Google Ads Will Combine Smart and Standard Display Campaigns

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As your trusted Google news source, here’s the latest update: Google is set to combine smart and standard display campaigns into a single option, announced yesterday Wednesday September 15th. And to add another change into the mix, Google also announced they will be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.

 

Smart and Standard Display campaigns 101

Smart campaigns were unveiled four years ago, and they were created to help users have a simpler way to reach your audience across millions of sites and apps. Smart Display campaigns are set apart from other forms of campaigns through using automation to find new and existing customers, tailor your creative and set optimal bids.

Following up Smart campaigns, the standard Display campaigns have beneficial features such as responsive display ads and automated bidding. The point of combining the two types of campaigns means that advertisers will have the opportunity to test even more types of ads.

The new Display campaign overview

Bonnie Pericolosi, the director of product management for Google Ads says, “In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences.” Now while setting up campaigns, advertisers will have the ability to choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.

Ginny Marvin, Google’s ads product liaison, discussed the update on Twitter, “No action is needed: Existing Smart & Standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time. Once this update is rolled out in your account, you’ll see the new Display campaign type option and workflow when you create a new campaign.” 

 Targeting update for Google Ads Display campaigns

In addition to this change, Google Ads will also introduce optimized targeting, which treats audience settings as signals to find audience segments that may improve campaign performance, to Display campaigns. Previously, this option was only available on Smart Display campaigns.

Why advertisers should care

There will be just one option to create Google Ads Display campaigns very soon. The new Display campaign type will have the same controls for bidding, ads and audiences that standard Display campaigns currently offer. And, as Marvin stated, existing Smart and standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time.

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As certified Google experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO and Google Ads, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

 

 

3 Crucial SEO Tips for 2021

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Search engine optimization, SEO, by definition is: a strategy in digital marketing which aims to improve your ranking on search engines.

Sounds easy to conquer, but we all know it isn’t so simple. It’s extremely difficult to keep up with Google’s 500-600 algorithm updates annually. That means there is at least one update per day every year. Experts who dedicate their careers to unlocking the secret to search engine ranking optimization still are puzzled at the end of the day. Fear not, we are here to help guide you with the top 3 SEO tips for 2021 that will get you on the right track to ranking success.

1. Understand your website’s core vitals

Maybe you’ve never heard the phrase before, but the philosophy behind it is becoming more crucial to your SEO and ranking. In May of 2022, Google will roll out Page Experience, which is a brand new algorithm ranking pages based off of their “core web vital” scores. A brief overview of what to look out for here is: 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – Measures page speed. This is the time it takes for a page’s main content to load. The ideal LCP is 2.5 seconds or faster.

First Input Delay (FID) – Measures page responsiveness. This is the time it takes for a page to become interactive. The ideal FID is less than 100 ms. 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – Measures visual stability. This is the amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. The ideal CLS is less than .1.

2. Focus on featured snippets
If they aren’t already, featured snippets should be a priority to include in your SEO strategy for 2021. Also commonly referred to as the holy grail of search, featured snippets appear at the very top of search engine page results (SERP), or in position zero, in a rectangular box. You can’t technically “select” the content shown in a featured snippet, but you can optimize your content so it’s more likely to appear in a featured snippet. Here are a few recommendations.

Use questions: all content that you write needs to be composed with the user in mind. What would they search in Google in order to come across your content?

Long term keywords: the longer words in a search query, the higher chance it will return a featured snippet. Only 4.3% of single word keywords resulted in a featured snippet as compared to 17% of keywords made up of 5 words, and 55.5% of keywords made of 10 words.
Keep formats in mind: When it comes to featured snippets, there are four different formats: paragraph, list, table and video. While writing your content with the goal of achieving a featured snippet, keep these different formats in mind. Also remember, Google wants to display information easily and distinctly to searchers looking for a fast answer. So format for the speed reader.

3. Focus on user experience
 In 2021, user experience is more important than ever in terms of SEO. As mentioned in tip #1, the new focus on core web vitals is all about user experience. In addition to that, Google also takes into account bounce rate, dwell time, and click-through percentage. The goal is to have a user click on your result, spend time clicking on different pages, and spend at least 3 minutes on your site.

