Tag Archive for: search engine advertising

3 Simple Ways To Optimize Responsive Search Ads

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Google’s responsive search ads, also known as RSA, have existed alongside the original expanded text ads (ETAs) for the past several years. The goal has been to give marketers more formats for their campaigns. Since then, the now default RSAs are quickly being set up to be the only text ad format moving forward into 2022.

Experts at Onimod Global would advise that you start optimizing RSAs to stay ahead of any competitors. Here are three simple suggestions that Onimod Global gives to marketers to improve your RSA effectiveness.

Analyze your asset labels

Google Ads’ asset labels can be very useful by showing you which assets are performing well and which assets you should replace after the RSAs serve. These kinds of assets should be monitored for roughly two weeks, then the idea would be to replace those that are underperforming.

When you open up your RSA, Google gives you a breakdown of all headlines and descriptions. The labeling they give to each asset is based on how they performed overall. Thus this RSA data can be very useful information and provide insight transparently on what is performing well for you and where you can save ad dollar.

Use variations of headlines

Using a variety of headlines in your RSAs can allow marketers to use more keywords, which can enable the ads to reach even more potential customers. The more Google variations the better, because using a variety can increase your CTR. Also according to Frederick Vallaeys, co-founder and CEO of PPC management software company Optmyzr, in his session at SMX Next “If you give Google more variations then the CTR goes up because they’re able to show the right ad to the right user at the right time.”

One important note to add: just because you are experiencing spikes in CTR doesn’t necessarily mean you’re conversion rate has increased. Some data shows they actually decrease with more headlines. Fortunately, adding more headlines also increases total impressions as it gives Google more flexibility to create the ideal ad for each situation, leading to more impressions per RSA. How you view these outcomes is completely dependent on your goals for the text ads in general.

Take advantage of smart bidding automation

Smart bidding automation is often times a very helpful tool when it comes to preventing ads from showing up to the wrong groups. If you’re doing manual bidding and allowing Google to show your RSAs to audience members that my not be as likely to convert, then that’s in the end a problem for your SEA budget since your manual bids are not going to be able to handle that.

However, when combining smart bidding and Google automatically showing the right ad to the right customer, even if that includes a bit more of broad matching, you can achieve very good results for text ads. This tactic holds up  in court by plenty of search data backing up this recommendation. Marketers that make the switch from ETAs to RSAs, using the same assets, in campaigns that use broad match and smart bidding see an average of 20% more conversions at a similar cost per conversion, according to Google. If automation is the future of search ads (which most likely is the case for all future SEAs and social media advertising), it is very senseful to use Google’s machine learning systems in every fullest extent possible.

Final thoughts

In addition to RSA, general SEA and other digital marketing tips, we will continue to share case studies and the latest digital marketing news and tips to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to optimize your RSAs or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

 

3 SEA Tips To Win Business With Local Search

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The behavior of customers has completely changed making local search relevant and on the map. More and more consumers realize the ease and opportunity of online search and purchase due to restrictions on movement in the pandemic times. Individuals want a tailored search view with results that are relevant to where they are at that very moment. This is where search engine advertising, or SEA, comes into play.

To win over those customers and create conversion opportunities, your location-specific ads must be at the top of the search engine results page; it’s a competitive imperative.

Here are three SEA tips every marketer needs to win local marketing with paid search.

1) Don’t rely on just one search engine

Location targeting — through Google Ads, for example — marks a huge revolution for advertisers and marketers. It enables them to maximize their PPC by targeting ads to specific areas.

Despite this being a very helpful tool, there are still significant blindspots. The data provided by Google Ads and others isn’t as detailed as necessary when it comes to things such as monitor competitor strategies or uncover opportunities that may crop up. Advertisers and marketers need to keep this in mind when gathering data on all different kinds of search engines in order to make their strategies effective and dynamic. For advertisers to juggle national, state, and local demand is almost impossible to accomplish manually or without the right data. Which is why AI is crucial to success when it comes to succeeding in the local search market.

2) Customize your local SEA ads

Ad customization by location is becoming increasingly more popular, and makes you that much more relevant to the customer. For example, 72% of desktop or tablet users and 67% of smartphone users want ads customized to their location. Additionally, 82% of smartphone users search for businesses near them; 90% click on the first set of results they see.

One of the main parts to local search marketing is customizing the ad to each location with messaging and strategy. Follow these five steps from Search Engine Land to creating click-winning location-based ads:

  1. Be there: Know where your products and services are most needed.
  2. Be relevant: Is your ad creative relevant and specific? Are you appearing at the right time?
  3. Be useful: Don’t be generic in your copy and CTAs. Each work must express your services and answer your questions.
  4. Be quick: Any delay in response to market and competitor shifts will set you back, no matter your size.
  5. Be top: Target the most relevant search terms in location. The closer you are to number one the greater the likelihood of a click.

