Google Premium Listings

upgrading from Adwords

[Shakil]

Every few days, a thread is posted when a advertiser has his/her "Adwords" pushed up to "Premium Listings"

Now Every single time this has happened, advertisers have made positive comments about Premium Listings. outperforming Adwords by quite some distance.

What I can NOT understand is why more people do NOT use Premium Listings instead, I know there are a number of reasons, such as:

High Entry Cost
NO inventory available
CPM rates are very high (when doing CPC analysis)

but the most common one:

Lack of Contact from Google in this department!
(GoogleGuy u reading closely).

Now from my personal experience, I have NO problems with ANY of the above, especially the NO contact bit.

If push came to shove, I would phone Head of UK sales on her home number at 3am to spend some money, and I am sure she would not complain, this is the attitude I see at Google UK...Customer Service...Customer Service...

So either there is a problem in the USA, or better contact channels are required by Google in relation to Premium Listings.

The reason I am making this posting is for fellow members to realise that Google Premium Listings is a very good marketing tool, "often" cheaper than Adwords as NO bidding wars are being played.

Shak

=====================================
latest campaign stats across Europe on Premium Listings:

Impressions: 71,943
Clicks: 9,637
CTR: 13,40

The highest creative achieved: 20.04 CTR
The lowest creative achieved: 7.27 CTR
(the above are based on creatives with at least 2,000 impressions), there are other niche keywords with a few hundrded impressions achieving up to 100% CTR.
======================================

[GoogleGuy]

Um, yeah. What Shakil said. :)

Shak, I don't know who you are, but I hope we at least sent you a blanket or something for the holidays. ;)

Seriously, glad it's working well for you. AdWords advertisers who spend lots of money on Google should definitely consider talking to someone from premium sales. It can be a really good deal.

[Shakil]

GoogleGuy, If I told you who I was, then I would have to Kill you :)

and as for the blanket, its STATIC (ouch), but my 4 year old Niece was Ecstatic when she got it last night as a present.

On a serious note, I am an advertiser based in the UK, who ALSO had major nightmares starting my initial Premium Listings campaign in the UK 18 mths ago (when there was NO UK Google office), however persistence has brought much reward.

However now there is NO problem whatsoever, and if you ever speak to your London office, you will know what I mean.

Shak

(and where is that update)

[FrenchGuy]

I also experience some of my adwords beeing shown as Premiums... Cool :)

My first experience with premiums is that it is worth using it (CTR of 10% and above are reality if you stay specific) but the implementation is far less flexible as for adwords. It seems they have technical problems and need plenty of time to react.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ok, the big question Shak:

What's the roi compared to adwords?

From the few (5) campaigns I've seen, the roi was lower than adwords. The only thing I could think of was that people mistakeningly click on the ad instead of the first result. If you don't have dead solid relevant content to back up that search (like adwords), they are backbutton bound. That is not always possible when you are targeting a wide kw set.

[Shakil]

without getting specific,

ROI on Premium is TWICE as much as Adwords.

Combined with No High Blood Pressure Bidding Wars, or automated Adwords support answers.

For me, ROI is a lot MORE than just conversion rate, it also includes the amount of time used in managing a campaign.

Shak

[hannamyluv]

I wish I could get into their premium program. I keep asking for someone to contact me via the form on google. Maybe if I called adwords customer support they would transfer me to the appropriate person. I know we spend enough. Maybe we just don't spend enough to make me a priority. :(

[Shakil]

hanna,

trust me when I say that I have mentioned this so many times.

luckily we do NOT have this problem in the UK.

Shak

[heidibear]

hannamyluv,

I had a hard time getting someone to call me back too, so I ended up going through a third party broker. They had the in so I got my stuff up faster and now I have a rep I can talk to whenever I want.

Just a warning though, there are a lot of companies that manage search engine accounts so shop around and do some research on them.

[Shakil]

heidibear,

Are you now directly dealing with a Google rep, or still a 3rd party?

Perosnally I would recommend dealing direct (if you can get the contact) and would never rely on a 3rd party for my premium listings.

Shak

[heidibear]

Shak,

Thanks for the suggestion. For quite some time I have been able to deal directly, but the 3rd party is the one that got Google to actually call me back.

Through the years I have noticed that many of the big companies don't want to give you personal attention until they know how much you are willing to spend. For companies with smaller ad budgets, I would suggest finding a third party because often they will combine all of their clients to meet the minimum spend requirement.

Heidibear

[Shakil]

Through the years I have noticed that many of the big companies don't want to give you personal attention until they know how much you are willing to spend. For companies with smaller ad budgets, I would suggest finding a third party because often they will combine all of their clients to meet the minimum spend requirement.
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well that I have to agree with!

shame, but money makes the world go round :)

certain companies use this a lot more than others, and persistence usually pays off in the end.

Shak

[heidibear]

Persistence definitely does pay off (for some of the companies at least). I guess after the 100th phone call of hearing me beg them to take my money, someone realized that was a good thing :)

[JonBoy]

Inspired by this thread I've been trying to work out whether it makes sense for me to move to Premium. But there are some key questions I need to estimate answers to:

1) Premium CTR seems good - but how much higher that Adwords CTR for the same keyword is it? My Adwords CPC is only £.06 and I'm in position #1, so I calculate I would need premium to lift my CTR form it's current 1.4% by at least 50% to 2.1%. Is this likely?

