CEO of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann, announced the other day that Pinterest is going to start promoting paid pins in the future. Last week, Silbermann put up a blog post and sent emails to all Pinterest users informing them that Pinterest is going to begin using "promoted pins". They are not accepting payment for advertisements yet, but simply testing the waters first to see what will work best and what the user response is. These promoted pins will begin appearing in search results and category feeds at first and according to Silbermann they will be unique based on each user's behavior history.

Pinterest seems to be playing this up as a way to help keep users satisfied, even though it is clear that their goal is to finally start making big money off of their 46 million visitors (ComScore, 2013). In an effort to help users accept the change Silbermann opened his post by making an emotional appeal and talking about how he and his child have fun together because of Pinterest. He then said that he knows users use Pinterest in the same way and it would be a shame to see the site go. Then, attempting to make readers happy, he also highlighted that Pinterest is determined not to have banner ads because he knows users don't like them. He makes it seems like they are doing this satisfy users, but in reality it's been proven that integrated advertisements are much more successful than banner ads (AdRoll, 2013). He also stated that the ads will be tasteful and relevant, and that they are interested in hearing feedback about the promoted pins. 

As of right now, it seems that Pinterest advertising could have major benefits to many e-commerce businesses and will help companies get their products seen. It is clear that Pinterest is taking this step with caution to avoid losing their growing number of users. Only time will tell whether these advertisement will be successful in helping users find things they are interested in or if it will scare users off.
If you do a lot of web surfing, you probably have seen Microsoft's Ads that say "Don't get Scroogled".  "Scroogled", of course, being a derogatory term for "Google".  Naturally, Microsoft is trying to gain market share in the search business, but I am starting to think they are on to something.  Google has made a move recently that they are pushing as "good things" to the general public, but I suspect are anything but.

If you have been advertising in Google Adwords, you probably noticed that in late July, Google forced everyone into their "enhanced campaigns".  Now, on the surface, this can almost seem like a good thing.  "Enhanced campaigns" provide automatically mobile optimized support for your ads.  In the past, mobile advertising was a bit more difficult for the average business owner.  Now, the mobile side will pretty much just happen as a result of you creating an ad.  Actually, you will be forced into mobile advertising.  So, this sounds like a good thing, right?  Well, not really.  While there are workarounds (we will talk about these later), advertisers are being forced into advertising on mobile compatibility with the auto-upgrade feature.  How is it good for Google?  You need to remember that Adwords is a big auction house.  People bid on keywords and essentially fight for ad space.  What do you think happens when millions of new ads flood the mobile and tablet advertising market?  Starting to see the big picture?  Yes, that's right.  Google makes more money.  Now, making money isn't a bad thing.  So, why am I claiming they "stabbed business in the back"?  Because along with the push to mobile to make Google more money, they raised business's costs and threw some of their money out the window.

The push for enhanced campaigns begins with Google creating automatic bid adjustments based on information it has about what other people are doing in the marketplace that are advertising similarly to you.  Does this mean it is the best thing for you?  No.  Every business and marketing strategy is different, naturally.  What it does do though is it forces the less savvy advertisers into a position of being forced into advertising on mobile.  Mobile can be good for businesses, but mostly for business to consumer purchases.  For Business to business advertisers, it typically doesn't perform as well.  So, many "B to B" companies are now advertising on platforms that are relatively ineffective for them because they are not savvy to the changes, and pretty much just throwing money out the window (or to Google).  The other issue with this is based on all of our client data.  Around the time that Google forced the push, our clients had a spike in their average cost per click of five to seven cents per click.  From everything we can tell, this was entirely a market adjustment and has not entirely ceased.  While we can make adjustments for our clients, you can't completely beat the marketplace.  So, everyone's ads just became more expensive, reducing everyone's return on investment.  So, what can you do?

1.  Enhanced campaigns allow for you to make manual bid adjustments based on device.  If tablet advertising is no good for you, adjust the bid adjustment for tablet advertising by -100%.  This will effectively shut it off.

2.  Also, make sure DO NOT pay too much attention to the "bid simulator" feature.  It is ball park at best, but is almost never correct.

3.  Use the bid adjustment feature to target geographies and demographics better.  In other words, if you find that your ads perform better in a certain state, increase the bid adjustment for that particular state and reduce the bid adjustment for poorly performing states.  Do the same for demographics.

4.  Take advantage of the advanced calling features if mobile is good for.

5.  Google will always tell you to use sitelinks, but they are not always good.  They are always attempting to increase click through rate.  This is not always a good thing.  An ad can effectively screen out bad clicks if worded correctly.  So, CTR is not always reactant of ROI.  So, pay attention to your conversion rates and determine what your true cost per conversion is.  Then, determine how increasing your CTR may effect ROI.  If you believe it will, then use some of the sitelink features to increase the ROI.  

6.  Look at alternative ad platforms.  Bing ads is good, though they certainly make it harder to work on then Adwords as the tools aren't as advanced.  The Yahoo Network is another alternative.  If you do your homework, you can find some great direct opportunities with banners on nice vertical sites.

The last alternative is that you can hire a professional search engine marketer.  I know, I know.  It sounds like a pitch.  Here's the issue though.  If you don't, chances are that you will spend more money in campaign inefficiencies that it would have cost you to hire someone in the first place.  Especially, if you are spending $600 or more per month already.  Essentially, in those cases you are getting someone to manage your ads for free.  At Foremost Media, our average client has sees a reduction in the average cost per click of almost 50%.  So do the math, and if you can afford it, hire a professional.