Succeeding with enhanced campaigns

About two months ago, we launched enhanced campaigns to help you more simply and smartly manage your campaigns in today’s multi-device world. Recently we’ve been hearing some great stories about ways that advertisers have improved their performance and saved time with enhanced campaigns. While every advertiser’s business and potential gains may be unique, here are a few examples that highlight actual strategies and results achieved so far with enhanced campaigns.

e-Travel has improved CTR and conversion rate with context-optimized ads, mobile app downloads, and upgraded sitelinks.

e-Travel is one of the leading online travel agents in Greece, Cyprus and Russia, and has presence in other markets in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. After upgrading to enhanced campaigns, Managing Director Nikos Goulis reported, “We can now show our ads according to people's context like location or time of day [... and] count app downloads as conversions in AdWords reports, which is very important for us because so many of our new customer leads come from our mobile app. These features along with the upgraded sitelinks helped us boost clickthrough rate by 43% and conversion rate by 32%."

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American Apparel has doubled its volume of phone leads with enhanced campaigns, improving return on ad spend.

American Apparel, a multi-channel fashion retailer, upgraded all its campaigns to take advantage of new features like upgraded call extensions and sitelinks. By extending call extensions across all device types, and counting calls over 10 seconds in duration as a conversion, American Apparel has seen their conversion volume from phone calls double. Return on spend has improved significantly.

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A luxury online shopping brand has grown sales by 20% by tapping into secondary markets, thanks to the ease of optimizing bids in multiple locations in a single enhanced campaign.

A luxury online shopping destination had been focusing its search engine marketing efforts on optimizing bids in location-specific campaigns aimed at primary markets like New York City and Los Angeles. Since upgrading to enhanced campaigns, the company started using location bid adjustments to test and expand its AdWords presence in new geographies, including affluent areas of Delaware, South Carolina, and New Mexico. Already, the company has grown total conversion volume by 20% while achieving target return on ad spend.

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Hotwire’s SEM analysts are saving 5-10 hours per week with more efficient campaign management.

Hotwire.com, a leading discount travel website upgraded all of their paid search accounts to Enhanced Campaigns, both domestic and international, within the first month. Clay Schulenburg, Director of Search Engine Marketing at Hotwire shared that upgrading to Enhanced Campaigns really helped his team manage AdWords more efficiently because all the key adjustments for location, time of day and device are now managed in a single campaign: “Time saved per SEM analyst is somewhere in the range of 5 – 10 hours per work week that can now be reallocated to either new strategic SEM initiatives or more granular account/campaign optimizations.”

Get started in 3 steps
If you’re among the 95% of advertisers whose legacy campaigns currently run across all device types, you can upgrade in just three steps to take advantage of enhanced campaigns:

1. Click the “Get started” button when you log into the AdWords interface
2. Select a mobile bid adjustment
3. Click “Complete upgrade”

Here's a short video illustration.

If you have questions about upgrading to enhanced campaigns, please contact AdWords support, ask for advice from your fellow advertisers in our AdWords community, or check out our comprehensive upgrade guide (.pdf download).

Share your results and feedback
Once you’ve started using enhanced campaigns, please let us know about your results and any suggested improvements using our feedback form.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Group Product Manager

Flying cars, teleporting and personalized television.

Often I wonder to myself "what will they think of next?" By now, we were all supposed to to be flying to work like the Jetsons. Disappointing I know...but in reality we have come a long, long way.

Technology has changed our lives forever. With advances in information gathering, social media, and the world literally at our fingertips, the marketing industry has seen some of the biggest shifts and advances in delivery channels in recent years. Which brings me to my question/topic...what about television? We currently have the ability to send highly personalized mailings, including those that can direct you to your own personal website. We are able to generate personalized email blasts based on demographics, etc. We even have the ability to have personalized web banners pop up based on an individual's recent web searches.

