Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Thursday, March 21st, 2024
Disney Advertising is teaming up with Google and The Trade Desk to expand its Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX).
The partnerships mean that users of Google’s Display & Video 360 and The Trade Desk can directly access streaming inventory on both Hulu and Disney Plus through DRAX.
Why we care. A wider range of marketers, national, regional and local, will now have easier access to ad inventory across Hulu and Disney Plus.
Why now? As businesses move their advertising budgets away from traditional TV to digital video platforms, TV networks are feeling the impact. However, streaming services like Disney Plus and Hulu are gaining traction among advertisers because of their large and engaged viewership. These platforms also provide advanced targeting, interactive features, and real-time analytics, making them competitive choices for marketers aiming to reach their target audiences efficiently.
What Disney is saying. Jamie Power, senior VP, addressable sales at Disney Advertising, said in a statement:
- “Disney’s goal is to empower advertisers to transact with the freedom and flexibility that best suits their business needs.”
- “Owning our own technology stack allows us to build a direct path between our premium inventory and the leading media buying platforms in the industry, simplifying the way ads are bought and sold on Disney, while delivering greater effectiveness for our clients.”
What Google is saying. Stephen Yap, managing director Americas for Google Marketing Platform, said:
- “For over a decade, Google and Disney have collaborated on industry-leading ad innovations that drive results for customers.”
- “We are excited to expand on this relationship to bring Display & Video 360 demand to DRAX, providing our advertisers with a new way to directly purchase Disney’s high-quality CTV inventory and reach their audience with privacy-forward solutions.”
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What is DRAX? Disney launched DRAX – which gets it names from a character the Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchise – in March 2021 as part of its advertising technology platform. DRAX, which is an automated ad platform, consolidates advertisers’ video demand to ensure that both direct-sold and programmatic deals compete fairly for Disney ad impressions.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Thursday, March 21st, 2024
Google Marketing Live registration is now open.
The conference is Google’s annual event for showcasing its latest ad products, formats, developments, and updates.
When is Google Marketing Live. Tuesday, May 21, starting at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT, live from Mountain View, Calif.
How to register. You can register for Google Marketing Live 2024 here. Here’s what Google is teasing:
- “Get a front row seat to see Google’s newest Ads innovations and learn how you can put Google AI to work for your business. Watch the live keynote and access on-demand sessions to see how to drive next-level growth for your business.”
Why we care. Google Marketing Live is where Google typically announces a slew of new products and features. Google Marketing Live 2023 was heavy on AI announcements.
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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, March 20th, 2024
Performance Max ads have been touted as an efficient way to manage Google Ads across multiple Google-owned channels, making campaign management simpler for PPC advertisers.
It combines all of Google Ads’ channel options together in one campaign and uses Google’s AI (Gemini) to optimize budgets and ad serving across all channels based on performance.
On the surface, I’ve seen great results from our clients’ Performance Max campaigns, but it’s certainly left me wondering which channels performed best.
Imagine the learnings you could glean from the rapid testing and data collection of AI applied to your Google Ads!
It could easily help you tweak and improve channel-specific campaigns and even utilize learnings from Google Ads across other ad platforms.
Exploring Performance Max data
Delving down into Performance Max data is easier said than done. Google is careful in providing only certain insights into the campaigns.
For example, within Google Ads (and when pulling the data from Google Ads via the API), advertisers can’t parse out performance data, such as conversions or cost per conversion, by channel. And why not?
I believe Google is using Performance Max for two main goals.
First, Google will likely realize that certain ad channels, such as Google Discover, act more as a branding interaction than a bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) interaction.
With marketers mostly being measured by performance, such as clicks and conversions, I suspect advertisers weren’t biting on these ad formats.
Performance Max allows Google a conduit to force advertisers to use channels they may not have originally chosen under the guise of overall optimized performance.
However, marketers benefit from AI-optimized ad-serving, but at a cost. We can’t remove the channels from Performance Max, which is affecting overall conversion performance.
So if Google Discover is negatively affecting performance, will Google stop showing your Performance Max ads there, or will they continue to show the ad on Google Discover to boost that ad channel’s usage at the expense of optimal click and conversion performance for your campaign?
Unfortunately, advertisers aren’t able to adjust Performance Max channels and have relatively no visibility into ad channel performance.
And therein lies the conundrum with Performance Max. Love it for the budget optimization or hate it for the lack of performance control.
