Improve Your Internet Marketing

Readers of this blog or our newsletter “Melanies Tips” may recall the dilemma I had when SpeedPPC was first released in 2007: this software was so damn powerful, it was the first time I actually questioned the wisdom of sharing what I had “discovered” with those who, in theory, compete with us in the marketplace. Of course it was just too good to keep quiet about, so I “spilled the beans”, suggesting that anyone who was serious about PPC and had learned the basics should buy SpeedPPC immediately, even if they had to sell their car.

Since then, I have worked with the software extensively. In the process I got to know Jay Stockwell, the brilliant developer responsible for program (in fact, I became the moderator of the SpeedPPC User Forum).

Because we manage over $100,000 in PPC spending, Jay had asked us to help with some of the beta-testing and debugging of what is now SpeedPPC Version 3 (launching April 8).

I recently asked Jay if I could interview him about “v3” for the blog; with characteristic charm, he agreed – in spite of the fact that he was just days away from a major product launch!

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Michael: I know SpeedPPC was born from your own in-house PPC efforts at Marketing Fanatics. Can you give me a brief synopsis of the “problems” that led to developing this incredible “solution”?

Jay: Yeah… it sounds like marketing talk, but that’s really how it happened. We’re not a huge outfit here (although growing), so we’re
always asking ourselves, “is this activity hitting the bottom line?”. We used to be able to be a bit faster and looser with respect to
making PPC work. But with the Quality Score noose getting tighter and tighter we decided to stop trying to beat Google, and just give them
what they wanted.

But the problem with that was the time it took to do this stuff correctly. We knew we had to make the relevancy chain between the
original keyword to the text ad to the landing page super tight. Not only for QS reasons, but also for conversion reasons.

So we started manually building this stuff out (ad campaigns) correctly, creating super tight ad groups with the ads matching perfectly. We then created a unique URL for every keyword for tracking reasons, as well as for customizing the landing pages for the incoming click.

I did it for two weeks straight and was bored out of my mind! We were promoting affiliate offers, and as you know, some offers are winners
and some are losers. But when it was taking that long to build out these campaigns properly, you got pretty bummed to spend a day on a
crap offer.

I was getting very motivated to find a better way.

So I started looking at bulk upload formats to at least be able to edit things in a spreadsheet. But then I hit the limitations of the
spreadsheet, so started hacking together some code in PHP. It was pretty crude but got the job done. Over the next few months it got
better and better, and I was rolling these things out really quickly.

Anyway, I was in a bar at an Underground Seminar and was chatting to a couple of guys. They were telling me some pretty awesome things they were doing, so I shared what I was doing. At first, I don’t think they believed me, as one guy had loads of in-house staff doing this stuff
for him. When I told him how I rolled out a campaign with 100,000 keywords and around 500 ad groups with perfectly related ads and
landing pages for every keyword, his eyes really lit up!

A couple of guys kept asking me on Skype if they could get their hands on it. We decided then to do it properly and create it into what it is
now, which is of course SpeedPPC.

Michael: The initial release of SpeedPPC was met with much critical acclaim and success. Were you aware at the time that there would be such strong demand for what can be considered a pretty high-powered tool?

Jay: To be honest I had no idea. I knew that everyone I showed it to went mental over it. I just wasn’t sure if I could easily explain how it
all hung together. So I made a video and sent it around. I had guys emailing me and saying “I don’t know who you are, but I want it!”. So
I had a good feeling that it would take off. I knew if it answered my prayers, it should answer others.

Michael: We’ve seen a lot of improvements on an already-strong program in a short time, and the number of improvements and additional features in v3 is staggering. Where did all these ideas come from?

Jay: Mostly our own requirements, and user requests. We didn’t want to load things in there for the sake of it, as it makes continued development more difficult. So if we were asked about something more than once, we gave it a good look.

Michael: Ok, lets talk specifics: The Advanced Ad Building seems almost like YSM’s Ad Generator on steroids. What exactly does it do?

Jay: Yeah it is a bit like that, but it integrates it within the whole process. Again, this was birthed out of us having better things to do with our time than to manually try and figure out if we have every variation of an ad to test. So this simplifies the process dramatically. Just feed in the
titles, the line 1 and line 2 copy and the display URL’s you want to test into the campaign builder. It will then create an ad with every
variation possible to ensure that you’re testing all ad copy. Some people subscribe to the “test two” rule, but we find if we have enough
volume, we just test everything at once. What this does is allows us to more accurately test ads over the same time period, negating
seasonal effects.

Michael: From the beta that I had the opportunity to test-drive with you, there was a lot of emphasis on YSM. What can you tell us about YSM support for v3?

Jay: Well as you well know, YSM has some great traffic. So we’ve created an output template for people who have this (campaign import) available on their account.

Michael: I know from moderating the SpeedPPC User Forum that additional training videos and resources were always high on the “wish list”. Any news there?

Jay: Yes, we’ve got a new product manager who’s been doing lots of new training videos. We’re also going to start doing monthly training as
well. There are so many cool ways to use SpeedPPC, especially in conjunction with the datafeed landing page software that we had to
share some of it. Some of it’s pretty advanced, so we didn’t want to include it in the guide. But it definitely gives you power to do
things that you would never normally be able to achieve just because they would take way too long.

For example, pulling an affiliate datafeed from a merchants site and creating an ad group around every product in the database and sending
them to a completely customized landing page (with all related product info) and a deep affiliate link back into the merchant. This stuff is
like gold.

Michael: Some of the “magic” of SPPC was the ability to achieve such high Quality Scores through the tight coupling between keyword/ad/adgroup/landing page. And really, the only way to improve on that would be to create adgroups for individual keyword…

Jay: Yeah exactly. That’s the whole underlying principle. Create an unbreakable chain of relevancy. Oh… yeah, and you can now create
single keyword ad groups in the latest version. That way, every ad is perfectly matched to your keyword. You’ve just got to be careful not
to blow out your account limits!

Michael: Having had the opportunity to see the v3 feature set, I know there is more than I could fit into one, or even 10 posts. Anything particular you’d like to mention prior to the April 8th launch?

Jay: Well we’re launching an unannounced feature that I think many people will love. If they don’t love it, they should explore the options it
gives them more as it could open up a whole lot of doors for them and their business. Possibly turning a failing PPC career into a
profitable one. You’ll just have to see the new site on the launch day!

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I can’t even begin to tell you how enthusiastic we are about SpeedPPC v3 – as I had said back in my very first post about the program, if I could find a nice tropical island with a high-speed connection (but no phones!), I would park myself there with nothing but a laptop and SpeedPPC. It’s that good, and that profitable!

NOTE: SpeedPPC version 3 becomes available on April 8. In addition to a $100 discount and a number of bonuses if purchased during launch week. Those purchasing our link will receive a number of additional bonuses, including our Camtasia-like screen-capture video software, Screen Show Pro, as well as a number of valuable tools and utilities. Best of all, you will get personal email support to help you get the most out of this incredible program!

Click here to buy SpeedPPC Version 3!