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Google Ads Four New Search Ad Position Metrics

by | Nov 15, 2018 | Google Ads, Google AdWords

New Search Ad Position Metrics

Google ads metrics are an important aspect of measuring results and optimizing your PPC advertising for best results.  Google Ads announced on November 6th, 2018 that they will be rolling out four new metrics regarding ad position.  These new metrics will provide advertisers more detailed, granular data regarding their ad position.

The new metrics for search ad position are:

  • Impr. (Absolute Top) % – the percent of your ad impressions that are shown as the very first ad above the organic search results.
  • Impr. (Top) % – the percent of your ad impressions that are shown anywhere above the organic search results.
  • Search (Absolute Top) IS – the impressions you’ve received in the absolute top location (the very first ad above the organic search results) divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.
  • Search (Top) IS – the impressions you’ve received in the top location (anywhere above the organic search results) compared to the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.

Google Ads went on to say that “if you are using average position to understand the location of your ads on the page, it’s better to use impressions (Absolute Top) % and Impression (Top) %.  If you are using average position to bid to a page location, it’s better to use Search (Abs Top) IS and Search (Top) IS.”

Google also went on to clarify average position, indicating that average positions shows the order that your ad appears versus the other ads in the ad auction.  For example, sometimes no ads are displayed above the organic search results so the ad with a number one position may appear at the bottom of the page.

You can learn more about these new ad metrics by reading the Google Ads announcement.

 

by | Oct 7, 2018 | Google Ads, PPC management

8 Questions You Need to Ask Before Hiring a PPC Company

Are you looking to hire a PPC company? If so, here are 8 questions you need to ask before hiring a PPC company.

It’s getting harder and harder to tell who’s who on the internet these days. Hiring a PPC company can feel like diffusing a bomb: who do you trust? How can you tell experts apart from those who are just good at marketing?

Even so, the benefits of partnering with a real PPC expert are hard to ignore. They know how to help you maximize your investment to get a good return.

Plus, they do all the heavy lifting to give you turnkey marketing and noticeable results.

How do you know if you’ve found a reputable PPC company to handle your PPC? Be prepared to ask them these eight necessary questions to see if they’re the real deal.

1. What’s Your Experience as a PPC Company?

PPC spans a huge spectrum of platforms and channels. Ideally, you’ll partner with a company that not only does the work but can also consult with you to make recommendations in your best interest.

In addition, you want to make sure you’re handing your budget to a company that will put it to good use – for you, not just them. Trusting a PPC company with a thousand dollars is a lot different than forking over a million dollars.

Make sure that whoever you partner with is experienced in managing a budget of your size. If most of their clients have bigger budgets than you, consider where you might fall in their priorities.

2. What Type of Reporting Do You Offer?

Even though you’re hiring an outside company to handle your PPC marketing, you still need to be involved in the progress. Knowing what kind of reporting to expect can help you stay on top of your results.

Ask how often you can expect to receive updates, the PPC KPIs the company provides in their reports, and how they can help you make sense of it all.

Ideally, your provider won’t just deliver the data but also break down insights that can help you in other areas of your marketing.

3. What’s Your Understanding of My Business and Customers?

Any PPC marketing company should know how to market your company to the right audience. This means understanding your unique advantages, the people you serve, your ideal prospects, and other criteria that can help you stand out.

Before you hire for PPC, find out how much they know about your business and customers. Ask them how much time they’ll dedicate to researching your market.

PPC isn’t a one-size-fits-all blueprint, so make sure they recognize what makes your business special.

4. How Do You Structure Your Fees?

PPC fees can break down in a variety of ways. It can save you time and money by understanding exactly what you’re paying for.

For example, some companies charge a single fee that covers every aspect of your PPC campaign, from strategy to ads to analysis. Other companies take a percentage of what your ads earn.

In addition, some companies may charge setup fees, cancellation fees, and other hidden expenses that can eat into your gains. Other companies use contracts to commit you to a set number of months.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to pay for PPC, but whatever you spend should be justified by the results.

(At Pay Per Click Authority, we charge a single month to month fee with no contracts or hidden costs.)

5. Do You Offer Creative Support or Just Ad Management?

There are two sides of a PPC campaign: the creative aspect and the management process.

Some companies are only set up to handle one or the other, usually the ad management portion.

But it’s helpful to have someone who can design your PPC campaigns from start to finish. It’s a major time saver. Plus, it saves you from having to outsource ad writing to another agency.

