Some Pros and Cons of Display Advertising

Google Display Advertising

As part of a businesses digital transformation, it is likely that a business will want to consider whether or not to use ‘display advertising’ in AdWords. We have outlined some quick pros and cons of display advertising to assist a business with the decision making.

The business would need to do some restructuring of the AdWords account.
Budget would be required, either additional budget be assigned, or diverted from existing campaigns.
A web developer would need to add some additional tracking code to the website.

The primary use of display advertising and not just in AdWords, has generally be considered for Brand building, although some businesses do manage to make display advertising drive leads and sales, where Brand building is a positive side-effect.

Display ads have an incredibly low engagement rate: the average banner ad has a 0.1% click through rate (CTR) and the standard 468x60 banner has a 0.04% CTR

The key to making display advertising cost effect and gaining a decent ROI/be profitable, a business
would need to:
1.    optimise every single part of the online conversion funnel
2.    place ads on websites your target market visits
3.    design optimised ads that relate to the content on those sites
4.    the message, and especially the headline, is a vital component in successful display advertising
5.    ‘message match’ - when visitors are instantly reaffirmed that they can get what they came for – because the headline matches the link (or ad) they came from – they are more likely to remain on the landing page
6.    poor message match will produce a higher bounce rate which is interpreted by Google as a poor user experience. The stronger your message match is, the better the user experience is – making the account history more positive, in turn lowering the costs
7.    the display ad has a graphical component to it, which needs to follow the design of the ad through to the landing page
8.    develop landing pages that align with the ads and the websites they're placed on
9.    A focused landing page, on the other hand, has an attention ratio of 1:1. (whereas, if the visitor is sent to the homepage we could expect that this would typically be around 40:1 meaning that there are 19 distracting actions and 1 desired action – hence needing a focused landing page).

Display advertising has always been considered ‘tough’. The debate continues in the industry as some speculate that there are up to 54% of online display ads “never even seen”.
Some of the wastage can be attributed to the user’s journey:
•    technical glitches, such as when an ad is displayed on a part of a browser not open on a computer screen
•    user habits
•    users not scrolling below the fold
•    users clicking away before the ad can load
•    and even outright fraud based on fake traffic

The overall stats for paying attention to any kind of advert is 6% - 8% (if the stats can be believed)
There are businesses that get some better results by making their ads interactive and rich media display formats.

In conclusion:
If a business's’s Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is awareness, then display advertising is one of the channels that business could consider using.

If a business is still in the early stages of currently trying to determine audience and message via PPC, reviewing their Google analytics reporting, especially Demographics and Interest Reports and testing which ads work, then it is worth noting that display advertising is even more challenging if audience and message are not already established.

PS
If the above doesn’t convince you then maybe these 2 negative 'tongue-in-cheek' quotes/stats will:

• You are more likely to complete NAVY SEAL training than click a banner ad.
• The average person is served over 1,700 banner ads per month. Do you remember any?

On the other hand, this recent quote from Econsultancy about Display Retargeting could be a tempting way into display advertising

• Display retargeting tags are present on 52% of the top 2,000 UK websites and 48% of the top US websites. 

There are pros and cons but it is worth considering, if only for the following 2 reasons:

• Display advertising in UK accounted for 30% of spend in 2013, similar to previous years.
• Rich media images, animation and video are often more attractive to a user than static text and form part of the increasing 'visual web'.

We hope this helps answer some of your display advertising queries, compiled with thanks to some well known comments by industry experts on display advertising. We look forward to hearing from you on whether your business would like to pursue Display Advertising as a online marketing channel.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Short Introduction to Google Adwords Quality Score

 

What is Google's quality score ?

At a very basic level: Google's quality score is a Paid Search / Adwords algorithm (rule) which provides an estimate of how relevant the keywords are to the ads, adgroup, campaign and the landing page.  1 is the lowest score and 10 the highest.

Improving your quality score

We work with our clients to improve their 'quality score', by reviewing integration between the below:

• Keywords
• Ad text
• Destination URL
• Landing page 

Understanding quality score

There is some debate as to how much the landing page affects Google's quality score, with many (who have run tests) saying it is a small % of the score.   Researchers have found that rarely will you see a Quality Score of above 3 if your landing page is not relevant.

