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.

David Snyder is the guest host today on Marketing Pilgrim. He reports that MSN is ditching its current adCenter Pay Per Click customer service products in lieu of an adCenterCommunity. I say, Bravo!

This new product is an extension of an adCenter customer service program that already blows its competition out of the water. Adwords, for example, is pretty well known for its sub par customer service and famous generic email responses to questions. While Google does offer an Adwords blog, an Adwords group in Google Groups, and a learning center in the Adwords program, the fractured nature of this content stand in stark comparison to the adCenter initiative.

At a recent conference I inquired of a Google Adwords’ representative why Microsoft was so quick on the draw with customer service in comparison with the leader in the market. The response I received was a joking, “They have more time on their hands.”

As comical as it sounds, the Google executives may be right. MSN does have more time on its hands, and it seems to be using that time wisely.

There is a reason, of course, why Google AdWords is the leader in the PPC market. Their technology is scalable and has been perfected over and over again. Nothing that MSN Pay Per Click and Yahoo! offers is comparable to the Google AdWords reporting interface and Google Analytics. I don’t like, for instance, that I have to put two links to the MSN adCenter Pay Per Click privacy policy on my landing pages in order to advertise there. Google doesn’t make me do that. To be sure, the need for customer service with Google AdWords is much less than the need for customer service through MSN or Yahoo! So that’s a point in Google’s favor.

Nevertheless, I like the idea of a community. I’d much rather get questions answered from another user of a product than from a company’s canned representative. Customer service reps tend to be scripted with pat responses. Product users aren’t. The help you can get is a lot more practical and useful.

If MSN can improve its technology to the point that Google has then it could be competitive. And, as David Snyder says, if MSN and Yahoo! team up then it’s quite possible that the combination could lead to Google falling off its leadership perch. That’s a big if. It’s big because, while Yahoo! has a sizable share of the market and is competitive in its technology, it is hard to capture market share from a recognized leader, no matter what industry you are in. Google has a good enough head start that there would have to be significant developments coming out of Yahoo! or MSN to pass them up. It’s not impossible, but the possibilities are limited. At any rate, I’m glad to see MSN getting serious with this bold new move. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Yahoo! and Google follow up with their own Pay Per Click communities.

If you are using MSN adCenter to drive traffic to your landing pages on which you have more than one monetization model then you’ll need to do some testing to see if your ads are making you any money. The reason why is quite simple - MSN adCenter will track your conversions, but if you have more than one monetization model then it will be difficult to tell precisely what is converting and what isn’t.

Here’s the scenario:

You have a landing page with Google AdSense and Amazon.com affiliate links on it. But that landing page also links to other pages of your website. With MSN adCenter, you can drive pay per click traffic to that landing page with very inexpensive click prices. But if you are paying for clicks at or above the amount that you make per click on your Google AdSense ads then you may not be making any money on your Pay Per Click efforts. How would you know?

To further complicate issues, you cannot track individual users on your website and know whether a particular user clicked on an AdSense ad, an Amazon.com affiliate link, or a link to another page on your website, unless you have the right software. Some of that software is pretty expensive and could be cost prohibitive for a newbie or if you are selling low-cost items.

If you are tracking your traffic through Google Analytics then all you’ll see are generalizations about your traffic patterns. How do you know whether you are making money from your MSN adCenter ads or if the money you are making on your AdSense and Amazon.com affiliate links are from organic search? Without being able to track individual users and knowing what they are purchasing after they land on your site, or leave it, you can’t.

Amazon.com’s tracking allows you to see which types of links are performing for you, but you can’t see which specific links are performing you. You can know what products people are purchasing, but you don’t know which specific link they clicked to get to Amazon.com because neither Google Analytics nor Amazon.com will tell you that. The best thing you can do is use Google Analytics to get a site overlay that will show you which links are clicked on and which ones are not. That’s useful information, but you don’t know if that 5% click through rate on the special link at the bottom of your landing page is resulting in sales at Amazon.com. You need more information.

It is complicated to know what both of your monetization sources are producing simultaneously. I recommend taking the AdSense off of your landing page for one month to test how your Amazon, or other affiliate program, is performing on its own. Don’t change what you are doing with your MSN adCenter Pay Per Click ads. Keep those exactly the same. You are isolating your monetization sources. After testing the affiliate program for one month to see how it performs with your MSN adCenter ads, put the Google AdSense code back into your web pages and see what that does to your revenue stream. You will know right away whether or not your Pay Per Click ads are making you any money. If you see your conversions go up after adding your AdSense back onto your landing page then you are probably losing money on your adCenter ads (subject to your MSN adCenter click prices vs. your earnings at AdSense). The important things to look at is your affiliate program revenue. If your revenue without Google AdSense is more than what you are spending on your advertising then you are making money. If it is less after putting the AdSense back in then you’ll need to make a decision about whether to keep the AdSense off of that page or lower your MSN adCenter bid amounts.