If you, too, have a love/hate relationship with Performance Max, let me share some ways you can bend Performance Max to your marketing will through data from both Google Ads and GA4, even despite its data limitations.
As Menachem Ani shares in his 2022 article, focus your effort on guiding the AI machine.
Create broader campaigns and learn from them
When we first started testing Performance Max for a fine wine retailer we work with, at the advice of other Performance Max experts, we created very specific wine variety campaigns, such as champagne, merlot, white zinfandel, etc. However, we didn’t find this necessarily successful.
While some wine varieties performed well, less popular varieties struggled. Even after garnering high CTR, they often didn’t result in conversion and revenue.
We shifted strategies and decided to go a bit broader. With this strategy, we determined which varieties performed strongly through revenue data. Those that performed well earned their own breakout Performance Max campaign.
When testing Performance Max, consider starting with a broader category and then learning from your data to narrow it down.
You can glean this information from GA4 using an Explorations report (or pull the data via the GA4 API) and review item sales by campaign.
This will tell you the specific categories performing well through Performance Max and could likely support their specific Performance Max campaign.
Dig deeper: How to combine GA4 and Google Ads for powerful paid search results
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Create multiple asset groups per campaign with a specific focus
Think of asset groups like you would ad groups in search campaigns. In search ad groups, it’s a best practice to group common keywords together in an ad group. Do the same with asset groups and the asset focus.
We recently ran two asset groups in a test in a Performance Max campaign for the same retailer. The asset groups had the same ad copy and extensions but different images and videos by group.
- Group A contained images and videos featuring beautiful scenery of vineyards, luscious glasses of wine pouring or a group of friends celebrating with wine.
- Group B featured images of specific wine bottles from our inventory, using a variety of brands based on our most popular wines in that category.
While Google doesn’t make it intuitive, you can compare the results of two asset groups. Asset groups in Performance Max campaigns are somewhat akin to ad groups in search campaigns, but there is limited reporting in Google Ads around asset groups.
To see how one asset group performs against another in a Performance Max campaign, navigate to the campaign in Google Ads, and instead of the default asset group Summary view, switch to the Table view:
The table view provides greater detail of performance by asset group, and you can customize the columns as well, allowing you to see conversion data by asset group:
Use different destination URLs for each asset group
However, seeing asset group performance in GA4 is a bit more difficult. Unlike ad groups, GA4 does not pass asset group information through to GA4. So, if you want to pull this data together in GA4, how can you do it?
The simplest way is to add a tracking parameter to the asset group destination URL. For example, you could create a separate destination URL for each asset group using a parameter, such as utm_creative_format, then capture that parameter in a custom dimension in GA4.
This would allow you to break down actual conversion and sales data by asset group in GA4 in addition to campaign.
Ad strength isn’t always indicative of possible success
In Performance Max asset groups, more asset items (such as images, videos, etc.) typically increase your ad strength. However, Google’s definition of ad strength isn’t always indicative of likely success.
In the example below, both asset groups have identical assets except for the visual creatives. The only differences between the two groups are:
- The focus of the creative asset: The “Good” asset group focuses on scenes of the product, while the “Average” asset group focuses on actual product images.
- The types of creative assets: The “Good” asset group contains the maximum number of images and five videos, while the “Average” asset group contains the maximum number of images and no videos.
We tested this same asset group across all campaigns for over 30 days, using a scenic asset group versus a product image asset group.
In every case, the product image asset group featuring product bottles outperformed the scenic asset group every time, even though Google’s defined Ad Strength method implies that the scenic asset group will perform better.
The scenic asset group often garnered more clicks and a higher CTR, but it never generated revenue over that test period – only the product image asset group did.
While ad strength as a metric may appear to be helpful, use your actual conversion data from
Set your ROAS high, then go higher
If you set your ROAS goal at 200%, then you’ll get around 200%. But what if you set it higher?
One of Performance Max’s greatest strengths is its ability to maximize budget to achieve your desired ROAS. Push it to the maximum and use Performance Max for what it’s good at.
Check your outcomes in GA4 and Google Ads to see how the change impacts performance.
Beware of the cross-network default channel grouping
Performance Max campaigns appear as “cross-network” in GA4’s default channel groupings. Rolling all campaigns together under this aggregate grouping to evaluate performance can be tempting.
