Automation is a wonderful thing. I use Macro Scheduler to automate a large number of tasks every day, and it probably saves me in the region of 3-4 hours a week, sometimes more.

But not everything should be automated.

I find it unnerving that planes can take off and land automatically, but take some comfort in the fact that a (hopefully stable) computer might do a better job than a person. At least that’s what I tell myself, when sitting inside the many tons of metal that are hurtling themselves towards the ground at terrifying speed.

I’m also baffled by companies who choose to trust Google’s automated settings to handle their AdWords accounts.

Automation is easier, but before flipping the switch, think about what you might be doing.

Google make money from AdWords. They make money from you by how you set up your account.

Do you really want Google to decide how the account should be run?

Do you want Google to decide how much you should pay for a click, or how much you should spend a day?

There are many settings within an AdWords account. Yet none of the defaults are in the interests of the advertiser. Not one.

Google’s system is setup primarily for Google.

The Inside AdWords blog recently announced that Google have raised the number of automated rules from 10 to 100.

Don’t be tempted. Don’t consider automation.

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Effective AdWords Management is an increasingly elusive beast, but mastering the basics of AdWords really isn’t difficult.

So why do so many companies make the same mistakes time and time again?

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Google have been been steadily promoting the importance of landing pages for the past few years, and have now announced a new algorithm that gives more weight to landing page quality.

Many advertisers roll their eyes in anticipated frustration whenever Google announce such changes, but I believe that the new algorithm offers savvy advertisers more opportunities than pain.

Ultimately little has changed. Even if Google were to completely ignore the landing page in their algorithms, a well-maintained AdWords account would have little to show for their efforts with poor landing pages. People would simply click the ads, look at the landing page content for a few seconds then leave.

The new system will effectively reward advertisers who know what they’re doing, thereby effectively penalising the less-enlightened.

Many advertisers have experienced rising bid prices due to their competitor’s incompetence, but if the new algorithm works as intended, this will reduce their impact.

This is a good day for knowledgeable AdWords advertisers, many of whom will of course be attending our Google AdWords Q & A Webinar next week.

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Why either/or?

Some food for thought:

- Good organic rankings won’t last forever. SEO is a moving target.

- If people click on your ads then they’re working. *

- PPC is more accountable. *

- PPC gets quicker results. *

- SEO is free. (Except it isn’t.)

* = assuming that you’re doing it right.

Some common misdecisions: (not a real word but it should be)

“Because more than 80% of our conversions come from the organic listings.”

“AdWords doesn’t work. It’s too expensive.”

“We can figure this out for ourselves. How hard can it be?”

“PPC is easier.”

“SEO is easier.”

Don’t weigh up whether to focus on AdWords or SEO.

Both work and both can produce great results.

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Google have always maintained a strict separation between their paid ads and organic listings, yet I believe that this has now changed. At least in terms of strategy.

In the early days of AdWords, Google’s model wasn’t that different from that of GoTo. Essentially you paid for ad position: the higher the bid, the higher the placement.

But Google soon realised that this model was flawed, as it effectively diluted the quality of their search results with poorly-targeted ads. Some of their advertisers had different agendas, poor skills and/or larger budgets, but none were as committed to the quality of the results as Google.

And so along came Quality Score – the AdWords equivalent of PageRank: over-hyped, misunderstood and often mistakenly interpreted as either the holy grail or irrelevant.

Stage 3 in the evolution of AdWords saw Google placing a far greater importance on the landing page.

This was a critical turning point, as before this you could directly ramp-up the number of AdWords visitors by spending more, irrespective of the quality of your website.

The same principle still applies, but if Google deem landing pages to be low quality, advertisers soon realise that to have any impact on their position and clicks, they’re going to have to spend a great deal more. Increasing volume becomes exponentially more costly.

So let’s take a step back.

Effective SEO requires on-site optimisation, external optimisation and a hint of black magic.

Effective AdWords management now requires the need to optimise the website, a healthy budget and a pinch of voodoo.

Both require website optimisation. And dabbling in the occult helps.

Ads and organic listings are not only starting to look like each, the optimisation process is moving ever-closer too.

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Most businesses choose to take advantage of the persuasive powers of numbers at some point, but a recent post on Google’s Inside AdWords left me less than impressed:

“Advertisers often wonder whether search ads cannibalize their organic traffic. If search ads were paused, would clicks on organic results increase and make up for the loss in paid traffic? Google statisticians recently ran over 400 studies on paused accounts to answer this question… 

On average, the incremental ad clicks (IAC) percentage across verticals is 89%. This means that a full 89% of the traffic generated by search ads is not replaced by organic clicks when ads are paused. This number was consistently high across verticals.”

