LookSmart AdCenter Blog

What Makes the LookSmart Ad Network Unique? (Part 1 of 2)

In the next couple of blog posts, we're going to answer the question, "Why should I advertise with LookSmart?". At LookSmart, we make the assumption that you've got a lot of online advertising choices out there, and that you've probably tried some of the leading pay-per-click networks like Google or Yahoo!. Our goal is to show you how advertising with LookSmart can help you economically extend your budget and reach a wider audience than you can get otherwise.

There are a lot of good reasons to give the LookSmart Ad Network your consideration, but we thought first we should explain how our ad network gives you unique opportunities to reach your customers.  Then, next time we'll take a look at how LookSmart's client service and traffic management teams help you get the most out of every dollar you spend on our network.

What is a "PPC ad network"?

When we say LookSmart is a PPC (pay-per-click) ad network what we really mean is that LookSmart sells space to advertisers on many web sites, including sites it doesn't own. LookSmart competes for positions on these syndicated publisher sites using the CPC bids advertisers have made in the LookSmart AdCenter. LookSmart uses its yield-ranking algorithms to help advertisers get the best positions possible while maximizing publisher payouts.

LookSmart takes care of collecting money from advertisers and providing customer service. We also monitors our partners' web sites to make sure they adhere to our standards and editorial policies.

LookSmart plays an essential role in this ecosystem. By bringing together advertisers and putting them in a yield-ranked auction, LookSmart is able to provide publishers with the revenue they need to grow their sites and attract customers. LookSmart's ad serving technologies give advertisers the tools they need to connect with customers and bring them to their web sites. Combining technology with client services and traffic quality management, LookSmart keeps the network balanced and optimized, creating an ecosystem that grows with its success.

Types of advertising services offered on the LookSmart network

Ad networks take on many forms. LookSmart's ad network is composed of many different kinds of sites and services, including:

• web search sites - LookSmart provides advertising for sites who have their own specialty search engines or compile search results from other search sites (so-called "meta-search") to provide their visitors a unified view of web results from a variety of providers. For example, LookSmart's partnership with Bravenet Media gives advertisers access to customers in the webmaster and technology sectors. Another LookSmart partner, ABCSearch gives advertisers access to over 1,000 specialty search engines.
• inline text networks - Through a partnership with Kontera, LookSmart is able to offer advertisers inline text ads - keyword-targeted ads that appear when users hover or click on keywords linked inside of an article or blog page. This unique form of advertising gives advertisers extra opportunities to reach their audience through innovative placement technologies.
• direct navigation sites - Direct navigation sites provide links to web sites and popular search terms that users are looking for.  These sites are often accessed by users who are searching for products or services and are trying to guess web site names. Direct navigation sites can be useful for advertisers because they tend to focus on a niche subject which gives them a targeted audience.
• search toolbars - Many companies provide their own customized toolbars that replace your browser's built-in search box with more features. These toolbars are usually provided free of charge and are supported by advertising. One great example of this is the Copernic web search tool bar, used by over 30 million users.
• video overlays - Increasingly, streaming videos are becoming popular with all kinds of users.    Many video sharing sites are providing advertisers the opportunity to display ads that overlay a portion of the video or are displayed just before/after the clip plays. LookSmart is working with several video providers to tap into these new advertising opportunities.
• content sites - Through LookSmart's contextual advertising technology, any advertisement can be displayed on web sites with content related to an ad's text and keywords. LookSmart is working with Wikia and other content sites to enable advertisers to take advantage of these customer opportunities.

LookSmart's ad network is unique because it gives your text ads a wide variety of venues and placements, all of which are important vehicles for helping your message break through the vast online advertising market and reach a targeted audience. LookSmart's reach extends beyond traditional search giving you creative ways to extend your budget further and drive more visitors to your site.

In our next post...

Now that we've looked at what types of sites your ads can appear on the LookSmart Network, we're ready to look at how our services help you get the most out of every advertising dollar in your budget. Next time, we'll take a look at several aspects to LookSmart's services:

• Segmentation - what opportunities are there for reaching customers, and how do you pick the right keywords to drive more visitors to your site while maintaining costs?
• Traffic Management - how does LookSmart manage the relationships with its syndication partners to make sure your budget is spent wisely?
• Optimization - how do LookSmart's customer service and account management teams help you optimize your campaigns, ads, keywords, and bids to make sure that you reach your advertising goals?