Find out if creative support is part of the company’s scope and if it’s included in the price.

6. How Do You Do Keyword Research?

Keyword research can easily become a full-time job. It’s an intricate process that’s best left to the experts, but knowing a little bit about what’s happening behind the scenes can help validate their expertise.

Do they look for negative keywords? Are they sourcing keywords that are easy to rank for? What’s the search volume of each keyword?

Keep in mind that keyword research should be an ongoing process. Find out how often they conduct keyword research to give you the best results.

7. What Are Your Testing Procedures?

It’s not enough to simply create a campaign and watch the results roll in. Even if an ad campaign seems to be working, how do you know it can’t be more effective?

A/B testing is an integral part of a PPC ad campaign. Your PPC marketing company should have testing procedures in place to ensure you’re getting the best results from your ad spend.

Find out what elements are included in the testing. Trying different variations of keywords, calls-to-action, offers, and copy can create vastly different results.

8. What Results Do You Guarantee?

This question is a bit of a trick to see if you’re dealing with a company who knows the industry well.

The truth is, results are never guaranteed with PPC. A good PPC management company is confident in their abilities to do a job well. But in the end, there’s never a way to know how many conversions your ad campaigns will generate.

Reputable companies will tell you this up front. Under-the-radar companies may offer some form of guarantee to earn your business. However, you should know that it’s impossible for them to affirm you’ll break even or make a certain dollar amount.

Leave PPC to the Pros

You don’t have to be a PPC expert to ask the above questions. It’s important you at least have a minimal understanding of what makes a strong PPC company so you can make an informed hiring decision.

Our team has nearly a decade’s worth of experience in managing Google AdWords campaigns. Talk to us today about your goals and let us design a profitable campaign for your business.

To 7 PPC Trends of 2018

To 7 PPC Trends of 2018

by | Oct 7, 2018 | Google Ads, Google AdWords

Top 7 PPC Trends of 2018

Are you wondering about the top PPC trends of the year? If so, read on to learn about the top seven PPC trends of the year.

Since its start in 1998, Google has grown to be the largest search engine in the world. As such, it has been a major innovator when it comes to reaching target audiences and helping searchers find the products they are looking for.

Every year, Google’s strategies get just a little bit smarter, and everyone in marketing has to adjust their strategies to keep up.

Don’t get left behind. Take a look at these PPC trends to watch in 2018.

1. Structured Data Will Start to Take Over

Structured data is the term for information that is input into specific fields to make it searchable and easy to navigate.

In previous years, companies have had to roll out feeds of new data with their renewed product offerings. This is so that they appear in Google Shopping results. But now, Google Manufacturer Center (a three-year-old product) is spreading its wings. People are taking interest in its expanding features.

Google plans to use this information from manufacturers to expand the product knowledge it offers immediately when someone googles a product. This information can include product titles, images, features, and descriptions.

Once this information is entered into the Manufacturer Center catalog, it becomes searchable while simultaneously making the product easier to track. In that way, Google can provide searchers with the most relevant products possible.

2. Changes in Artificial Intelligence

Search engines are using artificial intelligence to make their results more accurate. One way this is happening is through ad rank thresholds. An ad rank threshold is a measurement of what it takes to get your advertisement to show up on the first page of search results.

Unlike in the past where Google viewed all searches as the same, Google now takes into account whether the query is product-related or news-related to decide how many and which ads to display.

That means that when you are designing your ad campaigns, you will have to create specialized content if you want to show up in news results vs product results. In addition, you may be paying higher prices for placement.

3. Advanced Audience Targeting

With the recent happenings with Facebook data breaches, the idea of targeting a specific audience for advertisements should have seen a slowdown.

But instead, Google is answering by loosening its own data use restrictions and allowing signed-in data to be used by advertisers to better develop and target an audience.

Google is selling advertisements that are placed in an “in-market” audience for an additional cost-per-click. The audience is defined by pattern targeting as well as by using things like a user’s birthday or anniversary date to suggest advertisements.

4. Developments in Attribution and Local Marketing

Last year, Google rolled out Google Attribution, a product that is aimed at giving advertisers more information about how their campaigns are performing at every step in the funnel.

This data is collected and fed back into AdWords to form more advanced calculations for the cost-per-click for a given advertisement. With more technology and data available keeping track of attribution at all stages of the sales funnel, advertisers will be able to target their audiences better than ever before.

For quality pay-per-click campaigns, it means that less focus can be given to the final click, and more attention can be paid to earlier stages of the sales process.