Why not television? I yearn for the day when my commercials are individualized to me or my household. I want "Bob the Carpet Guy" to talk directly to me about the latest flooring deals because he knows I am in the market to buy carpet in the next six months. When will the 3AM infomercials actually be about the things I really want. When is my local newscaster going to say "Jeremy, dress warm today...it's gonna be a cold one." Imagine the possibilities...especially as a marketer. I leave you with that...some food for thought.

Until next time,
Jeremy

Who Owns Employees' Social Media Accounts?

As more and more companies develop social media footprints, the issue arises as to which individual or department will be responsible for commenting, responding, and maintaining accounts. The CEO may comment, department Vice Presidents may comment, the marketing or public relations department may comment, or the IT department may comment. Before long, lines blur – and chaos results.

But there are more ways that chaos can result. When an employee leaves, who owns his/her Twitter and other social media accounts? If the Twitter account is used for business, does the company own it? If the LinkedIn account is used for business, and the contacts were made as part of doing business, does the company own it? And if friends were made on an employee’s Facebook page, does the company own that account?

The reality is, there are no easy answers. According to Jennifer Archie, a privacy and data security attorney with Latham & Watkins, “People’s professional work often bleeds over into their personal time thanks to the interconnectedness of mobile devices.”

But there is a solution until the law catches up with social media. The best way for employers to avoid legal issues is to write clear policies indicating how employees can and should use social media – and clearly state what will happen to an account when an employee leaves the company.

According to John Delaney, an attorney with Morrison & Foerster, “If a company is going to encourage its employees to use their own personal social media accounts for work-related posts and tweets, the company should not expect to obtain ownership over such accounts.”

So, before a crisis happens regarding your business, write a social media usage plan for your business. The five key elements to include are:

[1] Which Employees Will Post (individual, department, overall ownership).

[2] Posting Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly – and on which sites).

[3] Crisis Posting Plan (i.e., how to respond to negative comments).

[4] Official Voice (i.e., friendly, conversational, or formal).

[5] Be clear that no sensitive or confidential business data may be shared via social media.

Once your business has social media guidelines, distribute them to everyone – and if possible, schedule regular training sessions. This way, people understand what is expected of them and what is not. While we’re not all legal eagles, we can be prepared for the potential of brand violations in cyberspace – but only with sufficient planning.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Image provided courtesy of http://451heat.com.

ValueTrack parameters for enhanced campaigns are live: manage your keyword level URLs by device

Recently, based largely on your feedback, we announced the launch of new ValueTrack features to help advertisers using keyword level URLs achieve specific conversion and ROI goals. These features are now live and ready for you to apply to your campaigns. To recap:

1. We’re changing the existing parameter {ifmobile:[value]}. Previously, the ifmobile parameter would insert [value] when a user clicked your ad on either a tablet or a mobile device. Now, it will only trigger from an ad click on a mobile device.
2. We’ve added a new parameter, {ifnotmobile:[value]}, where you can replace [value] with text that will then show up in your URL when the user clicks on your ad from a computer or tablet.

These features will help you achieve your conversion and ROI goals, and make the upgrade to enhanced campaigns easier by:

1. Directing users to a device-specific landing page at the keyword level.
2. Aligning performance reporting with device groupings used in enhanced campaigns.

For more information about our new ValueTrack features, please check out our Google AdWords Enhanced Campaign Upgrade Guide - The URL Supplement.

Posted by Karen Yao, Senior Product Manager, AdWords

USAA ... The Disney of Banking?

As a life rule, many people ask, "What would Jesus do?"  As a marketer, I typically ask myself, "What would Walt do?"  As bankers, we should all ask, "What would USAA do?"

In 2006 I left a Marketing role at a credit union and came to MarketMatch. Still, 7 years later, I'm a fiercely loyal CU member. They have my mortgage, home equity, 2 auto loans, checking, savings, credit card and some investments. But when I decide to leave, I'm going taking my accounts to USAA.

I have USAA home and auto insurance and, to me, they are the Disney of banking. Maybe that's why, in a 2011 Forrester report, USAA was found to lead our industry with 3.5 products per member, with Navy Federal Credit Union close behind with 3.1.

How can you see these kind of results?

