ClickEquations Blog

About three weeks ago we announced a contest to attract new Twitter followers, offering a free year of ClickEquations (full details here) to a randomly selected person or company who was following @clickequations as of 3/15/09.

Yesterday the selection was made, and we’re please to announce that the winner is George Revutsky of ROI Works in San Francisco. On twitter you can find him @george_revutsky.

As our winner, George will be able to use ClickEquations Paid Search Platform for a full year, for his house account or one of his clients, without charge for up to $1MM per month in paid search spend.

Thanks To All Our Followers

We appreciate everyone who has joined us, and follows us @clickequations, and hope that our tweets continue to be a helpful part of life in the world of paid search.

Last Two Days –  Win Free ClickEquations PPC Platform For 1 year — just by following @clickequations on Twitter.

Do It Now!

• There is a free lunch. Monday 3/9 in SF, CA – We’re buying for any of our followers that would like to join us. DM for details.
• ? from my 8/yo: Dad, doesn’t everyone who makes a website *kinda* work for Google?
• DT @ppcmaster: Exposing click fraud – http://tinyurl.com/ar8cg9 #ppc (Thanks for that article from July 2004)
• What do you call ClickFraud Fraud? (Generally I think you call it the anti-ClickFraud industry) 
• New Post: A proposal for next gen #Affiliate Marketing http://bit.ly/enAdW (Or ‘how to get most spam and gunk off the internet’).
• Heading to visit with @avinashkaushik
• Sign up for our new paid search email newsletter – http://is.gd/mTeR
• All morning in ‘sprint’ review and planning, great to see new features and fun to plan what’s coming next.
• Anyone using a ‘first click’ revenue allocation model that could answer some questions?
• RT @avinashkaushik: Am quite proud of Google being Googley & creating innovative privacy controls: http://tr.im/hfQW
• Tagging. Arhrgghrr.
• Adwords back-dates revenue credit to date of most recent PPC click, everyone else (GA Included) assigns to date of conversion. Right?
• Is there a simple way to read tweets of all followers, without following them? (To check ‘em out). Anything allow this?
• Tons of connect.facebook.com referrers on our blog lately, what the heck are these?
• Added a new Ad Group to promote @clickequations twitter account. Search for #ppc and #adwords followers where ever we can find them.
• Demo’s and meetings in NYC today. If Jersey lets me through.
• Google finally upgrades GrandCentral -Yeah! http://urlzen.com/7rm
• Follow @ClickEquations by Sunday to win a free year of ClickEquations PPC Software – up to $240K Value – Details: http://bit.ly/uaAek
• If you have brand keywords mixed in adgroups with non-brand keywords, you’ve got work to do.
• When you’re confident enough to make your brand a campaign negative everywhere except pure brand campaigns, you’re done.
• Google Voice transcription great. Full iPhone app for GV now next wish.
• RT @alter_ego_kma: NYC Agency brood, killer event coming…May 212NYC : “Search Engine Marketing for the TImes” @lieblink moderating.
• Time I spend on reading blogs/RSS has been cut by twitter. I don’t think the signal/noise ratio here is nearly as high. What to do?
• RT @barrybyers: Google video on #Adwords CPC and quality score. http://bit.ly/zSm4j
• New Google Quality Score video is very good – http://bit.ly/fm8g – Especially explaining impact of QS on rank, and CPC. 
• GoogleVoice has new outbound dialing option when you check VM from your cell.
• Listening to PPC Rockstars clickfraud episode. Very good one. Will blog some reactions.
• ClickEquations Client & Trial User Training Webinar today 1pm EST – Register: http://bit.ly/2uSHFV – Learn new editor, bid rules etc.
• RT @digitalalex: Great plugin to use Google Website Optimizer on WordPress sites – http://bit.ly/mb71
• Stewart eviscerates Cramer while exposing how TV Journalists have failed us in everything not Paris Hilton. http://www.hulu.com/watch/62203
• I got a preview of something awesome and new for ClickEquations today – I want to share but shouldn’t yet. Still felt compelled to tweet.

