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Is it time for your business to go mobile?

January 19th, 2012
by Jonathan Dunkley

Global smartphone penetration is rapidly rising and demand for information on the go is at an all-time high. A 2010 Gartner report suggests that by 2013 more people will use mobile phones than PC’s to get online and a study by Marin Software shows a 49% increase in mobile click share on search engines in 2011. This year then is perfect time to start investing in mobile advertising and make the most of all these handheld consumers, but what steps should a business take to create a strategy?

1. Is your website mobile friendly?

For a site which isn’t optimised, the difference in conversion rates between desktop and mobile users can be huge. Some of our clients have seen a 50% drop when targeting mobile users with an ordinary website. To check out what your site looks like and if any changes are needed go to How To Go Mo, a Google website which will show you how it looks on a portable device and suggest whether changes need to be made.

2. Create a bespoke mobile PPC account

Copying an existing desktop account just won’t cut it. Users search differently on handheld devices, so mobile specific search terms must be researched to capture traffic which is more likely to convert. Ad-copy must be created which phone users will better respond to, with phrases such as “shop on your mobile” used to increase CTR. Also, carefully consider account settings such as the devices you are targeting and the time of day the ads will show. These will both be different for a mobile search campaign.

3. Track and optimise independently

Ensure that you are able distinguish between PC and mobile traffic within your tracking and reporting. Performance differences between devices mean that optimisation should be bespoke. For example an ad-copy change due to performance on desktops may not work across a tablet device and vice-versa. The key to getting good performance is to review the devices as individual accounts whilst still recognising the role each one plays in the conversion funnel.

All of the above steps are the key to getting good ROI and converting customers through m-commerce. If you need advice or strategy, Minute Steak offers bespoke mobile campaign management so please get in touch.

Tags: adwords, google, Mobile, ppc
Posted in e-commerce, Mobile, Paid Search | Comments Off

Adwords Tries To Get Social…

December 2nd, 2011
by Graeme Carlisle

I am sure you have heard of Google +, Google’s answer to the ever growing social media market. It was first released back in June, to people in the industry on an ‘invite only’ basis, however was released to the general public in September. It obviously is entering a hugely competitive market, however Google has its hard-core fans and it managed to be the fastest growing social network of all time, gathering 40 million users in just four weeks. This is all very well but at this point the network was just for consumers, people to people, no brand or company pages were allowed. That all changed at the beginning of November, businesses can now create their own brand page, much like the Facebook brand page.

This update produced a rejuvenated interest in Google + and its potential for businesses to engage in the social media landscape. Business pages can now appear in the natural listings on SERP’s where you can add them directly to your circles, assuming you are logged in to your Google account. Our very own Lucy Ingram would be delighted to show you the benefits of this for SEO, but why does this matter at all for paid search?

Well, as of last week Google announced the full release of Social Extensions in your Adwords account. Diving head first into the social media market and showing how much power it thinks the industry has on user behaviour. How will this work I hear you ask? Once you have set up your very own, shiny new brand page on Google + you will able to link it directly to your Adwords account, at a campaign level. This means that your paid search ads and Google + page now share +1’s, how lovely. The impact for your Google + page itself will not, in my opinion be that impressive. From my point of view the real winner in this relationship is your PPC ads. They will now not only benefit from the added authority of +1’s, but will also show a small selection of people who have +1’d your brand page. Your friends, your peers and all the other social media types will now be influencing your decisions on whether you click through paid search ads. The official Google AdWords blog claims that 71% of shoppers say that recommendations / reviews from friends and family have an influence on their purchasing decisions.

This is all rather good I would say and well worth doing, provided a number of things. One, your Google + page is managed well, produces original content and engages well with your consumer market and two, Google + isn’t another flop like its previous social ventures. Only time will tell. Oh and make sure you do a good job with your PPC activity too, that helps.

Tags: adwords, google, Paid Search, ppc, social
Posted in Misc | Comments Off

Click to Call – A big advantage for small businesses?

October 28th, 2011
by Camilla King

Adwords has this week introduced the new bid-per-call functionality, allowing advertisers to bid for phone calls as well clicks when targeting PPC traffic on computers, tablets and phones. This is a significant move for many advertisers, particularly for those who rely on a stream of incoming leads via the phone, but even more critical for brands who focus on local business.