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As certified SEO experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

Google Maps Marketing Strategy 101

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Google Maps is one of the first things that people think of when you hear the phrase “local SEO.” When we think of any business that will have what I need, whether it’s furniture or food or office supplies, Google Maps is the go to. I know that the search results have plenty of information to pick the best option with Google reviews, star ratings, photos, and location information.

We’re here to give an overview of Google My Business and how you can move up in Google Maps rankings. These tools will give your Google My Business posts the ability to get additional reach locally. 

 

Google My Business Overview

First thing’s first, you need a Google My Business listing. Here is a simple checklist with everything you’ll need to include: 

  • You’re using your legal business name
  • You’ve chosen the primary category most relevant to your business and have added additional categories (if applicable)
  • Correct address is shown (if you’re not a service area business)
  • Address is hidden if you’re an service area business and service areas have been designated
  • Hours of operation have been added
  • Local phone number is being used
  • Website link is correct 
  • Appointment link has been added (if applicable)
  • Products have been added (if retail)
  • Services have been added (if you offer services)
  • Applicable attributes have been added
  • Business description has been added
  • Opening date has been added

This is going to be the first impression anyone has of your business, so it’s important to have all information accurate and up to date. Mike Blumenthal even coined the phrase “Google My Business is your new homepage” back in 2015.

 

Increasing Google Maps Rankings

Now that the basics are out of the way, you can begin a strategy for increasing your Google Maps rankings. Although marketing on Google Maps is free, you can boost your business’ visibility in search results with local search ads. 

With the use of these ads, you can push your business listing to the top of search queries for keywords relevant to your business. Google Maps ads use location targeting, so the most relevant audience in your near vicinity will show up for location-relevant searches. These ads appear in desktop and mobile searches. We recommend implementing these ads into your Google Ads strategy if you haven’t already done so. 

 

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As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including all Google Ads, because our goal is to make your business more successful. To get in contact with an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here. 

Google To End Expanded Text Ads in 2022

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You heard it here first, Google is officially set to sunset their expanding text ads, or ETAs, in July of 2022. According to an announcement from Sylvanus Bent, Product Manager, Google Ads, advertisers will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads beginning in July 2022. “Your existing expanded text ads will continue to serve alongside responsive search ads, and you’ll still see reports on their performance going forward. Additionally, you’ll be able to pause and resume your expanded text ads or remove them if needed. You’ll also still be able to create and edit call ads and Dynamic Search Ads,” said Bent.

 

What to do in the meantime?

We know this news is coming pretty far in advance. What we recommend for now is to use ETA info for RSAs in the transition, which is also recommended by product managers at Google Ads. “To prepare for this change, we recommend that you have at least one responsive search ad in every ad group in your Search campaigns by June 30, 2022,” Bent suggested. Google’s announcement also has already included ways that advertisers can repurpose their ETA content for RSAs. Recommendations from Google’s team include the following:

  • Look through your ads and evaluate their success based on incremental impressions, clicks, and conversions your ad groups and campaigns receive
  • Repurpose high-performing content from your expanded text ads and focus on Ad strength
  • Pin headlines or descriptions to specific positions in your responsive search ads

This new Google update will mainly affect anyone in highly regulated fields.These are currently the industries that benefit from ETAs and will be the most impacted starting next year. 

 

Why this Extended Text Ads news is relevant 

This new update from Google is the latest move in order to make a big push in the automation through their ad products. In the announcement from Google, their team explains, “15% of search queries every day are new searches we’ve never seen before” and therefore “Automation is key to keeping pace with these trends.” While RSAs are in use by many advertisers, we also understand the control over ads that ETAs provide as well as other capabilities. The future phase-out of ETAs means advertisers are moving even further away from direct control over their accounts and having to work with the Google Ads machine learning and AI.

Before the full phase-out is complete, our experts recommend testing your ETA ad pieces in RSAs and figure out what works best so you’re not cut off completely from new ad creation when Google Ads stops allowing new ETAs. 

 

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As this is news almost a year in advance, the story is evolving and our experts at Onimod Global will keep you up to date on the latest information regarding expanding text ads and any other Google Ads updates to come. At Onimod Global, our experts have endless expertise when it comes to the latest news on Google updates. We’re here to discover what is the right and relevant information to make your ads successful. Got questions about ETAs, Google Ads, or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today. 