If you currently advertise with Google AdWords, you might want to consider dropping it for MSN adCenter. This is especially true if your target market are Wall Street Journal readers.

Personally, I wouldn’t drop Google for MSN, but I might add MSN adCenter to my marketing strategy. I say this because I still think Google AdWords is a great marketing tool for almost anyone, no matter what business you are in. But I wouldn’t recommend MSN adCenter to just anyone. I would recommend it to the financial markets because of their announcement that the WSJ will be running their ads. What that means is, if you advertise through MSN adCenter, your ads will run on the following websites:

• Barrons.com
• MarketWatch.com
• AllThingsD.com
• and other sites owned by WSJ

Plus, the WSJ is the largest paid subscriber website on the Internet. You’ll be reaching a potential 1 million people just by advertising through MSN adCenter.

I think it’s possible that this could drive up pay per click bid prices at MSN adCenter. At least for certain markets. But prices don’t mean anything. What matters is ROI. And I’d rather pay $1 per click and make $1.50 return than to pay .10 per click and only get a .05 return.

Advertising through MSN adCenter will benefit more than just financial companies, however. It will benefit anyone whose target market can be found reading WSJ and its subsidiary media companies. That’s the key to reaching the potential through MSN adCenter. If your target market can be found at WSJ, Barron’s, or MarketWatch then you should be advertising with MSN adCenter. That’s what I call a no-brainer.

Just before Christmas, Microsoft adCenter Blog announced the introduction of its new Microsoft Web Analytics tool. It was just a beta release, but it looks like a great tool. In fact, I’d say it’s an essential tool if you use adCenter for your pay per click campaigns. You can hardly run a pay per click campaign without some form of analytics and while Google Analytics is great for Google AdWords, you really need to use an analytics tool that is designed specifically for the pay per click campaign that you are running. That’s why I recommend a Gatineau account for Microsoft adCenter users.

Initially, Microsoft had a $5 account sign up fee for new users. The plan was to dispense with that fee after the beginning of the new year. I haven’t seen anything that has changed that or that has said the fee is no longer required. Keep checking this blog for more updates and feel free to subscribe to the Microsoft acCenter Blog as well. If anything change or new developments occur regarding Microsoft acCenter or its Gatineau account then we’ll let you know.

Playing off a previous list of myths about PPC, an infamous blogger added some of his own. I like this last one that was mentioned:

(Source) 3. You can’t do well with ppc unless you spend more than $1000 per month. I see this written on many seo blogs and in forums. It isn’t true. I’ve run ppc ad campaigns that were $300 per month that produced $10,000 in monthly sales. So I know this is a myth. Don’t believe otherwise.

That’s absolutely true. You don’t need a big budget to be successful with pay per click. You need the right keywords for your PPC campaign and a well optimized landing page. You should set a budget, but you can turn a limited budget into a profitable campaign.

The rest of the myths regarding PPC include:

1. You need to be No.1 - Uh, no.
2. You will pay 1p a click if there are no other advertisers - Every pay per click company has a minimum bid for each keyword.
3. The content network is all bad - SEO Service Provider disagrees, but I tend to agree. You can expand your advertising through the content network, but SEO Service Provider does bring up a good point in mentioning that the risk of click fraud is higher.
4. Broad /Advanced match is all bad - You can use broad match effectively if you do it the right way.
5. Bidding high increases your quality score - Not necessarily.
6. There is only one search engine - Google is not God. You can actually get a higher ROI with some of the smaller PPC companies.
7. PPC has a bearing on natural rankings - There’s no evidence of this at all.
8. Advertising spend has a bearing on quality score and hence ad rank - Nope. Not true.
9. PPC is only short-term until organic rankings arrive - Actually, the most successful PPC advertisers maintain their PPC accounts and actively use them even when they achieve front page organic rankings.
10. PPC Optimisation is a one time event - Wrong. Like organic SEO, PPC optimization is ongoing and you must spend time tweaking your campaigns.
11. Optimisation is campaign only, not the site - Wrong again.
12. Deleting will delete history - Not true either. Google AdWords will keep a record of your history.
13. Adwords / Yahoo! / adCenter hates me - They probably don’t know who you are. Perhaps you just aren’t reading the guidelines.
14. Running your own PPC campaign is easy. Anyone can do it (SSP) - Yes, anyone can do it if they are willing to take the time to learn it. PPC takes time and meanwhile you are losing dollars with ineffective advertising. You might as well hire an expert.
15. Hiring a professional is too expensive (SSP) - It can be, but it doesn’t need to be. If you are quoted a price that is out of your range then go to another PPC manager. Some PPC managers will work with smaller companies.

