Finding Paid Search Zen in 2016

16 Steps to Finding Paid
Search Zen in 2016

@ebkendo
Author Profile
• 9 years in the Search industry
• Specialties
– PPC, SEO, Analytics, Social & Content Marketing
• Speaker
– MozCon
– SMX (Adv/East/West)
– PPC HeroCon
– Searchfest
– Marketing Profs
• Author
– All in One Web Marketing for Dummies
– Lynda.com
– ClickZ
– Search Engine WatchELIZABETHMARSTEN
Director of Paid Search

@ebkendo
It’s the Year of Mobile
Over half of online traffic is on mobile devices now, how are far behind are mobile conversions?
• Mobile Bid Modifiers Take Centre Stage
– Time of day, day of week traffic is different than desktop
– Re-evaluate and change bids often
• Remarketing to Mobile Visitors
– Targeting mobile visitors across devices via programs like Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
• Some of You Will Still Just Have to Turn it Off
– Or really close to it

Facebook Dynamic
Product Ads:
Remarketing on Speed

@ebkendo
Facebook Dynamic Product Ads: Remarketing on Speed
Pre-requisites for a robust Facebook DPA program
• Need a product catalog feed to Facebook API specification
– As well as the Facebook Pixel
• Need a 3rd party OR a developer with skills
– In order to create and manage campaigns to the Facebook Ad
Management API
• Need some people to remarket to
– Traffic sources of direct, referral, organic or paid search

@ebkendo
Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
Best practices to implement
• Create and Modify Ad Units
– Depending on catalog size, you may need a lot of templates and copy
• View Through Conversions Count
• Seed Demographic Data from the Brand
– Create audiences within “all site visitors”

@ebkendo
• Conversions exceed expectations
– 3x conversion rate of Google PLA
– ROAS of 1200%
– Timeframe: one month
• Right rail ads offer higher returns than Newsfeed and Mobile
• Returns are fairly equal between 24 hours and <10 days, so recency is not a major factor
What we’re seeing: home décor client

@ebkendo
Does Facebook DPA Cannibalize PPC Sales?
• A little…
• For one client (major retailer, multiple verticals) we saw over the course of
3 months, 23% of Google AdWords PLA clicks go to Facebook instead
• 8% of Facebook conversions came from an Google AdWords assist
• Facebook “organic” accounted for 40% of the original referral

Say ”Yes” to
Accelerated
Budgets

@ebkendo
Say “Yes” to Accelerated Budgets
• Campaign A never reaches it’s daily budget, but converts well
– Change ad serving to accelerated
• Set that daily budget at a reasonable number, not one that will cause panic attacks
• Pair with Conversion Optimizer feature
Standard: ad serving is spread out the day based on daily budget
Accelerated: ad serving is set up for every eligible impression until budget is depleted.

Embrace Dynamic
Remarketing on
the Google
Display Network

@ebkendo
Embrace Dynamic Remarketing on the GDN
• Add dynamic parameters to your website
– Show visitors the products they added to cart, but did not buy on the GDN
• Set up feeds in the Business Data area for non-retail clients
• Use predefined audiences or build your own segments
• Use Conversion Optimizer for easier management
What it is: Highly targeted banner ads on the Google Display Network visible to previous site visitors

@ebkendo
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/products/dynamic-creative-for-remarketing.html

@ebkendo
• Google case studies: ModCloth & Sierra
• Set Up Guide in AdWords
• Set Up Dynamic Feeds in AdWords
• My SMX East presentation
– If the client has Universal Analytics, you may not need additional code
Useful resources

Track Category
Conversion Rates

@ebkendo
Track Category Conversion Rates
For example:
• Conversion rate average is 2%
• Jackets & Blazers, gets only 5,000 clicks a month, but converts at 4%
• Turn up the bids/daily budget on Jackets & Blazers, get all of the conversions
possible.
– Volume might not be as impressive, but revenue is revenue.
Review conversion rates by category or product type. Sure, it may be lower volume, but
at 4%, let it ride!

@ebkendo
Applying RemarketingLists for SearchAds (RLSA) to Shopping Campaigns
• Build remarketing lists based on cart behavior, site behavior to show up in search results pages
• Second highest converting ad type after text / product listing ads (PLAs)
• Requires a tiny bit of code
Pair with Google Analytics and build audiences based on a myriad of metrics

@ebkendo
Applying RemarketingLists for SearchAds (RLSA) to Shopping Campaigns
• GA Solutions Gallery: RLSA Packs
• Google AdWords Help Center
• My favorite RLSA articles:
– Search Engine Journal
– Search Engine Land
Useful resources

Are You
Using YouTube
Truview Shoppable
Ads Yet?

@ebkendo
Are you Using YouTube Trueview Shoppable Ads Yet?
• Users click on an invite notification
– Ad unit expands to show products
– Choose the SKUs to be in the product cards
• Or Target with Dynamic Remarketing
• Use Instream ad units only
• Choose your targeting
– Categories, brands or audiences
• An interesting option for branding, fair results from a performance marketing perspective
Show the products that appeared in the video ad with click through capability

@ebkendo
Implement Negative / Excluded Audiences
• Site Converters
– Wasted ad spends on users who have already converted
• Time on Site > than one minute (give or take)
• Page Viewers
– Viewed 5 pages in under a minute and left
• Out of Stock Items
Not everyone needs to be remarketed to. In fact, some of them may be really tired of you by now.
Remember to exclude these audience groups – they’ve already bought or didn’t see what they wanted.

