Bing Ads Provides Insights on Combining Content & Search Engine Marketing
Whenever talking about digital marketing today the two biggest topics are content marketing and search engine marketing. In many ways they really go hand in hand quite well. The content used on your site will help it to rank better in the search engines. Quality content also gets shared more, which builds more links to help search engines even more. Bing Ads has recently published a new post about how you can effectively synergize content marketing and search engine marketing to maximize your efforts. In the post the author also goes into how these things can help with ‘remarketing’ which is the marketing efforts on those visitors who have come to your site and left without making a purchase on the first visit. This, of course, is the majority of visitors. Bing Ads will be using a new audience tag called Universal Event Tracking in the near future to help marketers with their remarketing efforts. This Universal Event Tracking is called different things on different platforms, but essentially it helps to get your ads and other marketing efforts in front of people who have already been to your site. Combining Search & Content Without getting too technical in how it was done, Bing designed and implemented their audience tags and then set up a new campaigns with search engine ads. To compliment these efforts they ran some content marketing campaigns on Facebook to follow up with their target audience. They found that the results led to an increased visibility on more keywords, higher bids to show ads and the messages were focused more on brand value. This helped to create a more effective overall marketing effort from beginning to end. You can see in the following image provided by Bing just how this can be effective: Combining this with remarketing efforts will help create a more seamless marketing effort that will drive more sales and produce better results for your...
read moreHomepage of Bing Ads Updated for Streamlined On-the-go Performance
Bing Ads has just announced that they are updating the look and layout of their signed-in home page to help people to better get the information they need. The page was set up to help Bing Ads users who want to be able to monitor their ads campaigns quickly and easily, and get the information they need right away. While it is configurable to a point, the main feature of the new home page for users is going to be that it displays a wide range of actionable information immediately. You can see a sample of it here: The new updates will be effective for all marketers so that it displays the information most relevant to them. Things like number of clicks, traffic levels and much more will now be available right on the front page. Much of this information was previously only available after clicking through to a few different pages on the site. You can see a simple comparison of what the home page looked like before and after the update in this image provided by Bing: There are many great benefits to this new user interface. The best advantage for most people will likely be the fact that they can log in to check the overall status of their page in just seconds. This makes it possible for people to get a quick overview of their campaigns and then get back to other work or other activities. The summary dashboard will also provide things like performance trends, top mover reports and much more to ensure you have just what you need, when you need it. The new system also provides you with modules that you can swap in and out to create the best performing home page possible. You can easily get in and see only the information you want, which will further save you time and effort. There are many modules that you can choose from, each which will provide you with a different type of information. The following chart from Bing shows exactly what the module will do for your campaign: While there isn’t really any significant new information that wasn’t there before, it will all be much easier to access with this newly configured home page. If you haven’t logged into your Bing Ads home page recently, stop in and see what you think of the new...
read moreGreat Opportunity for Bing Ads Connect Events in June
Anyone in the digital marketing industry knows that the more you can learn about how these ads work, the more effective you will be at getting great returns on investments. With that in mind, Bing Ads is offering several free “Bing Ads Connect Events” in June to help marketers. These events provide hands-on activities, workshops and more to help master the ‘art’ of digital advertising. They will bring experts to provide valuable insights and also provide great resources so you can get the most out of your Bing Ads campaigns. The key points they are going to be providing information on include learning about new search marketing resources, providing expert guidance on search advertising, gaining skills to tweak your Bing Ads campaigns, and more. While there you will also get a sneak peek at new enhancements that are coming soon to Bing Ads and also earn your Bing Ads accreditation. The events are 100% free, but due to high demand and limited space you will need to reserve your spot. The events are taking place in Chicago, IL on June 5th, Redmond, WA on June 10th and Los Angeles, CA on June 17th. If you are going to be in any of these areas the events will be well worth your...
