If you add the WT.srch=1 parameter a destination URL will look like: www.omtrends.com/?WT.srch=1 This Query Parameter only tells WebTrends that the visitor came from a Paid Search advertisement, nothing less and nothing more.

To determine which Paid Search program was used (ie. Google AdWords, MSN AdCenter, Yahoo Search Marketing), WebTrends will capture the Referral information also. So if this visitor came from an AdWords campaign, WebTrends will see a Referring URL like http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4EGLC_enNL238NL238&q=visual+workstation+hbx and translate this into “Google AdWords”, with help of the file keywords.ini:

[Google AdWords]
ID1=.google.com
KeywordIndicator1=q= 

As you can see WebTrends will capture the q= parameter to retrieve the keywords. These are the keywords the visitor used in Google.

So for instance, if I search for “visual workstation hbx”, I might see iMETRIX in one of the Google AdWords advertisements. WebTrends will pick up the Search Phrase “visual workstation hbx” and report this in the out-of-the-box report Most Recent Search Phrases (Paid). Alrighty! you think?

Not really WebTrends reports on the Search Phrase the visitor searched on, not the phrase you are advertising on. This means that you cannot match your WebTrends reports with your Google AdWords reports. Let’s say you are advertising Broad Match on the word “HBX” and the user searches at www.google.com on “visual workstation hbx”. Google AdWords will report a clickthrough on the word “HBX” while WebTrends reports “visual workstation hbx”. There is no way to match both reports and if you didn’t know about this – you should have had a lot of discussion with your Google AdWords Professional already.

So now we know that  your reports probably aren’t displaying the data you think they are displaying. Let’s fix it rightaway!

We are going to use a Visitor History parameter. WebTrends has 4 available for you; WT.seg_1, WT.seg_2, WT.seg_3 and WT.seg_4. These Visitor History are meant to be used for segmentation purposes but actually can be used for anything you would like to store. A great advantage of using a Visitor History parameter is that it will store the information in a database so that if a visitor visits your site on day 5 of the month through Google AdWords and converts 20 days later, WebTrends will be able to report on this. If you’d use a regular parameter, ie. kw=<keywords>, WebTrends will only be able to report on behavior of the specific visit that has this information.

Ok I assume you are not using the WT.seg_1 yet, so we will add it to your URL. The value will be the keyword that you are advertising on at Google AdWords, resulting in this Query Parameter to be used in your landing page URL: WT.seg_1={keyword:nil} Google AdWords will automatically replace {keyword:nil} with the keyword you were advertising on. In this example it will eventually look like: WT.seg_1=HBX. More information about Google AdWords Keyword Insertion can be found here.

As you can see we also use the WT.mc_id campaign parameter. We add this to see which overall campaign performance in our campaign overview report. The gclid parameter is being added by Google AdWords because of the Google Analytics auto-tagging of AdWords destination URLs.

Eventually, when you would click on the Google AdWords adversitement, the destination URL will look like:

http://www.imetrix.nl/producten/Visual_Sciences.stm?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=PRHB&WT.seg_1=hbx&gclid=CKemrfi56I8CFQuuQwod6hU4Dw

Google actually supports these irritating sites as they probably generate a lot of advertising Dollars for Google. There is no specific content found on the site so what’s your next step? Right, you either click one of the links or leave the site by typing the correct url. The term Google uses for these sites is “Parked domain sites“. The advertisements are called “Domain Ads“ and will also appear in your Google AdWords reports as “Domain Ads“. Two example sites:

http://wwwyourtube.com/
http://www.madonnashop.nl

 Interestingly, when creating a Placement report in Google AdWords, the URL’s of these Domain Ads  are hidden. They simply show as “Domain Ads” in your report. I think Google does this as these Domain Ads or  are highly lucrative and they know advertisers will add negative sites to their campaign or even stop advertising on the Content Network when they notice their Dollars are being spent on these sites.

In this screenshot you see that Domain Ads have a very high CTR.

As far as I know it’s not possible to create a site exclusion to exclude Domain Ads. Stop fooling us, Google!

I have had some busy weeks lately. Last week Fulton Yancy from Visual Sciences visited our office for a HBX Analytics training. Fulton Yancey has previously worked for WebTrends and since we work with the WebTrends software extensively he has been able to give us a good understanding of the differences between HBX Analytics and WebTrends. It actually made me forgive the fact that HBX Analytics is an ASP based service instead of hosted-yourself.

