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How to use Google Ads Callout Extensions

by Nishad Jiwa
written by Nishad Jiwa

Google Ads remains a useful platform for advertisers wishing to promote their products and services. This network is ideal for showcasing product listings, videos, service offerings, and other marketing content that is always mobile-friendly.

As a form of paid advertising (PPC), Google Ads help client businesses appear on Google’s searches and Maps. Customers only pay for actual results, like clicks to their websites, blogs, online stores, or calls to their businesses. The platform is accessible via laptops and wireless devices – with ads that appear in minutes after creation for targeting traffic to desired websites.

Here are some more essentials to keep in mind:

  • Google Ads operates on an auction system with businesses that have high-quality ad campaigns receiving rewards. These include better ad placement for higher visibility and lower costs per ad.
  • The average cost per click on Google Ads is $1 – $2 on the search network. The most expensive keywords in Google and Bing Ads cost around $50 per click.
  • As part of your customized Google Ads campaign, you can manage costs with geotargeting, device-targeting, and ad scheduling. Their Smart Ads Creator also helps you create business ads and banners that display in minutes.

How can Google Ads Callout extensions help my marketing strategy?

Now that we have covered some basics of Google Ads, let’s explore some of the tools available for brand marketing enhancement. One of the most popular additions to Ads is Callout Extensions. These are mainly small snippets of text that appear with your search ads. These content bits showcase the additional benefits of your products or services.

You can add up to 4 callouts per ad with 25 characters long. Here is a sample of Google Ads Callout Extensions:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YMKaanl7HgPe8GEHfS-KCRFWpppAErGj

The snippets are streamlined to highlight deals, discounts, or special promotions. They can be a few keywords with commas or sentences around 25 characters long. In this ad, Insignia SEO in Austin is offering 10% off its services on orders over $2,000.

Why should you use Callout Extensions?

As you can see in the sample ad above, Insignia SEO has used the callout extension to add two additional messages to their main ad.

  • Deal: 10% off Services
  • Mention Ad on orders over $2,000.

While the main ad focuses on promoting the company as the best agency for SEO services in Houston, the additional snippets relay essential information about a discount available to all existing and potential clients/customers. This is done in a crafty manner – one that does not overburden the ad but seamlessly blends in the additional content.

Callout Extensions allow you to double the amount of text in your ad for effective messaging. While Google Ads limits content to 25 characters for headlines and 70 characters for the body of the advertisement, Callout ads give you more space for reaching wider audiences. These additions even help your brands stand out on crowded search engine results.

How to set up Callout Extensions

You will need a Google Adwords account for building and displaying business ads online. If you already have one, log in and click on the Ad Extensions tab. Since Adwords has several ad extensions, make sure to use the drop-down box and select Callout Extensions. You can also click the red “+Extension” button to add your extensions.

There will be a section to add Callout text to your new or existing ad. Enter up to 25 characters of writing within this section. Once this is done, go to Device Preference and choose whether you want your ads to display only for mobile search users or everyone.

You can then set up your ads’ Start and end dates. This is good for exclusive promotions, which may only run for a limited time. By setting up start and end dates, your Callout Extensions will run collectively with your Ads – and you don’t have to go back in and turn off the promotions when they expire.

The last step is Scheduling, which enables you to run the ads only on specific days. If you want them to run daily or only during certain hours of the day, there are options available for those as well.

Build better ads with Callout Extensions

The presentation of your online business ad is just as important as the content within. You need an ad structure that is easy to scan and digest for brand awareness and higher conversion rates. While Google Ads remains at the top of the heap of pay-per-click marketing campaigns, adding Callout Extensions is a savvy way to place more information in front of potential clients.

Not only can you get more visitors to your websites or online stores – the chances for product engagements are also higher with captivating ads that are aesthetic and entice consumers to take desired actions.

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Content MarketingContent WritingGoogle AdsPay Per ClickPPC

Content Marketing and PPC

by Rolando Herrera
written by Rolando Herrera

Digital marketers who utilize pay-per-click advertising generally tend to focus their efforts on improving click-through rates and quality scores. Optimizing account structures and proper use of negative keywords round out the basics of implementing effective PPC campaigns. One crucial aspect that can drastically improve the effectiveness of PPC campaigns is by providing great content to link from PPC ads. While great content is not always included when talking about the elements of successful PPC campaign plans, they work together to provide positive results from PPC ad investments.

