PPCBidTracker More Information Overall Rating: Not Rated Pay Per Click Universe Recommends: AdWatcher - 100% Click Fraud Protection. Concerned about click fraud? Protect your online advertising dollars with the world's most trusted & accurate click fraud solution on the market today. AdWatcher will put a stop to competitors and fraudsters who are looking to drain your hard earned advertising budget. Test-Drive AdWatcher For FREE For 30 Days! PPCBidTracker is a product offered by SearchMarketingTools.com (a Nevada-based firm) to help users marketing products or services on search engines via pay per click advertising. SearchMarketingTools.com is affiliated with RedZoneGlobal, a New Hampshire-based company offering search engine marketing services to increase targeted traffic, using keyword engineering and other search engine optimization techniques. Their three-pronged approach includes search engine optimization, automated bid tracking and a product called ProfiTracker that basically tracks your ad campaign’s ROI. They have been involved with PPCBidTracker since 1998, although it did not become widely available until they were partnered with the GoTo properties in 2000. PPCBidTracker is an automated tracking tool that manages keyword bidding on your PPC ads on top search engines around the world. In addition to tracking keyword bidding, the tool also includes access to assistance with managing your PPC ads and solutions that can be customized to your particular situation. For example, the company can integrate PPCBidTracker with a client’s proprietary tracking system to enhance its ability or usability. ProfiTracker is used to assess an individual businesses situation, together with an analysis of ROAS (Return On Ad Spend), which is basically ROI at the keyword level. PPCBidTracker’s analysts also ensure that bid adjustments are based on ongoing keyword recognition, looking at historical bid data from trustworthy sources and finding new traffic outlets for your ad campaign. The analysts at PPCBidTracker are anxious to work on advanced or customized solutions and provide examples of software they have developed to help individual cases and modify any existing software they have developed to integrate with any in-house system currently in place in a client’s company. The search engines in the United States that PPCBidTracker currently works with are Google, Overture, FindWhat, Enhance Interactive, Kanoodle, ePilot, and SearchFeed, with plans to add more as soon as agreements can be negotiated. Their international search engine offerings to date include only the Overture versions in different countries and languages, such as Overture in France and Espotting sites in different parts of Europe. PPCBidTracker appears to be a fairly robust tool, offering the user the ability to self manage their PPC ad campaigns if they wish to, and track and change position, CPC, and the ability to turn an ad off or turn it back on. Users seem quite enthusiastic about their experiences with PPCBidTracker and particularly like the ability to work one-on-one with an analyst to customize their individual PPC ad campaign to the extent allowable, which appears to result in huge time savings for such clients, as they now trust the results of their bidding will be close to what they have asked them to be and check their online status less frequently, thus freeing them up to concentrate on more important matters. A big plus for PPCBidTracker, which is otherwise has fairly low visibility online, is that it is one of the bid management software offerings that is approved by Overture. In fact, a fairly interesting informational section on the site offers the details of what is allowed in a PPC ad by the search engines they serve, including how many characters can be in the title, content, URL, etc. Some special features offered by PPCBidTracker include: - BidSleep – this feature allows you to lower your bids to the engine’s minimums during some days or times of the day. If phone contact is your primary means of contact with potential buyers, with BidSleep you can set your bids to “sleep” during the times your salespeople are not available, and then re-enter the bidding when they are. - AutoEnhancer - If you are using the autobidding on Overture or FindWhat, this tools manages the autobidding so you don’t pay your maximum bid. Since you usually only pay your maximum bid via autobidding when a competitor triggers it by bidding 1 cent below your maximum bid, which can eat up your budget very quickly. This tool not only adjusts your maximum bid accordinglty, but also helps keep it hidden from your competitors. - BidCat – If you’ve ever wanted to categorize your keywords within your PPC account, now you can. You can also categorize by product or by bid price, or any other option. -BidSaver – this feature will allow you to set up certain conditions under which PPCBidTracker will automatically look for rankings that will save you money and not follow the “rules” you set into effect if the result will be a new ranking that is just a little below your competitors but is half the price, or similar situations. According to one area on their website, pricing for PPCBidTracker depends upon the number of keywords in your campaign and how many reviews of your bids per keyword you wish each day. They provide the monthly costs clearly on their website for both the US. search engines they cover and the international search engines as well. However, in their FAQs section, it is claimed that bids are auto-checked every 10 minutes and that if a change if made to a keyword bid, it will be changed within 10 minutes as well. They also say here that only Overture and Sprinks limits the number of bid changes per day. Although apparently holding a somewhat niche position among PPC tools, PPCBidTracker is very popular with its users. However, it also appears that changes may be in the making for the tool or for the company that owns it, as the web pages are not functioning properly and some are more than 2 years out of date. It is not until the user discovers that PPCBidTracker is now a part of the SearchMarketingTools.com arena that more current information is located. RedZone, the parent company, does still exist, but it appears to be undergoing change as well. Still, despite some questions about its current and near-future status, PPCBidTracker does offer a 14-day free trial for either or both of their versions (the U.S. or the International). It very well may be worth this free trial period to investigate this tool a little more closer to see if it may be a welcome addition to your package of tools you use when personally managing your ad campaigns, whether you do that on the most basic level or normally just let your campaigns run with the autobidding features of the search engine they are on. |
