Google AdWords call extensions are ad extensions that let you display your business phone number directly in the search results. On smartphones, a clickable ‘Call’ button is displayed with the ad, making it particularly engaging for people on the go.

Call extensions should be utilized for any businesses that place value on receiving phone calls. They are especially ideal for local businesses.

What does a call extension look like?

To get a better understanding of what call extensions are and how they work, let’s take a look at what one looks like. Only eligible to display with Search Network ads, here is what a call extension looks like when viewed from a desktop:

And here is a ‘click-to-call’ button as viewed by a mobile device:

Why should you use call extensions?

There are a number of reasons to use call extensions as you attempt to drive more calls for your business.

1. The ease of the ‘click to call’ button saves the searcher time and effort while helping businesses attract potential customers.

2. You can count calls as conversions within AdWords and see call reporting data when using a Google forwarding number.

3. They make the ad stand out among others in the search engine results. Call extensions can increase clickthrough rates by 6-8% (Google).

4. They don’t cost any extra money–clicks from call extensions are billed on the same cost-per-click model as traditional ad clicks.

How to set up call extensions

Call extensions are created within the ‘ad extensions’ tab of your Google AdWords account.

In the ad extensions tab, select Call extensions from the drop down, +Extension and the +New phone number button.

At this point, you can choose whether you want to utilize a Google forwarding number or stick with your own phone number.

Below is an example of the options available when the user selects their own phone number:

Then enter your business phone number, device preference, and advanced options such as start/end dates and time scheduling. Scheduling is useful because you can choose to show your number only during business hours when someone is there to answer.

By using a Google forwarding number, you will be able to track phone calls as conversions. Google also gives you some additional insight to call reporting within the interface. The Google forwarding number is a unique Google phone number that will be displayed on your ad for desktops, tablets and laptops, and as a clickable call button for mobile devices. Reporting details include whether the call was received or missed, call duration, and call start/end time.

Below is an example of the options available when the user selects a Google forwarding number:

In the ‘Advanced’ section, there is an extra option called ‘Report phone call conversions.’ If checked, it will allow you to count calls as conversions in the AdWords interface.

You can also choose not to use the Google forwarding number. This is not recommended because it reduces the quality of your analytics.

Call extensions best practices

When creating your call extensions, here are some best practices to follow:

1. Do not use your Google forwarding number for anything beyond AdWords as it may change between ad groups and over time.

2. If you are a local business, using both call extensions and location extensions is highly recommended. When you use both, Google will display the address from the location extension and phone number from the call extension together.

3. Monitor performance! If using the Google forwarding number, track the performance of the call conversions and analyze the data to improve your campaigns.

In the end, call extensions are a great way to boost performance. They are simple to implement and are a great way to better understand the behavior of your potential leads. If driving calls is an important goal for your business, setting up call extensions is a simple way to add value.

The post AdWords Call Extensions and When to Use Them appeared first on Portent.

Google AdWords location extensions are ad extensions that allow advertisers to show their physical business address and phone number with their standard Search Network text ads.

These extensions are eligible to show on all devices but when they show on a mobile phone, they include a clickable link so customers can easily get directions to the business.

Below is an example of a location extension:

Why should advertisers use location extensions?

1. Location extensions are ideal for local businesses with physical addresses looking to drive foot traffic into their stores or locations.

2. Location extensions don’t cost extra money to serve and can provide a clickthrough rate boost.

3. Location extensions provide advertisers more real estate in the search results and help the ad stand out while looking more credible.

4. Advertisers have complete control on location targeting around specific business addresses.

How do I set up location extensions?

Location extensions are added within the ‘ad extensions’ tab of your AdWords account. In the ad extensions tab, select Location extensions from the drop down and the red +Extension button.

AdWords uses your Google My Business account to manage business addresses. It’s a free service that makes it easier for customers to find businesses on Google as well as information such as hours, directions and contact information. If you don’t have an account, you should set one up right away.

When you click the ‘+Extension’ button to set up your location extension, you will be prompted to select the locations you want from your Google My Business account or sign up for an account if you don’t have one.

Advertisers can either select or create the Google account they want to use to sign in. Search for the business by name and address, or if you can’t find it, fill in the required information to add the business to Google.

Once you create an account, Google will prompt you to create the Google page with a physical address. Google also requires that you authorize the business. This can be done by postcard, phone, instant verification, or bulk verification, depending on the type of business. Once verified, you can add hours of operation, contact information, and other details you may want displayed alongside the business.

