Leveraging Google Social Extensions In Your Ad Copy

A few posts ago, I wrote about how Google+ Shows Up In Paid Search. Google+ is actually showing up in paid search two different ways. First, as you can see in my prior post (and by simply searching for “insurance” on Google), organic Google+ profiles are showing up in the right rail, displacing paid search ads. Second, Google+ is actually showing up right within paid search ads. You can see that in the screenshot below. When you search for “mortgage refinance”, Quicken Loans has a really sweet integration of their Google+ profile, via Google Social Extensions (also known as Social Annotations). I’ve been researching these opportunities over the last week and today I’m going to provide some quick tips on how you can take advantage of both of them!

First and foremost, a bi-directional link is required to take advantage of these Google+ advertising opportunities. It’s quite simple, and this allows you to verify to Google that you own your Google+ page. All you need to do is link to your Google+ profile from your homepage. Then, you need to also link to your homepage from your Google+ profile. Specific information on how to do this is located on Google’s Social Extensions Tutorial.

Once your bi-directional link is in place, you will want to get as many followers as possible and regularly update your Google+ page. The more relevant your Google+ page, the more likely it will show up within the organic search opportunity. On the paid side of things, not sure this affects things as much, but it’s still important because your ad is likely to have a higher CTR if you have more followers.

Once you’re ready to start leveraging Google+ in your paid ads via Google Social Extensions, it’s as simple as setting up a new ad extension in your AdWords account. Add that extension to the campaigns in which you’re interested in testing this exciting feature. I wanted to share two interesting benefits of Google Social Extensions.

First, Social Extensions are complementary to your other extensions (such as Sitelinks). If you already have Sitelinks activated, you can also activate the Social Extensions in parallel. You can see this firsthand in the Quicken Loans copy below. Personally, I think the combination of both extensions is unbeatable.
Second, Social Extensions will improve your CTR. Sources tell me that the CTR improvement can be as high as 5%. Just having that Social Extension there adds credibility to your ad.

So, there you have it! Are you using Google Social Extensions yet? If not, I highly recommend trying this great strategy. Personally, I still have a lot to learn about Google+ but I feel like I’m on the right track!

Image in this post © Google

My Lending Club Investment Strategy

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 23 6

If you’re in the world of online marketing (or any other career for that matter), it’s important to have both a short and long-term plan when it comes to your finances. This year, I set the goal to save money and invest wisely (you can check out my 2012 goals here). Each and every day, I try to remind myself to save as much money as possible.

In that spirit, I have been embracing some new investment vehicles, one of which is LendingClub. What is Lending Club? It’s a peer-to-peer lending platform that allows normal people like you and me to lend money to others. Those who need to borrow money (often for such purposes as consolidating debt) get a much lower interest rate than credit card companies. Those who lend the money, get a much higher interest rate than is available anywhere else. In short: Both lenders and borrowers win!

I started investing on Lending Club in October of 2011, wrote my first post on PPC Ian about Lending Club in late February (check it out here), and am now ready for another exciting update! As you can see in the screenshot below, my current net annualized return is 12.99%. I’m excited about that because it’s only down a little from 13.04% in late February. Since I’m newer to Lending Club, I expect my net annualized return to dip over time since some of my loans will default. In addition to my consistent high returns, I’m now invested in 173 loans (2 of which are in funding).

I wanted to briefly highlight my Lending Club strategy today because I feel that it will be core to my continued success with this peer-to-peer investment platform. The best way to illustrate my strategy is through numbers. My total Lending Club account value is $4,137.27. Of that amount, $4,048.66 is invested in 173 loans. If you divide $4,048.66 by 173 loans, I’ve got an average of $23.40 in each loan. However, if you’re new to Lending Club, you may know that the minimum you can invest is $25. That is absolutely true. However, the real magic here is that your loans get paid off each and every month. If you start small, consistently add more money, regularly reinvest your profits, and grow your portfolio over time, you will get into a sweet situation where you have less than $25 in each loan, on average.

It’s really as simple as that. You don’t want to drop down a large amount of money all at once. You want to invest slowly over time, also known as dollar cost averaging. As your loans get paid off, you want to invest the proceeds is more loans. Eventually, you will have diversified into many different notes, with different start dates, and will have less than $25 in each loan. It’s all about persistence, diversification, and longevity. It’s not rocket science, but it definitely works (based on my experience so far).

