This so easy to verify, you can even go to their main website where they list their multiple companies: http://www.freedomfinancialnetwork.com/
Google, Yahoo and MSN are making a great deal of money by turning a blind eye to false and misleading advertising run on their networks.

Companies who are putting forth false, deceptive and misleading advertising are being rewarded by the PPC quality score ranking model combined with the lack of oversight and ad enforcement by Search Engines.

Companies who are trying to tell the truth in their marketing are being punished for doing so and are forced to make the decision between honesty and in some cases survival.

Does the PPC fall down if false and deceptive ads are allowed to be run?
Is it the responsibility of an ad network to monitor and remove False and Deceptive ads?
Is it fair for Ad networks to point the finger at the FTC and say they are the ones to monitor and stop such advertising practices?
Should Google, Yahoo and MSN be held accountable for knowingly running False and Deceptive ads?

Why is Paid Search Down?

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:53:00 +0000

Paid Search Traffic Share Down 26%

Heather Hopkins A Senior Online Analyst at Hitwise US. writes

Hitwise data indicate that the share of search traffic coming from paid listings is decreasing at the expense of organic traffic. In the four weeks to May 9, 2009, 7.25% of search engine traffic to All Categories of websites was from paid clicks. This compares to 9.84% in the same four week period in 2008 - representing a 26% decline in the share of paid clicks. This trend is apparent across 16 of the 17 Hitwise parent categories (i.e. Automotive, Food and Beverage, Health and Medical, etc). The only category that didn't see a decline in paid traffic was Education, which received 1.45% of search visits from paid clicks compared to 1.39% last year. See full article here

Certainly advertising budgets have been slashed across corporate America which is in part responsible for the overall decline.

Outside of corporate budget woes Lead Discovery has seen a huge increase in dishonest advertising. From "free grants" to "Google Cash" to straight up lies for Credit Card and Foreclosure relief. This reality has been supported in many conversations I have had with my peers in the lead generation space.

It's an easy game for dishonest marketers to succeed at. If you publish a completely sensational and dishonest text ad it will be clicked on more often than its comparatively boring and honest neighbors. This results in a high CTR on networks like Adwords, Yahoo and Adcenter as well as a lower CPC. And if they lie on their ads there is little doubt their landing pages are just as misleading. Unfortunately, Google and the like will not monitor nor punish deceptive advertising. I don't believe they are ignoring it simply to make more money, but instead they are pushing it off because it is a slippery slope to making them a de facto arbiter of what is false and deceptive advertising. Or putting them in a position to have to legally defend each and every business they approve to run ads on their network. Leave that to the FTC they say.

In the mean time, companies like ours are getting penalized for telling the truth and putting forth honest marketing campaigns. Slowly we have pulled out of the CTR based PPC space opting for other methods of advertising where we can pay for placement, or have a longer ad to distinguish our marketing message from the scammers.

The economy may be having a significant impact on overall online ad spend, however deceptive advertising, click fraud and trademark infringement will continue to erode marketer's confidence in SEM until the SE's muster up the courage to take action against it.

Google Profile Business Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:09:00 +0000

So I responded to the Google promo to get some free business cards for setting up a Google Profile. It has the Google logo on it with my name... and ah nothing else....?

So why would I want to use these cards again? I guess the card is telling people to go to Google type in my name and then they can see my profile. That trumps the business card hands down. Bonus, for a limited time I can get 250 more useless cards with just my name on it for $19.95.

Social Media Ego Stroke

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:38:00 +0000

So for the first time my name actually appears as a search recommendation in Googles Search Box as shown below.

After 15 years of web dev, online businesses, countless articles and numerous forum posts my name has never surfaced. Then again, I never attempted to promote my name. Then with only a couple months using social media it's there. An ego stroke or good use of promotion? I guess that all depends upon the person.

Before I hear it from everyone, yes I know 161,000 results, yours is bigger than mine.

Google Ends Free Processing

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Google has ended their free merchant (credit card) transaction processing program for Adwords advertisers. This was a fantastic incentive for advertisers to use adwords and integrate Google Checkout into their online checkout process.

