The call extension function is available on AdWords ads featured on high-end mobile devices, provided that you have set your campaign to opt into Mobile devices with full internet browsers, located under the Devices tab. Should you also activate call metrics (currently only available in Canada and the US) then the call extensions will be visible on both desktop and high-end mobile devices. The cost for the ads shown on the desktop is US$1. When the user called from an ad seen as result of mobile search, the cost of the call is a CPC price. The price per call will not remain $1 as the bid will need to be factored into the Ad Rank calculations that determine as ad’s position.

Google released a feature a while ago called Google Voice. This feature enables you to receive all your calls through a single number, as well as set automatic actions for particular types of calls. Google Voice enables you to make calls from your phone and the Internet, to block callers, and to record custom greetings for different types of callers. This feature just got a whole lot better with the rollout of call extensions, as it adds call functionality to web pages. In terms of advertising it makes the conversion process far easier for users than copying and pasting the number into Google Voice.

The primary changes to the call extensions that Google put forward the other day included:

1. More detailed reporting

2. New pricing

3. Call extensions to replace phone extensions

So how does the call extension feature work? As expected you need to sign into your AdWords account and click on the Ad Extensions tab. From here you select Call Extensions (previously known as Phone extensions), in the shaded View drop down box. From here you select your country, enter the business phone number where you would like the calls to be directed to, and select the box for Call metrics.

The call metrics data that will be recorded will include:

• The time the call starts

• The time the call ends

• The duration of the call

• The call status i.e. missed or received

• The area code of the caller

Should need to add, edit or manage your call extensions this can be done at any time.

• To create a new extension in a new campaign you must add the extension during campaign creation under the ad extensions section.

• To add new extensions to an existing campaign you need to select the campaign and navigate to the Ad Extensions tab.

• To add a call extension select the “New Extension” button. To delete an extension you need to select this and then click the “Delete” button.

• To edit an extension simply hover it and the pencil icon will appear. Click on this and the editing function will open where you can perform the desired edit.

During beta this data could only be provided at a campaign level. However, with the official release of call extensions data can also be provided at the Ad Group level, giving advertisers greater insight into which aspect of their campaign they need to work on.

The release of AdWords call extensions has proved successful for advertisers during beta. The official release of call extensions and the tracking functionality provides detailed reports about the calls generated by your ads on both mobile and desktop devices. These reports should provide advertisers with some interesting results over the next couple of months. However, UK advertisers will have to wait a little longer for the call extensions call metrics feature to become available here.

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How to use Google AdWords Call Extensions

This report will tell you where your users are coming from, i.e. which platform they have used in order to get to your site. You can then optimise your site accordingly so that users can have the best possible experience. For example, if a large percentage of your traffic comes from mobile users then you may want to consider making a mobile version of your site that will be better suited to mobile users. You can also then optimise this with AdSense for mobile content.

You can access this new AdSense platforms feature within the new interface by navigating to the Performances Report tab; this will bring up a menu on the left hand side of the screen with a new option for Platforms. Select this new AdSense platform and it will load a report detailing your performance data broken down into the following, as well as the amount of revenue generated through AdSense on each platform:

• Desktop computers

• High-end mobile devices including Smartphones – these are mobile phones that offer a more advanced computing ability and connectivity than the low-end devices.  It combines the features of a personal digital assistant with a mobile phone, portable media player functionality, camera phones, touch screens, Wi-Fi and mobile broadband access and GPS functionality.

• Other mobile devices including low- and mid-range mobile phones – these are also called feature phones and runs unique software but not a complete operating system. It runs Java but cannot be integrated with other features of the phone which instead appear as “applications”

The system already offers the option of device platform targeting so that you can create effective ads suited to the targeted platform. By enabling you to receive data about which platform your users are visiting from, you can focus more on the ads that are viewed the most via the specific platform and thus target users more effectively. In doing so search marketing agencies can help monetize your campaigns and the platforms more effectively.

