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While Google is an obvious “horse to bet on,” ubiquity, UX and utility will dominate the voice-search innovation race in 2020 and beyond.

An old prediction that half of all internet searches will be carried out via voice by 2020 does not look like it’s on track to be a reality, despite making it into Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2016 Report.

Back then, in 2014, Baidu had just hired away Google Brain mastermind Andrew Ng to head up a massive deep learning project to help it beat Google in a new, non-text search race.

About five years later, China’s top search engine, Baidu, is still competing in the race to win in voice search dominance and secure the healthiest share of the lucrative market for voice commerce (v-commerce) that pundits predict lies ahead. In January during the annual C.E.S. show, Baidu said its answer to Alexa and Siri was already on 200 million devices. At that time, more than 100 million devices pre-installed with Alexa had been sold, and Google forecast it expected to have one billion devices with its Assistant onboard by the end of that month.

Just last month, a Harvard Business Review article by Bret Kinsella explored the race to own voice search and, in turn, the best v-commerce experience amongst the global tech giants:

“You can only understand the voice platform wars by first recognizing that voice assistants, specifically, represent both a platform and user interface (UI) shift comparable to the web and smartphones. This scenario both excites and frightens the leading tech companies that carved out enviable positions in the earlier web and smartphone platform wars.”

Google’s advantages and core challenge to winning voice search 

Of the tech giants on our “home team” that are based in the U.S., Google seems like the most obvious company (versus Amazon, Microsoft or Apple) to bet on to eventually win and dominate in a new voice search age that powers v-commerce and corresponding ad dollars to support it.

For one, it currently owns more than 90 percent of all search traffic.

Its brand is synonymous with search today. “Just Google it,” as we all constantly say. Google’s ascendance as the dominant search engine sets it up well to be a similar authority and leader in voice search. Also, its Google Maps that is the go-to navigation app used by about 70 percent of smartphone owners, sets it up to help on-the-go users find and buy needed products nearby — from an umbrella in a rainstorm to the closest place to get some work done in a nearby internet cafe. When it comes to smartphones, Google’s Android OS continues to dominate the global market with about 86 percent of current market share compared to about 14 percent using Apple iOS, per the latest numbers from IDC.

But, the future of voice search and v-commerce is not just all about smartphones. Juniper Research predicts there will be nearly eight billion digital voice assistants in use by 2023 compared to 1.5 billion assistance devices today.

The fastest growing category is connected TV-based voice assistants, and others will “live” in refrigerators, cars, smartwatches and more. The tech giants vying to own the future of v-commerce need to think about a ubiquitous presence across all types of smart devices that will be coming to market. Our virtual assistants are independent of smartphones or speakers. They can operate and serve us in many places.

It’s too early to rule out Amazon and Apple from winning the v-commerce race yet

In comparison to Google, both Amazon and Apple are less open in comparison. Both companies rely on walled gardens that provide distinct advantages and disadvantages.

For Apple, its focus on privacy for users has been popular with consumers and regulators, but when it comes to voice search paired with location-based marketing, Apple’s push to turn off access to location beacons in mobile apps via latest iOs 13 will limit how it plays in a world of v-commerce because its users won’t be able to ask their iPhone where the closest Starbucks is to them anymore. Apple’s approach also won’t lend itself to delivering a future of highly relevant, personalized offers that we’ve seen in future-forward SciFi movies such as “Minority Report.”

When it comes to eCommerce, no other player dominates like Amazon does today. Amazon has more than 80 percent of conversions compared to other eCommerce sites across a diverse set of product categories, according to Jumpshot. The planet’s largest retailer, a title that Amazon took from Walmart last month, has also surpassed Google in terms of where product searches start from on the internet. Yet, so far, Amazon has trailed behind Google in terms of an easy experience and accessibilty to bring users into a voice-activated world across devices.

Ubiquity across devices, the best UX and shopper utility will lead to dominance

The ultimate winner, in the end, will be the tech platform that delivers the ability to use voice search across the internet and the maximum number of devices. It’s also critical to deliver the simplicity of experience and speedy results that helped Google become the long-standing king of the hill for internet search with its first focus on text.

Google is doing its best to keep a step ahead in the emerging world of voice search that will enable a whole new way of controlling the online experience through our voices. That quality of experience and when voice search hits the mainstream will be driven, in large part, by the accuracy of voice recognition compared to actual human speech through advances in A.I. Two years ago, Google reached a threshold of understanding human language within 95 percent accuracy.

What promises to set Google apart, again, in voice search and give it a leg up in this very important innovation race, is the ability to create and consistently deliver a simple, elegant user experience that so far has held back consumer adoption and use of voice-powered assistants. It and Amazon both have a decent chance of converging voice-powered A.I. with a rich set of data on users that delivers the best, most personalized shopping experience.

Early on, many of the early adopters will use voice search that lead to the purchase of online items that are utilitarian in nature: such as “where can I find a late-night dinner spot that’s still open and nearby me,” or “what is the closest place to buy a laptop charger?” when you leave yours at the office during a business trip away from home. A whole new metrics category is also likely to emerge and differentiate which tech vendor(s) do it best. Perhaps we’ll measure effectiveness based on “vlicks” for voice-activated clicks as the market matures over time.

Whatever lays ahead in a brave new world of v-commerce powered by voice search, the ultimate winner(s) will be decided based on how they execute on ubiquity, UX and utility.

“On guard!” … and may the best voice search platform win. Who do you think it will be?

Gary Burtka is vice president of U.S. operations at RTB House, a global company that provides retargeting technology for global brands worldwide. Its North American headquarters are based in New York City.

