online marketing chapter 6

Shopping Ads.

. Shopping ads display product images and prices instead of just text.

Language.

Advertisers should remember that not everyone within a particular geography always speaks the same language. Segmenting based on language can be an effective strategy for increasing advertising returns.

Call-only Ads.

Call extensions were already mentioned, and these are different from call-only ads. A call extension is an additional line appended to a usual search ad that allows users to click to place a phone call, as illustrated in the second ad in

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic search ads allow advertisers to turn over some control of their search ads to Google. Google will pull information about the advertiser's products from its website and show the advertiser's ads on searches Google deems are relevant. Google can dynamically change the ads based on what it observes to produce better results for the advertiser. These ads are only recommended for advertisers with enough budget to experiment with the ads first to determine whether they are profitable.

Negative keywords

It can often be helpful to instruct the search engine where not to display an ad. For example, if a company sells men's athletic shoes, but it does not sell men's dress shoes, it should add dress as a negative keyword to ensure that no matter what search query a consumer enters, the ad will not be displayed if the word dress is used.

As with any kind of advertising, there is no guaranteed method for writing ad copy that will outsell one's competitors. But there are some guidelines that can help maximize the likelihood of success with search ads. When working on writing ad copy, web designers should remember to include three things in each ad:

Keywords for relevance Unique Value Proposition (UVP) Call to Action (CTA)

A collection of ads within a campaign that corresponds to a group of related keywords."

Once an advertiser has added its keywords to the ad group, he has the ability to see how much traffic Google estimates it can send it, and the advertiser can set a default bid for the ad group. This sets the same bid for each keyword in the ad group, but the advertiser is able to make adjustments to his bid on each individual keyword later. After writing his first ad, adding keywords, and entering his default bid,

Low Purchase Intent.

People tend to do searches on whichever device is handy at the time they think of doing the search. Most of the time, a person's mobile device is the most handy, so people doing product research or searching for basic information often conduct such searches on mobile devices. Even an amazing mobile website is not likely to produce a high conversion rate

Device Type

Search behavior and purchase behavior differ dramatically across users of desktops, mobile phones, and tablets, so search ads should also be adapted to these differences. If mobile ads prove less profitable than desktop ads, advertisers should pay less for ads on mobile phones (more on paying for search ads in the next section). Alternately, ads encouraging searchers to make a phone call might be more successful on mobile devices, so these ads should be targeted toward mobile devices instead of desktops or tablets.

Google Maps Ads.

Text ads can be displayed when someone is searching on Google Maps

Advertisers should choose a name that will help them remember the promotions, keywords, ads, and landing pages associated with the campaign.

The campaign type they select will determine which campaign settings are available, and they allow advertisers to choose which of Google's advertising networks they are trying to reach.

Google Keyword Planner.

The tools just mentioned are useful for creating a thorough keyword list, but they are costly. Advertisers with a lower budget should probably stick with Google's Keyword Planner tool, which is free. Figure 6.2.2 is a screenshot from Google's Keyword Planner tool:

Average Monthly Searches.

These data can be used to project how many impressions and clicks an ad can acquire in any given month. By clicking on the graph icon to the left of the average search volume number, one can see how many times each keyword was searched over the last 12 months. High search volume keywords will usually drive more impressions and clicks in general, but even keywords with low search volumes can often generate valuable traffic.

Shopping:

This campaign type allows an advertiser to separately manage its Google Shopping Ads.

Set bids manually:

This option gives an advertiser full control over what his maximum CPC bid is for each individual keyword.

Flexible bid strategies:

This strategy is a hybrid model of the above bid types. According to Google, this bid type combines "automated bid optimization with a selection of settings that you control, and can be applied across campaigns, ad groups, and keywords...Advertisers who want to take advantage of the power and ease of automated bidding while maintaining customization, flexibility and control."

