The patent reads “A web browser or search engine located at the user’s site may obtain information on the environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, light, sound, air composition) from sensors. Advertisers may specify that the ads are shown to users whose environmental conditions meet certain criteria.”

This opens up a huge range of super specific targeting for advertisers. Imagine being able to target a user who is browsing the internet during a heatwave? Based on the high temperature, Google could target users with weather specific air-conditioning ads:

What’s interesting however is how well this feature could possibly combine with the new mobile targeting options (currently in BETA) that allows advertisers to serve up mobile ads based on whenever a user is nearby a particular point of interest. For example:

However, this new patent isn’t just limited to weather. American users who can search by dialling the dedicated Google search number (GOOG-411) will potentially be targeted based on the background noise picked up during the call. This may also apply to users using voice search within the Google phone apps. Imagine a mother who is at home looking after her crying baby, and she is voice searching. Google will be able to identify a baby crying and display maternity related ads.

Google has said they will respect the privacy of their users by allowing them to turn off the feature.

It may be a while before Google actually implements any of this patented technology, so until then we’re left imagining about some of the targeting possibilities!

Got an idea for a creative application of this patent? Let us know in the comments section below.

How might this affect your ads?

Firstly, in order to actually have the links embedded as your ad text, the Sitelinks you set up need to match or be similar to what’s in your ad. Google will then automatically use your ads text to link to the specified pages of your website, rather than displaying the Sitelinks underneath the ad.

Google believes that embedding the links in this way will entice more users to click on your ad. The reason being that potential customers can simply click on the part of the ad that they found to be most relevant to their needs, which consequently may not always be the headline.

However, one advantage to the basic Sitelink format was that when they are displayed below your ad, the amount of space your ads have on the search engine results page is increased. This can ultimately lead to standing out from your competitors with an extra element to the normal ad format.

Why the change?

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, we believe that Google is attempting to improve the look of paid advertisements. This is evidenced through the many changes ad formats have undergone lately such as the first description line of your ad displaying as part of the ad headline, destination URLs displaying only in lowercase and automatically including “www.” in every destination URL to make ads look more like organic results.

And now, Sitelinks will be embedded within ad text. It will certainly be interesting to see how embedded Sitelinks will affect click through rates and overall campaign performance.

Stay tuned!

An investment in Australia’s future or a needless waste of money? Regardless of your political stance on the impending roll-out of the National Broadband Network (NBN), it’s coming – and it will be a game changer.

Imagine this….

It’s the morning peak hour rush. Driving down what’s normally a 100km/h highway, you’re ploughing along at a measly 20. Tediously churning through first and second gears, your frustration levels teeter on the brink of capitulation. A glance over your right shoulder only compounds your irritation as countless cars fly past you in the transit lane…

Annoyed? You betcha!

Why? Because you know that you are capable of travelling faster.

A comparable situation will arise coinciding with the introduction of the NBN. Tasks that internet users currently consider ‘normal’ will be completed with ease, while a wealth of content-rich sites and pages will become more and more prevalent. The early adopters of the NBN will have a renewed plethora of available information, while users still ‘stuck in the traffic’ of current broadband technology become increasingly frustrated.

Given the exceeding willingness of modern consumers to quickly adopt new technology, the transition to faster internet is likely to be as swift as the NBN itself.

But what does this mean for your existing methods of internet marketing, or for businesses that are yet to engage in marketing through the online portal?

Below is a list of tips to ensure you stay ahead of your competitors in the diverse and ever-evolving world of internet marketing.

1. Ensure That You Can Be Found

Visibility is paramount. With more and more content set to be created and posted online, businesses risk getting lost in the clutter. The advertising industry is tipped to be worth $14.16bn by 2014 [1], and with the bulk of this expenditure expected to be online, advertisers must be conscious of competing within a highly competitive and saturated market.

With conventional domain names rapidly being exhausted, and with a growing proliferation of pages on the internet, it is vitally important that your visibility within search-engine results is high.