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LinkedIn’s Senior Director of Product Management Pete Davies shared insights this week on the changes LinkedIn has made to its news feed algorithm over the last year and a half. Aiming to create more engagement for users, the company is moving away from ranking trending content and, instead, putting more weight on niche-specific professional conversations.

Giving more weight to niche topics

Whenever a user opens the LinkedIn app, Davies said the platform checks for recent posts from connections and the people, pages and hashtags the user follows. To determine which posts get ranked higher in someone’s feed, LinkedIn’s algorithm uses AI to identify niche, occupation-specific conversations.

“We know from our data that members are more interested in going deep on topics they’re interested in. Consistently, we see better conversation around niche ideas (e.g. #performancemanagement) than broad (#management),” writes Davies.

Leveling the playing field

In October last year, LinkedIn revealed that much of the engagement on posts in its news feed was skewed toward the top 1% of power users on the platform. To create a more evenly distributed network, LinkedIn introduced creator-side optimization — which gives more attention to creators with smaller audiences. Part of this feature means the site may rank a post from a connection higher if the post needs more engagement.

Davies said, while LinkedIn does not give more weight to certain types of post formats (videos, images, long-form articles, etc.), it does consider posts that encourage engagement: “Post things that encourage a response,” writes Davies, “If you’re posting a link, express an opinion with it.”

According to a LinkedIn spokesperson, the platform can now predict not only the likelihood that a user may join a conversation, but also what impact joining a conversation may have on a user’s network, and whether or not others in their network may join the conversation as well.

Hashtags help

When listing tips and best practices to get more engagement for posts, Davies recommends using hashtags, but to keep the number of hashtags included in a post at three or less. He says hashtags can help a post get a higher ranking in someone’s feed depending on the hashtags they follow: “If a connection uses a hashtag you also happen to follow, it gets an extra boost!”

Why we should care

LinkedIn offers B2B marketers opportunities for engaging with their audiences beyond advertising efforts, helping create authentic, organic conversations with potential leads. But, to do so effectively, marketers — and their sales teams — are best served when they understand how LinkedIn’s news feed algorithm works. By “lifting the hood” on its algorithm, LinkedIn is giving marketers key insights on how to take full advantage of the platform.

Amazon has two Alexas in its family: the intelligent voice agent that is popping up everywhere, and Alexa.com, a subsidiary which provides competitive analysis about any web site.

Today, the latter Alexa is announcing new features that pushes it deeper into world of the search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).

New keyword and audience analysis

The new Alexa Site Overview service now provides keyword opportunities and audience analysis about any site or its competing sites.

A screenshot from Alexa.com, showing some of the new features.

The new keyword opportunities include words that competitors are using to drive traffic, but the site in question is not. Easy-to-rank keywords indicates popular keywords the given site could probably rank for, based on Alexa’s assessment of its Competitive Power.

Buyer keywords are those used for search by the site’s targeted audience, and which indicate a high intent to purchase by the searcher. And optimization finds popular keywords that currently drive only a small amount of traffic to the site, but could drive more traffic if they were better utilized.

Competitive analysis now shows a percentage of overall traffic from search engines to a given site compared with competing sites, the number of referral sites driving traffic compared to competitors, and top search terms for a site and competitors.

Audience Insights

In the new Audience Insights, a marketer can now see the categories of interest for a site’s audience, plus a listing of other sites in those categories that the audience visits. An audience overlap shows sites competing for that audience.

Previously, Alexa.com President Andrew Ramm told SEW via email, his site’s free Site Overview tool provided only traffic stats on an input site URL. In March of last year, the site added Competitor Keyword Matrix, to understand the keywords used by competitors.

Now, he pointed out, the free tool “automatically generates top competing sites that it uses as the basis for a more in-depth competitive analysis report.”

A comparison of search traffic, referral sources and top site keywords between a site and its competitors are free, while other features are included in the site’s subscription plan.

Griffith said that other free tools “don’t aggregate this information in a way that makes it easy to extract customized and actionable insights for a site,” based on competitors. Other tools, he added, “often focus on simply providing data about a site’s current performance [for such factors as keywords or traffic], but fall short of presenting untapped opportunities for the site.”

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GetResponse, an inbound and outbound marketing platform, has announced expanded capabilities, including webinar support, e-commerce solutions, a new online payment gateway and Facebook advertising integrations.

The webinar capabilities include a new design that supports audio and video for HD streaming, live chat functionalities, Q&A management, recorder templates, Facebook and YouTube live streaming. Users can also customize calls-to-action.

GetResponse has deeper integrations with partners PrestaShop and WooCommerce for e-commerce solutions, Square for secure online payments and Facebook Ads. The features are directly accessible in GetResponse.

Why we should care

The company aims to make the platform a centralized place to manage and analyze integrated campaigns, including digital ads, emails, landing pages, social performance, webinars and e-commerce.

“Building on the success of our new Autofunnel offering, we’re delighted to continue to expand our platform’s features,” said GetResponse chief operating officer Daniel Brzezinski. “These new features provide marketers with an even more powerful turnkey solution for attracting, engaging and converting customers.”

Consolidation is a trending theme in martech these days — from mergers and acquisitions to new, deeper integrations. GetResponse anticipates that its customers will see stronger performance due to their integrated campaigns, as well as cost savings in eliminating the need to invest in additional platforms to support their efforts. By consolidating solutions into a single platform, marketers can also expect increased efficiencies.