The business information is then imported from the Google My Business account into AdWords. Advertisers can assign addresses to go with specific campaigns or ad groups by using filters.

Location extensions best practices

During initial set up, obtain approval from the primary business owner before using their address.

If you are advertising a local business, using location and call extensions is highly recommended. It makes it easier for potential customers to find and contact you.

Just like anything else in AdWords, once you’ve set up and activated location extensions, you’ll want to monitor performance. Be sure to check back in the ‘ad extensions’ table to review the performance statistics provided.

Location extensions will not show every time your ads are displayed. This may be due to poor keyword quality, Ad Rank, or a number of other issues. Remember to always work to improve the overall quality of your account to ensure your location extensions are able to show as often as possible.

If you are a local business, location extensions are a vital addition that can boost the results of your campaigns.

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The Google AdWords Keyword Planner is a free tool provided as an aid to help build out your Search Network keyword lists.

Here are five ways you can use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner and have a healthy account:

1. Get keyword ideas

Are you struggling to build a keyword list that is relevant to your business, products, and/or services? The Keyword Planner has a couple of solutions to help you find what people are searching for when looking for your products or services.

In the Planner you can click on “Search for new keywords and ad group ideas” in order to simply tell Google what your product or service is, or by providing a URL for a page on your site that is highly relevant to your business, or selecting your product from a large list of predetermined categories.

The Planner also has an option to refine suggested keywords by adding targeting for specific locations, languages, search networks and even adding negative keywords.

Fill out the information and let Google suggest new ideas that you hadn’t thought of.

2. Discover search volumes

The Keyword Planner can also help you find potential impression volume for a list of keywords you already have. To learn how much volume your keywords will have, use the “Get search volume for a list of keywords” feature.

Insert your keyword list and the tool can provide a search volume average breakdown for each keyword.

3. Learn how competitive your keywords are

Competition for ad rank can inflate your ad costs substantially. To get a better feel for what your competitors are bidding on, upload your keywords and Google will give you a ranking for each. The ranking will be either low, medium, or high, based on how many other people are bidding on a particular keyword. This can help you decide what types of keywords are high priorities for your competition as well as give you an idea about potential cost.

4. Get traffic estimates on a given bid

Want to know how much traffic your keywords could generate depending on your keyword bid? Use the “Get traffic estimates for a list of keywords” feature. Provide a list of keywords to the tool and it will produce a nice graph and table that show you what to expect based on your desired max CPC bid.

In the “Enter a bid” field you can put in a potential bid and the tool will show you daily estimates for clicks, impressions, and ad spend. This is particularly useful when launching new campaigns and trying to decide where to start your bidding.

5. Build new keyword lists by merging other lists together

If you are looking to expand your existing keyword list there is an easy way to find new keyword combinations. In the Keyword Planner, you can insert different keyword lists and it will merge them together to make new combinations.

The Keyword Planner has many great features that can help you think outside the box and strengthen your keyword lists. There are other third-party keyword research tools out there you can try too. Perhaps the best feature about the Google AdWords Keyword Planner is that it is completely free. It’s hard to beat that.

The post 5 Effective Ways to Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner appeared first on Portent.

Quality Score is a metric used by major PPC platforms like Google AdWords, Bing Ads and others that helps determine the eligibility of an advertisement being shown in the search results, its ad position, and the cost the advertiser will be charged for that ad position.

The higher the Quality Score (QS), the less an advertiser will pay per click in relation to others bidding on the same keyword. Seems simple enough, but there are many factors that go into calculating the QS.

Quality Scores are graded on a 1 to 10 scale. A Quality Score of 7 or higher for a keyword is considered above average. If a keyword’s QS is too low (2 or less), an ad might not be eligible to show at all. For advertisers with low budgets, it’s especially important  to focus on QS to lower cost and improve their return on investment.

Although understanding and optimizing for QS can seem confusing, here are five easy steps to focus on in your PPC account that will boost your QS, save you money, improve your ad position, and improve the performance of your PPC campaigns:

1. Account structure

Building a well-organized and systematic account structure is key to the health of your Quality Scores. Ensuring that ad groups and campaigns are arranged into tightly-knit themes of keywords will provide a foundation for strong QS. To learn more about account structure, check out this post that outlines how to construct a successful PPC account.

2. Keyword/ad copy/landing page relevance

Are all the keywords relevant to their corresponding ad copy? Does that ad copy align with the content on your landing page? The keywords you are bidding on should relate closely to their corresponding ads. In turn, those ads should direct visitors to a landing page experience that relates to their search query.