We all knew you Google wouldn't offer free processing forever, but the obvious play would be to offer it free while they turned checkout into a full featured competitive service that they could charge for. Well the big G simply skipped that step. They never improved the offering and simply waited until enough companies integrated it into their web checkout process to start charging for it. More and more the Google is not being seen as "The Good Guys".

Beginning on May 5, 2009, transaction processing rates will be determined by your sales volume during April 2009. Each month thereafter, Google will continue to use the prior month's sales volume to determine your transaction processing rate as follows:

Monthly Sales Through Google Checkout

Fees Per Transaction

Less than $3,000 2.9% + $0.30
$3,000 - $9,999.99 2.5% + $0.30
$10,000 - $99,999.99 2.2% + $0.30
$100,000 or more 1.9% + $0.30

An additional 1% fee will be assessed on transactions where the merchant's country is different from the buyer's billing country. With 10 days notice, we may also charge higher transaction processing fees to merchants that incur excessive chargebacks or otherwise pose financial risk to Checkout.

Transaction processing fees for non-profitsGoogle Grants recipients based in the United States are eligible for free transaction processing for donations received through Checkout until January 1, 2010. All other IRS certified 501(c)(3) organizations will be charged a low 2% + $0.20 per transaction until May 5, 2009, after which they will transition to the tiered pricing structure outlined above. There are no monthly, setup, or gateway service fees. We reserve the right to impose reasonable limits at our discretion.

Other Fees
With its proprietary fraud detection technology, Google Checkout works to protect you from unwarranted chargebacks. In cases where you are found liable for a chargeback, you'll be charged the full amount of the chargeback plus an additional $10 chargeback fee.

Google Checkout offers you the ability to partially capture funds and explicitly reauthorize an order if the initial 7-day authorization window expires. You will be charged $0.20 each time you charge an order. As of May 5, 2009, you will be charged $0.30 each time you charge an order.

Google is as expensive, if not more expensive than all other services such as Pay Pal, yet they have None of the features of Paypal. Bank of America customers can use their Small Business solution that includes a great deal of features every Small Businesses needs along with processing transactions. I like that you can automatically export all business transactions into accounting programs like Quickbooks.

PayPal
Bank of America online business suite
Bank of America online merchant processing

So if you are using Google Checkout I believe it is time to find a new merchant processing solution that offers you all the features you need at a reasonable price.

Susan Boyle 7 Minutes of Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:52:00 +0000

So much emotion ran through me when I watched Susan Boyle for the first time, and for the 14th.

There is so much about life that comes to light in this 7 minute video which unfolded in the UK last week, that I encourage all of you to watch it and feel this emotion for yourself.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

We are so quick to judge, so harsh with the unfamiliar, media and egotistical pride has slowly eroded us into shallow people that rarely look beyond first impressions. In the most peaceful and beautiful way , the least likely person, Susan Boyle, has given the world a stunning reason to reflect on what life is really all about.

You may mistake Susan for the lunch lady at the local high school. Her thick Scottish accent may have you asking "what did she say"? with every other sentence. But when Susan sings, her message could not be more clear.

Regardless of the odds Susan was willing to try and live out her dream. Last week in front of a large audience she succeeded in an extraordinary fashion.
The emotions she invoked in me brought a tear to my eye. And I'm no Allen Alda supporter. Susan proved shallow judgments to be what they truly are - our weakness. She showed that anyone who has a dream can live it IF they are willing to take the chance to go after it and risk failure for the glory of success.

As a person who has been involved with the Internet since 1994 I have seen the good and bad of the medium. This is certainly a case for the good. The Internet has allowed millions of people around the world to share in this experience in less than a week.
I cannot put into words all the important lessons we can take away from this one performance that represents the culmination of one persons dream. I can only say please go watch it, you will be inspired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
If you want to hear her sing another song, Susan has one other performance and fittingly it was for a Charity CD back in 1999. She sings "Cry Me River" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI2DxkrgpgQ

LendingTree Website Disclosure - WOW

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:26:00 +0000

So I always thought LendingTree had a great slogan and model.

"When Lenders Compete You Win"

Consumers fill out one app for a loan and they get multiple offers from lenders competing with the best rates and terms. Their T.V. commercials are very clever as well.