More on the news

• GetResponse has strengthened its integration with PrestaShop and WooCommerce for e-commerce, Square for online payments and Facebook for ad integration.
• For Facebook ads, users simply upload their ad, select their audience and budget while GetResponse does the rest.
• GetResponse currently supports over 350,000 customers in 182 countries

Walmart made headlines last week by announcing that it would fold Jet.com into its Walmart ecommerce operations, less than three years after the $3.3 billion acquisition.

But, in fact, a closer look at the performance of both sites’ leads reveals:

1. This shouldn’t be a surprise, because this has been Walmart’s plan all along, and
2. Despite what the headlines say, this is primarily a win for Walmart despite the large acquisition price.

We’ll tell this story with two simple charts. Apologies in advance for over-doing the aviation metaphors. I couldn’t help myself. As the kids say, “Sorry. Not sorry.”

1. Jet’s transactions are way down

The number of transactions on Jet.com rose to more than 600,000 a month in early 2017 but has been on a precipitous decline since then, shrinking to less than 100,000 a month. They don’t even exhibit the holiday-shopping spikes nearly every other retailer exhibits.

A drop like this doesn’t happen by accident, not in a world where Walmart reports that its ecommerce sales were up 37 percent in Q1. Or, after the ecommerce marketplace as a whole has grown steadily since, well, the start of ecommerce. Or, where spending power among affluent urbanites (Jet.com’s supposed strength) continues to rise as economic bifurcation enters its fourth decade. There is a long list of contextual reasons why a rising tide (tailwinds?) should be lifting Jet.com. Because of this, its loss of altitude is even more surprising and stark.

Source: Jumpshot

2. Jet.com’s ecommerce fuel, paid search, is also way down

Jet.com is one a handful of ecommerce sites, along with Chewy.com and Wayfair.com, to have successfully bought their growth. Largely this means paying for placement on Google’s search engine results pages, and it’s an increasingly effective strategy. Paid click-through rates on Google are up, particularly for companies willing to spend on expensive awareness-building campaigns across media channels. Consumers simply feel more comfortable clicking on those paid links when they recognize the brand.

Paid search kept Jet.com’s internet traffic aloft. And it has tumbled almost in lockstep with Jet.com’s sales. You could argue that Jet.com’s sales may have fallen for any number of reasons. But there’s only one reason why their paid search traffic went from eight million visitors a month to less than one million: Walmart was reallocating its budget elsewhere. Growing sales on Jet.com simply wasn’t a priority for the retail giant.

Source: Jumpshot

The Jet brand and the Jet/Walmart fit remain indistinct

Walmart has pulled back on making Jet a public-facing brand in part because of an ill-defined fit between the two brands. Jet was initially created to reach consumers who cared more about value than convenience. It was designed to be sort of an online Costco, offering very low prices to those willing to pay a membership fee. This would seemingly be a good fit for Walmart, whose growth has come via an unwavering commitment to its brand promise (everyday low prices) and core target (value-oriented non-urban consumers). But over time, Jet morphed into a brand with a reputation of reaching younger, more affluent urbanites – not an existing fit with Walmart, but a potentially complementary one that could help Walmart grow beyond its core.

While either strategy can be reasonable, the Walmart/Jet fit seemed to vacillate between the two, and never really settled on either. Jet has upscale ambitions, but its appeal to affluent consumers may be overstated. In Q1 2019, the top three keyword searches on Jet.com were decidedly mainstream “toilet paper”, “paper towels”, and “Frito-Lay”. It’s not until the fourth keyword search term, “mid-century modern furniture”, that the searches take a more upscale vibe.

Walmart has been toning down its positioning of Jet.com as an urban growth engine, and its discussion of Jet’s role has become increasingly circumscribed. As Walmart put it,

“Last year, we repositioned the Jet site itself. Across most of the country, we saw we could get a much higher return on our marketing investments with Walmart.com, so we’ve dialed up our marketing spend there… However, in specific large cities where Walmart has few or no stores, Jet has become hyper-focused on those urban customers…. The focus has largely been on New York so far, and we’re looking at other cities.”

Walmart’s real motivation in buying Jet.com 

The fact is that this acquisition was never about adding new customers or reaching complementary markets. Instead, it was part tech-buy, part acqui-hire. Walmart wanted technology innovations like Jet.com’s real-time pricing algorithm, which helps increase revenue per customer. And while Walmart announced that Simon Belsham, Jet.com’s current president, will leave later this summer, it still has the person they really wanted: Jet.com’s founder Marc Lore, who will continue to run Walmart’s ecommerce business. Lore is widely considered to have led Walmart’s recent overall ecommerce growth, including improvements in operations, infrastructure, and supply chain.

The Jet.com acquisition remains a win for Walmart

Ultimately it’s hard to argue with results. Walmart’s ecommerce sales are up significantly. Its extensive network of stores bodes well in the omnichannel future. Amazon has extended beyond its affluent base to build extensive middle-class appeal but hasn’t penetrated strongly into Walmart’s base. And while Walmart is a distant second to Amazon online, Walmart is far ahead of the other retailers behind it.

Many headlines will try to position Jet.com’s incorporation into the Walmart mothership as a failure. But a deeper analysis reveals that the acquisition continues to go as Walmart planned, and is largely a win for the Arkansas-based retailer.

Stephen Kraus is the head of digital insights for Jumpshot. Kraus is an expert in consumer insights and digital trends, the author of three books and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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Instagram announced Wednesday that it is introducing ads in its Explore tab, the section where users can browse content and discover new accounts based on their interests.