Platforms like AdWords value a high degree of relevancy between your keywords, ad copy, and landing pages. This will not only help improve your QS, but will help improve your conversion rate as well.

3. Improve landing page experience

It’s important to follow best practices for PPC landing page user experience when optimizing your QS. Keywords and ad copy text should be reflected in the first content a visitor sees when entering your landing page. Content should be clear, useful, and engaging for the user. Basically, the landing page should fulfill the needs the users are searching for when they originally performed their search query. The desired action should also be obvious when they first land on the page, which may be to make a purchase, complete a lead form, or call your sales team. Test what works best for your users!

4. Clickthrough rate

Expected clickthrough rates (CTRs) are also taken into consideration when assigning Quality Scores. Typically, keywords with a strong CTR will carry a strong Quality Score, which makes improving CTR a key area to focus on when optimizing QS. Target your keywords well by bidding first on exact and phrase match keywords before deciding to widen targeting to broad match. Using broad match modifiers (+) can also give you some added control and ensure that your ads aren’t triggered by unqualified search queries.

Having strong keyword targeting is the best place to start. For those who already have strong keyword lists, ad copy writing is the next thing to focus on. For tips on creating successful ads check out this post on tips for writing great PPC ad copy.

5. Keyword research

As an active PPC advertiser, you should always be on the lookout for new and more valuable keywords to bid on. Keywords are your audience targeting so bidding on the right keywords can make or break the performance of your PPC campaigns. For tips and tools on how to perform successful PPC keyword research, check out this post with 8 free keyword research tools for PPC advertising.

Quality Score optimization can seem daunting at first, but making some small changes can have a major impact on account performance and improve results. Although it shouldn’t be used as a standalone key performance indicator, QS can help you evaluate the relevancy and overall health of your PPC account and should be monitored closely.

The post Improve Quality Score in 5 Easy Steps appeared first on Portent.

Quality score is a metric in Google AdWords, Bing Ads and other platforms that combines historical performance and relevance of your ads, keywords, and landing pages to a user’s search query.

Quality Score (QS) can also be a helpful warning signal when there are particular ad groups or campaigns in a PPC account that need to be optimized; as a rule of thumb, the better your Quality Score, the better your ads perform. Quality Score is graded on a 1 through 10 ranking scale, with 10 being the best.

Quality Score is comprised of several things, such as expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Whenever your ad competes in an auction, Google evaluates these factors. Your Quality Score is then combined with your maximum cost-per-click bid to determine your Ad Rank. Ad Rank determines where/when an ad appears in the search results.

To improve ad position for a given keyword, advertisers are presented with two options: increase the maximum cost-per-click bid, or improve the Quality Score of the keyword.

In Google AdWords, Quality Scores for each keyword can easily be viewed. After logging into an account and navigating to the keywords tab, hover over the white speech bubble in the status column of your keyword.

Advertisers with a high Quality Score may see something like this:

Advertisers with a poor Quality Score may see something like this:

Understanding what Quality Score is and how it plays into your PPC performance is important for all PPC advertisers to understand.

What are the factors that go into Quality Score?

While the exact formula for calculating Quality Score for AdWords in unknown, we do know the main factors that are taken into consideration:

• Historical click through rate (CTR): This is based on historical clicks and impressions built up over time. If people who see an ad click it at a high rate, that indicates to Google that the ad fulfills a searcher’s need.
• Landing page quality: The landing page associated with each ad and keyword should be relevant to the search query, useful, and user-friendly.
• Keyword relevance: The ad should match the user’s search intent. When the keywords you bid on closely relate to the ad triggered, there is a better chance they will relate to the user’s search query.
• Geographic performance: How well the ad performs in the geographical targeted region.
• Targeted devices: How well the ad performs on different devices, such as laptops, tablets, and mobile devices.

Understanding these factors can help advertisers improve quality score over time.

Why should I care about Quality Score?

Quality Score is a reflection of the health of your campaigns and influences overall account performance. Advertisers looking to rank in the top positions in the search results while not paying a premium should focus on achieving high Quality Scores.

Quality score directly influences:

• Actual cost per click (CPC): Higher Quality Scores allow you to bid for top positions, so achieving a high QS can help stretch your PPC budget.
• Ad position and top of page bid estimate: High QS can lead to higher ad positions which will help clickthrough rates.
• Cost per conversion: By paying less per click, advertisers tracking conversions could see significant decreases in the cost they pay per conversion. Additionally, by creating highly relevant ads and landing pages, conversion rates will increase anyway.

