Remarketing on the Google Content Network

It would seem Google has been dabbling in remarketing for a while. We first noticed it in the SERPs a few years ago. Historically, session-based broad match has been active within the search side of PPC; rumors run rampant that a new version of remarketing, on the content network, is in BETA and will be available to Adwords advertisers who qualify.

What is Remarketing?

Remarketing (online) is serving ads to users who've seen some aspect of your site, but didn't take a desired action. For an example, let's say a visitor is browsing your site and ends up on a key page. From this page, said visitor could convert, but instead backs out.

Then this visitor heads to another site – a site on the content network. There s/he is then served up with an ad hauntingly reminiscent of the hotel site recently visited.

Why Remarket?

What's the point of remarketing to someone who's left your site, anyway? Well, for starters, if a visitor has already been to your site – i.e., shown an interest in what you're offering – they're a pre-qualified lead. Just because they didn't take 'action' the first time doesn't mean they won't if given the opportunity again. It's much easier to 'close' an interested party than a new visitor.

As with anything in BETA, only time will tell how it'll impact advertisers – or users, for that matter – but we're pretty optimistic about Google's venture into content network remarketing.

Yahoo Search Marketing Enhancements

For those PPC advertisers looking to make their lives easier, Yahoo! Search Marketing has added a couple new enhancements to their dashboard: a campaign import tool and the network distribution feature (and accompanying tools).

Campaign Import Tool

Now you can easily migrate campaigns from Google Adwords into Yahoo! Search Marketing. All you have to do is download your data into a .CSV file and save it to your computer, then import the file into the Yahoo! Sponsored Search program. You can import everything from campaigns on down to keywords.  However, you cannot import geo-targeting; this has to be manually added after the upload is complete.

Network Distribution

Target Yahoo! Partners, Yahoo! Search or both with this new feature. Continue to use PPC best practices by separating Search and Content Partners campaigns. This will allow you to manage the campaigns with more control. Here are some tools available to help with the feature:

• Conversion-Only Analytics – a conversion is, of course, when a web user completes a desired action, whether it's filling out a form, purchasing a product or downloading a PDF. Add programming code to your 'confirmation' pages (i.e., a "thank you" page or the order confirmation) in order to track conversions. In order to enable this, you must first activate conversion-only analytics:
  
  
  
  • Click the Administration tab, and then click the Analytics subtab. The Analytics Settings page will open. (If the analytics feature is disabled, click Enable Analytics.)
  • Select the Conversion Only Analytics option.
  • Click 'Activate.'
  
  
• Network Distribution Performance Report* – this reporting tool gives advertisers data on the best-performing keywords and ad groups within campaigns in regards to conversions, revenue and lead generation. Being able to identify the strongest elements of campaigns –  in both Yahoo! Partners and Yahoo! Search – means the ability to easily hone ads and keywords for even greater conversion.
  
• Filter reports by hierarchy level, name, event type, distribution channel and account.
• Track clicks, CTR, average CPC, cost, conversion and revenue.
• *Get the most out of this by installing conversion-only analytics.
  
• Blocked Domains – this feature allows advertisers to block their ads from showing on websites (up to 500 domains) within the partner network. If there are sites on which Sponsored Search or Content Match ads aren't performing well, it makes sense to block those and focus on the websites with the best return on ad spend (ROAS).
  
• Ad Delivery Report – advertisers can view reports detailing the information about the URLs on which their ads are displaying. See:
  
  
  
  • All domains/URLs where ads appear.
  • Metrics by URL for impressions, cost, conversions, etc.
  • Information about how individual URLs are performing, allowing better usage of Blocked Domains feature.
  
  

So there it is. An easier pay-per-click platform allowing deeper involvement, better tracking and a much easier way to implement campaigns from Google.

Contact Form Extensions: Lead Capture

It's no news Google was offering a new service for Adwords advertisers: contact form extensions. It might be news to hear if you didn't already sign up for it, it's too late – at least for now. The cut-off was January 18th, 2010; technically, since that was Martin Luther King day, the cut-off was more than likely the Sunday before or even Friday the 15th, since we're not sure Google works on weekends.

This new lead capture function – currently in beta – is yet another extension opportunity added to Google's ever-burgeoning list (including local extensions and sitelinks extensions). While other ad enhancements – such as listing a city, address or even a map within an Adwords ad – might seem intuitive information to provide a search engine user, what are the ramifications of listing out a contact form right from the SERP?

Since this is a brand-new feature and most likely isn't very easy to find, this'll be all conjecture but here are some of the pros and cons:

Pros:

• CPA at point of CPC: Normally cost-per-action (CPA) marketing is more 'involved' than cost-per-click (CPC) advertising. Why? Because in a CPA model, the advertiser only pays after the visitor has clicked on an ad, gone through a funnel/process and THEN filled out a form. With Google's contact form extensions, advertisers get to acquire the lead for the cost of a click.
• Information capture: Google takes care of acquiring the information and providing the lead ID or PIN to the advertiser in an email. Once the advertiser receives this information, they can call the designated phone number to retrieve the lead information. Pretty slick.
  

Cons:

• #1 spot only: Only those ads showing up in the number 1 sponsored position can display the contact form extension. This means the ad had better already be at its best before entering into the program.
• Max CPC: If your ad does show up in the #1 spot, and a visitor does fill out the form, you'll end up paying your maximum cost-per-click for that lead. Might not be a big deal for everyone, but some markets out there are pretty competitive.
• Sales cycle: When you offer a user a contact form right from a CPC ad, can you be sure where you're hitting them in the buying cycle? What if they're merely looking to gather as much information as possible?
• Harder sales pitch: Piggybacking off the sales cycle concern, these types of leads (i.e., those leads who've come in via 'spray-and-pray' for information) are much more likely to need a lot more information, convincing and sales talent in order to close.
• Web users: Because we've worked with all types of web users, the question must be asked...will the average Joe surfing the Internet looking for information know to click on that plus sign to even find the form?

It seems our con list outweighs the pro, but of course our opinion – or, for that matter, of anyone – at this point is just that. Only time and statistics will tell how this new Google extension will fare.