Mar 28, 2013 at 3:48pm ET by Ginny Marvin

The new IgnitionOne Digital Marketing Report for Q1 finds that overall paid search spend in the U.S. was flat for the quarter, while mobile and tablet growth remained strong. Tablet spending rose 112% and smartphone spending jumped 113%. The study suggests that the growth in tablet and mobile is coming from a reallocation from existing budgets for Desktop/PC ads, rather than net new spend. While the gap is smaller than when the report last looked in Q3 2012, the report found a clear differentiat [...]

CPC Decline Ends: Rising 7% In Q1 Due To Mobile & PLAs [Covario]

Mar 28, 2013 at 2:07pm ET by Ginny Marvin

We may have seen the end of CPC stagnation. Covario's Global Paid Search Spend Analysis for Q1, released today, suggests that the cost-per-click trends of the last six quarters have reversed with CPC prices rising 7% from the previous quarter and 23% year-over-year. Overall paid search spend grew 9% quarter-over-quarter and 33% year-over-year. The following chart shows global paid search activity for Q1 ‘13: Google CPCs Rise 39% Year-Over-Year The study suggests that rising CPCs on Google a [...]

Google Streamlines AdWords Rules On Using Trademark Keywords

Mar 25, 2013 at 11:10am ET by Ginny Marvin

Google has announced an update to its AdWords trademark policy that streamlines the rules on using third-party trademark keywords in campaigns. With the update, Google now has a consistent global policy that allows advertisers to bid on competitor third-party trademark keywords. The update states: "Starting on 23 April 2013, keywords that were restricted as a result of a trademark investigation will no longer be restricted in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Brazil. While we will not prevent the use of trademarks as keywords in the affected regions, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Legal | Legal: Trademarks

Google Shopping Ads: What We’ve Learned So Far

Mar 25, 2013 at 10:21am ET by Mona Elesseily

In October 2012, Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) became Google Shopping. With this, Google removed the Google Shopping listings from the organic side of the equation and made them a purely PPC play. Many people, including Danny Sullivan, have noted that Google has now embraced a paid inclusion model. Things have certainly changed, and advertisers need to stay on top of their game to take advantage of new opportunities. In this article, I’ll share some tips we’ve learned related to Google Shopping ads. Before getting started, a few notes on Google Shopping: It’s a feed-based p [...]

How To Determine Your Mobile & Geo Bid Multipliers For Enhanced Campaigns

Mar 22, 2013 at 11:59am ET by Benjamin Vigneron

As every search marketer should be aware by now, AdWords enhanced campaigns now allow you to set campaign-level bid multipliers for your mobile impressions, and also by geo. While mobile bid multipliers seem to be more of a step backward compared to mobile targeted campaigns, geo bid multipliers are actually a nice feature and definitely a step forward in terms of control and transparency. Anyway, this post is about helping search marketers determine those mobile and geo bid multipliers based on historical data. 1. Pulling The Data From AdWords In AdWords, first go to the ‘Dimensions� [...]

Google Says No To Phone Numbers In PPC Ads, Forcing The Use Of Call Extensions

Mar 22, 2013 at 11:48am ET by Ginny Marvin

You may have missed Google’s quiet and brief announcement that starting in April, AdWords ads with phone numbers in the text will be disapproved. Advertisers who want to display phone numbers will have to use the call extensions feature instead. Google states in the announcement, “We are making this change to foster a safer, more consistent user experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.” As others have stated, what this change really does is allow Google to charge for mobile ad engagements as part of its transition to enhanced campaigns. With call extensions, advertise [...]

Workarounds To Make Enhanced Campaigns More Flexible

Mar 21, 2013 at 12:46pm ET by Frederick Vallaeys

Last week at SMX West, I was on the "SEM Best Practices Debate" panel. Several of the topics we debated were related to Enhanced Campaigns, clearly something on the minds of search marketers these days. This month, I’ll recap a few take-aways from the event and share some ideas for workarounds and automation that may make your transition to Enhanced Campaigns a bit easier. Does It Make Sense To Target Tablets & Desktops In The Same Campaign? This debate topic was a tongue-in-cheek jab at Enhanced Campaigns which make the answer largely irrelevant since splitting out desktops and tablet [...]