Overall, Quality Score should not be used as a key performance indicator for your account. However, monitoring QS across a PPC account can be a good diagnostic tool when looking at overall performance. By working through Quality Score best practices, advertisers should see an increase in the performance statistics they value most.

The post What is Quality Score? appeared first on Portent.

Even after mastering the basics, a lot of people new to AdWords struggle to find the “perfect” way to organize and structure their account. It’d be great if there were a standard cookie cutter guide to follow, but the truth is, there is no such thing.

How your account should be structured depends on your advertising goals, budget, website, audience and many other factors that are unique to your business. Not only that, but in most cases, account organization and structure are fluid and will change over time.

First, some basics

For most small accounts starting out, it’s safe to start with one-to-three campaigns, focusing on your core offerings. Within each campaign there should be multiple ad groups, each containing tightly organized keywords and ads. All should directly relate to each other to make management easier and to set yourself up to have strong Quality Scores.

Understanding this framework only gets you so far. You still have to decide how to fit the puzzle pieces together. Here are a few ideas that might work well for your business.

1. Website structure

If your website has a strong structure, with a natural hierarchy for your products or services, the simplest way to structure your campaign is to mirror your website. Campaigns serve as major category links (broad product areas), and ad groups as sub-categories (specific product areas or individual products). That way you can have your ad copy refer to the product and link directly to the product category or product page.

2. Theme

The most intuitive way to organize your campaign is by theme or topic–and this may not necessarily match the structure of your website.

For example, a website that is built out very granularly with a large hierarchy would not only be tedious to manage but might have search volume that is too low in certain areas to even make it worth the trouble of setting up. Think about which parts of your website or business you want to focus on and design your account around these areas.

3. Location

Since location targeting is set at the campaign level, you may want to organize your campaigns dependent on your store locations or areas you want to target.

For example, a company with seven retail stores in northern California may have seven campaigns–one for each store location. Each campaign could have specific ad copy relating to the area and a corresponding phone number and location extension to direct people to the closest store.

4. Performance

Since budget is set at the campaign level, it makes sense to organize your account based on the areas that perform the best. This way you can allocate your spending accordingly. If certain ad groups in a campaign are converting much higher than the rest, and the campaign is limited by budget, you might be losing out on valuable conversions.

In this case, you could create a separate campaign for those high-converting ad groups and give it a higher budget so they can perform at their highest potential.

5. Match types

This one is a highly debated topic in the PPC world. Having a strategy for dealing with multiple match types can be tricky and gets more confusing the larger your account is.

The general idea here is that if you split apart broad, phrase, and exact match keywords into their own ad groups then you can have more control over the ad copy and optimization that each gets. Theoretically, exact match keywords should perform better than broad so treating them differently makes logical sense.

Whether you want to house keyword match types in their own campaigns or ad groups depends on the size of your business. It’s important to note that organizing campaigns and ad groups by match type is a very granular approach and might not be helpful for a smaller-sized account.

6. Seasonality

If you want to maximize your ROI around a certain holiday or time period, it can be beneficial to create separate, time-sensitive campaigns. This way you can allocate specific budgets to them for the time period and reactivate them next year or season if they perform well. Make sure to adapt the ad copy and keywords so they relate to the holiday or occasion each new season, though.

Structuring your account appropriately for your business is key to PPC success. It may take some testing to find what works best for you. So don’t be afraid to move things around because nothing is permanent!

Major structural changes can have a huge impact on the performance of an account, though, so have a plan. The stronger your account organization, the easier your life will be moving forward!

The post 6 Ways to Organize Your PPC Account to Improve Performance appeared first on Portent.

For the fashion business without a giant team, without a giant budget, and starting on the DIY marketing track: here are three simple but essential AdWords strategies to keep you competitive and improve overall ROI from PPC.

If you’re already a mega-successful-fashion-industry-PPC tycoon (and we’ve worked with a few) this post might not be for you. We’ve written a ton of other great stuff on advanced PPC strategies.

1. Branded Search Campaigns

Why is a campaign so important for people who already know my brand?
A branded keyword is any keyword that contains your company name or brand. A lot of smaller retailers wonder why they should spend or “waste” some of their limited PPC budget and time bidding on branded terms if their organic search listings “will show up anyway”. Although every account is unique and there are always pros and cons to any strategy, showing up in both paid and organic results when your brand is searched is proven to improve PPC performance. Here are just a small handful of reasons why you should bid on your own brand terms:

• Own more of the search results page. By having your ads and products show up alongside your organic listing, you’re essentially getting more real estate within that critical search engine results page. It also gives users more opportunity to click through to a targeted part of your site depending on what they’ve searched, similar to a Sitelink Extension. Google has also done studies that show that search ads will not cannibalize organic traffic.