The company said it will be rolling out the ads “slowly and thoughtfully” over the coming months. Instagram’s Business Product Marketing Director Susan Bucker Rose told TechCrunch Instagram will first test the ads to promote IGTV (Instagram’s long-form video platform) before offering the ad unit to a “handful of brands” over the upcoming weeks.

Why we should care

Instagram’s advertising business is growing faster than Facebook, and the site is experiencing more user engagement growth than it’s parent platform, too. It’s no surprise the company is looking to take advantage of that growth by finding new ways to generate ad revenue. Putting ads in the Explore tab will give Instagram advertisers a new inventory area to reach users beyond their feeds.

In the initial roll out, Instagram will only show ads to users after they’ve engaged with Explore content. Ads will be eligible to show to users once they have tapped on a photo or video within Explore. Then, Instagram said, the user, “May begin to see ads as part of their browsing experience just like in the main feed.”

More on the news

• Brands will be able to place ads in Explore via the Facebook Ads Manager — just as they can for Instagram Feed and Stories ads: “Advertisers can easily extend their campaigns using automatic placements with a simple opt-in to reach audiences in Explore.”
• According to Instagram, more than 50% of its billion users visit the Explore tab every month and 80% of its users follow a business account on the platform.
• Earlier this month, Instagram made it possible for advertisers to turn organic posts from influencers into ads.

Advertising is the big gun of paid efforts brands put in to increase awareness and revenue. Be it small businesses or large enterprises, everyone has a shot at advertising.  

With global ad spend reaching an estimated $579 billion at the end of 2018 and online advertising leading the charts, we need to pay attention to advertising.

Source: Vox

Leading social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Quora. all are open to advertising on. While social media advertising has its own impact, there is no denying the fact that search engine ads are efficient too.

Google Ads and Bing Ads lead the charge in search engine advertising. There are a lot of reasons why advertisers prefer Google Ads to any other form of online advertising:

• A person who is actively searching for products on Google is more inclined to buy than one who is scrolling social media
• With the lion’s share in the global search market, Google is undoubtedly the leading and most used search engine in the world
• The scalability and flexibility of Google Ads
• Regular updates, tons of features, and great support

The benefits of using Google Ads are many

But the point I want to stress is – Are we using it to its full potential? Are we optimizing our Google Ads? Are they driving in conversions or results?

If you thought twice before answering the above questions, you are probably in the right place. Flushing money into advertising without understanding its workflow is not cool.

Throughout this article, we will discuss the top hacks which every advertiser should use to improve their Google Ads performance. Irrespective of your business niche, you will gain great insights and probably become better at Google advertising in 2019.

Nine Google Ads hacks that will make your paid advertising efforts worth it

1. Pay attention to mobile

From 6.1% in 2011 to 52.2% in 2018, the percentage of mobile phone traffic is growing exponentially.

You can note how the percentage of all global web pages served to mobile phones from 2009 to 2018 in the graph given below.

Source: Statista

This number is definitely gonna increase. With so many people using their phones to access the web, advertisers need to stay one step ahead.

Be it any type of ad, Google is intelligent enough to format your ads for mobile, meaning they will automatically show up on mobile devices when someone searches for related keywords.

But there are some ads such as “Call-only” ads and “App Promotion” ads” which are specifically designed for mobile.

Call-only ads are different from call extensions. These ads allow people to call your business directly and help in engagement.

App promotion ads focus on getting more app installs, more in-app actions and in-app action value. These are shown across the Google network to help you promote your application.

Some tips for optimizing your ads for mobile

1. Your ad’s landing page must be mobile-friendly allowing users to easily access the webpage on their mobile devices
2. As you have less space to display ads on mobile, make sure you have the most important information in the first line
3. Use call bid adjustments to drive more calls to your business
4. Keep track of both online and offline mobile conversions because mobile engagement results in offline actions. Using lead ads and call-only ads to gather customer data and importing this data into your offline database allows better conversion tracking.

With more and more mobile shoppers, it is important for advertisers to leverage Google Ads Mobile.

2. Write compelling ad copy

This may be the most fundamental advertising learning but people still are not good at it. I want to stress the fact that your ads must be appealing.

The majority of Google Ads are just posted for the sake of advertising. We need to understand our customers’ emotions and step in their shoes. Most of the time, we come across such boring ads that we may want to report them for lack of luster.

To stand out from your competition, you need to excel at creating special ads. This can be achieved through:

Emotional touch: This might be your best shot at engaging your audience. Everyone is affected by emotions. When we add emotions to our advertisements, it forces people to notice and connect.

Show statistics: Including number and stats in your headlines and copy is highly recommended. This builds trust and makes your ads more appealing to the searchers.

Use Display URLs to good effect: I hope every one of us is aware that our landing page URL and display URL need not be the same and can be different. This may seem to have a trivial impact but that isn’t the case.

Using keywords in your display URL ensures the searchers that they will be taken to a relevant landing page.

Ad extensions and reviews: The more detailed your ad, the more chances of it being clicked. Ad extensions serve a great purpose by listing all the details about a business. When people compare any two ads, they definitely click the one with more extensions.

Reviews about businesses build trust and people can clearly see what others have to say about your work.

Offer a Solution- People click on ads when they see a solution to their problems. You need to step into your customer’s shoes and ponder while writing your ad copy:

• What keywords are being searched by my target audience?
• What information do I expect to see if I am searching for something?
• Does my product solve the customer’s problem?

After assessing the answers to the above questions, you will surely write better ad copy which will engage your audience.