Visual Sciences 

This week my colleague and I flew to London to have a Visual Sciences training for Visual Site at the EMEA Partner Certification days. This training was our first real handson experience with the software where we could actually work with it. Our first experience was at the partner day in Hoofddorp last May. We absolutely love the products, it is such an high level analytics tool you just have to have it when you see it. After the 3 days of Visual Sciences brainwashing After the training we did an examination which was quite demanding actually.

Google AdWords

My Qualified Google AdWords Professional certification is about to expire in November. That means that I will have to re-examinate soon. Actually since iMETRIX saw the light two weeks ago this couldn’t be a better moment to browse through all new features that have been added to Google AdWords over the past two years. Some things that come in mind are advertising on Google Maps, mobile ads, the AdWords editor software, Website Optimizer, Google Analytics etc. etc. I can imagine a lot of people who are not using Google AdWords every day will get lost somewhere and won’t be able to get all out of the system.

Certificate in Digital Marketing

In one of my previous posts I mentioned the digital marketing plan I had to make as my first assigment for the IDM Certificate in Digital Marketing certification. I have been working hard for it but managed to output a digital marketing plan on time and actually I was happy with the result. Last Friday I received my mark and I’m happy to tell that I passed this first assigment. YAY!!!

In the past it wasn’t easy to see where your ads were being displayed. But with this addition to the Reports section you exactly see which sites displayed your AdWords advertisements and what your results were for each site. This way you can easily remove sites from your campaign that eat your money and spend it elsewere.

While car enthusiasts and automobile sites may be happy to display a highly-relevant ad featuring the Ford Explorer, many online sites> not directly publishing auto-related content are up-in-arms that Ford was allowed to purchase a large chunk of advertising on blogs this week.

http://sleepyblogger.com/2005/12/googles-advertising-faux-pas.html

Aaron from SEObook.com writes about the advertisements:

By Google delivering those damn Explorer ads that are so far off target they are teaching site visitors to ignore the ads, and may be costing themselves and publishers a lot more than they realize. If people learn to ignore textual ads then funding good content production is much harder. If people can’t afford to make good content then Google is going to be full of garbage.

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001429.shtml

Meanwhile, the Google Adsense blog has published an “refresher” about Site Targeting:

Some of you have asked, “How is an ad for an off-road vehicle targeted to my pages about hiking?” Excellent question! Contextual targeting, or targeting the text on your site (the primary targeting mechanism of AdSense), is only one form of targeting. With the launch of the site targeting program, advertisers can select sites that are relevant to their prospective visitors, thereby targeting an audience, not just content. So although the ad campaign may not be targeted directly to your site’s content, it will be relevant to the specific or general interests of your readers. AdSense has always been, and will always remain, a targeted advertising system — we’re just implementing new targeting approaches to help you monetize.

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/12/site-targeting-refresher.html

Microsoft and Google both were in talks about a search and advertising partnership with America Online (AOL). Google has agreed to invest US$1 billion in change for a 5% marketshare in AOL. With this agreement Google will continue to provide the search technology to AOL.

The agreement’s broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:

• Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google’s advertising technology – enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
• Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
• Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
• Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL’s premium video service within Google Video;
• Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met; and Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.

I guess these talks started a bit too early for MSN, who is still beta testing their advertising software.

We’re testing a new product that gives you a free and fast way to speak directly to the advertiser you found on a Google search results page – over the phone.

Here’s how it works: When you click the phone icon, you can enter your phone number. Once you click ‘Connect For Free,’ Google calls the number you provided. When you pick up, you hear ringing on the other end as Google connects you to the other party. Then, chat away on our dime.

We won’t share your telephone number with anyone, including the advertiser. When you’re connected with the advertiser, your number is blocked so the advertiser can’t see it. In addition, we’ll delete the number from our servers after a short period of time.

http://www.google.com/help/faq_clicktocall.html

More screenshots at:

http://www.yardley.ca/blog/index.php/archives/2005/11/23/google-tests-out-click-to-call-adwords/

At Tam Tam we advise and manage Google Adwords accounts for customers.