Google is removing average position as a performance metric in Google Ads at the end of September. What does this mean for advertisers?
Continue reading…Google is Sunsetting Average Position
Category: Google Adwords
How to Protect Your Apartment Community From Brandjacking
Is your brand working against you in the search engine? When your prospects search for you by name, are you the first brand they see? If you aren’t the number one listing for your community’s brand you might just have a brandjacking problem. You wouldn’t be the first community to experience this, even marketing agencies like us experience brandjacking attempts. We know being brand jacked can be a frustrating experience, but rest assured, it’s a battle you can win. By the end of this article, you’ll know how to overcome brand jackers and reclaim your rightful place in the search engine.
Continue reading…Google Ads Now Tracks Store Visits
If you own or operate a location-based business, you’ve likely dreamed of the day you can attribute marketing dollars to real-life foot traffic. Google started working on making this dream a reality in 2014, but the feature only rolled out to a limited group of high traffic companies. Over the last few months, Google started making a larger feature roll out to small businesses and enterprises. Advertisers can now track the campaigns, keywords, and devices that lead to store visits in Google’s ad platform. Up until this point, advertisers have been able to attribute ad campaign success in Google Ads through website traffic, website events, online purchases, and phone calls. While these metrics do a great job of measuring the intent of searchers to visit a location, store visits allow businesses to see how this online intent actually translates to foot traffic.
Continue reading…Search Marketing Strategies for Student Housing
Do you know what students type into Google when they search for an apartment? Do you know why some student housing ads get more clicks and impressions than others?
Most multifamily professionals know search marketing is an important component of a student housing marketing campaign, but they don’t know how student housing search marketing campaigns differ from general apartment search marketing campaigns, or what communities can do to stand out from others in the search engine.
By the end of this article, you won’t be like most multifamily housing professionals. You will have a better idea of how students search for apartments and what types of search ads they click on. You will know why some student housing search campaigns perform better than others and how your student housing community can use paid search campaigns to generate more traffic.
Continue reading…Apartment SEO vs. SEM in 2019
If you took a sneak peek into thousands of apartment websites’ analytics accounts you might find that they tell a similar story. Most of their website traffic is coming from Google. Google is arguably the most important marketing channel for apartment marketers today, but it’s also one of the most difficult to compete in.
Pet-Friendly Apartment Marketing Ideas
The American Pet Products Association’s 2017-2018 National Pet Owners Survey found that 68% of U.S. households own a pet. Last year, RentPath revealed research claiming that 66% of renters are pet owners. In an effort to cater to this growing renter base, many communities have adopted pet-friendly pet policies. Most of these policies allow renters to have up to two pets and they require additional pet rent and a pet deposit.
While much of the pet market is pet-tolerant, not as many communities encompass the true definition of pet-friendly. If your community embraces this pet demographic, there are many ways you can signal to pet owners that your community is a good fit for them. Here are some pet-friendly apartment marketing ideas your community can use to get the attention of pet owners.
Continue reading…Google’s Call Extension Update
Google recently announced an update scheduled to take place on November 15th, where they will record a small sample of calls that come in via search ads. This will help improve performance from call extensions and help verify that all the calls generated from paid search campaigns are valuable.
4 Ways Small Businesses Can Be Competitive Using Google Shopping
Do you use Google Shopping to sell your products or do you think your business is too small to compete with larger businesses that have bigger budgets? With careful planning and execution, using Product Listing Ads within Google Shopping can be a very effective digital advertising platform. Here are four strategies for your smaller e-commerce business to find success.
- Focus on your niche
What makes you unique? Why would someone buy from you? Your uniqueness adds value and will make your ads stand out to online shoppers. Focus your campaigns on new, niche, or unknown brands – different products that aren’t sold by big box retailers or Amazon. This exclusivity helps separate you from your competition. Selling unique products means there’s less competition to appear in Google Shopping for relevant searches.
- Segment your campaigns
Segmenting your campaigns correctly will help you deliver ads to the most relevant, ready-to-buy audiences. Focus on capturing high-converting traffic by making sure your ads appear to high-conversion queries. By segmenting your campaigns into the type of queries that receive high, medium and low conversion rates you can set bid amounts that correlate to the user’s intent. Bid more for high-converting queries and less for generic searches.