• Previewing a killer new e-book on paid search on the content network. Release coming soon – written by a friend to us all – watch for it.
• RT @dannysullivan: @andrew_goodman enters twitter. you want to know adwords, you want to follow andrew
• RT @tedmurphy: I am giving away 250,000 amex points via Twitter. http://tinyurl.com/cptjfu
• New Ultimate Ears 5vi’s to get me through a 12 hour travel day. Will be writing about PPC, so this is relevant… http://bit.ly/ysuRY
• What if same bookmark is posted in a forum, or emailed around, should keyword get credit for all resulting sales?
• In Windows7, like in Vista, an app running in Admin mode gets *less* capable. Great! Can I run in ‘limited’ mode and get more?
• RT @ppchero: Keywords inherit Quality Score, at least initially, from previous/other users. http://tinyurl.com/b8kda4
• The very wise (and very funny) @avinashkaushik speaks. Everyone should listen. http://bit.ly/UbDr
• Is Broad Match the ultimate keyword research tool? Serious Question.
• #Adwords bid suggest for KW ‘ppc management’ is $15.21. Is there something ironic about that?
• If Adwords is so smart, what’s the point of splitting traffic across identical text-ads with identical visible and target URLs in 1 AG?
• I would pay for a negative keyword list in TweetDeck. Many things I just don’t want to hear about.
• Free year of ClickEquations #PPC Platform will be given away in 10 days. http://bit.ly/uaAek Just follow to enter.
• RT @joshk: This post made me feel safer on the plane (& more scared in the taxi to the airport): http://tinyurl.com/bwhyen
• DKI uses Keyword not Query in Broad or Phrase. Just learned that from comment to this post http://bit.ly/VHIJe
• Twitter may drown us all in tips for #PPC and #Adwords. We many need a national no-tips-please day to implement the good ones.
• Friday Follow @yourppcsucks