Competitive Research

While searching from the perspective of a shopper, take special note of who is advertising for those keywords. Using keyword research tools, input their URL to estimate what those competitors pay per click to advertise on those keywords. One can also gain insights into what other keywords they have selected as relevant places to advertise, and determine if competing on those same keywords is possible. If not, consider variations of those keywords where the competition may not be choosing to advertise. Could those be potentially lucrative keywords? NOTE: SpyFu.com, SEMRush.com, and KeywordSpy.com are tools that can be used for online advertising competitive research.

Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding (also known as Conversion Optimizer):

With this bid type, the advertiser specifies his target CPA, and the search engine automatically sets bids and adjust bids across all of the advertiser's keywords to reach that goal. This option is only available when conversion tracking is properly set up and conversions have been occurring because this feature relies on a campaign's historical performance to predict future results.

At the account level,

advertisers add their credit card information to pay for all of their clicks. Their accounts must be tied to an email and password, created at adwords.google.com. Each time they log in to their accounts, they can get a performance overview and manage each of their campaigns

Fortunately, there is a way to test whether adding a CTA will improve the CTR for US Auto Insurance. By creating multiple versions of an ad,

create an additional version of its ad that included a CTA. Google

Clicks.

A click is counted each time a searcher clicks on an ad in the SERP. In the above example, this advertiser earned 2,101 clicks or 2,101 visits to his website.

AdWords automatically sets bids for the advertiser:

All the advertiser has to do is tell Google the maximum amount he is willing to pay for a click, and AdWords sets the individual keyword bids. It uses historical data and algorithms to maximize the number of clicks an advertiser gets each day based on that bid and budget. This is the recommended method for beginners

Cost per Acquisition (CPA).

An acquisition is typically considered a completed sale for a retail site, or a lead generated for a lead generation site. CPA determines how much it costs, on average, to reach a site's acquisition goal. It is the total amount of money spent on advertising divided by the total number of sales completed (or leads generated). If an advertiser spends $100 and gets 10 sales, its CPA is $10. Search marketers often set a "target CPA," which is the amount they can spend on search ads for one conversion and remain profitable. If the CPA is so high that revenue from a sale is lower than the combined cost of producing and advertising a product, then search ads will not be profitable.

Unique Value Proposition (UVP).

Because a company's ad will be one of about 7 ads on the SERP (in addition to 10 organic search results), its ad must communicate something to the searcher to indicate that what the site has is superior to the other sites. The website's unique value proposition (UVP) is the single thing that sets the site apart from the competition. Here are some examples:

Keywords for Relevance.

CTRs tend to improve when the keyword being searched is in the ad. This is a first indication to the searcher that the website has exactly what the searcher is looking for. In addition, if the keyword is found in the description or in the path (the URL displayed to searchers), that keyword will be be bolded (but not if the keyword is in the headline). Bold type can further attract the searcher's attention.

Impressions.

Each appearance of an ad on the SERP counts as an impression, even if the searcher does not see the ad or click on it. In the above example, the advertiser received 60,367 impressions

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads.

Even a very good retail website will only achieve a 5% conversion rate from its paid search traffic. Among the many reasons why the other 95% did not convert is the possibility that they liked what they saw on the website, are primed to convert, but simply were not quite ready to make a purchase at that moment. Given that circumstance, an advertiser would like to make sure that its ad shows up prominently when this previous non-converter does another search for a product sold by the advertiser. Remarketing lists allow advertisers to create ad campaigns specifically for searchers who have previously visited their website. Knowing that a consumer has previously visited the advertiser's website recently and browsed handheld drills, f

due to the size and reach of Google AdWords, taking the time to discuss AdWords account structure specifically has been worthwhile. Running ads on Yahoo and Bing's search results through the BingAds platform is very similar to AdWords. To learn more about the differences

Google owns the lion's share of searches, but that doesn't mean a BingAds account can't help further a company's success or generate large volumes of traffic. The demographic makeup of Bing and Yahoo users is different from Google users.

Headlines 1 & 2.

Headline 1 shows up at the top of the ad and can be up to 30 characters long. Headline 2 can also be up to 30 characters, and it may show up directly after headline 1 (as in the example ad from Figure 6.3.1), or it may show up underneath headline 1. Google often changes the configuration of ads when their algorithms indicate that a particular configuration will lead to a higher click-through rate, so an advertiser can never be confident exactly how the ad will show up on the SERP.

