Google has implemented a new policy affecting Internet pharmacies, HMO pharmacies, chain drugstores, and mass retailer pharmacies. Such companies must now be certified by The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) through its Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program in order for Google paid search keyword campaigns to be approved. This policy extends to keywords associated with any merchandise on a website that sells pharmaceuticals – not just pharmaceutical products.
For those still awaiting VIPPS certification, Google shut down all keywords across all campaigns beginning last weekend. Many companies were affected by the policy and few were prepared. The implications of what Google would do and when they would do it were not clear enough. A week later, many of these companies remain dark on Google paid search. A great deal of revenue has been and continues to be lost while these pharmaceutical companies scramble to rectify the situation.
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Google Analytics adds more powerful reporting capabilities, expands mobile measurement and adds intelligence engine to drive smarter data insights.
Several new features for Google Analytics were announced last month designed to make the free web analytics platform more powerful and easy to use. Below is a highlight of several new features.
Goal tracking improvements. In addition to increasing the number of configurable goals to 20 per profile, new site engagement goal types have been introduced. Engagement goals can be set based on the visit duration or the number of pages viewed during a visit. For example, a goal can be set to occur if time on site surpasses 10 minutes or after 12 pages have been viewed in a visit. These new goal types allow site owners to measure the proportion of visits that meet a time on site or pageview threshold and are especially valuable for content websites. AdWords advertisers can use these Google Analytics goals for campaign optimization in cases where ecommerce conversion is not applicable or the target behavior.
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Google Commerce Search is the latest addition to a formidable merchant-centric tool set.
I spend more time every week thinking about Google than I play with my kids. I know, that is a sad declaration on the state of my life, but, Google keeps expanding its universe, and I still have the same number of kids.
I know that I am forgetting a few things here, but Google has its fingers in an enormous portion of the merchant marketing pie:
- Google.com: Google controls the presentation layer before a searcher makes a click.
- Maps: Google controls who and what shows up where for local search.
- Google Affiliate Program: Yup, you heard that right, you can do affiliate programs through Google now.
- Google Shopping: A free (for now) comparison shopping engine.
- Google Checkout: Google wants to be your transaction partner.
- And starting today, Google has unleashed Google Commerce Search.
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With its potential for timely and ultra-targeted offers, Google Wave could alter the rules for email and social media marketing.
I was excited to receive an “exclusive” invite for the Google Wave product. My first look at this intriguing platform, combined with the recent work we’ve been doing with the Facebook API, has left me pondering the future of both.
While we can’t be sure what Google’s final product will look like, the currently available Wave application could potentially be an e-mail and/or social media killer. On second thought, those two platforms will never go away, but they could be somewhat diminished. After all TV didn’t kill radio and online marketing will not completely replace off-line channels, but in both cases, the existing models had to be rethought.
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Local search ads take mobile leap on iPhone.
Google Sponsored Listings have started to appear within the Maps application installed on every iPhone and iPod touch device. These paid listings appear alongside organic results when users perform relevant searches, helping local customers find appropriate businesses from their mobile phone. PM Digital is working on getting more details on the specifics of this new program and how it relates to Google’s Local Business Ads program.
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PM Digital has been leveraging content search much more than we had in the past, and we’ve found some great success there. Google’s content network, in particular, yields a massive amount of impressions which is desirable for advertisers looking for more scale from search (approximately 70% of internet users view content ads per month for 139 million impressions).
In the past year, PM Digital was fortunate to have Michelle Obama favor two of our clients’ clothes, and we leveraged linking those brands with Michelle Obama’s name and other relevant keywords within the content network, trying to make the most of the constant media mentions.
These campaigns yielded a significant amount of sales. Most advertisers, though, may not get the opportunity to link their brand to Michelle Obama, so can they still find success with content?
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In case you haven’t heard, last month, Google announced a major algorithm change called Google Caffeine. And, for the first time ever, they have given us a sneak preview which, depending on who you believe, was either done to steal the thunder from MS Bing and other related news such as Facebook’s purchase of FriendFeed, get enough feedback to ensure similar results to the current algorithm or to truly get feedback from marketers and SEOs on their improvements.
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This summer we have seen lots of testing for different ad placements on Google, including changes to Page 1, product images displayed along the right side of search results, and quick links within sponsored ads. The following is a quick review of these and other potential changes.
- Product search listings (formerly Froogle) have been shifting placement on Page 1 of Google Search, moving from the top to the bottom, and now to the middle above the fold.
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Google Webmaster Tools is a free service that provides diagnostic reports and tools for improving a site’s visibility on Google and other search engines. While it focuses on technical aspects of search engine crawling and is aimed at webmasters and SEO practitioners, it also contains several features and reports of particular interest to online marketers. Listed below are three features of Google Webmaster Tools that can help improve your marketing efforts.
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