Month: August 2016

Everything I know About Keywords for AdWords Search

everything I know about keywords

I choose the keyword topic this week thinking it would be a really easy one for me to write about. My wife and I just had our first baby girl (Reagan) and I wanted an easy topic for today’s hangout.

Sadly…. I said I would talk about everything I knew about keywords which honestly is a really big subject matter. What I’m going to do is quickly go over all the major fine points around keywords and how I personally work my own campaigns.

Here is the Hangout video for this week. We do live hangouts every Wednesday at 2PM CST. Join our Newsletter and Facebook page and private group to get the invite.

All questions can be asked live via twitter @mktgplaybook

Keywords The Foundation of All Campaigns on Search

Keywords are the foundation of all campaigns on AdWords Search. Knowing what keywords work and what ones won’t work cannot be known till you start testing.

The biggest fight I seem to have when consulting for a small business and putting together a list of keywords is the Owners saying something like “I’ve been in this business for 20 years. I know what my customers are searching for”.

This kind of statement really isn’t valid for a multiple reasons. One of the biggest reasons is competition. I for instance might be able to get a car mechanic in Hugo MN profitable with bidding on the broad keyword of TRANSMITION but in St Paul MN just a dozen miles south the bid price for this keyword might be too high and not convert the same. For St Paul they may have fare far better bidding really high on the keyword “TRANSMITION REPAIR”.

The same goes for things like “Oil Change” or “Pediatric Dentist”. In some places the bid makes sense and you can go after it while in others the cost per customer acquisition is just too high.

My point here is you need to build up and gather as many keywords and phrases as possible and then try all that make sense. Over the course of time you will be able to optimize and weed out keywords that don’t generate any leads.

Keyword Grouping

This can take a long time to do and do write. The purpose of keyword grouping is so you can write a very specific ad for the keyword you are bidding on.

Let’s look at some past examples I have done for grouping keywords

BRAKES:

Brake Repair
brake service
car brakes
brake pad replacement
brake replacement
brake service cost
brake shop

Oil Change:

oil change coupons
oil change near me
express oil change
synthetic oil change
quick oil change
cheap oil change
express lube

Here I have break related keywords grouped together and Oil Change related keywords grouped together. I could technically just have all my Brake related keywords in 1 adgroup and the Oil Change keywords in another adgroup.

The down side is you want your ad copy to speak directly to the keyword you are bidding on. While you will be really close with your ad and it will be break repair related it won’t be 100% specific.

What I do is break each and every keyword into it’s own adgroup and write a very specific ad for that keyword and use that keyword once in the title and once in the description then have some sort of call to action.

With Breaks by adgroup and keywords will be

Adgroup Name Brake Repair : keyword = brake repair
Adgroup Name brake service : keyword = brake service
Adgroup Name car brakes : keyword = car brakes
Adgroup Name brake pad replacement : keyword = brake pad replacement
Adgroup Name brake replacement : keyword = brake replacement
Adgroup Name brake service cost : keyword = brake service cost
Adgroup Name brake shop : keyword = brake shop

Keyword Match Types

I normally have 2 different match types I use.   They are EXACT and BROAD MATCH MODIFIED or BMM for short.

Exact keywords: Exact keywords will trigger your ad when a user closely matches the intent of the users search. You exact keyword BRAKE SERVICE for example may trigger when someone does a search for service breaks (Notice the misspelling) , brake services and other highly related keywords.

Exact keywords are wrapped in [ ] brackets like [brake service]

BMM: BMM is similar to broad bidding. BMM however tells Google that the search should contain these keywords or very similar in nature to the keywords you are bidding on.

If I bid on BRAKE SERVICE for instance your ad may trigger when someone does a search for Brake Services near me, brake services in St Paul, Cheap Brake Services, Fast Brake Service

BMM Keywords have a + sign in front of each keyword. An example of this would be

+brake +service

+car + brakes

Using BMM over broad keywords has the advantage of being able to better align your products or services with the users intent. If you bid on just BRAKE SERVICE with no modifiers then you could potentially show for very unrelated searches.

The other two match types are Phrase and Broad

Phrase is not used nearly as much as in the past because Google expanded how Exact keywords work. They got smart enough to kind of tell what keywords match what user intent so it’s not nearly as valuable as it once was.

Phrase keywords are wrapped in quotes ” ” An example would be “brake Service” We are now telling AdWords to show our ad when a user search for either brake service or service brakes. This really isn’t all that valid as we already have this covered by bidding with the BMM modifier.

Broad keywords are just that broad. If you bid on the keyword candy you could potentially show when someone searches chocolate. You will notice Google showing your ad for all kinds of unrelated keywords where it’s clear the user has zero intention of making a purchase.

