SEM, SEO, PPC, CPC, CTR, SERP…
Small businesses can often become quite overwhelmed with everything that comes along with running pay per click, search engine optimization and social media campaigns. Beyond the massive amount of information out there on the subjects and the constantly evolving landscape, simple things like abbreviations can add to the confusion. SEM, SEO, PPC, CPC, CTR, SERPs, A/B, ROI are just a few of the many abbreviations and industry terms that are thrown around on a regular basis.
Our goal at Insight Forge is to handle projects for our clients from seed to plant to harvest. We’ll gladly share our knowledge with you about how everything works, but if you’re a busy small business owner (like many of our clients are) you may not have time to learn the ins-and-outs of the industry. That’s fine – that’s why we’re here. Don’t sweat the abbreviations (or anything else).
Our goal at Insight Forge is to handle projects for our clients from seed to plant to harvest. We’ll gladly share our knowledge with you about how everything works, but if you’re a busy small business owner (like many of our clients are) you may not have time to learn the ins-and-outs of the industry. That’s fine – that’s why we’re here. Don’t sweat the abbreviations (or anything else).
Posted in Adwords, Adwords Guide, Google, Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing
Tagged A/B, CPC, CTR, Don't sweat the abbreviations, ppc, PPC abbreviations, ROI, SEM, SEM abbreviations, SEO, SEO abbreviations, SERPs
Leave a comment
Adwords Zip Code Targeting for Local Businesses
Many local businesses that provide professional services have a specific ‘market area.’ Whether it be a cleaning service, moving company or franchise business, each might only be able to serve a specific territory depending on how far they are willing to travel from their base of operations.
This is why the Google Adwords Zip Code Targeting feature is a great addition to the platform’s location specific tool set. Previously, Google only enabled geographic targeting via city / major metropolitan area, as well as via radius targeting. Zip Code targeting enables a local business to really hone in on their specific market area. With the ‘bulk upload’ feature, a small business can turn a massive list of zip codes into a tidy market area fairly easily.
This feature comes especially useful in the case of a franchise businesses that has been assigned a specific geographic territory by their franchisor. Often, these geographic areas break down by zip codes that prevent nearby franchises from competing with one another. With Adwords zip code targeting, multiple franchises that border the same geographic area can easily split their targeting based on their market area.
There are a few downsides to zip code targeting in the US for local businesses. One problem is not all zip codes are included yet- about 20% of zip codes are not yet in Google’s database as of August – hopefully these will be added to complete this coverage.
Another current issue is that zip code targeting is not always representative of the area / population you actually will end up serving ads to. Although the map display of your zips may look like complete coverage in a specific area, this isn’t always the case. For example, if you are targeting a zip code within a specific city, but aren’t targeting the city itself, your ad won’t necessarily be showing there. We tested this with Google’s Ad Preview Tool; there were a few instances where the map display looked like a zip code was covering a specific city/area, but a test search in that specific location did not trigger our ad. This problem was solved by adding a city or radius on top of the zip code.
Because the zip code feature is still relatively new, these types of bugs / problems should be somewhat expected. We would always suggest using zip code targeting in conjunction with another form of targeting to ensure that you’re getting the full search volume that you set out to obtain. Hopefully, Google’s improvements to the zip code targeting feature will make it far more reliable.
Start a Partner Links Program for SEO
One important factor in the organic ranking of your website are the number of links from other external sites that direct back to your website. In the ‘old days’ of search engine optimization, Google used to take this into account as one of the primary factors for organic ranking with very little policing, which lead to widespread ‘cheating’ where SEOs and webmasters would create thousands of ‘spam’ backlinks on comment forums, directories, and fake sites that pointed back to their target site.
Google Adwords Auction Insights Goes Live
Google has added a great new tool to their Adwords platform – the ability to closely examine auctions for individual keywords to flesh out the competitive field. The tool is called ‘auction insights‘ and appears under the ‘keywords’ tab. To access auction insights for a specific keyword: look for any keywords with a little bar graph icon next to them, click the corresponding checkbox, drop down the ‘keyword details’ button, and click ‘auction insights.’ Only keywords that have accumulated enough data will have this function enabled.
