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Monday, May 20, 2013
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The information you provide on this form will not be used for anything other than sending the email to your friend. This feature is not to be used for advertising or excessive self-promotion.
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Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
25 PPC Tips & Tricks to Try in 2013:AdWords Tips
Are you ready to kick some AdWords ass in 2013? Try out these 25 tips from our Customer Success team to save time and money and get better results.
Enable Sitelinks
Sitelinks! They are quick and easy to implement (through WordStream software or AdWords), cost no additional money and can have an enormous impact on CTR’s.
Log Your Performance
I track my results daily. First thing I do every morning is log yesterday’s account level performance into a daily tracking spreadsheet. In this sheet I set up formulas to project the data in the month-to-yesterday and have the formula average the current performance over the remaining days in the month. What I’m left with every day is an understanding of what my performance will be at the end of the month. Since I (should) have clicks, impressions, budget and/or conversion goals already established, I know exactly where I’m going on any given day. If I only have one account I can do this at the campaign level but If I have multiple accounts (agencies) then it allows me to prioritize which account needs work now.
No tricks other than that from me. It’s a lot of optimizing based off of behavior given the time.
Rich Griffin, SEM Manager
Set PPC Resolutions
Resolution #1: Build a mobile website and landing pages.
Resolution #2: Start using phone tracking like Mongoose Metrics, or at least put different phone numbers on different pages.
Resolution #3: Start using the Dimensions Tab to find how to convert better.
Resolution #4: Split out your mobile and desktop campaigns (if you haven’t done so).
Resolution #5: Check your queries once again and work more with negatives.
Resolution #6: Try targeting display ads by placements and topics. Don’t rely only on keywords. Use retargeting as well.
Resolution #7: Get rid of the “limited by budget” sign. You are losing a lot of opportunities.
Resolution #8: Switch broad matches to “modified broad match.”
Resolution #9: Create ad scheduling (if you haven’t done so).
Resolution #10: Don’t leave your AdWords account on autopilot, hire an agency if you do not have time to manage it.
Sergey Rusak, PPC Marketing Strategist
Take It Slow
Usually I tell clients if they are looking to restructure their accounts and make big changes to help with optimization they need to take is slowly. Making big changes too fast can be detrimental to your account. Take it slow, PPC is a marathon not a sprint.
Another thing I tell a lot of clients is that nothing in PPC happens overnight and nothing is 100% guaranteed so if something doesn’t work right away, don’t panic, try a new approach. Making subtle changes to the account can help.
Lisa Wilkinson, Customer Success Specialist
12 More Advanced PPC Tips For 2013
- Tag all of your Bing destination URLs with Google Analytics tracking code to ensure data is importing properly.
- Create a campaign that targets select managed placements on Google's display network based off what you know about your target market. Create some really great banner ads using thedisplay ad builder.
- If you are e-commerce, make sure you have revenue tracking set up in Google Analytics.
- If you a service based company, integrate AdWords with your CRM to better understand the value of each click.
- Duplicate campaigns based off customer-value from specific geographic regions. Spend more money where the average customer is worth more.
- If you don't know, spend some time this year understanding what the lifetime value of a new acquisition is. Always look at click price with this in mind.
- Set up remarketing through Google Analytics. Create separate ad groups to target different people.
- Avoid searching for your own ad online. It is not a clear indication of performance and can easily distract you. Look at the data within AdWords, Analytics and other tools to make decisions.
- Utilize Google Places and +1. Make sure you have linked AdWords with Places if you rely on local business.
- For e-commerce, enable Google Shopping by setting up a Merchant Center account. Also check out Bing Shopping, as they are making regular improvements to it.
- Read the Google Analytics Blog every day.
- Always keep your Google Analytics Tab and your AdWords/WordStream tab open at the same time to make better bidding decisions.
Our top 5 Pay-Per-Click tips for 2013
The world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising waits for no man or woman. Google’s offering is constantly being updated with new services to improve the tracking and management of campaigns. Make sure you’re not stuck in the dark ages, or 2012 as it was known, with our 5 top PPC tips for the new year.
