Google AdWords

Enhanced AdWords Campaigns – Helpful or Not?

March 6, 2013 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

Some Background

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Google’s new enhanced campaigns. These will “simplify” your PPC accounts by allowing you to combine similar Campaigns in to one Campaign without losing any unique settings from the various Campaigns.

Enhanced Campaign Features

From the Campaign view, your account will look simpler (less Campaigns), but at the Ad Group level or deeper (i.e. site links & ad extensions) things could get messy and more complicated. Being able to target different devices and locations at different times and bids is very useful. Having all these settings at the same level can even make them more powerful, but probably not simpler.

The Burning Question

So the question remains–are these enhanced campaigns truly helpful? Will having these various optional settings at one location aid the effectiveness of PPC advertising, or in other words increase Clicks and/or CTRs? Or at least will being able to move easily using these setting in conjunction with one another enable better testing and ultimately improved optimization of PPC Campaigns? Although it may take some time before we discover the answers to these questions, one thing is certain, which is that data collection is invaluable to us as marketers. Google AdWords must make sure that we have a method of easily slicing the data into categories (i.e. mobile devices, specific promotions, geographic locations, etc.) in order for these enhanced campaigns to be helpful and in the long run make our lives simpler.

One PPC Budget to Rule Them All

November 2, 2012 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

Consider This PPC Advertising Scenario...

If you wanted to set up a Google AdWords Account with 3 Campaigns, and had 1 monthly budget that you were willing to spend across the account, then you would have to divide the monthly spend 3 ways (most likely not equally) between the 3 Campaigns. As the month goes on, 1 Campaign might max out its budget early, while another might not even come close to exhausting its budget. The month ends, and you only spent 2/3 of your monthly budget, but the high spending Campaign only ran for half the month and missed several potential clients.

Before the next month starts, you reallocate your budget. Money is shifted away from the lower spender to the higher ones. As the month goes on, the Campaigns and their spend act differently. The spending is reversed, you try to act quickly and adjust the budgets mid-month. However, the month ends and again you fall short of spending your entire budget. Although under budget can be a good thing, we all know it could lead to budget cuts too.

Sharing AdWords Budgets

Luckily Google Adwords has taken the guessing game out of budgeting for Campaigns. The shared budget concept within AdWords allows you to link Campaigns’ budgets together. This means that multiple Campaigns will pull for the same budget, rather than relying on just their own budget. So, if the above scenario occurs, the higher spending budget takes extra from the shared budget than the lower spending campaign. If the spending trends change, the budget gets allocated accordingly. As the PPC Account Manager, you do not have to stress over trying to predict the spend of each Campaign from month to month.

Although the Title suggest one budget for all Campaigns, that is not recommended, as different Campaigns spend at different rates. Try testing shared budgets between similar campaigns or campaigns that share the same goal. Let us know your test results, and whether shared budgets helped your PPC performance.

Muted Ads – Is Being Blocked Bad?

July 11, 2012 by Justin Miller 1 Comment

Google is always trying to give web surfers the best experience. Recently, with a change made to Display Advertising, Google has given the web surfer the capability to block or “mute” paid ads. As a marketer, initially my reaction was of fear and dread. Now, people on the web won’t just ignore my display ad, but go a step further and mute it! However, after thinking about this further, it may not be such a bad thing after all.

What is the new “Mute Ads” Feature?

The “Mute Ad” feature, which Google announced to the advertising world on June 29, is slowly being rolled out on their Display Network. This feature simply places an “X” next to the Ad Choice Logo on the top right hand side of your Advert.

If a web surfer chooses to click this “X,” then your advert will no longer appear to them, even if fit all of your targeting settings, such as placements and keywords. The first thoughts surrounding these “Muted Ads” were that they would lead to fewer Impressions and a decrease in reach.

How will “Muted Ads” Impact Your Display Campaigns?

Although getting fewer Impressions may be true, the “Muted Ads” could also mean lower costs, higher CTR (Click Through Rate), and decreased CPA (Cost per Acquisition). If you are a bidding CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions), then muted ads mean fewer Impressions to viewers who don’t want to see your ads – or less wasted dollars. If you do see a drop in Impressions, then overall Cost should drop with it, seeing as how you are paying per 1,000 Impressions. If you are running CPC (Cost per Click) bidding on the Display Network, “Muted Ads” can help you too. They will decrease your Impressions, but since you would lose people who didn’t want to see your ad, you should not be losing any Clicks (or at least valuable Clicks – the ones that lead to Conversions). This will result in a better CTR, which in turns will help improve Quality Score, reduce CPC, and improve ranking position. Altogether, the “Mute Ad” feature seems like it will be more beneficial than first expected. The question is, will people actually use it, or just continue ignoring irrelevant ads?

Could “Muted Ads” be Better?

In saying that I think this “Mute Ad” feature is good, I am also hoping Google AdWords will release more data around it once it is fully launched. Knowing where (which placements) an ad is being muted, or by which demographic (age, sex, geographic location) could be useful. This would enable advertisers to pull, revise, and replace irrelevant ads with more relevant ones to niche markets. For instance: An Ad may perform great in L.A. but get “muted” a lot in D.C. Knowing this allows the marketer to continue the successful Ad in L.A. while creating a new one for the D.C. area. So here is hoping that more data around “Muted Ads” is on the way.

What are your thoughts on this new “Mute Ads” feature, which enables web surfers to block specific display ads? Let us know in the comment section below.

[Exact] ≠ Exact; at least not in Google AdWords

April 25, 2012 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

What is Google Changing Now?

With the upcoming changes to both the [Exact] and “Phrase” Keyword Match Types, Google is helping you reach a larger audience. The question is will it still be your target audience. If you read the official post AdWords Blog, the examples given seems like this change will be extremely helpful. However, some marketers do not agree. Whether these changes will be beneficial to you is yet to be seen, but you need to know what impacts these changes will have on your account(s).

How Match Types Work

First, understand that [Exact] and “Phrase” match types are designed to help you reach your target audience and only your target audience. For example:

As you can see, the changes to these match types include close variations of the keyword (i.e. checking – check.) In addition, [exact] and “phrase” match types will also include misspelling, abbreviations, and singular/plurals. According to Google, these changes are meant to help you increase your reach and visibility online. Will it really help?

The Impact of the Changing Match Types

The obvious impact is going to be more Impressions for your ads. The question is will these addition Impressions generate more Clicks for you. If you feel that the addition impressions caused by the change of the match types will bring in more Clicks, then great. You do not have to do anything. Google will automatically opt-in to these changes for you.

However, if you feel this extended reach and visibility is going to be outside your target audience, then the additional Impressions will not result in more Clicks. That means that your Click Thru Rate (CTR) will drop, which is a large aspect of your Quality Score. A drop in Quality Score would result in an increase in Cost per Click and potentially in overall Cost, or drop in Position and most like Clicks. Therefore, if you feel this update to match types is not going increase Clicks, then you are going to want to opt-out in the advance settings.

Beneficial or Harmful Changes?

To conclude, these changes to the [exact] and “phrase” match types on Google AdWords are neither beneficial nor harmful across the board. It is going to be a case-by-case situation. You are going to want to keep a close eye on your CTR over the next few weeks. Once the change is made, you will notice an increase in Impressions, but if your CTR drops, you will want to opt-out. Otherwise, you will soon see a drop in Quality Score and eventually a decrease in Position and Clicks, or an increase in Cost. Do you think these changes will help or hurt your PPC Campaigns? Let us know.