So, there you have it, my Lending Club investment strategy. Thanks so much and best of luck in your own investing! I’m looking forward to my next update.

Important Note: I’m not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. Please consult your own financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
Image in this post © PPCIan.com

Bing Offers Rewards Just For Searching

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 22 8

In my last post, I was just writing how Google+ Is Showing Up In Paid Search, in a major way. Today, when performing my Daily Checks, I noticed a major change on Bing too. I noticed a little number in the upper right hand of my screen that kept going up with each search. Then, I clicked the little number and went to a page about Bing Rewards. You can see a screenshot of the Bing Rewards page below.

So, what is this Bing Rewards? Basically, Bing is allowing you to earn points just for searching. As you get more points, you can redeem your points for rewards such as gift cards, Xbox LIVE points, and more.

I think this is a really neat idea. I’m sure that Bing Rewards will draw some more attention to Bing and increase loyalty. People love freebies and rewards. That said, Bing Rewards could also potentially lower click quality. Some people may search just to get more points. Some may go as far as creating automated bots to search on Bing. With those increased searches, it is possible that some of them click paid search ads with a lower propensity to convert. It will all come down to Bing’s click quality monitoring, which in my experience is quite good. My end conclusion: This is a really neat concept, hopefully it will increase volume over time, and (especially in the short run) it will be important to keep an eye on click quality just in case Bing Rewards affects click quality.

Image in this post © Bing

My Weekend Musings (4th Edition)

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 15 9

PPC Ian and Najee

The last week has been really great. I thought it would be the perfect time for another weekend musings post. Want to check out my prior weekend musings? You my want to check out the first, second, and third editions of my weekend musings. Without further ado, let’s jump into this week’s musings…

My amazing wife, Nicole, took me to Yoshi’s San Francisco to celebrate my promotion (we’ll get to that next) last night. We had an amazing dinner and then saw one of my favorite jazz artists, Najee. The concert was totally amazing. While Najee is one of my favorite jazz artists (I have been listening to him since his 1992 album Just An Illusion), I had never seen him in concert before so last night was a real treat. I also got to meet Najee after the concert (pictures to the right and below) and also got my CD signed. As someone who has been truly inspired by Najee’s music for many years, this was the best gift ever, thanks Nicole!
In late March, my lifetime goal of reaching VP was realized. I got promoted to Vice President, Search Marketing and it as been a true honor. My new role is everything I imagined and so much more. I feel a deep sense of responsibility and am so thrilled with everything I’m doing. I’m extremely thankful as the honor would not have been possible without an unparalleled team and company, amazing co-workers and mentors, and of course my amazing wife and family.
I had so much fun on Friday! I attended the Giants/Pirates game at AT&T Park with my co-workers. We had really great field club seats (picture below). The Giants won the game and the weather was perfect. It’s so exciting that baseball season has started. Just a few weeks back, I attended the Warriors/Lakers game with co-workers as well. Sporting events are a great way to enjoy the company of co-workers while relaxing after work.
Google+ is taking off! If you don’t have a business page on Google+, make sure to create one. Google+ is showing up in organic search results and also paid (right rail) from time to time. I’m going to get some screenshots and do a future post on this topic, but long story short it is the perfect time to invest in your Google+ business profile.

Giants Opening Day Field Club

Najee CD Signing

Images in this post © PPCIan.com

Three Online Marketing Career Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 12 2

I’m the biggest fan of the online marketing career around. This career has been amazing to me. I don’t think there are too many corporate careers that offer such rapid growth as online marketing, especially search engine marketing. It’s been a while since I’ve done a career post so I wanted to share a few tips today that will help anyone grow within their online marketing career.

Tip 1: Place Your Company First

Career

There may be days that you go into work and think, “What can I do today that will make me shine?” You may wonder, “How can I get noticed?” Those are definitely great things to be thinking. After all, these types of questions are top of mind for anyone looking to progress in their career.

However, I would first recommend asking yourself such questions as, “What can I do today to help my company?” Ask yourself, “What can I do to catapult the numbers forward for the benefit of everyone?” When you start thinking about the company and your team, and place your own career aside, you will be doing the absolute best thing for your career. Your career is closely tied to results and the success of the company. Help build your company and you will in turn build your own online marketing career.

