Google Adwords Australia - Authorised Adwords Reseller Australia Hot Goanna TM

Adwords Advice - 3 times the traffic - less money

We received a good client today.  A leader in their industry and Victoria from Marketing Angels knew they could do better.  They had been running their own adwords account for a long time and decided to plug in Hot Goanna.  We took the existing campaign, and did our magic and here are the first days results.  Here you can see their existing campaign, (the paused accounts) and our campaigns (the active accounts) on the SAME DAY, with the same budget and what a difference.

I have copied this straight from Adwords and removed the names to protect the client.  I have removed conversion rates, as that is private, and don’t worry about CTR, it’s only early days.  Can you get 3 times the traffic for less money on day one, yes you can (as Bob the Builder says).  How?  It’s simple, It Works.  Ask Hot Goanna how at www.hotgoanna.com.au.

Adwords

Google has tightened up Adwords once again.  We now see that we cannot bid on keywords every hour of the day as we used to using the Google API.  Now its only once a day.  This really goes to show that a sound positional strategy is going to be harder to achieve and keep constant.  Also, following the recent quality score changes, we now see a new problem.  Today, we used the Adwords Ad Preview tool and found that Google was not showing ads for a client as they thought the client was not in the Geographic Area that the ads were showing for.  We have never seen this before. We have asked our Google Reseller manager for clarification and will advise when its at hand.  However, on first appearance, it now looks like local search may have an impact on Adwords… more to follow at Hot Goanna.

Google Adwords Quality Scores Just Got Harder

The algorythm has changed again, and its going to mean more attention to detail and lots more learning!  Adwords announced today at http://adwords.blogspot.com/ that the old indicators of keyword quality have been removed and a test group has been allocated to see how the new minimum bids, inactive for search and page postions will go.  It’s even been pushed out before the API and Editor have been amended to accommodate it!  Interesting……  We at Hot Goanna will certainly participate in the trial period and will keep you informed on how much we have lost in clarity and how much these new changes impact on the management requirements to make and keep your adwords account performing at its best.  More to follow…..

Google Adwords and Search Volumes in Australia - Hot Goanna releases Weekly Graph

We were sitting in Google’s Office in Sydney early one morning last week, waiting for our Google Manager to shout Hot Goanna  breakfast at the Google Staff Cafe.  On the screen on the wall in reception is a nice scrolling read out of the actual searches being performed on Google in Australia - in live time.  It got us thinking about search volumes in the market and what is the mix of educational V informational V Commercial search in Australia.  From this Google Data screen it appeared (from a very short data set) that there is about 10 educational for each 10 informational and about 1 commercial search request.  

If that is the case, then given that a set proportion of search patterns will give a set result, we then went to work on our last 2 months search volumes on Google.  We used all clients as a data set and we came up with this very interesting Australia Wide statistic.  The Olympics is bad for search volumes.  Also, the end of the Financial Year was anything but a boom time.  Weekend search has improved in the past month compared to a downward trend in June.  Also, we see two huge spikes in the past 2 months.  One on a Tuesday and one on a Monday.  There has only been one Friday in each of the past 2 months where search volumes were higher than the rest of that preceeding week, and we see that all search peaks by Wednesday each week with those exceptions on a Friday, once a month.  Mondays and Tuesdays are the most consistant search days and last Sunday was the lowest volume of search in over 2 months.  So it looks like Channel 7’s claims of 6 million viewers for the opening of the Games has continued the Trend.  Search volumes have gone flat in the past 4 weeks, but are still marginally higher than June this year.  If you want the most visibility, Wednesday is your day. More to follow next week…..

Australian Online Statistics Hot Goanna View on E Marketer and Google

Australia has been reported to spend more online on ads than even China.  Since 2005, our online ad spending has increased from $467 Million to $979 million in 2007.  We now aparently are just behind Japan in advertising online.   Interestingly, according to the latest E Marketer piece, buying via our ecommerce sites in Australia grew by 45% in 2007 to $13 BILLION.  That’s over $1,000 Million each month or in excess of $33.3 Million per day, or even more amazing, $1.4 Million each hour of the day.  I left off the extra Billion from the first figure , just to accommodate the GST component, fees, bank charges etc. 

