Google have updated their AdWords trademark policy in a move that will affect many advertisers.
This update affects what advertisers can say in their AdWords creative.
For Resellers
Up to this point, resellers of trademarked brands needed the trademark owner’s permission in order to mention the trademarked brand in the ad creative. Authorised users were placed on a white list of permitted users.
From the 14th September, anyone selling or reviewing trademarked brand products on their website can start to mention the trademarked brand in their ad creative.
Here’s an example
Until now resellers of Epsom Ink Cartridges were not allowed to mention Epsom in their AdWords creative, unless authorised by Epsom and placed on the trademark white list. From the 14th September, as long as advertisers clearly display the Epsom brand on the landing page, and that a users is able to purchase the Epsom cartridge or read an impartial review of it, those advertisers will be allowed to mention ‘Epsom’ in their AdWords creative.
This change brings the UK into line with trademark policy in the US.
The change will have the biggest effect on resellers and review websites.
What should you do now?
Euston Digital will ensure that all those ads that have been previously disallowed for trademark reasons are resubmitted in order to go live on the 14th. Any other opportunities to include previously restricted trademarks will be evaluated in order to improve the CTR of creatives. Once live, we will test the performance of creatives in order to order work where trademarked terms perform well – and when they do not.
We will also identify where on your website the trademark owner’s brand could be highlighted, in order to make the approval process run smoothly.
For questions and clarification contact your account manager.
When in front of a PC, users often have time to sit back, relax and take time to research the right solution for them. But when a user searches from a mobile phone, they’re usually want to take action. They’re out and about, and want to find answers straight away, with the minimum of hassle or fuss.
This action is often finding your business, or getting your contact details. Mobile users often use maps to find a business and work out how to get there. Thanks to AdWords Location Extensions it’s now possible to put your phone number and location on an expandable map, which can appear either in apps or on Mobile websites on the Google Display Network (GDN).
What does it look like?
The ad looks like a banner text ad along with an icon representing a business. Users can click to expand, and a map shows up with a marker for your location, a click to call phone number and an option to get directions.
These ads are very powerful. As they’re based on where the user is, they will see the number and business address that’s nearest to them. This is a key way to boost visitors to your actual physical business location.
Another great feature is that you only get charged when someone clicks and visits your website, not when they expand your map or get directions. The click to call cost is the same as the CPC of a visit to the website.
How do I set it up?
1. To start with, on the settings tab make sure your campaign is opted into the Google Display Network.
2. Next, opt to display your campaign on iPhones and other smartphone devices with full Internet browsers.
3. Then, on the extensions tab from the overview page, set up location extensions and add your phone number and address.
4. Upload a business logo, or choose from the set of icons available.
The map and placemarker ad will now automatically be generated when users perform a local search from their mobile device.
That’s it
Do you carry out business and meet customers at a physical location? Do you have single or multiple retail outlets? Use location extensions to make it easy for local people to find your business. And then let us know about how you get on!
Ever since Google Analytics launched, a big criticism has always been its focus on the last click in the customer journey.
As any marketer knows, a business usually reaches potential customers a few times before they finally buy. So to reward the marketing channel with the final touch point takes value away from all those other channels.
Robust, detailed tracking solutions (we use DC-Storm) provide hard evidence of these multiple touch points. Using lifecycle reports you can drill into all the keywords someone used before they finally bought from you. And if you can see these touch points, you can attribute some marketing value to them all.
Finally, AdWords and Google Analytics have wised up to this, with their recently introduced AdWords Search Funnel Reports (ASFR).
And there’s something a little bit special about AdWords Search Funnel Reports. Whilst other tracking solutions can tell you which keywords generated clicks on the customer journey, the ASFR can tell you which keywords created clicks and impressions on the customer journey. So this report can tell you when a customer saw your ad even if they didn’t click on it.
