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Google Ads: Evolutions and changes that you absolutely must implement in your Google Ads campaigns!

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

To get 2020 off to a flying start, we’ve selected 8 Google Ads evolutions from this year, 2019, that are having and will continue to have an impact on the year ahead.

In addition to presenting these updates, Natalya Donnat – Adenlab’s Director of Operations, comments on each of them and gives you her opinion and the results obtained with these various new features.
The article is comprehensive and rich in information that you can use for your own E-commerce or lead acquisition campaigns.
Of course, we’re available for face-to-face discussions. So don’t hesitate to contact us and ask for more information on how we can help you manage your Google Ads campaigns and reach your goals in 2020!

New audiences for Google Ads search campaigns

Two new audience segments for more effective targeting

The first update we’d like to introduce to you is the new audience types offered by Google Ads;
Indeed, for our teams and our customers, audience targeting offers significant opportunities for growth and profitability, as well as numerous advantages. We’ve made it a priority in our SEA campaign management.

It was in October that Google announced the official launch of new affinity audience segments in Points of Interest and seasonal event segments in “In-Market Audiences”.

  • Affinity Audiences (user interests and habits)

The Affinity audience segment is a group of consumers who have expressed an interest in a particular subject. To determine whether someone qualifies for this affinity audience, Google takes into account factors such as search history, frequently visited web pages…

In its October announcement, Google used the example of a company selling camping equipment. If this were your company, your goal would be to reach your prospects by retargeting keywords such as “camping tent”. With the affinity audience, you’ll be able to target this keyword while simultaneously associating an affinity audience like “Running enthusiasts.”

In the example below, the “Running enthusiasts” audience segment represents

In other words, affinity audiences for text ads enable you to refine your targeting, make your ads more effective, deliver a more compelling message, and increase your click-through and conversion rates.

Audiences by “User interests and habits
  • Seasonal Buying Audiences (in Market Audiences)

In-market audiences” allow you to limit the reach of your ads to users who are actively looking for a product or service like yours.
In fact, the new seasonal shopping audiences (= Christmas shopping, Back-to-school shopping, Black Friday shopping, Mother’s Day shopping), will allow you to target consumers who are actively looking for a product or service for a specific occasion (= Christmas shopping, Back-to-school shopping, Black Friday shopping, Mother’s Day shopping).

Market audiences and seasonal purchasing segments

“Indeed, this is good news for our customers, whose objectives are often focused on growth and profitability.
The affinity and in-market audiences have enabled us to target the right person at the right time, and the creation of these new segments to be all the more refined in our adjustments and optimize budgets and expenditure.
Some results obtained: We used affinity and in-market audiences for an advertiser in the Cosmetics sector. Audiences were applied to the Search network and Youtube. Using the “Black friday” segment, the advertiser recorded a 28% improvement in conversions and a 42% reduction in acquisition costs.”
Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager

We’ve written several articles on the subject of audience strategies. You can, however, read or re-read “How to guarantee the success of your campaigns with Audience parameters and Remarketing“.

How to apply Google Ads intelligent bidding strategies?

Expanding audiences on the display network

A simple new tool for expanding your most promising audiences

With audience enlargement, the objective is clear: reach more buyers with the same budget!
“an audience enlargement tool makes it possible to reach more users in order to generate more conversions for the same average cost per acquisition (CPA).“

Like Facebook’s “lookalike” audiences,Google’s audience expansion tool lets you expand your display campaigns by reaching new prospects who behave in the same way as the users you’re already targeting, i.e. increasing impressions, clicks and conversions without affecting your budget.

New audience enlargement parameters for display campaigns

“Audience Expansion is ideal for advertisers who make a minimum of 30 conversions per month, who want to increase their conversion volume while keeping the same acquisition cost, and who have no budget restrictions or restrictions on appearing on different sites.
We recommend testing this feature for a minimum of 3 weeks, as the tool is based on historical data and recorded matchings, and we have seen a real increase in conversions with a constant Acquisition Cost after 4 weeks of testing.”
Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager

"average position" of ads: a metric removed

For more accurate metrics and analysis

It was in February that a big change in google reporting was introduced with the removal of “average position” from Google Ads metrics.
This metric has long been tracked and optimized by traffic managers, advertisers and agencies and which has been removed from our metrics on September 30, 2019.
Google has decided to remove the metric in favor of a newer, more accurate metric that was rolled out at the end of 2018:

  • Absolute Top impression rate, i.e. in 1st position.
  • the “Top” impression rate, which corresponds to the 3 ads at the top of the page.

Since smart bidding solutions are becoming increasingly important, manual bidding strategies are becoming less and less useful.

Google Ads invites advertisers to consult :

  • the ” Search Absolute top impression share“, which reflects impressions associated with the Top Absolute location
  • Search Top IS“, a similar indicator but for Top positions, not Absolute positions

“The average position indicator was very important for many of our customers, who wanted to monitor their positioning on the search network. However, this indicator did not reflect real visibility coverage. We may be in 1st position, but only 10% of the time. We worked with our customers to learn how to use this new indicator. Our customers’ campaigns have gained in accuracy and performance.”
Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager

Lead form ad extension

To facilitate the generation of inbound contacts (leads) via your mobile traffic

Since mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic, web users are becoming less patient and more demanding about the quality of your pages and website. Speed and simplicity are the keys to converting new customers and prospects on mobile.

In a bid to help advertisers convert more leads on mobile, Google recently launched a brand new ad extension:
thelead form extension
For the moment, the extension is still in Beta in France and active only on Mobiles.

With this extension, you’ll be able to collect all the contact details you need from your prospect without it leaving Google’s search engine (search results). The aim is to eliminate as much friction as possible for your prospect.
What’s more, if a user is logged into their Google account when they see your ad, they can access the form (by clicking on it) already pre-filled with their details.
On the other hand, they don’t need to go to your site: good or bad idea, it’s up to you to test!

Objective: to make your mobile conversion rates take off.
Lead form extensions seem like a great new option, but these ad extensions do have some limitations:

  • Lead form extensions will only appear in search campaigns.
  • Lead form extensions will only appear on mobile devices and tablets.
  • You cannot create lead form extensions at account or ad group level. Each lead form extension can only be applied at campaign level.
  • Certain sensitive industries (such as healthcare) will not be able to collect personal information using form extensions. Visit the restrictions page for this extension
  • The use of the personal information you collect using form extensions must comply with the privacy policy provided by your company, with Google’s data collection policies and, of course, with the regulations of your users’ country.

Adenlab Lead Form Extension

“We have tested this new extension on several B2B customers. The advantage of the extension is that we can choose for ourselves the level of detail via the form that we want to have: Surname, first name, e-mail address, telephone number, address, etc.
Initial observations: Very little data has been recorded since the launch. We’ve sensed a certain reluctance on the part of Internet users to leave contact details via the form. We’re going to continue the test and will let you know our findings very shortly”.
Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager

Conversions" taken into account at campaign level rather than account level

To refine and optimize your Google Ads campaign objectives

And yes, “Conversions” can now be taken into account at campaign level, not just at account level.

You may think that this is of little interest or that it doesn’t add much to your management, but beware, it’s a major change for your performance and the optimization of your objectives.
Let’s go back to the principle of tracking conversions in your google ads accounts;
And I’m going to take the example of a B2B E-commerce site whose conversion objective is twofold:

  • conversion 1: obtaining leads via a form
  • conversion 2: sell products directly on your site

These are 2 very important types of conversions for the site, yet totally different to manage in terms of optimization and campaign management.
Before this new feature, and the arrival in force of Google’s smart bidding algorithms, it wasn’t really possible to effectively distinguish between these 2 conversions in the account. And I do mean in the account.

Indeed, for these smart (automatic) bidding strategies, there was no way of determining which specific conversion objective was the most useful for a particular campaign.
In fact, and to return to the example of the B2B site, if you build a campaign whose objective is to generate leads via a form, and your prospect finally converts by buying a product, this action would be counted as a conversion even if this wasn’t the campaign’s objective (since the conversion objective should have been the validation of a form).

From now on, with conversions at campaign level, you can specify to Google that the only conversion objective that counts for this campaign is the validation of a form, and that the other objectives set up in your account have no importance for this campaign.

Bumper video creation tool - 6-second video

To improve the effectiveness and impact of your video and Youtube campaigns

The tool was unveiled at the Google Marketing Live conference. It allows anyone with a video under 90 seconds to create a series of ready-to-use 6-second Youtube video ads. Given the cost of editing a video, this is a pretty powerful tool.
The real problem is the production of the 90-second video, which for many advertisers on Google is neither a reality nor an exploited means of communication due to its cost.
However, this lever seems to have proved its effectiveness (at least for Lipton 😉 You can find thecase study carried out by Lipton Ice Tea, Google and Marketing Scan:** 13% more sales thanks to Bumper Ads**.

Given the amount of time spent by Internet users on YouTube, we advise you to position yourself on this platform. Don’t hesitate to reread our article on Youtube: An advertising channel for Ecommerces?

Example of Renaud Scenic’s Video Bumber:

Videos in Responsive Display Ads

Make your Display ads even more attractive

A reminder about Google’s responsive display ads: this feature allows you to prepare your images and ads so that they can adapt and be displayed automatically on the multiple formats and inserts available on Google’s network of partner sites.
I.e. image ads in formats such as :

Different formats for Google Display Network images and ads

Google’s algorithms combine the images and automatically optimize them according to the content of the web page and the size of the user’s screen.