Are you ready to stop reading about LookSmart and give it a try? Get started now by visiting the LookSmart AdCenter or contact us by e-mail or phone at 877-512-LOOK (5665) for a consultation.

Companies mentioned in this post:

• Bravenet Media
• ABCSearch
• Kontera
• Copernic
• Wikia

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

What is Expanded Broad Match?

Recently, Google made a change to its Broad Match algorithm that some are calling Expanded Broad Match.  It works like normal Broad Match but it allows ads to be shown on search results pages that match not only the current search term, but also a user's previous search terms.

Jennifer Laycock explains on a recent SearchEngineGuide.com blog post that "many AdWords advertisers have noticed some odd queries showing up in their AdWords campaign reports" due to the new Broad Matching rules.  In an example she shows that an ad for Play Kitchen shows up on a search results page where she typed in "toy truck".  She had searched for "play kitchen" in a previous search.

How LookSmart's Broad Match search compares

On the LookSmart Ad Network, Broad Matching follows the more familiar pattern of "we will match your ad if the user types in your keyword(s) anywhere in their search terms".  So, you could buy the keyword "toy truck" and it would appear if the user searched for "toy truck" or any set of words that contained toy truck like "toy Tonka truck".

LookSmart doesn't use any form of "memory" to link ads to previous search terms, so you don't need to set up any special exceptions or negative terms in order to avoid the expanded Broad Match that Google is testing with their advertisers.

What searches are my Broad Match terms matching?

It can be valuable to know exactly what search terms the user typed in when your Broad Match term caused your ad to be displayed and clicked.  That information can be sent back to your web site by the LookSmart Ad Server by using dynamic query substitution in your ads' Destination URLs.  Here's an example:

http://www.example.com/mypage.html?query={query: text_too_long}&keyword={keyword: text_too_long}&keyword_id={keyword_id}

In our "toy truck" example, the Ad Server will replace {query: text_too_long} with "toy Tonka truck", {keyword: text_too_long} with "toy truck" and {keyword_id} with a number like 123456 that represents the ad/keyword in your campaign.  (The "text_too_long" only gets inserted if the total length of your Destination URL exceeds 1,000 characters, which is very unlikely.)

In the LookSmart AdCenter, you can use the Search and Download tool to find the exact ad that matches your keyword_id to see all of the details of the click.  By looking at the search term the user actually typed in, you can see interesting things like:

• phrases users' searched for that you can add to your campaign as Smart Match terms
• words in users' queries that you can add as Negative Keywords to prevent matching (for example, you might add the Negative Word "broken" if you saw that a user typed in "broken toy truck" before they clicked on your ad)

The dynamic query and dynamic keyword substitutions give you insight into how people are searching and finding your ads.  They also help you understand more generally how Broad Matching works.

If you need help figuring out how to use Broad Match in your keyword campaigns, LookSmart can help. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail or call 877-512-LOOK (5665) for assistance.

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

Part 2 of 2: Use dynamic tracking to improve campaign results

Last week we took a look at dynamic tracking features in the LookSmart AdCenter that help you identify which search terms visitors are using to get to the ads that take them to your site.  By asking the Ad Server to insert the user's search term and other data into your Destination URL, you can get insights into what your visitors were searching for when they made the decision to visit your site.

I've modified my Destination URLs, now what?

If you follow the instructions in our previous post, you will have modified your Destination URLs to include some or all of these dynamic tracking features.  Now, what do you do next?

Each time someone clicks on your ad and visits your web site, your web server will make a note of which Destination URL they visited in your web logs.  If you have access to these web logs, you can extract the query terms (inserted into your Destination URL by using the {query: alternate text} parameter) out of the logs and into a spreadsheet.

If your Destination URL looked like this:

http://www.example.com/mysite.html?keyword={keyword: too_long}&query={query: too_long}

Then a line from your web log might look like this:

127.0.0.1 - myserver [10/Oct/2000:13:55:36 -0700] "GET /mysite.html?keyword=car+insurance&query=I+want+to+buy+car+insurance HTTP/1.1" 200 2326

Now, you know that your bid for the broad match keyword car insurance was clicked on by someone who actually searched using the terms I want to buy car insurance.  You could now go back into your campaign and add a smart match bid for the keyword I want to buy car insurance at a different price than you paid for just "car insurance".  You could even create a separate ad that was geared towards users who typed that phrase.