Further, it has been reported that there are now 13 Million internet users in Australia (55% of population) and this is projected to rise to 76% by 2012.  For those that are getting into Mobi Ads, it was stated that Australia has an average of 2.9 mobile phones per household, which put my house about 28% higher than the national average.

For those with a penchant for numbers, if we take the average daily spend of google advertising clients at being somewhere between $25 and $30 per day, then from the total advertising spend, we see that there would be something like 89,000 internet advertisers in Australia in 2007.  I would probably guess that this number might be closer to the 60,000 mark and that probably, with the top end of town, it might be an average daily spend of near the $45 mark.

Using this method, we see that ecommerce income of $13 Billion, divided by 60,000 advertisers might show an average yearly sales income of $216,000 each, or $593 Avg per day for their daily spend of $45.  If each advertiser has a 50% margin on their product, then is the average ROI of 650%, that comes from these estimations, accurate? Reflecting on our clients, I would think this figure is probably accurate when you compare all the verticals and all their product prices etc.

Lets ask around and see what clients get as an average return for a $45 investment on Internet Advertising.  Oh and by the way, this report stated that Google is the top visited site, with a lead of 2 to 1 over its nearest rival in Australia.

Now that is a survey I would like to get the stats on.

Google Adwords Management - Humans Make the Difference

Here is a typical example of what Highly Qualified Adwords Managers can do for your Google Adwords Account.  No computers, no software, just smart minds and lots of experience through a range of verticals.  This client had never broken 2.8% as a conversion rate over the past year.  The ads pointed to really good informative pages on their site and we convinced them to make a change and try custom built landing pages.  We took their largest current product and built a completely new look for them and did a quick test with A/B ads.  The results are stunning. With just 10% adshare on a development url (not even a strong domain name to support it) this new page outperformed the existing highly evolved web site by more than 4 TIMES!  If we allowed it to take 9 times more of the ad traffic, then we would have seen them achieve 20 bookings rather than the 5 they achieved and the cost per conversion would have reduced from $18 to $3.82.  So, what do we draw from this?  Successful Adwords Management is not solely dependant on setting up a good campaign, great terms, good groups and ads, and high quality scores.  It’s not even only about how well your web site converts visitors into booking or leads or signups.  It’s about having the right people with the right knowledge providing a daily and weekly REAL management service, and allowing these experts to coach you to achieve better levels of performance for your online products.  Times are getting tougher, and only the smarter business owner will survive online.  Prosper from Google Adwords Authorised Reseller experts and see what you can do to your online performance with something as simple as a landing page for each of your products.

Adwords - Search Volumes Revealed for the First Time!

As of today, I have had a Google Adwords Multiple Client Centre for 1129 days!  In all my time, Google has never revealed real search volume numbers.  Even as a Google Adwords Professional, Google Adwords Company and a Google Adwords Reseller these numbers have been a closely guarded secret.  Today they were revealed!  It true! A Google Adwords Tool change has shown real monthly search volumes on each and every keyword and combination of keywords (phrases).  Given how closely guarded these numbers have been in the past, (there have been lots of graphs, but a graph without numbers only gives a trend, not real search numbers to gauge budget on etc) this is so close to cracking the algorythm that we professional account managers should be really excited.  It may be a mistake, as there have been some fairly serious stuff ups inside the Adwords MCC of late, due to programming updates, however, I dont think it is.  Now you can accurately run a fact finding campaign to compare actual search impressions against what Google tells you was out there for that term last month.  It’s just stunning.  Real DATA> It is not quite the holy grail, but it’s close to finding the map to locate it.  If you would like to find these numbers,  it’s simple, call 1300 468 462 or visit www.hotgoanna.com.au and put in an inquiry.  I will be happy to point you in the right direction for your account management needs.  Or of course, you can wait for other blogs to catch up, but Hot Goanna client have started to benefit from this today.

