At Razorfish Search we’re wincing in anticipation of the day Larry Page snuffs out Exact Match, a beautiful bit of engineering that delivers EXACTLY what we paid for. If yesterday’s post on the Google Blog — announcing the new default option of including misspellings and plurals with exact match — is any indication, Google is going to slide into evil with a level of transparency and a sense of history that would make an oil company blush.

The post didn’t mention that Google’s new matching is exactly the same as Yahoo’s unlamented “Match Driver,” a factor in advertisers’ preference for Google back in the days when the two companies competed in search. The post also didn’t mention the likely impetus for this change: a surprising 8% year-over-year CPC decline that put a damper on GOOG’s Q4 earnings call. Seems a few too many Google customers found out you can get more conversions for less money with a smart keyword strategy of multiple-match-type buys of the same keywords. (Razorfish didn’t see the 2011 CPC decline – presumably because our clients have been enjoying these discounts for years.)

Rolling back the glorious precision of exact match is one way to “earn” more per click. If Google were our client, though, we’d point out angering your best customers and being less than straightforward about the decision is a tough way to win Likes and Friends. Oh, right — we mean +1s. Whatever.

Following the 2010 acquisition of travel software company ITA Software, Google has been actively rolling out ‘experiments’ in the travel space such as Google Flight Search and Hotel Finder which are an attempt at providing “travel tools that provide faster, more flexible, and more useful results to online travel searches.”

Google’s latest experiment builds on the Hotel Finder tool and is known as a Google Hotel Comparison ad. Given the ad’s prominence within the premium ad space and the potential impact on Hotel advertisers, the Razorfish search team has pulled together a brief POV that should provide some deeper details on what a Hotel Comparison ad is as well as potential implications on the Hotel Industry.

Background

• Google Hotel Finder, the destination of Hotel Comparison ads is designed to maximize the travel consumers experience from discovery to booking
• Google Hotel Finder launched July 2011, an online hotel tool that lets users add Hotels to a short list, isolate desired neighborhoods, select travel dates, view user ratings & reviews, price compare and book through Hotel Price Ads (via reseller or suppliers)
• Hotel Comparison Ads were first introduced Fall 2011 and were eligible on <5% of queries-recently scaling to an unknown number of queries on Google.com

What is Google Hotel Comparison Ad?

• A “house ad” placement that does not participate in the auction, serves in “Top Promotional” spot above the white line within sponsored listings and drives to Hotel Finder

• Does not impact other ads ranking on the page
• Does not impact the number of eligible ads that can appear on the page ensuring all impressions and positions are available to advertisers
• Does occupy the most desirable real-estate within paid results indirectly impacting the value of the available positions (e.g. pushing down the paid listings)
• Hotel Comparison ad is only eligible for hotel-related queries, appears to be serving on unbranded and US only at this time

Implications:

• Google has no immediate plans to iterate to a reseller or supplier ad opportunity at this time

• Geared towards driving traffic to Hotel Finder and ultimately Hotel Price Ads
• With user traction Google has opportunity to emerge as one-stop research and booking platform
• Organic property link is displayed within Hotel Price Ads at point of the Booking, additional paid link opportunity exists through participation in Hotel Price Ads via API integration
• Pushes down paid real-estate available to advertisers through the auction

Additional Reading:

• http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-hotel-finder-as-comparison-ad-104661
• http://www.seroundtable.com/google-hotel-ads-14458.html

We would love to hear your thoughts on the potential impact of Google’s new experiment or even discover how this experiment has impacted your campaigns. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments below, on Facebook or on Twitter @searchshots.

Search marketers are constantly fighting against competition. We bid optimize each keyword, test different ad copy messaging, and improve our brand’s visibility on the SERP in order to stand out against the competition and improve campaign returns. However, AdWords is missing a key metric to optimize against: competitive insights.

You can request an ad depth report from your Google reps, but few search marketers are aware of this advantage. Ad depth is the number of advertisers within a given auction. But, this deliverable is often given at a high level, which limits our actionable insights. Imagine if this was given at the keyword level. We would know the level of competition for each keyword entering the auction. Even if this was given as an average at a campaign level, it would still deliver valuable insights that search marketers could use to make better optimization decisions.

Sure, we can assume lower CPC’s are the result of reduced competition, but that is not transparent into the auction dynamics and can only be used directionally in this case. Recall a previous post about fighting for consumer attention and having your brand’s message heard. As CEO of Google, we would make this data available to all advertisers and fundamentally change optimization practices.

Let’s imagineer an example to demonstrate the value of this feature.

Keyword A has great opportunity for our brand; however, the consumer is bombarded by 9 additional advertiser messages. As reported in Google eye tracking studies, the consumer will most likely ignore the majority of the paid search ads, except those with premium positioning. This requires search marketers to make the hard decision to play in the space or not play at all. To the contrary, Keyword B also has great opportunity and volume, with only 2 additional messages. Savvy search marketers will strongly consider shifting budget to Keyword B in order to take advantage of a less aggressive marketplace and an increased opportunity to have their brand’s message heard. Furthermore, search marketers can use this information to inform which keyword themes deserve to be built out more, adding incremental opportunity and value to clients’ campaigns. The balance of relevant volume opportunity and visibility could be a key insight to leverage for the development of long term strategy. Also, if we assume less competition equates to higher CTR, this also has great implications for account quality score, offering advertisers who leverage this metric a great opportunity to deliver improved efficiency.

So, CEO of Google, we know we demand a lot of you, but go ahead and add this to our wish list. After all, Christmas is just around the corner and your competitors won’t be adding this any time soon. Adding competitor insights is a competitive advantage for you.

Google recently announced the ability to target iPads through the AdWords interface. While this development does present additional ways to leverage mobile, it’s important to realize that iPads are included in the “All mobile devices” targeting option in Google along with other high end mobile devices, e.g. iPhones, Android and Palm phones.

If you manage an account that is currently running a mobile campaign on Google with settings that target “All mobile devices,” it may be worth opting out of iPad targeting, specifically. This can be done under the ‘Settings’ tab for any campaign within the AdWords UI. Under the “Networks and devices” sub-header, click “Edit” next to “Devices,” then change targeting to “Target only selected mobile devices” and de-select the iPad as an option.

This adjustment is important for anyone running a click-to-call campaign, since phone calls cannot currently be placed from an iPad.