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SalesForce And Google Adwords - What You Need To Know

For many companies and organizations who use SalesForce, they already know it is an amazing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. However, it's the unique integration with Google Adwords which makes it even more valuable. I just wish they would integrate Yahoo and MSN. I have written before on the relationship between SalesForce and Google Adwords entitled, Managing Both Salesforce.com & Adwords MCC APIs. Moreover, in this post I wanted to dig a little deeper into the step-by-step processes as well as the "not so much blogged about" features of this "perfect Mix." Hence the photo. 

In a nutshell, in order for SalesForce to receive leads from a website, the landing page or the website that a user goes to from a Google Adwords search must have contain a customized "Web-To-lead" SalesForce form, as well as a snippet of SalesForce JavaScript code at the bottom of the form. It's that simple.

Below, I will go through step by step the process for setting this up.

How can I connect an Adwords Account into SalesForce?
This is a very easy task that sounds more complicated than it truly is. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

1. Click the Google Adwords Setup tab in Salesforce
2. Enter your existing Adwords Customer ID in the field provided
3. Salesforce walks you through to complete the process.
4. Login to your Google Adwords Account
5. Go to My Account --> Access --> Client Managers
6. In Client Manager, you should see SalesForce for Google Adwords.
7. If you have an MCC logged to this account, make sure the Access Level is for SalesForce is set for API only.
8. Once complete, you can now track new and existing campaigns in SalesForce

Important Notes about Adwords Setup in SalesForce:

1. You can only have one (1) Google Adwords account into SalesForce.
2. SF does not support linking a Google MCC IDs (Only individual account IDs)
3. During integration process, Salesforce will automatically append tracking code to the end of all destination urls in the account.

Creating the Web-To-Lead Form in SalesForce:

1. Create a Salesforce Account, fill out all of the necessary fields needed to capture leads, etc..
2. Create a customized "Thank You" page and "Cancel Page". (Add to WTL Form)
3. Create then copy/paste the customized Web to lead form to your needs on the website
4. Place a snippet of Salesforce JavaScript code on all pages of the website (end </body> tag)
5. Run test in SalesForce to make sure the code is working, as well as the form is accurate.
6. Once everything is good, do a test to make sure it's working in Salesforce.

What happens in SalesForce when a Lead is generated:
When a user enters his/her information from the WTL form, the lead is easily identified by the value in the Lead Source Field. The Value in Salesforce is labeled as "Google Adwords" and an activity record shows which Google campaign, Adgroup, Ad/Creative Headline and even keyword that generated the lead.

What Kind of Reporting Does SalesForce Offer?
SalesForce for Google Adwords includes (17) standard reports plus a custom Dashboard feature. The Google Adwords dashboard offers a real-time snapshot of important metrics that help track lead generation, opportunity creation, closed deals and ROI.

The following Statistics and Charts are available:

• Leads generated from Google Adwords
• Opportunities generated from Google Adwords
• Pipeline generated from Google Adwords
• Closed deals and new customers generated from Google Adwords
• Top lead generating campaigns, adgroups, keywords, phrases and Ad/Creatives.

Difference Between SalesForce & Google Analytics:

Well, first of all they both compliment each other. The main difference is that Salesforce for Google Adwords identifies the source of traffic that create the leads in Salesforce. The typical "hybrid" of both services allows the company to have a holistic view of website activity and lead generation.

In Conclusion:
SalesForce offers a very robust CRM solution which easily integrates with Google Adwords. My only criticism is that there is no integration with Yahoo and/or MSN. Having that option would be very helpful. As Companies, Agencies, Charities, Political Candidates and Organizations start realizing that they need a better way to handle and organize their business leads, SalesForce can help "marry" both the online and off-line leads, as well as send custom email auto-responders and provide a much easier way of keep track of the business.

