With more high end phones hitting the market and marketers wondering how to best connect with consumers on their phones, we wanted to give you a few best practices for targeting high end mobile devices. Today we'll be giving you a few tips for optimizing mobile campaigns. While both mobile and desktop search campaigns use similar best practices, the way we search and browse the web on our mobile phones is slightly different than on our computers. Separating mobile and desktop campaigns and optimizing for performance on each platform will drive greater success for your clients intigrated marketing strategies. 1. Reporting & Tracking Use Device and Click Type reporting to figure out exactly what is and is not working in your mobile search campaigns. Just like with desktop search, you can (and should) bid according to what is sending traffic to your site and what converts best. Pulling out high performing keywords and placing them into a separate mobile campaign can help drive additional traffic in a growing market. (Example data. Click here to view image) This holds true for placements and the mobile content network as well. When running a Placement Performance Report for mobile phones, take special note of the Ad Sense for Mobile Apps category of placements (they will show up as adsenseformobileapps.com in the report). You can drill down to the specific URL and gain insight into what apps you should continue to target and which ones you should exclude. 2. Keywords & Ad Text Searches on high-end mobile devices average around 2.9 words (and only 2.4 on WAP phones). When expanding desktop search campaigns to mobile and/or adding new keywords to your mobile campaigns, keep in mind how people search on their phones. While desktop campaigns may benefit from "long tail", 4- to 5- word keyword phrases, you may want to consider shorter, more general, and location specific searches for mobile phones. For example, a college student in Boston may search for "Pizza near Union Square in Boston" from their dorm room, but would only search "Boston Pizza" from their mobile phones. 3. Take advantage of what's mobile In the past few months we've launched several mobile specific ad formats like click-to-download, click-to-call, and mobile coupons in the Local Business Center. Think about what unique advantages and messaging a mobile campaign allows and reach your customers at every point of their day. For more mobile tips and resources, visit the Google Mobile Ads site . In addition, check back next week for the next installment of 'Going Mobile in 2010.' Posted by Stevie Degroff, Agency Team
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Going Mobile in 2010 - Part One, Optimizing Mobile Campaigns
Last week we began to roll out bid ideas in the Opportunities Tab . Along with customized keyword and budget ideas, you'll now be given bid suggestions for specific keywords, based on bid simulator data, to improve your AdWords ROI. Depending on whether you want to increase traffic or decrease cost, you'll see ideas on how to raise or lower your bids to meet your business goals. You’ll see bid ideas in your account if we determine there's an opportunity for you to: Receive significant additional clicks without a significant increase in cost Save money without sacrificing a lot of clicks Bid ideas became visible in some accounts last week, and will be available in all accounts in the coming weeks. ( click here to view larger image ) For additional information on bid ideas, please visit the full post on the Inside AdWords Blog . Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager
Originally posted here:
Find big ideas with bid ideas
You may have seen Google's Superbowl ad this past Sunday and have gotten a taste of what a love story might look like when told as a series of search results. Of course, that was just one example; it's certainly possible to find romance outside of Paris. With total 2010 Valentine's Day spending expected to reach $14.1B 1 , there are ample opportunities for you to inject a little romance into your own clients' campaigns to ensure they have the biggest impact in the next few days. Here are some quick tips: 1. Ad Copy: Activate and create new text ads that specifically mention Valentine's Day. This serves as a reminder for users that the date is almost here. In addition, create a sense of urgency in your ad text. Shipping deadlines, or a Valentine's Day countdown (i.e., Only 5 Days Until Valentine's!) may make your advertisement that much more compelling and drive panicked, last minute shoppers to your clients. 2. Budget: Search traffic for "Valentine's Day" and "Valentines Day" is trending upward year over year. Ignoring this increased traffic is a missed opportunity for conversions. Increasing budgets where possible will ensure you capture relevant traffic and capitalize on all conversion opportunities. Consider using the Bid Simulator to simulate various scenarios based on your bidding strategy and improve profitability of campaigns. 3. Keyword expansions: Capture additional traffic for your clients with expanded keyword lists. Try the Search-based Keyword Tool and take a look at the organic search queries reported in Google Analytics for new keyword ideas. Use Google Insights for Search to understand where your clients' products or services intersect with increased search activity. In addition to category specific opportunities, remember to target consumers looking for gift ideas. Women may be particularly interested in such suggestions - searches for "gifts for boyfriend" were up +250% y/y . 4. Expand reach: Use Ad Planner to reach your clients' target demographic on the Google Content Network and compliment search campaigns for maximum impact. Combine relevancy and targeting with eye catching visuals using Google's Display Ad Builder . For additional resources, be sure to visit the AdWords Help Center . Happy Valentine's Day! [1] the NRF 2010 Valentine's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted for NRF by BIGresearch Posted by Yael Davidowitz-neu, Retail Team and Evan Ortiz, Agency Team
