This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

A marketer’s data is as good as gold. Certainly, there are number of ways to collect data via internal and external sources.

The most common data sources are first party and third party—first party data is essentially your data. It’s the information you collect directly from your customers or your website. In contrast, third party data comes from other sources—it’s data aggregated from a variety of sources.

Due to changes that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires, the future of third party data is uncertain. Under the GDPR, companies are required to inform consumers about the data they’re collecting, such as how they intend to use it and with whom they intend to share it. Given this change, there are concerns that this can lead to the end of third party data as we know it.

What Does This Mean for Marketers?

With all the shake-up around third party data, now’s the time to rethink your marketing strategy and utilize your first party data as much as possible. If your website is already tagged with a remarketing pixel for your various media platforms, then you’re off to a good start. Remarketing pixels are considered first party data since they capture the user’s behavior and activity while they’re on your website.

If you have a customer relationship management (CRM) system to help manage your customer information, then you likely have details about your customer’s past purchases and other interactions with your business. When used properly, you can leverage your remarketing audiences and CRM data to create targeted marketing lists to re-engage site visitors and past purchasers.

Incorporating First Party Data into Your Digital Media Strategy

Most advertisers are already familiar with the basics of remarketing and the importance of segmenting your data to re-engage users with relevant messaging across search and social platforms to increase conversion prospects. But by using your remarketing and CRM data, you can take your strategy to the next level by analyzing customer data and trends to home in on customer retention and repeat purchases, while also using that data to expand your reach to a targeted audience.

Here are some ideas to leverage your first party data and up your remarketing game across paid search and social:

• Push upsells and cross-sells: Once a visitor converts, leverage CRM data to determine complementary products they may be interested in. For example, if a customer purchases a swimsuit, follow up with ads to sell them a beach towel or swim cover-up.
• Re-engage seasonal shoppers: If you have a set of customers who only purchase during a certain time of year (such as holidays or summer), that’s okay! Create lists for these purchasers, and ramp up your marketing efforts for them during the time of year they’re most likely to convert. Also consider if there are other holidays or promotional events when it might make sense to re-engage these visitors.
• Don’t forget about video: Video advertising is becoming more and more popular and it’s a great way to reach your audience. Consider using a sequential messaging strategy to build a story and keep users interested in your brand.
• Expand your reach with lookalikes or similar audiences: Google and Facebook both have the ability to build a new audience based off your first party data. This is a great way to expand your reach and find users who are like your current customers.

Conclusion

While first party data may not offer as much opportunity to scale your marketing efforts as third party data, there’s still a lot of potential to leverage first party data to increase revenue and improve ROI. Put your customer data and insights to good use to refine your remarketing, retention, and acquisition strategies.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

While attribution is simply the act of assigning conversion credit to certain keywords or ads, many advertisers are beginning to realize the importance of understanding how it works. Attribution plays a large role in how advertisers perceive their campaign performance.

Without a solid grasp of knowing how your attribution model works, you might be misinterpreting your data. Certain campaigns can easily be over or under estimated based on the attribution model being used.

Here are a few points to demystify the nuts and bolts of attribution for search campaigns.

The Standard Model: Last-Click Attribution

Google AdWords defaults to a last-click attribution model, which assigns conversion credit to the last keyword that received a click. This means that if someone clicks an ad from a non-brand keyword search then later converts after clicking a brand ad, Google assigns conversion credit to the brand campaign.

Meanwhile, Google doesn’t assign any conversion credit to the non-brand campaign. A major flaw with the last-click attribution model is that it doesn’t account for the fact that the user may have only heard about the brand because of the non-brand search they performed earlier. So brand campaigns get the conversion credit and performance looks strong, while non-brand played a large role in driving the user to the site but performance metrics looks bleak.

This is just one example, but scenarios like this play out numerous times every day, week, and month. And over time, the performance metrics add up and can lead advertisers to believe that non-brand is not driving enough value to justify the expense (often resulting in budget cuts for non-brand). On the other hand, the brand campaign could be getting more credit (and investment) than it deserves.

Brand and Non-Brand Working Together

It’s important to understand how attribution plays a role here, and how it easy it can be to jump to conclusions in terms of brand versus non-brand performance. It’s also important to understand the role that non-brand plays in the user’s conversion journey.

Non-brand can be a great acquisition strategy to bring new, qualified people to your site. Without a good acquisition strategy, growth can become stagnant—and over time, those high-performing brand campaigns could begin to see a decline in performance as brand awareness begins to decline.

In thinking about the example above, if that person never searched on the non-brand term as they were beginning their journey, would they still have purchased from your site? Maybe. Or perhaps they never would have even heard of your company.