However, until March, content for these formats could only be images and gifs. Since then, advertisers have also been able to use video content in their responsive display ads.

Video integration in Display Responsive format

Here are three reasons to use this feature:

  • Get more impressions: Google prefers responsive display ads to standard banners.
  • More clicks: Responsive display ads – especially those with video content – are more attractive than standard banner ads.
  • More accessible and simpler: Unlike standard banners – which require time, resources and expertise to constantly optimize – responsive banners are semi-automated.

Find out more on Google’s official Responsive Display Ads page.

Gallery Ads

A visual format to be tested on Google search engine results (SERP)

This is the brand-new mobile advertising format unveiled at Google Marketing Live and currently available in beta version to selected advertisers.

Here is the example given by Google at the time of the official announcement:

advertise Gallery Ads
Example of a Gallery Ads ad

As you can see, an Illustrated Ad appears at the top of the search results (SERP) with a carousel of eight images that can be scanned. There’s a clickable title and a display URL, and below each image is a brief description.
What’s more, you can submit three titles for your ad, giving you the opportunity to test different ad combinations to optimize your click-through rate.

Google’s initial tests have shown that illustrated ads generate 25% more engagement (measured by clicks and swipes) than standard Text ads.

“For our part, at Adenlab, we’ve been able to implement it on several customers. The tests are quite convincing, with an improvement in the click-through rate of +18% and an improvement in the conversion rate of +12% on average. Image quality plays a vital role, and we recommend testing this type of ad with high-quality images.”
Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager

Find out more about Google’s official information on Gallery Ads.

Conclusion

In recent years, Google Ads has undergone many changes and evolutions. Testing and choosing the right options is the key to developing your campaigns and your Google Ads account. At Adenlab – SEA Agency, we know that it’s necessary to work on these new features and share our experience with our customers. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need :

  • Restructure your Google Ads account
  • Boost your performance and sales
  • Internationalize your campaigns
  • …

See you soon!

Facebook campaign: towards automatic campaign budget allocation

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

If you’re using Facebook’s Business Manager to manage your sponsored campaigns, you’ve set your budgets when creating your campaigns.

In the image below, you can see that in step 3, you can select “optimize campaign budget”.

Well, this option will become mandatory for all your campaigns in February.

Creating a Facebook campaign

Creating a Facebook campaign

Why optimize your campaign budget?

Campaign budget optimization allows you to allocate your spend in the most effective way to achieve the best results, and to ensure that the cost of those results matches your bidding strategy and campaign objectives.

It’s a way of automatically distributing your campaign budget across all your ads and guaranteeing optimal results.

This feature automatically seeks to allocate your budgets in order to seize the best opportunities for results.
The idea is to automatically determine which advertisement will obtain the best results, and to present it more often than others.

Historically, you could choose between: – automatic budget optimization – and manual budget distribution (at ads group level)
The diagram below shows the 2 budget distribution modes offered by Facebook’s Business Manager.

Campaign budget allocation options

From now on, manual budget allocation will no longer be an option. Automatic budget distribution will be the rule.

What actions need to be taken to make the most of campaign budget optimization?

With Facebook’s automation and machine learning, you need to prepare and organize your campaigns for learning those same campaigns.

Facebook says “to avoid inefficient spending, it’s important not to interrupt and then manually restart your ad sets”.

In fact, Facebook’s algorithms are enriched by the behavior of your targets and the history of your results.
It is therefore essential that your objectives are clear and that your audiences and targeting are consistent.

Here's what you need to review

  • Campaigns that contain different conversion points of unequal value should be segmented into different campaigns.
    An example would be to have one group optimize for Add to Cart and another for Optimize Shopping. The system will favor the add-to-cart ad group because it naturally gets more “conversions”. This distorts your results.

  • Don’t mix retargeting ads with prospecting ads (whose targeting is higher up and in the middle of your conversion funnel) as this tends to send mixed signals to the algorithm.

  • If you’re geo-targeting with specific objectives or budgets by geo-targeting, you’ll need to segment your campaigns according to geo-targeting in order to fully control these elements.

  • Think about the personas and audiences you want to target when creating your campaigns. Gather your top audiences into a single campaign and allocate a significant budget to it. If you want to test new audiences: create a separate campaign.

Don’t hesitate to consult our Facebook campaign creation guide, to take you through the steps involved in launching your campaigns.
We remain available to discuss with you if you need advice or need to delegate your social and SEA campaigns.

See you soon;)

Google Shopping campaigns: A necessity for e-tailers?

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

Find out more about the statistics, benefits and optimizations required for Google Shopping.

The figures presented in Adthena’s study “The Rise of Google Shopping” are indisputable. E-merchants’ favorite ads on Google are Google Shopping ads. Ads in Google Shopping campaigns alone account for 76% of spending, compared with 24% for text ads in the US and UK. Google Shopping is the preferred advertising lever and format for E-retailers.

In fact, Google Shopping ads have the ability to highlight all your offers and products in Google search results. Thanks to this type of ad, which enhances the value of your catalog, Internet users can view the product photo, price, brand and promotion directly in the Google search engine…

Text ads vs. Shopping ads

Depending on your objectives, these campaigns can also be promoted on several Google media: in Google search results, in the Google Shopping tab, in Google Image, on partner sites and on Youtube.

In the coming months, the number of media or “surfaces” where your products will appear will increase, and so will the visibility of your products, thanks to the new“Multiplatform” program.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the key elements of Google Shopping campaigns. What are the figures and statistics to be taken into consideration? And what are the levers you can use to improve your campaigns?

Google Shopping: a must? Figures and statistics on Google Shopping campaigns

The use of Google Shopping campaigns has already borne fruit with a majority of e-commerce businesses. This is highlighted by Adthena’s study (“The Rise of Google Shopping”):

  • Google Shopping campaigns account for 74.6% of corporate advertising spend (US/UK)
  • 23.6% of Google Ads spend generated 14.7% of clicks on text ads.
  • In the UK, the budget is higher, with Google campaigns accounting for 82% of ad spend. 18% of ad spend generated 12.1% of ad clicks.

The above statistics were obtained via the analysis of over 40 million Google ads (Shopping and text) in the UK and US, during January and February 2018 and across nearly 1 million keywords.

As this graph shows, Google Shopping campaigns cover all types of products and sectors.

Source: “The rise of Google Shopping” Adthena

What are the advantages of Google Shopping campaigns for your e-commerce business?

spending on Google Shopping has grown steadily in recent years. This is due to the various advantages of this approach:

  • You can reach an audience of buyers with a genuine interest in your products.
  • This type of ad increases the visibility of your offer and your entire catalog.
  • The format facilitates and accelerates the transaction. It’s a format designed for selling your products.
  • You can stand out from the competition with your prices, your promotions and your photos.
  • Merchant Center tools make it easy to highlight promotions, with crossed-out prices or coupon codes.
  • Customer reviews reinforce your reputation and facilitate sales through social proof(participate in the product reviews program).
  • You can exploit retargeting strategies to retarget undecided web users.

Tools for optimizing your Google Shopping campaigns

Google Shopping campaigns can be activated via 3 levers:

  • Your Catalog, which is translated into a Product Flow.
  • Google’s Merchant Center, to which your product feed (your catalog) is sent.
  • Google Ads, which will connect to your Merchant Center and manage your Google Shopping campaigns.

Below, we’ll discuss the first 2 areas of optimization: the Merchant Center and your Catalog (= Google Shopping product feed).

The Merchant Center: the cornerstone of your Google Shopping campaigns

Before you can launch a Shopping campaign and feed your Google Ads account, you’ll need to get to grips with your Google Merchant Center account and product flow.

The Merchant Center is the tool that allows you to import all your catalog data, as well as control the quality of your product information.
The Google Merchant Center is the product database that allows you to distribute your offers and link them to your Google Ads account.
The platform centralizes your products and company information.

One of the advantages of the Merchant Center is its ability to diagnose the quality of your feed (catalog).
It seeks to verify and ensure the quality of the technical elements, including the mandatory rules to be respected. We strongly advise you to check your account regularly. This often helps to avoid too many rejected products, for example.

Products refused by Merchant Center

In addition to its diagnostics, the Merchant Center offers you other tools to improve the performance and quality of your ads.
Managing promotions is one of the most important levers for Internet users. And you can manage your promotions or promo codes from the Merchant Center.
A crossed-out price on a shopping ad always has a strong impact.

In our opinion, the major evolution of Merchant Center lies in its new price analysis functionality. You now have access to pricing intelligence on your market, and can analyze your competitors’ price competitiveness.

Merchant Center price watch

As you can see, without a Merchant Center account, no Google Shopping campaign is possible.

The first step before launching Google Shopping is to create your Merchant Center account(sign up for Google Merchant Center).

How can you optimize your Google Shopping feed and what quality criteria should you work on to boost the performance of a Shopping campaign?

To gain in visibility and performance, your Google Shopping campaigns must respect a certain number of criteria.
While the budget and bids that you allocate to your products and campaigns play a very important part in the success of your campaign, there are other optimizations to be made to the data and content of your feed.