Get Our Tweets As They Happen – Follow us @Clickequations.com

Win A Free Year of ClickEquations For Following Us On Twitter – Read The Details

• RT @avinashkaushik: @DennisMortensen: U guessed wrong. Tell me time and place-I’ll be there. (Can us mortals buy tickets? 2 Great Guys!) #
• Killer discussion of revenue attribution http://bit.ly/ZTD65 Last click must die. #ppc #
• Why do I feel the need to shower after visiting any affiliate-related #PPC website offering the secrets I should pay them to tell me? #
• RT @avinashkaushik: Care to get Certified? No, no not that one. In Online Marketing! My little startup MarketMotive: http://tr.im/gE6z #
• Retweeting @Szetela: My New Blog Post: The World\’s Best Conference for PPC Advertisers ( http://tinyurl.com/dm6c43) #
• DeTweet: Bid Rule Strategy article in Winter SearchMarketingStandard. Really bad advice there, thankfully too hard to implement. #
• If someone’s selling ‘tricks’ or ‘secrets’ you shouldn’t be buying. Especially re: Adwords. Unless U like the ‘Quarter from your ear trick’. #
• Suggesting every keyword be in the text ad is a bit overstated. Great sentiment but silly proposed as literal. Google Gets Meaning/Context. #
• Finally started my trial of TheSearchMonitor.com (http://bit.ly/15r6cL) First data in today, will post thoughts over coming days. #
• Time to spend time managing our PPC. Where theory meets reality, and I switch from ClickEquations evangelist to guy who wants more features. #
• Bottom Line: Quality Score is CTR unless not enough history of that yet, then falls to group QS, or even Account QS. Other factors minor. #
• Exception is ‘bozo filter’ where Quality Score penalties are assessed, for deceptive copy, adsense spam, etc regardless of CTR. #
• Finishing the transition to Windows7. Been weekending with it for a few, ready for mid-week. #
• RT @szetela: Interview tomorrow with @tomcuthbert of ClickForensics, and learn the A-B-Cs of #PPC click fraud: http://bit.ly/fVH9P #
• RT @PPCPROZ: Inactive Keywords Alive and Well? An Apology and Correction. Kudos to Adwords for improving System… http://bit.ly/C2AaE #
• RT @TheGrok: Money For Nothing & Clicks For Free http://tinyurl.com/dmsaul #
• The press morons who didn’t get blogging 3-6 years ago have dusted off their old ‘boring diaries’ artcles for twiitter. http://bit.ly/16Jo82 #
• Win Free ClickEquations PPC Management Software 1-yr license. Value up to $240K. Details: http://bit.ly/uaAek Follow us to enter. #
• RT @NickRac: Anyone know where I can check if keywords are TM’d under Google AdWords BEFORE I setup an entire campaign? #PPC (Great Q?) #
• RT @szetela: #PPC Advertisers: Take Back Your Search Accounts! http://bit.ly/IRxTS – Excellent advice. #
• Found the first ‘must have app’ that’s not compatible with Windows7 – GoToMeeting. C’mon Citrix, what’s the problem? #
• Adblock Plus removes PPC ads from Google by default – I always forget that until I do a fresh FireFox installation. http://bit.ly/p5epk #
• DT @SeanDonahoe: #PPC: Use a template that displays the keyword coming in to save CPC (Nope: Landing Pages can not reduce CPC or improve QS) #
• But a landing page that matches/includes keywords and queries is a good idea towards conversion and to lower bounce rate. #PPC #
• Buying every broad match type keyword at phrase and exact too suddenly makes sense to me. Broad matches to each phrase and exact anyway… #
• …but your Broad is beat by Phrase and Exact of others. So pure Broad is actually Broad (yes) Phrase (maybe) Exact (maybe). Who wants that? #
• RT @paulbradshaw Google EyeTracking: http://sn.im/eyetracking #seo #sem (CQ: I’m very unsure of these – click history doesn’t support them) #
• RT @tomcuthbert: Marketing Consigliere joins “delusional” debate (http://cli.gs/RYr0Y5) #
• Want some free paid search resources? Check out the brand new Learn section on our site – http://is.gd/kFYJ #
• Listening to Bernacke talk to congress. Hold on to your hats. And you might want to close your eyes for a while. #
• RT @omniture: new blog post: Implementing Twitter Data Tracking in Omniture SiteCatalyst http://tinyurl.com/aaoxb5 #
• Working on a post justifying 3rd party #ppc tools. Why do you need more than the engines provide? What’s worth paying for? #adwords #
• RT @brianchappell: RT @cemper: Search Queries Are Getting Longer: http://tinyurl.com/cedx2j (Do you know what your search queries are?) #
• Next follower is 400th – be it and get 5 entries in our ‘win a year of ClickEquations software’ contest. http://bit.ly/dLssU #ppc #adwords #
• Thanks @PresellPageMan – You’re #400, and 5x entrant in our contest! #
• Long range planning this AM. Any cool features you want? #PPC #AdWords #
• Analytics or reprts don’t tell you what to do. But that’s what people want to know. #
• Maybe people can’t pay their mortgages because a turkey sandwich is $14 at the airport. #
• Report on Click-Through-Rates from Penn State, with PDF download. http://bit.ly/HSlmx #
• Check out our article on using different match types on Web Pro News – http://is.gd/kSds #
• RT @Szetela: RT @rimmkaufman: rkgblog: Q1 PPC Benchmark Data: Ouch!: http://tinyurl.com/bzbmbj #
• RT @bgtheory: Google updating analytics. Make sure GA & AdWords are linked: http://cli.gs/q2gGUP #

You need killer paid search management software. We want more twitter followers. Maybe we can help each other.

To be eligible to win, sign up to follow @ClickEquations on Twitter by March 15, 2009.

We’ll select one lucky follower who’ll win free use of ClickEquations for 12 months – for PPC spend up to $1MM per-month -  a retail value of $240,000!

Semi-complete Terms and Conditions listed below.

The selection will be made at random and winner tweeted promptly.

Paid search advertiser or agency? Follow @clickequations and win!

PS: Even if you don’t ‘win, we give great tweet.

The Details
To be eligible you must be a twitter ‘follower’ of @clickequations by 12:00pm EST 3/15/2009. Current followers will be included in the drawing. The selection will be made at random using a method we haven’t figured out yet. The winner will be announced via Twitter by 3/18/2009.

Winner will recieve a 12-month license to the ClickEquations Paid Search Platform, for use by their company (one account on Google, Yahoo, & MSN) with up to $1M per month in aggregate PPC spend. The license may not be sold, assigned, or transferred except; if the winner is a paid search agency they may assign the license to one of their accounts (but not charge account for it). This and all other terms and conditions subject to the sole descretion of Commerce360 Inc.

