Google rolled out one of its biggest feature in recent years on September 8^th, 2010 – Google Instant.

Google instant was a major change for Google in the way they display search results to its users. They now try to predict what you are typing in real time & display results based on those predictions. This means that your search results will likely change multiple times as you update your search query.

So what kind of impact will this have on PPC?

It’s not only the search results that keep changing with Google instant, the paid results also update in real time. The original concern from advertisers was that their impression volume would increase & have a negative effect on their CTR – did that split second that my ad was shown count as an impression?

Google had preempted this & has assured us that instant would not affect impressions in that manner. There are a set of rules that apply to paid ads when being displayed under Google Instant. An impression is only counted if:

• A user types in a search term that results in a clicks on the page.
• A user clicks the search button, hits enter or chooses one of the predicted results.
• Stops typing and your ad is displayed for at least three seconds

So what impact has Google Instant has on paid search?

There have been various studies on the impacts of Google Instant & it seems to have had a noticeable effect. Marin Software, a paid search management platform provider, released their results from a study they conducted over multiple accounts. On average, impressions & clicks have increased, while CPC has decreased. Campaign costs have increased slightly.

How will Google Instant effect paid search in the future?

There are still a number of ongoing studies, although existing results have managed to suppress initial fears. Google Instant has put more emphasis on long tail terms, making them even more profitable. The important thing is not to change up your paid search strategy radically based on initial findings. Make sure you do your own testing & reach your own conclusions before making major changes to your account.

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Global performance company with $1B in digital media under management for 500+ blue-chip advertisers expands under a new name to revolutionize digital marketing technology.

NEW YORK — April 11, 2011 — Today, the new company IgnitionOne was launched, created by combining SearchIgnite, a global performance marketing technology, with on-site optimization and real-time audience scoring capabilities from its sister company Netmining. The new company will offer a single dashboard (“Digital Marketing Suite”), enabling performance marketers to manage and optimize their online advertising, optimize conversions on their website and receive advanced cross-channel attribution and analytics.

The current online marketing technology landscape is fragmented and complex, with a multitude of technology providers offering point solutions that only solve a portion of marketers’ needs. This creates a real challenge for marketers, who often work with multiple technologies in an effort to achieve their online marketing goals. IgnitionOne will streamline this process and simplify the landscape by providing marketers with numerous best of breed performance marketing solutions united under a single interface and tracking tag.

“IgnitionOne is the first-and-only technology solution that effectively bundles the many online technologies we use every day under one platform, which makes us more efficient, improves our marketing performance and more importantly, our ROI,” said Ted Schweitzer, Vice President of E-Commerce for La Quinta Inns & Suites. “It’s really solving a major void in the marketplace. With our digital efforts essential to the growth and success of our brand, IgnitionOne’s centralized Digital Marketing Suite is a marketplace necessity, not a luxury.”

A simple, single tag will power all of IgnitionOne’s capabilities, which include:

• Centralized paid search, display and Facebook ad campaign management
• Full Display DSP functionality for real-time-biddable(RTB) media buying
• Cross-channel attribution and advanced analytics dashboards
• On-site optimization transferred from Netmining, powered by a proven, proprietary audience algorithm

Marketers and their agencies are often forced to connect a multitude of tags and log into many different dashboards for these initiatives. These technologies haven’t been integrated for the marketer to date, and often don’t funnel up to a centralized reporting system for insights into performance across channels. IgnitionOne’s platform integrates Media and On-Site Optimization with Attribution and Analytics, allowing marketers to finally close the loop between the advertising that drives people to their website and the solutions that convert them into leads and sales. The system is already integrated for marketers, and an evolutionary step forward that will dramatically improve online marketing performance.

“The current landscape puts the burden on marketers to integrate these siloed technologies. Our clients have asked us to solve this industry-wide problem,” said Will Margiloff, CEO of IgnitionOne (formerly Chairman of SearchIgnite). ”IgnitionOne is the first centralized platform that integrates all of the essential technologies marketers need to power their online performance.”

