In short, Étienne is an expert at improving user experiences on websites and landing pages helping to drive better results by increasing conversion rates (sales, leads, signups, etc.). All things that are handy when trying to get the most out of a paid search campaign!

I asked Étienne to share some insights on his experience and expertise - here’s what he had to say:

Xurxo: How did you get your start in Usability, and what keeps you there?

Étienne: I’ve been doing Web design for the last 10 years. My obsession for improving designs have led me to create my own research and testing methodologies which were formalized through work experiences and schooling.

I’m more passionate than ever about usability. New technologies like the iPhone are raising awareness towards the importance of having a good user interface which, creates a lot of interesting opportunities in my field. After all, you can have the best looking website in the world but, if it doesn’t reach your goal, it may be time to consider a redesign.

Xurxo: What are you most passionate about when it comes to Usability?

Étienne: I’m passionate about creating perfect user experiences. Seamless interfaces with all the right options available at the right time and position. I love helping companies get there through user testing, usability reviews, analytics, redesigns, strategy etc. before watching the results roll in.

Xurxo: Tell us a bit about your approach, for example how do you convince people that have never done usability reviews and testing to start seeing this as an opportunity?

Étienne: Often times, only minor changes are required in order to generate additional revenues. It’s important for companies to see their website’s potential for improvement.  Adapting to usability feedback is often easy and generate quick gains. The money invested in usability is only a fraction of the revenues it will generate.

Xurxo: What’s your elevator pitch?

Étienne: Kotsego is for result-oriented businesses who are dissatisfied with approximate design solutions. Our services (landing page optimization, usability audits and user testing) provide companies with a concrete way to increase conversion rates. Unlike other usability firms, we focus our usability research on increasing profitability for our customers.

Xurxo: Which blogs are a must read for you - those that you absolutely can’t wait for the next post to come out?

Étienne: I enjoy Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen’s websites and industry benchmarks because they provide a lot of data and insight on things that can help my customers. Boxes and Arrows is a must-read blog on user testing and design while Konigi and 37signals are excellent design resources I read everyday.

BONUS QUESTION:

Xurxo: Why should you invest in usability during tougher economic times when budgets are being cut?

Étienne: Usability can help businesses make the best of their current traffic by improving conversion rates (average increase is 83% - [Nielsen]). Good usability and user experience also help increase traffic through word of mouth and repeat transactions in an increasingly competitive market. The times may be harder but usability can help you make the best of what you already have.

Xurxo: Thanks Étienne!

–

About Kotsego
Kotsego is a user-centered design agency focused on increasing profitability through usability. Services include landing page optimization, Web design, usability reviews, usability testing and design strategy. Visit www.kotsego.com to learn more, check out their web usability blog or follow twitter.com/kotsego.

Well, it’s now fixed with the 6.5.1 update.

Keyword Opportunities

Sporting quite a few improvements, Version 6.5 added a new tool called Keyword Opportunities which helps you generate keyword ideas based on descriptive words or phrases within the Editor and copy or add them right into a new or existing adgroup.  You can learn more about the new feature here.

The only problem was the keyword opportunity tool didn’t work when loading an account through your My Client Center (MCC) login. Those affected - myself and our team included - saw the error message “Authentication Failed” when trying to use the tool. The only workaround was to load the account using the login of the “child account”.

What’s next?

Besides having recurring problems installing AdWords Editor over an existing version on Vista (to my knowledge, it’s still an issue but I don’t have that problem on Mac but they do keep changing a few key Mac shortcuts which is a real pain), using the Keyword Opportunities at the MCC level was in need of a fix.

Let’s hope with that out of the way, the next release will include First Page Bids and Quality Score.

See the release notes for Version 6.5.1.

How can to see the data?

At the Campaign Summary and Ad Group Summary pages, you’ll now see a drop down with the following options:

• Summary - See statistics aggregated in one line
• Split: all search/content network - See separate statistics for search (which includes Google search and search partners) and the content network, as well as a line combining the two
• Split: Google search/search partners/content network - See separate statistics for Google search, search partners, and the content network, as well as a line combining the three
• Only show: Google search/search partners - See statistics for search only (includes Google search and search partners)
• Only show: Google search - See statistics for Google search only
• Only show: search partners - See statistics for search partners only (doesn’t include Google search)
• Only show: content network - See statistics for the content network only

Previously, these pages showed performance information rolled up in one line item for each campaign or ad group.

