AdWords | Internet Marketing Blog

Google introduces new AdWords Certification program

Google announced yesterday that it is "retiring" its Google Advertising Professionals program and that a new one, the Google AdWords Certification program, will be taking its place.

The good news: the previous $1,000 minimum 90-day ad spend required has been eliminated for individuals who would like to participate, and the minimum 90-day ad spend for agencies has been reduced to $10,000 from $100,000. That means that more individuals and agencies will have the opportunity to participate.

by Patricio Robles 27 April 2010 09:00am 3 comments

The White House unleashes AdWords against Wall Street

Imagine for a minute that you're the president of the United States and you're trying to make the case against Wall Street. What's the best way to do it? As the president, you have almost unlimited access to the traditional media, but that's not always enough today.

So U.S. president Barack Obama, whose use of the internet arguably helped him win the presidency, isn't relying on the mainstream media to promote his Wall Street reform agenda; he's using Google. And he's going straight for the jugular by bidding on topical keywords related to embattled investment bank Goldman Sachs.

by Patricio Robles 22 April 2010 13:38pm 6 comments

Twitter set to launch its version of AdWords

Twitter will today officially announce the launch of a business model. After years of speculation, and skepticism, Twitter has decided to try its hand at the keyword-based advertising business model that built Google into a billion-dollar powerhouse.

According to the New York Times, Twitter's new ad offering, dubbed Promoted Tweets, will display ads that "show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads".

by Patricio Robles 13 April 2010 09:11am 11 comments

Google focuses in on the funnel

When it comes to online advertising and tracking conversions, the first click is often just as important as the last click. And sometimes, it's not even about clicks per se. But unfortunately many advertisers only track the last click.

Google is hoping to change that for AdWords advertisers with a new feature it introduced earlier this week called Search Funnels.

by Patricio Robles 26 March 2010 10:44am 2 comments

Are Google's SERPs getting too messy?

Google might as well have been called Simple. Back when Google was a new entrant in the search engine market and larger competitors were cluttering up their homepages with as much content as could be aggregated on a single page, Google took a different approach and offered internet users an alternative: a clean, if not sparse, homepage that focused on one thing -- search.

Relatively-speaking, that homepage hasn't changed much in the past decade. But what has changed: Google's SERPs.

by Patricio Robles 04 March 2010 13:34pm 11 comments

Google fights scammers with one strike and you're out policy

Malicious ads are on the rise and just as AdWords is an appealing platform for legitimate advertisers looking for a massive audience, Google's self-serve ad service is a juicy target for scammers looking for the same.

From ads that hawk scammy get-rich-quick products to ads that lead users to web pages infested with malware, malicious ads pose a significant threat to Google. After all, if users come to fear where Google's results (paid or unpaid) might lead them, Google risks losing one of its most valuable assets: the trust and confidence of its users.

by Patricio Robles 18 November 2009 09:35am 6 comments

Google's trademark policy change worries retailers this holiday season

Google changed its policy on trade marked key words in the U.S. this May, and while it's still too early to fully monitor the implications of those changes on brand marketers, the holidays may become a proving ground for the switch, if the price for search ads goes up as much as some marketers are fearing.

Brand searches go up during the holiday season and Google's self-policing new policy means that key word violators will have more opportunity to buy branded key words and disparage, criticize or otherwise overtake brand searches from trademark owners.

According to ClickZ:

"The holiday season will be a real proving ground, to see how quickly Google responds to issues," Jeremy Hull, account leader at Range Online Media, told ClickZ. "Do they have an adequate team in place, with policies and procedures that are scalable for the holidays?"

by Meghan Keane 17 November 2009 03:25am 1 comment

Google pulls the trigger, gets into lead gen

In late August, we reported on a lawsuit filed against Google by LendingTree alleging that Google was planning to offer an online lead gen service related to mortgages using technology offered by a LendingTree vendor that was contractually forbidden from working with LendingTree's competitors.

While the status of that lawsuit is unknown, it is now official: Google has entered the lead gen business.

by Patricio Robles 02 November 2009 09:27am 7 comments

Interflora awaits ruling on trademark keyword bidding

In May 2008, Google began permitting advertisers in the UK and Ireland to bid on trademark keywords through AdWords. Needless to say, this concerned and upset many brand marketers at the time.

Yet there appeared to be little that could be done. Google's policy change was predicated on the notion that legal questions over the use of trademark keywords in the UK had been settled.

by Patricio Robles 02 September 2009 17:14pm 6 comments

Google’s universal search results hit Adwords

More than two years after first unleashing the video plus box on search listings, Google has started to push the video unit into Adwords.

The video plus unit was first introduced to organic search results in early-2007, as part of its universal search results.

Now, entertainment companies including Miramax, Discovery and EA have recently been offered to use the video player to bolster their plain text Adwords ads.

by Chris Lake 01 September 2009 16:57pm 1 comment