September 7th, 2009

AdWords Networks – Search, Partner and Content Mistakes Explained

The AdWords Networks are very different, and should be treated separately. So start your new campaigns with Google Search ONLY.
You need to test your first campaigns with the best quality traffic you can get.
The default setting for new campaigns always includes all three networks, but they each behave very differently.
Make sure you turn off all [...]

September 4th, 2009

AdWords or SEO – Which Comes First and Why?

AdWords – otherwise you just wasted money and time trying to get traffic for untested keywords.
Everybody seems to think that getting “free” traffic from natural or organic rankings in Google, by using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques is the best thing to do.
Yet nothing could be further from the truth. They are completely complementary.
Firstly, SEO [...]

September 2nd, 2009

Change the font, change the world.

Ikea have switched from using the classic font Futura to using Verdana in their catalogues. This bright idea has been put into practice by someone who doesn’t fully understand fonts. Verdana looks okay on screen but really isn’t great on paper. There are lots of wonderful fonts that look much better. Ikea are sacrificing their [...]

August 26th, 2009

Online sales grew in July

The UK Press Association reports that “Shoppers spent £4.2 billion online in July, 15.7% more than was spent in June and 16.8% more than July 2008.”
The report goes on to say that: “Clothing retailers have also been effective in turning more visits to their websites into final purchases in July, due to more [...]

June 24th, 2009

“Session-Based Broad Match” Keywords

We have recently seen a new kind of keyword showing up in Search Query reports: “session-based broad match”. So what does it actually mean?
Back in early 2006, we managed a campaign with a very strict “online sales only” strategy, ensuring that online advertising spend was totally accountable for what it earned by tracking conversions from [...]

June 23rd, 2009

Why “broad match” may be broader than you think

This is one of the biggest problem areas for Google Adwords campaigns and which comes up most often when we review them as part of our Google Adwords audits.

June 23rd, 2009

Did you catch The Wave?

If you haven’t yet caught sight of Google’s Next Big Thing it’s called The Wave – an exciting revolution in modern communications.