First the Content Network…

Google’s Content Network was long an area of dissatisfaction to some advertisers mainly due to the lack of control and transparency Google provided as to which sites showed your ads. Google responded by providing placement reports, demographic bidding options, ability to exclude sites in categories such as parked domains, error pages or sites with potentially offensive content, and recently, the ability to target both keywords and placements in the same campaign.

Where “opting-out” of the Content Network was once a default tactic to improve ROI on a campaign, the flexibility and control brought by these improvements now provide real opportunities to get results by strategically targeting the Content Network.

…Now the Search Partners

As for the Search Partners, Google has relationships with sites that agree to show ads in response to searches performed on those sites (sometimes search driven, sometimes navigational driven). The actual “search partners” has always been a grey zone as to knowing how it performs and where your ads show. Google does provide some examples on their AdWords Help section which mentions sites like AOL, Ask.com, Shopping.com -  but also includes sites that installed the Google Site Search.

What do you do now?

Google can report separate metrics back to January 1, 2007, any data prior to this data will be categorized under ‘Google’ in your account. If you opted out of the Search Partners recently, take a look at your data since Jan 1 and see how the Search Partners performed relative to Google - perhaps you’ll see positive results that may justify reactivating this network. If you’re currently including the Search Partners in your campaign, analyze the data to see if this part of your campaign is delivering on your campaign goals or wasting your budget. In the current economic climate, this may be an interesting way to see if there are any cost savings to be had for some of your campaigns.

More control?

Not yet. More insights, yes - well, at least a bit. The only control you currently have is to exclude the entire Search Partners Network from your Google campaign. Hopefully, the Report Center will allow for more granular statistics by Search Partners.

What’s next?

Although breaking down campaign statistics between the Google and Search Partners is a great step into seeing how your campaign is performing on each, I would like to see a few more features added:

• Similar to the Placements report, the ability to see which Search Partner your ads showed on and campaign statistics for each domain/url
• Ability to exclude individual Search Partners or domains/urls
• Option to target only the Search Partners in a campaign
• Ability to report between “search results” vs “navigational results”
• Separate bidding options for Search Partners

Is this only the first of many improvement with the Search Partners? Any other features you’d like to see Google roll out for the Search Partners? Please share in the comments below.

You can learn more about the new Search Partners features in the AdWords Help section but there’s also a conversation going on at the webmasterworld Google Adwords forum about this update, so be sure to check it out and see what others are saying.

Via Flickr © dionnemusic

With Canadians heading to the polls on October 14th, inspired by the energetic and dramatic US election race, I was wondering if our political parties in Canada have been influenced a bit by savvy Internet campaigns from our neighbors south of the border.

The Internet’s influence on politics is growing

According to a few recent studies such as “2008 Search Engines and Politics: A Study of Attitudes and Influence” and “How America Searches: Election ‘08 Update”, online voters rely heavily on news sites, candidates’ websites and search engines for election information. And by looking at the discussions about Obama and McCain’s paid search campaigns - 2008 seems to be the year where politics “got” search marketing - at least in the United States that is.

Who’s doing what?

The Canadian political parties seem to be making some attempts at connecting with voters through social media in these elections but I was curious to see how they fared with paid search? I decided to do a bit of digging to get a glimpse each party’s PPC strategy. To test, I made a top-level list of keywords for each party and searched these from different provinces on Google (the searches were done on the evening of Wednesday Sep 24, results may vary going forward). Below are my observations:

Conservative Party of Canada

The incumbent conservative political party led by Stephen Harper: www.conservative.ca

The keywords: conservatives, conservative, conservative party, conservative party of canada, stephen harper, elections canada, stephane dion, elizabeth may, jack layton, gilles duceppe, election (s).

Verdict: They don’t get it. Nothing - not one ad from the conservative party on any of the keyword variations. Maybe they didn’t get Google, so I did a sample search on Yahoo and MSN - nothing again. Ah well, next…

Liberal Party of Canada

The liberal opposition party led by Stephane Dion: www.liberal.ca

The keywords: liberals, liberal, liberal party, liberal party of canada, stephane dion, elections canada, elizabeth may, jack layton, stephen harper, gilles duceppe, election (s)

Verdict: I found no sponsored links in Google and at first glance, it didn’t look like they “got” it either, except maybe for Scott Andrews, Federal Liberal Candidate in Avalon, in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I checked out Yahoo and MSN out of curiosity - to my surprise, the Liberals are using both! So, why not Google?