Non-brand performance may not look strong on the surface when using a last-click attribution model, but there’s value in non-brand! And it’s important to think about the true value of brand campaigns, and if they’re worthy of all the conversion credit they’re being given.

Understanding Brand Incrementality

At this point, you may be wondering if bidding on your brand keywords is as valuable or important as you’ve thought. Would these users have clicked an organic listing and converted regardless of the presence of a paid search brand ad? It’s certainly a possibility.

Without brand ads, some people would have still navigated to your site and completed their purchase. But even though Google’s last-click attribution model is likely over-reporting the value of brand campaigns, this doesn’t mean that investing in brand terms isn’t valuable—it absolutely is!

Bidding on brand keywords is still an important strategy to ensure high visibility when users are most likely to convert. And maintaining ownership of your brand terms is especially important if you also have lots of competitors bidding on your brand terms.

However, there’s a chance that you’re over-investing in brand campaigns, and spending money on these terms when the funds could be re-allocated (where they would have a larger impact on performance or account growth). To know if this is true for your account, it’s important to test brand incrementality. Running a brand incrementality test will allow you to quantify the true value of brand search spend, conversions, and ROI.

Advantages of a Multi-Touch Attribution Platform

There are various ways you can measure brand incrementality. One approach I recommend is to use a multi-touch attribution platform, which will allow you to understand the true value of brand campaigns and non-brand campaigns (along with other marketing initiatives).

Multi-touch attribution platforms can assess marketing performance and go beyond a last-click attribution model to apply conversion credit to various touchpoints throughout the customer’s conversion journey. This gives advertisers a more insightful look at how each of their marketing initiatives perform. And ultimately it can help ensure that marketing budgets are being allocated towards the right strategies to drive optimal performance.

Conclusion

Brand campaigns may be getting more conversion credit than they deserve, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bid on brand. Reconsider how you evaluate non-brand performance and consider if having a larger non-brand investment could help your brand grow. Use a multi-touch attribution platform to test brand incrementality and properly assess campaign performance in order to properly allocate marketing funds.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

We all know it by now—mobile is important! Mobile usage continues to grow, and if you don’t have a strong mobile strategy in place, you’ll be left in dust. Aside from the fact that over half of Google’s paid search clicks come from mobile devices, Google is also moving to a mobile-first index. While this doesn’t have a direct impact on paid search, it’s a clear indicator that mobile is the new frontier and you’ve got to have a plan in place for this ever-growing trend.

Here are three keys ways to assess your mobile strategy.

1. How Does Your Site Stack Up?

There are resources readily available to test the mobile friendliness of your site, and even your site speed. I recommend using Google’s Test My Site tool, a free website tool that evaluates your mobile site speed and estimates the percentage of visitors lost due to loading time. And luckily, when you use this tool, Google will even provide a few suggestions on how you can reduce loading time for your mobile website.

It’s important to evaluate how your mobile site performs, because a strong mobile experience equates to stronger performance results for your media campaigns. Use the Google site speed tool to find out how much traffic you’re losing due to poor mobile site speed.

Then, run some basic math based on your conversion rate and average order value to get a sense of how much revenue you’re losing out on. If your site is falling short and costing you money, then make necessary changes soon!

2. Understanding the Value of Mobile

Many advertisers mistakenly take mobile performance at face value when making paid search campaign optimizations. They download a Google AdWords performance report segmented by device to compare performance among the various devices, and then apply device bid modifications to equalize performance based on the data.

The thought process here comes from a good place—if mobile CPAs are higher, it seems like a logical optimization strategy to bid down on mobile to reduce the CPA. However, since many users begin their journey on a mobile device and then convert on a desktop later, mobile is likely being under-valued in the performance report because it’s not getting credit for the conversion.

To paint a better picture of mobile performance, you should evaluate cross-device performance (user-friendly visuals are located in the “tools” section of your Google AdWords account). The screenshot below illustrates how mobile plays a part in the conversion cycle.

For this client, mobile assisted in over 1,200 desktop conversions. If you’re using Google’s last-click attribution model, those conversions are not counted toward mobile performance, thus understating the value of mobile device interaction.

Additionally, if you have retail store locations, you should talk with your Google rep about adding “Store Visits” data to your AdWords account. Many users search from a mobile device while they’re on the go, so mobile is a great source for driving in-store traffic. Once you have Store Visits data in your account, you can segment this data to evaluate the number of store visits coming from mobile devices specifically.

3. Optimizing Mobile Performance

Now that you have a better understanding of why mobile is important and steps you can take to improve your mobile site experience, let’s dive into ways that you can optimize your mobile strategy for paid search.

Applying proper device bid modifications is a great first step in optimizing your mobile strategy. As mentioned above, just remember to take into account the hidden value of mobile and consider things like cross-device conversions and in-store visits before bidding down mobile too much.