However, because Performance Max is AI-assisted, combining new campaigns with existing ones won’t provide the true clarity that individual campaign-level reporting will. Avoid the temptation to evaluate Performance Max on an aggregate level in GA4.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, March 20th, 2024
In this article, I will expand upon Google’s concept of E-E-A-T by adding “notability” and “transparency.” These additional elements are often overlooked but are crucial for demonstrating credibility to Google.
Notability reflects the impact or recognition in a specific field, while transparency emphasizes openness about who is behind the content or business.
Putting Google to one side, trust is the cornerstone of business success. Customers gravitate toward brands they believe they can trust to effectively solve their problems.
Google’s mission is to guide its users to trustworthy solutions. Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) form a great basis, but credibility also requires notability and transparency.
This article explains how notability and transparency help establish a brand’s trustworthiness and credibility in the eyes of both consumers and Google.
E-E-A-T is a fancy acronym for credibility
Measuring credibility is tough in the best of worlds. On the unbelievably vast and super messy internet, it is impossible.
For the last 25 years, Google has used links. It once seemed super smart and now seems very simplistic. But links are just a popularity signal. Websites have been playing a pure popularity game for as long as Google has existed.
That has changed. We no longer play a website or webpage credibility contest using links as arbiters.
Modern SEO has to win a more complex, more human credibility contest: a subtle evaluation of the combined “human trustability” of the website owner (corporation or person), the content creator (person or corporation) and the content itself.
That sounds very human.
Google’s search quality rater guidelines are very human, and they make this new paradigm abundantly clear – E-E-A-T is mentioned 121 times and page 27 clarifies Google’s focus quite delightfully.
Equally important: in December 2022, they replaced references to “website” with “website owner” 20 times. They increased the number of mentions of content creator (a.k.a. corporation or person who is the author of the content) to 140.
Website owners and content creators are people or corporations (organizations). As humans, we understand these instinctively but Google needs an extra step.
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Without entity understanding, E-E-A-T means nothing
If Google cannot explicitly recognize the named entity (i.e., the website owner or content creator), it cannot effectively apply E-E-A-T signals.
Without this understanding, your efforts to build and demonstrate E-E-A-T will be futile because they won’t resonate with Google’s algorithms.
It’s like crediting an artist for a masterpiece without knowing who the artist is. Their reputation and expertise simply can’t be acknowledged or appreciated.
It is clear that in modern SEO, establishing your identity in Google’s Knowledge Graph is a must-have foundation for any E-E-A-T strategy to have real impact on search rankings and online presence.
Knowledge Graph update, March 12, 2024: The number of person entities in Google’s Knowledge Vault increased 17.09%. The number of E-E-A-T-related person entities (researcher, author, writer, journalist, etc.) increased to 34.01%, significantly more than other categories.
This is a continuation of the Killer Whale update from July 2023 (see “Inside Google’s massive 2023 E-E-A-T Knowledge Graph update“), where Google clearly focused on identifying person entities in the context of E-E-A-T.
Trust is the key to business
People will work with you if they trust you to solve their problems. Google recommends solutions to users’ problems when they search or converse with generative AI, targeting specific audiences when it trusts you to provide the solution.
What is Google trying to do with E-E-A-T credibility?
Google is building its algorithms to evaluate credibility and trust as humans do but with much more information and perfect recall memory.
They aren’t there yet, but that is the target they are aiming at and where they are going. This is an incredibly important point to remember for the rest of this article and the rest of your career in SEO.
Links have historically been a huge focus for SEO. People don’t evaluate trust and credibility by counting links and so Google’s algorithms have been and will continue to let go of links as a signal gradually.
Links will continue to be considered but will become significantly less effective over time as Google improves its ability to apply additional signals to the content, the website owner and the content creator. Entity Optimization for E-E-A-T is a “thing” in modern SEO.
Google representatives have stated multiple times that there isn’t an “E-E-A-T algorithm,” and that makes sense.
Credibility is part and parcel of every element of a business that a human implicitly evaluates before engaging with them as the supplier of the solution to their problem. That means that trust and credibility need to be evaluated at the core of the algorithms that generate results (search or generative AI).
What is Google not telling us about E-E-A-T?
Good question.
People consider famousness (notability) when engaging with solution providers (people and companies). They also consider transparency (or lack thereof).
Those are two incredibly important facets of credibility that Google doesn’t explicitly mention but definitely uses.