2. Integrate a Digital Marketing Strategy Into Your Marketing Mix

Australia already boasts one of the highest internet penetration rates in the world. The addition of the NBN is likely to increase penetration and usage, adding weight to the importance of digital marketing as part of your marketing mix. Below are some interesting statistics about internet marketing within Australia.

• 80.1% of Australians used the internet last year, placing the nation among the top ten in the world for internet usage [2]

• Last year, online advertising expenditure grew by 21% – double the previous growth in 2009 (PwC) [3]

• Online advertising is expected to increase by 15.4% each year [4]

• By 2014, internet advertising is forecast to overtake television and newspapers to become Australia’s biggest advertising medium [1]

3. Ensure That Consumers WANT To See Your Ads

When developing online advertisements, placement is crucial. Well targeted ads relevant to the content a consumer sees on a particular page are generally more successful than ads without such a positioning strategy.

Countless studies have shown that consumers despise intrusive ads (like pop-ups) and are unlikely to retain brand messages communicated within them. Conversely, Search Engine Marketing produces ads relevant to the search terms of consumers and are more likely to generate a profitable ROI.

SEM remains one of the most effective promotional tools available online and with the number of daily searches increasing exponentially, the opportunities available to businesses are too good to pass up.

4. Adaptation Is Essential To Survival

In the ever-changing and constantly evolving world of digital marketing, it is essential that advertisers pre-empt market trends and are not resistant to change. Here are some considerations for businesses currently participating in internet marketing.

• Continually monitor performance of your online campaigns

• Frequently update, change and optimise campaigns

• Don’t be complacent when achieving good results – Internet trends change quickly!

• Never be afraid to try something new! Consider the first-mover advantages of successful online models like Wotif, YouTube and eBay

5. Build Business-Brand Relationships

The online realm presents a wealth of opportunities for businesses to engage with their target markets. Implementing a Social Media Marketing campaign is an increasingly popular avenue to do this.

By December 2010, 9.5 million Australians [5] (around 40% of the population) were actively using social media site, Facebook, with the average session lasting 25 minutes. Embracing the vast potential of mediums such as these provides an opportunity for companies to engage with their target markets to build solid business-brand relationships.

Remember, brand equity is something that no competitor can take from you!

In Conclusion…

The introduction of the NBN and the failure to adopt new technology may have significant repercussions for your business’s profitability. If you are not already actively participating in digital marketing, you risk getting left behind in the ‘traffic jam’ of businesses without an online presence.

1. Lara Sinclar; The Australian. August 2, 2010. Internet Advertising to Dominate as NBN Tipped To Stimulate Media Growth
2. Australia: NBN – Far Reaching Implications for Existing Carriers and CSPs. April 5, 2011. www.mondaq.com
3. PwC Chief Media Analyst David Wiadrowski. As quoted in The Australian. August 2, 2010.
4. Australia – Digital Economy – Advertising, Statistics, Revenues and Forecast. ND. www.budde.com.au/research
5. SocialBakers Facebook-Statistics. www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics

Google Shopping is basically a product comparison search engine with one major difference to all the other competitors in this space – it’s completely free!

True to form, Google plan to earn their revenue through the extremely targeted AdWords ads that appear above the product results:

So what do you need to know about Google Shopping?

How does it work?

Google Shopping is available due to the Google Merchant Center (finally!) being made available in Australia.

The Google Merchant Center is a place where users can submit detailed data feeds of their product listings, availability, sizes etc. to Google so that these products can be indexed in Google product search and across the web. These product listings can be static or dynamic depending on the nature of your inventory.

Submitting a data feed by yourself can be tricky but is definitely doable. However, if you are having trouble, feel free to contact a consultant at Reload Media who can arrange this for you!

How do I access Google Shopping/product search?

To access Google shopping you can either visit Google.com.au/Shopping or just click the ‘Shopping’ tab on your left hand tool bar in Google:

Where will my products appear?

