Google Advertising Professional Program

Google Advertising Professional
The Google Advertising Professional program was...

Designed for professionals who currently manage or want to manage multiple AdWords client accounts, the Google Advertising Professionals program can help you become a more successful ad manager – for free.

You have to comply with their rules, spend at least $1,000 in a 90 day period, and pass a test. The test costs $50 to take. Wonder how it helps you make more money for free when the test costs $50? ;) Google AdWords Learning Center
Google has a bunch of free tutorials and quizes which can help prepare you for their test.

Google AdWords Test
I just took the test and it was 104 multiple choice questions. I was given 1.5hrs to take the test and was required to get a minimum score of 75%. A few of the questions are a bit confusing but most of them are rather easy. If you know much about AdWords you should be able to take the test in under an hour.

After you pass the test and spend enough money on AdWords you can get your shiny Qualified Google Advertising Professional Logo

Google Advertising Professional FAQs
There is a large online Google Advertising Professionals Support FAQ section as well.

My Client Center
Allows you to link together up to 500 AdWords accounts and access them from a single login.

New AdWords Tools
I have not tried either of these out, and neither are officially endorsed by Google in any way, but a few newer bolt on AdWords tools are AdWord Accelerator and AdGooroo.

New Smarter Google AdWords Keyword Evaluation

Google is using predictive modeling to try to help serve up more of your ads.

New AdWords Status Ratings
In the past Google stated ads were strong, moderate, or at risk. The new ratings are normal, in trial, or on hold.

How the New AdWords System Works
If Google has enough keyword data from prior ads on your keywords and it indicates that your ad should perform well Google will start your ads off in normal distribution. If they have inadequate data on your keyword then they will give the predicted CTR a small boost to help start you off in normal.

If past ads for the same keywords show that the ad is not likely to perform well then the ad will start off "on trial." Your account can only have a limited number of on trial keywords in it at any given time. They'll continue showing the "on trial" ads until they are statistically confident their CTR is below or above 0.5%.

If you have more than the max alotment of words which are expected not to perform well then the additional ads will go into the "on hold" category. The on hold ads will be tested based in the order of expected clickthrough rate.

More info on the Google AdWords Changes

New Google AdWords Features...

Ads Diagnostic Tool
Choose one of the two options below to find out why your ads may not be showing for a certain query.

Change Maximum Cost-Per-Clicks (CPCs)
Filter your Ad Groups or keyword lists, then adjust multiple maximum cost-per-click (CPC) amounts all at once. <--- not sure how new this is, but it has the new logo next to it.

Faster Reports
Reports of all sizes are now faster and more reliable than ever.

From the horses mouth

Froogle Upgrades...

From Froogle Newsletter Volume 4...

Ad Automator
Froogle merchants with over 1000 products who are also AdWords advertisers are invited to try out the beta release of our new ad-producing technology, the ad automator.

The ad automator uses sophisticated technology to automatically create and target AdWords ads based on structured data feeds, which are nearly identical to the data feeds you submit to Froogle. You’ll be able to create keyword-less data feed campaigns in your existing AdWords account while investing minimal time and effort. Simply send us your feeds, and the ad automator will automatically generate targeted AdWords ads that begin showing right away. You’ll be able to:

  • Leverage the product copy you’ve already written for your site
  • Generate specific, high-CTR ads with no additional work

  • Increase the number of queries on which your ads appear

The ad automator provides added coverage by targeting queries that may have been overlooked in your keyword campaign. The ads produced are highly relevant and precisely targeted to the user’s search query.

If you’re a merchant and advertiser who’d like to take advantage of Google’s ad automator, please drop us a line at automator-signup@google.com. Please include your AdWords account number in your note.

Ad Automator if / when done correctly will be huge...

a couple other new features...
Merchant Ratings:
Google does not store its own rating system, but pulls together aggregate ratings score and snippets of customer reviews from third party sites.

Compare Prices
Allows you to compare the prices for a specific item in many stores. It is still under development, but already works well for ISBN's or UPC's.