It’s no secret now that analysis of your customers’ online journey will ensure your search campaigns are an appropriate fit for the users. Moneysupermarket is already seeing 10% of overall traffic from mobile and tablets. So mobile paid search ads for local businesses, with bid-to-call campaigns could have a significant impact on advertisers,where arguably a call is more value than a PPC click.

As J Thomson argues, the trend in Digital Marketing has been for Mobile to overtake laptop and desktop computers for “the last million years”. I’d suggest this move by Google will be an important catalyst for this trend and heighten the need for campaigns targeted at appropriate devices.

So while locally focused businesses can benefit from potential new leads via the phone, does this pose a threat where small businesses can’t justify costs associated with a call centre? This is where the conversion rate and basket value would have to be considered.

It’s also worth considering the limitations of the new feature, while Adwords will report on call volumes and charges against the call function, at this time it’s not able to report on conversion or revenue data, making cost justifications difficult. Using a phone number specifically for PPC traffic only will allow some insight into conversion rates, but again requires some manual support at the call centre or business which could add complications.

Although, at this stage, there are are no functionalities for keyword level reporting, meaning optimisations on the activity are not possible. This development is still going to be a big contender to existing phone tracking solutions, and only more so are the feature advances.

Tags: adwords, google, Mobile, ppc
Posted in e-commerce, Mobile, Paid Search | Comments Off

Google Launches New Media Ads

April 13th, 2011
by Camilla King

Over recent years we’ve increasingly seen Google test the water with new paid search ad formats, of which one of the latest has been Video Extensions. Using the same targeted keywords, copy and URL link as traditional PPC ads, users can expand a plus box to view a relevant video.

The feature creates clear opportunities for customer engagement with sight, sound and motion all within the comfort of the SERPs. It also allows extensive branding opportunities for marketers, far and beyond a standard paid search ad of the past. Primarily these extensions were beta tested in the US for movie trailers, product demonstrations or previews. The user could watch the first 10 seconds of the video without incurring a cost for the advertiser, after which a standard CPC charge would apply, and the user could click through to the site free of charge.

More recently, however the use of Video Extensions has matured, with Google announcing a new version of AdWords known as Media Ads, specifically for marketers of big movie releases. Now when a user searches for a film title or variation, a large light box will appear, dimming the rest of the screen while the video is played. The difference; there’s no keywords, no bidding, instead the verified studio behind the film will appear top, paying a standard flat rate for each click. This is all part of the Adwords New Ad Formats Initiative by Google, which was launched a year ago to improve the rich types of information within ads.

Currently on limited release for major motion picture studios only, there is some threat of monopolising the industry by disabling smaller players. Google has also indicated that the Media Ad formats will soon be available to other industries, helping to promote their videos through PPC. While the branding and engagement prospects here are exciting, we will have to wait to see the full impact on smaller players across these industries.

Google describes the offering as a “theatre-like experience”, but in reality is the full screen too invasive? And what if the user is searching for cinema showing times or film reviews?

We hope the Media Ads prove themselves to truly deliver rich format ads to the customers who want it, and do so without compromising the fair competition of PPC advertising.

Tags: adwords, google, ppc, Video Extensions
Posted in News and Events, Paid Search | 1 Comment »

Can we really ever measure offline sales from search?

April 8th, 2011
by Jonathan Dunkley

Google’s AdWords blog this week features a piece of research they’ve called “Online to Store Experiments” which attempts to bridge the gap between online advertising and in store sales:

Google have done this by setting up a variety of campaigns in markets across the U.S focussing on specific products and then measuring the impact of in store sales of these products. These results were then compared to control markets where no online advertising was shown.

