Clean Up Your Google Display Network Strategy
If you've ever advertised on Google's Display Network (formerly called the content network), then your story probably sounds something like this: you launch a campaign with high hopes, it burns through enough cash to buy a used car, and you reel in horror at the dismal ROI it brought in and you pause it in disgust, refusing to spend another dime there ever again.
But guess what? Your competitors are making it profitable; with ease, no less.
This is why it's absolutely crucial that you have a solid strategy for advertising on the Display Network. After all, people spend 95% of their time browsing websites, not scrolling through the Google search results.
An entire book could be written on how to most efficiently launch and optimize various Display Network campaigns, but we'll focus on a few tools and strategies that will help you succeed.
Predict The Future
Throughout 2010, Google introduced a whole slew of new tools and features to help ecommerce advertisers become more profitable, but most of the popular features are related to the search network.
While everyone was drooling over product listing ads, sitelinks, modified broad match, call metrics, and automated rules, people seemed to overlook the invaluable Contextual Targeting Tool for the Display Network.
Imagine if you could type in a handful of your best keywords, click a few buttons, and create dozens of tightly-themed ad groups within a campaign, complete with bid suggestions and a prediction of where your ads will show on the Display Network down to the URL level. That's extremely powerful!
The new Contextual Targeting Tool does just that and handily gives you an edge over your competitors using the old strategy of "launch and hope for the best". Let them waste their money.
The visibility into the potential websites on which your ads will show means you can block particular domains or URLs before you even take your ads live, saving you money and frustration while giving more budget to relevant and potentially profitable placements.
The Placement Tool also allows you to view potential placements where your ad would show. While this tool isn't necessarily new, it has certainly been improved as of late. Just enter some of your top keywords into the tool and it will show you relevant placements where your ad is likely to show, along with impression estimates, which ad types are supported, and one-click access to view that website's profile in Ad Planner.
The advantage here is that you can filter by category and type of placement (site, video, mobile, etc). If you sell "swings", that can be pretty ambiguous. Are you selling a toy? Swings for babies? Fitness swings? The Placement Tool lets you narrow this down to filter out the junk, letting you focus on what's important.
Make Them Remember You
Remarketing was also released last year and is a powerful way to make your brand appear bigger than it really is. Gone are the days where you have to launch an expensive multi-channel marketing strategy involving TV, radio, and print in order for people to think "wow, I see them everywhere!"
While there's dozens of remarketing strategies to capitalize on, a simple yet powerful strategy is to target anyone who has been to your website within the past 7 days but not purchased yet. The default remarketing length is 30 days, but by changing it to just 7 days (or less), you can spend a short burst of funds at a slightly higher bid to keep your brand top of mind while the prospect is making their purchase decision.
Test Cool Ads
Google has also been quietly improving their Display Ad Builder tool to allow advertisers to easily create customized robust image ads in 7 sizes with ease.
In particular, the Retail templates allow ecommerce advertisers to offer a way for shoppers to browse multiple product offerings from within an ad. The great part is that you don't even pay until that person clicks the product they want and are taken to your site. Combined with remarketing, these templates can be extremely powerful.
Google also offers seasonal templates that allow you to keep your brand topical and up to date. The Summer-themed templates just might get a better response.
Get Those Customers!
The Display Network should be an essential part of every advertiser's strategy. If you're not using it effectively, then you're leaving money on the table and allowing your competitors to scoop up new customers in a cost-effective manner. Take some time to reevaluate your Display Network strategy and ask yourself if you're really maximizing your profits, or if it's your competitors that are the ones cleaning house.
Clean Up Your Google Display Network Strategy
If you've ever advertised on Google's Display Network (formerly called the content network), then your story probably sounds something like this: you launch a campaign with high hopes, it burns through enough cash to buy a used car, and you reel in horror at the dismal ROI it brought in and you pause it in disgust, refusing to spend another dime there ever again.
But guess what? Your competitors are making it profitable; with ease, no less.
This is why it's absolutely crucial that you have a solid strategy for advertising on the Display Network. After all, people spend 95% of their time browsing websites, not scrolling through the Google search results.
An entire book could be written on how to most efficiently launch and optimize various Display Network campaigns, but we'll focus on a few tools and strategies that will help you succeed.
Predict The Future
Throughout 2010, Google introduced a whole slew of new tools and features to help ecommerce advertisers become more profitable, but most of the popular features are related to the search network.
While everyone was drooling over product listing ads, sitelinks, modified broad match, call metrics, and automated rules, people seemed to overlook the invaluable Contextual Targeting Tool for the Display Network.
