March Digital Marketing Industry Updates
Google AdSense Introduces New ‘Related Search for Content’
Google AdSense is bringing in a new tool to help digital publishers improve site engagement and increase traffic, page views, and impressions. The new feature is called “Related search for content” which works similarly to “suggested content” that users are more familiar with. The way it works is that users are served “Related Searches” that will lead them to other pieces of content on the same or similar topics on the publisher’s website.
This should help create more relevant experiences for users, as well as help publishers improve their site and app statistics. Google also stressed that this new AdSense feature doesn’t expose user data. As Google is looking to veer away from the use of cookies, the feature instead uses page content to deliver relevant search terms rather than user data. So if you’re looking to activate the new AdSense feature on your website, contact your account manager to help you activate it on your AdSense account.
New Facebook Group Tools to Help Manage & Grow Groups
Facebook Group Admins are getting some new tools to help them manage and grow their Facebook communities. With the rise of misinformation on the web these days, Facebook has taken some steps to help Group admins manage fake news and posts that come into their communities. For starters, Facebook has installed the ability to automatically decline any incoming posts that have already been identified by third-party fact-checks as false information.
Additionally, the “mute” functionality on Facebook groups has also expanded into “suspend”. A suspended user will be unable to post, comment, react, and participate in any group chats or Rooms in the group. These features can be found through “Admin Assist”.
When it comes to growing your Facebook groups, on the other hand, new QR codes have been added that admins can download and share or copy and paste as they like. When a user scans a QR code, they are then directed to the Facebook Group’s About page where they can put in a request to join.
New Google Vehicle Ads for Car Sellers
According to Google, 95% of vehicle buyers use online sources to do research and find out more information. As a way to help auto sellers gain more exposure and responses, they’ve recently introduced a Vehicle Ads search placement which displays nearby cars for sale.
Sellers that want to take advantage of the opportunity need to create a vehicle inventory data feed and connect it to Google’s Merchant Centre. Search campaigns with the new vehicle ads reported an average increase of 25% in conversions during their testing phases.
Vehicle ad placements are only currently available in the U.S., but Google says that they will be coming out in more countries soon.
Get Ready to Sell Through Twitter Shops
Twitter is currently experimenting with a new eCommerce feature called Twitter Shops. The feature is said to allow brands and businesses to showcase up to 50 items in a shop on the platform. Twitter Shops can be accessed on a brand’s profile page and will direct users to an in-app browser from the merchant’s website.
While still in the testing phase, the inclusion of a shop on Twitter should help businesses maximise their online earning potential on the platform as well as gain more exposure and engagement. Currently, only iPhone users in the U.S. can view and interact with the shops that are included in the testing phase. Once it rolls out worldwide, however, it would be a good opportunity to reach out to Twitter users.
October Digital Marketing Industry Updates
Google Updating Mobile Search Results Experience
Google’s search results pages for mobile are undergoing a massive shift. Google recently announced that they are introducing continuous scrolling for mobile search, so that instead of clicking through to the next page, or “See more results”, the behaviour is more likely to mimic how users experience scrolling through social media feeds. The news has gotten mixed reactions across the industry. However, the continuous scroll might prove beneficial for businesses. For one, it should allow users to continue to scroll through and find relevant content that may not immediately be among the results displayed at the top. Expect this change to continue to be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Changes Being Made to Facebook Ad Objectives
Facebook is making some changes to the current ad objectives present in Ads Manager. All ad objectives are now being grouped into six new objectives as a way to better communicate and collate similar ad objectives. The six new objectives include awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, sales, and app promotion. Facebook has mentioned that there will not be any changes made in terms of reporting of results, and any campaigns that are still currently running will remain active and won’t require any changes. It would be keen, however, for advertisers to familiarise themselves with the new schematics of Facebook’s ad objectives.
Professional Profiles Coming to Twitter!
They might have been a long time coming, however Professional Profiles are finally coming to Twitter. Beta testing started back in April, wherein Twitter invited a handful of businesses and creators to participate. Recently, they’ve opened up the Personal Profiles to more businesses. To apply for a Professional Profile, simply click through this link. The Professional Profile will display three modules: The About Module, which has your business and contact information, as well as hours of operation; the Shop Module, which will allow Twitter users to purchase on the platform; and the Newsletter Module, which can serve as a distribution channel for businesses on latest news and updates. Take note, though, that once accepted manually editing your profile is not readily available. Should you wish to make any changes, you will have to resubmit the application.
Advertiser Identity Verification Policy Updates on Google
To further improve the quality of advertising on its network, Google is updating their Advertiser Identity Verification Policy. The new policy won’t have a massive effect on advertisers except that they should expect to receive an email in the coming days regarding this. The verification process should be accomplished within 30 days, after which Google will pause all running campaigns until after completion. This change will allow Google to publicly disclose business information such as advertiser name change history, contact information, ad creatives, ads removed, accounts suspended, and the dates and locations that ads are being served.
