“Get the Facts, Be Sure and then Decide.” Ezra Taft Benson

Picture the scene: It’s 10am on a Monday and you’re sitting in a meeting room surrounded by tired-looking colleagues, all hoping the speaker will hurry up already because it’s time for some coffee. Someone proposes a solution based on the latest data and you can feel the collective sense of relief that finally, a decision can be made. Coffee time?

Not so fast!

Generally, the client makes a claim based on web analytics data and wants to jump right into action and use it to make a business decision. But here’s the catch, often the data isn’t telling them the story they think it is and they’re actually jumping into a decision that may cost them dearly. That’s why I take my role of challenging them very seriously, so we can end the meeting confident that we are on the right path.

A similar situation might arise when you work with your Google AdWords and Google Analytics data separately. Individually each of them might not give the insights on how your campaigns are working, or how is site is working, or which keywords are leading to engagement and which are leading to conversions and many more. AdWords is great at telling you how much money your ads cost and how many conversions you’re getting but what happens between the click and the conversion remains a mystery unless you add Google Analytics to the equation. It can tell you what people do on your site, so if they’re not converting, it can help you find out why. And when you can fix conversion rate issues, your AdWords performance will get better.

Find the infographic on the step-by-step procedure to create AdWords Analytics Reports here.

This blog will give all the information that is required for you to know about Google AdWords Analytics reports. To get a more clearer picture about these reports, this blog is divided into the following sections:

I. Why and how should you link your AdWords and Analytics account?

II. About Google Analytics data in AdWords reports

III. Analyzing Google AdWords Analytics data

IV. Acting on Google AdWords Analytics Reports data

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I. Why and how should you link your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts?

A. Why should you link your accounts?

Linking your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts is an important practice to ensure the two measurement tools can work together to help you get the most from your advertising. The bottom line is that linking Analytics and AdWords gives you powerful information that can tell you where you should be spending more or less based on real ROI data. When you link accounts, the data can flow both ways – from Google Analytics to AdWords (for example, engagement metrics or remarketing lists), and from AdWords to Google Analytics (for example your AdWords cost data).

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In particular, you can take advantage of powerful features such as:

• The ability to dig into campaign/keyword performance by real revenue and cost in Google Analytics.
• Importing goals and e-commerce transactions from Google Analytics into AdWords.
• Importing Google Analytics metrics like bounce rate, time-on-site, and % new visits into AdWords.
• Using Remarketing with Google Analytics to more effectively reach your customers.
• Seeing AdWords data in rich reports such as Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels.

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B. Before you begin

To link AdWords and Google Analytics, or to unlink or edit your link, you’ll need to use a Google Account with the following permissions to Google Analytics and AdWords:

1. For the Google Analytics property, you’ll need “Edit” permissions.
   • To check your permissions, in Google Analytics, click on Admin at the top of the page, select the property you want to link, and click on User Management. If you don’t see “User Management” in the property column, ask your account administrator if you have “Edit” permissions.
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2. For the AdWords account, you’ll need administrative access.
   • To check your account access, click on the gear menu and select Account settings. In the menu on the left, select Account access.

Also, you will have to do the following:

1. Enable auto-tagging in your AdWords accounts.

2. Link your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts. Make sure you import site metrics for the view you want to see in your AdWords account.

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C. Linking your Google AdWords and Google Analytics account:

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Sign in to your AdWords account.

1.Click on the gear menu, then select Linked accounts.

2. Under “Google Analytics”, click on View details. You’ll see a list of the Google Analytics properties to which you have access. (If you don’t see an Analytics property here, make sure that you have “Edit” permission to that property.)

3. Click on Set up link next to the property that you want to link to AdWords. Choose a property for the business that you advertise with AdWords. (You’ll be able to link more than one.)

4. Now you’ll see one of the two screens described below:

• If the property you chose only has one view, then you’ll see the name of that view. Select Import site metrics to be able to see Google Analytics data in AdWords reports.
• If the property has multiple views, then you’ll see a list of the views from this property that you can link. There are two settings:
  • Link: Link as many views as you’d like. This will make AdWords click and cost data available in Analytics, and Analytics goals and transactions available for import into AdWords.
  • Import site metrics: (Recommended) select one view from which to import site engagement metrics. While this is optional, we recommend choosing one view that will be used to show website engagement metrics in the Google Analytics reporting columns of your account.

If your AdWords account is used by an AdWords manager account (MCC) that has linked to this property, then you’ll also see a column showing which views are linked to that manager account.

5. Click on Save.

You can repeat this process for any additional properties that you want to link. Despite the accounts being linked, there are a few more steps to accomplish before you see the Analytics data in your AdWords reports.

• Go to your AdWords page and select Account Settings by clicking the gear icon.
• Select Linked Accounts.
• Choose up to ten Google Analytics views you want to import data from by clicking Add to the right of the view name.
• Go to the Campaigns page of your AdWords and click on the Columns button.
• Select Modify Columns from the drop-down menu and locate Google Analytics on the left of side of the column customization menu.
• Click Add for each column you’d like to be able to see and click Apply.

Now that your accounts are linked, you can import Analytics goals and transactions into AdWords Conversion Tracking and add Google Analytics data such as bounce rate, pages per session and average session duration to AdWords reports.

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D. Import Analytics goals and transactions into AdWords Conversion Tracking

First of all, we hope you are already tracking meaningful goals in Google Analytics! These could be donations, event registrations, file downloads, email sign-ups or form completions—whatever it is you are trying to get users to do on your website.

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Thus, although this chapter is about combining Analytics and AdWords, and making them work together for the greater good, we can’t proceed telling you all about importing Google Analytics goals and transactions if you don’t know what those are. So, very briefly:

• Analytics goals – A perfect way to measure how well your site/app is at getting people to convert, i.e. make a purchase, complete a level of a game, fill in a contact form and so on.
• Analytics transactions – Also called e-commerce transactions, these allow you to analyze transaction and item data more in-depth, e.g. which products sell better than others; how long does it take for an average person to buy; what’s the revenue from a single transaction and so on.

Now, to import your goals and ecommerce transactions from Analytics into AdWords Conversion Tracking, the following steps are to be followed:

• After you’ve linked your Google Adwords and Analytics accounts, wait 30 minutes for the imports to be ready. Then, sign in to your Google Adwords account, click the Tools tab, and select Conversions.
• Click Analytics in the left-hand menu.
• Check the boxes next to the goals or transactions you want to import. Click Continue.
• On the next page, you’ll see settings that will apply to all of the goals or transactions you selected. The categories (Other, Purchase/Sale, Sign up, Lead and View of a key page) will appear under the “Conversion category” segment that you can apply to your AdWords reports. The conversion window (choose between 7-90 days; the default is 30 days) is the period of time after someone clicks your ad during which a conversion is recorded in AdWords. Unless you have a logical reason to change it, stick to 30 days. Make your choices, then click Import goals.
• Click Close, or to import more goals, click Import more.

AdWords Conversion Tracking starts importing the data from your Analytics account starting from the day you clicked Import. You should see it within two days. But you won’t see historical conversion data. After your goals/transactions are imported, the conversions data will appear next to the existing conversion data on the Conversions page. You can easily adjust and customize the columns for every keyword, ad group and ad. You can also edit your goals without ever having to go over to Analytics. Simply go to Tools, choose Conversions, select which goal you want to edit and click on Edit Settings. This is handy because you can do everything you need to do from just one dashboard without having to go back and forth between AdWords and Analytics.

Benefits of Having Google Analytics Goals and Transactions on AdWords

• Visiting just one site to get all your conversion-related info.
• Getting more detailed conversion information simply because more aspects of a conversion are being tracked.
• Having unique data available to you, such as engagement goals (which AdWords don’t track).
• Lowering AdWords costs by optimizing bids based on goal and transaction data.
• Ultimately increasing conversions.

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II. About Google Analytics data in AdWords reports

This section will give you an overview of how Google Analytics data can be helpful in your AdWords account. For that you need to know what metrics you should be looking at in Google Analytics to make better decisions in AdWords:

1. Use the “pages/visit” metric to see if users aren’t finding what your ads are promising.
2. Look at “% new visits” and first-click conversions in search funnels reports to avoid deleting upper funnel keywords.
3. Put a value on keywords that assist conversions with the Model Comparison report.
4. Find landing pages that drag down your account’s performance.
5. Track phone calls and video plays as conversions.
6. See all conversions side-by-side in campaign reports in Analytics.
7. Use the Goal Flow report to find where your AdWords clicks are falling off in the conversion process.
8. Find the best performing position for your ads with the Keyword Positions report.
9. Track cohorts and understand the value of long-tail keywords with custom segments.
10. Find out quickly if any AdWords segments are under-performing with Intelligence Events.

Let us know about a few of these metrics in detail that would help us get better results in our AdWords campaigns .By viewing these Google Analytics site engagement metrics alongside your AdWords performance stats, you can see what people do after clicking on your ad and reaching your landing page. Here’s the kind of data you can see:

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A. Bounce rate

When someone sees only one page or triggers only one event, Analytics considers this a “bounce.” Your site’s Bounce Rate is the percentage of sessions that are bounces. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps you just did such a bang up job of answering the user’s question, there was no need for them to continue searching on your website.

Bounce rates vary widely based on the industry and the purpose of the page. A retail website driving highly targeted web traffic may see a 20-40% bounce rate while a landing page with a single call to action could see that number climb to 70-90%.

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B. Avg. session duration (seconds)

Session duration is one of the most common metrics used by people and companies to determine the ‘performance’ and quality of traffic being driven to their site. The average session duration allows you to work out what acquisition sources are most effective and is widely regarded as a benchmark KPI to determine whether traffic quality is good or bad. In the digital agency and client arena, session duration is often a talking point as to whether various campaigns are working or not. Often these are compared with ambitious industry benchmarks or specific targets.

An obvious goal you’d like to set for yourself is to increase the sessions on your site over time. It’s best not to dive in head first; create a plan and set (realistic) metrics that you can report on monthly to show progress.

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C. Pages/session

It is the average number of pages viewed during a session on your website. More pages per session means that users are more engaged and exploring more of your site. Visitors should want to view more pages on your site. In order to increase page views, link to other internal pages that provide information pertaining to the content at hand. The more time they spend on your site, the better – so keep users traveling on a journey through your site. Design your page to funnel users into the required course of action. You should never leave the visitor guessing or having to track down a contact form to do business with you.

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D. % new sessions

The estimated percentage of first-time sessions. It’s nice to keep fresh eyes on your content because that means you’re expanding your reach. Ideally, a good website will have a solid mix of new and returning visitors. You can also see the percentage of new visits attributed to each keyword within the report. If this percentage is high for a particular keyword, then you know the keyword is effective at driving new traffic to your site. If the percentage is low but the number of conversions are high for a keyword, the keyword may be effective at driving repeat visits to your site that eventually convert.

This information helps show you how effective your campaigns and ad groups are. And that helps you make decisions about your budgets, bids, landing pages and ad text. For example, viewing an ad group’s bounce rate alongside its click through rate (CTR) can give you a sense of whether your customers are seeing what they expect on your site after clicking your ad.

And That’s Why AdWords Is Better With Analytics

Now that you know what metrics are to be looked at in Google Analytics, you need to understand what these metrics would add to your campaigns in AdWords to make them better.

1. Don’t Delete Zero Conversion Keywords

Say you have a bunch of keywords that have 0 conversions. You might be thinking about deleting these or lowering the bids drastically. But keep in mind that the conversions you see in AdWords are last-click conversions, so only the last keyword that got a click in AdWords will get the credit for the conversion.

Knowing that many consumers do multiple searches while researching a purchase, it’s obvious why making a decision based solely on last-click conversions might be the wrong one. You might be eliminating the keywords that drive upper funnel activity, leaving yourself with fewer users who come out at the end of the funnel too.

Here are two things you can do to check if these are truly bad keywords:

• Check if you have high engagement for these keywords, e.g., high numbers for “avg. visit duration” and “pages/visit,” as this can be an indicator that the problem isn’t with the keywords but rather with your site where the users are not finding what it is you promised them in the ad. After all, a user who spends a lot of time on the site must think they’ve come to the right place, they’re just not finding what they need easily. The solution in this case could be to try more relevant landing pages.
• Look at the column “% new visits” to see if these keywords are driving new users into your funnel. If the keyword drives a lot of new visitors, the next step is to use the Search Funnels report in AdWords to see if these new users eventually convert using different keywords, or even through different channels.

If this is the case, try to figure out how to value these keywords because eliminating them could really backfire.

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2. Find Bad Landing Pages Quickly

Use the columns “bounce rate” and “avg. time on site” in addition to “conversion rate” to find ads that are neither converting, nor engaging users.

Then analyze the worst offenders and bucket them based on the probable solutions which could be one of the following: fix the keyword relevance, pick a better landing page, fix ads that may be misleading, or if your site has a high bounce rate across the board, address the elements that seem to make users think your site is not trustworthy. While AdWords provides a good starting point to find poor landing pages, one of the issues is that it’s not good at aggregating the data. To be efficient you should look at the data for landing pages across your whole account.

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3. GA Lets You Track More Complex Conversions

The AdWords conversion tracking code still serves its purpose well for tracking simple conversions.

However, many advertisers want to track more than just views of a key page like the order confirmation page, e.g., how many people called after visiting your site from an ad, or how many people watched your product demo video. Both of these actions don’t have a corresponding page so tracking is a bit more complex. In the case of tracking phone calls after the ad is clicked, the third-party vendor that handles your call tracking will fire either an event or a virtual page view to GA when a call lasts longer than your specified minimum duration.

That in turn is set as a goal which can then be imported back into AdWords, and associated back to the Google’s click tracking parameter that helps it uniquely identify every click, so that it shows up as a conversion next to the correct keyword, ad, and ad group. The only real downside of using GA to track conversions is that there is a bit of a delay for when they are imported: normally 24 to 48 hours but sometimes 72 hours! As a result of this delay, your AdWords CPAs will always look pretty weak for the past 2 days so if you’re trying to manage bids very frequently using only data from AdWords, you have the added complication of having to account for the delayed conversion data.

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4. When You Have No Macro Conversions, Look At Micro-Conversions

A common problem in AdWords is that it’s hard to track different types of conversions when you don’t necessarily want to treat all types of conversions the same.

A simple example is that you have two campaigns, one with the goal of selling products, the other with the goal of building your email list. If you track both conversions, both campaigns will reflect both conversion types and it’s hard to segment it back out so that you’re not counting email sign-ups as sales in the campaign that is trying to sell products. There are a few possible solutions in AdWords, e.g., you can choose to count unique conversions or just converted clicks if you don’t want to double count leads, or you can assign a conversion value of 0 to conversions you don’t want to factor into an ROAS based bid strategy, but sometimes you want something a little more sophisticated.

In AdWords, it’s just not easy to see data broken out by individual conversions. In Analytics, on the other hand, you can easily customize an AdWords campaign report to show several types of goals side by side, making it much easier to understand what the users are doing after they click your ad. You can even use this data in cases where you’re not successfully driving the expected conversion. By looking at different conversion types, you’ll see if those keywords are at least driving some sign-ups for the newsletter, or completing another micro conversion on your site, something that still has some value or that could be a predictor of a sale much further down the line.

Once you determine that a particular campaign is a bit weak in terms of driving the completion of conversions, you can compare how different campaigns move users through the stages of your funnel. This can help identify where the users are dropping off. Perhaps there’s one of the pages in the funnel that’s just not working well for some users, for example, if you charge for shipping and you don’t have a cheaper option for the products in your new line of value-oriented products, that could cause a significant drop-off compared to your other product lines.

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5. Being #1 Isn’t Always Great

If you manage AdWords ads and you’re not the boss at the company, you’ve probably gotten a frantic call from someone higher up the chain to ask: “Why aren’t our ads in position 1 anymore?!?” A good answer would be to explain that ad positions were tested and it was determined that the top slot was not worth the extra cost. Or maybe you can even show that the conversion rates are actually worse at the top of the page than on the right side.

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6. Understand Your Segments

When you have one keyword that you’re managing, you’re really managing that keyword across potentially hundreds of segments. Understanding how each segment performs is crucial to making the right optimizations in your account. The segmentations we all look at include day-parts, geographic regions and devices. While AdWords does an okay job making these segments accessible, GA does a better job. You can now even build segments to analyze user cohorts, for example, to see what happens with users who first visited in July and saw a particular ad I was running then. Another great benefit of Google Analytics is that you can take any segment and turn it into a remarketing audience list in a single click.

Even though we all understand the power of looking at our data in a segmented way, the truth is that there are too many segments to analyze manually. Analytics has an answer for that, too, and you can use the Intelligence Alerts to let Google do all the hard work for you. You can look at the report and see just data for AdWords, looking for either things that are unusual over a short period with daily alerts, or looking at longer trends using weekly or monthly reports.