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Adsense Platform Provides New Insight into How Users Access Your Site

Kevin Ryan, Motive Marketing
Craig Danuloff, Click Equations Inc
Anders Hjorth, COO GroupM Search EMEA

This session went through the various aspects of PPC tools and when you should consider investing in tools.

Kevin Ryan, Motive Marketing

Tools like “Clickable” are mid market and pretty good.

From a survey I did –

• “What non-technical resources would your ideal search firm have?”
• “What are you missing now?”
• “What technical resources would you rate as most important?”
• “What is the primary driver in a search agency?”

The most common answer was – 3^rd party paid search tools. Agencies should build infographics to explain what they are doing.

Over the years bidding got really more complicated. The tools have become very good. Agencies have been squeezed to other services like landing page optimisation, Client intelligence, Primary research, technical oversight and informed decision making because the margins on a “percentage of spend” have become so low.

Tools don’t replace common sense, but they assist. Where are we intervening with automation? 4 phased approach:

• Placement:- Structure
• Audience: Targeting
• Campaign:
• Reporting: Attribution

The perfect tool:

• Needs to support multiple ad formats
• It needs to “assist” you with tactical analysis and execution (Don’t trust everything googl suggests – they want your money)
• It needs to optimise creative
• Data integration (Very much on the background – Complex attribution
• Advanced reporting

Craig Danuloff, Click Equations Inc

Before choosing tools, examine what problem you are solving, which tools can help and when does it make sense to invest in a tool?

Take a strategic view. Look at where you are at and where you want to be in terms of current profit and the potential profit. The gap requires keyword research, competitive analysis and then targeting through optimising ad text and campaigns. Start by analysing what is holding you back.

1. People – Getting junior staff up to speed to complement seniors
2. Process – reducing inefficiency and improving effectiveness. What are our policies if a page quality score is below 5? What is our process if an ad text has 30% lower display? Do we have process in place that stipulate what to do?
3. Analytics – More complete data and more accurate data (attribution, etc)
4. Technology – simplifying workflow

There are tools for all sorts of aspects of the problem. Tools for competitive analysis, for display research, for keyword research and other niche tools. You really need a toolbox of various tools to satisfy the right need. Not necessarily 1 tool fits all.

Find your place on the Paid Search Tech Maturity curve. In some industries you cannot compete without the right tools. If the competition are at the top of their game you either join them or don’t bother.

There are several free resources available at ClickEquasions.com

Anders Hjorth, COO GroupM Search EMEA

Competitive Intelligence For Search

Some tools we use:

• Adgooroo: Recommended
• Compete: Highly recommended
• SEMrush
• Comscore qSearch
• Spyfu

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London SMX Coverage: Essential Paid Search Tools

http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/view?q=view:popular#V5LKvYsCtI-iIM

Already there has been a lot of talk about this arrangement contravening adsense guidelines. I couldn’t specifically find the paragraph that says you may not draw attention to the ads – perhaps someone who knows the guidelines inside out can enlighten us, but what worries me more is the fact that visitors are no longer coming to your web page to read your content. So your analytics will suffer in terms of home page pageviews. At present fastflip has pre-defined categories and sites for well known news sites such as “The Washington Post” and “BBC News”, so there is no danger of the average web site falling prey to this.

Surely then, if a significant number of people were to use fastflip, these sites would feel the dip in traffic and the associated loss of revenue? Or would they? It can be argued that any site privileged enough to be included in fastflip will get extra traffic, as the interface is pretty OK to flick through the sites, and visitors are actually just a click away from landing on your site. Clicking anywhere on the featured page takes you through to the site in question.

Sure, it is a Google labs experiment, but I certainly think that they are going to need to address some of these rumblings before going mainstream. It will be interesting to pickup the feedback both in terms of user experience and also user behaviour.

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Is Google fastflip stealing your Pageviews, or bringing you more?