The data Adwords provides for auction insights is both informative and valuable for any Adwords marketer. The following columns are highlighted, with data from a list of competitor websites provided under each column:
Impression Share: Impression share percentage displays what each competitor (and yourself) has received as far as total impressions. Essentially, it equals the total number of impressions the site received for the keyword, divided by the estimated number of impressions the site was eligible for. This statistic is a great overview on how you are performing in your market – a low impression share means you aren’t bidding high enough, your budget is too low, or your keyword quality score isn’t up to par.
Average Position: Average position is pretty much what is says – the average ad position of each competitor for a specific keyword.
Overlap Rate: The percentage of overlap rate displays how often a competitor’s ad received an impression while your ad was also displaying during an auction. This is a great statistic to determine who you are really competing with most often; the competitor with the highest overlap rate is the site whose ads are going head-to-head with yours most often. It would be a good idea to take a look at what kind of ad copy, site links, and discount deals this competitor is utilizing to determine how to get the better of them.
Position Above Rate: The position above percentage is closely related to overlap rate; it shows those same competitors whose ads were shown during the same auctions as yours. This time though, the percentage is based on how often the competitor’s ad was shown at a higher position than your ad in an auction.
Top of Page Rate: The top of page percentage displays how often your ads and competitor ads were shown in the top 2-3 ad positions.
Overall, the auction insights tool can be utilized in conjunction with standard keyword statistics (CTR, CPC, Quality Score, Cost per Conversion, Avg. Position, etc.) to further help determine where you stand in your competitive market. For campaigns that are having some trouble – perhaps not getting enough clicks, or with very low CTRs, this tool is a great way to help diagnose the problem and make some corrections.
The data Adwords provides for auction insights is both informative and valuable for any Adwords marketer. The following columns are highlighted, with data from a list of competitor websites provided under each column:
Impression Share: Impression share percentage displays what each competitor (and yourself) has received as far as total impressions. Essentially, it equals the total number of impressions the site received for the keyword, divided by the estimated number of impressions the site was eligible for. This statistic is a great overview on how you are performing in your market – a low impression share means you aren’t bidding high enough, your budget is too low, or your keyword quality score isn’t up to par.
Average Position: Average position is pretty much what is says – the average ad position of each competitor for a specific keyword.
Overlap Rate: The percentage of overlap rate displays how often a competitor’s ad received an impression while your ad was also displaying during an auction. This is a great statistic to determine who you are really competing with most often; the competitor with the highest overlap rate is the site whose ads are going head-to-head with yours most often. It would be a good idea to take a look at what kind of ad copy, site links, and discount deals this competitor is utilizing to determine how to get the better of them.
Position Above Rate: The position above percentage is closely related to overlap rate; it shows those same competitors whose ads were shown during the same auctions as yours. This time though, the percentage is based on how often the competitor’s ad was shown at a higher position than your ad in an auction.
Top of Page Rate: The top of page percentage displays how often your ads and competitor ads were shown in the top 2-3 ad positions.
Overall, the auction insights tool can be utilized in conjunction with standard keyword statistics (CTR, CPC, Quality Score, Cost per Conversion, Avg. Position, etc.) to further help determine where you stand in your competitive market. For campaigns that are having some trouble – perhaps not getting enough clicks, or with very low CTRs, this tool is a great way to help diagnose the problem and make some corrections.
The Real Reason for Google’s Push for Autonomous Cars: Advertising
A very interesting story recently broke regarding the legality and politics of autonomous vehicles. From CNN: “Nevada became the first state on Monday to approve a license plate for prototypes of “autonomous vehicles” that drive themselves.” This, of course, is referencing Google’s initiative to develop a fully autonomous vehicle; highlighted by a blind man ‘driving’ the Google car in this CNN video as he exclaims, “look ma, no hands!”This is a huge step for Google, despite the story being more of a publicity stunt via Google and the State of Nevada than any sort of actual technological breakthrough. However, the fact that Nevada is willing to back such a controversial initiative is telling. There has always been quite a bit of backlash to the thought of humans legally getting driven by a ‘hands free’ vehicle within the next ten years. Questions about safety, legality, and feasibility have all been thrown into the mix by detractors. However, these types of questions have never deterred Google (or Nevada) in terms of pushing a controversial project that can potentially become a cash cow.
