As I sit here at work making and posting MAJOR changes to HUGE HUGE HUGE adwords campaigns for one of our new projects, I keep thinking about the things I wish adwords COULD do.

Our programmer tells me I need to add it to their “New Feature” suggestions, but I’m a cynic and therefore think there’s no chance in hell they’ll even look at my suggestions, let alone consider them.

So instead, I’ll bitch about what I wish adwords could do. I’m sure I’ll be having a part 2, 3, 4 and so on as time passes, but here’s the 3 things I WISH adwords would do RIGHT NOW!

1. No limits. I’m tired of trying to upload my big ass campaigns, only to find there’s too many adgroups or too many keywords. Yes, I know I can contact our rep and get it raised, but that’s pain. Give me big ass limits up front - or, dare I ask, NO LIMITS AT ALL? Ok, I might not be handle to the responsibility…
2. I want to see a line graph of the average position of my ads for a given keyword over time. That way I can see pictorially just how my price tweaks are helping me. So for the week of June 1-7, show me where my ads have placed for the keyword “company picnic” on the 1st, on the 2nd, on the 3rd and so on…
3. Last, but not least - Please let me view my campaigns by time AND day. If I make changes on June 15th at 3P, and then go back on June 16th to view how my campaign did the day before, I want to be able to choose to see how it did from 3P on AFTER I made the changes. Talk about transparent advertising…would that make things too easy for us Google?

That’s about it - as always, I love Google, but it’s more of a love-hate relationship…

So yesterday (6/15) was my birthday. Possibly one of the most uneventful birthdays ever, but that is exactly what I wanted. I woke up, went to church with my significant other (I’m 25 - boyfriend sounds way too high school for me) and then got to spend the day just chilling with him. My parents made us a great dinner and the feral cat that hangs around our house even brought her kitten out to play with us!

All in all that was EXACTLY the kind of birthday I was looking for. I know most people would have been out partying, at least Saturday nite, but I’m just not as into that as I used to be. One, because I’m trying to be a good little Christian (I still have far to go, but I’m getting there); 2, b/c I’m broke and lazy and don’t usually FEEL like going out and 3) I always feel like shit the day after drinking - its just not worth it.

So here’s to being a bum on your 25th birthday…cheers!

On a random note, my AWESOME coworkers and I started a new site on Friday. It’s our way of getting to test out a bunch of affiliate marketing, SEO ideas, etc without using company time or money. It’s all about finding the best free, bargain or discount offers online - check us out at OfferGeeks.com.

See, this is where I suck at blogging - I get all distracted and don’t update for a week! Shame on me!

I just had to take a few minutes to vent my frustration with Google right now. PLEASE GOOGLE, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!

I’ve been having issues with gmail, issues with chat, even issues with adwords!

Gmail has been loading incredibly slow for me on Firefox - I figured, computers hate me, so it’s probably my fault. BUT, considering I had issues yesterday at home on my lap top and now today on my office computer PLUS some coworkers are having problems too - I can only conclude that Google’s doing something in the back end of gmail.

Then of course, there’s adwords. I’m in charge of a HUGE adwords campaign for a ProspectMX client - I built it from the ground up, it’s kinda my baby and it’s going really well so far. For me, it’s a first - I’ve never had to run a campaign this big by myself, so I’m more than a little proud.

It consists of 4 campaigns, each with over 1000 adgroups - and over 300,000 keywords all together. Which means, for bulk updating, it is a BITCH. Thank God for Adwords Editor and Speed PPC!

Well unfortunately, today my IT guy forwards me an email from Adwords support - basically saying that over 4000 ads have been disapproved b/c the URL destination is incorrect/broken/whatever the hell they think the issue is.

My thing is - this campaign has been running for over 30 days - why am I just now hearing that my ad URLs are messed up? I haven’t TOUCHED them since the campaign started and they surely did work when I first started the campaign.

Here’s the kicker - in order to fix them I have to go edit each ad (remember, it’s over 4000) and they will “automatically be resubmitted for the approval process.” Somehow, I dont think this client would take kindly to me spending hundreds to thousands of his dollars to fix what is Google’s mistake.

Oh, did I forget to mention that when I logged into adwords to test random ads, ALL the ones they disapproved take me to our landing page just fine? So I may be missing something…but I’m pretty sure this is Google’s mess up, not mind. I won’t swear on it, but I have been unable to figure out why they think the URL destination ain’t workin. It is. Get it together Google!

Luckily we have awesome Google reps who I am sure will take care of this ASAP (so they should- this company has a CRAPLOAD of money in adwords since 2005.

So that’s my Google rant.

Oh, 2 more things that are bugging me:

(1) the change of favicon’s - a lowercase g, really? Why? That’s like how AT&T switched to at&t. Gotta say, it’s frickin’ gay - you go from a solid strong logo to …well, kind of a chintzy one.

(2) the influx of ‘commemorative google logos’ lately - y’know Google, everyday is the anniversary of SOMETHING. So you should prolly either do it everyday (which would be annoying) or just go back to doing it like 10 times a year - at least then it’s more of a surprise. I was all about it at first, but then it wasn’t a special treat anymore…

Ok, now that I’ve been Debbie Downer and criticized the crap outta Google, lemme just say: I still love you Google. Always innovative, always coming up with free web apps and what not - I can’t complain.
Just keep your shit together, that’s all!

Ok, so I lied in my last post. I am actually telling you the day AFTER tomorrow. My bad. A girl gets busy, ya know?

