Any PPC manager worth his salt will agree that Google Adwords sitelinks are a powerful optimization tool. So how exactly does this seemingly minor change impact so greatly on ad performance?

The enhanced ad offers the user more choices, for instance if you are advertising a small business such as the local supermarket, your ad could offer the user alternatives such as vegetables, fruits, canned good etc, making it more targeted and more relevant for the user.

Adding sitelinks to your ads has proven time and time again to lower CTR and thus improve quality score.

An Ad with sitelinks also takes up more of the Google real estate, making it more visible than your competitors’ ads, thus enticing users to click on your ad instead.

Here is an example of what an ad with sitelinks looks like on the Google SERP’s

Previously adding sitelinks meant that users would see a set of four links beneath the main ad, but recently Google unveiled their enhanced sitelinks, that has certainly gotten PPC advertisers excited.

Now instead of merely displaying links beneath your ad, you can now feature all your alternate ads, provided that they are located within the account and are closely related. Another criterion is that the ad is ranked number one on the Google SERP’s.

The enhanced Google sitelinks will look like this:

You can be certain that an ad like this will definitely grab the attention of the user and also allow PPC managers an opportunity to optimize their accounts further.

Google has announced that in testing they found that people reported that the ads containing the enhanced sitelinks performed better than those with the traditional sitelinks.

So if you aren’t already using Google sitelinks, you should get started.

Happy Marketing!

Christmas is just around the corner, and that means that the Shopping frenzy is well underway. It is this time of year that holds the most promise for all online stores, provided they are quick enough to sharpen their online campaigns to grab the attention of those eager buyers out there. So here are the few tips that can help strengthen your PPC techniques to get those high ROIs this Christmas.

The festive period means shops are selling Christmas trees, stockings, advent calendars and singing Christmas collectibles; all of which signals that the countdown to Christmas has begun.

So what should you be doing now in preparation for a lucrative Christmas?

Here are a few things you can do during this festive season:

The first step is to look at your account’s history:

Analyse your accounts past metrics such as cost per click, impressions and conversion rate in order to plan your strategy effectively. One metric that is pretty useful is the average position of the text ads and the related performance, so you will know more or less how to position your “special ads” to achieve the best results.

Choose relevant keywords and match types:

Ensure that you add festive keywords to your keyword list such as “Christmas gifts, Christmas hampers, Wine for Christmas” etc. Be sure to also include variations and misspellings as well, in this case it would be prudent to include search terms such as “Xmas gifts, Holiday activities, Xmas table decor” etc. You could even further improve relevancy, if for example you sold Christmas trees online, you could include keywords that include a clear call to action, such as “Buy Christmas Trees”. This type of keyword is great for your ROI. Another key point is to be aware of match types, if you are operating on a large advertising spend, a campaign incorporating all match types would be feasible, however if you have a smaller budget, you can try limiting the campaigns to exact and phrase match keywords.

Inject some glitter to your ad text:

This is the time of year where the competition is quite stiff, so in order to grab the user’s attention, you need to have ad text that really jumps off the page. Include call to actions, free offers and special discount prices in the ad text and more importantly include the “Christmas” terms as well.

Landing pages and website:

It’s important to keep the Christmas feel and theme on your landing pages and website, Christmas is a significant time for many people and these little touches can make a big difference in persuading users who have clicked through to convert by making a purchase.

Happy Marketing This Christmas Season!

Presence is not enough. No one will visit your website if they don’t know it’s there. Optimising your website to ensure it’s picked up by search engines – an absolute essential necessity. You need to be SEEN.

With Search engine optimisation (SEO) you not only build brand awareness, but more importantly, you gain trust within your industry. The higher the ranking of your site in the search results, and the more frequently your page appears on the results pages, the more visitors and sales you’ll have, because you are targeting people who are looking for your product. Being listed on top of search engine results also almost automatically cements your company as a market leader.

Trust + brand awareness + more visitors = more sales.

