Why? Because the new campaign type, which will be taking over from Smart Shopping, is very limited in what you can do to optimize and direct the campaign performance.

Essentially we give Google the budget, the assets, the audience and everything it needs and off it goes, self-learning based on your products, your website, your audience and your budget.

It uses all its channels, including the search network, shopping, YouTube and even local.

Reluctantly, we created a Performance Max campaign as a small test for one of our clients and were initially astounded by the results. So much so that we started to test performance Max campaigns for all our clients, taking the reserved and slow approach and slowly building it with a budget and more products.

It’s still early days, but with Performance Max taking over Smart Shopping come September 2022, we wanted to switch sooner rather than later to get data inside the account, with the fallback of our Smart Shopping campaigns still running in the background acting as a safety net.

One of the earliest signals we’ve received from performance Max is that it starts slowly, but the more extended amount of time you give the campaign to run, the more data it builds up and has to be able to make forward-thinking decisions.

Is this the most intelligent AI campaign Google has ever introduced? Possibly, but in reality, we’re in BETA mode. The actual results will be precise after 12 months of Live Performace Max, with millions of accounts worldwide opting to use performance Max so that Google can gather the data it needs to run campaigns effectively.

As we continue to run performance Max campaigns, we’ll keep you updated on our progress and the results over time. But one thing is for sure; Performance Max is here to stay.

Get In Touch

Are you interested in having the Eventure Internet team manage your website’s design, development and marketing?

Why not get in touch with us today to get started!

The post Google Takes Control With Performance Max appeared first on Eventure Internet.

What Does This Mean?

At this moment, Google is improving the Phrase and Exact match types to be a little broader with how they trigger search terms.

One thing is sure Phrase will somewhat “replace” the broad match modifier match type with Exact having close variants and having a bit more wiggle room with the search terms they trigger.

How does it Impact Us?

We see this as a positive change. Having four different match types to contend with can be pretty exhausting management, having to assess search terms for each match type, control the keyword bids, and improve quality scores.

Not only the slightly reduced workload for management of our clients, but it also will be interesting to see what impact this has on the search terms report.

For us, we’ll be going through all our client accounts and making the changes from broad match modified to phrase match to make sure we don’t lose any data and keep important keywords running.

Get In Touch

Are you interested in having the Eventure Internet team manage your Google Advertising campaigns?

Why not get in touch with us today to get started!

The post Saying Goodbye To Broad Match Modified appeared first on Eventure Internet.

Let’s take a look at some of the news coming from the Google camp.

What is Core Web Vitals?

Let’s hear what Google has to say about what Core Web Vitals are and how they play an essential part in your website;

“The Core Web Vitals report shows how your pages perform, based on real-world usage data (sometimes called field data). You can read more about this initiative on the Google Search Central blog. OPEN REPORT. Why page performance matters, longer page load times severely affect bounce rates.” Source – https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9205520?hl

Interestingly, Google is starting to emphasise page and user experience much more. This is something we’ve been imprinting in the websites we design for years and continue to do so. Nevertheless, it’s great to see Google taking note of the crucial aspects of a website from a more technical perspective, as opposed to putting the majority of time into their SEO and PPC channels.

How This Impacts Us

As always, we’ll follow Google’s guidelines and best practices to ensure all our clients comply with Core Web Vitals.

Although this is something we’ve done for years anyway, it’s making sure we follow and fall in line with Google’s advice and direction.

Get In Touch

Interested in having the Eventure Internet team manage and develop your new website?

Why not get in touch with us today to get started!

The post How Google’s Page Experience Update Will Impact Rankings And Sales appeared first on Eventure Internet.

Percentage of Spend

You typically will pay the agency a fixed percentage of whatever it is your spending on adverts. Often this is around 10% – so if you’re spending £10,000 a month, you’re being billed £1,000 on top.

Pros – Your bill reflects the size of the account.

Cons – There is an incentive to increase your spend, regardless of the merits.

Percentage of Sales

Like the percentage of spend, you pay based on the percentage of revenue driven by your adverts.

Pros – You are only paying for adverts that are directly generating sales.

Cons – Attributing sales accurately to first click is between difficult and impossible and you’re likely to overlook important top of the funnel opportunities.

Baseline

The agency runs the campaign without any changes being made for a period of time. From thereon in, they take a cut depending upon an agreed improvement in specific metrics, typically Cost Per Click.

Pros – It’s sounds great so you feel good when you sign the contract.

