Help with AdWords

Though we often recommend Paid Search, we don’t recommend you go it alone. Anyone can set up an “AdWords Express” account. It’s super easy and it’s super simple. The problem is, easy and simple is rarely good and that’s especially true in the case of AdWords. Targeting is extremely limited and advanced tactics don’t exist in AdWords. As you can see, the world of online advertising can be a confusing place, and Google may seem like a complicated and distant entity.  And they are.  Have you ever tried getting Google on the phone for help?  When dealing with Google AdWords, we highly suggest you utilize a special connection to that big search engine in the Internet sky. Or should we say “cloud?”  That special connection is us.

AdEdge has an extra special connection to Google. We are proud to say, we’re a Google AdWords Partner. This means Google tested us, and we passed! To become a certified Google Partner, an agency has to demonstrate expertise by not only passing exams; it also must show a certain level of agency and client revenue growth, as well as continue to retest and pass annual exams.

Extra Help from Google

Here at AdEdge, we’re not your run-of-the-mill partner.  Unlike most partners, we have access to two account representatives assigned to us by Google. These representatives are available to help us anytime we need to resolve any issues or have any specific questions. They help us expedite new campaign approvals and advise us quarterly on tactics for optimizing client campaign performance.

One more advantage about our special connection with Google is beta testing. Last year, AdEdge was accepted into Google’s advertising beta testing platform. What does that mean?  It means that our clients have access, through us, to test out Google’s latest digital marketing technologies. At AdEdge, we only work with the latest and greatest tactics – tactics that improve your performance and beat your competition to the punch.

In a market that can at times seem like the Wild West, AdEdge calmly offers you brilliant, customized, high-ROI Internet Marketing for a reasonable, transparent price. Our focus is your success.

Contact us for a free consultation! (203) 682 4585

The post Google AdWords Help from a Google Partner appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

Here’s how it works. To get Holiday deals to your smart phone, text “”JOIN”” to 847-904-0596. Alternately, you may see a paid search text ad from Google when searching for holiday deals. Just click the ad and follow the prompts. Once you’ve joined, text “”STOP”” to end the promotional messages, “”HELP”” for help, or visit this link for more information: http://goo.gl/msg/info.

As we all know, mobile use and mobile advertising is on fire and early adapters are being rewarded accordingly. To make preparations, sign up for the holiday alerts and begin thinking about what kind of promotional messages you might put out there to your customers in a SMS advertising campaign of your own. As soon as this new online advertising feature becomes available, you’ll be the first to know and we’ll be here to help you. Just stay tuned to our monthly newsletter and get the latest digital marketing tips and tricks and news you can use from Google. To get the newsletter, Contact Us here: https://adedgemarketing.com/contact-us/ or click the link on the home page to subscribe.

Happy Holidays and a healthy, happy and successful 2016 from all of us here at AdEdge!

The post Google AdWords Launches Holiday Snippets & Texts appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

If you’re trying to get in front of a younger market, Instagram advertising would make for a great test. If you are thinking about advertising on Instagram, consider the three different ad formats available: image, video, and carousel. Each platform has its own advantages and if used correctly and creatively, this media builds your brand and in the case of an immediate interest or need, your website is just a click away. With Instagram’s video advertising, you can show a 30 second video of your product or service. Carousel marketing enables users to swipe through multiple pictures, which is particularly useful for marketing products where images are important.

What interactive marketing effort would be complete without good click through performance? Up until recently, Instagram only had the option for the user to “Like” and “Comment” on a post. Along with these new advertising options, Instagram has enabled “call to action” buttons which when clicked, send users to your website.

Instagram has come up to speed with other social media networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn who also offer paid advertising with profile-based targeting. Instagram offers advertisers the ability to target based on information in user profiles including: connections, interests, gender, age and location. If your target consumer is a 20-year-old male in Connecticut who likes sports, you can utilize Instagram targeting to reach those users with an ad. Overall, Instagram’s new ad features give your business the ability to reach hundreds of consumers in a very specific way. As with any new campaign, make sure to use analytics to test performance by instagram channel and campaign and refine your results accordingly to increase performance and cost-effectiveness over time.

