AdCenter Blog

Where will my ads show up?

When you purchase PPC advertising through the LookSmart AdCenter, you are asking LookSmart to display your ads on our partners' search and content sites. These may include web sites operated by LookSmart, such as FindArticles.com or other sites owned by other companies.

Some of these web sites include:

• CNET's Search.com
• Dogpile.com
• Excite
• InfoSpace
• FindArticles

These web sites accept advertisers from the LookSmart AdCenter as well as other ad networks. Your ads may appear on these web sites depending on your campaign settings. If you don't see your ad, there could be several things you need to adjust:

• Is your ad relevant? Web sites that accept advertisements try to display only ads that are relevant to their visitors and the keywords they use to search. You may need to revise your text ad or change your keywords to make it more relevant for the sites you want to appear on.
• Is your CPC bid competitive? Our partners want to deliver ads that earn them a good price...they are businesses too, after all. Your ad will be competing with other advertisers for the top positions. If you don't see your ad, consider increasing your bid to get a better position.
• Is your campaign funded? You can specify the daily spending limit for your campaign in the LookSmart AdCenter. If you're spending your full budget every day, consider increasing your budget to allow your ad to be shown more frequently.

If you need more information about LookSmart's network, our team of customer service and PPC professionals can help. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail or call 877-512-LOOK (5665).

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

What is PPC advertising?

In the last few weeks, we've been going through a lot of the mechanics behind pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.  Today we're going to step back and talk about PPC advertising in general and where the LookSmart AdCenter fits into the landscape of PPC providers.

PPC Advertising 101

First of all, what is "PPC" advertising?  The PPC stands for "pay-per-click".  You pay LookSmart a certain amount every time a user clicks on an advertisement that we display on one of our partners' web sites.  You tell LookSmart the maximum amount you're willing to pay for each of these clicks, and LookSmart compares your bids to other advertisers' bids to determine which ads to show and in what order.

PPC advertising is very different from other forms of online advertising.  For example, some web sites will let you place an advertisement by paying a published CPM (cost-per-thousand) rate.  This means that you'll pay a certain fee every time your ad is shown, regardless of whether it is clicked on.

Still other sites may charge you a fixed monthly or quarterly subscription fee.  This is especially popular with online directories.  Your costs are the same every month but the price is set by the service provider.

PPC Advantages

PPC advertising has several advantages over other forms of online advertising, including:

• You choose your price. You decide what your maximum PPC price is for your ads.  For search advertising, you can choose a different price for every keyword you bid on.  Clever advertisers find ways to optimize their bids to keep their costs low.
• You choose your keywords.  With PPC advertising, you can be very specific about where you want your ads to show.  You have total control over your keywords at all times and can make changes on a daily basis.  This can be very flexible and responsive to your needs.
• You pay only for success.  You pay only when one of your future visitors clicks on your ads.  This means that you have the opportunity to convert your visitors to paying customers with each click.  Other forms of advertising make you pay even if the visitor never actually makes it to your site.

What is the LookSmart AdCenter?

The LookSmart AdCenter is the web site where you go to place your ads on the LookSmart ad network.  LookSmart has partnered with leading search sites such as CNET's Search.com and others to provide you with a low-cost source of visitors to your web site.

When you buy advertising with LookSmart, your ads can appear on LookSmart's web sites like FindArticles or other sites on our network.  LookSmart licenses its ad serving technology to other companies, so your ads can appear on any number of quality sites.

LookSmart also employs quality controls on its network to help keep your costs low and your advertising campaigns productive.  LookSmart looks at clicks advertisers receive from our partners and evaluates them for their cost effectiveness.

Try it out

If you're new to PPC advertising, LookSmart's team of customer service and PPC professionals can help you get started. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail or call 877-512-LOOK (5665).

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

Why should I use different match types?

In a previous blog post, we took a look at three concepts:

• Broad Match - match your keywords to the broadest possible number of user searches
• Negative Match - refine your Broad Match keywords to eliminate unwanted matches
• Smart Match - match your keywords to the most precise user searches

In this edition of Did You Know...? we'll look at some specific examples of how each of these are used.

Example: a local coffee shop

For our example, let's assume you are the proprietor of a Springfield, Illinois-based business called The Coffee Corner situated near the University of Illinois campus (this coffee shop does not really exist).  You want to draw customers to  your web site to learn more about your specialty espresso drinks and pastries. Your text ad looks like this:

Best Coffee Near UIS
Try a double-shot macchiato with one
of our fresh-baked blueberry scones.
coffee-corner.example.com

You create a new campaign with the following keywords:

Keyword	Match Type	CPC
coffee shop	broad match	$0.50
espresso drinks	broad match	$0.25

Optimizing this Campaign

How might we optimize this campaign?  Well, first of all we can expand this campaign to include more keywords.  We might also want to throw in some words that will narrow the scope of our campaign to just people who are likely to be looking for coffee near the University of Illinois-Springfield (UIS).  Lastly, we can add some negative keywords that will keep us away from users who are not really looking for coffee shops in our area.

Here's our refined keyword list:

Keyword	Match Type	CPC
coffee shops near springfield illinois	broad match	$0.50
coffee shops near university of illinois in springfield	broad match	$0.50
espresso drinks near springfield illinois	broad match	$0.25
espresso springfield illinois	smart match	$1.25
espresso drinks near university of illinois in springfield	broad match	$0.25
prairie stars coffee	broad match	$0.75
blazing	negative match	n/a
maple park	negative match	n/a

Optimization Explained

So, what exactly did we do here?  Let's take a look:

• broad match keyword expansion. We added additional search terms to the short phrases we were using.  This narrowed the matching down so that we were not advertising to all Internet users who were interested in coffee shops and espresso drinks.
• geographic terms.  We included words in our keyword bids that would limit our region of interest down to areas near the University where our coffee shop was located.  This also reinforced our ad copy which also made reference to our geographic location.
• smart match terms. We added a Smart Match term that included only the essential keywords "espresso", "springfield", and "illinois".  This is a very precise match so we increased our bid price to get the best position on the page for our ad.
• negative terms.  Our keyword "prairie stars coffee" was very similar to a business called "Blazing Prairie Stars" located in nearby Maple Park, IL.  We added negative terms so that our ad was unlikely to show up for people searching for those stables.

These techniques can be applied to your own campaigns and keywords.  Think about the types of search terms that identify your business, products, or services.  If you need help figuring out the best approach, give us a call. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail, or call our customer service team at 877-512-LOOK (5665).

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

How do I get keyword reports?

Your LookSmart AdCenter account consists of campaigns. Those campaigns contain ads (the text LookSmart's network partners display to entice customers to visit your site) and keywords. Keywords tell the Ad Server when it is appropriate to display your ads.

Last time, we looked at the tools you use to manage keywords. But, how well are those keywords doing? Are they bringing visitors to your site? The answers are found in the AdCenter's keyword reports.

We've created a video tutorial (plug in your headphones if you don't want to disturb your co-workers) that shows you how keyword reporting works in the AdCenter. Click on the play button below to get started.

In this demonstration, we'll cover several topics:

• how to access keyword reports
• using date selectors to look at data for specific days, weeks, months or other common time periods
• comparing your Max CPC bids to the average CPC you actually pay
• finding out how many clicks lead visitors to your web site

Please feel free to send your questions to us by e-mail, or call our customer service team at 877-512-LOOK (5665) if you need help with your keywords.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net