Cons – The agency tends to concentrate on specific metrics, rather than performance and your business. If they make just a small improvement in month one, they don’t then have to do anything else whilst still they get paid.

Fixed Fee

You pay X amount a month and the agency runs you’re PPC activity. Usually the bigger the size of the account (either in spend or in keywords) the more you pay.

Pros – It’s a fixed fee which is good for planning and the agency is able to concentrate on doing the best they can without perverse billing incentives.

Cons – It’s difficult to understand just what is being done – an agency can easily do nothing month to month and still get paid.

Hourly Rate

You pay based on how much time has been spent managing your account. Usually that means the bigger the account, the more work is needed (and thus billing is higher).

Pros – You only spend money when work is being done. And like a fixed fee, there are no perversion of incentive for doing a good job.

Cons – There are no guarantees that the work being done is helping. Doing work for the sake of it won’t help you to sell more but will create costs.

The post How Much Should Businesses Spend On PPC (Paid Marketing) appeared first on Eventure Internet.

An AdWords certification allows individuals to demonstrate that Google recognises then as an online advertising professional. You can only receive this accreditation after successfully passing the AdWords Fundamentals exam and either the Search Advertising, Display Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Video Advertising or Shopping Advertising exam administered by Google Partners.

There are several benefits to being accredited such as:

• Validate your expertise – Ideal for showing current and prospective clients that you’re a certified online advertising specialist with a personalised certificate. A Google Partners public profile page listing your certifications will also be made available.
• Help achieve your Google Partner badge – Agencies need at least one of their team members to be AdWords certified in order to achieve a Google Partner badge.
• Appearing in Google’s Certified Partner Listing – Google have now made it even easier to see what trustworthy certified partners are available in your post code range. Now if you’re looking for a company in Nottingham who knows their stuff when it comes to advertising, marketing and Google we’ll show up!
• Satisfaction of being recognised – It’s OK to say you can do something but it’s not quite as good as being certified.

By being Google Adwords Certified you can put your trust in us when we say we know how to handle your AdWords account. Within our Marketing department we have years of knowledge working with Google to achieve the best results for our clients so they don’t fall at the many hurdles Google throws at them.

The post What Does Google AdWords Certified Mean? appeared first on Eventure Internet.

What is PPC?

PPC is marketing jargon for pay per click advertising. This incorporates any online advertising platform where you place an advert and pay for each click generated to your website. The most common platforms are the Google, Yahoo and Bing networks where you pay to place an advert when users search for specific kewords on the search engines. There are many other platforms available through different mediums such as Facebook, Gumtree, Google Shopping, Adroll Retargeting and Youtube that use the PPC methodology, but deliver results in different ways. There are many other networks utilizing PPC and many features within these platforms used to optimise performance and results, making an experienced PPC agency an invaluable arrow to your digital arsenal. Make sure you use a qualified agency who can offer the full array of options to suit your specific return on investment targets and needs.

One of the best features of PPC marketing is that once your campaigns are setup, results are instant and can be up or down scaled as necessary. You can vary spend on different campaigns to generate traffic to specific pages or categories at specific times of day to suit your needs. Like turning on and off a tap, you can control how much traffic you generate and where it is sent too. The only downside is the cost you have to pay for the traffic and initial setup. Compared to more traditional offline marketing methods, performance is great and you can see performance and results in real time.

What Should You Expect To Pay?

There are two parts of the equation – the amount you are paying for the clicks and the amount you are paying the person(s) managing the campaign. The former will either be dictated by your own budgets or how you assign re-investment back into marketing – it’s an internal decision that your agency will usually help you decide on (depending on their pricing model – see below) However, if you are only going to be spending a very small amount on PPC, then probably you’re best off doing it yourself as using an agency just isn’t practical.  As a general rule of thumb spending 10% of your ad budget on management fees is a reasonable ball park to aim for.

If you are are running an eCommerce site that has dynamic re-targeting and Google shopping campaigns it’s likely that you need to be budgeting additional resources to cover the greater complexity of these types of campaigns – they do need some nerdy know how. At the other end, once you are up to the point where your activity is costing over £2k a month to run, it’s likely that you should also consider taking on in-house staff to manage or part manage the account.

Like any digital marketing service, the more you pay, the more time and complexity is possible which should in turn make sure your campaigns are growing and well optimised. To get qualified and good at it takes a lot of time, effort and experience and you will usually get what you pay for. Yes, you can set up an adwords account quickly and get adverts showing – but I’ve never seen a successful ad campaign set up by someone who doesn’t truly know what they’re doing.