Finding Negative Keywords

Incidentally, your web logs will also show you search terms you definitely do not want to buy.  For example, if you were hoping to attract a visitor who might buy car insurance from you and you id on the word "cars", but the user searched for "cars animated movie", you could add "animated movie" as a Negative Keyword to your ad.

By adding Negative Keywords, the Ad Server will not show your ad when those words are found in the user's search text.  This allows you to buy a popular search term like "car" but not pay for clicks from visitors who are searching for an unrelated topic that includes the word cars.

Web logs, really?

So, digging around in your web site's web server logs probably doesn't sound like your idea of fun.  For those of you who have access to that data and like to do a bit of programming, this can be a lot easier than to do than you think.  But, for the rest of us, we need something called web analytics.

Web analytics services

Web analytics services take all of the pain and suffering out of sifting through web server logs to find user's search terms.  They will usually process your logs for you or simply provide you easy-to-read reports from a separate web site.  Web analytics services may also tell interpret your web logs to tell you things like which pages your visitors looked at, what countries they came from, even what kinds of web browsers they are using.

For our purposes, web analytics services help us find the long tail we've been looking for.  Your web analytics service can give you a report of all the search terms users were using when they clicked on your ad.  And, once you know those terms, you can customize your ads and/or your bidding strategy to account for the different ways people search.

The specifics of how to set up web analytics is way beyond the scope of what we can cover in a blog.  However, we've included some examples of how to use dynamic tracking with conversion tracking (a special kind of web analytics service that also tells you how much money you are making on your web site) in our LookSmart AdCenter Online Help Guide.  Look for the sections on click tracking and dynamic substitution parameters.

If you need help figuring out how to use the these dynamic tracking features, LookSmart can help. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail or call 877-512-LOOK (5665) for assistance.

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

Part 1 of 2: Use dynamic tracking to improve campaign results

This week, we're going to take a look at a strategy you can use to improve the effectiveness of your online campaigns.  It's called exploiting the long tail and it is often used by professional search engine marketers to improve their clients' results. 

By "long tail" we are referring to the idea that there are a relatively small number of search words that a lot of people use (the so-called "head" of the list) and a very long list of search words (the "long tail") that are used less frequently.  That long list of infrequently used search terms adds up to a lot of opportunity for savvy advertisers.

We'll show you how to exploit the long tail with your own campaigns.

Broad Match and the Long Tail

When you create a new advertising campaign on the LookSmart Network, your keywords are set up as Broad Match by default.  A Broad Match keyword will cause your advertisement to be shown to any user that includes your term in any part of their search.  So, if you bid on "car", you're ad will show up for "car insurance", "used car", "car movie" and probably thousands of other searches.

Using Broad Match terms allows you to get access to a lot of searchers quickly.  And while a large number of people may be searching using just the word "car", many others are typing in many more words than just that.  If you knew exactly what they were typing in, you might refine your campaign to exclude the searches that you don't care about and possibly bid higher on the searches that better link you to your target audience.

Use Dynamic Tracking to Discover the Long Tail

What is dynamic tracking?  When you create an ad, you have to tell the Ad Server which web site to send your visitor to when they click on your ad.  You do this by specifying this web site in your Destination URL.

The Destination URL can include not just your web site address, but also extra information that the Ad Server provides that is unique for each click.  That extra information will help you discover the "long tail" -- all of those ways that visitors search to get to your site.  You get this information using dynamic tracking parameters:

• {keyword: alternate text} - this parameter instructs the Ad Server to insert the keyword you bid on into your Destination URL (I'll explain alternate text in a moment)
• {keyword_id} - this parameter tells the Ad Server to insert the unique record ID for your keyword into the Destination URL
• {ad_id} - by using this dynamic tracking parameter in your Destination URL, the Ad Server will tell you the unique record ID for the ad your visitor saw when they clicked through to your site
• {query: alternate text} - this parameter instructs the Ad Server to insert the users search term into your Destination URL

Your Destination URL can have up to 1000 characters in it, so the Ad Server will insert your alternate text into the URL when the actual text is too long to fit.  alternate text can be anything you like, so long as it is short.  And, the unique record ID's for your ads and keywords can be viewed in the AdCenter by downloading your campaigns using the Bulk Tools feature.

