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Violet Balbae
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Violet is a PPC Assistant in the iProspect Stafford office.
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Google Tests Closer Alignment of Paid and Organic Formats
Google is constantly testing and experimenting with new features, ad formats and tools to enhance the user experience as well as the relevancy and usefulness of the ads. Since the introduction of Extended Text Ads, Google has been eager to test different ad and extension formats to improve user experience without affecting the advertiser's intent. Recently, Google has started testing different ad headline formats and introduced "piping" to separate the two headlines. This new ad aspect appeared in the USA and UK on 18th January, but as Google hasn’t made an official announcement yet, it is unclear to which other countries the test has been expanded to. Below is an example of the new ad format: For more than a year, Google has also been showing the domain before the first headline separated by a dash. Under the new ad changes, the dash has been substituted for a pipe too, making the ad resemble an organic result as can be seen in the screenshot below: iProspect.com organic listing This alignment between paid and organic listings seems to be the main reason for initiating a new test to enhance the user’s experience. For advertisers, that should be good news as the CTR should improve. Looking at client figures comparing 11th - 17th Jan and 18th - 24th Jan, there seems to be a slight increase in CTR, more prominently in some industries than others. The results below are across a number of iProspect clients with minimal changes to the campaign during this time period, resulting in a stable test environment: The average increase in CTR across all clients above was 10.6%. However, even though this is not common, the pipe or vertical line is a delimiter, emphasizing a full stop. This will affect the way the ad is being read by the user and impact on performance. For SEO, the pipeline is used as best practice as it takes less pixels than the dash, avoiding any truncated content. Unfortunately, there is no way to definitively measure the impact of this formatting change as it is not an available segment within AdWords. The best guide would be to review overall CTR pre- and post-18th January. It is also an option to manually construct the formatting and conduct an A/B ad copy test. As Google continues to test a variety of new formats, the introduction of piping to paid search adverts, to align more closely with organic, appears to be one of the widest roll-outs in recent months. Although we cannot directly control the appearance of this new format, it highlights the importance of advertisers keeping a keen eye on live search engine results pages to identify new tests and attribute them to changes in performance. Ad copy testing, as always, will remain a key component of the paid search optimisation feedback loop but advertisers need to maintain a holistic view of all variables to ensure effective development of their accounts. 0
3 min read
The Best Approach and Strategy for In-Market Audiences
Marketing is all about targeting the right people at the right time with the right message. However, when GDPR came into place in May, targeting the right people became a challenge for a wide range of global clients. To assist brands with this challenge, earlier this year, Google launched In-market audiences. This method to connect with consumers adds another layer to the mix, allowing advertisers to connect with users that are actively researching different products and services based on their browsing history. In fact, In-market audiences can be beneficial for all brands, not just those affected by GDPR. So, what exactly are In-market audiences? According to Google, In-market audiences are users that are actively researching products and services and are likely to buy similar products or services to yours. However, the question on everyone’s lips is ''how exactly are the users ‘qualified’ to be in a certain in-market audience?'' Google confirmed that it's a combination of the online behaviour, in terms of sites and pages visited recently, frequency, the level of engagement with related ads and subsequent conversions. The available categories include: Apparel and Accessories Autos & Vehicles Baby & Children's Products Beauty Products & Services* Business Services* Computers & Peripherals Consumer Electronics Consumer Software Dating Services* Education Employment Financial Services Gifts & Occasions Home & Garden Real Estate Sports & Fitness Telecom Travel Where should brands start? Depending on the industry and the business model, the selection process may be a piece of cake or a guessing game. One of our Audience experts developed a more standardised process on how to approach In-market audiences selection. It's called the “Three Tier Approach”. 1. Tier One The first step is to select all the highly relevant In-market audiences for your vertical, set them up as observations to collect data for three weeks, and then apply relevant bids. One of the tips from our Audience team is to implement positive bids but to leave the less performing ones at 0% at this stage. These audiences should align with your business and might require more time. 2. Tier Two The second layer of In-market audiences to look at are the indirectly relevant categories to your business vertical, such as Holidays for a clothes retailer. Depending on the vertical, the first tier might not be possible. If this is the case, the indirect relevant audiences may be the best approach. A good starting point for this is to collaborate with a business marketing department to create personas of the ideal customer to select the best secondary audiences. The recommended time for collecting data at this stage is two months. One very important thing to keep in mind at this stage: if a user is part of several categories, Google allocates them to the category with the highest bid. This would ensure the quality of traffic and positively impacts the performance. However, keep in mind that the first tier is the most relevant, so keep the highest bids for that category. 