5. The Google-Amazon Rivalry Will Create Innovation

Amazon and Google have many different battles raging at the moment with the most obvious being Amazon’s Alexa vs. the Google Home Assistant. But there are other fronts where the war is raging.

One change that will affect pay-per-click advertisers is the rollout of Google Express. This is Google’s partnership with more than thirty retailers including Walmart, Costco, and Target.

The aim of the program is to allow Google to offer a streamlined checkout and free next-day delivery to qualified orders place through the site. This is in direct competition with Amazon Prime.

If this product is successful, that means that even more focus will have to be put on updating Google product descriptions; it could reshape the way products are purchased altogether.

6. Voice Search Features Will Change the Game

When voice search features like Siri first came out, people were creeped out by the idea of a device listening in on them all the time. In fact, many people who purchased Xbox’s and PS4’s with this feature opted to turn them off.

But with the convenient and expansive amount of services currently available on Amazon’s Echo and Alexa devices, more people are turning to voice search than ever.

It’s especially popular for vehicles because hands-free search allows drivers to focus on the road while they change their music, find out what the weather is, ask for directions, and more.

With all those new people using voice search, the trends in pay-per-click advertising are sure to be affected. One place we have already begun to see this is in the length of keywords that are being used. It used to be that people would type in a couple words as a search query, but with the ease of voice technology, long-tail keywords are becoming more popular than ever.

People are searching using whole sentences and expecting to receive accurate and relevant content back. As this trend grows, advertisers will have to change the way they consider keywords for their pay-per-click strategies.

7. Ads Will Be More Customized Than Ever

With the ability to study the sales funnel at every step of the process offered by Google Attribution software, the changes in search habits, and the expansion of artificial intelligence and growth of big data, there is more information than ever before for advertisers to use to shape their target audience.

That means that if you want to keep up, you need to be paying attention all of the time. New products are rolling out every day. You will need to keep up and customize your ads if you want to rank.

PPC Trends: Wrapping Up

Now that you have an introduction to the top PPC trends for 2018, it’s time to start revamping your website.

Need help? Contact us for PPC management today. We will help your business’ website get the traffic it deserves.

How to Combat Click Fraud

How to Combat Click Fraud

by | Jul 28, 2018 | Google Ads, Google AdWords, PPC management

How to Combat Click Fraud in Your PPC Campaigns

Every time somebody comes up with a good idea, somebody else figures out how to exploit it. Learn how to combat click fraud in your PPC campaigns here so that you don’t become the victim.

In 2017, a report suggested that $16.4 billion were wasted by advertisers due to fake traffic and click fraud. That is a lot of money to waste.

When you set up an ad campaign, you expect to see some serious results. No one expects 100% perfection all the time, and it’s normal to get a few fraudulent clicks here and there, but there’s nothing normal about $16.4 billion wasted.

Is there a way to combat click fraud or is the pay-per-click advertising scene doomed to suffer this unfortunate and malicious sort of tampering forever?

Luckily enough there is a way to prevent or dissuade click fraud. We’ll talk about how in this article.

What is Click Fraud?

If you’ve spent any time in the pay-per-click advertising scene, you know that when you start a pay-per-click campaign you can expect to pay for every click that your ad gets. But you expect the people who click on your ad to be people who are interested in your product in a genuine way.

However, in 2017, 1 out of every 5 clicks on advertisements were fake clicks.

This means that someone, or something, clicked on the ad with the aim to generate charges for whoever is doing the advertising.

The Impact of Click Fraud

Wasted money is just one part of the many dangers of click fraud. Not only does it waste your money, but click fraud also frustrates and takes away an advertiser’s motivation to continue.

It messes up the data that advertisers use to make important marketing decisions. It can even go so far as to change the usefulness of an entire keyword, leading advertisers to give up on it entirely.

However, there are a few measures you can take to avoid click fraud in the future.

1. Do Your Research

If you have enough data and pay attention to the information on each keyword closely, you’ll be able to spot a problem pretty quickly.

Once you notice the problem is there, all you have to do is dig a little bit deeper. Are you getting a lot of clicks from the same IP address or addresses? Are a lot of those clicks coming from countries that you don’t service?

If you’re positive that these IP addresses are the ones that cause you problems with fraudulent clicks, you don’t have to just accept it and move on.

AdWords allows you to set up exclusions for IP addresses that you suspect of fraudulent activity. All you have to do is go to the “settings” tab and scroll until you find the IP Exclusions setting. put the IP number in and that IP address won’t be able to see your ad anymore.