Focus on Service, but Don't Forget Sales

USAA averages 3.5 products per member while Wells Fargo, a sales machine, "only" has 2.6 products per customer. What's up with that? In my opinion it's a slight deviation of focus.

I've shopped many a Wells Fargo for clients all over the country and they have an outstanding sales model.  USAA, on the other hand, has an outstanding SERVICE model.

I've been a USAA member for 19 years and in that time, I've NEVER met a single employee face-to-face. Yet, I still consider them the greatest service company that I do business with.

The USAA Way: Like Disney, the primary driver is the member experience. Focus every single member interaction on service first! Service leads to trust and trust leads to sales. Then ask simple questions at every interaction and suggest products related to individual responses. It's that simple. The unspoken steps here are: 1) Listen and 2) Care!

Bundle Products
Customers often walk in the door or come to your web site inquiring about a product.  The successful institutions don't focus on one product at a time, they focus on clusters.

Here are some examples:
Debit cards, online banking and e-statements are not "cross sells" to a checking account, they are access points and should be as assumed as ordering checks.

As soon as your customer closes on that mortgage and moves in, they're going to start filling their new house with ... new stuff!  Help them by bundling a credit card with every mortgage. If they're good for $100,000+, they're also good for a couple extra grand on a credit card. And it should go without saying that your mortgage customers should have an automatic referral to any insurance offerings.

Every single commercial account has a decision maker with a personal account. Do you have them both?  How can you package the two to give you an advantage?


Blowup the Silos

I have a client who, when talking about referrals from the mortgage department to retail, is concerned about getting the customer's "permission" to call. What I sometimes need to remind them is that customers don't bank with a department, they bank with an institution.

Rarely does someone bank with XYZ Mortgage, or ABC Insurance ... they are going to XYZ Credit Union or ABC Bank.

What USAA does REALLY well is communicate internally. My auto insurance contacts may not have all the answers about retail checking, but they're certainly not shy about asking me if I'm interested.

Many of you offer a lot of products. I'm not saying that every employee has to be an expert on every product, but they should know everything that you have to offer and know how to get someone to the right contact within one transfer.

When you want to focus on improving what you do, spend some time at USAA.com.  Look at their Life Stages or their Advice Center.  Notice, though they likely offer a lot more services than you do, how simple their website is to navigate.


Think about it.  USAA has 3.5 products per member among more than 9 million members ... and no branches! They are killing us and they only have the computer and phone to build a relationship. Imaging what we could do with our world-class, face-to-face interactions if we took a few pages from USAA's playbook. We could become the most magical banking place on earth.

Read More

• Lessons From 100 Branch Experiences
• Disney Service in your Branches
• $#*! Bankers Say

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

With nearly 195,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Large-scale keyword changes made easy with keyword bulk uploads

With our launch of bulk editing back in November, large-scale changes across your entire AdWords account became much easier.  Today, we are launching keyword bulk uploads to help you add, edit and remove keywords at scale.

Have you ever downloaded a keyword report and wished you could make changes to your account directly, without having to upload the report into another tool or go back into the AdWords UI and search for the same keywords you already have in front of you?  Now you can. Right in your downloaded keyword reports, you can add, delete, edit, pause, and unpause keywords, and then upload these changes directly into your AdWords account.

This feature not only saves you time, but it also provides a new level of flexibility and automation by allowing you to use standard spreadsheet functions and logic to manage your keywords.  Here’s an example.  Imagine you want to create exact match versions of all your broad match keywords, and you want to set their MaxCPC bids to be 20% higher than their broad match counterparts.  You can quickly do this by copying the broad match rows, changing the match type column value, and creating a basic formula to multiply the existing bids by 1.20.  Then, you simply upload the entire sheet and AdWords will apply your changes.

Here’s a quick look at how it works:

On the same page where you’ve always been able to download keyword reports, click the box that says “Editable.”  This will download a special, editable version of the keyword performance report that you can modify and then upload.  In order to get the hang of this feature, check out the keyword bulk uploads article in the AdWords Help Center for some basic instructions.