For more information see https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497836?hl=en

When to Use Broad Keywords?

While I don’t use phrase as much I do still use broad keywords. Generally I will use them when trying to get more volume on search campaigns and discover more keywords.

Let’s say I build a campaign for this auto repair shop and I have my BRAKEs related campaign doing well and making money but the volume is really low and only 10 clicks a day are coming in. From that I may have 1-2 sales but I need more.

What you can do is just bid on the broad keyword BRAKES and then start to add in lot’s of negative keywords starting off and as new search terms come in. More on this in a second.

The idea here when using Broad keywords is to flush out more keywords to create more adgroups around and specific ads for those keywords. If they really closely match the same user intent for an existing adgroup then I will move that keyword into that adgroup and bid on it using EXACT and BMM.

If you don’t have a lot of time to initially build out your campaigns and don’t mind losing some money in the beginning then going with just broad keywords isn’t a bad idea as long as the intention for doing so is to break out those keywords with search volume into their own campaigns.

Negative Keywords

Most small businesses who have never used AdWords before think they will just start adverting and they will be profitable. The truth is this almost never works out.

It’s very common to lose money and not be profitable starting out. This comes back to my argument earlier how in some markets keywords just won’t work for you because competition may be too high.

Luckily AdWords now makes it really easy to see the exact search terms being used.

Inside your campaign you can click on the Keywords Tab. There you will find the “Search Terms” tab.

Adwords search terms negative-2

I would recommend you also show the Match Type and the Keyword and adgroup that triggered that search term.

To add in the keyword that triggered the ad you need to select Attributes from then click on the arrow for Keyword to ad it into your reporting.

custom-collumsn-keywords

You can also move around the important information you want to see up so it’s easier to tell.

I would also ad in conversions and Cost / Conversions into the report so you can see what is making you money and what is not.

The Search Terms are the exact keywords that people are searching for and will show you the keyword that triggered the ad. If the keyword is already present or excluded then it will show in the Added / Excluded Column as well.

If the keyword does not say Added then you may want to add that exact keyword into a new or existing adgroup.

The biggest advantage of seeing the exact search terms being done is to find those negative keywords.

If you recall I mentioned bidding broad on BRAKES. If we did this we would most likely see people searching for things like “Bicycle brakes” or “DIY brake repair”. Both bicycle and DYI (Do it yourself) keywords probably won’t result in leads to your auto repair shop so you would want to take these kind of keywords and add them to your negative keyword list.

Where to Place Negative Keywords

Next to the search terms tab is the Negative Keywords Tab

add negative keywords

You can ad negative keywords on a adgroup or campaign level. In most cases I tend to add negatives to the campaign level.

Simply hit the red +Keywords button under Campaign Level and add in your negative keywords. negative-2

Negative Keyword Match types

You have 3 different match types for negative keywords. Exact, Phrase and Broad.

We covered these above already and they work very similar on the negative side of things with one main exception.

When you negative out an exact keyword it does not negative out the plural keyword. So if someone search for BICYCLE BRAKES and we add the negative exact match keyword of [BICYCLE BRAKES] in then we can still show for BICYCLE BRAKE. You need to add in both singular and plural.

Phrase negatives and broad negatives work the exact same.

In our break example we found the keyword BICYLE BRAKES. We could just add in the broad keyword BICYCLE and call it good. By entering in the keyword with no modifiers it will be broad and any search terms with that keyword will be excluded.

Generally I like to add in these kinds of broad level keywords and will only add in the exact keywords when I’ve proven that that specific exact keyword does not make money.

An example of this might be the keyword TRANSMISSION and TRANSMISSION REPAIR. Let’s say I’m making really good money off of TRANSMISSION REPAIR but the exact search term TRANSMISSION is not making me money. I can add this as an exact negative just to stop that exact search phrase from being done. This would look like [transmission].

So my current negative keywords would be

[transmission]

bicycle

I have the exact keyword and broad keyword there.

For more information see https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453972

Quick Tip on Negative Keywords

I see many accounts negative out keywords early on without any testing being done. There are clear times such as bicycle brakes when that is fine as you being an auto repair shop do not service bicycle brakes. However I see people negative out keywords like “cheap” and “how to” which can actually convert very well. I recommend always testing the keywords and spending enough money on them before you just out right negative them out.

How Much Money Should I Spend on Each Keyword Before I Pause It?

To determine this you need to have some kind of trafficking setup so you can assign a value.  There are multiple ways of doing this but there needs to be some kind of qualifier to count conversions or you will never know what is converting.

You will also need to know the life time value of your customer and what you can afford to pay to acquire a new customer.  If for instance the life time value of a customer is $1000 dollars and you can recoup at least $100 dollars net in the first 6 months then most likely a good CPA goal would be $100 dollars.

