Of Volcanos and PPC Campaigns

Yesterday I finished a massive set of research in which I had to delve into the past of a PPC campaign to work out why something that was working had turned into something that was not. It took a lot of time and thought even to get started, the big question being, 'Just how do I handle this amount of data?'

Given some thought the plan emerged and with careful consideration of all the facts, the data was 'made sense of'. As it did the story it told unfolded in front of me and when finally I looked at the figures, showed just how far off track the campaign had gone, in just a few short months.

Google of course are the beneficiaries here, their 'Optimisation' and 'Missed Opportunity' practices causing keywords to be added that quite simply did not work (A lesson here for all, don't just add the ones that Google suggests willy nilly). On the upside a few gold nuggets were found, but overall, my customer had spent many thousands of pounds to no avail...

All of this comes down in the end to organisation. Organisation to only add the right words in the first place is of course hard, as you don't know that until you try it, but Organisation to check and remove the bad ones is easy, all it takes is time and an understanding of what 'good' and 'bad' are. However, such are the time pressures on many businesses, that they simply don't do this job too well 'in house', the result being that Google's coffers swell even the more.

Organisation, or should I say, lack of organisation, is one of the reasons people are having so much trouble getting home at the moment, with the airways around Europe being closed because of that volcano in Iceland. Organisation could not of course have stopped the eruption, but it could have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble. The swift mobilisation of Europe's Navy's and Air forces (the latter with their low flying transport planes) could have got 1,ooo's home and the commandeering of cruise ships in the Mediterranean could have brought 1,ooo's more home.

Of course, the governments of all shapes and colours did little and the situation has just got worse, until that is yesterday when they started to do things like getting the Royal Navy moving. So, in the end 'Organisation' was called in and the situation will I'm sure start to improve.

The question is, just like the Google campaign above, why were things left to get into such a state? Surely action on Google would have saved thousands of pounds, but that is in reality nothing to the pain and misery that is the very real problem for many travellers around the World at the moment.

The moral of the story is that one should always keep a close eye on situations and as soon as they start to slide, take action sooner rather than later, this being true whether or not you are dealing with PPC campaigns or volcanos.

More tomorrow