Google recently activated the AdWords Radio advertising program. Now AdWords advertisers can purchase radio advertising across the USA in the same auction style bidding manner of the regular AdWords system.

The new system has some very cool features too. You can select stations by geography, demographics or music type. So for example if you want to find a station that does R&B and targets mostly 20-35 year olds, the Google AdWords Radio system can pick it out for you.

You can also upload your own existing radio ads or Google has a list of specialists who can help you. Current reports from users indicate they are getting some great exposure for some really low prices. Of course, as competition heats up in the bidding process, I'm sure we can expect prices to rise. But for the early bird, now might be the time to get into the system and take advantage of it.

You can also specify certain dates and times you would like if you're on a time schedule. You won't bid for these, instead you'll pay a specific and no doubt higher fee.

If you're interested, check it out here. Another really cool feature of the system is that Google will supply you with a local or toll free redirect number to put in your ads. This way, you can track phone calls much like you would hits to your website. Talk about trackability! If you combine that with a unique landing URL for your radio commercial you can measure your ROI on your campaing in a much more exact way.

As my background is not only in search engine optimization and search engine marketing, but also includes significant traditional marketing including media ad buying, I can easily see how this system will start to bridge the gap between Internet marketers, SEO's, SEM's and the like across to traditional marketers. The creation of a truly trackable marketing campaign that includes radio is a significant step forward. Finally, Marketing Directors can sit in the board room and actually defend their ad purchasing with real numbers, instead of estimates and generalizations.

Of course, my only problem with the system is that I live in Calgary, Canada and currently Google AdWords Radio only provides stations in the US. Hopefully this system will expand out to the north here soon!

Labels: google adwords, google radio, search engine optimization, Search Engines

A couple of ongoing topics I've ran into lately...

Recently Google Analytics launched their new and upgraded interface. After a few minutes of playing around with it, I've found everything I've used in the past. A great deal of attention in group forums though has been focused on the disappearance of visitor statics by the hour. It now appears that Google either forgot or ignored it but thanks to user outcry, they are now working on putting it back in.

The hourly traffic analysis is interesting on a few levels, but also raises many questions. Should you target
AdWords advertising during your low hours to boost traffic? Or is there bigger bang for your buck to advertise during your busiest hours to attract the largest possible interested audience?

If you're an e-commerce website, particularly a regionally targeted e-commerce website, this could be really good information. If you're a flower shop selling flowers only to people in a specific city, you will probably get hits at specific times of day, and then it may be good advice to use Google AdWords to boost this trend (attract visitors when they are looking).

Here's hoping the hourly report comes back soon!

Another interesting topic I've seen around lately is the length of URL title for search engine optimization purposes. Now there are two arguments here. One is that a description URL, like...www.calgary.com/downtown_calgary_flower_delivery.html is great from an SEO point of view. The counter argument is that no one will
remember that or type it in themselves. Compared to www.calgary.com/flowers which someone might actually recall from other advertising (radio, tv, or whatever) and type in themselves.

My theory is do both. I've used this strategy successfully for search engine optimization purposes AND advertising simplicity. All you need to do is create both pages, and then redirect the simpler, easier to remember address to the more complex one. Don't put any text on it or duplicate the page as you might be penalized for having duplicate content. A simple meta-refresh tag will do the trick. Also make sure
there is a text link on your main page or site map so Google can find and index the page easily.

Voila, a great search engine optimization URL plus a great advertising campaign. Google sees and indexes only one page with appropriate content. For more on SEO, check out my SEO Articles.

Good news for me and my fellow Calgary walkers and bikers, the weather is finally warming up!

Labels: google adwords, google analytics, search engine optimization, SEO

Well, I've been running a little experiment with my Google AdWords recently. I was wondering if it was better to have general keyword terms, like say just a city name, with a highly specific ad text, or to use very specific keywords.

The jury is in, I thought people wouldn't click on a very clear ad if they weren't interested in the product. I was wrong! I got much better, like 3 times better results, using highly targeted ads with highly targeted keywords, although my actual number of clicks was lower, and my CPC much higher.

Thousands and thousands of people search for "Calgary, Alberta" everyday, but far less are looking for "Calgary Hotels" so as a result, clicks for calgary alberta were much cheaper. Yet still, in terms of ROI, I got better results from a much more specific keyword phrase for conversions. Even with VERY specific ads I still did worse in the general categories.

Interesting theory, but it didn't work out. Thoughts anyone?
- Dan the search engine optimization guy

Labels: google adwords