I love my adopted country. And I love the fact that Spain is considered among the leading powers in the western World. But I am also a marketer. And, moreover, an English marketer who has had to deal with a number of situations over the years where Spanish clients have been upset that I have prevented them from publishing or printing something that does not meet my English standards. With marketing you have to get things right...
I'm pretty good at math. I can't do calculus or anything really complicated, but I consider myself to be one of those people that are "good with numbers". At the very least I know that $163.27 divided by 1 should be $163.27. So I was understandably confused when Google reported that it was actually only $61.53.... Here's how this came about...
On the 16th December 2014 Google pulled their Google News service in Spain. This was reported - albeit superficially - by the Spanish media in a way that seemed to suggest that this was somehow the callous corporate giant somehow snubbing the Spanish speaking world. That the arrogant Americans had "done it again"... but the truth is a little way from this interpretation. What actually happened is that Spain shot itself in the foot. Big time...
I got caught out again this morning. I hate it when that happens. I overlooked to change one of Google AdWords default settings. On a client's new campaign the ads were set to "Optimize for clicks: Show ads expected to provide more clicks".... the campaign is a day old... How do you presume to know, Google?? So I changed the setting to Rotate Indefinitely and make a mental note to actually prepare that basic checklist of default settings I need to remember to change.... on every campaign I set up. EVER! And this got me thinking - there are some default - out of the box - settings that simply go against Google's own best practices...
If there is one question that is always asked when speaking to a potential AdWords advertiser - it is this : How Much Should I Budget for This? With traditional advertising things are clearer. Radio spots, and 20 seconds of TV space have a price. So do newspaper and magazine ads. They have a price and you know what you're buying... at least you think you do. You're buying a space in which to run your ad. What you're not buying is any result. You hope to get a result. You expect to get a result. Experience tells you that you should get a result. But all you are actually buying is the space...
In the olden days... long before the internet... advertisers had a term for ads on the front page of a newspaper that would not be seen when the paper was on the newsstand or left on a table - below the fold. Generally, if you were paying for a front page ad, you would pay less if your ad was to be positioned below the fold. Makes sense. Online advertisers have borrowed this term to describe ads that are on a web page, but that are not visible to the user unless they scroll down to it...
Recently I've read a few articles about just how poor the Google Display Network works for advertisers. Many of the writers question whether it should be used at all. And, as if this is not bad enough, Google are testing a paid version of the web experience where the ads are pixelated, so your senses needn't be assaulted and offended by their gaudy messages. But, just perhaps, the GDN is an Ugly Duckling - just waiting to be recognised as the swan it really is...
Well, that's frustrating. We have a client with whom we have been discussing RLSA - remarketing lists for search ads. For those who have not yet tried RLSA, we have found it very effective for some clients - being able to catch previous site visitors (people on our remarketing lists) if they initiate a new search on Google. Let's face it - we know they are, on the one hand, still in the market and on the other, presumably, given the fact that time has passed since their first visit, they are also more motivated to complete their conversion (purchase, sign up, contact request) than they were the first time around. So we like RLSA. We also listen to the recommendations from Google...
I've been quite happy over the past few months. I discovered that I could get most of the traffic I wanted with a minimal amount of fuss using Google's new Broad Match Modified (BMM) match type. I felt like Baby Bear from Goldilocks - BMM isn't too loose, nor is it too restrictive. It's just right! And like a happy bear, I was gradually replacing most of my phrase match keywords with their BMM counterparts. I had never really used broad match - that was like putting all my money on the desk and telling Google to just take what it wanted. So I ended up with basically two types of campaign. Those using BMM and those using exact match. I like exact match... not quite as much as I like BMM - but for different reasons - It's badass. You put a keyword in exact match and that keyword is like a grumpy bouncer at a popular night club. You don't have the exact keyword, you ain't coming in. Period...
A couple of months ago Google AdWords introduced a drag and drop function for adding image ads to campaigns. I love it. It saves a lot of time on one of those functions that cannot be automated and must be done on a "one by one" basis. They recently made a further improvement to this feature but I'm not quite as pleased with this one.... Want to add a new image ad - just click on the new ad button and a new drag and drop window open. A big window - I could probably click and throw and still get my ad uploaded! But that's not a problem... big is good. So I upload my ad and have boxes to enter my display url and my destination url - perfect. But, wait.... I have nowhere to add a name for my ad. Whaaaat? Instead Google names my ad for me. In this case 160 x 600 swf - and offers me the option to save. This is not a particularly..
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