Here’s some new metrics that the ASFR reveals:
Assist clicks: These are clicks that did not lead directly to sale, but occurred in the lead up to a sale. Assist impressions: The same as assist clicks but for when your ad appeared but was not clicked on, and did not appear immediately prior to a sale. Path length (clicks): The number of ads clicked before a sale. Assisted conversions: The number times a keyword or campaign played a role in the journey to a sale. Last click conversions: The traditional metric – when a campaign or keyword was the last one before a sale.
So what are the most useful reports to look at?
To start with, try the ‘Assist clicks and impressions report’:
With this, you can find out how many times a keyword or campaign assisted a sale, whether it generated a click or an impression.
If you’ve got keywords that are great for assists, then these are good keywords to target for expansion.
Then try looking at the ‘Top Paths report’:
With this report you can identify the particular combinations of keywords or campaigns that led to a conversion. You can quickly see the customer journey that often moves from generic keyword to brand keyword.
That’s it for now
The AdWords search funnel reports can highlight much greater depth to your data. If you want Euston Digital to use AdWords Search Funnels in your PPC Search marketing, get in touch.
The World Cup is now a (thankfully distant) memory, but the warm weather and school holidays have had their usual impact on search volumes. For some this means a boost, but most markets are down. All eyes are on September – a traditionally strong time – when PPC and SEO campaigns will pull at their hardest. It’s important to have plenty of budget set aside for then.
Plenty of clients ask us whether its worth investing in either PPC or SEO. We’d say both! But here’s the view from Google on which type of click is worth the most.
With 1 out of every 5 display ads served within Facebook, every marketer needs to get to grips with this Social Network. Here’s our Beginners Guide to advertising on Facebook.
Google Analytics has just added a new feature that makes tracking clicks from mobile ads a whole lot easier.
If enabled, Google analytics can automatically tag all AdWords clicks with a unique URL the helps it identify that traffic source. However, in some cases it’s not possible to link an AdWords account with an Analytics account. And in other cases, you might want to track clicks from mobile ads on other networks.
So how do you go about identifying and segmenting mobile clicks?
The answer lies in a new tracking parameter called Mobile ValueTrack. This automatically ads a tag to the destination URL, allowing Google Analytics to identify it as a mobile click. To use the feature, just add the Mobile ValueTrack parameter: {ifmobile:NewTagName} into the “Destination URL” field when you’re putting together your mobile text ad.
Redirecting traffic to a mobile optimised site
The first, huge benefit of the mobile ValueTrack parameter, is that it allows you to identify clicks from mobiles, and to redirect them to a mobile optimised version of your website.
Let’s say you wanted all clicks from mobile devices for your website www.travelingdog.net to be redirected to www.travelingdog,net/mobile. All you’d need to do is add the mobile ValueTrack parameter {ifmobile:mobile}.
Here’s what it would look like in AdWords:
Tracking using third party tags
If – like Euston Digital – you’re often using third party tracking tags, you can still use Mobile ValueTrack to track your mobile clicks. All you need to do is insert the tag into the destination URL.
In the example of travellingdog.net above, you just need to add the Mobile ValueTrack parameter into the landing page URL so it looks like this:
www.travelingdog.net?type={ifmobile:mobclick}
In this example, the tag “mobclick” gets inserted into the URL, which lets you identify those clicks from mobiles.
If you need help tacking clicks from mobile devices for your PPC or Mobile campaign, get in touch.
A local geo-targeted campaign is an essential part of any marketing strategy for small to medium sized businesses. In particular, to have in place a correct GEO located SEO and PPC campaign is a great way of driving quality traffic to local websites.
A geo-targeted search marketing campaign is based on optimizing location long tail keywords in order to increase local leads and conversion rate.
To take advantage of the recent growth of geo located social websites like Foursquare and Gowalla, any web-savvy local business owners should start getting into social media marketing by launching its own geo targeted social campaign.
There are some interesting tools out there that help you get started with geo targeted social marketing.
Geo-targeted campaign tool
For example, GEOtoko is a nice platform that allows you to create your own geo targeted campaigns in a minute.
