http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog The Rimm-Kaufman Group helps retailers increase profits from paid search. Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:55:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We hope Bing grows its base and becomes a major contender in the PPC Landscape. Competition is good; domination is bad. From the get go, we've been doubtful that an advertising blitz, even on the scale MSN is contemplating, will make users switch engines. Looking at the initial launch, ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/30/bing-market-share/ Notice anything usual in the next paragraph? You're the marketing guy who drives sales for your company via paid search plus 100% ethical SEO. You do direct marketing like no one else. You're working hard, doing great. Then one afternoon, the phone rings. It's the big boss. ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/22/ppc-trademarks/ Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past 2 weeks, you're well aware of MSN's move to Bing.com, and the full force advertising campaign that has followed. Bing's homepage seems to highlight additional search options outside of "web", such as "images", "video" and "shopping". Exploring the "shopping" section, ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/17/bing-shopping/ This Post has been Updated to correct some misinformation I was inadvertently spreading! The volume of misinformation and hoopla surrounding Quality Score (QS) is astounding! Some of the kooky ideas I've heard and read recently: Quality Score is a measure of how well the landing page relates to the user search. Utterly False: ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/15/quality-score/ We've received a few notices from Google regarding a $20 Million class action settlement. In reading over the legal document, it really only applies to Google Adwords accounts using daily budgets to cap spend. Furthermore, it pertains to instances where Google has overcharged advertisers an amount beyond that Account Budget Overrun. ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/12/adwords-20-million-settlement/ Accurate numbers can nevertheless be misleading. One of our Senior Analysts pointed out to me that the Bing Launch numbers look quite a bit different if a couple of factors are taken out of consideration. Eliminating data from trademark searches for our clients' brands for some reason paints a substantially ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/10/bing-numbers/ So how has the initial media blitz impacted MSN's share? We have some interesting numbers to share. It appears that the quantity of traffic has not increased markedly, but the quality has, and it may be Google's best shoppers who are checking out the competition. You may have heard ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/09/bing-bang-or-bust-some-ppc-data/ My monthly article for SEL Does your PPC program drive more sales than it's credited for? The answer is certainly "yes", but the sources and volume of under-reporting might surprise you. If you drive your program through your web analytics software you may be missing 10 - 30% of the sales! ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/08/javascript-tracking-holes/ "The Customer is Always Right" That's the maxim, it doesn't seem to apply to all relationships between service providers and those who hire them. More importantly, customers don't want it to. Consider the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors provide a service, patients hire doctors to take care of their medical needs, but ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/03/ppc-client-services/ It may be too early for celebrations to begin, but for many retailers May PPC numbers indicate that consumers are coming back to the stores. For the past 8 months RKG has reported on Year-Over-Year performance trends among our retail client base. For consistency we've studied the same group of ... http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/01/ppc-benchmarks-2/