I’m not talking about the last time you added a handful of keywords or when you last added a new campaign. When’s the last time you went through your account top-to-bottom and checked everything? If you didn’t get to this as part of your 2017 planning, no matter if you got the full checkup at the beginning of 2016, it’s time to audit your AdWords account again.

Even if your account performed well all year, there are several things that changed in Google AdWords in 2016. Here are five things you should be sure to review during your next AdWords audit.

1. Expanded Text Ads

Google introduced expanded text ads earlier in 2016, which has quickly become the new standard text ad format in AdWords. As of January 31, 2017, you’ll no longer be able to create or edit any text ads in the previous format.

Standard Text Ad

These expanded ads have 2 headlines of 25 characters each and one body description line of 80 characters. In total, they’re about 50% larger than the previous text ad format. If you’re not using these in your account by now, you’re absolutely missing out on impressions and clicks.

Expanded Text Ad

2. Bid Modifiers for All Devices

Mobile bid modifiers have been around since Google first introduced enhanced campaigns in 2013. These modifiers allow you bid up or down for mobile traffic by a percentage you set. However, did you know you can now set bid modifiers by all device types?

Device Bid Modifiers

Check your campaign data segmenting conversion metrics by device. It’s common to see mobile clicks having lower conversion rates, but you might notice some campaigns where desktop traffic lags behind, or where tablet traffic outperforms both mobile and desktop. Set device bid modifiers accordingly on the campaign level based on these metrics.

3. RLSA Options

Here are a couple of remarketing lists for search ad (RLSA) developments you might not have heard yet:

• Similar audiences, which are automatically generated by Google based on your existing remarketing audiences, are now available for use in search campaigns.
• Customer match (e-mail list) audiences are now available for use in shopping campaigns.

Many advertisers got access to these functionalities in just Q4 of 2016. If you’re eligible to use either (or both) of these features and you’re not yet using them, you should absolutely develop a plan and test them out in 2017.

4. New Ad Extensions

Have you heard of price extensions? How about message extensions? Promotion extensions? For quick reference:

• Price extensions allow you to show short descriptions and prices of products or services you offer.
• Message extensions allow a user to text your business directly from a mobile SERP.
• Promotion extensions allow you to highlight discounts alongside your text ad.

These are three new ad extension types Google introduced in 2016, and if your account is appropriate and eligible you should definitely be using them.

5. Conversions

In the tools section of your account, go through your conversions and ensure all settings are up-to-date and that no goals are obsolete. AdWords removed the Converted Clicks functionality (although you can still see the metric itself available in your account) and enhanced its Conversion metric. You can now manually set your conversion(s) to count each click (i.e. each sale) or each unique click (i.e. each user).

Conversion Settings

If you don’t remember adjusting any of your AdWords conversion settings this year, make sure to check this piece sooner rather than later.

The PPC Fundamentals and Your Next Steps
These are just some of the new things to take into consideration when auditing your AdWords account. There are still the vitally-important, traditional elements to review as well, such as campaign structure, ad group structure, keyword selection, and so forth.

If you feel like you may be overlooking or under-using any of the new tools or best practices here, make time to take that big step back from daily optimization to truly audit your AdWords account before we get too far into the year. Alternatively, you can get a few tips from us at no cost by requesting a free PPC audit from Portent. Just sayin’.

The post It’s Time to Audit Your AdWords Account appeared first on Portent.

If you’ve been ignoring mobile strategies in the past year or two because they’re a hassle and inconvenient, you’ve probably noticed your click and impression volume have been hurting for a while as well. All the conversion rate optimization in the world won’t be able to save you if you don’t bother going after this increasingly large share of the pie in the first place.

Running a successful mobile PPC strategy is not as difficult as it may initially seem. If you follow these 7 suggestions, you’ll get yourself on the right track real quick.

1. Optimize Your Website for Mobile

If your website is not yet optimized for a mobile environment, or does not yet use responsive design, you need to get on that. Preferably yesterday. Nobody enjoys landing on a webpage on their phone and immediately having to zoom way in to read even basic text. Furthermore, nobody in their right mind will bother buying anything from their phone if the checkout process is similarly clunky and difficult to maneuver on a small screen.