So their big proposition is that they have a bunch of banks compete for your business. They are the trusted place to give your loan app and then arbitrarily companies compete.
I just read their website disclosure page and Check this out.

Seems that Lending Tree is also THE LENDER COMPETING, and in some cases THEY ARE THE ONLY LENDER.

About LendingTree LoansYour loan request may be matched with Home Loan Center, Inc., which also does business under the names LendingTree Loans, Home Loan Center, Inc. dba LT Loans, Home Loan Center USA, Inc. and Loan Center, Inc., LT Loans or Online Home Center (depending on the state), a wholly owned subsidiary of LendingTree, LLC. Home Loan Center/LendingTree Loans is a licensed mortgage lender/broker authorized to do business in every state. Home Loan Center/LendingTree Loans specializes in certain types of consumer loan requests. Home Loan Center/LendingTree Loans makes loans and earns fees for its services separate from LendingTree, LLC. You may be matched with Home Loan Center as one of your competing lenders or LendingTree Loans as your only lender.

After this whole mortgage fiasco, LendingTree still has the Crabapples to pull this kind of charade on consumers. So exactly why are people so upset with bankers lately?

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to be called a marketer.

Ask.com Favoring Organic?

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:22:00 +0000

The Search Engine race has been stagnent for a while. Yes, really, nobody has broken the mold of Google, instead they try to compete with Google at what Google does best.. search. And they lose.

However Google's home page is getting a bit dull, and there is no doubt they are paying a real loss of opportunity price for having such a clean search page. Nor can they test anything new on the page without a huge outcry... take their change of the Fav Icon for example. (UUUUGLY).

Ask.com has been trying to build on top of the Google model. The switched back to a clean search only home page some time ago. They have since then been testing small variances to this page. First by adding a single image add top left of the page. The ad was for Match.com.

Now, they are playing around with the results pages.

Today I found that the PPC ads were placed in second position, with an organic listing coming in at the top. I'm glad to see that Ask.com is mixing things up without going too far.

I'm sure my SEO friends are very happy to see this type of testing as it lends a great deal of value to their services.

Google Cancels Free Checkout Processing

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:26:00 +0000

We knew that at some point Google would end this program.

I think it was a fair and brilliant promotion to reward advertisers who used Google adwords to get free processing. I personally thank Google for saving my company many thousands of dollars in transaction fees.There is no doubt that countless businesses dumped PayPal and picked up Google checkout. Unfortunately, Google did not execute on the promotional strategy before they ended the offer. While giving the service away for free, they needed to upgrade Google Checkout into an enterprise grade service. Instead, it's still a weak beta type mini service, with no incentive to stay with them.

Google Checkout 2009 Fee Changes On May 5, 2009, Google Checkout's
transaction processing fees will be changing from 2.0% + $0.20 per transaction
to a new tiered pricing structure, where the rates will vary
depending on the amount of your monthly sales processed through Checkout.

At that time, we'll also be discontinuing the free transaction processing
promotion for AdWords advertisers. Any AdWords transaction processing credits
accrued during April 2009 will be applied towards transactions that occur on May
1-4, 2009.

I'm not knocking Google here, again I have saved many thousands of dollars with the free transactions. However, transaction processing was VERY slow, averaging almost 7 business days for payments to post. There is no ability to track invoices sent, or payments requested and you can't export/import directly into your accounting software, or integrate into an online financial service. When it was free, these issues were tolerable, now that they are full price, I will be changing very quickly.Bank of America for instance offers an amazing suite of business tools and data integration features to seamlessly share data with your accounting software for about the same price, easy transfer of funds into your investment, business or payroll accounts. Yes, I know, most of us don't like B of A, but the pricing is about the same with every feature a business owner would want to have.

How do you think this change plays out in the overall strategy of Google and how us, their customers view them?

Are they doing a rope a dope, offering a ton of free apps, and then after everyone has integrated them into their life and business, start charging for them?

Were we, including myself, all stupid enough to believe Google was different and would offer free apps forever ?

Tiger Woods sizes up Barack Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:31:00 +0000

I'm not necessarily a big Barack Obama supporter, but I am a big Tiger Woods fan. I came across this photo this morning and took one look at Tigers face to me it embodied an important sense of who Tiger is.