The issue we need to identify is where to spend our money. That seems to be a pretty obvious one to answer, but is entirely dependent on our goals. We also need to look at whether or not it’s worthwhile investing in the other 2 phases (namely research and shop).

Let’s start with the research phase: Customers may be searching for general terms such as ‘used cars’. There are many searches for these general terms, but their CPC’s will most probably be extremely expensive. Is it worthwhile to spend your money on these terms or would it be more beneficial to forfeit this stage completely? This is a bit of a tricky one and I think it’s dependent on a variety of factors including your specific goals, your budget, and the product, etc.

For example, if you were devising a campaign for a Directory Service, this stage may be beneficial, as you would target the broader terms related to a wide variety of services and your goal would not be so much purchase-orientated as service/ usage-orientated. Someone searching for a general term such as “used cars” would be able to search your directory for a wide selection of used car dealers.

If, on the other hand, your client is an online retailer offering a select range of kitchen utensils, it probably wouldn’t be very constructive to target the general term ‘ kitchen utensils’. A very small proportion of searchers using this term would actually be looking for the specific kitchen utensils on offer. There is the odd chance that the searcher may be looking for your particular product but is it worth utilising a large proportion of your budget on it? Probably not. In this case, you could forfeit this phase completely or assign a small budget for brand awareness purposes.

Let’s move on to the Shop Phase: your users are looking to purchase a general product. So the addition of modifiers such as buy and purchase is practical. Using the kitchen utensil example again, ‘buy kitchen utensils’ would again not be highly relevant as the retailer does not offer all types of kitchen utensils. Unless the retailer offers a wide range of products, it may still be worth removing this phase, but this decision is totally dependent on the budget and may be worth a trial run to identify costs and possible ROI.

Finally, we have the Purchase phase: this is where we concentrate on specific products and brand names; and where we would concentrate our budget for the kitchen utensils example. ‘Buy Egg Lifter’ would offer a brilliant return on investment.

Clearly these budget decisions are not as straightforward as the Search Engines make them out to be. They are not really worried about where we spend our budget as long as we are spending it. I think George Michie sums it up perfectly in his blog: The PPC Buying Cycle: Buyer Beware! He warns us not to believe everything the search engines tell us with regards to spending money on general search terms, as they generally have their own best interests at heart.

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Research spend, should we or shouldn’t we?

There are many shady SEOs out there; we call these guys Snake Oil salesmen because they’re scammers who would sell their own grandmothers given half a chance.

These are the guys who offer “Guaranteed” first page listings in a ridiculously short period of time. They target small businesses that don’t have a huge budget and are easily sucked into the vortex of deception. Of course, it’s not only small businesses that get approached, but these are the guys who will feel the impact most.

Whatever means these SEOs use to achieve rankings and deliver promised traffic, they cannot be ethical. At the end of the day, many small business owners don’t know any better, all they really know about SEO is what these conmen have sold him. Promises of great traffic and impressive listings, and they are sold. These are the bandits that give us ethical SEOs a really bad name and they must be stopped.

So what can we do, you ask?

Agreed, these “guarantees” are very tempting. According to a blog post by Rishil on SEO Moz, the only way around this is to ensure that you have measures in place to protect your current clients and ensure that you empower and enlighten all new clients.

These are interesting observations, and I tend to agree. The argument goes as follows:

As ethical SEOs, we need to protect our clients by empowering and educating them. When a client receives a fluffy email from a shady SEO (this will happen often) that promises them 1st page glory within a matter of days, we need to make sure that that she or he is aware of the SEO processes and elements that make such guarantees virtually impossible. If something sounds too good to be true… it is!

If we have done our job properly, our clients should have some knowledge of basic SEO. Enough to know when there are fundamental SEO issues at play. Make sure that they know what all the essential processes involved are and how critical it is not to miss a beat. Taking all this into consideration, once clients examine the validity of what conmen are saying, the facts will speak for themselves. They will realise soon enough that it is a scam and that there is no quick way to get these kinds of results. To prove the point further, ensure you always use Google webmaster guidelines as a reference to back up your claims.