So, how would you use these in your Destination URL?  Let's take a look at an example.  Let's assume this is your Destination URL now:

http://www.example.com/my_special_offer.html

Using all of the dynamic tracking parameters, your Destination URL would look like this:

http://www.example.com/my_special_offer.html?keyword={keyword: too_long}&query={query: too_long}&ad_id={ad_id}&keyword_id={keyword_id}

When someone clicks on your ad with this Destination URL, your web logs will show a URL that looks something like this:

http://www.example.com/my_special_offer.html?keyword=cars&query=i+want+to+buy+a+used+car&ad_id=12345&keyword_id=67890

The bolded terms show you the use of the dynamic tracking.  The Ad Server will replace the bolded parts of your Destination URL with the actual values for your keyword, ad, and the user's search term.  The rest of the URL can be formatted any way you choose.  If you're using a 3rd-party web tracking system, the LookSmart AdCenter Online Help guide shows you how to format your Destination URL for several popular systems.

Next Time

In our next blog post, we'll take a look at what you can do once you've been collecting this data from your web server logs or your web tracking system.  We'll talk about mining query words from your data to create Negative and Smart Match terms in your campaign that will help you focus your spending on just those terms that give you the right kind of visitors to your site.

If you need help figuring out how to use the these dynamic tracking features, LookSmart can help. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail or call 877-512-LOOK (5665) for assistance.

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

Optimize your ad copy to get more traffic to your site

The overall goal of any pay-per-click advertising campaign with LookSmart is to bring visitors to your web site.  We call this "driving more traffic" to your site.

Ultimately, to improve how well you are driving traffic, you can do one of three things:

• improve your ad copy to make your message more compelling
• modify the keywords you're using to target your audience, and
• change your Max CPC bids to be more competitive.

In this posting, we want to talk about improving your ad copy and how this affects your overall success.

When it comes to ad copy, I like to apply the So what? Who cares? and What's in it for me? standards when evaluating my ad copy.  Think about why someone would want to visit your site, what compelling reason there is to stop what they're doing right now, and why they would look at your site versus other sites that may be similar to yours.

In a text ad, you've got a limited amount of space to convince your future customers of these things.  So, you need to set up a plan to test lots of different types of text ads.

Testing involves setting up your ad to run for a limited amount of time and keeping track of how many clicks you get (luckily the LookSmart AdCenter does this for you through Custom Reporting).  Then, you modify the ad text  in a small way, and run your ad again to see how it affects your results.

You can test as many ads as you want at the same time, just remember the more variations you test the more complicated it is to figure out what's working and what's not.  Here are some of the things you can test in your ad copy:

• Discounts and Pricing Try ad variations that mention discounts or specific pricing along with others that do not.
• Audience Try using words that describe some aspect of your customer's.  Use words that make the reader think, "that's me!".
• Locality If your service or business is offered locally, use text that describes where your business is located.
• Brands If you offer well-known brand-name products, try some variations of your ad where you mention them by name.

Next time, we'll look at some of the tracking and reporting tools that will help you figure out how well your tests are going. We'll look at how to track "conversions" and we'll use the CPC by Position Report to help us figure out how to adjust our Max CPC bids to be more competitive.

If you need help figuring out how to optimize your ads, LookSmart 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

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

How do I edit my keywords?

One of the best ways to get more customers to your web site is to add more keywords to your pay per click campaign or to improve the ones you already have. In this installment of our Did You Know...? series, we'll look at the mechanics of manipulating keywords in your LookSmart AdCenter campaign.

The process should be familiar to you if you have used pay-per-click search advertising before. But, in case you haven't, we have created a video to show you how it is done. Just click on the play button below to get started.

In this 4-minute video, we demonstrate a number of keyword-related tasks:

• editing your current keywords
• changing your keyword bids
• changing your match type
• adding new keywords to your campaign
• deleting keywords

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

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

What is My CPC? (Part II)

In our last post, we discussed what it meant to purchase advertising using the CPC (cost per click) method.   CPC is a payment option that reduces your risk by letting you only pay for ads that bring visitors to your web site.  It's also a dynamic form of pricing that let's the market set pricing based on demand.

As you experiment with CPC (also called PPC for "pay per click") advertising in LookSmart's AdCenter you'll see that term come up on a number of different screens.  In this blog post, we'll discuss what each of these different uses of CPC mean to you.

Max CPC

Regardless of where you see the term Max CPC it always means, "the maximum amount in dollars and cents that I am willing to pay for a single click on my ad".  You can specify a Max CPC in different places, which we describe below.

