To improve our user experience with Google AdWords, today we’ll begin reviewing paused ads in the same way we review active ads. We’re proactively reviewing paused ads to eliminate unnecessary delays in getting your ads approved and ultimately enhance your ability to plan and manage campaigns.

What does this mean? Your paused ads will be approved and ready to go when you are. But here is the trouble: if you have created ads based on ideas you have for your campaign, you want to make sure they are compatible with Google’s advertising policies. This is essentially another move by Google to exert more control on what its advertisers do using Adwords.

We have seen people get banned in the past for the content inside their paused ads. So even though paused ads are not running, they can still get you in trouble. Yet another reason not to put all your eggs in Adwords basket.

Many large and small companies are already taking advantage of mobile ads services to bring their products in front of more people. With devices such as iPhone and Droid, it is more convenient for smartphone owners to interact with ads. Mobile advertising is only going to get bigger in the next few years. More people are taking advantage of mobile computing on the go. With location-based services growing fast, mobile and local ads seem to be a good bet for small and large businesses alike:

• 300 million apps downloaded in 2009 versus 5 million apps downloaded in 2010
• Foursquare has 4m users in 2010 (up from 200K in 2009)
• 100 million YouTube videos watched on mobile devices
• 347% increase in Twitter mobile usage

You can read the rest of the stats here. The fact remains that people are more open to ads on their mobile devices than ever before. Let’s not forget that some iPhone developers are making a living out of their ad-supported free applications. This shows that both advertisers and content publishers have a great opportunity to take advantage of the mobile revolution to grow their businesses. At the very least, all advertisers need to test mobile ads at some point.

This new tool will let you compare your performance against others based on impressions, clicks, CTR,  and average position. Of course, Google is only showing you averages and is not exactly disclosing sensitive information to other advertisers. Being able to compare your performance against other advertisers can be useful. But just like any other Google Adwords tool, you do not want to rely only on this data to make decisions for your business.

This new tool is not available to everyone just yet. So do not be surprised if you can’t find it in your account. Google does plan to roll it out to everyone in the near future.

You can enable this feature by clicking on the appropriate mini-icon at the top right side of your Adwords account. If you don’t have Google gears, you’ll have to take a few extra steps. But installing this feature won’t be too much of an issue. The security of your data will be. Since this feature stores a copy of your data on your computer, you will have to make sure the computer you are using it on is secure (not a shared one). This is not a universal feature, meaning that you’ll have to do it for each computer. Should you enable local storage on your Adwords account? It really depends. Unless you have a ton of campaigns and speed/performance has become an issue for you, there is no reason to take the risk. I personally have not had to deal with Adwords performance issues for a long time, and this new feature is not worth the headaches that it brings.

What are your thoughts on local storage of Google Adwords data?

Google Adwords may be the king among search engine advertising networks. It not only allows you to create search engine ads, it also helps you reach out to the massive community of Adsense publishers. Google Adwords is a great place to start to push your business and market products online. But like any portfolio,  you will have to diversify to hedge your risks and maximize your bottom line. While testing will be too costly in the stock market, when it comes to advertising, you always have the chance to turn off your test campaigns and reflect on what results you have gotten.

Focusing on Google Adwords only would be a big mistake. While the service is capable of driving you traffic, you may be leaving money on the table if you are not taking advantage of 3rd party advertising networks such as Chitika and ClickRiver. I have talked about how ClickRiver can help you get your product in front of millions of Amazon customers in the past. Chitika is another popular advertising network that empowers many bloggers and publishers around the web by helping them make money online from their SEO content. And if they can make money from their SEO content, that means your product can be in those ads, in front of a highly targeted set of visitors.

Think about it. Let’s say you have an ebook reader or an accessory for Amazon Kindle. Wouldn’t you be more likely to gain clicks and leads when people are actually getting to your ad by searching for a highly relevant term? That’s what Chitika for Advertisers helps you do.

Chitika is a fastest growing community of publishers that allows you to get your ads in front of your target audience more effectively. The network currently gets 700M impressions each and every month. Just like Google Adwords, you can target your audience by keywords. You can also choose between paying per click or per thousand impressions (CPM). You are in control of your budget per campaign and your account as well. So you won’t run up a $1,000,000 in debt by an accident.

