Google Ads creates unified advertiser verification program

Google Ads will merge its advertising identify and business operation verification programs into a unified advertising verification program in March, according to an email sent by Google Ads to some advertisers today. 

The Google Ads unified advertising verification process is similar to the current identity verification process – you’re required to submit your legal business or individual name, along with any other supporting documentation. This information will be displayed in an ad disclosure. 

The email (see in full, below) shared details on what will change. 

New section: About your business. Google said it will ask advertisers questions (e.g.,  the advertiser’s industry and billing country) related to their Google Ads and account, which will be shown in a new section, About your business. Why? So Google can understand whether you are a direct or indirect provider of the products or services being advertised. 

Verification timeline change. Advertisers must submit their About your business answers within 30 days. Failure to do so will result in your account being paused. On top of that, Google said there will be an additional 30 days to complete any requested verifications, which could be identify, business operations, or both.

Advertisers were previously given 30 days to start identity verification, and an additional 30 days to complete it. And advertisers were previously given 21 days to complete business verification, and were given a 7-day notice period before account suspension.

Six reasons why Google may pause your account. If:

• You fail to answer the questions about your Google Ads account and business.
• Fail to complete or meet the identity or business operations verification requirements. 
• Google suspects your ads violates Google Ads policies. 
• Google suspects your advertising may cause physial or monetary harm to users. 
• Google suspects you are attempting to circumvent the verification process.
• If your identity or advertising behavior has been identified as “unclear”.

Why we care. Google began its push for greater transparency in political advertising in 2018. These changes are all meant to let searchers clearly know who is behind the ads they’re seeing and potentially clicking on. Hopefully, this will make for a safer user experience (e.g., less fraudulent and scam ads) and improve the Google Ads ecosystem. 

Here’s is the full text of the email Google Ads sent:

In March 2022, Google will consolidate the current advertiser Identity verification and Business operations verification programs under a unified Advertiser verification program to provide a simplified and improved advertiser experience. Similar to the current approach, advertisers will be notified via an email and an in-account notification when they have been selected for the Advertiser verification program.

Under this program, advertisers will be asked to initiate the verification process within 30 days, and will have another 30 days to complete all the requested verification requirements, which may comprise multiple steps, including verifying their identity, their business operations or both.

As a part of the unified Advertiser verification program, there will be revised timelines and enforcement actions, details of which are below.

What’s changing:

• About your business: In the first step of the unified Advertiser verification program, Google will ask advertisers a few basic questions related to their Google Ads account and business under a new ‘About your business’ section. The questions will ask, for example, the advertiser’s industry and billing country, and information to help Google understand if they are a direct or indirect provider (third party) of the products or services advertised on the Google Ads platform. Advertisers will be given 30 days to submit their answers. If advertisers have not submitted their answers by the end of the 30th day, their account will be paused.

• Verification timeline updates: Responses from the completion of the About your business questions will determine the verification requirements and direct advertisers to the next steps of additional verification, which may include verifying your identity, your business operations, or both (see the “Advertiser selection criteria updates” section below). Advertisers will be given 30 days to successfully complete these additional verifications. Failure to complete or meet the verification requirements in the specified time period will result in an account pause. Note that the pause will only be applied by the end of the 30th day if advertisers have not completed or met the requirements.
  • For Identity verification: Previously, advertisers were given 30 days to start verification and additional 30 days to successfully complete the identity verification.
  • For Business operations verification: Previously, advertisers were given 21 days to successfully complete the Business operation verification along with a 7 days notice period before account suspension.
  • For the unified Advertiser verification: Now, advertisers will have 30 days to complete the ‘About your business’ questions and an additional 30 days to successfully complete all requested verifications, which may include verifying their identity, their business operations or both.

• Business operations verification updates: To reduce the administrative burden and provide a consistent and synchronized experience for our advertisers, we are aligning the enforcement actions for all the verification requirements under the Advertiser verification program. As a result of this alignment, failure to complete or meet the business operations verification requirements (if requested) will now result in an account pause instead of an account suspension. This means that advertisers’ accounts will stay open, but their ads will not be able to serve until they are able to complete this program successfully. Note that the pause will only be applied by the end of the 30th day if advertisers have not completed or met the requirements.

To run ads again, advertisers must complete the verification successfully by submitting the requested responses to the survey along with the relevant documentation (as applicable).

• Advertiser selection criteria updates: As a part of unified Advertiser verification program, we are combining the advertiser selection criteria for the current advertiser Identity verification and Business operations verification programs for a more harmonized experience, introducing additional criteria to provide an increased layer of protection for our users, and clarifying the instances when the advertiser accounts may be paused immediately. Details below.
  • Additional criteria: Google may request that advertisers complete the Advertiser verification program if, for example, they are advertising on brand-related queries or user queries in business verticals or industries susceptible to abuse, fraud, and scams (such as travel, customer or technical support services and financial services). Where an advertiser is asked to complete additional verification, advertisers’ campaign performance may be impacted when advertising on certain Google restricted queries. Successful completion of the requested verifications will help improve campaign performance (as applicable).
  • Criteria for immediate account pausing: In certain circumstances, we may pause advertisers’ accounts immediately when the Advertiser verification program is initiated. Your account may be paused immediately for the following reasons:
    • If we suspect your ads violate our Google Ads policies, including, for example, Misleading representation, Unreliable claims, Unidentified business, Business name requirements, Solicitation of funds, Sensitive Events, and Coordinated Deceptive Practices.
    • If we suspect that your advertising or business practices may cause physical or monetary harm to users. Non-exhaustive examples include: misrepresenting yourself in your ad content; offering financial products or services under false pretenses; or offering unauthorized customer support services on behalf of third parties.
    • If we suspect you are attempting to circumvent our verification process.
    • If your identity or your advertising behavior has been identified as unclear.

• Transparency & disclosures: Similar to the current process followed in the identity verification, as a part of the identity and/or business operations verification steps, advertisers will be required to submit their legal business or their individual name along with supporting documentation for the unified Advertiser verification program. With the information advertisers provide, Google will display the advertiser name and location via an ad disclosure. Learn more about ad disclosures.

As part of Google’s ongoing transparency efforts, we will also make information about your Google Ads accounts and ad campaigns publicly available.

• User experience improvements: Advertisers will be able to initiate, monitor the status and progress of their verifications, and view failure reasons (if applicable) in a new user interface under the Billing and Payments settings tab in their Google Ads account. Advertisers can access this interface via in-product prompts and notifications.