Campaign Max CPC (Figure 1)

When you set up ads with LookSmart, you group your ads and keywords into Campaigns.  You assign a Campaign Max CPC to your campaign.  This is really the default Max CPC that LookSmart will use for your keywords unless you give those keywords their own individual prices.

When you're looking at your keyword pricing in the targeting view, as in Figure 3, the keywords whose Max CPC price is listed in gray are using the Campaign Max CPC.  The keywords listed in black have their own individual Max CPC pricing set.

Figure 1

Keyword Max CPC (Figure 2)

When a visitor to one of LookSmart's network of search sites performs a keyword search, your ad will be displayed if your keyword matches the one the visitor used.  If that visitor clicks on your ad and visits your web site, you will be charged no more than the Max CPC you set for that keyword.  If you did not set a Max CPC for that keyword, you will be charged no more than the Campaign Max CPC you chose for the campaign your ad is a member of.

Figure 2

Keyword Min CPC (Figure 3)

You may bid any Max CPC (as low as $0.01) you wish for any keyword, but some keywords will have a Keyword Min CPC.  For certain keywords, LookSmart has decided that it may not display ads whose Max CPC bid is below this minimum price.  As you can see in Figure 2, that price appears below your Max CPC in red to indicate that you have bid lower than the suggested price.

Figure 3

Contextual Max CPC (Figure 4)

If you choose to display your ads on LookSmart's network of content sites, you may also choose a Max CPC specifically for those sites.

Figure 4

Average CPC (Figure 5)

Your Max CPC bids specify the largest dollar amount you will be charged for each visitor who clicked on one of your ads.  But, on average, you may pay less than your Max CPC if the going rate for those clicks is below your bid.  Online reports will show your Average CPC, showing you, on average, how much you actually paid for each click.

Figure 5

That concludes our survey of CPC pricing terminology in the LookSmart AdCenter.  As always, if you have any questions or would like to learn more about LookSmart's services, contact us by e-mail or phone.

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

What is My CPC? (Part I)

Have you taken that first step into pay-per-click advertising yet?  If you have, you've probably come across at least one screen where you were asked to input your Max CPC (see Figure 1).  But what is a CPC anyway and how do you pick the right one?

Figure 1.

CPC Defined

CPC stands for "cost per click".  It's the amount you pay when a lead clicks on your ad to visit your site.  This takes away a lot of the risk of spending your advertising budget on the Internet.  You only pay for the people who actually visit your web site.  Other types of online advertising may charge you a flat rate for displaying your ads regardless of whether customers ever visit your site.

What is the "Max" in "Max CPC" for?

The "Max" represents the most you are willing to pay for a lead to come to your site.  You won't always pay this amount and and you might pay less than your Max CPC.  How does this work?  LookSmart takes into consideration your Max CPC, how relevant you are, and what other people are bidding to determine how much to charge you.  We try to charge you the least amount possible while still getting you the best possible position.  If you're willing to pay a lot more than other advertisers, you won't be penalized for your over-enthusiasm.  You'll pay the going market rate instead.

Why would LookSmart charge you less than what you're willing to pay?  By making pricing flexible and responsive to your needs, we encourage more advertisers to participate in the system.  The more participation there is by advertisers, the more publishers are willing to create spaces on their web sites for you to place your ads.  It's an ecosystem where everyone benefits.

Next time, we'll look more closely at how to choose the right Max CPC for your advertisements.

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

Learn how to make your ads more competitive and cost-effective at the same time

Last week, at the end of our blog post we promised to reveal the secret to making your ads bring more visitors to your site while also spending your budget more effectively.  Today, we make good on that promise.  The secret to success is taking advantage of something the fancy marketing types call Yield Optimization.

Using Yield Optimization to Get the Best Results

LookSmart's ads are displayed using this yield-based auction.  Other well-known PPC ad networks and search sites use this same method, it's now a de-facto standard for text-based search advertising.  It works like this:

Yield = CTR x CPC

• Find the ads that are clicked on the most and figure out their click-through rate (CTR).  The click-through rate is calculated as the number of times the ad was clicked on divided by the number of times it was displayed.
• Multiply the CTR (click-through rate) for each ad times the Max CPC (bid price) for the keyword.  The result is called the yield.  It also goes by other names like "effective CPM".
• Display the ads with the highest yield in the places on the web page where they are most likely to get clicked.