3. Competitor analysis

This is one of my favorite hacks that advertisers can use on Google Ads. Bidding on competitor keywords cuts down your research work and is highly efficient. Having a look at how others are running ads on the same products simplifies things a lot.

Consider this example

You have an online clothing store with a large inventory. You are about to enter the world of online advertising for your store. But then, you decide to have a look at how others are performing.

This helps you to start afresh and now you already have a strategic blueprint in your mind. This allows you to perform better as you already have access to your competitor’s hard work and research. You can simply use their tactics or add something extra from your side.

The best thing of them all: Google allows us to bid on competitor’s keywords but limits the use of trademarks. 

We have a lot of tools for competitor analysis but I recommend SemRush. It’s easy to use and I have been using it for some time now.

1. There is a separate tab for “Advertising Research” under Domain Analytics in the tool. You need to enter the website URL of your competitor here.

2.  After you feed in the URL, you will see an overview of all the ads being run by your competitor with important metrics to check.

3.  You are even able to see the exact ad copies of your competitor, keywords being bid on, the CPC map, and other such valuable details.

Now, you will have a complete idea of what keywords are performing best for your competitor. You can also check the exact ad copy they are using.

For display ads, I will recommend Moat. It is a digital marketing intelligence tool which allows you to have a look at several display creatives from different brands.

One more thing that can be implied is the use of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). If you want to check your competitor’s ads in some other countries, then you can simply use a VPN and perform a Google search with related keywords.

4. Use exclusions and negative keywords

This is a pro tip and must surely be executed. During my time of advertising on Google, I noticed a very odd trend and functionality of the Google Ads platform.

When we talk about ad optimization, Google gives you full freedom and features to run your ads as you wish.

For display ads, whenever you click on an ad campaign, you have the“Placements” tab in the left-hand sidebar. This tab shows three options:

Placements: Here, you may enter multiple website URLs on which you want your display ad to appear.

Where Ads Showed: This is a list of the web pages and mobile applications where your display ad was shown.

Exclusions: Exclusions include all those websites and mobile apps where you do not want your ad to appear. This generally includes all business niches which are irrelevant to your business.

Most advertisers run their ad campaigns for a while. Then, they check where their ads were shown and further, they optimize their ads to exclude some websites and apps.

My point is we should exclude business categories(especially mobile apps) as soon as our ad is live.

Why?

Because, from personal experience, when you haven’t given Google any information about where to run your ads and where not, it will show your ads amongst all the categories irrespective of your business niche and you will lose money.

It doesn’t make any sense when we wait for the calamity to occur and then take preventive measures. We should simply be cautious from the beginning.

You could either exclude placements manually or use a placement exclusion list.

What happened with me was that my ad campaigns got a lot of irrelevant clicks majorly because my ad was shown on a lot of mobile applications. I started excluding the whole app categories which saved me money and improved my ads.

I would advise fellow advertisers to use placements and exclusions wisely to see your ad performance grow.

The same applies for using negative keywords.

We all are aware of the importance of negative keywords for search campaigns. Just like keywords which we decide for our ads to appear on, there are certain keywords which we do not want our ads to appear on. These are called negative keywords.

Search terms are keywords or phrases which someone searched for and then clicked your ad. We need to include unrelated search terms as negative keywords so that our ad does not show up for those phrases.

Tip: Whenever you create a search campaign, add some general negative keywords wherever applicable.

Source

If you sell women’s handbags and purses online, keywords like men’s purses, wallets, etc. must be included as negative keywords in your ad campaign beforehand.

5. Smart remarketing

The reason I am writing this under “smart remarketing” is that we as advertisers are not using the powerful weapon of remarketing to its full potential. Here, I will share the pro tips of remarketing which I’ve learned over the years.

We all understand that to remarket is to re-engage users who once visited your website but didn’t complete some action which you consider a conversion. It can be a product purchase, ebook download, and lead sign-up.

Remarketing allows you to retarget customers who have already shown interest in your business and hence it gives huge returns and conversions.

Some points of interest

1. Membership duration

This is an arguable one but the appropriate membership duration for your remarketing audience should be 60 days.

The maximum limit is 540 days and most advertisers choose this. My point of view is that allowing people to stay in your remarketing audiences for more than 60 days doesn’t make sense.

The reason being people complete any desired action/purchase within 60 days on an average and allowing 540 days renders the remarketing audience ineffective.

Just so you know, this is no hard and fast rule. You may well keep the limit to 540 days or any time duration. Just consider your campaign objectives and previous conversion data before deciding.

2. Targeting abandoned carts

Abandoned shopping carts are a big pain point for online sellers and the issue is they are inevitable. With remarketing though, you can target abandoned carts easily.

While creating your remarketing audience, you have the option of panning out rules. The rules can contain, “start with”, “end with” some particular URL that you feed into the system.

To target users who abandoned your shopping cart, you should feed the “add to cart” URL in the contain part and input the “order received” URL in the does not contain part.

Using the above tip, you can target people who have abandoned the shopping cart for any particular product.

3. Complimentary items

Every business has products which they want to cross-sell. This means there are always some items which are related to each other and go in hand in hand. Businesses love to target customers who have purchased either of the items so that they can show ads of the other item to the concerned audience.

Remarketing allows us to do this efficiently. We need to create a rule which contains the “order received” URL for a particular product. It means that our ad will only be shown to people who have purchased some specific item.

We just need to create an ad for the complimentary item and show it to the buyers of the original item.

This is a great cross-selling strategy which helps our ads to be shown to the right audience improving the performance and conversions of our ads.

Advertisers need to remarket effectively. Best practices like dynamic remarketing have a lot of potentials and can be the game changer for your paid advertising efforts.