A great branded search campaign example, creating dominant share of search results page

• Ensure you’re top of page. When it comes to paid ads, you have more control over the position of your listing, where organic ranking can be a slow and labor-intensive climb to the top of the pile. (Believe me, we did the work to get a client to the #1 position on “Wedding Dresses.”) Whether you’re already working your way up, recovering from a Google algorithm update, or just getting started, can you really afford to be absent when people search for you by name?
• High reward for low risk. By virtue of Google’s Quality Score Algorithm, your brand terms tend to be significantly cheaper for you than non-branded terms, and have the highest conversion rates. Importantly, a “brand” campaign doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to your business’ name – it can be a profitable strategy to bid on your URL or even product keywords if there is enough search volume to warrant the setup and management time.
• Don’t let competitors steal your traffic. Due to the competitive nature of paid ads there is a chance that other companies may be bidding on your brand name. Dastardly, we know. Again, you want to ensure you’re getting the most revenue possible from those hard-earned searches of your brand. Even if a competitor is NOT bidding directly on your brand name, if their ad shows up above your organic listing there is still a chance that you’ve lost the click and the customer at the last second.

• Test your brand messaging. How well does your amazing brand statement and value proposition translate to a search result? How about a twenty-five-character headline, and seventy characters of text? Should you focus on different attributes of product or service online vs. in-store?

If you’re wondering about what description or selling features of your business as a whole will resonate with a new shopper you have significantly more control over the messaging in your ad copy than in organic listings, especially if you want to run a true A/B test. Assuming your brand terms get a decent amount of traffic you can quickly test value propositions, calls to action, or promos in your ads to see what performs better and use this to improve overall brand messaging.

How do I set up a branded search campaign for a fashion business?

Create a separate (search network only) campaign in AdWords for branded terms (keywords that exactly match your brand name or contain your brand name). For the sake of clean data on what’s working, make sure you are not mixing brand and non-brand terms in the same campaign. Test using different “match types” and incorporating misspellings to capture as much branded traffic as possible. If you’re not familiar with match types, that’s a separate, fundamental piece that you should know or hire before you dive in.

Start with the basics before the accessories: Just like everything in AdWords, make sure your branded ads fall in line with best practices; the ad copy should be professionally written with correct grammar and punctuation and Google suggests using title-case for the headline and description. Include your brand’s value proposition and some sort of call to action to entice users to click your ad. Nowadays it feels like all fashion retailers have some sort of sale going on at all times, making it hard to stand out from the mass of “30% off Today Only,” “Sale on Sale!” and “Free Shipping and Returns!” If you have a specific promo make sure to include the promo code and possibly the dates of the promotion or when it ends to create a sense of urgency. AdWords also offers ad extensions which you can use for no additional cost and which allow you to add additional text, links, or contact information to improve the relevance and performance of your branded ads.

2. Google Shopping Campaigns

Why should I put my products in Google’s store window?
Google Shopping is a rapidly growing facet of PPC where users can search for and compare products directly in Google search as opposed to a specific retailer’s website. One of the most noticeable differences is that Product Listing Ads (PLAs) feature a product image directly in the search results. Remember that thing about fashion being just a smidge about the visuals? Let’s call this the shared runway show that never sleeps.

Also unlike search ads, PLAs are targeted through product data and categories instead of keywords. If you search for ‘floral dresses’ in Google search, the first set of results are PLAs.

The tiny runway that never sleeps.

Why wouldn’t you want your ad to show up in that first set of listings??

Here are a few reasons why you can’t afford to miss out on Google Shopping:

• Higher click through rates. There is no doubt that these types of ads stand out compared to the other ads in the search results. The visual element simply draws more attention than ads with only text. Although results vary, many advertisers experience significantly higher click through rates and improved traffic volume with PLAs compared to their search campaigns.
• Higher conversion rates. Since the searcher can see a product image, store name, price and other information before they even click through to your site, they’ll have a stronger sense of your product offering than shoppers from regular search ads. By the time they click on the ad they will often be closer to making a purchase decision, especially since they can compare your product with others before clicking through to your site. This ultimately means you drive more transactions and improve conversion rates, in exchange for letting Google show your wares.
• Broader reach. Similar to bidding on your own brand terms to own a larger portion of a search results page, when you advertise with Google Shopping there’s an opportunity to show both your PLA and text ad for some searches. In addition, there’s even a chance that more than one of your PLAs can show for a given search.
• Stay competitive. As more and more apparel businesses shift their advertising budget toward Google Shopping for these reasons, there is almost no question of whether you should invest a portion of your PPC budget and management time on this channel. For the smaller retailer, it’s another chance to broaden your presence in search results and to stay competitive against the big guys. To help you get your bearings, there’s even benchmarking data within the AdWords platform that can help businesses see how they stack up to their competitors, to help you continually improve your PPC results.