You can create location-based contests and sweepstakes to reward customers for checking in using Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, Yelp and so on. You can also post your updates directly in Facebook.
Once you have created your campaign, it is crucial to promote it on a daily basis through your social networking profiles as a constant reminder of the on-going contest to your potential customers.
Our first location based campaign
Here at Euston Digital we have recently launched our first location based campaign with GEOtoko, an interesting contest based on the tweets and checks-in that we receive daily.
For every tweet and check-in with Foursquare and Gowalla, from August 10 to August 17 we have been giving away a free website audit .
We think that geo-targeting marketing is a great addition to the overall SEM strategy of small to medium sized businesses, so keep your eyes on our blog for the latest tips on how to best strengthen your local popularity.
Start your own geo targeted campaign today for your chance to win more local leads!
In the last couple of years, Google have added a few ‘extensions’ to AdWords campaign settings that allow the savvy advertiser to make their ads stand out from the crowd.
Aside from making your ad appear larger on the page, they also let searchers grab more detail about your service, and navigate deeper into your site.
We’ve already talked about Sitelinks, an effective way to take more space on the SERPs and let users reach new pages. And just a few days ago we discussed phone extensions which can display your phone number to some searchers.
Now it’s time to talk about location extensions. Launched last year, these let you attached relevant business address to your ads. This is what it looks like in the SERPs:
And this is what it looks like when expanded:
Location extensions can be added to campaigns from the ‘extensions’ or ’settings’ tab of your AdWords account. You can either link your AdWords account to your local places account, and thus display your location listed there; or add an address manually.
Location extensions have also just been upgraded, to allow the display of multiple addresses. In this example, someone is searching for their local Toys R Us store:
Clearly it’s useful to allow customers to see the location that’s nearest to them, or the easiest to get to. And if they move the map, the relevant locations appear for the new area shown. For offline businesses this is clearly going to provide a boost to in-store footfall.
To make sure you have multiple addresses displayed for your location, you need to link your AdWords account to your Google Places account, and make sure all your locations have been listed there. If you’ve got loads of addresses don’t worry, these can be uploaded in bulk.
If you need Euston Digital to help adding location extensions to your PPC campaigns, please get in touch.
What are biggest challenges for an SEO project? In this article you will find 9 essential SEO action points.
Using Excel for SEO, in this article a nice collection of tips.
MOBILE SEO
Start thinking mobile SEO, how to optimise your website for iPad and tablets users.
Best practices for mobile search marketing campaigns in this article featured @searchengineland.
SOCIAL SEO
Twitter vs. Facebook – Twitter is imposing itself as the new “Answer Machine”. Why Google should fear Twitter.
What makes a tweet influential? New research by HP Labs’ Social Computing Lab, shows some interesting insights.
Foursquare vs. Facebook – Facebook is jumping into the geo-location game. And the winner is …
GLOBAL SEO
In this interesting article, Bill Hunt explains the SEO challenges of language detection, essential information to optimize local market content.
Other News from the World of Search
Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some paid online content. What does this mean for SEO? Your site speed is an even more important factor now.
The Google Display Network (GDN) is the new umbrella name for what used to be called the Google Content Network. Having been seen by many to have saturated the commercial upside of search, Google has rebranded to make it clear that it has big growth plans for content, display, and graphical advertising options.
There’s lots of ways to go about adding a campaign to the GDN. These include:
Keyword based targeting
Site and page-specific targeting
Category based targeting
Audience targeting
Remarketing
And you can use a combination of these targeting tools to improve your targeting options. For example, if you only want to target people who have been on your website previously, who are into travel, and who are reading a travel article on the News site, then you can choose:
Remarketing with audience targeting, and then select keyword based category targeting.
The Google Ad Planner
Google also lets advertisers make use of their (previously agency focused) Double Click Ad Planner. With this tool you can identify sites where you can reach your audience.
To start with, research sites that you know your audience spends time on, or target them by location, interest, demographic or keyword search.