Content marketing can (and should) be used as a way to improve PPC ad campaign performance and vice versa. Ways to get the most of out of both PPC campaigns and great content include:

PPC Campaigns Drive Traffic to Sites Fast

With millions of blogs being posted online every day, getting exposure without an established SEO strategy is less likely to drive users to your site. If you are still working to build your site’s organic rankings, PPC ads are a quick and effective way to drive traffic to your site and be seen on search engines.

Driving the kind of traffic PPC ad campaigns are designed to draw can provide necessary brand exposure in the early stages of your digital marketing plan. Focusing on PPC and content marketing simultaneously uses your content to inform, while paid ads can be used as a valuable conversion tool.

PPC Ads Create Brand Recognition

Viewing paid ads will help users remember your brand and increase organic listings. Having both a PPC ad and an organic listing on the same page improves click-through rates increases brand recognition and creates a bias to your brand, even if users are not readily aware of the connection.

Your brand appears as more of an authority and will increase click-through rates of returning visitors, as well, and marketing research has consistently shown that retaining a customer is far less expensive than acquiring a new one.

Link Ads to an Actionable Landing Page

Successful user navigation through a conversion funnel must include quality landing page content that is compelling, intriguing, and original.

Users who click on PPC ads will likely browse your website before making a purchase or performing other acts of conversion. Actionable, compelling content throughout your website can affect the buyer’s journey to conversion.

Keep in mind that decisions are not always made during the initial web session that came from a PPC ad. However, a PPC ad that links to quality content increases the chances of conversion when it comes time for potential customers to make a purchase decision.

PPC Keyword Data Provides Valuable Content Insights

Pay-per-click keyword research and data can be leveraged to drive high traffic to produce increased revenue. Ad copy that performs well can be applied to organic content with similar effects.

Branded keywords tend to have greater CTR success than other standard keywords.

Organic and paid keyword strategies grouped together can deliver successes that can be applied to either or both campaigns. A/B testing will help to determine the keywords which will perform best in each campaign.

Doubling Up SERP Real Estate

Two links are better than one. Having both paid ads and organic links show up on the first search page will increase traffic.

Grabbing up SERP real estate is even more critical in mobile applications where users are more likely to click through on paid ads and top organic results. Multiple links will also serve to increase your brand’s identity and authority.

4 Actionable Tips to Increase the Effectiveness of Content Marketing through PPC Campaigns

Understanding the benefits of using PPC ads and content marketing to increase click-through and conversion rates is the first step to a successful campaign. Some common sense ways to maximize the relationship between PPC and great content include:

Use Facebook ads to promote great content: Facebook’s Audience Insights feature can be used to segment audiences and target ads to relevant users in the conversion funnel. Paid ads created within Facebook Ads Manager can be used to reach relevant users or customers spanning a variety of interests and demographics.

Clickable headlines: Leverage industry keywords and topic groupings that have gone viral to create a compelling and relevant headline to grab user attention. Engaging and unique headlines can entice users who don’t generally click on paid ads. A/B testing can help to determine the headlines that will produce the highest click rates and conversions. Note: When writing compelling headlines, caution must be made to avoid turning clickable headlines into clickbait that are not relevant to the content people are being directed to.

Mobile-first mentality: Every day, the number of mobile searches across all platforms and devices is rising. Images, infographics, and other forms of visual content will help conversion rates from paid ads seen on mobile devices. Landing page content that is optimized for mobile devices is created with a slightly different perspective. Some guidelines to help improve the conversion of PPC ad campaigns for mobile include:

  • Short headlines
  • Concise paragraphs
  • No pop-up ads
  • Mobile-optimized image sizes
  • Prominent, clear calls to action

Proper CTA placements convert more users: Landing pages linked from PPC ads need to have several clear calls to action prominently placed throughout the content for more accessible user conversions. CTAs may include an on-page contact information form or pop-up CTA that help transform leads from PPC ads to conversions and sales.

Different marketing philosophies suggest CTAs either above the fold or at the bottom of the article. Either way, prominent and user-friendly calls to action are a must for paid promotion campaign landing pages.

Austin, Texas Content Marketing and PPC Ads

Content marketing and PPC ads are integral parts of an overall marketing strategy. The experienced team at Insignia SEO can help you create actionable, compelling content and effective PPC ads, yielding high returns for your business. Contact a member of our team today and let us know how we can help you achieve your business goals.

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Bing AdsGoogle AdsResearchSearch

Paid Search Analytic Tools: Which to Choose and When?

by Rolando Herrera
written by Rolando Herrera

Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are essential for the success of any business in this digital world. From ranking higher on the search engines to getting more customers and ultimately improving their bottom line, search marketers have a lot on their hands. The most crucial role in achieving all these milestones is played by search analytic tools.