Tip 2: Arrive At Work Early

If you work in the Silicon Valley like me, you may have noticed that there’s a culture of getting into work a little later at some companies. This isn’t the case at all companies, but at some folks will arrive anywhere between 9:30 and 10:30. These same people totally pull their weight and stay late. That said, if you’re looking to grow your career fast, I recommend being one of the earlier employees in the office. If everyone arrives at 9:30, why not shoot for 9:00 am? If everyone shoots for 9:00, why not arrive at 8:45 am? There are a few benefits of arriving early. First and foremost, it’s easy to think clearly and get a jump start on the day. Second, it positions you as a leader, someone who’s dedicated to the company. Third, it’s a great way to have a strong handle on your numbers as early as possible (especially important for those of us in search engine marketing).

Tip 3: Make Time For People

The greatest asset of any company is its employees. In the world of online marketing, it’s so easy to get ultra focused on work. And, that’s a good thing because the work drives numbers and the company forward. However, don’t forget to take some time to form lasting bonds with your co-workers. Make sure to go to lunch with others. Walk around your office and introduce yourself. Work on cross-functional projects. The more time you spend with everyone, the more everyone will be able to accomplish as a team.

I hope you find these tips helpful! While they are applicable to any career path, I have especially found them to be helpful in my own online marketing career.

Image of career © iStockPhoto – PashaIgnatov

ad:tech San Francisco 2012 Recap

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 8 2

Online marketing conferences are the best! Just a month ago, I thoroughly enjoyed SMX West. Last week, I attended ad:tech San Francisco 2012. ad:tech is a great conference. While I was only there for half of the first day (I couldn’t stay too long due to a huge amount of work last week), I totally enjoyed the experience and wanted to share a few thoughts about the conference.

First and foremost, I would like to highlight ad:tech as a really special conference. While I really enjoy the other online marketing conferences such as (SMX West, SMX Advanced, and SES), ad:tech is in a league of its own. It’s a more holistic online marketing conference covering all online marketing channels, whereas the other conferences are more focused on PPC and SEO. As a focused PPC and SEO professional, I really enjoyed attending the ad:tech sessions and hearing about all different types of online marketing strategies. If you’re interested in expanding your strategic focus and online marketing scope, ad:tech is the conference for you.

Second, ad:tech is a really popular conference. It was packed with tons of attendees, clearly demonstrating the strength of the online marketing industry. I felt like the sessions were much more packed than some of the other conferences I have attended recently. Also, the expo hall spanned two levels. It was huge! It’s really the attendees that build energy at any conference and it’s always more fun attending a packed conference like ad:tech.

Third, ad:tech is the place to network and meet up with friends, both old and new. I exchanged a ton of business cards and built some great new connections. Also, I ran into more old friends than at any other conference. I especially enjoyed meeting up with my former manager and good friend, from Nextag.

So, there you have it, quick recap this time since I didn’t spend a ton of time at the conference. However, the time I did spend there was really high leverage. I totally recommend this conference, especially if you’re looking for a broader, more strategic perspective about online marketing.

Image of PPC Ian at ad:tech © PPCIan.com

Sign Up For Kenshoo’s Bid Management Webinar

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 4 1

I’m a huge fan of SEM automation. When it comes to SEM automation, my favorite topic is Bid Management. In fact, that’s the topic of my last post (the one just linked to). The world of SEM platforms is extremely competitive right now. Leading SEM platforms have a ton of funding. They’ve recruited the brightest minds around. They are producing amazing systems. What does this mean for online marketing professionals like you and me? Easy: We win, big time!

When it comes to SEM automation, Kenshoo is one of the absolute top names around! I’ve been following these guys since the early days back in 2009. I cannot speak highly enough of Kenshoo, their team, and their platform. Engineering is deeply ingrained in Kenshoo’s culture and they develop some of the most innovative technologies in our industry. Next Wednesday (April 11, 2012) Kenshoo is holding a webinar I’ll be attending for sure. Kenshoo will be discussing Enterprise SEM Bid Managment. In particular, members of Kenshoo’s marketing and research teams will discuss the current state of bid managment platforms, how to evaluate platforms for your business, and of course Kenshoo’s latest technologies.