Product Listing Ads
To promote your products on Google Shopping, Product Listing Ads allow you to display your product price, image, business name and more to interested users. Setting up your product listing ads is easy and you can opt to build your campaign directly from Merchant Centre or from AdWords. Once your campaign has been set up Google will automatically display the products most relevant to a users search query.
Until now product listing ads were only available in the US, but by the end of March 2013 this feature will be available to retailers in the UK, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. By improving user experience, product listing ads will create new opportunities for retailers to attract additional customers to their stores.
Remarketing
Remarketing is not everyone’s cup of tea as some users find the adverts overly invasive. In a nutshell, Google Remarketing allows you to target your ads at users who have visited your site and then left. You’ve probably seen those adverts which seemingly follow you about wherever your online activity takes you – that’s remarketing at work.
The beauty of Google remarketing is it allows you to display your ads to a targeted audience, helping you avoid wasted spend on unqualified traffic. Browsers targeted by remarketing have already shown an interest in your products by visiting your site, making them the most qualified leads you have available. Remarketing works for some retailers and not others, but if you decide to give it a spin, allow yourself every chance of success with a trial that lasts a few months rather than just a couple of weeks.
Mobile
As each year goes by the stranglehold of mobile technology on our lives becomes stronger. Smartphones are now the last thing many of use at night and the first thing we pick up in the morning. With 9 of every 10 phones sold now a smartphone, 2013 is set to become the year more people access the internet on a mobile device than through their computer.
93 per cent of people in the UK use their mobile everyday to access the internet, so just think of the size of the potential market you are missing out on without a dedicated mobile PPC campaign.
Tracking
With marketing budgets increasingly under the spotlight, understanding how your customers convert and the value they hold to your business is vital. There are many tracking options available to track online activity, but if you’re worried about how to implement the correct code or how long it will take to get through your IT development backlog, Google’s Tag Manager could be the solution for you. Tag Manager removes the hassle and cost of adding and updating marketing optimisation tags on a website. Using a single intuitive interface allows users to edit their website’s tags without having to make changes to the code.
Tag Manager helps to:
- Get campaigns live quickly;
- Remove the need to edit code to add or change tags;
- Catch problems before they occur;
- Error checking to let you know whether a tag is working.
Attribution Modelling
The attribution modelling tool has been greeted enthusiastically by marketers since its introduction a year or so ago for Google Analytics Premium. Attribution modelling allows for greater insights into the customer journey and the success specific online marketing activities are having. This helps marketers to devise strategies which work together to drive sales and conversions across a range of channels.
Attribution modelling will soon be available to all Analytics users by the end of the second quarter 2013. Data will be available instantly and no additional setup is required, allowing you to compare multiple models and values across a range of channels including paid and organic search, email, affiliate marketing, display ads, mobile placements and more.
AdWords & Analytics Data
A Google Analytics account can now be simply linked to an AdWords account, providing marketers with important metrics such as bounce rate, pages per visit and the average duration of a visit, from within the AdWords interface. This provides additional insight for the PPC team, helping them to identify the most attractive parts of the website for customers, as well as determining the proportion of traffic or sales being driven by AdWords.
With so many new tools for Pay-Per-Click marketers to get their teeth into the year ahead certainly promises to be a busy one, and if all goes well, plenty more profitable too!
Friday, April 26, 2013
Be A PPC Leader in 2013: 5 Top Trends
People are always looking to the future marketing trends. Well, let’s face it, it can be pretty exciting and exposes new possibilities, opportunities, and growth potential.
Don’t just be a follower! Be ahead of the trends in PPC for 2013. Here are the five top trends to strongly consider implementing this year.
Go Mobile or Go Home
In 2013, more people will use mobile devices than PCs to access the Internet. This trend shouldn't surprise anyone, especially for those of you who are reading this column on your mobile device right now! What is surprising is the number of advertisers who are neither engaging in mobile nor preparing for what’s to come.
2013 goals:
- If you're already testing mobile PPC, take it to the next level by incorporating display banners, mobile ad extensions, and fine-tuning conversion rates from mobile device sources.