These changes will not impact the scope or requirements of Google’s other verification programs. We will begin implementing these updates to streamline the experience on March 31, 2022 with a gradual ramp up over two months.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google Ads Team

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Deepcrawl launches technical SEO app for Wix

SEO tool provider Deepcrawl has launched a technical SEO app for Wix websites, the company announced Monday. Designed for small and mid-sized enterprises, the app automates weekly site crawls and detects issues ranging from broken pages to content that doesn’t meet best-practice guidelines for SEO.

The Deepcrawl app dashboard for Wix websites. Image: Deepcrawl.

The Deepcrawl app for Wix is available now for $7 per month.

SEO is on the rise at Wix. Wix has been steadily built out its SEO capabilities and now offers the ability to edit your robots.txt file, custom URL structures and more.

Wix’s direction and dedication to SEO has been quite apparent over the last few years. Over the longer term, this is something of an about-face for the company, which once suffered from a poor reputation within the SEO community over issues such as websites not showing up in Google search results.

Why we care. The Deepcrawl app is an enterprise-level offering that may help SMEs on Wix monitor the technical health of their site.

From an industry perspective, Deepcrawl’s app may be setting a precedent in terms of technical SEO tools available for closed content management systems. As mentioned above, Wix has been focusing on improving its SEO capabilities, which might help it appeal to more brands as well as the SEOs that serve those brands.

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Pinterest rolls out AR ‘Try on’ feature for furniture items

Pinterest has launched an augmented reality (AR) feature that enables users to see what furniture looks like in their homes before they buy, the company announced Monday. Called “Try On for Home Decor,” the feature is already available for retailers such as Crate & Barrel, CB2, Walmart, West Elm and Wayfair.

Pinterest’s Try On for Home Decor feature. Image: Pinterest.

Why we care. This is hardly the first time augmented reality has been used to bring more of the offline shopping experience online (see below), but it does increase Pinterest’s shoppable pins with “Try on” enabled from 14,000 beauty pins to 80,000 home decor pins, according to Engadget.

In addition, this capability is rolling out to a new product category with support from well-known retailers, which could be significant for Pinterest’s 444 million monthly active users (worldwide) as well as the brands looking to sell to them. If this feature strengthens Pinterest as a shopping platform, it’ll also strengthen it as an advertising channel as well. 

AR-powered Try On expands product categories. Pinterest first introduced its Try On feature in January 2021 for beauty products, specifically eyeshadow and lipstick.

A month before that (December 2020), Google launched a similar feature in the mobile search results. Amazon also has a “View in your room” feature available on its mobile app for certain products as well.

How it works. Users browsing home decor products on Pinterest’s Android or iOS apps will see three dots in the top-right corner of “Try On enabled” Pins. Select the Pin and “Try in your space” to view the product using the camera lens.

Users can adjust and place the product to better help them visualize how it’ll look in-person. Users can also click the Pin to be taken to the checkout page of the retailer’s site.

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Recommendations roll out to Discovery campaigns

Google Ads has added recommendations to Discovery campaigns, the company announced Monday. In addition, the ability to automatically apply recommendations has rolled out to manager accounts and the platform is also adding more recommendations for Video campaigns.

Why we care. Recommendations may help you troubleshoot your campaigns or identify opportunities for greater efficiency. However, advertisers should exercise caution when opting into auto-applied recommendations — while they might save you some time, it might not be the most effective way to spend your budget.

Recommendations for Discovery campaigns. As mentioned above, recommendations are now available for Discovery campaigns.

A recommendation for a Discovery campaign in Google Ads. Image: Google.

And, Google Ads is also now showing optimization scores for Discovery campaigns as well.

Auto-apply recommendations in manager accounts. The ability to automatically apply recommendations has rolled out to manager accounts.

Advertisers should note that, when turned on, this feature automatically applies all recommendation types that have been selected as new recommendations become available.

More recommendations for Video campaigns. Google Ads is also bolstering its recommendations for Video campaigns. New examples of recommendations for this campaign type include:

• Set up product feeds to help you get more clicks and conversions at a lower CPA.
• Set up Google Analytics 4 to give you deeper, cross-platform customer insights.
• Upgrade your conversion tracking for more accurate conversion measurement.

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Google Search Console error reporting for Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data changed

Google has made changes to the way it handles Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data within Google Search Console’s reporting tools. Google said it “changed the way that it evaluates and reports errors in Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data.”

The impact. This may impact the number of errors, issues and other metrics Google reports on within Google Search Console’s enhancement reports related to

Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data.

Reporting change only. This is a reporting change only and this does not impact the visibility of your rich results in Google Search.

What to do next. It is recommended that if you have

Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data, you should check the reports in Google Search Console and address the revised errors and issues that Google is now reporting. Google said “you may see changes in the number of Breadcrumbs and HowTo entities and issues reported for your property, as well as a change in severity of some issues from errors to warnings.”

Why we care. Again, if you have

Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data on your site, you may now find new opportunities to resolve new errors or issues with your structured data. This may help you maintain your rich results in Google Search for those types of search result snippets.

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Google releases URL Inspection Tool API

Google has released a new API under the Search Console APIs for the URL Inspection Tool, the search company announced this morning. The new URL Inspection API lets you programmatically access the data and reporting you’d get from the

URL Inspection Tool but through software, like any API would.

API limits. The API has limits, so you can’t just run it on every URL on every site in a single day. The API has a 2,000 queries per day and 600 queries per minute limit. So don’t expect to run it against your whole entire one-million page website today. You will have to queue things up or run it on as needed basis.

Use cases. Google provided some use cases for the API, they include:

• SEO tools and agencies can provide ongoing monitoring for important pages and single page debugging options. For example, checking if there are differences between user-declared and Google-selected canonicals, or debugging structured data issues from a group of pages.
• CMS and plugin developers can add page or template-level insights and ongoing checks for existing pages. For example, monitoring changes over time for key pages to diagnose issues and help prioritize fixes.

The results. The API will return indexed information from the URL Inspection Tool including index status, AMP, rich results, and mobile usability. You can see the full list of responses over here in the API docs.

More details. You can learn more about this API in the API documentation over here. Here is a sample API response:

Why we care. You can now programmatically add the URL Inspection details to your content management system, internal tools, dashboards and third-party tools can add integration as well. Expect a number of tool providers and content

management systems to start adding features.

And if you have ideas, feel free to build them out yourself.

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20220131 SEL Brief

The post 20220131 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google merges its SafeSearch help information into a single new document

Google has published a new help document for SafeSearch that merges together all of Google’s SafeSearch details into one larger help document. This new document explains how SafeSearch works, adds some troubleshooting but the overall guidance of SafeSearch has not changed.