• RT @dannysullivan: wow. twitter was second largest referring source to search engine land yesterday just behind google. wow. #
• Dave Marsh plays live Van Morrison and reads vintage Lester Bangs. Best Sirius music yet. #
• New Post from @SEMOE http://bit.ly/sFCtY on advantages of multi-account editing in ClickEquations 
• My SMX ‘Life With #Adwords Quality Score’ preso now via YouTube http://bit.ly/DghVA. Includes some cool QS distribution graphs #
• Retweeting @thelostagency: “Dear Avinash”: Bounces, Abandonment, Visitor Ratios & Data Drops! http://urlzen.com/6dd #
• ClickEquations – February Release Webinar today 1pm EST – All Welcome – http://bit.ly/PVNqG See new management tool and bidding features #
• We’re on tour in Boston today. #
• http://twitpic.com/1jyx2 – Mob movie festival at Italian restaurant in Boston. #
• Training Webinar on New ClickEquations editing and bidding features today 1pm EST for all clients and trial customers. http://bit.ly/foRV9 #
• RT @szetela: Black hat tactics http://is.gd/jXzN (David’s not suggesting these…) #
• DeTweeting: @modetwo:  Tip4: Maintain a “trial” adwords acct and a “best of breed” adwords acct for high CTR adgroups/kws. QS Will Soar. #
• Introducing the DeTweet (DT) http://bit.ly/JmLYO #
• Retweeting @giovanni: Guy Kawasaki “Twitter is 140 Characters of junk mail” (Sometimes, Hence the DeTweet http://bit.ly/JmLYO) #

Get our Tweets in real time – Follow us @ClickEquations

Like many others, we’ve jumped into twitter-nation with both feet over the last few months. The simple efficiency and surprising range of benefits to both writing and reading have impressed us.

But there are limitations and problems too.

Some of these make me question the long term viability of the model – if I had to bet I’d say the system crashes under the weight of its own success (and the various forms of abuse by its users) in the not too distant future. But we’ll see.

One of the cool and useful twitterisms is the Re-Tweet. It’s a way to pass along something cool or interesting to your own circle of followers. Re-tweeting is an affirmation.

But what about tweets you disagree with? Not things you’re neutral about, but information that you think is actually lowering our collective knowledge or IQ.

Shouldn’t there be a way to tell the world ‘I don’t think think this is right.’?

Particularly in a somewhat technical discipline like paid search (#ppc) it pains me to see things flying by, spreading across the twitt-o-sphere and into the information starved eyes of young trusting paid search practitioners, that just ain’t true. Or aren’t exactly right. Or could be easily mis-understood. You get the idea.

Reading one this morning gave me the idea for the De-Tweet.

With the 140 character limit there is no room to both reference the original tweet and make the counter-point.

So I’m going to just De-Tweet it in the same way people Re-Tweet stuff.

I hope to start a trend.

The DeTweet Defined:

DeTweet (AKA: De-Tweet or DT) = Passing along the tweet of another with some degree of disapproval. It can range from strong (that’s a lie) to mild (there are exceptions or conditions). It shouldn’t be taken as impolite or unfriendly – it’s done in the spirit of twitterville – as a new way to participate in the conversation. Of course elaboration and counter arguments can be made in follow on tweets or blog posts.

But at least you don’t have to sit idly by and just wince anymore.

Or at least I don’t.

What do you think?

.
(Looking for a paid search tweeter you can retweet and/or detweet? Follow us @clickequations.)

