Ryan Hutchings, Vacation Roost

Understanding the Google Machine

Ryan Hutchings

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• Online wholesaler of vacation rentals and vacation packages

• Industry with 1 huge player, and lots of small ones

• Large PPC Budget - $2 Million/year– 160,000+ keywords, 4 accounts, 18 websites

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Step 1: Break the System• Broke campaigns into 100’s of

adgroups– Match specific, keyword specific, 3-5 keywords

per group– Even similar keywords got separate adgroups

• i.e. “park city cabins” vs. “park city cabins for rent” vs. “park city cabin rentals”

– Do this for every type of lodging we offer- hotels, condos, cabins, homes, townhomes, villas, chalets, etc…

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Results:• Cross adgroup confusion

– Ads from one ad group showing up for another, keywords not triggering matched queries (even exact match)

– Cross campaign confusion– Negative keyword lists not being respected at campaign levels

• Complaints to Google, “account reps” couldn’t really help• Infamous “the system isn’t designed to work that way”

from Google people• Magically got a new account team, dedicated to us with

an adwords, analytics and mid-management specialist

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Step 2: Digging into Interpretation Effect• Google creates “buckets” for industries.

The system operates within these “buckets” and will “interpret on your behalf”.– Cabin means condo, hotels, lodging, vacation

rental, private home, etc…

• Solution was to manage/insert 10’s of thousands of negative keywords to force Adwords to respect keyword and override interpretation

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What does this all mean?

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Double Rainbow somewhere

Interpretation Drives Google Systems and Product Development

1. Organic and Search are similar in intent

2. Stay on top of new features/trends to anticipate both arenas

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• Google will continue to push out new features and merge the line between paid and non-paid spots

• Keeping visitors on Google as long as possible in in their best interest- in both paid and organic results

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• Location – places integration• Call – phone numbers, click to call• Sitelink – deep links• Product – Product feed integration• Social – Google+ integration

Dominate the paid space by utilizing each of these, and you can anticipate organic results having the same effect.

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Stay up to date with what you see

1. Your own industry searches

2. Popular changing industry searches:– “ipod touch”, “dell latitude”– “las vegas hotels”– “credit cards”

• Do not do “ppc management” – apparently they arent interested in having good ppc ads

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Coming Down the Road in PPC

1. Google Advisor/Finders

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Coming Down the Road in PPC

1. Google Advisor/Finders

2. Offer Extensions

3. Video Ad Extensions

4. Lead Form Extension

5. Extended Ad Headlines (ad and domain name)

http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/ for information on the latest tests, trends and status of new releases

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1. Beware of your “interpretation bucket” – check to see if your ad is showing via Google’s tool

2. Stay up-to-date with industry searches + popular terms1. Look for sign in both organic and paid

3. Utilize every single extension available