For your top-performing keywords, consider increasing mobile bids to top-of-page bid estimates to ensure full visibility on those keywords, as most visibility and clicks come from the top position on mobile devices. It’s also worth testing smart bidding instead of manual bidding. Smart bidding leverages Google’s machine learning and backend data to optimize bids for each auction, and it even takes the user’s device into account.

In terms of ad copy, strive to make your ads appealing to mobile users. Here are a few tips:

• Try using the Ad Customizers “IF” function to tailor ad copy based on the user’s device.
• Ad copy that mentions the ease of converting from a mobile device, or even featuring a mobile URL, can provide the user with a sense of confidence in your mobile site experience. This will encourage more clicks and visits.
• Leveraging call extensions and message extensions is another way you can provide potential customers with an easy way to get in touch with you.
• Consider testing some mobile-specific features such as image extensions or Google Shopping Showcase ads to determine if the more visually appealing aspects attract your users.

Conclusion

Mobile isn’t going anywhere! Start assessing your mobile site and make necessary changes to improve the mobile experience for your site visitors. Then dive into mobile performance to get a clearer understanding of the role mobile plays in the customer journey.

You may want to regularly analyze this data, as the results can change as your site improves and more users continue to search and shop online. Lastly, keep mobile top of mind as you create campaigns and ad copy. Think about the user experience from a mobile perspective to guide your strategy.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

If you’re an advertiser and you’ve ever wondered why conversion metrics are different in AdWords and Facebook versus Google Analytics, you’re not alone. As a user goes through the purchase process, it’s likely that they’ll interact with the same brand numerous times before converting. Assuming there are no tracking issues on your site, these reporting differences can be summed up in one word: attribution.

What Is Attribution?

Attribution is the science of understanding which media campaigns are driving conversions for your business. It’s very common to see data discrepancies in Google Analytics compared to media platforms, and it all boils down to differences in attribution models.

Here’s a common path a customer may take along the purchase journey with one company. We’ll return to this scenario throughout the rest of this article.

• Day 1: The user starts their search and clicks an AdWords ad
• Day 2: The user sees a Facebook ad and clicks it
• Day 2: The user clicks another AdWords ad
• Day 3: The user later converts on a Google organic listing

In the use case above, Google Analytics would assign conversion credit to the Google organic listing, Google AdWords would take credit for the conversion, and Facebook would also take credit for the conversion. As you can see, both AdWords and Facebook take credit, but Google Analytics only considers the organic listing.

Let’s dive into the attribution differences between these platforms in greater detail.

Understanding the Google Analytics Attribution Model

Many platforms use a last-click attribution model. This means that the last ad or keyword that led to a conversion gets credit. Google AdWords, for example, uses a last-click attribution model (by default). So, when a user clicks two paid search ads, AdWords assigns conversion credit to the last ad that was clicked before the conversion event occurred.

Google Analytics also uses a last-click attribution model. But an important differentiator is that Google Analytics takes all channels into account. So, in the scenario above, even though Google AdWords is applying conversion credit to the last AdWords ad that was clicked, Google Analytics isn’t giving Google AdWords any credit for this conversion. Google Analytics attributes all conversion credit to the Google organic listing. This is a key difference in understanding why Google Analytics conversion data can differ greatly compared to media platforms.

How Does Time Impact Conversion Data Discrepancies?

Another key differentiator in how Google Analytics records conversions in comparison to many media platforms is that Google Analytics assigns conversion credit on the day of the conversion, whereas media platforms typically assign conversion credit on the day of the click.

Again, looking at the example above, Google Analytics records the conversion on Day 3 (the day of the purchase). Conversely, Facebook and AdWords retroactively assign conversion back to
Day 2 (the day each of these platforms received their last click).

Depending on your business, this difference can be meaningful, especially if your purchase cycle is longer or if you have an event that drives a lot of conversions on a given day.

More Ways Facebook Attribution Is Different from Google Analytics

In addition to the differences with last-click models and the timing of conversion reporting, a few additional elements make Facebook conversion tracking unique.

First, Facebook can track impression-based conversions. The default attribution window for Facebook is 28 days post-click and one day post-view. This means that Facebook counts a conversion even if a user never clicked a Facebook ad. This is a huge difference in reporting, because Google Analytics doesn’t have the ability to track impression-based conversions.

Another difference between Facebook and Google Analytics is that Facebook has the unique ability to track users from one device to another (if the user is signed-in on all their devices). This means that Facebook can track cross-device conversions. Google Analytics only uses cookies to track users, so it doesn’t have the ability to track cross-device conversions.

