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Weekly PPC Update – Spring Flowers Edition!

Sunday, April 28th, 2013

 

It seems like we are getting a proper spring here in New England this year.  Leaves and blossoms seem to be exploding on the trees and from the ground and we have a week of mid-60s temps ahead of us (and behind us).  Usually, it goes from snowing to sultry, but not this year!  Hope your neck of the woods is pleasant as well.

 

Let’s see what was happening in PPC land last week, shall we?

 

First, from Google……………..

 

After a week of relative silence, Google had a lot of posts last week.  On Monday, Google announced two additions to Enhanced Campaigns:  social annotations which Google says improve CTR by 5-10%, and enhanced campaigns for mobile app advertisers.  The social annotations will be shown for advertisers that have a Google + page with a significant number of followers, and a linked website that matches the URL in your ads.  Mobile app advertisers can now use Enhanced Campaigns to reach the average US consumer who spends an average of 127 minutes a day in mobile apps!

 

Google has launched an upgrade center to make the transition to Enhanced Campaigns easier.  Here you will you be able to upgrade several campaigns at a time and merge campaigns together with just a few clicks.  Check out the full post here.

 

New features are also available for Display Ads.  There is now a Google Display Planner, and two new reports for Demographics and Placement Performance.  The Display Planner delivers key related details: impression and cookie ranges for Google’s inventory, age and gender breakdowns, and historical cost-per-click (CPC) information.  Pretty cool!

 

The Customer Journey to Online Purchase from the Google AdWords blog outlines how this tool works, which includes aggregating statistics for benchmarking.  The tool draws on behavior analytics from over 36,000 Google Analytics accounts!

 

Google gives a shout out to Mad Men in this post to intro the announcement that they’ve achieved accreditation for their viewability measurement solution, Active View.  Google says they see this becoming the new standard for how impressions are bought, sold and measured, replacing the “served impressions” metric we have today.  Read the post here.

 

Now, from Bing Ads……………….

 

If you’ve been putting off becoming Bing Ads certified, don’t delay!  Here’s a video that shows why people think the education and certification system is great.

 

This post has a chart outlining all of the searchers you are missing out on if you aren’t advertising on the Yahoo Bing network. Data is taken from a December 2012 ComScore report.

 

From the Bing Ads and You blog post series comes Keyword Distribution Graph Coming Soon.  This very cool new feature enables advertisers to visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) across thousands of keywords and easily explore optimization opportunities and you can sign up for the beta test within the post.

 

Finally from Bing for this week, Exception Request Best Practices for Agencies outlines some steps you can take to get your content live on the Yahoo Bing network sooner.

 

And, from elsewhere on the web………

 

Search Engine Land has Google AdWords Support Launches Screen Sharing Functionality and A Good Start for Paid Search in 2013.

 

Search Engine Watch has Video Ad Views Hit All Time High:  13 Billion and Location & Lifestyle Key Drivers for Mobile Path to Purchase in UK, US.

 

That does it for last week’s news.  Have a great week, friends!

 

 

 

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Weekly PPC Update – Still Reeling Edition

Sunday, April 21st, 2013

 

Last week was a tough one for Boston.  And, even though we breathed a collective sigh of relief on Friday night, things are still not back to “normal”.  They probably won’t be for a very long time, and will never be for those injured and families of those killed on Marathon Monday.  Our condolences to everyone impacted by the tragic events.

 

Let’s see what happened in the world of PPC last week.

 

First, from Google…..

 

Google AdWords provides a pretty detailed post about what they do with publishers who are “bad apples” and don’t adhere to Google’s advertising guidelines.  Here are a few highlights:

  • Better technology helps monitor clicks, impressions and also to scan partners’ sites and downloadable software to pick up bad content and bad practices (like artificial traffic) at a very granular level
  • Hundreds of manual reviewers work for Google to weed out advertisers who don’t adhere to these regulations and Google has doubled the rate that they review publisher’s sites
  • In 2012, there were 17% fewer bad actors than in the previous years
  • Finally, to protect customers from getting add-ons that they didn’t sign up for when installing software, Google has issued these new policies including that the download be pre-approved by Google; offer one-click, complete uninstall, and more.  Read the post for full details.

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We always recommend using an Analytics program like Google Analytics in tandem with your PPC efforts.  Google Analytics’ blog has a good article last week detailing three options in-house (and we would argue any) practitioners should be using.  These options include event tracking, advanced segments, and shortcuts.  Are there others you would add?