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III. Analyzing Google AdWords Analytics Reports

A. Analyzing AdWords Analytics Reports in Excel

Combining your AdWords metrics with your Analytics data will allow you to analyze your PPC campaign on many new levels. You’ll never look back! In this section I’ll be detailing how to pull together a keyword report with revenue data, but you could apply this to any account level (campaign, ad group, keyword).

Step 1 – Analytics Custom Report

Build the report you want in Analytics. All your AdWords data (clicks, impressions, cost, etc.) is actually available to you in Analytics (now that your account is linked to Analytics). On the custom report tab, click the button at the top of your screen to create a new custom report. You’ll want to make sure that you’re creating an Explorer report, and not a Flat Table report, because you’ll be segmenting your data further once it’s created. Essentially, you just want to recreate the metrics available to you in AdWords in Analytics. Not all metrics are available, but the key ones are.

Step 2 – Export Your Data From Analytics

Okay, this is the only part of this process that can be a little labor intensive if you have a lot of keywords in your account. After you’ve created your report, run it and make sure you’ve set your view to show the maximum number of entries on your screen, 500 (you can change this at the bottom of your report in a small drop down menu). Then go to the top of your screen and click Export, then choose CSV as your file type. Frustratingly enough, Analytics will only export the data that is shown on your screen, so you’ll have to dump your keyword data into your report 500 keywords at a time. Keep things easy for yourself and don’t edit your columns until after you’ve dumped in all your keywords.

Step 3 – Reformat Keywords

To prime your report to merge with the data you’ll be pulling out of AdWords, you’ll need to format your keywords like the appear in AdWords with the keyword identifiers for each match type (“phrase”, [exact]). The fastest way to do this is to sort your keywords by match type, then use a blank worksheet to edit. Copy and paste keywords one match type at a time onto your blank worksheet and use the concatenate function in Excel to put parentheses or brackets around your keywords.

Copy your concatenated list and paste back into your original report to overwrite the keywords in your keyword column, but make sure you use Paste Special – Values to only copy in text. Otherwise you’ll paste in your formula, which won’t work since your original data is on another sheet.

Step 4 – AdWords

Head into AdWords, and download a keyword report. Make sure your keyword match type is included in the data you export, and also make sure you’ve run the exact date range you used in your Analytics report. Clean up your report by getting rid of of data you don’t need. Copy or move this worksheet into the same Excel file that houses your Analytics sheet.

Step 5 – Combine and Be Amazed

Now it’s time to combine your AdWords and Analytics reports to have campaign, ad group AND revenue/ROI data for each keyword! To do this, go back to your Analytics sheet and add in columns for the missing AdWords data you want to add. Make sure that you add the columns in the same order that they appear on your AdWords report. You’ll need the columns to be in the same place because you’ll be referencing data by column number. A brief note, the CPC shown on your Analytics report is actually your keyword’s avg. CPC, and not your max CPC. I just changed the column title, and then set up my report to pull in the max CPC from my AdWords sheet. So, I added three columns (campaign, ad group, max CPC).

Now we’ll be using the VLOOKUP function in Excel. After you’ve created your campaign, ad group and max CPC columns, click in the first cell of your campaign column. The VLOOKUP function will match data from another table based on your leftmost column.

If you’re not well versed in Excel functions, just use the Formula Builder in Excel to plug in the correct data. To get to the Formula Builder, go to the Insert menu at the top of your screen and choose Function. Double click VLOOKUP and you’ll get a box that requires you to enter the required content. You’ll just need to tell Excel which cell to try to match (lookup_value), which will be the data in your first column, the range of data to use to match from, the number column of the data you want to display (in this case, campaign, which is column 3). You’ll want to use FALSE as the range_lookup, which will tell Excel to match your keyword value exactly. This is why I had you format your keywords in the same way they’re shown in AdWords.

Copy your formula down to all rows in your Campaign column. To populate your Ad group and Max CPC columns, simply copy the formula in your campaign column, paste into each subsequent column, and then change the the column index number for each column. Congrats! You’ve merged your reports. Just a one more small thing to do.

Step 6 – One Last thing

To make your new, combined report workable, you’ll just want to copy and paste your report onto a new sheet to get rid of the formulas. This will make tweaking your data possible, like using the report to do bid changes. To do this, just copy all rows, columns, create a new worksheet and paste as values (Paste Special – Values).

Just a brief note, I wouldn’t recommend trying to do this backwards by pulling data via the VLOOKUP function into your AdWords sheet data. Why? You might have keywords in AdWords that have not generated data in Analytics yet.

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B. Analyzing AdWords Analytics Reports using ReportGarden

Having seen the procedure for analyzing the AdWords and analytics data, we now know handling such large volumes of data would not be comfortable. There will almost certainly be things you can automate to free up your time to work on the strategic and creative elements of your campaigns. ReportGarden, a reporting tool, automates a lot of the work of getting all the performance related data of your account data to bubble up important insights about your account performance. You can try the tool to learn more.

This infographic clearly depicts the steps required to be followed while creating Google AdWords Analytics Reports in ReportGarden.

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In order to access the various custom reports available in ReportGarden, you need to Sign-up with ReportGarden and create your account. And also link your AdWords and Analytics account with this account.

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1. Select New Report option available in the Reports option on the left side of the screen.

2. Name your report and select a template that will generate your report in the required format. For example, for this AdWords Analytics report we can select Sample AdWords + Analytics Template from the options available.

Select your AdWords and Analytics accounts from the drop-down menu and also the time period that you would like to analyze the campaign for.

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Your sample report is created. Each page of the report can be modified according to the interest of the client with various text formats and custom colors with the edit option on the respective pages.

3. This report contains various performance reports like:

• Account performance overview
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• Campaign performance
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• Click performance
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• Network performance
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• Keyword performance
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4. All these performance reports can now be edited based on the requirement of the metrics to be included to understand the insights better.

For example,

• You can track your conversions through these performance reports at the campaign, ad group and ads level as well. In each of the performance report you can edit the attributes to add the conversions metrics and the other metrics related to that.
• From these AdWords analytics reports you can as well check your account structure so that they don’t have too many duplicate keywords and not too few or too many ad text variations. Also you can check which of these keywords are engaging the users and which of them converting.
• You can also segment the data so that you can look at your data at a granular enough level to get actionable insights based on:
  • Device type
  • Network
  • Click type
  • Conversion type
  • Conversion name

These performance reports can also be created using the widgets on the right side of the screen and by changing the dimension of the table with reference to the performance report needed.

5. You can also arrange the attributes in each of the table in ascending/ descending order based on any measure used in it like impressions, clicks, CTR% or others by using the options available in the advanced setting options in the edit menu.

6. You can now analyze each performance report based on the combined metrics involved and improve the performance of your account based on the insights.

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C. Performance Metrics in Google AdWords Analytics Reports

The AdWords Analytics reports contain different individual performance reports with various metrics involved to help you understand the performance of your campaigns at a micro level and to help you act on these insights for better performance with better understanding.

1. Account Performance overview Report

This section provides the required information about the performance of your AdWords and Analytics accounts. It provides an overview about the performance of each of your accounts with respect to the clicks and users in your adwords and analytics accounts respectively.

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2. Click Performance Report

Click Performance Report helps you evaluate how well you are communicating with the searcher audience. It can help determine the relevance and effectiveness of your campaign b showing these metrics :

• Clicks
• Impressions
• Conversions
• New users
• New sessions

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The Click performance report includes stats aggregated at each click level and includes both valid and invalid clicks. A high ratio of clicks to impressions is an indication that you are targeting the right audience with appropriate keywords and ad text, and those searchers are responding by clicking through to your site – whereas a low click performance is pointing out that there is some disconnect between you and your audience.

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3. Geographic performance Report

Geographic performance report helps to better understand how your ads are doing in different locations. Location reports in AdWords can show the places where your customers are physically located or the locations they showed interest in. As with any AdWords report or new feature, you would want to identify how (and whether) this is actionable. With geographic reporting, one main use of the report (similar to day-parting and demographic reporting) is you can tune budget allocation by geographic regions that are performing well (and those that are under-performing).

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4. Network Performance Report

The Network Performance Report provides the statistics to help you evaluate your ad performance, and audience stats to get even more out of your campaigns. Network Performance Report shows performance based on what network the ads are being shown in, including “Search Partners.” The metrics that adwords analytics reports allow you to see to get more insights on your campaigns are:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR%
• Conversions
• Cost
• Total conversion value

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5. Impression Share Performance Report

Impression share report helps you to increase the visibility of your ads, the piece of the market cake you can advertise. It is a great indicator of the strength of your keyword set. If you have a very high Impression Share for both Exact Match and Standard you can feel confident that your coverage is strong. It also helps guide you to expand your keyword set through Search Query Reporting or encourage you to add more negative terms to improve campaign performance. It also helps you to identify areas of missed opportunity due to budget constraints.

The metrics that adwords analytics reports allow you to see to get more insights on your campaigns are:

• Search IS
• Search Budget Lost IS
• Search rank lost IS

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6. Conversions Report

Conversion tracking is a powerful tool in AdWords that lets you identify how well your ad campaign is generating leads, sales, downloads, email sign-ups and other key actions for your business. Now, adding Analytics data into this can give you a more clearer picture of which keyword is leading to conversions and which is leading to engagement. The data recorded by conversion tracking allows you to identify which areas of your campaign are working and not working, so you can optimize your bids, ad text, and keywords accordingly.

The metrics that adwords analytics reports allow you to see to get more insights on your campaigns are:

• Clicks
• Converted clicks
• Conversions
• Click conversion rate
• Cost
• Cost/ Conversion

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7. Campaign Performance Report

This report allows you to view performance data for your campaigns. After publishing a campaign, you will have access to performance reporting. It allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign. It allows you to view the performance of your campaign at a “macro” level and then dig into specific marketing pieces (such as emails) in order to see how well they are performing. Adding analytics data helps you look at the data at a micro level and help you understand your campaigns even better. The metrics that can be added are:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Cost
• Average CPC
• Average position

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8. Ad Group Performance Report

This report is crucial as it includes all statistics aggregated by default at the ad group level and gives an overview of the overall performance of the Adgroups. The report tracks statistics like clicks, impressions, and click-through rate which is a great way to start. It’s also important to think about what you’re trying to accomplish with your campaign, so you can focus on the statistics that can help you achieve your goals.

The metrics that adwords analytics reports allow you to see to get more insights on your ads are:

• Campaign name
• Impressions
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Average position
• Cost

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9. Ad Performance Report

This report gives an analysis of how different text, display ads are performing which helps to zero-in on the performance. Advertisers like to analyze how their ads are performing in their campaigns. Sometimes, comparing how a given Text Ad or an Image Ad performs against others will provide insight in creating new ads. Adding analytics data to this will give you great insights on your ads to improve yourads even more with these metrics:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Average CPC
• Average position
• Cost

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10. Keyword Performance Report

You want to review your keywords’ performance to see which ones are helping you meet your advertising goals for your campaigns that target the Google Search Network. The analytics data helps you to make wise decisions about the keywords you might want to delete because of their low conversions. But these might be those keywords that help you get your audience at the first layer of the funnel. From there-on it is how to cater to their needs and how well you have designed your landing pages matter.

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The report shows the particular keywords performance from a specific time period and also shows how keywords are performing by match type. Based on the report, you can also run a keyword diagnosis to review your keyword Quality Score.

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IV. Acting on Google AdWords Analytics Reports data

With Google Analytics you can find insights that matter, including how visitors arrive at your website, how they use it, and how you can keep them coming back. Here are some ways you can take advantage of the new Google Analytics data available in AdWords to improve your results.

• Attract more engaged users. If highly engaged users are an important goal, sort your ad groups to find the ones that deliver visitors who stay on your site the longest (“Average Visit Duration” or “Pages Per Visit”), and bid more for these.

• Discover opportunities to convert more engaged visitors. You might find certain keywords or ads that have relatively low conversion rates, but great engagement metrics. You could lower your bids by a little and move on. Or you could see this as a great opportunity to convert clearly engaged visitors into buyers. By adjusting your offer, adding an incentive (like a coupon or discount code), or making your call to action more obvious and accessible, you might be able to improve your ROI and your conversion volume. To look for these types of opportunities, create a filter based on conversion rate and sort by Average Visit Duration, Pages per visit, or Bounce Rate.

• Identify ads with badly matched landing pages or inaccurate targeting.Pages with both low conversion rates and low engagement metrics (low Average Visit Duration or High Bounce Rate) could indicate a poor landing page for a particular ad or keyword. It might also suggest inaccurate targeting. To identify and troubleshoot these problems, set up a filter for low conversion rate and low engagement rate and regularly monitor it.

Most of us work pretty hard to build and maintain successful AdWords campaigns. It makes sense to spend a little extra time to analyze them effectively and report our successes. With these AdWords Analytics reports when you assess the performance of a keyword or ad, you will have some extra data points about traffic quality. Being able to accurately report on the effectiveness of AdWords will give your clients and bosses confidence in your ability, and grow support and budget for your efforts.

The post Understanding Google AdWords Analytics Reports appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

“We are operating in a world where one good video can lead to a massive social following.”

That’s true!

Riddle me this: Why do people buy quarter-inch drill bits?

While there are a million possible answers to this question, Leo McGinneva offers perhaps the most interesting explanation.

“They don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes,” he explains.

This notion suggests that as consumers, we aren’t after all the bells and whistles as much as the solutions they provide. In other words, we don’t want to know what brands are selling, we want to know what’s in it for us. Not only has this mentality lead to the demise of traditional marketing efforts, but it’s also set the stage for more human interactions between brands and consumers. Interactions that don’t feel like marketing.

And what better medium to propel this new wave of humanized marketing than video? Video marketing has been on the rise for several years now and it is only expected to grow even more. It’s one of the most effective mediums for marketers.

Seventy-three percent of respondents in  a 2015 Web Video Marketing Council Study indicated that video had a positive impact on their marketing results.

According to Cisco, video traffic will account for 80% of the total consumer internet traffic by 2019, which makes brands to examine every possible way that could lead to innovative video campaigns.

A new report from Ooyala entitled,”State of the Media Industry 2016,” states that publishers are beginning to think and act like video producers. This includes both traditional media publishers and new players in digital media. The study confirms that data-driven video content is becoming the cornerstone of many digital marketing campaigns, and the content that provides the most ROI will be that which personalizes the story for the consumer. 

What do you mean by AdWords Youtube Advertising? Why is it so intriguing? How do you generate Google AdWords Youtube Reports? How can you analyze Google AdWords Youtube Reports? What insights do they provide?

 So go ahead, grab some popcorn. The answers will be waiting here when you get back.

I. AdWords for Video 

A. Why is Video Advertising powerful?

A Video is entertaining, visual, and drastically underused to convert leads. Yet, having a video on your landing page can increase your conversion rate by 80%, according to EyeWide Digital.

According to BI Intelligence, the popularity of online video advertising is growing at a much faster rate than nearly all other advertising formats and mediums. More and more marketers are becoming aware of this powerful content format and are quickly hopping on board the video trend to give their viewers what they want. Even more powerful than providing a resonant brand experience is the fact that videos convert. 

B. AdWords for Video – A Quick Overview

AdWords for video enables you to display video ads in the YouTube search results or before, during, and after videos on YouTube and the Google Display Network. Unlike a traditional AdWords campaign, with AdWords for video, you can use demographic targeting to more efficiently reach your audience.

The targeting options are fairly basic (age, gender, and interests), but still, they are useful. This is the biggest advantage of using AdWords for video, as you have much more control over who sees your advertisement.

C. Google TrueView – Three Types of Ads

Google TrueView videos are called such because advertisers are charged only when a video actually is viewed by a user. The biggest strength of TrueView is the feedback provided to advertisers. Who are the users? Where are they coming from? And most importantly, are they watching?

The best video marketers are able to interpret this data to make better-informed keyword and targeting decisions. By reviewing this data on a daily or even weekly basis, you’ll be able to significantly decrease your cost per click/view over time.

The three formats offered in TrueView are in-stream, in-search, and in-display. (Note that in-slate is no longer available and was discontinued by Google in June of 2013.) Each works a bit differently, and those differences are worth noting, as they influence how people come into contact with your ad and what they must do to access it.

In-Stream: Ads play at the beginning, middle, or end of YouTube partner videos (partners are any YouTube user that has decided to make money by displaying ads in their videos). Viewers have the option to skip the ad after 5 seconds. If the video ad is 30 seconds or longer, you’re charged once the ad reaches the 30-second mark. With shorter ads, you’re charged only if the entire video runs.

In-Search: Ads are displayed in search results when specific keywords are searched and aren’t played until someone selects the video. You’re charged once the user clicks to play the video.