That calm, focused, almost solemn look is the same look of concentrated satisfaction that Tiger has when he stands over a 215 long iron shot into a narrow green on an 18th fairway with 1 shot lead. It's that moment of belief. I can do it.

I can do anything if I were to want it.

He looks at Barack here and to me is thinking... If I had taken that path...I could to that. What I like best, is that Tiger believes this with inner confidence, not ego, Tiger is no poser... As for the other guy... well, let's just hope for the best.

Google Endorses Political Candidate

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:08:00 +0000

Original post Oct 30 2008

This is not a political post to support nor detract from any candidate or party. Last night Barack Obama delivered a TV infomercial that any of us marketers would be proud of. Great visuals, controlled themes, Endorsements and powerful stories that stick with people. However, one of these surprising endorsements was from Eric Schmidt CEO of GOOGLE.

Up until that moment last night, I guess I had never pondered how much it meant to me that Google was, well, just Google. A search site with great results, an ad platform reaching hundreds of millions of consumers, a savvy technology company helping grow businesses across this country.. and the world. And then the endorsement from Eric Schmidt.

Now we all have our own opinions, and I'm sure other CEO's have spoken for or against certain candidates. However considering the very high visibility and importance of this infomercial and the endorsement coming directly from the CEO of Google this was not a simple side comment or minor statement. This was an intentional well thought out endorsement of a political party.

Google told me: We are Democrats, we support Barack Obama.

This now paints my whole perspective of Google different. Not because I dislike Barack, nor that I have ill will towards the democratic party. It's simply that I felt Google should never publicly align with a political party, it taints them, it makes their motives for everything they do suspicious.

I trust Google with a great deal of sensitive private information both for my business and my personal life. Some things are simple like search query data, and other things more personal like the content within my emails.

When Donald Trump backs McCain, it has no effect on me.
When Martha Stewart backed Obama it had no impact on me.
These folks are known by millions but they have no access to our personal data or control over individual lives.When Google who holds nearly 10 years of data about me aligns themselves with a political party and endorses legislation.. that can have a very significant direct impact on me.. and the hundreds of millions of users of Google.

Is it coincidence that Google is now the senior partner to use Government space missions to launch and use satellites to view and track your house, car and back yard?

Is it odd that Google launches a medical service and the big push from our Government is to use technology to reduce health costs?

Is it odd that our Government wants a "fairness doctrine" and Google has all the search query data, blogs, email and video content to identify and filter this content for the Government?

This is all very concerning to me.
How did you view this?
Do you think Google should stay out of politics or jump in?

Does it concern you that Google who holds the keys to your data would be so closely aligned with a political party?

Again, I want to stress, I am not making a point about who they endorsed, my point is that they DID endorse somebody.

Respectful comments are appreciated.

Google Moving Towards Peer Reviewed Network

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:29:00 +0000

New enhancements on the Google content network

8/07/2008 05:01:00 AM

Today we're announcing some key enhancements on the Google content network (partner sites for which we provide advertising) that will offer a better experience for users and better value for advertisers and publishers. These enhancements are the latest result of our integration with DoubleClick and our commitment to making advertising on the Google content network more efficient and accountable. When we purchased DoubleClick, we talked about how we would empower agencies, advertisers and publishers to collaborate more efficiently and effectively, and provide a better experience for our users. We are happy that we have been able to deliver on this promise already, like support for third party vendors on the Google content network

Read full post on Adwords Blog

Google is slowly rolling out more features to allow advertisers to control where their ads are running in the content network. A quick review of the history;

First it was all or nothing. Run your ad on ALL content partners or nothing.
A LONG time after, Google started offering site exclusion- the ability to block content partners.
About the same time Google offered placement reports which allowed advertisers to see the content partners (websites) that were running their ad. Unfortunately this report aggregated some data, such as lumping Domain placement (parked domains like on GoDaddy), Error pages, and "other" placement results into a single line item. This data alone many times represented over 50% of an advertisers traffic. The reports value was deminished.
Since the start of 2008 Adwords has increased the detail level of their placement reports, and now you should get detailed statistics on any content partner who runs your ads.
Keyword and placement targeting within an adgroup has provided further control over who runs your ad and more importantly gives advertisers the ability to lock into a set of content partners and set individual bids for each placement.