6. Make the best use of In-Market Audiences

In-Market Audiences are a boon to small businesses advertising online. They can be defined as groups or segments of shoppers for different categories who are actively searching for some product “in the market”.

We all know remarketing can work wonders for us but the only prerequisite is audience size.

This is where in-market segments step in. An in-market audience is a readymade consumer data list which gives us an idea of what people are actively searching or looking for online.

This data is gold for advertisers given that we already know which consumers are interested in which type of products.

I used both Google Analytics and Google Ads to take full advantage of in-market segments.

Step one

Go to Google Analytics (hope you have set it up for your business) and check the “Product Performance” tab under “Ecommerce”.

Step two

Here, you will see all your product purchases. You need to select “In-Market Segment” as the secondary dimension.

Step three

Note down all in-market segments for your top selling products.

Step four

While creating the audience for your Google Ads campaign, be sure to include the same segments to show your ad to the desired audience.

This will ensure your ad (for a specific product) to be presented to the same category of people who purchased same or related products (same in-market segment) from you previously.

Sounds good, right? Then it is time to implement the same.

7. Optimize your “Quality Score”

According to Google, “Quality Score” is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.

This is not just a hack but the most important metric relative to Google Ads.

Understanding and improving your site’s quality score can take you places. It is a rating between one to ten which depicts how well are your ads fairing in the online market. It has three components which are expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.

All of these components point towards one direction

• Are your ads fit for the audience you have targeted?
• How well is your audience engaging with your ad?
• Do your ads achieve campaign objectives like conversions, traffic, sales, etc?

A good quality score helps your ads to rank well. How?

Ad Rank is an estimate which determines the position of your ad in Google SERPs. The Quality Score of your keywords multiplied by the bid on your keywords determine your Ad Rank.

Source: Wordstream

As depicted above, a high “Quality Score” improves your Ad Rank and lowers your CPC, which means even if you are bidding less than your competitors for the same keywords, your ad will rank higher than the rest because your Quality Score is better.

In the new Google Ads interface, you need to navigate to the “Keyword” level and then check the Quality Score column for respective keywords.

After analyzing your “Quality Score”, you need to improve it.

Check out these tips

• Use multiple ad groups with specific targeted keywords. Don’t add irrelevant keywords just for the sake of using.
• Improve your landing page experience. Clear, correct, and related data will compel your customers to stay on your webpage and engage.
• Improve your ad copy. Good, catchy headlines with to the point descriptions always make a good ad. Emphasize on features which you are providing exclusively. Sales and discounts must be highlighted.
• Use smaller ad groups with less number of keywords. Using 15-20 keywords in a single ad group will complicate things a lot and hence it is not recommended. Use around nine to ten keywords per ad group.

With time, advertisers realize the importance of the “Quality Score” and start optimizing it. I would advise to aim for a healthy Quality Score from the start and see how it impacts your overall ads performance.

8. Google Ads scripts

Using Google Ads scripts will save you a lot of effort and time. Some consider this best fit for advanced advertisers but I have a different point of view.

What is a Google Ads Script?

A script is a pre-defined JavaScipt code which allows you to modify your ad campaigns and automate advertising tasks.

Scripts can be used to automate repetitive tasks and control your Google Ads campaigns with the help of JavaScript. Though scripts are most appropriate where you have to manage multiple Google Ads accounts, they can also ease out daily manual work.

How to use Google Ads Scripts

To use scripts, click on “Tools & Settings”. Then click “Scripts” under Bulk Actions.

Here, you can simply add a pre-written script or write your own. Writing your own script is not as hard as it seems because it is based on JavaScipt. You don’t need to be a champion coder and a basic understanding of JavaScript is sufficient to write your own script.

Some helpful information about writing a custom Google Ads Script can be found here.

Your script will perform some specific task for you in your ad campaigns.

You need to preview your script before running it to avoid mistakes.

Some of the common repetitive tasks which you can automate using scripts

• Using bid modifiers and adjusting your advertisement bids according to your needs
• Pausing and deleting ads with low performance(pause some ads with low “Quality Score”, CTR, and conversions
• Ad performance and reporting

There is a lot of work which you can automate using Google Ads Scripts. You just need to check the resources to filter out which one works best for you.

Here is an example of Google Ads Script to automatically pause ads with low CTR

Source: Wordstream

Scripts are there to lessen the advertising workload and believe me, it works. We just need to explore it a bit more.

9. Effective use of bidding strategies

With Google introducing three new bidding strategies for Google Ads advertisers recently, we all know that leveraging Google Ads bidding strategies is the way forward.

What is a bidding strategy?

In simple terms, a bidding strategy is a way you would want Google to exhaust your budget on course to accomplish your campaign objectives or goals. You have different options you would like to choose to bid for your ads.

Currently, we have these bidding strategies available to us in Google Ads:

Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): If driving conversions is your main objective, then this is the strategy for you. CPA is the maximum amount which you are willing to pay for one conversion. You feed your target CPA and Google will optimize your campaign to get the maximum conversions within your budget.

Target ROAS (Return On Ad Spend): Return on Ad Spend is the number of product sales divided by your ad spend. You set a specific target ROAS and Google will set your bids to maximize conversions according to your ROAS.

Maximize Conversions: This is pretty much straightforward. You assign a daily budget amount and Google will try to get you the maximum conversions within that amount.