What is SafeSearch. SafeSearch is Google’s adult content filter that aims to filter out explicit content from your results. Explicit results include sexually explicit content like pornography, violence, and gore, according to Google.

New document. The new document is now located over here and it explains what SafeSearch is, how how SafeSearch works, how to see if SafeSearch is filtering out your site’s content and how to optimize your site for SafeSearch. It also goes through the metadata you can use with SafeSearch, as well as how to group your explicit content on your site into sections on your site for Google to better understand it. Finally, there is also a troubleshooting section at the bottom of the document.

Some tips from the document. Again, the guidance in the new document are not new, they are the guidance Google has been sharing for years. Google does say it uses machine learning “and a variety of signals to identify explicit content, including words on the hosting web page and in links.”

• You can use a site command with SafeSearch on to see if Google is filtering out all or some of your URLs for SafeSearch.
• You can the meta rating tag to define if your content is adult, this includes both content=”adult” or content=”RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA”.
• Google recommends you group your explicit pages into sections of your site using a separate domain, subdomain or separate directory.
• It can take Google two to three months for Google to process adult pages properly, it is slow.
• Even if you blur explicit images, Google may still decide the page is explicit if the image can be unblurred or leads to an unblurred image.
• Medical nudity doesn’t make it not explicit
• Explicit content is not eligible for rich snippets, featured snippets or video previews.

Why we care. Sometimes sites can be labeled as explicit and be filtered out by Google’s SafeSearch filter. It doesn’t happen often but I see it come up from time to time and when it does, it can be frustrating to deal with. This document helps you understand how the SafeSearch filter works and what you can do to help all or parts of your site not be filtered, in an unintended way, by SafeSearch.

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‘Untitled’ search results sending users to spam sites, Google ‘working on it’

Google search results have been showing an “Untitled” title tag for some sites over the past 3 days. People who click on those sites are being sent to spam sites, according to postings from users on Hacker News and Reddit.

‘Untitled’ Google results. Here’s what a Hacker News user posted:

“Over the last few days I’ve noticed several distinct Google results that are simply ‘Untitled’, that redirect to other sites that are definitely spam and possibly malware (I didn’t stay long enough to investigate). I’ve seen other examples of titles such as ‘Oh’ redirecting to the same spam sites. From the result preview below the title, the results otherwise seem somewhat relevant to the query, but most often end up loading a fake captcha page.“

nsilvestri on Hacker News

There is speculation in that thread that some of the reports of ‘Untitled’ results are due to compromised WordPress sites.

That thread reference another Hacker News thread, which included additional evidence of the issue in a discussion about Google rewriting page titles: 

“Something has to be fishy with this because I get tons of “Untitled” results now which directly lead to spam. This sucks big time because I usually got really good results since I search a lot coding related things and now I cannot use this account anymore for searching.”

5Qn8mNbc2FNCiVV on Hacker News

On Reddit, there is additional discussion of this issue. One user shared what the “Untitled” titles look like:

Google’s response. When alerted about the issue and thread via Twitter, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted: “We’re working on it.”

On Reddit, Sullivan added some additional context: “It’s not malware. It’s spam, something our systems normally would typically catch, so we’re checking on it to improve.”

He also added: “I can’t reproduce that myself, but it still helps understanding you’re seeing it happen on desktop and your phone. We’re looking into it.“

Why we care. Many have questioned the quality of Google’s search results in recent months (to be fair: some SEO professionals have been questioning the quality of Google’s search results for even longer than that!). But spam or malware sites in search results is bad for users, which is bad for Google. While this issue won’t cause most users to abandon Google (where are they going to go?), it’s stuff like this that gives SEO and search a bad name.

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Messy SEO Part 6: Pillar pages and topic clusters

Messy SEO is a column covering the nitty-gritty, unpolished tasks involved in the auditing, planning, and optimization of websites, using MarTech’s new domain as a case study.

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This installment of “Messy SEO” details my process of working with our marketing, content and development teams to further clean up the search engine results pages for MarTech. In Part 5, we discussed the fallout and improvements of our title changes and site structure issues.

RELATED: How to optimize your site for better findability

Identifying issues with our content and topics

Our MarTech website houses a lot of marketing industry content. In addition to the pieces we’ve published since its launch in May 2021, the domain has all of the content that was previously featured on Marketing Land and MarTech Today.

One would think that with so much industry-specific content, Google would have an easy time finding and serving up relevant results for searchers. Unfortunately, it seems like the search engine is having a difficult time identifying our main topics.

Many of the MarTech topics (shown below) that we cover are still getting little interaction in the SERPs.

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Queries	Clicks	Impressions	CTR	Position
customer experience	5	4,651	0.10%	28
email marketing	22	24,239	0.09%	40.04
agile marketing	5	7,046	0.10%	48.4
marketing automation	11	66,534	0.02%	53.93
crm	0	10	0%	57.7

MarTech queries that are receiving little interaction.

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After researching these keywords/topics and their related pages — taking note of the site structure issues we’d already identified — the problem we were experiencing became clear: We were missing pillar pages.

Understanding the importance of pillar pages

Content pillar pages are designed to be the go-to source for your site’s main topics. They cover subjects in-depth, linking to related pieces covering the same topic (known as topic clusters), which helps site users find all the information they’re searching for. They serve as the ideal landing pages, introducing readers to your site’s subject matter.

From a ranking perspective, pillar pages are gold. They have the potential to rank well for given topics and pass ranking signals to their related pages.

After our content analysis, our team quickly realized the MarTech site was missing these key pillar pages. We had plenty of content covering a slew of marketing and technology topics, but no central pages that gave in-depth overviews on any subject in particular.

Our top-ranking pages for the keywords shared above were largely evergreen “how to” articles. These are helpful resources for users, but don’t serve as good pillar pages.

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Queries	Top ranking page	Position
customer experience	https://ift.tt/32jHooD	6.18
email marketing	https://ift.tt/3Fkl3oK	7
agile marketing	https://ift.tt/3p2u2q5	6
marketing automation	https://ift.tt/3AwCHUx	2
crm	https://ift.tt/3otllEj	3

Top pages ranking for MarTech topics.

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The top-ranking page that came closest to the “pillar” style was our “Marketing Automation Landscape” article. It gave an overview of the topic, linked to related pages and was longer than an average piece of content on our site. So, seeing its potential, we added more in-depth content and links to other related pages.

We then analyzed the rest of these pages and mapped out a strategy for creating new pillar pages, consolidating similar pages into hubs, and updating old content.

Creating pillar pages that connect topic clusters

Developing pillar pages became our next big project for MarTech. Our team outlined the highest-ranking pages for the site’s main topics (as described above) and reviewed their structure. We also looked for pages that weren’t ranking well but had the potential to become pillar content.