Google's Guidance for a Mobile Optimized Site

For context, this is the one element in this post which cannot be addressed directly within an ad platform like AdWords. However, it’s also the most important and impactful suggestion here. Without a mobile-optimized site, your metrics will suffer and a significant chunk of money dedicated toward mobile traffic will be wasted.

2. Exclude Mobile Traffic in Display Campaigns

Display campaigns are notorious for their poor performance on mobile devices. When a user is on their phone, they’re likely using predominantly apps and will only briefly resort to online browsers to search or research something. Most users don’t enjoy being interrupted and taken out of whatever app they’re using on a smartphone. For this reason, it’s almost always a good idea to put a mobile bid modifier of -100% on any display campaigns you’re running.

The exception to this is remarketing. Using dynamic remarketing for products, for example, can pay dividends on mobile devices. In these instances, you might not want to exclude mobile traffic entirely because it’s so relevant, targeted, and hopefully already familiar to the user. But, unless you have a good reason not to, plan on excluding mobile traffic entirely from your display campaigns. (I welcome any well-reasoned arguments in the comments.)

3. Device Bid Modifiers Proportional to Conversion Metrics

Conversion metrics almost always vary by device type. As such, you should use bid modifiers for mobile and tablet devices to compensate. This can save you money on your click and conversion costs.
Let’s say you have a campaign that has spent $1,000 in the past 30 days; $500 has gone to computers, $400 has gone to mobile devices, and $100 has gone to tablets. In these past 30 days, you’ve received a total of 100 conversions, which means your campaign’s average cost per acquisition (CPA) is $10. Now, let’s look at conversion volume by device type: computers have acquired 75 conversions, mobile devices have acquired 20 conversions, and tablets have acquired 5 conversions. Your conversion breakdown looks like this:

Computers: $6.67 avg. CPA
Mobile Devices: $16.00 avg. CPA
Tablets: $20.00 avg. CPA

Notice how your average CPA for mobile devices and tablets is significantly higher than computers. In this instance, you want to bid down on both mobile devices and tablets proportionally:

Computers: +/- 0% (no change)
Mobile Devices: -60% (computer CPA is roughly 40% of mobile CPA)
Tablets: -70% (computer CPA is roughly 30% of tablet CPA)

After these bid modifiers go into effect, you should see your campaign’s average CPA decrease accordingly. One thing to keep an eye on, though, is conversion volume. If you notice your campaign’s CPA decrease to $8, for example, but your conversion volume decreases from 100 to 90, you may want to make further adjustments to those bid modifiers to compensate any more.

4. Expanded Text Ads

Expanded text ads allow you to use up to 140 characters between your headlines and body text versus the previous standard of 95 characters. By the beginning of next year, Google’s new(ish) expanded text ad format will become the standard which all accounts will use.

One huge advantage of expanded text ads is that they tend to take up significantly more real estate on mobile search engine results pages (SERPs). If your ad shows up number 1 on a mobile device and you’re using an expanded text ad, you may very well take up most of the user’s screen. This can do wonders for your click-through rate (CTR) and click volume.

5. Deep-link Final URL’s Within Apps

This suggestion is a bit more advanced and only applicable to businesses that have their own mobile app. If you’re trying to re-engage with users who’ve downloaded your app, via remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) or even a display remarketing campaign geared toward mobile users, you can deep-link text ads to a specific section on your mobile app versus a standard web URL. For more information on this, visit Google’s support page.

Deep linking ads to highly relevant content within your app will save users time and frustration. However, you’ll need to ensure that any ads for a given campaign that utilizes deep linking will appear on a mobile or tablet device. You can do this by keeping bids very low ($0.05 or $0.10, for example) and putting a large positive bid modifier on your mobile and tablet devices. Or, you can exclude computer traffic altogether with a bid modifier of -100% (yes, you can do that now).

6. Mobile-Preferred Call Extensions

If you have a support line someone can call for help or to make a purchase, you should use this phone number in a call extension for each appropriate search campaign. When creating a call extension, you can make it mobile preferred so it’s more likely to show up on mobile searches.

The result will be a call button on the SERP itself alongside your text ad, which will allow the user to call you directly from the SERP rather than being taken to a landing page. This eliminates an entire step that a user has to take before potentially converting, which should improve your business’ conversion rate.