read moreAdWords announces new Media Partnerships for Mobile App Promotion
As the app industry continues to grow and expand, developers and companies putting these apps out need to have better ways of getting their new apps out there. The competition for getting people to install apps is extremely high, but if you can find a way to attract the users, apps can be extremely profitable. With that in mind, Google AdWords has been looking for new ways to help developers measure, manage and optimize their apps across multiple ad networks and devices. They have just announced a new set of quality media partnerships and ad options that are designed to help the app developers get in front of potential customers and have a successful business. Exceptional New Solutions Whether you’re trying to drive people to install your app or to re-engage with it, you need to know just how effective different marketing efforts are going to be. To accomplish this goal, AdWords has invested in a variety of great solutions to help developers get the consistent measurements they need no matter which app platform they are using. This helps them to get a clearer picture of exactly what is working and what isn’t. For example, the Google Analytics for Apps feature is offering high quality in-app analytics that will benefit developers whether they are attempting to generate app installs organically or through ads. It will also help them when they are looking to see just how much interaction their users have with the app. To further this, they have partnered with over 20 ad networks including top names such as InMobi and Millennial Media. Of course, not all of these partnerships are right for every developer. This is why they have given developers the option to adjust where data is gathered and how it is displayed to ensure they are getting the most accurate picture of their environment. They have even given developers the option to use third party measurement tools from places like Adjust, Appsflyer, Apsalar, Kochava and Tune. This essentially makes the Google platform the ‘one stop shop’ for any developer who needs to get transparent, open and reliable measurements for their apps. Improved Options for Promoting Your Apps on Google Tracking information about apps is just one piece of the puzzle though. Google has also made it easier than ever to promote apps on a number of different places including Google Search, their AdMob network, mobile sites and even YouTube. They have even launched the option to run Search Ads on the Google Play store to help target customers when they are clearly looking for apps to install. You can see what this might look like in this image provided by Google: Their latest feature that was just launched this week is called the Universal App Campaigns, which allows advertisers to get in front of consumers on multiple Google platforms quickly and easily. This system makes it easier than ever to set up an app install ad for Android apps right within the AdWords dashboard or even from within the developer console in Google Play. You can see how this will look here: Using just one campaign you are going to be able to create a custom ad solution that quickly gets in front of millions of potential viewers who are browsing the app store, mobile...
read moreClaiming Your Business’s Bing Places
Bing has made a lot of changes in recent months to help improve the search results and ads that are displayed for local searches. When you type in “Hair Stylist in Tampa Florida” for example, you should see entirely different results popping up than if you typed in “Hair Stylist in New York City.” There are many things that businesses can do to make sure their company site is showing up when people are searching for local areas they serve. First, the normal SEO efforts are important. Making it clear on your page what areas you serve will help you to rank better for those types of searches. This hasn’t changed in quite some time and isn’t likely to in the near future. Running your Bing Ads campaign using geographic identifiers is another essential component. This will help ensure your ad only displays when the customers are actually looking for your type of business in your local area. This is one of the best ways to drive traffic today. An often forgotten option, however, is the Bing Places. Bing Places is a service where Bing allows you to ‘claim’ your business on the map and provide detailed information about it. When people search for keywords and phrases that trigger your business, it may pop up above everything else, even ads. The example given by Bing is when people do a search for “Dog boarding Redmond WA” and it will show the following results: These are all local businesses with their contact information, reviews, websites and much more. If these businesses had not claimed their property in Bing Places, they would not show up in the results here. This, of course, would dramatically reduce the amount of traffic they are getting and cause many customers to go to a competitor. Fortunately, it only takes a few minutes to claim your business in the Bing Places platform so you can begin benefiting from this great...