How can I advertise in Google Shopping?

Honestly, there are a lot of steps here, so we’ll go through pretty quickly. If you’re in need of a full DIY walkthrough, Google also gives a fine guided tour.

Similar to other PPC ad formats, in Google Shopping merchants bid on PLAs in a specific Shopping Campaign in AdWords. Before creating the Shopping Campaign, however, you’ll have to create a Google Merchant Center account where you’ll upload and store your product feed, which is a file that has all the info of the products you want to advertise (for example, brand, price and availability).

When the Merchant Center account is linked to an AdWords account that product info is made available to the Shopping Campaign. It’s essential that the product feed has all the required attributes and is up to date. Some businesses do this manually using spreadsheets; some use third-party feed-management services; and some use special software on-website to keep all the info in sync with Merchant Center.

Most ecommerce platforms fortunately have the ability to export your product feed automatically, and this is by far the easiest way to keep everything up to date. A spreadsheet created manually can provide good control for merchants who want to advertise just a small handful of products, but for a business with over 500 products it can get a little high maintenance.

3. Remarketing Campaigns

Why show it again if they didn’t buy?
If you’re not already a fan, remarketing is incredible. It allows an advertiser to target and serve ads only to users to have visited their website, a particular page or group of pages of the website, or even users who have taken some sort of action on the website. In short, your most qualified traffic.

For example, it’s possible to target users who have visited a specific product page, a collection of pages with words like “wrap dress” in the URL, or just any page on the site that’s not the order completion URL.

If you’re not already sold, here are a few reasons why you should invest in a remarketing campaign in AdWords:

• Higher conversion rates: Most visitors to fashion ecommerce sites don’t show up ready to make a purchase decision straight away – a large portion will inevitably leave and a lot of shoppers won’t come back without some help. Remarketing allows you to serve customized text or display ads to this audience as a great reminder.
• Cost effective: For a smaller or budget-conscious retailer looking for the absolute best value, investing more advertising budget in remarketing campaigns rather than targeting unfamiliar shoppers with broad, non-brand keywords (“women’s shoes,” “floral dresses,” etc.) will lead to cheaper cost-per-click rates and higher conversion rates by focusing on a pre-qualified audience.
• Perception of scarcity/sense of urgency: With the speed of turnover in fashion inventory to keep up with changing tastes, shoppers who decide not to buy straight away may prematurely write off that near-purchase as gone forever. However, if you’re retargeting with previously browsed products, it’s both a reminder and confirmation that it’s still available. Done well, this can be a great moment to tap into that pleasant surprise to create a sense of urgency. Again, this is just one way of segmenting and targeting an audience in remarketing, and there are more than a few others.
• Strengthen brand awareness. Where display campaigns can be used for building brand awareness early in a buyer’s journey, remarketing campaigns target an audience that is already familiar with your brand to varying extent. By using remarketing to show them branded merch that serves as a relevant, useful visual cue, you can strengthen brand awareness and affinity. On the flip side, frequency caps (the number of times an ad can be shown to a user in a given time period) are important features to use. Never let that shopper feel “chased” by your brand.

Good rule of thumb: if it’d be creepy in a mall, it’s probably creepy online. Adjust accordingly.

How should I get started with remarketing for fashion or apparel?

The easiest and most straightforward way to set up a remarketing campaign in AdWords is actually through Google Analytics. If Google Analytics (“GA”) is linked to your AdWords account, you can set up custom audiences through GA and target those audiences in AdWords without having to install any extra code. This can be found in the Admin section in Analytics under Remarketing – Audiences.

To note, the default audience is ‘All Users’, but there are a vast number of ways you can and should customize the audience based on your goal, and their past behavior on your site.

One relatively new feature in AdWords that’s particularly useful for fashion retailers is dynamic remarketing ads. Dynamic remarketing is useful in many industries but is powerful for fashion retailers because it’s designed to show an ad with the specific product a visitor viewed. Since the ads are dynamically created based on the product viewed this can be a great time-saver in managing PPC. Again, for dynamic remarketing you’ll have to have a Google Merchant Center account like you would for Google Shopping.

