Recent news and notes that every PPC advertiser should be aware of…
Wow, mobile is evolving fast. AT&T introduced location-based “ShopAlerts” in NY, SF, Chicago and LA. People can opt-in to receive offers and promotions via SMS or MMS when they physically enter a designated area defined by the advertiser (e.g. a mile from their store). This can help drive in-store traffic and reach mobile users in very specific markets. This is even more targeted than web-based and app-based advertising, but it is opt-in.
New Ad Setting: Optimize for Conversions
Last Wednesday, Google announced a new ad targeting setting that optimizes ad serving by conversion rate. Google will monitor the ads in your ad group and over time will favor serving the ad with the highest conversion rate. The ad with the best click-through rate doesn’t always generate the most ROI or profit; especially when advertising on broad keywords where search intent can vary greatly. Just make sure you don’t turn it on when data is skewed. For example, if you already have an ad that has accrued a history of performance and then add a new one to your ad group, Google will automatically favor the ad with the conversion history over the new ad that has a 0% conversion rate because it hasn’t run yet. So, let the new ad run on rotate until you feel there’s enough information for Google to make a decision. This is probably only a good feature for those advertisers that pay little attention to optimizing their accounts because if you have to wait until you have enough data to turn on the setting, you could just make the decision yourself based upon the data that’s accrued.
Content Farms and PPC
Google just changed part of their search algorithm and it will affect approximately 12% of U.S. search results. This change is aimed at punishing sites that contain numerous pages with low-quality content; what many call “content farms.” This change will not only affect SEO, but also PPC because if you are running ads on the Google Display Network, it is likely your ads are showing on content farms. If you get a lot of traffic and conversions from these types of sites, you could see a drop. If not, you may see an improvement in performance from display campaigns.
The Future of Display Advertising
There’s huge opportunity in display advertising, especially when uniting it with mobile devices. The technology has caught up with the promises that were talked about for so long. Here’s Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a short video talking about this future…