You can break this down by leads as well.  Using the above example lets say you land 1 in 5 calls.  You have a 20% close rate.  If you can recoup that $100 dollars in 6 months and land 20% of your customers then your CPL goal would be $20.  So if you start spending more then 1.5x the lead payout you may want to pause that keyword.  This would but you around $30 dollars per keyword.

Keep in mind that starting out you may be using BMM keywords.  This can lead to lot’s of negative keywords starting out so you may just need to spend more initially for the first month till you work through more negative keywords and then apply the 1.5X rule of thumb.

What Should My Starting Bid Be?

What AdWords suggest you bid can be WAY off at times and other times spot on.  Generally I like to do 20% over what they suggest if the keyword is exact and walk down the bids over time.  What I want is to be in that number 1 or 2 position to get that great CTR and you will start to be rewarded with a higher QS and start to get a discount in just a few weeks.

What Position Should my Ad Be in the Search Results?

Each and every market is different.  You ideally want to be between 1 and 2 but nothing wrong with being in that 3rd or 4th spot if the price is too high.  The higher you rank the better generally your CTR will be.  You can always set your daily budget so you don’t over spend starting out.

More tips on Keywords

You can use a free tool like http://www.adwordswrapper.com/ that auto wraps your keywords into Exact, Phrase, BMM and Broad keywords automatically. This can be a nice time saver

I personally use Speed PPC to build out my Adgroups and Ads based off of keywords which gives me the options of wrapping keywords with modifiers which is really nice. From there I import into Adwords Editor and go to town re-writing ads.

The AdWords Keywords tool and Bingads Keywords tools are great for discovering keywords to bid on. You can also outsource this to someone on Fiverr for example for really cheap.

Fiverr is also a good place to go to have someone do negative keywords research for you if you are going to bid broad off the bat.

Next Week

I think it might be time to switch modes and go more into Facebook and talk about social marketing from a small businesses point of view.  I do still want to talk about Google Analytics, Google tracking and Google Tags.  If you have input on what you want to talk about join the FB group or the newsletter and let me know.

I’m also open to guest speakers so if you have something very beneficial to small businesses I’d love to have you on a live hangout.

The post Everything I know About Keywords for AdWords Search appeared first on MarketingPlayBook.co

Does Your Blog Already Has A Chat Bot?

In case you are following the latest tech trends, one that emerged recently is that of chat bots. That is, software that can chat and deliver information autonomously via chat interfaces like Facebook Messenger or Telegram.

For instance, there is a Weather Bot for Telegram. You just need to send a location (city/country) to it and it will instantly reply with the 3-day forecast for that location.

The trend is growing quite fast, and there are even companies specialized in bot development popping up.

One segment that is starting to use bots heavily is media and online publications. For instance. CNN has a chat bot that will send you news or digests daily. Other sites and blogs like TechCrunch, the Wall Street Journal and so one are also starting to use bots to deliver content to and interact with users.

Upon playing (better say chatting) a bit with the TechCrunch bot, though, I discovered that it was made using a free platform called Chat Fuel. The platform allows you to create a chat bot for your website or business without any coding. They claim you can do that in 7 minutes. I suspect it’s going to take a bit longer, but it’s an awesome and useful idea anyway.

So making a chat bot for your site is easy. Now the question becomes: should you do one?

I am not so sure at this point, unless you have a very large website or publication. If you don’t, chances are that very few people will end up using your bot, and you will just have wasted time.

That being said, if I were you I would keep an eye on this trend. That are many people predicting that chat bots will substitute many kinds of mobile apps. For instance, it makes no sense to have to download a new app every time you go to a new airport to get information about flights. If instead you could simply message a bot to get information from all of them it would be much easier!

Here’s a quote from an interesting article on VentureBeat titled How chatbots and A.I. will change the future:

Getting things done when you are out and about will become seamless. No more waiting in lines. Just send your bot a message and order. When your item is ready, the bot will alert you, and you can simply pick it up.

You might end up chatting with a bot sooner than you think!

Original post: Does Your Blog Already Has A Chat Bot?

How to Remove Tablet Traffic in AdWords

For years many people have wanted to negative bid adjust on tablet traffic.  While Adwords constantly said stupid things like “Tablet converts just as well if not better than Desktop Traffic”.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had reps tell me this and the urge to slap someone would creep in.  I’m a very peaceful person mind you but I really hate seeing thousands of dollars flushed down a drain for myself and clients because it was clear test after test that tablet traffic in about 80% of all cases just sucks and there was no way to get profitable on it for many of my clients.