New PPC Report: Bing Ads Vs. Google AdWords In 6 US Verticals

Mar 20, 2013 at 8:15am ET by Ginny Marvin

AdGooroo has released a new study titled Yahoo! Bing PPC Performance Metrics that analyzes advertiser participation and performance metrics on the Yahoo! Bing network through Bing Ads compared to Google AdWords. The study looked at U.S. advertisers in six verticals during Q312. Backing up one of the loudest complaints among advertisers about the Yahoo! Bing network, the study found that AdWords out-delivered Bing Ads by serving 7.3 million more ad impressions in the Shopping and Classified category. A surprise, however, was to see Bing Ads come out ahead in the Financial Services categor [...]

Google AdWords ValueTrack Updates Let Advertisers Direct Users To Device-Specific Landing Pages

Mar 19, 2013 at 7:19pm ET by Amy Gesenhues

For advertisers using keyword level URLs, Google AdWords will soon be launching new ValueTrack features to help improve enhanced campaign performance by device. Based on feedback from advertisers, the new features will make it possible to direct users to a device-specific landing page at keyword level and enable better tracking of enhanced campaigns. The ValueTrack features include the new parameter {ifnotmobile:[value]} that allows advertisers to replace [value] with text that will appear in the keyword level URL when the ad is clicked from a computer or tablet. Google AdWords is also modi [...]

Geographic Targeting In An Enhanced Campaign World

Mar 18, 2013 at 9:10am ET by Brad Geddes

AdWords enhanced campaigns will force many advertisers to change their campaign structures. One of the benefits that have been touted for enhanced campaigns is that you will need fewer campaigns, thus making AdWords easier to manage. For mobile targeting, this is true, as the ability to target mobile devices is now gone. However, for the targeting features that are left, such as location targeting, you might not want to consolidate your campaigns just for easier management. In today’s column, we will examine how locations affect your campaign structure and if you should change your s [...]

AdWords “Ineffective” Says eBay, Google “Meta-Pause Analysis” Contradicts Those Findings

Mar 14, 2013 at 1:06pm ET by Greg Sterling

A story generating buzz and controversy earlier this week amounts to a stinging indictment of the paid search industry as a whole. It was based on new research from eBay that argues SEM is all but worthless and has little or no impact on traffic and sales -- except in marginal cases. However, Google studies argue SEM delivers clear and tangible benefits to advertisers and publishers. In a paper published last week eBay describes its study (.pdf) and related results. The company says it sought to determine the impact of pausing paid-search ads on its organic traffic and sales. eBay: SEM "In [...]

Enhanced Campaigns: Product Listing Ads Now On Smartphones

Mar 13, 2013 at 11:02am ET by Ginny Marvin

Google has announced on its Commerce blog that product listing ads (PLAs) are now showing on smartphones in all markets that currently serve PLAs. To be eligble to run on smartphones, product listing ad campaigns must be upgraded to enhanced. Below are two screenshots of how the ads are appearing: [...]

Study: 55 Percent Of Mobile-Search Driven Conversions Happen In One Hour Or Less

Mar 13, 2013 at 10:01am ET by Greg Sterling

Large numbers of people believe that the majority of mobile search activity happens “on the go.” However, according to an extensive new study from Google and Nielsen, the overwhelming majority (77 percent) of mobile search happens at home or work -- even when there’s a PC nearby and readily available. These people are choosing to search on their smartphones rather than PCs because of speed and convenience. And most of these users take some sort of near-immediate, follow-up action. In fact, the study found, 55 percent of mobile-search influenced conversions take place within one hour. [...]