Half Price Clicks - Hot Goanna Proves Adwords Prices can be REDUCED

A leading Australian energy supply company came to us last week.  They had done well on Adwords and were paying on average $2.50 per click.  They had tried our competition and they had not satisfied them.  We took on the account and set up a completely new Adwords Account for them.  We penalised ourselves on purpose.  With a new account, you tend to receive the industry average on clicks for some time until the account can generate some performance history.  With this hurdle, Adam, one of our leading PPC account managers put up a winner.  First day, half price clicks.  Yes, same postion or better, and clicks on average at $1.20.  To make it even harder, we dropped their existing budget by more than 60% and we got more quality traffic on this reduced budget than they did by themselves.  It is that serious, It’s your money.  Google is simple to use, but to get the very best out of your online advertising, you have to either commit the time and study to it, or get the best PPC online marketing team in Australia to help you .  It’s simple, it works.  Oh, and by the way, you now get a killer landing page for free with every Adwords Account we set up.  Call Hot Goanna TM, 1300 468 462 or visit www.hotgoanna.com.au

Google Adwords Page Load Time - Live tonight in Australia

In Google Adwords training with Google Australia Staff today in Brisbane, we were informed that google will launch the actual load time score of Australian pages tonight.  This will immediately start to impact on your bids and costs.  We have been told that load time of your page is compared to the average load time in your region.  If the page is Ok, then its the same or better than the average in your region.  We have asked them to find out if an Australian site is hosted in the US, then does the US average load time of the server and page make the quality score in the US relevant, or does it relate to the Austalian average.  We have also asked how we actually get Google to reassess a bad load time score.  Google Staff are looking into this and will let us know… stay tuned for more soon.

CeBit Australia 2008 - E Marketing Success

Out of over 750 exhibitors at CeBit 2008 Australia, only one made it to the front page of the E Marketing Expo website.  Hear all about how well this show went this year with Hot Goanna selling Google Adwords, as an Authorised Google Adwords Reseller.  Find the full video at http://www.emarketingexpo.com.au/

Google Adwords Support Supplied by Reserve Bank of Australia

Well, not directly, but the end result is the same.  Less people travelling (petrol prices) less time (lifestyle) less disposable income (interest rates) and looking at the retail shops June Sales attendances on the news tonight, guess what you can draw from all this? More people will go looking for the best deal online.   Google has long reported that certain events are either good or bad for search volumes.  National Holidays and massive events = search volumes go down,  Bad Weather (not natural disaster levels) search volumes go up because people are stuck indoors.  So, what does the current state of the Australian economy mean for Google and for Google Adwords advertisers.  It’s good news in my opinion.  Less money in the pocket of shoppers might mean a retail downturn, but it definately means that people will look more for value in a shopping purchase and that means the internet.  As Google provides 88% of the Australian search market (previous post) then this situation is a given.  If your business is not on front page of Google, via Adwords, so that you can daily react to your market and amend your presence and control its postion, then you will suffer from the proposed drop off in the economic slow down.  If you are an existing advertiser on Google Adwords, then you must actively re-asses your budget, bids and positional strategy to find your very best ROI at the lowest CPC.  If you, or your Google Adwords account manager are not working towards this strategy, again, you will be affected by the economic u turn that we are seeing.  Lets face it, first it was CO2 levels, then it was global warming, then the credit crises, then petrol prices.  It’s a tough market, but the smart ones are still growing their business, just like Hot Goanna.  Petrol Price Proof your business, and thank the Reserve Bank for their past good work in continually increasing their base interest rates……(I reckon if they did not do it, we would not be in the hole that we are in now, given that probably water and petrol have had a bigger overall effect)  Anyway, no one can actually work this out.  What you can do is get the best Google Adwords assistance at www.hotgoanna.com.au or call 1300 468 462 during business hours.  Work out how you can beat the downturn, and keep your business above the water line (no pun intended for those in Queensland)

Google Search Volumes in Australia and other data from CeBit 2008.

Having the opportunity to Moderate at the SEM seminar at CeBit 2008 I was able to hear the brightest and best informed spreading excellent data on the Australian Search Market.   Interesting facts included.

According to Hitwise, 88% of Australian PPC traffic comes from Google.

Sept 07 to March 08- Australia 26.8% of visits to websites came from Search Engines.