In-Display: Ads appear next to other videos on the YouTube Watch page and are labeled as an ad. You’re charged once the user clicks to play the video.

It’s also worth noting that a single advertisement may appear in any number of formats, allowing you to test which works best for your product, business, or service.

II. 5 Reasons Why You Should Have An AdWords For Video Campaign

A. Massive Reach

 The numbers speak for themselves. Each month in the UK:

• 6 billion videos are being watched
• 35 million people watch online videos
• 17 hours of online video is being watched per person

Through AdWords for Video, you can reach 85% of the UK’s online population. All of this doesn’t even take into account the fact that you can also target the Google Display Network through an AdWords for Video campaign.

B. Engaged Audience

Targeting YouTube with an AdWords for Video campaign will ensure you reach users while they are highly engaged with the content they’re looking at. Google estimates that 52% of people take an action as a result of watching an online video.

We live in a world of short attention spans and a video ad goes far beyond what’s achievable with a text or an image ad. It allows advertisers to use graphics, motion picture & sounds to raise awareness, remind, engage, amuse and entice their target audience to take the desired action.

C. Social Engagement

YouTube is not just a video hosting site; it’s also a social networking site. People like, dislike, share, rate, comment on, and subscribe to videos and channels. All signs of an engaged audience that is ready and willing to tell other people about your brand, products/services, video or channel.

Google has been working hard to enhance YouTube Analytics (formerly known as YouTube Insight). This now includes engagement reports where you can get an insight into trends for subscriptions, likes & dislikes, favourites, comments etc. You’ll now be able to make better judgements on whether or not your videos are working.

Furthermore, Google has made some of these metrics available directly within the AdWords for Video interface. For example, you can now see numbers for Follow-on Subscribers andFollow-on Views in the AdWords interface. This will give you an indication of the effectiveness of each video advertising campaign you launch.

D. Targeting Options

YouTube offers all the targeting options that you get from Google AdWords plus more. The standard targeting features you will be familiar with are:

• Search Targeting
• Display Targeting – Contextual, Interest, Topic & Placement
• Remarketing

With YouTube remarketing you are also able to retarget people that liked, make your video a favourite or subscribed to your channel. You can also exclude people from retargeting if they disliked your video. With these kinds of options, you should be able to better reach the audience that interacts most with your brand.

E. Cost & Conversions

This is an important consideration for most businesses. We have been running AdWords for Video campaigns for over a year and the average CPV (cost per view) we have seen across multiple verticals and campaigns is just £0.10. This is a lot cheaper than the equivalent CPC (cost per click) advertisers pay in their Google search & display campaigns.

The TrueView concept also helps to keep your costs down as you only pay if users are engaging with your content.

In terms of conversions, we have seen mixed results but e-commerce clients appear to be doing better. Making use of remarketing via video on YouTube is where we’ve seen the best results as this often leads to much more engaging content being shown to site visitors than standard display image ads. Advertising on YouTube can help any business increase brand exposure, credibility, and brand recall.

Given the low cost associated with these types of campaigns, it is worth investing a small amount of money in testing the waters for your business and see what you can gain.

III. How do I create a report on Video Ads through Google AdWords?

You can report on TrueView video advertisement campaigns through Google Adwords. This means that you’ll be able to display data about views, conversions and more from the video ads that you’re running on YouTube and anywhere else TrueView may be distributed.

Steps to create an Adwords Youtube Report

Just like everything else in our Google AdWords tool, Video Ads are fully reportable in Report Builder.

• Navigate to Reports > Report Builder.

• Click the Add button and choose Google AdWords from the menu.

• Click the Create Custom Widget button in the top-right corner.

• Pick Video Ads from the Metrics menu.

• Change any of the listed settings and then click Submit to add the widget to your report.

IV. Analyzing video ad performance

In AdWords, you can see your TrueView video campaigns under “All campaigns” alongside any other campaigns you may be running. By selecting Video campaigns from this drop-down menu, you can view a summary of only your TrueView video campaigns’ performance. 

A. Some key metrics for your video campaigns include:

1. Core performance:

• Views show you the number of times people watched or engaged with your video ad. 
• View rate shows you the number of views or engagements your video ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (video and thumbnail impressions).
• Avg. CPV is the average amount you pay when a viewer watches 30 seconds of your video (or the duration if it’s shorter than 30 seconds) or engages with your video, whichever comes first. Note that your average CPV may not be the same as your maximum CPV. Your maximum CPV is the most you’re willing to pay for an ad view.

2. Click performance:

• Clicks show you the number of times people clicked on your video. Clicks can help you understand how well your ad is appealing to people who see it. Engaging ads are more likely to receive clicks.
• Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, expressed as a percentage.

3. Engagement performance:

• Engagements show you the number of clicks on interactive elements such as teasers or icons to expand any cards that may be on your video.
• Engagement rate is the number of engagements that your ad receives (for example, clicks on card teasers and icons) divided by the number of times your ad is shown, expressed as a percentage (engagements ÷ impressions = engagement rate).

4. Reach and frequency:

• Unique cookies is the number of cookies (which store preferences and other information that’s used on webpages that they visit) specific to an individual browser on people’s computers.
• Unique viewers by cookie is the number of times your video ad was viewed by a unique cookie over a given time period.
• Avg. impr. freq. per cookie is the average number of times your video ad is shown to a unique cookie over a given time period.
• Avg. view freq. per cookie is the average number of times that a unique cookie viewed your video over a given time period.

5. Video viewership (also known as “quartile reporting”)

• Video played to: 25% shows the number of times that a video plays to 25% of its length.
• Video played to: 50% shows the number of times that a video is played until the middle of its view length.
• Video played to: 75% shows the number of times that a video plays to 75% of its length.
• Video played to: 100% shows the number of times that a video plays to its completion.

6. YouTube engagement: Earned actions happen when a viewer watches a TrueView video ad and then takes a related action on YouTube. The following are different types of earned actions:

• Earned views increment if a YouTube viewer watches subsequent videos on your YouTube channel or Watch pages. This type of earned action increments whether or not someone chooses to watch the same video again or any other video on your channel.
• Earned subscribes happen when a viewer subscribes to your channel. This type of earned action provides unique value because the content from these YouTube channels and the channel avatars themselves may be viewed on the YouTube home page.
• Earned playlist additions happen when a viewer adds the video to a playlist.
• Earned likes happen when a viewer likes the video.
• Earned shares happen when a viewer shares the video.

B. Robust reporting features are also available for TrueView video campaigns, such as:

1. Advanced filtering – Filter your account statistics to search for the data that interests you the most, for example, “YouTube earned actions” or “Max. CPV.” You can either filter by label or create your own filter. Once you’ve created a filter, you can save it for easy access in the future.

2. Segments – Use segments to split your data into rows based on the options that matter most to you, such as format, network, device, etc. This makes it easier to view the data by isolating exactly what you want to see. You can also segment by view type to split out your performance by in-stream views versus video discovery views. Your segment choices vary, depending on the tab of your AdWords account that you’re viewing.

3. Automated Reporting – You can find specific performance data about your video campaigns that interest you, by customizing the statistics tables of your AdWords account using columns, segments, and filters. Once the tables look exactly how you want, you can download them as reports in a variety of formats and save them. You can also set up reports to run at specific intervals, and schedule them to be emailed to you or other people who have access to your account.

4. Modifying columns – When you’re viewing your AdWords account from the “All campaigns” view, some columns might be pre-populated with information not relevant to your TrueView campaigns. You can add and remove columns on any tab, by clicking Modify columns on the “Columns” drop-down menu. Whatever you unselect will be hidden the next time you sign in to your AdWords account. When you select “Video campaigns” on the campaign type drop-down menu, you’ll see the following predefined types of columns:

• Views – Use these columns to monitor your video views and audience engagement.
• Audience – These metrics help you track the growth of your YouTube audience.
• Branding – See how well your video ads are building brand awareness.
• Conversions – Analyze clicks and conversions on your website.

C. The “Ad groups” tab

Use the “Ad groups” tab to see the overall results of your TrueView ad groups within a specific date range for metrics like impressions, clicks, viewthrough rate (VTR), cost-per-view (CPV), etc.

Once you’ve created a new ad group, you’ll most likely want to fill it out with more ads and the right targeting to reach consumers at moments that matter. You can do this by clicking your ad group’s name, and then click its Ads tab or Video targeting tab.

D. The “Ads” tab

The “Ads” tab is where you go to create and manage your ads. Within this tab, you can create, edit, and preview your TrueView in-stream and video discovery ads. You can also see and customize your ads’ statistics, bids, and more.

E. The Videos tab

So, you’re running your video campaigns and wondering how well they’re doing. By better understanding how well the YouTube videos in your TrueView video ads are performing, you’ll know what video content to focus on for your audience, and, in turn, can improve your video campaigns’ performance.

The “Videos” tab shows your video performance in aggregate across all ads. By selecting from the “Views” drop-down menu, you can see charts that map the performance of all your video ads based on metric.

F. The “Video Analytics” page

Discover performance metrics and audience insights for each of your videos by viewing its “Video Analytics” page. On the “Videos” tab, just click the video title or Analytics in the drop-down menu next to the video title.

G. The “Video targeting” tab

The “Video targeting” tab has 2 purposes: to show performance metrics for each targeting method you’re using and to allow you to add and exclude targeting methods directly to ad groups and campaigns.

1. Accessing the “Video targeting” tab

You can access the “Video targeting” tab at the all campaigns level, for a single video campaign, or at an ad-group level.

• At the “All campaigns” level, clicking the “Video targeting” tab will show you performance metrics for each ad group in each campaign.
• Within a video campaign, clicking the “Video targeting” tab will show you performance metrics within each ad group in that campaign.
• Within an ad group, clicking the “Video targeting” tab will show you performance metrics only for that ad group.

To toggle between different ad groups and campaigns, use the left navigation pane or the “Campaigns” and “Ad groups” tabs.

2. Reporting, adding, and excluding targeting

See performance metrics for each targeting type available for TrueView campaigns, similar to what’s available on the “Display targeting” tab. Once you understand how your campaign is performing, you may want to add or exclude targeting accordingly.

• Demographics: Separate sub-tabs report on your age, gender, and parental status targeting.
  • You can add or exclude specific demographic groups by editing each line item within the table.
  • A green dot will appear next to the demographic groups that you have added, and a red dot will appear next to demographic groups that you have excluded. You can add or exclude demographic groups by changing the status of the dot.

• Interests: This tab lists all affinity audiences and in-market audiences that you’ve manually added.
  • Add audiences by clicking +INTERESTS and selecting the right ad group (if you haven’t already selected one). You can also exclude an affinity audience or in-market audience from a specific ad group by changing its status in the table.
  • To exclude an interest from the campaign, use the +EXCLUSIONS table.

• Remarketing lists: This tab shows all remarketing lists that you’ve manually added.
  • Add a remarketing list by clicking +REMARKETING LIST and selecting the right ad group (if you haven’t already selected one).
  • You can also exclude a remarketing list from a specific ad group by changing its status in the table. Any exclusions you add will appear in this table.
  • To exclude a remarketing list from an entire campaign, use the +EXCLUSIONS table.

• Placements: This tab includes 2 sub-tabs: the “Managed” sub-tab shows performance metrics for placements and channels you’ve manually targeted; the “Where your ads have shown” sub-tab shows performance metrics on all placements where your ads have served, including managed placements.
  • On either tab, you can view either all placements or toggle between YouTube placements and Display Network placements.
  • Placement performance metrics are aggregated at the individual placement level (video, site, etc.) as well as at the YouTube channel level or website domain level. For example, if your video ad appeared on 5 videos within the same YouTube channel, we’ll aggregate your performance metrics at the “Channel” level.
  • View performance metrics for a specific channel or site by clicking the box next to the channel and selectingDetailed view.
  • You can exclude a placement from a specific ad group by changing its status in the table. Any exclusions you add will appear in this table.
  • To exclude a placement from an entire campaign, click +EXCLUSIONS, under “Placements exclusions,” on the “Managed” sub-tab.

• Keywords: This tab includes 2 sub-tabs: the “Keywords” sub-tab shows performance metrics for keywords you’ve added. These keywords will target your TrueView ads to viewers searching on the YouTube Search Network, as well as to contextually relevant videos and channels on YouTube and across the web. The “Search terms” sub-tab shows performance metrics on the YouTube search queries on which you’ve served your ads (similar to a search query performance report).
  • Add keywords by clicking +KEYWORDS and selecting the right ad group (if you haven’t already selected one).
  • You can also exclude keywords from an ad group within the main table. Any exclusions you add will appear in this table.
  • To add negative keywords to your campaign, click +EXCLUSIONS under “Keywords exclusions.”

• Topics: This tab lists all topics that you’ve manually added.
  • Add topics by clicking +TOPICS and selecting the right ad group (if you haven’t already selected one).
  • You can also exclude a topic from a specific ad group by changing its status in the table. Any exclusions you add will appear in this table.
  • To exclude a topic from an entire campaign, use the +EXCLUSIONS table.

The Targets tab also shows your video ad performance by targeting group. Select the Ad segment from this tab to compare the performance of each ad for each targeting group. Add retention and engagement columns to your statistics table to measure the percentage of your video that people watched and understand how your ad is driving traffic to your YouTube channel.

V. Google Adwords Youtube Reports using ReportGarden

To visualize data better and to improve the performance of your AdWords account, great data visualization tools like ReportGarden are helpful. ReportGarden helps you make different AdWords Youtube reports with just a click and can as well automatically schedule it to the client at the required intervals. This infographic clearly explains the steps to be followed while creating a Youtube report, various sample Youtube reports created in ReportGarden. You can try the tool to learn more.

VI. AdWords for Video Makes Reporting More Consistent, Goal-Oriented & Prettier

Google AdWords for video can help experienced marketing and advertising professionals to go global or go local. This ability to run the option play has enabled Google sites, driven primarily by YouTube.com, to become the leading video ad property.

AdWords for video helps brands capture the power of sight, sound, and motion in a simple and easy way. It also helps to further understand the impact of  campaigns based on three measurement features of AdWords for video that makes reporting more consistent with other media, more goal-oriented and just plain prettier.”

A. Reach & Frequency Reporting

AdWords for video now displays reach and frequency metrics in the campaign reporting interface. These metrics give marketers and advertisers more insight into how many unique viewers have seen their ad and the average number of times they’ve seen it, helping them better measure against other media such as TV.

B. Column Sets

To help you organize the metrics that matter most to your campaign, AdWords for video has introduced the Column Sets feature which groups relevant metrics by marketing objective. So, all you need to do is select your advertising goals and AdWords for video will show you useful reporting columns for your accounts.

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For example:

• Want to build brand awareness? Select the Branding objective in the “Columns” drop-down to see how broadly a video ad was viewed. AdWords for video will automatically show unique viewers, average view frequency, and average impression frequency.
• Want to optimize for conversions? Select the Website Traffic and Conversions objective to see how video ads drove viewers to action. AdWords for video will show website traffic, the number of conversions,  cost-per-conversion, and the conversion rate from people who viewed an ad.
• Want to grow your audience? Select the Audience objective to understand how your video ads drove people to watch and engage with more of your content. AdWords for video will show you follow-on subscribers and follow-on views.
• Want to drive more views? Select the Views objective to understand the follow-on actions viewers take such as when a viewer goes to your channel to watch more videos. AdWords for video will show you follow-on views and unique viewers.

C. GeoMap

Do you want to know where in the world your views are coming from? With the new AdWords for video visualization feature, you can tell with a mere glance.

Just select the Campaign tab and click “Map View” to generate a beautiful snapshot that displays view activity on an interactive map. You can even click on regions to drill down to states and provinces globally, and to the DMA-level in the U.S. These geographic insights can help you understand which of your ad messages are resonating with specific markets.

Together, these new features can help you easily compare campaigns across platforms, discover new metrics, and derive actionable insights. Combined with AdWords for video’s ability to run the option play, these new features should help even more experienced marketing and advertising professionals to go global or go local.

The Video has taken over the web, and AdWords for video is an innovative way to attract customers. YouTube itself is responsible for a staggering 17% of all North American web traffic. And if you’ve used Google AdWords, getting up and running with an AdWords video campaign is surprisingly simple.

The right focus to the authentic human experience in video advertising may lead to impressive results, so don’t be afraid to embrace your feelings next time you’re brainstorming for a branded video.

The post Google AdWords Youtube Reports – Analyzing Video Ads appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

We understand you don’t have the time to catch up with all the Marketing news every day. So we cut the clutter and deliver them, in 60-word shorts.  We pick-up articles from all your favorite marketing blogs and present you with the gist.