The beauty of this method is that is serves you, the advertiser, and the web site owner who gets paid when you are successful.  Why does this work?

• First, the ads that get clicked on the most bubble up to the top of the auction and get clicked on more. Web site owners love getting paid.
• Second, advertisers can get to the top position by improving their ad text and adding keywords.  By making your ad really relevant and by choosing the search terms that really resonate with your potential customers, you get more clicks.
• Lastly, advertisers can stretch their advertising budgets further and get more visitors for a lot less than advertisers with higher Max CPC bids.  Let's look at how this works. Assume that you have an ad that is getting shown 1000 times. Another advertiser is bidding on the same keywords you are and also gets shown 1000 times.

  If your ad gets 100 clicks @ $1.00 each you pay the web site owner $100. Let's say the other advertiser's ad is not as well-written as yours and only gets 25 clicks. Your click-through rate is 4 times better than your competitor's. If the other advertiser is bidding $1.00 per click like you, the web site owner only gets paid $25 by your competitor.

  In this scenario, you only have to pay $1.00 for each of your prospects. But your competitor, who hasn't optimized their ad like you have, has to pay 4 times as much to get the same number of visitors as you. This means that you're getting 100 visitors to your web site for $100 when the market (your competitor) says those visitors are worth paying $400 for.  That's a 75% discount on the market price.

  Also, because you are more valuable to the web site owner than your competitor, you get the best position on the web page, further ensuring that your ad is visible to your audience.

  That's how you use the yield-based auction to your advantage: by keeping your ads relevant and choosing relevant keywords, you keep your costs down while keeping your ads in the best place to attract your customers.

Wait... More Clicks at a Lower CPC?

Yes.  By working on your ad copy to make it more relevant and by choosing relevant keywords, you can increase the number of potential customers you're reaching at a fraction of the cost your competitor is paying for the same keyword.

In our next blog post, we'll look at some of the tools in the LookSmart AdCenter that help you put yield optimization to work.  In the meantime, we'd love to get your feedback or phone call...and your business!  Check out the LookSmart AdCenter at adcenter.looksmart.com.

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

Refine your advertisements to attract more paying customers

In our last blog post, we talked about the various Keyword Targeting options that will help you gain access to prospects using web search on LookSmart's network of quality web sites.  We discussed how using Broad Match keywords can expand your exposure to potential customers and how Smart Match will help you reach a more specific audience.

In this blog post, we want to talk about a more generalized optimization strategy.  Optimization is another one of those marketing terms that really just means that you're approaching your marketing spend wisely through a process of evaluation and refinement.  When you optimize your advertising, you decide what your goals are and then modify your campaigns to better achieve those goals.

How to Optimize

Generally speaking, with text-based keyword advertising, your goal is to attract visitors to your web site that are interested in your products and services.  You can achieve this goal by employing these tactics:

• Revise your ad copy.  Is your ad sending the right message?  Are you attracting customers that actually make money for you?  Your ad copy is the "hook" that brings customers into your front door.  Eliminate wasteful and expensive clicks by making your message resonate with customers so that you attract those most likely to make you money.
• Revise your landing page.  The page that you send customers to when they click on your ad is called the "landing page" (your customers "land" there).  The landing page is really an extension of your ad.  Use it to help explain your product or service or to really sell your special offer or promotion.  Don't send customers to your home page -- customize a unique version of your home page that is designed specifically for visitors who clicked on your ad.
• Revise your targeting. How did people see your ad?  Imagine you are bidding on the word "filter".  Do you want customers looking for "oil filters"?  Internet filtering?  Water filtration systems?  Revise your keyword targeting to include those terms which are more specifically related to your business.  You can add as many keywords as you like to your campaign.
• Increase your bids. You're probably not the only company providing your product or service on the world wide web.  There are a limited number of positions that your ad can appear on.  To get a better position on those pages, you've got to make a competitive bid.   The more visible your ad is, the more likely your potential customers will see it.

In a future blog post, we'll talk more about specific strategies. In particular, we'll discuss a strategy that will let you optimize your ads to get more clicks (and therefore more potential customers) by actually paying less for each click.

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

Use keyword targeting to get more visitors to your web site

In our last blog post, we talked about using the Custom Report feature to see how many visitors you were attracting to your web sites.  Today, we'll talk about the Targeting Options to help you get more visitors.  We'll also talk about how to use targeting to narrow or expand the audience you are reaching with your ads.