Hey Google? Open Your Eyes And Let Political Campaigns Open Their Wallets

Ok, this is my first "rant" of 2008 and it deserves it. I am motivated by my experiences with Google and their stubborn lack of opportunity with regard to the Political Arena and Quality Score. No wonder PPC is not at the forefront of Internet Advertising spend, when Google makes it difficult to play the game. Let's just say it's a friggin nightmare. Let me explain:

Educating Quality Score to a Political Campaign Manager is like putting your hand over your ears and yelling LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!!!

The Reality of a Politics and PPC as of March, 2008:
When you have a candidate such as Barak Obama who has raised almost 90% of all donations online and the National Campaign avg. of Internet spend is 1%. HELLO???? Don't you think Google should reach out and make their biggest generator of revenue (aka Adwords which pays for the elaborate schwag, Google Fridges and amazing 16-star cafeterias) a part of the mix. NOPE! Instead of promoting PPC or the Search Network, they focus on banner ads and contextual advertising as well as forcing $10 CPCs for low volume long-tail keywords in a remote geo-targeted areas.

The Lifecycle & Behavior of a Political Campaign:
Being that I am currently living through this, it's a very fast paced, cut throat environment and after 1 day of spend, we hear things like "how many clicks, where's the donations, how many volunteers, etc..." Funny, is that I agree with them and can't blame them for asking. Their Jobs are on the line as well. It's easy for SEM agencies and Google itself to promise amazing results, however there's a huge difference between reality and fiction (which ironically is a very evident on politics)

Also, as I put my PPC Geek hat for a minute, there are PPC barriers in place that are inherently difficult for achieving a decent Google Quality Score to keep the costs down and volumes up.

• Limited Account/CTR% History
• Keyword Selections are not 100% relevant (95% is not good enough)
• Ad/Creative Messaging change frequently (Editorial)
• In the Ads, words like "Donate" & "Contribute" must go to a landing page with a Donation Form. If not, your turned off
• Candidate Issue pages
  1. Keyword: Child Tax Credit
  2. Ad: ... on cutting taxes
  3. Landing Page Content: Cutting Taxes, Tax Spending...
  4. Result: Sorry, BAD QUALITY SCORE, Pay $10.00 CPC to continue playing.

How can Google Fix This?
In order for Google to get more market share of the political campaign budgets,  Google MUST alter these rather increasingly “over the top” Quality Score measures to force lower. more manageable CPCs as they do with Google Grants and Non-profits where they limit the CPC to $1.00. If they don’t adapt something similar, they will never get a piece of the campaign dollars. If Google continues to raise and put a value behind a keyword, even though the traffic data for that keyword is minimal Google will never get PPC money from campaigns. Campaigns will continue to spend more money in display and PPC agencies & campaigns will put more money in Yahoo which doesn’t give us that problem. See my article about Yahoo Search Looking Attractive Again - Just stay away from the content network.

Here's a great article from Online Spin: Politicians Still Missing the Online Opportunity by Joe Marchese which talked about the same issues.

In Conclusion:
To get this problem fixed or at the very least ease the pain, Google needs to step up as the search leader and adapt to the "realities" of the Political Arena. Listen to us PPC Geeks on the front lines and open your eyes which will open the campaigns wallets. Based on this single issue, online strategies are being altered, more advertising dollars will be moved into Behavioral Display Advertising, Yahoo and Social Media services.  The biggest part of making this work for candidates is to monetize every single event and put a $$ behind every one of them.

Why Monetizing Every Success Event Is Key To PPC Performance

The typical performance metric that is used to quantify a successful Paid Search Campaign is ROAS%, ROI% or Lead Generation with a defined CPL or CPA. Sounds straightforward and fair right? NOPE! Suppose you have a PPC campaign that has an actual ROAS of 100%, but the benchmark is 500%. Plus, the client (with the intent to improve overall conversions) decides to throw in an #800 on the site, extend and complicate the online form and/or increase the price or shipping of products without telling you the PPC Marketer. Guess what happens to the ROAS%? Guess who get's the call at 3am in the morning (I know a little over-dramatic for those political types, but can you say Roto-Rooter??)