7. Consider Other Ad Extensions for Mobile

Use as many other ad extensions as are applicable to your business. Sitelink and callout extensions, especially, can help take up even more room at the top of a SERP and improve your CTR. If you manage to show an ad in the top position for a mobile device, and you have sitelink and callout extensions display beneath your text ad, you could take up nearly the entire screen and drastically increase your visibility.

Mobile PPC strategies don’t have to be overly-complicated or overwhelming. If your AdWords account is struggling to succeed on mobile traffic, implement as many of these suggestions as you can and watch your performance improve. If you put these best practices in place and you still don’t see a meaningful lift in your metrics, it may be time to get a professional PPC audit. (Hashtag #shamelesspromotion)

Do you have any additional tips for mobile PPC? Comment below and share your ideas; we would love to hear them!

The post 7 Keys to a Successful Mobile PPC Strategy appeared first on Portent.

These changes are designed to give advertisers more options to optimize their campaigns and, to Google’s credit, most of them seem pretty useful and intuitive. Here’s an overview of five changes coming your way this year in Google AdWords.

Expanded Character Limits

Some of you may already have access to this feature in your AdWords accounts. This change is tentatively scheduled to roll out to all advertisers in the U.S. by the end of July.

When Google got rid of text ads on the right-hand rail, it opened up some space for character limit expansion for text ads showing up in the middle of the page. Currently, most advertisers are still only allowed 25 characters in the headline and 35 characters each in two separate description lines. That’s changing to 30 characters in the headline and 80 characters in one consolidated description line. Furthermore, this display URL will be automatically generated versus being manually entered.

This change gives you more room to make your ad copy more compelling. The desired impact of this change is higher CTRs for any given ad group compared to historical averages.

Tablet Bid Modifiers

This is something which was never given to advertisers when enhanced campaigns were released, forcing us to merge all device targeting into single campaigns. Many industry leaders have criticized Google for this in the past. Well, Google is going to give us back control over our tablet bidding. Huzzah!

While the structure of enhanced campaigns remains, advertisers will have the ability to set a bid adjustment for tablets just like the existing option for mobile devices. The range to which modifiers can be set is also expanding: you’ll be able to set them as low as -100% to eliminate traffic for a device type (no change) and as high as +900% (up from +300%). Ludicrous bid, GO!

This change should allow you to bring down your average cost per click and, by extension, your average cost per conversion on tablets. Likewise, if you have any campaigns that are particularly strong with tablet devices, you’ll be able to bid up solely for this device type to take advantage of that traffic.

Similar Audiences for Search (RLSA)

Currently, you have the ability to use remarketing lists in your search campaigns to either bid separately for these users or limit your search impressions to these users only. Soon, you’ll be able to do the same thing with similar audiences, which are generated automatically by Google based on your existing remarketing lists and stored in your shared library.

At this point you’re only able to use similar audiences in display network campaigns. Later this year, you’ll be able to do custom bids or isolate these users in search campaigns with RLSA. This is already a great tactic to get search ads in front of users who are familiar with your business. Soon you’ll be able to do the same with users who share similar qualities with those who are already interested in your business.

Demographic Bid Modifiers for Search

Just as you can adjust bids by mobile device, location, or time of day, you’ll soon be able to apply search campaign bid modifiers to demographic criteria, such as age and gender. Got a target audience of females aged 25 – 34? Fantastic! You’ll soon be able to increase bids for that precise group of users, at the moment they search for your already-targeted keywords.

This change should have a positive impact on conversion rates more than anything. It will also likely increase the initial CPCs for highly sought-after demographic segments. You may not see significant shifts in CTR as a direct result of utilizing these bid modifiers. But if you’re able to get in front of your target audience more often with search campaigns, you should hopefully see that reflected in your bottom line.

Display Network Reach and Dynamic Ads

Have you ever looked at your display network placements and said to yourself, “I wish I could reach more websites with Google’s display network?” You have? Funny story: Google read your mind.

Kidding, kidding.

Or am I?