>”Six news in Sixty Words” <

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1.  No more YouTube ads on non-advertiser-friendly sites

What ? :  YouTube is now notifying publishers when removing monetization from videos that are not advertiser-friendly

Why ? : Because YouTube cares. YouTube is protecting its advertisers from potentially being associated with the controversial content.

What might be non-advertiser-friendly videos ? 

• Sexually suggestive content
• Related to violent extremism or display of injury
• Inappropriate language – vulgarity , harassment
• Promotion of drugs – use and abuse of such items
• Controversial or sensitive subject and event

Takeaway :  Back in 2012 , YouTube never told the creators about their videos being demonetized .Now to be on the same page publishers are being notified to improve transparency.

Read – YouTube “Demonetization” Sparks Creator Backlash

Watch – The Truth Behind YouTube’s Demonetization

2. Facebook pressures advertisers to cut page load time on Mobile       

What ? : Facebook says advertisers with slow landing pages could see ad reach reduced.

When ? : August 31, 2016

Why ? : To build a better mobile experience that helps businesses form a better connection with interested people

While slow loading links not only hurt Facebook’s lucrative objectives but they also –

• often lead people to abandon the site even before third party site analytics could register a page visit
• make it harder to track and optimise advert performance

How does Facebook reduce site load time ?

It would start pre-fetching pages that a mobile ad links to when it predicts someone is likely to click on the ad.This can shorten mobile site load time by 29 % or 8.5 seconds.

Takeaway : Facebook plans to start deciding whether to show an ad to someone by considering how long it takes a link , which brands include in their ads to load.

Read – Facebook pressures advertisers to cut mobile page load speeds or it’ll cut their reach

Watch – Speed Up Your Website

3. Google says – For better Keyword Planner data , use forecasting tools

What ? : Google informs advertisers how to plan their campaigns effectively by using forecasting feature in the tool

How to use these forecasting features ?

1. Sign into your Adwords account
2. Click Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category and enter the keywords related to your business
3. Click Get ideas
4. Find the keywords relevant to your business and click Add to plan on the right
5. You can download your forecasts or save the plan to your account

Takeaway : Google has made the Keyword Planner a tool for advanced advertisers to get a sense of what a plan will yield them.

Read – Use the forecasting tools, says Google

Watch – Using Keyword Planner in AdWords

4. Problem: Google Universal Analytics Vs. Google Classic Analytics

What is the problem ?

Inaccurate organic search referrals since the upgrade to Universal Analytics.

Why ? : 

>Google has now upgraded every site to Universal Analytics.(some automatically)

>Difference is session tracking:After the default 30 min session time-out.Classic Analytics do not trigger a new session when the session arrived from a referral.

>With Universal Analytics when a session times out after 30 minutes  if the visitor resumes activity on your website,your own domain appears as the referral source.

How to fix it ? – Very Simple !!!

Under the referral excluding list , add your own domain.

Takeaway : Analytics data may be somewhat unreliable due to the difference in session tracking.But the fixes and solutions are available.

Read – When is a Session not a Session?

Watch – How To Fix Self-Referrals In Google Analytics

5. Automated Insights : Now on Google Analytics

What ? : Google is now providing a new stream of automated insights in the Google Analytics mobile app.

When ? : The change is already live in the Google Analytics app for iOS and Android from September 2nd , 2016

How will this help ?   It helps make analytics data universally accessible and useful as it:

• Combs through your data to give you meaningful insights and recommendations.
• Offers quick tips on how to improve your Google Analytics data.
• Gets smarter over time by reacting to your feedback and how you use it.
• Helps you share insights so your whole team can take action.

Takeaway : Google Analytics is moving towards “more insights, less data.” The automated insights can be viewed in Assistant Tab in the mobile App.

Read – Explore important insights from your data – automatically

Watch – Walkthrough of the new Google Analytics Mobile App

6. Feature roll out : Adwords welcomes account-level site links

What’s new ? : You will be able to set site links at account level 

Why ? : Many advertisers will find the ability to set the site-links at account level very helpful rather than at ad group or campaign level.

What next ? : When adding or editing a new site link extension from the Ad extensions tab, there will be an option to choose Account instead of just Campaign.

Takeaway : Advertisers that want to streamline offers and other messaging in site links across an account will no longer have to remember to associate those extensions with every campaign.

Read – Account-level site link extensions coming to AdWords

Watch –  AdWords Changes and new Extensions

That was all the news for today .We will keep you updated with more Flash Bytes .

The post No more YouTube Ads on unfriendly sites !! appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

Today we bring you the inside view of the Instagram’s new marketing guide for Fashion Brands – The  ‘Feed Fashion’ report. Along with other marketing news from your favorite sites and blogs.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1.  Instagram : A new guide for Fashion Brands

What ? :  Instagram releases a “Feed Fashion” report to provide insights for marketers on how to improve on platform performance

What is in this report ?

1. While 50% of the Instagrammers follow a brand , 45% of Instagrammers in Europeans follow a fashion brand with an intent to buy.
2. In Europe , Fashionistas are active on the platform every day, checking their feeds, on average, 15 times every 24 hours.
3. Almost half of all Instagram posts now contain emoji characters.
4. Photos on Instagram are perceived as being 2.8X more imaginative and 2X more creative than on other platforms.
5. People interested in fashion tend to be more engaged around the weekend.

What is the summary ? : Everything is made open to some level of personal interpretation.

But three major tips –

• Be on Brand
• Be Concept driven
• Be well crafted

What are the important tips to be noted ? : 

• Fashion brands need to be investing time on their Instagram presence
• Research target hashtags using resources like TopHashtags.com or Hashtagify – or Instagram’s own search function
• Fashion brands need to produce content(image quality and composition) that makes people stop and take notice.
• Timing is crucial – Find the best time to post using Analytics (Instagram’s own)
• But like all creative promotions -most of all Fashion Brands : This is not a rule book of any sorts.Nothing wrong with trying your own voice and style.

Takeaway :  Though this guide is a precursor for Fashion brands on the soon-to-start London and Paris Fashion Weeks , many of the principles and guidelines outlined here can be applied to any business looking to maximize their Instagram performance and response.

Read – The complete “Feed Fashion” report

2. Twitter DMs get dynamic features – like Read receipts

What ? : Twitter has introduced read receipts, typing indicators and web link previews to DM threads.

Why ? :  Brands will want to let users know that they’ve seen their message, and ideally brands will be able to respond to all such requests in a timely manner.

When ? : The update is live from Sep. 8th , 2016.

Takeaway : Though Twitter’s DM updates are good , it’s too late to draw significant interest because apps like Messenger and WhatsApp already have all of those.

Read – Twitter Adds Read Receipts and Link Previews to DMs

3. LinkedIn : New blogging platform and Conversion Tracking

What’s new ? : LinkedIn has brought two great news

• LinkedIn has rolled out a new version of LinkedIn Publishing. Its intention is to enable its posters to reach and better engage with their audience.
• LinkedIn is rolling out a way for advertisers to track when their ads lead people to do things on the brand’s site

What’s different in conversion tracking ? : Advertisers using LinkedIn’s conversion tracking will be able to see audience breakdowns by different segmentations  such as what industries people work in, how senior their positions are, what their job functions are and the size of their companies.

For now, LinkedIn’s conversion tracking only works for its Sponsored Content ads and Text ads

What about LinkedIn Publishing ?

Its new interface focuses on the design, with a nice looking UI and more text formatting and font options.This is, for now, available only in the US.

Takeaway : LinkedIn wants to be able to tell advertisers how much actual revenue their ads generated.There will be many more moves and developments in this Microsoft bought platform.

Read – LinkedIn’s new conversion tracking & LinkedIn Publishing

4.  Google Search Console updates Security issues Report

What  ? : Google search console updates their most helpful tool for webmasters – Security Issues Report with new information.

What is this update about ? :  This update focuses on issues like – malware, deceptive pages, harmful downloads, and uncommon downloads.

Takeaway : Google Search Console is the only medium where Google communicates with site owners. Now this update notifies sites about new issues also.

Read –  Google Updates Security Issues Report in Search Console

We will get back to you with more updates over the weekend. Happy Weekend !!

The post Marketing 101: Fashion Brands by Instagram appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

AdWords accounts managing has become easier with the new added functionality. Read about this : Along with other marketing news from all your favorite marketing blogs.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1.  Google AdWords accounts : One email address to log in to multiple accounts

What ? : Google has made a change to the AdWords Managing accounts crisis – Now you can connect up to five AdWords accounts to one email.

Why ? : For managers of multiple Google AdWords accounts, logging in and out of each account is a productivity killer.

How can this be accessed ? : 

• The option to add additional accounts can be accessed through the “Manage AdWords accounts” screen in the main menu.
• Also , when a user is added to an account, they can start accessing it right away without the email verification
• From the account switcher, within the “Add Account” screen, you can easily link the email addresses associated with each account.

Takeaway : Google is improving the flexibility of AdWords account management by encouraging users to get everything done in one place with security and privacy being the top of minds.

Read – Google AdWords Now Allows One Email for Multiple Accounts

2.  Instagram rolls out Personalized comment filters

What ? :  Instagram added a feature for all its users to block specific words (or emoji) from their Instagram comment feed.

Why ? :  To battle against online abuse and harassment , and improve the user experience.

What does this mean ? : Though this might be seen as some form of censorship ,it does give users another way to control their on-platform experience.

Anything else  ? : Instagram also added a new “Follows you” note on user profiles.

Takeaway :  While this may not be a perfect solution , this is a good thing in the ongoing effort to make the online space safer and more comfortable for all.

Read – Instagram adds the ability to hide offensive & inappropriate comments

3. Google extends Expanded Text Ads deadline to January 31 , 2017

What ? : Google will continue to accept new traditional text ads through January 31, 2017, not October 26 as announced in July with the general release of the new ad format.

What next ? : After January 31, existing standard text ads will continue to run with expanded text ads, but advertisers will not be able to edit or create standard ads.

Anything else ? : Along with this announcement , Google also issued a set of dos and do not’s for testing expanding text ads.

Takeaway : This extension of transition period will help advertisers to figure out how to optimize expanded text ads.

Read – Expanded text ads: more time to test and iterate

4.  SnapChat adopts Facebook’s ad targeting

What  ? :  Snapchat will allow brands to target ads based on people’s email addresses, people who resemble those defined groups and the type of content they view.

What’s new ? : The three new ad targeting options — Snap Audience Match, Lookalikes, and Snapchat Lifestyle Categories — will be available for anywhere its vertical video Snap Ads can run, such as in between people’s Stories, within Live Stories or within Discover channels.

Takeaway : This kind of ad-targeting is nothing new in the industry. Snapchat is only following the methodology popularized by Facebook and more importantly this is the type of retargeting that Snapchat really doesn’t like.

Read – Snapchat adopts Facebook-style ad targeting like email, mobile device matching

5. Bing Ads : Now with Bulk-editing

What ? :  In Bing Ads it’s  now possible to pause or enable multiple campaigns, ad groups, ads or keywords simultaneously, either by selecting all or several individual elements.

Why ? : This newly added functionality helps Bing Ads app users so that they no longer have to pause or enable items one at a time.

Takeaway : The Bing Ads apps on iOS and Android are steadily becoming more and more useful for actual management outpacing AdWords apps in functionality. And according to Bing Ads manager – there are Hints of more functionality to come.

Read – Bing Ads apps keep getting more useful, now with bulk editing

6.  Facebook Messenger gets ‘Buy Now ‘ button and in-stream payments

What’s new ? : Facebook messenger made it easier for buyers to buy products from a bot without needing to leave Messenger and a way for brands to direct people from their Facebook ads to their Messenger bots with it’s new ‘Buy’ button.

Why ? : Facebook is placing new tools in the hands of messenger bots to increase sales through Messenger.

How ? : 

1. People can have Messenger automatically plug in the credit card and address information attached to their Messenger profiles
2. Companies have to use either Stripe or PayPal to process these payments, according to Facebook Messenger’s developer documentation.

How can this help ? : Advertisers can use this option to promote a Messenger-only sale and show the discount code in the Facebook ad, as well as on the welcome screen when someone clicks to open a conversation thread with the bot.

Anything else ? :

• Bots can now present people with button-only, keyboard-hiding prompts to make it easier for someone to send a bot their location, pick a color for an item they’re looking at or choose a particular product from a row of images.
• People can share individual messages, or “message bubbles,” with their friends on Messenger.

Takeaway : Facebook Messenger bots can now serve as standalone storefronts.Messenger business is evolving, and their Bot platform is advancing.

Read – Facebook Updates Messenger Platform with New Features, Including In-Stream Payments

7.  Instagram Adds Mute, Save and Colored Text Options to Stories

What ? :

1. Stories users will now be able to save the photos and videos that they post to their Instagram Stories to their camera roll
2. Instagram has also released a new mute option to get rid of people’s Stories you’re not interested in
3. The ability to choose a color when adding text to Stories

Why ? :  The added functionalities will enable users to more easily re-purpose Stories content on other platforms.

Takeaway : Even though Instagram is copying one of Snapchat’s core features so openly , Instagram Stories could deliver a significant blow to Snapchat’s growth util and unless Snapchat comes up with something better.

Read – Instagram Adds Mute, Save, and Colored Text Options to Stories

8.  Vimeo launches Vimeo Business – aimed at SMBs

What’s new ? : Vimeo has launched a new membership plan aimed at small businesses, startups and agencies, offering professional-level video hosting, marketing and analytics services.

Why ? : According to Vimeo , they are equipping businesses with everything they need to elevate their brand through their video hosting platform.

Anything else ? :

1. Vimeo Business users will have access to the Vimeo Filmmaker Community to help create projects and to sell content directly to Vimeo’s 280 million subscribers
2. Vimeo business membership plan will cost a 599$ per year
3. Vimeo is offering a 30-day free trial for users when they sign up on the website: Vimeo Business.

Takeaway : Vimeo is catching up in the industry with a new range of tools like – professional-level video management tools aimed at small businesses, startups, and agencies.

Read – Vimeo launches Vimeo Business — a video hosting & marketing plan aimed at SMBs

Watch – Vimeo Business: powerful tools, powerful stories

The post AdWords accounts : Manage many with one email address appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

Go over everything that happened in Marketing , Advertising – right from your favorite blogs over the  month. In just sixty words each. No clutter. Just gist.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1.  Twitter Ads : Loophole for relaxed character limit

What ? : Twitter  announced it was beginning to officially roll out some big changes to loosen its 140-character limits. Same doesn’t apply to Twitter Ads.

What No Longer Counts Toward Twitter’s 140-Character Limit ? :

1.  Media Attachments –  Videos , GIFs , Images
2.  Quote Tweets & Retweeting Yourself
3.  @names would no longer be counted in replies

What Isn’t Changing ? :  Here’s what will still count toward your tweet character limit:

• Your text copy.
• Links (these will continue to eat up 23 characters).
• Hashtags
• Emojis

What about Twitter Ads ? : Any photos, videos, polls and quoted tweets included Promoted Tweets created using Twitter’s ad dashboard will still count against the 140-character limit, but there is a loophole: if a brand posts a tweet organically first and then runs it as a Promoted Tweet, those media attachments won’t count, giving the brand more room for text in its ad.

Takeaway :  This means you now have more room to add relevant context, more flexibility with what you can add alongside the images and videos you share.

Read – Twitter’s relaxed character limit doesn’t apply to ads, but there’s a workaround

2. Facebook Ads :  New Options Focused on Driving In-Store Actions

What ? : Facebook’s introduced some new tools to help brands better integrate their online ad efforts with in-store actions, with a new option called “Dynamic Ads for Retail”.

What’s the change ? :  The new ads feature an availability indicator – an “in-store” note above each image and a CTA button for the user to get directions, along with a map included within the carousel, helping to drive in-store visits.

How ? :  To ensure that product availability information is accurate, Facebook is requiring participating retailers to update their store-specific inventory catalogs at least once every 24 hours

Takeaway : Facebook’s new Dynamic Ad for Retail highlights available inventory at nearby stores and can be targeted to people most likely to visit.

Read – Facebook’s new retail ads show in-store product availability, can be aimed at likely visitors

3.  Google AdWords accounts : One email address to log in to multiple accounts

What ? : Google has made a change to the AdWords Managing accounts crisis – Now you can connect up to five AdWords accounts to one email.

Why ? : For managers of multiple Google AdWords accounts, logging in and out of each account is a productivity killer.

How can this be accessed ? : 

• The option to add additional accounts can be accessed through the “Manage AdWords accounts” screen in the main menu.
• Also , when a user is added to an account, they can start accessing it right away without the email verification
• From the account switcher, within the “Add Account” screen, you can easily link the email addresses associated with each account.

Takeaway : Google is improving the flexibility of AdWords account management by encouraging users to get everything done in one place with security and privacy being the top of minds.