Once you’ve finished making your edits, you are ready to save your changes and upload your report.  You can save your changes in CSV, TSV and Excel formats.  To upload this file, click “Reports and uploads” on the left navigation window, and then click the “Uploads” tab.

It’s important to know that once a bulk upload is submitted, there is no way to cancel or automatically reverse your changes.  Therefore, we recommend that you always save a copy of your original downloaded report in case you ever need to see what your settings were before you made changes and submitted a bulk upload.  You can also view your change history and reverse any unintended changes manually.

For more information on keyword bulk uploads, visit the keyword bulk uploads article or discuss in our AdWords Community.

Posted by Jon Diorio, Senior Product Manager, AdWords

Updating Export And Send Features To Support Your Legacy Technology

We believe you should be able to access your Google Analytics data from wherever, whenever. And while yes, it’s pretty convenient to be able to export data to Google Spreadsheets or send a report to an email recipient with a few simple clicks, we recognize there are other ways people like to be able to share their data as well. That’s why we’ve re-imagined our Export and ‘Send To’ options to give you even more options and support some of our favorite legacy technology.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out a new set of old school export and send-to options that aren’t just useful, they’re fun. So flex those creative muscles and think of all the ways you might use these to do your job better:

Updated export options - moving beyond web:

CDROM: not only can you soon export to CDROM, we’ll automatically label the CDs for you to avoid the dreaded stack of unlabeled CDs that plagued users in the past. Bonus: insert your CDs into your car CD or portable CD player and we’ll play either upbeat or melancholy sounds, depending on if your reports are trending the right direction.

3.5 Floppy: have you ever wanted to access your reports on your old IIGS, 486 or similar? Yes it takes us back to those joyful memories of coding forever, hitting execute and watching with glee as it drew a blue star in 30 seconds. Take your data easily to them (or share with a friend) via a colorful 3.5 floppy. Now you can work on reports while you also play classics like The Oregon Trail or Odell Lake.   

Sticky note: ever just wanted to share one quick dashboard with your boss that shows how your conversions are trending “up and to the right,” but you just can’t get them to read your email? We hear you. Export just one graph to a bright fluorescent sticky note and put it right on their desk where they can’t ignore it. You’ll soon be the most talked about marketer at the water cooler. 

Papyrus: papyrus, the thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant is back. First manufactured in Egypt as far back as the third millennium BC, it is actually still used by communities living in the vicinity of swamps. We’ve heard the requests loud and clear: papyrus report exports would be an exciting option that would provide a “wow” factor at your next presentation and make your data more tangible. Just be sure you keep them in a dry climate where it is most stable. Next time your HIPPO questions the data break out the Papyrus and Abacus and prove them wrong!

Updated 'send to' section - beyond email:

Fax Machine: have a client or executive who prefers to receive faxes? No problem. You can now export reports, in full color, directly to the fax machine of your choice along with a branded cover page.

Electronic Telegraph: have a friend still obsessed with 1800’s business culture? Put on a monocle, your classiest suit and get ready to send a telegraph with an encoded message of the data of your choosing. For those super important “your eyes only” reports we also support encrypted morse code options as well. Note, the cost of sending 10 words (approximately 45 characters) is $1.55 (per the going rate of the 1850’s) so choose the data you send wisely. 

Carrier Pigeon: pigeons aren’t just used to sort our web index any longer. We’ve trained a select set of our trusty PigeonRank™ pigeons to fly your reports to their intended recipient. Note there is a weight limit associated with this option, so only choose rows 1-25 of data are selected at most or your pigeons may not be able to take off.  

Telegram Messenger: sometimes, it’s necessary to send a physical person to deliver your reports. The send via telegram option will dispatch a telegram messenger on a Google bike to share a physical printout of the reports of your choosing. A future iteration of this option will include telegram messengers dressed up as characters who can deliver “hug-o-gram” reports to cheer people up.

We hope you enjoy these new options and share your data in even more places! 

Posted by the Google Analytics team

...and yes, this is our April Fools' Day joke.