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Google AdWords in NL Politics

The latest Beyond the Browser on The Western Star went live today.

I'm still getting used to the formatting for newspaper publishing so I thought I would re-post the beginning section here as it was originally presented.

Online advertising is powerful.

Also lucrative, especially for the ad servers. The biggest player in the online advertising space is Google. Google’s revenues for last year topped thirty three billion dollars. Ninety seven percent of that revenue came from online advertising.

Here’s a crash course in how Google AdWords works:

• Setup an account
• Create a new ad campaign
• Choose one ore more keywords that your advertising will show up for
• Craft your ad, alternative wording is also an option
• Set your maximum budget per day
• Activate your campaign

There are of course a few screens to get through to manage all of that. The online documentation is good though and there are hundreds of businesses that specialize in helping you run AdWords campaigns.

Cuttings

The other thing I am getting used to is editorial changes. I'm not certain why the last section of my article was truncated. I suspect it was due to content or timing.  As it related to the recent election, which has of course ended, it may not be considered topical anymore.

The thing is, the truncated portion of my article was inspired by a conversation I had on Twitter pertaining to AdWords use by certain political parties. I think some discussion on the matter is deserved so I'm posting the deleted section here now so we can continue our chat.

Without further fanfare, here is the missing section:

Before I wrap up this column, I’d like to point out an innovative use of AdWords I had never seen before.

A keen eyed reader was browsing the Internet reading information on the upcoming elections. They mentioned on Twitter the result they saw when they typed the keywords nl liberals. Fortunately they were also quick enough to take a screenshot of the result because the ad that was displayed has since been disabled.

The URL for the screen is: http://t.co/3k3T0RA8. Don’t worry about the strange format of the link. That’s a customized short link Twitter uses to help users share links without using up too many characters in the 140 character limit per post.

There are several interesting things about this ad.

• First, it was not a product related ad, it was a political ad that pointed to http://newenergynl.ca.
• Second, the ad was tied to at least the keywords nl liberals and muskrat falls, there were likely other keywords.
• Third, the disparity between the headline, “NDP”, and the website the ad redirected to, newenergynl.ca (a PC site), should have lowered the accuracy score given by Google. Google checks the content of the target website against your ad wording to ensure there is some relationship.

I am not sure how I feel about the wording of the ad but I do find this use of AdWords innovative. Technology, at its best, is a disruptive game changer that can supercharge your marketing efforts.

One thing is certain, political campaigning in Newfoundland & Labrador has just been changed forever.

Let me know what you think of this type of AdWords campaign. Thanks to @hydroqueen and @thefightingnewf for sparking the conversation.