Read – Google AdWords Now Allows One Email for Multiple Accounts

4. Google extends Expanded Text Ads deadline to January 31 , 2017

What ? : Google will continue to accept new traditional text ads through January 31, 2017, not October 26 as announced in July with the general release of the new ad format.

What next ? : After January 31, existing standard text ads will continue to run with expanded text ads, but advertisers will not be able to edit or create standard ads.

Anything else ? : Along with this announcement , Google also issued a set of dos and do not’s for testing expanding text ads.

Takeaway : This extension of transition period will help advertisers to figure out how to optimize expanded text ads.

Read – Expanded text ads: more time to test and iterate

Watch – Using Expanded Text Ads in AdWords

5. Update in the Ad preview tool for Expanded Text Ads

What ? :  The new Ad preview tool has separate views for desktop and mobile and also has a separate section to view sample ads.

Why ? :  To address the concerns of the advertisers – About few of their ads being truncated. Also, this new preview tool will help advertisers adapt to Expanded Text Ads easily.

What is the use ? :  The new version tells you when the headline has crossed it’s character limit with a preview. So you will know when your text or headlines will potentially be cut off on the desktop or on mobile.

Takeaway :  The sole purpose of this update is to enable advertisers to write effective ads and to make more out of the Expanded Text Ads.

Read – Google has updated the AdWords ad preview tool for expanded text ads

6.  Facebook Messenger gets ‘Buy Now ‘ button and in-stream payments

What’s new ? : Facebook messenger made it easier for buyers to buy products from a bot without needing to leave Messenger and a way for brands to direct people from their Facebook ads to their Messenger bots with it’s new ‘Buy’ button.

Why ? : Facebook is placing new tools in the hands of messenger bots to increase sales through Messenger.

How ? : 

1. People can have Messenger automatically plug in the credit card and address information attached to their Messenger profiles
2. Companies have to use either Stripe or PayPal to process these payments, according to Facebook Messenger’s developer documentation.

How can this help ? : Advertisers can use this option to promote a Messenger-only sale and show the discount code in the Facebook ad, as well as on the welcome screen when someone clicks to open a conversation thread with the bot.

Anything else ? :

• Bots can now present people with button-only, keyboard-hiding prompts to make it easier for someone to send a bot their location, pick a color for an item they’re looking at or choose a particular product from a row of images.
• People can share individual messages, or “message bubbles,” with their friends on Messenger.

Takeaway : Facebook Messenger bots can now serve as standalone storefronts.Messenger business is evolving, and their Bot platform is advancing.

Read – Facebook Updates Messenger Platform with New Features, Including In-Stream Payments

7.  Instagram : A new Marketing  guide for Fashion Brands

What ? :  Instagram releases a “Feed Fashion” report to provide insights for marketers on how to improve on platform performance

What is in this report ?

1. While 50% of the Instagrammers follow a brand , 45% of Instagrammers in Europeans follow a fashion brand with an intent to buy.
2. In Europe , Fashionistas are active on the platform every day, checking their feeds, on average, 15 times every 24 hours.
3. Almost half of all Instagram posts now contain emoji characters.
4. Photos on Instagram are perceived as being 2.8X more imaginative and 2X more creative than on other platforms.
5. People interested in fashion tend to be more engaged around the weekend.

What is the summary ? : Everything is made open to some level of personal interpretation.

But three major tips –

• Be on Brand
• Be Concept driven
• Be well crafted

What are the important tips to be noted ? : 

• Fashion brands need to be investing time on their Instagram presence
• Research target hashtags using resources like TopHashtags.com or Hashtagify – or Instagram’s own search function
• Fashion brands need to produce content(image quality and composition) that makes people stop and take notice.
• Timing is crucial – Find the best time to post using Analytics (Instagram’s own)
• But like all creative promotions -most of all Fashion Brands : This is not a rule book of any sorts.Nothing wrong with trying your own voice and style.

Takeaway :  Though this guide is a precursor for Fashion brands on the soon-to-start London and Paris Fashion Weeks , many of the principles and guidelines outlined here can be applied to any business looking to maximize their Instagram performance and response.

Read – The complete “Feed Fashion” report

8.  Feature roll out : Campaign Groups in AdWords

What’s new ? : Release of Campaign Groups, which lets advertisers group campaigns with common targets to monitor performance against those goals.

Why ? : To make it easier for advertisers to track and forecast the performance of the campaigns against your advertising goals

How can this help ? : You can now package AdWords campaigns (including Video, Display, Search, and Shopping campaigns) into a single campaign group.

Takeaway : This feature is for evaluating whether or not your campaigns are working together toward your broader goals.

Read – Track your goals with campaign groups

9.  LinkedIn : New blogging platform and Conversion Tracking

What’s new ? : LinkedIn has brought two great news

• LinkedIn has rolled out a new version of LinkedIn Publishing. Its intention is to enable its posters to reach and better engage with their audience.
• LinkedIn is rolling out a way for advertisers to track when their ads lead people to do things on the brand’s site

What’s different in conversion tracking ? : Advertisers using LinkedIn’s conversion tracking will be able to see audience breakdowns by different segmentations  such as what industries people work in, how senior their positions are, what their job functions are and the size of their companies.

For now, LinkedIn’s conversion tracking only works for its Sponsored Content ads and Text ads

What about LinkedIn Publishing ?

Its new interface focuses on the design, with a nice looking UI and more text formatting and font options.This is, for now, available only in the US.

Takeaway : LinkedIn wants to be able to tell advertisers how much actual revenue their ads generated.There will be many more moves and developments in this Microsoft bought platform.

Read – LinkedIn’s new conversion tracking & LinkedIn Publishing

10.  Problem: Google Universal Analytics Vs. Google Classic Analytics

What is the problem ?

Inaccurate organic search referrals since the upgrade to Universal Analytics.

Why ? : 

>Google has now upgraded every site to Universal Analytics.(some automatically)

>Difference is session tracking:After the default 30 min session time-out.Classic Analytics do not trigger a new session when the session arrived from a referral.

>With Universal Analytics when a session times out after 30 minutes  if the visitor resumes activity on your website,your own domain appears as the referral source.

How to fix it ? – Very Simple !!!

Under the referral excluding list , add your own domain.

Takeaway : Analytics data may be somewhat unreliable due to the difference in session tracking.But the fixes and solutions are available.

Read – When is a Session not a Session?

Watch – How To Fix Self-Referrals In Google Analytics

11. Facebook pressures advertisers to cut page load time on Mobile

What ? : Facebook says advertisers with slow landing pages could see ad reach reduced.

When ? : August 31, 2016

Why ? : To build a better mobile experience that helps businesses form a better connection with interested people

While slow loading links not only hurt Facebook’s lucrative objectives but they also –

• often lead people to abandon the site even before third party site analytics could register a page visit
• make it harder to track and optimise advert performance

How does Facebook reduce site load time ?

It would start pre-fetching pages that a mobile ad links to when it predicts someone is likely to click on the ad.This can shorten mobile site load time by 29 % or 8.5 seconds.

Takeaway : Facebook plans to start deciding whether to show an ad to someone by considering how long it takes a link , which brands include in their ads to load.

Read – Facebook pressures advertisers to cut mobile page load speeds or it’ll cut their reach

Watch – Speed Up Your Website

12. Feature roll out : Adwords welcomes account-level site links

What’s new ? : You will be able to set site links at account level

Why ? : Many advertisers will find the ability to set the site-links at account level very helpful rather than at ad group or campaign level.

What next ? : When adding or editing a new site link extension from the Ad extensions tab, there will be an option to choose Account instead of just Campaign.

Takeaway : Advertisers that want to streamline offers and other messaging in site links across an account will no longer have to remember to associate those extensions with every campaign.

Read – Account-level site link extensions coming to AdWords

Watch –  AdWords Changes and new Extensions

13.  No more YouTube ads on non-advertiser-friendly sites

What ? :  YouTube is now notifying publishers when removing monetization from videos that are not advertiser-friendly

Why ? : Because YouTube cares. YouTube is protecting its advertisers from potentially being associated with the controversial content.

What might be non-advertiser-friendly videos ? 

• Sexually suggestive content
• Related to violent extremism or display of injury
• Inappropriate language – vulgarity , harassment
• Promotion of drugs – use and abuse of such items
• Controversial or sensitive subject and event

Takeaway :  Back in 2012 , YouTube never told the creators about their videos being demonetized .Now to be on the same page publishers are being notified to improve transparency.

Read – YouTube “Demonetization” Sparks Creator Backlash

Watch – The Truth Behind YouTube’s Demonetization

14. Google adds a second ad slot in Play Store search results     

What ? : Google opens up a second ad slot on PlayStore for marketer’s to bid . Also Google is no longer going to duplicate app ads above organic listings

Why ? : To stand by their commitment to increase user experience as well as advertiser performance

How does this increase the PlayStore experience ?

Advertisers will no longer end up paying for clicks that were likely coming their way organically anyway. And users won’t have to look at identical listings.

Takeaway : Google , since releasing ads on PlayStore in July 2015 has always tested ads for making their user experience positive.

Read – Google is adding a second ad slot in Play Store search results

Watch – Google Play Store gets ads

15. Blockmetry Report : Impact of Ad blocking on global page views

What ? : Worldwide ad blocking page views now stands at 32.4 percent, while analytics blocking is 5.2 percent.

What is the summary of this report ?

1. Mobile traffic sees 3X the blocking rate of the desktop.
2. The highest percentage of ad blocked page views is South Asia.
3. Poland and Norway now are seeing 50 percent of page views subjected to ad blocking
4. Of the mobile segment, 62.9 of those page views were impacted by ad blocking.
5. Opera Desktop is the highest desktop type that has 43.3 pageviews blocking ads.

Takeaway : While Ad blocking is dismissed by some and some have been alarmed in the industry , the growth of Ad blocking have to be acknowledged.

Read – The whole Blockmetry report

Watch – Ad-blocking development to impact marketing

That was all that happened over the week .We will keep you updated with more Flash Bytes .

The post Weekly Marketing News – Sep 2016 appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

Today we bring you the news about the end of free keyword search data in Google keyword Planner –  Along with other marketing news from your favorite sites and blogs.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1. Google Keyword Planner is taking away the free perks

What’s the bad news ? : The days of free monthly keyword search data for everyone using Keyword Planner without running an active campaign are gone, if you want full access to the Keyword Planner from now on you are now going to have to pay for it and should have an active campaign as well

What’s changed ? : Advertisers who fall under the not yet fixed monthly spend , will get a range of data in the keyword planner instead of specific search volume.

The ranges of the search volume appear to be extremely broad and not very helpful . Like –

• 1–100
• 100–1K
• 1K–10K
• 10K–100K
• 100K–1M
• 1M+

Who will see these changes ? : Search volume data in keyword planner will be harder to access for –

1. Low spenders
2. Advertisers or marketers without active campaigns
3. Inactive users – those who don’t have any continuous campaigns over 3-4 months

Takeaway :  We couldn’t help but conclude that Google’s intention is to monetize the keyword planner and find a way to make the keyword data harder to access without marketers shelling out money.

Read – Google’s Keyword Planner is Changing – and Not Necessarily for the Better

2. Google launches cross-device retargeting

What ? :  Advertisers will soon be able to reach out to Google signed-in users across various devices with remarketing campaigns. This feature will be rolling out globally over the next few months.

What’s the change ? :  Google has previously not supported cross-device retargeting. For a site visitor on mobile , retargeting campaigns have been possible on the desktop only if the user visited the same site on the desktop as well. Now it’s an old story. Google has enabled cross-device remarketing enables advertisers you to reach the same user across devices, apps, and sites.

What’s the outcome ? : Since many of online conversions involve more than one device , and also amplifies the marketers’ ability to reconnect with past site visitors.

Takeaway :  With this change, marketers can focus on how to sell the same story across all the devices and manage the ad frequency.

Read –  Google (finally) launches cross-device retargeting

3. Snapchat is now “Snap Inc.“

What’s new ? : Snapchat’s re-branded as Snap.inc, reflective of their broadening product scope. Snap Inc. describes itself as a camera company, not a social networking app.

Why ? : Snapchat has launched its long-awaited smart glasses product – ‘Spectacles’. Spectacles enable the wearer to capture their perspective without having to take out their phone and film the moment. These glasses capture footage using a 115-degree angle lens, which resembles the human eye’s field of vision.

What can be expected  ? :  Spectacles will be the must-have tech gadget on release, and this move from Snap Inc.  might just be enough to keep users on Snapchat, as opposed to drifting off to Instagram Stories.

Takeaway : It’s a bold move by Snapchat after the imitation stunt pulled out by Instagram. Anyway the response have to be awaited.

Read – Snapchat Launches Spectacles, Re-Brands as “Snap Inc.”

4.  Google Algorithm update : Penguin is now real-time

What  ? : Google announced the last and latest release of Penguin Algorithm.

What’s this algorithm about ? :   Penguin is designed to devalue pages which engage in spammy link building practices for the purposes of ranking higher in search.

What is the change ? : The spammy sites previously used to take months to recover and have to wait till the filter crawled the sites again. With this latest release, Penguin becomes real-time. As Google recrawls and reindexes pages — which happens constantly — those pages will be assessed by the Penguin filter. Pages will be caught and/or freed by Penguin as part of this regular process. Also , Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.

Takeaway :  Penguin is part of the core search algorithm used in Google’s search. With that being the case, we’ll begin to see Penguin-like updates more frequently.

Read – Google updates Penguin, says it now runs in real time within the core search algorithm

The post Google Keyword Planner – No free Keyword data Anymore !!! appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Deciding which way to advertise, either the full Google AdWords platform or Google AdWords Express, is often a daunting task for small businesses. Even large businesses are faced with advertising challenges but often have years of advertising data to look back on when calling the shots. Once a company agrees to move into the digital space, either for the first time or more aggressively, a host of new questions arises.

One common question we seem to hear over and over is “what’s the difference between Google AdWords and Google AdWords Express, aren’t they the same thing?”. Well, yes, and no. On the surface there are striking similarities between the two but when you start to peel away the layers of anonymity these platforms present to an inexperienced audience, stark contrasts quickly surface.

In an effort to make things simple we will use 2 example companies; Suzy’s Quilts and Frank’s Auto Service. Suzy owns and operates a quilt company that makes quality goods from hand and is coming up on a 1 year anniversary.

Suzy is the owner, sales team, production team, marketing team, customer service team and anything else that comes up team. Frank, on the other hand, has been in business for nearly 20 years and has a growing staff, 3 locations and an existing customer base that is loyal to his reputable service company. Since opening the business, Frank has relied on word-of-mouth, local youth sports team sponsorships and occasional billboards or newspaper ads to give sales a boost.

Now that we know a little bit about our example companies, let’s look at the challenges they face and what they are looking to accomplish with digital advertising.

I. Suzy’s Quilts

A. Suzy’s Quilts Challenges

Low product demand and little time to spare.

B. Suzy’s Google Adwords Express Goal

Invest very little time into occasionally exposing her business to a small audience without taking on too much.

C. Suzy’s Quilts Example

Suzy enjoys making quilts and is happy with the thought that her hobby may be a great way to save up for a new car or that trip to Venice (the real Venice, not that glamor infused concrete deception in Sin City) she has been planning in her head. Each quilt takes a long time to make and she isn’t interested in teaching others a skill it took her years to master. She just wants an easy way to advertise her quilts when there are no orders pending and she thinks Google AdWords Express might be her best option.

Based on her available funds, the time she plans to devote to advertising, and her desire to be almost entirely hands-off in regards to her advertising, Suzy would be an excellent Google AdWords Express advertiser.

With a self-managed Google AdWords Express account Suzy would be able to:

• Easily create an account and write a few simple text ads
• Show her ads to a small audience close to her home so she can keep shipping costs low
• Do some light advertising without having to worry about creating a website

All Suzy needs is a couple of hours to create her account and get a few ads setup. The automated AdWords Express system will take care of the rest and at any time, she can log in and turn off her ads so she isn’t spending more than the $300.00 per month she’s set aside for advertising unless she is very low on orders.

II. Frank’s Auto Service

A. Frank’s Auto Service Challenges

Corporate competition is increasing while the loyal customer base is reducing annually as the community evolves. Though very effective in the past, the younger market seems unreceptive to newspaper ads as their primary news source is “them tweeter things”.

B. Frank’s Google AdWords Goal

Stay relevant in his market and do a better job of letting people know that he offers the same great deals bigger brands are constantly pushing, but his service comes with years of reliable experience and more flexible/competitive pricing.

So which advertising platform, AdWords or Google AdWords Express, is best for each company? In a way both platforms are good options but, depending on the long-term goals of each company, one option may be more suitable than the other.

