PPC updates from November 2019

The end of November is here somehow and the holiday season is looming – time sure flies when you’re having fun! Our friends in America spent yesterday giving thanks and reflecting so I thought I would reflect over what’s been going on in November in the realm of PPC (obviously a lot less meaningful than the previously mentioned Thanksgiving).

At the start of the month, in time for the holiday shopper rush, Google rolled out some Merchant Center upgrades. Shopping ads are now available in more than 50 new markets allowing us to expand our global footprint more than ever and with that, you can start showing products on a multi-country feed. This lets you target multiple countries that share the same language with only using a single feed. With the Merchant Center experience being resigned with simpler navigation, better programme insights and more user-friendly workflows, promoting and selling your products through Google has never been better! See below representation of myself leaving work today having already spent my rent on Black Friday sales.

There’s something I’m seeing a lot talk about, especially on LinkedIn, and that is sales or even harassment calls from Google. This isn’t an update or anything to celebrate but something that needs to be spoken up about even more and stopped. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us working with Google Ads are starting to get really frustrated with Google calling us up and calling up our clients to say that the campaign isn’t properly optimised, or there’s even something wrong with the campaign (which never seems to be the case) and resulting in a freaked out or angry client calling up and asking what they’re paying you to do. My approach is to ask why they are calling after I’ve sent in writing that I no longer wish to receive any calls and that usually works for the day. If you’re reading this, and you have someone else running your Google Ads account but have been told by Google that they’re not doing a good job, it’s probably not true so don’t lose faith in your account manager, you’re most likely in safe hands.

Back to positivity now, YouTube advertising has had a useful update in efforts to improve interactivity on the platform to make hitting business goals easier for the advertiser. This came in the form of ad extensions (as seen on search), users can now see useful information such as store location and other additional calls-to-action. Still to come are call-to-actions for 6 second bumper ads, so watch this space!

We all know about Smart Bidding, if not then here is Google explaining it well, now we have the option of more transparency to help us see what the factors are in driving performance and insight to inform a broader marketing strategy. You can now view a bid strategy report, which will show you signals from Search campaigns using Target CPA and Maximise Conversions. Other bidding strategy reports will be available at a later date so don’t worry if you’re using different ones. You will be able to view details of device type, location, day of the week, time of day and keywords. These reports have been launched to help us get a better understanding of what is and isn’t working and what is more likely to convert. Splendid. 

If you would like to talk about any of these topics more, or any other PPC-related matters then feel free to give us a call on 0161 327 2635 and let’s talk!