Two Main Things You Need to Make Your eCommerce Site Convert
The global eCommerce market is growing, mainly due to the events of the past year, as well as the increased usage of smartphones and tablets. In fact, this 2021 it’s expected to total $4.81 trillion, wherein $3.56 trillion of which is projected to come from mobile eCommerce sales.
That said, it’s becoming increasingly important to make sure that your website is always optimised to generate conversions and sales. For those of you who have already started an eCommerce business, you’re probably already wondering what you can do to improve your current state and take advantage of the changes in the marketplace?
There are two main things you want to ensure that you’re making the most out of your eCommerce website:
Make Sure You’re Getting Relevant Traffic
One way to make sure that your budget is being spent to find potential customers searching for your products is to apply a keyword strategy and account structure that will ensure that you’re getting the right kind of traffic. Here, working with a Google Ads professional is important if you’re not sure how to go about setting it up on your Google Ads account.
Making sure that you’re attracting the right people is critical, especially if your goal is to increase conversions and sales on your website.
If your business is in the industry of health and wellness, for example, you want to avoid targeting general keywords. Be as specific as you can about your products and services, whether that’s cross fit training, bikram yoga sessions, organic produce, or essential oils, it’s important that your keywords are hitting the right note.
Apply the same specificity to your copy. Whether you’re running Google Display Ads or Facebook and Instagram Ads, your captions and copy should be engaging, targeted, and relevant with a clear call-to-action.
Optimise Your Website for Conversions
Once your Google Ads campaigns have achieved high relevancy, you need to audit and check on what users are doing once they reach your site. Find and identify any roadblocks that exist on your site and remove them. To accomplish that, go over to your Google Analytics dashboard and review your website and landing pages.
Google Analytics can track users’ engagement and movements on the site, giving you a good map of the path a converting customer travels. Through this, you can monitor and reflect on your traffic’s user experience, or what they do from the moment they visit your site to the moment that they click away.
You can also review each step of the checkout process, and dissect where your users are dropping off. All this data and information can help you make informed decisions on how to further improve your website experience.
Another useful tool for auditing is Crazy Egg, a little piece of software that analyses where your audience is coming from, what pages on your site they visit, and where they end up leaving or getting stuck at.
Crazy Egg also has the ability to draw you a heatmap of what particular parts of your website and landing pages that audiences actually engage with, such as which sections they linger on, or what buttons and links they click. This tool can provide you more than enough data on how you can better improve the audience’s overall experience on your website.
Now, all this can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’re just starting out building out and growing your eCommerce website. That’s why it’s always a good idea to have professionals working with you to increase conversions and maximise your return on investment.
And if you’re looking to partner up with experts and professionals that are well-versed in the field, give one of our agents a call, and we can discuss how we can best help your business succeed in the online space.
Google Ads or Facebook Ads: Which Fits Your Business Better?
In digital marketing, every good marketer will tell you that the best strategy is an omnichannel strategy. Don’t put your eggs into one basket. The more channels you can distribute your content through, the better.
However, every so often we still do get this common question from our clients, “Which is better, Google ads or Facebook ads?” And our answer has always been the same: “Both!”
Deciding where to spend the bulk of your budget requires more complex thinking, strategising, and planning. In fact, when choosing between Google or Facebook, the more appropriate questions are actually:
- Which platform better fits my budget?
- Which platform is a better fit for my product?
- What stages of the customer journey am I targeting?
And so, to answer the question between Google Ads and Facebook Ads, we’ll tackle each of these points to help you get a sense of which platform is best to start advertising on.
1. Which Platform Better Fits My Budget?
Because we usually service small-to-medium businesses, the concern about budget comes up in relation to which platform is the better one. Most business owners want to know where is the best place to start advertising into?
To start, get very clear with your numbers. How much can you afford to pay to gain a customer? You want to make sure that you’ll be able to get the best potential returns on your ad spend. To know that, you’ll also need to look at your industry and how they’re performing on both platforms.
Google Keyword Planner can provide you with a good estimate of your potential cost per click (CPC). Some industries are incredibly expensive from a cost per click angle. If you have a daily budget of $500, for example, but your cost per click is around $50, that means that you’re only getting 10 clicks to your website a day. Of course, other industries are less competitive, costing you only $1-$5 per click or less!
You can always bring down a high-cost CPC with a lot of testing and research, and it would be worth it. But you may also want to consider Facebook, which has more robust targeting capabilities.
2. Which Platform is a Better Fit for My Product?
Google is a search platform, servicing users whose intention is to find answers to their questions. The intention could simply be additional information on a topic, or to find a product or service that could provide the solution to their problem.
Facebook is a social platform where users want to find out what’s new and what’s happening within their social circles. It can also be a place to discover trends and the latest news and updates on things you’re interested in. But the primary purpose of Facebook remains to be social.
If your business sits in the entertainment or news industry, for example, Facebook ads could prove to be the better fit for you, as you’re leveraging off of the many communities that talk about and discuss the topics within the industry.