I‘ll skip speculating on the extent of Google’s mind reading powers (“ReadBrain” has a nice ring to it), but they’re giving advertisers access to more ad exchanges nonetheless. And if that’s not good enough for you, they’re also going to release responsive ads for display for a friendlier mobile experience. This feature will allow your ads to adapt to any device and look native to the content a user is viewing.

Are you excited yet? I am! But that may be because I’m going on vacation soon, too. Regardless, these tools look pretty darn good to me. Be on the lookout for these features to be released in your account soon if you don’t have access to one or more of them already.

The post AdWords Changes in 2016: What You Should Care About appeared first on Portent.

For many of these businesses investing in paid search ads, a typical B2C or B2B strategy just won’t do. Budgets might be extremely tight and every penny needs to count, especially for small businesses. So, how do you execute a winning local PPC strategy when there’s such little room for error?

Well, we’ve got an answer for you and it’s easier than you think. In this post, we’re going to cover the key elements to a successful local PPC strategy, provide a few tips on how to execute it, and show you what to expect after you execute these changes.

Radius Targets Are the Key

If you have a location in a large city, or if you have multiple locations which are in close proximity with one another, you may find that city location targeting isn’t practical. Furthermore, using more specific targets, like zip codes, may be more of a pain than they’re worth. The good news is that there is another option: radius targets.

The single most important element to winning with local PPC is the utilization of radius targets. Instead of a pre-defined location target built into AdWords already (i.e. country, city, zip code), radius targets are custom location targets defined by the advertiser, centered on a specific location.

Why are radius targets so awesome? There are two important reasons:

1. Radius targets allow for greater flexibility in where exactly your ads will show up. If the borders of a specific town, neighborhood, or zip code aren’t sufficient, radius targets can often resolve any issues you’re having with regards to location targeting.
2. The signals AdWords uses when determining if someone is within a custom radius target often rely on physical indicators such as WiFi hot spots and GPS. When using pre-defined location targets, AdWords also refers to a user’s current and historical location data, which can limit ad impression volume.

That 2^nd point is a little known fact which many people don’t know about. We’ve tested this at Portent and, while we don’t have definitive proof from Google that this is how it works, we’ve consistently seen between 10%-15% more overall ad impressions when using radius targets versus using only pre-defined targets for a given physical area.

Other Elements of a Successful Local PPC Strategy

Radius targets are important, but they’re not the only factors which will make or break a local PPC strategy. Here are some more things to keep in mind:

• Show ads to people in your targeted location only – The default setting in AdWords will show ads to users in–or searching for–your targeted location(s). When it comes to utilizing a budget most efficiently, it’s safest to switch that setting over to target only users physically in your targeted location(s).
• Use bid modifiers on schedules and devices – Chances are your conversion metrics, such as conversion rate and average cost per conversion, will vary depending on the time of day, day of week, and what type of device a user is on. Use bid modifiers accordingly to bid down (or stop showing ads entirely) for poor conversion metrics and bid up for good conversion metrics.
• Create a campaign template – For businesses with multiple locations, create a campaign template (or set of templates) so it can be used on a one-store-per-campaign basis. This way, you can keep your account organized, your campaigns consistent, and be able to devote specific amounts of budget toward any given location.

The Importance of Conversions

I cannot stress this next point enough, so I’m literally going to repeat it three times:

Have an on-site conversion that correlates with in-store success.

Have an on-site conversion that correlates with in-store success.

Have an on-site conversion that correlates with in-store success.

Did you get that? Because it’s really, really important.

There needs to be some action on your website a user can take which indicates they’re likely to actually visit your physical location. This could be somebody clicking a “Get Directions” button or clicking your phone number to call you directly. Just as important, you need to be able to track these conversions accurately using AdWords, an Analytics platform, or a combination of both.

How else will you know the money you’re investing in PPC is actually working to drive people physically to your place of business? Trick question: you won’t.

The Proof

Did you find these tips useful? Great! Now, here’s the proof this all actually works.

We have a couple of current, large-scale examples at Portent where we’ve proven out this strategy (on top of many small business accounts). The businesses behind these examples will be anonymous, but the data is real. Here’s how each example compared three months prior to executing this strategy versus the following three months:

Example 1

Example 2

In both cases, conversions went up, the average cost per conversion decreased, and conversion rates increased, all by noticeable margins. As a result, PPC influenced more people to physically go to these places and grow these businesses. And that, really, is the whole point to this entire post: utilize these tactics to make more money.