Not only will your products appear in the ‘Google Product Search’ results (as visible in our first example), but you now have the opportunity to extend your AdWords ads with product images, descriptions, prices and direct links to the product page:

Once again, this is a service that Reload Media now offers to our current and future clients!

Why would I want my products to be available in the Google shopping tab?

Although it is still in its infancy in Australia, Google Shopping is an opportunity that should not be overlooked.

The reason?

Google’s newly released product search engine targets comparison shoppers and purchase ready consumers alike when they are in the most tantalising stage of the consumer buying cycle – the ‘taking action’ stage!

Furthermore, the ability to extend your product range to relevant Google AdWords ads will allow you to create more magnetic, specific and higher converting ads!

Need to know anything else about Google Shopping? Leave your questions and comments below!

Google have updated their AdWords blog to announce that they have changed the headline format of their AdWords ads.

Now, if your first description line of your ad is a complete sentence and your ad is showing amongst the top 3 ads, your first description line will appear in your headline!

This is yet another in a spate of recent ad format tweaks by Google who, in our opinion, have a long term goal of blurring the lines between organic and paid search results.  These changes however,  now mean that many AdWords accounts will require rapid and strategic optimisation in order to take advantage of the new format.

So, without further adieu, below we have provided you with the low down on how to get your head around this new ad improvement from our good friends at Google.

How do you know if your ads will be affected?

The best way to estimate which of your ads will change over to this new appearance is to analyse your ad positions and the first two lines of text for any of your top position ads.

Ads where the first line of descriptive text ends with a punctuation point and are in top 3 positions will need to be optimised.

It will also become good practice to ensure that your headline and first two lines of ad text have an element of fluency between them. For example, if your ad headline is repeated in your first line of descriptive text, optimisation will be necessary.

Unfortunately, if you are unhappy with the change there is no option to prevent this happening to your ads as the change is applicable to all Google domains globally.  However, if you dislike the appearance or are unhappy with the performance of your new elongated headlines, you can change your description fields to communicate one whole sentence across two lines in order to revert your ads to the original format.

But why would you want to?

We believe Google is trying to improve the look of paid advertisements by having them look increasingly similar to organic links. This will, most likely,  result in higher click through rates for ads shown with the longer headline and, in turn, generate more ad revenue for Google! A win-win situation. It also gives the consumer a greater amount of information as they enter your site, leading to higher qualified traffic to each website or landing page being advertised.

All of these rapid fire ad format changes do beg the question though…

If Google are happy to keep tinkering with their tried and true ad format (which have been partly responsible for most of their annual revenues to date)

Then what in the world will be next!?

But if we stop getting caught up in the buzz of these new AdWords features for just a moment, you might ask yourself the question -  How exactly are these extensions going to benefit my AdWords campaigns?

Utilising ad extensions opens a whole new world for your ads by extending the ad format and helping to make your advertising stand out from your competition. Additions such as Sitelinks and Location Extensions mean that AdWords ads are beginning to look more like the natural organic search results, which is great for us PPC marketers!

However, there are many other advantages and benefits your campaigns could gain through utilising ad extensions.

This article will explore and analyse  each of the current available ad extensions and, furthermore, will highlight exactly how you can maximise their performance and better your SEM results.

Sitelinks

Sitelinks are additional links that can appear below your AdWords ad in instances where Google deems your ad to be of ‘high enough quality’. Usually only showing 3 to 4 extra links, you can add up to 10 links in AdWords. The advantage of these extensions is more options for the user. Rather than your ad having one focus, you can now add sitelinks which directs users straight to a special offer page, a specific product page or a contact us page on your website. And how does this help the performance of your campaigns? Firstly, sitelinks are often known to increase the Click-Through-Rate which can help the overall quality of your campaigns. But more so, sitelinks can offer more high quality clicks because potential customers are choosing where they want to go once they click on your ad, and having done this, are less likely to bounce straight off the page.