In addition to Mr. Margiloff, the IgnitionOne senior management team will consist of Roger Barnette (formerly CEO of SearchIgnite) as President and Toon Vanparys (formerly CEO of sister company Netmining) as Chief Revenue Officer. The Netmining brand will continue on in the United States, focusing exclusively on its display advertising business.

IgnitionOne currently has 125 employees in seven offices across four countries, and further expansion is already under way. The Company is hiring and has 75 open positions, primarily in Engineering and Client Services.

“We’ve built an industry-first, and we’re just getting started. We’ll continue to push the boundaries of technology innovation to keep up with the rapid pace of change in our industry and streamline the fragmented landscape,” added Mr. Margiloff. “The formation of IgnitionOne is exciting for us and for our clients, and we’re looking for more pioneers to join us in our mission to revolutionize marketing technology.”

About First Rate
First Rate (www.firstrate.co.nz) is New Zealand’s leading search marketing agency, specialising in search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and performance online advertising.  They are recognised as leaders in developing strategies and tactics that help their clients dominate the search engines and grow their online market share. First Rate works with many of New Zealand’s leading blue chip brands.  Its clients are spread over 50 industries including retail / e-tail, financial services, education, energy, travel, and software solutions.

First Rate Ltd, Company (registered) number 969774, is a subsidiary of ASX listed Q Ltd (ASX: QXQ).

About IgnitionOne
IgnitionOne is the world’s first closed loop Digital Marketing Suite, offering multiple solutions to improve online performance within a single interface. Solutions include ad management and optimization (search, display and Facebook), cross-channel attribution and on-site optimization. The company was formed in 2011 by combining online ad management platform, SearchIgnite, with audience profiling and on-site optimization from Netmining. Ignition One currently powers more than $20 billion in revenue each year for some of the world’s leading online marketers, including General Motors, Chico’s, Ann Taylor, Fiat and advertising agencies such as Digitas, CyberAgent and more.

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Note: Google has let us know that the feature called Multi-Channel Funnels discussed in this blog post is in limited pilot. That means that Google is testing the feature and its usefulness with a small group of trusted testers, and have not made any plans or a timeline for a full launch.

Google has this week released a new cross-channel tracking feature. This new feature is also referred to as “Big Funnels” and will allow online marketers to better understand the bigger picture and more accurately assess the true value of their marketing campaigns.

As part of our partnership with Google, First Rate has been testing the new cross-channel tracking feature prior to its release and we are happy to share some of our findings and provide a quick overview of this new and exciting feature.

What is Cross-Channel Tracking?

Put simply, Cross-Channel tracking (also called Multi-Channel tracking), allows online marketers to discover traffic sources and keywords that assisted in a conversion beyond just the last click or visit. By default cross channel tracking tracks and reports on interactions within the 30 days leading up to a goal completion or e-commerce transaction on the site but can be adjusted to 60 or 90 days as required.

Google Analytics (GA) cross-channel tracking encompass all digitally trackable channels, including Paid Search (all search engines), Organic Search (all search engines), Referrals, Affiliates, Social Networks, Email Newsletters, Display ad clicks and impressions, and even offline sources such as TV, Radio etc. via vanity URLs.

Prior to cross channel tracking, GA attributed conversions to the last traffic source that led to the conversion. The problem with this approach is that in some cases all the hard work is accomplished during the previous visit as can be seen in the case below were a user discovered the First Rate site by clicking on an Adwords ad (Google CPC) and later returned via an organic search for the brand name “First Rate” which lead to a conversion on the site. It would make more sense in this case to attribute most of the credit for the conversion to the Adwords ad that drove the first visit rather than to the last visit before the conversion.  With Google Analytics multi-channel reports online marketers will be able to easily discover such assisting traffic sources.