2) What's the lowest price possible CPM in the UK? I've seen posts mentioning $10 or $15. My keywords have no premium now or in the past, and volume isn't huge so I should be able to get the bottom rate.

3) How much lower is the conversion rate from premium clicks as opposed to adwords clicks, on the same keyword? Anyone have any relevant experience?

4)What's the deal with the brokers that I've seen mentioned in this thread for the first time (shows how green I am!). Are these basically companies that will get you Premium listings even if you don't have the volume needed to buy direct form Google? Where can I find out more about them?

Thanks!

[Shakil]

JonBoy,

For UK google premium listings, I would NOT recommend any Brokers whatsoever, deal direct if you can.

Shak

[NFFC]

I'm afraid we have just the opposite of Shak's experience with the UK office. No replies to emails, telephoned and asked for inventory with no replies, left many messages and no one has called back.

[morgana]

I'm really sorry that this happened to you - please feel free to email me. I head up Google UK ads sales and will ensure that you get a response to your enquiry

[chiyo]

WOW!

At last we have a GoogleGal!

[Crush]

As a premium ads customer I can tell you that the CTR is twice as high as appearing on addwords. For us it was a question of survival as one of our sites got wiped out in the yahoo change to Google.

I see it as insurance as we also appear in the top serps anyway. What happens if we get wiped in the next update? You may scramble for the sposored link then...only to find out all the inventory has been sold.

Oh by the way, we also bid the max for adwords on another site and have to bid over a dollar to get the premium listing, so I think I am going to ask for the sponsored link there too

[mayor]

Shakil >> ROI is a lot MORE than just conversion rate, it also includes the amount of time used in managing a campaign

Absolutely! Spend a couple hours a day at US $50-$100 an hour, either spent in wages and overhead, or forfieted in opportunity losses, and those bidding PPC programs can be extremely expensive.

[GoogleGuy]

Hey Kate! Thanks for stopping by. :)

Now that's service.. ;)

[EliteWeb]

At first when we went to look into the Premium Listings the cost scared us, now I'm at a point where I think it may be more for us and our service as well as fitting into our advertising campaign. We've spent enough over the past few months which beats their minimum for the campaign. /me continues to read peoples feedback and wait to hear back from google :)

[SlyOldDog]

Mmmm. I don't really know where the people are who I deal with. They seem to be in a California time zone, but quote me prices in British pounds or euro. I didn't have to do any magic tricks to get them to write to me. I just filled the form.

Anyway, they are quite responsive, but quite often seem to not understand what I want. Often I ask a question and receive an answer for something else. They all seem to be brain boxes and assume I am too. They also assume I speak their Google lingo: creatives, aggressive delivery, inventory.... All quite confusing really.

Shakil, I know Adwords requires much management, but don't you find with the Premium reps that you need to ask everything 3 different ways before you get the right answer? Sometimes I think we are on different planets. It gets easier with time, but I found it harder than learning the Adwords system to get the reps to do what I want!

[Shakil]

Shakil, I know Adwords requires much management, but don't you find with the Premium reps that you need to ask everything 3 different ways before you get the right answer? Sometimes I think we are on different planets. It gets easier with time, but I found it harder than learning the Adwords system to get the reps to do what I want!
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Adwords was a bit too complicated for me, luckily I now understand how the Premium listings work, and have no Major problems.

However on the 2 ocassions it has gone wrong, Google have kept me informed as to the problem, so I cant complain.

I am currently awaiting an answer to a major problem, and the client services have let me know how they are dealing with it, and hopefully it will be resolved.

But seriously for me, Adwords, is a nightmare.

Shak

[KevinC]

Shakil - adwords is a nightmare really?

For me its easy, I just leave it - I check my account maybe once a week to make sure my CTR is doing good.

I also contacted Premium listings and recieved a phone call within 2 hours of sending my email.

I think I will try it out, but they want a $13,000 commitment - wich I think scares a lot of people off.

But When my adwords has kicked up to premium a few times the CTR was great! So I think it will be worth it.

[Orange_XL]

Recently, a few of my google adwords were promoted from the right side to the top. And I don't like it! :-( I've seen up to a 50% fall in respons from the site in question.
The problem I guess is that while more people are clicking on the ad, I get less real interested visitors. If I would up my daily budget, I could probably get even more respons, but also at a higher cost.

Personally, my believe is that those top ads generate more visitors, but lower the ROI!

[KevinC]

I'm sure it all depends on the industry and the keywords used. I try to stay away from general keywords and I know that helps a lot. Other than that I'm sure its industry, cause I love when I get bumped to the top.

[Jane_Doe]

The Google sales reps for a client I work with (in the U.S.)were very persistent. They just didn't give us any specific stats on click through rates or demographics on why we should buy premium listings versus Google adwords. In fact, we had a weird meeting with them because I got the feeling that to them adwords was the competition (i.e. something they didn't get a commission from).

[nzbase]

We tried the move to Premium Listings and did get higher CTR's but the ROI (and conversions in general) were down from the Adwords program we were running.

Now we only deal in Adwords.

Had good customer service although I had met the contacts at the Sydney SES Conference so I think that helped.

[alex_cross]

Premium Ad-Words were a waste of money from my perspective. I used about 50% of my advertising money for this and my orders dropped by 85%. In addition, the ads are so premium that they don't appear on GOOGLE's affiliates. They people using the Premium-Ad-Words are spending a lot of money and only appear on GOOGLE. I received little to no help setting up my five digit account.