Conclusion

There are several reasons why conversion data in Google Analytics doesn’t match conversion data that media platforms provide. Neither method is right or wrong, but it’s important to understand what the attribution differences are, because these differences can cause a huge discrepancy in the data that you see reported in each platform, especially in Facebook.

If you don’t feel comfortable using Google Analytics data as the point of truth because it greatly under-values Facebook, but you also don’t like to use the Facebook data because it’s too lenient with the conversion data it records, then using a multi-touch attribution platform is likely your best option. Multi-touch attribution platforms can look at the various touchpoints in a user’s purchaser cycle and determine a better way to assign conversion credit to each platform.

Marin's TruePath

Want one place to track all your channel activity, including every touchpoint that led to a conversion? This is where Marin TruePath comes in—a lightweight, cross-device, cross-channel measurement solution. TruePath delivers user journey reports that properly attribute revenue to all touchpoints—including search, social, display, organic traffic, and more. To learn about TruePath, contact Marin today.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

When evaluating the performance of AdWords campaigns or keywords, many advertisers don’t look much further than the primary conversion data that AdWords provides. Evaluating conversion volume, cost-per-conversion, conversion rate, and return on ad spend are all-important metrics. But does this paint the full picture? Or could this evaluation tactic be hindering stronger performance during the holiday season?

How Does AdWords Report Conversion Data?

By default, AdWords uses a last-click attribution model. This means that AdWords will assign conversion credit to the last AdWords keyword that resulted in the conversion.

For example, a user searching for boots during the holiday season may begin their search by clicking a Google ad for “women’s boots,” then a day later they click an ad for “women’s black booties,” and then they convert the following day on an ad for “BrandXYZ black booties.” In this situation, AdWords would assign conversion credit to the last keyword that drove the conversion (which would be “BrandXYZ black booties”).

Even though the previous two queries played a role in the conversion process, those keywords don’t get credit for the conversion with last-click attribution. When evaluating performance based solely on conversion data provided with last-click attribution, advertisers don’t get the full customer journey picture and may be de-valuing important keywords based on poor performance.

What Are Assisted Conversions?

Luckily, AdWords allows advertisers to easily view assisted conversion data within the AdWords interface. Assisted conversions report on the number of conversions that a keyword assisted with even if it wasn’t the last keyword that generated the conversion. You can view ‘Click-Assisted conversions’ or ‘Impression-Assisted conversions’. ‘Click-Assisted conversions’ report on the number of conversions assisted by actual clicks, whereas ‘Impression-Assisted conversions’ report on the number of conversions assisted by impressions even when the user didn’t click the ad. This data is very helpful in determining which keywords drive conversions during the customer journey leading to a conversion.

You may discover that a keyword appears to have poor performance on the surface (when looking only at last-click attribution conversion data), but it could actually be valuable in driving qualified traffic to your site and assisting in the conversion process. In the example above, “women’s boots” and “women’s black booties” both would have received an assisted conversion, but not an actual conversion.

How to Access Assisted Conversion Data

Accessing assisted conversion data within AdWords is very easy! All you need to do is add “Click assisted conversion” and “Impression assisted conversion” columns to your AdWords reports (as shown below).

You can access this data at the campaign, ad group or keyword level and it’ll appear in AdWords reports along with other commonly used metrics such as clicks, impression, cost, etc. Applying these columns to your reporting dashboard allows you to easily access this information and make better-informed bidding decisions.

Why Is This Important During Holiday Season?

During Q4, it’s especially important to evaluate keyword performance using assisted conversion data. The holiday season is notorious for shopping and gift giving, which means that users turn to Google to aid in the process of shopping for the best holiday gifts. Gift-givers often step outside of their comfort zone and search for brands, products, and categories that they’re not familiar with.

Non-brand keywords present a great opportunity for companies to get in front of these users and convert new users during holiday season. However, if you only evaluate performance based on last-click attribution conversion data, you may think these non-brand keywords perform horribly and decide to bid down or pause these keywords. But if you pull in the assisted-conversion data, you may be surprised to see that some of your non-brand terms are indeed aiding in the process of generating conversions, and decide to keep bidding on those terms.

This strategy will allow you to continue generating brand awareness via non-brand terms, and generate more conversions during the holiday season.

Conclusion

Applying assisted conversion data to your AdWords reports is fast and easy. There’s no harm in adding these insights to your dashboard, but the added value from these metrics could produce strong results for your business this holiday season!

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

Influencer marketing is a powerful tactic for increasing brand awareness. Influencers typically have a loyal following and their audience base trusts what they say. When influencers promote or endorse a brand’s product, that brand can expect an increase not only in exposure, but also in conversion rates.

By coordinating your influencer marketing strategy across other channels, you’ll be able to further capitalize on the increased brand awareness. Here are four practical and effective strategies to help you support an influencer campaign via paid search.

