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Bing Product Ads: An Emerging Market

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Andrew

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.

Drive Traffic to Your Dealership with Strategic Advertising

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Andrew

When consumers begin their car search, they are turning to their smartphones to research this huge purchase. The car shopping journey is increasingly influenced by mobile, instead of dealership visits. According to a Google study, the average car shopper in 2006 made five visits to dealerships in order to research potential vehicles. Ten years later, that number has dropped to two. With buyers making limited visits to dealerships, it’s critical that you have an ad strategy in place to reach active buyers.

Google recently investigated search patterns and foot traffic data and discovered that the most popular to reveal popular times of year for consumers to visit actively shop at a dealership are during summer and the holiday season. Take advantage of these key moments and ensure people head to your dealership and not the lot next door.

During these busy periods, auto shoppers prefer checking out cars during daytime hours. When they’re on the lot, consumers are still using their smartphones to search for information. According to Google, the top action people perform with their phones while on the lot is confirming that they are getting a good price on a vehicle.

An ongoing ad strategy will help you drive foot traffic year round, but during these peak shopping times, consider adjusting your mobile budgets so your ads appear when people are searching for auto information near your dealership. By executing the following strategies and making sure you have a mobile-friendly site, you will reach shoppers when they are ready to buy.

Dynamic PPC Ads: Car shoppers typically begin their search in the Google search bar, looking for a specific make or model. We help you reach active buyers by delivering your real-time online inventory via our Dynamic PPC Ads. Our servers crawl your site and extract the cars you have on your lot. We create ads for your current inventory and when a consumer searches for a car you have in stock, your ad appears. When they click on your ad, they go directly to the vehicle details page (VDP) for that car. Dynamic ads give you the ability to advertise your entire inventory: new and used. Connecting active buyers with their ideal car means more sales for your dealership.

Enable Extensions: Providing detailed information through ad extensions can increase CTR and make it easier for consumers to call, text, or locate your business. Give your ads relevancy and value by enabling the following extensions:

Sitelink extensions: if you want to direct users to specific pages on your site.
Call/text extensions: if you encourage phone calls or texts.
Location extensions: if you want to direct buyers to your lot.

Compelling Call-to-Action (CTA): Put all of your important information and mobile-specific CTAs in the title or first line of your mobile ads. Fill that space with incentives and promotions that will drive traffic to your dealership.

Facebook Delivers Quality Car Buyers to Dealership Websites

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Andrew

Online car research and shopping creates ease and convenience for the buyer, but can pose a challenge for dealerships. As consumer behavior changes, you need to shift your strategy to deliver relevant ads to high-quality prospects. What is the best way to reach consumers online and deliver a compelling ad that drives traffic to your site?

Facebook Marketing Science and Oracle Data Cloud recently analyzed 64 auto campaigns, evaluating the quality of audience and scale across a variety of publishers. The study found that auto advertisers should use their data to create high-quality audiences and then execute highly-targeted campaigns to achieve the quality of audience and scale that delivers results.

According to the study findings, advertisers were able to reach more car buyers on Facebook than through most other publishers. In this analysis, Facebook’s audience was above average on the quality index and was particularly strong in delivering auto buyers at scale. Facebook ranked in the top 10% of publishers in these studies and first on 25% of the campaigns analyzed. Combining quality and scale resulted in the best performance for Facebook compared to other publishers.

What strategies can you implement to reach more car buyers on Facebook?

Lookalike audiences: Lookalike targeting gives you the ability to find more qualified prospects by leveraging the data from your existing campaign, reaching people who have not yet expressed an interest in your business, but more than likely are interested in what you have to offer.

We can pull lookalike models directly from the pixels we’ve placed on an advertiser’s website for your specific retargeting campaign and then use that data to target similar Facebook users.

Custom audiences: Creating custom audiences within Facebook enables you to deliver a relevant and effective message to known audiences, increasing efficiency in your marketing campaigns. With custom audiences, you can define groups of existing and prospective customers and serve ads to these targeted groups who have already expressed an interest in your brand.

