are you sure Google's keyword tools are telling us that much? I know you're working for google as a consultant (if that's still up to date), and I'm not trying to bash on Google as a company, at all, however I'm not really sure what to make of their keyword tools.

Here is an example:

I type in "learn french into the adwords keyword tool. It says there are 450.000 searches/month.
If I limit that search to Ghana, there were 390 searches for "learn French" for the month of june.

If I go to the Google insights for search tool I get this as a result:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=learn%20french&cmpt=q

Ghana is supposedly the country with the highest interest/search volume for the term "learn French".

Using common sense would probably tell me that there might be a mistake ;-), but if the numbers of one google tool are completely different than the numbers shown in another google tool…

I wouldn't be surprised if the surprises you stumbled upon in your research using that tool weren't really surprises, but just mistakes.

I mean, I am surprised that Ghana is the country with the most people searching for "learn French", too ;-).

Seriously, though, I'm not sure what to make of G's tools….I'll continue to use the adwords tools (in combination with common sense, other kw tools and PPC testing), but well….Ghana 370 searches in June in one tool, and the other tool says it's at the top of the list…something must be wrong…

My hope from that post is people will realize the value of telling a story. It is certainly easy to tell a bad story. I trust that rather than a literal reading of my post (I hope no one in the Paris/Kim business is reading my blog!), that it would inspire people to not simply puke out data.

Your point is well taken.

But I'll disagree with your premise that flying blind might yield a equal or better result than using the AdPlanner data (even in this case).

Friends can disagree right?

Thanks again,

Avinash.

You start off with the premise "Your business has a need to market something related to Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian, a perfume or a clothing line or a cd/dvd. Amongst other things you’ll want to make use of display advertising (banners / widgets etc)."

So Ms. Perfume Manufacture comes to you to market purses online and you end up advising her to advertise perfume on talk, news, golf, and political sights, as if the data empirically leads to that conclusion. In this case, flying blind on best guess sites like TMZ.com would be a better option.

Data is key, but needs proper interpretation.

A fun story, but I'm afraid it is faulty at its foundation and therefore leads to incorrect conclusions. After all, YOU googled Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian… are you in the market for perfume?

Back to the list. I know the list was about analytics, but i began to see barriers for thinking digitally in this list. Remember, Crispin Porter has opened up a European base of operations and called it their creative hub. The agency they bought was an interactive one. Meaning, everything there will start with digital. So, herein is my explanation of these barriers.
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