The AWS Blog

From Market Watch -

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A growing number of online advertisers are bidding a partial goodbye to Google Inc.

Frustrated by the soaring price of Internet-search advertising and diminishing returns from the ads they buy, mid-sized advertisers say they plan to reduce how much business they do with Google this year — in some cases, significantly.

Last year, for example, eBags.com co-founder Peter Cobb spent between $5 million and $8 million to peddle suitcases, handbags and other carrying cases online. Google got 75% of that amount.

But this year it will get “significantly less,” Cobb said. “The Google percentage has got to go down,” he said.

In many cases, the cost of an eBags.com ad placed on either Google’s own Web site or one of its affiliates now equals 45% of the price of the product it promotes. That’s crimping the company’s own profit margins and forcing it to look elsewhere to market its bags.

“We’re testing print ads right now,” said Cobb, whose company will spend up to $8 million on ads in 2007.

Cobb was among a half-dozen Google customers — all of whom spent between $4 million and $10 million on search ads in 2006 — who told MarketWatch they plan to spend less this year to have their ads placed alongside Google’s search results.

While losing a few million here or there may not be enough to impact Google’s business — which generated more than $7 billion in sales last year — those interviewed for this story say their sentiment is not unusual among Google advertisers of their size.

… read the rest of the article.

When I started to read through the article, I became concerned that it was going to make no mention of the web site owner’s responsibility to make a good attempt at actually converting the visitor to a customer. Right now it’s very easy to get a Google AdWords campaign running, and start driving quality traffic to a website. It is not, however, an easy task to convert visitors to new customers.

Don’t get me wrong. If high conversion rates were easily attainable, our clients would have no need for our web strategy services, so I’m thankful! It’s just very hard not to cringe when you read articles that quote people who are undoubtedly going to go out and try to find the next “untapped” source of cheap traffic, without addressing the underlying problem: the landing page or website.

Thankfully, the article concludes by mentioning a company who has in fact started focusing on conversions:

Changing tactics

Likewise, not all Google advertisers who’ve seen their costs surge are cutting spending.

Google’s expansive advertising network and its No. 1 Internet search engine still make it a necessary part of any online campaign. Saying goodbye to Google and its huge audience is a risky move for advertisers.

Yet even those who will spend at least as much money on Google this year as they did in 2006 say their decision has more to do with improvements they’ve made on their own, rather than any increased satisfaction with Google’s ad service.

Sackrowitz of Bare Necessities said he won’t cut Google spending, but only because his company has developed expertise in converting clicks into sales.

“We’re getting healthy enough returns, but it’s a testament to how we’ve done a better job of converting shoppers to buyers than our competition,” he said. “We’ll stay the course, but I wish (keyword) prices were lower.”

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This year has definitely been an exciting year at Awecomm Web Strategies. Not only have we moved, twice, but we’ve really expanded as a division, both financially and within our staff.

“The company has grown because of the AWS division. It’s exciting because AWS delivers web marketing services that are in high demand and the new division is able to doing a fantastic job at servicing their customers,” said President Brent Yax, who manages Awecomm’s Hosting Division.

The new office provides a friendly working environment. Although the office isn’t 100% completed, we’re almost there (fingers crossed). The move took a lot of time and effort, but overall, it was definitely well worth it.

The year was also big in terms of the number of projects our division worked on. One of the most exciting aspects of this company is watching the projects come together. Because of the diverse types of services that we provide (web application development, web design, SEO, PPC) we always have people with a wide variety of skills working on every project. “At the end of the day, we’re delivering one complete web site marketing strategy, each person just views it from a different angle,” said Vice President, Chris Spiek.

From discussing ideas on implementing plans, to designing the site, all the way to going live, it’s an amazing process to be a part of. “It has really been full of change and growth, new people, and new projects,” Senior Designer, Brennan Barney explains. This has really been a positive year for the employees here at Awecomm. “This past year has really been a learning experience for me,” Account Assistant, Ellen Plunkett told me when asked what her experience here has been like. Almost everyone followed suit in saying that working here has really allowed them to learn which essentially helped the division grow.

With the growth of our company, we decided to redesign our Awecomm Web Hosting site. The new site launched in January. I have to say my favorite part is the festive snowman at the bottom of the Awecomm.com page. I’m hoping for something a bit more floral come spring time, but I guess I’ll just have to wait. There have been some really great opportunities this year for Awecomm. A large project we worked on was the Extreme Home Makeover. Our collaboration with Lombardo Homes, all of the sponsors, and everyone at ABC really made the event a success. We were able to go down to the construction site and see the home really come together. I still brag to my friends that I met Ty Pennington (little do they know, I didn’t.)

I would have to say that 2006 brought on a lot of challenges however. Between getting through a week without someone in the company getting into a car accident, or someone related to them, and keeping campaigns live, it has been a challenging year. You may recall a blog that was posted not even a month ago about the treacherous driving of our employees and loved ones. I was disappointed that I didn’t have a story to share, but about a week and a half ago my brother’s car rolled backwards down the driveway and hit a tree in our neighbor’s front yard. It sounds worse than it was. Had his car gone 2 feet to the left of that tree it would have picked up momentum from that hill in their yard and HELLO RAVINE! He’s lucky if you ask me. Did I mention he’s only had the car for a little less than two months? Maybe it’s too soon to joke.

Aside from trying to make it to and from work without car troubles, Web Marketing Account Manager, Grace Tsai mentioned that “working with clients and trying to balance client’s wants and what we are trying to accomplish,” can be difficult. Customer satisfaction is an important concept, but can be difficult to maintain. There is a constant change within the technology and ideas of our industry, “you have to continue to evolve in order to keep up,” as Software Developer Mark Warren said. We’ve been able to do some pretty neat projects this year. “With Jervis and Total Door, we were able to create projects that are both fun and challenging. We are doing things for them that we have never done and that no one else really has.” It’s exciting to see this company take another step forward and add another product to the list.

There are a lot of things we are hoping to accomplish in 2007. While Bobby Franske, our Web Marketing Account Manager is hoping to “run 10 miles and put an end to global warming,” many of the employees here hope to continue to grow within the company, although those are some really great goals Bobby! “I’d really like hands on experience and I’d like to learn more about marketing and PPC campaigns and with that gain more responsibility,” Account Assistant, Jacque Phaneuf told me when discussing her 2007 goals. My goal is to write more blogs. With the continued success in the last year we can really only hope to go up from here, which seems promising.

See you in the spring,
-The Sarcastic Intern

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