@ebkendo
Explore Gmail Sponsored Ads
• Set up a new Display campaign
– Choose target and bid, add mail.google.com
• CPC based ad unit
– Ad opens to a larger image unit, no additional cost if user clicks through to
site or closes and opens again
• Stick to a 25 character headline, 100 character body copy
– Change ad serving to accelerated
Display your ad in the Promotions tab of over 40 million Gmail inboxes

@ebkendo

@ebkendo
• Return was 1:1
– Over the course of a month,once analytics worked
– CPC was really low, like 0.06 for Interests
• Best for branding/exposure
– Focus was new to file customers
– Creative took the user to a video of products with a coupon at the end
• Have to be able to reformat email creative or provide ready to go for the
“landing page”
What we’re seeing: home décor client

Have You
Started Yahoo
Product Ads?

@ebkendo
Have you started Yahoo Product Ads?
• Official launch: November 12th
– “Gemini” removed from the over product name
– All Gemini accounts will be enabled
• Still a lot of “wait and see” going on
– We saw a 6x return with an early beta test
Display your ad on Yahoo.com, desktop and mobile, sprinkling in Polyvore ads for women’s fashion.

@ebkendo
Some set up notes
• Dropbox (or Fetch) used to submit feed file
• Still need a Yahoo AM to create the FTP Yahoo Dropbox
• Not all 3rd party providers ready to support fully yet
• Feed configuration follows Google’s specs very closely
• There is a Merchant Center within Yahoo Gemini

@ebkendo
What CommerceHub has been seeing with Product Ads (Bing vs. Yahoo)

Throw Some
Money at Bing
Product Ads

@ebkendo
Throw some money at Bing Product Ads
• Easy to importexisting AdWords structure intoBing Ads
• Don’t structure too granularly
– About 1,000 clicks per product group over 30 days
• Run Product Ads and Shoppingconcurrently until transfer of traffic is complete
• 8% or less is on mobile, primarily desktop
January 2016 is now the official sunset date of Bing Product Ads campaigns.

@ebkendo
Bing Shopping Campaigns
CommerceHub saw 30% year over year growth (2013 vs.
2014 ) on average after switching from PLA campaigns to
Shopping Campaigns on Google AdWords.

Leverage Ad
Customizers:
Countdown
Text Ads

@ebkendo
Ad Customizer: Countdown Text Ads
• Text ads only
• Set up and let these customized ad units ignite fear and urgency
– 30% CTR increase, 2x Conversions for countdowns
– 50% reduction in CPA for geo customizers
• Tons of other ad customization options, but for the holidays, start here
• Learn more about Ad Customizer
– Search Marketing Expo : Customizers – Madlibs and more
– Gauging the impact of AdWords CountdownCustomizer
Find this easy-to-use template in the Business Data area of AdWords

@ebkendo
Using Conversion Optimizer
• Must have AdWords Conversion Tracking set up
• At least 30 conversions in the last 30 days
– In order to get the feature enabled
• If not, recommend at least 1,000 clicks in 30 days before trying anything else
– Like Enhanced CPC
• Works especially well on the GDN and with Dynamic Remarketing
Gain statistical significance and let Google do the heavy lifting, especially on the Display Network.

@ebkendo
Using Conversion Optimizer
Can try accelerated ad serving to “speed up” getting enough conversions to enable
After the Holidays
• Make sure to change CPA goals to align with pre-holiday times
• Otherwise, you’ll choke off pretty much all the traffic, unfortunately there’s no “forget
this giant spike in traffic” timeframe exclusion setting
• Continue to enjoy the machine learning after holiday, just at a much slower and probably
a higher CPA rate

@ebkendo
Purchase on Google
MERCHANT
Product
Catalog
PLA with Purchase
on Google
Completea
Purchase
Ship Order
Online Management
System
Send payment to
Merchant
Receives Order
CUSTOMER

@ebkendo
Purchase on Google
A glimpse of what’s needed:
• Still an experiment and heavily gated entry
• Feed provider with full API integration set up
• Order management set up
• Merchant Center set up and feed configuration
• AdWords account enablement
• Payment set up from Google to you
• Lots and lots of testing around end to end
order fulfillment

@ebkendo
Turn it Off
Set a Floor for Holiday
• If you’re strapped on budget, pause that ad group or campaign and move that
budget over to where you need it
• Even if it’s only $5
• You could bid down, way down, alternatively
• But, I’d rather have the money and spend elsewhere than hope for the miracle
Sometimes you need to retreat from your current campaigns and regroup

@ebkendo
Who Buys This Stuff?
30% of 2014 Black Friday and Cyber
Monday shoppers bought items for
themselves, not as gifts.
http://time.com/money/3623259/self-gifting-christmas-holidays/

@ebkendo
Who Buys This Stuff?
• Go through the site, try and buy something
– Where do you get hung up? What couldn’t you find?
– How easy/hard was it to check out or keep going?
• Experiment with different parameters that determine buying decisions
– Gift? For self? Women? Men?
– Geography?
– Time of Day?
In other words, BEING your customer
is your best bet for PPC success!
Know your customer before you begin ANY of this!

Questions?
Expert help is a click away!
www.commercehub.com
Call us at 518-810-0700 | 206-832-3900

Finding Paid Search Zen in 2016

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