Enhanced Cost Per Click (ECPC): This is where Google predicts the likelihood of a conversion and adjusts your bids accordingly. If the likelihood is high, your bids will be increased and vice-versa. Note: All the above strategies fall underSmart Bidding which is a subset of automated bidding strategies

Maximize Clicks: As the name suggests, Google will try to get as many clicks as possible within your daily budget.

Manual CPC Bidding: Here, you will have to adjust your bids manually for all your ad groups and placements. Though you have much more control, this strategy requires proper monitoring of your ads which takes some time.

Target Search Page Location: This is when you ask Google to adjust your bids so that your ad always appears on the first page results of Google (or at the top of the results 1-4). No guaranteed placements because your quality score will always be taken into account.

Target Outranking Share: This is the best strategy for you when you want your ads to appear above your competitor’s ads. When both your and your competitor’s ad are shown, Google will automatically adjust to place your ads above your competitor’s.

CPM Bidding (Cost Per Thousand Impressions): This will optimize your bids according to the impressions of your ads and is only available for Display and YouTube campaigns.

vCPM Bidding (Cost Per Viewable Thousand Impressions): According to Google, an ad is viewable when at least 50% of its area is visible for 1 second for Display Network ads or two seconds for video ads.

This bidding strategy adjusts your bids according to the viewable impressions your ad gets. Only for Display and YouTube campaigns.

CPV Bidding (Cost Per View): CPV bidding is for video ad campaigns, and here you bid for a maximum number of views for your video.

Target Impression Share Bidding: Focused on brand awareness, this bidding strategy helps you to dominate ad impressions for specific keywords. You decide an impression share (like 50, 80%) for a specific keyword and your ad will be according to your desired impression share.

Google is planning to take down some of these existing bidding strategies in the near future but we need to wait and see.

Newly added bidding strategies

Campaign-level conversion setting: Earlier, all conversion goals were set at the account level leaving all campaigns under that account bound to follow the same goals. Now, different campaigns can have different conversion goals.

Seasonality adjustments: This has been specifically added keeping promotions, holidays in mind where advertisers are sure that their conversions will increase over those periods. Your bids will be adjusted accordingly.

Maximize Conversion Value: This is quite similar to the Maximize Conversions bidding strategy but here we consider conversion value as the building block.

We decide a particular conversion value and Google will try to get the maximum conversion value from your daily budget.

Value Rules: All conversions do not have the same value and keeping this in mind, Google will be introducing Value Rules which will help advertisers differentiate conversion values.

Woof, that was some list! Hope it helped you understand the basics right.

The point is with so many bidding strategies to choose from, businesses surely have one which is the best fit for them. Dive into the details, do your research and understand the logic.

A bidding strategy is Google’s effort to make things easy and automated for you. Choose your pick and start testing.

Key takeaways

Yes, you can master Google advertising by implementing the above hacks. The key is constant testing and gathering new insights. The more you test and learn, the better you become at advertising. One best practice is not repeating or making rookie mistakes which can affect your advertising strategy adversely.

• Please don’t spend too much on ad testing. Try to control your budget while you implement new strategies and ideas.
• Providing a great landing page experience must be your priority because your ads are of no use without an optimized landing page.
• Do a lot of research. Dig in for keywords, study your competitors, learn the market trends and then move forward. Jumping straight into the mainstream without any homework can be wasteful.

Moreover, adapting to new changes and updates can be beneficial. Google recently introduced three new ad types and advertisers need to pay heed. Online advertising is experiencing a significant shift and advertisers should be up for it.

Which of the above hacks do you find most useful for your business? How do you plan to implement it? Are there any other hacks that should be on the list?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Himanshu Rauthan is an entrepreneur, Co-Founder at MakeWebBetter, BotMyWork, and the Director of CEDCOSS Technologies. He can be found on Twitter .

You read that right: Rand Fishkin returns to the SMX stage in New York City this November! Don’t miss your chance to see the consummate advocate for search marketers deliver his opening keynote, Google: From Everyone’s Search Engine to Everyone’s Competitor.

Here’s your exclusive sneak peek, straight from Rand himself…

In years past, Google has been the largest driver of traffic to almost every web-based business in existence. Today, that’s still true, but a strange new trend is rearing its head — Google’s becoming your primary competitor. From travel to sports, reference to news, and answers on every topic, the search giant is working harder than ever to keep searchers on Google rather than sending them to your sites. In this presentation, I’ll show, via clickstream data from 10s of millions of devices, how the landscape of the web is shifting, and how to compete against Google in a game they control.

Rand’s keynote will tackle important topics, like:

• Where search opportunity broadly sits for paid and organic
• How to benefit from zero-click searches and Google’s bias to instant answers
• Where and how influence and traffic can be garnered from other sources, including social networks, podcasts, video, apps, and the still-powerful long tail of the web
• Whether, how, and how much voice search (and voice answers) are cannibalizing opportunity
• What other trends are on the rise in search and search marketing
• Tactics for on-SERP SEO and branded search creation

This is just one of more than 70 sessions coming to SMX East November 13-14 in NYC, covering all aspects of a comprehensive search marketing program: SEO, SEM, CRO, analytics, social, local, tools, and beyond. Saddle up for an educational journey that will help you connect what you learn to how you execute back at the office — expanding your knowledge in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Sound like your cup of tea? Secure your spot now to take advantage of Super Early Bird rates! Pick your ideal pass:

• All Access Pass: The complete experience — all sessions, keynotes, clinics, networking events, and amenities. Book now and save $450 off on-site rates!
• All Access + Workshop Combo (best value!): Maximize your learning by adding a full-day pre-conference workshop to your itinerary. Book now and save $900 off on-site rates!

