All posts tagged AdWords
AdWords Express: A Sensible Alternative for Small Businesses
While a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign can be a powerful tool for a small business to help drive conversions and traffic, PPC campaigns are not always the best solution for small businesses that rely on local sales, such as restaurants and coffee houses. Additionally, small businesses often have a hard time tracking how effective their PPC campaigns are unless they use a “whisper” code or some other method to identify that the client was sent in via the PPC campaign.
A study conducted by Google found that 62% of small businesses nationwide do not have a website, 1 out of 5 Google map queries are local businesses or places, and 97% of consumers use mobile phones to research a purchase they plan to make that day. All of this means that more consumers are using the Web to make decisions about where they decide to spend their money than ever before.
Google took note of this and launched AdWords Express to accommodate small businesses that are concerned with attracting local customers, but may not have the budget or time to establish a successful PPC campaign. A company establishes its AdWords Express account by first signing up via Google. The account can then be connected to its own free Google Places page and Google Maps entry so that customers searching for location specific queries will see their business. Once the company is signed up, it claims its business type from one of many pre-defined categories which are, in turn, linked to sets of pre-selected keywords applicable to the business type. Google then runs its own algorithm against the keywords to determine if the keywords are attracting an acceptable amount of traffic and clicks. If the algorithm determines that the keywords are not driving enough clicks, it adjusts the campaign to increase traffic. The budget is set by the company and the campaign automatically turns off once this is spent.
AdWords Express is displayed in the same area as AdWords and competes in the same auction, with Express also determining its cost per click rates using the same method as AdWords. Google’s ultimate goal with Express was to make it indistinguishable from traditional AdWords from a user perspective, just more flexible for a small business.
While a traditional PPC campaign still holds many benefits over AdWords Express, such as increased customization and reach, Express offers an easy and affordable solution for small businesses to increase their exposure. The ubiquity of the Web now requires any small business to establish their marketing campaign and budget with a digital presence in mind, and for any small businesses that rely on local customers and sales, Express should be an effective solution to increasing their customer base.
Addressing Client Expectations
How do smaller online marketing firms maintain the edge in their hyper-competitive industry? There are probably a thousand different answers to that question, and in reality, it is a combination of many factors. But while experience, knowledge, and a passion for delivering client success are important, customer-centricity remains one of, if not the biggest, factor.
One of the biggest trends sweeping online business today is for companies to focus an increasing amount of their attention and resources on customer service and customer experience. We see this both within our clients’ industries as well as our own, and the pace is only increasing. For this reason, we were happy with the results of our most recent client survey. Our clients’ feedback illustrated the fact that paying constant, close attention to their needs and desires, coupled with round-the-clock availability, is of the utmost importance.
Respected online marketer and blogger, Nick Stamoulis’ recent post on setting expectations for potential clients brings up a few good points as well. Once you start working with a client, their needs, obviously, take precedence, and part of delivering premier customer care is taking whatever time is necessary to make that happen. But before the contact is signed and a potential client is inquiring about your services, you can’t sacrifice too much of your precious time (and at a small online marketing firm, time is very precious) answering questions and giving advice. He outlines three general rules that are good for businesses seeking online consulting services to remember during the initial stages:
1) Don’t go looking for free advice This may seem self-evident, but it can be surprisingly common. Of course, this doesn’t mean that online marketers should be dismissive or rude, but rather that we can’t properly do our jobs without access to a client’s analytics, AdWords accounts, and other pertinent data. So it’s best for both parties to wait until the contract is signed before consulting.
2) Don’t expect me to drop everything to call you back This can be tricky, but when forging a relationship with a client, you want to show that you’re willing to go the extra mile for them, but without neglecting your current clients. Stamoulis has had prospects call several times a day, and expect their voicemails and emails to be answered within the hour – and that just isn’t realistic.
3) Don’t second guess your instinct This roughly translates to not wasting your time and the marketing firm’s time by unnecessarily drawing out the vetting process. Be decisive, if your gut tells you that this firm is a good fit for your company, then go for it. Besides, the sooner you get started with your new SEO, PPC, and SMO campaigns, the sooner you’ll start to reap the benefits.
Google Now Weighing Landing Pages More Heavily In AdWords
After a test trial that started in August in Brazil, Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, Google has decided to roll out a new algorithm that weighs landing page quality more heavily when calculating an AdWords quality score. As a result, ads that Google determines have a higher-quality landing page associated with them will rank higher for lower cost per click bids.
The impact of this on PPC campaigns is noteable, as businesses need to take landing page quality into consideration much more so than they previously did. Landing page quality was considered by Google in the past, but more as a factor to reject ads or give them a lower quality score. An ad that directed users to a misleading or low quality landing page could be rejected or lowered in quality score, but a good, relevant landing page wouldn’t raise the quality score. With the new algorithm, Google is attempting to ensure that ads within their network link their keywords closely to the content found on the landing pages. Google plans to enforce this by crawling every landing page associated with an ad and using its algorithm to determine a positive quality score.