 

Next, from Bing Ads……….

 

Bing, like Google, is also committed to fighting bad advertising on their network.  This article gives some pretty basic tips about how to protect your Bing Ads account from fraudulent activity.

 

Bing has a podcast here that answers frequently asked questions from Bing Ads advertisers.

 

Bing Ads is developing a Search Terms Report to help you add keywords and negative keywords directly through the Web UI’s Keywords tab.  Learn more here.

 

Finally, if you are advertising on Mother’s Day gifts & related terms, here are some tips on how to optimize your campaigns for Mother’s Day.

 

And, from elsewhere on the web…….

 

Did you hear about the test claiming that Bing search results led to five times more malware than Google?  Bing refutes those findings here.

 

Also from Search Engine Land, Google Earnings:  Q1 Revenue Rises and Paid Clicks up 20% though CPC Slips 4% YoY.  The title says it all!

 

Advertising:  A Brief History is a pretty awesome infographic that starts with the earliest known wall painting (aka the first billboard!) is created in 4000 BC and goes up to today with stats about how much is currently spent and more.

 

Finally, from Search Engine Watch, Using PLAs to Enhance, Not Encroach on SEM gives some tips to do just that.

 

That’s it for this week folks, stay safe and give your kids an extra hug.

 

 

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Weekly PPC Update – Spring has Sprung (?) Edition

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

 

Happy spring, everyone!  Hopefully it feels like it’s spring where you are because it certainly doesn’t in New England.

 

Let’s move on to cheerier subjects, including the best PPC news from the past week!

 

First, from Google……

 

Google AdWords has been doing a lot of work to engage brands in using Google advertising.  Some of the ways they are “fueling brand adoption” include:  new ways to buy impressions, engagement ads, and new ways to measure via the Brand Lift feature now in AdWords. Get the whole scoop on brand advertising here.

 

Soon, Google will be launching new ValueTrack features for advertisers using keyword level URLs.  Google says these changes will help users manage at the keyword level by device when upgrading to enhanced campaigns by:

  1. Directing users to a device-specific landing page at the keyword level.
  2. Enabling measurement of the effectiveness of campaigns by device

 

If you are at SES this coming week, don’t miss Google’s classes on Tuesday.  Get details here.  And, last week, DoubleClick was at SMX West touting new features, including integration of Google Analytics data, fast and accurate cross channel reporting, and support for enhanced campaigns.  They also debuted a new video about DoubleClick that you can see here.

 

Now, from Bing Ads……

 

An interesting article about the intersection of social media and customer support.  And, in that same spirit, an announcement from their product team about how Bing Ads will be more transparent about upcoming features and changes via the Bing Ads blog.

 

Interested in mimicking Google’s enhanced campaign features in your Bing Ads?  This article has some ideas for how to do just that.  Ideas include:  bidding higher for areas closer to your client’s place of business, targeting ads based on device, and adjusting character counts for mobile display.  Creative!

 

Bing will soon be offering an enhanced search query report which will help advertisers better optimize their keywords, control search traffic better, and set negative keywords better.

 

Finally, get updates on how Bing fared at SMX last week, as well as their plans for SES this week here.

 

And, from elsewhere on the web……….

 

How To Determine Your Mobile & Geo Bid Multipliers For Enhanced Campaigns from Search Engine Land gives some guidance about determining geo and mobile bid multipliers based on historical performance.

 

Workarounds To Make Enhanced Campaigns More Flexible also from SEL, shares some takeaways from SMX West about Enhanced Campaigns.

 

Finally, Internet Marketing in China, from Search Engine Journal is a good quick read on what advertisers need to know when approaching this audience.

 

That’s it for this week.  Thank you good people and have a great week!

 

 

 

 

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Weekly PPC Update – Sunday Funday Edition

Sunday, March 3rd, 2013

 

March is here!  You know what that means?  Only two more months of winter in New England!!!!!!!

 

We hope everyone is having a great weekend.  Grab your coffee, put down your paper, and take 10 or 15 minutes to get caught up with this week’s top PPC news, and get a head start on the coming week, why don’t you?

 

First, from Google……

 

Have you attended any Learn with Google webinars about Enhanced Campaigns?  If so, we’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section.  Last Thursday there was one for sitelinks and call extensions.  We learned that you can now:

  • customize sitelinks at the ad group level, in addition to the campaign level. You can also customize sitelinks specifically for mobile devices.
  • schedule the specific dates, days of the week, or times of day for your call extensions and sitelinks, at either the ad group or campaign levels; and
  • AdWords reports now count phone calls as conversions

 

In an effort at cross-product promotion, the Google AdWords blog has another post on DoubleClick, which will be rolling out features from Enhanced Campaigns over the next few weeks.