read moreBing Updating How they Match Keywords for Ads
Bing is constantly trying to improve their search results for both their ads and their organic SERPs. The main goal of any search engine is to figure out the intent of the searcher and provide them links to the exact pages that will give them the most help. In addition, of course, they want to provide advertisements that are related to the intent of the user so that the user is connected with a page that they like and the advertiser gets a targeted viewer to their page. This, of course, is not as easy as it sounds. With millions of people performing billions of searches it can be extremely complex to figure out the best results to show at any given time. Bing has recently rolled out an update to the way they match keywords for their BingAds platform. First, they are relaxing their standards related to the updating of keywords for campaigns. In the past, these uploads would remove stop words like is, a, what, and, at, to, from and things like that. These types of words are no longer removed to help Bing discover the true meaning of the keywords that are being added at any time. You can see the chart regarding these changes from Bing here: Changes to Close Variants They also made some updates to how close variants work. Advertisers are no longer able to opt out of this feature because of the fact the vast majority of users were already using the feature by default. Close variants help to quickly build a list of valid keywords to trigger a given ad. These variants include things like slight misspellings and other phrases that are clearly of the same intent as the keyword in question. In the event that a marketer finds that they are having ads displayed for a close variant that they don’t want their ads displayed for, they can always use the negative keywords function to filter them out. This essentially gives marketers the ability to control exactly where their ad shows up while still getting all the advantages of the close variants feature. Updates to Negative Keyword Conflicts Bing is also updating their negative keywords. Negative keywords are designed to suppress ads when specific keywords are typed in that are not necessarily related to your products or services. Sometimes these keywords can be added which will block keywords that you have intentionally bid on, which can cause you to miss your ad being displayed where you want it. The example provided by Bing is if you have the phrase ‘discount shoes’ and you add the negative keyword ‘discount shoes’ the ad will never match and therefore never be displayed. Going forward, Bing will instead honor your bid keyword over the negative keyword list. This will help ensure marketers don’t accidently remove the keywords that they want from the valid list. This can be a little confusing, but the following chart provided by Bing can help ensure you are getting exactly what you want: While these changes are fairly minor overall, they are important to be aware of. It is these types of small, incremental changes that can make significant differences in the results of any marketing...
read moreGoogle AdWords Improving Local Search
Google AdWords knows that a growing percentage of people are using search engines to help discover local points of interest. In fact, people searching for phrases followed by “near me” has doubled in the past year and more than 80% of those searches are from mobile devices. This means that people are quickly learning just how helpful Google (and other search engines) can be when looking for a local business or other items in the area. With this in mind, they are working to further improve the search results for these local inquiries. Learning about the Nearest Location One way they have enhanced the SERPs for local searches is by improving the local search extensions. These extensions allow businesses to show as many as three locations for a business within a single ad. This makes the AdWords program even more flexible than ever and helps companies to show their potential customers exactly where they are located to hopefully help drive people into their businesses. Additional Business Results A new feature that Google has just rolled out is going to display more businesses in the SERPs for searches that include geographic modifiers. If, for example, you search for ‘nearby auto repair shops’ you will see at least 3-4 different businesses in the area. This can be very helpful for both searchers and businesses. You can see an example of this in the image below provided by Google: Improved Extensions Google AdWords knows that consumers want to find the information they need as quickly as possible. With that in mind, they are growing the ways that ads can be fine-tuned to give the exact information that is needed based on the context of the search. For example, using ad extensions a brand can make their ads more engaging. Adding additional extensions, when done properly, can be even more effective. This is why Google is now allowing you to use as many as four ad extensions in each ad the tis displayed. You can include things like site links, call outs, reviews and more to help quickly give your potential customers the information that they are looking for. Using Extensions Properly Of course, you need to make sure you are using extensions properly to get the best results. AdWords is here to help with that as well. Based on the settings you choose, AdWords will trigger the right extensions to help give you the best results for your ad campaign. One example they gave is with Accor Hotels, which had a 14% increase in conversions when they began properly implementing their ad extensions. You can see an example of the Accor hotels’ extensions in the image below, and how it was able to help them drive more traffic, which leads to more conversions. Of course, there are many things you need to do to improve your overall conversion rates with Google AdWords or any ad network. Taking the time to try different strategies, and making sure you use all the tools provided, will help you to get the best possible...