Let’s talk about N-E-E-A-T-T
Notability is a huge signal to Google
Warning: notability is only partially synonymous with fame. It also indicates the entity has enough impact in a particular field for a specific audience to warrant recognition.
Google’s approach to famousness is founded on a hyper-granular assessment of notability based on the topic, geographical location and the type of entity involved. This means that what constitutes notable can differ greatly depending on the entity type, the field (topic) and the geolocation.
Notability is incredibly specific to a niche (both for humans and Google). It’s about being front-of-mind and having a significant influence within a particular industry and location that justifies recognition from a certain audience.
The importance of notability in Google’s algorithms is demonstrated in the SERPs. For example, if several people with the same name have Knowledge Panels, it will show the Knowledge Panel of the one it perceives to be the most notable.
Additionally, data from Kalicube Pro indicates that getting a place in entity-driven SERP features such as People Also Ask, entity boxes or “best of” entity lists are heavily influenced by notability – generally speaking, a few notable entities will dominate a market.
Building notability for N-E-E-A-T-T is traditional PR packaged for Google.
Much of the work we do for my company clients is to direct them to focus on the most relevant PR targets and ensure that the resulting press inches are easily digestible, understandable and meaningful for Google.
But Google is hyper-niche. A major publication has a broad reach and high authority but is not always the most helpful for establishing notability within a specific field due to its generalist nature.
A resource that is hyper-relevant topically and geographically will be more powerful. For notability and credibility signals more generally, always consider these three aspects:
- Topical relevance: Niche-specific resources will “make you famous” with the niche audience.
- Geographical relevance: Geo-specific resources are important whether you are local, national or international. A local entity (person or corporation) will gain niche notability when featured in geo-relevant publications. But then, so do entities with national or international aspirations. Every small piece contributes to the bigger picture.
- Audience alignment: A resource that aligns closely with your niche will have an audience deeply interested in your area of expertise. This means the audience is likelier to engage with and value the content, which signals notability.
As an example, in the world of digital marketing in Seattle, holding a position on the board of advisors for the SDMA (Seattle Digital Marketing Association) or being featured in a well-known marketing blog that focuses on the Pacific Northwest market would be clear indicators of high notability within that community.
Transparency is a huge signal to Google
Transparency in N-E-E-A-T-T is non-negotiable. Being transparent is a fundamental aspect of credibility and absolutely necessary for trust.
Being transparent means being open, clear and honest about who you are as a content creator or website owner.
Transparency greatly enhances how effectively your message is communicated and trusted by both humans and Google’s algorithms. Without being transparent about who you are, other N-E-E-A-T-T elements lose much of their meaning.
Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines are very explicit that their human evaluators should be looking for transparency from the website owner or publisher. And remember that Google is building algorithms that mirror human judgment when assessing credibility.
Transparency for both people and Google starts with a clear, helpful and informative About Us page.
This is where they can find out who the website owner is. This page is the absolute minimum for transparency for your audience and Google, so start there.
An About page for the content creators makes sense, too, so visitors can learn more about them, their credentials and why they should be trusted as a source or solution provider.
Transparency starts on your About page and extends to every platform where your audience meets your brand.
Transparency from top to bottom, across the board, is essential to your relationship with your audience (who are your ultimate target) and with Google (which is simply an interface between you and your audience).
(I’d like to thank Jarno Van Driel for encouraging me to take transparency more seriously.)
Without explicit understanding, N-E-E-A-T-T means nothing
Without an explicit understanding of the website owner and the content creator, Google cannot evaluate credibility in the form of notability, experience, expertise, authority, trustworthiness and transparency.
Google has long been evaluating credibility using links to a webpage. Still, with an explicit understanding of the website owner and the content creator, Google can apply a huge range of additional N-E-E-A-T-T signals such as awards, qualifications, previous work, reviews, peer approval and more.
From strings to things is now a reality. N-E-E-A-T-T credibility is founded on Google’s understanding of things (your things), so focus on getting your website owner and content creator entities into Google’s Knowledge Graph.
You can use your Knowledge Panel as your KPI.
Putting Google to one side
As a company, a CEO, a founder, an author, an expert or a consultant, you want to prove that you are a voice of authority people can trust by building and demonstrating notability, experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness transparently. If you do this successfully, then you’ve won the game with your human audience.
The next step is to package your voice of authority that people can trust as N-E-E-A-T-T for search engines. Google will pick up on some signals and miss others.