You can choose from pre-defined audiences that are commonly used by marketers. You can also make use of subdomain or ad placements to target by greater detail. You can also use the Ad Planner 1000 to find the largest sites on the web.
The tool is interactive which means that you can rank the sites according to the criteria. And with lists you can note the best sites and placements for use in the future.
You can also use the tool to plan non-Google campaigns by just filtering to those sites not in the GDN. And if you’re fixed on just one or more forms of creative – such as video – you can filter to just those too.
Once you’ve drilled down to just those sites that you’re interested in, you can then grab detailed information from the planner, including traffic stats, demographics and unique visitor metrics.
When you’ve found the sites that fit your criteria, you can add them to your media plan, and either export it straight into your Adwords account or download it as a CSV.
Here’s a video that takes you though the whole process:
That’s it
The Google Ad Planner is an effective tool to plan online campaigns both on and off the GDN. Take a look and let us know what you think.
It’s a question we often get asked when setting up a PPC campaign for a client. Should we include a phone number on the advert?
Of course you should!
At first, it seems like a good idea. By adding a phone number you’re making it easy for users to get in touch, and you’re potentially reducing cost – users may call your number straight from the Search Engine Results Page, rather than click on your advert.
No way!
But what often happens is that adding a phone number doesn’t seem to generate calls, whilst it actually drives down your CTR. A PPC ad is just 140 characters. To take up so much space with a number rather than a benefit is a waste of space. This waste leads to a poorer message, a lower CTR and a lower quality score, which means you have to bid up to maintain the same position on the page.
And users who are searching online are looking for websites, not looking to make calls. They’re too early in the buying cycle to pick up the phone.
Maybe sometimes…
However, rather than be hard and fast, there are Google Ads which are worth adding a number to.
Local Business
If you’re running a geographically targeted PPC campaign for a local company, it’s worth testing a number. Rather than put users off, they recognise the number code and mentally note that this is a local business. Whilst they may not call from the ad, it’s a clear signal that they’re dealing with somebody local.
Searches on local properties
Some searches are set up to be local. These include searches on Google Maps. If you’re running a campaign that include these types of results, it’s a good idea to use a phone number
Searches on mobile devices
Users who search from their mobile phone are usually looking to take action straight away. Phones aren’t used in the background research phase, they’re used when a user wants to do something right now, often because they’re out and about. For these campaigns it’s good to include a phone number so that users can immediate connect with your business.
Once you’ve set your Google Places account, link it to your AdWords account from the Settings page of the relevant campaign.
If you’re having trouble setting up a Google Places account, you can manually enter that data under the Settings.
Now that they’re linked, your phone number will get displayed beside your ad, and it will often include a link to your location and Places page.
Mobile Ads
Including your phone number in mobile ads
From within the Setting page of your AdWords account, you can opt to have your campaign shown on most smart-phones, such as iPhones, HTCs and Blackberry Storms.
In order to add a phone number to these ads just click the ‘extensions’ tab and then choose ‘phone extensions’. Just add your number. When your ad is shown on a smart phone a call icon will be included on the ads. This applies to both search and content campaigns.
To reach non-smartphone users you need to set up a mobile ad. You can select ‘mobile ad’ from the ‘ads’ tab of your campaign. Simply include a phone number in the ad.
Test using Sitelinks
Sitelinks are not only and important way to grab more of the SERPs, they’re also somewhere you can test adding a phone number. There is a small danger that you will push your CTR south by including phone number here, since it’s another opportunity to sell. So be sure to monitor it closely.
That’s it
There’s no hard and fast rule to adding phone numbers to your AdWords creatives, so follow these guidelines to make an informed choice. As ever, be sure to test the effect of the changes you make. Any comments? Leave them below.
Location extensions can be added to campaigns from the ‘extensions’ or ’settings’ tab of your AdWords account. You can either link your AdWords account to your local places account, and thus display your location listed there; or add an address manually.