In the UK 15% of PPC traffic goes to shopping sites, in Austalia its only 8%

In the UK 7% of PPC traffic goes to travel sites, in Australia its only 5%

Email sites visitors are down, and Social Network sites are up. 

Search volumes in Austalia has decreased by 1.53% over last year, with this traffic going directly to an increase in Social Networking sites by the same amount.  My Space has 44% of the market, Facebook 35% and Bebo 8%.

Search traffic uses the following numbers of words in their search terms for the past 6 months.

Number of Words used to search on (terms)       Percentage of Users

1                                                                                    22%
2                                                                                    30
3                                                                                    22
4                                                                                    12
5                                                                                      5
6                                                                                      2

Local Search Market in Australia is currently dominated by

Google    19%    White Pages 19%  Yellow 10%

Google Maps use has grown 250% in the past 12 months. 

It was estimated that there are 15.3 million Australians using search each month and each one averages 80 searches each per month, which puts the Australian market at someting like 1.22 Billion searches each month. This also, if 88% on Google is correct means that 13.4 million Aussies use Google each month.  Based on this, we can report that every Australian statistically sees an ad from Hot Goanna, every month.  Need to know more, visit www.hotgoanna.com.au or call 1300 468 462

Adwords Reseller - Manage your position and make a difference to your profit with Google Busters!

These days, to be 2008 compliant, it is simply not good enough to chase postion 1.  Position 1 on Google search can be a liability.  It can make your sales cost you more, and can actually reduce your sales volume and impact on your bottom line.  How is this for an example.  A great online business with a shopping cart.  We are tracking online sales from their cart via Google Adwords.  Hot Goanna ran a bid test from positon 7 to position 1 for all terms over a 3 week period.  The results are very clear for this client.  We have found their sweet spot.  The sweet spot is the lowest cost per sale and the highest conversion rate.  If you have an existing account and you are not carrying out this comparison, you are both paying too
much and loosing too much business.  It’s simple for an Authorised Google Adwords Reseller, it’s what we do for you and it works.  Visit us at www.hotgoanna.com.au and get this same data for your account. It is the difference between profit and loss. this data is differnet in every vertical (industry) and every website on Google Adwords.  You then have to take it to every keyword and find the sweet spot on Google for each one and maintain it every day.  That’s step one.  Then you refine your conversion rate and thats another story.   It’s your money on Google, spend it very very wisely with an expert Google Adwords Professional.  If you are not getting this level of service for your account, then who are you going to call?  Google Busters 1300 468 482 (sorry to the team on Ghostbusters)

Adwords Help and what it achieved.

The friendly and extremely competent staff at Hot Goanna have dramatically improved our web exposure and sales since we signed with them in January of 2007. Our adwords conversions have doubled and are still on the rise. Our enquiries have also increased exponentially and we now have many more opportunities to up-sell and convert enquiries to bookings which obviously provides us with yet more revenue and a very healthy cash flow. We’re very excited about what else the future will have in store for what is already a successful working union between PP Travel and Hot Goanna. As General Manager of PP Travel I can competently say that this is one of the best joint working ventures I’ve ever been involved in and I would have no hesitation in recommending Hot Goanna to any prospective business out there who is keen to keep one step ahead of their competitor.

MARK MINEHAN
General Manager
PP TRAVEL
www.pptravel.com
5 Irving Street, London, WC2H 7AT
Phone: 020 79309999

Adwords Scam Email - Phishing email gets passwords and results in huge spends for non Hot Goanna accounts.

We notified clients a while ago about these emails apparently from Google Adwords TM.  They look like google, they point to google and they look like they are from google.  However, when I clicked on the first one, my virus scan reported a keystroke virus and also the url was wrong, there was a little extension at the end of the usual google adwords log in page that had a .cn address.  Very smart.  And even though we told all our clients, some still logged in and updated their account details and credit card details.  One self pay client then found they spent an amazing $13,500 overnight and another spent $8,500 in less than 5 days.  Both of these clients have now cancelled their old accounts, cancelled their current credit cards, its a pain….. We have started an Australia wide ad campaign to warn adwords account holders of this, and we are at the forefront of informing Google staff of these emails.  We even have our staff in China finding the details of the server that this is hosted on and its changing each week.  We will help Google get these mongrels. If you think your account has been compromised, report it at http://www.hotgoanna.com/adwordsreseller/adwords/phishing.html and we will notify Google staff to check your existing account.