Local PPC is important and can be leveraged very successfully for brands of any size. You just need to make sure you’re utilizing the key elements which make it a success. Have you had a successful local PPC campaign? Let us know in the comments below what worked for you.

The post Executing a Successful Local PPC Strategy appeared first on Portent.

We could speculate endlessly about why Google has made this change. However, from my perspective as a PPC strategist, the reason doesn’t really matter. There is only one pertinent question on my mind right now: what does this change mean for my AdWords accounts?

Time to Panic?

Is this a significant change on paper? Yes.

Should you be panicking? Of course not.

Google has been testing some version of this change on and off for the past 6 years. No hard date has been set yet for when this format change will take effect for 100% of searches. Although there are signs that ads are not appearing in the right-hand rail more frequently, you may notice that not all text ad impressions have suddenly disappeared from the “other” row in the Top versus Other segmentation report in your AdWords account this past week.

Basically, Google rolled this change out in a methodical and data-driven manner to give advertisers the least amount of headaches possible. And, as a PPC strategist, I sincerely appreciate that.

Predicting the Future

So, what can you expect in the immediate future? After reviewing changes in click metrics week over week for several accounts, I wasn’t able to find any solid, consistent changes in click-through-rate, average position, or any other pertinent metric that I could attribute to this format change from Google. So the short answer to that question is: not much.

What are the long term implications once text ads on the side-rail go away entirely? It will take months to know for sure, but here are some of my best guesses:

1. There will be little or no cause and effect relationship between this change and your conversion metrics from text ads. Your conversion rates and transaction totals will still be primarily affected by more pertinent factors such as landing page quality, conversion funnel optimization, competition, etc.
2. You could see an increase in impressions from shopping campaigns. Text ads may no longer be eligible to show on the side, but shopping ads will remain prominent in that space. Soon, they’ll be the only ad type eligible for that space. Using that rationale, it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest overall shopping ad impressions will increase as a result.
3. It is more likely than not your CTRs will increase to some degree relative to ad position 2, 3, or 4. By nature, ads which show up at the top-middle of a SERP get clicked on more often. As a result of this format change, Google will consistently show 3 or 4 text ads in the top middle of SERPs versus 1 or 2 as was common previously.
4. Your overall traffic volume from text ads likely won’t change significantly. You could see some select competitive keywords get less traffic if they’ve historically had an average ad position of 4 or worse. But, unless those keywords constitute a majority of your paid search traffic (in which case you have much bigger issues to worry about), the overall impact will be minimal.
5. Average click costs relative to a given average ad position may go up. Or they may go down. Or they may not change at all. There are competing theories about what will happen to your average CPC as a direct result of this change. We may come to a consensus eventually or we may never know.

So, That’s it? No “___-geddon”?

From an AdWords stand point? Pretty much, yeah. This isn’t as big of a deal as, say, when enhanced campaigns were introduced. My best advice is common sense: keep a close eye on your click metrics over the next month and make optimizations accordingly.

However, this format change could have other implications outside of an AdWords account. For example, if Google shows 3 or 4 ads above organic results more often, pushing the first organic listing for a given search below the fold, what does that mean for SEO? I’ll leave that question for someone more qualified to answer. The point is: don’t assume you only have to worry about changes in your Google AdWords account as a result of this change.

Do you have any observations regarding this format change you’d like to share? Comment below and let us know.

The post What Google’s Elimination of Side-Rail Ads Means for Your PPC Program appeared first on Portent.

Alternate Title: How I doubled Return on Ad Spend in branded PPC

PPC 101 – Branded Search

The first rule of PPC is to make sure you bid on your branded search terms.  Actually, scratch that – the first rule of PPC is that all must bow down to Earth’s future overlords, Google.  Or was that “Alphabet”?  But!  After that, bidding on branded search terms is top of the list.  The logic is crazy simple: you don’t want competitors bidding on your brand name, and showing ads for their products before yours.