The post Instagram Advertising is Now Available appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

And luckily for you, AdEdge is ready to help you adapt to the upcoming change.

Perhaps you’d like to know how conversions used to be set up?

In most cases, each conversion added to AdWords could be set to either “on” or “off”. This determined if it should count when optimizing for conversions, or not. Regardless of their setting, the conversions appeared in the conversion column and reports.

For example, filling in a contact form could be set to “off” while a download was set to “on.” Google would have considered both of these actions to be conversions. They would both show up in the conversions column and reports.

So what’s changing, you ask?

Well, from now on:

• Only conversions set to “on” will appear in the conversion column and the reporting.
• In Adwords, Estimated Total Conversions will change to Total Conversions, and Conv (opt.) will change to Conversions.
• The old Conversions section will be gone. Old conversions will no longer count in conversion reports.

In time, this change will trickle down and could affect your conversion rate. But with the right modifications, your conversion reporting will not change. You will be able to keep your conversion rate high.

If you want any help with this, get in touch – AdEdge is here to take your AdWords success to the next level.

The post AdWords Re-Defines Conversions appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

Do you make or sell apps?! If so, you’ll love that you can now place search ads on the Google Play store. Google started testing the ads in February, and have just released them. They are now available to all AdWords Advertisers. Are you already wondering how to access the program? It’s available to any advertisers currently using Adwords’ Search App Install ad campaigns. Check it out!

Keyword searches determine which ads show. For example, if someone is searching for a game app, then a sponsored game app ad will appear in their results. Can you think of any better way to increase your app installation rates?

What’s more, they’ve added an improved and easy-to-use conversion tracking solution for Android devices! According to Google, “In addition to providing app conversion tracking across Search, Display and YouTube, this new solution also allows developers to better align the conversion volume they see in AdWords with the data they see in a third-party measurement solution.”

This program works with Google’s Universal App Campaign. It’s easy to advertise your app on a multitude of Google properties, like Youtube, Search and Display Network.

If this new service sounds like what you’ve been looking for – and you have an app you need to advertise – then you should contact AdEdge today!

The post AdWords Launches Google Play App Install Ads appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

Reviews can be the difference between a customer that browses and a customer that buys from your business. A half star can be all that separates you from your closest competitor. Think about how many times you’ve used your smartphone to search for a local business! As the trend to mobile continues to skyrocket, review ratings will become crucial to improving your click-through-rate and enticing customers to pick your business.

Fantastic review ratings, coupled with great Paid Search and local SEO strategies, will heat your business up this summer and melt your competition.

If you are looking for a way to generate tons of positive reviews fast, AdEdge offers a Reputation Builder service that is effective, affordable and 100% ethical.  Contact Us to learn more.

The post Google’s New Review Ratings Features appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

Wrong! With Google Adwords, in addition to tracking all of website metrics that you should be tracking such as time on site, pages viewed, leads generated and sales conversions made, you can now track customer in-store visits. Yes, you heard that right, we’re talking visits to the ol’ bricks n’ morter.

Can you venture a guess as to how the world Google is doing this? Here’s where the geeks at AdEdge jump in and we’ll give you a hint. Smart Phones. Google knows exactly where your customers are. And we’re no longer just talking about a city, a street or even an address. Since Google has been mapping out the size and structure of many stores in Google Maps, they can now tell when a paid search customer visits your store, how long they are there and even in some cases, what parts of the store they visit. Google uses GPS location and WIFI signals overlayed on top of Google Maps to figure all of this out.

They can even tell if your customers are window shopping. A quick glance in the store or window shopping outside the store is not considered an in-store visit in Google’s metrics. Google AdWords takes into consideration the length of the visit. Employees who spend long hours in the store are not considered visitors in Google’s metrics.