1. Adjust Bids and Budgets

When you run an influencer campaign, prepare for instant results. It’s typical to see a large spike in branded search queries as new users become aware of your brand and begin searching to learn more about your products.

If this is your first time running an influencer campaign, you may be surprised to see how much branded search volume can increase after the campaign. Avoid missing out on this traffic by expanding your campaign budgets to account for higher search volume, and set up automated alerts to send an email if you’re nearing budget caps. It’s important to make sure you own top placement for brand terms throughout the duration of the campaign.

2. Tailor Ad Copy and Extensions

Incorporating the influencer into your branded ad copy is a great way to reiterate that a respected personage has endorsed your product. If a user didn’t see the campaign (or doesn’t know who the influencer is), then this is still a great strategy to make your ad stand out and create intrigue. If the influencer is widely known, then it could be worthwhile to test new ad copy for non-brand or competitor search queries, too.

Promoting the influencer campaign in your ad extensions is another great way to maximize exposure of the influencer via paid search. To entice these site visitors to convert, consider offering a discount or promotion. And before creating new ads and ad extensions, keep in mind that you may need permission from the influencer to use their name in your ad copy.

Since an influencer campaign can take off quickly, be sure to create the ad copy and extensions in advance and schedule them to go live immediately after the influencer makes their announcement. It’s extremely important that you coordinate strategy and timing across channels.

3. Expand Keyword Coverage

Influencer campaigns are a great way to increase brand awareness, but users don’t always remember the name of the brand that was promoted. If your brand or product was promoted on TV or radio, then you could be at a greater disadvantage because these users may not be near a computer during the moment they hear the endorsement. The good news is that if the user was really intrigued, they may turn to search engines to find the product that was mentioned by the influencer. So, you’ll need to make sure you expand keyword coverage to account for search queries they may perform.

For instance, if a well-known home designer named Jane Jones promotes a line of bedding for Brand XYZ, the user may only remember that Jane promoted a line of bedding. In this case, you would want to add keywords related to “Jane Jones bedding.”

Put yourself in the shoes of the audience and think about the search queries they may perform to find your brand. Use this as a guide when creating new keywords.

4. Implement Complimentary Ads on the Display
    Network and YouTube

Influencer campaigns can drive increased traffic to your site, so you’ll need to incorporate a strong remarketing strategy to maximize conversions. Before getting started, you should decide if you’re going to create a unique landing page for these visitors or if you’ll use URL tracking parameters.

Whatever you do, it’s just important that you’re able to segment the users who visited your site via the influencer campaign. Create a remarketing audience for this specific segment and remarket them with tailored banner ads that feature the influencer (if you have permission to do so). This is a great way to keep your new audience engaged and convert them to customers. If you have video assets, consider remarketing these users on YouTube, too.

To take further advantage of the increased brand exposure, consider allocating a portion of your budget towards an acquisition campaign on the Google Display Network. The network has many targeting options, but one method that may work well in this situation is to target users who are similar to the influencer’s audience (using Google’s Similar Audiences feature). You can also target ads specifically to show on the influencer’s website, blog, or YouTube channel.

Conclusion

Influencer campaigns have the power to reach a niche, targeted audience and drive new site visitors. Take necessary steps to ensure your ad copy’s relevant, you’ve added the proper keywords, and you’ve adjusted bids and budgets. Once these visitors come to your site, keep them engaged with related remarketing ads to drive conversion rates. Boost the likelihood of a conversion by planning ahead and coordinating your strategy across all channels.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Director at 3Q Digital.

With Q4 right around the corner, the big question is, “How can I drive more sales this holiday season?” Everyone wants to increase revenue, plus look for new and efficient ways to do so. Today we’ll focus on how you can leverage AdWords Customer Match and Similar Audiences to meet your holiday goals.

Brief Descriptions

Customer Match is an AdWords advertising tool that utilizes your customer email file. By uploading a file with your customer emails, you can target these users when they’re signed into their Google account.

If your Customer Match audience meets eligibility criteria, Google automatically creates Similar Audiences. Similar Audiences allow you to reach people who share characteristics with the users in your Customer Match file.

Customer Match is currently available for Search, Shopping, YouTube, and Gmail campaigns (not the Google Display Network). Similar Audiences for Customer Match is available for YouTube and Gmail only.

There are several strategies and use cases for Customer Match and Similar Audiences to boost brand awareness and increase revenue. Here are several things you can do to get started.

