PPC hyperinflation reported on Google Adwords
Wow, Google’s Quality Score is really starting to bite hard on some PPC budgets. I’ve just taken a call from Auctioning4U, a UK-based firm that helps people sell goods on eBay, and they are reporting that average click costs have risen by almost 2,000% in just one week.
Trevor Ginn, Head of Consulting at Auctioning4U, told me that one keyphrase has jumped in price from 12p to £2.75 in the last week.
In another example, the price went up from his default of 30p (which paid for an average Adwords position of 1.3) to £5.50. “Feel my pain,” he says, not without reason.
Naturally, Trevor is wounded and reeling, and puzzled as to what he’s done wrong. He’s not really done anything wrong. It is simply a case of Google shifting the goalposts.
Yup, this PPC hyperinflation is linked to Google’s newly-enhanced focus on ad quality. It could be a case of too much, too soon.
eBay sells Adsense click fraud, plays with fire
Last week we reported that eBay has banned Google Checkout, something that is likely to backfire on the auction giant, which owns rival payment processor PayPal.
Silicon has today published a timely analysis of why eBay is more likely to suffer than Big G.
Meanwhile, I have been looking for the smoking gun that might force Google to retaliate, leading to the possible banning of eBay from its search results. Hard to imagine it could come to that, but who knows?
eBay generates extra cash for Brits
Britons made £8.5 billion last year by trading goods online, according to a new survey. The research, by Orange Broadband, said UK citizens made an average of £341 in 2005 through auction sites such as eBay.
eBay says no way to Google Checkout
Bang bang, eBay has - rather unsurprisingly - shot down Google Checkout, preventing people from using it to pay for auction items, according to a post on AuctionBytes.
Bid for London office space and ghosts on eBay
There have been some very odd things sold via eBay - it really is a website that seems to create demand for everything. Even 'a ghost in a jar' managed to find an owner, who spent more than $15,000 to acquire the bona fide gift of somebody else's lifetime, and a jar.
Seriously, you can use eBay to sell anything. A ball of aluminium foil sold for $3.10. A videotape with 'Death Tape: Do Not Watch' written on it sold for $18. Take a blowtorch to some cheese on toast and you can make a million...
Google launches Google Checkout, not GBuy
GBuy is here, only it is called Google Checkout and despite the chief doers of no evil claiming that it “isn’t like PayPal at all”, it is, erm, rather like PayPal, in that merchants use it to process consumer payments.
Google Checkout allows consumers to purchase products by simply logging in to Google – no need for credit card numbers or filling out forms. Obviously you need to tell Google to begin with, but thereafter Google will store your credit card and address data...
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