Google Analytics Multi-Channel Reports

Cross channel tracking includes five new report types:

• Assisted Interactions
• Assisted Conversions
• Top Path
• Path Length
• Time Lag Report

The cross-channel tracking report section in Google Analytics can be found within the left sidebar navigation under:  Conversions > Cross-Channel.

Below is a quick overview of each of the new cross-channel reports.

Assisted Interactions Report

This report shows the number of assisted interactions from each traffic source.

Assisted Interactions refer to the number of times the traffic source assisted towards a conversion excluding last interactions from the traffic source.

Traffic source can be grouped into several dimensions including Traffic type, Source, Medium, Source/medium, Keyword and more.  For more information about traffic source dimensions refer to the cross-channel tracking terminologies section below.

Assisted Conversions Report

This report shows the number of assisted conversions from each traffic source.

Assisted conversions refer to the number of conversions the traffic source assisted towards excluding conversions where the traffic source drove the last interaction.

The difference between an assisted conversion and an assisted interaction is that a traffic source can assist more than once towards the same conversion but can only register one assisted conversion for the same conversion.

Top Path Report

The Top Path report describes the sequence of interactions leading up to a conversion and can be grouped by both a primary and secondary traffic source dimension. You can further segment the report by conversion, conversion type and path length.

Below is what a typical top path report might look like grouped by Source/Medium and Keyword

Path Length Report

The Path Length report shows the number of interactions it took for visitors to convert on the site and can be segmented by conversion and conversion type.

Time Lag Report

The time lag report shows how long users took (in days) to convert on your site and can be segmented by conversion and conversion type.

Cross-Channel Report Terminology

Source (traffic source): The traffic source name ex. Google, Bing, Newsletter, Direct, Twitter, firstrate.com.au

Medium (traffic source): The traffic medium type ex. Organic, CPC, Email, Social etc.

Campaign (traffic source): The Adwords campaign name or URL tagged campaign name.

Last Interaction: The last interaction (visit) with the site on the conversion path leading up to a conversion

First Interaction: The first interaction (visit) with the site on the conversion path leading up to a conversion

First Interaction Conversions: The number of conversions where the traffic source drove the first interaction on the conversion path leading up to a conversion

Last Interaction Conversions: The number of conversions where the traffic source drove the last interaction on the conversion path leading up to a conversion

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to make any changes to my Google Analytics code or account?

You do not have to implement any further changes to your Google Analytics code for Cross-Channel reporting to work, however,  at least one goal or e-commerce tracking needs to be set up multi-channel tracking to work.

Can I track other ad networks not currently supported?

You would need to make changes to the GA code to track non-standard ad networks.

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YouTube is becoming more and more popular not only as an entertainment website but also as an advertising platform. With Google AdWords you can easily target YouTube users even with a small budget and with techniques you already know from AdWords. Let’s have a look at the most common ways your business can be promoted with YouTube advertising.

Basically there are two approaches to advertising on YouTube:

• Promoting your video content (YouTube Promoted Videos)
• Promoting your website through text, image and flash ads. Ads can appear inside videos and in content as well.

Advertising Video Content (YouTube Promoted Videos)

Promoted Videos are a good way to let YouTube users know about your videos without paying too much per click. All you need is to have an AdWords account and some video assets to advertise on.

Promoted Videos in Search

As one might expect, search advertising on YouTube is most cost effective. With wisely selected keywords and relevant ad copy you’ll get a high click-through rate and well targeted traffic. If you haven’t yet, you should probably start exploring YouTube’s advertising capabilities.

See where the Sponsored Videos appear in YouTube Search.

As YouTube Search is a part of the Google Search Network, Google Search has to be turned on along with the Google Search Network.

The basic principles of ad ranking are the same as in Google Search and that is – briefly said – the Quality Score multiplied by the price you are bidding for a particular keyword.