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Help clients spread a little love this Valentine's Day
What makes up the ideal creative for your client? We'll walk you through how you can answer this question using AdWords reporting and the Display Ad Builder , a tool that allows you to quickly and easily customize display ads and to run measurable experiments. Experimentation is not new to advertising, although the theories and ideas that inspired campaigns have evolved over time. For example, in the early 20th century, the prevailing sentiment in the ad industry was that information made a creative effective. The car ad below sums up the thinking of the time: National Motor Vehicle, Inc. advertisement (1907) retrieved on 21.1.2010 from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National-advertisement_1907.jpg Theories eventually emerged suggesting that consumers weren't always need-oriented, but advertisers were baffled by how to measure seemingly subjective behavior. Mid century a study was released that put data to consumer responses. It showed that three factors - the size of the ad, the size of the illustration and the numbers of colors - together could help explain some of the readership difference between a magazine's ads. Today, you can find out the the factors that trigger the strongest response by using the data in Ad Performance Reports in AdWords, which provide relevant statistics for ad variations, such as text ads, image ads, video ads, and local business ads, and run experiments with Display Ad Builder . Here are two creatives developed with Display Ad Builder for a hypothetical online travel company: Ad creatives developed internally using Display Ad Builder: Image 1 & Image 2 When creating the ads, populate the "Ad Name" field in Display Ad Builder with the ad's elements. We'll call the first "day_scene_cta" and the second "night_people_question." Launch the ads on even rotation to ensure a good sample. Then you can construct a chart like the one below from your Ad Performance Report by adding up the clicks and impressions for each ad component: Sample data set from internal account independent of example creatives. In this example, the effectiveness measure is clickthrough rate (CTR), but this can be substituted for conversion rate or cost-per-acquisition (CPA). The chart shows the elements of the ad that had the greatest impact on CTR, benchmarked against the performance of the whole ad group. You can tweak the reporting to show the impact of relationships as well. Do people prefer images of scenery or people at night? With a well-designed ad experiment, you can use basic data-mining principles to find these results. However you choose to experiment, continue to measure your results so you can find the best creative. Posted by Eddie Higgins, Agency Team
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Display Ad Builder & Creative Generation
It's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and all you're probably thinking about right now is "I need to defrost the turkey, pick up another can of pumpkin filling, and vacuum before family arrives." That, and "are my clients' accounts ready for Black Friday, the busiest retail shopping day of the year?"
To ensure that you and your clients have a successful Black Friday, we wanted to use this Holiday Campaign Countdown post to share some quick last minute tips from our Optimization Specialists.
While Black Friday typically refers to in-store traffic, the retail industry has seen dramatic year over year increases in e-commerce sales and searches1. Analysts have also pointed to significant spikes in online shopping on Cyber Monday. The Monday after Thanksgiving yields sales spikes for e-commerce retailers2 and is fueled by promotions such as percent off sales, free gifts, and free shipping.
Our suggestions for any retail accounts (or others that might see this seasonal spike) before you leave the office for the Thanksgiving Holiday are:
- Promotions - Be sure to highlight any promotions you have in your ad text whether they are Black Friday specific or not. If you have a discount on shipping or it is free, highlight this.
- Budgets - Increase budgets across all campaigns to a comfortable level knowing that traffic spikes will be likely. Make sure ads keep showing when a user searches.
- Bids – Modify bids on top performing and generic keywords knowing that competition on Black Friday/Cyber Monday will increase. Use the Bid Simulator to see what results you may get with different keyword maximum CPC bids, and consider using Conversion Optimizer to get as many profitable clicks as possible.
Happy Thanksgiving!
[1] MarketingVox
[2] National Retail Federation with BIGresearch, Black Friday Weekend, 12/2/08. *Excludes Cyber Monday.
Posted by Ben Sheldon, Agency Optimization Strategist