The in-store conversion meter is just one more way to track the relative success of campaigns, groups, ads and keywords within a paid search campaign. If you’re going to track in-store visits, don’t forget to generate in-store visits by using two powerful AdWords targeting features: Location Extensions and Location Targeting. A geographically relevant paid search effort is more relevant, more memorable to your customer, more cost-effective and will always improve in-store visits. The Internet may be “the next best thing to being there” but nothing beats a customer visiting your store.

The post Behind the Scenes Look at Google’s New In-Store Conversion Meter appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

Starting this month, Google will no longer allow AdWords campaigns or ad groups that have been deleted from your account to be restored or re-activated. Campaigns and ad groups that have been deleted (paid search and display) will be permanently gone. This is already the case for ads and Google is extending this policy to campaigns and ad groups.

In order to keep your account data, there are two simple solutions. Either keep up-to-date with your AdWords account or pause your account. If an ad is not performing well, brainstorm ways to improve the ad so that it will receive more impressions. A small change such as making it “phrase match” to “broad match” could be the answer. Even campaigns that are running a very low budget such as $1 day will be saved.  If you run a seasonal business such as swimming pool maintenance or painting, simply pause your campaigns rather than turning daily budget down to zero.  This will insure that your campaign is ready to go when the busy season hits.

The post Google’s Summer Clean-Up of Unused AdWords Entities appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

The obvious goal here is to move consumers straight from an ad to a purchase.  And the impact should be huge. The amount of location-based searches to help users find the perfect item in a close proximity to their locations has doubled since last year.

Google believes the buy button is a step in the right direction for the mobile future. According to Google, “With Google Buy set to only be available on mobile devices and the search giant recently changing its algorithm to favor mobile optimized sites, it’s clear Google believes that smartphones and tablets are the way forward for e-commerce,” said Kevin Dallas from Worldplay eCommerce.

The post ‘Buy button’ to be added to Google search results appeared first on AdEdge Online Marketing.

Ad Extension No. 1: Sitelinks. If your ad is showing in one of the top three premium spots, you can show sitelink extensions. These appear as additional links underneath your main ad. They don’t cost any extra, they offer more specific and relevant options for your prospect to click on, and they let you take visitors directly to the most relevant page. Best of all, they take up more space on the Google results page, pushing your competitors and the organic search listings further down and out of the way. Let’s say your website sells a particular brand of men’s shirts. You bid on the brand name as a keyword and write an ad that specifically offers a deal on long-sleeve crewnecks. With sitelinks, you can also add in three or four additional links in your ad that take visitors to offers for turtlenecks, short sleeve shirts or even hoodies, all from the same brand. Or you can highlight other information that may be of particular interest to the searcher, such as your “About Us” page, or your “Shipping and Returns Policy” page.

Ad Extension No. 2: Call Extensions. In late 2013, Google adjusted their editorial guidelines so you can no longer include a phone number in the headline or text of your ad. That’s actually a good thing, because the phone number option is now available through the call extensions feature instead. Activate this, and the phone number of your choice will appear underneath your ad as an additional free line. That buys you extra space for ad copy and allows your ad to catch more eyeballs by taking up more space on the results page. Call extensions are especially powerful when they show on mobile phones: You can set it so users click on your phone number and connect to you directly from your ad. That’s particularly handy if you have a site that doesn’t display well on mobile devices; better still, if the primary call-to-action on your landing page is to call your phone number. Your contact number will show at the top of your ad in place of your headline, highlighted in blue to indicate that it’s clickable.

Ad Extension No. 3: Location. This is similar to call extensions except that, instead of showing your contact phone number, Google will show your physical location. This is an excellent feature for local brick-and-mortar businesses that want to increase foot traffic to their location.

Ad Extension No. 4: Reviews. This specifically refers to reviews, not by individual buyers, but by reputable media outlets or blogs. This is another extension that’s tricky to set up. To qualify for this, you’ll need the URL of the webpage that contains your review, then either select a direct quote or write a paraphrased version of no more than 67 characters, including the source name. You then need to provide Google with the URL of the third-party site on which the review can be found. And you’ll need to post the same quote on your landing page. If you’re willing to do the dance, once you activate it, this extension will display the review quote as an extra line below your ad.

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