I use this tactic for several different questions that clients may have, and nothing works better because the guidelines provide solid, factual information directly from the horse’s mouth. There is a wealth of information available to everyone and nothing dissolves doubt faster than hard facts. Take this SEO Definition by Google for example:

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too: “Dear Google.com, I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…” Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

On the other side of the fence, we have all seen potential new clients who are mystified and delighted by these black magic types. These clients have been promised all the riches in the land, with guarantees to boost. The best way forward is to ask them the very same questions that you asked your clients. By educating and enlightening them you will not only earn a great deal of respect, but you will also be one step closer to eradicating these conmen from the world.

It’s all about complete transparency and truth; don’t beat around the bush and always keep the client in the loop; this is a principle that we at MediaVision believe is the most import of all. If we empower all clients to distinguish between ethical and shady SEO, then half our job is done.

At the end of the day, there is nothing more impressive than a solid track record of ethical practices, transparency with all existing and potential clients, empowerment, training and communication. All this, backed up by a comprehensive strategy and realistic targets, and you have all the ingredients needed to succeed as an ethical SEO agency, because good can prevail over evil.

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Protect and empower – Snake oil salesmen can be stopped.

Many experts advise advertisers to keep their PPC account structure in line with their sitemaps, or website structures. This is a great idea if it is possible. It maintains an order that is easily lost when creating targeted AdGroups, but in many cases, it`s just not viable.

Your next step would be to look at your AdGroups. Are they all tightly themed or do you have one Campaign and one AdGroup with a long list of largely unrelated keywords? In an ideal situation, each keyword would have an exceptionally strong correlation with the rest of the keywords in the AdGroup and with the Ad Copy associated with that particular AdGroup. Every keyword would appear somewhere within the Ad Copy. The most profitable keywords should, in addition, appear in the heading text.

These actions will undoubtedly increase your click-through rates, as all keywords searched are then highlighted when the ads are displayed on the search engine results page. A user would be more prone to clicking on an Ad that he could ‘boldly` see contained his selected keywords.

Your improved click-through rate should boost your Quality Score, which in turn will decrease your minimum bid and cost per click for any given Ad position.

The key to the Quality Score equation is relevance. So make sure that any page your Ad directs a user to is highly relevant to the search query (keyword) in question. Your destination URL should guide you to a targeted landing page. At this point, again, make sure that your landing page contains a large proportion of the keywords in your AdGroup, as this will give the search engines a good indication of the relevance factor.

In the midst of your new highly relevant AdGroups and great new click-through rates, your account should be smiling all the way to ‘historical performance` bliss.

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Is your PPC AdGroup structure a loose cannon?

The “new music business” is one I`ve discussed at length with Moth and some sound engineers of my acquaintance who have some very interesting things to say about syndicating the ‘quality of the bona fide recording` and sorting through blurred music nomenclature. But what interests me more is the idea of using pay per click advertising to prove a point – in this case, that incompatible advertising is unacceptable.

To my mind, if this ‘ad evangelist` has chosen his route using Google as the medium, the point would have been a much more resonant one. First, he`d have had to test Columbia`s organic searches (something like “the walking eye” or “music label recording”) and chosen one as his target route. In order to hit the “corporate” music industry as a whole, he could have chosen keywords that produced the most number of said corporations in the first SERP, and made his point to a much wider audience, rather than those who visit only one corporation. For the record (sorry), my interest in jamming ad placement is purely SEM academic, and I take no public stance on the music industry`s turmoil! Second, the evangelist would then bid on his chosen keywords – but offer to pay an exorbitant amount, so as to ensure placement – and craft his ads so that relevant keywords appeared, but the message was still ‘anti-corporate`.

