If you have a Google Adwords account, but are not running a mobile-only campaign, you may be missing out on a great opportunity. Especially if you own a local business, running a separate mobile-only ad campaign in your Adwords account is a really simple way to improve click through rates, cost-per-clicks, and gain valuable data about your users.

To get started, go to your Analytics account, segment by mobile users, then check out your Top Content, Keywords, and Mobile Devices (In Adwords, you can target desktops, mobile devices with full browsers, and tablets with full browsers) reports. From there, you’ll see what’s important to your mobile audience and can build a campaign accordingly.

Keep the following in mind…
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1. Make sure your landing page is actually optimized for mobile. Because A.) You want your visitors—who were motivated enough to click your ad (and spend your money)—to be able to access your content. (Quite simply, don’t waste the opportunity!) Also, B.) Just like with regular desktop ad campaigns, a quality landing page is important to the fine people at Adwords and helps your quality score, which can lower your cost-per-click. And that’s always nice. Remember to stick to the most important content for people on-the-go (likely contact info, menu, reservations, etc. Look back at that Content report to be sure).
2. May seem obvious, but easy to forget: Be sure to remove mobile devices from your other campaigns. Truly separating your desktop and mobile ad campaigns will help you write smarter, more targeted ads and structure the mobile campaign around different keywords, if need be (and possibly more importantly, different negative keywords!).

It’s time to get reacquainted with an old web marketing friend: Google AdWords. In case a recap is needed, this is the platform through which ads are developed and managed for display on Google’s search engine results pages (the listings you see at the very top of the page, above the organic listings, and stacked along the right side of the page).

With new social media tools constantly being introduced and ever-evolving mobile marketing technologies to stay on top of, AdWords is really a breath of fresh not-so-traditional-advertising-but-more-traditional-than-social-media-and-stuff air.

Yes, a good marketing strategy includes a combination of tactics designed to work together to achieve a common goal, and that may mean introducing some newer options. But in all the excitement of what’s new and popular, have you forgotten about some “older” standbys? Paid search advertising through AdWords might be just what you need to pump some new (old) life into your online marketing.

Let’s look at a few benefits of Google AdWords to remind ourselves why this is:
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1. First things first: Bing is out there and growing. It’s an important search engine to many and should be considered in your interactive marketing plans. But Google still has the much larger market share, so that’s why we’re focusing on it.
2. Adwords’ paid search ads allow you to target an Internet user at precisely the moment they are searching for what you sell. And if you optimize your ad, campaign settings, and landing page well, your ad should gain optimal exposure to this target audience member. You don’t have that kind of control within the organic side of the search engine listings.

It’s been confirmed that Google has recently begun testing some new language above the right side of their search results pages, where their paid ads are housed. These have historically been (and probably still are for most readers) labeled “Sponsored Links.” But before long you may see a new label above the ads…wait for it: “Ads” (gasp!).

This screen shot below shows the new “Ads” test (provided by a Google-related blog—we’re not seeing the test here at EIM yet):

And here’s a screen shot of what you’re used to seeing:

The desire for Google to experiment with this language certainly makes sense. On the one hand, “Sponsored Links” may in fact be misleading since Google doesn’t truthfully sponsor any of those products or services. Advertisers, such as envisionit and our clients, pay Google through their Adwords program to be listed there. On the other hand, the “Sponsored Link” language could soften the search experience in the eyes of the advertising-adverse searchers out there. The word “Ads” could potentially dissuade someone from clicking. And Google wants clicks—that’s how they make money. Do they label them what they are or do they spin the label to coerce searchers into clicking? (Hmm, it actually harkens back to the Facebook switch from “fan” to “like”).

If they move forward with this, it won’t be the most dramatic change Google has implemented in recent months. From Caffeine to Google Instant, the search engine behemoth has thrown a lot of curve balls at us lately—many of which have had us wondering what Google’s true agenda is (helping the greater good quickly find the information they seek online, or helping themselves make money?). There is no doubt, Google continues to keep search marketers on their toes, no matter the size of the shake-up.

If you are currently managing your organization’s paid search campaigns on Google, you may or may not be familiar with the latest and greatest improvements made recently to encourage visitors to click on your ads and continue on to your site or landing pages.  If you’re not familiar with the changes, here is a quick explanation of some of the new features, called Ad Extensions.

First off is your Location Extension. A location extension pulls in and displays a local business addresses that is associated with an account when your ad is shown, in order to make your ads more relevant. You can manually add an address in the Settings section, or associate it with your Google Places account. Location extensions are by default set at the Campaign level, but can also be set at the Ad level if you have, for example, specific promotions running at certain locations. Below is an example of a location extension.

Google Location Extensions

Next, and most recent, is a Phone Extension. This is where you can associate a phone number with an ad that allows a visitor the ability to click to call right from the ad. These phone numbers are displayed on computer or mobile devices with full Internet browsers. These are great for businesses, like attorneys, that rely heavily on phone calls for lead generation.

The last extension is the Product Extension. This is most relevant to ecommerce sites and business that have products listed on their site. You first need to create and upload your products to a Google Merchant Center account, and then you can link the two. Your ads will then display your products underneath them if you are listed in the top bid position. Below is an example of how Skechers uses product extentions.
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