- If you aren’t trying mobile PPC, evaluate if this is feasible for your business based on market needs and resources. To do a simple evaluation, look at visits, transactions, and behavior in your web analytics. Is there potential to expand here? Can you anticipate an ROI based on what is already known?
For example, this advertiser is seeing transactions from mobile devices, indicating an opportunity. The conversion rate is very low. This will be a key focus point for them in their mobile PPC strategy.
To learn more about mobile PPC, here are a few tips for mobile holiday PPC that also can be applicable to many other industries.
Microconversions Will Max Out
Microconversions are all the rage with savvy advertisers – and it's starting to shape up as the next big buzz term. But microconversions aren’t a new concept.
Microconversions are actions taken on a website that aren't the main conversion goals; rather, these could be things such as brochure downloads, blog comments, views of a certain page, newsletter registration, or location look-up, to name only a few. Microconversions can have a very significant value to your business, especially when you consider that most people don't take action on one click to convert on your site.
2013 goals:
- What is the value of each touch a customer has with your PPC ads and website? For example, besides a click conversion, what actions on the site can help keep your product top-of-mind or encourage engagement with the consumer?
- Read up on microconversions and how to implement.
Video and YouTube Aren’t Just for the Kids
A whole world of video ads are available on YouTube, including retargeting people from YouTube. The integration of the YouTube ad platform this year with AdWords was clunky and it currently seems to be hidden behind AdWords so most people don't even know about it.
Behind this button is an entire video advertising portal for YouTube. Despite its hidden location, you'll discover a lot of opportunity to expand and engage in this area, even if your company isn't “the video type.”
Don’t worry about making videos that are big brand, “viral”, or super sexy. Think about the kind of content your audience would be interested in (e.g., tips, product demos, technical support, or how-to).
2013 goals:
- Is there a way to incorporate video into your current strategy? How can you make this video component useful and relevant to your customers?
Dynamic Will be the Default
PPC managers have been searching for ways to make ads more relevant and tightly connected to searchers. Current features like DKI and sitelinks (as in they choose the sitelink to present) are as dynamic as we could get for a very long time.
Now, new features like Dynamic Display Ads offer ability to see creative dynamically generated to specific users or websites. While this is in limited release, it's something to keep your eyes on closely if you're a display advertiser. This tool will rely on Google's Display Ad Builder and Merchant Center to create ads via a template with products from the merchant feed.
A new, second dynamic ad type is called Dynamic Search Ads and this matches up relevant searches with ads generated directly from your website.
2013 goals:
- Determine if dynamically generated ads could work for you. You’ll need to have:
- Very tight and specific campaigns/keywords structure.
- A number of template ads planned to work across products.
- Landing pages to match up with dynamic content. For example, you can’t have dynamic product ads landing on category pages.
- Resolve any of the above that will be a barrier to dynamic ads. This will grow and become highly competitive so your competitor ads will become more relevant while you're slowly left behind.
Savvy Shoppers Rule
Shopping behavior has changed dramatically in the last few years, yet many small- to medium-sized business haven’t changed their strategies to adjust. For retail, more shoppers are making their decisions before going to the store or buying online, and search plays a critical role in the reach and consideration phase.
Reviews, coupons, and local searches are big influencers and can all be incorporated into PPC advertising. Even B2B advertisers should think about how to leverage these features for their products or services.
- Break out how your customers are behaving and select features you can be reasonably able implement. For example, if reviews are an area to expand, this will involve identifying review sites, asking customers for reviews, and incorporating into PPC.
- For B2B, for example, if you offer professional services like accounting, where are your prospects likely to find you: LinkedIn, Angie’s List, Yelp? Focus on where your B2B customers will be, keeping the savvy shopper persona in mind.
In the example above, the listing that appears first has some reviews associated with it. On the right side, we see great opportunity to target Yelp in the Google Display Network.
Summary
PPC will only continue to grow and become more complicated. Advertisers will reap benefits from new trends and technologies with solid plans to integrate into current PPC efforts.
What are your predictions for what will be hot in PPC in 2013? Tell us in the comments.
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