Online Marketing - who do you trust in Australia to get the best out of Google?

Ask your current provider if they have the experience to have had 1 out of every 7 Australians click on their ads on Google search.  Hot Goanna has now secured more than 3.2 million visitors to our clients sites from Front Page of Google search.  In all this time we have had an average position of 3.1 on front page. 

We have shown more than 400 million free ads for our clients on Google and we have the highest ranking of any Google Professional in the world, that of Authorised Google Adwords Reseller.  Our landing pages constantly outperform our clients websites on conversions by more than 3 to 1 on average and we can reduce ppc costs on these landing pages by up to a staggering 200% per sale or lead. 

We actually advertise ourselves on google!  Many other Adwords Managers do not. Our cost per sale is lower than our sale price of only $199 dollars and we make money for ourselves on the same principal that we offer our clients.  Great Ads, the right words, strategic position,  killer landing pages and great sales techniques to follow up leads to a sale.

We have set the standards in the past for Australian SEM.  We started the $199 set up fees (lots have taken this as the standard and copied it)  In 2006 we offered 1000 free ads on Google as a free trial with no credit card required, and we are the only company to give our clients a daily report of keywords and bids each day by email! No-one has taken transparency and dedication to this level. They all ask you to take the time to log into their site and see results that they wish to show you.  Ours come straight from Google’s API and are delivered to your door.

We get training from Google staff each quarter.  We actually are working with Google to make Adwords better and we actually have their phone number and get the difficult jobs done with their dedicated team, looking after Australian Adwords Resellers.

As Jane Toohey (an eminent published Australian marketing expert said to us this week)  “Took me a long time to find someone who not only knew what they were doing with SEM but actually followed through - It’s Hot Goanna for me”

If you are looking for search engine marketing, online marketing, ppc, Google Adwords or any of the other names that relate to what we do, then call Michael on 1300 468 462. 

If you have a current provider, look at what they disclose and then ask for a comparison.

Mark, the General Manager of PP Travel said last year, ”this is the best partnership that I have ever been involved with  in for our business. I recommend Hot Goanna to any business that is serious about growing their sales” and they are still growing with our services.

See how good we are…..take the challenge and compare or come and see us at Ce Bit and have a coffee from Essentially Coffee (one of our clients). 

Get a fully compliant 2008 Google Adwords account and get a real Australian  holiday voucher valued at $2000 to boot!  Absolutely FREE.  This amazing offer is only available to the web sector from Hot Goanna and Resort Rewards.

If in doubt of any claim made here, visit www.hotgoanna.com.au and click on the links or call 1300 468 462.

Free Entry to CebIT 2008 from Hot Goanna

Come and visit us at CeBIT 2008!We offer high quality Pay Per Click campaigns from as little as $5 per day! Our team at Hot Goanna will ensure you receive qualified leads to your website or landing page. Visit us at CeBIT in Sydney between 20-22 May, and our AdWords professionals will get your business on the GOOGLE FRONT PAGE before you leave the stand! As a bonus, you will receive a FREE Holiday Voucher on sign-up, valued up to $2000!Visit us at CeBIT for free! See what a Google AdWords campaign can do for YOUR BUSINESS - and be on the Google front page before you leave the stand! Visit us at Stand M14 - eMarketing & SEO Expo, Hall 3.You can now register for CeBIT for FREE, courtesy of Hot Goanna. 3 Easy Steps to Register for FREE:

online marketing leads INCREASED by 230% in just 30 days!