I’m most excited by the fact that Kenshoo will discuss the Kenshoo Portfolio OptimizerTM (KPO) which was recently released in version 3.0 of Kenshoo’s Model-Based Bid Policies. One of Kenshoo’s clients, All Star Directories, will discuss how they leveraged Kenshoo bidding to grow their average daily profit by 87%. I can’t wait to hear all about it!

Make sure to sign up for Kenshoo’s Enterprise SEM Bid Management Webinar today! I know bid management is top of mind for so many of us right now and I truly hope this webinar helps you develop your personal bid management strategy.

5 Advantages of PPC Bid Management Platforms

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 1 2

I’m a huge fan of SEM Automation. Great SEM Software suites such as Kenshoo and Efficient Frontier accomplish so many great things – reporting, analytics, keyword generation, cross-platform campaign management, ad copy testing, advanced querying, and so much more. My favorite part of such platforms: PPC bid management. Today, I wanted to share 5 key advantages to implementing your own PPC bid management platform.

Advantage 1: More Consistency In Numbers

The pay per click landscape can be quite volatile. You have competitors entering and leaving the market all the time. You have bids fluctuating wildly based on time of day, day of week, and week of year. In the absence of a bid management platform, it’s likely your CPA is quite volatile over time. You may even have difficulty managing your program to a particular CPA. With a great bid management platform in place, your numbers will be much more consistent. Your CPA will be much more stable, as the platform will update your bids regularly, based on the most up-to-date information available.

From a career perspective, it’s all about delivering great, consistent numbers. Every business wants predictability. Implement a bid management platform and it could be the key to your program’s success.

Advantage 2: Greater Control and Precision

This advantage really ties into the last one. With consistency comes control and precision. Let’s say you’re running at a $50 CPA and your management wants you to bring it down to $48 for the month. This type of precision is quite difficult with manual bidding, especially when you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands or even millions of keywords. However, with a well-implemented bid management platform, you will have a very consistent CPA. That very consistent CPA will give you more control and precision. Let’s say you want to lower CPA by just a dollar or two, this will be possible with precision. It will take some setup time to hit this point, but it’s totally possible and easy with a well-implemented bidding platform.

Advantage 3: Ability To Manage More Keywords

Let’s face it, more keywords means more overhead. More keywords especially creates complexity in bidding since your data keeps getting sliced in a more and more granular manner. Let’s say you’re bidding on the term auto insurance (broad match) on a national level. Let’s say you now decide to split it out by state. Next, let’s say you want to buy all of the different match types. After a while, you have an overwhelming number of instances of the same keyword (at least 153). This is the absolute right thing to do from a campaign management perspective, but makes it more difficult to bid due to thin data. That is, unless you have an intelligent bid management platform in place that can aggregate and analyze data in unique perspectives that are not straight forward nor scalable in Excel.

Advantage 4: Increased Innovation and High Level Thought

When you’re bidding in Excel, you’re just trying to get the work done. Manual Excel bidding is important work. If you don’t have a platform in place, this is what you have to do. That said, when you’re in a manual bidding state of mind, it’s difficult to innovate and think of big, high level changes to your overall bidding strategy. Get a great bidding platform in place and all you’ll do is think about innovate approaches to bidding.

Advantage 5: More Free Time

At the end of the day, automated bid management platforms are huge time savers. PPC is an incredibly busy discipline. We always have a full plate of work. To the extent that you can automate manual work, it will truly make a difference in your program. Use that extra time to work on growth initiatives and you’ll see amazing results. In my experience, bid management platforms save house of work every single week!

Check Out My PPC and SEO Guest Post

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 28 3

About two months ago, I did a guest post on the PPC Associates blog about SEM Agencies. I’m thrilled that PPC Associates invited me back to do another guest post. Today, my post went live. It’s all about PPC and SEO Collaboration. I definitely recommend checking it out. When you work in the corporate world of online marketing, it’s fairly typical to have different teams (or at least different people) managing PPC and SEO. However, there are some true synergies between these two online marketing channels. If both teams collaborate closely, the results can be truly astounding. I hope you enjoy my guest post and take some helpful tips to your PPC or SEO job!