This all culminates into an advertising platform that is slowly becoming a foundation for a peer reviewed network. The only piece that is missing is the sharing of data between advertisers in the same vertical. Google does provide share some data if you use Google Analytics and turn on their benchmarking service, but as the name suggests this is very generic data. When true sharing of content partner data becomes available and advertisers are able to define and control the content network the Wild Wild West of content advertising will have been tamed.. slightly.

Today Google is offering more features based on their DoubleClick platform.

Frequency Capping: Enables advertisers to control the
number of times a user sees an ad. Users will have a better experience on Google
content network sites because they will no longer see the same ad over and over
again.

Frequency Reporting: Provides insight into the number of
people who have seen an ad campaign, and how many times, on average, people are
seeing these ads. Improved Ads Quality: Brings performance improvements within
the Google content network.

View-Through Conversions: Enables advertisers to gain
insights on how many users visited their sites after seeing an ad. This helps
advertisers determine the best places to advertise so users will see more
relevant ads.

These new features are all dependent upon the users/searcher allowing a cookie to track their behaviors. A DoubleClick Ad-serving cookie is set any time a searcher visits a DoubleClick publisher and now a Google content match partner. Most users don't even realize that a tracking cookie has been set on their machine, however they will have the ability to disable the cookie with one click. The question remains as to how many users will turn off the cookie and will that skew advertister data enough to make managing campaigns a sloppy endevour?

Frequency Capping is the biggie here. I have heard advertisers complain many times that their ads are clicked on multiple times by the same visitor. This they say, unfairly increases their costs. However, this is more likley a natural user behavior, one picks up the same item in a store and inspects it at least twice before purchasing it. Online comparison shoppers must be visiting the same site 5-10 times before making a decision. So the important question for advertisers to answer will be, what is our limit before we say turn it off. A poor analysis and decision here could cost you.

How is your Bid management tool or manual strategy holding up to the new changes?

Lock in with Google Placement and Keywords

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:24:00 +0000

About a week ago Google launched the ability for advertisers to use placements within a Keyword defined adgroup. Although a first read of the Google help files on this can seem confusing it all boils down to this:

A high degree of control over the content network both in matching your ads and the price you're willing to pay.

For those new to Pay Per Click:
A keyword defined adgroup means that only your keywords are used to either match your ad to a search by a searcher, or to match your ad to content found on a Publishers website.

Placements allow advertisers to pick specific publishers (websites) and even sections within a publishers website to target.

Previously you had to run two campaigns a keyword campaign and a placement campaign.
Now you can run both within the same adgroup. Placements of course still only apply to content match only and never to any type of search related functions.

Whats great about this is that previously we had to rely on Google to use just our keywords and other elements to determine if a publishers content was a match for us.

Now we can improve this matching process by telling Google the exact sites and directories within a site to run this matching comparison on. Google first finds all matches for your keywords then effectively filters out all websites except for the ones you have targeted to run your ads on.

In addition advertisers can now control their bids for each of this placements individually. Previously one had to set one bid for content match and hope for the best.

THis new feature will allow advertisers to lock in just the publishers they want to use and turn off any new publishers from running their ads.

A couple notes for others using Adwords Editor (AE) to make vast changes for placements. When I read the FAQ it vaguely talks about being able to target not only sections but individual pages with the new system. I took this to mean that I could possibly target a specific page by entering it in as the placement location. In Adwords Editor, this is possible. No error comes up if you add multiple placements that include URLS that go beyond one directory level down. However once you attempt to post, then you get the errors.

So you still have to keep it to a single level directory. This is unfortunate as a great deal of websites use a convention of naming directories with at least 3 tiers.
website.com/consumer/
consumer/debt
consumer/loans
consumer/housing
consumer/debt/articles/greatarticletotarget.html

In this case we cant target the specific page we want instead we have to rely on the combination of keywords and placement at the website.com/consumer/ level. Google gives us much more control, but not that much control.

There are more questions that need to be answered which I will follow up with later.