Don’t base your attitudes about PPC on these myths. Get a real view of PPC and talk to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Pay Per Click Journal would like to thank you for your continued readership. We will not be posting tomorrow or on New Year’s Day. But we would like to take a look back over the last three months of our life and highlight some of the more popular blog posts we’ve made since October.

Our first blog post was made on October 13. Since then, we’ve published 76 posts. These are 10 of our favorite:

• Who’s Going To Manage Your Pay Per Click?
• Google AdWords Vs. Microsoft AdCenter
• Microsoft AdCenter Upgrades And New Features
• Keyword Match Types: When Is Narrow Too Narrow?
• Yahoo! Search Marketing Quality Index
• Landing Page Optimization Is Of Supreme Importance
• PPC Bidding: How To Aim For Position No. 3
• Google Analytics Gets An Upgrade
• Landing Page Basics: Is Too Much Enough?
• Microsoft AdCenter Offers Free Pay Per Click Training

We hope you’ll check out these Pay Per Click Journal posts from the past three months. Meanwhile, if you have a favorite post about pay per click advertising, we’d like to know about it.

It looks like Microsoft is stepping up its pay per click program. They may be actually trying to compete. The Microsoft Affiliate Program appears to be an attempt to encourage marketers and pay per click managers to use Microsoft for their pay per click advertising program. That’s fine as long as they can make it work for their advertisers.

Google AdWords has enjoyed being the front runner in pay per click for a few years now. No one has even come close. But pay per click bid prices are getting so out of hand that small businesses can’t seem to get a foothold anymore. Google is becoming the advertising medium of choice for large corporations and advertisers with deep pockets. If you’re a small business with a low budget then you can’t compete unless you find long tail keywords that the big guys don’t want.

Microsoft is hoping to change that, however. In fact, you can bid on a keyword at Microsoft AdCenter and get it for much, much cheaper than you can at Google. But you likely won’t be reaching the same volume of searchers. That’s OK. You just need to reach enough to make it profitable. That’s why I’m excited about Microsoft’s new affiliate program. It just may be what small business owners need to remain competitive.

Is there anyone who doesn’t use MicroSoft Excel for their keyword analysis? I think most search marketers do. And that’s where MSN AdCenter has a leg up on Google or Yahoo!

Jordan McCollum write a nice review of new MSN AdCenter add-in for Excel in today’s issue of WebProNews. I’m not sure I understand it completely just yet. I’ll have to take the demo. But it does look interesting.

The add-in, titled Keyword Service Platform, is loaded with the following features:

It has algorithms to extrapolate new terms from a set, define categorical relationships, access to real data.

Sounds cool. But what does that mean? In a word, it’s supposed to make working with your keywords easier. But the part that I like the most is that it’s compatible with any of the pay per click platforms. In other words, you can use it with Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. You can’t beat that.

If KSP does everything it says it will do then I can’t wait to use it.

Microsoft AdCenter has introduced a new program for pay per click advertisers who want to become more proficient in the use of their pay per click tools. It’s called Microsoft adExcellence.

You can’t say they aren’t trying. MSN has taken all kinds of criticisms from every corner of the Web for its search technology, search engine marketing platform, and everything else under the sun. Now the search engine is offering education for pay per click advertisers. This is a good idea. One that Google and Yahoo! would do well to follow.

While Google AdWords offers free tools for advertisers to use, I don’t know of a Google AdWords training program. The tools at Webmaster Central are good tools, but there’s no training program. Yahoo! Search Marketing also fails to offer a free training program despite having some useful tools for advertisers to use. Not only can you get training in pay per click from MSN, you’ll also get a certificate at the end of the training to prove that you are certified. If you’re serious about pay per click advertising at MSNs adCenter then I highly recommend you take their training.

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Following in the wake of the last two blog posts on Microsoft AdCenter upgrades, today we’ll cover some improved reporting capabilities. These changes include:

• Access up to 20 of your reports more easily
• View graphs and other details for each recent report more quickly
• Download reports as zipped CSV (comma-separated values) files
• Access saved report templates
• Create new reports easily

Microsoft AdCenter will now allow you to create customized reports. You can choose the accounts that you want to customize and do it quickly and easily. Microsoft AdCenter customization allows you to select specific columns and values to display, reorder columns with drag and drop, filter values to surface the data you want to see. You can also schedule automatic reports by e-mail, which will be sent to your inbox and to the inbox of any others that you specify.

Finally, the new changes at Microsoft AdCenter will allow you to interact with reported data more easily. You can view multiple graphs with a single click, view new details like Totals and Averages, and use advanced filtering.

All in all, Microsoft AdCenter is improving its user experience. Though some of these changes may seem trivial or small in comparison to what Google or Yahoo! have done, they are a big step for Microsoft AdCenter.