You can see both features when searching for 0130957011... or other good books by # :)

BellSouth to Sell Google AdWords

BellSouth to Sell Google AdWords:
This is the first time someone outside of Google has been able to directly sell AdWords (to plumbers).

GoogleGuy World Tour:
Actually not a world tour, but he showed up at SEW forums.

Google: Not for Me:
Russell Baettie explains why he does not want to work at Google.

& Not for Online Publishers:
Online publishers rail against Google - yawn
(thanks to Gary)

New AdWords Classifications, MSN Desktop Search Coming Soon

New AdWords Classifications
"Google will use its predictive modelling to know what words are not going to do well and give them more time to run. Instead of the 1,000 impressions and you're out... this new system may allow terms as much as 10 times more access to eyeballs." ... coming in November

Google Toolbar is Evil?
DaveN and many other technically gifted aggressive SEOs do not like using the Google Toolbar.

Recent Google Lectures
Gary Price found a recent Google lecture and made a post linking to it and a few other recent lectures.

MSN Search / MSN Desktop Search
coming soon... Did anyone else notice MSN Search being advertised on AdSense? Here is a piece of one of the visuals I saw a few days back:
MSN Search image advertisement on AdSense.

Search Marketing UK Trade Organization...other stuff

SEMPO UK
no way Jose... Sick of the SEMPO antics, the brass of the UK SEO scene have made their own search marketing organization.
With the likes of Barry Lloyd, Ammon Johns, & Mike Grehan I am sure they will do well.

Spammer?
A White KnightTM is crowned

Yahoo!
buys Stata Labs who is the maker of Bloomba

GOOG
their stock is up a bit more on the day. Their market cap sits at 47.37B and Yahoo! is at 47.56B.

Google Reports Quarterly Results

Holy GOOG Batman
Google reports quarterly results. Stock up a cool 15% on the day.

Funny
Chris Ridings is up to the clever stuff again. We the black hats...

More Pics...
Yahoo!...they are now indexing over a billion images.

Free C Class IP Block Checker, Google to Grow

Free Bulk C Block IP Checker Tool
Check to see if links are on the same C block IP address, free... cool tool
Thanks to Nick

AOL Europe Extends Partnership with Google

Google, which already provides AOL Europe with targeted advertisements, said its expanded multi-year arrangement will let it target the U.K., France and Germany. Source: CBS MarketWatch

Google to Gain MANY Advertisers?
Google is to announce quarterly results tomorrow, and while they refuse to make forcasts, they believe they will add 372,000 advertiser accounts over the next 4 years.

Google predicted that the number of advertiser accounts will jump from 280,000 this year to 378,000 in 2005, according to the documents. From 2004 to 2008, the number of accounts is expected to more than double to 652,050.

France and Trademarks
The French Overture keyword suggestion tool offers tips on trademarks

Greed:
16 yr old says "let's sue Google"

Google Instant Messenger?
google_im:// protocol found in the Google desktop search.

Google SMS, Google Word Clustering, the Great Google AdWords Debate ;)

Google SMS
Google is everywhere...now there is one more reason to get in a wreck while driving with a cell phone. Google launches Google SMS

Google Word Clustering & More
Andy Beal with the scoop

Google AdWords Trademark / Bid Policy
Lots of fun with Google AdWords (or maybe not fun)...

I spent a large amount of yesterday going back and forth with a dozen or so people about whether or not it is ok to bid on other people's names as the trigger words for article and search ad display. Google does not allow you to opt out of Google search ads if you want to advertise on articles.

Some of the big studs in PPC often recommend aggressively bidding on competitor names, and other SEOs get mad when you do it.

The hypocritical thing is that some of the SEOs who called my bidding on their name stinky were also selling their products by bidding on trademark terms (edited out the not mentioned in their products part, but certainly many SEOs still do that...and I am not certain that it is in any way wrong). Some of the people in these threads even asked some of my friends to jump in threads against me (my friends, of course, told them to go to hell).

What is your opinion on bidding on trademark terms or other people's names as ad trigger words? Please leave lots of feedback on this.

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