Here’s a sample of Mr. Dion’s ads:

Liberal Party of Canada Meet Your Liberal Candidates & Get Info on Elections Canada 2008 Here. www.liberal.ca

Stephen Harper Meet Your Liberal Candidates & Get Info on Elections Canada 2008 Here. www.liberal.ca

Liberal Party of Canada Make Polluters Pay. Canada’s Liberals have the plan to lead the world. www.liberal.ca

Canada’s Liberal Party Latest Information on Liberal Candidates & Elections Canada 2008. www.liberal.ca

They seem to be using dynamic keyword insertion in the title tag…the second one might be an invitation for Mr. Harper to meet his Liberal candidate but I don’t think so!

So they somewhat “get” it.

The New Democratic Party of Canada

Canada’s progressive social democratic party led by Jack Layton: www.ndp.ca

The keywords: ndp, new democratic party, jack layton, elections canada, elizabeth may, stephane dion, stephen harper, election (s), canadian election

Verdict: They seem to “get” it, way more than their opponents. They appear to be targeting NDP related keywords as well as Jack Layton. They are also targeting Stephane Dion and uniquely Stephen Harper with a political social site: www.orangeroom.ca. I also noticed some ads on the content network in my gmail. As for creatives, they are focusing their catch-phrases, the message of change, family and a call to action to donate now. Also noticed that even when targeting Stephane Dion, they redirect focus on Stephen Harper. They’re also using Yahoo and MSN - see Liberal screenshots above.

Here are some of the ads:

Reduce bank fees It’s time for a PM who’ll put your family first. Donate now. NDP.ca

Layton takes on Big Banks Finally, a prime minister who’ll put your family first. Donate now. NDP.ca

Jack Layton for PM Change that takes us forward, not backward. Donate now. NDP.ca

Reduce cell phone fees It’s time for a PM who’ll put your family first. Donate now. NDP.ca

Do you trust Harper? It’s time for a PM who’ll put your family first. Donate now. NDP.ca

Harper’s wrong on smog It’s time for a PM who’ll put you and your family first. NDP.ca

Join Jack Layton’s team Finally, a PM who’ll put you and your family first. Donate now. NDP.ca

Harper’s wrong on tuition It’s time for a PM who’ll put you and your family first. NDP.ca

Harper wrong for students It’s time for a PM who’ll put you and your family first. NDP.ca

Layton takes on Big Oil Finally, a prime minister who’ll put your family first. Donate now. NDP.ca

So far, the NDP seem to have a more comprehensive paid search strategy across Google, Yahoo and MSN. Let’s look at the other parties…

The Green Party

Environmentalist party led by Elizabeth May: www.greenparty.ca

The keywords: the green party, green party of canada, elizabeth may, elections canada, gilles duceppe, stephane dion, stephen harper, jack layton, election (s)

Verdict: Nope, they don’t get it…or more likely, they may not have as much funding as the above 3 parties. However, interesting that one of the active paid search campaigns on terms like: “vote”, “elizabeth may”, and “the green party” is none other than David Suzuki with his site VoteEnvironment2008.ca. The site is intended to help make the environment a priority in the current federal election so that the next government, regardless of which party wins, will work toward solutions. Here’s a screenshot of ads looking to set the record straight.

Le Bloc Quebecois

Political party devoted to “defend the interests” of the province of Quebec. As such, it campaigns only within the province during elections. The keywords were searched both in french and in english: www.presentpourlequebec.org

The keywords: le bloc, bloc quebecois, gilles duceppe, elections canada, stephane dion, elizabeth may, jack layton, stephen harper, election (s)

Verdict: Nope! At least not on the Google’s search network. I may have spotted them on the content network in French but I’m not sure and couldn’t replicate it.

Update: Noticed some ads today for the Bloc - both on gmail and on google search in french…here’s a sample ad:
Élection Fédérale 2008 Bloc Québécois, Gilles Duceppe Élection 2008 www.blocquebecois.org

Bonus

Spotted the Progressive Canadian Party on the content network on gmail.com - they’re a small progressive-conservative party led by Sinclair Stevens. Here’s a sample ad:

Harper’s Hidden Agenda Harper’s hidden agenda revealed. The truth about what’s in store. ProgressiveCanadian.ca

The Winners: The NDP

So far, the party using paid search better than their competitors is the New Democratic Party - with honorable mention to the Liberals for giving it a try. As for the reason why the other parties aren’t actively using paid search in these elections to connect with voters, the ideas covered by Laura Callow in her post “SEM in Canada” might give a hint as to why.