C. Frank’s Auto Service Example

Frank has different plans. He has been scouting out a new corner location next to the highway exit and has a good bit of money saved up for his company’s next expansion. He has been approached by investors a few times to sell the business but he is very proud of the fact that he has raised his family, and supported his community, for decades while doing what he loves. He’s also been the guest of honor at a few Little League pizza parties which are very well documented in his office at the shop. Always taking an educated approach, Frank understands that in order to grow he will need to invest and as an established business, he sets aside 5-10% of his annual revenue for advertising. Now Frank just needs a proven and effective way to create a steady stream of new customers to take things to the next level. Based on his goals, a Google AdWords account is what Frank needs.

With all of the features available to him as an AdWords advertiser, Frank would be able to:

• Write custom ads for each of the services he offers
• Schedule various campaigns throughout the year based on trends from previous years and promotions his competition is running
• Target very specific audiences and run his ads on websites related to his that he knows car owners visit
• Promote his business with pictures or videos of his shop and special offers for specific services
• Easily and repeatedly test his ads to see what messages his audience responds to
• Maintain complete control over every little detail of his campaigns and create additional campaigns to support his long-term goals and promote additional locations

Essentially, AdWords Express is a simple and time friendly platform ideal for small businesses looking for an occasional boost. The full-feature Google AdWords platform is much more robust and allows a company to control each and every aspect of its advertising strategy while significantly increasing brand recognition, website traffic and of course, revenue.

Author Bio

Michael Venezia

Digital Marketing Director, Cool Nerds Marketing

The post Google AdWords vs. Google AdWords Express appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

Today we bring you news about Google’s Mobile search index move – to split search index and emphasize its mobile-first preference –  Along with other marketing news from your favorite sites and blogs.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1. Google is going to split its search index, focusing on Mobile Search!!

What’s this about ? : Google announced that in the coming months, it is going to split it’s search results’ index into separate versions for mobile search and desktop. Now, mobile search will be prioritized over desktop!

What are the benefits of this split ? : Nowadays, people are often seen on their phones to access their social media profiles or to make a quick Google search.

• Allows Google’s crawlers to index mobile responsive pages more accurately and break news faster.
• More organized indexing, faster content delivery and more accurately than ever before.
• Google will deliver better mobile-optimized content to people searching on smartphones.

Anything to lose ? : The split will see Google’s index broken into a rapidly updated mobile version, and a desktop version which will not be updated as frequently.

Message from Google : Google is sending a strong message to SEO specialists with this news. Google wants them to have their pages mobile optimized which mean that it should be fast and it should be responsive. Having your pages with these requirements will give you a higher ranking with Google.

Takeaway : Furthering its push to improve services for mobile users, Google has decided to start indexing search results for mobile separately from desktop to offer mobile users better and fresher content.

Read – Google splits search index, prioritizing Mobile Search

2. Google releases Click-to-message Ad extensions

What’s it about ? :  Click-to-message is Google’s answer to the rise of chatbots.

Google’s release of this new ad extension accelerates the dramatic consumer shift towards mobile messaging as the preferred way people talk to brands – in the same way, that they use messaging to talk to each other.

What’s in for you ? : 

For marketers : Click-to-message ads are a new and faster way to connect with consumers on mobile to increase conversion rates.

Mobile Users : You have more flexibility than ever to choose how you want to connect with businesses. Through messaging, you can initiate valuable conversations with them by tapping into one of their preferred modes of communication.

What are the benefits with Click-to-message Ads ? :

• Click-to-message could help brands increase mobile conversions and drive ROI by making it easier to communicate with qualified leads.
• Tapping on the texting option launches a user’s SMS app with a pre-written message tailored to the product or service they’re interested in.

Takeaway : Google is pushing mobile messaging as an extra channel through which customers can converse with companies. This might be Google’s effort to stay ahead of Facebook’s Messenger app which is also developing into a customer service platform.

Read – Google Adwords Click-to-text message extension is coming out!

3. Pinterest Adds New Retargeting Options

What ? :  Pinterest entered the world of retargeting this year with the launch of visitor retargeting in June. Then Pinterest rolled out Engagement Retargeting giving advertisers even more new retargeting options.

What’s new ? :  In addition to targeting Promoted Pins based on Pinners’ interests, search keywords, device, location and more, you can now also target Promoted Pins using your own business data.

• Customer list targeting: Target existing customers using emails or mobile ad IDs
• Visitor retargeting: Reach people who’ve visited your site
• Lookalike targeting: Reach a larger group of people who look and act similar to your audience

Takeaway : Pinterest is working hard to evolve their business model and develop the platform into a key hub for eCommerce.

Read –  Pinterest rolls out three new retargeting options

That’s all for today. Happy Marketing !!!

The post Google : Mobile Search more over Desktop appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

Know about the how re-ranking of Facebook News Feed is done. Today we bring you – Updates on how Facebook now ranks News Feed on client side – Along with other marketing news from your favorite sites and blogs.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1. Facebook re-ranks News Feed stories on the client side.

What’s this about ? : Facebook has now changed how News Feed stories get ranked. Now, Facebook is able to rank stories on the client side, after they’ve been sent from the server – i.e., as they appear on your device.

What is the change ? : Facebook has decided to re-rank News Feed stories from the client side.

• Previously, when a user visits Facebook, the ranking for all possible News Feed stories was calculated on Facebook’s servers and sent to the user in the exact order that Facebook’s algorithm decided was best.
• With this type of ranking, the speed or strength of a user’s Internet connection wasn’t noted and hence Fb’s decision to re-rank the News Feed.

What’s in for Marketers ? : For marketers, speed is more important than ever and this update enables them to surface stories that have been optimized for their connection at the time of your session.

For example, slow-loading content gets temporarily down-ranked while it loads because, before Fb shows a story in your News Feed, it checks whether the media in the story — the image, the video, the link preview, etc. — has been loaded on your device. If it hasn’t, it re-ranks the stories on the client and prioritize those that have fully-loaded media.

Takeaway : This is a clear move to indicate Facebook’s efforts to make News Feed more accessible to all users regardless of the speed or reliability of their internet connections.

Read – Facebook re-ranks News Feed

2. Bing Ads updates its User Interface

What’s new ? : Bing Ads rolls out a new, more comprehensive campaign setup process that PPC Marketers need to know.

What are the updates ? : A major redesign of the Bing Ads user interface is changing the way advertisers create new campaigns on the platform. The following changes have been made :

• Campaign Goals : While creating a campaign, you are asked to pick a marketing goal to let Bing Ads recommend some features and defaults. Now, no matter what goals you pick, however, Bing Ads will give you access to every Bing Ads feature.

• Keyword Suggestions : Bing Ads is also changing the way it shows keyword suggestions. If you enter your website’s URL, Bing will crawl your website and give you ad group and keyword suggestions. You will also see keywords grouped into ad groups automatically, based on relevance.

• Ad Extension Library : When you’re setting up your campaigns, Bing Ads will now highlight ad extensions from its library that match your marketing goals.

• Multiple Ads : You’re no longer limited to creating one ad for your entire campaign. Bing Ads announced that you can now set up multiple ads and easily manage them all in the Ads & Ad Extensions section.

• Performance Estimates : With this you can set a campaign budget at ad group bids. Bing Ads shows performance estimates for the ad groups based on the bids and campaign settings. Bing Ads will show a yellow “warning” icon next to any ad group bids that it thinks will result in low performance.

Takeaway : With this updated Bing Ads User Interface, it’s changing the way advertisers create new campaigns on the platform and welcoming new users to it.

Read – Bing Ads User Interface now with many updates

3. Google Adwords launches Affiliate Location Extension

What’s it about ? : Google has announced on Google+ that its launching affiliate location extensions for Adwords in the US.

How are these helpful ? :

• These extensions aim at helping manufacturers drive customers to third-party retail locations that sell their products.
• If you sell your products through retail chains, affiliate location extensions can help you reach consumers when they are deciding what and where to buy.
• By promoting retail locations in your search ads, you can make them more actionable and give consumers relevant local information to drive store visits and sales.

Takeaway : It is interesting to see how Google is taking another step towards delivering wider targeted location based ads which is a good thing for marketers.

Read – Google Adwords now adds Affiliate Location Extension

That’s all for today. Happy Marketing !!!

The post Facebook now revamps News Feed algorithm!! appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Audits are absolutely essential for AdWords accounts.

Performing a comprehensive audit provides invaluable insight that can uncover hidden opportunities and boost the performance of your campaigns. Your campaigns could already be generating sales. But it is still strongly recommended to conduct audits every six months at the minimum.

Here we look at how to conduct a complete audit for your AdWords account.

I. Review Targeting Settings

What makes AdWords such an effective platform is the level of control that advertisers have. If your services are only available within a certain region, you can adjust the geotargeting of your ads accordingly. Likewise, if you sell to a global audience you could expand your reach by targeting more countries.

But even one small mistake could severely impact your campaigns.

Login to your AdWords account, then go into one of your campaigns and click the Settings tab.

Here are key items to check:

A. Type

Type determines where your ads are displayed and the settings available. For example, you could choose to have your ads display on only the Search Network. Additional options including creating call-only ads.

B. Network

Selecting the option to include search partners lets you display ads on the Google Search Network including Search, Play, Shopping, and Maps. Showing your ads to the entire network lets you target even more customers.

C. Devices

By default your ads will display on desktop and mobile devices. Clicking on ‘Change devices bid adjustment’ lets you adjust the bids of your mobile ads and rank in a higher position. Before adjusting this option, be sure that your site is optimised for mobile devices.

D. Locations

If your customers are primarily local, it doesn’t make sense to display ads on the other side of the country. Under Locations, click on the Edit link to select a location to target. You can narrow your results even further with radius targeting.

Review targeting settings for each campaign to ensure everything is in order.

II. Evaluate Ad Group Relevancy

A common pitfall is to add as many keywords as possible to an ad group.

Google assigns a Quality Score to your campaigns which is a rating of the quality and relevance. The score affects how much you pay and even your ad positions. So ad groups should only contain about 15 to 20 keywords to keep them highly targeted.

Why does this matter?

Because each keyword in an ad group triggers the same ad.

If the product or services you sell have distinguishing features, you should put them in their own group. Review your ad groups and keep all related keywords together. That way you can create focused ad copy that reflects what the searcher is looking for.

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III. Review Keyword Match Type Settings

Keyword match type lets you better control how your ads are triggered.

Here is an overview of the different options:

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Each keyword match type serves a different purpose.

But a common mistake is running on ads on the same match type. So your ads could be triggered by search queries with completely different intentions. This not only results in poor click through rates, it also leads to lower Quality Scores. Similarly, selecting only exact match type for your keywords can limit your reach.

Review the match type settings for your keywords and select the appropriate setting. You can also browse through the Search Terms Report to see which keyword variations are triggering your ads.

IV. Assess Negative Keywords List

Every search query has different intentions.

And some will only waste your ad spending.

Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing for untargeted keywords. Adding them to your lists keeps your campaigns more targeted and reduces costs. If your store only sells pet products, you wouldn’t want your ads to display for queries such as “pet groomers”.

You can add or view negative keywords on the main campaign page by clicking on the Keywords tab and Negative keywords.

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Note that you can add negative keywords to the ad group and campaign level.

Review your negative keywords list to see that they are still appropriate. If your business has added any new products or services, you wouldn’t want to be accidentally blocking any views. Alternatively, you can also browse through the Search Terms Report to see what keywords are triggering your ads and add any irrelevant queries to your negative keyword list.

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V. Check Your Conversion Tracking Code

Tracking conversions is absolutely crucial so you can accurately measure campaign performance. If a campaign is doing poorly in terms of conversions, you could pause or stop it altogether. And if a campaign has a high conversion rate, you could allocate more funds to it.

Check that you are properly tracking conversions. In your AdWords account, click on the Tools link located at the top. Then click on Conversions from the dropdown list and click on the red +Conversion button.

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Select the appropriate option and walk through the steps. Remember to add the conversion tracking code to your site, typically a Thank You. Double check that everything is setup properly and be sure to monitor your conversions. You could even go through the process yourself by making a purchase on your site and checking that the conversion was tracked properly.

Conducting a comprehensive audit of your AdWords account is incredibly beneficial and should be done at least once every six months. Remember to note down any changes you make so you can easily measure the performance of your campaign.

Author Bio

Oliver Wood

Digital Consultant , DigitalMonopoly

Oliver Wood is the founder of the largest SEO, Google AdWords and Web Design and Development company in Western Australia.

The post How To Conduct A Complete AdWords Audit appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

When it comes to marketing online, finding your ideal customer is the ultimate goal. Marketing 101 tells you that the first step is to define your target market. In a successful online campaign, this needs to be taken further – what is your ideal prospects background, dislikes, political alignment, financial situation, view of themselves? Paint your online campaign target with a broad brush, and you will see nothing but low relevancy traffic and time-wasters.

Once you have defined the target audience, you can determine the best platform with which to connect them with your product/service.

I. Adwords

Google AdWords – what may now be considered a “traditional” means of online advertising, is excellent for B2C businesses. The search network in particular is the most effective online marketing tool for local service providers. “Plumbers in South Sydney”, “Drycleaners in Venice Beach”, “Lawyers in Central London” – Businesses that are based in or service a particular location get the most out of Google AdWords.

According to statistics from Wordstream, consumer services (B2C) boast one of the highest conversion rates on Google AdWords of 5%, second only to insurance services (7%).

Best for: Local Service Businesses

Not so Good: Advocacy & Charity Organizations

II. Facebook

Facebook is a community based platform. People on Facebook are not actively searching for goods or services – they are unwilling consumers of advertising material.

Because they are not actively searching, Facebook Ads must entice the consumer to make an impulse purchase. This is why Facebook advertising is ideal for e-commerce businesses.

Treat your Facebook consumer as you would a shopper in a mall – entice them into your store with visually pleasing material. Facebooks Ad success relies heavily on visual elements, so stylish, professional photography is recommended.

Another area where Facebook marketing is effective is among charity and advocacy groups. When targeted effectively to align with the users values, successful campaigns elicit a strong emotional response and motivate people take action. Overlaying statistics with emotive imagery is particularly engaging.

People do not turn to Facebook to find a particular service they are in need of, therefore local trade businesses – builders, plumbers, electricians – do not do well out of a Facebook campaign.

Best for: E-commerce Businesses, Charities

Not so Good: Local Service Businesses

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III. LinkedIn

Originally a marketplace for jobseekers and recruiters, LinkedIn has expanded into a thriving social network. However, people use LinkedIn for a different purpose – networking and sharing business ideas. LinkedIn Ads are for B2B marketing.

LinkedIn is best suited for professional’s services such as, marketing agencies, recruitment, law firms and consultancy groups. The difficulty with marketing on LinkedIn is that you must offer something of real interest and value such as thoughtful long form article and case studies.  This means that achieving a successful LinkedIn campaign is often more time consuming than other platforms.

A LinkedIn campaign cannot be a hard sell either. It must be implicit and aim to create the impression that your business is a thought leader in your industry. LinkedIn campaigns are more difficult to measure than other online campaigns as they are more of a branding exercise.

Best for: Agencies & Consultants (B2B)

Not so Good: B2C Businesses

Ultimately each advertising platform is unique in its own way and can be a great addition to your marketing strategy. What you use, however, will depend on your goals and target market. We had a great success with all platforms and can help you with the Google AdWords Management, Facebook Advertising and LinkedIn Ads. Pixi will work with you to define the goals, your target market and select the platform(-s) that will deliver the best return on investment for your business.

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aAuthor Bio

    Ivan Galtsov

       Head of Search , Pixi

                      Ivan Galtsov is the Head of Search of Pixi, which offers one total solution for all your Website Management, SEO and Social Media needs.

The post A checklist to help you choose the right PPC Channel appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Stay informed in 60 words !!

Audience Targeting at Campaign Level.Know about this big time saver feature in Google AdWords. Today we bring you -the new feature rolling out for Google AdWords –  Along with other marketing news about every platform from your favorite sites and blogs.

Read the full articles for shorts that interest you.

1. AdWords : Campaign level audience targeting now possible!

What’s new ? : Starting from Thursday , all advertisers on Google AdWords now have access to Audience Targeting at the campaign level.

What’s changing ? : Previously , Audience Targeting is done by adding audience lists that are generated through remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) and Customer Match  for  each Ad group. The bid adjustment also has to be done at the same level. Now , this new feature will be a big time saver considering that one can now adjust the bids and measure them easily at a campaign level.

What’s in it for me ? : Now you can –

1. use campaign-level search audiences to save time and make better optimizations instead of changing them for each ad group
2. apply your bid adjustments in bulk, which can result in smarter spending and increased ROAS from the search campaigns

Takeaway :  Google AdWords is becoming more flexible than ever by making it easier for the advertisers to engage better with the customers.