Enhanced Campaigns: Google’s Grand Unification Theory

Mar 11, 2013 at 11:01am ET by Matt Van Wagner

Early last century, Albert Einstein turned the world of established physics upside down when he introduced his theories of special and general relativity. Newton's Laws, which had successfully driven the work of physicists for hundreds of years, were usurped by Einstein's new theories. At the heart of Einstein's FIELD theories, which describe space-time, was his famous formula: Okay, maybe you’ve never seen that before, but it is famous among theoretical physicists and cosmologists. The lambda, (Λ) is the cosmological constant, which we'll touch on later in this article. Einstein’s [...]

Enhanced Campaigns: Offer Extensions & Location Targeting Explained

Mar 6, 2013 at 5:47pm ET by Ginny Marvin

Google released more details on its Mobile Ads Blog today about offer extensions and location targeting tools available in the new enhanced campaigns. Location Targeting With Better Reporting One of the main features of enhanced campaigns is that advertisers can target multiple locations within one campaign and adjust bids based on a multiple of the default location bid. The reporting tools now make it easier to see what location targets triggered your ads and where your users were when they saw your ads. This is handy. Say you've set your campaign Location Options to the def [...]

The Real Reason Why Google Is Dropping The Tablet vs. Desktop Distinction? It’s The User Context, Stupid!

Feb 28, 2013 at 1:32pm ET by Larry Kim

There’s been some grumbling among PPC marketers over the last few weeks about a few specific changes in Enhanced Campaigns – in particular, the loss of tablet vs. desktop segmentation, which was previously a best practice for mobile advertising strategy. One of my well-respected colleagues put it bluntly: Now, if you’ll forgive my attention-grabbing headline (based on 'It's the Economy, Stupid'), I’m definitely not actually calling anyone stupid – and, you can certainly see by the volume of re-tweets and favorites, it’s clearly a widely-shared view. However, I recently had th [...]

Google Updates AdWords API Terms To Comply With FTC Antitrust Settlement

Feb 23, 2013 at 4:01pm ET by Greg Sterling

As part of its antitrust settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in January, Google agreed to allow ad campaigns to be exported to third party ad networks using its API. Here's what Google said in a blog post at the time of the settlement earlier this year: Advertisers can already export their ad campaigns from Google AdWords. They will now be able to mix and copy ad campaign data within third-party services that use our AdWords API. The following is the relevant language from the FTC statement about the export of AdWords campaigns at the time of the antitrust settlement: Goog [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Antitrust | Google: Legal | Top News

Google Quietly Rolls Out New Offer Extensions in AdWords

Feb 22, 2013 at 2:47pm ET by Larry Kim

Google is now rolling out Offer Extensions, their latest ad extension that lets AdWords advertisers post deal offers underneath a normal Google Search ad. If your AdWords account has been upgraded to Enhanced Campaigns, then you’ll see the new Offer Extension in your account right now, in the “extensions” tab. If not, you’ll have to wait until your account gets upgraded, which is supposed to happen by the end of the month. Previously, they were only available to a select few number of beta customers. Here’s what an Offer Extension looks like: Users who click on the View Off [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Offers | Top News

Wisconsin State Court OKs Bidding On Trademarks In Paid Search

Feb 22, 2013 at 8:00am ET by Pamela Parker

[caption id="attachment_65488" align="alignright" width="240"] Image courtesy Shutterstock.com.[/caption] A Wisconsin appeals court this week affirmed a circuit court's ruling that it's OK to use trademarks as keywords to trigger the display of paid search ads. The court's conclusions are in line with search engines' policies with regard to trademark bidding and with a Federal case decided last year in California. The Wisconsin case, which involved two personal injury law firms, centered around what it means to "use" a name for advertising purposes. In the 2009 lawsuit, the owners of [...]

Google Switches To Paid Shopping Results In 11 New Countries

Feb 21, 2013 at 5:37pm ET by Pamela Parker

Marketers outside the U.S. have continued to enjoy free shopping traffic from Google, despite the search giant's big change to convert all results to paid listing ads in its home country. But that's beginning to change for folks in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. As Google announced late last year, the company began on February 13 to replace free listings on Google Shopping to Product Listing Ads in those 11 countries. To encourage advertisers to adopt the new product, Google is offering a cred [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Product Search

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