As the resident PPC player here at PMX, it’s up to me to stay on top of what’s going on in the world of Pay Per Click. So of course it was interesting for me to read about how Google Adsense will now accept ads from qualified third party networks which will “help you generate the most profit for every ad that appears on your site, whether the ads come from AdWords advertisers or Google-certified ad networks,” according to the Google Adsense Blog.

While I suppose that’s great news for Adsense users, as a PPC Specialist, I’m more worried about what it means for my Adwords campaigns, specifically when it comes to the content network. More competition for ad space means higher CPCs obviously…but I’m trying to wrap my head around any other repercussions for my content network campaigns, either good or bad.

If I’m having to mess more with CPC bidding to keep my ads in prominent positions, it’s obviously going to increase some time spent on PPC management initially…if the third-party networks come running to jump on board that is. Supposedly Google will have some pretty high standards in the certification process.

So what does everybody else think? Besides the obvious increase in competition and CPCs, how else will our Adwords campaigns be affected? I’m particularly interested in anyone who can think of some positive changes it could have.

I suppose one pro for us Adword-ers is that if potential revenue earnings for Adsense publishers go up, more and more people might jump on the Adsense bandwagon, which means more sites for us to advertise on and more impressions for our ads- but I dunno, seems like a bit of a stretch for me.

I know that it’s been in the blogosphere often during the past few months that Google was displaying sponsored results among SELECT google image searches while users were logged into their google accounts, but now it appears to be mainstream.

I was actually just doing a search for our new Universal Search Optimization Chart to see if it was showing in google images and noticed the sponsored ads appearing.

The kicker is that I wasn’t even signed into google, which means that these results may now show all the time.  What does this mean for the industries that internet marketing focus on? What about artists and others who want to sell their “prints” and things?  Will Google offer to sell them for you?  Does this ruin the algorithmic benefit to Google image search in any way?

If you have ever wanted to see what kind of competition your geo-targeted adwords campaigns have in certain market, the Google Ad Targeting Preview Tool is what you need.

I have outlined in the video how you can see where your ads are placed in certain cities around the nation as well as spy on your competition a bit.

Here’s a text recap:

1. Go to The Google Adwords Targeting Preview Tool
2. Enter your keyword into the box on the left
3. Select the state or country or territory on the top right that you want to “spy” on
4. Refine the location to as detailed as the city level

Let me know if you have questions or other applications below.

Today. Is. Election Day. Because no one has told you yet… get out there and VOTE!

Now that I have encouraged you to stand in line at the polls, I guess I too need to step away from my desk and do my civic duty. Before I logout for the day and go stand in line with countless others getting their vote on, I thought it’d be nice to recap how the candidates used internet marketing in their campaigns.

I wasn’t THE first person to blog about this, but I did write a post here on the ProspectMX blog in September discussing 2008 Election Internet Marketing. If you’re into reading about election marketing, you might like to check it out.

Here’s some more reading on internet marketing and the election. Oh… and don’t try to decipher my vote by reading these posts. By no means should the links below be taken as an indicator of who I’m voting for. Thanks.

Now… onto the Link Love!

• Election Day Paid Search Comparison (Direct Online Marketing)
• Swing State Comparison for McCain and Obama (Hitwise)
• Obama McCain SEO – My 2008 Election Prediction (Portent Interactive)
• Obama McCain Keyphrases Used On Search Engines (Planet Chiropractic)
• Why Obama Kills It Online, McCain Not So Much (Stephen Espinosa)

OOps… so all weekend when checking ranking for one of my terms there was a ad running in adwords that looked like this:

It’s funny to me when I realize that even the largest of companies hire inexperienced pay per click people (this goes to American Airlines)… unless… of course they just put AA.com as their “test”.

Anyway… there are experts out there, people! You could call us, for example. Just a suggestion.