Overall, the ROI or success of your remarketing campaign depends on many different factors, such as your targeting method, frequency cap, budget, and general alignment with overall advertising goals. But there is no doubt that it’s an essential AdWords strategy for fashion retail.

Key Takeaways
Since many smaller ecommerce businesses need to be budget- and time-conscious when it comes to digital marketing, it’s important to focus heavily on campaigns that will best meet the business goals that brought you into digital marketing in the first place. For the fashion industry, which is obviously driven by the visual, Google Shopping and remarketing are powerfully targeted, visual formats that are well worth the investment. And for any small ecommerce business, bidding on brand terms ensures that you’re not losing out to competitors. For the bargain-hunter and the fashion mogul alike, these pieces go together like Blahniks and Burberry.

The post 3 PPC Musts for the Small Fashion Retailer appeared first on Portent.

Sitelink extensions are one of the most commonly used ad extensions available in Google AdWords. They provide advertisers the ability to promote additional links to their website within a signular PPC ad.

These additional links, which are typically displayed when enabled for ads holding the first or second ad position in Google’s search engine results page (SERP), provide a large handful of benefits for advertisers using them.

Before we dive too far in, let’s take a look at what these sitelinks look like.

Typically located under your standard PPC headline and description lines, the example below highlights four sitelinks being used by this particular advertiser.

Additionally, advertisers can add description lines to their sitelinks in an effort to further develop context.

The following is an example of Sitelinks being utilized on a Search Network ad:

Why should advertisers use sitelinks?

Implementing sitelinks into your Google AdWords campaigns can provide a ton of additional value for advertisers. Here are three reasons why you need to start using sitelinks now:

1. Increase click-through rates: Similar to other ad extensions, sitelinks enable PPC ads to take up more real estate on the SERP. As a result, we typically see ads with sitelinks earning a click-through rate 10% – 20% higher than ads without sitelinks. Implementing relevant sitelinks is a great way to boost CTR.

2. Increase conversion rates: By providing users with a handful of pertinent links and landing pages to fulfill their needs, users have the opportunity to hit a conversion point faster. When implemented properly, we typically see conversion rates rise with the presence of sitelinks.

3. No change in cost per click: Regardless of having sitelinks display with your ad or not, the average cost you pay per click does not change.

How do you setup sitelinks?

Sitelinks are created within the ‘ad extensions’ tab of your Google AdWords account. Then, navigate the view and select ‘Sitelinks extensions’.

After navigating to the sitelinks extensions view, click the ‘+ Extension’ button.

Sitelink best practices

When it comes to selecting links and copy for your sitelinks, use these best practices as a guide:

1. Link text should be concise and relate directly to the landing page it links to.

2. Link text and landing page content should directly relate to the standard ad the sitelink is paired with.

3. Do not use the same link text for multiple sitelinks.

4. Use a unique sitelink for each landing page or URL your using– no two sitelinks can link to the same page.

5. Stay away from symbols and excessive punctuation.

6. A sitelink can direct users to a download page, but the link text cannot contain the phrases “download here” or “click to download.”

Sitelinks are a powerful way for advertisers to build click-through and conversion rates. When executed properly, these extensions can provide a ton of extra value on top of your standard PPC ad. And with no extra cost associated with these ad extensions, all advertisers should be using them when applicable to their Google AdWords campaigns.

The post What Are Google AdWords Sitelinks? appeared first on Portent.

Although keyword research is vital to both SEO and PPC, there are differences between the two. With PPC, you’re essentially bidding on keywords in an auction and paying every time someone clicks your ad.  Your ads position in the search results is determined by your cost per click bid multiplied by your Quality Score, which in part is made up of the quality of ads, keywords and landing pages on your website. The more relevant your ad group keywords are to each other and to your ads and website, the less you will have to pay per click.

Unlike SEO, which can sometimes take months to rank highly for a specified keyword, advertisers can raise the position of a paid ad by increasing bids and Quality Score. If you don’t want to waste your money on general keywords that don’t help your business goals (traffic, conversions), then you must choose the RIGHT keywords for a profitable campaign.

Many people associate keyword research with SEO, but keyword research for PPC should not be overlooked!  Google suggests that PPC ad groups have 10-20 tightly related keywords, so long-tail keyword research is essential.  Luckily, there are many tools out there to aid in your keyword research endeavors, and you can build extensive lists without spending a dime.

