Theories regarding improving smart pricing

High conversion words such as buy, for sale

[kaz]

Many ask how to overcome the woes of smartpricing, while I don't have a magic bullet I believe one helpful suggestion is to target keyword phrases that typically have higher conversion ratios. For an extreme example, people searching for keywords including 'for sale' and 'buy' are more likely to improve your situation versus attracting visitors via the search engines by spicing your page with 'free'.

I can't prove much regarding this, but it seems like just basic common sense some may miss. Its simply good for the advertiser, as any will be willing to pay more for visitors who are more qualified than others. Any other ideas or thoughts?

[sven1977]

Can't really agree with that. I strongly believe that we are all more or less providing "free" content in one or the other way. Thus, our pages are probably full of "free"-keywords. Nevertheless, I never had problems with smartpricing, never. My site has been online for one year. Minor decreases in CPC were caused by MFAs, which I filtered out. I'm currently going with one ad unit plus one link unit. Some pages have two ad units. my CPC is higher than ever before.

I really don't know. But it seems that people, who look for something "free" at first, might still buy something in the end from our advertisers.

[Aircut]

its not SMART PRICING that hits us its STUPID ADS.

our site revenues dropped 50% over the last 3 months with no changes in ads layout, srep and tafic nature.

the CTR and eCPM are amazingly low. when i am checking the ads, believe me, even when i am drunk i wont click on those ads if i were the user!

so many JUNK ADS for MFA sites that it really DUMB ADS affects us harder than SMART pricing.

my 2c

[howiejs]

Here is the issue that I see with "free"

Many advertisers list this as a negative keyword in Adwords . . .

so if the Adsense page focuses on "free" - those ads "should not" appear (in quotes as nothing is as it seems sometimes) . . .
and many times lower value ads appear in their place

[david_uk]

I think it depends on what ads the content triggers. I'd agree that "Free" is a keyword to avoid for the reasons stated, but I'd also agree that the real problem for us regarding smart pricing and earnings is the ludicrously out of control number of MFA's.

[kaz]

I'd also agree that the real problem for us regarding smart pricing and earnings is the ludicrously out of control number of MFA's.

Curious David, can you explain further as I don't fully grasp your communication. How do MFA's impact your smart pricing?

[hunderdown]

To get back to the original topic, I don't think the issue is "buy" and "for sale" vs. "free."

What you want to mention are specific products and services rather than writing lots of vague, generic copy.....

[kaz]

have you done much adwords advertising? Based on my experiences they do impact conversions. For example, the reference of Adwords advertisers putting the word free on their exclusion list.

[howiejs]

"have you done much adwords advertising? Based on my experiences they do impact conversions. For example, the reference of Adwords advertisers putting the word free on their exclusion list."

I do a ton of Adwords and I believe this is part of the smart pricing issues that hit . . .

[eeek]

its not SMART PRICING that hits us its STUPID ADS.

That's certainly what I've been seeing lately. And it's getting worse.

[annej]

I don't see a correlation between pages with free on them and EPC. In fact the correlation I find is that lower CTR seems to bring higher EPC. But that was just with a quick look so probably doesn't mean anything.

The word free on pages is in the section where I have designed free widgeting patterns. There is no way I can take the free off of those pages without losing a lot of visitors.

[howiejs]

Putting free on the page - will get "free" type ads - nothing wrong with that at all . . .

But many ecommerce related advertisers add free to their negative keyword list - so those ads may not run (may be higher paying then what is left)

[kaz]

There is no way I can take the free off of those pages without losing a lot of visitors.

