Tag Archive for: bing

Optimizing Ecommerce Shopping Carts for Search and the Google Merchant Center

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Many organizations with Ecommerce websites are concerned with how well their products are ranking organically on Google, Bing and Yahoo. That is, without any assistance from paid advertising networks. There is no doubt that these rankings are incredibly important to the organization and their product’s success, but it is not the only factor to consider.

It is all too common to get swept up in organic search rankings and ignore other ecommerce-related platforms like the Google or Bing Merchant Center. The Google and Bing Merchant Centers help organizations by uploading their products and immediately transforming them into Shopping ads. All of these add up to generate more and more exposure for your products. These efforts also combine to create better rankings through Google, which can definitely lead to big results on your sales.

 

Data Feeds

The only way to have your products listed in Google and/or Bing Shopping is to create an XML data feed file. As defined by Google, a feed is, “a file made up of a list of products which use groupings of attributes that define each one of your products in a unique way.” Basically, it is a single file that organizes all of your product listings in a way that allows you to the display your products in the Google Shopping network through the Adwords platform.

 

Creating A Feed

Creation of a data feed is very technical. First, you want to make sure that you are using a feed format that is supported by Google or Bing, such as text (.txt) and XML (.xml). Once you have chosen your preferred format, you will then use the Merchant Center add-on and provided feed template to build out your product listings.

It is still critical to pay close attention to the attributes chosen to describe your products. All of the best guidelines are provided by Google via the Product data specification. These specifications will direct you in finding the most relevant ways to describe your products.

 

Supplemental Data Feeds

There are also supplemental feeds that may be added at this point in the data feed creation process. Supplemental feeds help to provide additional data that can be combined with existing data in the primary feed.

The supplemental feed reinforces the primary feed, and works to ensure that your product listings are displaying all of the most relevant information possible to users searching for products like yours. The more relevant your listing, the more positive attention it will receive from Google.

 

Conclusion

Good organic rankings on Google are important to every business. Ecommerce companies can better their product listings in more than just this one way. It is important to remember that the Google Merchant Center also has an impact on the ranking of Shopping ads and even organic listings.

The more that any organization can integrate themselves and their products and services with Google, the better. By creating and implementing a data feed through the Google or Bing Merchant Center, Ecommerce vendors can give themselves a leg-up on the competition, and help themselves to achieve better rankings and sales through the major search engines.

Google vs Bing: Which Ad Platform is Better?

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When weighing out your options for SEM and how to most effectively spend ad dollar, analyzing the benefits of using Google AdWords and Bing Ads is a great starting point. The common assumption is that Google AdWords dominates, yet utilizing Bing Ads can be very advantageous depending on numerous factors. Let’s evaluate the strengths of each advertising platform.

Google AdWords Strengths

1. Amount of Search Volume: It’s no secret that Google is the king of search engine traffic. Therefore, this means a higher potential for customers, leads, and conversions for whatever you are advertising.
2. Advanced Features: Especially with the recent launch of an upgraded AdWords platform, Google’s program has more advanced features to offer than Bing. Working with optimization, targeting, ad extensions, and management settings Google gives advertisers a much more advanced interface.
3. Easier Talking Point: Because of how known Google and their Adwords platform is, many businesses will quickly jump on the AdWords “bandwagon.” AdWords is more commonly known in the digital advertising world and Bing tends to be overlooked as a result of this.

Bing Ads Strengths

1. Better Value: Advertising on Bing in most cases is about half the cost as Google Adwords. Less people also advertise on Bing’s platform, so the price of keywords is significantly lower. Ultimately, this leads to cheaper conversions and a better use of ad dollar for organizations.
2. Audiences: Although the search volume of Bing isn’t any competition for Google, the quality of clicks tends to be better. In some cases Google AdWords will “eat up” ad dollar through meaningless clicks. If utilized correctly, you would be surprised at how many relevant clicks and conversions can come through Bing.
3. Customer Service: Being an extremely large organization, Google has much more customer service issues to worry about compared to Bing. Not to knock Google’s customer service department but because of Bing’s smaller organizational size, they have a greater ability to spend more time with customer problems and fulfill more specific needs.

Bing Ads Editor: Review Extensions support and other updates

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Bing has announced support for Review Extensions, improvements in audience association creation for your Remarketing in Paid Search campaigns, and better keyword import in their latest Bing Ads Editor release: v11.10.   The changes enhance functionality, add features and alleviate issues within the Bing platform. Read more

Did you know Bing has a Chatbot answering local search questions?

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That’s right! Skype-powered chatbot is showing up as an assistant to help searchers learn about restaurants in the Seattle area. Read more

Bing Ads Rolls Out Scheduling for Ad Extensions

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The option to show extensions during store hours or time-sensitive promotions is available in all markets. Read more

9 Intriguing Digital Marketing Stats From This Week

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The past few days saw the digital marketing world awaken from its post-holiday slumber and really put out some eye-opening stats.

Read more

How to Create Digital Marketing Plan for Start-Ups

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Having a strong online presence has become a necessity for businesses of all sizes.

You just launched a startup and need to get your brand in front of as many eyes as possible. The problem is you are not just competing in your industry, you are competing with the millions of other marketing messages that consumers are bombarded with every day. What’s an entrepreneur to do?