Here are a few free keyword research tools that I find useful:

1.     Google’s Keyword Planner

The most obvious and widely used tool for PPC keyword research is Google’s Keyword Planner.  This tool allows advertisers to search for new keywords and ad group ideas. Google’s tool provides statistics for each keyword including search volume and average cost per click estimates. The Keyword Planner is helpful during the early stages of keyword brainstorming but should not be the only tool used for research. As Google says, you can use the planner “to lay the groundwork for a successful campaign”. It can provide a general direction for ad group organization and broad keyword selection, but you may miss out on some valuable long-tail keyterms if you rely solely on this tool.

2.     Google Autocomplete

Start by typing a word or phrase in the Google search box, and predictions that may be similar to what you’re searching for can appear. The autocomplete algorithm is based on many factors, including how often users have searched for a term in the past. It’s especially helpful if you are searching for long-tail keywords based off a head keyword or phrase. Type your head phrase into the search box and then follow with each letter of the alphabet to see further related searches. Also, type in your keyword and put a space BEFORE your keyword to see more variations.

3.     Übersuggest

As you may have guessed, Übersuggest is a keyword suggestion tool. This tool utilizes the suggest data from Google and other search engines by taking your head term, adding a letter or number in front of it, and extracting suggestions for that keyword all at once. In other words, it does a lot of the previously described tasks for you! It’s also handy for long-tail keyword research and can help you find niche areas to explore within your head term.

That being said, it’s pretty run-of-the-mill and should only be used to expand your keyword lists and generate ideas. I never spend more than a couple minutes browsing through the couple hundred suggestions, but sometimes you can discover keywords you would not have thought of.

4.     Keyword Tool

The Keyword Tool is similar to Übersuggest because it uses Google Autocomplete, but takes it one step further by generating up to 750 suggestions per keyword. It works with 129 Google domains, 83 languages, and is extremely user-friendly. Not only that, but it autogenerates suggestions alphabetically for phrases that include words before and after your base term.  There is no CAPTCHA or ads to distract advertisers from their in-depth researching, and the best part about this tool is how easy it is to navigate. If you want a simple and fast long-tail suggestion tool, I highly recommend this one.

5.     WordStream Free Keyword Tool 

Despite having limited features, WordStream’s Free Keyword Suggestion tool is more sophisticated and can provide highly relevant and valuable keywords for your chosen topic. The tool provides more diversified long-tail keyphrases than the Keyword Planner, and all the provided suggestions are more tightly related than the previously mentioned tools.  It claims to represent over a trillion search queries and non-paying users can search up to 30 times a day. Unfortunately, some metrics such as Google Search Volume and Competition are blurred out unless you sign up for the paid version. WordStream has other free keyword tools including the Keyword Niche finder, Keyword Grouper and Negative Keyword Tool, all which can help further refine your keyword lists.

6.     Keyword Eye (Basic)

Keyword Eye is a visual keyword research tool that offers a “keyword cloud” of suggestions where size and color represent search volume and competitiveness. You can also see the suggestions in a grid view and sort results by a particular metric. With the free plan, users get 20 keyword searches a day, up to 100 keywords per report, and 25 Google country keyword databases.  Unlike the WordStream Free Keyword Tool, here you are able to see Search Volume, PPC Competition, and a corresponding PPC Competitive Score. It provides the long-tail data in an easily-digestible way and is a great alternative to the Keyword Planner.

7.     Keyword Revealer’s Keyword Tool

Keyword Revealer has a free keyword tool that allows you to see relevant keyword suggestions as well as corresponding metrics such as Search Volume, CPC, and Estimated Profit. Similar to Keyword Eye, it is intended to show you how tough the competition is and predict which keywords may be profitable. The keyword suggestions the tool provide are extremely relevant and worth browsing through.

Unfortunately, non-paying users are only allowed up to 3 searches per day, so choose your searches wisely!

8.     AdWords Search Terms

Don’t forget that the most valuable keywords can come from the search terms that visitors used before they clicked on your ad. There is no better way to get inside their head than to see exactly how they searched for your products or services!  When using the search terms report within the Google AdWords interface, remember to add high-performing terms to your ad group as keywords.  If a term isn’t relevant to your offering but triggering your ad, then add it as a negative keyword instead.

To access the Search Query Report in AdWords, go to the Keywords tab, click “Details” and select “All”.

Remember that keyword research is a continuous, ongoing process and choosing the “right” keywords can result in a highly successful and profitable campaign. There are many other free keyword tools out there, but these are a few that I find particularly useful for PPC.  Feel free to share any other tools in the comments below.

The post 8 Free Keyword Research Tools for PPC Advertising appeared first on Portent.