I understand, and I'm not asking you to do anything but understand why when you have so many coming to your site looking for 'free' items the corresponding coversions don't take place and impact the pricing advertisers pay. Just my understanding, i understand there is a ton of visitors looking for 'free' and adsense publisher and many webmasters 'spice' there page(s) with those terms to attract all of those visitors. Sure a few will convert eventually, but based on my experiences as and adwords advertiser very very few will. Smart pricing is coorelated to conversions in some way, at least I think that it is clear that plays a role, so publishers should understand this and the impact it has. Its in google's and the advertisers if the visitors are more qualified to purchase, and I argue based on 'smart pricing' also in the publishers interest. Just my .02

[moTi]

its not SMART PRICING that hits us its STUPID ADS.

when i am checking the ads, believe me, even when i am drunk i wont click on those ads if i were the user!

please don't confuse these things. let's be clear about that:

stupid ads are often professionally written by people who know how to benefit from the system. stupid, silly and misleading ads are clicked by dull users with low attention. and that's the biggest part of users who click on all us publishers ads, believe me..

secondly, those arbitrage advertisers know perfectly well how to minimize their ad spend on your site. they bid on a wide range of keywords and even adjust exclusively to your content. average joe surfers are vulnerable to catchy dumb written ad copy and mfas know that very well. they catch people with no money to spend but a high click affinity. these convert bad (low epc for you) but click further when landing on an mfa.

so usually ctr increases and epc decreases with the number of those ads on your site.

thing is, that advertisers who are dependent on arbitrage outperform serious mom and pop businesses in all marketing relevant issues.
THAT is the real problem. to educate honest small businesses how to write a cool ad, how to design a proper landing page and how to compete with the bunch of s*ckers.

[annej]

Do AdWords users block the whole site if free is used anywhere or do they just block the pages that have the word free on them?

Since my pages with free patterns on them seem to be doing as well as my other pages I'm wondering if they are hurting all of my AdSense account.

[howiejs]

It is not a matter of "blocking" a site or page or account . .

I think it is on a page level - and even content section level - if you run multiple ad units . . the content "around" one ad unit

again these are just my opinions . . .

I actually don't think this is smart pricing - it just changes the ad mix available for the page - for advertisers who excluded "free"

[webdudek]

moTi,
You are so right.
dumb ads are not written by dumb people.
I saw more than once dumb ads and brilliant ads leading to the exact same page.

[kaz]

Since my pages with free patterns on them seem to be doing as well as my other pages I'm wondering if they are hurting all of my AdSense account.

Note, smartpricing works on an account basis. Not page, category, site ... but entire account ... so even another domain if used may be impacted.

I don't understand the arguement that 'free' may impact advertisements because of negative keywords... but not smartpricing which may be based on conversions.

Do publishers focus on quality for the sake of advertisers. Based on this thread, I'm thinking it is irrelevent to most. That's my point, most don't understand or even care about things that they do control. Surely improving qualified visitors for an advertiser isn't a bad thing for any involved... imo.

[annej]

I guess I wasn't very clear.

I understand that individual's blocking pages with the word 'free' on them is different than smart pricing.

All I was wondering was if the blocking was account wide as that could mean the loss of some well paying ads throughout the site or sites.

I don't mind if some advertisers didn't want to appear on my 'free' pages but was hoping they would still appear on other pages.

[david_uk]

If you want the word "Free" to appear on your pages because it helps SEO, or it's related to content, you can either use seciont targeting on any use of the word "free" to ignore it, or use <span>fr</span>ee to get the target bot to ignore the word. That way you can use the word in your page and not attract the wrong sort of ads maybe.

[kaz]

Do others think that is a good solution?

I don't think it is a good idea to try to attract keyword traffic based on the word free and then try to figure out away to avoid Google and the advertiser detecting this.

Regardless, I don't think your approach will work David based on my experiences. I believe, Google takes a bit more into factor when determing ads. Your approach seems very simple, but not realistic to me.

[david_uk]

Well, it's not exactly a guaranteed fix - never said it was. Might be worth a try is all I'm suggesting :)

I got the idea originally from this group before section targeting existed. I was having a problem with the bot selecting the keyword "newsgroup", and showing newsgroup readers despite the page not being about newsgroups. This simple technique did at least get me the right ads - that's all it was meant to do. As far as I can make out, the OP wants to have the word free in the text, but not have the bot focus on it. That being the case, then section targeting might help, and is worth a try.

[kaz]

Here is where I see your scenario different from the other. Your situation had the bot picking up newsgroup from the context of the page. Were a lot of visitors also finding you from that search term, as with the 'free' scenario discussed? I think google does reference the referral url and monitor the keywords used to find a page. That's the difference in reality I was mentioning, imo.

I don't think it is a good long term idea to basically cloak your content.