Statistics show that more than half of consumers turn to the internet for information before making purchases:

  • Data reveals 67 percent of consumers are influenced by online reviews (Moz)
  • 54 percent of online buyers read online reviews before purchase. (Marketing Tech Blog)
  • More than half (54 percent) of online purchasers said they had read online reviews prior to hitting the buy button, while 39 percent of consumers who made purchases in-store did so, according to a study from customer ratings and review firm Bazaarvoice Inc. (Internet Retailer)

Fortunately, there are a few digital marketing tips for startups we wanted to share:

  1. Use your starting position as a baseline to measure your overall progress against.
  2. Determine your startup’s goals; ensure these goals are specific, measurable and realistic.
  3. Identify your customers.
  4. Study your competitors.

To start, it is important to set up a website for your startup if you haven’t already. Whether you hire someone to design and create your website or choose to build your own is up to you. However, it is often more cost-effective for a startup owner, especially one with a low budget, to build a website. From smaller websites for start-up to multi-language sites across the globe, Onimod Global has a perfect website for every budget.

Once you have your website set up, you’re ready to take the next steps to develop your digital marketing strategy:

    1. Implement perfect SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by researching keywords and building links.
    2. Create relevant content and use content marketing to attract potential clients as well as satisfy Google for ranking purposes.
    3. Consider email marketing to share the content you have created on your website.
    4. Use social media marketing to boost your startup’s online presence and increase traffic to your website
    5. Analyze your results to determine where you are seeing success — and make changes in the areas where you are not.

Onimod Global are here for you every step of the way as you build your company. We are Digital Marketing gurus with expertise in multipl-digital channels.

Contact us today and find out why we’re the best choice for launching your new business to where it needs to b this 2017.

Bing Now Powers AOL Search: What Advertisers Need To Know

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The move is now official: Bing has taken over serving search results and ads for AOL from Google. Initially announced in June 2015, the 10-year deal affects all AOL search traffic worldwide and on all devices. Here’s a look at what the move means for those managing Bing Ads campaigns.

First, the Ad distribution section under Ad Group level settings now includes AOL along with Bing and Yahoo.

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You can now also change ad group level network distribution within Bing Ads Editor. Whatever your settings are now, they won’t change, other than the fact that AOL is now included.aol-bing-ads-editor

Bringing AOL into the fold also includes AOL’s syndicated search partners in relevant locations. You’ll have insights into this type of traffic that wasn’t available when AOL ads were served by Google. In the Website URL (Publisher) report, the URLs of AOL owned and operated websites will be shown on separate lines and not consolidated with Bing and Yahoo’s owned and operated websites listed under “Bing and Yahoo! Search Properties Only.” You might not necessarily know that the site is part of the AOL syndication, but you will be able to add individual sites to exclusionlists.

AOL search also now appears as a new value in the Network and Top vs. Other columns in reports (including those run from the Reporting API), such as the Keyword performance report and Campaign performance report, and AOL is listed with Bing and Yahoo syndicated search partners.

AOL traffic now factors into both Bing Ads Campaign and Keyword Planners, as well. For more details, see the Bing Ads blog post on the updates.

 

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H/T: Search Engine Land

Bing Shopping Campaigns Beta is Now Live

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The Bing Ads team has been continuously working to improve your Product Ads experience.  Bing Shopping Campaigns are an optimal way to organize, track, and optimize your Product Ads directly in Bing Ads. Today, we are excited to announce that we will be enabling Shopping Campaigns on Bing Ads for a limited number of advertisers, and extending to all advertisers over the coming months.

What Are Bing Shopping Campaigns?Bing Shopping Campaigns are a new campaign type within Bing Ads that makes it easier for you to advertise your products from your Bing Merchant Center store online. They are the latest and greatest way of creating and managing Product Ads that streamlines the process to make it easier and faster for you to get those ads up and running.

Benefits of Using Bing Shopping CampaignsIf you’re using Product Ads, Bing Shopping Campaigns (BSC) will become your new best friend.  In addition to making it easier for you to connect with customers and promote your products online, with Bing Shopping Campaigns you’ll find:

I. Easier Management and More Control of Your Product Ads

o Intuitive hierarchical structure to organize the products you want to bid on.
o Ability to view your catalog data within the campaign UI so that you can make a more informed bidding choice.
o Ability to prioritize across campaigns with a single priority setting.

bing shopping campaigns

II. Deeper Insight into How your Product Ads are Performing

o Ability to view performance data for all your products no matter how your campaign is structured within the campaign UI.
o Competitive intelligence via benchmark data to help drive better optimization.
o Additional Reports.

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III. Ability to Import Google shopping Campaigns with a Single Click

o If you are already running Google shopping campaigns, you can import your Google shopping campaigns as is into Bing Ads making it easier for initial setup and further maintenance.

bing shopping campaigns

IV. API support

o You can manage your Bing Shopping Campaigns at scale using APIs. You’ll find instructions for using Bing Shopping Campaigns via the API over on MSDN.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re a managed Bing Ads customer (i.e. you have an assigned Account Manager) using Product Ads on Bing or Google Shopping Campaigns, you’re welcome to get started with Bing Shopping Campaigns right away! Simply reach out to your Account Manager and let them know you’d like to be a beta participant. NOTE: If you do not have a dedicated Account Manager, please stay tuned here to the blog for updates as we are planning to make Bing Shopping Campaigns available to you this summer.

Getting started is simple – three steps, and you’re done!
bing shopping campaigns

For more details on getting started, review the Introduction to Bing Shopping Campaigns Beta PDF file. Stay tuned for more updates and information as we move toward general availability for all US customers this summer.