We believe this was our missing puzzle piece. The issue wasn’t our lack of authoritative content; it was how we structured that content on this new MarTech domain, a conglomeration of content from two well-established marketing news sites.

We began creating new pillar pages (and modifying pages with pillar potential) that met the following conditions:

• The content went in-depth on a relevant topic.
• It contained at least 2,000 words.
• It linked to at least five relevant pages.
• It featured authoritative information on the topic, citing sources when necessary.

There’s no magic formula to crafting a high-ranking, engaging pillar page. We simply found these criteria helped us create content that meets users’ needs and establishes topical hierarchy.

Avoiding keyword cannibalization

While undergoing this process, our team is doing its best to avoid keyword cannibalization — the unfortunate scenario when multiple pages on your site are competing for the same keyword or topic. This scenario could end up harming our organic search performance.

To prevent this issue, we are creating pillar pages under the following guidelines:

• Avoid long-tail keywords and topics (these are for sub-topic pages).
• Review the site to see if any existing pages are competitors.
• Add internal links from sub-topic pages to the main pillar page.
• Consolidate pages that aren’t unique enough into pillar pages.

No guideline is foolproof; Google may still force these pillar pages to compete with similar content on our site. But we believe adding these content hubs to our site structure will help users and search engines find out what MarTech is all about.

Have you had difficulties ranking for your site’s main topics? How are you addressing the issue? Email me at cpatterson@thirddoormedia.com with the subject line “Messy SEO Part 6” to let me know.

More Messy SEO

Read more about our new MarTech domain’s SEO case study.

• Part 1: Navigating a site consolidation migration
• Part 2: The importance of canonicalization
• Part 3: How to find cached images and improve user experience
• Part 4: When Google’s title change goes wrong
• Part 5: Fixing site structure while a Google title change sinks clickthroughs

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20220128 SEL Brief

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New Google mobile search feature: People Search Next

Google has launched a new feature in its mobile search results called People search next, a Google spokesperson has confirmed with Search Engine Land.

The feature is meant to “help people more easily get to and see popular next searches based on what they’re searching,” according to Google’s spokesperson.

What is People Search Next? People search next is an addition to Google’s mobile search results – not a replacement for another feature. It joins other Google search features like People also ask, People also search for, Refine this search, and Related searches. 

The feature is available on mobile in the U.S. for English-language queries, according to Google.

Examples of People Search Next. Here’s what it looks like on a search for [dentist near me]:

Google mobile search results for [dentist near me], with the “People search next” feature.

It also shows for [eye doctor near me]:

Google mobile search results for [eye doctor near me], with the “People search next” feature.

In these examples, People search next appears just above Related searches. This seems to be a consistent pairing.

If not for Google’s mobile search results being infinite scroll, the positioning of People search next seems to be what would normally be “bottom of the SERP.” 

So far, I’ve been unable to find People search next for any types of queries other than “near me”. And it doesn’t show on every “near me” type query. Looking for [plumber near me], [restaurants near me] or even [doctor near me] failed to trigger the feature.

However, Google says the search feature is not limited only to local, “near me” searches. Google also told me that People search next will appear “when our systems have a good sense of what might be a helpful next search.”

Why we care. It’s important to watch any changes Google makes to its search engine results pages (SERPs). Space taken up by a Google search feature, such as this one, means Google could potentially take away actual results for relevant webpages, or clicks and traffic from websites Google shows in the organic results. This seems like a feature that is designed to keep people on Google longer, going further down search rabbit holes, rather than clicking on actual search results. In short, if Google search truly is a provider of answers, is it fair to say that they are also in the business of adding the questions as well?

As for how you can potentially use it? For content research. You now have yet another resource – straight from Google – to get content ideas.

We were alerted about this new feature by Saad AK on Twitter.

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Gmail campaigns to stop running on June 28

Google has announced that dedicated Gmail campaigns will no longer run as of June 28. The company notified affected advertisers about this change via email on January 18. You may also see the announcement within your Google Ads interface (shown below).

Image: @PPCGreg.

The “Learn more” link in the screenshot above points to the “About Discovery campaigns” help page. Tip of the hat to @PPCGreg on Twitter for bringing this to our attention.

Why we care

Google broadcasted this change when it announced that standalone Gmail campaigns would become “read-only” beginning in July 2021. Since then, advertisers haven’t been able to create new or edit existing standalone Gmail ads or campaigns.

Now, we have an official deprecation date. Advertisers that still rely on their standalone Gmail campaigns should find other alternatives (such as Discovery campaigns) to test out well ahead of the deadline so that they can minimize any performance impacts before June 28 comes around.

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Twitter launches Site Visit Optimization goal and Aggregated Measurement for campaigns aimed at driving site traffic

Twitter is launching three new ad products designed to improve performance for campaigns aimed at driving site traffic, the company announced Tuesday.

Site Visit Optimization is a new optimization goal for finding and serving ads to the audiences that are most likely to convert. Aggregated Measurement provides conversion metrics for audiences that have opted out of iOS tracking. And, the Events Manager is where advertisers can manage their Twitter Website Tag and associated web-based conversion events.

Why we care. During testing, Site Visit Optimization outperformed existing offerings and saw an average lower cost-per-site-visit of 31%, according to Twitter-funded advertiser tests. Results can vary, so testing it out for yourself can help you determine if it’s right for your brand or clients.

Aggregated Measurement may give advertisers a more detailed picture of their campaign results. With Aggregated Measurement, Twitter said it saw a 31% increase in attributable site visit conversions in Twitter Ads Manager, across advertisers. This feature may be an improvement for advertisers that have seen their attribution impacted by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. 

Site Visit Optimization. Twitter is introducing Site Visits Optimization, a new goal under the Website Traffic objective (formerly the Website Clicks & Conversions objective). This goal is designed to find and serve your ads to the audiences that are most likely to visit your site.

Image: Twitter.

This goal uses Twitter’s Website Tag, which (when enabled) tracks actions that users take on an advertiser’s site so that they can be attributed to their Twitter campaign.

Aggregated Measurement. This feature is meant to provide conversion metrics (by counting events in aggregate) for audiences that have opted out of iOS tracking. Advertisers will be able to see an aggregated view of site metrics and conversion events within their Twitter Ads Manager Reporting.

Events Manager. The Events Manager is Twitter’s hub for managing Website Tags and their associated web-based conversion events.

The platform plans to integrate App-based events into Events Manager at some point this year.