  1. Capitalize on product titles

The title is the first element seen by the user. It attracts the attention of Internet users. That’s why you need to integrate the relevant keyword in relation to the product chosen and the search made by your future customers.
Keep in mind that a consumer makes several searches before buying on your site. The more precise the search, the closer they are to making a purchase.
For different sectors, headlines can be structured differently. Here are a few examples:

  • Electronics and household appliances: Brand + Attributes (e.g. size, weight) + product type + model or part number
  • Fashion and apparel: Brand + gender (men/women/children) + product type + attributes (color + size + material)
  • Consumables: Brand + product type + attributes

Also read: 5 steps to optimize your Catalog and your Google Shopping feed)

  1. Take care with the product description

Although the description isn’t often seen by Internet users, it plays an important role in your feed; in fact, the description (up to 5,000 characters) will enable you to complete the information in the Title and thus work more on the long tail and more precise queries.

  • Precision: although you can include a lot of content in the description, the aim is above all to be precise and concise; a clear product description will be the most effective.
  • Keywords and searches: think about the keywords your customers will search for to find your product; these terms must also be included in the Description.

Product description in the Shopping feed

However, the purpose of the product description is not limited to informing the prospect about your offer. In fact, it’s also designed to improve your product’s SEO.
To take this approach a step further, your Google Ads search term reports will be your allies.

  1. The fundamental role of visuals

Statistics from the Just Uno website are clear on the subject. 93% of users consider images to be an important aspect of the purchasing decision.
Choose high-quality visuals with good lighting.

Photos are very often the only medium on which they can get an idea of your offer.

Google’s image quality requirements are as follows:
Resolution, minimum image size, image background.

Image Flux Shopping

  1. The power of social proof to facilitate sales

Within Google ads, you have the option of integrating your customers’ reviews of the products concerned.
Make sure this data is highlighted, as 68% of prospects indicate that reviews encourage them to look into the product, or even buy it(figure provided by Bright Local).
And according to IFOP, prior to purchase, 88% of consumers consult online customer reviews, forums or blogs.

To get stars on your Shopping ads and get reviews from your customers, participate in Google’s Product Reviews program:About Google’s Product Reviews program

  1. Stream enrichment

To find out more about optimizing your Google Shopping feed :

  • Add new attributes to your feed. There are over 46 possible attributes to enrich your product and catalog information.
  • Use SEO methods and Google Ads search reports to find and select the most relevant keywords.

We also recommend that you read the following articles on our blog to improve your performance on Google Shopping:

This approach will enable you to improve the performance and quality score of your Shopping campaigns, thereby optimizing your costs and conversions.

Conclusion

Shopping campaigns are the main Google acquisition lever for e-tailers; in fact, the figures speak for themselves (76% of e-tailers’ Google Ads spend is concentrated on Google Shopping). But what about other formats? Are text formats being consulted more? Is this not an opportunity to reposition ourselves in this format, which has been neglected by the majority of e-tailers? At Adenlab, we know that it’s more complicated to seek performance equivalent to Shopping campaigns via text ads.

That’s why we’ve developed in-house methods, automations and solutions to develop complex campaigns and ensure an effective presence in line with your buyers’ behavior.

Please contact us to find out more about our Multiplatform Shopping Systems and SEA campaign management .

Evolution of Google Shopping: From Froogle to Google Shopping

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

E-commerce is experiencing strong growth year after year. As an entrepreneur, you’re well aware that this strong growth has come with the development of digital marketing and multi-channel acquisition techniques.
As you know, there are a number of practices you can exploit to attract qualified traffic to your e-commerce platform and optimize your sales performance.

Download our white paper

Levers such as search engine optimization (SEO) or sponsored campaigns (SEA) are the most widespread techniques.

Google Shopping sponsored campaigns are a must for e-commerce businesses. They deliver significant results and returns on investment. However, all these levers require different technical skills.

The origins of Google Shopping

The giant Google offers a range of tools to optimize the visibility of e-commerce sites. Google Shopping is one such platform that has revolutionized the world of online sales. Initially called Froogle in 2003, this tool has been entirely free of charge.

The origins of Google Shopping: Froogle Beta

The name was changed to Google Product Search in 2007 for reasons of internationalization. It is a product comparison services tool that enables all e-commerce sites to offer their products on the platform.

Google Product Search

Then, 5 years later, Google Product Search changed its name to Google Shopping. It should be noted that the tool is not free. The principle of Google Shopping is to enable online retailers to display their products directly on the platform for a fee defined by the platform. Your products are positioned according to their relevance to the user’s search query, and also according to the maximum amount you are willing to invest for each click or action made by the user.

Shopping campaigns

It’s very important to know the basics of Google Shopping, so that you can make the most of it and ensure that your Google Shopping campaigns are successful.
Your ads must include several pieces of information to optimize their visibility on the platform.
All product information should already be included, such as price and a technical data sheet with an image of the product for sale. For greater efficiency, it’s important to combine your shopping campaigns with Remarketing campaigns. This retargeting technique is a common and proven practice in online advertising.

The principle of retargeting enables you to automatically track visitors who have visited your site, or a particular page.
It’s a powerful strategy for encouraging your visitors to convert and complete their purchases on your site.

Given the ever-changing behavior of Internet users, Google is also updating its SEO and shopping campaign techniques, notably with Showcase Campaigns.
The latter offers several advantages, such as the possibility of displaying multiple visuals on the same ad.
With this evolution of Google Shopping, visitors can land on a developed ad with a single click. It’s very important to have a rich catalog to enable Google to offer Internet users a wide choice of products likely to match their searches.

In addition, the creation of the Google Shopping feed is a prerequisite for launching on Google Shopping.
The Shopping Feed is a spreadsheet file containing all the information relating to your products (price, name, reference, color, availability, product qualifications, etc.).
You can create your Shopping Feed on a Google Sheet spreadsheet, using tools such as the Google template. This option is particularly recommended if your catalog is not large.

If this is not the case, we recommend the use of a feed module or aggregator, which will automatically create your Shopping Feed. There are several types of modules available for integration into your CMS, such as Prestashop, WordPress, Magento or Shopify. For a PLA (Product Listing Ads) campaign, as an advertiser you’ll need to reference your feed in the Google Merchant Center, and of course create an account.
And a key element will be the optimization of your feed: we recommend that you reread our article onoptimizing your Shopping Feed.

If you’d like to know more about creating feeds or managing Shopping campaigns, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

White paper: E-commerce sales by acquisition channel

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

Adenlab’s Analytics team undertook an analysis of 27 BtoC e-tailer Google Analytics accounts to identify the main e-tailer conversion channels.

Analysis of sales distribution by channel. Analysis of conversion paths and lengths

Google Ads: advertisements to attract new customers and grow your business

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

What types of advertising does Google Ads offer? Which formats are best suited to sales or lead acquisition?

Today, Google offers a wide range of services, including hosting, cloud services, mapping and much more.

But the best-known and most profitable for Google is its Google Ads advertising system.

With over 90% of searches carried out on its search engine, Google reigns supreme in digital advertising, along with Facebook.

What’s more, for companies and e-tailers using Google Ads as an advertising lever, the return on investment is immediate, and 50% of people who click on an ad are more inclined to buy than others – those who click on the free, “natural” SEO links.

Google Ads enables companies of all sizes and budgets to create targeted advertisements for people who are actively searching for their service.

It’s a powerful lever for reaching more Internet users and a targeted clientele of consumers.

But how do you use this tool provided by the Internet giant? How can you ensure that your campaigns meet your business objectives and become a real advantage for your company or online store?

Increase sales and attract new customers

Google Ads key figures

Many companies choose to create Google ads to showcase their products and services. This approach is strategic for many businesses. This is because

awareness of companies increases by 80% thanks to Google Ads.
63,000 Google searches are carried out every second.
90% of online searches are carried out on Google.
Google has a 73% market share in digital advertising.
65% of companies have a Pay per click campaign
46% of clicks on search engines go to the first three paid ads.
35% of users buy a product within 5 days of searching on Google.

The benefits of Google Ads for your business

If you haven’t already, integrating Google ads into your acquisition strategy will bring you a number of benefits.

You’ll be instantly visible, adapting your ads to the searches and requests of Internet users, and arousing the interest of your future customers.

You’ll be able to personalize your ads according to your different prospects and, above all, track your sales targets.

Be immediately visible

Once you’ve created campaigns in your Google Ads account, you’ll have the opportunity to position yourself immediately in Google’s top search results.

Your budget will depend on the type of keyword you’ve selected, the number of products in your catalog and, more generally, the structure and objectives of your campaigns.

Positioning your site in Google’s top results is extremely important, given that 75% of Internet users are content to see only the top 5 sites on the first page of search results.

Generate consumer interest and attract new customers

Internet users want to find information quickly and easily.
Being in first position in the Google search engine can give your company a click-through rate of 34.36% for computers and a click-through rate of 31.35% on smartphones.

On high-demand searches, this can lead to very significant traffic. That’s why you need to target the terms that will bring you conversion and a high volume of business.

Quickly adapt and change your offers and ads

With Google Ads, you can update the content of your offer and review your ads instantly.

This is obviously a major advantage over search engine optimization, which can take some time to attract qualified traffic.

