Google Ads
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Responsive display ad (image)
- 1.91:1, minimum 600 x 314
- 1:1, minimum 300 x 300
Responsive display ad (logo)
- 1:1, minimum 128 x 128
- 4:1, minimum 512 x 128
Make sure your file size is no larger than 150K
Image ads
- 300 x 100
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- 768 x 1024
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- 480 x 32
- 1024 x 90
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- 414 x 736
- 736 x 414
Google Ads attribution models show fractional conversions because they distribute credit for conversions across multiple touchpoints in the customer’s journey. In online advertising, the customer journey is typically a series of interactions with your ads and website before a conversion occurs. Attribution models are used to determine how much credit each interaction should receive in contributing to that conversion.
Here’s why some Google Ads attribution models may show fractional conversions:
1. Multiple Touchpoints: In today’s digital landscape, customers often interact with various ads and touchpoints before making a purchase or completing a conversion. For example, a user might click on an ad, visit the website, leave, and return later through another ad or organic search before purchasing. Attribution models account for these multiple touchpoints and distribute credit accordingly.
2. Credit Sharing: Attribution models aim to attribute conversions reasonably to all the touchpoints that contributed to the conversion. Instead of assigning 100% of the credit to the last click (as in the last-click attribution model), fractional attribution models distribute credit across all interactions that play a role in the customer’s decision-making process.
3. Multi-Channel Campaigns: With the rise of multi-channel marketing, users may interact with ads on different platforms and devices. Fractional attribution models allow advertisers to evaluate the combined effect of their marketing efforts across various channels and devices.
4. Tailored Attribution: Different businesses have unique customer journeys and conversion paths. Fractional attribution models, like data-driven attribution, consider your audience’s specific behavior patterns and allocate credit accordingly.
In summary, fractional conversions in Google Ads attribution models provide a more comprehensive view of the customer journey and the interactions that lead to conversions. By fairly distributing credit across touchpoints, marketers gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their ad campaigns and can make data-driven decisions to optimize their strategies for better results.
When optimizing a Google Ads account, the Cost Per Click (CPC) can increase due to various factors. Here are some reasons why CPC can go up during the optimization process:
- Improved Ad Position: Your ads may need higher positions in the search results, often leading to higher CPCs. Higher ad positions generally yield better visibility and click-through rates but may come at a higher cost.
- Increased Competition: As you optimize your account and refine your targeting, you might enter more competitive auctions. Higher competition can drive up the bidding competition, leading to increased CPCs. This often occurs in highly saturated markets or during peak times when multiple advertisers are vying for the same audience.
- Expanded Targeting: When optimizing an account, you may expand your targeting options, such as targeting additional keywords, geographic locations, or increasing budgets. While this broader targeting can increase your reach, it can also increase competition and temporarily drive up CPCs as more advertisers target the exact keywords or audience segments.
- Seasonal Demand: Depending on your industry or business, certain times of the year may experience increased demand and competition. Advertisers may increase bids during peak seasons or events to capture potential customers’ attention, resulting in higher CPCs.
Learning Mode is Yuck
It’s important to understand that when you create a new Google Ads campaign or make significant changes to an existing campaign, it may go into a “learning mode.” Learning mode occurs when Google’s machine learning algorithms need to gather data and understand how your campaign performs to optimize its delivery and show your ads to the right audience. Here’s why triggering learning mode can have potential drawbacks:
- Limited performance: During learning mode, your campaign’s performance may be suboptimal compared to fully optimized. This is because Google is experimenting and testing different strategies to learn what works best for your campaign. The algorithm might take time to gather sufficient data and make informed decisions.
- Impacted ad delivery: When a campaign is in learning mode, Google may restrict the frequency or volume of your ad delivery. Your ads may be shown less frequently or to fewer users than during regular operation. This can limit your campaign’s reach and potential for generating conversions.
- More extended optimization period: Learning mode requires patience, as it can take time for the algorithm to gather enough data and optimize your campaign’s performance. The duration of the learning mode varies depending on factors such as your campaign settings, budget, and conversion volume. Giving the algorithm enough time to learn and optimize your campaign effectively is essential.
Once the learning period is complete and the algorithm has gathered sufficient data, it can make more informed decisions and deliver your ads more effectively.