Promoted Videos in Content

Besides YouTube Search, Promoted Videos can be displayed in YouTube content pages. Most commonly on video pages on the right side next to the video.

Of course, the Google Display Network needs to be turned on in campaign settings. From managed placements you have to select YouTube.com or desired YouTube categories in which you wish your videos to appear.

Good to know

• Don’t expect the search CTR to be as high as it is for your Google Search ads. The reason is that YouTube ads have usually lower relevancy to the search query due to the fact that search queries on YouTube are not usually of a commercial nature. In this respect, you may wish to review an earlier blog of ours: To What Extent Does Google Match Search Results to Commercial Search Intent?
  But of course there are things you can do to help increase your CTR: Try to maintain relevancy of the ad headline to the search query – exactly as you would do with Google Search campaigns. Also, choose the video thumbnail carefully if possible. Testing different thumbnails will help you to achieve high click-through rates as well.
• If you have a lot of videos to promote, you may find it a bit messy to search for their URLs. A good idea is to create your own YouTube channel. You can make your work easier by typing the name of your YouTube channel and then select from the videos as shown below:

Promoting Your Website in YouTube Content

Besides search advertising on YouTube, you can also make your ads appear in content. If you don’t have any videos to advertise, or simply want to get more traffic from YouTube, there are a lot of placements which you can target with various formats including text ads:

What you need is to turn content network on and select YouTube as a managed placement. Let’s have look at where ads can be shown and how to run them there.

Text overlays inside videos

These are common AdWords text ads showing in the bottom part of a video. Up to 3 text ads can be shown in the overlay. If you want to make sure your ads will be displayed in videos, add YouTube.com (or specific YT categories) to your display campaign managed placements.

InVideo image overlay

Image overlay is displayed in the bottom part of a video as well. The size is 480×70 and – contrary to text overlays – there can be only 1 ad shown at once but it can be accompanied by a 300×250 banner showing next to the video.

InVideo ad with accompanying banner next to the YouTube video.

To create an InVideo ad go to New ad -> Display ad builder -> Video -> InVideo Static Image

Video ads

InStream video ad is a short (typically 15 second) video ad played inside a YouTube video. If the video is longer than 10 minutes, the video ad can last up to 30 seconds. 300×250. An accompanying banner can be used as well.

To create an InStream ad go to New ad -> Display ad builder -> Video -> InStream Video Ad

Banners

As the Text InVideo overlays, banners aren’t a special YouTube format. It’s a common image ad and can be shown on the YouTube video page next to the video player (in the same place where InVideo companion banner is shown) and various other placements. The most common banner format you shouldn’t forget to make is 300×250.

The Placement Tool helps you to decide which other formats you may need to develop in order to be visible for a particular category.

For each YouTube category, the Google Placement Tool shows available ad formats and the number of impressions you can get.

General tips and best practices

Usually it’s a good idea to create a separate campaign for your YouTube advertising especially for Promoted Videos. Clicks from Promoted Videos are in fact the video views (i.e. these clicks aren’t leading to your site) so it’s not desirable for these to be mixed with other clicks in your AdWords campaign.

To get the most of the price you paid for a promoted video view, it’s very useful to have every video properly described and tagged. You should also think about ways to get the user to view another video or – depending on your objectives – your website.

There are a few tools which can help you in building out your YouTube campaigns:

• The Youtube Keyword Tool provides data about what keywords are popular on YouTube but you can also use the standard AdWords Keyword Tool for inspiration.
• Try the Google Contextual Targeting Tool as well to get some ideas about which themes could be good to focus on.

YouTube Insight can help you monitor things such as video views, demographics and subscribers.

There are also very interesting statistics which tell you what part of the overall video traffic is generated by advertising. You can then work out if there’s some synergy – i.e. if your advertising influences natural traffic to the video.

Do you need help promoting your business on YouTube? We can assist not only with YouTube advertising but also with complex SEO and SEM strategy. Contact us for a no-obligation chat.

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