Better still, running a branded search campaign in your Google AdWords account is easy, right?  You happily add in all the variations of your brand’s name as keywords, create some on-message text ads, sprinkle in a few sitelinks, and you’re good to go.  And, by virtue of Quality Scores in AdWords, you  should be paying a heck of a lot less per click than any competitor trying to go after your brand name or keywords.

Signed, sealed, delivered, done.  It’s one of the most straight-forward PPC strategies.  

Seems like the ultimate in low-hanging (high ROI) fruit, so you’d want to shovel in as much cash as possible to ensure you’re getting it all.  Impressions, clicks, leads, revenue…  Right?

A fool and his PPC budget are soon parted

No. It’s not that simple?  What if I told you that you could actually be hurting yourself by throwing huge budgets at this type of campaign?  Would you believe me?

I’ll prove it.

One of the most common mistakes advertisers make in any branded search campaign is to set high maximum CPC bids. They assume that their actual average CPC will turn out far lower at the end of the day.  The logic behind the high ceiling on bids is that you want to be in that coveted #1 ad spot for all searches of your own brand name 24/7/365.  The high bid leaves  nothing to chance.  For example, a business might bid $10 for their brand name in “exact match” knowing that the avg. CPC will realistically end up around $2.  To many, that’s worth it, so long as you always dominate position #1.

But this tactic may artificially and unnecessarily increase  your own click costs.  You’re throwing money away.

I saw this first-hand with a client’s account. The client set their maximum CPC on branded keywords far higher than the existing top bid.  I suspected Google AdWords was exploiting that and costing my client a lot of money..   

I wanted to know if I could lower my bids significantly on these keywords, lower my avg. CPC, and maximize ROAS without losing out on impression share or avg. ad position.

Could I still get dominant placement on searches for the company’s brand for far less money?

How I doubled ROAS on branded search

Over the course of 12 months, I lowered nearly every branded keyword bid 50% – 75% or more.  The year-over-year results were flat-out stunning:

Nearly every key metric improved after making these bid changes.  The only one which decreased was the click total. Lower year over year search volume drove that.

The biggest impact can be seen in the bottom two rows: profit from branded search keywords increased 24% while ROAS increased 159%.  I’d call that a clear test result.

The bottom line

Don’t set ridiculously high maximum bids in your branded campaigns. That’s not how you succeed. Think about your priorities. If you want high ROAS, avoid that bid strategy.  Sure, setting high maximum bids may help you sleep at night. They guarantee you’ll always have that number one spot for your brand. But that tactic costs you a fortune..  If you care about ROAS, avoid set-it-and-forget-it PPC strategies. Treat your branded keywords like any other AdWords campaign. Manage wisely!

The post Maximize Profitability on Your Branded PPC appeared first on Portent.

Ever since Google AdWords introduced enhanced campaigns, targeting mobile traffic effectively using mobile bid modifiers has been an important strategy for all PPC managers.  Some of you may have mobile bid modifiers set in your campaigns already, but aren’t seeing very good results from mobile traffic.  Others may have your mobile bid modifiers set at -100% because mobile traffic has never been very reliable for you in the past.

We all know mobile traffic is becoming increasingly important; the percentage of mobile users on the web keeps growing.  Having an ineffective or non-existent mobile targeting strategy in your PPC campaigns will not be a viable option for much longer.  You need to figure out a way to target these users effectively so you can maintain profitability.

Solution

One simple way to figure out what your mobile bid modifier should be for any given campaign is to focus on the difference in average value per session or per user between computer/tablet traffic and mobile traffic.  If you’re trying to answer the question of how much more or less you should bid for a mobile user, then it stands to reason to reference the average value of these users compared to other traffic.

For example, there’s a campaign in which the average value per session is $2.99 for a non-mobile user and $1.63 for a mobile user.   This is a 45% difference:

Since mobile users are 45% less valuable on average than non-mobile users in this campaign, we want to bid down by 45% for mobile traffic.  Hence, the mobile bid modifier should be set to -45%.

Results

We at Portent tried this strategy with one of our e-commerce clients, applying the appropriately calculated mobile bid modifier according to the example above to all campaigns.  The before & after results are as follows:

As you can see, changing the mobile bid modifiers to coincide with the differences in values we were already seeing allowed us to make mobile targeting efficient and profitable.