This was even more true in the software industry where they only offered Desktop software.  I would easily spend 5 grand on tablet traffic without a single conversion over the course of a few months.  I know from the 100’s of AdWords experts I hang around with we all hate not having the option to negative bid adjust on tablet traffic.

The AdWords Announcement in late May

It was on May 24th I think that I was watching an AdWords announcement on what was coming down the pipe line.  They kept announcing new and exciting changes but the audience didn’t seem to be that excited.  The second AdWords said they where going to allow for negative bid adjustments on Tablet traffic the whole room broke out in applause.  It was seriously crazy how excited people got.  I myself did a two handed fist pump in the air to celebrate.

Negative bid Adjusting on Tablets

Just yesterday I logged into my AdWords Agency account and found out that I could negative bid adjust on Tablet traffic.  I would of posted sooner to the MPB site but I was busy doing negative bid adjustments in a few hundred AdWords campaigns for myself and clients.

How to Negative Bid Adjust in AdWords

You follow the exact same process as you would for Mobile bid adjusting.

Log into Adwords and select the campaign you want to Bid adjust for.  Now select settings and go to the device tab

adwords bid adjust

In the bid adj. Column move down to the tablets with full browsers section and from there click the — and either choose increase or decrease from the drop down menu.  You can set the value to bid adjust however you want.

If you want zero tablet traffic you would set the bid adjust to Negative 100% as in the example below

negative bid adjust on tablet

Now you would just click the save button and NO MORE TABLET TRAFFIC!!!!!!!! 🙂

For many people out there you will find that tablet traffic converts.  People use tablets all the time and in South America for instance many use tablets to make purchases on because they do not own a desktop computer.

If you have had past sales on tablet traffic I would not cut it off 100%.  Adjust the bid to help put in you the range of your CPA goal.  This might mean a negative 50% bid adjust or along those lines.

Their are some clients of mine who do very well with tablet traffic.  I can’t see any currently that need a increase in the bid adjust but there are those who I won’t apply a negative bid adjust on.  For the other 80% this is a big win and great that you now have the ability to take more control of the traffic you are getting.

If you enjoyed this article then tell your friends and share it.  We hold live digital marketing hangouts every Wednesday at 2PM CST so be sure to view the community page and connect on Facebook, and sign up for our news letter to get invites to the next live hangout.

The post How to Remove Tablet Traffic in AdWords appeared first on MarketingPlayBook.co

Play Solitaire and Tic Tac Toe in Google Search

Google Search now comes with 2 games you can play right from your desktop or mobile browser: Solitaire and Tic-Tac-Toe. Just search for [solitaire] or [tic tac toe] and you can quickly start the games.

Solitaire has 2 difficulty levels: easy and hard. The game has realistic sounds and animations (you can mute sounds) and it also shows your stats, just like any other Solitaire app. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t save your state, so you can’t resume a game later.

Tic-Tac-Toe is much simpler and less pretty. You can choose between 3 difficulty levels (easy, medium and impossible) or pick an option that lets you play against a friend. The easy level always lets you win, the medium level lets you win sometimes, while in the impossible level you can never win.

An older game you can still play from Google Search is Pac-Man. It’s actually the interactive doodle from May 21, 2010.

{ via Google Blog }

Top 10 Blogs for Startup Founders and Entrepreneurs

Sometimes a single insight can completely change the direction of your startup or business, so make sure you are reading blogs that can offer such sparks of creativity and mindset change.

Below you will find a list of blogs that every startup founder or entrepreneur should read regularly. Enjoy.

1. Paul Graham Essays

Perhaps not a blog in the strict sense of the word, but close enough, given it’s a collection of essays he writes and publishes online. Paul Graham is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Y Combinator, and as a result of that he has worked with hundreds, if not thousands of tech startups over the last 10 years.

2. Ben Horowitz Blog

Ben is a seasoned technology entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He co-founded Opsware, which was acquired by HP. More recently he started a venture capital firm with Marc Andreessen, called Andreessen Horowitz. Curious fact: Ben is a fan of rap music, and he starts most of his posts with rap lyrics!

3. Quicksprout

Pretty much every business has a digital component these days. That is why you need to know about digital marketing, which includes SEO (Search Engine Optimization), email marketing, content marketing and so on. There is no one better to teach you about that than Neil Patel. His posts are always value-packed and straight to the point.

4. Fred Wilson – A VC

Fred Wilson has been playing the venture capital game for a long time. According to his website, he started in 1986! Was it even called venture capital back then? You’ll find new posts on his blog almost daily, and most are packed with useful information and insights about the tech scene.

5. Steve Blank

Author and serial-entrepreneur Steve Blank shares his views about technology, startups and business in general on his blog. He has worked with 8 startups over the years, 4 of which have gone public!