For example, if you want to integrate a new range into your e-commerce or a new presentation, you’ll have to wait a few months before conquering the keywords related to this novelty (in search engine optimisation).

With Google Ads, changes and evolutions are directly taken into account.

Improve the accuracy of your targeting

Google gives companies using Google Ads the ability to target users as effectively as possible, so that ads are only shown to people who might be interested in the products.

Customize the audience parameters to suit your target.
We also suggest setting up a retargeting strategy.

Tailor your strategy to your objectives

The search engine provides you with advertising formats adapted to your initial strategy and defined objectives.

For example, ads are designed specifically for product sales. To take this a step further, Google has created form extensions for lead acquisition.

This evolution is in line with new business needs. With the decision funnel, leads are more likely to become loyal customers.

To sum up:

  1. Paid positioning enables us to address web users who are in an active search phase: this traffic is therefore highly qualified (much more so, for example, than banner traffic).

  2. Advertisers can choose the keywords on which they wish to be present.

  3. The billing model is “per click” (CPC), so the advertiser only pays for the traffic that actually arrives on the site.

  4. The bidding system enables the advertiser to control the maximum CPC it is prepared to spend on each keyword (the more targeted a word, the more profitable it can be to offer a high bid, as the conversion will be good).

  5. Market tracking tools enable sales to be attributed to each word: we can therefore calculate the cost of acquisition for each keyword and adapt bids according to the results observed.

  6. The campaign can be monitored and modified almost in real time

  7. Versus Search Engine Optimization ➔ traffic generation is immediate.

What are the different types of campaign and when should they be activated?

Before creating a campaign, it is important to consider your company’s strategic priorities:

  • What is the target audience or persona?
  • What are the informative pages on your site?
  • Which pages will convert
  • What are the strategic products (loss leaders, high-margin products)?
  • What are your prospects looking for?
  • What will be the traction campaigns (generic)
  • Conversion campaigns (long tail)
  • Your sector and the challenges of your campaigns
  • Understand your prospects’ research methodologies
  • And how to adapt the campaign structure to your website and offers

Sales funnel – Conversion funnel (Source: marcobernard.ca)

The structure of a Google Ads account can be very different, depending on your company’s objectives and challenges.
For example, in some cases, generic campaigns are rarely deployed, as the aim is to maximize the return on campaigns and position ourselves at the bottom of the funnel: in this case, shopping campaigns are the most appropriate, as this format has the highest conversion rate (if we consider the “last click”).

On the other hand, if you want to track the entireconversion funnel, you’ll need to create several campaigns, each with its own objectives and performance. In fact, in a full funnel structure, the challenge will be to track the user journey and the contribution of each campaign to the final conversion(attribution)
As you can see, it’s vital to set objectives for each type of campaign?

If your goal is to create brand awareness, you’ll need to:

  • Gain visibility for your site
  • Generate cold leads
  • Increase your list of new customers
  • Generate qualified traffic to the site

If your goal is growth, you’ll need to :

  • Increase the number of sales on your site
  • Develop sales
  • Control and improve ROI (Return on Investment) indicators

Inbound conversion funnel

Search campaign: text ads and keyword research

Google Ads text campaigns enable you to reach consumers at different stages of their research and needs. You can position yourself on keywords and terms related to your products and services on search engines (Google and Bing).

The key to these campaigns lies in the structure of your account and your campaigns, and consequently in distinguishing between informative searches and searches for hot prospects. In fact, you won’t have the same strategy for these 2 types of search, nor the same return on investment.

Google Ads

The positioning of advertisers is never identical, and doesn’t depend solely on the price you’re willing to pay!

The basic principles :

  • Paid positioning enables us to address web users who are in an active search phase: this traffic is therefore highly qualified (much more so, for example, than banner traffic).

  • Advertisers can choose the keywords on which they wish to be present.

  • The billing model is “per click” (CPC), so the advertiser only pays for the traffic that actually arrives on the site.

  • The bidding system allows the advertiser to control the maximum CPC it is prepared to spend on each keyword (the more targeted a word, the more profitable it can be to offer a high bid (since the conversion will be good).

  • Market tracking tools enable sales to be attributed to each word: we can therefore calculate the cost of acquisition for each keyword and adapt bids according to the results observed.

  • The campaign can be monitored and modified almost in real time

  • Versus Search Engine Optimization ➔ traffic generation is immediate.

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are ads targeted to the content of your website.
The use of Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) allows you to appear on search terms related to the content of your website or a particular page
The advantage of DSA is that it allows you to capture traffic that is not currently being captured by existing campaigns within the account.

The advantages of DSA :

  • No keywords to “buy”; ads benefit from a dynamic title that automatically adapts to the user’s query – and a dynamic url that redirects to the most appropriate page on your website.
  • Ads feature a dynamic title that automatically adapts to the user’s query, and a dynamic URL that redirects to the most appropriate page on your website.

Remarketing campaign (text, banners, videos)

Remarketing enables you to show ads to people who have already visited your website or used your mobile application.
It gives you the opportunity to show ads to people who have already visited your site.
Depending on the actions carried out on your site (e.g. cart abandonment), you’ll be more or less aggressive (with your bids) in bringing these same people back to your site. This feature is extremely powerful, as it enables you to target the hottest prospects and bring them back to complete their conversion or purchase action.

Remarketing – Retargeting

Remarketing methods offered by Google :

  1. Standard Remarketing: serve ads to your former visitors when they visit Display Network websites and applications.
  2. Dynamic Remarketing: serve dynamic ads featuring the products and services your previous visitors have viewed on your site when they access web pages and applications on the Display Network.
  3. Remarketing for mobile applications: serve ads to mobile users who have previously used your mobile application or website when they browse other content.
  4. Video remarketing: serve ads to users who have interacted with your videos or YouTube channel when they access YouTube and browse Display Network videos, websites and applications.
  5. Remarketing lists for Search Network Ads (RLSA): serve ads to your former visitors as they search on Google for the products and services they need, after they’ve left your site.
Display ad campaign targeting themes and interests

Display ad campaigns targeted by themes and interests give your company the opportunity to appear on sites in the Google Display Network. Generally speaking, these are “upper funnel” campaigns, which allow you to work on visual advertisements, since they are images and banners, which will enable you to take advantage of other sites’ traffic to make yourself known.

The Display Network is a collection of Google websites (for example, Google Finance, Gmail, Blogger and YouTube), partner sites, mobile sites and applications that display Google Ads based on page content.

Example of Google Display Partner Sites

You can use attractive ad formats to reach a large number of customers with varied interests. With the Display Network, you can increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, generate more customer interaction and choose more specifically where your ads are displayed, as well as the type of audience you want to target.

Features :

  • Several distribution methods: by keyword, by site, by category…

  • The business model: auctions and CPC payments

  • It’s possible to find out which sites you’re listed on and “blacklist” sites deemed irrelevant or unprofitable.

  • This traffic is less qualified than search traffic, as Internet users are not actively searching for information.

Google Shopping campaigns

Within Google advertising, you can choose Shopping campaigns. This is the most popular format for e-commerce. In fact, it’s currently the Google advertising format that generates the most conversions and sales.
Shopping campaigns for merchant sites using the Google Merchant Center enable them to display ads presenting their products (photos, product name, price) during searches on Google.com.

We recommend that you read or re-read our articles on the subject:
Google Shopping campaigns: A necessity for e-tailers?

Highlights :

  • Allows you to promote your products in a high-impact format (photo) when web users are actively looking for a product.
  • Increased visibility with dual display: classic text ad + product ad.
  • Easy to target and set up.

Weaknesses :

  • Requires a Google Merchant Center account, which is not available in all countries or for all merchant sites (e.g.: prices must be inclusive of VAT, whereas some B2B sites are exclusive of VAT).

Conclusion

The success of Google campaigns has been proven. Depending on your company’s objectives, choose the right ads for your online store and your products;

Before creating a campaign, it is important to:

  • Understand prospect and customer research methodologies
  • Adapt the structure of your campaigns to your website
  • Think about your real needs: awareness or sales

This will determine the structure of your Google Ads campaigns, which represents 60% of the optimization of your account.
In addition, the structure of your campaigns must be constantly evolving, because not only are your users’ behaviors changing, but so are you and your offer.

If you need more information and advice on your acquisition or tips on how to structure your SEA accounts and campaigns, our team ofSEA Experts is available to talk to you.

Everything you need to know about Google Shopping campaigns

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

The article below is aimed specifically at acquisition managers and SEA campaign managers for Ecommerces, or for Ecommerçants wishing to work on Google Shopping.

We’ll take a detailed look at the different stages involved in launching this popular advertising format for e-merchants.

In fact, Google Shopping ads have the ability to boost site sales when campaigns are well-organized and well-managed.

As you know, Google remains the ideal medium for promoting your products via sponsored ads.

Adthena’s study “The Rise of Google Shopping” showed that Google Shopping accounted for 75% of clicks on all Google Ads campaigns by retailers.

And more recent data shows that mobile channels are responsible for even greater growth in click volume.

What we’re going to talk about below

  1. What exactly is Google Shopping?
  2. How to set up a Google Merchant Center account.
  3. The Google Shopping feed: how to create a product data feed and import it?

What is Google Shopping?