If you’re a service provider, on the other hand, such as law & architecture firms, clinics, maintenance services, or restaurants, Google can bring in customers that are looking specifically for your services. In fact, according to Google, the searches for terms including “Where to buy” and “near me” have grown by over 200% in the past two years.
3. What stages of the customer journey am I targeting?
Now that you’ve considered your budget and fit, it’s time to consider the intent of the audiences you’re targeting.
One advantage Facebook has over Google is the potential to target any interest, ranging from large pools like sports and entertainment to very niche interests like pottery, knitting, or scrapbooking. Facebook can show your ads to as many people as possible that have those targeted interests.
One advantage Google has over Facebook is being able to target audience intent. Because Google Ads are keyword-based, you’re able to target users in different stages of the customer journey: whether they’re just curious, or they’re already looking to purchase.
A user that intentionally typed in “Vegan restaurants near me” is at a very different stage than one that’s just scrolling through their Facebook news feed and just comes across an ad for a vegan restaurant. They may be interested, and curious enough to click, but they might not yet be at that buying stage compared to the user searching on Google.
Therefore, advertising on both platforms at the same time is often recommended. And while both platforms give you the ability to re-target users that have engaged with your ads or your website, bringing in a cold audience can be more challenging if you’re just going with one or the other.
If you’re still confused about all this, or you’re on the fence about whether you want to advertise on Google or on Facebook, contact us and get in touch with one of our experts. We’ll be more than happy to help to clarify things for you even further and help you get started on the right path to online success!
4 Important Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Google Your Own Ads
These days, one of the best ways that small businesses can increase their discoverability, popularise their brand, and gain more customers is through Google Ads. Google Ads are pay-per-click (PPC) ads that help you get more exposure on Google’s search engine results pages. And one thing we always remind our new clients whenever we set up their ads for them is to: “Never Google your own ads.”
There’s a right way and a wrong way to test and see whether your PPC ads are showing up on Google’s search results. Unfortunately, typing in your search terms and keywords isn’t the best way to do so. And here’s why…
1. Your Click-Through Rates Will Go Down
One of the key metrics that Google considers in deciding whether to show your ads, is the click-through rate (CTR). What is click-through rate? Simply put, your CTR refers to the number of impressions your ad receives versus the number of clicks it’s able to gather. If only 10 out of 1000 people who’ve seen your ad click through to your website, for example, that puts your CTR at 10%, which is actually pretty high considering the thousands of blog posts and websites strewn across the internet.
When you Google your own ads but don’t click on it, what you’re doing is adding to the number of impressions and decreasing your overall CTR. Keeping this metric as high as possible is important if you want to keep serving your ad to potential customers. So don’t Google your own ad.
2. Your Quality Score will Depreciate
Another key metric that affects your Google ad distribution is the Quality Score. But how, exactly, does Google calculate the Quality Score? Quality Score is a combination of 3 metrics: (1) your expected click-through rate, (2) how relevant your ad is against your target audience, and (3) your overall landing page experience. The Quality Score is a diagnostic tool that helps you give you some clues as to well your ad quality compares to other advertisers.
Keeping your Quality Scores high can have a direct impact on your PPC campaign’s overall efficiency, both in terms of your return on investment and your results. That’s why it’s important to always be working towards keeping your Quality Score as high as possible.
3. You’ll End Up Wasting Your Budget
Perhaps the biggest reason you should never try to Google your ads lies in the very nature of PPC. Whenever you run a PPC campaign, you’re charged every time a user clicks on one of your ads. You, the owner of the campaign, are not an exception! You detract points from your CTR and your Quality Score every time you try to Google your ad and don’t click it. On the other hand, if you do click on your own ad, you end up wasting a part of your budget that could have otherwise been spent to capture actual clicks.
Clicking on your ad, and then leaving your website right after a click, also isn’t good, because this then affects your bounce rate. Bounce Rate refers to the times a user has clicked through a link to your website, and then immediately left (or in this case, bounced). It signals to search engines that the user could not find content relevant to their search. Bounce rates can affect your overall rankings and ad distribution.
4. Eventually You’ll Stop Seeing Your Ad
Add all these factors up, and eventually, your ad will stop showing up in front of you. This can lead you to believe that your ads have stopped showing up altogether. Of course, that’s not necessarily the case. But because you’ve repeatedly tried searching your ads, and have either not clicked on them, or bounced from your website, this translates to Google’s algorithm that your website isn’t relevant for you, and so will stop serving you the same ad.
How to Check On Your Ads the Right Way
Knowing that this is a concern amongst advertisers and digital marketers, Google actually has an existing tool that can help you preview your ads. Google’s Ad Preview and Diagnostics Tool provides a completely safe environment for you to view what ads are begin distributed for each keyword. Using this tool allows you to see more data on which ads are eligible to show up, and which ones might need some adjustments.
Understanding and analysing all that data, however, can be a monumental task, one that requires a lot of time and effort. Thankfully, that’s exactly the service that we offer our clients. If you’re interested in either starting or optimising your PPC campaigns, getting more traffic, and driving more leads and sales, schedule a call with one of our agents! We’re more than happy to help you set up your business for online success!