How are you going to use the new Keyword / Placement features within Google?

The Little Country of Montenegro Just Got Lucky

noreply@blogger.com (Jerry Nordstrom) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:28:00 +0000

A Top Level Domain (TLD) is a part of every URL that more or less designates its purpose or geographic location. Each country around the world has their own TLD, the United States has .us, Germany .de and so on. These geographical TLD's have value to companies who do business within their country but usually have less value outside of their country. Some TLD's take on a more global appeal; recently .tv was introduced which has obvious appeal to be used for television and video related websites. The beautify country of Montenegro was fortunate enough to be given the TLD ".me". This TLD has global appeal to be the domain of choice for personalization; Lucky.me, hire.me or simply yourlastname.me. Due to this the anticipation and excitement of marketers was extremely high and they were poised with business plans to purchase the best names and launch a .me business.

GoDaddy.com whose owner Bob Parsons is well known for using porn stars and sex symbols to market his company, aggressively negotiated with the country of Montenegro and won the rights to offer the .me domain names for registration in January 2008. GoDaddy.com is one of only three companies in the world who were given the rights to market and sell the .me domain name. To those who are not familiar with registering domain names, this simply means that GoDaddy.com is the website where anyone could search for a domain name, see if it is available for sale and purchase it. Once a domain name is purchased you can use it in conjunction with a web hosting service to create and promote a website. The stage was set for a record breaking launch of a highly desirable TLD being offered through the world's largest domain name registrar GoDaddy.com

For 6 months GoDaddy.com marketed the .ME domain name as THE domain name to have for personalization. The possibilities were endless and as exciting as the pioneering days of the Internet. On May 2 2008 according to the GoDaddy website quoted below the domain names were set to be sold in three distinct phases.

"When can I register .me domains?

Sunrise
April 28, 2008 to May 20, 2008. Open to entities that have a current trademark or service mark, registered or applied for prior to June 28, 2006, for the domain for which they are applying. The domain must be identical to the text or word elements of the trademark or service mark, and it must be nationally recognized within the country where it's registered.

Landrush
May 6, 2008 to June 26, 2008. Open to all, and no trademarks or service marks are required for domain applications.

Go Live
July 17, 2008. Open to all, and there are no restrictions."
But here is where the story gets interesting, not because of what GoDaddy was marketing, but what they were NOT marketing. It was no accident that few people knew that the country of Montenegro was withholding certain domain names from being registered. There were two sets of lists of names that WOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE for registration.

From the domains.me website:
"A list of Reserved Names ( PDF, and text file) has been held back for government and registry use. These names are not available for registration by the public. This list was updated on April 15, 2008."
It makes good sense for a Government to protect their interests and not allow anyone to register names that have to do with their Government offices, landmarks and so on. That is mainly what is on this list.
And
" A list of Premium Names ( PDF, and text file) has been held back, and these names are not currently available for registration. The Registry plans to make these names available in manner(s) to be determined at a later time."

This second list of Premium Names is what has generated outrage among millions of Internet businesses and individuals who attempted to register .me names on July 17, 2008 which I will get to in a moment.

I have personally searched the GoDaddy.com website for days and have not found one link, nor mention that premium names were being withheld from registration. The only information that I have found was DEEP in the multipage legal speak of the GoDaddy.com domain name registration policy where the last paragraph had the paragraph and link below.
49. provisions specific to .me registration
You acknowledge and agree to obey, comply and be bound by any and all registry rules, policies and agreements, and any and all updates, revisision and modifications thereto, for this ccTLD, which may be found here.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless the .me Registry, its owners, subsidiaries, affiliates, subcontractors and agents, and the respective directors, officers, employees, affiliates and agents of each of them, from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees and expenses arising out of or relating to Your domain name registration or the use of any domain name registered in the TLD by or on Your behalf.
Revised: 6/9/2008 Copyright © 2000-2008 GoDaddy.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This page found on this link: http://www.domain.me/index.php?page=21 does not speak of, link to or mention in any way the list of withheld domain names.
So there you have it, millions and millions of Internet entrepreneurs eagerly awaiting the 8 AM PDT, July 17, 2008 launch of the .me registrations, and GoDaddy.com knowing full well that virtually all of the highly lucrative domain names that they wanted to purchase were already gone, withheld and not available.

