I hadn’t seen this before but it looks like Google’s local push is moving into the PPC realm.

Look at the + sign next to the AquaTots PPC ad:

Here’s what happens when you click the + and expand the ad:

Looks to be in beta right now for some advertisers but hopefully will roll out soon. I know a lot of people that would like to use this feature.

Reported on Blumenthal, SEORoundTable, Screenwork and Vertical Leap.

I almost forgot to mention yesterday, amidst all the excitement about landing page load time affecting quality score, that you can now exclude certain categories in the Google content network.

At first I see this as another great way that Google is working to make the content network a more feasible option for people who…well, want to get something out of it like conversions. I suppose after Google realized their efforts to push the content network with no good reason (when the damn thing didn’t convert anyways), they decided their efforts should also go towards making the content network more efficient and actually beneficial to advertisers. Hence their “Optimize for the Content Network” articles.

Some quick notes on the new category exclusion feature:

• You can exclude using three different tabs
  • 1. Sites
    • Normal method of excluding certain sites based on your ad placement reports
  • 2. Topics
    • Conflict & Tragedy
      • Crime, police & emergency
      • Death & tragedy
      • Military & international conflict
    • Edgy Content
      • Juvenile, gross & bizarre content
      • Profanity & rough language
      • Sexually suggestive content
  • 3. Page Types
    • Network types
      • Error pages
      • Parked domains
    • User-generated content
      • Forums
      • Image-sharing pages
      • Social networks

Without revealing too much about my personal life I’d venture to say that if someone were to exclude all these options I would have no AdSense ads to look at on the sites I frequent. Wouldn’t you agree that a good portion of the internet contains quite a few of these topics. I personally would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while Google was deciding which categories to exclude.

So what’s the lowdown?
Without tearing all these areas apart I’d rather focus on a couple and also look at the flip side…the AdSense network.

2 Things That Scare Me
Two options in this new feature scare me a bit, being able to exclude parked domains as well as forums.

Parked Domains
First off, it surprises me that Google gives the option of excluding parked domains since they have a service specifically dedicated to serving AdSense on parked domains.  Considering how much money there is in running ads on parked domains (yes, people still do just type in EXAMPLEKEYWORD.com instead of doing a search sometimes), I’m surprised to see Google willing to exclude that portion of their AdSense revenue.  However, considering one of the top domainers in history, Frank Schilling, has an exclusive agreement with Yahoo to serve their ads on all his sites…I’d imagine Google’s attempt to target domainers was a bit late.  Also, considering Yahoo’s ad publisher service pays a higher percentage than AdSense…it’s safe to assume most people who rake in a lot of money are using YPN anyways.

Phew, looks like you got a peak into my interest in domaining…it’s like the real estate of the future though.

Forum Exclusion
The second thing that scares me is the ability to exclude forums.  This could cripple many people who depend on that revenue to not only run their sites but perhaps even make a living.  From what I’ve heard about forums though, AdSense becomes “wise” to the traffic that frequents these forums and realizes they keep targeting the same people thus reducing the amount they pay out.  This wouldn’t make sense to a traditional advertiser that knows their message has to be seen MANY times before someone decides to take an action…but we’re not in the world of traditional advertising anymore.

Are Blogs Next?
The reason this scares me is because I’m afraid blogs could be next.  Blogs have an even more loyal following than forums in many cases so will the same thing happen here?  Will Google see these return visitors as less important since they’re not fresh eyes?

Two Different Conclusions:
As an AdWords advertiser, I say good job Google in further making the content network more targeted and cost effective.

As an AdSense publisher I have to warn the AdWords advertisers to use caution in excluding certain categories, don’t go crazy right off the bat with this new feature.

When all else fails…test!
See what works and doesn’t work.  Everything will work out for the better since the whole mission of Google (beyond total world domination) is to provide not only the most relevant search results, but also the most relevant and beneficial ads to it’s users.

-Brian

Good move Google, now let’s hit the high points:

• This doesn’t mean the faster your page loads, the cheaper your clicks will be
  • You’ll be placed in one of two buckets…too slow, or no issues. It might be hard to figure out where that fine line is…but I suppose you should just make things as fast as possible just to be safe, it’s best for natural visitors anyways.
• Load times may depend on geographic location
  • That’s according to eBrandz take on load times. Who knows how true that is since I don’t know a single person who makes sure their servers are set up in Virginia instead of North Carolina because the T1 infrastructure is that much better…

Read the official announcement on Google’s Blog.

Read how this guy thinks this is Google just trying to make more money. It’s not, they’re actually trying to increase user experience…if they were just trying to make more money, well then they’d just introduce something like “Automatic Matching“…wait, they did do that!

Google. You made broad match worse by turning it into “expanded match” and your automatic bidding tool doesn’t really help those of us handling multi-million dollar campaigns…so why then do you have a new service called “Automatic Matching?”

Oh yeah, more money.

Look, I’m a big fan of Google. Not only because they do provide the most relevant results, have the best work environment in the world for their employees and have been able to sustain a wildly successful business through unheard of growth…but I’m wondering what’s the deal behind this latest feature rollout.

Here’s Google’s explanation of the service:

I’m excited to tell you that you have been selected to participate in a beta for our new Automatic Matching feature which will be starting on February 28th.

Automatic Matching automatically extends your campaign’s reach by using surplus budget to serve your ads on relevant search queries that are not already triggered by your keyword lists. By analyzing the structure and content of your website and AdWords campaigns, we deliver more impressions and clicks while maintaining your current CTRs and CPCs.

For example, If you sold Adidas shoes on your website, Automatic Matching would automatically crawl your landing page and target your campaigns to queries such as: “shoes” “adidas” “athletic”, etc., and less obvious ones such as “slippers” that our system has determined will benefit you and likely lead to a conversion on your site.

Be assured that automatic matching will try to never exceed your budget. If you’re already meeting your daily budgets, automatic matching will have a minimal effect on your account.

Basically if you’re not hitting your daily budget caps they’re going to figure out how to do that for you.

I don’t know about you but I usually keep my daily caps set to a minimum until I discover the keywords that work best…then bump up the daily caps above the spend threshold for a nice cushion between the limit and what you typically spend in a day. This new service is scary because you might not know that you’re bidding on these new keywords if the service happens to be turned on in your account.

If there were a three strike policy, Google would have 2 1/2 right now.

• Strike 1 - The Content Network: I’m giving it 1/2 because it does actually convert in some cases…and I have an AdSense account
• Strike 2 - Expanded Match: Seriously, broad was good for long phrase terms which you might not think of. It used to be great in capturing people who searched using their primary query then adding various keywords afterwards in no particular order
• Strike 3 - Automatic Matching: This is simply a blatant “let’s figure out how to capture the difference between people’s actual spend and their daily budgets” type of strategy. I hope this isn’t indicative of what’s to come from Google.

Kudos to Google for figuring out how to squeeze a couple more dollars out of every account across the board…but I think their time can be better spent mastering the most important thing in search engine marketing today…tracking. More specifically tracking how each online marketing effort contributes to a sale/action rather than just the last one which triggered the action.

- Brian Renner