First,  click on the image above.  Second, read this to drop your cost per lead via internet marketing by 69% and increase your leads by 230% in just 30 days.  This is a Google Adwords snapshot from an actual account selling one of the hardest things to sell on Google.  “Marketing” This valued client was sending ppc inquiry to their website.  They had a historic “ceilling”from the site that determined their conversion rate.  We had their position, bids and keywords just where we wanted them in relation to roi. (return on investment)  Their return on investment was how many leads we could generate in a month and at what cost.  As we do with every client, we counselled them and as a result found a great brochure that they had used successfully in hard copy.  We took this and turned it into a landing page with a very smart call to action and look what happended in just 30 days.  They started to get a huge amount of inquiry, and more than 65% of them were asking for help with their marketing.  Would you call this a good lead?  You bet!  The stats on this account are typical of our accounts that we work on.  When you get the best traffic at the best price per position per keyword per geographic location that you can.  Then its a simple process of getting the best conversions you can, and once your website is a known commodity (conversion wise) we start to work on you! Then, without the expense of rebuilding the whole site, we take pieces of what you do and then do what we do best! Can you do this? Yes You Can! (sorry Bob!) But, you won’t do it by yourself because you don’t have the cross industry experience of more than 5 million ads per week on Google search in Australia.  You need a Hot Goanna account manager to get you performing on line like you should.  If you would like to find out more, visit www.hotgoanna.com.au  24 hours a day or if you need to talk to a real person call Michael on 1300 468 462 during business hours. Yes, this is a blatant ad, showing you how to do it, without really doing it.  Would you fill in a form with your details to find out how? If so go to http://www.aus-online.net/marketingsuccess/index.html and we will talk to you soon…….

Landing pages = half price clicks

It’s true, you can reduce your Adwords PPC costs by 50% or more with a really good landing page.  Google has recently changed its assesment of your campaign and put more weight on the quality of the landing page.  We recently worked on a long term (2 years) managed account and built a new page on a new url for a client.  We did this by the Google book.  Everything that we could gleen from our Google Staff training days we put in.  Then we queried Google on what it thought of our page and refined it a couple of times.  THE RESULT-  CLICKS AT POSITION 1 TO 3 went from 87 cents to 37 cents.  Yes it’s true, the existing account with massive market share, great volumes, large daily spend, excellent conversions, rippa CTR, was cut by more than half on average CPC by the new ONE PAGE website.  Was it a fluke? No! 
We did it to our own Adwords campaign for www.hotgoanna.com.au.  We took our own canvassing page and rebuilt it and renamed it and put it at a different URL and we moved our click costs down from $15 to $5.  You can do this too!  Google is after quality, they are after speed of loading, quality of the product on the page, and definitive help or assistance for the searcher.  Win the search war, get a new stratgey, renew youself and get half price clicks!  That DOUBLES your profit on an existing campaing overnight.  (PS - Hot Goanna provides these pages for as little as $500 plus GST)

Mark Tull www.hotgoanna.com.au 1300 468 462

Adwords Setup

Before you even set up your Adwords, look first at your website and see if its a Library!  What am I talking about….let me show you.  Have you ever bought a book from a Library?  No of course not, you buy books from a book shop. You borrow books from a Library.  Silly Question?  No,  because now I want you to look at your website.

Is it a library?  Are you letting people borrow all of your information on your products and services?  Are you happy for them to borrow it for free and then just walk away, back into cyberspace?   Are you letting them come into your book shop and read what’s on the shelves, for as long as they want, even offer them a copy of your books (download of brochures or material on your site!) and then just let them go away and you don’t even know their name.  

Lots of websites do this.  And… they wonder why they dont ever sell enough, or get enough inquiries.  They give it all away for free to anonymous people.

Turn your Library web site into a book shop.  Have some rules.  Give shoppers enough information to allow them to make a decision that what you have to offer is relevant and useful to them.  Then stop them and at least ask them for some personal details (so that you can follow them up by phone or email) and let them borrow your information.  At the very least you have turned them into a lead for outbound marketing.

If you give all of your books to the library to let people borrow them, they will never come to your shop to buy a copy.

Once you have resoved how badly your site currently generates leads from interested and relevant visitors, then you can choose to set up your adwords account.  If you don’t do this…. then all you will get is a bill for paying peoples bus fare to go to the library to borrow your books!

Mark Tull www.hotgoanna.com.au