How much does Google’s ability to digest and believe your trust and credibility matter?
If your human audience trusts you today, you are already achieving your business or professional goals in the short term.
Google is a mid to long-term bonus if you can effectively package these legitimate audience-facing signals, then you can become Google’s preferred reference in your field.
You’ll then become a major part of its conversations with the subset of its users, who are your audience in search today and generative AI tomorrow.
Short, mid and long-term SEO is simply making sure you are Google’s go-to recommended solution for the subset of its users who are your ideal audience.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, March 18th, 2024
Advertisers attempting to export reports from Google Ads Report Editor are experiencing issues where the data is showing zeros instead of the actual numbers. Google is aware of the issue and is working on a fix to resolve it, but there is not estimated time for a fix at this time.
What is the issue. Greg Kohler, aka PPCGreg posted a screenshot of a sample report export filled with blank data and/or zeros. Here is that screenshot:
There are numerous reports on social media and in the various advertiser forums of complaints about this issue.
Google response. Google’s AdsLiaison, Ginny Marvin, responded saying, “The team is aware. I don’t have a timeline to share but they’re investigating this.”
Here are some of those responses:
Hi Greg, Thanks for flagging. The team is investigating this issue.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) March 18, 2024
Hi Michelle, The team is aware. I don't have a timeline to share but they're investigating this.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) March 18, 2024
Why we care. If you are trying to do some reporting, reporting for clients or for yourself, you may be out of luck when using Google Ads Report Editor. For now, use the main Google Ads interface to view and export your data. Also, the Google Ads API may also be functioning properly.
So if you need the data now, stay away from the Google Ads Report Editor and use other reporting views. Or wait until Google fixes the issues with the Google Ads Report Editor. We will update this story when it is resolved.
Fixed. I am hearing reports that this was fixed at around 2:15 pm ET:
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, March 18th, 2024
Google is making a number of changes to its executive team running Google Search:
- Liz Reid, who was leading up core search experiences, will now be the Head of Search at Google.
- Cheenu Venkatachary will be the new lead of Search quality and ranking.
With these changes, Pandu Nayak is stepping down as lead of search quality and ranking and will become Chief Scientist of Search. In another change, Cathy Edwards is moving to the Long-term Bets team in Knowledge and Information.
What Google said. A Google spokesperson sent Search Engine Land the following statement:
- “We’re pleased to share that we’re unifying the Search org under Liz Reid – a longtime and well-respected leader at Google with deep product and technical knowledge. We have great momentum in Search, with recent improvements in search quality, new ways to search like Circle to Search, and features using gen AI to help with even more complex questions. For example, SGE, still only a Search Labs feature, has already been used for billions of queries. We’re excited to bring our Search teams together under her leadership.”
Liz Reid. About three years ago, Reid was appointed to lead of core search experience by Prabhakar Raghavan. She will continue to report to Raghavan in her new role as head of Search.
Reid joined Google in 2003. She is credited as one of the earliest pioneers of Google Maps and Local Search and helped Google redefine modern-day mapmaking with AI. Reid was also the first female engineer in the company’s New York office.
Specific to Search, Reid helped:
Liz Reid posted on LinkedIn saying, “Today, I’m taking on a new role leading Search, and am humbled by the opportunity to shape the future of this important product.” You can read her full message over on LinkedIn.
Cheenu Venkatachary. Venkatachary will lead the Google Search quality and ranking teams, taking over Nayak’s role. Venkatachary originally worked at Google from May 2013 to December 2014, then left for a company that was acquired by Apple. He returned to Google in October 2022.
Pandu Nayak. Nayak is becoming Chief Scientist, Search, where he will continue to advise and focus on technical challenges in Search. Google told us that he will remain deeply involved in Google’s broader efforts around content understanding, ranking and exploring how new AI technologies can enhance Google Search.
Google credits Nayak as the foremost expert on algorithms, ranking and information systems. Nayak is Google’s most recent inductee to the National Academy of Engineering.
Cathy Edwards. Edwards who led Google Apps, News, Discover and ecosystem efforts in 2021, is moving back to Australia and will join the Long-term Bets team. Edwards, the co-founder of Chomp (which was acquired by Apple) will help incubate new product ideas in partnership with leaders across Knowledge and Information.
