Google Ads Archives - Grapevine

Leveraging Local Advertising for Online Brands

Matt Rees — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 17:01:00 +0000

Location targeting is a must when advertising for businesses with brick-and mortar stores, but can often be overlooked when dealing with predominantly online businesses.

Targeting your entire country/region with the same ad, and the same landing page, whilst assuming the results and user behaviour will be the same isn’t logical. We believe that segmenting your targeting, ad copy and landing pages by location is a sure-fire way to drive up conversion rates. There are a number of reasons why:

Efficiency – All locations are not equal. Areas vary wildly in terms of wealth, demographics, politics, and many other factors. It follows on that the value of conversions will not be equal between locations either. As a result, splitting out locations will help with budget allocation and target setting. In theory, most advertising platforms will apportion traffic to locations based on one overriding target. However, this only applies when a business has a single objective, which is not that common.
Brand Awareness – Click-through rates and conversion rates will inevitably be lower in regions where a brand is less known. This creates an opportunity to grow the brand in specific areas with messaging targeted to users in the discovery phase. Conversely, spend could be pulled in these areas to focus on short-term performance.
Ad Relevancy – Inserting locations into ad copy will increase ad relevancy and boost engagement. At a basic level, key locations can be split out manually and inserted into headlines, descriptions and other content.

Taking Localisation Further

In Google Ads, dynamic location parameters can be inserted into ad copy, and then pulled through to landing pages, meaning messaging can be customised throughout the user journey. In our experience, there is a use case for testing this for all businesses:

Brick-and-Mortar Stores – The most straight forward use would be for brick-and-mortar stores. Showing the user their nearest store, its opening times, and directions means multiple steps in the online journey can be removed.
Online Lead Generation – Businesses without physical locations can still benefit from localised copy on their landing pages. This can take the form of relevant statistics to the area e.g. “We’ve sold 56 houses in BS5 this month”, local business testimonials, or area specific headlines e.g. “Financial Advisors in Birmingham”. Developing trust for an entirely online service can be difficult, but adding local information will help.
Ecommerce – Arguably the type of business where location specific language is least relevant is ecommerce. However, there are a few cases where location specific landing pages should be tested. For example, delivery offerings. If the delivery service is particularly good in certain areas, shout about it. Secondly, there may be some specific cases where location has a bearing on suggested products, or even available products for delivery.

A Final Note

If you are implementing location targeting and messaging across your digital offering, there are a few keys things to remember. Firstly, make sure everything you track about the user is compliant with GDPR and relevant cookie laws. For localised landing pages, always A/B test against a control page first, and ensure you have backup headlines if dynamic parameters fail to pull through. Finally, don’t be creepy – Localisation is great, but not everyone wants to know how many steps your business is from their front door!

The post Leveraging Local Advertising for Online Brands appeared first on Grapevine.

You aren’t reporting conversions correctly in Google Ads. Here’s why

Chris Lewis — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:30:00 +0000

I have a confession to make. For the last few years I have been using the wrong method to record conversions in Google Ads, and I’m sure many of you reading this are doing the same.

My recommendation to clients was always this: Why bother installing Google Ads conversion tracking, when you can simply import your conversions from Google Analytics?

It seems like the obvious choice. The import feature is simple and works seamlessly, so why would you install two separate sets of tracking tags, when you can do everything with Google Analytics?

There are some notable benefits of this method of conversion tracking too. By using Google Analytics tracking in Google Ads, you can be sure that you are reporting using a consistent method of attribution. This is especially useful if you are using GA as your primary reporting source for your cross-channel marketing efforts. It’s also true that Google Analytics tracking is the most accurate for channel-agnostic reporting, as many of the ad platforms will claim 100% credit for conversions they only had a small hand in.

Despite the benefits of the GA import, Google Ads conversion tracking will definitely improve the performance of your ad account, and here’s why.

Last Google Ads Click vs Last Non-direct Click

The main difference between the two methods of conversion is the attribution model. Google Analytics uses a last non-direct click model, which means a conversion is attributed to the last touchpoint in the journey before conversion (except if that touchpoint is direct). For example, a user who visits a site via a paid ad, and then returns via an organic listing before converting, will give 100% of the credit for the conversion to the organic listing.

Google Ads’ attribution model will look for the most recent Google Ads click and will give credit to that click. This means that in the example above, Google Ads would claim credit for this conversion.

In the days of cookie opt-ins and GDPR, the more data we can gather the better. Why would we only pass last-click conversions through to Google Ads, when we could be capturing every relevant conversion? After all, the automated bidding strategies can do the heavy lifting in terms of account optimisation, and feeding in more data will make those strategies more efficient.

Attribution models in Google Ads make no sense with GA tracking

Google Ads first started suggesting the use of their attribution models years ago. Models such as time-decay, position based, and the crown jewel data-driven attribution, have become a staple of most paid search strategies.

