Lately we did a lot of product centered posts, sort of forgetting about the people behind and around Refined Ads. After being active in the search industry for about 8 years it feels like time just flies by, but one thing that amazes us every single time is how great the search community really is.

During last weekend a great friend of the company, Shakil Khan, made it down to Munich to talk with some of us about Online Marketing, running a business and being more successful. Together with him we managed to hang out with Lukasz and Kolja as well as some other bright people from the German Online space. A second good reason for this to happen was DLD, which took place earlier this week and once again proved to be a great conference. Meeting new people that were interested in sharing stories as well as meeting business partners and friends from all over the world made it really worthwhile. One of the better coincidences was walking by Marissa Mayer and her greeting, even though we met the last time in Zurich back in 2005.

After DLD the week went on with a big BVDW meeting where I had the chance to show more people how great Refined Ads is.

Unfortunately during the course of the evening it also became public that a friend, one of the first people parts of our team met, died in a tragic plane accident. Martin Schaedel was one of the brightest people that I ever met, his networking skills were unbelievable and the way he lived was as most people would love to if they had the chance. I guess it’s safe to say that Martin inspired thousands of people around the world and I have to admit that Martin always seemed like a hero with his talent and seeing that go is one of the saddest moments in my professional and personal life.

If you are interested in improving your PPC skills and based in Europe, you should consider blocking March 19th in your calendar. We’re currently working on a nice, free(!) event that day in Munich for PPC Managers. If you’re already a client and using Refined Ads, make sure to also block March 20th for a second day of Advanced PPC knowledge. More details will follow within the next month, but rest assured it will be worth coming to Munich. Also make sure to check back frequently as we have a maximum number of seats and expect them to fill up quickly.

We would like to take the chance to present one of our new – and very strong – features gone live in Refined Ads in Q4 2008: The Search Funnel.

The Funnel allows you to associate one Lead or Sale with more than one keyword if the same user clicked on multiple of your ads with various keywords. It is extremely useful to see how pretty generic keywords lead to a more specific search that converts. The data analyzed for this type of reporting currently includes the last 30 days till the conversion takes place. The best part is that you can set to which extend a click attributes to a conversion and have a percentage set to it that is visible in the statistics and used in the Traffic Controller, our bid management.

Funnel settings can be set under Administration. Check the desired checkbox:

• Traditional setting: The keyword that was clicked last will be credited 100%.

• First and last clicks win the most: The keywords that were clicked first and last will be credited a fixed percentage, other clicks will share the remainder missing from 100%.

• All clicks are the same: The credit will be divided by the number of clicks that lead to a conversion (up to a maximum of five clicks).

• All clicks are individual: You can specify a value to the last five clicks leading to a conversion.

• Last click is the big click: You can set a value for the last click (up to 99%) and the rest will be divided between previous clicks.

The data created by the funnel can be analysed as individual funnels (click history) or as value in Elements.

If the transaction column is underlined, you can display the funnel dialog by clicking on the value. The dialog displays the clicks per line. The first value (left) of the line is the keyword that was clicked first. The last value (right) is the last keyword before the transaction (lead / sale) The column Revenue does not display the proportionate value of the keyword, but the sum of the transactions.

Check out this new features right away in your Refined Ads Account! Customers find additional information on that feature the the Refined Ads Guide (https://guide.refinedads.com/index.php/en:Funnel).

If you’re interested in seeing Refined Ads live, please contact us and we’re happy to schedule a demo of our SEM Management software.

Also Thomas Bindl did an interview about SES London back at SES Chicago a few weeks ago with some more information about the biggest search conference in Europe.

Da wir in den letzten Monaten eine Vielzahl von Neuerungen implementiert haben und neue Kunden von der Leistungsfähigkeit von Refined Ads überzeugen konnten, ist es hier leider etwas ruhiger geworden. Wir planen jedoch für die Zukunft bei jedem Release ein Post zu machen um die neuesten Entwicklungen direkt zu erfahren. Wer noch näher an der Entwicklung von Refined Ads und dem SEM Markt sein will, dem sei ein Blick auf die Refined Ads Twitter Seite empfohlen:

http://twitter.com/refinedads

Wir haben einige tolle Features geplant, die zusammen mit unseren Events die Effizienz unserer (zukünftigen) Kunden noch weiter erhöhen werden. Mehr dazu bald hier und auf Twitter.

Zudem wünschen wir allen Lesern ein gutes und erfolgreiches 2009!