[column type=”one-third”]  [counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”50″ num_prefix=”£” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_below=”to”][counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”100″ num_prefix=”£” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_below=”for small businesses”][/column] [column type=”one-third”] [counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”250″ num_prefix=”£” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_below=”to”][counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”500″ num_prefix=”£” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_below=”for medium & e-commerce businesses”] [/column] [column type=”one-third” last=”true”] [counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”1000″ num_prefix=”£” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_below=”to”][counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”2500″ num_prefix=”£” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_below=”for large/national companies”] [/column]

Common Pricing Methods

There are a few ways of cutting the cloth when it comes to billing for PPC work. There are pro’s ‘n’ cons to each method and it’s important that you find an agency that you feel comfortable with. Most important of all is to choose an agency that is really able to understand your business, preferably with a designated account manager so you are always dealing with the same person. This means you can work together on campaigns over a long period of time and develop a good working relationship.

Every agency  is likely to argue that their own approach is best. My personal advice though is that no matter what their approach, if the money you’re spending on adverts (not management fees) isn’t directly going to pay for ad’s  ie your spend doesn’t match up with the invoice directly from Google/Bing etc, it’s probably a bad egg you’re dealing with. Yes, I’m talking about you Yellow Pages et al. No-one, I repeat, no-one has a discounted preferential arrangement with Google. If you’ve been sold PPC through telesales, ask yourself why, if they’re so good at PPC, are they selling their services over the phone…

[accordion id=”my-accordion”] [accordion_item parent_id=”my-accordion” title=”Percentage of Spend”]
You typically will pay the agency a fixed percentage of whatever it is your spending on adverts. Often this is around 10% – so if you’re spending £10,000 a month, you’re being billed £1,000 on top. There will usually also be a minimum charge and/or a fixed additional fee.

[line]
[column type=”one-half”] Pros – Your bill reflects the size of the account and should grow alongside income. [/column] [column type=”one-half” last=”true”] Cons – There is an incentive to increase your spend, regardless of the merits of doing so [/column][/accordion_item]

[accordion_item parent_id=”my-accordion” title=”Percentage of Sales”] Like the percentage of spend, you pay based on the percentage of revenue driven by your adverts. This is better for e-commerce sites over and above informational/B2B sites as there is a much more direct conversion path – for most lead generation sites a sale does not happen on site at all. So it may mean your PPC executive may not consider top of funnel campaigns.

[line]

[column type=”one-half”] Pros – You are only paying for adverts that are directly generating sales. [/column] [column type=”one-half” last=”true”] Cons – In a multi-channel world, attributing sales accurately is somewhere between very difficult and impossible. [/column][/accordion_item]

[accordion_item parent_id=”my-accordion” title=”Baseline”] The agency runs the campaign without any changes being made for a period of time. From thereon in, they take a cut depending upon an agreed improvement in specific metrics, typically Cost Per Click. So if they can reduce your spend, they will take a share of that money.

[line]

[column type=”one-half”] Pros – It’s sounds  great so you feel good when you sign the contract. [/column] [column type=”one-half” last=”true”] Cons – The agency tends to concentrate on specific metrics, rather than your business. Making a small improvement in month one, means they don’t then have to do anything else to earn every month. [/column][/accordion_item]

[accordion_item parent_id=”my-accordion” title=”Keywords Under Management”] You pay based on how many keywords you are targeting. This method is rather deprecated these days but a lot of software based solutions may require this approach.

[line]

[column type=”one-half”] Pros – There is a clear correlation between the size of the camapign(s) and the costs you’re incurring [/column] [column type=”one-half” last=”true”] Cons – With the expansion and use of keyword modifiers, this approach isn’t quite so suitable. And you’re often better off applying more budget to the best few keywords than simply adding in more. [/column][/accordion_item]

[accordion_item parent_id=”my-accordion” title=”Fixed Fee”] You pay x amount a month and the agency runs you’re PPC activity. Usually the bigger the size of the account (either in spend or in keywords) the more you pay.