Everything mentioned above will affect your PPC Performance. Ever notice that the more you spend in PPC, the Bookmark/Type-ins and the Brand Campaigns keeps getting stronger and better while the others barely keep themselves afloat? All of these scenarios are taking away from all of the keyword research, conversion analysis and Ad testing that you have done and sold the client on. So, you need to protect your efforts and find a way to set the expectation with the client from the beginning and find ways to monetize all of the consumer interacted events on the website which can lead to some sort of a conversion.

Other KPIs that deserve more attention:
Other Success Events traditionally not a part of the typical KPI mix that clients rarely want to include in the PPC efforts are (1) Email subscriptions, (2) Newsletter Subscriptions, (3) Live Chats, (4) Telephone Sales, (5) Bookmark Type-ins and (6) SEO traffic. Forgive me if I left anything out.

So how do you monetize these events?
Well, it may not be as simple as you would expect and everything is riding on the participation by the client to provide you an average monthly rate of these events. For example, if the avg monthly email sign-up=25, or # of live chats is 100/month, then you need let the campaign run for the first month, collect the data from the client and start the predictive process. Also, you will need collaborate with the client on how much each of the success events are worth to them. Is an email worth $1.00, Chat worth $2.00, telephone order AOV (Average over value)... you get my drift.

Why does monetizing these events matter?
Depending on your original discussion with the client during the scoping and proposal phase of the process, you need set the "reality" of the online world to them and explain that in paid search they are getting much more that an ROAS% metric. They are getting traditional increases in all success events and that there is a lifetime value associated with every impression or click of a paid search ad (textual or display).

Difficult Argument for Retail or Finance, but not for Political, Non-Profits and Charities:
When dealing with retail, there are so many factors that come into play, the biggest being competition. You have to deal with shipping rates, inventory issues, and simply complexities of the shopping experience. However, when dealing with 501c3 Charities and Politics, the conversion metrics are simple to identify yet difficult to monetize efficiently, such as :

• Donations
• Volunteer Sign-ups
• Email Newsletters
• Campaign Update emails
• Impressions per thousand (eyeballs)
• Bookmark Type-ins
• Returning Visitors
• New Visitors
• Viral participation (linking, etc...)

Plus, in order to capitalize on everything that your online marketing efforts are doing, I am seeing a trend where in order to communicate "online marketing" to political campaign managers and/or charity fundraising directors it needs to be compared Print and TV. The reason is obvious. They have been comfortable for so long with traditional advertising, it's imperative to to compare online metrics such as impressions to basic local and national circulation data (ie. eyeballs), demographics, messaging and expected response rates based upon the advertising spend.

In our online world, this is actually a very significant opportunity, yet still no one gets it. So to counteract this behavior, putting a price on impressions, emails, volunteers, donations, newsletter sign-ups, organic traffic, Viral marketing, etc... is a must part of the negation (aka. proposal).

Once you can get past the hours of discussions and persuasion to put more money online, their ability to see the big picture and have web analytics available for every metric they need, the strategy that was very recently seen as an unrealized Pewter statue is now golden.

Political Online Conferences Do Not Embrace Traditional Search Marketing

Search Marketing appears to be a scary thing when it comes to Political campaign managers and their client the candidate. There's still a strong sense for traditional "offline" marketing to get donations, volunteers, etc... The magical online tactics that are currently embraced are a little strange, because it contains the late 1990's phenomena of Banner Ads & email, along with newer tactics such as viral marketing, Widgets, blogs and social media. However, with all of that, Search Marketing, which accounts for Billions in revenue is still looked upon as not that important. And the Search Engines know this!

Here's a Little on the Politics Online Conference:
I had the opportunity to attend one (1) day at the 2008 Politics Online Conference in Washington DC, and I was truly stunned by the lackluster promotion of Search Marketing, especially with paid search. The #1 advertising vehicle was "BANNER ADS" Most of the vendors in the expo section were either selling CMS based website building, Banner ad services, and advertising on political sites such as Politico, National Journal, etc... Even with Google and Yahoo as sponsors to this event, the big search search engines did not focus on PPC. The only area of some focus was on Contextual advertising with regard to blogs and new sites.

