New Google AdWords Interface

Google has finally made their new AdWords interface available to the entire public, not just select advertisers.  Just look to the top right of your interface and select New Interface (Beta) to see your screen transform into the new layout provided by Google.

Austin Rachlin, a member of the Google AdWords team, explains on one of Google’s latest blog posts that the reason for the new interface is to “help you manage your campaigns more efficiently.  We also wanted to offer some of the conveniences you’ll find in other Google products, like keyboard shortcuts.  Just like in Gmail, you can quickly navigate around your account without having to use the mouse.  In the new AdWords interface you have a number of keyword shortcuts at your fingertips.”

You can find the list of keyboard shortcuts here.

My personal favorite part of the new interface is that instead of click on reporting, tools, billing and my account tabs, you can simply place your mouse over them and click for a drop down menu.  No wait time to be taken to a next page to see your options.

You are also able to see all of your campaigns and their settings at once instead of clicking on each individual campaign to be taken to another page to adjust settings.  Everything is entailed into one screen - very convenient.

The same tools and resources that are included in the “old version” of the  AdWords interface are in the new AdWords interface, but accessing those functions is a lot simpler and takes up a lot less of your time.

If you choose to look into the new AdWords interface, as Google encourages us to become familiar with it, there are some helpful hints located on the bottom left corner of the interface underneath a “Help” headline.  You can find a “what you should know” link and learn how to create a new campaign, measure your account’s performance, keyboard shortcuts and more.

Google AdWords’ new interface is in “beta” and they are claiming that they encourage any feedback as they are still making changes to the new layout.

Google Adwords Conversion Metrics Updated

I have been slowly noticing some changes in the AdWords interface while running reports and browsing through accounts.  I decided to look into this and sure enough, AdWords is slowly integrating an updated interface structure with new functions and features.

While running the normal search query reports and keyword reports, I noticed that Google updated its conversion options to be either, Conversions (1-per-click) or Conversions (many-per-click).

I read an article on AdWords blog posted by Emel Mutlu that explains these conversion reporting changes.

Mutlu explains that the reason for this update is based off of every advertiser’s specific goals.  Mutlu goes on to use the following example:  “Let’s say you’re selling gardening supplies online and you’ve set up conversion tracking on your “Thank You For Your Purchase” and your “Newsletter Subscription Confirmed” pages.”

If a customer clicks on your ad, buys a bag of peat moss, then subscribes to your newsletter, you’ll see two many-per-click conversions, but just a single 1-per-click conversion in your account. If the same customer returns to your site a few days later and buys a trowel (but doesn’t click on one of your AdWords ads to get there), you’ll now see three many-per-click conversions, but your 1-per-click conversions will still remain at one.”

Google AdWords’ blog also posts several articles that are useful guidelines for the up-and-coming interface.

Google’s Local Emphasis Will Affect SEO More than PPC

Do you sometimes enter a search term in Google with a city or state name followed by a service (i.e. Boston Dentist)? If so, then you have probably seen PPC ads, followed by a map with local listings and then the organic results. Google recently announced that they will be placing a much bigger emphasis on local listings. In addition to being triggered by city/state keywords, they will also be triggered by broad keywords. If your IP address places you in Boston and you type in the keyword “Dentist”, you may see Boston local listings.

Google’s new emphasis on local listings for broad terms as opposed to just geo terms (dentist vs. Miami Dentist) seems to be applied between position 4 and 5 organically on page one. This seems to be strategic as it keeps the eye on PPC ads but definitely rocks the organic results. This is yet another move by Google that is somewhat game changing for many players who really on SEO and PPC for their stability.

Read more here…

Landing Page A/B Testing is a Must

As PPC managers, we are always thinking of new ways to optimize our accounts and to better their performance.  One very consistent, dependable approach has always been to test, test, test our text ads and landing pages.  While we are always comparing our ads and pages to our competitors  so we can try to update our campaigns with new incentives (special offers, promotions, etc.), at some time or another the question pops into our head, “how long do we have to test for?”

I read an interesting article by Melissa Kavanagh that attempts to conclude how much data we need to determine which landing page (A or B) is yielding the best results.

I found this article extremely interesting because it focused not only on the content of the landing page, but the fact that the two different landing pages being tested may impact 2 completely different groups of visitors.  For example: Melissa explains that her team’s “hypothesis is that if specials were promoted in a more visible fashion on the homepage, conversion rate would increase, as would overall revenue.”

They refer to the above explained landing page as “version B”.

Melissa and her team’s hypothesis did result as true, but from a behavior aspect, Melissa explains, “We think that because version B highlights the specials more openly than the original version, it’s possible that we are changing the way visitors are booking their vacations. Instead of going through a linear booking process, it’s possible that version B visitors are now “shopping for deals.”

Melissa and her team’s conclusions are based off of about 3 weeks worth of data.  Melissa states, “After 19 days of running the A/B test, and roughly 10,000 sample website visits, we have solid data that proves version B converts a higher percentage of specials than version A. However, the overall conversion rate of version B has now dropped even further below the control. On the upside, the data also showed that average order per reservation was 5% lower than version A (an improvement from the 6% shown a few days earlier), and average revenue per night booked is now 0.1% higher for version B (previously 4% lower).”

For advertisers that may want some assistance with these high profile testing options, a PPC marketing agency would be happy to handle all of them for you.

Google Announces Mysterious Advanced Search Query Report

I recently read an article that talked about a new option in a very helpful ppc report, the search query report.

Those “other unique queries” that show up in majority of the report will now be kept to a minimal and Google will provide us with more queries to work with after running the report.  Advertisers will be able to choose between a standard search query report and an advanced.  A common question has been, “who would want to run standard when you can run advanced?”

Before we get too excited, it seems as though Google is randomly placing this option into select accounts.  It is not available for every advertiser at this time.

In the article, PPC Hero Blogger John explains the advanced search query report: “Initially, we pulled our first Advanced (All Queries) report for the past few months – which still provided countless “other unique queries” entries. However, it has been rather consistent for new Google reports to only be valid from the date of launch. We haven’t seen one iota of reporting or announcements on this feature, so we decided to run the new report for the past 2 days (03/30 – 03/31). In this test, we found that the Advanced (All Queries) report displayed 441 search queries out of 445 searches. Not bad. Not bad at all!

For all advertisers who are unfamiliar with search query reports and account optimization, a PPC management firm should be happy to handle all of these functions for you.