Mastering New and Hidden Paid Search Strategies

If you haven’t explored paid initiatives yet, you could be leaving money on the table. From apps to mobile search to social networks—advertisers have many more opportunities than ever before to reach many more people. But like any other marketing tactic, paid search requires strategy to be effective, and to give you a good ROI. Not sure how to begin? In the middle of it, but unsure where it’s going?

You’re in luck because Janel Laravie, Co-Founder of Chacka Marketing, and Manny Rivas, Online Marketing Account Manager at aimClear® are here to discuss how to master those strategies. But wait! There’s more! BlueGlass Vice President of Paid Media, Stephanie McClintock, an award-winning expert strategist, is moderating this panel. This day just keeps getting better and better!

Stephanie gives a quick intro, and says she likes to focus on tactical strategy. At BlueGlass, we like paid media, but we like to integrate it with the other channels.

She turns it over to Janel. Her presentation is titled “How to Get BIG Boosts from Paid Ads.”

Why Paid Ads?

People don’t want to spend money on paid ads, but Google doesn’t make money off organic listings. They’re trying to drive their revenue. They’re a publicly traded company. She shows a SERP for “gift baskets.” Not one organic listing. All paid ads. A lot of people will say that’s typical for e-commerce-related queries, but not for generic term queries.

She saves screenshots of SERPs for certain terms and compares them over time. She recommends you try that.

Raising the Stock Price
She shows a SERP for “pest control.” The old screenshot had three organic listings. The new screenshot has one. Just one.

SERP Facts

organic results account for just 14.8% of the bove the fold pixels
on average the top 3 spots take 41.1% of clicks on the page
sponsored ads on high commercial intent kws take up 85@% of above the fold pixels
on average 19.6% of clicks of product relatied clicks fcomefrom the product listing ads on the right of the SERP
on average, the top organic listing gets just 8.9% of clicks

Ad Extentions – Sitelinks

It was quickly adapted, and is phenomenal when it comes to click-through rates. That’s the largest factor in your quality score. You can’t afford not to have sitelinks. If you implement sitelinks, but your click-through starts increasing, your quality score improves, your cost decreases.

Each of these links allow the advertiser to take general queries, and deliver searchers to deeper pages. Set up your tracking individually to measuer conversion of each link.

Ad Extensions – Locations

link with your Google Places account to show in conjuunction with your ad. She shows an example of a paid search ad that takes up a huge amount of real estate, and is the only ad at the top of the page.

Ad Extension – Call

Use your regular number, but Google will apply a Google Voice number, and will apply call tracking data to that number. It’s basically a redirect on that number. You can set these up at a campaign level.

One word of caution: Don’t use both Call and Locations, because you’ll get two phone numbers showing.

Ad Extensions – Product

Links AdWords account to Google Merchant Feed. You’ll see some turmoil for e-commerce advertisers. It’s fairly easy to do. It allows Google to pull products relevant to the query and list them in the SERP. Sometimes they even pull the image in.

Ad Extensions – Others

Communication (Beta) – she’s seen it reduce click-through rates. Allows you to capture e-mail addresses, and have a simple CTA. Sounds good in theory, but it’s too Big Brotherish.
Mobile App – you can promote your mobile app; directs you to Android Marketplace
Dynamic Search Ads – target relevant searches with ads generated directly from your site; get more info here: http://goo.gl/vLGBl

Tracking Gets Tricky

Sitelinks

When you set them up, you can put in as many as ten, with unique destination URLs for each one. Google is policing them now. You have to deliver unique landing pages. If you used to have more than one link going to one page, it won’t be approved anymore.

Google aggregates data across sitelinks, making individual tracking URLs a necessity for optimization.

Location

You can customize your map icon, enter contact information, but you won’t be able to tell what came from your paid search ad. There’s no tracking URL.

Call

Google lets you opt out of Google Voice redirect. They used to not do that.