Dynamic Facebook ads: We offer a relevant, highly-targeted advertising option with our Facebook dynamic ad campaigns. This tool reaches active car buyers by sharing your real-time inventory with them. Our Facebook dynamic ad campaigns show your inventory to the best prospects on Facebook by driving traffic right to the Vehicle Detail Pages (VDPs) for your cars. Dynamic ads are relevant, maintenance-free, and shown to buyers who are lower on the purchase funnel.

By implementing these strategies, you can increase your ROI by targeting in-market shoppers who are looking for cars you have on your lot. Contact us today and we’ll get your social media advertising campaigns working for you.

Connect with Users by Displaying Facebook Ads in Instagram Stories

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Andrew

Since its launch just six months ago, Instagram Stories have become wildly popular with users. Over 150 million people interact with Stories on a daily basis and now, you have the opportunity to display ads to this engaged audience. Capitalize off of Instagram and Facebook’s powerful connection by creating ads that reach users within Instagram Stories.

With Instagram Stories, people and businesses can share multiple photos and videos in a slideshow format without overloading their profiles. Photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on their profile grid or in feed. Stories appear in a bar at the top of users’ feed from Instagram accounts that they follow. Your ad image or video can be placed between Instagram Stories.

How to Create Facebook Ads for Instagram Stories

After connecting your Instagram account with your Facebook ad account, it’s relatively easy to insert an ad. Within either Power Editor or Ads Manager, create a campaign using the reach objective, a strategy that delivers your ad to the most people your budget can afford. On the ad set level, you will see the option to create ads for Instagram Stories. The new format will allow for a single image or video (no longer than 15 seconds). There will be no standalone links or text, including titles, messages, or descriptions.

Benefits of Facebook Ads in Instagram Stories

You are somewhat limited with your ad because you can’t promote a link or text that would drive traffic back to your website. Instagram plans to allow links or call-to-action buttons in the future, but there isn’t that capability just yet. Although you can’t directly send traffic to your website, this ad format can still work for you. You can:

Increase awareness: Delivering ads using the reach objective displays your image or video to a large audience, increasing exposure and awareness of your business, products, and/or services.
Make a memorable impression: You are limited to a single image or a 15-second video, so your image or video needs to make a statement. Get creative and create a visual message that leaves a lasting impression.
Spark interest: Insert ads to spark interest in a new product, promotion, or incentive. Once you capture someone’s attention, you can follow up with more targeted advertising that links to your website, moving users down the purchase funnel.

Lear more about Facebook advertising here, or contact us today!

Google Tests New Mobile Ad Extension Format

Posted on March 15, 2017 by Andrew

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!

Dealership Sees Increased Sales After Going Digital

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Andrew

Does your dealership still rely heavily on traditional advertising methods to reach potential car buyers? TV, print, and radio ads may have been effective in the past, but now digital advertising is where it’s at. If you haven’t taken the plunge, consider going all-in with a digital campaign.

Google recently profiled a small-town Canadian car dealership that experienced huge results after abandoning their traditional marketing plans and launching a digital strategy. Recognizing that car buyers were spending more and more time online, the dealership decided to go all digital in 2014. Since then, they have experienced:

50% increase in new car sales
79% increase in website visitors
67% increase in the dealership’s website page views

By advertising to an online audience, the dealership was able to deliver highly-relevant ads to a targeted market. In addition to increasing sales and online traffic, a digital campaign can deliver these three benefits:

Multiple tools: Digital advertising allows you to develop a proactive strategy with the flexibility to adjust as needed. Here are a few tactics that we implement to drive traffic to your dealership.

Paid search ads: By using targeted keyword lists that focus on purchase intent, our paid search campaigns put an ad for your business at the top of the search results pages, giving you increased visibility to local searchers.
Dynamic Facebook ads: After identifying the best audience and determining purchase intent, we serve the most relevant ad to that potential buyer. The ad pulls real-time inventory from your website’s data feed. We optimize the bid to bring the most potential traffic back to your site, generating the maximum amount of VDP views. Dealerships using our highly-targeted dynamic ads are achieving record sales. Compared to standard Facebook ads, dealerships experience increased time on website, increased page views per session, and improved vehicle search conversion rate.
YouTube video ads: Video gives you the opportunity to personalize your dealership and creatively advertise your current promotions and deals.