Imagine if you could type in a handful of your best keywords, click a few buttons, and create dozens of tightly-themed ad groups within a campaign, complete with bid suggestions and a prediction of where your ads will show on the Display Network down to the URL level. That's extremely powerful!
The new Contextual Targeting Tool does just that and handily gives you an edge over your competitors using the old strategy of "launch and hope for the best". Let them waste their money.
The visibility into the potential websites on which your ads will show means you can block particular domains or URLs before you even take your ads live, saving you money and frustration while giving more budget to relevant and potentially profitable placements.
The Placement Tool also allows you to view potential placements where your ad would show. While this tool isn't necessarily new, it has certainly been improved as of late. Just enter some of your top keywords into the tool and it will show you relevant placements where your ad is likely to show, along with impression estimates, which ad types are supported, and one-click access to view that website's profile in Ad Planner.
The advantage here is that you can filter by category and type of placement (site, video, mobile, etc). If you sell "swings", that can be pretty ambiguous. Are you selling a toy? Swings for babies? Fitness swings? The Placement Tool lets you narrow this down to filter out the junk, letting you focus on what's important.
Make Them Remember You
Remarketing was also released last year and is a powerful way to make your brand appear bigger than it really is. Gone are the days where you have to launch an expensive multi-channel marketing strategy involving TV, radio, and print in order for people to think "wow, I see them everywhere!"
While there's dozens of remarketing strategies to capitalize on, a simple yet powerful strategy is to target anyone who has been to your website within the past 7 days but not purchased yet. The default remarketing length is 30 days, but by changing it to just 7 days (or less), you can spend a short burst of funds at a slightly higher bid to keep your brand top of mind while the prospect is making their purchase decision.
Test Cool Ads
Google has also been quietly improving their Display Ad Builder tool to allow advertisers to easily create customized robust image ads in 7 sizes with ease.
In particular, the Retail templates allow ecommerce advertisers to offer a way for shoppers to browse multiple product offerings from within an ad. The great part is that you don't even pay until that person clicks the product they want and are taken to your site. Combined with remarketing, these templates can be extremely powerful.
Google also offers seasonal templates that allow you to keep your brand topical and up to date. The Summer-themed templates just might get a better response.
Get Those Customers!
The Display Network should be an essential part of every advertiser's strategy. If you're not using it effectively, then you're leaving money on the table and allowing your competitors to scoop up new customers in a cost-effective manner. Take some time to reevaluate your Display Network strategy and ask yourself if you're really maximizing your profits, or if it's your competitors that are the ones cleaning house.
Clean Up Your Google Display Network Strategy
If you've ever advertised on Google's Display Network (formerly called the content network), then your story probably sounds something like this: you launch a campaign with high hopes, it burns through enough cash to buy a used car, and you reel in horror at the dismal ROI it brought in and you pause it in disgust, refusing to spend another dime there ever again.
But guess what? Your competitors are making it profitable; with ease, no less.
This is why it's absolutely crucial that you have a solid strategy for advertising on the Display Network. After all, people spend 95% of their time browsing websites, not scrolling through the Google search results.
An entire book could be written on how to most efficiently launch and optimize various Display Network campaigns, but we'll focus on a few tools and strategies that will help you succeed.
Predict The Future
Throughout 2010, Google introduced a whole slew of new tools and features to help ecommerce advertisers become more profitable, but most of the popular features are related to the search network.
While everyone was drooling over product listing ads, sitelinks, modified broad match, call metrics, and automated rules, people seemed to overlook the invaluable Contextual Targeting Tool for the Display Network.
Imagine if you could type in a handful of your best keywords, click a few buttons, and create dozens of tightly-themed ad groups within a campaign, complete with bid suggestions and a prediction of where your ads will show on the Display Network down to the URL level. That's extremely powerful!
The new Contextual Targeting Tool does just that and handily gives you an edge over your competitors using the old strategy of "launch and hope for the best". Let them waste their money.
The visibility into the potential websites on which your ads will show means you can block particular domains or URLs before you even take your ads live, saving you money and frustration while giving more budget to relevant and potentially profitable placements.
The Placement Tool also allows you to view potential placements where your ad would show. While this tool isn't necessarily new, it has certainly been improved as of late. Just enter some of your top keywords into the tool and it will show you relevant placements where your ad is likely to show, along with impression estimates, which ad types are supported, and one-click access to view that website's profile in Ad Planner.
The advantage here is that you can filter by category and type of placement (site, video, mobile, etc). If you sell "swings", that can be pretty ambiguous. Are you selling a toy? Swings for babies? Fitness swings? The Placement Tool lets you narrow this down to filter out the junk, letting you focus on what's important.