Online advertising, just as any other form of promotion has an impact on driving sales in store, but can this really be ever measured in the same way an ecommerce transaction can be? The variables between the test and control markets that can’t be fixed are enormous:

• Location
• Weather
• Income levels
• In-Store staff training
• Other marketing activities

… and this list could go on for some time. The simple fact of the matter is that experiments like this will never be completely fair. There are however several ways to try and track these consumers on their journey from online to offline:

• Vouchers – Driving customers in-store using vouchers has long been used by offline marketers to track sales and in the last few years exploded online with retailers and restaurants alike benefiting. These vouchers are getting smarter now, and the ability to track back to an individual advert, url or keyword is not too far off from becoming mainstream. Once this becomes the norm, tracking and optimising where these vouchers are placed becomes a whole lot easier.
• Reserve and collect – The likes of Argos and co have been doing this for years. By allowing consumers to make the transaction online and then come in to store, means it is traceable in the same way as a full on web purchase with the added benefit that you’ve got them in-store where sales staff can take over to try and cross/up sell as well as showing them the rest of your product range.
• Local Shopping – A product currently in Beta from Google, Local Product Search allows retailers to link their CMS to Google search so consumers can find specific products that are in stock and available to purchase nearby. Once they’ve found the right product at the right price, a map, phone number or e-commerce site is presented to complete the transaction. Tracking the customers once they come in to store then becomes a little trickier, but a reserve sytem or e-voucher will help this.

Progress is therefore being made to address the online to offline tracking conundrum, and whilst Google’s research is by no means perfect it certainly highlights that steps need to be taken to improve measurability in the near future.

Tags: E-Commerce, google, In-Store, ppc, Shopping
Posted in Paid Search | Comments Off

Google Ads – Optimising for conversions

February 25th, 2011
by Katie Saunders

This week Google launched a new feature within Adwords based on how ads are served within a campaign. Live from 23^rd February, advertisers now have 3 options for how ads are delivered. The original two options; rotate and optimise for clicks remain, the interesting new option is to optimise for conversions. This does of course require Conversion Tracking to be enabled within the account as Google will use that data to decide which ads are converting best. In cases where there is not enough data to make this decision, Google will automatically show ads that are most likely to receive clicks instead. Ad rotation that is optimised for conversions will apply to all ads on Google as well as the display partner sites.

To enable the Optimise for conversions option for individual campaigns, select it in the Ad Delivery section of the Advanced Settings tab. If you want to apply it across multiple campaigns, view All online campaigns, and then select the relevant option in the Ad rotation column on the Settings tab.

The advantage that jumps out at this point is for when two landing pages are being tested against two identical ads. If the conversion optimiser is applied here, then Google automatically decides for you which of the landing pages is more successful.

Tags: ad, conversion, google, optimisation, ppc
Posted in Paid Search | Comments Off

Google Boost for Small, Local Businesses

November 2nd, 2010
by Gemma Haggarty

Currently in beta in select U.S. cities, namely San Francisco, Houston and Chicago, Google Boost is Google’s new solution to helping small businesses to be found on Google and Google Maps as shown below:

Google Boost enables businesses to set up an ad within their Google Places account and then the system automatically identifies relevant keywords for the ad to appear against. Although we would support an easy system for businesses to achieve relevant and targeted exposure within the search engines, it is hard to believe that Google’s keyword targeting will generate cost effective activity.

Firstly, Google does not expand on the process taken to decide which search terms an advert will appear against; how can it guarantee their relevance and optimisation? Secondly, there is no mention of quality score which may impact the CPC paid by the business due to there only being one ad available and traffic targeted to the same landing page. Thirdly, and for us most importantly, Google only provides the following information on the performance of your account:

• Impressions (how many times your ad appears)
• Actions (how many times users click on your ad)
• Cost during a specific time period
• Top search keywords and the number of actions and impressions per keyword

The above metrics will provide information on the volume of traffic to your web-site, but does not include tracking data that will enable you gain insight into the value of those visits; whether your objective is pdf downloads, enquiries or a purchase for example. We would advise setting up Google Analytics on your web-site, setting up the relevant Goals and assigning analytics tracking to the url provided to Google Boost to ensure you can see the true value of this activity.

As this solution is currently only in beta in selected U.S. cities, we wait to hear more information on it being rolled out across the U.S. and making it’s away over to the U.K. Our feeling is that it is likely to be rolled out sooner rather than later as it is another example of Google developing a ‘solution’ for businesses that ultimately generates them more revenue whilst driving unmanaged, untargeted and potentially unprofitable traffic to sites.