In fact, Google and Nevada are perfect partners. For Nevada, and more specifically, Las Vegas, the revenue generation options for autonomous vehicles are appealing. Picture slot machines in your rental car so you can get an early jump on the gambling even prior to arriving at the casino. Perhaps even some complimentary libations to loosen a patron’s wallet strings prior to arrival.
For Google, everything often circles back to their primary source of revenue: advertising. Currently, Google faces some legal / ethical boundaries in regards to serving ‘full fledged’ advertising to drivers. How would it look if a driver crashed their car because eye captivating ad imagery suddenly flashed across their windshield? However, take away the primary problem in that advertising equation – the driver – and you have yourself a magnificent form of marketing.
Businesses will literally gain the ability to pull cars into their premises as if they had a tractor beam. Imagine this: an ad splays across a autonomous vehicle’s windshield, perhaps touting the best burger in San Francisco, as the car whizzes down 101. The human ‘operator’ decides it looks appetizing, and simply clicks the display, which immediately re-routes the car directly to the restaurant parking lot.
Of course, there are quite a few hurdles to be crossed – legal, political, and technological – in order for this scenario to become a reality. However, Google has been known to work the ‘long tail’ strategy in order to achieve their goals; building an entire platform from the ground up to indirectly create an advertising eco-system doesn’t seem so unfamiliar. Perhaps Google is telling us that, for them, there really is no difference between the internet highway and the real highway.
Google Glasses Advertising Update
Google recently released a video emulation of what it would be like for a wearer to experience the world through it’s upcoming product – Google glasses. The video is complete with the wearer checking the weather when looking out the window, getting directions as he walks down the street, meeting a nearby friend through Google+, and even letting his girlfriend see the sunset through his eyes as he watches it from a rooftop. It all sounds very romantic – however, there is one thing currently missing from the ‘vision’ that is ubiquitous to most Google products and certainly their primary business model – advertisements.
Where are the PPC ads laid out by Google Adwords? After all, reaching out to users as they literally are looking at products & services could be an extremely effective platform. Although there are surely some kinks to be worked out (such as how a user might click on an ad, as well as preventing potential hazards from blocking your field of view) Google’s ad team is surely working hand in hand with the team at Google X for seamless integration.
There are also quite a few worries that have come up as far as the injection of advertisements into this new world of augmented reality. The vocal community over at Reddit even re-tuned a shot from the video with some interesting injected ad placements and also have been having a lively conversation about the topic.
Posted in Adwords, Google, augmented advertising, google glasses, ppc
Tagged Adwords, augmented reality, Google Glasses, Google Glasses Ads, Google Glasses Video, Google X, ppc
Leave a comment
Franchise Marketing Tip of the Day: Adwords – Making Use of Your Trademark
Many franchise companies as well as most businesses have proprietary names and brands that are trademarked. This tool can be utilized very effectively through Google Adwords and any other pay per click marketing platform that includes ad titles and copy.
Including a ‘TM’ or ‘®’ symbol within your ad title or copy can visibly improve the click through rate of your advertisement. From a customer’s perspective, this adds credibility to your advertisement and lets you stand out from your competitors. Especially given the fact that you have very limited space to convey a message in your ppc ad, this simple symbol can convey a world of meaning in only one character.
If you are bidding on your own brand name, this is the perfect place to utilize a trademark symbol to separate yourself from competitors that might also be trying to bid on your name and related keywords. Although in the past there was some debate over whether or not to bid on your own name, the general thought today is it’s probably a good practice in most industries and markets. Although there is the chance you could be cannibalizing clicks that would otherwise go your free organic listings, that in general is better than your competitor stealing clicks when high potential customers are specifically looking for your services. In addition, bidding on your brand name and utilizing a trademark symbol in your ad copy can bolster your overall ‘page presence’ which can have a huge effect on a customer’s ‘purchase psychology’ (and therefore improve click through rates and conversion rates overall)
For more information on Franchise PPC or SEO Marketing, feel free to contact us and we’d be glad to answer your questions.
How Will Google Adwords Incorporate Augmented Advertising?