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Smart Shopping and Local campaigns to be transitioned to Performance Max by end of Sept. 2022

Google Ads will automatically transition existing Smart Shopping campaigns into Performance Max campaigns between July and September 2022, the company announced Thursday. Local campaigns will automatically be transitioned between August and September 2022.

The company will also launch a “one-click” self-service tool in Google Ads for advertisers that would like to transition specific Smart Shopping or Local campaigns ahead of the dates mentioned above.

Why we care. “Based on early testing, advertisers who upgrade Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max see an average increase of 12% in conversion value at the same or better return on ad spend (ROAS),” according to Google. However, results can vary, so it may be worthwhile to test out your transitioned campaigns with the self-service tool once it’s available, ahead of the forced transition deadline.

This is a significant change to how Smart Shopping and Local campaigns work. Advertisers that don’t want to transition those campaigns over to Performance Max should begin exploring other options, as these campaign types (as we know them) will disappear by the end of September.

Farewell, standalone Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. Once existing Smart Shopping and Local campaigns are transitioned to Performance Max, advertisers will no longer be able to create new ones. This automatic process is scheduled to conclude by the end of September 2022.

How to transition your Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. Google Ads will be offering a tool for those that wish to transition their campaigns to Performance Max ahead of the automatic transition window. The tool will be available for Smart Shopping campaigns starting in April, with support for Local campaigns starting in June.

Advertisers can use the tool to transition specific campaigns, or all of them at once. Learnings from existing campaigns will be used in the new Performance Max campaign.

Additionally, all advertisers will be able to transition their campaigns via the Google Ads API later this year.

Smart Shopping and shared budgets. In December 2021, Google announced that, beginning on February 15, 2022, all existing and future Smart Shopping campaigns will use a shared budget type. The change won’t have any impact on performance and the campaigns will continue to behave like a standard, non-shared campaign budget.

It was odd for Google to make such a change, but now we know why: the platform is updating its systems to prepare for the Smart Shopping to Performance Max transition.

“We need to make this change in order to prepare for the upgrade, and are doing so without changing the existing product behavior of Smart Shopping Campaigns (which don’t have support for shared budgets),” Google told Search Engine Land.

There will be messaging in the user interface explaining this change and marketers don’t have to take any action.

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Google SERP analysis: PAA appears 10x more than featured snippets

Is optimizing for featured snippets near the top of your SEO to-do list? If so, you may want to re-consider how big of a priority it is for you.

That’s because the number of featured snippets shown in Google SERPs continues to decrease, according to data published by Kevin Indig, Shopify’s director of SEO. The data was provided to Indig by SEO software provider Rank Ranger.

As search is a zero sum game, what’s going up while featured snippets decline? That would be People Also Asked (PAA) boxes.

What the data reveals. Indig analyzed three years of data (June 2018 to June 2021), looking at a sample of more than 100,000 keywords, and the percentage of SERP features displayed for those keywords, on both desktop and mobile search.

Two interesting findings:

• As featured snippets have declined, the number of PAA boxes has increased. This shift started in March 2020 and can be seen on both desktop and mobile.
• PAA boxes are on 10x more SERPs – 65 percent vs. 6 percent as of June 2021. Moz’s MozCast feature shows even larger figures as of today (92.1 percent for PAA, 7.9 percent for featured snippets).

You can read Kevin’s full analysis here.

Why we care. Because shifts like this has implications for your day-to-day SEO work and perhaps even result in some unexplained traffic changes. Many tools allow you to track how many featured snippets you’ve won or lost – and earning a featured snippet can mean greater visibility in the SERPs. With fewer featured snippets, though, this could potentially impact the amount of traffic you get, as well as your organic click-through rates. 

Does it mean you can safely ignore featured snippets entirely? No. It just means: be aware of how much time you’re investing into optimizing your content specifically to win featured snippets. As with everything, your answer will vary based on your market and the search terms you’re competing for. 

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20220127 SEL Brief

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How to produce actionable content throughout the marketing funnel

Many brands struggle to understand the ins and outs of their content marketing funnels. They often find it difficult to know what people are looking for and which pieces of content address their needs.

“When people enter your funnel, you have no idea where they came from or where they’re going,” said Andrea Cruz, associate director of digital marketing at KoMarketing, in her presentation at SMX Next.

Source: Andrea Cruz

Brands producing many different types of B2B content are often shocked that they’re not driving more consumers into their marketing funnels, especially when data shows that 70% of professionals view at least three pieces of content before making purchases.

According to Cruz, this discrepancy often stems from a lack of knowledge of the customer and their needs: “We don’t know where they are in the funnel. We don’t know what their pain points are. We don’t know where they consumed our content.”

There are on average five or more people involved in any given B2B purchase, so marketers need to scale their content funnel efforts to address each decision-maker’s needs.

Take actionable steps to transform your marketing funnel content

Cruz says most marketers do nothing to optimize their content funnels, which is why so many campaigns fail. She recommends brands map out the types of content they own and match them to each stage of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration and decision.

Source: Andrea Cruz

“Great marketers map their content,” she said. “B2B marketers are using advertising as a way to leverage and to pass along that information. So, we may be creating these huge amounts of content and then not mapping anyone.”

Marketers will find that mapping out content types to these stages will make it easier to generate relevant resources and funnel customers to those areas.

Awareness. “When we think about awareness, we’re thinking about videos, infographics, blogs, quizzes, calculators, reports, things that tell customers about their problem,” said Cruz. “That’s the type of content we want to give people at this stage. We don’t want to give people a video of a product — they don’t even know they have a problem, so why are you telling me that I need an invoice management software?”

Using “symptom” keywords that point to the problem customers are experiencing can make content in this stage more relevant. For example, if you’ve identified that readers are looking for website speed solutions, you might want to include keyword phrases like, “How do I improve site speed?” within this content.

Consideration. The solutions your content offers in the awareness stage aren’t for everyone, which is why marketers should use the consideration stage to clarify your offering’s purpose. This content shouldn’t press customers to buy.

“It’s not about a sales discussion at this stage,” Cruz said. “You can even use this stage to disqualify people from your funnel.”

“So, interactive demos and trials are things to help them understand if your solution will be best,” she added.

Decision. Once customers reach the decision stage, marketers need to provide content that addresses their most important concerns, taking into account the type of individuals involved.

Cruz provided some helpful examples of the different types of content marketers can provide based on the customer in question:

• Product-specific sheets for technical-minded customers.
• Product webinars for visually-inclined consumers.
• Product comparison guides for top-level decision-makers.

Apply new messaging formats to ad platforms

Funnel-worthy content doesn’t just have to sit on your website; it can be deployed across ad platforms. This content will need to be adapted to fit within each channel, but marketers can use the marketing funnel stages as a guide throughout the process.