Google Now Shares What Factors Impact Specific Rankings

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Google now shows why it ranked a specific search result. The new ‘About This Result’ feature shows searchers information about some of these most important factors used by Google Search to connect results to their queries. Read more

Google Launches New Integration with WooCommerce to Expand Ecommerce Offerings

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Google recently announced that they’re launching a new integration with WooCommerce that will allow their merchants to upload their product inventory across all of Google’s search and discovery surfaces. Last week, the extension went live for all 4.4 million of WooCommerce’s merchants.  

The Integration’s Features:

WooCommerce retailers can now sync their store with Google to list products for free, as well as run paid ads and track performance. When a store is synced with the Google Merchant Center, all information about the store and its products will be readily available to users when searching on a Google property. Information is also automatically updated when products are added or removed. 

Like regular search results, retailers can also pay for ads if they wish to be more visible in the listings. Retailers can also run free listing and paid campaigns simultaneously. 

The Benefits: 

The extension focuses on accomplishing three main objectives for retailers: 

  • Seamlessly connecting their store with Google Merchant Center 
  • Reaching online shoppers with free listings 
  • Boosting store traffic and sales with Smart Shopping Campaigns 

Final Thoughts 

As Google continues to work to get ahead of its search competitors, they have been making eCommerce a key focus. Given the integration’s reach and ubiquity, it’s likely to become a key destination for online shopping. This is why it’s essential for retailers to stay on top of these updates, ensuring they can maximize their exposure for those searching for their products. 

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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.

How to Improve Your Local Search Rankings on Google

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Do you feel like your business’s visibility on Google is lacking? If your business isn’t showing up for relevant searches in your area, it’s time to reevaluate your local SEO strategy, specifically your efforts on Google My Business. This is one of the simplest tools you can use to improve your local Google ranking and quickly. 

If you don’t already have a robust Google My Business strategy, here are some things you can do to up your game. 

1. Enter Complete Data

Businesses with complete and accurate information are easy to match up with the right search queries. This is why it’s crucial to consistently keep your information up to date, especially if you’re making changes to your business. You want users to be able to easily tell what you do, where you are and when they can visit. Be sure to always have your address, contact information, business category and attributes filled out on your profile and up to date. 

2. Verify Your Location 

Verifying your location will make it more likely you show up in Maps and Search on Google. The simplest way to verify your location is through a postcard. To do this, all you have to do is request Google to send you a postcard to your business address. Before you request, be sure you have the following steps completed: 

  1. You have a standard Google Account for your business. 
  2. You have a Business Profile. 
  3. You have a Google My Business account.
  4. You’ve claimed your Business Profile. 
  5. You’ve verified ownership of your business. 

They usually arrive within 2 weeks. Once you’ve received the postcard, you’ll notice a verification code. You’ll enter this into your Google My Business profile and your location will be verified. 

3. Keep Your Hours Accurate 

Accurate hours let customers know when you’re available and give them confidence you’ll be open if they take the time to travel to you. Accurate hours are also another factor Google uses in determining if your business is legitimate, ranking your relevancy for each query accordingly. Be sure to update your hours regularly, including when you open and close and if you have special hours for holidays or events. 

4. Manage and Respond to Reviews 

One of the most critical factors to online rankings are customer reviews. A large number of genuine reviews lets customers know you’re a real and reputable company. To grow your number of reviews, frequently ask for customer feedback through email, on social and in person. Be sure to link your Google My Business Profile so they know where to leave the review. Responding to reviews can be just as important as getting them. This shows you listen to your customers and value their feedback. Google also highly favors business with a large number of positive reviews when it comes to relevant searches. 

5. Add Photos

To showcase your goods and services, and to tell the story of your business, add photos to your Business Profile. Accurate and appealing pictures may also show shoppers that your business offers what they’re searching for. These images may also appear in Google search results if a user is searching for your products or about your industry. Thus, growing your brand awareness and increasing your overall reach. 

Final Thoughts

At Onimod Global, we’re a trusted Google Partner. Meaning we specialize in all Google Ad areas including: 

  • Search Advertising 
  • Mobile Advertising 
  • Video Advertising 
  • Display Advertising 
  • Shopping Advertising 

If you need assistance in any area of Google Ads, SEO or SEM in general, contact us today. 

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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.

Top 3 Google Ads Features

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Google released new smart features and ways to buy ads on its different channels. Much like all other updates to Google Ads features, there will be learning curve with the new tools. Here is how you can make them work for you.