Useful link to Adwords help to help you check and understand quality score.
What we are certain of is:

• If the most appropriate landing page (relevant to keyword searched) is served then set conversions will increase
• CTR and Keyword relevancy and Adgroups are closely related
• Adverts need to relate to the keywords
• Quality Scores are determined at the keywords, ad text and campaign levels

Benefits of achieving a high quality score

Having a high Quality Score within your Adwords account can lead to:

• Lower costs (CPC)
• Better ad positions
• You can also outrank competitors that have relative CTR and a higher CPC than you

How is your score working right now?

We work with our clients to improve their Google Adwords Quality Score and increase their return on advert spend (ROAS).   If you believe your Google Adwords account could benefit from a third party review, please feel free to get in touch with our sales team.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Introduction to Adwords Enhanced Campaigns

Early in February this year, Search Engine Land shared their thoughts on the news of the latest Google Adwords update, titled: 'The Big Adwords Update: Enhanced Campaigns Puts the Focus on Mobile'.

The February 2013 Adwords update has been designed to simplify PPC campaign management across many devices, and seeks to increase the use of mobile advertising. Paid search managers are able to set different bids and show different ads based on a user's device type, location and time of day, all within one campaign.

Google have remained progressive with their Enhanced campaigns and on April 22nd Google let their advertisers know that all enhanced campaigns will now include social annotations when they can improve ad performance, (without additional edits to the campaign).  In order to receive this feature your Google+ page must have a significant number of followers and be linked to the website that matches the URL of your search ads. You can learn more about this particular feature here and the launch of a way for advertisers to reach app users; with 'ads in apps'.

Following the recent advancements, Google reported that since launch of the enhanced campaigns:

"advertisers have already upgraded over 1.5 million campaigns and have shared many success stories"

As enhanced campaigns reduce the overall number of campaigns you need to create (as you no longer need to create separate campaigns for each target devise type or location), this will save time and generate a better return on ad spend (ROAS).

We are welcoming the increased ROAS, the time saving, the more comprehensive reporting, the simplified budgeting and dynamic delivery to show the right ads to the right person at the right time. A great move by Google product teams and a very useful feature. Naturally, some transitional concerns may arise from sites, for example, some e-commerce sites, where mobile doesn't traditionally convert as well as desktop.

Some of the main features of enhanced campaigns include:

• Powerful advertising tools for the multi-devise world: Ability to manage your bids across devises, locations and time. 

• Smarter ads optimised for varying user contexts: Ability to show the right creative, sitelink, app, social annotations (where suitable) or extension based on the context of your prospective customers and the devise they are using.

• Advanced reports to track and measure new conversion types: such as Phone Calls over 60 Seconds Counted as Conversions, digital downloads, and conversions across devises.

Benefits to Businesses

To help explain further about how your business can benefit from Google AdWords enhanced campaigns, the Adwords blog post on the February 2013 update, gave the below three examples:

"A breakfast cafe wants to reach people nearby searching for "coffee" or "breakfast" on a smartphone. Using bid adjustments, with three simple entries, they can bid 25% higher for people searching a half-mile away, 20% lower for searches after 11am, and 50% higher for searches on smartphones. These bid adjustments can apply to all ads and all keywords in one single campaign"

"A national retailer with both physical locations and a website can show ads with click-to-call and location extensions for people searching on their smartphones, while showing an ad for their e-commerce website to people searching on a PC — all within a single campaign"

"You can count phone calls of 60 seconds or longer that result from a click-to-call ad as a conversion in your AdWords reports, and compare them to other conversions like leads, sales and downloads"

Learn more about enhanced campaigns

To understand more about how you can reach customers, at the moments that matter, across devises with more relevant ads, please visit the Google Enhanced Campaign landing page or watch the above video.

Google plans to update all Adwords PPC campaigns to enhanced by June, this year.

Should you have any further queries on launching paid search campaigns, please do get in touch and contact our sales team to discuss your requirements further.

