Google

Google announces changes in their trademark policy for UK, Ireland and Canada and some other changes in the EU following. What this change means is that there is not going to be any protection from Google for brand terms in the pay per click ads. Most important resellers will be able to use a trademark in their ads. The same applies for affiliates.

The letter from Google below outlines all the changes with the relevant links:

Policy Changes For UK, Ireland & Canada

We are writing to inform you of a change to Google AdWords policy that may affect your Google AdWords account.

In an effort to provide more relevant results and a higher quality experience for our users, we will be adjusting our trademark policy in the UK, Ireland, and Canada to allow some ads to use trademarks in the ad text. From14 September 2010, ads which meet the below criteria will not be removed for trademark policy if they include a trademark in the ad text. The ads will have limited serving, showing only in the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the US (where the policy already exists). Ads which may show with a trademark in the ad text include:

·   Ads which use the term in a descriptive or generic way, and not in reference to the trademark owner or the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term.

·   Ads which use the trademark in a nominative manner to refer to the trademark or its owner, specifically:

o Resale of the trademarked goods or services: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the goods or services corresponding to a trademark term. The landing page of the ad must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the goods or services corresponding to a trademark from the advertiser.

o Sale of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the components, replacement parts or compatible products relating to the goods or services of the trademark. The advertiser’s landing page must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the components, parts or compatible products corresponding to the trademark term from the advertiser.

o Informational sites: The primary purpose of the advertiser’s site must be to provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term. Additionally, the advertiser may not sell or facilitate the sale of the goods or services of a competitor of the trademark owner.

This change will affect all ads in the UK, Ireland, and Canada.

To learn more about this trademark policy revision, visit http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=186124 .

If you have ads in your account which were previously disapproved for trademark policy and that comply with the aforementioned criteria, you may submit those ads for re-review after September 14 and eligible ads may begin showing in the UK, Ireland, and Canada. For instructions on editing your ad text, please see

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6272&hl=en_US.

The Google advertising program is managed by a set of policies which we develop based on several factors, including user and customer experience and business considerations. We review our policies regularly and make changes to keep them current and effective. Our goal is to have policies that are fair, consistent, and adaptable.

Policy Changes For EU/EFTA

From 14 September 2010, Google will no longer monitor or restrict keywords for ads served to users in the regions listed at http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=186123, in response to trademark complaints. This change will bring our procedure in line with our current approach to keywords in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland and most of the rest of the world. Complaints received prior to 14 September 2010 will continue to be processed under the current procedure; however, any investigation of keywords in the affected regions completed prior to 14 September 2010 will no longer apply to keywords after that date.

To learn more about this trademark policy revision, visit https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177578

Search and Display network (or Content network) are two different  …. but sometimes advertisers confuse them. The graph below separates the two and explains the different mindset of the users.

It’s very important to remember that when a user is searching on Google he/she is  proactively looking for a service or products. On the other hand when a user sees a banner or an ad when visiting a website they are not looking for ads. (This explains the low CTR on the display network). In the next few days we will post a few interesting articles on the Google content network explaining in more detail how it works.

A lot of potential clients ask us ” what should we expect from you?”/”how many sales will you generated on month one?”/”can you drop our CPA?”.  Very difficult questions to answer as it depends on so many different factors. For example what  strategy we will follow, (we always discuss with the client and decide when and how to implement) the actual product, the conversion rate and many more.

A few months ago we got a new client that speciliaces in a tough niche market, below are the results so far. We managed to increase the number of sales with the same budget and dropped the Cost Per Sale every month. As a result we got more traffic, more sales and stayed at the same budget.

Since the launch of iPhone a few years ago everyone was expecting the “mobile revolution” where thousand of sales will be generated every day from mobile. I personally don’t believe we are there yet but we are getting closer. The search volumes on Google mobile are raising and users feel more comfortable surfing the net on a 3G connection or WiFi.

A few weeks ago we did a Google Analytics consultancy for a client and realised that actually they generated 225 transactions in 30 days from mobile. A great number if you consider that the website doesn’t have a mobile version and it’s very difficult for the visitor to navigate through the existing menu.

When we look closely to the actual devices we can see that iPhone and iPad are top of the list. As iPad offers the same experience to the user as a normal laptop or PC the conversion rate is higher. iPhone is still on the top of the list with the most visits and transactions but lower conversion rate. Android/Blackberry and iPod touch have a very low conversion rate.

Overall mobile will eventually become an important channel (not as important as some people predict) and if we add iPad under that channel we will definitely see an increase in visits and sales. It’s important to try and test your site in the devices and if possible correct any issues. Similarly to the web user experience is very important for mobile users too. The trend is here and we have noticed that all our clients have seen an increase in traffic from mobile.

Make sure that you check the your analytics regularly for the number of visitors from mobile devices. For Google Analytics users click  Visitors>Mobile>Mobile Devices.

Google launched a new ad format called Image Search Ads. The ads, which appear only on Google Images, and will allow advertisers to include a thumbnail image as shown on the example below. This comes after the announcement on Tuesday about the  redesign of its Image Search.

You can read more about the image search ads here and how to set it up in your campaigns. As always create separate campaigns and test/test/test.