My favourite quote comes at the end of the Search Ads Pause video:

“When search advertising is turned off, some advertisers assume that organic clicks might make up for many of the lost paid clicks. For most advertisers, the study shows dramatically different results.”

To describe the study as flawed is an understatement.

A single page on a website might rank well for two or three keywords in the organic results, but could target hundreds of pages in AdWords.

And most keywords will have a number of competing AdWords bids, so disabling your ads will most likely lead to your competition receiving those clicks instead.

If, hypothetically, a company’s keyword bids all had no competition, and they also ranked highly for the same keywords in the organic listings, then switching off their ads might make sense.

The whole thing is quite frankly bizarre.

The results achieved by Google AdWords speak for themselves. Why would Google resort to such cheap and flawed propaganda?

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As you read this, your AdWords stats from last week or the week before may have changed since you last looked at them.

No, this isn’t some form of AdWords trickery. It has to do with a little known fact that recorded conversions are applied to the date of the ad click, and not the date of the conversion.

So if you were to look at your stats from last week today, and then check on the same date range tomorrow, you might see a different number of conversions.

Data older than 30 days should be stable, as conversions can only be tracked within 30 days of the ad click. So if, for example, someone were to click on one of your ads then purchase 31 days later, the conversion would not be recorded, as this would be beyond the 30 day tracking period.

The bottom line is that yesterday’s conversions may be better tomorrow than today.

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When I was a student I didn’t have much money. But once in a blue moon, some friends and I would go for a night out at a Casino.

We didn’t expect to walk out with more money in our pockets than when we went in, but it was a good night, and we enjoyed ourselves.

Broadly speaking, you get two types of people in a Casino:

The people who go to have a good time, who also enjoy the buzz of knowing there’s a small chance they might actually make some money.

And the people who hope or believe that tonight is the night they’re going to strike it big.

We all know that the casino always wins. Right?

The AdWords model, on the other hand, is more subtle than the Casino.

The average AdWords account is wasting a sizeable part of their budget, but they don’t even know it. The account holder is walking out of the Casino smiling happily, not even realising that the money they’re making is leaking out of their pocket with every step they take.

How do I know this?

Because we see a lot of Google AdWords accounts. And I’d estimate that about 1% of them aren’t wasting far more of their budgets than they realise.

Most AdWords accounts we see waste money. Chances are that yours is one of the 99%.

Have your Google AdWords account checked – for free.

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A disclaimer: I love Google; it has become an integral part of my life.

But I don’t trust Google. Especially when it comes to AdWords.

The reason?

A bittersweet yet subtle mix of cunning and disinformation, fuelled by ignorance and trust.

The myth: Google and their advertisers have a perfectly symbiotic relationship.

Reality: Advertisers and Google have an overlap of shared goals. But the overlap is small.

At a push I could probably give 50+ examples of this, but you won’t thank me for it. So I’ll stick with one.

Let’s consider two companies, WOW and NOT, each of whom are bidding on the same keywords for a given phrase, and paying the same per click – $1.

The difference lies in what happens after the click.

When someone clicks on one of WOW’s ads, they tend to realise they’ve found what they’re looking for, and so their search is over.

When someone clicks on one of NOT’s ads, they tend to not find what they’re looking for, so go back to Google for more.

If Google place WOW’s ad in first place and NOT’s ad in second place, Google will usually get one click – a total revenue of $1.

If, however, Google place NOT’s ad in first place and WOW’s second, most people will click both ads – a total revenue of $2.

Good for WOW, not for NOT.

The beauty of this approach is that not only are Google making more money by putting NOT in the top slot, but NOT is probably quite happy to see their ad consistantly in first place.

Do you still think that you and Google have the same priorities?

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Next Tuesday I’ll be making a couple of presentations to the Software East network in Cambridge, UK.

Website Armour: a practical guide to protecting your website from customers will look at some of the many ways that software developers lose sales through their websites.

31 ways to ruthlessly exploit Google AdWords is self-explanatory. Google have been taking your money under false pretence for too long. I’ll show you how you can exploit AdWords with no regard to a fair and balanced relationship.

Admission is free if you book before the 23rd; £15 afterwards.

I hope you can join me there.

An evening with Dave Collins

Update: Just to clarify, this is a live “in the flesh” event in Cambridge (the real one); not a webinar.

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