Do you have any strategies for setting mobile bid modifiers?  What results have you seen?  Share your ideas below.

The post Getting Started with Mobile Bid Modifiers appeared first on Portent.

We all know the LNDC model (last non-direct click model—the default used by Google Analytics) is not comprehensive enough for us to see the big picture. Continuing to rely on this model for year-over-year analysis may be necessary for the sake of consistent reporting; for a long time, that was the only model Google Analytics offered. But by also highlighting the important trends witnessed by comparing attribution models, you can develop a more comprehensive PPC strategy and tell a whole new story with your PPC reports.

Here’s a typical PPC segment report using Google Analytics’ default LNDC attribution model:

This data tells a very predictable story:

• Branded keywords dominate, but expansion opportunities are limited.
• Non-branded keywords can spend a lot of money, but don’t get much in return.
• Product Listing Ads are robust, high-spending, and provide decent return.
• Earth is a sphere, the sky is blue, and global warming is actually happening.

These points of interest are things just about every single PPC strategist in the world would have been able to guess before even looking into this account. By leaving our attribution modeling at this, we miss out on the bigger picture. So how does this story change if we apply a different model and compare it to the default?

Here’s the same data comparing the LNDC model with the First-Click model, which gives all conversion credit to the introductory click:

The conversion value increases by over 30% for Product Listing Ads and by over 40% for non-branded keywords. Right away, this tells us that Product Listing Ads and non-branded keywords are much better at introducing quality users into the site’s marketing funnel than they are at closing the deal and acquiring the conversion directly. Now you, as a PPC strategist, know that there are opportunities within these two segments to strengthen your overall conversion strategy—opportunities you may not have seen by just looking at the default model.

What if we looked at another model? Here’s the same data comparing the LNDC model with the Linear model, which gives equal credit to each visit in the conversion process:

The conversion value for branded keywords decreases by over 20% while the other two segments stay the same. This tells us that branded keywords don’t play as much of a supporting role as our other segments; they close out the conversion process more often than introduce or assist.

From here, you can use this insight to optimize your ad copy and/or landing page strategy. If you know branded keywords close the deal, ensure all of your ad and landing page messaging for these campaigns are designed to close the deal: offer incentives or discounts.

Using and comparing attribution models is paramount to developing a robust, comprehensive PPC strategy. Use them to your advantage, include them in your reporting, and tell the full story from multiple points of view.

How do you use attribution modeling to your advantage? Do you already use model comparisons in your PPC reports? Share your answers and ideas below.

The post Leverage Attribution Modeling for PPC appeared first on Portent.

Before I proceed, I’d like to emphasize the following example involves product listing ads which had been managed manually, not using any sort of 3rd party tool. Likewise, the shopping campaign in this example has also been managed manually without the assistance of a 3rd party tool. If you currently manage your product listing ads with the assistance of automated tools or programs, please consider shopping campaigns carefully before going all gung-ho for change.

Background

This particular account is the online retail industry and sells less than 5,000 products total. Prior to being admitted to the shopping campaigns beta, the Product Listing Ads campaign had been set up with a basic structure of one ad group for each manufacturer. We made the switch to the new shopping campaign format and were immediately impressed with the new functions in the user interface, allowing us to separate out product sub-categories (as determined by Google’s product taxonomy) and bidding on them differently within the same ad group:

*Note – Product categories and labels have been altered for privacy reasons.

Furthermore, we were able to add custom labels to the data feed to segment products further, thus allowing us to utilize another level of granularity. In this example, we assigned a label to each product based on price range.

In the end, we were able to set up this new shopping campaign in a relatively short amount of time, using several levels of sub-categories to organize and bid on products. Previously, we would have had to create one ad group per product ID to get this same type of granular organization and bidding flexibility – a highly time-consuming and arduous process. Now, instead of a few hundred ad groups to keep track of, we have one. And of course, we have the option to break things down further, creating multiple campaigns and/or ad groups if need be.

Results

The results were definitive – the shopping campaign format and robust functionality resulted in immediate progress which has been sustained since. For product listing ads, our average CPC has decreased 44%, our average CPA has decreased 57%, and our conversion rate has increased 29%.

If you currently manage your PLAs manually and are interested in a more robust format without having to resort to a 3rd party tool, you can sign up to be part of Google’s beta program.