Google Shopping ads

Google shopping ads (sometimes called PLA => Product Listing Ads) are for advertisers who have physical products to sell.

Advantage 1: they allow you to show right away what your products look like and how much they cost, even before the visitor arrives on your website.

Advantage 2: as these ads are more visual than text ads, the clicks they generate tend to capture visitors with a higher purchase intent than traditional text ads.

Advantage 3: For shopping campaigns, you don’t need to search for keywords to rank.

Against this backdrop, it’s hardly surprising that online retailers are investing so heavily in shopping campaigns. Budgets devoted to Google Shopping campaigns have grown steadily in recent years.

But how do ad settings work if you don’t have keywords to target like traditional text ads?

We’ll explain it below, because if you don’t have to select keywords, Google will automatically use the data from your Shopping Feed, which is hosted in the Google Merchant Center.

In fact, the first step in getting started with Google Shopping is to create a Google Merchant Center account.

Configure your Google Merchant Center account ?

Your Google Merchant Center is the tool that will centralize all your product data, so you can promote your entire offer.

It’s in the Merchant Center that you’ll integrate the products from your Ecommerce site that you want to promote via your Shopping campaigns.

When you log in to your Merchant Center account, you’ll find all the information you need about your products, including a diagnosis of their condition, as shown in the image below.

You’ll quickly see all approved products, unapproved products, clicks generated by your Google Shopping sponsored campaigns, as well as updates and recommendations on your account.

Merchant Center home

When you create your account(register with Google Merchant Center), the first thing to do is update your company details.

These include basic elements such as how you want your company name displayed, your website, your physical address and your account users.

Administration Merchant Center

Validate and claim your website URL

Once your account has been created, you’ll need to validate and claim your website URL.

To achieve this, Google offers several methods:

Download HTML files
HTML tag
Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager

Each of these methods involves adding a piece of code to your website, which will be supplied to you depending on the choice you make.

It’s quite technical, and often requires the help of your developer or webmaster.

Once you’ve validated and claimed your site, your lights will turn green as above.

Google Merchant Center guidelines

Now that you’ve validated and claimed your website’s URL, you need to make sure your site complies with Google Merchant Center guidelines before running ads on Google Shopping :

Of course, you must have a secure payment system (https in the address bar, whenever someone is about to give you their payment details).

Internet users must be able to access your site from anywhere in the world.

Your website and product data must be in the official language of the country for which you are advertising.

The Google Shopping Feed: How to create a product data feed and import it

Before turning to this crucial topic, you should know that there are a few principles to respect on Google. To create a product in your feed, you need to meet all the specifications of Google’s product data.

What’s more, Google uses your product feed to match your ads to users’ search queries.

The attributes of your Shopping feed

Google’s requirements for your product feed will depend on the types of products you sell, but there are a few elements common to all that are required for every feed:

Here is the list of mandatory attributes:

id [identifier]: a unique identifier for all your products

title [titre]: a title; the name of the product

description [description]: a description of the product

link: the URL link to the precise, detailed page dedicated to the product

image_link [lien_image]: product image URL

availability:Availability of your product, in stock

price: the price of the product

Brand: the product brand

gtin [gtin]: the EAN code for Europe, the bar code (mandatory for all new products to which a GTIN code has been assigned by the manufacturer).

MPN[référence_fabricant]:Supplier reference (mandatory only if your new product does not correspond to any GTIN code assigned by the manufacturer)

condition [état] :the state of the product. Whether it is new, used, reconditioned, etc.

adult: adult or non-adult product (Required if a product includes adult content)

multipack [multipack]: the number of items contained in a single package (e.g. box of 6 candles).

age_group [tranche_d’âge]:age range of potential recipient (Mandatory for all clothing products Ex: [infants] / [children] / [adults])

color: product color if applicable (mandatory for all apparel products, as well as for products available in different colors).

gender: you can choose between male and female.

unisex[unisexe]. This attribute is mandatory for all clothing products, as well as for gender-specific products.

size: mandatory for all clothing products, as well as for products available in several sizes.

item_group_id [identifiant_groupe]: Mandatory if the product is a variant

shipping: shipping costs

Although the above list is long and there are over 40 attributes for a Google Shopping Feed.

However, these elements are generally part of the information you already have in your site’s back office and product sheet manager.

Import your product flow into Google Merchant Center

To import your product flow into the Merchant Center, Google offers several options, and the method you choose will depend on the size of your catalog.

The simplest option is to import your products via a Google Sheet (Google’s Excel) andsave a spreadsheet in Merchant Center. This method is suitable for “small” catalogs.

To do this, go to the left-hand menu, “Products”, then “Feeds” and “Add a main feed”.

In the steps below, you’ll find the import steps.

In step 3, you can choose between a spreadsheet template, or select the Google Sheet you’ve created.

Add a Product Feed

Last but not least, you can set the frequency at which your data is updated.

This is all the more important as Google requires you to present your complete product data feed every 30 days, even if your ‘inventory’ has not changed.

If your inventory shows strong variations, Google gives you the option of refreshing your data up to 4 times a day.

How to optimize your Google Shopping feed.

A number of tests and optimizations were carried out by various specialists, including Adenlab.

Very often, it’s the optimization of product titles that produces the most positive effects on Shopping campaigns.

Improving the relevance of a product’s title has in some cases led to a 10-fold increase in traffic volume.

We strongly recommend that you read our article onoptimizing your Shopping feed.

Product title

The title of your product is certainly the most important attribute; improving your title is one of the top priorities of feed optimization.

Include the Top Keyword: in fact, the main term or keyword on which you want to position yourself, should be present in the title and rather at the beginning of the sentence.

Include product type: if your product is a “knife sheath”, include this term in the title. This is pretty obvious, but it’s also very useful, because by including the product type in your title, you’re describing the very product you’re selling.

Color, brand, size, gender: these are elements found in other feed attributes, but which can be added to the Title. In fact, having a Title that’s as close as possible to your customers’ searches will enable you to rank on more precise terms.

Product description

Although the description is not often seen by web users, it plays an important role in your feed.

In fact, the description (up to 5,000 characters) will enable you to complete the information in the Title and thus work more on the long tail and more precise queries.

Precision: although you can include a lot of content in the description, the aim is above all to be concise and precise. A clear product description is the most effective.

Keywords and searches: think about the keywords your customers will search for to find your product; these terms must be included in the Description.

Google Product Category

Google has created a list of product categories and sub-categories, allowing you to “classify” each product in your catalog.

This flow attribute is recommended, but mandatory in certain sectors;

Use Google categories from among the +6000 categories and sub-categories. You can download the Google taxonomy here

Choosing the right category: to gain in quality, it is always in your interest to be as precise as possible when choosing your category.

The images

Images are one of the most important factors! In fact, they’re the 1st element your future customers will see before clicking on your ad. Your photo must be attractive and realistic.

**Light background **: Google requires the product photo to be on a light background. Generally speaking, a white background is best.

Image size: 800×800 pixel images are recommended. The minimum is 250×250 pixels for apparel products and 100×100 for other products.

No text or logo: only the product image should be visible. Do not add promotional text to your image.

Merchant Center has implemented an automatic image enhancement option. You can activate this setting in your Merchant Center account in :

Click on the Tools icon (the wrench at the top right of your account) > Settings > Automatic enhancement.

Improve your product titles with search term reports

Thanks to Google Ads’ search term reports, you’ll have access to the queries made by Internet users who have searched for your products.

These reports will help you better understand the expressions used by your potential customers. And, of course, identify recurring terms.

Examining search reports will enable you to find the words and phrases that most often lead to sales of your products.

Once you’ve identified these “conversion” keywords, you’ll adapt your product title to include these words/phrases.

And don’t forget: the closer the term is to the beginning of the product title, the more Google will give it priority.

To make the most of semantic optimization, regularly review your search term reports.

Conclusion

At this point, you should feel ready to launch your Google Shopping campaigns. You’ve learned how to create a product flow from A to Z.

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with Google’s various rules and obligations, you’re ready to launch your first campaigns.

You also know that among the many attributes of the product flow, it’s the product title that counts the most.

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the various Google Shopping settings, keep in mind that :

Analyze your products, making a clear distinction between those that earn you the most and those that earn you the least
Don’t leave your current shopping campaigns in the lurch, especially when you’re working on granular campaigns
Optimize your shopping campaigns according to your audiences’ purchase intentions

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us.

If you need more information and advice on your acquisition, our team ofGoogle Ads Experts is available to talk to you.

Free Google Shopping? your products will appear in organic Shopping results!

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

Google announced on April 21 that it will display your products in the “Shopping” tab free of charge. For the time being, these changes will take effect in the United States before the end of April, and will roll out worldwide before the end of the year.

(Update October 12, 2020: the worldwide launch of Google Shopping Free listings is officially scheduled for mid-October. See our article on the subject and the Google Free Shopping program update)

Paid ads will continue to appear in ad slots and will function in the same way as current Shopping ads.

Natural results from Google Shopping

Google’s announcement comes as something of a surprise, given that retailers who use Google Ads invest heavily in Google Shopping ads to promote their products.
Why make this feature free? What’s in it for Google? And what’s in it for merchants?

Why does Google make Google Shopping free?

