Veronica Stenberg: blog

During the last weeks/month Google have fine tuned some of their products, from the webinar update yesterday, I’ve made a quick overview:

Search

• 7% of search queries have a typo in them. If you run AdWords campaigns with keywords set to exact and phrase match, you miss out on potential relevant ad exposure due to this.
• To accommodate for that Google have updated their ad serving features, now enabling your ads be served on search queries which are very similar or likely to be a misspelled keyword, even on your phrase and exact matched keywords.
• This is feature you can opt-out from. However during the trial and research of this new feature, a 3% increase in CTR was detected as a result from this.

Display

• An update now serve your ads more evenly. (this is also something you can opt-out from)
• The keyword contextual targeting feature – is now updated so you can almost replicate your AdWords account for display advertisement. This enables you to improve your clients display campaigns considerably by better targeting options, increased optimisation control and easier implementation of new campaigns.To get started with this:
  1. Opt-in to display network
  2. Copy the search campaigns to display

AdWords

• AdWords Labels – You can now categorise ads, keywords and campaigns with AdWords labels. The benefits of that is that you can run reports on the labels you assign. Another benefit is that it’s now easier to organise and structure your campaigns.
• Auction insight campaign – the new feature is located under keyword details – auction insight. This new feature enables you to compare your campaign keywords to other advertisers, and establish where you are succeeding and where you are missing out on opportunities. You can now compare; bids, budget, impression share, etc.
• Campaign bid simulator – this is a feature very much similar to the Keywords bid simulator. This new tool enables you to review the impact on you entire campaign by increasing or decreasing the budget. You can see detailed estimates on this such as clicks, views etc. This is located in the opportunities tab. Another nifty thing with this is that you can download the simulated reports. Great for client meetings.
• City level targeting is now enabled in Sweden and Denmark (about time!)

The Keywords Tool

• Now updated with a “ad group ideas tab” which creates ad group suggestions for you, from the keywords you have been investigating volume and bids for. The nifty thing is that you now can by a click of a button add the keywords already grouped by Google’s tool to your AdWords account!

Mobile updates

• AdWords app extension – you can now promote and link to a iPhone or a Android app in your AdWords ad.  To track downloads, set this up as a conversion to be tracked.

• Preview app -  with Android apps you can now enable the user to preview screengrabs/images in the ad. (only arable for Android apps)

• Ourmobileplanet.com – is now updated with 2012 data so you can compare mobile behaviour, adaption and penetration worldwide and compare 2011 and 2012 data against each other to detect trends.

Image source: www.seankenney.com

On the 27th of March I had a full day at Google Engage Academy – stuffing my brain with everything AdWords, online display and taking your services and skills to the next level.

I met new people and “new new” people and old familiar faces, learned a lot from Cardinal Path and drank a hell of a lot of coffee

These are five quick points from everything I took with me:

• Connecting Google Analytics and AdWords is easier then I thought and enables insight in your customers sales funnel from multiple online channels. Nifty.
• Google+ button will play a bigger part in the “search” algorithm in the future
• 80% of all websites in the world are available through the Google display network – as an old online display fox, I see the benefit of cutting out all the other “networks” to get to the websites I want to advertise on (I suppose this can be a budget and a country specific question as well)
• A powerful combination of three;  display, adwords & analytics  leading to a well built website of course – for online success
• On non-conversion based clients – define success and apply a value to it – even though it’s a download of a PDF, a phone call, a specific page of your customers website.

I’m happy and grateful for getting the opportunity to participate at this event and that Google actually are starting to host these in Gothenburg. Last year I went to Stockholm for an equally amazing day – on another level though. However what I  really appreciated this time was the intimate and open atmosphere on the sessions – there was a smaller audience since we where divided up in two groups after  your knowledge level.

I was inspired and motivated to nail my certifications when leaving for the day I actually went straight home typing out all my notes and hitting my study books/iPad!

And finally, here is the secret to Dynamic keyword insertion:

• {keyword:default text}
• use exact syntax – no spaces!
• replace default text with something real which AdWords can insert if it cant insert your keyword for whatever reason it may not be able to display the word in your ad.
• Capitalization follows where you place the capital letter in the word keyword, KeyWord, KEYWORD – that’s how your keyword will be displayed in the ad.

Enjoy

Lastly for you who do not know what Google Engage Academy is – this is a great opportunity to get support and training to further your skills and knowledge about Google’s products. And in return get even better in serving your clients and help small businesses succeed online. You get training, support and get to go to events like these to get inspired to learn more.