Bing Fires At AdWords ‘Enhanced Campaigns’

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Bing Ads is the clear runner-up in to AdWords in the search engine advertising game, but they’ve seen a way to set themselves apart and give users something AdWords is not. Recently, Bing jumped on AdWords introduction of ‘Enhanced Campaigns’ and, more importantly, the vocal concerns of some users. The general manager of the search network, David Pann, announced that Bing would not be bundling mobile, desktop and tablet advertising together and would give users the flexibility to control their own campaigns.

Not only is this a clever step by Bing to promote itself while putting down Google, but it also gives advertisers an alternative to ‘Enhanced Campaigns’. There’s never been much of a difference between Bing and AdWords, but now you can trade one for the other based on your preferences. Of course, one still comes with a fairly significantly larger audience.

Read more about Bings recent announcements, including some planned changes and the future direction of the product at Search Engine Land.

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Areas For Improvement In Your AdWords Campaign

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Unfortunately, there’s no magic equation that can turn any company’s AdWords campaigns into efficient, low-cost, money makers. There are so many variables that you simply have to do your own leg work to find what works and what doesn’t. But, you aren’t completely on your own. There are some tips and tricks that will help you find your way and Lisa Raehsler has a handful of them for you at Clickz.

As you may have noticed, you’ll want to focus on keywords and ad scheduling to make the most productive impact on your campaigns. You can save money and deliver a more focused audience by simply paying attention to the details in these two areas.

You may also want to toy with the automatic bidding option to reduce your cost-per-click. Whatever you do, don’t settle. Continue to tinker and improve.

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Investigating AdWords Vs. YBN

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You have probably already seen the statistic that states Google accounts for two-thirds of the world’s search queries. So where do the other one-third go? That would be the Yahoo Bing Network. Gregg Hamilton, at Search Engine Watch, jumped from this realization to investigating the pros and cons of the two dominant PPC platforms: AdWords and YBN.

The conclusion seems to be essentially what you’d assume, AdWords is superior. But, YBN has some merit. Though you’ll get less exposure, you’ll also get less competition. And with that, you’ll see a lower cost-per-click. You likely won’t get as much traffic and you’ll see a lower click-through-rate, but if you’re on a budget, YBN may be of interest to you.

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On Becoming AdWords Certified

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Did you know you can become “AdWords Certified”? It’s news to many people, but there is actually a licensure exam of sorts to test your expertise and acumen.

Bill McCaffrey went through the process and wrote about his experience at Business2Community. While he doesn’t go into much detail about what exactly the exam covers, your interest may be piqued enough to look into it yourself. Having the title, “AdWords Certified”, after your name may not make much of a difference to you, but having the knowledge that comes with it could enable you to better understand PPC advertising. At the very least, you may be able to ask more informed questions of those who handle your online marketing campaigns.

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One-Click App Downloads With AdWords

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Did you know there are more than 700-thousand mobile apps for Android or iPhone? How about that the mobile app industry was valued at an estimated $30-billion in 2012? Those are pretty astounding numbers and they suggest that, if you haven’t already gotten into the app game, you should do so soon.

Now, Google is making it easy to find and download your app too with the introduction of a “click to download” ad template in AdWords. It’s part of the “Enhanced Campaigns” you’ve been hearing so much about. Mobile users can download an app with a single click from search listings. iPhone and Android users only, however, as currently, Blackberry and Microsoft are being left out.

Head over to Business2Community where Larry Kim has the particulars on how to set up your mobile app ad in AdWords.

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How to Build Your Audience Through Pinterest

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It’s been about six months since Pinterest introduced “business-specific accounts” and their “business support page”. Add that to recent projections that Pinterest, rather than Twitter, will soon be the clear number-2 social media market behind Facebook. These developments suggest that Pinterest is a viable option to gain exposure for your business and Tehmina Zaman writes about how to do so at Business2Community,

There are a number of helpful nuggets in the article. For example, did you know you can schedule pins? Also, what do you know about group boards? They’re a perfect ways to increase the size of your audience, create brand ambassadors and get your message repinned consistently.

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How To Fix Common PPC Mistakes

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Human error is an unavoidable part of PPC campaigns. Unfortunately, when dealing with large lists of keywords or the minute details of URL tracking and geotargeting, there’s bound to be a couple of screw ups.

Melissa Mackey, of Search Engine Watch, compiled a list of some of the most common mistakes being made by PPC vets and how you can fix them when they inevitably happen to you. Not only is it a nice way to see what may be coming for you in the future, but it is also a reminder to always take that few extra minutes to check the details and then check again after your campaign gets up and running.

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New AdWords ‘Similar Audience’ Tool

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AdWords recently introduced a new feature capable of showing your ads to more users, while also delivering a highly targeted audience. It sounds too good to be true, but, as Jeremy Decker reports for Search Engine Journal, the ‘similar audience’ feature makes it a reality.

The new feature picks up where remarketing leaves off. Now, not only will prevous visitors of your site be shown your ads, but also other users who have a similar search history as those users. This means that those who may be interested in your product but have not yet found your site will be shown your message and, hopefully, driven to your site.

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Keys To Adwords Enhanced Campaigns

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KeysChances are you are already trying out AdWords Enhanced Campaigns. If not, you’ll likely be testing the new waters soon. So now seems like a good time to go through some basics to ensure you’re getting the most of your campaigns and enlisting the new features to work for you.

Lisa Raehsler has a checklist at Clickz for you to go over as you launch your new campaigns. Some of the advice is the same you would get with standard AdWords campaigns, but bears repeating. The rest is valuable insight into how to use Enhanced Campaigns new features to your full advantage, which can gain you more conversions and cost you less money.

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Familiarize Yourself With Enhanced Campaigns

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For the past couple of weeks, you may have been hearing a lot about AdWords newest endeavor, ‘Enhanced Campaigns’. They are reportedly starting as an added option but the idea is to make them a more integral part of AdWords in just a couple short months.

Daniel James wrote an article at Bit that explains a little about the added features of enhanced campaigns and how you might utilize them. Most exciting is the ability to link to different versions of your site based on what device a user is currently on when they click your ad and a function that identifies whether your store is open at the time an ad is clicked.

The new features seem to be geared toward directing customers to what they are searching for, while you spend less per conversion. These all seem like good things for everyone involved.

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