“If we take a step back and go back to that basic funnel — awareness, consideration, and decision — you can do the exact same thing with ad formats and platforms,” Cruz said.

Source: Andrea Cruz

Marketers can use the content funnel framework in ad messaging in Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads and across many other platforms. The key is to adapt the content formats that are both optimized for the medium in question and match the relevant funnel stage.

Content funnel cheat sheet for ad messaging. Source: Andrea Cruz

Not every marketer’s content funnel will look the same, but Cruz believes this framework is the best way to meet customers where they are and drive more revenue: “This might change as you start testing, but having everything written down helps us understand where we are, where our goals are and what we need to get to the next level.”

Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (free registration required).

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Google’s Topics API: Advertisers share concerns about topic diversity and other potential challenges

Earlier this week, Google announced the Topics API, its latest ad targeting proposal aimed at replacing third-party cookies.

Similar to its predecessor, the now-abandoned Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) proposal, the company has positioned the Topics API squarely between users, who are arguably now more privacy-conscious than ever, and advertisers, who have been holding their breaths over what the future of audience targeting will actually look like.

Now that Google has laid out its proposal, search practitioners are evaluating it against the backdrop of third-party cookies and FLoC.

Topics may be a more realistic option than FLoC, marketers say

“Topics seem more likely to be acceptable to the broader ecosystem as they address several FLoC privacy concerns head on,” said Aaron Levy, head of paid search at Tinuiti, “It’s odd to call this an advantage, but I view anything that launches with a higher likelihood of stability and lesser likelihood of mass opt-outs a win.”

The other PPC practitioners that spoke to Search Engine Land seemed to concur with this point: “On their face, Topics seem like they should be less personally identifiable, which would be a plus for privacy,” said Julie Friedman Bacchini, president of Neptune Moon and managing director of PPCChat. “While some privacy people will still claim it’s too much tracking, it seems much more private than what is out there today,” said Brad Geddes, co-founder at AdAlysis.

Google’s rhetoric surrounding FLoC has been crafted to woo over the general audience of users and shape public perception regarding its privacy efforts — even when other industry players were highlighting potential vulnerabilities. With the Topics API, it seems like the company has listened to the feedback and made some notable improvements.

“I like that Chrome users will be able to see their topics and delete them if they wish,” said Christine Zirnheld, digital marketing manager at Cypress North. While this feature can make life harder for advertisers, options for users will help to appease privacy advocates and regulators, which increases the chances that Google will eventually be able to launch Topics.

Topic diversity and other potential hurdles for advertisers

The Topics API’s initial design includes approximately 350 topics, according to its GitHub page. Advertisers are concerned that this quantity won’t be sufficient enough to provide relevant targeting.

“Google’s current interest list [of topics] doesn’t offer the level of nuance most marketers need to target people who’d actually want to see their ads,” said Ashwin Balakrishnan, head of marketing at Optmyzr, “If Topics is going to be a success, Google needs to provide more detailed options.”

“Advertisers (at least as of now) would have few interests to actually target, and broader targeting does not usually lead to better performance,” Zirnheld said. “An interest in cars & autos doesn’t tell me if that’s luxury, rental, new, used, SUV, etc.,” Geddes added, “That means there will be more competition for less targeted ads,” noting that, at this point, it is still too difficult to predict how Topics will work in practice.

For reference, the IAB Audience Taxonomy contains approximately 1,500 audience segments. “One of the most popular drinks in the US is Coffee,” Zirnheld provided as an example, “The IAB Taxonomy has ‘Coffee,’ ‘Coffee & Tea,’ ‘Coffee Creamer,’ ‘Coffee Filters,’ and ‘Tea/Coffee – Ready-to-drink.’ The closest topic Google has (at the moment) is ‘Food & Drink.’”

Despite the relatively low number of topics designed into the initial proposal, Google may already be aware of this issue: “This is a starting point; we could see this getting into the low thousands or staying in the hundreds [of topics],” said Ben Galbraith, Chrome product director.

In addition to the potentially limited topics, “The limited timeframe could be concerning for advertisers, as they are used to much more persistent inclusion of an audience than one to three weeks,” Bacchini said, caveating that it remains to be seen whether keeping interests more current might also yield benefits. Levy also touched upon this concern: “It feels more directionally accurate than truly precise,” he said, “I hope for some sort of a boolean setup longer term where we’re able to combine, expand or narrow topics, but of course time will tell.” 

As a privacy measure, there is a 5% chance that a random topic is returned, according to the GitHub page. This is to ensure that each topic has a minimum number of members. “While I understand that this helps ensure anonymity and privacy for internet users, this is obviously not a good thing for advertisers,” Zirnheld added.

Chrome might be the only browser to adopt, but that might not matter for some

“Chrome is still the big boy in the browser war,” said Steve Hammer, president and co-founder at RankHammer, “I do think Edge will matter as more people get Windows 11, but that’s the lone one I’d worry about for clients.”

“While Chrome’s market share is (slightly) shrinking, I don’t anticipate this’ll change our usage at all,” Levy said, “Rather, it will all fit into a broader theme of treating the data as directional rather than ‘right.’”

“If it’s limited to Chrome, we’ll see how that affects iPhone users,” Geddes said, noting that, “The lack of cross-browser support is a bit worrisome, but it won’t affect anyone’s budget if they are getting good returns from their marketing dollars.”

If Chrome claims enough of the browser market, that might empower Google to continue with the Topics API without having to go to the bargaining table with its competitors. That independence can help the company stick to its Privacy Sandbox timeline, which shows that all associated initiatives are slated to be launched in Chrome sometime in Q4 2022.

Is Topics an improvement over FLoC?

As with all potential third-party cookie replacements, Topics must be evaluated from the user privacy perspective as well as the advertiser perspective. “FLoC raised privacy concerns and Topics seems more privacy-friendly and attempts to provide more control and transparency to internet users. In that way, Topics is ‘better,’” Zirnheld said.

“However, this means broader targeting for advertisers, meaning less control over who sees our ads,” she noted, “We might have to get more creative with targeting for our clients if this is the route Chrome is taking.”

“For advertisers, I expect that Topics wind up more restrictive with less options and less precision than we were hoping for from FLoC (which is already a reduction of current tactics),” Levy said. “It’s annoying, but also encouraging that Google is trying to come up with a solution that works for everybody.” 

Ultimately, third-party cookies are going away, so expect growing pains

Paid search marketing practitioners have largely gotten on board with the deprecation of third-party cookies, acknowledging that there should be more privacy protection for users.

