Google has announced that it has expanded its advertising options to third parties. That’s good news for advertisers and publishers alike. Here’s the official announcement:

Today, we’re announcing that Google is accepting third-party advertising tags on the Google content network in North America. This will empower advertisers to work with approved third parties to serve and track display ads, including rich media ads, across the Google content network through AdWords, giving them more options, flexibility and control over their campaigns.

What that means in simple terms is you can go directly to a third-party advertising network where it might be less expensive to bid on your relevant keywords and still have access to Google publishers who include Google AdSense ads on their websites. You’ll pay less for clicks while still reaching the same targeted market. Boom-ba-da-boom! Good news!

That’s an important offering considering that click prices keep going up in light of increased competition. But if you can stay in front of the same market for less then why not do so?

Of course, this could mean increased competition with third parties who partner with Google. Eventually, that will lead to higher click bids at those advertising companies, but for now, the ground floor is looking pretty good for advertisers who want to do business with someone other than Google - even though you’ll still be doing business with Google indirectly. Happy advertising!

When it comes to pay per click advertising, does it matter which company you use for your campaigns? I think it does. And I think that there are two measures that you can use to judge where you should start your pay per click campaign:

• Budget
• Market Share

Budget is the more difficult of the two while market share is pretty easy. Google AdWords pretty much owns the pay per click market. If you advertise through Google AdWords then you will catch the lion’s share of search traffic. But beware, a click at Google AdWords could cost you considerably more than a click through other pay per click providers - Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter included. So is that good or bad?

Well, it’s both. Consider this: If you have a low monthly budget, say $200, you could easily eat that up on Google in a few days. On the other hand, you might go through an entire month and not spend $200 on Microsoft adCenter. So does that make Microsoft adCenter better than Google? Not necessarily.

Google could produce a better ROI. How much does your product cost? Can you expect to make up your advertising spend with enough conversions? If so then it might be worth your time to pursue Google.

My recommendation is almost always to start with Google. When you start realizing an ROI from your efforts at Google AdWords, take your earnings and apply them to pay per click campaigns at the other companies because while Google may be the top dog in search, it isn’t the only gig in town and there are still people who never use it. You don’t want to leave any searcher behind.

We saw this coming. Google AdWords Pay Per Click has now added landing page loading time to its quality score analysis. You can also see how that is affecting your AdWords campaigns in the keyword analysis page within your account. That’s good because it means that advertisers won’t be operating in the blind. It will allow you to tweak your landing page so that you can actually improve your landing page’s load time more easily.

What this really means for advertisers is you have the opportunity to beat your competition not only on relevant information and keywords, but on quality landing page optimization and less code bloat. Because items like Flash, lots of Javascript, and other heavy-code elements on the page tend to slow down load time, you can work on improving your landing page and see the results of that improvement in your Google AdWords Pay Per Click account.

Load time grades are based on landing page as well as keyword so you’ll have to look at it from both angles. And domains that have multiple landing pages will each be graded on all the landing pages on that particular domain. So you have multiple chances of getting right. You can learn more about landing page load time in the AdWords Help Center.

Google AdWords is adding a new TV ads seminar. The made the first offering and more people were interested so they’ve added another seminar that you can sign up for. If you have an interest in TV ads and have a Google AdWords account - or even if you don’t and you are thinking about starting one - then you might be interested in this seminar.

Microsoft is trying to get your Mother’s Day business.

And Yahoo! is trying to educate its customers on phishing scams. The “sign-in seal” that they are discussing is actually a good idea. For some reason, people are still clicking on these false e-mail messages that the receive and end up on a different website than where they thought they were going, giving phishers and scammers all of their private information. Word to the wise: Don’t click these e-mails! They’re not real.

But if you are taken in by a phisher and you have one of these seals that Yahoo! is talking about then won’t see the secret message that your programmed into your seal.

Now that Microsoft has withdrawn its offer to purchase Yahoo!, the No. 2 search engine has started looking for other opportunities, one of which is to run Google AdSense ads on its network of websites. If that happens, what would that mean for Google AdWords advertisers?

First, it would mean that Yahoo! Search Marketing is bowing gracefully out of the PPC advertising market and that would leave a large number of advertisers in that network out in the cold. They’d have no alternative but to start using Google AdWords as their primary source of PPC advertising, if they aren’t already. It is not likely that many of them would migrate over to MSN Live, though some may.

But the real issue for advertisers would be the price of clicks in Google Adwords. The additional demand and competition for key advertising terms would drive up click prices in a heart beat. That in turn would lead to greater revenues for Google AdWords and Yahoo! This is no doubt what both companies are hoping for.

An antitrust lawsuit might eventually lead to Google AdWords being spun off as a separate company from Google, but it would still remain that advertisers would be paying more for clicks. The big question would be how Google AdWords would improve its services for its advertisers in the long term.

First Google AdWords said they were going to start publishing print advertising campaigns. Then they said they were going to publish audio ads. Then they started talking about video ads. Now, advertisers can manage TV ads through Google AdWords.