3. Tier Three In case the lists are not applicable, another alternative is to consult the Audience recommendations by Google and select that list. As these lists are not as precise as first and second tiers, the time for collecting data should be at least several months to be conclusive enough to decide the bid adjustments. The Results We’ve seen really positive results from In-market audiences compared to “normal” traffic, but the results also depend on the vertical. Below is a comparison across a few verticals and the percentage difference seen between normal traffic and the In-market audiences. The results for Fashion Retail appears low, but the value that In-market audiences add is newly qualified traffic that will feed the remarketing lists. Overall, the conversion rate is higher. Conclusion In-market audiences add value by driving incremental conversions and leads, but also take advantage of a very powerful classification system based on in-market behaviour. Additionally, when used in conjunction with Adwords IF, customisers allow you to deliver the right message to the right users at the right time. Moreover, it is a great generator of qualified traffic, which builds up your remarketing list and shapes a very powerful targeting tool. However, looking at the lists from a more strategic perspective, instead of ticking boxes, is really important to ensure that the data collected is really adding value and informed decisions can be made. 0
4 min read
Why you Should be Thinking about Universal App Campaigns
Within the plethora of apps available now – around 8 million in the Google Play Store (Statista, 2018) – trying to reach your ideal customer whilst reaching your business goals can be tricky. Increasing your brand's app visibility and building a consistent user database has never been more challenging. Universal App Campaigns (UAC) can help your brand to get in front of the right people at the right time. Below is an overview of how a UAC can be beneficial. 1. Increase your App Installs A few years ago, Google launched UACs to help promote apps easily on Google Play, Search, YouTube and Gmail, as well as millions of websites and apps across the Google Display Network at once. UAC uses machine learning technology to analyse specific behaviours and elements to decide where users are most likely to interact with the ads, then it positions the ads for the app in front of the users most likely to install it. According to Search Engine Land, 2017 more than 50% of the total app installs on their network were driven by UAC . 2. Drive in-app Action However, it’s not just about acquisition but smart acquisition. Despite app downloads being estimated to increase by more than 30% this year in the UK, the average user uses only nine apps daily and around 30 in a month (TechCrunch, 2017). App installs are only half of the story as that doesn’t guarantee that the user took any action that contributed to the actual business goal. UAC allows advertisers to find the right audience which will complete a certain action after installing the app (joining a group on a game app, downloading the newsletter, in-app purchase). Google offers a list of events from which to choose depending on your app and business goals. 3. Driving In-app Action Value Google is keen on developing this tool further to fit the advertisers’ business goals and objectives, but also to get more impactful measurements. Depending on the app purpose and capabilities you’re able to optimise towards the users that are more likely to generate the best value over time. This means that you would be able to optimise towards a target ROAS within the app. This is advised to be used after the app installs and in-app actions were trialled, to build historical data which will help UAC to ‘learn’ faster what’s the most valuable target audience for your app. According to Marketing Land, 2018 the conversion rate for in-app based sales is three times more than the mobile web which is mostly attributed to the considerably better user experience and shorter checkout process. Moreover, Criteo (2017) states that in-app purchases accounts for 44% of all transactions by environment. Ready, Set, Go! As UACs are based on machine learning, so all you need to start driving app-installs and increase your visibility is your app, your landing page, four lines of text and images or a YouTube video. Ideally, upload as many images and videos as you can as AdWords will be able to adapt the ads to different backdrops for different types of users. The last step is to decide on your campaign goal, language and location and …you’re all set to go. If you’ve decided that in-app actions are far more important for achieving your objectives the requirements don’t change, but you’ll also need to third-party conversion tracking to be able to track in-app events e.g. Firebase analytics. Besides the in-app events that will be reported in Adwords platform, you’ll be able to report on the user’s lifetime value, the average revenue per user and really understand your target audience value. UAC has been around since 2015, but according to Google, the tool is still at its infancy stages promising a lot of interesting changes in the next years that will take the app promotion to a whole new stage. What this means is that if you haven’t started promoting your app using UAC, the environment is going to get even tougher if your competitors are leveraging this machine learning tool and really affect your app visibility. 0
4 min read
Violet is a PPC Assistant in the iProspect Stafford office.
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