read moreFour Tips to Increase Walk-In Customers with Bing Ads
Over the past several years digital advertising has grown from a small niche idea online to a marketing strategy that is used by virtually every type of business around. Most people, however, think that this type of advertising is primarily used to drive traffic to a site for brand recognition or online sales. The fact is, however, that it can be used very effectively to actually drive traffic into a traditional brick and mortar store as well. You just have to learn the proper strategies to get it done. Bing Ads has just published their latest in a series of posts that are designed to help small business owners drive this type of in person traffic. If you own a small business with a brick and mortar location, make sure you take a moment to look at the different tools and tips that Bing Ads has provided. Location Extensions This may be the most obvious of the tips they provided. Bing Ads allows you to add to your traditional digital ad with your location information. This way you can advertise your product or service, and then at the bottom have your physical address. This is a quick and simple way to get people to see where your location is so they can come to your shop. When people are looking for a store in their area, they don’t want to have to go to a website and then look around until they find this type of information, which is why this is such an important tool for all small businesses. Targeting Local Customers When trying to get people to come into your store, you need to make sure your ads are being displayed to people within a local geographic area. If your shop is in Florida, for example, you don’t want your ad showing up to people in Michigan. This is where geographic targeting can be so important. Find out how far away people are willing to travel from to get to your shop and then you can set your geo-targeting settings for your ads. Combine Keywords & Location If you are running a local bike shop in Springfield, make sure the keywords you are targeting include the location information too. People in that area are likely to search for things like, “Springfield Bike Repair” or something similar. To generate organic traffic, make sure you perform SEO strategies that will help you rank for those types of searches. Take Advantage of Sitelink Extensions If your website has a map or other similar feature on it, you can use sitelink extensions to help highlight this information. When people see that your store is located nearby, they are much more likely to visit. Make sure this type of information is clear in your ads using this convenient Bing Ads tool. Of course, there are many more ways that you can use Bing Ads, or any digital advertising, to help generate additional local sales. The trick is to experiment with your different options and see what works best for...
read moreBing Makes Key Improvements to their Limited Messaging Errors
If you’ve ever used the Bing Ads platform to run a campaign, you have likely run into the “Approved Limited” error message. This has been confusing for many marketers. If you’re not familiar with how the error message worked, there is an example. Marketers would create an ad campaign that targeted one or more locations. Upon approval for one location it would show up with the status of “Approved Limited.” This would cause marketers to start looking into why the ad was only approved in certain locations, expecting to find some errors somewhere. The reality was, however, that Bing would put this error up even if it was approved for all the requested locations. A marketer targeting the USA, for example, might not want the ad approved in any other locations, but the ad would still show up with this status. You can see an example of what this would look like in the images below, which were provided by Bing: To fix the issue, Bing Ads will show this type of editorial error message only when markets that are being targeted are not approved. So if you are targeting the USA, Canada and Mexico but only USA has been approved, the message will appear. This way marketers will only be looking for issues where they may actually be...
read moreCase Study Shows Google Analytics Improves Conversion Rate by 10X
Google Analytics has recently published a new case study that has found that, when used properly, Google Analytics can help to dramatically improve conversion rates. The study looks at Marketo, which is a major marketing automation company. They wanted to improve their own marketing strategy. In order to do that, they knew they needed a way to collect accurate data and use it in a flexibile and effective way. They used a two-step approach where they started by using their own real-time personalization product to help identify the characteristics of potential customers. They then ran dthis data through Google Analytics as events. The data could then be seen as visitor demographics and behavior information so they could get a more complete picture of their ideal customers. According to the release from Google, “Using Google Analytics as the single source for customer data, Marketo segmented audiences in Analytics based on conversion stage or business vertical. With native integrations between Google Analytics and AdWords, Marketo was able to pass these specialized remarketing lists to AdWords and serve more personalized remarketing ads to its users in just a few, easy clicks. Marketo’s VP of Product Marketing, Mike Telem said, “Google Analytics has helped us increase the effectiveness of our AdWords remarketing campaigns by improving the targeting of our audiences and allowing us to present more relevant...
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