Come on, get with it!

Paid search should be considered by the Canadian political parties during their campaigns. South of the border, the political parties seem to “get” it. So much so that SMX East has dedicated a Paid Search Track on Search & the US Presidential Campaign. The session is scheduled to look at ads, tactics and overall strategies by both the Obama and McCain teams. SES Toronto may have more luck hosting a session: “Where’s Search in the Canadian Election Race?” - maybe they should invite Jack Layton as a speaker, eh?

If you spot any of the parties turning up the heat with their paid search campaigns, feel free to add in the comments below.

This post was authorized by the registered agent of Bloom Search Marketing.

A more “accurate” quality score since it will be calculated more on a real-time basis for each search query.

Google clarifies that account history, CTR (Click Through Rate) of keywords and ad texts along with landing page quality will continue to be factored in. What they don’t say is which elements will carry more importance so testing will remain key to keep your campaigns running optimally.

Keywords will no longer be marked as “inactive for search”.

Google claims that all keywords will “remain” active since they’re now going to be evaluated on each and every search query. However most keywords currently marked as “inactive” will continue not to accrue impressions or clicks except in certain circumstances where Google deems that they perform better.

Unfortunately Google did not provide more details on what some of those circumstances might be, but we suspect geographical targeting may play a role.

“Minimum bids” will be replaced by “First page bid estimates”.

Google states that this move will “provide a more actionable and useful metric to advertisers”. Personally I’ll wait to see how it’s rolled out to see if that statement is accurate.

Our contacts at Google did clarify that there will be a numerical value by which you’ll be able to gauge at what position your ads will appear depending on your bids and what grade of quality score individual keywords are marked at (Currently advertisers use minimum bids to gage at what level of “Great”, “Ok” or “Poor” their keyword quality scores are at – I would not like to lose this insight!).

Opportunity for Adwords Advertisers? Possibly…

As search marketers that spend hours each day monitoring and optimizing campaigns in Adwords, we wait with anticipation for this change to finally take effect. As with many recent changes to Adwords’ quality score, we suspect that savvy advertisers and search marketers will be able to capitalize on the opportunities these changes will likely bring about so keep your eyes open in the coming days.

Just the same, we’re hoping that Google implements this update smoothly!

Saying it’s really nice that the folks at Google have changed their minds and decided to give advertisers search volume estimates in the keyword tool is an understatement! This is definitely a feature that savvy search marketers will jump all over. Not only can you get the search volume estimates for a keyword, but you can even get them for each match type and here’s the kicker: search volume data on negative keywords.

Yes, you heard right! You can now get a more accurate picture of how much of a difference in search volume there is between an exact match keyword and a broad match keyword. But even more impressive is that you can now see how much irrelevant traffic individual negative keywords in combination with the keywords you’re looking up will eliminate. Now that’s powerful!

In keeping with Google’s mantra of making advertising as relevant to their users as possible, this is a feature that advertisers can directly benefit from. Not to mention that SEOs will most likely have a greater interest in the tool as well. That said, it seems like the celebration of this long awaited feature has already begun!

For further insights into how to make the most of this tool, check out the official Adwords blog. We’d love to hear what you think about this new feature, so be sure to leave us your thoughts and comments!

The Process

The team at the BBB made the process very simple and straightforward. We initially contacted them requesting information on getting our business accredited. We were then contacted by the local chapter and after a few quick emails and a phone call, they scheduled an appointment to visit our offices in person. We had a great meeting where we explained what we do and showed them how we operate and work with our clients. We also went over the BBB’s code of business and advertising practises that are to be observed as well as the benefits that being a member of the BBB offered. We then completed the application online, paid the membership fee and after a few short weeks received the approval by email with the reliability seal and online profile page to link to. Our paper certificate followed by mail a couple of week later.

The Benefits of Being a Member

Having worked on the client side for companies that have been part of the BBB, we’ve experienced the benefits that being a member offers. For example,

• You get to place the BBB logo on your website and use it in marketing materials so that you can build trust with potential clients who do not know you yet.
• You also get to provide an extra level of transparency to potential clients, suppliers and business partners through business reliability reports. These reports provide information on member and non-member businesses alike, alerting them to any consumer complaint histories, law enforcement actions, and advertising practises.
• You get listed in printed and online member directories that give you the opportunity to participate in BBB co-op advertisements and to sponsor websites, publications and events.
• You get to network and build relationships with other BBB members who also adhere to the BBB’s code of business practises.