Author: Fiona Anderson and Sarah Griffiths

Why Sarah is not happy with latest Google Update

Google announced last week that they are going to begin to encrypt searches made by logged in users, to make search more secure. Even though you can still obtain results on keywords (logged in or not) from paid search!

What this means to users is nothing (apart from security on keeping keyword searches secret), what this meant to website owners with analytics, is that they will no longer receive referral data from these (logged in) searchers. Generally we are fans of Google Updates as they are useful in their quest to make search a more pleasant experience. Alas, we are not fans of this change.

Monitoring the number of keywords that drive traffic to our clients websites is one of our favourite analytic reports. Our Search Marketing Executives get a real kick out of telling our clients (with search marketing contracts) that the number of keywords driving traffic to their website has increased by XXX %.

We will still be able to get the reports as this update will only relate to those logged in searchers. However, it won’t be the full picture, which makes us - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Web site usability fanatics - sad.

There is a poll being run over at SEOptimise and based on the results so far, say that this is relating to more companies using PPC ads:
Visit the poll here http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2011/10/google-dropping-analytics-keyword-data-what-does-this-mean.html

There is plenty of upset on this news, one we particular like is from Ian Lurie over at Search News Central and this statement in his article Dear Google, This is war:

“Don't get me wrong - I've not opposed e-mail ads, or Street View. But you can't shut down search query data and then protest privacy. That's like leaving one bite of steak on your plate and saying you're a vegetarian.” Ian Lurie, Oct 18th

Having had time to digest the news, I can now say that personally I am livid with the move, understanding what terms people are using to find your website allows you to create a site which suits the searcher and allows you to optimise on pages that they may not like at first glance. We (Search Marketing Flashlight team) are all about creating websites that benefit user and in turn increase client revenue. Google are making themselves out to be the good guys here, with regards to respecting privacy, but what will happen in turn is that people like us (Search Marketing and Web usability Ambassadors) will not be able to do our job to full effect.

We will still be able to determine keywords used from paid search adverts, however this will cost our clients additional money. For years now we have given all our focus to ramping up natural positions and diminishing PPC ads. Are people really that bothered that Google are keeping their keyword searches and using them to benefit their overall online experience!! Really!!

When people have complained to me in the past that they hate how Google use the details in their emails to show related adverts, I can understand their concern, however my response is generally as follows; Google is a free service, if you needed to pay for it, you probably would. Google make money from the advertising, this is how they are able to offer you search results that keep getting quicker and quicker.

Why Google have thrown in the 'we care about your privacy' card now, beats me. Totally stumped and off to complete the SEOptimise poll to tick the reason why Google have made this change as: to encourage more companies to use PPC Ads.

Graham Charlton over at E-Consultancy has invited some of the E-consultancy guest bloggers and a number of search and e-commerce experts what they think of this move. Please do go and visit this page to receive a more balanced view, you will soon come to note though that several in the Search Marketing community are not happy at all, Google SSL Encryption for search queries: the experts’ view.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

AdWords Trademark UK policy

We were recently contacted by a client with regards to bidding on a competitor's brand name.
Sharing the information supplied here, as may be of use to you, our readers.

In May 2008, Google stated that keywords that were disabled as a result of a trademark complaint and investigation will no longer be restricted in the UK and Ireland. Google stated that they will no longer review a term corresponding to the trademarked term as a keyword trigger. However, they stated that they will continue to perform a limited courtesy investigation of complaints regarding ad text purported to be in violation of a trademark.

The official post from Google is here: see regions where Google investigate ad text only – UK is on the list.

What this means:

The New policy launched in 2008 suggests that competitors can now ‘hijack’ your brand term keywords and collect a proportion of your brand traffic. Advertisers can also bid on their own brand term and because they will have a higher “quality score” (their page is more related to term) then it is likely that the advertiser will generally be at the top (paid) spot. (Feel free to talk to Rocktime more about Quality scoring – it basically equates to making your page relevant to a key term).

There is some dispute that even though Google permit this activity (as do Yahoo & MSN Adcentre) you may still be breaking the trademark law and this will lay with the person purchasing the adword, not the person selling it (i.e. Google).