Create Customer Segments

To maximize the benefits of Customer Match, create customer segments based on user behaviors. Depending on how much information you collect from users when they provide their email address, the segmenting possibilities are endless. A few list segmentation examples include:

• Prospects versus customers
• Customer purchase frequency
• Product or category affinities

Increase Bids for Past Purchasers

Use Customer Match as a remarketing list for search ads (RLSA) audience in search campaigns to adjust bids for users who’ve previously purchased from your site. Experiment with higher bids when your customers perform non-brand or competitor searches to stay top of mind and drive more sales during the holiday season.

Since past purchasers are familiar with your brand, it’s less risky to aggressively bid on non-brand search queries, because these users are more likely to convert compared to users who haven’t previously visited your site.

Target Broad/General Keywords

Explore targeting very broad or general non-brand keywords with your Customer Match list. This can be done with the RLSA Target and bid feature.

For example, a department store could test targeting general keywords such as ‘shoes’. This may be a risky move under normal situations, but using Target and bid limits the reach to people familiar with your brand. This lets you get in front of your customers again (when they may not be thinking of your brand) and potentially drive more revenue.

[caption id="attachment_10021" align="alignnone" width="500"]

(Click image to enlarge.)[/caption]

Develop New Ad Copy

Use Customer Match to implement unique ad copy that makes use of what you know about the people on your email list via RLSA Target and bid, Gmail Sponsored Promotions, or YouTube. Test different ad copy for frequent purchasers versus customers who haven’t made a purchase in over a year. A steeper promotional discount could entice old customers to come back and make another purchase.

Cross-Sell or Upsell

You can use Customer Match to cross-sell or upsell to existing customers to drive incremental revenue. For example, if a department store has a customer file segmented with a list of people who frequently buy children’s clothing, you can target that list of users with ad copy relevant to holiday gifts specifically for children. This could encourage customers to make another purchase to buy children’s shoes, backpacks, toys, etc.

Expand Acquisition Efforts

Similar Audiences is a great tool to expand your acquisition efforts with Gmail Sponsored Promotions or YouTube. When looking to acquire new customers, Similar Audiences is a great place to start, as it allows you to target users who share similar characteristics and traits with your most loyal customers. Google has a lot of back-end knowledge about users, and leveraging this feature can help advertisers get in front of a new audience and drive more sales.

In Sum

Customer Match and Similar Audiences present advertisers with many great targeting strategies. Get started on creating and segmenting your customer lists now. Then, build your strategy and get ready to drive more revenue this holiday season!

Mother’s Day is right around the corner. As children, husbands, significant others, friends, and even extended family search for the perfect gift to shower the moms in their lives, this celebratory holiday presents an opportunity for advertisers to generate incremental sales via paid search.

While some shoppers already know what to get mom for Mother’s Day, many consumers need help finding that perfect gift—and, lots of people turn to Google search for assistance. Advertisers should develop a strong Mother’s Day paid search strategy to drive awareness of their products during this holiday.

Here are three tips to ensure a successful Mother’s Day for your search campaigns.

1. Expand Keyword Coverage Using RLSA

General gift-giving searches for the term “Mother’s Day Gift” start increasing approximately a month before Mother’s Day, with a steep incline leading up to the holiday.

[caption id="attachment_9404" align="alignnone" width="500"]

2016 Google trends data for “Mother’s Day Gift”[/caption]

Advertisers looking to put themselves in front of potential consumers during this key shopping period can leverage the uptick in Mother’s Day search queries by expanding keyword coverage. Adding keywords for “Mother’s Day Gift”, “Cheap Mother’s Day Gifts”, “Unique Mother’s Day Gifts”, “Gifts for Mom” and “Mother’s Day Gift Ideas” is a great way to get seen by more shoppers.

However, keep in mind that while general gift-giving keywords present a great opportunity to reach consumers, many people searching these keywords are still early in the research phase. This means that the influx in traffic from these keywords may not result in the desired uptick to sales volume.

Avoid decreasing your ROAS by narrowing your reach for Mother’s Day gifting keywords to RLSA audiences only. This tactic will limit exposure of these keywords to people who’ve previously been to your site. Limiting the reach to an audience already familiar with your brand can help drive incremental sales and keep ROAS strong.

2. Customize Ad Copy for Mother’s Day

Make your paid search ad pop by tailoring the ad copy to Mother’s Day shoppers. Include mention of finding the perfect gift, surprising mom, making Mother’s Day special, etc. Also, consider incorporating Ad Customizers with a Mother’s Day countdown feature. As Mother’s Day gets closer, the countdown element will add a sense of urgency for shoppers to make their purchase.

Ad extensions are another valuable tool to utilize. Be sure to incorporate callout extensions and sitelinks that promote Mother’s Day gifts. This is a great way to feature gift cards, top picks for moms, a Mother’s Day gift giving guide, and special offers.