Location Extensions

Location Extensions add location specific information as a 5^th line to your ad. These can include your full business address, and even a drop down function that opens to a Google map. The obvious impact that this extension has on your campaigns is that it makes it much easier for potential customers to find your business! Location Extensions may also save a wasted click from someone who has clicked on your ad, only to realise they are not close enough to your business, or are not willing to travel to where your business is located. For example, utilising location extensions is a great one for car dealerships and other similar businesses where the aim is to get customers through the door.

Product Extensions

Product Extensions are yet to be released in Australia, but when they do the possibilities will amaze you! This extension allows you to showcase your products before a user has even clicked on your ad. When your AdWords text appears on the Search Network, it will display the product that is most relevant to the user’s query as well as displaying the product’s price. At no extra CPC charge, Product Extensions can also link to a more relevant landing page on your website. For example, the checkout cart for the product on display. Product Extensions allow you to enrich your AdWords Campaigns and can present more relevant and specific information to the user, thus heightening the chance of creating a conversion, increasing the click through rate or realising another goal.

Click-to-Call Phone Extensions

Click-to-Call Phone Extensions make it even easier for potential customers to call your business. Mainly used for a mobile targeted campaign, the Phone Extensions appear as a 5^th line to your ad allowing users to click directly on your phone number, and automatically call your business straight from your Google ad!

This extension can potentially increase your conversion rates by making it quick and easy for potential customers to ring your business. And with AdWords, you can even schedule your ads to only run when your business is open! Therefore, your ads will only show when your business is operating, and you can avoid disappointed customers calling an unanswered phone.

Seller Rating Extensions

Although not out in Australia yet, you can see Seller Rating Extensions appear on Google.com and Google.co.uk which include a star rating beneath your ad. The rating is a combination of ‘user-submitted’ ratings and reviews about a particular business. However, once a user clicks on the rating, they are directed to a new page which outlines the reviews, therefore distracting potential customers further away from your website.

On the other hand, this rating extension may be good for a potential customer who wants to choose the highest rated business or product with the most reviews. But, this may become a disadvantage to your ad by giving potential customers evidenced based pre-judgement to not visit your site. It’s a well known fact that one unhappy customer will tell as many people as they can about a bad experience, where as happy customers aren’t always that inclined to tell the world. So how then, are these user reviews actually providing applicable information for potential customers clicking (or not clicking) on your ads? I’ll leave this thought with you.

If there is one thing we know at Reload Media for sure about Google, it’s that change is inevitable and new AdWords ad extensions and features are going to keep coming. So, Google will continue to provide the power for your AdWords campaign potential – you’ve just got to plug in the extension!

Images Taken From: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188235

And: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X6aeJvBBv4o/TCj-kUVrrKI/AAAAAAAAAH8/rvSIfABVF58/s1600/laser+printers+-+Google+Search.jpg

Google have updated their AdWords blog to announce the change of display url appearance. From now on, your primary domain will be in lowercase but your tail at the end can still be capitalised. See some examples below:

Time to put those w’s back in!

To read Google’s official statement, click here.

[Previous Post - December 17th 2010]

About two weeks ago I noticed on my computer that all AdWords display urls on the Google search results pages were showing up in lowercase.

I did a quick whip around the office to check to see if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing but to no avail.

However, I am now convinced that Google were testing a new ad format on a limited sample of users.

My ads have gone back to normal for now but another blogger identified the same phenomenon last week.

Why do I believe this was a deliberate test by Google:

1. For some reason, my PC has been included in other Google trial runs in the past. This included access to Google Instant prior to launch and the appearance of the new purple AdWords background colour a week or two before the full roll out.

2. It makes sense for Google to try & make their sponsored links look as similar to their organic search results as possible in order to blur the lines between paid and organic results. This would help to increase the CTRs of the top three paid ads and, therefore, increase revenue for Google.