Read – Save time by applying audience lists at the campaign level

2. Facebook : Yet another measurement problem

What did I miss ? :  In case you missed it early in September , Facebook admitted having overestimated the average view time on its Video ads for almost two years. But as Facebook’s minimum threshold time for a view is three seconds , the overall numbers reported to brands didn’t get affected much.

What’s new ? :  Facebook in its recent blog post on Friday said that

1. they have identified a discrepancy between the counts for the Like and Share Buttons metrics and what the mobile search query counts.
2. misallocation of extra reactions – it has been reporting one reaction per unique user on Live videos on its Page Insights page.

The advertising platform is going to notify the partners as soon as they resolve this issue.

What’s the effect ? : Though these recent errors (being the third time) are nowhere near as impactful for advertisers , they are certainly a growing concern for the advertising community over  Facebook’s measurement issues and ad effectiveness.

Takeaway : Being one of the largest digital advertising giants , Facebook has to do better in gaining the trust of the advertisers rather than giving them a reason to move to third party audits in the admeasurements.

Read – Facebook reports new issues with ad-counting tools

Watch – Facebook’s False Video Metrics: Is It a Big Deal?

3. Google SERP UI : Re-ordering of Results

What’s new ? :  Google has altered its SERP UI reordering the results that will highlight  entries from Google News listings and Twitter.

What’s the new order ? : The new SERP UI will be displayed in the following order –

1. A slot for paid ads (which may or may not be occupied)
2. Organic with site links, often with search box included
3. A “top stories” box. Clicking on “more for (search term)” yields additional news stories
4. Twitter feed. The three newest posts are displayed; a small rightward-facing arrow, if clicked, yields additional Twitter posts
5. Map entries organized in proximity to user’s known geolocation
6. Additional organic entries
7. Searches related to (term used)

Anything else ? : There will also be a right-rail sidebar area that embeds the information sourced from the Knowledge Vault, plus links to official social profile areas on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Along with  a “People also search for” slot and sometimes reviews resourced by Google.

What do I do ? : 

• Now that Twitter feed is more visible than ever on Google SERP , the marketer must always ensure that his/her Twitter feed is up to date.
• Add value to your PR and stay ahead in SERP rankings with fresh content and new stories published in established media outlets.
• Increase the periodicity of publishing data so that you don’t appear to be  less than fully proactive.

Takeaway : This new SERP layout  will increasingly condition searchers to expect fresh, updated information to flow from brand marketers . Marketers must impress them by displaying their ability to keep current and ahead with brand-new content.

Read –  Google Tweaks Desktop SERP, Boosting Visibility of Twitter and News Listings

4. Twitter – Silent death of Lead Generation Campaigns

What’s this about ? :  In a recent and significant move , Twitter has announced the removal of lead generation campaigns and cards as an advertising option.

Why ? : While Lead Gen ads are not clearly delivering the results , Twitter has enabled many brands  to expand its email list via tweets. In an attempt to re-align its products and offerings , Twitter has pulled this move.

What now ? :  As announced the Deprecation will happen in two phases – it’ll no longer be possible to create lead generation ads as of February, and no longer possible to view them from March.

Takeaway : Twitter’s new move will make businesses move to Facebook , LinkedIn where the running lead generation campaigns are more restrictive in purposes but popular enough.

Read – Twitter is Quietly Removing Lead Generation Campaigns

5. Facebook copies Snapchat once again –  Profile Frames and New Video tab

What’s this about ? : Facebook is unveiling a new tool that will allow anyone, including Facebook Page owners, to create custom profile frames for users’ photos. While this is similar to SnapChat’s geofilters – this new Facebook feature is called -“Profile Frames“.

What’s new  ? :

The new profile frames will be available for free in two categories:

1. Location – Fames which represent places like cities, neighborhoods, and landmarks
2. General – Frames for causes, events, teams “or just for fun”

What about the Video Tab ? :  Facebook had moved on to a wider rollout of a dedicated Facebook video section with the icons along the top of the screen, which link to video content created by publishers you follow, looking very much like Snapchat’s old stories screen layout. This video tab is still coming and is being rolled out to more users in the US right now.

Takeaway :  Facebook clearly feels that Snapchat has successfully tapped into the user experience that people are after, and they’re looking to replicate it wherever they can. These are the latest of Facebook’s efforts to win back users from Snap.

Read –   New Video Tab is Rolling Out to More Users – with Snapchat-Like Interface 

aaaaaaaFacebook’s new tool lets anyone create custom profile frames

6. Emoji at Google on Twitter and #KnowNearby

What’s new  ? : Google can now understand the language of Emoji – at least on Twitter for now. When you tweet an emoji at the official @Google account – it will return a link to a set of relevant local search results appended by #KnowNearby hashtag at the end of each response. And If you tweet an emoji to Google that it doesn’t understand, it will respond suggesting you should try another search.Emoji it understands range from food, to products, to events, and more.

So what ? :  Though it’s actually faster to open the browser and/or Google app on your phone and enter in the search manually , this way of search is appealing when you are in the Twitter app and looking for some cool alternatives.

Takeaway :  This new feature of searching with Emoji seems to be a part of Google’s efforts to promote local search results. Also this emoji language is a new addition to the 200 languages Google understands.

Read –   Google’s experimental new feature lets you search with emojis via Twitter

That’s all for today. Happy Marketing !!!

The post AdWords : Audience Targeting at Campaign Level appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

“What do you believe to be the most important task you do on a daily basis? Why?”

Going on Facebook. Seriously. This is a key part of my job, and how I keep up to date with a lot of new content and current conversations.

“We don’t have a choice on whether we Do social media, the question is how well we DO it.”

An Interactive Media & Engagement Strategist works with marketing and communication teams that use new technologies to develop digital strategies for clients’ brands. They oversee the development of compelling digital campaigns that support and redefine branding initiatives.

Each social media network defines engagement a little bit differently based on the features and functionality of their platform. It’s important to understand how they measure engagement for you to measure the impact your social media marketing is having on your business.

Our interview today is with Media and Engagement Strategist – Meet Ellie Sheldon-Moore

Ellie started out working client-side, but decided that she wanted to be part of the process much earlier on, agency-side. When initially applying for placements, her Psychology degree pushed towards strategy rather than Account Management and this is where she started.

After about 6 months, she moved on to be an Account Executive at Don’t Panic London, followed by an Account Manager and now Media & Engagement Strategist.

Sharing some of her Media Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Ellie Sheldon-Moore in our Agency expert interview series:

1. We would like to know a bit about your career background, and how and when you got into Digital Marketing?

I started out working client-side, but decided I wanted to be part of the process much earlier on, agency-side. When initially applying for placements, my Psychology degree pushed me towards strategy rather than Account Management and this is where I started. After about 6 months, I moved on to be an Account Executive at Don’t Panic London, followed by an Account Manager and now Media & Engagement Strategist. My current role is a step between the two in terms of team, one foot in accounts and one foot in creative, with a strategic outlook!

2. In constantly-changing fields such as social media, how do you regularly learn, update & improve your skillset?

It’s as simple as trial and error really. I keep up with all the latest updates in functionality across different platforms, and the blogs each social media site write themselves on how to improve usage. But ultimately I need to just keep trying new techniques across each to know what works best for different clients and content – not one approach fits all unfortunately! It’s also important to keep learning throughout campaigns as well – watch how things are performing on each channel, and what kind of people and sites are talking about it – adapt your strategy as you’re going along. It’s important to keep your plan fluid if the platforms you’re using are equally fluid in nature.

3. What do you believe to be the most important task you do on a daily basis? Why?

Going on Facebook. Seriously. This is a key part of my job, and how I keep up to date with a lot of new content and current conversations. There’s a lot of talk at the moment about social media being an echo chamber which, a lot of the time, is true. But it’s also the prime place to find differing opinions to your own if you really go looking. To see how people are talking about things in an organic way, to people they know and trust, is the best way to gain genuine marketing insights from the mouth of the consumer.

4. From a client relationship perspective, how do you keep things fresh?

We send clients updates and inspiration in the form of best creative of the month or an insight into the digital landscape. On the one hand we want to reassure them we are ‘ahead of the curve’ or at least in time with it, but on the other hand it’s important to keep up the offering even when a campaign isn’t live.

5. What is the one thing that sets you apart most from the competition?

I’d say the most obvious point of difference is my title. I have quite a unique role that’s reflective of the unique agency I work in. I guess I’m a floater…for want of a better word…in the sense that I contribute at several stages of the process. Whilst most campaigns are seen by a ‘strategist’ only at the beginning stages, and a ‘media strategist’ in the latter – I need to make sure I’m close to it throughout. It’s important both of these things are consistent and built into the creative from the start. The marketing strategy needs to develop along with every aspect of the campaign, from social executions to asset development to rollout plan, to capitalize on the potential for engagement with the target audience at every level.

Today we got to know a few Media Strategies to boost up your Media Engagement relationships from the expert – Ellie Sheldon-Moore. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.

Until then, Happy Marketing!!

The post Being a Media & Engagement Strategist : An Expert’s Approach appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

“ What do you see as the most crucial components of a successful social media strategy?“

Daily checkups on your ads and whatever you’re selling. Be sure to check the progress of your ads every single day. Nothing can tell you more about your audience than your audience itself.

“Social media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide you.”

We all know how important word of mouth is, and social networking is like word of mouth on steroids. Of course being a specialist in constantly – changing fields like Social Media and working with multiple brands in the social media marketing space is challenging.

Most businesses see social media as a way to directly drive traffic to their website and force people to buy their products. Social media managers know that this is wrong. They understand that real people use social media. Hence, they run marketing strategies that are focused at building relationships with these people. They turn the spotlight on the ‘social’ in social media by creating & sharing content and asking & answering questions. This helps build a royal fan base.

Our interview today is with a Social Media Coordinator – Meet Matthew McMaster

Matthew wanted to be in the music industry since he was in 5th grade. Originally, he wanted to perform and he was actually going to attend the Berklee College of Music, but he  decided to go to Temple instead. When he realized that he wasn’t going to be a ‘rock star,’ he chose to pursue the industry from the business side of things.

At the time, social media marketing was in its early stages, so he changed his major to Mass Media Communications & Production. He started with a remote marketing internship with this little social media management company in L.A. that worked with a few different artists. From there, he began managing artists and providing them with insights on how to expand their social footprint. He started working with bigger artists, and from there he moved onto venues, festivals, & brands.

Sharing some of his Social Media Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Matthew McMaster, Social Media Coordinator at Deathwaltz Media Group in our Agency expert interview series:

1.What elements can create an excellent social media experience that will help convert prospects?

Every industry has it’s own set of rules when it comes to social media guidelines, but development and discovery of good content should be the #1 priority of any social media manager.

Basically, good content leads to higher organic engagement. Organic engagement increases your reach. Whether it be a news article about an artist, a video promoting the tour, or even a good photo, it all leads to an expanded online presence. If you catch the attention of your audience with the media in your post, then you can deliver the facts in the written portion. If you stick to that, your posts won’t seem overly promotional.

2.Which social network has proven to be the most effective advertising channel for you?

Facebook is the cheapest way to advertise, but everyone advertises on Facebook, so it leads to steep competition on the news feed. The algorithms are always changing, but currently, I’ve found that boosting a post for engagement to run on Facebook + Instagram simultaneously is a very cheap and effective way to cover your bases.

For CPC ads, I stick to Facebook for the most part. People don’t seem as hesitant to click the link on Facebook. On Instagram and Twitter, I’ve found that engagements are dirt cheap, but link clicks can quickly drain your budget.

3.What are some of the common mistakes made in running a social media campaign?

There are a lot of mistakes that can be made in a social media campaign. Each post has multiple aspects that can be easily overlooked, and when you have thousands of people viewing your work, your audience is quick to call you out publicly.

1. Targeting. If your ad targeting is off, your CPC or CPM will skyrocket. Any clicks you get will be strictly based on luck. Always research your audience, and have a target audience in mind. Also, make sure that you aren’t advertising nationally. What good is it to have someone in California clicking on your ads if you’re on the east coast? Even worldwide brands advertise on a local level to keep things relevant to the immediate audience.
2. Grammar and Spelling. Always triple-check your copy before clicking ‘Publish.’ It happens to the best of us, but I recommend revisiting any post or ad 5-10 minutes after publishing to let your eyes reset, and to see if your fans are reacting to it.
3. Links. Make sure you’re using the correct link. In the concert industry, you’re constantly using anywhere from 20-50 different base links, and when you’re using ‘came from codes’ you have 2-3 times the amount of links you started with.
4. Post Length. All social media algorithms favor shorter posts. If you can get them message across in one word or just by using a single hashtag, you’ve got a great post on your hands. Keep your posts scannable so your audience can quickly get the info.

4.What is the most important piece of advice you would give to your clients?

Keep it short and sweet, and don’t post too often. You will kill your reach. I try to keep it to no more than 3-4 posts a day. Basically, when you post something new, you’re telling whatever platform you’re using that your last post is ‘old news.’

5.How do you recommend continuously crafting engaging content for Social Media?

Change it up. Post a nice mix of links, native videos, photos, & live streaming.

I’ve found that up to date news articles perform extremely well on Facebook. After all, Facebook pretty much wants to be considered a news source. They wouldn’t have pushed ‘Instant Articles’ so heavily this past year if they didn’t want to become a heavy-hitting news source.

Don’t be afraid to post edgy content. Controversy has always been a huge source of free promotion (i.e. Marilyn Manson, Eminem, etc.). Andrew Oldham (The Rolling Stones manager) put it best: ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity.’ While it’s not entirely true, when it works, it works very well.

6.What do you see as the most crucial components of a successful social media strategy?

Daily checkups on your ads and whatever you’re selling. Be sure to check the progress of your ads every single day. Think of your ad insights as a case study from Harvard. Nothing can tell you more about your audience than your audience itself. I make it a habit to do a daily news search of each upcoming show I’m working on to make sure that I’m not missing anything they’re doing.

Also, don’t boost your posts immediately. Let Facebook & Twitter do the work for you. Once you boost, say goodbye to your organic engagement.

7.What’s one thing you do to invest in your personal brand and business on a regular basis?

Update LinkedIn as often as possible and post about your work online. If I’m excited about a show I’m working on, I’m never afraid to announce it to my followers. Don’t be afraid to express gratitude, interest, & excitement about what you do for a living online. It looks good to clients and potential employers.

8.What’s the best thing about being a social media coordinator, and what are the most frustrating things?

The best thing is announcing new shows and informing people about who’s coming to town. I love the feeling of announcing a new show and seeing how many people are excited to find out. Selling the experience of live music is a blast. Most people love concerts. Another thing is that social media marketing is a really interesting mix of marketing and psychology. Both are very intriguing topics.
The most frustrating thing is trying to make sure that each show or product is getting an equal amount of promotion. When you’re promoting 50+ shows simultaneously, you have to prioritize the shows that aren’t selling well, but you can’t forget about the other 49. Even when a show is sold out, my job isn’t over. Making sure that people know your show is almost as important to your brand as it is to selling tickets to another show.

Today we got to know a few Social Media Strategies to boost up your client relationships from the expert – Matthew McMaster. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.

Until then, Happy Marketing!!

The post Being a Social Media Coordinator : An Expert’s Approach appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

” What is the one thing that sets you apart most from the competition?”

I pride myself on coming into each day with a positive, optimistic attitude about the day. A positive attitude reflects confidence in your work, which is reassuring to clients who often don’t fully get PR.

“Today it’s not about ‘get the traffic’ — it’s about ‘get the targeted and relevant traffic.”

The mission of an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Strategist is to maximize the volume of inbound organic traffic from search engines to a website. This is accomplished through a combination of on-page and off-page techniques, including link-building, social media strategy, viral marketing, metadata sculpting, site speed optimization, content strategy, information architecture, and more.

Effective SEO will require knowledge, understanding and interaction with different areas of a business (technical, marketing, management reporting etc) an SEO strategist will require a bigger picture understanding of business strategy and objectives.

Our interview today is with a SEO Strategist – Meet Tyler Weber

Tyler is a SEO Professional in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. He specializes in digital marketing strategy development and inbound marketing. Google Analytics Certified and he has a background in public relations and non-profit. He takes ownership of what he says he will do. He is committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty. He has certain core values that are unchanging.

Out of these values emerges a defined purpose for what he does. He is intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. He has a gift for figuring out how people who are different can work together productively. He can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. He tends to be a “now” person who takes things as they come while discovering the future one day at a time.

Tyler came to Snap with a background in digital marketing and sales, and now works along side clients to create and execute custom SEO strategies focused on achieving and exceeding goals. Born and raised in the Twin Cities and Google Analytics Certified since 2014, Tyler graduated from Bethel University with a BA in Organizational Communications.