Google’s new algorithm also means that a business that invests more time in creating a quality landing page pertinent to the ad campaign will be able to reach a larger audience for a lower cost, something any business can appreciate. Google decided to implement this new algorithm as a response to ads they were seeing in their network that were of the same quality as top ranking ads, but had much higher quality landing pages. These ads were being “lost in the shuffle” as ads with lower quality landing pages and often not ranking as high as they should.
Google sees this as the next step in ensuring that advertisers are adhering to best practices when it comes to creating ads and to reward those that have been following best practices already. The changes are expected to begin rolling out in the next few weeks with Google warning that variations in ad position and quality score are likely, but that variations should return to normal within a few weeks.
To ensure that you are following Google’s guidelines for landing page best practices, make sure to read their AdWords support pages and follow their blog for updates.
Don’t Count Out Bing Just Yet
Just as the debate between tech pundits was heating up regarding whether or not Microsoft should sell Bing, the most recent Experian Hitwise Search Engine Analysis report for July revealed that Bing and Yahoo search results have a substantially higher success rate than Google. The respected online competitive intelligence service defines success as a user clicking at least one link on the search results page, and this data should give online advertisers and marketing firms reason for pause: 68% of Google searches were ?successful,? as opposed to 80% on Bing and 81% on Yahoo.
This isn?t a fluke either, as Bing and Yahoo have been rated higher for three straight months now. This new development only compounds the effect of Bing?s slow but steady climb up the market share mountain, and while Google still has that on lock-down (66% in July), Bing and Yahoo combined for 43% – hardly a number to ignore.
What does this change? For one, it makes it blatantly clear that companies neglecting search campaigns on Bing are missing a huge opportunity for potential revenue. Though Bing still lags in volume, it is making huge strides in the quality of its searches. Businesses are happy to hear this news, as any meaningful competition with Google is beneficial to them and drives down their advertising costs. Better still, they now know that they have a viable alternative that can deliver even more relevant traffic than before.
Microsoft may use the news as leverage to finally sell Bing for a better price, but whatever the final decision, it has to be some form of vindication for their online services unit. Just recently, a NY Times business column labelled Bing a ?distraction? for Microsoft. Published before the Experian report, it now appears that Bing is a big distraction for Google.
The Search Wars
Last month saw what seemed to be a significant milestone in the battle for search market share as Bing broke the 30% mark by powering 30.01% of U.S. searches with 14.32% coming from Bing.com and 15.69% coming from Bing-powered Yahoo Search. Google saw its lead decline from 66.69% to 64.42% in just the month of March alone. These numbers, provided by Hitwise seem to indicate that there could finally be a trend towards Google actually having search competition in the near future.
The numbers are essentially the same for Yahoo as they were back in 2005 when Microsoft muscled its way into the search market by launching Bing. However, what may give Google some pause is the fact that Google has seen an overall decline of roughly 10% of market share since the two merged services back in August 2010, a period of only 6 months. While it?s highly unlikely that we?ll see some dramatic sea change in competition within the next year, it hasn?t stopped some from predicting rather outrageous outcomes. Courtesy of Mashable.com, case-in-point:
So by this logic, Google would be overtaken by early next year, which to put it kindly, is bunk. While Bing has made inroads, the merger with Yahoo has ben anything but seamless. News from today puts some of the starry-eyed projections into perspective. From TechCrunch, Yahoo’s search revenue shortfall for early this year continues, and now Microsoft and Yahoo are passing the blame. The numbers don’t look good:
This is the data since Microsoft took over Yahoo?s U.S. search advertising in return for 12% of Yahoo’s search revenues, with the red line indicating Yahoo’s revenue taking the 12% into account. So even though the merger seems to indicate some increase in market share over the last two quarters, the ad revenue has declined substantially. While Bing and Yahoo may claim that adding the human element makes their paid ad relevancy for search terms better, the data seems to indicate that Google’s algorithm (i.e. Quality Score) is still the best method for getting people to click on an ad, and thereby generate revenue. Perhaps any qualms Yahoo had about AdCenter’s performance versus AdWords back when they chose which company to outsource search to was eased by the magic word “scale”. So far, it appears that the “scale” promised by Microsoft hasn’t made up for lesser platform quality.
Google Plus One
After several months of anticipation, Google released its new social networking feature ?Google Plus One? (or Google+1) in what, at least superficially, appears to be an attempt to compete with Facebook?s wildly popular ?Like? feature. This could have a wide-ranging impact on online search as well as online marketing for a few reasons. The first is that it escalates the very public fracas between Facebook and Google to cull more and more user data for eventual use in more targeted advertising and marketing campaigns for their paying clients.