In general, online shopping and the user experience on Google’s platforms have been major issues since the company decided to launch its “Shopping Action” Marketplace to compete with Amazon.

One might think that this is a throwback to Google Shopping, when “Froogle” was free back in 2012 at its launch. But it seems more accurate to say that it’s an enrichment of Google’s database.

More products = more purchasing opportunities = more product searches on Google and therefore less on Amazon.

Opening up Google Shopping and making it free of charge would be a way of capturing more buyers on Google and not leaving room for Amazon and other marketplaces. Some studies have already shown that Amazon captures more buyers than Google. According to Feedvisor’s March 2019 study, two-thirds of American shoppers generally start their search for new products on Amazon;

Source: Emarketer.com – Feedvisor study “The 2019 Amazon Consumer Behavior Report”.

Making Google Shopping free for merchants seems to have 3 objectives for Google:

  • Expand product database in the face of Amazon.
  • Showcase merchants who don’t run Shopping campaigns, and thus capture future customers for Google Shopping campaigns.
  • Retain and acquire new users who currently prefer to search for products on Amazon and other marketplaces.

What are the benefits for merchants of participating in the Google Platforms program?

For merchants and e-tailers, the benefits are quite simple. It’s all about making your products visible and acquiring more customers through Google’s search engine, and more specifically through Google Shopping.

Merchants who don’t yet run Google Shopping campaigns will be able to discover the benefits of this visual ad format, which is already highly effective for those who do run paid Google Shopping campaigns.

What’s not certain, however, is how Google will select which products will be displayed as natural.
Some ads indicate that these will be “popular” products. But will it be SEO popularity: i.e., counted by the number of external links pointing to your page, popular because of the number of sales on your products, or popular because it’s a product with a lot of positive reviews?

How can I join the Google Platforms program?

To take part in the program, you must of course comply with Google’s prorgamme distribution rules. In order for your products to appear in Google Shopping’s natural results, you must meet one of the following two criteria:

  1. Work on your SEO, as your products will appear in Google Shopping’s “natural results”. You don’t need to have a Merchant Center account. Google will automatically retrieve product information via their structured data tags if these are present on your site. Our teams are available to help you with your SEO project.

Links:
=> Structured tags
=> Tools for creating structured tags

  1. Activate the “Google Platforms” program in your Merchant Center account. As soon as the program is active in France, you’ll need to add a new “destination” in the Flux import parameters. In the Merchant Center, under the “Growth” tab, you’ll find the link to “Manage programs”. Google Platforms” will then be displayed.

For the second option, in the Merchant Center, in the “Growth” section, you will find the link for “Manage programs” which redirects you to the functions and options in which you can participate (such as Google Shopping, Shopping Action, Avis Client …):

Google Platforms program

For the moment, as the program is not active in France, adding products to “Google Platforms” is not yet possible.
On the other hand, you’ll soon need to add a new “destination” to your feed. ” Destination: Google Platforms”.

Conclusion

In any case, we strongly recommend that you add rich content (or structured data tags) to your site and product sheets in the coming months if you wish to benefit from this free option.

As for the question of how products are displayed and search engine optimized on Google Shopping, we still don’t have all the answers.
Google talks about “popular” products, but this definition is very vague.

Are they popular products because they’re in high demand, or because they’re products with high sales, a lot of reviews, or because there are a lot of links pointing to this product page?…
We’ll keep a close eye on developments in the program and keep you informed. I hope these elements have given you a little more information on the subject!

We welcome your questions and comments. If you need more information or advice on your acquisition, our Google Ads Certified agency and our team of Google Ads Experts are available to discuss your requirements.

See you soon

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15 ways to reduce your cost per click in Google and Facebook ads

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

As anecommerce business, with all the changes in the marketing ecosystem over the last year, you’ve certainly had to rethink your priorities in terms of return on advertising investment.

And while many metrics have an impact on ROI, let’s first take a look at cost-per-click (CPC), which has an impact on your Google Ads spend and campaigns.

How to reduce the cost per click (CPC) of Google Search ads

Google Search is the starting point for all digital advertisers in developing their online presence. Yet the cost of running Google Search ads is still disconcerting to many.

What is the average CPC for Google Search ads in 2021?

Over the past four years, the average CPC for Google Search ads has varied between $2.39 and $2.69 in the USA. This average is slightly higher for the legal and government sectors. Wordstream data shows an average CPC of $2.39, but if you exclude the legal sector from the list, the average CPC is $1.72.

Google search ad CPC history:
– 2018: $2.69 (between $1.16 and $6.75)
– 2019: $2.41 (between $1.30 and $6.35)
– April 2020: $2.76 (between $0.82 and $10.96)
– June 2020: $2.39 (between $0.21 and $15.82)

Although search ads have been around the longest in the world of digital advertising, people still feel like they’re struggling to lower their CPCs. So here are three tips for saving money:

1. Choose your keywords wisely, and don’t settle for the cheapest one!

Keyword research is a given when it comes to Google search, but it’s not just a matter of discarding the most expensive keywords on average. Our advice: don’t ignore a keyword because of its price, but choose it according to the volume and types of search queries you want to attract.

For example, if your most profitable keyword is also your most expensive, you can’t afford not to bid on it. But you can reduce your keyword list to save on other expenses while you’re bidding on this high-converting keyword.

Or, a more expensive keyword may have a higher average search volume, which can translate into more clicks on your website – increasing your expected CTR. This improves your quality score, enabling you to get more clicks for less money in the long term.

In short, you can always choose your keywords based on cost. But make sure you also consider the volume and intent behind those keywords. A good mix of low-cost and high-paying keywords will enable you to get the lowest CPC possible without sacrificing the quality or quantity of conversions.

2. Improve your ads and landing pages to increase your quality score

Remember that bidding is only half the battle when it comes to paying for a click in an auction. For example, an advertiser with a low bid but high quality score may still win the auction and be more likely to get a click at a lower cost (this is a case where quality score is important).

Google is willing to make this compromise, because it wants to make as much money as possible from paid search ads without sacrificing the user experience. So Google will accept an offer that results in a cheaper click if it means the ad will be more useful to the surfer (in other words, a higher quality score).

In addition to the expected click-through rate, your keyword quality score also takes into account the relevance of the ad and the landing page experience. So try to devote time to regularly updating your ads and including new, relevant keywords.

You can also take a look at Google’s suggestions from the platform’s ad editing section to see where your current ad strength lies and what you can improve.

When it comes to your landing pages, make sure your main keywords appear on the page, just as you would with your ad text.

3. Try the Research Partner Network

Google’s Search Partner Network allows your ads to be displayed on any other search-enabled site in the Google family.

Historically, clicks from search partners were cheaper, because they were less competitive. You can choose to include your campaign and measure results against the Google SERP at any time, which is an excellent way to test the cheapest clicks.

How can I reduce the cost per click (CPC) of Google Display ads?

Google Display ads behave differently from Google Search ads, which makes estimating costs a little more confusing. To help you out, here’s the latest data on Google Display:

What is the average CPC for Google Display ads in 2021?

Over the past four years, the average CPC for Google Display ads has fallen. According to Wordstream, it has dropped from $0.66 to $0.41. And if you take out the Occasions and Gifts sectors, the cost-per-click (CPC) is even lower, dropping to $0.34.

Historical display CPCs:
– 2017: $0.67
– 2018: $0.63 (ranging from $1.16 to $6.75)
– 2019: $0.59 (ranging from $0.60 to $0.81)
– April 2020: $0.41 (ranging from $0.28 to $1.01)

Reducing CPCs for Google Display ads is not a common goal, as they’re often just a few cents per click. Even so, you need to look at your advertising efforts holistically to see where you can save money to offset areas that are worth investing more in.

Here are a few ideas for further reducing your display CPCs, so that you can devote these expenses to potentially more expensive and higher-value keywords in search.

4. Exploit exclusions

Since Display ads can be displayed by default across the Display Network, it’s important to use exclusions to avoid spending on more expensive, irrelevant clicks.

There are the normal exclusions available for all campaign types that you can also apply to Display, such as locations.

In addition to the basic essentials, such as locations, here are some Display-specific exclusions you’ll also want to check:

– Subjects: Are there any types of pages with content related to subjects that wouldn’t be suitable for your Display ad?

– Audiences: Are there additional audiences you don’t want to target? For example, your customers or remarketing audiences.

– Placements : Do you want to display your advertising on all types of websites or applications?

You can easily update and manage display exclusions with Google’s dynamic exclusion lists.

5. Reassess your bids

The amount you’re willing to pay per click correlates with the amount the platform is willing to accept. If competition and other factors help you determine the bid amount for your Display ad groups (manual bidding is only defined at ad group level on Display), you can also try reducing your maximum CPC bid to attract only the clicks that match your budget.

However, if you’re using an automated bidding strategy, you can’t always make this specific call (unless you adjust the strategy’s objective, maximum or target).

Your best bet is to A/B test the bidding strategies that seem most effective.

6. Test your audience targeting with A/B testing

As well as testing different ways of bidding to get the lowest possible bid, you can also apply several audiences to your Display campaign and compare which ones get the lowest CPCs. The approach is similar to that used to select keywords for a search campaign.

The most profitable audience doesn’t necessarily have the lowest CPC. However, it’s best to try out several audiences to see which one makes you the most money, or to have a healthy balance between a high-paying audience and a low-cost one.

