Posts Tagged ‘ Google ’

Google is launching automated call extensions in mobile ads on February 6

Posted on: January 10, 2017 by in SEO
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In the second update in a week on how phone numbers display in ads, Google has begun alerting some advertisers that call extensions will start generating automatically as of February 6, 2017. The notice, emailed to advertisers that use “landing pages prominently featuring a phone number”, started going out on Monday evening. A copy of the full email is below. Click to enlarge. Though you wouldn’t know from reading this email, call extensions are already set up with the phone number on Continue Reading ...

Brand vs. local Knowledge Graph result: Which is better?

Posted on: January 8, 2017 by in SEO
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Since the expansion of Google’s Knowledge Graph, I’ve been getting tons of questions around different Knowledge Graph results. One of the most frequent questions I get from my clients and business owners is regarding which Knowledge Graph result is best to have: a general brand or local panel. Before going into the answer for this question, here are some examples of what a brand and local Knowledge Graph panel look like. Brand Local The answer to which is preferable is not as simple as you Continue Reading ...

Amazon begins testing Product Listing Ads on AdWords

Posted on: December 29, 2016 by in SEO
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In 2012, Google’s Product Search was transformed from an organic product search tool into a pay-to-play shopping destination. Since the removal of Product Search, Amazon has not participated with Google’s Product Listing Ads. Until now. Merkle discovered Amazon testing PLAs in the wild — something completely new for the world’s largest online retailer. According to Merkle’s Mark Ballard, Amazon appears to be testing (and increasing) its PLA presence. We were able to replicate these Continue Reading ...

How do our biases impact PPC performance?

Posted on: November 26, 2016 by in SEO
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I’ve come to believe that the essence of PPC management can be boiled down to two things: Never let one thing (keyword research, bid management, A/B testing ad copy and so on) take up so much of your attention that you let something else slip. What you did yesterday probably needs to be changed, and failing to adapt your methodology is as bad as having an empty “Change History” log. As you gain more experience in PPC, you start to develop patterns and favorite tactics out of necessity. Continue Reading ...

AdWords Price Extensions spotted on desktop

Posted on: November 21, 2016 by in SEO
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Google officially launched price extensions for mobile text ads out of beta in July. Not surprisingly, they now appear to be extending to desktop. Initially, price extensions debuted in a list on mobile, as shown in the example from Google below.  As of last week, that format has switched over to a swipeable card format in which price extensions appear in a horizontal strip as shown below. The horizontal layout is what has been spotted on desktop by Conrad O’Connell of Serptests.com in Continue Reading ...

New take on Showcase Shopping ads? Categories of used items showing for retailer outlet queries

Posted on: November 20, 2016 by in SEO
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A strange thing happened just now when I was searching to find out whether the promotions extension Google is testing is also showing on mobile (it is). I came across an example of what appears to be a Showcase Shopping ad for the first time in the wild. When Google introduced Showcase ads, the idea was to spotlight retailer collections on broad, non-brand search queries like “summer dresses.” One of the odd things about what I found today is that these examples are all showing on Continue Reading ...

How to avoid an outbound link penalty from Google

Posted on: November 14, 2016 by in SEO
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Most of us are aware of link penalties that occur if you have low-quality or spam links pointing to your site. But did you know you can also be penalized by Google for how you link to other websites from your site? Yup, you sure can. It’s called an “unnatural outbound links” penalty, and similar to the inbound link penalty, it can be applied partially or sitewide. Recently, we conducted an audit for a new client, and we flagged the spammy linking that was being done in a particular Continue Reading ...

Report: AMP causing monetization frustration among some news publishers

Posted on: October 29, 2016 by in SEO
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According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are meeting with mixed reviews from publishers. The core issue for publishers is that AMP pages don’t generate the same amount of revenue and don’t give publishers as much control over ads. The article asserts: For some publishers [preference for AMP in search results] is a problem, since their AMP pages do not currently generate advertising revenue at the same rate as their full mobile sites. Continue Reading ...

Merkle: After big increases in mobile inventory last year, paid search growth slows a bit in Q3

Posted on: October 26, 2016 by in SEO
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Overall, spend growth on paid search dipped in Q3 to 14 percent year over year, down from 15 percent growth seen the previous quarter, according to Merkle’s Q3 Digital Marketing Report, issued this week. Merkle says the slowdown was expected when comparing to the period last year, when Google significantly increased the number of ads displaying on mobile search results. Click volume growth slowed in Q3 to 20 percent year over year. Click growth has been trending down the past two quarters Continue Reading ...