However, “Anything that is a departure from cookies is going to feel like a step down in targeting, I think,” Bacchini said, “We are going to have to adjust our thinking about what ‘accurate targeting’ actually means and come down off of the sense of strong or accurate targeting that we feel like we have had up until this point.”

Despite the uncertainties that lay ahead for the Topics API, there are still ways to prepare your client or brand for the change, and if you’ve already spoken to them about FLoC, much of that guidance still applies:

• Collect your own data. Curating your own first-party data can enable you to upload your customer lists to platforms that can help you market directly to those customers, or create lookalike audiences.
• Communicate the changes to stakeholders. The standard for targeting in paid search is about to change, so stakeholders will also have to adjust their expectations accordingly.
• Keep up to date with the Topics API. Google may make tweaks to the Topics API as results come in from its developer trial. As the proposal changes, best practices may also change.

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Webinar: The next big thing in ABM

Account-Based Marketing is essential to any B2B strategy. And advanced practitioners are now looking for the tools to give them an edge to better connect with their audiences.

This requires sales and marketing to work together to identify and engage buying groups within their target accounts. Enter Buying Group Marketing.

To learn more, register today for “Market, Engage and Sell to Buying Groups Who Want to Hear From You,” presented by Influ2.

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Microsoft earnings: Search, LinkedIn advertising revenue rise

Microsoft released its earnings report yesterday for its second quarter. In it, we learned that search and news advertising was up 32 percent year over year. LinkedIn revenue was grew by 37 percent.

The company lumps together search and news advertising revenue and subtracts traffic acquisition costs (TAC), which is money Microsoft pays to Bing Ads network publishers and news partners.

In Q2, Microsoft reported more than $3 billion in revenue from search and news advertising. This was fueled by higher revenue per search for the holiday quarter, according to the company. On the conference call, CEO Satya Nadella noted the company’s total revenue from advertising, including LinkedIn, has surpassed $10 billion over the past 12 months.

Speaking of LinkedIn, it accounted for another $3.5 billion in Q2 revenue for Microsoft.

Overall, Microsoft reported record revenue of $51.7 billion for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2021.

Why we care. Microsoft said its Q2 advertising revenue growth was better than expected, which is clear evidence of a strong advertising market. Holidays drive up cost-per-click prices for advertisers, and revenue for the ad platforms every year. But clearly, companies continue to invest money in paid search advertising, which is a proven channel to generate results. As for Q3, Microsoft forecasts more growth, but in the “mid- to high-teens” range.

Source: Microsoft Earnings Release FY22 Q2

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Google Ads scripts rolls out support for asset-based video ads

Google Ads scripts now supports asset-based video ads, the company announced via its developer blog on Monday. This functionality replaces the previous media-based video ads. This announcement follows the same change in v9 of the Google Ads API, announced in November 2021.

Why we care

Advertisers that have scripts to create new video ads must migrate their code by February 28, 2022. After that date, media-based video ads will no longer be supported and their scripts will start failing with errors.

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CMOs, put these 4 trends at the top of your agenda for success this year

It goes without saying that the past year has been a time of momentous change for marketers. In previous articles, I addressed how CMOs and leaders have had to navigate an array of emerging trends, from new digital demands and customer preferences to growing workforce dispersion and diversity. These shifts have undoubtedly reshaped the marketing landscape as we know it and led leaders to seek new operating models and digital solutions to keep pace.

Now, as ongoing global disruption ushers in a new digital and hybrid era, it’s time for leaders to embrace that there’s no turning back. According to McKinsey, the future of work is hybrid, and Forrester dubbed 2022 the “year to be bold” as demands only grow stronger. Strategic marketing leaders must reshape their agenda in line with these new realities to find success this year.

So, where should leaders focus as they reenvision their organizations for the road ahead? Let’s look at the top four areas leaders must prioritize to gain a competitive advantage in 2022:

1. The cost of ineffective communication: Overcome the growing business impact of poor communication to adapt and scale.

Success in a digital workplace requires agility to reinvent operations, but one essential—and overlooked—factor hinders marketers from driving growth: ineffective communication.

In fact, new data released by Grammarly and The Harris Poll estimates U.S. businesses lose up to $1.2 trillion annually due to poor workplace communication—or $12,506 per employee every year. This is especially true for communications-heavy functions like marketing. And now, evolving workforce and customer demands are continuing to amplify the impact of poor communication across organizations.

From the surge of e-commerce and omnichannel to the rapid adoption of new digital tools, brands and customers are showing up and interacting in more ways and places than ever before. In this landscape, achieving clear, compelling, and consistent communication—no matter the channel or context—is critical for both productivity and engagement.

By building a foundation of effective communication internally and externally, leaders will build resilience to grow faster, control costs, and create reimagined experiences for customers and employees alike.

2. CX as a growth driver: Address ongoing market disruptors by delivering exceptional experiences that balance quality and efficiency.

New market disruptions are driving a renewed focus on the brand and customer experience, at a time when it’s increasingly critical to business success.

As consumer spending continues to overwhelm supply chains, experts predict that inflation and higher prices will continue to worsen. This will lead to a far higher bar in customer expectations to pay those prices. In response, CX will reach a critical turning point this year as business and marketing leaders must double down on the customer experience to justify rising costs and keep pace with demands.

Success for brands will come down to a delicate balance of meeting customer expectations with both quality and efficiency—i.e., keeping up with high spending patterns while delivering a better, more consistent experience. Leaders must overcome unwanted brand variability across channels and equip teams with the right tools to quickly and consistently meet customer needs.

Those who deliver consistently compelling experiences will gain an advantage so that when supply chains normalize, they’ve cemented a loyal customer base.

3. The rise of employee empowerment: Engage employees—and customers—by building an empowered work environment that promotes confidence.

Marketers can no longer ignore that the employee and customer experience are inextricably linked. Successful CX depends on first building engaged, productive teams who effectively represent the brand.

But from the “Great Resignation” that shows no signs of slowing down to increasing globalization creating more cross-cultural teams, it’s never been more challenging to engage and retain all employees. In a world where employees have increasing choice, delivering exceptional employee experiences will become a foremost differentiator. In fact, research shows business leaders are prioritizing employee satisfaction and retention this year—ahead of team productivity and customer satisfaction. 

Leaders that deliver a new, location-agnostic approach to EX—i.e., reinventing experiences to be engaging and seamless, no matter the location or context—will come out ahead. Employee empowerment will be at the core of this approach as leaders must embrace new tools and strategies designed to enhance employees’ potential, grow their confidence, and help them be more productive wherever they are.

This focus on empowerment will underpin the digital workplace, lead to new customer and brand experiences, and redefine productivity with experience at the center. 