3. We have seen other efforts on Google’s behalf to try and get advertisers to aim for the top 3 ad positions in recent times. The most significant change has been the new places map overlay which now covers up ads on the side of the screen when a user scrolls down the page:

Conclusions

Google don’t appear to have announced anything yet so they may have just been doing a limited test to see what would happen in terms of click through rates. However, if there were to be widespread changes to display urls in the future, many advertisers would need to:

• Rethink display URL capitalisation tactics (e.g ReloadMedia.com.au vs reloadmedia.com.au)
• Perform new www vs non www split testing. Currently, in most split tests, non www ads perform better than www ads. However, this is likely due to the extra capitalisation that is allowed in AdWords display urls (e.g. ReloadMedia.com.au ads will generally have a higher click through rate than www.ReloadMedia.com.au or www.reloadmedia.com.au ads).
• Amend every ad in every campaign in order to harness the results of aforementioned split testing.

As mentioned, this may have just been a case of Google experimenting with AdWords results to see what would happen. Only time will tell if this new Ad format will be rolled out and how they will affect current AdWords campaigns. However, considering the rapid rate that Google have been making changes to their search results pages lately, I would keep a close eye on this one!

If you’ve seen these lowercase urls in YOUR search results or would just like to discuss the implications further, feel free to comment below.

In my original article I pointed out that maximising the ROI of your campaigns does not necessarily maximise the actual profit of your campaigns.

In this article, I’ll continue to explore this but with a practical example.

Let’s take the following scenario:

An advertiser is running a campaign selling goods in their online store. The average profit margin of their products is 40%. By doing much testing, the advertiser has found that their ROI is maximised at $15 when their monthly budget is at $2,250. For every $250 they increase or decrease their budget away from this amount, ROI drops by 5%.

Based on this scenario, we get the following situation:

As we can see from the graph above, ROI is maximised at $15 when the budget is $2,250 per month. When we vary the budget, the ROI drops.

An advertiser without an understanding of the relationship between ROI and profit would incorrectly leave their budgets at $2,250 per month.

We can see from the graph that total revenue is actually maximised when the budget is $5,000 per month, but this is failing to take into account the 40% profit margin and the actual click spend itself.

When we allow for these factors, we can see that the optimal monthly budget is $3,750, resulting in a profit of around $13,000 per month.

So how does this relate to AdWords campaigns in the real world?

The example above is a simplified (and fairly symmetric) version of what happens when you decide to increase the size of your campaigns.

When more ads, keywords and click spend is added to a campaign, it’s normal for ROI to drop.

However, what this example aims to show is that even though ROI might drop when you expand your campaigns, actual profit is likely to be higher.

Ads placed on the Google Search Network appear above and to the right of the natural search results, and are more often known as ‘Sponsored Links’ (see image below). Whereas, ads placed on the Google Display Network appear on thousands on websites in partnership with Google and capture potential customers whilst they are searching the World Wide Web. It’s almost like a mini billboard that appears every time a user makes a search – only with 4 simple lines and a maximum of 130 characters (including spaces!).

The real beauty of AdWords is that it is a targeted and specific approach to online marketing. AdWords allows users to quickly and effectively increase their websites traffic, revenue and profits by targeting search terms most relevent to their business and creating magnetic ads that solve their target markets search problems. As AdWords is a Pay-Per-Click system, advertisers only pay when someone actually clicks on their ad. This means that a business can be noticed all over the internet, but they will never pay more than the maximum bid that they have set.

Furthermore,  AdWords one of the most measurable forms of marketing available through the inclusion of qualified data checking and traffic analysis. Through AdWords, users can measure how many people click on their ad, compare this to how many people see the ad, and measure the profitability, revenue generated, return on investment and leads generated for their business as a directed result of their AdWords campaigns. This allows users to explicitly see if and how their AdWords campaigns are meeting their business advertising objectives.

You will not find a more effective and measurable marketing platform that can deliver almost instant results through the generation of qualified and quality traffic to your website  than Google AdWords.

On top of amazing measurability, AdWords can target potential customers in a specific geographical areas relevant to a businesses reach. Users can even tailor campaigns to run over a certain time frame so that leads are only generated during available hours!

With all the great things one can achieve with Google AdWords, this does pose one question…

Should businesses manage their own AdWords account, or should they outsource it to a professional AdWords company?