3. Leverage Enticing Offers

Everyone loves a good deal! Convert more shoppers by offering a strong promotion for Mother’s Day. Traditional money-saving deals are always appealing, but you can also test more creative offers such as a free gift with purchase.

Don’t forget to leverage tactics that’ll appeal to buyers who need a gift quickly. Search volume for the phrase “Mother’s Day Gift” spikes drastically the week leading up to Mother’s Day. An offer for free next-day delivery could be a very compelling offer for last-minute shoppers who need their gift to arrive before the big day.

Conclusion

Making a few easy tweaks to your paid search strategy can help drive incremental sales for Mother’s Day gifts. Implement new keywords to expand your reach, customize ad copy with Mother’s Day messaging, and incorporate compelling offers.

This post is specific to search tips, but remember to also incorporate a Mother’s Day strategy for shopping, social, and display campaigns.

Responsive ads have been available for a while, but many advertisers have yet to take advantage of this ad format and its powerful features. However, as of January 31st, Google no longer allows Google Display Network (GDN) standard text ads to be edited or created. If you’re currently running standard text ads on the GDN, you should definitely start implementing responsive ads.

Here are three key reasons why you should incorporate responsive ads in your account.

1. Increase Your Reach

Responsive ads automatically adjust to various sizes to fit available ad space across the GDN. By providing AdWords with a few key ad elements, AdWords will automatically generate your ad to fit available inventory. Responsive ads can have the appearance of text ads, image ads, and even native ads. They’ll even adjust to different devices, which can greatly increase your reach given mobile’s popularity.

With the increase in potential reach, it’s important to closely monitor account performance. While being able to increase exposure on native and mobile placements is a great way to expand your reach to the targeted audience on more sites, this also means there could be an uptick in accidental or unqualified clicks. If you notice a decline in conversion rates, this could indicate a need to optimize with placement exclusions and device bid modifications.

2. Save Time & Money

Historically, GDN advertisers would need to create banner ads in various sizes and formats to reach their targeted audiences across the web. There are number of available ad sizes and types across the GDN, and creating unique ads for each could be a daunting task. This would typically require a designer to create and reconfigure banner ads in various sizes. From a design resource perspective, this could be time-consuming and expensive.

Responsive ads solve this problem! With responsive ads, designers only need to supply a couple images and AdWords will automatically adjust the size, appearance, and format to fit available ad spaces.

3. Easy to Set Up

Setting up responsive ads is a quick and easy process that takes place directly in the AdWords UI. Advertisers simply enter desired text and images and AdWords handles the rest.

To create a responsive ad, you’ll need a headline, description, images, logo, and landing page. Note that responsive ads don’t support animated images, and images can’t contain more than 20% text. Here’s what the responsive ad builder looks like within AdWords:

It’s important to keep in mind that AdWords won’t necessarily include all of the above ad elements for each ad format. For instance, sometimes Google creates a responsive ad that doesn’t include the image. Be sure to check out the ad preview link to see a few examples of what your ad will look like in various sizes and formats to determine if you should make any adjustments.

Easy as 1, 2, 3

Upgrading to responsive ads is easy to implement and provides several added benefits to GDN campaigns. The easy setup and increased flexibility can save time, money, and resources. Start testing responsive ads in your account to expand reach to your targeted audience, but be sure to monitor performance and watch for invalid clicks to avoid hurting your conversion rate.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Lead at 3Q Digital.

Many advertisers underestimate the impact that ad copy can have on paid search performance. But ad copy is an essential element in generating traffic to your site, learning about your target audience, and improving efficiency to save money and drive stronger results.

With Google making the shift from Standard Text Ads to Expanded Text Ads, now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your ad copy, take advantage of the new ad features, and improve ad performance.

Here are three reasons marketers should focus on better ads.

1. It’s The First Thing Users See

Within a matter of seconds, users perform an online search, skim their options on the search engine results page, and determine which ad to click. Ad copy is one of the primary elements a user evaluates when deciding which site to visit.

• Which company has the best offer?
• Which brand seems most reputable and trustworthy?
• Which ad seems most relevant to my needs?

These are all things a potential customer could be thinking when deciding which site to visit.

Ad copy gives advertisers the platform to communicate their message and showcase their value propositions. Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) offer more character space to help get your message across to potential customers. Use this space wisely, as it could be the only chance to win the sale from a competitor.

2. Learn about Your Customers

An important part of making sure you’re using strong ad copy is to incorporate a solid ad copy testing strategy. You’ll never know what messaging, call to action, or value proposition resonates best with your target audience until you start testing different ad elements and measuring results.

When kicking off an ad copy test, be sure to focus on one element at a time. There’s a lot of opportunity for testing within ETAs. For example, you can test two headline messages against each other while leaving everything else the same. Or, test alternative calls to action in the description line while keeping the rest of the ad copy consistent between both ad variations.