What is Targeting?

So what is Targeting, anyways?  It's a fancy marketing term we use to identify which prospects you want your ad to be shown to.  By using different types of targeting, you reach a different audience.  When it comes to advertising, audience is everything -- you want to reach potential paying customers and new visitors.  That's your audience!

In the LookSmart AdCenter, you can reach different prospects in several ways.  In this blog post, we're going to focus on visitors who are using web search on LookSmart's network of partner sites.

When you target your ads to display on web search results pages, we say you are using Sponsored Search.  Customers are looking for something when they search -- maybe they're looking for the product or service you offer on your web site.

Using Targeting Options to Expand or Narrow Your Audience

Sponsored Search can be targeted in a few ways.  In the text below, we'll use a ficticious ad for a site called MP3 Reviews (see Figure 1 below) to illustrate our examples.

• Broad Match

  Broad Match  is the most common way to reach your prospects through Sponsored Search.  You'll use this option to get access to the broadest audience possible.

  Let's say you've got a web site called MP3Reviews.example.com and you want to reach all visitors searching for mp3 players.  Using Broad Match, you can add the keyword "mp3 player" to your campaign, and any visitor searching for "mp3 player", "flash mp3 players", and "80 gigabyte mp3 players" may see your ad.

  We call this Broad Match because you only have to choose a few words, like "mp3 player", and this will broadly match any Search.com visitor using those words in any combination.  It's a great way to get access to a big audience quickly.

• Negative Match

  Negative Match is used in combination with Broad Match.  So-called "negative keywords" narrow your audience by filtering out visitors who use certain keywords in their searches.  This helps refine your targeting by limiting the scope of how broadly your ad is shown.

  In our example, let's say we want to reach Search.com visitors who are looking for "portable media players" (see Figure 2).  But portable media players could include prospects searching for antique 8-track players or simple cassette players.

  To refine the audience of your advertisement, add negative keywords like "cassette" or "8-track".  Now, a visitor might search for "portable digital media players" and see your advertisement, but they will not see your ad if they search for "8-track media players".

• Smart Match

  Smart Match is the most refined of all targeting, and the most restrictive.  When you bid on a keyword like "mp3 players" with Smart Match, you'll reach only those visitors who search for that term exactly, plus a view minor variations.  A visitor searching on Search.com for "mp3 player" or "mp3 players" would see your advertisement, but a visitor using "portable mp3 player" would not.

Yes, that was a mouth full.  There's a lot to learn about targeting, and we've just skimmed the surface.  Here are few tips to guide you.  We'll also go deeper into this subject in our next few blog posts.

1. Use Broad Match keyword targeting to increase the number of visitors to your site.

2. Use Negative Match keywords to refine (reduce) the number of visitors coming from your Broad Match keywords.

3. Use Smart Match keywords to be extremely precise in your targeting. 

Use LookSmart's keyword suggestion tools to get ideas for as many terms as you can.

We welcome your comments and your feedback.  LookSmart's customer service is available by e-mail and toll-free by telephone at 877-512-LOOK, so give us a call if you need help figuring out how to get the most of your advertising dollars.

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

Figure 1: Review Targeting

Figure 2: Add Targeting

How can I tell if my ads are getting clicked on?

The LookSmart AdCenter has a feature called Custom Reporting that lets you see just how many visitors you've reached with your pay-per-click text ads.

Each time your ad appears on one of the sites in LookSmart's network, your future customers have the opportunity to click on that ad to check out your offer.  Custom reporting tells you how many prospects did this and for which of your campaigns or keywords.

Custom reports come in a variety of forms (see Figure 1 for an example):

• Account reports give you a aggregate view of all of your clicks from all of your open accounts.  If you have only one account, the Campaign and Keyword reports will provide information specific to campaign and keyword clicks.
• Campaign reports show total clicks and costs for each of your campaigns.  This report is a great way to get status on all of your efforts to reach new customers.
• Keyword reports show you performance detail down to the targeting level.  LookSmart supports keyword targeting for search results pages, and contextual targeting for content pages your prospects visit.  Use this report when it's time to optimize your campaigns at a very detailed level.

Custom reporting helps you figure out how well your advertising as doing and can give you insights into where you need to spend time optimizing your ad copy, changing your keywords, or modifying your bids.  In our next blog post, we'll look at ways to improve your keyword targets to get more visitors to your web site.

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

Figure 1: Custom Reports

Can I update all of my bids at one time?