July 18, 2008 8:AM PDT
Registration for .me domain names opens.
Within minutes millions of consumers from around the world were searching for available domain names including myself. Frequently came back the search response - "domain name taken", and then after many fast searches a HIT! The domain name discovery.me is available and then quote.me and insure.me. I got a .me name! and then another! and another! All said and done I spent my full budget and purchased 22 domain names in the first half hour. GoDaddy accepted my payment, sent me a confirmation of payment and withdrew the funds from my bank account.

I was more than pleased with myself. Like my SEM brethren I was giddy, at peace, and excited about the companies I was about to create with my new .me names.

My thoughts of Internet fame and fortune lasted for about an hour when I received a single email from GoDaddy.

The following domain name has failed to be registered: QUOTE.ME Error: QUOTE.ME: cannot register - already registered We will evaluate this error and retry the registration if appropriate. If we are unable to successfully register the domain name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please allow one business day for the refund to be processed. Please contact GoDaddy.com, Inc. if you need any further assistance:http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/support.asp?prog_id=GoDaddy&isc=gdbb14

Sincerely,GoDaddy.com, Inc.

Soon after, I received another "Failed to register" email for another domain, then another and another, and slowly but surely about 2 hours after I had successfully found and paid for my domains they were taken away, all but one.

I didn't dare register more domains as GoDaddy still had my money, and I didn't want to purchase another 22 domains and then have the first batch of 22 go through successfully. So there I was stuck in limbo, my money gone, my domains gone and fearful I would come out empty handed. And that is exactly what happened, as I write this 2 business days and 4 full days later, GoDaddy still has my money and I don't have my domain names.

It gets worse. The domain name Discovery.me that was stated to be available and I successfully purchased is now up for auction for $75 at domains.me As a matter of fact it was up for auction immediately.

Insult to injury:
I quickly find a whois for the .me domain and start searching for the owners of Discovery.me, but there is none, yet it is up for auction?. I find that one company seems to own everything, from domains with Adult terms to everyday nouns, verbs and adjectives, all the terms the Internet entrepreneurs were excited about registering. The company is called Premium Domains. Most all of their registrations have incomplete or inaccurate address information, a violation of the ICANN .ME and GoDaddy registration policy. Unfortunately although it is not confirmed, this company is the company which Montenegro uses to hold the list of Premium names noted above.

The Big Mistake
GoDaddy marketed the .me domains and hyped them for months and successfully kept the list of withheld names under wraps. If everyone knew that virtually all the desirable domain names were already taken, how much excitement and demand for .me would there be? Virtually none.
What was supposed to happen was that when the excited domain name speculator searched for the desirable name, it would come up as already registered, and they would go off with the thought of DARN somebody beat me to it and try another name. Ultimately they would only be able to register less desirable choices. But that is not what happened.

GoDaddy and Montenegro had a little technical mishap, the exact nature of the mishap is not fully understood but the result is. ALL the domain names that were supposed to be withheld, were not, not only were they available, but even AFTER they were sold to consumers like myself, they were sold again to others and again and again. Thousands and thousands of consumers successfully found and paid for the same domain such as hire.me, quote.me and insure.me. This is what precipitated the "Error already registered" emails and in my view was the first crack in the unraveling and exposing the plot by GoDaddy to hide the list of premium domain names.

So here we sit 4 days after the fact. The world's largest registrar assumedly has hundreds of millions of dollars in their account by allowing registrations of .me domain names that they were trying to hide. Registrations that the purchaser will never receive.

GoDaddy has made no mention of one of the largest mistakes in Internet history on their website. They still have not linked to the list of withheld names . As of Monday morning July 20, 2008 at approximately 8:30 AM it will be a full 48 business hours after initial purchases and refunds will be due to be credited back to purchasers of the .me domain names. If this does not occur GoDaddy will certainly be faced with class action lawsuits.

At minimum GoDaddy's reputation is now mud but if the community of Internet entrepreneurs had their way Mr. Parsons would end up like his porn star spokespeople, in the gutter, begging;

forgive.me