This is one exciting announcement. It looks like you can produce your own TV ads and publish them through Google AdWords. But, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering how it’s going to work.

From the looks of things, you’ll need to have your own commercial already made. That means hiring a big production company to produce your TV ad, unless you want to take a chance with creating your own ad the way you did for your YouTube video. Next, you’ll need to set up a campaign through Google AdWords. Oh, and if you don’t have a video or know a production company then you can find one through Google’s network. How convenient.

Just like other Google AdWords ads, you bid on cost per thousand impressions and when your ad airs on TV stations that match your demographics, you pay for those impressions. This ought to be interesting. Google TV ads.

If you want to make the most of your pay per click advertising then you need to start tracking your conversions. Google AdWords makes that easy with its free conversion tracking tool.

As explained on the Inside AdWords blog, by tracking your conversions by keyword you can narrow down which keywords are converting better for you per landing page and per product. Then you can use that information to bid on keywords that deliver more ROI. You can actually bid higher on those keywords that you know convert more sales and bid lower on those keywords that don’t. It’s a very powerful tool for the serious advertiser.

Google AdWords has recently updated its conversion tracking tool to help advertisers do a better job of watching their conversions and increasing their ROI (isn’t that good news?). You can now define and track types of conversions. Just click on the Conversion Trackink link in your account to use the tool and start optimizing your landing page and your ads for better conversions.

A new lawsuit accuses Google of deception with regard to its Google AdWords Content Network. But David Snyder isn’t buying it:

The idea that Google would knowingly deceive advertisers seems a bit far fetched to me, well not that they would deceive, but that they did deceive.

I partly agree with this. Google really has nothing to gain by draining advertisers’ budgets. If that happens then those advertisers will no longer advertise. That would result in a long-term loss of revenue for Google. It makes more sense to slowly seep their pockets of cash by getting them to spend a little bit per month over time and to allow them to “win” in some cases - like Las Vegas casinos. But we’re pretty sure that isn’t happening either. People ARE making money from Google AdWords ads - it’s called ROI.

With regard to the Content Network, it can drain your budget. The first thing new advertisers should do is disable the Content Network so that David Almeida’s experience doesn’t become their own. It is a well-known fact that the Content Network does get a lower CTR than ads that appear on Google’s own SERPs. If you’re going to advertise, do it smartly.

If you’ve been using Google Analytics then you’re already familiar with Urchin. That’s because when Google purchased the analytics software they changed the name and made it Google Analytics. Now, the standalone version is out of beta and ready to be used.

Why would you want to use the standalone version? Privacy.

Yep, by using your own standalone version of Google Analytics you can keep all of your information out of Google’s hands. You can still analyze all of your websites, just as you do now, and make important decisions regarding your Web business using the same analytics tools that you use now and do it by installing your own software onto your own server. The downside? It costs $3,000.

Of course, Google Analytics is free. The standalone version is also free - for 30 days. I figure, it’s worth a try. And if you like it then is your privacy worth three grand?

(Source) No double-digit click increases for Google again in comScore’s assessment of paid click activity, as the firm found a mild 2.7 percent year over year rise in March.

First they wanted click fraud protection, now they want double-digit increases? It’s time for PPC analysts to take a breather and expect some realistic results. Advertisers have beat Google over the head for ways to address click fraud so Google took a measure that looked promising. The number of clicks decreased. So did revenues. And how much money advertisers were paying for clicks. I’d be interested in knowing if all of these decreases has led to an increase in CTR or eCPM.

I don’t expect Google to be perfect. I don’t expect untold riches from every PPC campaign. I do expect a level of realism with regard to prices, results, and analysis. I don’t think we should expect the market leader to see record results every year. The fact that there was an increase at all in paid click activity is pretty good news considering the changes Google AdWords made this last year. In summary:

Citing Mark Mahaney of Citi, the post pointed to a couple of possible reasons for this relatively flat performance: Google’s forceful efforts to make advertisers comply with AdWords quality guidelines, and a general decrease of commercial searches that would lead to ad clicks.

The real test will be what kind of change we’ll see this time next year - assuming Google doesn’t make any more sweeping changes to its AdWords policies as it did this past year.

Yesterday morning I went to sign in to my AdWords account and couldn’t. It was down. I hadn’t heard the news that all accounts would be shut down temporarily for maintenance. I guess that happens from time to time. Evidently, once a month:

“AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times - although in May it is planned to occur one week later than usual, on May 17th, due to Mother’s Day,” he wrote.

That makes sense. Why should we expect Google AdWords not to need maintenance. Every now and then, if it involves computers at all, it should break or need repairs. Preventive maintenance is better than no maintenance at all. It looks like I’ll have to mark May 17th on my calendar for Google AdWords maintenance.

Google AdWords’ quality scores just keeping getting stricter. Any ideas why? This is good advice:

(Source) One thing I have noticed (but have not formally tested so it’s just a “feel”) is that not having proper meta tags on your landing pages that are relevant to your AdWords’ keywords even if your body copy and headlines are relevant, tend to bring down quality scores.