Increased Engagement Opportunities: Digital advertising offers multiple platforms to boost engagement, build brand awareness, and foster relationships. Through social media, email marketing campaigns, and your website, you can reward buyers with valuable information they need to make an informed decision.

Measurable results: It can be difficult to pinpoint the effectiveness of a TV or radio promotion. With digital, you can track many metrics such as emails, site visits, calls, and car sales. By being able to instantly measure your results, you can spend your ad budget on tactics that deliver the best ROI.

We specialize in digital auto ad campaigns. We have the expertise and experience to create a plan for your dealership that will deliver results. Contact us today to get started.

Boosting a Facebook post or Launch a paid social campaign? Which is best?

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Andrew

When you post on Facebook, it might be tempting to click the “boost” button to increase your reach and exposure, but hold on a second! The “boost” button is not the most effective way to reach your audience. This tool lacks the options available to advertisers who deliver ads to new and existing customers. Still need help making a decision?

Here are three reasons why you should avoid boosting your posts:

1.Limited Posts: You can only boost one post at a time, eliminating any opportunity to test different posts to see which is performing best. You miss out on refining your audience targeting to make sure you’re getting the right message in front of the right people.

2.Limited Targeting: With boosted posts, there are essentially two groups of people you can promote to: “fans and friends of fans” and interest groups.

“Fans and friends of fans”: Fans are interested in what you’re selling, but “friends of fans” most likely aren’t. Don’t waste ad dollars on an indifferent audience.
Interest targeting: Interest targeting is strictly limited to interests. It doesn’t include any demographic or location targeting.

3.Increased Expense: Without the ability to properly test posts and using vague audience targeting, you spend more money for less engagement than an ad that reaches your target market.

Skip the boosted posts and share your message through a Paid Social campaign. Using the following three tools, we deliver your ads to a relevant, engaged audience.

Optimized Bidding: We can optimize your bids to reflect what you want to achieve with your ads. First we determine your campaign goals (e.g. brand awareness, lead generations, and clicks to website), and then we can define optimization goals, bidding strategies, and ad formats that will reach your audience and compel them to take the action you want. Depending on your objective, you can choose to get charged for different actions, including impressions, page likes, and post engagements. By determining objectives and bids, you can efficiently extend your reach and maximize every ad’s potential.

Custom Audiences: Creating custom audiences within Facebook enables you to deliver your message to known audiences, increasing efficiency in your marketing campaigns. With custom audiences, you can define groups of existing and prospective customers and serve ads to these targeted groups who have already expressed an interest in your brand. Extend your reach and increase your ROI by delivering your ad to highly-qualified audience.

Dynamic Facebook Ads: We create an audience of people who are most likely to buy your products. After identifying a potential buyer’s intent, we serve the most relevant ad to that person. This ad pulls real-time inventory from your website’s data feed. We optimize the bid to bring the most traffic back to your site. When the prospect clicks the ad, they are sent right to the product page, creating the highest possibility of conversion. Compared to standard Facebook ads, businesses using our dynamic ads experience decreased bounce rate, increased time on website, and increased page views per session.

We have expertise and experience to help you execute a Paid Social campaign that reaches your target audience. Contact us today.

5 Tips to Create Effective Paid Search Campaigns

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Andrew

Every day, more and more consumers use mobile search to find information and make purchases. Since most people are using mobile to search, you need to have an active presence on mobile. Google AdWords makes it easy to execute a paid search campaign to reach mobile users. By setting up an effective mobile paid search campaign you get in front of more prospects, when and where they’re looking for you.

Here are five tips to create an effective campaign:

1.Set Goals: What are your campaign objectives? Do you want to generate more calls? Improve traffic? Increase click-through rates? Setting goals helps you gauge whether or not your campaign is running smoothly. Continually analyze your campaign performance, test, and optimize.

2.Define Your Target Audience: Accurate targeting helps you reach in-market buyers. Knowing about your customers, including their location and device helps you pinpoint which search queries are a good match for your ads. Precise, focused targeting helps drive your ad creative so you can capture interested buyers when they are looking for what you have to offer.

3.Determine Your Keywords: The keywords you choose to target tell Google AdWords which user searches your ads should appear for. It’s important to consider the many different keywords and phrases a mobile searcher uses when looking for information. Choose unique, action-oriented keywords that help users make a decision quickly.