3) Stay relevant with the Google updates

Keeping track of the multitude of updates Google is no easy feat. Google makes every month across its Shopping, PPC and SEO offerings. Difficulty is not the only complication, there is also a real necessity to remain ‘in the know’ about these updates. This is because, as search engine markets continuously show, even one missed update can dramatically and quickly send you spiraling down from position one.

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global is looking forward to the future and helping your business reach your full digital potential. Interested in growing your digital presence for your company? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

B2B Marketing: Paid Search Edition

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Effective paid search strategies are difficult to get right. You may have problems with budget, creative content, channel decisions and more. However, one of the biggest problems marketing departments have with the effective search engine advertising is your audience. Paid search is an excellent tool to capture your leads in a fast and efficient way.

An important note on B2B in general is that the sales cycle is generally much longer. It can take up to three to six months or more to see the benefits of your strategy. Be prepared for this and to see PPC return on investment farther down the road than what you would potentially expect for B2C.

At the core of the strategy, a B2B PPC campaign is just like a B2C one. You have campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and so on, just like B2C—but the important note is to keep the market characteristics in mind.

1. Research

For really any B2B PPC situation, you’ll have to dig in and conduct some serious research to run a top-notch B2B campaign. Why, you may ask? Because even though you might understand your market inside and out, applying it to the PPC channel is a different matter, one that’s full of risk areas in terms of targeting.

The important key takeaway is even though you understand your market, be aware that Google and Bing do not. Their platform will try to match you to as many types of keywords as possible. So stay on top of your search query report and keyword research.

2. Keywords

Keyword research are essentially the same for B2B as they are for B2C. One difference, however, is the preponderance of acronym searches in B2B. Whatever your industry, find out what words the customers are using. For example, an acronym such as “GPR” gets four times the search volume of “ground penetrating radar.” It’s all about understanding the search behavior of your potential customers.

When it comes to bidding and CPCs, they can be all over the board, just as in B2C. Without a doubt, though, there’s more room for “loose” bidding when you’re talking about high-dollar items and services. In other words, B2B typically has higher profit margins, so small increases in CPC isn’t really as big of a deal.

3. Tracking & attribution

If you have any experience with B2B, you know that tracking and lead attribution is a very challenging task. Different from an e-commerce B2C strategy, a lead generation strategy will need to be able to collect data from multiple sources and bring it back together to get a clear picture of performance. There are many ways you can track your paid search performance, Onimod Global experts prefer to use the UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) information onto URLs. If you are unsure of how to set this up, first check out Google’s URL Builder Tool as a solid starting point.

Contact Onimod Global

Looking for an agency to completely transform your B2B strategy and skyrocket your lead generation? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Google vs Bing: Which Ad Platform is Better?

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When weighing out your options for SEM and how to most effectively spend ad dollar, analyzing the benefits of using Google AdWords and Bing Ads is a great starting point. The common assumption is that Google AdWords dominates, yet utilizing Bing Ads can be very advantageous depending on numerous factors. Let’s evaluate the strengths of each advertising platform.

Google AdWords Strengths

1. Amount of Search Volume: It’s no secret that Google is the king of search engine traffic. Therefore, this means a higher potential for customers, leads, and conversions for whatever you are advertising.
2. Advanced Features: Especially with the recent launch of an upgraded AdWords platform, Google’s program has more advanced features to offer than Bing. Working with optimization, targeting, ad extensions, and management settings Google gives advertisers a much more advanced interface.
3. Easier Talking Point: Because of how known Google and their Adwords platform is, many businesses will quickly jump on the AdWords “bandwagon.” AdWords is more commonly known in the digital advertising world and Bing tends to be overlooked as a result of this.

Bing Ads Strengths

1. Better Value: Advertising on Bing in most cases is about half the cost as Google Adwords. Less people also advertise on Bing’s platform, so the price of keywords is significantly lower. Ultimately, this leads to cheaper conversions and a better use of ad dollar for organizations.
2. Audiences: Although the search volume of Bing isn’t any competition for Google, the quality of clicks tends to be better. In some cases Google AdWords will “eat up” ad dollar through meaningless clicks. If utilized correctly, you would be surprised at how many relevant clicks and conversions can come through Bing.
3. Customer Service: Being an extremely large organization, Google has much more customer service issues to worry about compared to Bing. Not to knock Google’s customer service department but because of Bing’s smaller organizational size, they have a greater ability to spend more time with customer problems and fulfill more specific needs.