Sharing some of his SEO Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Tyler Weber in our Agency expert interview series:

1. We would like to know a bit about your career background, and how and when you got into SEO and Digital Marketing?

I started at a very small agency in 2013 as the head of marketing, so I was involved with creating content, social media, paid management, client relations and more. I loved digital marketing, but I wasn’t in a good spot, so I tried sales for a while before getting back into agency work at Snap.

2. What do you believe to be the most important task you do on a daily basis? Why?

Telling a story is crucial. Clients have a difficult time fully understanding SEO. They think things are more simple than they really are, but I’ve found that when I’m explaining the complexities of SEO, I can start explaining the minutiae details and confuse the client. Taking the data and translating it into a story that you can tell a client that is leading them to accomplishing their business goals has been crucial to making clients happy and seeing success. Also, making sure to focus on the goals and the data that supports those goals, while being willing to leave out data isn’t directly related to goals helps to tell the story.

3. What resources or influencers do you follow for staying ahead in the world of SEO?

I’ve liked watching Whiteboard Friday’s by Moz. They’re well produced and fun to watch. Backlinko is awesome because backlinks can be complex, and so knowing that Brian Dean is focused on providing info on links is really helpful. Following the right people on Twitter is a good way to keep up as well!

4. How do you survive with Google’s Love-Hate relation with Backlinks?

Staying in the know is crucial. I know that I’m not going to directly influence how Google weights the importance of backlinks, but knowing what backlink efforts have been tested to work, and anticipating the trend and direction keeps link acquisition fun and interesting.

5. What are your favourite SEO tools, and why?

Ahrefs is a tool that I frequently use in order to supplement data found in analytics. It helps to fill in the gaps and answer why things like traffic, conversions changed. I utilize Megalytic for reporting and it is a good tool to create pretty pictures.

6. How do you think SEO will evolve in the coming years?

The way that people search is evolving. There are a lot more voice searches. Search engines are gathering data that allow them to anticipate the search being conducted. And companies are investing into SEO making search results more competitive.

I think keywords will continue to become less important, and algorithms will be capable of understanding search intent, which means that quality information will continue to be more important than keyword targeting.

7. What’s your favorite method to build links to your site?

We do a significant amount of guest posting, so identifying authoritative websites within the right industry, then working through the process of setting up an opportunity to publish a quality article can take some time, but we are constantly learning and refining the process and approach.

8. Share with us your biggest SEO achievement and how you did it. For what competitive keywords have you ranked high and what techniques you used?

My favorite was seeing a client that manufactures roller skates go from position 40 to position 5 for ‘roller skates’ within 30 days. This started with improving site content, technical aspects of the site, and then we were able to get a backlink to the site, which is what catapulted the client 35 positions onto page one.

9. What is the best SEO tip you give for your clients and our audience?

Pursue whatever it takes to understand the value of SEO. If you plan on being in business in 2-5 years and you’re not investing in optimizing your website for organic search, you’re doing it wrong. SEO is the “long play” when it comes to digital marketing, but the benefits, when done correctly, are lasting.

Today we got to know a few SEO strategies to boost up your business from the expert – Tyler Weber. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.

Until then, Happy Marketing!!

The post Key Traits of SEO Strategist : An Expert’s Approach appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

“How do you think SEO will evolve in the coming years?“

Quality, accuracy and relevancy are gaining more importance each year that passes. I don’t think the fundamentals of SEO are going to change drastically over the next 5 years, but rather the Internet and how we use and access it will continue to evolve.

“It’s not that ‘content is king,’ but content certainly is the Hand of the King.”

The mission of an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Manager is to maximize the volume of inbound organic traffic from search engines to a website. This is accomplished through a combination of on-page and off-page techniques, including link-building, social media strategy, viral marketing, metadata sculpting, site speed optimization, content strategy, information architecture, and more.

Effective SEO will require knowledge, understanding and interaction with different areas of a business (technical, marketing, management reporting etc) an SEO strategist will require a bigger picture understanding of business strategy and objectives.

Our interview today is with a SEO Manager – Meet Elijah-Blue Vieau

Elijah has helped companies both local and international achieve their content-driven marketing goals. According to him, successful digital marketing is all about attention and interaction. He believes that every great campaign starts with an idea, and turning that idea into a memorable online experience is what gets him out of bed every morning.

Over the last 9 years he has worked as a marketing manager in an agency setting, at home, and abroad. His experience is diverse ranging from organic SEO and paid search management to long form copywriting and info product creation. His specialties include local SEO, lead generation, and WordPress development.

Sharing some of his SEO Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Elijah in our Agency expert interview series:

1. We would like to know a bit about your career background, and how and when you got into SEO and Digital Marketing?

My career has been interesting to say the least. I’ve loved the web since my first experience with online chat rooms in the mid 90s. Fast forward to 2005, I was quite active on MySpace as a producer and musician – at the highest point I had around 13k fans. It was through MySpace that I learned the basics of HTML in an effort to hack my profile and inject custom banner images I designed to increase engagement.

I consider this to be the starting point of my love affair with digital marketing. From there I discovered affiliate marketing and WordPress through a colleague, Jay Piecha, who taught me to build niche-focused websites, rank them quickly, and sell for a profit on platforms like SitePoint (now Flippa). I was also blogging about my experiences and gained quite an audience in the process.

So after building and selling a few hundred niche sites, it became obvious that I had a talent for driving traffic and action via search. I started offering my services as an SEO consultant to local businesses – and the rest is history

2. What do you believe to be the most important task you do on a daily basis? Why?

It may sound a little strange, but the most important thing I do on any given day is communicate. Whether it’s communicating in an email to a client, communicating to my team, or communicating to our VP or CEO, without effective communication a project can go south very quickly.

As an SEO Manager, people rely on me to communicate my thoughts, ideas, and opinions. How I communicate can directly impact the performance of a client’s website. Poor communication often leads to poor results.

3. What resources or influencers do you follow for staying ahead in the world of SEO?

The Director of Search at TechWyse, Steve Toth, is really big into Brian Dean from Backlinko, so I’ve been getting into him over the last year or so – his content is fantastic. To be honest though, I don’t follow too many people in the “SEO” space per say. I’m more into great thinkers and great writers: Gary Vaynerchuk, Yaro Starak, Scott Stratten, Brian Clark… I love the way these people think and write. I rely on Google (and my colleagues) to keep me up to date with SEO.

4.What do you think is your greatest career accomplishment?

I have this one client that is a custom menswear boutique here in Toronto – and I have been with them since before they had a business name, before they had a website, when it was nothing more than an idea.. They were one of my first consulting clients. Over the last 5 years they have grown exponentially and have become one of top custom suit shops in Toronto, which is a very competitive city.

Now they’re suiting up players in the NHL, NBA, among other celebrities. To know that I played an instrumental role in their success has to be my greatest accomplishment. Even though I’ve helped many businesses go from zero to hero since then, this particular client will always be my first for SEO success.

5. How do you think SEO will evolve in the coming years?

Quality, accuracy and relevancy are gaining more importance each year that passes. Google’s algorithms are getting smarter. Users are getting better at searching. Devices are getting faster. I don’t think the fundamentals of SEO are going to change drastically over the next 5 years, but rather the Internet and how we use and access it will continue to evolve.

6. What’s your favorite method to build links to your site?

Nothing beats a good ol’ fashioned guest blog or feature on another website. And the key to really making this part of your overall strategy is to build those relationships with editors, website owners etc. Strive to make the relationship mutually beneficial and you will never fall short of opportunities to acquire fresh links.

7.What do you think is the biggest SEO myth?

I think the biggest myth is that organic search results can be guaranteed. Any real digital marketer knows that organic search is an extremely volatile environment, and guaranteeing a client placement or results in organic search – no matter how skilled or experienced you may be – is simply bad practice.

This perception needs to be changed through client education and expectation setting. Search engine optimization is a long-term play that can contribute greatly to your digital success. It requires adaptability, measurement, and maintenance to flourish. Rankings go up and down week by week. This is the nature of organic search and pitching it as anything other than that is dishonest.

Today we got to know a few SEO strategies to boost up your business from the expert – Elijah. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.

Until then, Happy Marketing!!

The post Being an SEO Manager:An Expert’s Approach appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

“What do you believe your strongest PPC skill is? Why?”

Marketing Segmentation. Powerful cookie cutting techniques and advanced audience management give Digital Next the competitive edge.

“The true measure of the value of any business leader and manager is performance.”

Managing and overseeing branch personnel, supervising branch operations, and ensuring efficient operation on a day-to-day basis. Improving productivity and streamlining branch activities to maximise results and achieve peak performance levels.

Effective SEO will require knowledge, understanding and interaction with different areas of a business (technical, marketing, management reporting etc) an SEO strategist will require a bigger picture understanding of business strategy and objectives.

Our interview today is with Branch Manager – Meet Nathan Elly

A passionate digital marketer specialising in business development and long-term strategy. Experience gained from a multitude of SEO disciplines combined into a role which supports and progresses online businesses. Core business values have and will always revolve around integrity, with the aim of providing genuine value to clients and staff members.

Sharing some of his SEO Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Nathan in our Agency expert interview series:

1. We would like to know a bit about your career background, and how and when you got into SEO and Digital Marketing?

Back in my Uni days a close friend from childhood launched an SEO agency (SEONext) I was approaching my placement year and was intrigued by the possibility of manipulating Google results for marketing gains. It was a relatively new premise back then so being an early adopter was an appealing advantage to this career path.

2. What do you believe to be the most important task you do on a daily basis? Why?

Naturally Rand Fishkin from Moz would be towards the top of that list, he’s informed and engaging, continually contesting what is considered the norm in SEO. Another name from the UK is Matthew Barby, he’s been around for a short while now and progressing quickly as an authority in the space. His content  and values resonate with what we are about.

3. What resources or influencers do you follow for staying ahead in the world of SEO?

The most effective way of staying ahead of the curve in my opinion is through trial and error. There is no better way to understand what works in real time than implementing and then evaluating results. I strongly believe that SEO should be taken on a case by case basis with a loose overriding strategy.

4.What do you think is your greatest career accomplishment?

Without a doubt emigrating to Australia and starting this branch. It’s in moments like this that you realise the true value of friends, families and business networks.

5.What according to you, are the must-have tools (apart from GA) should SEOs use to accumulate data?

Webmaster has some hidden data sets that can be effective when re-aligning strategies. SEMRush is another established tool that gives and estimated.

6. In terms of keyword research, what according to you is the best strategy for local SEO?

Keyword research should be the easy part of local SEO. Identifies desired locations and services are at the core of most Map Pack results. The key to driving local results is the off page activity. Getting positive review from active account in the local area helps credibility. Referencing keywords in these reviews also elevates positioning. More importantly and often hardest to achieve is the negotiation of links from localized mediums i.e. local news publications, local service partners/suppliers, sponsorship donations to local clubs/communities, local bloggers.

7.What do you believe your strongest PPC skill is? Why?

Marketing Segmentation. Powerfull cookie cutting techniques and advanced audience management give Digital Next the competitive edge.

8. Tell us about the processes you have in place to streamline specific PPC tasks?

Reporting automation. Our reporting dashboard includes things like self writing reporting commentary. This provides a highly effective account performance snapshot whilst saving time to be put into hands on optimization work.

Today we got to know a few SEO strategies to boost up your business from the expert – Nathan. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.

Until then, Happy Marketing!!

The post The Best SEO Techniques to follow : An Expert’s Approach appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

“What SEO techniques do you believe are working best right now?”

Scalable email outreach of high quality content. The key is that the content has to be highly relevant to the sites you approach.

“SEO is not about building links, it’s about building relationship to earn the links.”

The mission of an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) director is to maximize the volume of inbound organic traffic from search engines to a website. This is accomplished through a combination of on-page and off-page techniques, including link-building, social media strategy, viral marketing, metadata sculpting, site speed optimization, content strategy, information architecture, and more.

Because effective SEO will require knowledge, understanding and interaction with different areas of a business (technical, marketing, management reporting etc) an SEO director will require a bigger picture understanding of business strategy and objectives.

Our interview today is with SEO Director – Meet Steve Toth

He began working in social media in 2009; He has managed accounts for everything from major label recording artists to publicly traded companies. He has now transitioned into the evolving world of content marketing. He is very excited about the fusion of great content, organic link-building and its influence on search engine results. He is also well-versed in areas of internet marketing including, but not limited to social media, SEO, PPC and analytics. He also had his writing published in major inbound marketing blogs like Moz.com

Sharing some of his SEO Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Steve in our Agency expert interview series:

1. We would like to know a bit about your career background, and how and when you got into SEO and Digital Marketing?

I started out doing social media in the music industry and moved into copywriting and social media management in the hotel industry. I wanted to try agency life and I had a great opportunity to build the social media department at TechWyse way back in 2011. Since then, I have created another new department (content marketing) and several new services. I’m currently the SEO Director at our 150 person agency.

2.What do you believe has been your greatest career accomplishment? Why?

It’s hard to say, but my biggest highlight of the last year was getting two dofollow backlinks for a windows and doors company on Lifehacker. A 93 Domain Authority site. I maintain that this is the best link for any windows and doors company in Canada haha.

3.What SEO techniques do you believe are working best right now?

Scalable email outreach of high quality content. The key is that the content has to be highly relevant to the sites you approach.

4.How should SEO work with and coexist with other channels such as paid search/social ?

Use paid search to make sure you’re covering all the keywords you’re not ranking for. If you drive PPC traffic your website vs. a landing page, make help that convince stakeholders to beef up the site’s content. You will improve your SEO and your quality score.

Social media should definitely be used to spread your content, but I don’t believe it has any direct bearing on rankings.

5.If you could only list one thing, what would you say has been the biggest change in SEO in recent years?

Mobile’s gaining importance.

6.What do you believe to be the most important task you do on a daily basis? Why?

Communication with clients and staff. Helping build SEO knowledge and understanding creates value vs. a client that doesn’t understand the day-to-day work.

Today we got to know a few SEO techniques to boost up your business from the expert – Steve. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.

Until then, Happy Marketing!!

The post Being An SEO Director:An Expert’s Approach appeared first on Adwords Reporting Tools | Reportgarden.

Optimization: The key to Adwords Success

If you’re a business owner or marketer and you’ve run an adwords campaign in recent times, you’ll know that it’s getting tougher and tougher to achieve an ROI. You see the thing is, Adwords is still one of the best forms of Advertising out there when it comes to market relevancy. The reason is because if someone google’s the product or service you offer, it’s very likely that they are pretty low in the funnel when it comes to making a decision.

1. “Pull Marketing”

Google Adwords is “pull marketing” because someone has already decided that they need a product or service, now they are researching where they can find it. Most other forms of advertising are “push marketing” because you are trying to push your product in front of an audience that might not be aware that it exists, what it’s benefits are and the fact that they need to buy it. Because of this pull factor, many smart businesses moved a big chunk of their budgets to Google Adwords in the past decade and have seen outstanding results.

But at the start of the decade there was less people advertising on Google Adwords, as a result costs per click were low and even a relatively small budget such as a few hundred bucks could garner a massive ROI.

2. The times they are changing

Alas, as these early adapters saw great success with their Adwords campaigns, more of their competitors started to move into the PPC market, driving up the cost per click of all the industries, pretty much across the board.

The good news for the early adapters, is that they probably made such a big ROI from their early days, that they can easily absorb the rising cost per click and retain a profitable campaign. The bad news for those late to the party, is that they will now likely face a much higher cost per click than if they started advertising circa 2010.

The good news however, is that it is still possible to run a hugely profitable campaign that increases your leads, and helps you grow your business. The key to this is in the campaign set up and the ongoing optimization of the account.

3. Optimizing a campaign for success

There are many strategies you can use to improve your campaigns performance, but the fundamentals are pretty simple. Add negative keywords. Monitor your bids, increasing and decreasing them when necessary. Mine the search terms report for Gold (search terms that convert which can be added as keywords). The list goes on.

But luckily for you, you don’t have to go searching for all of the ways you can optimize your campaign. That’s because we’ve brought you this handy infographic from SMBclix. It’s jam packed with over 50 techniques you can use to optimize your Adwords campaign. It’s your mini go to guide for Adwords campaign improvement. If you implement just some of the tactics into your adwords campaigns, you can be sure you will see an improvement in ROI – quickly. Adwords Campaigns should be optimized and the same should be reflected in the client reports.

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Author Bio

Micheal Brennan

Digital Consultant, SMBclix

Mícheál Brennan is the principal consultant at SMBclix.com, a PPC agency based out of Cork, Ireland. He is obsessed with Google Adwords and loves to help businesses grow through inbound marketing campaigns. When he’s not working on improving adwords campaigns for his clients, he can be found cooking for his wife Sarah, playing with his son Shay, or sparring at the local Muay Thai gym.

The post Adwords Optimization – A Key To Success appeared first on Marketing Agency Software | Reportgarden.