In summary, being a member of the BBB allows you gain additional exposure while reinforcing an image of trust and ethical business practices with potential clients, strategic partners, and suppliers.

What This Means

For us, business as usual, but at the same time it’s another instance of practicing what we preach. We recommend to our clients that they prominently display reliability seals and logos on their websites and landing pages to increase the level of trust (and conversions) of their website visitors. The BBB is one such seal that shows potential clients that you take a commitment to providing exceptional service and adhering to strict ethical business practices very seriously.

Already a member of the BBB or are considering joining? Share your thoughts! We’d especially love to hear your thoughts on the BBB and its benefits for consulting companies.

We’re Moving!

We’re excited to announce that on July 1st, Bloom will be moving to a new home. After quite a bit of searching, we recently took possession of a cool loft space in the Chateau Saint-Ambroise, a trendy and creatively stimulating building in one of Montreal’s chic and newly revamped neighbourhoods.

A Creative Place

This is an exciting time for Bloom - over the last few years, our search marketing agency has gone from being simply an idea to a full-time realization. This second office space is a natural evolution for us as our new office will give our team more space to grow while providing an environment that allows us to focus on our clients and work. We’ll also be surrounded by some cool, interesting, vibrant and creative companies and we’re looking forward to connecting with our new neighbours.

Want to Drop In?

Our new office space is located at 4020 St-Ambroise, Suite 480 in Montreal - conveniently located a few minutes from downtown, right off of the Lachine Canal and its beautiful bike path. As of July, stop by and visit us, we’ll be sure to fire up the espresso machine!

Photo credit: All About Eve via Flickr

What People Are Saying

A lot of the commentary floating around the forums and blogs are quite critical of this move by Google. I guess it’s normal to see such reactions given the frustration that many advertisers have faced with expanded broad match and Google’s lack of transparency with these type of “updates” in the past. In this case if you’re “randomly” selected for the beta, your campaigns will be automatically affected since you have to manually opt out.

If You Still Want to Test it Out

As with any beta that Google rolls out we recommend being cautious and if you want to test it, do it on a limited scale that you have full control over. In this case, limit the daily budget of the campaign that you have automatic matching on, set your performance benchmarks, test time frame, pull out search query reports and measure the performance closely to make sure that this feature makes sense for you.

Tell Google What You Think!

Google has however given advertisers who are selected to participate in this beta the ability to provide them with feedback on this feature. You can do this (just click on the “Take our survey” link) from within the Campaign Settings page which is also where you can opt out of the automatic matching feature. So make sure to tell them what you think about it!

How to Opt Out and tell Google What You Think:

If you haven’t yet been “invited” to the automatic matching beta test, keep and eye out for the following alert in your Adwords account:

The MCC Dashboard centralizes and makes it easy for people managing multiple AdWords accounts by providing high level account statistics for each account. The old dashboard included mostly budget data with the possibility of changing date ranges but these were set to predifined ranges.

We were welcomed with this alert earlier today:

Here’s what it looked like before:

Although it provides easy access to all the accounts, one key element that was missing: performance stats!

Here’s the new interface:

What’s new?

Google has added a new performance tab to complement the already existing budget section, providing a much more comprehensive overview of each account. Most importantly, the date range feature has been updated to allow for flexible date selection as well as defined ranges (including the option to view today’s data which wasn’t available before!)

On the new performance page, we can now see clicks, impressions, conversions, conversion rate, as well as separate Search and Content network CTR. On the Budget page, we continue to find start- and end- dates, percent of budget spent and total spend. The AdWords help section seems to have been updated.

What’s missing?

Although the new performance data is a big improvement, we’d love the ability to customize the data columns to display. It would seem trivial but useful to add a Cost per Conversion column. In addition, we’d like the possibility to view other types of conversions as well as such as sales, sign-ups, and also conversion value (specifically useful with eComm campaigns). This may pose a bit of complexity since it creates an account specific requirement rather then uniforming the data to display across all accounts. One idea would be data view preferences which you can associate to multiple clients (lead generating, sales, signups, etc).

So far, so good!

We were looking for an official announcement from Google but it looks like they may be slowly rolling this new dashboard and collecting feedback from MCC account holders for now (there’s a feedback link at the bottom of the MCC page that refers to MCC_V2). Any one else seeing the new dashboard - if so, since when and what do you think?