Archive for the ‘Search Engine Marketing’ category

How To Optimize Your Google AdWords Product Listing Ads

August 29th, 2011

The Google AdWords Product Listing Ads generally perform very well for most eCommerce retailers. You can read our guide on how to set up Product Listing Ads. Here are some extra tips to help you set up and optimize the campaign correctly.

Google Merchant Center

In your Google Merchant Center feed, you can add the following columns to help with Product Listing Ads.

adwords_groupingThis field is used to group products. It can be used for Product Filters to limit your AdWords campaign to a specific group of products. This field can be useful if you want to bid differently on different subsets of products. It can only hold one value (i.e. “electronics” or “iphone”).
adwords_labelsThis field is very similar to adwords_grouping, but it will only only work on the CPC bidding model. It can hold multiple values, allowing a product to be tagged with multiple labels (i.e. “shoes, sneakers”).
adwords_publishThis field is used to exclude select offers from Product Ads. If this field is not included or left blank, all product will be included in your product ads. If you want to exclude any items from being displayed you need to fill the column with a value of “true” or “false”.
adwords_redirectYou can use this field to set the click URL of the Product Listing Ad. This comes in handy when you standard Merchant shopping feed has all the URLs tagged (i.e. ?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CSE). By filling out this field with a plain URL with no tracking (i.e. http://www.merchant.com/product.html), your traffic/revenue will only be attributed to one source.

Google AdWords

Once you add these fields to your feed file, you can filter your campaigns by grouping and labels.
Google Product Listing Ads Product filters

You can find more info in the Google Help Center.

Google AdWords Will No Longer Display Google Checkout Logos

June 1st, 2011

Google AdWords/Google Checkout Badge


Google has recently decided that displaying the Google Checkout logos by all merchant who accept the payment method makes the SERPs look cluttered. Google will stop displaying the Checkout logo as of tomorrow, June 2. Below is an email we received from Google:

Hello,

Please be aware that beginning on June 2, 2011, the Google Checkout badge will no longer appear on your ads on Google search results.

We’re making this change to improve the user experience on Google search results pages.

For more information, please visit https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=1323905

Sincerely,

The Google Checkout Team

New Google AdWords Blimp Ads

April 1st, 2011

When you login to your Google AdWords account this morning you’ll notice a pop-up notification:

Usually, I tend to ignore these type of pop-up notifications… but I’m glad I didn’t miss this one. Click through to get more info on their next great advertising format that arrives this May: Contextually relevant blimp ads.

From their announcement:

Introducing gBlimps

After years of meticulous design, our brand new fleet of blimps is finally ready to take to the skies. Soon you’ll be seeing Google blimps (a.k.a. gBlimps) flying over major cities, displaying AdWords ads to a larger audience than ever before.

Take your ads to new heights

If you already have an AdWords account, using Blimp Ads is easy. Our gBlimps are designed specifically to display your existing text ads in their original format.

Rethink the way you target

With Blimp Ads, you can target your audience in exciting new ways. Specify the height and location of the blimp, as well as the time you want the ad to run. You can even target special events like football games, outdoor concerts, meteor showers, and more!

You can sign up here. Or you can laugh because it’s a pretty funny April Fool’s joke.

New AdWords Account Snapshot Dashboard Available

March 15th, 2011

It seems Google has launched a new version of the “Home” tab in AdWords. I don’t use the dashboard tab much myself, but it can be very useful to get a high level overview of your campaigns. Here is a quick tutorial on how to activate it and setup custom modules.

Here is what the old interface looked like:

Google AdWords Account Snapshot Old Interface

You will notice a new link on the top left that says “New version”, click on this to activate the new version. Note: When I clicked on this link the page just seemed to hang, I reloaded AdWords and was able to access the new interface.

Google AdWords Account Snapshot - New Version Link

Once you successfully activate the new interface, you should see a sleek modern dashboard that looks like this:

Google AdWords Account Snapshot - New Interface

You have the ability to add new custom modules by setting up saved filters in the standard campaigns tab. Any saved filter will be populated into this box:

Google AdWords - Custom Modules

Enjoy the new dashboard…

How To Import All Your Google AdWords Campaigns Into Microsoft adCenter In Less Than Two Minutes

December 15th, 2010

If you have many Google AdWords campaigns it can be a pain to copy them all into Microsoft adCenter. To Microsoft’s credit their are several tools to help with this process, some easier than others. I will concentrate on the simplest way possible: Using Google AdWords Editor to export a CSV which can then be imported in Microsoft adCenter Desktop. There is one caveat, this process is Windows only and will not work on a Mac or Linux.