6. Chris Dixon

This guy co-founded SiteAdvisor (sold to McAfee), co-founded Hunch (sold to eBay), invested in Uber, Makerbot, Buzzfeed, and more! He probably knows what he is talking about, right? The link above is to his Medium profile, where he blogs these days. You can also visit his old blog to read over 400 articles he published there.

7. Jason Ball

Jason is a partner at Qualcomm Ventures. On his blog you’ll find his analysis of the latest technology trends and startups, as well as pieces about personal development, like this one.

8. Seth Godin

It’s all about marketing, and Seth Godin is the master marketer! One big advantage of Seth’s blog posts is that they are very short (from 200 to 300 words) and straight to the point. If you are not reading them, don’t say it’s because you are busy!

9. Both Sides of the Table

Mark Suster is an American entrepreneur, angel investor and investment partner at Upfront Ventures. In his blog you will find tips about books, trends, analysis of startups, markets and so on.

10. 500 Hats

Dave McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded and runs the business accelerator 500 Startups. His blog is updated quite regularly, and he is always very outspoken about tech and business issues.

Original post: Top 10 Blogs for Startup Founders and Entrepreneurs

AdWords Ad Extensions For The Win

AdWords Ad Extensions

I covered ad extensions in depth in the AdWords PPC Search Training Course but it’s worth covering in a live hangout.

Ad extensions allow you to help provide the full picture to customers and present yourself as being the solution to your clients issues.

The biggest benefit to ad extensions is the ability to boost your CTR (Click Through Rate). This can set you apart from your competition and you will attain more market share (Impressions) and very likely help to boost your quality score which will in turn help to drive down your CPC (Cost Per Click).

The boost in CTR comes from you having an expanded ad which gives the searcher more of an opportunity to click your ad.

Here is the hangout video for this written guide

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AdWords has several different ways to use extensions

  • Sitelink Extensions
  • Location Extensions
  • Call Extensions
  • App Extensions
  • Review Extensions
  • Callout Extensions
  • Structured Snippet Extensions
  • Price Extensions

Structured Snippet Extensions

A structured snippet is very similar to a call out extension. It’s not clickable but is intended to provide the searcher with more information about your product line and services.

structured-snippet-extensions

You are able to select any of the following headers

  • Amenities
  • Brands
  • Courses
  • Degree programs
  • Destinations
  • Featured hotels
  • Insurance coverage
  • Models
  • Neighborhoods
  • Service catalog
  • Shows
  • Styles
  • Types

It’s strongly recommended that you will in information for all the available headers that apply to your business. AdWords will show the header that it feels best matches the user’s search.

This information can be a great way to highlight what kind of products you sell or provide additional information about your services.

If you where a car mechanic and offered free break inspections then this would be a great place to say that. Under the Service Catalog you might also want to list the other main kind of services you provide for example.

At this time structured snippets only show on Search Network Only and Search Network with Display Select campaigns.

Price Extensions

Price extensions are for Mobile only currently. You want to ensure your site looks great and functions well on mobile before you start running this extension.

Local Mobile searches continue to increase month over month so this is a fantastic way of highlighting your services and providing the cost of your services.

price-extensions

Using the BRAKE Repair example you may want to include multiple Price extensions such as

  • inspection cost
  • pad replacement
  • rotor replacement
  • caliper replacement
  • brake bleeding
  • fluid flush

This is intended to showcase what products or services you offer and if someone taps on a specific item in your price menu they will be taken directly to your site.

You will want to include 5 of more price extensions and will want to customize the final url for each one to best match the product or service being described. You do not have to use different final urls but it’s always a good idea to ensure you are sending people to the most relevant page on your website.

The headline can be 25 characters max and each description can be 25 characters max. I strongly recommend you shorten the headline as much as possible to ensure it’s fully visible on a mobile phone.

You will be charged for each click through your price extension. The good news is you will only be charged a max of two times and if someone clicks let’s say Break Repair and then quickly moves over to Tune-up you may just get charged once because 1 click may be seen as invalid because it was in such a short time frame.

Sitelink Extensions

Sitelink Extensions extend you ad by adding 4 alternative top level links that may be relevant to the person doing the search.

For an ad targeting Car Paint I can ad site extensions expanding my product line.

The headlines for site links are clickable but the description text is not. The description text may not show in all cases so your main products or services should be linked in the header and describe what that page is about.

site-links1

The above example is perfect for someone who may of searched for “car touchup paint” Are they looking for Spray paint, a Touchup Pen, a kit… This is where you can highlight closed related items to the users search.