 

AdWords terms & conditions have been updated in some countries, including North America.  If you don’t accept them within 45 days, your ad serving may be paused, so do it now!

 

AdWords Editor 10.0 is out!  Use it to manage Enhanced Campaigns now, or by June 28, 2013 when everyone will be required to.

 

As a kind of follow up to the big Enhanced Campaigns rollout, Google gives us a few examples on how some companies, including adidas and RadioShack are attributing mobile to in-store sales.  Measuring offline conversions related to online activity is always a challenge, but it’s useful to see how others do it!

 

Are you going to SMX West?  Check out the Google offerings here.

 

Next, straight outta Bing Ads……..

 

If you are brand new to advertising on Bing, check out this article on payment methods.

 

Now you can use Bing Ads Editor to request exceptions to multiple ad disapprovals at one time.

 

And the piece de resistance on the Bing Ads blog last week, a guest post from Boost CTR!  John shares tips on spring cleaning your Bing Ads account with ad rotation setting advice.  Check it out.

 

Finally, from Bing, see takeaways from the eTail West conference here and here.

 

And, from elsewhere on the Web….

 

Search Engine Land had several articles on Google releasing its Search Quality Guidelines for public consumption!  You can see the whole doc here.

 

A Guide To Understanding Big Testing & Massively Parallel Marketing answers the question how do you enable many marketers in an organization to run experiments at the same time without interfering with each other?

 

15 Tips To Launch A Successful Multilingual PPC Campaign has tips on just that.

 

From Search Engine Journal:  Are Search Engine Marketers Warming up to AdWords Enhanced Campaigns? Well are we?

 

Finally, As Google’s Search Share in China Shrinks, a New Competition Emerges.

 

Have a great week everyone!

 

 


 

 

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Favor the Anglo-Saxon

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

 

Have you ever heard of an order of magnitude lift in Click-Through Rates?


Well, until a few days ago, neither had I, and I’ve seen my share of 300% and 400% improvements (and those are impressive, too), but never something on the order of a 10X improvement in CTR for an Google Adwords ad. Here are the two ads involved in that contest — you tell me which one jumped response rate by 10X:




Got it figured out?


OK, then: the real winner is Ad B. Now let’s look at why


Anglo-Saxon Words Kick Latin Words… Posterior


The simple, clear, common, single syllable, and vivid words are best, and they’re the ones taken from anglo-saxon roots. Abstract, polysyllabic, and “erudite” words tend to deaden the immediacy and vividness of language. They’re the ones derived from latin roots and also tend to be words favored by bureaucrats.


Example: Ass is anglo-saxon. Posterior is latinate. Kick is anglo-saxon. Calcitrate is latinate. So which gives the more vivid image: kick ass or calcitrate posterior?


Ok, so let’s apply this to the ads in the contest, which is more vivid?


  • Learn Top Event Marketing Tactics, or
  • Increase Event Registration

Learning tactics is vivid and credible, increase registration is abstract and a bigger promise, therefore inherently less credible. It’s as simple as that


Within Ad Consistency


The two lines of copy in Ad A only seem related if you really think about it. As in supposedly this free guide will help me “increase event registration.”


But the two lines of copy in Ad B are tightly integrated and obviously go together: there’s an offer to “learn event marketing tactics” along with the follow-up call-to-action of “Download Your Free Marketing Guide.” This kind of inter-copy integration is a lot more important than most people think as it makes the ad feel more inherently trustworthy.


Call-to-Action vs. No Call-to-Action


Having a CTA isn’t a foolproof method for improving Click-Through Rates, but it’s pretty close, and it IS a verifiably identified best practice. If you don’t have one, you’d better have a really solid reason why not, and you’d better test it against a similar ad with a CTA. In this case, the losing ad had no good reason whatsoever for skipping the ending call-to-action.


Conclusion


So… Boom — three really big improvements combined into one ad al equal a 1224% increase in CTR. But don’t just admire the numbers, learn from the test!


[Editor's Note: This post was originally scheduled for last week, but due to a technical glitch, was published as a private post, rather than going out to our reader's at large, for that reason, we'll be featuring two Win of the Week columns this week, one today and one on Friday.]


 

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