Why we care. How this may impact Google Search and overall search quality remains to be seen. Google often makes high-level changes with its executive teams, and people move on. I am sure there will be a lot of speculation on why these moves are being made but overall, it seems like really smart and respected individuals are filling in the roles of those who are moving to other roles within the company.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, March 18th, 2024
How often have you heard, “Use broad match along with smart bidding to get the best results?”
Broad match can learn based on previous conversion activity. It can also use previous user search data, other keywords in your ad group and your landing page’s content to show your ads on relevant searches. Broad match has more learning capabilities than phrase or exact match.
If broad match can do all these things, is there even a need for exact match?
Let’s walk through one advertiser’s journey to discover what keyword match types worked best for them and the reasoning behind their decisions.
Impression share
Impression share is a useful metric that looks at how often your ads were shown compared to how often they were eligible to be displayed.
It’s your best research into your share of voice for any keyword and it can inform you how much more volume is attainable. You can see this metric at the campaign, ad group or keyword level.
This particular advertiser is in the home financing sector. When they looked at their keyword level impression shares for their top keywords, here are their impression shares:
As these were their top keywords in terms of total conversions, they wanted to increase their impression shares for these terms. They were using max conversion bidding with a CPA target. Their only options for increasing impression shares were to raise the CPA or increase their Quality Scores.
Their Quality Scores were mostly 7s, so they decided to raise their target CPA for these ad groups.
Over the course of the next two months, they slowly raised their target CPAs. Their conversions did increase. Their CPA increased more than their bids, but they were OK with that. However, their impression shares barely increased even with fairly significant bid increases.
They were using mostly broad match keywords in their account. After some discussions, they decided to add exact match keywords to these ad groups and do an in-depth search term analysis.
After adding the exact match terms, they could now see the impression share for their top keywords.
Since impression share is calculated every time a keyword is eligible for the auction, having the exact match keywords gives you the most accurate picture of how often you can show for your top search terms. They were showing much more for their top terms than they realized and needed to explore other keyword possibilities to get more volume.
When they examined their search term data, they found many search terms showing from multiple ad groups and that their ad serving was subpar.
Dig deeper: Google Ads broad match: What the data reveals for PPC marketers
Duplicate search terms
Duplicate search terms happen when a search term matches multiple ad groups. In these cases, your stats for the search term are split across multiple ad groups and your preferred ad and landing page may not be used.
For instance, the search term “30 year fixed mortgage” had been displayed from these ad groups in their account:
- 30-year mortgage.
- Mortgage rates.
- Home loan.
- Fixed mortgages.
- Mortgage loan rates.
- And several others.
If we look at the stats for the same search term for a selection of the ad groups, we see very different stats across the ad groups:
While the search term has been displayed from multiple ad groups, there is a clear choice as to which one performs best for this search term and their idea ad group for the search term to display ads.
Google does have a priority order to ensure the correct ad group is displayed for a search term. Below is an excerpt from Google’s PDF, “Unlock the Power of Search.”
This means that we need to have the identical keyword to a search term (which is spell-corrected) to control where any search term will be displayed.
Technically, it does not have to be an exact match, but it does show the need for a process to add the top search terms as keywords in your account.
As you add these variations, you will trigger a recommendation in Google:
By taking control of your ad serving, Google will make recommendations to remove some of these keywords, which, in turn, can cause your top-performing search terms to show from the incorrect ad group.
If you want to control how your ads and landing pages serve for your search terms, ignore this recommendation.
This advertiser was bulk-adding its top search terms as keywords in the appropriate ad groups and discovered their Quality Scores were not as good as they believed.
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Quality Score
The Quality Score displayed in your account is only calculated when the search term is the exact same as your keyword, regardless of match type.
For instance, the advertiser has a 7 Quality Score for the term “mortgage rates.” Once they added their top search terms associated with the keyword “mortgage rates,” they had a different picture of their Quality Scores.
Once again, you can add all the new search terms as broad or phrase match. The keywords do not have to be exact match to see your Quality Scores for a search term.
However, if you continue to add all your top terms as phrase or broad match terms, then you will continuously expand what you are eligible to show for, which can cause budgeting issues.
Regardless, having your top search terms as keywords regardless of the match type gives you a better understanding of your Quality Scores.
Budget
The advice to use Smart Bidding and broad match is often made with the assumption your budget is unlimited. Most advertisers do not have an unlimited budget. If you have a maximum amount you can spend in a given month, does the same advice to use broad match still apply?
