Let’s Get Engaged

The words every consumer wants to hear when it comes to ad units. We continuously see studies showing that engaging units, like video, are being consumed more year over year. According to recent trending from eMarketer, US online video viewers have increased and will continue to grow through 2015 (and beyond).

Another eMarketer study shows that 33% of US tablet and 23% of US smartphone users surveyed watch video on their devices in 2011 at least once a day.  That statistic is huge. Google is realizing that video is an important component on the online consumption mix, and what better way to get those video assets in front of searchers than right on the search results page?

Hit ‘Em From All Angles

We all know that Google is the #1 search engine and #1 website.  YouTube however, is not trailing too far behind.  There is no better way to increase the visibility of your Promoted Video ads, then to make them available on the #1 site on the Internet?

What does this mean for marketers?  There could be an opportunity for brands to take up even more real estate on the search results page above the fold.  Paid ad enhancements and betas such as site links and other lead gen/offer/product listing type ad units are making paid search ads larger and more interactive. SEO enhancements can include mega site links, ratings and reviews, organic site links and multiple listings, taking up more space. Throwing Promoted Videos ad units into the mix could allow advertisers to take up one more real estate listing on the SERP.  By dominating the space, it’s more and more possible for brands to take over all listings above the fold.

Sharing is Caring

At Reprise, we feel that the social graph is gaining traction on the linking graph when it comes to the search space. Adding an ad unit on Google.com that leads to a site like YouTube allows marketers to link their video and social efforts with search even further. Once a user lands on the YouTube page, if the brand has created a well developed brand channel, he or she can view more videos, subscribe, share, and then even connect with a brand’s Facebook and Twitter presence via links. If the brand is running an overlay ad over the video, the user can click directly back to the brand website.

How Can Advertisers Use This

Where possible, advertisers should consider running enhanced and engaging ad units to attract and gain information and insight from searchers. By running YouTube Promoted Video ads on Google.com if this becomes available, advertisers can link the search and video space. Once on YouTube, a developed brand channel can keep those searchers engaged with the brand, provide useful information via video that can be shared, and provide a portal to other social outlets, as well as back to the brand site.

Broad Session Based

There is no way for advertisers to opt in or out of this match type which you’ll see in the search query reports.  What does it mean?  When determining which ads to serve, AdWords evaluates users’ previous queries during their search session with the current search query. If the system detects a relationship, it will show ads related to the previous queries.  The system is trying to understand where the user is going with all of their search queries in relation to being relevant to your ads.  You can think of it sort of as extended broad match.

The good news is that, per Google, “whenever an ad is served based on the associated keyword’s relevance to the previous search queries, the ad’s performance has no effect on that keyword’s Quality Score.” In other words, if the match doesn’t work out, you don’t have to worry about your Quality Score suffering, which is great.

How can these results help?  The Broad (session-based) results can help the advertiser determine if relevant keywords are missing from the campaign and should be added, or it can identify more negative keywords.  Google is once again finding ways to increase relevancy, expand reach while maintaining relevancy, and assist advertisers in fine-tuning their campaigns.

Automatic Matching

You’ll see this match type in the campaign settings of select accounts only since Automatic matching is a beta test that is closed for now. It is similar to Broad (Session-Based) in that it taps into keywords that are missing from your campaign based on relevancy, but by using a different tactic.

This feature analyzes ads, keywords, and landing pages in an ad group and then shows the ads for queries it deems relevant once the budget has been spent on existing queries.  The system gathers data about the advertisers’ campaign and eventually aims to show ads only for queries that yield a higher CTR and equal to or more efficient CPCs to your existing keywords.

The good news is that per Google, automatic matching won’t allow spend to exceed the budget set, it will not affect the traffic garnered by current campaigns, and will not affect existing keyword Quality Scores.  Performance can be tracked in each ad group’s keyword tab on the interface under the “Automatic Matching Total” column.  This can be great for traffic driving campaigns if budgets need to be spent and caps are hard to hit.

Again, traffic that the advertiser is potentially missing out on can be easily identified.  However, it could be difficult to quantify total results for advertisers that use third party tracking for conversions because Google might not have visibility into backend performance data, so that is something to keep in mind.  For those accounts that have the Automatic Matching feature enabled, advertisers can opt in or out of it in the Campaign Settings.  Though this feature is closed to those currently in the beta test, it’s likely to find its way to all AdWords customers as an option down the road.

The logic is sound – Instead of just returning the traditional list of ten text links, search engines have begun to add related suggestions that the user might not otherwise have thought of, or a list of local vendors that can provide what they’re looking for.  These type of innovations clearly benefit users, by helping them to refine their search and get closer to the info they’re looking for.

For advertisers, however, these types of UI changes can be a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, more relevant results lead to better qualified clicks. However, these refinements can have an unintended negative impact on your paid search campaigns.

Let’s look at two notable examples I’ve come across recently: Google’s local search results box and Yahoo’s spelling suggestions.

Google Local Search Results

When a zip is entered, the page refreshes and Voila! Local business results appear:

Yahoo’s Spelling Suggestions

Yahoo, like many other engines, helps the spelling-deficient among us by providing suggested corrections to the user’s query. However, rather than showing just the most likely match, Yahoo often combines these refinements into its related search suggestions, under the heading “Also Try”

Each time I clicked on the suggestion, another suggestion would appear.  This gives the opportunity for the user to see multiple spelling versions for that terms.  Again, each time the page refreshed, so did the ads.

How does this benefit users?: This type of refinement provides the user with a deep dive into specific information (local search results, related searches) that helps them get closer to the information they’re looking for without having to search a second time.

OK, but what’s the catch? : Paid search ads on the SERP are refreshed after both the zip code input and the spelling correction.  This increases ad impressions and lowers CTR (which can impact Quality Score and CPC).

Because Google’s tool seems to be primarily focused on generic/head terms these page refreshes could represent a large portion of overall traffic for advertisers. Additionally, many advertisers account for misspellings in their paid search campaigns, meaning that their ads will show up on both the initial page and the resulting, corrected page.

There is one silver lining, specifically on Google’s side: Google usually cookies the user.  Once the zip is typed in, Google remembers the location for future queries, serving the appropriate local results automatically.  For those users that have cookies turned off? Sorry, you’re out of luck.

Overall these refinement tools are a positive – as users drill down into the reply pages, the targeting for the ads should (in theory) be getting better which, in turn, should be better for the advertisers – more relevant targeting means users that are more likely to click.  So the theoretical decrease in CTR can potentially be made up for in more relevant clicks.  Regardless, it’s worth considering how these UI changes may impact your campaign, and take steps to adjust your strategy accordingly.