“I think you really ought to consider advertising on Google,” she said.
The year was 2003, business was really slow and I was about to plunk big dollars into a trade publication ad. I had never heard of paying to have someone come to my website.
But, on the advice of a peer, I took the leap of faith.
If so, you can participate in an analytics experiment that might just bring you a ton of exposure that won’t cost you by the click.
Eric of Stone Temple Consulting and Jonah of Alchimist Media are seeking additional participants for their Comparative Analytics Study. Basically these guys are trying to determine which website metric analysis tools work best, and they will publish the results to an eager SEO and online marketing crowd.
Here’s what’s in it for you and the requirements for participation:
What a terrible morning it was last week when many Google AdWords advertisers woke up to find that many (if not all) of their sweet low-cost-per-click bids had been disabled, and minimum bid requirements enacted that killed any chance for a return on investment. Turns out Google tweaked its landing page relevancy algorithm, with disastrous results for many big-spending AdWords players.
Scott Karp has been on top of this issue, mainly from an affiliate marketing standpoint, and I agree with him that a transition from pay-per-click to cost-per-action is beneficial to both Google and advertisers. But the reasons for the recent trauma may not be all that nefarious, and instead simply a reflection of the way Google tends to evaluate relevancy.