How can I reduce the cost per click (CPC) of Google Shopping ads?

Google Shopping campaigns can be tricky to get to grips with, because their infrastructure is different from the one you’re used to for search or display.

What is the average CPC for Google Shopping ads in 2021?

According to Wordstream’s most recent data, the average CPC for Google Shopping ads is $0.58, with a range from $0.17 to $1.55.

Google Shopping CPC history:
– 2019: $0.66 (ranging from $0.34 to $1.09)
– April 2020: $0.66 (ranging from $0.29 to $1.07)
– June 2020: $0.58 (ranging from $0.17 to $1.55)

Reducing the CPC of Google Shopping campaigns takes time and patience! Here are a few ways you can get a head start now to achieve lower CPC results over the long term:

7. Create negative keyword lists including a few competitors

Since you can’t choose your keywords in Google Shopping campaigns, a healthy negative keyword list is at the heart of any successful Shopping campaign.

But how can you optimize this list for CPC?

We know that stronger competition on the SERPs can drive up CPC prices. It may therefore be a good idea to eliminate the names of big-brand competitors that you feel don’t match your company’s products on the SERPs, especially if you’re a brand that’s not yet well known.

This way, you’re on an equal footing and not paying for more expensive clicks because you’re appearing next to big brand products.

8. Try the “priority” structure for auctions

It’s advisable to prioritize the structure of your Shopping campaign according to the type of traffic your products are targeting. This way, you’ll be able to distribute your bids to save on your overall CPC.

For example, competition for generic searches is higher, and this audience is more likely to be at the top of your conversion funnel.

If you don’t want to waste your high bids on searches that have a low probability of conversion, but still try to capture this audience, there’s a solution: the priority bid campaign structure.

It takes risks on CPC, but helps your campaigns evolve.

9. Optimize your product flow attributes

Google associates your products with searches based on your product feed. If your attributes are inadequate, you’re more likely to waste your CPC on irrelevant clicks.

If you feel that your CPC is high, take a step back and examine your product flow. Are all attributes correct for each product?
Can you modify the attributes of your products to better match the intent of your ideal researcher?

By answering these questions and manually optimizing your Google Shopping product feed, you’ll help Google match your product ads to the best possible searches to maximize the value of every click you get.

How to reduce the cost per click (CPC) of Facebook ads?

Facebook ads are totally different from Google ads, as they can’t be displayed within a search box. So you need to optimize them not only for display when someone is browsing Facebook apps (including Facebook, Messenger and Whatsapp), but also to get the cheapest click possible.

What is the average CPC for Facebook ads in 2021?

For all campaign objectives combined, the average CPC for Facebook ads is $0.97, with a range from $0.25 (catalog sales) to $3.30 (brand awareness).

Although it’s not as simple as choosing the cheapest keyword, Facebook’s advertising platform allows you to make interesting changes to reduce CPC:

10. Perform A/B tests on your advertising copy

One of the easiest ways to optimize clicks on Facebook is to try changing the text of your Facebook ad.

You’d be surprised how two different ads within the same ad set can generate completely different average CPCs.

This is because Facebook’s machine learning classifies your ad before deciding when, where and how often to show it.

If Facebook determines that the text and images in your ad won’t drive any actions, you’ll pay more for the click of that ad.

To perform an A/B test on your Facebook ads, try swapping images, CTA buttons or text to improve the CPC of your Facebook ad.

11. Choose your campaign objective wisely

Choosing the wrong objective can be a costly mistake when it comes to Facebook advertising.

Indeed, the objective of your Facebook campaign determines how your ad will be delivered. As with Google’s automated bidding strategies, certain objectives can result in a higher CPC, as they prioritize other actions.

For example, a campaign objective optimized for conversions may appear at times when the CPC is higher because you’re more likely to convert.

It’s best to try out a campaign objective that best matches your final objective, and if you’re not sure, split your campaigns to test two objectives simultaneously!

12. Try ad programming

Ad scheduling is a cost-saving feature that you can apply to the ad sets in your Facebook campaigns.

Although this feature is only available if you’ve set a lifetime budget, you can use ad scheduling as a way of controlling your overall Facebook costs and even your CPC, as you decide when your ads are shown.

So, if you notice that you’ve attracted irrelevant clicks that drive up your CPC, but don’t convert, you can think about when your audience will most appreciate your ad.

If you’re a bar owner and your Facebook ads run at breakfast time or outside opening hours, you run the risk of increasing your CPC on wasted clicks!

How to reduce the cost per click (CPC) of Instagram ads?

Under the umbrella of the Facebook platform, Instagram ads live within another social media that can be tricky to untangle when it comes to your CPC.

What is the average CPC for Instagram ads in 2021?

Instagram’s average CPC is $1.23 for all campaign objectives, with a range of $0.20 (traffic)-$7.00 (lead generation).

What is the average CPC for Instagram ads in 2021?

Instagram’s average CPC is $1.23 for all campaign objectives, with a range of $0.20 (traffic)-$7.00 (lead generation).

The current CPC of your Instagram ad is not an end in itself, don’t forget! But you can still work towards a lower CPC with the following optimizations:

13. Customize placements

If you’re running ads only on Instagram from Facebook’s platform, then you already know that you can customize your placements.

However, even within Instagram placements, there are multiple ways to display: on stories, news feeds, and more.

Make sure you select the Instagram placements that best suit your type of advertising.

14. Be selective in your targeting

With such a saturated platform, it’s vital to be selective about who your ad is shown to. To save yourself a high CPC on Instagram, don’t cast a wide net.

With so many audience options to choose from, don’t be afraid to be selective by age, location and interests when configuring your ad set.

15. Focus on engagement

Once you’ve set up your ad set for specific targeting and placement, focus on the ad content that will drive engagement.

When your ads generate actions such as comments, likes and shares, Instagram’s algorithm will rank you higher.

Your ads will also be more likely to generate conversions and growth, as they will capture your audience’s attention.

For starters, try an Instagram video ad to engage your audience in the comments.

In conclusion

To reduce your CPC in Google search ads:

– Choose your keywords wisely (and not just on the basis of cost)
– Improve your ads and landing pages to obtain the best Quality Score
– Try out the network of search partners

To reduce your CPC in Google Display ads:
– Take advantage of exclusions
– Reassess your bids
– A/B test your audience targeting

To reduce your CPC in Google Shopping ads:
– Create negative keyword lists that include competitors
– Try the “priority” bidding structure.
– Optimize product feed attributes

To reduce your CPC in Facebook ads:
– Run A/B tests on your ad text.
– Choose your campaign objectives wisely
– Try ad scheduling

To reduce the CPC of Instagram ads:
– Customize placements
– Be selective in targeting
– Focus on engagement

Would you like us to help youoptimize your Google, Facebook or Instagramcampaigns? Contact us, our teams of online advertising experts will be delighted to help you with a specific topic or provide you with long-term support.

Google Analytics : The ultimate guide to getting started with Google Analytics

Posted on by Adenlab Adenlab

Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking the activities of your site and your users. However, the sheer number of reports and information available can be time-consuming and leave you wondering where to start…

Indeed, this analysis tool can be confusing, even overwhelming, if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.
Like any tool, Google Analytics needs to be adapted to your needs, not the other way around.
You’ll need to know where to go, and which pages and reports to use, to find out what’s important for your business and the development of your website. It’s vital to get the information that can help you increase your revenues.

In the guide below, we’ll cover what you need to know to get started with Gooogle Analytics, and we’ll also show you how to install Google Analytics on your site, monitor your traffic, create advanced reports and much more.

Optimize your analytics accounts and tagging plan

Google Analytics Basics and Glossary

Before we delve into the benefits of Google Analytics, here’s a quick glossary of terms used in the interface and in this article.

Users – Users and active users indicate the number of website visitors or application users who have logged on to your website or application at least once during a given period.

Reports – Google Analytics offers over 50 free reports and the ability to create custom reports to help you analyze the demographic and behavioral data of users of your website and/or application.

Sessions – Sessions indicate the length of time a user is actively engaged with your website or application over a given period.

Traffic Sources – This report shows how users discover your website or application through organic search, paid search, referral websites and direct traffic channels. Also known as Acquisition Channels.

Direct traffic – Direct traffic is when a user starts a session on your website without coming from a traceable traffic source, for example someone typing your URL into their browser instead of clicking on your website link from Google search results.

Campaigns – Campaigns track specific ways in which users discover your website or application. Google Analytics tracks campaigns created by Google Ads and customized campaigns you create to track specific groups of traffic sources.

Pageviews – The total number of pages visited on your website or application during a given period.

Pages/Session – The average number of pages visited per session over a selected period, including repeated views of the same page.

Bounce rate – The percentage of sessions during a selected period where a user visited a page on your website or application and exited without interacting with any element of the page.

Audiences – Custom user groups you create to help identify specific types of users in Google Analytics reports, remarketing efforts, Google Ads ad campaigns and other Google webmaster tools.

Conversions and objectives – Objectives measure specific goals that you define as useful for your business, such as a purchase in your online store or the submission of a quote request form. Conversions represent the number of times users of your website or application complete each of the objectives you’ve defined.

Funnels – The path users take to reach a goal.