Tags: google, google boost, ppc
Posted in Paid Search | Comments Off

Minute Steak at E Commerce Expo

October 15th, 2010
by Rachel Coate

E Commerce Expo is the industry event for the UK and increasingly, Europe. It ranks as one of the largest gatherings of E Commerce professionals in Europe and serves as host to over 140 exhibiting companies whilst also hosting relevant and interesting conference sessions.

E Commerce Expo is held in the Olympia, London and we’ll be in attendance on both days to answer any questions you may have about the direction your online marketing is taking, goals and offering you general guidance and insight. So, whether you’re looking for advice on PPC or are help with SEO, please come and say hello and we’ll be happy to help. You can find us at Stand 904, right beside Pizza Express so we’ll be hard to miss.

If you’re going to be at Ecommerce Expo, please do drop by our stand or send us an email to contact.us@minutesteak.co.uk and arrange a chat.

Tags: E Commerce expo, Ecommerce, event, ppc, SEO
Posted in News and Events | Comments Off

Google Instant Goes Live

September 9th, 2010
by Warren Zanin

Last night Google officially announced the launch of their faster than ever search feature, Google Instant, which serves lightning fast live result updates to users of the UK’s most popular search engine. The speed at which Google Instant serves results is testament to their dedication to speeding up the internet (or at exponentially multiplying their Adwords revenue).

We discussed this up and coming change to searching in our blog last week and it has been strongly hinted at in Google’s twitter feed over the last couple of days.

The instantaneous results take into consideration past consumer searches, your location and past searches (personalisation) when predicting what you are searching for. Currently, only available on the most recent version of web browsers, the results are served based on a partially typed query, which then adapts as your search query word or phrase develops.

For example, “bestival” shows at the top of results for “bes” being the most likely result that I am looking for (remember personalisation is a factor) followed by “best buy”, “best western” and so on.

Users in US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia using the latest browser versions (Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8) should automatically see Google Instant results. Based on current browser version statistics for the UK, around 56% of UK users could potentially see Google Instant results. If over the past couple of days you have seen the swirling dot and grey logos on the Google Search homepage then your browser is compatible and if you are not seeing instant results and want to jump into the river, lest you get left behind, you can activate it here. On the other hand you can also turn the feature off either by disabling the auto-complete feature in your browser settings, changing the Google Instant setting in the dropdown to the right of the search box or by changing your settings for Google search.

How Will Google Instant Impact Natural Search

Consumer Search Behaviour
On face value we could expect that the functionality of Google Instant will impact consumer search patterns. While partially dependent on browser versions the instant results might prompt consumers to change how they search. Being able to ‘preview’ the results for their selected search term, users may change their query mid-way upon seeing that the results aren’t serving the sites or pages that they are looking for or expect to find. This may be especially true of high volume, generic terms where meaning or consumer intentions are subjective.

In the same vain, the nature of searches consumers use along their purchase journey may change and long tail volume could be affected by serving users with results that they want before they have typed in the entire query phrase, thereby potentially stunting the expansion of long tail search phrases and pushing up the volumes of the suggested phrases instead.

Rankings
Google have clearly said that natural search results are still based upon Google’s main algorithm for rankings. The Instant suggestions box does eat into the most valuable area of page 1 SERPs, reducing the number of results that appear above the fold. This reiterates the importance of compelling page tiles and meta descriptions for encouraging users to click on your site result.

Analytics
Based upon information for the Google Analytics handling of Instant searches, the referring keyword shown would not be the partial phrase but the whole suggested phrase that resulted in a successful SERP click-through. To track partial query phrases as a result of Google Instant the guys over at Webdistortion have compiled a nifty, advanced filter that is ripe for the testing.

We will be monitoring how Google Instant affects both natural and paid search, including the effect on impressions, CTRs and account performance as a whole. Our very own Jonathan Dunkley will be following on from this post with an in-depth look at the effect on paid search.

Tags: Google Instant, ppc, SEO
Posted in Paid Search, SEO | Comments Off

The dawn of the “Splinternet”

September 6th, 2010
by Gemma Haggarty

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