- Leverage location-based targeting
Target location to make sure your ads are reaching shoppers who are most likely to purchase your products. Are consumers in certain areas more likely to be interested in what you are selling? Depending on what your goals are, you can bid higher for your ads to show in very specific areas. If you sell gas fireplaces with all the bells and whistles, you may decide to bid more for ads shown in high-income areas with colder climates where buyers have a budget for your custom fireplaces.
- Use RLSA lists
Most consumers who click on a Product Listing Ad are usually close to making a purchase decision. Pairing your ads with RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) allows you to bid more for ads that will be shown to people who have already visited your site or made a previous purchase. Consumers who have existing knowledge of your business are more likely to make a purchase.
The key to making a sale is delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. We can help you create and execute a multi-faceted advertising campaign that puts your products in front of interested buyers. Contact us today!
Bing Product Ads: An Emerging Market
Google is king of search engines, but Microsoft’s Bing is still a worthwhile investment. To reach your audience in all the places they are looking, it’s important to have a presence on Bing. This search engine powers nearly one in three U.S. searches and 11 billion monthly searches around the globe. Through a partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo, your ads could appear on the top or to the right of Bing, Yahoo and MSN search results. Just like Google, you can choose to target your ads to different geographic locations, times or days of the week, and consumer demographics.
What are Bing product ads?
Products Ads include custom images from your own online inventory, plus unique promotional text and pricing. Product Ads use your specific product information to determine who sees your ads. If someone’s search query is relevant to your products, your Product Ad can show up on the search results. Photos and relevant information help catch a user’s interest, and influences purchase decisions even before they click your ad.
Following Google’s lead, Bing is now showing carousels for their Product Ads in the Bing search results. The new Bing carousels are showing up for a variety of searches, showing eight products within the carousel. Informative product ads can translate into greater engagement, higher click-through rates, and higher conversion rates.
Where will your ad appear?
Like Google, Bing Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising system. You bid based on how much you are willing to pay per each click on your ad. Bing has limited online real estate so they auction available spaces. You are bidding against other advertisers selling similar products or services who want to place their ads into the space you want. Your ad position is based on several things, including:
- How relevant your ad and website are to the search terms a user enters.
- How your bid compares to other bids in the Bing Ads auction.
- Your ad’s click-through rate and past performance.
The stronger you are in these areas, the better your chances of winning the top ad position.
If you want to extend your paid search campaign to Bing, we can help! Contact us today and we’ll get your comprehensive PPC advertising strategy up and running.
Google Tests New Mobile Ad Extension Format
How do your ads stand apart from your competition? Give searchers the relevant information they want by implementing ad extensions, extra details that encourage customers to click. By including more information about your company beneath your ad, extensions can help boost traffic, increase your ad’s visibility, and improve the click through rate.
AdWords shows one or more extensions with your ad when it calculates that the extension will improve your campaign performance, and when your ad rank is high enough for it to appear. Ads with greater expected impact from extensions will generally appear in a higher ad position than similar ads from your competitors.
Google is always testing and improving ad formats. Google has been using swipeable cards in mobile text ads to display extensions. Now, they are testing a new version that combines multiple ad extension types into a swipeable card carousel. The carousel includes a variety of extensions that provide a wealth of information to customers before they even click on your ad.
There are two types of ad extensions: automated and manual. AdWords independently creates and displays the automated extensions (seller ratings, consumer ratings, social extensions, and previous visits) when it predicts that they’ll improve your ad’s performance. You can manually create new ad extensions that will show beneath your ad, including:
- Site extension: links to promote additional landing pages or direct customers to more specific page on site
- Callout extension: promote unique offers to shoppers, like 356-day return policy or free shipping. When customers see your ads, they get detailed information about your business, products, and services.
- Call extension: a click to call button
- Location extension: address to find nearest storefront
- App extension: button to download your app.
- Price extensions: show as a set of up to 8 cards that consumers can view to see different options and prices. From your price menu, people can go directly to the product that interests them on your site.
- Structured snippets: highlight specific aspects of your products and services. Give potential customers a snapshot of what you do before they click on your ad.
There is no cost to add extensions to your campaign, but you’re charged as usual for clicks on your ad, with the exception of automated extensions. Consider beefing up your ads with informative extensions that compel buyers to click.
Learn more about our Google AdWords services or contact us today!
