SMX Advanced 2011 Amazing PPC Tactics, Ad Extensions
1. Google Ad Extensions Types, Tips, Tracking, Tradeoffs Lisa Sanner Senior Client Manager Point It Search Marketing Agency www.pointit.com
2. Sitelinks Product Extensions Call Extensions Location Extensions Seller Ratings Alpha’s & Beta’s for a LOT, LOT More: Jobs, Communications, Video, Offer/Coupons, Contact Forms, Store Locator Types of Ad Extensions
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4. But How Do Extensions Work Together…or Not Work Together?
27. Look at the SERP – do queries!!! Achieve DIFFERENTIATION and Performance Be thoughtful about Campaign Architecture Test, track, learn. Optimize. Repeat. Ad Extensions Considerations & Implications
Intro self –Sr Client Manager for Point It,a Seattle search marketing agency. We manage about $20 Million a year in paid search and also do SEO, local, landing page optimization, and analytics. I have been doing PPC for more than 5 years, but have done product management, online retail marketing and merchandising, primary market research, direct marketing, and traditional advertising for more than 15 years. I manage a team of client managers for a large global brand, and personally manage our US Google account. You should have a fundamentally strong PPC account before trying any of these ad extensions. That means you have a solid architecture, with tight ad groups, strong CTAs, you’ve AB split tested ad copy and have done kw and negative expansion. Ad extensions are pure merchandising and making the most of all the space you can get. Think of extensions as the icing and decorations on the cake. Make sure you have a really good cake recipe first.
Text ads on Google.com have become a whole lot more than 25 char headline & 35 char desc1&2 and display URLs. Writing some ad copy and having a strong landing page is a good place to start, but on the 2011 SERP, an ad with nothing else doesn’t really stand out in a crowd. There are a lot different types of ad extensions that you can use to augment your Google.com search campaign. Who’s using…?SitelinksProduct ExtensionsLocation ExtensionCall Extensions (previously called Phone extensions)
Take a look at this SERP for [camp stoves] – reminder - this is an “Everything” page, not a “Shopping” page. It’s kind of a mess.T1 Sierra Trading Post – Seller Ratings and Google CheckoutT2 Cabela’s – SitelinksT3 Backcountry – Product ExtensionsThen Right has Product Ads before more text adsR4 Product ExtensionsR5 ratingsR6 noneR7 Amazon ratings, they also have a Product Ad with promo here
CM mtg – weekly, get together w/other CMs to talk about what’s going on in accounts, what we are testing, what engines have released that week. I told my colleagues that I had turned on PEs and saw a huge drop in Sitelinks traffic and revenue (not all, but a lot). Me too! Me three! Hmmm. Seemed like a pattern so we started to keep track of what extensions we launched and what happened our ads and the performance of the other extensions. And really started to see some interesting trends and correlations..
What we found is that there seems to be a definite hierarchy of ad extensions and in fact, turning on one type of extension will “trump” another type of extension on the same kw. From testing different extensions simultaneously on multiple client accounts, we found that there’s a pattern as to how Google will display your extensions and what bumps out what, a hierarchy, kind of like a trumping order. This is the order from highest priority to lowest based on out testing on our clients. Google would neither confirm or deny this for me. Test it on your own accounts and see what happens. Let me know if you see something different.Alpha’s and Beta’s will beat out all others. Google and advertisers in a Beta want to get as much data as quickly as possible to know if the feature is effective and how to develop/improve and plan for rolling out to all advertisers.What I found particularly interesting for my accounts is that product extensions and location extensions beat out one-line Sitelinks, which have become really impt to my accounts where I’ve used them. Call extensions are a little different for top placements in that they won’t not trump sitelinks, but rather the phone number shows in headline for Top placements. The hierarchy holds up for right side ads with call extensions.Caveat here: This is the current status quo and Google is testing. Google is testing A LOT. Between desc1 in headlines, domains in headlines, instant preview, +1 and Annotations, placement of display URLs, there is nearly an experiment going on for every query. So, that said, I have seen some query level exceptions to this order, but for the most part, this hierarchy has held up on the accounts we manage. But to weigh the tradeoffs you really need to understand and evaluate each type of extension you could have on your Adwords account. Let’s start with my personal favorite – Sitelinks.
I think Sitelinks (circa Fall 2009) is one of the best all-around features that Google has developed since Adwords Editor. They can increase your CTR => QS => decr CPCs, especially if you are a brand and own the top spot. They can really build ad rankings and high barriers to entry on your top placement kws. But you need to track them & make sure they convert and aren’t just costing you clicks.Here we have examples of a two line sitelink and one-line sitelink. Basically you want to use sitelinks to gain more users and to get users deeper into your site more quickly, reducing the navigation path, increasing your conversion rates. You can use sitelinks for Seasonal/Promo messages (sears example), different Product Lines/Versions (as in the Microsoft Store example), or to point users to your most valuable pages.Starting June 6 (TBD) Google has now launched what they are calling Embedded Sitelinks, which are sitelinks in your actual description lines. Google wants you to fully utilize all 10 of the sitelinks available per campaign.
2 Line Sitelinks have a very high quality threshold and will mostly serve on just branded kws, but you can add a lot to your ad if you have 2 link sitelinks. If two-line, can be served with a plusboxYou can own a lot of real estate with multiple extensions. Here’s one of our long standing B2Bclients. Check it out – we have a call extension, product extensions and 2 line sitelinks. If you also consider the organic result, we have deliberately chosen non-redundant links (top selling products) for our sitelinks offering the user many choices to get exactly what they are looking for.You might want to consider pulling your kws that get two line sitelinks into their own campaign so you can add more extensions to these kws. In contrast you might want to also try to pull your one line sitelinks into their own campaign and not turn on other extensions, if they perform well for you and those are very often bumped out by other extensions such as product extensions or location extensions.Or you could do nothing and just let Google decide for you….which I’m not advising.