To navigate the challenges of learning mode, we closely monitor your campaign’s performance, make incremental changes daily rather than frequent significant adjustments, and ensure that your campaign settings align with your advertising goals. Additionally, we focus on creating relevant ad copy, targeting the right audience, and optimizing your landing pages to maximize the effectiveness of your campaign.
As we gain more data, we can make data-driven decisions, and your campaigns will become more refined and deliver better results.
Take Business Profile Conversions OUT of PPC Data!
Interactions with your business profile on Google can result in “Google-hosted conversions” in Google Ads. Still, it’s crucial to recognize that these conversions may not align with your business goals. Here’s an explanation:
- Google-hosted conversions: When users interact with your business profile on Google, such as clicking on the “Call” button, requesting directions, or visiting your website, Google tracks these actions as conversions. These interactions are captured and reported within your Google My Business account and to Google Ads.
- Not “real” conversions: While these interactions are considered conversions by Google, they may not directly contribute to your core business objectives, such as RFQs, sales, lead generation, or website conversions. These actions primarily reflect user engagement with your business profile on Google’s platform rather than tangible outcomes that impact your bottom line.
- Artificially inflated numbers: Including these Google-hosted conversions in your overall conversion metrics can inflate your numbers, potentially providing a misleading representation of your campaign’s effectiveness. It’s important to differentiate between these Google-hosted conversions and those that align with your business goals.
- Limited optimization value: Since Google-hosted conversions may not reflect your business objectives, relying solely on these metrics can hinder your ability to optimize your campaigns effectively. It’s essential to track and optimize for conversions that directly contribute to your desired outcomes, whether RFQs, online sales, demo requests, or other specific actions that drive meaningful results for your business.
Setting up conversion tracking that aligns with your desired outcomes is recommended to optimize for your real goals. By tracking and optimizing for these genuine conversions, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are aligned with your business objectives and drive meaningful results.
Interactions with your Google business profile are valuable for engaging with potential customers. Still, it’s essential to use appropriate tracking and measurement methods to accurately assess the impact of your marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions.
Bidding on your brand name in Google Ads may seem a little strange, but it’s a smart move. Here are some examples:
- Protect your brand: When you bid on your brand name, you ensure that your ads pop up when people search for your brand. This keeps competitors from snatching up customers who are specifically looking for you.
- Get noticed: Bidding on your brand name means your brand will appear more often on Google. When users see your name in organic search results and paid ads, your brand stands out and sticks in their minds.
- Say what you want: With paid ads, you control the message you want to send users. You can highlight special deals, promotions, or unique things about your brand. It’s a chance to grab attention, convince users to choose you over the competition, and send them to the landing page YOU choose.
- Boost clicks: When your brand name appears in organic and paid results, it adds credibility and trust. Users are more likely to click on your ads, leading to more website traffic and potential sales. But, they will often click the organic link, so it doesn’t cost a thing.
Bidding on your brand name is a cost-effective way to defend your brand, increase visibility, shape your message, and get more clicks. It’s like spotlighting your brand and ensuring people find you when they’re looking.
Google Ads uses an automated system to review and approve ads before displaying them on their platform. This system scans various aspects of your ads, including their content, landing pages, and targeting settings, to ensure they comply with Google’s advertising policies. These policies are designed to maintain a safe and positive user experience for all Google users.
Regarding your disapproval messages, it’s important to note that Google Ads doesn’t differentiate between active and paused ads during the review process. Even if an ad is paused and not currently being displayed, it can still be subject to review and potential disapproval. This is because the automated system scans all ads in your account, regardless of their current status, to maintain consistency and ensure compliance.
The disapproved ads you received notifications for were flagged during a routine review, even though they were paused at the time. This can happen occasionally, and there is no need to panic, but we appreciate you bringing it to our attention so we can double-check just to be safe.
To prevent this as a future issue, I recommend taking the following steps:
- Do not remove pages from your website that have been used by PPC (or that were indexed by Google organically)
- Instead, create a 301 redirect to redirect the page to a more appropriate location once the event concludes (home page, an events page, etc.).
Google doesn’t show ads for keywords with very few people searching for them. This is because Google wants to give users helpful and relevant search results. If not many people search for a particular keyword, there may not be enough ads related to that keyword.
