• In PPC ads, do you use an underscore in display URLs or a hyphen? (surely not a plus sign any of you?!)

• And whilst were talking display URLs, do you make up display URLs? What if someone opens a new tab and copies the text? Will this end in 404 disaster or are the likelihoods or that happening too small to worry about?

• Do you capitalise every word? It helps click through apparently, it help stand out. But EVERYONE DOES IT! So how is that standing out?!

I’m intrigued as to how perceptions of these so-called best practices have changed since I started my first PPC account now many years ago.

Do these matter? Is format a substitute for content and relevance? How do you deal with these issues?

Cupcakes anyone?

This highlights one aspect of PPC that is oft overlooked – make sure when you create an ad group that you have a landing page that’s suitable. If you don’t have cupcakes, why have an ad group for them? Why spend money on clicks?

Are you:

a) not bothered

b) hoping they’ll be distracted by your other shiny products

c) simply happy to have another site visit – it’s 50p spent getting someone to think of us

d) just too lazy to do stock checks in relation to PPC activity

Lots has been said and written about the impact of social media on politics. Barack Obama surged to power on the back of a Facebook campaign; Stephen Fry brought the strife of Iranian voters to the attention of millions; whilst Westminster has been opened up with tools such as Tweetminster , They Work For You and Vote For Policies.

Tweetminster has helped bring Westminster to the online community (or vice versa?!)

The 2010 UK general election may be the first time the political scene in Britain has been able to fully immerse itself in online communications on a grand scale (although some would argue it’s been a missed opportunity). YouGov polls are making way for blogging polls (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve ‘voted’ already on various different websites). David Cameron became the most defaced man in Britain as the Tories offline media buy turned viral via a quickly fashioned spoof website. Unlike his Tory counterpart Gordon Brown has avoided sending personal emails to voters, opting instead to focus on the viral effect of accusing people of bigotry, whilst Nick Clegg has been expertly backed up in the live TV debates by the Liberal Democrats twitter feed, who posted Lib Dem policies in real-time as they were discussed on the telly.

Countless blogs and articles will no doubt analyse the social media prowess of the political parties (we shouldn’t forget that the Green Party have also made great use of Twitter and even the BNP have embraced 140-character updates). But it’s not all glamourous activities such as tweets, viral and status updates…

More traditional forms of offline and online media have also deployed and the success of will be equally as difficult to measure as social media. It also seems that the main parties preferences have been to pay for offline media whilst utilise ‘free’ (although time consuming) online channels. You haven’t left the house in the last month if you’ve not seen Gordon Brown or David Cameron’s face on 92.6% of billboards in urban areas, but I’ve not seen a single leaderboard or skyscraper placement for either leader.

Labour however haven’t been avoiding paid online media. The incumbent majority have been quietly plugging their anti-Cameron campaign with good old fashioned search marketing. And to top it off they’ve been using the Google Content Network. Here’s an advertiser who really does benefit from those free contextual impressions, every one potentially another slither of doubt in floating voters minds.

Don't Risk The Tories: Labour's contextual PPC campaign the day before the UK general election

It all seems a bit underhand compared to integrated social media feeds and interactive manifestos. But it’s (potentially) a very cost effective way to add to the overall effect of electioneering.  I’d be interested to know if they have a negative keyword/site exclusion strategy. It’s a subtle approach and clever, but will it really do much more than create a few headlines on a handful of geeky blogs?

And as I type some news just in: I’ve just heard that the Conservatives have block booked YouTube tomorrow (polling day). The homepage placement (I’m told reliably by Google) is only available on a daily takeover basis and what a day to select! Potentially impeccable timing from the Tory marketing machine. OPn top of that this week has seen my inbox littered with personalised emails from a variety of Tory MPs which mean there’s no hope of avoiding the fact it’s election week (I’d love to know how they got my email address too, care to explain Mr Cameron?). On the face of it, their strategy looks much more influential than Labour’s adoption of content ads. I guess time will tell.

In case you missed it there...!

Funny how two buses come at once. In the process of writing about Labour’s use of paid search I stumbled across Google Chrome following Ann Summers onto the election bandwagon. Piggybacking politics is a bit of a minefield but both brands have done a decent job here. Probably better than the politicians have…

Tesco's PPC ads in Google's sponsored links

Nothing wrong with that, and in the light of me hearing that they would be starting to stock a few more North American beers I thought I’d take a look.

Tesco's landing page: good or bad PPC strategy?

Alas, I need to sign in as an existing customer, or register.

Now I’m not really interested in going through the red tape of registering just to see Tesco’s beer range, so off I go on my previous ‘online journey’. So in my case, Tesco’s PPC tactics have led to a potential lost sale.

But I did wonder whether this is actually a good tactic? If I’m only browsing, yes they’ve paid for my click, but they haven’t had to waste time analysing lots of wasted traffic from a ‘tyre kicker’ like me, who wasn’t actually likely to buy.

Those that do register and browse are much more likely to buy, and their web stats should reflect the behaviour of people actually in the market to purchase. Plus, I wonder if this tactic actually has led to an increase in registered users?

By no means best practice, and not quite sure if this really fits Google’s landing page policy, but I maybe the amount Tesco spend on PPC probably Google’s concern over that…