Until now, Google and Facebook have largely operated in separate spheres; Google revolutionized search engine marketing with AdWords, PageRank, and Analytics, while Facebook has shown the importance of recommendations and testimonials from friends as a powerful tool for learning about virtually any demographic or individual?s behaviors and desires.
Google has recognized this encroaching competition for some time, and Plus One is their bold attempt to not only compete but turn the tide in their favor. While Facebook partnered with Microsoft last year to offer user data and ?Likes? for improving search results for Bing, Google is now trying to create one monolithic tool for combining the already proven strength of their search algorithm with personalized user feedback to even more finely tune search results and advertising.
Google search engineer Matt Cutts has said recently that the PlusOne feature won?t initially be added to the search algorithm as it will take at least several months before the data is sufficient to draw any conclusions on how to integrate it. But make no mistake, one of the main reasons for introducing such a tool is for helping weed out spam and content farms and raising the rankings of more relevant, popular sites. If Google is the web?s police, then Plus One turns all of us into the neighborhood watch.
As for paid search, the ability to give a text ad +1 gives both Google and online marketers more finely tuned data and feedback on their advertising. This will have an obvious impact on how PPC ads are developed and marketed because the accumulation of +1s will be desirable for ranking and word of mouth. The click through rates and general responses in testing has been very positive, and because of this, most companies will want to opt-in to including Plus One on their paid search. Sites can also opt-in to include Plus One on their actual pages, and when a user gives a +1 here, it will be included onto the paid ad on the relevant search engine results.
Plus One could be a game changer for online marketing and viral advertising. Some have been less than enthusiastic about the initial roll-out (like the requirement that to use it, one has to be signed into their Google account). And while the critics may eventually be somewhat right, Google will be probably be content with having some modicum of success in the social network sphere, especially after the PR bungle and widespread antipathy surrounding Buzz.
The Value of Conversion Tracking
Lets start this section on tracking conversions with a small anecdote. A troubled business owner once said Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half. All of us, at some time or the other, must have felt the same way, when you think about it.
In this context, Internet advertising has brought in some much needed respite to business owners when it comes to advertising. It is a clear mark up over traditional modes such as radio and television. The foremost of these is the availability of data for both advertiser and a publisher, the person who is hosting the advertising, as both are privy to the number of visitors that have been exposed to the advertisement (e.g. impressions) and the number of clicks on the advertisement. For advertisers advertising on a search engine, such as Google (the publisher), for example, then the AdWords interface will provide this data.
However, advertisers tend to be clueless when it comes to conversions such as leads, sales, sign-ups – actions that happen ON the site after the click. Regardless of the pricing model, whether it be CPM (cost per 1000 impressions), CPC (cost per click), or even CPA (cost model where the publisher gets paid only when a visitor performs a pre-decided action on the advertisers site), tracking conversions becomes an important piece of the puzzle.
So how does conversion tracking happen? Well, like everything else in the world of technology, it’s a matter of using code, in this case conversion tracking code. Conversion tracking code is usually generated by the publisher (i.e. AdWords) which the advertiser then integrates into the web page which confirms the action. For example, if the action is a newsletter sign-up, the advertiser would add the code on that page of his website which displays the “Thank you for signing up” message. The conversion tracking code would keep track of the number of times visitors went from a landing page to the thank you page.
In most cases, advertising may includes a third party – a neutral, impartial technology provider who hosts the advertiser’s ads or creatives, and keeps track of the number of visitors, clicks, bounces and conversions. The neutral party becomes a very important entity when a publisher is running campaigns of more than one advertiser and the advertiser is running campaigns on more than one publisher. In this case, the third party should ensure the integration of the code.
Tracking conversions thus, may dispel the notion of the skeptical advertiser mentioned above. From not knowing which half of the money spent on advertising is wasted, the advertiser may now concede, at the very least, to know which half was wasted.
AdWords & Analytics are Even Closer
The on again, off again relationship between Google AdWords and Google Analytics has taken another turn in the search engine soap opera but this time for the better. Google has recently announced that it is possible to import goals and transactions from Analytics into AdWords. This is a significant move in the relationship. Think of it as Analytics moving in with AdWords after years of dating.
For years, AdWords users would have to click to and from Analytics to see which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords were returning an investment. For those of us managing multiple accounts, this was nothing short of annoying.
In typical Google fashion, they made this “move in” as easy as 1-2-3, but under one stipulation: AdWords must be linked with Analytics (i.e. each committed to the relationship). Simply:
1. Find conversion tracking under the tools tab.
2. Click on the link “Link your Analytics Goals and Transactions” in the message box.
3. Select the Analytics goals you want to see in AdWords and click “Link”.
Presto! AdWords is now including all your Analytics Goals and Transactions. This will allow you to track conversion performance (including conversion rate and cost per acquisition) and use Analytics data with Conversion Optimizer.
Now, if all relationship move ins were this smooth…
