I’m pleased to share that I’m going to run a session at the UK’s largest affiliate expo – a4u– in October.

This will be a one-hour hands-on session to get started with and optimize  Google’s latest Display innovations;  retargeting and behavioural / interest based targeting. It will cover both direct response and brand building exercises.

I’ve got a tough slot though which sits just before the first party off day 1 (and there are also some other seemingly great presentations run in parallel), but hopefully I’ll be able to tempt a few people to hold off the beers for just a few moments more.

So, if you’re an affiliate who haven’t tried retargeting yet or looking to improve your results; come along!

The full agenda is available on the A4U Expo website.

Related posts:

1. Speaking at SMX Advanced London
2. SES London – Affiliate Marketing Doesn’t Equal Search
3. Google AdWords PPC Personalisation through Session-Based Broadmatch

In a recent post I mentioned that I’ve read three books on my iPhone 4. I did however not reveal which they were.

The selected material was:

• Purple Cow – a classic Seth Godin piece about the importance of finding a USP to stand out in an increasingly competitive market place. Recommended for inspiration.
• Freakonomics - Some popular economics and statistics that while at times a bit too sensationalist for my taste, is still an enjoyable read with fascinating ideas that at least gets you thinking about stats in a different way.
• Crossing the Chasm – an updated edition of the classic 90’s book on technology marketing and how to attract the majority markets. A must read for anyone working in technology and b2b marketing.

All available on the iBook store.

No related posts.

Having got my iPhone 4 in time for the holidays it was a perfect opportunity to test its abilities as an ebook reader. My conclusion is that it’s surprisingly good and a great companion for both the frequent traveller and commuter alike.

While the iPad was hailed as the saviour of the publishing industry, my bet is that the iPhone 4’s retina display will revolutionize book sales even more.  While the iPad attracts existing book worms that previously luged around with their bags full of paper, the iPhone 4 opens up a whole new market of people that previously didn’t prioritize carrying books on the go but now have a whole library in their pocket.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve read three books using the iPhone 4. The high resolution retina display makes the text as sharp as print and the bright screen is (with sepia setting) still easy enough on the eyes for longer sessions. The fact of the matter is that as someone who is used to a constant information stream and multitasking with text messages, twitter, and email etc while cramping up in a tube carriage, the shorter pages (compared to a pocket book or iPad) makes it easy to interrupt the reading for a moment and quickly pick-up where I left off.

While the iBook store is similar to the famed iTunes Store, it currently falls short in both depth and breadth of titles. Possibly is this also the reason for the current lack of genre top lists which makes it laboursome to browse through categories.

Overall though, I’m thrilled about a piece of technology that so far has made me read more books in a few weeks than over the last six months, and since it’s a book that’s always in my pocket there’s no reason  to stop now.

The iPhone 4 retina display makes text more print-like (click for full resolution and imagine it on 3.5 inch screen)

The built-in dictionary is only a tap away in any book (click for full resolution)

Related posts:

1. GQ iPhone App Proves That we Need a Tablet
2. Google Analytics iPhone App Review
3. Google Mobile iPhone App Review – 6 Months Later

Since Google launched site links for all search keywords, paid search affiliates have been quick to jump on this opportunity. Without naming names and putting anyone on the spot, I’ve noticed that the site links feature is increasingly being abused. Apparently it is technically allowing discrepancies in display URL and destination URL, which is clearly against the Adwords policies.

The examples I’ve seen have been in a couple of different industries and various affiliates, but the technique is the same: use the own affiliate website as display URL and destination URL for the main ad copy, but add direct-to-merchant site links (but of course with the crucial affiliate tracking code intact).

From an affiliate and possibly merchant point of view, this might be a good thing, but it’s basically double serving (assuming there’s a merchant ad) and doesn’t add any value to the end-user.

Related posts:

1. Google AdWords Comparison Ads – Big Impact on Finance Marketing
2. Does Google Website Translation Improve Site Stickiness?
3. Should you take the Google Adwords and Analytics Exams?

In recent sessions with Google, it has become apparent that as the use of search as an acquisition tool has matured, the company is looking to broaden paid search’s appeal as a branding tool (and vice-versa can be noticed with display now being pushed for its direct response credentials).

I’ve previously written about the inherent challenge of branding through paid search due to the quality score factor. This post won’t help you improve the quality score, but instead make sure you maximise exposure by keeping an eye on the impression share and active bid management.

The search branding tool kit

The first port of call is to check the Adwords impression share report. This is done by pulling a campaign performance report and adding the columns “Impression Share” and “Exact Match IS”.

The impression share column will show for what percentage of legible searches that your keyword adverts was shown. If you’re using various match types in the campaign, this could be any number of searches stemming from variations as well. This is why we also want to analyse the column “Exact match IS”, as this percentage is considering your keywords as exact matches and thus gives you an idea of how you’re performing on your most strategic branding keywords.

For example, looking at the chart below you can see that most campaigns have very high exposure for exact match searches, meaning that they’re showing for the most strategic keywords.  However, Account 4 needs a deeper dive as it’s showing for less than 50% of the exact matches. Also Accounts 9 and 12 are of particular interest, as they have the lowest regular impression share figures, indicating that there’s possibly a long tail of searches that the campaigns are not tapping into.

The second vital tool is the Google Adwords bid simulator. The simulator can be viewed by clicking the little graph symbol that is shown against select keywords (it will only show for keywords with enough historical data) in the Max CPC column.

While it’s not trying to predict the future, it’s simulating what would have happened in the last seven days if the bid had been at a different level, but all other factors constant (such as quality score, competitor activity and search volumes). Depending on the amount of historical information it will show estimated impressions, clicks and cost. For lower volume keywords you’re restricted to impression volumes.

Since the Ad Rank in Google is determined be your bid and Quality Score, for particular branding keywords it might be very difficult to improve the quality score, so you will need to qualify by bidding higher. Worth noting is that if the quality score falls down to 2/10 or lower, it will simply not qualify for all impression regardless of bid levels and will need to be optimised.

How are you using the impression share report and bid simulator?

Related posts:

1. Brand Building through Paid Search Marketing
2. Top Tools and Techniques for Capturing Hot Search Keywords
3. Google Product Ads Lowers the Barriers of Entry to Paid Search