Each Site extension can go to its own final destination so you can take people directly to the product or service they are interested in.  You will need at least 2 Sitelinks but should have 4 in place as up to 4 can show.

Call Extensions

Call Extensions will show a call button next to it on mobile and a forwarding number on Desktop. For service based companies this is a huge win and can really help to drive qualified traffic.

call-extensions

Having an image ad such as a phone icon or an extra line in your ad copy that shows the phone number can really help expand that ad and give people a clear choice to connect with a live person.

App Extensions

For 99% of all small businesses this won’t really apply to you but still it’s a good option if you have an app and that app offers value to the end user.

With this extension you can prompt users to install your app. This will link directly to the App stores location on that specific device. It will only show on mobile related devices that support that app.

app-extension

Review Extensions

I’m a big fan of the review extension. More and more I keep using Google + reviews to help me make buying decisions on the local level. This is not for these kinds of reviews but for reviews specific to your company.

review-extension

You cannot use your own customer reviews and the review has to be online.  It should talk more about your company as a whole rather than a specific product or service.  You need to have 2 reviews listed before they can be shown in your ad copy and the review needs to be over a year old.  The submitted reviews all go through a manual review process that is stringent.  Don’t be surprised if in the first go around the review gets turned down as they have multiple stipulations.

For many of my clients I find snippets of something someone says online in a forum and tend to use this.

You are not currently charged a click cost when someone clicks on the link to read the review of your site.

Callout Extensions

These links are not clickable. They are meant to highlight your products or services and expanded information about your company.

In the below example you can see this company mentions “Hurry, Limited Inventory”, “New Events Every Day” and “Apparel, Home & More

callout extensions

I will often put in things like “Free Shipping” if available. “Currently Open” if a local business or something else to highlight a benefit of your company, a benefit of your product or service and then a call to action or a fear of loss statement such as “Appointments Booking Fast”

Callouts are a simple way to extend your ad copy and provide more value to the user. Use them as they are not clickable and cost nothing.

Location Extensions

I saved location Extensions for last because there is a lot going on here currently with location extensions and will be even more in the near future.

If you services a local clientele then a location extensions is a MUST have. I can’t stress how valuable this can be.

location extension

In the above example both of these ads are using location extensions. This search was done on a desktop computer. When done you may get a better looking map icon and the distance from your current location to the store location may be present.

If I were to click the location button on my desktop I will be show Google Maps and can then put in my location to travel to the store location.

You also are able to show on Google Maps when you use a location extension for Search Only and Search with Display Select campaigns.

map-extention-ad

I can’t stress enough how many people are using Google Maps to locate businesses. This is a really great way to put your company out there so you need to be using this to drive foot traffic to your business store front.

In the future

Location extensions are expanding. Soon retailers who have store fronts will be able to track those who do a search and then click your ad as well as come to visit your store front location.

This option is not currently available to most AdWords accounts but most likely will start to roll out in early 2017.

I do not believe the tracking will be 100% as it requires the user to have their GPS on which not all will. However those like car dealerships who really want to drive foot traffic to their locations will benefit greatly from store visit conversions and will be able to optimize based on this metric.

See https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6100636?hl=en for more details.

Another item that is soon coming down is promoted Map pins. This will allow your business to show on peoples maps when they are on their way to a destination. This could be used for branding purposes or if you are a food place used to help let people know where they can go to eat when they are already close to your business.

I’m really excited to try out these new features and will be talking more in-depth on them as they start to roll out to test accounts.

If you are feeling a little overwhelmed by all the ad extensions don’t. They are very easy to implement and should not take you long to implement.

These extensions combined can drastically expand your ad and give you a leg up over the competition not yet taking advantage of all these extensions.

The most important extensions for most people are going to be, site links, callouts, location, call extensions. I would nail these first then move onto the Price and Structured Data extensions.

Next Week

I have not decided on the topic for next week.  I think it might be time to try and cover some Facebook topics such as tracking because many people have a hard time setting that up.

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The post AdWords Ad Extensions For The Win appeared first on MarketingPlayBook.co

Should Your Small Business Have an App?

I won’t pretend to know the real answer to this question. Each small business is different. To summarize this without you having to read the whole article I will say for most companies it’s not worth the time, effort of money.

The other day at a Hackers and Founders meetup I ran into someone who builds apps for a living. His comment was that apps are like websites and everyone small business should have one.

Keep in mind the person makes a living off of making apps for small businesses and lives in the app world.

My push back was that it just isn’t practical for most companies to have their own app.

I spent 30K+ on developing an app called LocalLedge. It’s a rather brilliant app in my mind that allows people to chat, send video and images in a specific geographic radius set by the user.

After pushing 15K installs to my app I ended up having to back off it as the user base was not sticking around.

