Top 10 Ways to Avoid Rejection

Top 10 Ways to Avoid Rejection

According to Overture, about 30% of all listings submitted to them are rejected. Ouch! That's a big percentage. Although search engines' editorial policies differ on a few minor points here and there, they all generally require advertisers to adhere to the same rules. If you follow these top 10 guidelines, then your listing acceptance rate may be a perfect 100% every time.

1. No excessive capitalization: FREE, MYSITE.COM.

2. No superlatives: #1, best, largest.

3. No phone numbers or URLs in titles or descriptions.

4. Don't use symbols (&); use words instead (and).

5. Avoid exclamation points (!).

6. Avoid having pop-ups on the landing page.

7. The keyword should be mentioned once in the title or description and at least once on the landing page.

8. Content should be relevant: Product names , special, or "free" offers mentioned in the title or description must be discussed on the landing page.

9. Affiliate sites must note that they are affiliates in their title or description.

10. The links to your site must allow people to return to the search engine by clicking on the "Back" button in the browser's toolbar.

Be sure to double-check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This sounds like a no-brainer, but when we're in a rush we often make simple mistakes. A minor oversight can cost you a few days of waiting, plus it makes your submissions open to scrutiny and possible rewriting by the editors. This isn't good ‚ you might be unhappy with their changes. Also, just to be safe, take an extra few minutes to test the destination URLs you assign to your listings. A broken link is absolute cause for rejection.

Really, it's not the end of the world if any of your listings are rejected; it just wastes time to go through the process again.

If you're going to launch a campaign on only one or two search engines, tailor your listings to those particular engines' policies. For example, Google allows advertisers to use an exclamation point in the description, so why not take this opportunity to make your listing as strong as possible?!

Monitoring Your Competitors ' Click-Through Performance

How popular are your competitors' ads? Recently developed tools grant you insight into their click-through rates. Armed with this data, you'll be able to better optimize your own ad listings.

Google Interest Bar

Run a keyword search on Google. Notice the "Sponsored Links" on the right-hand side of the page? This is Google's AdWords program. See the "Interest" bar at the bottom of each ad, as shown in Figure 4.4, for the keyword phrase "home loan service"? This bar reflects the advertisers' click-through rate. You won't actually see what the percentage is, but if you're already an advertiser and your bar doesn't look as long as the others, then your competitors are getting more clicks on their ads. First-time advertisers can compare the Interest bar of all of the current advertisers and study their ad copy for copywriting ideas.

Be careful! A Google AdWords advertiser in the #1 position does not necessarily have the best listing. Google ranks advertisers based on a combination of the advertisers' click-through rate and how much they're willing to pay per click. Unlike other Pay-For-Placement (PFP) engines, Google doesn't just reward the highest spender. Google users get a vote in who moves to number one.

Epic Sky's Overture Competitor Watch

Released in 2003 by Epic Sky, an Overture approved bid management company, Competitor Watch monitors the coverage, rankings, traffic, and spending of your top 10 competitors on Overture. At last check, Epic Sky will run monthly reports on a small number of keywords you're currently buying, up to more than 5,000 keywords if you're running a massive campaign. Study your competition's bidding strategy to see how you can lower your costs while increasing your traffic (see Figures 4.5 to 4.7).

Although Epic Sky's Overture Competitor Watch report reveals which of your terms has the lightest and heaviest competition, the report doesn't show what keywords your competitors are buying that you aren't. You'll have to return to your keyword research tools and start from scratch. There's no tool that I know of yet that suggests keywords to purchase based on what your chief competitors are buying. Oh well, we can dream, can't we? I guess that by not knowing this information so easily, fees won't quickly increase on those PFP engines.

The worst thing an advertiser can do is create one listing for a keyword, or group of keywords, and just let it continually run. Ok, it's not the worst thing, but it's not making the best use of the web's advantageous marketing opportunity: the ability for advertisers to continually change their creative.

Pepsi doesn't show the same TV commercial year after year. The commercial storyline, featured celebrities , and music all change. This tactic improves brand awareness among repeat commercial viewers , plus draws in new TV audiences.

Likewise, your potential clients are searching for a solution provider on search engines over a week, month, or longer timeframe. If you don't intrigue them with your first ad listing, the one you display when they return may suddenly pique their interest, driving them to your web site. Then, it's up to your landing pages to persuade them to buy.