So anyway, my experiment was actually a nice success. I actually did not think it would make a difference, doing 65 on the highway, just b/c of all the city driving I have to do.

But instead of the average of about 335 miles per tank of gas I usually get, I made is to right around 400 miles on that tank.

That’s over a 50 mile difference! I believe 50 miles in my cute little hyundai takes about 2 gallons or a little less of gas. I was able to go an extra 50 miles, which equals 2 gallons, which equals about $8 (I like nice round numbers, thank).

That’s basically the equivalent of saving $8 everytime I fill ‘er up. So, let’s say I fill ‘er up 4 times a month (that’s about accurate, sometimes it’s closer to 3 times) and I spend about $50 like I said, I like round #s). I spend easily around $200 a month on gas - if I save $8 each time, that’s 4 x 8 = $32 a month. 32×12 = a number too big for me to do in my head. Hold up, calculator check - well shit, I could save $384 a year!!

Ok, that’s it. I need to permanently get the lead out of my damn foot, that’s for sure. So there you have it, a real life experiment. If you don’t believe what you hear, then believe me since I actually did it. You can get way better gas mileage and wind up saving a couple hundred bucks a year just my slowing down a bit ont he highways.

Don’t get it twisted, that shit was hard to do b/c I’m an impatient person…but I also like saving money. I think the penny pincher in me will win over the impatience in me.

Shout out to PennsylvaniaGasPrices.com, since I used their site to help find me the cheapest gas in Lancaster. I believe they have one of those for every state, you just swap out Pennsylvania with your state of choice.

Happy traveling!

So my co-worker just told me an interesting tidbit: When GW first got into office way back in the beginning of 2001, gas prices were only around $1.42 (I believe that’s either a national average, or in PA alone, not sure which one.)

So now multiply that by 3, and that is most likely what gas prices will be when he’s out the end of 2008. Shoot, HOPEFULLY they’ll be that low. To listen to everyone else tell it, they’ll be much closer to $5. Ouch.

It’s just wrong when an 07 Hyundai Elantra costs over $50 to fill up. WRONG I TELL YOU!

I did, however, conduct an experiment. Those far more versed in automobiles then I have told me that you get optimal fuel efficiency on the highway going about 55-65mph. The quick research I did online verifies that info as well.

Me, being the lead foot that I am, drives an average of about 90mph on the highway and 50-55mph in the city (where speed limits are 25-35). So um, yeah, I like to go fast. What can I say, I’ve got road rage, I’m working on it.

So about 2 weeks ago I had decided that I’d run my car till it was on E, fill ‘er up and then do EVERYTHING IN MY POWER to never go above 70mph on that tank of gas. You have no idea how hard it was.

Usually, I’ll get between 325-350 miles per tank of gas. I wanted to see if I could beat that when I was driving my car at “optimal fuel efficiency speeds”.

So I did it. I ACTUALLY controlled my lead foot enough to conduct the experiment.

Maybe you’re wondering how it went? Well…I’ll tell you…tomorrow.

K thanks bye!

So far no one I know has heard this song Handlebars by Flobots. What’s up with that? It’s a good song, great beat, intense lyrics - they call it hip hop, I think it’s more of a punk hip hop or even rock hip hop if you will. Take a listen to it over here at Project Playlist. I call it a message song - I think I sometimes split music into 2 categories - songs that have a message, that make you think or have something to say - and songs that are strictly entertainment, with a sick beat and catchy hook.

Anyway, the first time I heard Handlebars it made me think and I immediately started trying to dissect its message or theme. I think it’s a leftover habit from my college Lit courses (I loved them). It kind of reminded me of a bit of a dig at Bush, but it more so made me think about the potential of a human life as it grows, what it finds important, what signifies power - and just how scary and powerful we can grow. If this sounds crazy, you probably haven’t listened to the song yet!

Anyway, I found this site that gives lyrics and then people comment about what they think the songs really mean, or what they’re really about. Maybe I have too much time on my hands, but I though that was pretty cool.

I also thought it an appropriate temporary tagline for the site as I learn and grow, till I finally pick a direction to go in with this and restyle and rename as needed. I’m a smart cookie and have a lot of skills that will help me build an awesome site. Um, I just have to learn the basics first.

With my MushBlue 1.0 theme goin on! So although I am pretty darn knowledgeable when it comes to matters of Internet Marketing, SEO, copywriting, etc, I haven’t actually had my own website since um…1998 or 99 perhaps? Either way, it was back in the day when I was proud as all get out the day I was finally able to code frames into my html. Woooooo. But anyway, I’m just a little intimidated by this whole thing, just because it’s a brand new experience.

As a matter of fact, it was really my awesome coworker that hooked this up, Mr. Alex Barger - he showed me how to set up the site, get a host, download the WP theme. Hope I paid good attention for when I have to do it again for a new site!

I’m pretty pleased with this theme so far, but I’ve really only looked at the design, not actual functionability. I’ll have to see about that as I play around. Took me forever to decide on a theme though - I kept finding ones I liked for OTHER site ideas I had that I’m not ready to start yet. Figures.

This is also my first time with the new version of Wordpress - we still use the old one at work. It’ll be nice to get to know a new interface - hope it’s an easy one!

My first mission - find out to edit or delete categories. They got the add part all big… eh, TBC…

Update: Um, yeah, categories interface is the in the same area as in the old wordpress. Where’s my “That Was Easy” button?

It’s me bitches! Coming soon…my portfolio.