Q4. With so much competition over keywords now, are small businesses being squeezed out of effective PPC advertising, or do they just need to be a lot more sophisticated in their approach?

Unique in the paid search market, Google actually rewards relevancy.  Your ad is ranked on the search results and content pages based on various performance factors including: maximum cost-per-click (CPC), click through rate (CTR), and ad text.  Having relevant ad text, a high CPC and a strong CTR will result in a higher position for your ad.

Because this ranking system rewards well-targeted, relevant ads, you cannot be locked out of the top position as you would be in a ranking system based solely on price.

Q5. Small Business Marketing Strategies are all about Return on Investment (ROI).  What are the reporting features on AdWords that will allow advertisers to accurately track ROI? 

To help advertisers measure and track the success of their AdWords campaigns, Google provides full online statistical, conversion and financial reporting. 

You can view your average actual cost-per-click (CPC), the number of times your ads were shown (impressions), how many times users clicked on your ads (clicks), and your ad and keyword click through rates (CTR).

You can also track your AdWords conversions (successful sales, leads, or submissions) with our basic and custom conversion tracking feature.  

Q6. How does AdWords deal with ‘click fraud’ (the malicious clicking by unscrupulous persons or competitors to deplete your advertising fund)?

We know that there has been concern and attention to this topic.  However, this has not been a material issue for Google.  We have sophisticated technology that detects click fraud and while we cannot promise that we will be able to prevent all instances of click fraud, we are very pleased with the results to date.  Ultimately, advertisers see the value of advertising with us because of the conversion rates. Therefore, over time, the issue is self-correcting.

Q7. A whole industry has developed offering adWords management.  In your opinion is there any benefit to these or can it all be achieved through AdWords itself?

Google provides a range of free easy to use tools to help you get started with AdWords and manage and optimize your campaigns.  You can be up and running in less than 15 minutes and using the online tools can quickly learn to identify the best performing keywords and maximize your CTR and Conversion rates.  Whilst there are many companies providing search advertising services, you don’t need specialist knowledge to make AdWords work for you.

Q8. Google AdWords is also testing a CPM (Cost per Impression) campaign that offers a different pricing and targeting model.  Can you tell us about this, and why an advertiser might choose CPM over CPC?

CPM (cost-per-impression) pricing is a component of the site targeting service Google is currently testing and is only available for advertisers using site targeting. 

With site-targeted campaigns, advertisers will simply set a maximum CPM.  The model is different from other CPM models, where advertisers must pay a fixed CPM - with our model advertisers bid the maximum they would be willing to pay for a thousand impressions, and then their ad competes for advertising space on the site with other site-targeted ads as well as with keyword-targeted ads.  Advertisers will only pay 1 cent more than what is required for them to maintain their advertising position.

Google recognises that advertisers might have different marketing objectives in mind that call for a range of bidding options.  The advertiser should use the bidding option that will allow them to meet marketing objectives.

Generally speaking, if they are running a direct response campaign, then the CPC strategy may be more efficient - as opposed to an awareness campaign that will maximize exposure via CPM.