The big news from Google this week came out of the company’s secret Mountain View ‘Google X’ laboratories that work on long term R&D projects. The New York Times reported that Google’s rumored ‘augmented reality’ glasses would be released to consumers by the end of 2012. The glasses will run on the Android OS as well as attach to an Android smart phone or tablet, imbuing its wearer with the magical ability to see a different digital dimension as he looks at the world around him.Augmented reality isn’t new – there are already a plethora of Android and iPhone apps that enable a user to point their phone’s camera at storefronts and historical landmarks to pull up relevant facts and reviews. However, the glasses add an invaluable ingredient to the augmented reality stew – the option to completely ‘plug in’ to a different world. Although the difference between holding a phone up and wearing a heads up display seems logistical at most, the change is literally worlds apart. Imagine walking around downtown and seeing digital edits everywhere – notes from friends, city street soundtracks, construction notices, public transportation estimates, and advertising.
The last note is clearly why Google is moving to become the emperor of augmented reality. Adwords advertising already reaches users through search results, display network websites, YouTube videos and mobile sites – the next major foray is the real world. The effectiveness of placing customized ads into the real world – ala ‘Minority Report - would be unquestionable. Privacy and ethical concerns are obviously an issue, but then again they’ve always been an issue with the internet and that hasn’t stopped advertising from spreading to every corner of the web.
The real question is how Google will fuse augmented advertising and its Adwords platform. The company’s most successful and lucrative programs have always been Pay-Per-Click (PPC) driven. Will users be served ‘tidbits’ on their heads up display that entice them to ‘click’ to find out more? Or will augmented advertising be primarily impression driven; almost a step backwards to the old world style of billboards and paper pamphlets.
This new realm of advertising could actually become a bridge between the primarily data driven digital marketers who work with PPC and SEO and ‘old-school’ advertising agencies who create expansive visual brands. For a user that is ‘plugged in’ to augmented reality for a large portion of their day – simple text ads floating around probably won’t cut it. A user will require a more elegant advertising experience that seamlessly works into their line of sight.
Those advertising agencies that are at the cutting edge of both worlds and can also be open to new creative solutions, will likely be the next generation’s leaders.
PPC & Adwords Campaigns for New Movie Releases
Pay-per-click campaigns, and more specifically Google Adwords campaigns, are continually becoming utilized in more industries to garner attention for upcoming products. One industry that appears to be catching on to usefulness of Adwords lately is Hollywood. I recently searched for the MMA movie ‘Warrior’ (made by Lionsgate) and was greeted with a well-made Adwords ad front and center:
Adwords is the perfect addition to a standard Hollywood marketing campaign: it enables an adept PPC management team to launch an effective online campaign in a matter of days while a film is in its pre / early stages of release. Whether a potential movie-goer is searching for movie times, trailers, reviews, actors or general information about the film, they will have the potential to getting exposed to the Google ad.
Another reason why a PPC campaign can be an effective release tool for movie-makers is due to it’s ability to provide control in an otherwise unstable search engine landscape. A movie release can be peppered with professional critiques, user reviews, mash up videos and other forms of bad press that could potentially deter people from going to see the film. Although none of these forms of content are ‘official,’ they could potentially reach a customer’s eyes prior to branded materials. An Adwords ad shows up on top of a search results page (SERP), and if created in an attractive manner, will direct a user to a film studio’s landing page of choice (official movie site, trailer page, fandango, etc.). Having this type of movie advertising control is essential to a successful release.
An Adwords campaign also allows a great deal of user targeting for a movie studio. Let’s take the upcoming film ‘The Hunger Games,’ made by Lionsgate. The studio might want to send specific users interested in different actors within the film to different web pages that are tailored to fans of those actors. Those typing ‘Jennifer Lawrence Hunger Games’ would get a different ad / landing page combination than those searching for ‘Elizabeth Banks Hunger Games.’ These ads would likely perform and convert much higher than standard ‘Hunger Games’ ads because of the specific fan demographic.
Insight Forge is experienced in marketing films through online distribution channels, specifically Adwords and Facebook PPC campaigns. For more information, feel free to get in touch with us at contact@insightforge.com.
Adwords is the perfect addition to a standard Hollywood marketing campaign: it enables an adept PPC management team to launch an effective online campaign in a matter of days while a film is in its pre / early stages of release. Whether a potential movie-goer is searching for movie times, trailers, reviews, actors or general information about the film, they will have the potential to getting exposed to the Google ad.