Product

In your Merchant Center account, click settings, then Ad Words
Enter your AdWords Customer ID
Click Add

You can also add a tracking parameter.

Product Listing Ads (PLAs)

This is huge. Google shopping results have historically been free. If you got conversions, it was great, because you weren’t paying. But Google decided to make it a paid platform. Some large advertisers have refused to pay, including eBay and Amazon. They did the transition on October 17. E-commerce sites are struggling to get sales back.

She shows some examples of PLAs using “red shoes” and “green shoes” as search terms. Some of the listings include the price under the description.

Setup

At minimum, implement Google Conversion Tracking
Create New Campaign for PLA, link Merchant Account
Create and group for “all products.”
Under the “Auto Targets tab, select “All Products”

Get Granular

Plan structure around brand, product types, SKUs etc.
Use drop downs to find targets and validate them – always do this

Optimize PLAs

Bid high enough. Once you begin getting some data, you can optimize the bids.

She provides a list of resources, so look for her slide deck for more information.

Next up is Manny. His presentation is called “Emerging Paid Ads.” More specifically, emerging paid social ads in Facebook and YouTube.

All community managers should be well-versed in Facebook paid organic ads.

Social ads vs. paid organic ads
Subtly different from straight social ads. Facebook has nearly removed many organic friend of friend visibility features. Regular social ads are indirect paid amplification because organic activity can still result

Second degree visibility is essential to socializing users in online communities. Works like magic for apps, likes, videos, pictures…pretty much anything.

Facebook Page Post Ads

More complicated than it looks because if you click the logo or the name of the business, you’re directed to the business page. But if you click on the link, it takes you outside the site. If you click “like” icons, it takes you to an isolated Facebook page to like the post.

This ad unit results in:

likes that are expensive
cheap traffic to external sites
most underused type of FB ad
extremely powerful

Page Post Like Sponsored Story

Geared toward engagement with the brand. Good for:

engagement
in-Facebook branding
sending external traffic
NOT page likes

Page post like stories can show up in users’ newsfeeds for the highest bidder rather than on the right side of the page.

Facebook Page Like Sponsored Story

Great for second degree of separation visibility
inexpensive
powerful when you plug in psychographic targeting
only friends of friends who have certain interests see them

Magic Distribution Dominance Sauce

Content

package on wall
targeted page post ad
targeted page like sponsored story
targeted page post like sponsored story
measure KPIs and community focus
rinse, repeat

What is Community Density Analysis?
You can see interests of your audience, and interests of their connections as well. It’s your road map to building a relevant community, and it informs your content.

YouTube

He shares a case study about a client with an adult continuing education product. If you don’t think you can sell with YouTube ads, you’re dead wrong. They’ve done it. Client was using videos, they knew video lent itself to the conversion process. The challenge was to prove YouTube as a viable channel for conversion.

Average YouTube CPA reduced by 51%
Increased average monthly conversion by 120%

“It would be remiss not to test YouTube as a viable channel.”

Advertising with YouTube
Many of same tactics and feature in AdWords

Choose the right place to create your ads
You can manage in both AdWords and AdWords for Video. Just released out of Beta. He hates it. Don’t use it.

Ad Unit Flavors

InSearch
InDisplay
Call-to-Action Overlay

Remarketing Gone Social

It pivots around engagement. You can create lists of people who subscribe and unsubscribe to your channel, who like or don’t like your video, and then you can reach out to people who are engaged with your content.

CPA Optimizer is Your Friend

Promote your Videos

YouTube TrueView ads
LinkeIn video ads
StumbleUpon ads
BuzzFeed ads
Facebook PPA & PPSS
Sponsored tweets

Bonus Round: Free CTA Overlay in YouTube

Choose your video
Create an InSearch or InDisplay ad in the traditional ads UI
Go to the video Edit menu
Set up CTA overlay and save
Turn off ad in AdWords (pause it)

It’s time for lunch already?! This day is just flying by. Lots more to come this afternoon. Stick around!