Make Them Remember You
Remarketing was also released last year and is a powerful way to make your brand appear bigger than it really is. Gone are the days where you have to launch an expensive multi-channel marketing strategy involving TV, radio, and print in order for people to think "wow, I see them everywhere!"
While there's dozens of remarketing strategies to capitalize on, a simple yet powerful strategy is to target anyone who has been to your website within the past 7 days but not purchased yet. The default remarketing length is 30 days, but by changing it to just 7 days (or less), you can spend a short burst of funds at a slightly higher bid to keep your brand top of mind while the prospect is making their purchase decision.
Test Cool Ads
Google has also been quietly improving their Display Ad Builder tool to allow advertisers to easily create customized robust image ads in 7 sizes with ease.
In particular, the Retail templates allow ecommerce advertisers to offer a way for shoppers to browse multiple product offerings from within an ad. The great part is that you don't even pay until that person clicks the product they want and are taken to your site. Combined with remarketing, these templates can be extremely powerful.
Google also offers seasonal templates that allow you to keep your brand topical and up to date. The Summer-themed templates just might get a better response.
Get Those Customers!
The Display Network should be an essential part of every advertiser's strategy. If you're not using it effectively, then you're leaving money on the table and allowing your competitors to scoop up new customers in a cost-effective manner. Take some time to reevaluate your Display Network strategy and ask yourself if you're really maximizing your profits, or if it's your competitors that are the ones cleaning house.
Clean Up Your Google Display Network Strategy
If you've ever advertised on Google's Display Network (formerly called the content network), then your story probably sounds something like this: you launch a campaign with high hopes, it burns through enough cash to buy a used car, and you reel in horror at the dismal ROI it brought in and you pause it in disgust, refusing to spend another dime there ever again.
But guess what? Your competitors are making it profitable; with ease, no less.
This is why it's absolutely crucial that you have a solid strategy for advertising on the Display Network. After all, people spend 95% of their time browsing websites, not scrolling through the Google search results.
An entire book could be written on how to most efficiently launch and optimize various Display Network campaigns, but we'll focus on a few tools and strategies that will help you succeed.
Predict The Future
Throughout 2010, Google introduced a whole slew of new tools and features to help ecommerce advertisers become more profitable, but most of the popular features are related to the search network.
While everyone was drooling over product listing ads, sitelinks, modified broad match, call metrics, and automated rules, people seemed to overlook the invaluable Contextual Targeting Tool for the Display Network.
Imagine if you could type in a handful of your best keywords, click a few buttons, and create dozens of tightly-themed ad groups within a campaign, complete with bid suggestions and a prediction of where your ads will show on the Display Network down to the URL level. That's extremely powerful!
The new Contextual Targeting Tool does just that and handily gives you an edge over your competitors using the old strategy of "launch and hope for the best". Let them waste their money.
The visibility into the potential websites on which your ads will show means you can block particular domains or URLs before you even take your ads live, saving you money and frustration while giving more budget to relevant and potentially profitable placements.
The Placement Tool also allows you to view potential placements where your ad would show. While this tool isn't necessarily new, it has certainly been improved as of late. Just enter some of your top keywords into the tool and it will show you relevant placements where your ad is likely to show, along with impression estimates, which ad types are supported, and one-click access to view that website's profile in Ad Planner.
The advantage here is that you can filter by category and type of placement (site, video, mobile, etc). If you sell "swings", that can be pretty ambiguous. Are you selling a toy? Swings for babies? Fitness swings? The Placement Tool lets you narrow this down to filter out the junk, letting you focus on what's important.
Make Them Remember You
Remarketing was also released last year and is a powerful way to make your brand appear bigger than it really is. Gone are the days where you have to launch an expensive multi-channel marketing strategy involving TV, radio, and print in order for people to think "wow, I see them everywhere!"
While there's dozens of remarketing strategies to capitalize on, a simple yet powerful strategy is to target anyone who has been to your website within the past 7 days but not purchased yet. The default remarketing length is 30 days, but by changing it to just 7 days (or less), you can spend a short burst of funds at a slightly higher bid to keep your brand top of mind while the prospect is making their purchase decision.
Test Cool Ads
Google has also been quietly improving their Display Ad Builder tool to allow advertisers to easily create customized robust image ads in 7 sizes with ease.
In particular, the Retail templates allow ecommerce advertisers to offer a way for shoppers to browse multiple product offerings from within an ad. The great part is that you don't even pay until that person clicks the product they want and are taken to your site. Combined with remarketing, these templates can be extremely powerful.