4. Empathy as an imperative: Prioritize the human connection to meet customer and employee needs.

In many ways, the constraints of the past two years often made interactions more impersonal and transactional. This lack of human connection has left customers and employees alike desiring more empathy and emotionally sensitive support from employers and brands.

But that’s a daunting task when paired with the shift to a hybrid workplace and influx of digital touchpoints that have cropped up in recent months. This leaves marketers with a dual challenge: Keep pace with the sheer amount of interactions happening across systems while delivering higher quality in all of those engagements.

In response, leaders must invest in empathy in the workplace as a strategic business priority. Human-centric technologies play a vital role in this process by helping teams move faster while maintaining the humanity of a brand. With automated and integrated solutions like communication augmentation platforms, leaders can infuse more of a human touch, strike the right tone, and create more genuine connections with employees and customers in all the places they’re already engaging.

___________

As we tread forward, CMOs and marketing leaders must embrace that uncertainty is the only constant they can expect. As Forrester emphasized, the time to be bold is now—and tremendous opportunity awaits for those who reimagine the status quo.

By focusing on the above areas—investing in effective communication, delicately balancing new customer and employee needs, and prioritizing empathy and human connection—marketers will be well-poised to adapt and grow this year and beyond.

___________

For more on how to reimagine success in the hybrid-work era and the business impact of poor communication, download the report, “The State of Business Communication: The Backbone of Business Is Broken,” and visit www.grammarly.com/business. 

This sponsored article was written by Dorian Stone, head of organizations revenue, Grammarly.

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20220126 SEL Brief

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4 automated campaign types and how to control them

Paid search practitioners have expressed a lot of frustration over the increasing amount of automation that platforms, like Google, have been implementing. However, this push towards a more machine learning-powered industry shows no signs of slowing. For advertisers that see the potential and opportunities that accompany more automation, there may be more impressions, clicks and conversions to be had.

“The idea here is, ‘How can we take some form of automated campaign type or strategy that Google is giving us and make sure that we’re controlling it?’” said Michelle Morgan, co-founder at Paid Media Pros. At SMX Next, she and Joe Martinez, also a co-founder at Paid Media Pros, shared four ways to leverage automation without surrendering control.

Smart Display with pay for conversions

“[Smart Display campaigns with pay for conversions] can be a really great option to leverage a lot of Google’s automation around the targeting, but then still control what you end up paying for those conversions,” Morgan said.

With Smart Display campaigns, targeting is automated and Google optimizes it as the campaign runs. Relinquishing control over targeting might sound like a leap of faith, but, “We’re okay with utilizing the Smart Display campaigns because we’re utilizing the pay for conversions bid strategy” Morgan said, adding that, in this case, pay for conversions is not like other automated bid strategies because it is only available for Display campaigns.

Image: Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

There are requirements to use pay for conversions, so you’ll first need to verify that your campaigns are eligible. 

“The nice part is we’re letting Google just go crazy when it comes to targeting,” Morgan said. “The biggest criticism I hear from people for Smart Display campaigns is that they want the control of the targeting, but that goes away as soon as I tell them, ‘Yeah, but if we only want to pay $100 for a conversion, we can set that up and up until you get a conversion, you pay nothing.’”

Running a campaign this way can position your ads for more exposure, which typically isn’t ideal unless you’re also getting conversions, but you’re not paying for those impressions. “So now your brand is out there in front of people that Google thinks are relevant and you didn’t pay a lick for it,” Morgan said.

Dynamic Search Ads with exclusions and negative keywords

Dynamic Search Ads allow you to provide a URL (or a list of URLs) and Google will use that as inputs for an ad based on the keywords that are on the page and your ad copy.

Image: Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

While the final URL, headline and display URL are determined by Google, the descriptions are still under your control, “So make sure that they include any important calls to action or messaging that you have, because you never know what Google is going to put in there based on what it found on your website,” Morgan said.

Image: Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

In the dynamic ad target section of your reports (shown above), you can view the search terms that triggered your ad, along with the headline and landing page that Google selected for that ad. “You can use that information to adjust what dynamic targets you have in the account,” she added.

You should be proactive with the pages you’re excluding (e.g., about us page, privacy policy, etc.) from your campaign, Morgan advised. You can do this by adding exclusions manually or submitting a page feed.

It’s also wise to use your negative keyword list. “One thing I like to do is always include whatever your account-level negative keyword lists are and then create a second negative keyword list, but this one is going to contain all of the keywords that you have in your account — all of the exact match keywords that you have, add those to a list,” she said.

“This is an explicit negative keyword list for your DSA campaigns and basically what you’re doing is making sure that anytime those exact match keywords are searched, they’re going to show in your Search campaign and not your DSA campaign.”

Custom video campaigns

TrueView for action campaigns will be transitioned into Video action campaigns soon. “We now get a longer headline and description, so now the placements have expanded and your ad will look a little bit different depending on where your ads are being placed,” Martinez said.

Image: Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

If you still want to create Discovery campaigns, you can still create your own by using the Custom video campaign option (shown below). “You want to have a standalone Discovery campaign? You can still do that,” Martinez said, “If you want to have a standalone Trueview for shopping campaign, you can still do that.”

Image: Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

“[Google] still gives you the options for control,” Martinez added, “It’s just anything for Trueview for action, understand it is now rolled into the Video action campaigns and we only get responsive video ads here — they haven’t changed anything, they just pretty much added more fields for us to fill to make our ads a little bit more engaging.”

Broad match and smart bidding with remarketing lists

“Another full strategy that Google is really starting to push now is going full broad and running just on Smart Bidding — [I] don’t think that’s a good move for everybody,” Martinez said, “If you’re new to broad match or you’re just a new account, period, we say hold off a little bit or try something a little bit more specific.”

“If you really want to try full broad [and] you’re in a very niche, specific industry and you really need to expand your keyword reach, try using RLSA [Remarketing List for Search Ads],” he suggested. Layering in a targeting audience, such as people who have already been to your website, helps to ensure that the people that see your ad are already familiar with your brand.

Image: Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

“This makes it a little bit more specific and makes me much more comfortable going after full broad and with the full Smart Bidding strategy, just to make sure I’m still getting in front of someone who at least knows who my brand is,” Martinez said.

As platforms continue to push forward with more automation, it’s up to search marketers to adapt. “Automation is going to keep getting bigger and bigger, and a bigger part of our accounts, whether it’s Google or any of the other paid media channels,” Martinez said, “So as people start embracing automation, the first users who do that and start actually testing all the changes first — finding out what works or what doesn’t work — those advertisers who actually embrace it are going to do better in the long run.”

Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (free registration required).

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