Landing page quality is definitely something to look at. Google has recommended all along that advertisers keep their landing pages optimized. But they haven’t formally made landing page optimization a part of the overall ad quality score even though they have made an announcement that they intend to. Landing page load time, however, is very important. It really always has been, but now it’s official.

I believe Google instituted this policy because they want to stop advertisers from using redirects. Redirects tend to slow loading time. If loading time is included in the quality score then advertisers who want to improve their quality, and consequently lower their bids, will do whatever is necessary to keep maintain their quality scores. In the competitive environment of Pay Per Click advertising, every edge helps. Google is simply trying to force advertisers to play fair and be honest. Those who do that will see their quality scores improve and their click bids lowered. Pay attention to your landing page load time. It counts.

Google is changing its trademark policy in the UK and Ireland. The policy will reflect the way it’s been in the U.S. since the very beginning, namely, that advertisers can bid on any keyword that is relevant to their business, including the competitions’ trademarks. Here’s what this means for advertisers:

If you are being beat by the competition, you can bid on their trademarks and advertise your own products and services as an alternative. If someone Googles a specific trade name, they’ll see your ad. You could potentially draw business away from the competition with a single ad. But be careful, the competition may be doing that to you!

Google has said all along that it will institute policies that help users find what they are looking for:

We want advertisers to use keywords that are most relevant to their business and our user’s interests. Google’s goal is to provide our users with the most relevant information, whether it is from our search results or advertisements. A key to achieving this goal with our ads is providing relevant choices and giving users the opportunity to determine which ads they find most relevant.

That’s a good policy and it’s one that Google has been consistent in maintaining. I believe that searchers deserve to find the best information they can on whatever it is they are looking for. Instead of trying to guess what they want and instead of letting big corporations bully them into maintaining a purity of trademark, Google should put searchers first. If a searcher is looking for information rather than a sales pitch then they are more apt to find it when there is competition for trademarks as keywords than they are when one company controls the usage of the word.

Another way this benefits users is that some trademarks are actually regular words when not used as trademarks. Coke, for instance, can be the soft drink or the nickname of a popular drug. Mickey Mouse may be a cartoon character, but there is also a little rodent called a mouse and if you operate on a PC you likely control your on-screen activities with a mouse. Plus, why shouldn’t users be allowed to bid on “IBM” if the name of their business is Idiot Buffoons of Mars?

I think you catch my drift. Google shouldn’t be put into a position to guess what searchers mean by their queries, nor should they be forced to protect someone else’s trademark. Good policy Google.

Ever since Google close the deal on the Performics plan, we’ve heard SEO and SEO go on and on about how unethical it is for Google to be involved in SEO. Well, now they’ve gone and done it!

They’ve decided to sell the search marketing part of the business. On the Google blog you’ll read:

Recently we completed this process for the DoubleClick Performics businesses, and have decided to split them into two separately-run business units: Affiliate Marketing and Search Marketing.

It’s clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business. Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google’s mission and core to the trust we ask from our users. For this reason, we plan to sell the Performics search marketing business to a third party.

That’s good news for search marketers. What it means is we won’t have to compete with Google to rank well in its own search engine. That would be a fatally flawed plan! But, thanks to Google’s foresight and its ability to listen to the market, we don’t have to worry about it. It’s tough enough to run a search marketing campaign as it is without having to compete with the monster of all search engines. Thanks Google! We still love you (well, some of us do any way).

(Source) The following question arises: can advertisers be happy when publishers aren’t? And the fact that they have seen a significant decrease as far as earnings are concerned should make it clear that, at this point, publishers are anything but happy.

Naturally, publishers may just be more tempted than ever to explore other possibilities and under such circumstances it’s only a matter of time until advertisers will be affected as well. There is a fine line between a decision which can, as planned, have positive long-term results and one which can have devastating ones.

The problem here is that there aren’t a whole lot of alternatives for most publishers. If you’re looking for a way to earn money from your content there are few places to go to ensure that you match ads that are relevant to your content. No in the advertising business has a better way to match relevant ads with relevant content and that’s a huge deciding factor in determining how much money publishers will make from the advertising.

Sure, existing publishers who have been with AdSense for a long time may be spoiled into believing that they deserve more income and if they can get it somewhere else then I suspect that they would. My guess, they aren’t. I don’t see people flocking to Yahoo! Publisher Network, although it’s not a bad place to draw ad content from. But you’re not going to make as much money there as you will using Google ads. With smaller companies, the issue is the same - publishers just won’t make as much money.

That puts publishers in a quandary because they want to go somewhere else, disappointed that they’re aren’t making as much today as they were last year, but they can’t because most of them know that there is an associated cost with switching providers. Taking a pay cut from the company you’re working for is better than going somewhere else and working for less than even your pay cut. Finding the company that pays more is a risk that many publishers can’t face. And that’s good advertisers.