Step 1 – Export your campaigns from Google AdWords Editor by clicking File –> Export Spreadsheet (CSV) –> Export Campaigns. This will prompt you to save a CSV file of your AdWords campaigns.

Step 2 – In the Microsoft adCenter Desktop tool you can click on the “Import” button pictured below. This will open a dialog asking you what kind of file you want to import, select “Import from Google.”

Step 3Browse and select the file you exported from Google AdWords Editor.

Step 4Review all fields to make sure that are mapped to the correct Microsoft adCenter fields.

Step 5Review and approve the results.

Once you have successfully imported the campaigns into adCenter desktop, all you need to do is upload the changes to Microsoft adCenter. You should be set!

As always, if you have any questions, please post them below.

Migrate Your Bing Shopping Account Into The New Microsoft adCenter Self Service Portal

December 13th, 2010

Ever since Microsoft made Bing Shopping free, merchants have been lining up to get their products listed on the new Bing Shopping. The was process was very manual, and every merchant application had to be reviewed by Bing manually. They have recently launched a new tool within Microsoft adCenter for managing your Bing Shopping product listings so that merchants and advertisers can have one interface for both adCenter and Bing Shopping.

Here is a quick “how-to” migrate your existing Bing shopping account or create a new account within adCenter:

Step 1 - Login to Microsoft adCenter and go to the “Tools” tab. Once there, click on the “Bing Shopping Account Management” link pictured below:

Step 2 - For existing accounts, select “Migrate” and enter your Bing Shopping login credentials. For new accounts, select “Create New Account.”

Step 3 - Once you enter your login information or create a new account, you will be taken to the Store Settings screen. You can enter all your store info as well as upload a logo.

Step 4 - Go to the “Catalog Management” tab and choose how you will send the feed. In this new adCenter console, you now have the ability to have Bing automatically import your feed from an HTTP URL. This is a new feature that was not previously available in the Bing Shopping portal. If you choose “Microsoft Download”, you will be prompted to enter the URL where the feed can be downloaded. If you select “Merchant Upload”, you will need to enter the file name and manually upload the file with the FTP credentials specified in the next tab.

You should check back in a few hours to ensure the feed was processed correctly. Additionally, you may want to click the “View Catalog Quality Feedback” link and check for any specific feed errors. At this point you should be done… It’s a fairly simple process. However, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

How To Setup The New Google AdWords Product Listing Ads

November 19th, 2010

Google has been testing Product Listing Ads for over a year with select *lucky* advertisers. This past week Google has rolled out this feature to all AdWords advertisers. In other words, we are all lucky now.

For some reason, the setup process does not seem very straight-forward. Here is a quick guide on how to set up Product Listing Ads.

Step 1 – Connect Google Merchant Center To Your Campaign

About a year ago, Google released AdWords Product Extensions, where related products are displayed under your ad in a PlusBox. Setting this up is the first step towards getting Product Listing Ads up and running.

You will need to goto the Ad Extesnsions tab in your campaign, and select Product Extensions from the drop down list. Then click on New Extension and check off your Merchant Center account which should show up.

Once this is done, your ads will start displaying with a PlusBox and related products under it on Google.com.

Step 2 – Create Product Targeting On The Ad Group Level

Now that your campaign is connected to your Merchant Center account, you need to select product targeting in the new Auto Targets tab. Click the Add Product Target button and select all products or a subset of your products using the filters. TIP: These product filters look for an exact match only and will give you the ability to validate the results.

Step 3 – Create A Product Listing Ad Type

The next and final step is to create a new Product Listing Ad in the Ads tab of your Ad Group. click the New Ad button and select Product Listing Ad.

You will then be given the option to fill in promo text and save the ad:

That’s all. You’re done… You should start seeing your products displayed on the top right of the Google SERPs for related terms.

For extra credit, you can watch this Google video explaining product ads.

How To Setup Conversion Tracking In Microsoft adCenter

November 4th, 2010

Microsoft adCenter Conversion Tracking

Now that Microsoft adCenter is powering ads for both Bing.com and Yahoo.com, it is extremely important to make sure you are tracking your campaigns properly. Here is a quick guide on how to set up revenue and conversion tracking for Microsoft adCenter.