Only on top placements (not right)One-line vs. Two+ Line or Embedded (quality threshold)For sitelinks to show, your kw has to meet a quality threshold.2-line has a higher Quality threshold (probably QS=10) and usually shown on brand terms only.In AWE 9.0.1 since May 5, which I think was done in preparation of the release of embedded sitelinks and you can manage them much more efficiently now.Right now management is at Campaign level, predict (or rather I’m hoping) it will be at ad group level by holiday shopping season. Because they are currently at the campaign level, if you don’t like the sitelinks that show on all your kws in a campaign you might need to pull some of those ad groups out to a new campaign so you can tailor the sitelinks specifically for those kws or ad groups.
You should track the conversion performance of each sitelink. Here’s what Google recommends, but I tag my sitelinks also with Campaign name and description. So I also include the campaign and a relevant name for my tags so I can quickly look into my analytics and know what’s contributing and what’s not. Also if you try to use the same destination URL for multiple links, they will be disapproved. You can vary them even if they have same landing page, by using different analytics tags on your sitelinks dest URLs.New ValueTrack parameters where Google give you the method to track to individual kw and matchtype. Here’s the analytics tagging structure we’ve found to work with Google Analytics. We tried Google’s sitelink ValueTrack parameter {copy:xxx}, but didn’t work for us.
Not going to talk about Product Listing Ads as Cady is going to go into some great tips on this new ad format which I’m really excited to learn what she has to say. From linked Merchant Center AccountProduct Listing Ads (no KWs) vs. Product Extensions (on your KW search campaigns)All Products or filters/targets from feed attributesPlusbox (top or right) Usually an Image, Price – 1800contactsLately seeing more and more lines of text (title and price) in T1-3 positions– Vision DirectAll products or Product Filters –Product Filters - (brand, adwords_grouping, condition, adwords_labels) – must copy EXACTLY as in feed or your filters will not work and your PEs will not serve at all.Work with feed provider to use develop and use adwords_groupings or adwords_labels that work with your campaign architecture. It’s tedious, especially if you 1000s of SKUs, but can be worth it.
Google.com 5th line of text or Plusbox & Google Maps Text ads with addresses; not Search or Display NetworksCan set at Campaign or Ad levelGoogle dynamically shows relevant location based on search (in query) or location (IP)Upload locations into Google Places or through a Universal Business listing or you can manually enter them.Must be verified locations to serve for Location Extensions.They are now in AWE 9.0 (address, phone #, hours, website)At the end of June, Google will start charging for each click on 'Directions', applying to all advertisers that are using Location Extensions. Most local ad formats display a 'Directions' link next to their location info which leads a user to Google Maps. These clicks have historically been free but will be charged at the same rate than a headline click going forward. This applies to Google Search & Maps as well as Desktop & Mobile campaigns. You canget an idea of the additional spend by looking at the 'Free Clicks' report on the Dimensions Tab.
Previously named Phone Extensions, but mid May changed name in AW UI to Call Extensions. Google says in their deck that a Kelsey Group study found that users who make a call are 10X more likely to convert than users who click on a link so they may be worth it.Google serves Unique Google Voice #s that forward to your business number. You can no longer input a manual number to use for Call Extensions and expect it to be served. Google has announced it will start charging $1 per call on desktops which has now been postponed to mid-June. For mobile, you get charged for a click as soon as someone clicks on the phone number and the phone number pops up in your dialer. I believe this will stay the same, even after they change the desktop call pricing.On desktops, the phone number appears in your headline for top placements, but they show as an extra line of text for right side. On mobile they show as a clickable link. AW reports show # of calls, duration, other stats at CAMPAIGN level. But somehow you need to track your calls received at the call center to attribute actual revenue or you should assign a $ for each call received in order to evaluate it against other extensions. The revenue attribution can be a hassle but help you decide if it’s worth the cost of $1 per call.
“Clicks” are not clicks on the extension, they are clicks anywhere on the ad (headline, extension, display url, etc)Use your own tracking URLsfor performance analysis
Dimensions Tab - Free Clicks for Plusbox Expansions or Get DirectionsSegment by Click Type – Campaign, Ad group, Ad, Keyword
Not really considered an Ad extension, but they are an extra line that shows up on ads if you have them. Trust seal, credibility indicator, CTR lift (15-20%)Account Level (merchants only), automatic, not even opt-inGoogle uses various sources to compile these ratings, including Resellerratings.com, epinions, pricegrabber, Google CheckoutShow on ads when you get 30+ reviews with 4.0 avg rating or better, if your rating falls below 4.0 they will not show on your ads. However they show on Product Search no matter what avg ratingFor top ads, Google displays how many total reviews were submitted, on the right ads, it only shows the starsCan opt out for Adwords but need to fill out a form (find in help center)
Do you – Have Strict Performance KPIs for PPC?Want to Drive Conv Rate & Get Users More Quickly to Deeper Content?Want to Drive Online to Offline?Increase awareness of retail locationsGrow foot traffic/calls to locationsGrow overall revenue, multi-channelHave a Complex Sale & Well Trained Call Center Support?This is almost like integrated channel management but within the paid search channel.How are you going to measure success?Analytics tracking for online.Reported results from Call Center or retail locations for offline. (Not just quantity, duration, but value - $$$)If different metrics, how can you derive values to make comparisons? Assign $ values.