The Olympics are currently captivating us all. The Opening Ceremony was an amazing display of lights and colors, and medals have already started being distributed to the Olympians. However, the Olympics are so captivating, that many (every) search marketer has missed out on an Olympic opportunity to generate fast and targeted traffic to their site.For about 4 days now, Google.co.uk has been adorned by lovely Google Doodles about the Beijing 2008 Olympics – these logos change everyday according to the daily discipline:
If you click through this Doodle, you will be taken to a page which is simply a SERP for “Beijing 2008 Olympic Games“. This page displays various news results, and the latest news on Olympic events. It also display links to blogs, photos… But no PPC ads!Like any page linked to from the Google homepage, this page has a massive amount of traffic coming to it. At first, the absence of PPC ads led me to believe at first that somehow this page was “protected” from advertising by Google, in true Olympian/Don’t Do Evil style.
So I bid for it.
Hard Refreshed,
Clicked the Doodle,
And there we were:
Our ad was online for only 7 minutes, and it generated over 7.5k impressions, so per 24 hours that’s over 750k impressions with no competition, and great branding opportunities… With one keyword! (We actually had to take the ad offline because more and more people were starting to click on it!).
This reminded me of when Patrick Altoft generated over 16k visits to his site in a day with the blog post he optimised for the first day of summer… That was in one day, through SEO, so imagine what you could do with a well written PPC ad, in 10 days of Olympic Games!
We currently don’t have any clients for who this traffic would be appropriate or relevant, which is why we don’t have any ads up there… but what about you? Have you got a client who sells sporting goods? Or a client with a Sports magazine? And what about the people behind Nike and Adidas’ Search Engine Marketing Campaigns? Would they not benefit from the branding effects of having their ad there?
Or say your newspaper has a relevant article they want to send people to. Bid £0.01, your article is relevant so you get a low minimum bid to start with, no competition, and you’re on your way to generating traffic for £0.01 per visitor! I noticed the Guardian is currently trying to do this by bidding on Beijing Closing Ceremony, so they are definitely missing out on an Olympic Opportunity here! Are you missing out on an Olympic Opportunity? If you are, contact a Search Engine Marketing Agency that can really make a difference!
#1 by aidan at August 12th, 2008
Dude! Shhhhh – don’t tell everyone! Cash in on it before cpcs go through the roof.
Dammit – now its on sphinn.
#2 by aidan at August 12th, 2008
Dude! Shhhhh – don’t tell everyone! Cash in on it before cpcs go through the roof.
Dammit – now its on sphinn.
#3 by Craig at August 12th, 2008
Just attempted to setup a campaign for this (direct to merchant), but Google wants £2.50 per click!
#4 by Craig at August 12th, 2008
Just attempted to setup a campaign for this (direct to merchant), but Google wants £2.50 per click!
#5 by Merrill at August 12th, 2008
I wonder why advertisers with “Beijing” in broad match don’t appear for this query.
#6 by Merrill at August 12th, 2008
I wonder why advertisers with “Beijing” in broad match don’t appear for this query.
#7 by Eloi at August 13th, 2008
@Craig: are you sure you have all the keywords (Beijing & 2008 & Olympic & Games) in the copy of your landing page? Because I started at £0.25 using the URL of this blog only… But the impressions go up so fast that if you’re not over the 2% threshold that gives you good QS, you risk getting a high minimum CPC… Which is why you need to be relevant!
@Merrill: Beijing alone as a broad match is too short a keyword to trigger ads for the search query. I would recommend using the Exact Match on these terms so you can optimise for a good CTR (and therefore high QS, and low minimum bid).
#8 by Eloi at August 13th, 2008
@Craig: are you sure you have all the keywords (Beijing & 2008 & Olympic & Games) in the copy of your landing page? Because I started at £0.25 using the URL of this blog only… But the impressions go up so fast that if you’re not over the 2% threshold that gives you good QS, you risk getting a high minimum CPC… Which is why you need to be relevant!
@Merrill: Beijing alone as a broad match is too short a keyword to trigger ads for the search query. I would recommend using the Exact Match on these terms so you can optimise for a good CTR (and therefore high QS, and low minimum bid).
#9 by Simon at August 13th, 2008
Pure genius by Eloi and Kelvin.
SiteViz rocks.
#10 by Simon at August 13th, 2008
Pure genius by Eloi and Kelvin.
SiteViz rocks.
#11 by Kathleen Rimer at August 17th, 2008
Is there any place I can find all the Olympic Google
Doodles for a collection for my gymnastic school??
thanks for your help.
K. Rimer
#12 by Kathleen Rimer at August 17th, 2008
Is there any place I can find all the Olympic Google
Doodles for a collection for my gymnastic school??
thanks for your help.
K. Rimer
#13 by Eloi at August 18th, 2008
@ Kathleen An image search for Google Doodles Olympics 2008 gets a few back, but most of them are from Athenes and Sydney Games…
Try these:
http://great-ads.blogspot.com/2008/08/google-doodle-olympic-logo.html
http://www.shodan.in/wp-images/Google-china-Olympics-logo.jpg
And here, although i don’t know about the size of the images, these might be screenshots:
http://www.docstoc.com/search/Olympic-Doodle-Series/
Hope that helps Kathleen, are you going to place them around your gym?
#14 by Eloi at August 18th, 2008
@ Kathleen An image search for Google Doodles Olympics 2008 gets a few back, but most of them are from Athenes and Sydney Games…
Try these:
http://great-ads.blogspot.com/2008/08/google-doodle-olympic-logo.html
http://www.shodan.in/wp-images/Google-china-Olympics-logo.jpg
And here, although i don’t know about the size of the images, these might be screenshots:
http://www.docstoc.com/search/Olympic-Doodle-Series/
Hope that helps Kathleen, are you going to place them around your gym?
#15 by Roy at August 20th, 2008
@ Kathleen
I too am collecting the Olympic Doodles.
The full set (so far) can be found at www.techdreams.org/google/google-search-logos-of-beijing-olympics-2008/201-20080814
Hope that helped you.
#16 by Roy at August 20th, 2008
@ Kathleen
I too am collecting the Olympic Doodles.
The full set (so far) can be found at www.techdreams.org/google/google-search-logos-of-beijing-olympics-2008/201-20080814
Hope that helped you.
#17 by Eloi at August 20th, 2008
Nice one Roy, thanks for that!
#18 by Eloi at August 20th, 2008
Nice one Roy, thanks for that!