From getting my own app developed I can say there are lot’s of little issues when it comes to getting an app built. You have constant maintenance to keep the app up to date and fully compatible with the every changing Ios and Android operating system as well as device specific issues.

Each store has it’s own ticks and issues but let’s say for the sake of argument you can build an HTML5 app that is currently compatible on iOS and Android and you don’t have to shell out 500 to a 1000 dollars every quarter for updates to the app.

Where are you going to get your users???? Are people actually going to use your app? Would you use your app?

This is my biggest argument. If I was a hair stylist. Why would I need an app? I suppose people could use my app to schedule appointments but then again they already should be able to do this right on my website.

I could send out reminders but then again I could do this with e-mail or better yet picking up the phone and calling the client or sending them a reminder in the mail.

If this person was a loyal customer then how many times a year would they be using my app, 4 times maybe. Do you keep apps on your phone that you only use 4 times a year?

Circling back to my first point of where are you going to get users? I really don’t know besides you telling current customers to download your app.

Apps may play a bigger role in the future for small businesses. I won’t say they aren’t ever beneficial because there are real cases for small business to have an app but for now the payoff is too minute and the cost too high to really make this worth most companies efforts.

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Top 7 Pokemon Go Websites and Resources

If you want to collect all the pokemons, evolve them faster than your friends and be the very best trainer around, a little help couldn’t hurt, right?

Whether you are looking for tips, maps or tutorials about the game, the websites and resources below are certainly going to have what you need.

1. Niantic Blog

Get it straight from the horse’s mouth by following the Niantic blog. Niantic is the company that developed the game. On their blog you’ll find all the latest updates about the game, behind the scenes stories and so on.

2. Pokemon Go Global

This website cointains several resources for the game. For instance, there is a Pokedex with the first 151 Pokemons available in the game. They also offer a list of spawn locations and a blog with the latest news about the game.

pokemon go websites

3. FastPokeMap

This website is dedicated to helping players find pokemon spawn locations around them. Just select your current location and you’ll be able to see pokemons around you.

4. PCMag 21 Pokemon Tips

The guys from PCMag put together a really nice slideshow with 21 tips that will help you throughout the game. For instance, did you know that if you turn off AR you will be able to capture pokemons easier?

5. Pokemon Go Pro

This is one of the first online forums completely dedicated to Pokemon Go. Sections include Strategies, Trading, Adventure Logs, News about the game. The site also has other sections like a Pokedex.

6. PokeCommunity

Another forum dedicated to the game. The number of members and posts is similar to Pokemon Go Pro, but the forum is structured around individual questions and not categories, so you might find it easier to navigate.

7. Pokemon Go DB

This site aims to be a database of everything related to the game. For instance, you have a Pokedex with all the pokemons, egg charts, guides, moves, stats and so on. Very useful.

Original post: Top 7 Pokemon Go Websites and Resources

Lower Your CPC Following These Simple Methods

Everyone knows they need a good ad but it’s often easier said then done.  Just coping what your competitors are doing and doing a light modification is something most small business owners do. The problem with this is they focus on the ad copy and not enough on the structure of the ad.

In last weeks hangout I drilled down exactly how I setup clients AdWords search campaigns and the settings I use inside those campaigns to give them the best chance of success early on.  This can be found at – http://marketingplaybook.co/hangouts/adwords-ppc-search-campaign-setup/

Be sure to join our Newsletter to get the invite on Monday to attend the next live hangout that is held every Wednesday at 2PM CST

As Usual I have the live hangout to accompany this written guide.  It’s packed with good stuff and details so feel free to watch it or just keep reading on.

What is an Ad group?

An ad group contains ads and keywords inside them. After you create a campaign you then can organize that campaign by setting up ad groups.  Inside each ad group you will have similar keywords and can write a more targeted ad for those specif set of keywords.

See https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375404  for Google’s Exact answer

In AdWords example linked below they list 3 different ad groups

ad group = Deserts : Keywords = Cupcakes, apple pie, ice cream, cookies

ad group = Beverages : Keywords = Soda, coffee, iced tea, orange juice

ad group = Snacks : Keywords = Potato Chips, beef jerky, mixed nuts, rice crackers

With this kind of segmentation you are organizing each ad group by a specific theme.  Personally I think the above is a poor example and let me show you why.

If I were to bid on the keyword “cupcakes”  Then people are not searching for ice cream or cookies.  There intent is on cupcakes.

Imagine going to Google and searching for cupcakes.  How exactly would you match the user intent if you were to group keywords like “apple pie” or ice cream”?

The end result would be a poor ad that the user is most likely not going to click on.

