Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

If you are one of the estimated 61.5 million people in the US who own a smartphone, you probably do at least a small percentage of your online searches from your device.    With Verizon announcing both their partnership with iPhone and the release of brand new Verizon 4G smartphones, the number of people who search from their mobile devices is going to keep rising.  Google says that their mobile searches have grown by more than five times over the last 2 years!  This increase in mobile searches is going to encourage smart advertisers to allocate a portion of their online advertising budget to people searching from mobile devices.

But how will advertisers and professional PPC management companies like JumpFly know what keywords mobile searchers are looking for?  As usual, Google is two steps ahead with their new Keyword Tool.  In September, Google announced that it was officially launching the latest version of their Keyword Tool within AdWords.  Since then, there have been several notable improvements to the tool including the addition of new ways to filter and refine the keyword list, starring keywords and the ‘view as text’ button.

The latest improvement to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is the ability to create keyword lists targeted to mobile users.  Underneath the box where you type in the keywords you wish to research, there is a ‘+’ button next to ‘Advanced options.’  Click on this ‘+’ and you will see a dropdown menu to show ideas for all mobile devices, mobile WAP devices and mobile devices with full internet browsers (like iPhone and Andriod phones).  This enhancement to the already great Keyword Tool will allow AdWords advertisers to create better, more highly targeted campaigns for mobile users.

As an avid smartphone user, I can honestly say that I browse the internet more from my phone that I do from any desktop or laptop computer.  I am excited to see what new, more highly targeted advertisements are shown to me in the next few months.  It should be interesting to see how this new feature can help mobile search evolve.  Stay tuned!

What are Google Local Business Ads?

Google Local Business Ads – or Maps Ads – are similar to search ads but they appear on the Google Maps platform.  This platform has been growing in traffic since its inception and is now available on many other devices beyond the desktop/laptop including the popular iPhone.

The significance of local business ads is that they satisfy the intent of the search when it comes to local business.  Most local businesses thrive on location – in other words – if someone is looking for a new dentist and you can show the visitor that you are minutes from their home or work, they are more likely to click through or give you a call than if they discover you are an hour or more away.  Therefore, showing your ad in the context of your location on a map gives the visitor that much more incentive to contact you.

Should I be running Local Business Ads?

Perform a search on one of your top keyword phrases from the regular Google Search screen – for example, “find a dentist”.  You will notice that one of the first natural listings, if not the first, is a large group of local business listings next to a map.  There is a large link at the top that says “Local Business Results for <search term> near <your location> and another smaller link at the bottom that says “More results near <your location>”.  When the visitor clicks on either of these links, Google Maps is displayed along with the first several local business ads. 

Because of the location within the natural search results, these links are much more likely to be clicked than any of the sponsored search results.  Creating local business ads to be shown on Google maps can greatly increase your exposure. Contact a professional PPC Management Agency with any additional questions.

More in my next post on How to run Local Business Ads.

Google AdWords recently ran a Beta of a monthly budget option. Instead of just the daily budget option, where Google would cap your spend each day regardless of demand, you could set a monthly budget (which was computed by multiplying your daily budget by 30.44, the average number of days in a month) where the daily spend could fluctuate. If you had a low traffic day and didn’t spend your daily ppc advertising budget, the excess could be applied to the following day or days, just as long as you stayed within your monthly budget total at the end of the month.

It’s a great concept, especially if you really want to hit your monthly spend and your traffic fluctuates a lot by day. Here at JumpFly, we’ve tested it for a few of our clients that were in the Beta and were pleased with the results, but as with all new things, there’s a learning curve. Here’s one of the biggest “catches” to the monthly budget, which could bite you if you didn’t know about it and react accordingly.

If you reduce your budget at some point during the month, the total budget for the month decreases which can actually back-fire in constraining how much you spend for the remainder of the month. For example, my client had a $7000 per month spend, which comes out to $229.96 per day. About 2/3 of the way through the month, we split out a portion of the existing campaign into new one, and allocated a portion of the $7,000 to the new budget. I reduced the daily budget on the existing campaign to $179.98.

Now here’s where it gets tricky. Google takes the $179.98 times 30.44 (average number of days in a month) to figure out the new monthly budget, which is $5478.59. I’d already spent $4829.16 for the month. Subtract what I spent from my new monthly budget and I have a total of $649.43 to spend for the remaining 10 days – or $64.94 per day, which is less than 1/3 of what I actually wanted to spend. I’ll be honest, it took me several days to figure out why this account had a decrease in impressions and spend. Everything LOOKED fine – the daily budget still said $179.98, the monthly still said $5478.59. I wasn’t getting any messages that my budget was being constrained. I was just about to call my dedicated Google rep for help, when I decided to investigate a little deeper into monthly vs. daily budgets, and there was my answer. Google’s help page says that if you do reduce your budget during the month, they’ll remind you of the number of days left in the month and how the budget change could affect your account, but I don’t remember seeing any type of message that warned me.

So, if Google releases Monthly Budgeting to all AdWords customers, it’s something that might be worth trying. Just remember, as with most Google tools, there’s nuances that can catch you if you are not careful.

More about Nikki