[line]

[column type=”one-half”] Pros – It’s a fixed fee which is good for planning and the agency is able to concentrate on doing the best they can without selfishly thinking of their billing potential.  [/column] [column type=”one-half” last=”true”] Cons – It’s difficult to understand just what is being done and if you are getting value for money – an agency can easily do nothing month to month and still get paid.[/column][/accordion_item]

[accordion_item parent_id=”my-accordion” title=”Hourly Rate”] You pay based on how much time has been spent managing your account. Usually that means the bigger the account, the more work is needed (and thus billing is higher)

[line]

[column type=”one-half”] Pros – You only spend money when work is being done. And like a fixed fee, there is no incentive for spending your money for any other reason than to make you money. [/column] [column type=”one-half” last=”true”] Cons – There are no guarantees that the work being done is helping. Doing work for the sake of it won’t help you to sell more but will create costs.[/column][/accordion_item]

[/accordion]

What Are You Actually Paying For?

Initially, you are paying for someone to set your account up. That requires a lot of work in terms of researching keywords, writing ad copy and setting up bid management. Even a relatively small campaign will take several hours to set up properly and if you are running many campaigns it can take days to prepare it properly. If you are also running re-marketing campaigns then it’s likely image banners are required and  if you are running a Google shopping campaign then your xml feed will be being built. They will also be setting up and integration with your analytics packages – how else will they know what is working and what isn’t.

After that, the role of PPC executive will need to optimise and improve the campaign continuously. This will make sure you are only spending money on keywords that are generating positive returns and setting bid levels that try to find the sweet spot between clicks and cost. The only guarantee that can be made is that every PPC campaign can be improved in someway – and these improvements are most likely achieved over time as more data and information becomes available to the executive.

Over time, it’s also likely that expansions and test campaigns are made – as your campaigns begin to generate profits, it will afford new opportunities to attract more traffic. The scale and speed at which this happens is likely to be directly linked to your budgets. There is little point spending days on expanding a campaign if the monthly ad spend is in it’s hundreds.

Finally, most businesses will have an element of seasonality to their operations – preparing for key sales dates (Valentines, Christmas, Halloween etc) will need additional work and if you are running a multichannel campaign, it’s likely that your PPC executives will also be supporting and adapting to your other channels (eg TV adverts, print adverts, PR)

Your Choice

Hopefully this short guide will help. Of course, we at Eventure offer our own mix of billing styles and a mix of either standalone PPC campaigns or PPC as part of a multichannel campaign. What we hope though is that you choose an agency based on how well they will do for your business over and above those with fancy sales patter – Pay Per Click is a vital sales channel (it’s how Google makes it’s money) and getting it right is often an essential part of the digital marketing mix.

The post How Much Should PPC Cost? appeared first on Eventure Internet.

Adwords Express

Google, whilst still providing excellent free listings, has taken the next step and is monetising this type of content. Whether this is good or bad for users is another topic entirely – what is certain is that businesses now have a new and potentially profitable marketing channel, which if they are currently already running pay per click adverts, should seriously think about.

Places Express is effectively a premium listing on Google places search listing. It gives more prominence to both the position and content of the ad, as well as replacing the places icon with a nice big blue one. Basically, it makes your Google places advert stick out above all of the rest.

Who Should Use It?

Any business which wants strong local prominence should be considering this service – this means any business with a physical shop(s) or place of business should be particularly aware of how these listings can help.  Currently, these ad’s will only show to people within a 25km radius of a business’s location.
It is also useful for businesses without a website – unlike normal Google PPC, adwords express does not require a website for listings to show. Think how useful this is for a local sandwich shop or businesses which may take advantage of searches made on mobile devices for nearby locations.

Costs

The cost depends on how competitive your market is as well as how many visits you wish to attract. Payments are taken in much the same way as normal adwords accounts. Only one paid ad will show at a time though so you aren’t competing against yourself and each type is invoiced separately.
Payments are only taken upon clicks (PPC) and the amounts charged are in line with estimations made by Google in advance of signing up. In simple terms

• you choose in advance how much your budget is
• you know roughly in advance of how many clicks that will achieve and all impressions
• clicks are recorded so that it’s possible to see its effectiveness.

Conclusion

I can see this being incredibly useful for certain types of businesses, almost to the extent where it will become essential. For most though, it may well be an advertising channel that doesn’t provide a game changing return on investment as online only based organisations are less likely to benefit from the geo-location aspects of the platform.

However, with no monthly contracts and the long term benefits for a business creating a strong local consumer base, it is worth experimenting with and our own PPC marketing teams are already setting up trial campaigns. Like most things in digital marketing, you don’t know until you try and with the full weight of Google behind this venture, it would be imprudent to not look very carefully at things before discarding.

I would be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on the ad-words express extension to Google places so please comment below. Alternatively, you can contact us or follow us to get advice and tips on selling more online @Eventureteam

The post Adwords Express and Google Places appeared first on Eventure Internet.