So what I recommend clients do is break down each ad group into it’s lowest denominator and write a SPECIFIC ad for each and every keyword they are bidding on unless you can group them into a specific product or service.

With the “Deserts” ad group you could drill down another level.  Instead of having “Deserts” as my ad group I could have something that looks like

ad group = Cupcakes : Keywords = blueberry Cupcakes, velvet cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes

ad group = Apple Pie : Keywords = apple pie, dutch apple pie,

ad group = ice cream : Keywords = chocolate ice cream, Valina ice cream, straw berry ice cream

ad group = Cookies : Keywords = peanut butter cookies, mint chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies

With the above ad groups and the keywords in each separate ad group I have now drilled down a little more to the users intent.  No longer will people searching for cupcakes be shown an ad that is generic and could be used for all deserts.  They are far more likely now to click on my ad now that I can write a specific ad about cupcakes.

But Wait….. There is more!

If someone where to do a search for “blueberry cupcakes” and saw a generic ad for cupcakes they may click it as I’m really close to the users intent.  However I can’t really name every cupcake inside my ad copy so I’d probably have to write a generic ad about cupcakes.

I really want people to click on my ad so why don’t I just give them exactly what they are looking for.  I can drill down further and create an ad just for each any every type of cupcake I sell.

Here is what the new set of ad groups might look like

ad group = Blueberry Cupcakes : Keywords = blueberry Cupcakes, blueberry cream cheese cupcakes, blueberry lemon cupcakes, blueberry cheesecake cupcakes

ad group = Velvet Cupcakes : Keywords = velvet cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes, red velvet cake cupcakes, red velvet cream cheese cupcakes

ad group = Vanilla Cupcakes : Keywords = vanilla cupcakes, best vanilla cupcakes, very vanilla cupcakes

I dug into AdWords Keyword tool to grab more keywords  – https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home

Now we are cooking.  We can now start writing ads based on the users true intent.  Instead of writing a more generic ad we can fill our ad group with very target ads that really match the users intent.

Major benefits of drilling down on ad groups and only having highly related keywords in each ad

  1.  You can write a targeted ad that is very targeted to the person performing the search
  2. You can now link that ad to the exact page talking about that specific product instead of a top level category
  3. You will be able to increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) and get more clicks because your ad is very specific

As a bonus to this.  People search for what they are looking for.  When you drill down to specific keywords they are normally longer tail keywords.  Instead of “cup cakes” we are bidding on “Blueberry cupcakes”  this person is far closer to making a buying decision then someone doing a more generic search.  They know exactly what they want.

Writing the Perfect Ad

 

Quality Score – Tying your efforts all together

 

Next week I’m most liking going to take on ad extensions or keyword match types.  Both are great topics.  Feel free to send use a tweet letting us know which one you would rather have covered first – @mktgplaybook . I’ll probably hop over to Facebook or Bingads next as well.  Feel free to provide some input on what you need to know and if you are having any issues getting things setup I suggest you join our currently free at the time of this writing Private Facebook Group.  Details are at http://marketingplaybook.co/connect/

 

The post Lower Your CPC Following These Simple Methods appeared first on MarketingPlayBook.co

Looking for a CRM? Check out Agile CRM

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Originally, the term referred to the general practices and strategies companies used to manage and interact with their customers.

With the wide adoption of computers and the Internet, however, CRM became a synonym for the software used to manage those practices and strategies. You probably must have heard about other CRM providers as well. However, if you are looking for a CRM solution for your website or small business, going with providers like Salesforce is probably going to be overkill, and very expensive, as that software is designed for large corporations.

One of the best solutions for small and medium businesses is Agile CRM. They have pretty much all the features that is offered by other CRM providers, but charge a much more affordable price. For instance, up to 10 users the software is completely free to use.

To add to this, a complete CRM software is the one that will help automating three main business areas: sales, marketing and customer support.

agile

Agile CRM comes with several features for each of those areas. The Sales Automation part includes a detailed contact data database (which allows you to search for contacts based on past conversations, for instance), chronological view, calendars, events, deals, project management and so on.

The Marketing Automation section includes drag-and-drop designers, custom pop-ups and signup forms, email campaigns, email tracking, social media integrations, analytics and more.

The Helpdesk, which is the section dedicated to customer support, enables your business to provide personalized support more efficiently through a ticketing system. Other features include groups, smart views to prioritize tickets, service level agreements, canned responses and so on.

As I mentioned before, the software is completely free up to 10 users, so give it a try!

Another reason why you should give a try to this CRM is that you can also earn some extra money with its affiliate program. Agile CRM recently launched an affiliate program where you can earn 20 percent commissions by referring more customers to them. You can read more about it in this article.

Original post: Looking for a CRM? Check out Agile CRM