You don’t need to memorize them all. If you’re stuck in Google Analytics, you can hover over most terms to see a description window.

You can also click on the question mark at the top right of any Google Analytics screen to access the Google Analytics Help Center and search for specific terms and help information.

How to configure Google Analytics

To use Google Analytics, you need to log in with your existing Google Account or create a new one.

If you use Google Ads, Gmail, Google Docs, Youtube or any other Google product for your business, you must use the same account for Google Analytics. Once you’ve logged in to your Google account, you’ll sign up for Google Analytics.

To create your Google Analytics account, enter the details of your website or application.

Confirm the settings for data sharing between Google Analytics and other Google commercial products and click on Get tracking ID to complete the creation of your free Google Analytics account.

Your Google Analytics tracking ID is a number and code that uniquely identifies your website or application.

Popular app makers, website builders like Wix, content management systems like WordPress and e-commerce platforms like Shopify have specific instructions on how to add Google Analytics tracking code to your website or app.

Visit your website’s administrative dashboard to find out how to start tracking users of your website or app with Google Analytics.

Use Google Analytics insights

Using “Insights” at the top of the Google Analytics interface, you’ll be directed to the reports that are causing problems in your account.

How many users have I had this week/month/quarter/year?
What is the breakdown of users by device type/location/age?
What are my best pages in terms of page views?
Which of my destianation pages generate the most sessions?
How long do users stay on my site or use my application?
New visitors versus last month’s visitors?
What countries do my users come from?
What are my top U.S. cities in terms of users?
What is my target conversion rate?
What is the average loading time for my page?

Answering these questions can help you measure the results of your website’s marketing and advertising campaigns. Once you’ve identified the channels that attract the most customers to your site or app, you can focus your budget and time on the marketing and advertising tactics that generate the most conversions.

Optimize your analytics accounts and tagging plan

Custom settings to get the most out of Google Analytics

While you’re waiting for Google Analytics to start collecting data on your website or application, you can configure the following settings in your administration interface to make the most of your reports. Access the administration interface from the left-hand side menu.

Google Analytics objectives

Conversion reports in Google Analytics can reveal the most profitable users of your website or app. To use them, you’ll need to define one or more goals for your website or app users to achieve, such as making a purchase via the shopping cart on your website or making a purchase in the app.

Google Analytics offers templates you can choose from when creating a new goal. Choose the one that best matches the objective you want users to achieve on your site or app.

Once you’ve chosen a template, you’ll be directed to the appropriate goal type. If you have an e-commerce store and select “Buy goods”, it will choose the destination goal type.

From there, you’ll continue to detail goals and create a funnel to track the path your users take as they begin to make purchases. The funnel will track the percentage of users who start the process, but don’t finish using the steps and pages you’ve specified.

Continue to create goals as needed to track the additional tasks you want users to perform on your website or app. You can create up to 20 goals for your website or application.

Electronic commerce

E-commerce site owners can activate this option under “View Settings” to track transaction and product data from third-party shopping carts, mobile devices and other Internet-connected points of sale.

If you use a popular e-commerce platform like Shopify, you can refer to its documentation on how to send sales data and visitor behavior from its service to Google Analytics. This will allow you to view all your website data in a single application, instead of trying to match your Google Analytics data with that of your e-commerce platform.

Audience definitions

Audiences in Google Analytics represent the users most likely to achieve conversion goals on your website or application. You can track specific groups of users on your website or application by adding new audiences under “Audience definitions”.

These audiences can be leveraged with Google AdWords for remarketing and targeting. Let’s say you’re looking at facial care products online, and a few hours later, those same products appear on your favorite cooking site. This is remarketing with Google AdWords, as explained when you click on the AdChoices link.

Google AdWords displays your remarketing ad on websites in the Google Display Network. Google claims that the network reaches “90% of online users” through news, blogs and popular Google products like YouTube and Gmail. This ensures that your product or service reaches past website visitors in places they’ll notice.

Site search

If your website has a search field, you can track the queries made by your users by configuring your site search setting. To do this, search for something on your website and look for the letter preceding the query in the search results URL.

This is what you’ll need to enter in your site’s search settings. To find Site Search, click on View Settings in the Admin dashboard.

Scroll down the page until you see “Site search”. Activate this option and enter the letter of the search parameter.

Google Analytics may not show you the keywords users enter in organic Google search queries that lead to your website or app, but it can tell you what some users are looking for once they’ve arrived. You can use these keywords to create faster navigation to the pages users want most, improving the user experience.

Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool for website owners who want to monitor the health of their website in Google search results. If you’re already using it, you can connect it to your Google Analytics to get data on your main landing pages and the queries entered in Google organic search.

The option can be found in the Property Settings section of the administration dashboard, or in the Search Console section under Acquisition in the left-hand side menu.

By clicking on the button to configure data sharing with Search Console, you’ll be redirected to your website or application’s property settings in the admin dashboard. Scroll down until you see the Search Console section.

Click on the button to link your website or application in Google Search Console to your Google Analytics account. Give Google Analytics a few days to start receiving information from Search Console – specifically, more of the queries users enter into Google Search.

View Google Analytics reports

Depending on how many users engage with your website or app during a given period, you may have to wait a few hours or days to start receiving valuable information about your website traffic.

Here are some of the most important reports to consult, and how you can use them to help your business. You can access these and other reports in the Audience, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversion categories in the left-hand side menu.

Audience > Overview

Want to know how many users have used your site or application? Consult the “Audience overview” report, using the date selector at the top right of the report to view data for a specific period.

Use the Compare option to see if traffic to your website or app has increased or decreased between two periods, such as this week vs. last week, this month vs. last month, and other similar metrics.

Demographics > Overview

Identify the number of users in an age bracket or by gender (male/female) in the Demographics report > Overview.

If you’ve set up a Google Analytics goal as suggested above, take a look at the detailed age and gender reports under Demographics. Use the drop-down menu to switch between goals, and sort through the “Goal” achievements column to see which age groups and genders are best suited to conversion.

Use this information to help you create better sponsored ads on Google, Facebook and other ad networks by targeting ads to high-converting age groups and genders.

Audience > Language and region

Use these reports to display the number of users visiting your website, broken down by the language selected in the user’s browser settings, or by location. Sort by specific objectives to see where converting users come from and what language they speak most.

Select the drop-down menu to view more rows, or go to the next section of the data to see more locations and languages converting. Dive deeper by clicking on the countries at the top of the conversion page for details at state, county and city level.

Audience > Mobile > Devices

Not sure whether to optimize your website for mobile users or look into app development for your business? Check out the device report to see which devices users are accessing your website with, as well as the corresponding conversion data if you’ve set up goals.

If you notice a particular trend, for example that Android users have a higher bounce rate or a lower conversion rate than iOS users, you can test your website using an Android device to optimize it and ensure a seamless user experience.

Acquisition > All traffic > Channels

Get an overview of the best-performing channels – organic search, paid traffic, direct traffic, referral traffic, social traffic and email traffic.

For more details, including the specific sources that help users discover your website or application, click on additional reports in the Acquisition menu, such as the All Traffic > Source/Average and Social reports. These reports will reveal specific URLs and referral sources.

Behaviour > Site content > All pages

Find out which pages receive the most traffic using the All Pages report. Examine the bounce rate column of your most visited pages to determine if any need improvement so that more users spend more time and engage with them.

Behaviour > Site speed > Page load time

The page load time report helps webmasters identify the slowest loading pages that users access the most. Since page load speed can have an effect on conversions, it’s in your company’s best interest to find out what’s slowing down your top pages.

Conversions > Goals > Conversion funnel schema

Most of the reports in the “Conversions” section are a gold mine for companies looking to link revenues to specific marketing campaigns in order to determine ROI. The “Funnel Visualization” report, for example, will help you identify areas of your sales funnel that need to be optimized for conversions.

If you define a goal with a funnel, your funnel visualization report will look like this.

If you run an e-commerce business, you can use this report to diagnose a conversion problem on your contact page, for example. Correcting this problem could lead to increased sales in your online store.

Conversions > Multichannel funnel > Most common conversion paths

Not to be confused with the custom funnels you’ve set up with your goals, the “Multi-Funnel Channel Top Conversion Paths” report displays a user’s path from specific traffic channels like organic search results and social media before completing a goal.

Here, you can see that the most important traffic path that led to conversions was a user’s visit from an organic search and then directly before fulfilling a goal.

Go beyond the essentials

As you get used to the standard Google Analytics reporting functions, you can start to delve into other advanced features, including the following.

Create segments to display all the data in your Google Analytics reports for a specific subset of users, such as users from a specific country or paid traffic source.
Create customized reports that present the data you really want in a single report. It’s all about making a standard Google Analytics report more relevant to your business.
Create better visualizations of your Google Analytics data using Data Studio (as shown above).
These and other advanced Google Analytics features can help you get the business intelligence you need to grow.

Conclusion

When it comes to Google Analytics features, this article presents just the tip of the iceberg. Once you’ve mastered the basics, be sure to dive deeper into analyzing your site or app, using the data to improve your site’s traffic and conversions.

We welcome your questions and comments. If you need more information and advice on your Google Analytics and Tag Manager account, we can help you with your Data, Analytics & Tag Management.

Source: Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics

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