Regardless if the bot/google picks up on it, the visitors still don't convert and it impacts smart pricing, imo, if smart pricing is coorelated with advertisers conversions via adwords.

[annej]

First of all I want to report that my section with free patterns definately has poorer paying ads. So it really is a problem.

Then I decided to search my site for the word free so I could remove it if the word wasn't really necessary. It's amazing how often I've used the word free where it has noting to do with a give away. Phrases like, "free the mind", "free motion" and "feeling free'. Plus in giving someone credit for the "free Graphics" I've used several other pages have the word "free" on them. <arrrggghhhh>

On the overall topic of smart pricing I find a lot of seasonal differences. I get the highest in Nov and Dec before the Christmas holidays and the lowest in the summer. I think that variation is based on how much the advertisers are bidding.

[21_blue]

I decided to search my site for the word free

Interesting, I've done the same. With a small number of exceptions, it occurs mostly on pages where I had a low EPC and removed the ads. It probably isn't a smartpricing issue, but simply negative keywords reducing the ad stock and competition on those pages.

And our use of the word "free" is quite prolific - dictionary.com lists over 20 different meanings of the word and it seems we've used most of them. If "free" is a popular negative keyword in adwords, we'll be doing ourselves a lot of damage (and advertisers missing out on some potentially good clicks).

Are there any other popular negative keywords we should be looking to remove, apart from "free"?

[kaz]

Typically each advertiser builds a list of their own over time based on experiences. They do this by referencing their logfiles and tracking which words convert and which are dead ends. For example, clipart/pictures is often avoided by many.

You can do this yourself by researching what keywords visitors are finding you by. You don't need to worry about all poor converting words, only the ones relevant to your site which is evident by reviewing your keyword referral stats sitewide.

[21_blue]

You can do this yourself by researching what keywords visitors are finding you by

I didn't follow the logic, here, sorry. I have good access to the keywords used to find my site - there are about 3,000 of them, forming about 7,000 phrases. How exactly do I determine from this list which ones are the negative keywords in my advertisers' lists?

[annej]

I don't see how looking at my stats for search phrases would help either. But they did help me in determining what pages the people who searched "free" were getting to. It turned out to be the main page of the free widgeting patterns. So I left the free promotion on that page. Very few were finding the specific pages in the section so I've removed "free" from those pages.

I had initially thought the word free wasn't hurting epc because I looked at April and at that time epc was the close to my overall epc. It seems to have dropped on the free pages in the last 2 or 3 weeks.

I can't think of another factor but it could be something else than the word free. But it can't hurt to remove it where it doesn't really make any difference.

On the free clip art the problem is that pages that give credit for clip art are also blocked. So on the few pages where I had used clip are with credid I've reworded it.

[ann]

Good Grief!

Thanks for the wakeup call people!

I read this thread, did a little thinking and then investigated my pages. On my lead in page (index) I found 15 instances of the word free and EVERY ad on the page had free in it about two or three times......Not just on that page but across the site (spot check)those ads were showing up and a lot of them, the same ads, on every page!

I think I remember back when a lot of sites were turning to paid memberships only in order to keep up with hosting costs etc. and free was a good draw word. Those that did not go to memberships only used the free word as a major draw and it worked...back then.

I guess I was still somewhat living in the past. :(

Well I changed the index page and if this doesn't hurt my page one standing in the serps I will change the others (although It is sparse on other pages).

Will report back in to tell you how the ads go....

Ann

[21_blue]

I've found the following post in the Adwords forum that describes how to choose negative keywords. It seems to me that publishers could use some of these techniques to try and anticipate advertisers' negative keywords as well, though I haven't tried any of the techniques yet:

[webmasterworld.com...]

FWIW, I've reintroduced adds to the pages that (a) I had removed ads from completely because they used to have low EPC relative to Adwords rates and (b) contained the word "free" (I've now removed the word "free", of course). The initial results are encouraging because, although the EPC for the first few ads was very low, EPC now seems to be quite healthy. I guess that the bot initially placed ads according to its historical info, but has now updated its algo for the page and there are more ads competing for the space. This needs some time to run, though, before coming to firmer conclusions.