PayPal Seriously Screws With AdWords Conversions

If you use PayPal to process credit card transactions and you are using Google AdWords to push sales on these products, a recent change PayPal has made will be seriously screwing with your ability to record conversions in Google AdWords.

I’ve just spent over one hour on this and was very discouraged about the change. Here is my letter to PayPal that I am posting on my blog as well detailing the problem.

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Sent to PayPal using their online Feedback interface

PayPal has recently made a change in the order confirmation page. It used to be at the end of the transaction the buyer (if the PayPal account owner had set this up) was automatically sent to the desired thank you page on the selling website.

Now PayPal has globally, for all customers, defeated this. Instead of being automatically returned to the selling site, a new screen is shown within PayPal with an order confirmation number and an orange button that says return to merchant name’s site.

In my case (I manage many AdWords clients) this means that if and only if the client clicks the orange return to website button will a Google AdWords conversion will be recorded.

If the buyer chooses to just close that tab and surf elsewhere, no Google AdWords conversion is recorded.  This is a very big problem for any client who is using PayPal and then marketing these services on Google AdWords.

As a Professional Account Google AdWords Account Manager I will not be recommending that clients use PayPal if they are promoting their items on AdWords. The recording of conversions is one of our biggest tools to understand if spending on AdWords is an investment or an expense.

I will hope that PayPal will reverse this action. You can contact me, Nancy McCord at 301-705-7303 or nancy@mccordweb.com

Please pass my comments up the chain as PayPal may not have considered this when they have made this very important change.

A Case Study on Effective Twitter Use

I have an interesting situation that I am watching and it gives some insight into how using Twitter effectively to build your following allows you access to viral marketing on a huge scale.

First, for one client I have set up two Twitter accounts; one for his main business and one for his spin off business and e-commerce store. The spin off business/e-commerce store uses our Twitter Executive program where we tweet 7 to 12 times a day and actively interact with followers. The other account we set up but do not maintain but periodically we copy the same tweet, when appropriate, there just because we are kind but have not been hired to grow this account. Both Twitter accounts were set up on the same day. One has been actively managed and the other has not. Here are the statistical results of follower counts.

As of today the account we actively manage has 72 followers and is following 154 people with 148 tweets. The account we do not actively manage has 8 followers and is following 23 people. Both accounts have been open about two and one half weeks.

What is additionally interesting is that when I look at the bit.ly stats for link clicks for the Twitter account we actively manage, in six days 218 people have clicked links we have mentioned in our tweets to read more. This tells me that we have an active versus passive following. This means when the e-commerce store is finally opened we will have a loyal, link clicking, viral sharing, Twitter base to expose to the client’s store products. That’s the power of Twitter in action!

Twitter Etiquette the Do’s and Don’ts

Just like Facebook Twitter has unspoken rules. Here are a few that I wanted to share with you.

1. Make sure to install a picture on your Twitter profile. Some applications that use Twitter API like TweetLater, will allow you to block followers who are using the default image icon.

2. Try to provide value to followers. I focus on content, cool stories, interesting articles, topics, tips, trend updates. If all you tweet about is what you are eating for lunch or what project you are working on, you mark yourself as a Twitter newbie.

3. Use TweetLater and set up a follower auto responder with a link to your website or a nice comment. Set up to auto unfollow them if they unfollow you. This will help to keep your follower list clean. At the beginning follow everyone who follows you – a courtesy issue.

4. Consider vetting new followers as your follower numbers get to about 300. It becomes increasingly difficult to interact with Twitter followers when your list becomes too large. Periodically using Twellow, I will chop following people on my list who have never tweeted, not tweeted in the last 30 days or who are spamming me with marketing messages, or their make money on Twitter programs.

5. Don’t use Twitter just to market your products and services. Man, there is no faster way to get unfollowed, than to constantly be sending out self promotion messages!

6. Some Twitter API applications allow you to send out the same tweet at different times. Be careful with that. I have one Internet marketing guru who I thought knew what he was doing until I checked out his Twitter account and all 500 tweets he did were the exact same tweet. Go figure! Not sure what he was trying to accomplish but I could not click unfollow fast enough.

7. Spread your tweets out. I tweet heavily in the morning as this is the time I interact with followers with @ and D replies, but for routine tweets I try to space them about 1 to 2 hours apart. I use TweetLater for this. I typically will do between 7 to 12 tweets a day but sometimes more if there is a trending topic and interchange between followers.

8. Do get followers to participate in polls and then share the results. I did a poll recently and found that people are doing about two to three tweets a day on the average. The people who tweet more will have more followers – it just happens!

9. Use bit.ly and create an account and shrink your URLs in your own bit.ly account not TweetDeck so you can see click stats on links you mention in tweets. You will find it amazing to see the real viral nature and impact and sharability of your tweets if you are tweeting effectively and the proof is your link stats in bit.ly. Consider using HootSuite with the installed ow.ly URL shortener and get a tweet interface and link tracking system in one interface.

10. Follow others. To build your own Twitter following you simply have to start by following others and then interact with them. I have a great case study on this that I will share with you on Friday.

Facebook Etiquette – the Do’s and Don’ts

No one will tell you you’ve broken one of the unspoken rules … they will just defriend you, and you’ll never know. Here are my do’s and don’ts for Facebook users to help you not fall into the defriended pit.

1. Don’t post status updates more than three times a day on Facebook! If you want to post more often use Twitter. If you post more frequently than three times a day, Facebook friends will think that you are spamming them. Their own wall will be covered with your updates. There is no faster way for a friend to either hide you from their wall or to defriend you (both which you will never know) than to update too frequently.

2. If you are an avid Twitter user like me, don’t feed your tweets to Facebook as status updates. Disable this push to Facebook and use Ping.fm to update your Facebook and other social networking status feeds with one click and then only two or three times a day. Twitter users love regular updates throughout the day, but Facebook users don’t. See number 2!

3. Don’t inundate people with games. An occasional game is fine to turn your friends on to but not one a day! If you game a lot on Facebook, and I have some business clients’ support staff who have friended me on Facebook, and based on the number of games they play is seems to me that they spend their full work day on Facebook. I wonder if my client knows that.

4. If you are an employer try to Facebook friend your employees. One it helps you stay connected, and two it also allows you a window to see how much time they are spending on Facebook – see number 3.

5. Do use Facebook to share your life but don’t get too personal. People who have connected with you do want to know where you went on vacation, but they may not want to know about your ingrown toenail surgery especially not the gory details. Be careful of saying something controversial aw well, as remember your comment may be posted on your friends, friends, friends wall and not just on your own.

6. Do use the privacy settings on Facebook to control what the public versus your friends see. Additionally, if you find that a friend posts racy or off color comments do right click on the wall post and choose to hide them from your friends or for that comment or for the future.

7. Do post pictures and videos. I don’t think a video of the birth of your grand baby in the delivery room is appropriate, but if you see a funny video on YouTube, share it and give all your friends a laugh too. Remember not just your friends see what you share but friends of friends and the general public unless you have enabled additional privacy settings.

You will never know when someone defriends you or hides your posts and comments from their wall and their friends. So follow these few simple tips to stay connected and not end up just interacting with yourself on Facebook as everyone has blocked you.