The thing is though, these models mean next to nothing if you are only sending last-click conversions through to Google Ads. Think about it this way – how can Google Ads attribute credit to any earlier click, if non-paid conversions are never being sent to the platform?

The result is, an attribution model that can only credit earlier clicks, if the last touchpoint before conversion is either a Google ad, or a direct visit. So much for intelligent attribution!

With Google Ads conversion tracking, all relevant conversions are ingested by the platform, and attribution modelling can work to its fullest extent. As with smart bidding, this means Google Ads will be optimising your account correctly.

Cross-device tracking and website call conversions

The main reason for switching to Google Ads conversion tracking comes down to attribution: more tracked conversions, more mature data, better account performance and results.

However, as if that wasn’t enough, Google Ads also throws in a couple of additional features that prove really useful. The first is cross-device tracking. Google Analytics cannot track conversions over multiple devices, but Google Ads uses a combination of data from signed-in Google accounts, and a healthy dose of modelling, to report on conversions that span more than one device.

Secondly, call conversions & Google’s call forwarding feature are only possible via Google Ads. Google dynamically changes your site’s phone number to a Google forwarding number. When a call is connected, Google Ads can report on this. You can even change the settings for different lengths of calls, if you want to qualify your leads. This tracking also works for call extensions within ads, which would never be tracked via the website.

A final word

Google Analytics tracking definitely has its place. It’s still the most robust way to measure your site’s performance across every channel, and should form the basis of any website performance reporting.

Within the Google Ads platform though, why not give some fit for purpose conversion tracking a go? We’re confident you’ll see results!

The post You aren’t reporting conversions correctly in Google Ads. Here’s why appeared first on Grapevine.

Top Tips for Performance Max

David Mooney — Tue, 24 May 2022 15:14:29 +0000

Last year, Google announced a *shiny* new campaign type called Performance Max. Now, ‘new’ products from Google are often met with a sizeable groan (from me), as in my experience, it typically takes a few months (or years in some cases) before they’ve ironed out the kinks, and the product actually performs well.

However, with this announcement came the news that Performance Max campaigns were to replace Smart Shopping campaigns entirely by the end of July. With that in mind, it was important that we got up to speed with Performance Max before we were forced to!

So what is it?

Despite what it sounds like, Performance Max is not Google’s new brand of condoms. Instead, they are fully automated, all-in-one campaigns that cover Google’s entire inventory. That’s right, it’s a Search/Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps campaign in one. There’s no keyword and audience targeting, as instead, Google is tracking and targeting users as they move around the Google landscape.

Is it any good?

This isn’t Google’s first foray into all-in-one campaigns, following the disastrous (believe me, they were) ‘smart’ campaigns they tried to launch three or four years ago. These were thankfully replaced with Smart Display and Smart Shopping campaigns, which have fared slightly better.

I will be honest though – I was sceptical about Performance Max when it was first announced. The level of automation and lack of optimisation available felt crude. The fact that you can’t add negative keywords, block dodgy websites, or even see which platform a user was on when they clicked an ad was surely giving Google too much control. That said, we’ve been using Performance Max for a while now, and there are some benefits. Most notably – we are now spending less time doing boring manual work, and more time doing fun strategic work.

However, even with the misgivings of the new campaign type (and there are plenty); given that Google will be migrating Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max this summer, it makes sense to get to grips with them sooner rather than later. Here are our top tips:

1. Revert to (some) standard Shopping

We have found that setting up Performance Max campaigns without opting into shopping (yes that’s possible), is a good way of testing the water. You’ll get a sense of the performance, without clashing with your existing shopping setup. On top of that, we’ve set up some standard shopping campaigns that perform at least as well as smart ones for priority products. By doing so, we can still maintain bids and search terms in key areas.

2. Optimise your shopping feed

Even before Performance Max, you should have been optimising your shopping feed with the use of a third-party tool, or rules within the Merchant Center. Such tools allow you to optimise headlines and descriptions so they are more keyword friendly, add custom labels to help push priority products, and structure the feed in a cohesive way. Given that a big part of Performance Max campaigns will be using shopping, you should be optimising your feed to get the most out of them.

3. Watch Final URL expansion

This is a slightly technical one, but when you are setting up your campaign, you’ll have the option to opt into Final URL Expansion. This will match the most relevant page on your site to the user’s query and also change headlines to match intent. I would suggest opting out of expansion for the time being.

4. Add negatives

You can add negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns, but only at the account level, and requested under ‘brand safety’ concerns. We suggest you request to add negative terms because of historic performance issues under the guise of ‘brand safety’ to improve efficiency.

5. View your search terms

It is possible to see search terms within the campaign under the ‘Insights’ section, although you can only see week-on-week or month-on-month data. Still, it’s well worth understanding the terms that are driving better performance.

What should you do now?

The sooner you get on board with Performance Max the better, as Google will be it pushing hard over the next 6-12 months. I’d suggest running limited amounts to begin with and ramping up off the back of good performance. If you’d like a chat about Performance Max or anything digital marketing, get in touch.

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