AdWords MENA Blog: June 2011

A few months ago we released the +1 button on English search ads and organic search results on google.com. More recently, we’ve made the +1 button available to sites across the web, making it easier for people who love your site to help their friends and other users find your content in Google search.

Today, +1s will start appearing on ads and organic search results for Google pages globally. We'll be starting with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.co.jp and google.fr, and then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after.

We’ve also partnered with a few more sites in Europe, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand where you’ll start seeing +1 buttons in the coming days.

You can also add the +1 button to your international websites by going to the +1 button tool on Google Webmaster Central where it's already available in 44 languages.

We expect that personal annotations will help users know when your ads and organic search results are relevant to them, increasing the chances that they'll end up on your site.

Think of +1 buttons as an enhancement that can help already successful search campaigns perform even better, now, at a global level.

Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google

Optimization, Part 1

Monday, June 27, 2011

When you work on optimizing and improving the effectiveness of some of our advertisers' accounts, you come across a wide variety of problems. Although many of these are individual in nature, most of them can be addressed using general approaches. In this article we try to briefly describe what aspects of an account are the focus of our attention in initial optimization. Now every advertiser can feel like an optimization expert and do a basic setup of their account.

Account Structure

Campaign 1, Ad group #1. Often, this is where an account's structure starts and finishes. But having the right account structure is the foundation. Without it, further optimization is pointless. You can't build a house from the roof down. Therefore, before going any further, make sure of the following:

Your Ad campaign is the "window" to your site, reflecting the types of products and services you offer.
You have set up global parameters (targeting, budget) at the Campaign level.

You have set up separate Ad groups solely dedicated to each of your products. Ad groups that have a single theme or are intended for one group of visitors are grouped at Campaign level. Don't worry if you have a large number ofAd groups, as this is a sign of an effective account.

Ads

Advertisers often say, "Have a look. Do you think this is a good ad?" It's hard to answer this question objectively. Writing ads is a creative process. The uniqueness of each ad in AdWords is exactly what makes each ad interesting, both for visitors and advertisers. At the same time, you also need to make sure:

That your ad is simple, yet professional. Clarity of meaning, no grammatical mistakes and uniqueness together make your ad interesting and attractive to your visitors.
Create two to three ads in each ad group, and then let them appear online one at a time. This will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of each ad.
Use catchy expressions like "Free Delivery" - but make sure it really is free.
As a rule, ads work better if the landing URL leads to the product advertised, and not to the website's home page. If the visitor is looking for a fridge, they are not going to be interested in ironing boards.

Keywords

Keywords are a bridge that link the visitor to your ad and website. Therefore an effective list of keywords is a guarantee that your ad will only be shown to those visitors for whom the ad will hold interest. Also, a keyword's quality score directly impacts on cost per click: the higher the quality score, the lower the cost per click - always and without exception. Therefore, when creating a keyword list you should bear in mind the following:

In most cases your ad group should contain no more than 10-20 keywords. If your keyword list becomes significantly longer, that is a clear indication that your ad group is not sufficiently narrowly defined. It might be a good idea to split this single group into two or three.
Firstly, you can source ideas for keywords from your own website or previous experience. Put yourself in the shoes of your visitors, and ask yourself what words they would use when looking for your product. If you run out of ideas, the "Keyword Tool" can help with suggestions (tab Reporting and Tools).
Negative keywords are your friends. They help you filter out useless searches and avoid spending too much money. By using the "See search terms ..." function under theKeywords tab, you can learn which search terms are irrelevant and add negative keywords. This will help also you come up with new ideas for keywords. Filtering out search terms is not only one of the fundamentals of any optimization efforts, but also a routine task that you will have to perform from time to time. There's no getting around that one.

By carrying out the above tasks, we end up with a solid basis: a structured account with effective ads and keywords. In follow-up articles, you can read about geographic targeting, bidding and budgeting, ad placements and how to track the performance of your campaigns.

Written by Aleksei Petrov- AdWords Team
Posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google

Reach your Audience with Interest Categories

Friday, June 24, 2011

Whether the goal is to generate awareness or drive sales, marketers share a common objective: reach people likely to be interested in their product or service. With contextual targeting on the Google Display Network, you can find people the very moment they express interest by browsing relevant content. But what happens if someone who has been browsing for cameras then goes on to read a separate news site or favorite blog? A marketer for a camera company would like to show that interested user an ad, but they can't use contextual targeting because the site is unrelated.

Nearly two years ago we announced a beta of interest categories on the Google Display Network. We have been slowly expanding the availability of this feature, and as of today, interest categories are now available to all AdWords advertisers. It works like this: Our system looks at the types of pages a user visits, taking into account how recently and frequently those pages have been visited, and then associates their browser with relevant interest categories. Using these categories, you can show ads to the people most likely to purchase your products or services, and you can reach them across all types of sites in the Google Display Network in addition to contextually relevant sites.