• Interesting thoughts about Google Latitude and the #PPC connection. http://bit.ly/QmnH
• Again seeing #Adwords campaigns on ‘Rotate: show ads evenly’ which are instead driving vast majority of impressions to 1 or 2 ads. Just me?
• ClickEquations New Release http://bit.ly/b6H6 – Full editor, strong bid management + our killer data and reporting. See @ SMX
• Yet another review of how to handle wierd revenue allocation cases. #
• Heading out to SMX. Say hello if there: CQ Booth, Floor theater Tues., Ad-Text panel Weds. Drunk PPCRS Wed PM, Quality Score panel Thurs.
• Twitter Followers Only SMX Special – Visit our booth for a ClickEquations t-shirt. Just ask at booth – give codeword ‘tweet’. Limited Supply
• Video of new February ClickEquations release now on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2Ujp2f See new editor, bid automation, more
• Checking out a Kenshoo presentation. At SMX.
• I love it when competitors customers want to buy ClickEquations too because our reporting is so much better. Happened repeatedly here at SMX
• Today’s SMX Panel – Writing Killer Ad Copy – 3pm PST. But I’m going to talk about the role of text-ads a lot, a little about text ad testing
• RT @erictpeterson: Do you have a campaign attribution problem? Join @johnlovett and I at 10 AM Pacific to learn more. http://bit.ly/g3WI
• Can thirteen PPC geeks do a radio show at once? Doubtful but we’ll try 
• Retweeting @TheGrok: Free Pre-recorded High Resolution PPC Webinar http://tinyurl.com/bc58jt
• Starting quality score panel at SMX. Google QS product manager up first. 
• Killer Quality Score presentation by Addie Conner @ #SMX. Get the bootleg somewhere. Will try to get/post on blog.
• Q&A from QS Panel: Why no ads on KW ‘Elephant’? Low CTR on ads produces too low a QS, so no ads show. 
• New ‘High Resolution PPC’ webinar – http://bit.ly/pwSGc – My new framework for managing PPC and preview of upcoming ebook.
• Attendee Notes from two of the panels I was on at SMX. Quality Score: http://bit.ly/JNel0 and Killer Ad http://bit.ly/aItqH
• RT @Szetela: Drunken PPC Rockstars Roundtable recording here: http://bit.ly/DFW1s (Warning: Drink BEFORE listening)
• See the new ClickEquations release: Webinar Tuesday 17th 1pm EST http://bit.ly/FlBs3 – - Reserve Your Space Now

Get our Twitter updates in real time – Follow us @clickequations

• ClickEquations blog http://bit.ly/1OfzBf traffic up 50% Jan-over-Dec. Thanks everybody. Wait ’til you see what we’ve got planned for Feb.
• Followers still pending your SMX-West registeration, send direct message for a $100 reg discount if that’ll help.
• Is there ever any reason to run search and content networks in the same campaign, except that you just don’t care? Serious question. 
• Keyword with ‘Ad Showing: No’ in Adwords has highest # of clicks in campaign. Is ‘keyword analysis’ info whacky? Why is it not in API? 
• Must-read article about Bid Management from Andrew Goodman http://bit.ly/PwuA – Will blog more thoughts soon.
• Going to SMX-West? Hope to see you there.ClickEquations has a booth, and our full event schedule now posted : http://bit.ly/1OfzBf
• Last week’s interview with @Szetela on his PPC Rockstars show – topic Impression Share – is now on iTunes. http://tinyurl.com/d7qllc
• Stuck in 2003? New blog post offers 10 signs that your PPC management is stuck in the past. http://bit.ly/k3Nj
• Retweeting @bgtheory: Advanced AdWords Seminars are coming to Charlotte http://cli.gs/JpaQ10 Use tweet12 for 10% off #
• Major update to ClickEquations out next week. Just attended final engineering review. Can’t wait to show this off at SMX!!
• Retweeting @PPCPROZ: Adwords News: Google’s new Ajax-powered search results breaks search query tracking for everyone – http://bit.ly/JIWz
• Retweeting @Roxyyo: Woohoo! I won a Semmy in the PPC Category, thanks for voting everyone http://tinyurl.com/bfstzv
• Retweeting @Szetela: Tackling Conversion Attribution: The Importance Of Human Analysis: http://hex.io/5vo #
• Reviewing a whole pile of multivariate text ad tests ran in ClickEquations in preparation for Ad-Copy session as SMX next week.
• Playing with final build of major new ClickEquations release going live early next week. Killer features + now smooth UI gloss. Yeah!
• Details of new ClickEquations release via our blog this weekend. Come get a first look at SMX if you can.
• Prepping for a webinar taping with @thegrok tomorrow. Deep dive into High Resolution PPC for OnTarget clients.
• Running bid algo’s when keywords are attracting useless search queries is like turning up the heat with windows open. Close windows first.
• RT @Szetela:  Quality Score is Over-hyped: http://bit.ly/Vc25 – Amen! (CQ Says: I disagree, finally an argument!) Will post rebutal.

Get our tweets in real-time: follow ClickEquations on Twitter at www.twitter.com/clickequations