Snippet from the shows website: The Politics Online Conference sits at the intersection of smart politics, good governance, transparent democracy, and innovative technology, spotlighting tools, applications, strategies, and ideas that affect a range of functions, from writing policy to organizing democratic movements to running a smarter political campaign to building dialogue with your constituents. 

People come to the Politics Online Conference to learn about cutting-edge trends and to gain access to the visionaries who make those trends possible. They come to find solutions. They come to discuss their ideas with other experts in the field and outside the Beltway. And they come to network.

Search Networks? Contextual Networks Only:
I got the sense that Google and Yahoo already knew that Politics and Political organizations would only utilize the contextual as well as their advertising networks. Traditional PPC was non-existent. In fact, during a search marketing session, the only mention of search marketing was in reference to contextual search where Blogs and news sites were the prime vehicle for CPC. When I posed the question about this, the panel could not answer the question why the Search Network was not part of their strategy. At the end of my question, I posed the idea that "is the reason why you are only using the contextual networks because you cannot effectively monetize and achieve a successful ROAS% in donations and leads in the price gouging in the Google Search Networks." In the response to that long winded question, the presenters just nodded their heads.

Yahoo's Ad Solutions for Political:
The largest and most engaged audience of voters anywhere
Yahoo! delivers more registered voters than any other network and our users spend more time within the network than anywhere else. We’ve built the leading sites for connecting citizens to politicians, their communities and the issues they care about.

In conclusion:
Traditional "full circle" search marketing in Politics is not getting the attention it needs right now. Campaign managers are scared of the ROAS% factor, but the big issue appears to be reputation management.  In my own personal experience, PPC on the search network is more of a can of worms when reputation management comes into play, especially when the client does not understand search marketing to begin with. You cannot Trademark a candidates name, nor will Google interfere with this.

I know from experience that setting the expectation is just as important as the quality of the work you provide the client. These expectations are magnified by 10x when it comes to the political arena because the typical campaign (not all, just from experience) are not very online marketing and conversion savvy. The more you can take the complexity out of it and relate everything to them in a language they can understand, it will do wonders for the relationship.

Simple Example:

• Impressions = Eyeballs
• Clicks = Potential Volunteers + Contributers
• Conversions: Contributers
• Leads: Volunteers
• CPA = Avg cost for each person who donates
• Search Network: Google

With Looming Recession, Will High Priced Web Analytics Be A Thing of The Past?

Not to sound like a pessimist with a recession looming, but with all of the signals of a significant cut in advertising spend as well as resulting layoffs in the Newspaper Industry, see news article on Philly Newspapers announce layoffs from WPVI Channel 6abc.com, companies are going to eventually look to cutting back on online expenses, and instead of cutting PPC spend, they should re-evaluate whether the high cost analytics companies such as Omniture, WebTrends, Atlas and others are really worth keeping around. Let's discuss....

We need to watch the other Media Channels:
I think that with major newspapers laying off employees due to a continuous drop in Ad Revenues is a significant downward trend that all online marketers need to pay attention to. It's just a matter of time until these changes will start effecting the online world. It is inevitable. Now, with that said, I would think that cutting $2k - $10k/month in just analytics/reporting costs would be the first to go. Furthermore, I am not recommending getting rid of analytics, In fact, I am suggesting shopping for a lower cost solution that will give you want you need and hence enable you to either keep the extra cash or put that money back in your online ad spend. PPC spend is only going to get higher, so now is the time to start thinking about how and where your budget should be allocated.

The Benefit of going with a Lower Cost Analytics Solution:
Let's face it, do you really need 1,000 ways to look at data, or find (1) or (2) good ways that make sense to you and your business. Why come out of pocket for fancy "bells and whistles" that you may not pay much attention to when you can focus on the reports that give you what really  matters to your business such as ROI%, ROAS%, CPA and basic attribution and traffic data of all other "tracked" online media vehicles.

