Pandora Squared - Web and Business Architects, Consultants, Social Media Marketing, Software and Blogging hope not hype

June 28th Google’s GBuy (Google’s new online payment system) is going to rock the stage.

Starting with a free no transaction beta stage, then moving towards a 1.5-2% fee.

Snap watch out. Pay-Per-Action’s second coming is happening very soon.

In the long term Google will tie Google AdWords with GBuy to serve more relevant ads to web searchers. Reducing click fraud and getting a bigger cut from the ecommerce world.

When working with a lot of clients AdWords accounts, trying to do bulk and quick changes is a tough thing to do. I mean how does one create new ad campaigns while on the plane?

Now I can!

“AdWords Editor is Google’s free, downloadable account management application for your computer. Download your AdWords account to your computer, make your changes, then upload your revised campaigns.”

It has been out for a while but of course invitation only. Now all can enjoy.

This exe application reminds me of the popular Flickr Uploadr tool which quickly allows you to upload pictures from your desktop. (faster then a speedy ff browser)

And you thought everyone is going toward the hosted Software as a Service apps.

What can I say, it’s what users demand..

Google in other Languages

When traveling through from the U.S. to australia and now in Manila I find my search queries changing. Queries that use to work in San Jose, CA now do not. I have to be more specific and more relevant. I am also finding that Google Desktop has become a valuable tool while offline.

I have also noticed a small % of ads on the Philippine Google property compared to the U.S. properties. Where are the advertisers? What I see is cheap cheap space available….YOU CAN’T GET THIS IN THE U.S., grab it while you can. Do you advertisers think that only kids are online chatting and playing games? Have you done testing?

I want to see more Philippine publishers with AdSense generating revenue and more Philippine advertisers online.

It is allowed, people are doing it, and it does work when implemented correctly.

WI-FI for SF brought to you by Google and Earthlink

I just hope it’s implemented FAST…

Local – WhitePages.com Taps Revenue Science

Local – Verizon SuperPages.com Joins Sales of AdWords

Local – Clear Channel Taps Google AdSense

I have heard “All Politics is local”

Some also say “All Search is local”

Soon All Search will be Google…ha..

Mediapost has an interview with CEO Tom Gerace of Gather.com. MySpace + NPR + BT = Gather.com

“Gather is among the first social networks we have seen to let advertisers buy against a dense profile of member behaviors.”

Gerace: “We look at what information a user is most interested in, whether they looked at food content, wine content, travel content; and we then add to the profile keywords that they have used, that they have published, that describe images they have explored. We use it on the back end to figure out what content we can recommend as the most relevant, as well as figuring out what advertising is most likely to interest them.”

Behavior Targeting with social software will be a much better method for advertisers then search engines. The Database of Intentions (a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes) will involve more then search but will completely follow the users through daily experiences online and off.

Last week ComScore released a report sponsored by Google.

comScore Study Confirms the Importance of Search in Influencing Offline Buying

“The results show that 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their query, and that of those buyers, 37 percent completed their purchase online. An even greater 63 percent completed a purchase offline following their search activity.”

This is why most CEO’s who have started using Google AdWords say “It just works”. Many times internal processes are not in place to track offline conversions from the web.

With tracking online and offlice conversions you can optimize your Pay-Per-Click accounts and “it just works better”.

Yet another Click Fraud article This one again claiming google with all the blame.

“Analysts say affiliate spam is more common and really took off after Google launched its AdSense network, which distributes paid links to thousands of non-search sites. They get a share of Google’s ad revenue based on clicks, giving unscrupulous publishers an incentive to inflate their clicks.

Yahoo started a similar ad network last summer but limits participation to invited sites to maintain quality and reduce the risk of ad spam, Paez said.”

Will all my experience analyzing Pay-Per-Click campaigns, Yahoo had the most “Clickfraud�.

Did you know Google has protection inside it’s PPC algorithm?

If an abusers/users click on a Google ad, the price of the click drops and your position raises. RELEVANCY wins again. Relevant to the users and the advertisers.

Some interesting bidding strategies came out of the recent Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York.

ROI-Based Bidding

This strategic approach allows you to systematically update bids and maintain specific bid positions based on a specified ROI objective. Automated bid management software will move bid positions up and down until your specified ROI objective is achieved.

While this approach is not typically used to compete with any particular competitor, it provides a competitive advantage because you’ll be able to consistently maintain campaign objectives with a focus on ROI.

Bid Jamming

Bid jamming is when you strategically bid one penny below a chosen competitor requiring them to pay the highest possible cost-per-click (CPC) value to maintain a particular position.

Bid Surfing

Choose bid positions from specified bid and position “gaps.” An automated approach looks for gaps of 20 cents or more within the Top 5 search positions.

Bid Shadowing

Maintaining a bid position above or below a specified competitor’s bid.

This approach allows you to single-out particular competitors by shadowing their bid—your bid will move up or down based on the movement of your competitor. Your competitor moves up, you move up. Your competitor moves down, you move down.

It’s more important to be relevant to your customer then to fight off and play with your competitors.

Be smart don’t bid on the term “Limousine� throughout the United States if you only serve the Bay Area market. Now if you are selling leads that is another blog.

I didn’t notice till I traveled to Australia that not being in Google’s Time Zone (GTZ) has many ramifications.

• Google Analytics (You guessed it GTZ)

• Calling the precious Google 1-800 phone number has to be between Midnight and 9am Aussie time. Or else leave a message in the dark black whole never to be heard again

• Google AdWords campaign statistics, reports are based on Pacific Time. :(

• “On March 10, 2006, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. PST due to system maintenance. While you won’t be able to log in during this brief period, your campaigns will continue to run normally. We apologize for any inconvenience.” WAIT THAT’S IN THE MIDDLE OF MY WORKDAY……NOOOOOOOOOO

• “We’re sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We’re currently working to fix the problem—please try logging in to your account in a few minutes.” Is this Gmail or is it me being in the wrong time zone again? Looks like it was a bigger outage then just me :)

Soon I will be back in the Google Time Zone

SearchEngineGuide posted an interesting interview with Andrew Goodman a Google AdWords expert.

Snippet below:

Lee Odden: AdWords has been making lots of changes this year. What has the most impact for new users of AdWords? For “grizzled search marketing veterans”?

Andrew Goodman: The new Quality Score formula is a black box to advertisers, yet it (along with your bid) determines where your ad ranks on the page. It’s particularly troubling for new advertisers who have no performance history. There’s no simple formula for survival. In practical terms, “good” companies will do better than “evil” companies. We know generally what the Google folks think of as “evil,” and the process of checking this out could include elements of your site itself. That’s right, one of the four components of Quality Score is the landing page. Google doesn’t say what exactly they look at on the landing page, but deceptive companies and irrelevant ads are clearly going to take a hit. Unfortunately, it’s an algorithmic hit, so there is no way to “appeal” a low quality score to a human editor. Weird, but that’s Google.