2. Look to Publishers

Just about anyone with a blog is allowed to use Google ads. All they have to do is create an AdSense account and they can start to profit.

Instead of working to grow their blog and increasing the visitors that click on the ads on their website in a natural way, some webmasters will click on their own ads. This is a violation of Google’s rules, but it still happens.

However, if you don’t enable the display network option, your ad only shows up on Google’s search engines. This means that third-party websites cant display your ad, and webmasters won’t profit off of clicks.

It is a viable option if you want to cut down on webmaster-based click fraud to turn this feature off. However, you’re going to get hit with less traffic when you do this.

If you target expensive keywords, this might be the way to go. Otherwise, you should be safe.

3. Adjust Your Targeting

As we mentioned in tip number one, in order to stop click fraud you have to do some research. When you know where your clicks are coming from, you can stop the people who wish to do your campaign harm.

If you think a majority of fraudulent clicks come from a specific region, like a “danger zone” country, consider cutting out that country and the language from your targeting.

Competitor click fraud is an issue too. You can also choose not to target their zip code or city if you suspect this is a problem.

However, a word of caution: don’t cut back on your targeting too much. When you do, you might be getting rid of the good traffic as well as the fraudulent clicks. If you know for certain that most of the clicks are coming from one area, exclude it. But don’t go crazy with it.

4. Turn to Facebook or Twitter Advertisement

If you’ve tried these other measures to avoid click fraud but you still get a lot of clicks that lead to no sales or new customers, it might be time to look at taking your advertising to another platform.

One of the best things about Twitter or Facebook ads is that they only show up on Twitter or Facebook. No one else is involved.

Also, because of the hyper-advanced algorithm usage, your advertisements only show up for the relevant people. This means that your competitors are less likely to see your ads.

Stop Click Fraud in its Tracks

At the end of the day, you want to make the most out of your advertising budget. The last thing you need is for someone, or something, to click on your advertisements in an effort to rack up your bill and sabotage your campaign. Unfortunately, click fraud is a real issue and almost everyone with a pay-per-click campaign experiences it.

But if you take the measures we’ve talked about above, you’re one step closer to stopping click fraud in its tracks.

For more information about managing and protecting your pay-per-click campaign, visit us today.

Click Thru Rates

Click Thru Rates

by | Jul 23, 2018 | Google Ads, Google AdWords

What Click-Through Rate Should You Strive For?

What Click-Through Rate Should You Strive For?

Click-through rate, or CTR, is an estimation of the number of people who click on an ad versus the total number of people (impressions) the ad reaches. Check out our article to learn more about what is a good rate to strive for, as well how to calculate it.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has a steady foothold on today’s best digital marketing strategies. Why? Because the advantages are plentiful.

PPC ads have the ability to hone in on specific demographics and searches, as well as deliver real-time performance metrics to help you measure and adjust the effectiveness of your campaigns. In short, it gives you more control for better results.

Google reported that Adwords users receive a two dollar average return on every single dollar spent on optimized campaigns. It’s a strong return on investment (ROI) that has made it a go-to tool for many businesses.

But in order to achieve these kinds of results, you have to have a solid strategy. This includes an efficient click-through rate that supports your desired ROI.

What is Click-Through Rate?

Click-through rate, or CTC, is a key indicator of how well your digital campaign is performing. However, before we dive into this term’s definition, you need to know the basics of PPC advertising metrics, including its terminology.

Below is a list of key terms used in measuring every campaign:

  • Impressions: the number of times your ad shows up in a user’s search
  • Bid: the maximum amount you are willing to pay per click
  • Daily Budget: the amount you are willing to spend per day on an ad
  • Campaign: a collection of ad groups sharing the same target and budget
  • Clicks: The action in which a user clicks on your ad
  • Click-Through Rate or CTR: a measurement used to gauge how effectively you’re reaching your target audience by averaging what percentage of impressions lead to clicks
  • Cost-Per-Click or CPC: the average cost of each individual click
  • Conversion: the act of a user following through on your ad’s call-to-action, whether it’s a form fill, call, purchase, or other desired action
  • Conversion Rate: the average of conversion based on how many clicks follow through with your call-to-action

While there are numerous other terms used within the realm of PPC campaign creation and management, these terms are essential to understanding your campaign’s performance.

Identify your CTR by dividing the number of clicks your ad has garnered by the number of impressions its had thus far. The number received from this formula is the percentage of impressions that have converted into clicks.