1. Get listed for free on Google Shopping

Google is still operating as a paid PPC channel, but you can also enjoy its free traffic. Once Google had introduced the shopping channel to their platform, Google completely beat most of the other price comparison websites from its SERP (Shopping.com, Shopzilla, BizRate). Following this very significant move that occurred in 2017, the European Commission fined Google €2.42 billion (~$3 billion) for breaching EU antitrust rules by “giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service.” This claim is still going through appeal, Google has made changes to ensure other options are present on its services and SERP than its own.

How should you make it work for you? Number one priority is optimizing your Shopping Ads and understand what products click and convert the most. For example, you can use SEISO Google Shopping Analyzer (Free to try) to get shopping reports. From there you can adapt your product feed and product pages to ensure you focus on products that are margin positive.

2. Get impressions on Goolge Ads for free.. only pay  your sales

When it comes to online acquisiton of new formats, video and display formats are not the first type of format you think of They are more popular for brand awareness and influence targets. Google now is trying to convince you otherwise. Google has so much data on users’ profiles and their intents that they can predict what they will buy. Google knows the users very well: from the search queries, from the media they consume (Videos, AMP pages…), and its past purchases thanks to receipts received in Gmail.

Thanks to this treasure trove of data points, the algorithm identifies which new video game console the user wants. And it only shows him the relevant ads when the customer is ready to buy. The ad will be more likely to convert and Google will get a higher revenue per page by only showing converting ads to users: win/win.

You can now run performance-based targeting for Youtube Ads and on the Display network. It usually means a lower reach than a CPM or a Trueview campaign but you will get incremental conversions while controlling your budget.

How to keep tracks of offline conversions

Nowadays, it is very simple to forget that most of the business still happens offline and that zoom calls and online shopping are not all there is to life. Yet offline conversions tracking are not always taken into account. According to Google, 30% of mobile queries are local searches and it is the fastest-growing segment. And 75% of users making a local search will go to a store within 24 hours. This is a lot of conversion lost to online tracking.

In order to be successful tracking these conversions for Google Ads, you will need to set up an omnichannel tracking that integrates offline elements. From there you will be able to measure different types of conversion. You should create a set of conversion actions for each campaign:

  • In-store visits: Google automatically tracks walk-in traffic from user’s location captured from their Apps and OS). You will need to register all your points of sales addresses or GPS coordinates.
  • Offline purchase thanks to offline the Conversions API or bulksheets upload.
  • Online purchase through your regular tracking pixel.

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

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!

Google Will End Behavioral Targeting – What’s The Impact

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We’re officially in full swing of 2021, and that has come with tighter privacy and data regulations across the board. Google, who is up against high pressure from regulators around antitrust and data privacy, announced that they will cease the permission of cross-site tracking and targeting of individuals outside its own properties. This would include properties such as in inventory they sell through video ad exchange and Google Ad display.

 David Temkin, director of product management and ads privacy wrote in a blog post, “Today, we’re making explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products.”

Google’s move comes directly after the recent decision of Apple to give users the choice to block the IDFA identifier at the app level, which means apps will be required to ask users for permission to collect and share data.

“This is yet another confirmation the web is shifting to a consent-oriented framework,” said Nii Ahene, Chief Strategy Officer at Tinuiti. “It’s going to be all about opt-in, not opt-out initiatives.”

It is very evident that many of the behavioral targeting capabilities marketers have heavily depended on will fade out or disappear completely, however it is not yet confirmed the exact implications of how this will affect each of Google’s Ad products. The changes are slated to take place at the end of the year and only impact the open web, not mobile app ads purchased and sold using Google’s ad tech.

Important highlights from Google

At this exact stage, here is what we know for sure:

  • Google will be completely stopping to build user-level profiles within its ad systems. They will also not use such data to enable targeting on non-Google sites. That means Google’s AdX ad exchange and other services that target ads to web inventory outside Google properties will no longer support any cookie replacement identifiers.
  • Google’s ad targeting changes are focused solely on the open web. At this time, the changes will not apply to the mobile app ads bought and sold using Google’s ad tech.
  • Google’s targeting changes only will go into effect after the company officially stops recognizing third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. In January 2020, the company said it would do that within two years.
  • Advertisers will still be allowed to target their own databases of consumers through their own first-party data on Google properties, such as Google’s search results pages and YouTube.

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

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!

 

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.