In this way, PPC could be a platform rather than a pathway, as it would offer a message. One likes to think that Google or the victims of these pranks would shut down the offending message quickly – although, it took Columbia three days to remove the “Major Labels Are Obsolete” ads. A mere screenshot is all a visitor would need to submit to a social media site in order to propel the bad press ad infinitum. Often if a joke is good enough, it does the social media rounds, and then it re-appears for a second, third and fourth run, because there are that many people online.

I think the moral of the story here is to keep an eye on your website, and know about the searches that concern you. A website is not a static creature, and no matter how good your intentions online are, it`s still an open forum, and there is mud everywhere.

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PPC mud tracks

What interests us as a search engine marketing clan, is that Google plans to advertise Cavalcade via AdSense video clips, which will run on their content network. Thus, ads for the cartoons will appear on sites that already update with fresh content and partner with Google to display AdWords, while MacFarlane, his production company and the search engine take a share of the advertising fees. In some cases there will be a “preroll” of ads that viewers will have to watch prior to the clip, and in others there will be a “brought to you by” foreword, which will justify advertising expense.

Thus, Cavalcade will be among the first “webisodes” to breach the multi-million Dollar production mark, and it`s expected to reach much more than that, click by click. For cartoonists, these 2-minute sweetie clips spell money, for a number of reasons. First, they test the waters for possible projects in movies and television, if for example, the audience goes wild for one particular scenario. Second, they escape television censorship and broadcasting constraints (MacFarlane told the The New York Times recently, “I just felt I could be a lot more honest on the Internet,”). Third, Cavalcade is low risk, as there is an abundance of concepts that can be displayed freely, instead of on one network, and ultimately Calvacade can be released in DVD form if the concept catches fire. And in this world of bite-size information trawling, it`s likely that it will.

From a search point of view, Cavalcade converts Pay Per Click from a strategic expense that attracts visitors, to a capital injection in itself that can fund a project. The ultimate objective for paid advertising is the conversion of visitors when they reach a website, and often they get lost on the way. But with cartoon video advertising, the objective is in the click, and with Google`s blended search, it`s easy to factor videos into search results pages. And who knows, later this year we may have the pleasure of experiencing the first ever exclusive Adwords campaign to go viral, with talking cows and genius babies. Don`t say you`re surprised.

p.s. thanks to this site for the cute Family Guy gif

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A cavalcade of pay per click

Why are Google doing this? Are they enhancing the user experience? Opinions definitely seem to differ on this topic. Some think that Google is simply trying to make money by forcing companies to bid on their own Trademarks. Others argue that Google is increasing the user experience by offering them more choice.

Personally I think that companies like Tesco, who are refusing to bid on competitor keywords on ethical grounds, need to be congratulated.

If I had to enter the search term ‘Tesco` and see sponsored links for Sainsbury, Waitrose or Morrison’s appear ahead of Tesco, I would be immensely annoyed . Maybe it`s just me, but if I am searching for a particular Trademark term, that is what I`d like to find. Not one of their competitors.

I`m sure Google would argue that you may be searching for a Trademark name by default and be more than happy with the fact that you now have more options.

Many have said that bidding battles will ensue over the next few days, but having searched for the aforementioned Trademark terms today, I haven`t yet come across one that is bidding on another`s Trademark. Have they all taken the ethical high ground or do they hold the same sentiment – ‘If somebody were searching for [Tesco], why would they click on a [Waitrose] ad`?

One advantage that the ‘Trademarked` business has is the fact that a portion of the Quality Score relies on the Search Term appearing in the Ad copy. And because competitors cannot include the Trademark name in the Ad copy, this does compensate for other injustices, if only ever so slightly. At least the competitor will end up paying more for the ‘undeserved` click.

Companies like Lastminute.com and Amazon are not taking this policy change with a pinch of salt. They are both considering legal action and are not alone.

Let`s see if Google will win this war.

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Trademark wars…Google yet again proves its monopolistic hold over the search market.