With over 1,000 interest categories from ecotourism to mobile phones, we’re confident every advertiser will find a category that fits their business. And with over 500 million users interested in these categories who visit the Display Network every day, you’ll be able to reach a huge number of potential customers. You pay only for clicks or impressions at auction prices, as always. Our beta advertisers have used interest categories to successfully meet all kinds of goals, from an advertiser increasing brand lift by 40% to a shoe retailer driving 400% more conversions at a lower advertising cost per sale.

As we’ve made interest categories available to more advertisers, we’ve remained committed to providing users with the highest level of control and transparency. Users may, at any time, view and edit interest categories or permanently opt out of receiving interest-based ads entirely with the Ads Preferences Manager. Also, we label our ads with the AdChoices logo to give users notice and choice about the ads they see.

We hope you'll use these interest categories to enhance your advertiser campaigns. We think you'll find them an effective way to reach more interested users, increase awareness of your products and services, and ultimately drive more sales. You can visit our Help Center to learn more.

Written by Jon Krafcik - Product Manager, Google Display Network
Posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google

Google AdWords Training in Lebanon

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Omar Abou Selman from the Google AdWords MENA team was in Lebanon last week, meeting up with members from the company Potential. The purpose of the visit was to train trainers from Potential on Google AdWords, giving them more tools to drive their already successful SME Evolution Program.

The training kicked off nice and early in the Berytech Technology Pole. Despite the sunny weather, the attendees were keen on getting down to business! The training day was broken down into two parts. The first half included:

Presentations on the importance of being online, covering key consumer and market trends.
An introduction to Google AdWords, focusing on how to get your ads to show on the Google Network and the effectiveness of advertising with Google.
Mosaic Marble success story:

The second part of the training day witnessed an intense online competition between the Potential trainers. With A-Team beating Winning Team with a slightly higher click count and Clickthrough Rate (CTR).

Overall, the training was a huge success with the trainers understanding that AdWords can provide:

Reach to people looking for your product or service
Full control of your ad budget
Easy way of creating and editing ads
Ads on Google within minutes of creating them

Written and posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google

Showing the display URL domain in the headline for select ads on Google

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

In an AdWords ad, the display URL may be last, but it’s certainly not least. In fact, the display URL can be an important deciding factor in whether a user clicks on your ad.

That’s why, starting today, we’ll automatically show your display URL domain in the headline for select top placement ads on Google. As a result, your brand will be featured more prominently in your ad, and you can use the text in the headline to highlight other information. Potential customers, on the other hand, will be able to more easily identify the site to which they’ll be taken after they click on your ad.

Before

After

When shown in the headline, the display URL will be separated from the rest of the text by a vertical bar and will include only the domain, not the “www.” prefix or any subdirectories. Your display URL will also continue to appear as normal below the description line. Of course, if the headline already contains your domain, we won’t display it again. Finally, it’s possible for the display URL domain to appear in addition to a description line that is promoted to the headline, as long as the resulting headline is sixty-eight characters or less.

This is a global launch that affects all countries and languages. For more information, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google

Embedded Format Now Available for Ad Sitelinks

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Since we launched Ad Sitelinks back in 2009, we’ve worked to extend the format to appear on more queries and more devices. We’ve also enhanced Ad Sitelinks with smart serving to automatically show your highest-performing Sitelinks more frequently. Today we’re introducing a new feature of Ad Sitelinks, embedded sitelinks, that makes it even easier to integrate targeted links within your ads.

With the embedded format of Ad Sitelinks, there are no additional lines appended to your text ad. Instead, text in your ad that exactly matches one or more of the sitelinks in your campaign will automatically be linked to that sitelink’s destination URL. With embedded sitelinks, potential customers can pick the part of your ad that applies directly to their current interests and visit the most specific page for that topic.

For example, if you sell homeware, your ad may mention that you sell electrical appliances, furniture and cutlery. If you have separate sitelinks set up for the words “appliances”, “furniture” and “cutlery”, those words would be hyperlinked in your ad text, leading potential customers to a page for the specific part of the ad that drew their interest. We believe that these targeted destination URLs may encourage more users to click on your ad and make it easier for them to find what they’re searching for when they arrive on your site.

To show with embedded sitelinks, your campaign must be enabled for Ad Sitelinks. Also, your ad must appear above the search results, and part of your ad text must exactly match one or more of your Ad Sitelinks. Additionally, embedded sitelinks will only show for ads that don’t meet one or more of the requirements for one- or two-line Ad Sitelinks.

Embedded sitelinks are now available to AdWords users globally, excluding China, Japan and Korea. To learn more about Ad Sitelinks and the new embedded sitelinks feature, you can visit the AdWords Help Centre.

Posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google

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