The AdCenter makes it easy for you to update your keyword bids through the Bulk Tools system.  With Bulk Tools, you can download all of your ads and keywords into a spreadsheet, make the changes you wish, and upload them back into the system.  The system uses comma-separated-values files which open easily in many popular spreadsheet programs and text editors.

To make bulk changes to your keyword bids:

1. Log into the LookSmart AdCenter using your e-mail address and password.
2. Click on the Manage Ads link that appears at the top of the page when you click on the Ads tab.
3. Click the Bulk Upload Tools button near the ad listings that appear near the bottom of the screen.
4. Under the heading labeled Step 1: Download choose Edit Targeting from the pull-down menu and click the Download button.
5. Your browser may prompt you with a download window.  If you are asked, save the file to your desktop or wherever you commonly save files you download from the Internet.  Keep your browser open for now.
6. If you are downloading a large number of keywords, the system will add your request to a queue that will be processed by the server.  You will be taken to a page called the Bulk Upload Tools: File Status.  From this page, you'll be able to download your file once your request has been completed.  When the download is finished, click the Bulk Upload Tools button to return to the Bulk Tools screen.
7. Edit the file you downloaded in your favorite spreadsheet or text editor.  For each bid you need to update, make your change in the Max CPC column and save the file.  Repeat this as necessary until you have changed all of the bids you wish to.
8. In your web browser, locate the heading labeled Step 2: Upload.  Make sure the pul-down menu has Edit Targeting selected.  Use the file upload form to locate the file you edited and click the Upload button.
9. You will be taken back to the Bulk Upload Tools: File Status page.  You may reload this page to see the status of your request update.  When your bids have been processed, you will see the word Complete appear in the Status column for your request.

Check out this video to see an on-screen of this feature.

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

How often will my credit card get charged?

Your account maintains a balance that is high enough to cover at least three days worth of spending.  Each time your balance dips below that amount, your credit card is charged to replenish your balance.

You can control how frequently your credit card is charged (and by how much) by changing your account's Refill Amount setting.  The AdCenter will give you an estimate of how many days your account can be depleted before the next automatic refill occurs.

To change your refill amount:

1. Log into the LookSmart AdCenter using your e-mail address and password.
2. Click on the Manage Account link that appears at the top of the page when you click on the Accounts tab.
3. Note your Total Daily Budget in the blue box near the top of the page.  It will look like the box you see in Figure 1 below.
4. Click the Account Details tab near the middle of your screen.
5. Click on the Edit button that appears just below the Account Details tab.
6. In  the column labeled Billing Information locate the Refill Amount pull-down that appears as you scroll down the page.
7. Use the pull-down to change the Refill Amount.  Notice how the text below it changes as you change values.  Compare what you see to Figure 2 and Figure 3 as you choose lower or higher refill amounts.
8. Once you have decided on your Refill Amount, click the Update Account Details button to save your changes.

Figure 1. Total Daily Budget
 

Figure 2. Low Refill Amount
 

Figure 3. High Refill Amount
 

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

How do I make my ads appear on the FindArticles.com web site?

Your pay per click keyword ads may already be appearing on FindArticles.com but if you want to get additional exposure to that audience, you can enable Contextual targeting for your ads.  Contextual targeting lets your ads appear on content pages in addition to keyword search results pages.

To enable Contextual targeting for your ad:

1. Log into the LookSmart AdCenter using your e-mail address and password.
2. Click on the Manage Ads link that appears at the top of the page when you click on the Ads tab.
3. Click the Enable Contextual link near the descriptions of the ads you want to appear on content pages.
4. When the Targeting Optimizer appears, optionally set a Max CPC for contextual clicks and click Submit to save your changes.

Check out this video to see an on-screen of this feature.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager

What happened to my ad? The destination URL is not what I've entered!

A good place to check is the Activity History for your ads.  You or someone authorized to view your account may have changed the ad without your knowledge.  The LookSmart AdCenter makes a record of all changes to your account that you can browse any time you wish.

To use the Activity History:

1. Log into the LookSmart AdCenter using your e-mail address and password.
2. Click on the Manage Ads link that appears at the top of the page when you click on the Ads tab.
3. Check the box or boxes next to the ads that you want to review.
4. Click on the History button in the row of buttons that includes Edit, Copy, Move and Turn Off.

Or, watch this video to see an on-screen tutorial.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager