Putting your company’s phone number into the ad copy of a PPC ad has long been a best practice. If you have the space within the ad, why not? It kills two birds with one stone: Not only do you have the potential to get a phone call from a prospective client, it also doesn’t cost you anything since your ad was never clicked!

Sadly, those days are disappearing, but only partially. When logging into your AdWords account any time over the last few weeks, you probably saw this message:

Fear not, true believers! This is just Google’s way of nudging — forcing — you into taking your business’ phone number out of the ad itself and using Google Call Extensions. In their official announcement, they said, “We are making this change to foster a safer, more consistent user experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.”

Along with the introduction of Enhanced Campaigns earlier this year, Google seems to be ushering their AdWords users, ready or not, into the world of customized ad delivery based on location and device.

Google does provide complete instructions on how to add call extensions to your account . Call extensions are going to show up on desktop and tablets differently than they will on smartphones and smaller mobile devices.

On desktops and tablets, they’ll look like this:

On smartphones and smaller mobile devices, users will see this:

Aside from having truncated ad copy, the real difference between the two ways your phone number will appear is the appearance of the actual phone number. In the desktop and tablet ad, the phone number is static since you cannot call directly from those devices, at least not without a third party program such as Skype. In the mobile ad, the phone number is taken completely out of the ad and is replaced with a button that will make the call for the customer. On one hand, this is a much easier way to connect to a business, but from Google’s standpoint, it also prevents customers from dialing the number themselves and denying Google the money from the “click” that should have happened.

Do Call Extensions Make Sense for Your Business?

The only other change to consider is with the phone number itself. You have two choices: Either you can have your actual number show up, or Google can auto-populate your ad with a random phone number and give you the ability to track things such as the length of call, and even time-specific conversions.

On one hand, using your own local number in the ad could build trust from potential customers, but you wouldn’t get Google’s call tracking statistics out of it. On the other hand, the Google generated numbers are not guaranteed to be local, but they come with free call tracking, which a lot of small businesses do not have. Whether you use Google’s numbers or your own depends entirely on whether you have call tracking in place and how important having a local phone number display is to you.

If you don’t use phone numbers in any of your PPC ads, this really doesn’t have any effect on you. If you do, it’s not much work to switch over to call extensions using the tutorial linked above. Either way, unlike a lot of the changes made when Enhanced Campaigns came around, Google is actually adding functionality without taking anything away. After how the launch of Enhanced Campaigns went, this is significant and welcome news.

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Carolyn Shelby, Director of SEO

Paid Search

First to present was PPC Specialist, Rich Funk. Here are the four main topics he covered:

Effective Keyword Lists
Keywords are the most important to your account because that is how you choose where your ad is seen. Having the wrong keyword list is usually worse than having no keyword list; consider it a better investment to throw money down the drain.

Advanced Targeting
The people you target and where they are can be just as important as your keyword list. Efficiency is key here. Putting your ad in front of people in the wrong place or the wrong time can be wasteful. Effective geographic targeting is important to the campaign.

Proper Account Structure
Make it easy on yourself. If you have an account that is messy and disorganized, any changes you make will take longer and work less effectively. Being organized will help you make quick changes to your campaigns and give you more time to optimize.

Effective Ad Copy
Your ad copy is how you present yourself to your potential customers. If you have the wrong message you could alienate potential clients. Ad copy testing will help determine the most effective messaging. You can do this by creating A/B tests on a regular basis.

Search Engine Optimization (Organic)

Here’s what Director of SEO, Carolyn Shelby, covered:

What Search Engines Do
Search engines want to refer each user to websites most relevant to the user’s search query. This relevancy is determined by a number of factors – all designed to ensure authenticity. Search engines do not support underhanded tactics and tricks to get to the top.

Multichannel Optimization
We can’t always control what types of results appear (blended/universal, news, images, video, etc.), so we need to optimize all of our digital assets. We also need to keep our messaging (the voice and style of our brands) unified across all channels (social media channels, web, print, broadcast, etc.). Every time a consumer is exposed to our brand, we want that exposure to reinforce our message. Unified messaging builds and reinforces branding and helps train the customers to search for you by the terms YOU want to be found under.

Business Considerations
Before getting submerged in SEO, your business needs to determine its goals on the web and make sure your web development/marketing team understands your business model. The most important question (that everyone on the team should be able to answer is): How do we make money? Do we sell impressions? Do we only make money on conversions? How do we define a conversion? Who are our customers?

Build out the right type of website functionality and content to suit your business needs.

On-Page SEO Best Practices
Many factors go into SEO and their value collectively can improve your search rankings. Carolyn discussed metadata, good and bad coding, how to brainstorm for keywords, and the importance of developing quality content for your website.

Whoa, that’s a lot to cover in one session!

Yes, there was a lot of information covered in the Intro to Digital Marketing seminar. If you were unable to attend, we hope you will join us at an upcoming seminar in April. We will be covering Social Media, Advanced PPC, and Advanced SEO. So whether your business is just getting started in digital marketing or your team has successful experience, we are here to provide the most recent updates and strategies for success.

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Upgrade! Enhanced! These are two of the ultimate trigger words for any search marketer, so if any of you reading this have already clicked on the button to upgrade, even without knowing everything about Enhanced Campaigns, I cannot blame you. I just hope that Enhanced Campaigns are for you. Some accounts will see a lot of benefit from this change. Others may have to deal with being opted into targeting they might not want.

So are Enhanced Campaigns for you? Let’s look at some of the benefits and drawbacks to see whether this upgrade is actually an advantage for you.

The Good

If your PPC account has a different targeting or messaging strategy for multiple devices or geographic locations, you probably have a large number of campaigns in your account. After all, a good search marketer will manage separate campaigns for desktops, mobile phones and tablets if there is a different strategy for each.

Well get ready to clean up all of that. One benefit of Enhanced Campaigns is that you’ll now be able to manage bids across location, time of day, device type and more from a single campaign. For those of us who have accounts with 30-50 different campaigns, this is potentially a huge time saver.

You’ll also be able to show your ads across all devices while being able to designate specific ad text, sitelinks or extensions to show only on specific devices. On top of that, you’ll be able to specify location and time of day. You’ll no longer have to create a brand new campaign for every combination of geo-targeting, device and time of day. Here’s what this will look like (Click to enlarge):

The last major update of Enhanced Campaigns is having additional types of conversions. Now you’ll be able to track conversions such as app downloads and phone calls from smartphones directly within the AdWords interface. Google also mentioned that in the future, store visits could be tracked as well, which would close a giant blind spot in a lot of location-based PPC campaigns.

The Bad

Not everything is sunshine and roses for everyone. The reason you have to opt in to Enhanced Campaigns right now is because it introduces some major changes to your campaigns. These are changes that may not benefit many businesses without mobile-optimized sites.

One of the more significant changes is that tablets and desktops are now considered the same as far as AdWords targeting goes. On the surface this makes sense, with most popular tablets like the iPad and Nexus 7 having desktop browsers as opposed to mobile browsers. However, there are some companies that have found low-cost, high converting traffic on tablets specifically over the last few years, and those tablet-specific campaigns will now have to go out the window. For example, if you have an app that’s designed specifically for tablets, you’ll have to find a way to get that strategy to work with desktop searchers seeing the same ad copy or landing pages. On the flip side of that, you also cannot opt out of targeting tablets. Those of you who have conversions that involve software or whitepaper downloads, which don’t work on tablets, will just have to work around it. Same with those of you who have Flash-heavy sites that don’t display on tablets.

One potential solution would be not targeting iOS or Android operating systems, but Google is doing away with operating system targeting, too.

The Ugly

The worst part of Google’s Enhanced Campaigns is the fact that you cannot technically opt out of targeting mobile devices. Instead of being able to choose whether you want to target mobile phones and adjusting your mobile bids accordingly, all Enhanced Campaigns require targeting mobile devices. Instead of bidding with a dollar amount on mobile traffic, you’ll use a percentage of your desktop bid.

For example, if you bid $3 on a keyword on desktop, but you only want to bid $1.50 for the same keyword on mobile, you’ll have to set the mobile bid at -50%. Technically, you could set all of your mobile bids to “-100%” if you don’t want to target mobile devices, but that seems like a very complicated way to do something that currently exists within Google’s interface.

An unfortunate side effect of forcing all AdWords users to opt into mobile targeting is the fact that mobile click prices will probably rise over the next few months. One reason search marketers love mobile PPC is because for the most part, mobile traffic is less expensive since there isn’t as much competition. Now that more people are going to be present in the mobile auction, whether they like it or not, prices will shift because of the increased competition. This is good for Google. This is bad for you.

So How Does This Affect Me?

If you have three or more campaigns that are cloned versions of your desktop campaigns, one for each targeting segment you do, Enhanced Campaigns are a godsend. It’s going to streamline your setup process and cut down on the day-to-day upkeep that goes into supporting all of those campaigns.

If you’re not doing any mobile targeting, you will need to start soon. (See other reasons your business needs a mobile-optimized site.) Yes, there are ways to avoid having to pay for mobile traffic, as I explained above. But that might not last too much longer. The future of paid search is here, and we’re all along for the ride, even if we aren’t ready quite yet.

The post Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly appeared first on 435 Digital.

“What is CPC?”
Answer: Cost Per Click

“How do I figure out an ROAS?”
Answer: Calculate your Return on Advertising Spending by dividing revenue from an ad by the cost of that ad.

“Why on Earth do I need to call my CPA to read this report?”
Answer: Cost Per Action is another way to manage online advertising. This kind of CPA won’t call you back.

CTR: One of the Most Important Metrics

I would like to take a closer look at one of the most important metrics in every single paid search account: “Click through rate”—or CTR, as you may have heard it. On the surface, CTR is just like playing Temple Run. It’s easy to understand on a surface level. Yet things get a lot more complicated if you want to get advanced with it. Also, crocodiles are involved.

The basics of CTR are simple. You take the number of clicks during a specific time period, divide it by the number of impressions received over that same time period, and BAM! You have your CTR. One hundred clicks coming from 1,000 impressions? You have yourself a cool 10.00% CTR. Your job is done. Pack it up, time to go home, right?

Well, yes, and no.

Technically, yes, that 10.00% conversion rate is impressive if you look at just the overall number alone…but is that really what’s going on? A closer look at your account may show that 60% of the clicks you received are from brand-name terms, which should always have a high click through rate. Let’s say that those 60 clicks have a click through rate of 30%. That would mean that the non-brand terms in your account would have a click through rate of just 5.00%. Now a 5.00% CTR in most verticals is really strong, but it’s nowhere near the 10.00% you thought you had going for you in this completely made up scenario that I’ve presented. It’s just a cautionary tale about calculating CTR and how you can’t just take the overall account number at face value. Here’s a visual of what that scenario would look like:

Like I said, the brand numbers for CTR are strong, but those are expected to be strong. Seeing that all non brand terms have half the CTR as the overall account means that some work can be done to bring that number higher.

However, the same can be said of the opposite. If you have an abysmally low CTR (something below 0.10%), there’s a good chance that you’re opted into Google’s Display Network. The Display Network is a good source of cheap traffic, but it’s very low conversion AND very low CTR. Just as a refresher, any of your campaigns that are opted into Google’s Display Network will serve ads on the sidebar or the bottom of related articles across the web. In other words, your ads will show up thousands of times a month in front of people who aren’t searching for your company or services, therefore, the Display Network traffic always has extremely low click through rates. CTR for Display Network traffic is usually around 0.01% to 0.03%It’s important to separate Display Network traffic from regular search traffic. More times than not, you’ll see that a 0.02% overall CTR actually has a CTR of 3.00% – 4.00% for search engine traffic. In paid search, you never miss out on a chance to show what an awesome job you’re actually doing.

For example, take a look at this screenshot. Click through rate is the percentage on the far right:

According to this, the overall click through rate for the account is a dismal 1.87%. However, if you look at the click through rate from Google Search alone, it’s a much stronger 11.78%. It’s only the Display Network and its massive amount of impressions (over 6 times that of traditional Search) that artificially drags the overall CTR down. For reporting purposes, I would peg the CTR for this account at 11.78% and completely leave out Display Network traffic. That’s the only way to calculate your true CTR.

The moral of the story is this: don’t just take the overall CTR of your account and call it a day. Yes, it’s still a nice number to measure, but it’s not 100% of the story. Dive a little deeper, even to the keyword level, and figure out what’s going on in your account. It can be a good way to pinpoint what ad copy is and is not working.

As for how crocodiles are involved…well they could be anywhere, right? Just keep an eye out. We’ll all be better off that way.

The post PPC Terminology: Click Through Rate appeared first on 435 Digital.

Paid Search management tools are ever-changing in an attempt to keep up with the rising needs of agencies to supply their clients with advanced reporting metrics and superior management tools. It should be no surprise to learn that Google is at the forefront of making sure that their PPC management tool, DoubleClick Search, is up to par with everything agencies need to keep clients happy. A few of our team members were fortunate enough to be invited to a Google DoubleClick Search roundtable dinner last night, where Chicago area thought leaders came together to discuss DoubleClick Search in its present form and where it’s headed next.

DoubleClick’s senior product leads ran us through several demos to show off some of the newer features to address three of the over-arching goals for the tool:

1. Increased Efficiency

Google mindset has always been to make their products easy to use and as efficient as possible. Whether you’re interested in overviews or you want to dive deep into your data, DoubleClick provides advanced automation options and better bulk operations to make PPC management more efficient. The demo we were shown covered some of the ways that the tool helps to define processes and clean up workflow. Specifically, we were given a closer look at the automated rules options and an overview of how inventory management is made more simple for retail clients using Google Merchant Center data within DoubleClick Search. If you’re a big Google Merchant Center fan, this feature is extremely beneficial for you and something that few other paid search management tools can provide at this time.

2. Reporting

Google’s goal with report is to present data in a more consumable way and gear it to help agencies achieve the highest ROI possible for clients. If you’re at all familiar with Google Analytics, you know that Google gives you several options to visualize the metrics. Recent updates to DoubleClick Search provide almost real time conversion info, making you able to react to the performance of your paid search campaigns almost instantly, if needed.

3. Unified Platform

DoubleClick Search has also been focused on creating cross channel solutions between search and display. For remarketing fans, DoubleClick Search features search to display remarketing tools, increasing your ability to reach customers who have already shown some interest in your products or services.

It was great to see just how mindful Google is of what their customers think about their products, and that they took the time to hear the suggestions and concerns of Chicago paid search marketing agencies. A delicious dinner at Trump Tower didn’t hurt either.

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However, Halloween can’t be completely ignored in the land of paid search. It’s a pretty important milestone marking only 2 months until your 2013 PPC plan goes into effect. If you’re in the process of ironing out the details, excellent. If you have yet to start…please do so immediately. Skip trick-or-treating tonight if you have to. Trust me, the world will keep spinning tomorrow without seeing your Gangnam Style costume.

The most important facet of PPC to factor into your 2013 plans is mobile. A lot of businesses might not put much budget or thought into mobile, or ignore it completely. This is very dangerous. According to Google’s estimates, mobile search traffic will surpass desktop search traffic some time in April of next year. If you’re not ready for mobile traffic, you may be losing half your audience.

Obviously the most important step is making sure you have somewhere to put that mobile traffic. If your website or form submission/purchase path is a complicated mess on a mobile phone, you need to fix this ASAP. Even if you don’t plan on running mobile PPC ads, users can still find your site on a mobile phone through either SEO or your Facebook page. it’s not up to you anymore how you want people to find you. We’re at the point where they’re going to dictate the terms of seeking you out in their own way.

If you’re not ready for that, you won’t need to dress up as a dinosaur for Halloween. You’ll already be one.

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