Pay-per-Click Observer

Today, I received, in a completely wasteful plastic wrapper, a “magazine” from a company that claims to determine the top SEOs. (Yes, it’s TopSEOs.com, aka eVentures, LLC)
You, too, can be chosen by this arbiter of professional ability for the simple sum of $5000. Well, that’ll get you in the running for their “annual […]

The reaction to my first report after launching a new PPC campaign, particularly one intended to drive sales, is often… anger. How could we have spent thousands of dollars and not produced anything in the way of sales? I thought PPC was supposed to pay itself. Do I even know what I’m […]

Up until just a few minutes ago, I ran AdSense ads on my blog. I had visions of making millions simply by virtue of the quality of my blinding insights. Well, that didn’t really work out. But this put me over the edge. This ad showed up on my site:

OK, firstly, […]

A follow up to my earlier post on customer satisfaction surveys. I mentioned that I was cynical about the MSN customer satisfaction survey I’d filled out. It was one in a long line, typically with the same result: nothing.
This time, though, I actually got a call from a person. Wow. Very […]

Imagine you’re trying to sell something that people can get for free. For instance, you’ve got a copy of the Constitution. It’s not THE Constitution. It’s a copy. You can get them for free just about anywhere (maybe the President should check that out?). Anyway, the copy that you have […]

Say you’re called into a big marketing meeting to talk about why things aren’t going well. The real answer is “we’re not doing a very good job of providing a compelling choice to our customers.” You can’t say that, though. That implies a lot of hard work to determine what it is […]

I’m a Google fan. At least, I’m a fan of the folks with whom I work within the context of AdWords.
What I am not a fan of is bullshit. There have been a couple of announcements made by Google that have ticked me off– not really because the actual thing happened, but because […]

I received a mail today from a site that ranks the “top” search engine optimization firms. I get these all the time. There are a couple out there these days that seem to have assumed the mantle of official SEO evaluators.
‘We exist to help customers find the best firm for their SEO/PPC work!’
Oh, […]

PPC bid management was much easier when I started out.
First, I didn’t know what I was doing. That always helps to make things seem easier.
Second, you could actually see your position based on your bid. That’s a pretty dumb thing to fixate on, but if you review the first thing, you’ll see why […]

“How much do you charge?”
It’s one of the first things anyone asks me– even before “do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
The cost of hiring a PPC agency varies all over the map. Some charge by percentage of spend, some by the hour, and others charge a flat fee per click or month. […]