Chitika shouldn’t be the be all end all for your advertising campaign. But the service does allow you to test things out and figure out how the market responds to your offer and product. It’s easy to use and set up and gives you the chance to figure out whether you can bring down your overall CPA by using highly targeted ads from Chitika’s content network. If you are struggling to make the most of Google Adwords, Chitika Premium Ads are a nice avenue to try your luck in.

Take a look at the below screen-shot taken from Fox News’ official website:

If you notice, there is an advertisement on healthier teeth on the right side of the screen. These ads usually lead to a landing page that encourage people to read success stories about the solution being advertised. Take a look at the below landing page to see how the landing page is designed. These landing pages combine videos (usually hosted on YouTube) with comments (can’t say if they are real or fake) to encourage people to sign up for this offer. After having gone through hundreds of these offers, I can tell you that the majority of them are offers that you would find on sites such as Hydra or LinkShare CPA network.

You can use the same approach on other top content sites around. It doesn’t have to be on FoxNews. Obviously, you are going to have to pay a bit more to show up on those highly popular sites but think about all the traffic that you would get on these offers. You will have to test and optimize your ads and campaigns a lot, but it’s all much more straight forward as you’ll be getting a lot of hits, and you can easily test ideas and watch your conversion rate change before your eyes.

Content networks require their own unique strategy. But they should not be ignored if you are planning to make a career out of promoting CPA offers. The more traffic you get, the better chance you have of making money online. But you want to manage your CPA as well. Content networks bring the traffic. The rest is up to you.

Amazon is one of the most comprehensive online retailers around. That’s the understatement of the day. The company has been around for years, and it’s truly amazing to see how the company has come progressed from a small book seller to a huge global retailer. Amazon gets a lot of hits everyday. You don’t have to be  genius to realize that. But did you know you can actually put your products in front of people on a PPC basis? That’s exactly what Product Ads on Amazon allow you to do. It’s actually very simple and powerful. If you are a small business hoping to get the word around about your product, Product Ads is a must try service.

In order to take advantage of Amazon Product Ads, you need to upload your catalog to the system. Amazon then will charge you on pay per click basis, depending the type of product you are trying to promote. Here is how the fee works out:

So how does this service work? It’s pretty simple. If you have bought products from Amazon before, you have probably seen those third party sellers who you can’t buy from on Amazon.com. You have to log on to their website to make the purchase. That’s a Product Ad. The sellers only pay for clicks while they get the traffic they need to grow their business from Amazon. Here is an example:

There are some limitations in using this service. If you are selling beauty products, jewelry, or shoes, you probably need to contact Amazon to get your campaigns right. But every other category is fair game and pretty easy to get started with.You do get to set your daily budget and the max amount you are willing to pay for your product to show up on Amazon. The bad news is things can get a bit expensive if you have a terrible converting landing page. The good news is you won’t have to pay people to read your product description and reviews on Amazon. That means you can get started with your pre-sell before people get to your site. That’s a huge plus. But make sure you work on optimizing your landing pages for Amazon traffic to get biggest bang for your advertising buck.

Ultimately, Amazon Product Ads is a great channel to push your products if you own a goods based business. Amazon get a lot of traffic on a daily basis and has a strong brand. Showing up on Amazon through Product Ads gives you a unique opportunity to capitalize on Amazon’s traffic and take your business to the next level. If you are looking to grow your business and move to the next level, Amazon Product Ads is a must try. There isn’t any harm in testing it out.

P.S. don’t get me even started on how affiliate marketers can use this service to make a fortune.

You have probably heard the concept of red oceans before. In case, you haven’t heard of it, a red ocean is a market that is highly competitive and has a set of defined boundaries. Basically, the competitors try to outdo each other by grabbing more market-share in these defined areas. I believe, the Adwords game has become a red ocean strategy, and that is probably why folks are using other sources such as Facebook social ads to avoid paying a fortune for traffic.

Facebook social ads, Stumbleupon, and even LinkedIn ads are all great areas to explore. But folks who are going to these markets thinking that they are going to get a high conversion rate are highly mistaken. I am all for adopting a blue ocean strategy, but throwing money at social media hoping to get Adwords results is not a good strategy. The truth is, the audience is very different between these channels, and as such the conversion rate will be different as well.

