By this fall, you can officially say good-bye to Google Product Search and hello to Google Shopping.  The new name brings with it a particularly noticeable change, Product Listing Ads.  Simply put, merchants will now have to pay to be listed on Google Shopping.  

It’s not all bad news.  Having to pay your way in could actually open the door for small businesses to compete with the large online retailers like Amazon that previously dominated the market.  If small business owners are discerning about where they spend their ad budget, they could see unprecedented returns.  

Google Shopping, along with the already included in searches Adwords, will also support images to help attract potential customers.  This, however, means that about two-thirds of Google’s search results pages will be filled with paid content designed to steer users away from the organic search results.  

For business owners counting on users to find their way to their site through Google, this new shift in online retail could affect their bottom line.  Could it be time to look into Bing?  

Ariel Rosenstein has more in her article on MultiChannel Merchant. 

One of the major elements of the sales funnel that is not often focused on enough when doing PPC work is a rather important part: the landing page. Making sure the CTR is high, the QS is appropriately high, and ad groups are separated as they should to maintain relevance – all of these are very important for any AdWords campaign. But one of the most crucial points is the landing page.

It’s one of the final points of the sales funnel and can often make or break the sale. The biggest flaw most often found in these pages is one thing: overcomplicating it. The easier it is to understand what is offered and how to get the desired objective from the landing page, the higher the conversions. By putting too much information in place, other distracting elements, multiple unnecessary exits, all of these will draw away from the focus of the objective.

The best way to handle this is to make it as easy as possible. Make it very basic, minimal steps to take, and a blatant call to action. Even if it isn’t as pretty as it could be with additional content, your chance of conversion will go up when the instructions are clear. Ideally you test each method – one with your own concept for the landing page (as complex as you’d like) and another as easy as possible. Do A/B split testing and see which one converts better; chances are the easier pathway is the better choice.

Read the original article here:
How to double landing page conversion rates

Pay per click campaigns are sometimes great ways to generate interest and sales within a business at a low-cost bargain. But what some people fail to realize are that these PPC scenarios also give business owners huge insight into businesses and who and where their customer base comes from. Because the systems track information from the clickers, the business owner can learn a lot about its customer base.

Five quick details data from PPC can tell you about your business:

1. Brand marketing results – You can put your business brand into a campaign and track exactly how many searches your brand gets daily.
2. Landing page performance – If you narrow down your PPC campaign to a tightly targeted relevant search audience and are getting good CTRs from your ads, the conversion rates will say a lot about the quality of your landing page and whether or not it needs revision.
3. USP testing – AdWords ads are a great place to test out various Unique Selling Propositions for your business. Try doing a split test with two different USPs in your ads, see which comes out with a better CTR and conversion rate. This USP can be used for other advertising after testing here.
4. Keyword usage – Checking your “Search Query” results in AdWords is worthwhile. In your Keywords tab, click “Keyword details” and check either selected keywords or all keywords shown. Here you’ll see what people are really searching for, and you can adjust your site content and ads to match these phrases.
5. Product popularity – Find out how many people are looking to buy specific products online by targeting these products by keyword, each product uniquely. Seeing the response to this can tell you if it’s worth putting more time in to online attention or not for certain products, as well as how much product you should have available for your target market.

Using these tips should help you use PPC effectively to do business research and improve your ROI.

Read the original article here:
5 Things PPC May Be Telling You About Your Business (Without You Realizing!) – Search Engine Journal

Ad extensions allow you to show additional information on your Google AdWords ads such as displaying map with business locations, linking to additional pages within the site, showing a click-to-call phone number, connecting your Google Plus account +1s, and showing product images, titles and prices (from Google Merchant Center). Google has reported that using ad extensions can increase CTR by 30% on average. Setting up Ad Extensions is fairly easy to do, simply check the “Ad extensions” tab in AdWords and look through the options there to set up. After implementing these options, keep an eye on performance to see what differences the extensions provide, and be aware you can check some of these performances by using Segment->Click Type in each AdWords page.

Read the full article here:
6 Ways Google Ad Extensions Can Improve Your AdWords Campaign – SEOmoz (blog)

Advertisers can know change or add agencies without losing their entire account history, thanks to the updated version of adCenter by Microsoft. Microsoft are now calling that “Agency Enablement”, through that the agencies can link or unlink to client accounts, control billing preferences and manage client accounts at the account level, et al. This will provide immense flexibility for advertisers.

Read the full article here:
Microsoft Revamps AdCenter For Agency Relationships