Simply put, it tells you how well your ad is performing. An ad that shows up often but rarely garners clicks isn’t performing well. This is typically due to poor keyword choices or a weak message or call-to-action.

The Click-Through Rate Benchmarks

So how do you know whether your click-through rate is good or bad? One great Adwords tool to help you gauge your performance is a feature called Google’s Quality Score Formula.

This simple 1 through 10 scale lets you know how relevant your ads are to the individuals whose search it shows up in. The more relevant your ad, the higher your score.

This rating takes into consideration how others ads in your industry are performing, so its a great way to gauge your success in comparison with your competitors.

However, it isn’t the only way to evaluate your campaign. There are other important benchmarks to consider, such as Cost-Per-Click (CPC), Cost-Per-Action (CPA), Conversion Rate (CVR), and, of course, Click-Through Rate (CTR).

All of these benchmarks are ones you should monitor throughout the course of your campaign. Waiting until the end of your campaign to evaluate its performance prevents you from reaching optimal performance.

One of the greatest advantages of PPC campaigns is their flexibility. You can update and tweak your ad groups, ad sets, individual ads, bids, and more throughout the course of its lifetime.

But how? What should you adjust in your campaign in order to increase its performance?

This answer is the core of this blog, and we dive deep into it below.

How to Improve Your Click-Through Rate on Adwords

If you want to reap excellent results from your PPC campaign, you’ll want to do pay attention to three key elements: targeting, message, and keywords.

Identify Your Target Audience

Who you target is essential to your ad’s performance. Know your core audience.

What are their needs?

What attracts them to your product?

How do they prefer to communicate?

When you know the demographics and nature of the people you are advertising to, you can identify the best way to communicate with them. This is why it’s the first step and a very important one.

Craft Relatable Ad Copy

After you identify your audience, you can start to craft your message. Ad copy should speak to the user on a personal level.

Don’t hard-sell your product or service. Instead, talk to your customer in a way that connects with them on a personal level. Express empathy and provide a solution.

Establish and Maintain the Right Keywords

Last–but far from least–is building and managing your keyword list. Every campaign has a unique set of keywords that tells Google where to place your ad.

This list is constantly evolving as your campaign runs, which means it requires steady maintenance. Pay close attention to the keywords you input, as well as the keywords you acquire.

Ask yourself:

  • Are they relevant to your product and service?
  • Do they align with search terms users would use while searching for your product or service?

Never, ever fall into the habit of keyword stuffing. Quality is better than quantity. Zero in on the words and phrases that make sense and weed out the ones that don’t.

This will directly improve your ad’s performance by ensuring you don’t waste impressions on useless or irrelevant search results.

Improve Your ROI with PPC Management Service

Are you ready to improve your click-through rate and your ROI, but you don’t have the time or expertise to do it yourself?

We get it. Managing your digital campaigns is a full-time job. Sometimes it’s better to hire a third-party vendor to take the reins for you while you focus on running the business you know best.

Talk to us about our Google AdWords Management Service. As Google Partners, we have the certifications and tools to drive your campaigns to success.

Google AdWords Becomes Google Ads

Google AdWords Becomes Google Ads

by | Jul 6, 2018 | Google Ads, Google AdWords

Google AdWords is becoming Google Ads

Google’s Sridhar Ramaswamy recently announced that Google AdWords will change it’s name to Google Ads.

Ramswamy, Senior Vice President, Ads & Commerce at Google, went on to say “That’s why today we are introducing simpler brands and solutions for our advertising products: Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform, and Google Ad Manager. These new brands will help advertisers and publishers of all sizes choose the right solutions for their businesses, making it even easier for them to deliver valuable, trustworthy ads and the right experiences for consumers across devices and channels. As part of this change, we are releasing new solutions that help advertisers get started with Google Ads and drive greater collaboration across teams. “

This new brand will represent the full range of Google’s advertising capabilities on Google.com and partner sites and apps on both Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play and across the web.

For small businesses, Google Ads will introduce a new campaign type (automated settings) that makes it easier to get started with PPC advertising.  It uses machine learning technology with the goal of making campaign setup and management easier and more hands off.  For those advertisers who prefer a professionally managed Google Ads account, then you’ll want to consider hiring a Google Ads management specialist like https://payperclickauthority.com 

Google Analytics 360 Suite will be bundled with DoubleClick advertiser products under a single brand: Google Marketing Platform

 

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