You’ll walk away with at least one actionable tactic that will elevate your search marketing campaigns in 2019 and beyond.

See you in NYC!

According to Forrester, digital spend is set to top $150 billion by 2023 and account for 35 percent of total ad spend.

And this means CMOs will spend more than ever before on paid search, banner and outstream video ads, instream video ads, and email marketing to attract those buyers who start their journey online.

However, adopting a “more is more” attitude toward digital ad spend isn’t always necessarily a good thing. Spending wisely means spending less to generate more, and keyword traffic forecasting is one of a CMO’s best resources to allocate marketing spend across the most useful tactics. Here’s how traffic forecasting could mean smarter ad spend.

Content produced in collaboration with Investis Digital.

What is traffic forecasting?

Traffic forecasting is the implementation of automated tools to help a brand predict which content will resonate with target audiences at a given time by aligning content with user intent. Traffic forecasting can help brands predict how keywords will perform, which can help marketers gauge competitor performance, intelligently allocate budgets, and identify the best opportunities to generate results across marketing channels.

Accurate traffic forecasting can also make search a more powerful channel to support multiple functions in an organization.

Here are three examples of traffic forecasting in action:

• CMOs can understand how much time and effort they will need to increase awareness for new products, services, and campaigns.
• CROs can plan future revenue models around search, comparing it with other digital channels to determine which tactics they need to drive short-term and long-term growth.
• Product marketers can use traffic forecasting to see market share and demand insights when planning new brand or product launches.

Using traffic forecasting in order to understand the ways in which keywords and search volume directly affect awareness and demand can help entire organizations better plan content around the words and phrases audiences are actually using to search for their products and services.

Traffic forecasting in the context of the customer journey

As noted, traffic forecasting can help businesses plan everything from marketing campaigns to product launches. Forecasting is also essential for aligning your brand with your customer’s online journey. It’s important to note that 87% of shoppers now begin their searches online, whether they plan to purchase online or in store, according to an August 2018 study by Salesforce and Publicis.Sapient.

The days when a sale began with a call to a salesperson may be numbered as all buyers — and especially B2B buyers — begin researching products long before they ever make real-world contact with a brand. As customers increasingly rely on research they find online, search ads have become the first salesperson a potential customer generally reaches out to.

As more customers move online to conduct research in those critical first stages of the buyer journey, it stands to reason that marketers would allocate more of their ad spend to digital channels, such as search marketing.

However, many brands are investing in the wrong keywords — meaning that buyers are reaching out, but marketers aren’t answering their queries in a way that will effectively move them down the path to purchase.  

How traffic forecasting uses data to make a brand relevant along the customer journey

Traffic forecasting utilizes all your data.

By incorporating both first and third-party data sources, a good traffic forecasting tool calculates the traffic and revenue possible from SEO and content marketing with these components:

First-party data (your data)

First-party data is what makes forecasting results custom in every case. Traffic forecasting tools require basic company and competitor information to tailor results with domain or page-level data, region, and other data points that can make a forecast as detailed or broad as you need. The more detailed the data, the more accurate the forecast.

Third-party authority data

Analyzing third-party data sources with a traffic forecasting tool can help validate search volume and rank on a real-time basis, which ensures forecasts are as accurate as possible. The best forecasting tools incorporate APIs from industry-leading brands such as Authority Labs, Google Ads, Advanced Web Ranking, and SEMRush.

Authority Labs and SEMRush both provide keyword ranking data in real-time to generate projections for companies and competitors. The Google Ads API shows the popularity of keywords to define search volume, competition, and cost-per-click rates over time. Advanced Web Ranking provides insights into keyword clicks by examining clickthrough rates by industry segmentation and Google positions.

A traffic forecasting tool combines all these insights in or to examines trends in historical data, algorithm changes, and industry data. By using both first- and third-party data sources, traffic forecasting tools can provide insight that helps move customers down the path to purchase. This information also allows results to be tailored for individual brands and offers more personalized, accurate projections.

Domain or page-level forecast

By utilizing both first- and third-party data, traffic forecasting tools can instantly produce reports providing monthly traffic and revenue forecasts for up to 24 months of a typical SEO engagement – at the domain or page level.

Forecasts are designed to show a conservative outlook incremental to data currently available and are on average 20 to 30 percent more conservative than actual results.

What are key features of an automated traffic forecasting tool?

Traffic forecasting is a complex process that requires ongoing management, multiple and shifting data sources, and complex calculations. Therefore, it generally requires an automated tool specifically designed to calculate the benefits of individual keywords. Many automated tools on the market offer limited solutions and are costly to maintain.

A truly worthwhile automated tool for traffic forecasting provides the following insights:

• Monthly traffic and revenue projections
• Insights into the impact of specific keywords on customized initiatives and goals
• Project engagement and ROI for defined keywords in both search and social
• Identification of gaps in competitors’ strategies
• Identification of weaknesses in your own strategy

For more information on how to get the most from your search spend using automated tools for traffic forecasting, check out Investis Digital’s whitepaper, “Forecasting for Traffic and Revenue Potential .”

Related reading

Your search engine marketing success hinges upon your site’s UX. Two elements of UX that are particularly relevant to SEO.

Local SEO tactics that can help you generate high-quality traffic and drive conversions. It can also help you compete with big brands and stay relevant.

Tools that can help benchmark your clients’ link quality against competitors, monitor backlinks, and discover partnership opportunities with other websites.

I’ll walk you through a few important tactics like retargeting site visitors and purchasers, mid-funnel remarketing, and more of these tips to utilize.