Level of Competition

High-competition keywords mean that relative to other keywords, a higher number of advertisers bid on that keyword. Keywords with high search volume and low competition are ideal for getting the most traffic for the least amount of money. Keywords with low search volume and high competition tend to send less traffic and cost more money per click, but sometimes the high CPC is justified because these keywords convert at higher rates.

Call to Action (CTA).

If a company's ad is relevant to the searcher, and the searcher likes the company's UVP, he will be favorably inclined to click on the ad. A CTA might be the last nudge that is needed to push the searcher over the edge and earn the advertiser a click. Geico, State Farm, and Progressive all include basically the same CTA: get a quote. Only US Auto Insurance is missing a CTA entirely. Their click-through rate might improve if they included a CTA.

Search advertisers should not lose sight of the fact that the purpose of a campaign is to generate conversions and profits, not just impressions and clicks. Each keyword an advertiser bids on should produce conversions. Multiply the profit per sale by the total number of conversions. That number should surpass the total cost to advertise on that keyword. If not, advertising on that keyword is not profitable. In the above example, the advertiser generated 140 conversions.

If those 140 conversions generated an average of $20 profit each, he would have earned $2,800 in profit from $1,742 in ad spending, making this a profitable campaign. (Note that conversions are not tracked in AdWords unless (1) goals were properly set up in the website's analytics package and (2) the analytics package was properly connected to the search advertising account.)

Poor Mobile Optimization.

If your website is not optimized for mobile usage, you can expect a lower conversion rate from mobile users. Keep in mind that just because your website is mobile optimized from a technical standpoint does not mean it is necessarily optimized for mobile users.

Timing

Many businesses find that searches vary throughout the day, not only in volume but also in quality. For example, an enterprise software company might find that serious potential customers do searches between regular business hours, so searches at night or on weekends are not profitable. The advertiser can restrict the ads to show only during business hours.

A common question asked by digital marketers is whether they should run search ads on queries in which they have earned the top organic listing

Many digital marketers believe the answer to this question is no, for several reasons. First, if Best Buy does not advertise on its own brand name, competitors may start advertising more aggressively on its brand name and steal Best Buy's customers. Second, ads on a company's brand name are inexpensive (the reason for the lower price tag for brand searches has to do with the ad's quality score, which you will learn about in Section 4). Third, real estate on the SERP is valuable, and buying ads allows a company to take up more space on the SERP. other digital marketers believe the answer this question is yes.

Alternate Mobile Conversion.

Mobile search ads may be profitable even when they yield a conversion rate of 0%. Someone who does product research through a search on their mobile phone may have no intention of converting on their phone. But if they find compelling information, they might later move to their desktop computer to complete a transaction, or they may locate the nearest store to make the purchase in person.

Broad Match.

On the opposite end of the match spectrum, an advertiser can utilize broad match by listing a keyword without any modifying characters. Broad match directs Google to show the ad to any search that 'broadly' matches that keyword. The primary advantage of using broad match keywords is, well, breadth. Advertisers are not likely to miss out on valuable advertising opportunities because their ad will show up for anyone doing a search relevant to their products. The main disadvantage of broad match keywords is that ads are likely to show up for searches in which the searcher had no intention of purchasing the advertiser's products. For example, someone who searches for a wakeboard fail video would probably see Bart's ad if Bart used broad match.

Phrase Match

One step above exact match is phrase match. To use phrase match, an advertiser puts quotation marks around "a keyword", which directs the search engine to show an ad only when the searcher's query includes the quoted keyword, but the search can include additional words before or after. If Bart included "wakeboard sale" (including the quotation marks) on his keyword list, his ad would show up for the searches wakeboard sale, best wakeboard sale, and wakeboard sale in Milwaukee, but not for the search wakeboard half price sale.

Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).