So what is SEO? SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of structuring a web page so that it is found, read, and indexed by search engines as effectively as possible. It improves the visibility of your website in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

These search engines use crawlers to follow links from one page to another and retrieve the contents. This is indexed and added to their databases. Search engines’ web crawlers rank sites according to their relevance to search terms, which is calculated using criteria such as the extent of keyword matches and the number of sites linked to a website. Done properly, SEO ensures that, when users search for terms relevant to your business, they will find your website every time.

Unique content counts. Having professionally written, relevant copy on your site (different from the content on other sites in wording, structure and topics) can provide a big boost for your site’s rankings. Frequency of content change is also a must – not small changes to existing content, but new content which shows that your website is active and dynamic.

We’ve all heard of it by now, the Consumer Protection Act or CPA for short, effective since the 1^st of April 2011. Finally the “little guys” have the power, to a degree, when buying goods and services. The act covers various consumer rights relating to buying goods and services; the return, repair and refunds thereof; fixed agreement terminations and a few others. The areas of the act that we will focus on that impacts on marketing, though, are: Right 2: the right to privacy, and Right 3: the right to fair and responsible marketing.

Gone are the days of telesales agents calling you at every conceivable hour of the day to sell you that Cellphone contract that you do not want or need. Also, you have the right to demand being removed from mailing lists if you receive spam text SMS’s that do not give you the option to opt out. This also pertains to all other forms of spam emails and other correspondence. This is certainly great news for the consumers, but how does this affect the marketers of all these goods and services? Well now there are fewer avenues to reach potential customers, but there is one avenue that many marketers are starting to rely on to reach an ever-growing online market.

The online population has exploded in the last ten years, with companies like Facebook having more users than all but 3 countries’ populations on earth and marketing budgets all over the world are moving over from the old traditional forms to the new age of marketing, online marketing. The biggest player on the online information/ search engine market is undoubtedly Google. Whenever there is something you want to know, buy or sell, Google can provide you a portal to literally Billions of websites, information and potential customers.

So what does this have to do with the CPA, well it comes down to two words: Permission Marketing. Permission marketing, the opposite is called interruption marketing, is when consumers give you “permission” to advertise and sell to them by clicking on adverts and websites and by searching for information or products. Thus they are coming to you for this info and thus the CPA places no restrictions on this form of marketing. Many large companies are relying heavily on their websites to sell their products and services and some companies do not even have physical offices anymore.

To conclude, the CPA has contributed heavily to the changing face of marketing in South Africa and marketers everywhere have had to adapt their strategies to accommodate this. Companies are spending millions each month advertising using Google and Facebook ads as well as optimizing their websites to rank high on search engines (SEO). The only question that remains is “Can you afford not to adapt your marketing strategy as well”?

We’re living in an era of information-overload, so cutting through the clutter is no longer an option.  It has become a necessary skill that every one of us has acquired – and mastered.

Gone are the days of waiting patiently for a letter in the post, of standing in line to see if you got some form of communication from a far away friend or relative, and then cherishing every second and every word the letter contained.  In fact, gone are the days of even reading every word in every letter.

What does this mean to us corporates wanting to impart valuable educational information to our clients?  How does this affect our marketing strategies and capture the attention of our potential clients?

We need to innovatively adapt. We need to look at avenues where customers choose to interact with us, rather than the other way round.  We need to impart product knowledge, educate and sell, rather, to the customer while they are either in need of it, or actively looking at acquiring it – where they are most amenable to receiving the information and acting on it.

Where is this, you ask?

The internet.
It has become the single, biggest source of information, education and product listings and guidelines – not only for this next emerging generation, but for everyone.  Lugging the Britannica encyclopedia series or sets of catalogues of all your favourite (and new) products along with you, now means carrying a laptop with 3G access, and most probably utilizing search engines.  In fact, with the emerging market of smartphones, accessing the internet has become even less than all of that already.
Looking at this trend, it would be of utmost importance then, to ensure that you have a website – and more importantly, to have it visible.

While everyone is uncluttering and wading through oceans of information, take the lead by streamlining and honing in your advertising and marketing.  It will probably be the best time spent on business strategy ever!