This is where you need to examine the stats in your account. In this account, the advertiser adds their top converting search terms as keywords for every match type (exact, phrase and broad).
That means phrase and broad match only receive impressions if the term has not consistently converted for a few months and has yet to be added as a keyword.
As the impressions on any of their keywords significantly increase, it signals the company that Google has found new search terms for those keyword and match type combinations.
Some of these new terms are good and others are poor. However, being able to watch for a change in impressions helps them identify when they need to go deeper into their query and n-gram analysis to determine if they have new keywords or negative keywords to add to their account.
The stats below are typical of many accounts where exact match has the highest conversion rate and lowest CPA and broad match has the lowest conversion rate and highest CPA.
This account is bidding by target ROAS and broad match has a better ROAS (conv. value/cost) than phrase match even with a higher CPA.
If your budget is limited, starting with mostly exact and phrase is usually a good idea. Then, if you are not hitting your budget, expanding to broad match is a nice way of receiving more conversions.
Conversely, if you are hitting your budget, pausing your worst-performing keywords, regardless of match type, is always a good idea, so your better-performing keywords are spending your budget.
If you can afford to add broad match keywords, your bid strategy often governs their effectiveness.
Bid strategies
The two most common bid strategies are target or max bidding. This could be target CPA, max CPA, target ROAS or max revenue.
Please note that target CPA or ROAS uses the maximize conversions or revenue strategy with the optional box checked to set a target for that campaign.
Max bidding’s goal is to get the most conversions or revenue regardless of how much any one conversion will cost you.
What we often see with max bidding (max revenue or max conversions) is that Google will find ways to spend your entire budget if you use broad match since they can match broad match to many different search terms.
This account bids by max conversions and has fairly typical metrics for how the CPA differences occur by match type, where broad match has a much more expensive conversion than phrase or exact match keywords.
With max conversions or max revenue bidding, exact and phrase match generally outperform broad match.
Conversely, this next account is using target CPA bidding. While exact match still has the lowest CPA, the broad and phrase match metrics are very similar.
Broad match has a higher conversion rate than phrase match, so Google can bid more (hence the higher CPC for broad match) on the broad match variations to obtain the same CPA as the phrase match words.
There are a lot of nuances in how target versus max bidding performs. At the last SMX, I went through these differences in detail. You can watch the video from the session if you would like to learn more.
Conclusion
Impression share is the only metric you truly miss out on if you do not use exact match. You can add all your top search terms as exact, phrase or broad match to see your Quality Scores and manage duplicate search terms to help control ad serving.
If you are budget-constrained, using exact and phrase match generally gets you better results than broad match.
If you use any bid method other than Target ROAS or Target CPA, then broad match is rarely a good idea since you will often spend your budget regardless of how many conversions you receive.
There are exceptions to this rule, especially if you struggle with search volume, which is common in B2B accounts or accounts that target small geographic areas.
Suppose you’re using a target bid strategy (Target ROAS or Target CPA) and want to combine ad serving control with data insights while leveraging machine learning. In that case, a combination of exact and broad match offers much flexibility in management. This can easily be accomplished by adding the exact and broad match of the same keyword to the same ad group.
If your budget decreases, you can pause your worst-performing broad match terms. If your budgets increase, you can use more broad match terms. As you see broad match serving incorrectly, using exact match and negative keywords can help steer the machine.
There is no need to rely on a single match type. Your keyword’s match types are just another tool to be used.
Using a combination of exact and broad match (along with phrase, as necessary) provides you with control, insights and machine learning to maximize your PPC account’s performance.
In an era of machine learning, exact match has not become obsolete. It still has a lot to offer for PPC professionals looking to optimize their accounts.
Dig deeper: How each Google Ads bid strategy influences campaign success
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, March 18th, 2024
Google Search Ads 360 launched a closed beta for offsite retail media campaigns to help retailers and brands achieve common goals with shoppers, boost product visibility, and increase sales, the search ad company told us.
Google announced these new features today in Search Ads 360:
- Google added offsite retail media capabilities to Search Ads 360 to help retailers and brands sell more products together by combining unique retailer audiences with Google AI and scale across channels.
- Google created a privacy-centric way for participating retailers to enable brands to use their first-party data to fuel AI-powered Performance Max campaigns. Google said it will also test test features that allow for self-service campaign management for brands and expand the beta to more retailers globally, over the upcoming months.