Another reason why a PPC campaign can be an effective release tool for movie-makers is due to it’s ability to provide control in an otherwise unstable search engine landscape. A movie release can be peppered with professional critiques, user reviews, mash up videos and other forms of bad press that could potentially deter people from going to see the film. Although none of these forms of content are ‘official,’ they could potentially reach a customer’s eyes prior to branded materials. An Adwords ad shows up on top of a search results page (SERP), and if created in an attractive manner, will direct a user to a film studio’s landing page of choice (official movie site, trailer page, fandango, etc.). Having this type of movie advertising control is essential to a successful release.
An Adwords campaign also allows a great deal of user targeting for a movie studio. Let’s take the upcoming film ‘The Hunger Games,’ made by Lionsgate. The studio might want to send specific users interested in different actors within the film to different web pages that are tailored to fans of those actors. Those typing ‘Jennifer Lawrence Hunger Games’ would get a different ad / landing page combination than those searching for ‘Elizabeth Banks Hunger Games.’ These ads would likely perform and convert much higher than standard ‘Hunger Games’ ads because of the specific fan demographic.
Insight Forge is experienced in marketing films through online distribution channels, specifically Adwords and Facebook PPC campaigns. For more information, feel free to get in touch with us at contact@insightforge.com.
Google Buys Motorola Mobility: Pros and Cons
Google just announced the huge purchase of Motorola’s Mobility division, the makers of popular mobile phones like the ‘Droid’ series, for $12.5 billion. This acquisition represents Google’s largest yet, and is being labeled as a strategic move to solidify the place of Google’s Android mobile OS as well as acquire thousands of mobile-related patents in Motorola’s portfolio.The massive purchase has already set off a series of pro and anti-Google sentiments from consumers, techies, and Google’s competitors. Here’s a recap of some of the pros and cons of the Motorola Mobility purchase.
PRO: Motorola Phones Will Get Better Now that Google has thrown itself into the pot of mobile hardware makers, it will benefit it’s Android experience in a number of ways. First, Google will be able to have complete control over Motorola phones: preventing the current practice of clogging a new release with bloatware and pushing towards more of a pure, unlocked Android experience. This has got to be good for the consumer experience, especially those that are purchasing Motorola phones.
PRO: Competitive Bar Will Be Raised for Android Manufactures This will also drastically effect the competitive sphere within hardware manufacturers on the Android OS. There’s no doubt that Google will be creating high performing Motorola phones that leverage the full power of Android with very little gimmicks. This will push other Android manufacturers like HTC and Samsung to raise their bar for performance and take full advantage of the OS.
CON: Other Android Hardware Manufacturers Can’t Be Happy Companies like HTC and Samsung can’t be happy with this purchase; after all, they are building their devices on Google’s Mobile OS. Although Google has said that they will run Motorola Mobility as a ‘separate company,’ other mobile manufactures will probably take that statement with a grain of salt. How can Google truthfully say they won’t gain a competitive advantage over other companies that are running hardware on their own operating system?
PRO: The Purchase Could Help Even Out The Ongoing Patent Wars Over the past several months, it has become clear that Microsoft, Apple and Oracle are waging a war to keep the Android OS from continuing to gain market share. This has been done by them buying a range of patents from Nortell and Novell that were directly related to the mobile / cell radio spectrum. This has been seen by some as an anti-competitive strategy, as the sole reason of the purchase has been to keep the patents out of Google’s hands.
In addition, some of these patents would even force handset makers to pay license fees to Microsoft. With Google’s acquisition of Motorola, they gain thousands of mobile-related patents that will help them even the playing ground and continue the expansion of the open (and competitive) Android ecosystem.
CON: Patent Litigation Will Continue as Always Litigation will likely continue between Google, Microsoft and Apple in the mobile sphere despite Google’s patent purchase. Motorola Mobility was already facing patent litigation prior to the Google purchase, so those problems will continue along with the new ones that the competition is bound to dust up over the next several months.
In addition, although Google has deemed their competitor’s hoarding of patents as ‘anti-competitive,’ the FCC and other companies are likely to see Google’s recent actions with a similar suspicious eye.