4.Use Ad Extensions: Ad extensions are simple to set up and can have a huge impact on your paid search performance. 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
Call extension: a click to call button
Location extension: address to find nearest storefront
Click-to-text extensions: like call extensions, but they provide users a method for sending a direct text to the business.

5.Compel mobile searchers to click with clear calls to action: A focused call-to-action with a few well-chose words is better than long, convoluted paragraphs. Skip the flowery language and opt for clear, direct language that conveys your message in simple terms. One clear call-to-action offers value to the consumer and increases conversions.

Paid search is all about showing the right ads to the right audience. We have the expertise and experience to execute an effective paid search campaign that delivers results. Contact us today.

Facebook Inserts Mid-Roll Ads into Videos

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Andrew

Facebook continues to evolve and develop new opportunities for advertisers and publishers. Most recently, Facebook started testing mid-roll ads in live-streaming and regular videos on its platform. This new feature aims to help media companies and the social network generate revenue from growing video audiences. How will this affect your video advertising efforts?

After a video of at least 90 seconds in length has played for at least 20 seconds, Facebook may insert a 15-second ad “break” during video content. Facebook will reportedly give publishers 55 percent of all ad sales, the same revenue split that YouTube offers. Facebook is rolling out these new ad slots to agencies.

The mid-roll ads will be enabled by default when you buy a video ad campaign on Facebook, but you do have some control. As advertisers, you can opt out if you don’t want your ads to run in the middle of publishers’ videos. You can also pick categories of videos (like DIY segments or sports clips) in which you want your ads to run. Conversely, you can avoid certain categories like, “live news,” controversial social issues,” and “political debates.”

These mid-roll ads are an effective way to reach a captive audience. Take advantage of these engaged audiences by sharing your message with consumers. How can you best utilize this 15-second video spot?

Tailor your story to your audience: People want to watch relevant, helpful ads catered to their interests. Customize your ad’s message to the people who see it.

Invest in production: Spend some time and resources to produce the best possible product within your allocated budget. Consumers will respond to well-crafted, professional video that renders properly on every size screen.

Get to the point: Bring your story to life quickly so you quickly grab consumers’ attention. Consider showing brand or product imagery in the first few seconds so it’s clear what you are promoting.

Focus on storytelling: Since you only have 15 seconds, you need to tell a clear and concise story. Use every second wisely to keep your audience engaged from beginning to end.

If you’re interested in learning more about Facebook advertising, or want to launch a Facebook video campaign, contact us today!

Three Ways to Prepare for Google’s Mobile-First Index

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Andrew

Google recently announced that it is revamping its indexing criteria to better align with smartphone users. Google’s new mobile-first index delivers more relevant search results and accurate content to searchers.

Google’s indexing process makes up a large part of the algorithm that determines what a user will or will not see. Historically, Google’s index was based solely on desktop websites. Google crawls your desktop site, creating ranking signals and categorizing content. When a user searches Google, the retrieval part of the algorithm looks at the desktop index. It finds relevant results based on this index, then ranks them.

The mobile-first index will look at the mobile version of your website for its ranking signals and fall back on the desktop version when there is no mobile version. This means Google will create and rank its search listings based on the mobile version of content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users. Google wants its search results to reflect the majority of its audience: mobile users. If you want to remain visible and competitive, you need to include relevant, informative content on your mobile site.

How can you respond to make sure you take full advantage of the new mobile-first index?

Create a responsive website: A responsive website serves the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of the users’ device, but will adjust the display based on screen size. When you have a responsive site, the indexing doesn’t change because Google sees the same content.

Create relevant, informative mobile content: When the mobile-first index rolls out in its entirety, Google will search your mobile site and index your site based on mobile content. Creating high-quality content will help Google understand the relevance of your site when searches look for what offer.

Launch a paid search campaign: To ensure that your ads land at the top of search engine results pages despite indexing, launch a paid search campaign. Compel prospective customers to click by exploring all possible keyword angles. Consider connecting ads to specific landing pages on your site to produce the most relevant results and best experience for your potential customers.

Did you find this blog post interesting? Comment below with your thoughts or questions?

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