Sure by managing your own Google AdWords account you can save on management fees, but it takes a lot of your time and energy away from what your businesses primary focus. AdWords has the potential to become very costly if not correctly optimised. On the other hand, outsourcing adwords can also be an expensive endeavour.

However, although utilising the skills of a professional AdWords company may cost you extra in management fees,  AdWords Qualified Professionals are trained to ensure that your campaigns  perform at their absolute maximum potential. This means a business will  likely make back the increased costs through decreased overall campaign costs and an influx of relevant customers to their business!

If this post has made you feel the need to join the digital revolution, you can speak to one of our consultants about how we can tailor make a Google AdWords campaign to suit your business needs!

By being able to control the maximum cost-per-click for every keyword, this puts advertisers in a position where they are able to monitor the profitability of every keyword they are targeting.

Search engine ads are one of the most trackable marketing activities available, and if you’re running some sort of eCommerce environment then you have the potential to track the exact return on investment (ROI) each keyword is bringing.

However, this degree of reporting can lead to misinterpretation of what is a “good” keyword and what is a poor keyword.

At the basic level, a decent Analytics setup will allow you to determine that for every $1 you put into AdWords, you are getting $X back. Clever operators will have this set up for each individual keyword.

However, relying just on ROI can be a big mistake. Let’s take the following example.

Keyword #1 – “widgets brisbane”

• ROI = $4.50
• Monthly Spend = $300

Keyword #2 – “widgets sydney”

• ROI = $2.80
• Monthly Spend = $700

From the above example, we can see that “widgets brisbane” is a better performing keyword. Therefore, if you only had $1000 in total monthly budget, you would spend all of it on Brisbane (presuming of course there’s enough traffic to use that much). However, if your budgets are flexible and you can spend more if you want, then would you turn off the Sydney keyword?

The answer is no. ROI is just one factor you need to consider. The other is profit. The Brisbane keyword makes $1,050 profit per month (300 x 4.50 – 300) while the Sydney keyword makes $1,260 profit (700 x 2.8 – 700).

Turning off the Sydney keyword would make your business worse off. Obviously you should also consider the profit-margin on the actual widget itself when calculating these figures.

Now most people when faced with the above scenario, would obviously choose to leave both keywords turned on, but for some reason when this scenario is expanded to hundreds of keywords, rational profit-maximising thinking tends to go out the window.

Let’s say an AdWords’ advertiser is spending $1000 per month across hundreds of keywords, and is getting about $5000 back (a $5 ROI). Based on this good performance, the advertiser decides to increase their budget to $2000 per month, which in turn lifts the revenue to about $9000 (a $4.50 ROI).

Looking purely at the ROI figures would lead an advertiser to incorrectly assume the increase in budget has not worked, and they might drop it back. However, looking at the profit figure clearly shows monthly profit rising from $4000 to $7000.

One of the questions we are commonly asked is “why does my ROI drop when I increase my budget?”

The reason behind this is actually tied to the economic principle of the low-hanging-fruit. The low-hanging-fruit principle basically explains that in business, there are some sales that are easier to get than others, like the low hanging fruit on a fruit tree is easier to reach.

In an AdWords context, a low-hanging-fruit keyword would be something like “buy online widgets now.” If a user types this into Google, it’s likely that they already have their credit card out of their wallet and are ready to purchase. These longer, more specific keywords are also often cheaper to bid on than generic terms.

By contrast, a user searching “widgets” is not a low-hanging-fruit. This term is highly generic and it’s going to take a good salesperson (in this case a website) to convince this person that now is the right time to buy.

Essentially, this is why ROI drops when you increase your budget. The AdWords’ algorithm has a built in “low-hanging-fruit” factor that shows higher performing keywords more often, meaning when you increase your budget, you’re starting to reach for the fruit higher up on the tree.

The lesson here is that the way to assess how your AdWords’ campaigns are performing is to find the point (budget amount) where total profit is maximised, not where ROI is maximised. This simple mistake could be costing your business thousands in lost sales.