If there are not enough advertisers to have a “competitive” auction, then Google will choose to have no ads shown versus showing one or two ads.
The good news is that this presents a great SEO/Organic Search opportunity. Even though Google doesn’t show ads for low search volume keywords, you can still find regular search results like web pages or other related information. These keywords should be less competitive and easier to win top-of-SERP page results organically.
Paid Search – General
Patience is a Virtue. But, Patience is hard to do.
Sample size refers to the number of data points or observations collected in a study or experiment. In advertising, the sample size is crucial for making data-driven decisions. It directly impacts the reliability and accuracy of the insights drawn from the data.
When it comes to ads, having a sufficient sample size is essential for several reasons:
1. Statistical Significance: A small sample size may not adequately represent the target audience, leading to skewed results. Statistical significance ensures the findings are reliable and applicable to the broader population. The larger the sample size, the more likely it is to reflect the actual characteristics and behaviors of the audience.
2. Reduced Margin of Error: A larger sample size reduces the margin of error in data analysis. A smaller margin of error increases confidence in the insights, allowing advertisers to make more accurate decisions.
3. Insights Over Time: Sufficient data collected over an extended period allows advertisers to identify trends, seasonality, and changes in consumer behavior. Short-term data with a small sample may lead to misinterpretations or overlook essential patterns.
4. Validating Assumptions: Large sample sizes can help validate assumptions about the target audience, enabling advertisers to fine-tune their strategies and tailor ads to better resonate with their customers.
In conclusion, having enough data with a substantial sample size is vital for making data-driven decisions in advertising. It ensures that the insights drawn from the data are statistically significant, reliable, and applicable to the target audience. By basing decisions on robust data, advertisers can optimize their ad campaigns, enhance performance, and drive better results.
Bounce Rate is an Unreliable Metric Used Alone
“Yay! My bounce rate is so low. My site must be so awesome” Well…
As a paid search and Google Analytics expert, I’d like to highlight why a low bounce rate can be alarming and potentially indicate a data problem. While a low bounce rate might initially seem like a positive metric, it’s essential to consider the following points:
- Lack of engagement: A low bounce rate suggests visitors stay on your website after viewing only one page. However, it may also indicate they need to engage further with your site or explore other pages. This lack of engagement can be a concern because it suggests that visitors need to find the desired information or take the intended actions.
- Misconfigured tracking: In some cases, an excessively low bounce rate may result from misconfigured tracking or improper implementation of Google Analytics. This could skew the data and provide an inaccurate picture of user behavior on your website.
- Potential data problem: An unusually low bounce rate could be a red flag signaling a potential data problem. It might indicate that the analytics code is duplicated on multiple pages or that events or page views are being double-counted. This discrepancy can lead to inaccurate data and hinder your ability to make informed decisions.
- Industry benchmark: It’s important to compare your bounce rate against industry standards. While average bounce rates vary depending on the industry and website type, generally, a bounce rate between 40% and 60% is typical. If your bounce rate is significantly lower than the industry average, it’s crucial to investigate further.
To summarize, a very low bounce rate can be a cause for concern and a potential red flag of a data problem. It may indicate a lack of engagement, misconfigured tracking, or an issue with your analytics implementation. By being aware of these potential pitfalls, you can ensure that your analytics data accurately reflects user behavior and make informed decisions based on reliable information.
Negative KWs are a Positive Thing!
Negative keywords are crucial in optimizing your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign, especially in the 3D printing industry. Here are some key ways they help improve your campaign.
- Purpose of negative keywords: Negative keywords help refine your PPC campaign by excluding specific terms or phrases from triggering ads. This allows you to target your desired audience more effectively and avoid irrelevant clicks.
- Importance of negative keywords: By using negative keywords, you can:
– Save money: By excluding irrelevant searches, you can avoid spending money on clicks from users who are not interested in your offerings. This helps allocate your budget towards more relevant clicks and potential customers.
– Improve ad relevance: Negative keywords ensure that your ads are shown to the right audience, increasing the chances of attracting genuinely interested users in your services or products.
– Increase conversion rate: By filtering out users looking for personal-use printers, you can focus on those seeking printing services. This improves the likelihood of converting those users into customers.