Step 1 – Turn On Conversion Tracking

In adCenter, conversion tracking must be turned on for each individual campaign. You can do this by navigation to your campaign and clicking on the “Change Settings” link. In the top right corner of this page you will find a check box to Track Conversions. Check this box.

If you just want to track the number of conversions, you can click the link to “show code” and paste it into your order confirmation page. If you want to track revenue too, then you’ll want to follow the next steps.

Step 2 – Revenue Tracking

In order to track the revenue generated from orders originating from adCenter, we will need to set up custom code. Start by clicking on the “Open Campaign Analytics Tool”. This will bring you to the Campaign Analytics section of adCenter. The next step will be to set up a goal by clicking “Create Goal”.

It will bring you to a simple form that you will need to fill out. Most of the form is self-explanatory. Just make sure you select “Variable” under the “Revenue to track” option.

Once you fill out the form, click “Save and generate code”. Copy and past the code and…

Step 3 – Inserting Revenue Variable

At this point you should have code that looks kind of like this:

<script type="text/javascript">if (!window.mstag) mstag = {loadTag : function(){},time : (new Date()).getTime()};</script>
<script id="mstag_tops" type="text/javascript" src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/site/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/mstag.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> mstag.loadTag("analytics", {dedup:"1",domainId:"XXXXXX",type:"1",revenue:"",actionid:"XXXXX"})</script> <noscript> <iframe src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/tag/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/analytics.html?dedup=1&domainId=XXXXXX&type=1&revenue=&actionid=XXXXX" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden; display:none"> </iframe> </noscript>

At this point you need to generate the order total from your eCommerce system and pass the variable in the two places it says revenue. Here is an example, look at the word revenue on lines 3 and 4.

<script type="text/javascript">if (!window.mstag) mstag = {loadTag : function(){},time : (new Date()).getTime()};</script>
<script id="mstag_tops" type="text/javascript" src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/site/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/mstag.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> mstag.loadTag("analytics", {dedup:"1",domainId:"XXXXXX",type:"1",revenue:"1234.56",actionid:"XXXXX"})</script> <noscript> <iframe src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/tag/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/analytics.html?dedup=1&domainId=XXXXXX&type=1&revenue=1234.56&actionid=XXXXX" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden; display:none"> </iframe> </noscript>

Your final code should look something like the code directly above. You can paste this code into your order confirmation page.

NOTE: Don’t copy and paste this as it won’t work, because I removed all the IDs that adCenter uses to identify which account this is for.

How To Track Phone Sales In Google AdWords With Call Metrics

November 3rd, 2010

Every online merchant knows how complicated it is to track phone sales… Google has announced a new Ad Extension called Call Metrics. This works by getting a new phone number for each campaign through Google Voice. AdWords will then report how many calls that ad received.

How-To

Go to the Ad Extensions tab on any campaign and select View Phone Extensions. From there you can select New Extension. You will be prompted to fill out the following info:

  • Country
  • Phone number to call

Then check the box next to “Call metrics: Use Google Voice to track calls from my ads”.

Image Credit: Search Engine Land

Here is a video Google created to explain the benefits of call tracking.

NOTE: This has not rolled out to all accounts yet.

Image Source: -eko-

How To Save Money In AdWords With Broad Match Modifier

October 22nd, 2010

In the middle of July, Google announced the release of the new Google AdWords Keyword Match Type called Broad Match Modifier in the US. Here’s a quick “how-to” and why you’ll want to use it.

Until now Google offered three match types:

  1. Broad Match
  2. Phrase Match
  3. Exact Match

How & Why?

For some advertisers, Broad Match is too liberal and Phrase Match is too conservative. What Broad Match Modifier brings to the game is somewhere in between. For example, if you had previously wanted to advertise the term “nike shoes” and only have your ad displayed when the search term included the word “nike”, you would have had to use the phrase match terms. This becomes difficult because you need to add many different variations of the terms in order to reach a wide enough audience. With the new Broad Match Modifier, you can now use one keyword: “+nike shoes”. This will display your ad for many variations of the keywords and make sure that it always contains the word “nike”.

Overall, this new feature should save you time and money while helping you expand your reach.

Do you see this helping your business?