The Stackpile

With Google leading the way in the search engine marketing world, we can be assured that there will be more and more “tools” and efficiencies built into every pay-per-click program. But will this lead us to a less favorable environment?

When Google banned ebay on Google’s AdWords, many advertisers paid attention to the new guidelines for providing relevant information to the users. Not to mention that following the new editorial guidelines also helps achieve higher positioning based on incorporating the targeted keyword term into text ads. Which, let’s face it, for a user it makes sense – they will find more relevant ads based on their search. And as a user, I am all for more relevant information to my searches.

And with all the guidelines and tools that Google provides to AdWords customers, there are less and less targeted messages starting to be deployed.  For instance, you can use keyword replacement for all of our keywords, basically saving you time by writing a couple text ads, and allowing Google to replace a specific term in the ad with each keyword that you are targeting – how ingenious, right? Oh – but every other advertiser can do the same thing, can’t they? And if everyone does it, and is basically writing the same message, how are the advertisers differentiating? Why would I choose you over your competitor touting the same thing? And, how does the instance of the keyword term in your ad make me want to click on your ad?

Although the theory of adding more relevant information and options to the user seems to make sense, particularly for natural search engine ranking, but applying this to the search engine marketing function may prove to be detrimental for the industry as a whole.

Posted by Christina on July 13th, 2009
Filed under Advertising, Miscellaneous, Search Engine Marketing, Web | No Comments »