Testing one element a time ensures you’re able to accurately determine which message delivers the best results. Once you determine a winning ad variation, don’t stop there—keep testing different elements against the winning variation.

Ad copy testing doesn’t just help you refine your ad copy—it also allows you to learn more about your customers. For instance, in an A/B value proposition test, you could learn whether your customers find “Free Shipping” or “0% Financing” more appealing. Aside from updating your ad copy appropriately, use the test result learnings across various marketing channels and improve your performance for social, email, and display campaigns, too.

3. Improve Efficiency and Save Money

ETAs give advertisers the perfect opportunity to rethink their ad copy messaging. Rather than just inserting a second headline, think about the entire message you’d like to deliver, and make sure the message in your ad is relevant to the search query.

The additional character space you gain with ETAs also provides the ability to further explain your business offerings and can help pre-qualify users before they click your ad. This can help you home in on your target audience and weed out users who may be looking for something different.

All in all, utilizing ad copy that’s relevant to what the user’s searching can help improve your click-through rate and Quality Score, which ultimately reduces your cost per click. It can also pre-qualify your visitors and help reduce bad clicks. Overall, strong ad copy can end up saving you money and improving your ROAS.

Conclusion

Don’t underestimate the power of strong ad copy. Use the additional character limits with ETAs as an opportunity to connect with your users, stand out from the competition, and drive qualified traffic to your site. Apply learnings from ad copy testing to improve your paid search performance and expand the lessons to other marketing channels as well.

This is a guest post from Ashley Aptt, Account Lead at 3Q Digital.

With an abundance of new features being introduced every week, it can be a challenge to keep up with all the available opportunities worth taking advantage of in your paid search accounts. And sometimes it can be easy to get so involved with all the new and exciting strategies that you forget about the tried-and-true tactics that are most valuable for improving account performance.

Here are three tactics to brush off and (re-)evaluate with your 2017 paid search strategy planning.

1. Evaluate the Time Lag Report

The Time Lag Report in AdWords is a great tool that provides the ability to evaluate how long it takes your customers to convert after first seeing or clicking your ad. Time lag can vary greatly client by client—higher-ticket items typically require more research from consumers and therefore result in longer conversion windows. But on the other hand, low-ticket or need-to-have-now items could yield a small conversion window.

It’s important to know how long your conversion window is, because it’ll give you a better sense of how long you should wait before truly analyzing recent performance. For instance, if you have a long conversion window but attempt to analyze recent performance, it could appear that this year’s performance is worse than it actually is because of the conversion delay.

Knowing your conversion time lag will also ensure that your conversion pixels are set up with the proper conversion window. If 15% of conversions happen after 30 days, then consider increasing your conversion window beyond the 30-day default to gain credit for those delayed conversions.

2. Monitor Assisted Conversions

AdWords gives conversion credit to the keyword that received the last click before the conversion occurred. On the surface, it may seem pretty apparent which keywords are performing well. On further investigation of assisted conversions, however, you might discover that seemingly under-performing keywords play a large role in helping users down the conversion path.

In order to evaluate this data, you have the ability to assess click- or impression-assisted conversions. Both options can be a great resource to identify which keywords help drive the most conversions. This information is easily accessible directly in the keywords reporting tab (right beside other key data metrics) so that you can easily make informed bidding decisions and prevent optimization mistakes such as pausing “poor performing” keywords that are actually providing value.

For instance, you may consider pausing a certain non-brand keyword because of its high CPA. But, after analyzing the click and impression assists, you realize that the keyword is driving a large volume of assisted conversions. Despite the fact that the CPA is high, you decide not to pause this keyword since it’s driving valuable conversions to the account.

3. Watch for Impression Share Lost Due to Budget

One thing you certainly want to avoid is having campaigns that regularly cap out on budget. Hitting campaign budget caps can falsely hurt performance because you miss out on clicks (and therefore conversions) from top-performing keywords, which ultimately ends up increasing the cost per conversion.

If you’re consistently hitting the budget cap on a particular campaign, you should consider increasing the budget (if it makes sense and you have the budget capacity to do so). However, when a budget increase isn’t an option, then the primary focus should be to reduce keyword bids. Ultimately, it’s important that budgets are controlled and managed via bid adjustments and not budget caps. This’ll allow you to generate stronger performance because you drive more click volume and conversions within your budget.

Monitoring lost impression share due to budget at the campaign level will help you stay on top of this and ensure you don’t end up paying more for less.

In Sum

There are countless strategies to improve account performance and always new things to test. These are just three dependable tactics that are worth taking the time brush off and use in 2017. Take a look at this data in your account and make sure you’re ready for what the year has to offer!