The post Google Shopping Campaigns Get Results appeared first on Portent.

For three years, I got to work in an awesome professional setting at Portent. Sure, the office space wasn’t as nice when I first started in the outskirts of Seattle as it is now downtown. But that didn’t change the fact that I became part of a close-knit community which thrives in the office environment we’ve built over the years. There’s definitely something to be said for being able to work in a space where you’re constantly pushed to do better and be made to feel like you’re an important part of the team. I know I always enjoyed it.

Last month, some big changes in my life resulted in me moving 1,500 miles away to Chicago. I was lucky enough to stay on as a member of Portent’s PPC team, but I lost the ability to physically experience, and benefit from, the work environment Portent provides in the office. I acquired permanent Work from Home (WFH) status.

After nearly a month of experiencing professional life in this new scenario, I’ve learned that working from home permanently is VERY different from going to the office. I realized it would be a change and I thought I knew what I was in for – after all, I’ve worked from home for a day or two at a time before. However, this new dynamic has quickly forced me to adapt to some new ways of operating as I started to see working from home constantly can go very wrong very quickly if you’re not prepared. In case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, here are a few lessons I’ve learned.

1. Set up an office

Having a designated work space in your home is vital to being able to work from home effectively.  Set up a room in a way which is conducive to your working habits and stay there while you work.  Don’t be tempted to try and lounge around on the living room couch or your super comfortable bed while still trying to get work done.  You need a work space which is separate from your personal space.

Create your work space and do your best to keep it exclusively for work.  Don’t try to double-purpose the room and don’t spend free time in it – this is your office and not part of your “home.”  This will create a healthier atmosphere for professional life and subconsciously re-enforce that you’re there to work whenever you step through the door.

2. Keep a schedule

When working from home, there’s nobody looking over your shoulder and nobody there to notice if you start work late.  There are mornings when your bed is far too comfortable and you try to convince yourself starting work a bit later and ending a bit later is no big deal.  Occasionally, it’s not (depending on your company’s standards and policies).

However, the more often you use this type of an excuse to alter your schedule, the more habitual it becomes to not keep a set schedule at all.  Such a lack of consistency can harm your work ethic and your professionalism.  Plan out a weekly schedule, keep yourself accountable, and make sure you keep that form of consistency to help you maintain the professional environment at home.

3. Schedule breaks

Coming off that last point, it’s also important to schedule breaks in your work day.  For some people, it is very easy to zone into what you’re doing and forget everything else that’s going on around you.  Doing this in an office is no big deal because you’ll have interruptions built into your day whether you plan for it or not.

At home alone, that’s much less likely.  For the sake of your sanity, make sure you have set breaks in your day to keep you from entering into a zombie-like state of prolonged solitude and monotony.  Go take a walk outside, grab coffee with a friend, catch up on the day’s news – just be sure you remove yourself from your work space periodically throughout the day and focus on other things for short periods of time.

4. Dress appropriately

When working from home, it’s easy to just put on some sweatpants and a t-shirt and call it good.  Doing this takes away from the professional mentality and can leave you feeling incredibly lazy and lethargic while attempting to work.  Going through your usual morning routine and dressing as if you’re heading into the office helps put you in that work mentality.  You’ll find yourself more ready to work and you’ll be more likely to work to your usual standards.

5. Coffee

As a coffee-lover, I am a bit biased.  Nonetheless, I consider this great advice: always have coffee available.  Coffee is a magical drink given to us by the almighty so we could be functioning members of society.  Use it wisely.

Working from home permanently is a convenient option that is afforded to some of us. Should you be so lucky, the onus is on you to maintain a professional atmosphere in which you can work effectively and efficiently.  Do not fall into the trap of making excuses out of laziness to fuse your personal life and professional life together in unhealthy or unproductive ways.  Take this advice, find out what works best for you, and commit to it.

I have begun to get used to my new work environment.  The one thing I haven’t gotten used to – and probably never will – is the lack of people to talk to.  Which brings me to an additional tip: when you find yourself carrying a conversation with nobody else around you, it’s time to get a dog.

The post 5 Tips to Help You Work from Home Effectively and Efficiently appeared first on Portent.