Return on ad spend is not shown in the above report, but it is an important metric. The formula for calculating ROAS is: Total Profit/Total Adspend) × 100 = ROAS Any company doing search engine advertising should monitor its ROAS. If it made $30,000 in profit selling cars, and it spent $10,000 on ads, the ROAS would be 300%. (Alternatively, ROAS can be calculated without multiplying by 100, which would give the number 3, meaning the advertiser earned $3 in profit for every $1 spent on advertising.)

Conversions

Search advertisers should not lose sight of the fact that the purpose of a campaign is to generate conversions and profits, not just impressions and clicks. Each keyword an advertiser bids on should produce conversions. Multiply the profit per sale by the total number of conversions. That number should surpass the total cost to advertise on that keyword. If not, advertising on that keyword is not profitable.

Conversion Rate.

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who convert. In the above example, 140 of the 2,101 visitors converted, leading to a conversion rate of 6.66%. Conversion rates vary by industry, but if an advertiser suspects his conversion rate is lower than the industry average, he should consider the following actions:

Description.

The description can be up to 90 characters long. An advertiser would typically expect to see the description displayed below the headlines, but Google often changes the configuration of the description, for example by putting the description next to headline 2 and beneath headline 1.

Writing ad copy: (1) Final URL, (2) Headlines 1 & 2, (3) Path, (4) Description, and (5) Ad extensions.

The final URL, formerly called the destination URL, is the URL of the landing page that customers will be taken to when they click on the ad. This full URL is not shown to searchers, because it may be too long to display on the screen. Even though searchers do not see the final URL, it can be considered the most important part of the ad, because if it is incorrect, the searcher will be taken to the wrong page of the website, or worse yet, may be sent to a broken, nonexistent page (where they will lose the visitor but still pay for the click).

Exact Match

The name of this match type is a bit misleading. "Exact match" implies that the searched-for phrase has to be a letter-for-letter match to one of the keywords in the advertiser's list, but in reality, a search phrase will still match an exact match keyword if the search is a close variant of the keyword (as explained by Google here). A close variant includes misspellings and even abbreviations. To use exact match for a keyword, the advertiser places brackets around [a keyword]. The fundamental advantage of using exact match is that the advertiser will waste little to no money advertising to searchers that are not interested in the advertiser's products. The disadvantage is that the advertiser is likely to miss out on valuable advertising placements when searchers search for the advertiser's product using an unanticipated variation.

Ad Extensions.

The parts already discussed (the final URL, headlines, path, and description) make up a "typical" search ad. Interestingly, however, "typical" search ads have become more rare than common. Instead, most ads now are displayed with one or more extensions. The State Farm ad in Figure 5.3.1 was displayed with three ad extensions: (1) a review extension, (2) a consumer ratings extension, and (3) a sitelinks extension, in that order. Advertisers do not have the ability to control when these types of ads with ad extensions appear, but each advertiser does have the ability to opt in to each ad extension individually.

Path.

The path, formerly called the display URL, is the simplified URL that is shown to searchers. This can simply be the domain name, or the advertiser can indicate to the searcher what kind of page the ad leads to by specifying further URL specifics. The State Farm

Searcher Intent.

Think about what the searcher wants and what your website provides. For example, if the Bart's Water Sports website does not include consumer reviews for each wakeboard it sells, then wakeboard reviews should likely be added to the negative keyword list. Otherwise, Bart will end up paying for clicks from a searcher who wants to see reviews before buying and thus is unlikely to convert on Bart's website.

Cost.

This advertiser paid an average of $.83 per click for 2,101 clicks, yielding a total cost of $1,742 for this keyword. As the next section discusses, an advertiser can set a daily budget for search campaigns. The keywords that lead to the most sales with the best margins deserve the most budget. If an advertiser is reaching his daily budget each day, keywords with lower profit margins should not be allocated a budget that could go to better-performing keywords.

