Rejected: PPC Search Industry Standards
“With the launch of Yahoo's Panama, some major differences in creative standards and account structures among the search engines are disappearing. Yet campaigns often aren't portable between engines. What may initially seem like common standards aren't as common as advertisers would like.” (Kevin Lee: "Wanted: PPC Search Industry Standards")
- “Some major differences in creative standards and account structures among the search engines are disappearing” does not mean search engines should adopt the same standards; they need to somehow differentiate their PPC products to gain competitive advantages over other. Yahoo made the majors changed to its PPC system does not mean Yahoo wants to follow a standard; it only means Yahoo has seen with the old system, Google will definitely have competitive advantage over it; however with the new system, it can at least reduce the gap to a certain degree.
- “Yet campaigns often aren't portable between engines.” Why campaigns need to be portable between engines? I do not see the necessity. Different search engines have different market share. Their users are often from different market segments. The creative that catch the eye-balls in one search engine does not necessarily catch the eye-balls of other search engine users. The keywords searched on one search engine might not be searched on other search engines.
- “What may initially seem like common standards aren't as common as advertisers would like.” Please do not use the word “advertisers”! As a PPC professional, I understand the frustration brought by different standards used by different search engines. However, our frustration does not mean that the advertisers that we are serving also feel the same frustration. They pay us to set up and look after their search campaigns, so although we feel frustration, they don’t care about it. What advertisers care is all about their profits and sales.
"It's about time the search engines agreed on standards within PPC paid placement SEM systems as well. Advertisers and their agencies spend far too much time reconciling account structures, dealing with different creative specifications, and building tools that allow for translation of other special features provided by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and second-tier engines." (Kevin Lee: "Wanted: PPC Search Industry Standards")
- “Advertisers and their agencies spend far too much time reconciling account structures, dealing with different creative specifications, and building tools …” I cannot see why advertisers and their agencies need to spend far too much time in doing all the things mentioned here. Building a simple Excel template can solve the account structure and creative difference problem. Moreover, the three major search engines provide bulk template. Using their bulk template, I don’t think much time is needed to build a campaign.
"Top search engines may believe standardization will result in their losing a competitive edge, but there are lots of things all engines share that could and should be standardized. The time marketers waste resolving duplicative issues among accounts would be far better spent finding ways to add efficiencies to the campaigns, which would result in more overall PPC spending. More spending helps all the engines. Some of my favorite candidates for standardization are below. " (Kevin Lee: "Wanted: PPC Search Industry Standards")
- “Top search engines may believe standardization will result in their losing a competitive edge, but there are lots of things all engines share that could and should be standardized.” Why would I do anything to diminish my competitive advantage? No! That’s why search engines do not want standardization! They are in the search marketing business, so what they want to do is to increase their competitive advantage but not decrease it by adopting a set of standards. It is so simple to understand. Dell sells computers; HP also sells computers. However, why don’t they sell standardized computers at the same price although all computers share the same components, such as CPU, RAM, CD-ROM, etc? Because they want to beat other sellers; they want more profits for their own! This is why so many businesses are engaging in product proliferation practice although sometimes consumers are feeling confusing. For the same reason, search engines will not standardize their PPC products because agencies or advertisers want so; rather, they are willing to spend more on persuading us to believe we should have the choice.
Creative Length
All the things mentioned here are about the sequence you build the campaign. If you start from Google, they are not problems at all. You may ask why I should start with Google. Well, Google is so far still the no. 1 search engine in many countries all over the world. Its AdWords platform is still the most stable and easy-to-use system among all the search products.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion
I have to say this feature might be helpful for some situations, but it does not always work well. Moreover, with Google’s move on landing page quality, I believe this function will be less helpful in the future. If you want a better quality score, you better use keyword in your ad title directly.
API XML Language/Tags
Although programmers might hate the fact that they have to develop different API applications for different search engines, I believe they will not be happier if you tell them that some of them will fired due to the fact that search engines are now adopting the same standards. What I want to say here is that just because search engines use different standards, there is a search industry. If they all use the same standards, there will be no search industry; there will be only Yahoo, or Google, or MSN, or one of the others.
Conclusion
Paid placement search has been around for about nine years. In the early days of GoTo (which became Overture, then Yahoo Search Marketing), standards weren't needed. Now standards are still not needed. Even in the future, standards will not be needed, no matter how increasingly complex that the search marketing will become.