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Yesterday we introduced some new features of Microsoft AdCenter and discussed the first change on editorial compliance with regard to your ads and keywords. Today we’ll talk about campaign management enhancement at Microsoft AdCenter.

You campaigns now will go live faster. I like this improvement. In the past, if you changed your campaign settings then your ad campaign would be reviewed all over again and it would take some time before your campaigns went live again. But according to the new changes at Microsoft AdCenter, if you make changes to an existing campaign then your campaign will be reactivated more quickly. This includes changes that do not require an editorial review.

Included in this update are some different ways to make ad campaign adjustments, including:

• Setting a daily budget target
• Setting default dynamic text
• Enhanced campaign imports

I think these improvements should make life better for advertisers who use Microsoft AdCenter. Tomorrow I’ll cover improved reporting capabilities at Microsoft AdCenter.

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Microsoft spent the weekend upgrading its AdCenter with new features. They’ve broken the change up into three categories:

• Editorial
• Campaign Management
• Reporting

The first change, editorial feedback, includes new features that allow users of Microsoft AdCenter to receive immediate feedback on their ads and keywords. Microsoft AdCenter, in other words, will provide you with immediate feedback on whether your ad and keywords meet their editorial guidelines. If they don’t then you can make adjustments right away instead of waiting until you are notified and resubmit your ad without delay. This is a big improvement over the previous version of Microsoft AdCenter and I can hardly wait myself to see how this improves user experience at Microsoft AdCenter.

Tomorrow we’ll cover other changes and new features of Microsoft AdCenter. I hope you’ll return for more.

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There may be good reasons why you’d want to use Microsoft AdCenter rather than Google AdWords. The primary reason is budget concerns.

Depending on your ad variations and keywords, it is highly likely that you can bid a lot cheaper on your keywords at Microsoft AdCenter than you can at Google AdWords. A test study using the keyword phrase “childrens poetry” revealed that Google AdWords’ minimum bid is $5.00 for that keyword. That’s well outside the range of most small businesses. But the same keyword at Microsoft AdCenter only costs .20 for a No. 1-point-something average placement. Why is that?

The obvious reasons keywords are most expensive at Google AdWords is supply and demand. Google pioneered pay per click advertising and has been successful in supporting pay per click advertisers who use it. Therefore, Google AdWords became the No. 1 choice for most pay per click advertisers. More users means more competition for the keywords, which drives up prices. It also means that Google is capable of sending more targeted and qualified traffic, which is why there is more competition for the keywords.

Does that mean you can’t be successful at Microsoft AdCenter? No. It just means that you likely won’t be in front of as many eyes. You’ll still get targeted traffic to your website. You just won’t get as much as you could by using Google AdWords. And you’ll pay less for the traffic that you do get. That’s one good reason why Microsoft AdCenter might be a better solution for your small business if you have a small budget.

Microsoft AdCenter is a little different than Google. You’ll likely be able to bid lower on your important keywords. That will save you some money if you are on a tight budget. But be aware that you will likely get less traffic, although, depending on the business you are in, it could be more targeted traffic.

The interesting thing about Microsoft AdCenter is, if you want to pause certain keywords in your campaign while keeping the others active, you can’t. If you don’t want those keywords affecting your CTR then you’ll have to delete. That’s different than Google because Google AdWords allows you to pause certain keywords while keeping others active. It’s a minor nuisance with Microsoft AdCenter, but if your campaign’s performance makes it worth the nuisance then don’t make a big deal of it.

There are two ways to change your bids for keywords in Microsoft AdCenter. You can change the bid for all keywords or for just certain keywords. I prefer to bid differently on all my keywords because some are more important than others and, based on popularity, some will appear higher in the ad rankings than others. I recommend bidding based on where you want your ad to appear in the rankings and that will be different for each keyword. That part is same in Microsoft AdCenter or Google AdWords.

Log in to Microsoft AdCenter and go to your Ad Group page - the one you want to change your keyword bids for. Click on the Keywords tab and scroll down. You’ll see your list of keywords. Halfway across the vertical chart you should see a column labeled “Current bid (max. CPC). Change the bid amount in that box for each keyword you want to change. Next, click on the “update performance estimates” link just above the chart. It should tell you (in the blocks to the right of the column in which you entered your bid amounts) what the expected performance of each of your keywords is based on current performance.

Look at the “Avg. pos.” column. That stands for “average position.” This is the ranking that your ad likely will achieve based on the bid amount you just entered. If you want to go higher then change your bid again to a higher amount. If you want your position be lower, say No. 2 or No. 3 rather than No. 1, then lower your bid amount and click “Save” again. It’s really that simple. Now you can play around with it until you get it just right.