Google also offers seasonal templates that allow you to keep your brand topical and up to date. The Summer-themed templates just might get a better response.
Get Those Customers!
The Display Network should be an essential part of every advertiser's strategy. If you're not using it effectively, then you're leaving money on the table and allowing your competitors to scoop up new customers in a cost-effective manner. Take some time to reevaluate your Display Network strategy and ask yourself if you're really maximizing your profits, or if it's your competitors that are the ones cleaning house.
2 Little Known Ways To Increasing CTR And Quality Score
With the amount of work required for building and managing PPC campaigns, it's easy to forget the importance of optimized targeting.
If I ask you what you need to do in order to increase your ads’ click-through-rates (CTR) for higher quality scores, your immediate answer might be: write a better ad.
And you’d be right.
But it’s not the only way and too often advertisers rely on ad spit-testing when trying to achieve a higher CTR.
If you’ve read a little about quality score (QS), you know that the biggest factor that influences it is CTR. When we plan about increasing CTR, new ads in more focused ad groups come to mind, sometimes we even remember to include and keep expanding a good list of negative keywords (although we know that that has no direct impact on QS).
What we often forget is that ads have varying performances depending on the hour of the day or the geographical region in which they are displayed. Two things that Google takes into account when calculating quality score but are rarely talked about.
If you’ve hit a brick wall and can’t improve your CTR no matter how hard you try, these are the 2 targeting settings that might get you the results you want.
Day-Part Targeting
Ad performance can vary greatly depending on the hour of the day. Although the data above has not reached statistical significance, it may suggest 9pm (21h00) to be bad hour.
You may be getting lots of impressions at 2 in the morning but very little clicks and conversions without even knowing it. If that’s the case, it would be very beneficial to prevent your ads from showing at those times of the day.
To find out how your ads are performing by the hour of the day:
- Choose a campaign in your adwords account.
- Click on the “dimensions” tab (or make the dimensions tab viewable in the sub menu).
- Click the “view” sub-menu and select “hour of day”.
You should now be able to see at what times of the day your ad group is under performing.
The next thing to do is to exclude your ads from showing at those times by changing your campaigns settings: Advanced Settings > Ad Scheduling. Make sure your data has reached statistical significance.
When you do that, the average CTR recorded for your keywords will start to increase and your quality scores will slowly rise.
Geo-Targeting
Ad performance may also vary by specific geographical regions. Notice the difference between Texas and Ohio.
If you’re like most advertisers, your adwords campaigns are probably set to show on the whole territory of your chosen country right now (or even many countries at once). If you run a geographic report in adwords, you will find that your ads perform better in some specific regions than others.
You need to find the regions where your ads perform really poorly and exclude your ads from showing there.
To find out how your ads are performing by specific regions in the country you’re targeting:
- Choose a campaign or an ad group in your adwords account.
- Go to the “dimensions” tab once again.
- Click on the “view” sub-menu and select “Geographic”.
Now you can see the specific regions where you might be receiving lots of impressions but low clicks and conversions compared to others.
Exclude those areas in your campaigns settings: Under Locations and Languages>Locations click edit.
A window will pop up, look for the Exclude areas within selected locations link at the bottom of that window and exclude the areas that are poorly performing for you.
If you don’t want to completely exclude those areas, you might consider creating a separate campaign for them.
When you do that, your average CTR will also slowly rise since it won’t be affected by low performing locations and it will result in better scores.
Those are two quick but very rewarding actions that you can take right now to achieve higher CTR’s and better scores.
In case you’re wondering how effective these two little techniques can be, here’s what Brad confided to me in email conversation (don’t tell him that I told you):
“I can’t agree more with your two points – I do it all the time – in fact I have an account that just by changing the geo settings and splitting up the ads by their geo CTRs, the accounts CTR almost doubled.” ~ Brad Geddes
If you want to track how these actions affect your keyword’s quality scores and your first page minimum bids, I’d like to invite to you to try our Quality Score tracking tool… sign up here and I’ll send you a quick email the next time we open doors.
Warning
- Before excluding your ads from showing at a certain time of day, make sure you have enough data to make the right decision. Use splittester.com to see if your data has reached statistical significance.
- DO NOT use CTR as your only measure of performance. Google uses CTR to increase or lower your scores and as a result, increase or lower your CPCs… however, it is not a measure of your profitability. Learn about Profit Per Impression and use it as the final verdict.
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2 Little Known Ways To Increasing CTR And Quality Score is a post from: Certified Knowledge
