Smart Bidding in Google Ads   Google Ads Smart Bidding Strategies are powerful tools that use machine learning to optimise auction-time bids towards conversions (sales or leads for example) or conversion value (E.g. revenue).  The strategies use data to predict how different bids might affect conversion goals, and these predictions are made at each and every auction, using a whole range of information about the user and their context, known as “signals”. These signals include what device the user is on, their browser and operating system, their location, their interests, the time and day of th ..read more

Shopping campaigns are a powerful ad type provided by Google Ads, allowing users to see product images and prices directly from the SERP. However, despite the strength of shopping campaigns it’s not uncommon to see accounts with just one shopping campaign running all products, limiting both performance visibility and optimisation efficiency. By splitting your shopping campaigns by brand and generic a much greater level of control is acquired, allowing optimisations to be made specific to either brand or generic searches, alongside providing better visibility about the performance of each. As s ..read more

In recent years, Black Friday and the following weekend has firmly established itself as one of the most important trading periods of the year. With one week remaining until Black Friday, we thought we would share our checklist of quick wins to ensure you maximise your Google Ads’ account potential during this peak trading period.  Search Budgets – search demand is likely to increase during Black Friday and over the weekend that follows. We can see this below for a generic search query example using a Google Trends chart, showing interest over time where traffic spiked for Black Friday last ye ..read more

Automation. The word that strikes both excitement and fear into all PPC marketers around the globe. Can it save time? Improve performance? Remove the necessity for manual mundane tasks? The answer is, of course, yes to all of the above. The benefits are clear to see, but something which Google sometimes forgets to consider is Brand image. How will my Responsive Search Ads appear? As if adding in 10-15 individually unique headlines doesn’t take up enough brainpower, we also need to ensure that if I pick any 3 variations of those headlines, they have to fit together seamlessly into a winning ad ..read more

With just two weeks left until the biggest shopping event of the year, the race is on to make sure your search, display and shopping campaigns are optimised to reach online bargain-hunters across the country.   You’ll likely be busy populating your adcopy with Black Friday-related messaging, setting up promotion extensions, brainstorming new keyword ideas, generating promotional image ads, priming your audience lists for remarketing and preparing your shopping feeds.  Heck, you might even be working on countdown customisers and Merchant Promotions!     < If you haven’t started yet – don’t ..read more

We briefly touched on cross-channel audiences in Search Ads 360 (SA360) in our guide to SA360 Audience Solutions. In this blog I wanted to expand on this, and share the exciting possibilities that are available with cross-channel remarketing through SA360. In short, using cross-channel audiences in combination with remarketing strategies allows you to reach users who have interacted with your brand, even when they move between platforms.   Today’s users move between channels and devices. Photo by Mad Fish Digital Take the Holistic Approach With the traditional approach, remarketing activity ..read more

Google recently announced that over the coming weeks they are rolling out two new ways to reach your target market via Google Search: seasonal event segments for in-market audiences and affinity audiences. What are seasonal event segments for in-market audiences? In-market audiences are Google-defined audiences of customers who are actively researching products and looking to make a purchase of a certain product or service. Google are rolling out a Black Friday and Christmas segment in time for the upcoming peak trading period. Before rolling these new segments out, Google worked with Toyota t ..read more

Seeing new Google Ads betas pop up in the interface is a regular occurrence with Google continuously looking to add new features to boost advertising performance. However, one of the latest betas to become available is one which seriously caught our eye here at ConversionWorks – Lead Form Extensions. Whilst Lead Form Extensions are not a new concept – with Google trialling similar information capturing extensions in the past – the current beta accommodates CRM integration, providing the capability to log valuable leads directly from the SERP into customer management systems. This extension the ..read more

The holiday season is THE busiest time of the year for retailers, so to help you hit your targets in 2019 we’re giving you three quick tips to start you on the road to success! 1. Seasonality Adjustments If you’re using smart bidding it’s time to test Google’s new feature to get the most out of your performance. Which means no more learning periods! ‘Tis the season…  For those who don’t know seasonality adjustments are ‘an advanced tool that can be used to inform Smart Bidding of expected changes in conversion rates for future events like promotions or sales’. Therefore you can really maximise ..read more