I am not claiming that spending money in the social media is a total waste of time. You can get nice traffic from Facebook and Stumbleupon, but converting that traffic will be difficult. And you can say the same thing about Digg traffic. At the end of the day, it wouldn’t hurt to spend some money in the social media, but don’t go around throwing your Adwords budget at Facebook as that would only lead to heartbreak.

Google Adwords is the king of search advertising. A whole lot of folks use Google’s pay per click system to reach out to prospects. But with the state of economy getting worse and small businesses feeling the pain of their cash strapped customers, many have to find other ways to spread the word around about their services without breaking the bank. While you should approach some of these services with care, you should definitely give them a try to figure out if they work for your business.

Google Adwords Alternatives:

1. Yahoo & MSN: this is really a gimme here. A lot of folks start with Google Adwords and then graduate to other services such as Yahoo. Others, start will all there engines. I personally like the first approach, but I have done it both ways. Sometimes, it’s possible to get much lower bids on these alternative networks, but they are getting competitive as well.

2. Facebook Social Ads: I have been critical of Facebook social ads in the past, but you can’t question the innovative technology behind the social ads. For instance, you can target 55 years old folks who are small business owners and live in the city of San Diego. That’s extremely valuable if you have data on your audience. You can also create a Facebook page and advertise that instead of your own landing page. Definitely worth testing.

3. StumbleUpon: Stumbleupon ads can drive lots of traffic to your site. Not only you get what you pay for, but if folks give your site thumbs up, you are going to get free traffic. I remember spending $100 for a week on StumbleUpon. I am still getting free traffic from StumbleUpon without me having to actually do anything.

4. LinkedIn Ads: Linkedin DirectAds are made for small businesses who want to spend money on LinkedIn to reach out to business professionals. Folks on LinkedIn do not play around. My conversion rates are higher on LinkedIn than Facebook, but I suppose it all comes down to your product. DirectAds is still primitive in comparison to Google, and you will have to pay on a CPM basis. But nevertheless, you get nice exposure among some serious folks on LinkedIn.

5. ClickRiver: Clickriver can be a goldmine or just a waste of time depending on your niche. I have used Clickriver successfully on my technology sites, but I have heard folks who haven’t had that much success in some other niches. Being able to show your ads below Amazon products is too huge of an opportunity for me to pass by. It’s definitely worth the try.

There are thousands of other networks and methods that you can use to buy traffic to your site (see here). But you shouldn’t spend all your fortune on these outside-the-box ideas. You should always test, test, and test some more. When you hit the jackpot, you know it.

Did I miss anything?

As the economy gets worse (and you can expect it to hit rock bottom sometime in the near future), you are going to see folks who are going to sell you Adwords/Adsense things that can, get this, help you make millions out of these networks. That’s the oldest trick in the book. Let’s say, I have lost my job, I have a couple of kids to feed, and I have the year-end approaching fast. What do I do? Simple! I am going to get a book that will show me how to make millions in a year, and if I get 5% of that number, I will be happy.

I am all for learning. You should never stop learning, and one way to do that is by keeping up with blogs and reading books on a weekly basis. However, when it comes to Adsense, you can really learn a lot from watching the best do it. And who’s the best when it comes to using Adsense? I would like to think it’s Google!

There are no two ways about it. When Google bought YouTube, they did it to make money and get their initial funds back. There were other reasons, but bear with me here. So you have the largest online video library anywhere, and you are trying to monetize it for months. Does it make sense for you to put Adsense units that don’t make you money? You tell me!

I am no Adsense expert. I do make a few bucks a day from Adsense, but it’s not really my focus (that does not keep me from checking it every 10 seconds). Now here is the thing. YouTube is a goldmine when it comes to Adsense. You can figure out what formats would work for your niche site. And you are going to learn what Google is spending millions of dollars researching – where to put your ads.

I am not suggesting that Google CEO is actually checking YouTube’s Adsense account to see how much they are earning, but the ad format and positioning should be a good indication on where on your page you can expect to make more money. Each site is different, and your results will probably be different from mine or Google’s. But, you don’t have to read a book to figure out what works and what doesn’t with Adsense.