- Improved reporting where you can measure the success of “campaigns with accurate, closed-loop reporting at the brand, campaign or stock-keeping unit (SKU) level,” Google wrote. Google added, “Closed-loop reporting enables brands to directly tie ad spend to sales at the individual product level and make changes to maximize profit.”
- Google partnered with Lowe’s as an early beta partner. Lowe’s is launching its first offsite retail media offering on Google Search and Shopping inventory, using a managed service model today and partnering with SA360 on the journey toward self-service options for their brand partners in the future.
Why we care. If these Search Ads 360 features are useful for you or your clients, then try to gain access to this closed beta. To do so or for more information about participating in the SA360 beta, contact your Google account team.
This is an early beta, so it is hard to know when or if this will fully roll out.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, March 15th, 2024
Microsoft is reportedly using pop-up ads within Google Chrome to prompt users to switch their default search engine to Bing.
Increasing numbers of Windows users have observed advertisements for Bing AI and Microsoft’s Bing search engine while browsing in Chrome. If users choose to accept these prompts, Microsoft automatically sets Bing as the new default search engine for Chrome instead of Google.
Malware concerns. Users expressed concerns that the pop-up ads resembled malware, but Microsoft clarified that these prompts are legitimate and should only appear once.
Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft, highlighted the company’s motive behind serving the pop-up ad. She emphasized that Microsoft’s aim was to offer users the option to set Bing as their device’s default search engine, thus providing them with choice.
Providing choice. Caitlin Roulston, Microsoft’s director of communications, explained that the tech giant was serving the pop-up ad to give users the choice to make Bing their device’s default search engine. She told The Verge:
- “This is a one-time notification giving people the choice to set Bing as their default search engine on Chrome.”
- “We value providing our customers with choice, so there is an option to dismiss the notification.”
Roulston also noted that the pop-up offers an added benefit for Windows users. Accepting it could provide them with extra chat turns in Copilot.
Why we care. Offering users the choice to switch their default search engine could contribute to a more fair search market and provide advertisers with additional options for their ad spend However, if Microsoft aims to effectively encourage users to choose Bing as their default search engine, employing ads that don’t resemble malware would likely be more productive.
What Microsoft is saying. Microsoft did not immediately respond to Search Engine Land’s request for comment.
Why now? The introduction of pop-up ads aimed at facilitating the process of changing the default search engine for Windows users coincides with the ongoing Google antitrust trial. In this trial, Google stands accused of employing unfair tactics to maintain its position as the world’s leading search engine. Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella, a key figure in the development of Bing, took the stand during the trial and told the court that individuals lack genuine options when it comes to selecting search engines. He said:
- “You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth and you search on Google.”
- “I see search or internet search as the largest software category out there. We are a very very low share player. But we continue to persist in it because we think of it as a software category we can contribute to.”
- “It’s a hard game to make any breakthroughs, but no one can accuse us of not being persistent.”
Nadella added that the only reason the tech giant decides to remain in the search field is because it wants to “make search more competitive” by running it like a “public utility.”
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Deep dive. Read our U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial updates guide for more information.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, March 15th, 2024
Microsoft Advertising is piloting a new user interface for select users.
The platform is yet to confirm a timeline of when the new UI will be rolled out to more users, however a spokesperson told Search Engine Land to expect more updates in the coming weeks.
Navigation revamp. Microsoft Advertising’s new navigation layout is set up like the latest Google Ads interface, with two vertical menus on the left side of the screen. When you hover over the main menu, a second menu pops up nearby. This makes it quicker and easier to find what you’re looking for. It’s designed to be user-friendly and efficient, similar to how popular websites operate.
Copilot update. In the top horizontal menu of Microsoft’s new interface, there’s an icon dedicated to its AI chat assistant, Copilot. Clicking on this icon opens a chat window on the right side of the screen. Additionally, Copilot is integrated into the search bar functionality. Interacting with Copilot through the search bar also triggers the opening of the chat window on the right.
Why we care. Microsoft Advertising’s new UI resembles Google Ads’ interface — and that’s a positive change. By making its platform more similar to Google’s, Microsoft aims to reduce friction for users and improve usability, making it easier for marketers to switch between the two.
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What Microsoft is saying. A Microsoft spokesperson told Search Engine Land:
- “We’ve begun testing a new UI for some users. We look forward to sharing more exciting updates to our Microsoft Advertising Platform in the coming weeks – stay tuned!”
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