Months after the update, Hitwise ran a report on the impact on search traffic and found that the “New Policy” increased brand bidding on brand terms by 22% amongst the UKs top brands but this was essentially just to defend the threat. They found that brand hijacking was limited.

Google will allow brands to bid on a competitors name as long as they do not mention the key term / brand term in their advert, (which would be misleading for the customer).

We noted a few affiliate comparison sites using brand names and using the term in their ads (this may or may not be with agreement with the brand). Should it not be in agreement with the brand then the brand seeing their trademark name displayed in an advert can put in a complaint about using the trademarked term, however they can’t complain about bidding on the keyword term (As mentioned above Google permit this).

Should you feel that you have grounds for complaint then you may contact Google here: https://services.google.com/inquiry/aw_tmcomplaint. Once Google has put on notice of the infringing listing, then they (Google) will be legally obligated to remove this listing (in a timely manner).

As “brand key phrase” bidding is allowed, the brand using the term may invite the other to bid on their “own key-phrase”. In theory the hijacked brand could contact a lawyer and progress this, however before this stage you could remove the keyword as an out of court “Gentleman’s agreement”.

Conclusion

In summary, as long as you don’t mention a trademark name in an adwords advert, then you can bid on the term. We would advice that you fairly use the trademark (if the term is trademarked!) with your search marketing and imagine impact it would have on your business if your competitor placed a bid on your trademark !! The Flashlight SEM team at Rocktime help a number of brands with management of their Paid Search Accounts across a number of search engines. Should you require assistance in Pay Per Click Management feel free to get in touch.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Twitter Simplifies it's Business Model - #not

Twitter ranks as one of the most popular sites on the Internet. So we all have waited with baited breath of news on when they were going to start putting together a business model. The news broke yesterday.

They have launched what they call a simple service titled “Promoted tweets” and this morning I have been trying to get my head round what this means to the Twitter Eco System and how our clients will benefit from this service.

Twitter are classing this as the first stage and already have a number of advertising partners onboard to trial the service which include: Starbucks, Virgin America (not surprised), Red Bull, Best Buy and Sony Pictures. The premise being is that promoted tweets are just like ordinary tweets that brands may wish to use should they want to highlight their Tweet to a wider community.

We are going to begin to see promoted tweets appear at the top of some of Twitter Search result pages (see image above). Twitter will be measuring whether people like the tweets via their interaction with the message ie: marking as favourite, Re-tweeting or @replying. If no body/tweeter appears to like the promoted Tweet then it will disappear. I believe there will be a connection to the Twitter user and the promoted tweet, a little bit like “You may be interested in feature” on Amazon, ie: the more you RT tweet a tweet from a sports brand the more promoted tweets from sport brands you will see.

Also as the Tweet is promoted and Twitter seek to make money then the promoted tweets will be purchased on a CPM model and quite excitedly (for Flashlight) it will be a mix of earned versus paid media – as you need to make your Tweets work.

Having a combination or organic and paid ads will suit Rocktime’s Flashlight Team well as we have the mix of SEO expertise, Paid search expertise and Social Media Savvyness.

I am sure there is more in this development, so I went and visited Web Strategist Blog by Jeremiah Owyang to see what he has to say, quite alot as it happens.

Jeremiah has provided a summary of the promoted, explaining as I have above on how it will work, he has also developed a matrix on what Twitter’s promoted tweets business model will mean to the Eco-system. Go and view his blog post here and follow him (blog & twitter) as he regularly talks a lot of sense:

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/13/quicktake-analysis-what-twitters-resonation-means/

Twitter’s founder Biz Stone has let us all know that there will be more announcements soon as the project matures, they are currently finding their feet too in understanding how to measure Twitter user interaction on the Tweets. Once they have a footing this will be rolled out to other advertisers. So watch this space, as I am sure we have some very interesting times ahead.

Reputation and respect has never been more key. Power to the people ! and good luck to the brands in finding the 140 characters that resonate with their audiences.


Author: Sarah Griffiths