Web Analytics is here to stay, just not the "over priced" ones:
With the increased market share of PPC spend in the world, tracking the performance of every penny will never go away. However, the magnitude of high priced dashboards, bid automation, and fancy rules sets, as well as manual "dicing and massaging" of data maybe on the fringe of  non-existence. I know this is a strong statement to make and will have some negative responses to this, but this is in effect all about simplifying the data and lessening the monthly cost of getting overloaded with too much data that honestly doesn't make an impact on your business.

Here's the Bottom line:
Knowing what is profitable vs. not profitable is more important than how many lbs. of Hypo Allergenic Dog Food was sold on a Thursday vs. Dog Collars on a Friday. Get the point! In my "tunneled view", Analytics is about enabling us to make decisions that are much more intelligent than just "winging it". I get the sense from some analytics companies who pride themselves on putting on "too good to be true" powerpoint presentations where they want to look "smarter" than anyone else. Problem. Acting smart DOES NOT make it important.

When shopping for a new car, are you going to buy one that comes with a LCD TV, a toaster and a microwave. Of course not. The car makers could accommodate it for you (why?), but it's gonna cost you extra and all that could matter to you is gas mileage, safety and four wheel drive. After writing this analogy, I often think of the Simpson's Episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" when Homer is given the job to create the car of his dreams. In the end, that "dream car" which had all of these "bells & whistles" actually ruined his brother's company. I know, bad example, but I think it proves the point.

Google Adwords Certification - Is It That Important?

Being Google Adwords Certified can be rewarding on many levels, but personally, I feel that just because you are certified, doesn't make you a good search marketer. On the other hand, if we take the approach of using the certification as a stepping stone to break into the industry, it's a much easier pill to swallow and promote, than to automatically assume being certified means having a really smart, experienced and cutting edge marketer who can turn your online business into a money making machine.

The Benefits of The Google Certification:
The Google Certification is a great place to start learning about the best practices of PPC. In fact, the Google Adwords Learning Center is my recommendation for anyone who is interested doing Paid Search for the first time. Many of the questions in the Quizzes provide not only a great outline to the best practices and procedures of PPC they can also be applied to other engines such as Yahoo and MSN.

The"Life Changing" Impact of the Google Certification:
I know this sounds a little "over-dramatic", but Google has done something that goes far beyond many of the online services (ebay is similar) where they have created a new career opportunity for people of all ages, industries and situations. The certification process opens many doors to individuals that were once closed due to the complexities and decisions of life.

The Downfalls of the Certifications:
The Certification provides many great things, but it also becomes over-rated and does not necessarily give you a free ticket to search marketing guru status. The certification questions in the Quizzes as well as the Test are geared to what Google wants you to know. I'd say 75% of the questions provide good overall best practices, however the other 25% are geared to Adwords only and what Google wants you to know. Most importantly, being certified does not:

• DOES NOT tell you how to develop a sound strategy.
• DOES NOT tell you how to create an intelligent structure based on the life cycle and/or shelf life of products or services.
• DOES NOT teach you how to create a 12-month plan to compliment seasonality shifts to ensure business success.
• DOES NOT teach you how to effectively integrate other off line channels such as TV, Radio & Print.

Basically, it's a good thing to have, but does not mean your a "RockStar"

What it really means to you or your Company?
Being Adwords Certified means that you and/or your company has a good understanding of how the Adwords system works. It's good for the resume, as well as another level of accreditation.

Conclusion:
I know this post sounds like a political "Flip-Flopper" where in one sentence I am saying being certified is great and in another I am saying it's overrated. Being Certified is a necessary evil and should be done no matter what level or age you are. I would also recommend getting certified by Yahoo and MSN to complete the "HAT TRICK"

In my Opinion, the best certification you or your company can get is a HAPPY CLIENT who is making money with you and enjoys doing business with you. Nothing else matters!