- Exact match vs. broad match negative keywords:
– Exact match negative keyword: Specifying an exact match negative keyword only ensures a search for that exact phrase is blocked.
– Broad match negative keyword: Broad match negative keywords, like “buy thingy,” allow you to exclude your ads when specific keywords or variations are in a user’s search query. For instance, by using “buy thingy” as a broad match negative keyword, your ads won’t be shown to users with the phrase anywhere within their query.
It is essential to know when to use which type of negative keyword.
- Improved audience relevancy: By utilizing negative keywords effectively, you can focus on attracting more qualified users
By employing negative keywords, you can optimize your PPC campaign, improve ad relevancy, and allocate resources toward attracting the right audience.
Because it’s impossible to predict consumer behavior and the digital landscape is completely dynamic, user behavior can shift rapidly. By staying vigilant, reviewing search term reports often, and adding negative keywords daily, you can continuously optimize your PPC campaign, reduce wasted ad spend, improve ad relevancy, and ensure that your ads reach the right audience at the right time.
This is a process that does not end.
New Domain? Higher CPCs
When you switch to a brand new domain for your Google Ads campaign, you may experience a significant increase in CPC (Cost Per Click).
- Quality and trust factors: Google values historical data and reputation when determining the quality and trustworthiness of a website. A brand new domain needs historical data, making it less established in the eyes of Google. As a result, Google may view it as riskier to display ads for that domain, leading to higher CPC.
- Lower Ad Rank: Ad Rank determines your ad’s position and CPC. Ad Rank considers factors like bid amount, ad quality, expected click-through rate, and landing page experience. A brand-new domain typically lacks a solid track record regarding user experience, engagement, and click-through rates. This can lower your Ad Rank and increase CPC to compensate for the perceived lower quality.
- Lack of relevancy signals: A domain with a long history accumulates valuable user behavior, engagement, and relevancy data. Search engines use this data to understand the relevance of your ads to users’ search queries. With a new domain, there is a lack of historical data, making it harder for search engines to establish relevancy. Consequently, search engines may require a higher CPC to test the effectiveness and relevance of your ads on the new domain.
- Competition and bidding: Established domains often have a more substantial presence and competitive landscape. Advertisers may have been actively bidding on keywords related to the industry or niche for an extended period. This increased competition can drive up CPC on established domains compared to a brand-new domain where competition might be relatively lower.
It’s important to note that while a new domain may initially result in a higher CPC, the CPC can decrease over time as your domain builds credibility, quality score, and positive user interactions. You can gradually improve your ad performance and reduce CPC by providing a great user experience, relevant content, and optimizing your campaign.
Unfortunately, there is no specific “timeline” for how long this process can take.
In Google Ads, a conversion and a micro-conversion are two essential metrics used to track and measure the success of advertising campaigns. They represent different user engagement levels and potential customers’ actions on your website.
- Conversion:
A conversion is the primary and most significant action you want users to take on your website, such as completing a purchase, filling out a lead form, signing up for a newsletter, or any other action representing your business’s most valuable goal. It is the ultimate objective of your advertising efforts. Conversions are typically associated with revenue generation or lead acquisition.
For example, if you are running an e-commerce website, a conversion occurs when a visitor purchases. Similarly, for a service-based business, a conversion could be when a user fills out a contact form to request more information.
- Micro-conversion:
Conversely, a micro-conversion is a minor and less significant action that users take on your website, leading them closer to the ultimate conversion goal. Microconversions serve as valuable intermediate steps in the customer journey and can provide insights into user engagement and the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. While micro-conversions are not the primary goal of your campaign, they contribute to the overall success of your marketing efforts by indicating user interest and intent.
Examples of micro-conversions include:
– Adding items to a shopping cart (for an e-commerce site).
– Clicking on a product/service spec sheet to view more details.
– Subscribing to your newsletter.
– Watching a product demo video.
Microconversions help you understand user behavior and identify potential areas for improvement in your marketing funnel. They also allow you to re-engage users who have shown interest but haven’t completed the final conversion (remarketing).
Both conversions and micro-conversions are essential metrics to track in Google Ads because they provide valuable insights into the performance of your campaigns. Using both types of conversions, you can optimize your advertising strategies and improve overall campaign effectiveness.