Search network only

This allows advertisers' text ads to display on the keywords they target in Google SERPs and other websites that use Google's search engine results, like AOL.com and Ask.com. Because the list of sites that use Google to power their search engine changes, it is hard to find an up-to-date list of all of the Search Network partners. One way to tell is by looking for the "powered by Google" or "enhanced by Google"

Search network with display select:

This allows text ads to display on the keywords a company selects in Google SERPs, other search sites that use Google's search engine results, and websites that display text and banner ads distributed by Google that have content Google deems relevant to the company's ad. Because this method makes distinguishing between the display and search network results in the campaign difficult, this campaign type should not be used in most cases.

Display network only:

This campaign type is for running text and banner ads across Google's network of sites that have given Google permission to run Google's ads on their site. This relationship between Google and publishers running Google ads on their site is managed through Google.com/Adsense. Learn more about it here. With this campaign type, a company's ads are never shown in Google SERPs.

Modified Broad Match.

This match type was added as an option on Google's AdWords platform in 2015 because advertisers wanted a middle ground between broad match (which is often too broad for advertisers' liking) and phrase match (which is often not broad enough). Placing a plus sign in front of a +keyword activates modified broad match. If Bart included "+wakeboard sale" (not including the quotation marks) in his list of keywords, Bart's ad would show up only for searches that included wakeboard or a close variant, but the term "sale" would allow for broader matches like discount or cheap. If Bart included "+wakeboard +sale" (plus signs in front of both words, not including the quotation marks), his ad would show up for searches using both words, close variants of both words, in any order, and including other words, like wakeboards half price sale and sale on wakebords (misspellings typically count as a close variant).

Suggested Bid

Using historical data, Google looks at what other advertisers are paying per click to advertise on that keyword. Advertisers use this information to determine how much they can expect to pay per click to advertise on specific keywords. Because of the unknown variables of each advertiser, it is not the exact amount that each advertiser will pay, but it does provide a close estimate.

Other selecting factories: Geography

f your products only ship to the continental United States, you clearly should not show ads in Alaska and Hawaii. If you are a local service provider that serves only five zip codes, you should only advertise to those five zip codes. Search engines allow advertisers to specify the geographic regions they wish to target with their ads. Even if you sell products to all geographies, you may wish to create multiple ad campaigns, each targeting a smaller geography. This allows you to include geography-specific information in the ad itself ("Free shipping throughout Texas") or to direct people in different geographies to different landing pages. You may also find that certain geographies are more profitable than others, so you can allocate more ad budget to those geographies.

Choosing the right keywords for an ad: Search For Yourself

first, imagine being in the shoes of a potential customer. Sit down at the computer, think about what those customers would search, and start typing in what comes to mind. What keywords would they type in? Take special note of what Google Auto-Suggests

An advertiser can have multiple ads in an ad group, and he should run at least two variations of the ad at the same time, which will allow him to see which ad performs best.

he ads with the higher CTRs and lower CPAs are the ones he will want to continue to run. Ad data are available at both the campaign and ad-group level of the account.

CPC.

he average cost per click (CPC), in concert with the conversion rate, will determine whether the search ads are profitable. In the above example, this advertiser paid an average of $.83 per click. Because an advertiser's CPC is calculated dynamically, not all 2,101 clicks cost the advertiser the same amount. Some were more than $.83, whereas some were less, but on average, they cost $.83 each.

CTR.

he click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of impressions that yield a click. In the above example, the 60,367 impressions yielded 2,101 clicks for a CTR of 3.48%. CTRs vary by industry, advertiser, ad position, keyword, ad text, and so on. CTRs between 1% and 4% are typical, though an advertiser should be constantly striving to increase the CTR no matter what the current CTR is. A low CTR means few website visits, which in and of itself is bad, but a low CTR will also give the advertiser a low Quality Score, which will drive up the advertiser's cost per click.

A specific word, or combination of words, used to target your ads to potential customers. When a user searches on your keyword, your ad might be shown."

keyword bids, keyword match types, and keyword data can be managed at the campaign and ad-group levels. Keyword organization, however, can only be managed at the ad-group level. Once the top performing keywords are determined, separating out those keywords into individual ad groups allows the advertiser to be even more specific in tailoring his ad, landing page, and bids, and to also more readily monitor the performance of that keyword.