Search analytics is the task of using search data to investigate interactions among web searchers and the search engine or the content every time someone searches for something on the Internet. The result of these analyses helps develop strategies for search engine marketing and search engine optimization. In simple words, search analytics helps marketers understand and improve their performance on search engines. The result is more interactions, more customers, and hence, more profits.

What makes search analytics a little easy for search marketers is that there are plenty of free search analytic tools available online, for instance, Google Analytics. These tools offer a wide array of features and reports that can be used by online marketers and SEO specialists in devising their future strategies. There are also other free tools like SimilarWeb and Moz that are used a lot by online marketers to improve their SEO and SEM efforts.

While these free tools work for most of the people, what if someone needs a deeper insight into their search engine marketing efforts?

What if they’ve just outgrown the free tools that they have been using until now?

For such search marketers, the best option is to invest in a paid search analytic tools.

But, when is the right time to invest in these paid tools?

The Importance of Being Up-to-Date

Being in the online market, businesses need to have tools that help them understand SERP results for their target queries. But the intent of a given SERP is often changed by Google. If you wish to deploy a solid SEO strategy, you need to know which types of content is ranking on Google. It keeps changing time and again, and to be on top of your SEO and SEM game, you need to know what is currently on the search engine. While most of this information is available for free, thanks to Google, not many marketers think of investing in paid search analytic options. However, if you wish to dig deeper and figure everything out in detail to create your SEO strategy, investing in a paid search analytic tool becomes essential.

The decision of whether or not you should opt for paid tools depends on how vital search tools are for your business’s marketing strategies. If your entire business decisions are based on these tools, then it is best to invest in something that gives you an all-round analysis of your SEM efforts.

These paid options become all the more critical when you are dealing with a large number of physical locations or various product offerings, all of which provoke a unique search behavior from the audience. Dealing with so much information is not possible when you are using free tools as most of them offer entry-level features.

When Should You Upgrade?

While it is entirely up to the business and its SEO and SEM team to decide when they should upgrade to paid search analytic tools, here are some questions that can help you make the right decision at the right time.

  1. Have the free tools been utilized to their full capacity?
  2. Do you take business decisions based on search data?
  3. Is your website large enough?
  4. Does the company want to connect all their customer data and other technologies into one system?
  5. Are they ready to spend on these paid analytic tools?

You will be in a better place to decide if you are ready to invest in a paid search analytic tool once you answer all these questions for your business. Only invest in these paid tools when you are sure that you will use this data to take effective actions for your business.

Will these tools help your business move forward and improve your bottom line? Will they make a difference in your business and its profits?

Don’t invest in these paid tools just for the sake of it. Scale as necessary. Assess your search analytics needs before you make such a big decision. If you think it is essential for your business to make the shift, it is best not to hold back as it can cost you much more than just some lost data.

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Bing AdsGoogle AdsPay Per Click

Wordstream vs. Marin: Which PPC Tool is Best for You?

by Kyle Blankenship
written by Kyle Blankenship

For businesses that want to reach consumers directly, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a fast way to get your website in front of customers.

Unlike Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which can be done for free, PPC requires advertisers to pay a fee each time users click an ad. Placing an ad at the top of search engine results requires a bidding process that can be expensive and tiresome.

While businesses and advertisers could try PPC out for themselves by bidding on platforms like Google Ads, multiple companies offer software that streamlines PPC efforts.

Two companies at the top of that market are Wordstream, which was founded in 2007, and Marin Software, which started in 2006.

For the uninitiated, these two companies appear to offer similar services, but there are notable differences in each company’s suite of products. For discerning businesses and advertisers, those differences could make or break an ad campaign.

Let’s take a look at each company and find the pros and cons of what they have to offer.

Wordstream

Wordstream’s PPC platform is an all-in-one software that lets businesses build their ad campaigns on any budget.

This platform is well regarded as a tool for brand new advertising teams with easy-to-use features that will walk them through your first PPC experience. Also, the ability to scale campaigns allows larger groups to use Wordstream as the business grows.

Wordstream helps advertisers optimize their campaigns by offering new keywords to help them stay competitive. Users can expect helpful monthly reports that track the performance of ads and make suggestions moving forward.

However, this platform does have compatibility issues with GoogleAds, which is the largest market for PPC ads on the Google search engine.

Also, setting bid amounts on the platform could be easier. Especially for new advertisers, mastering bids helps save money and optimize PPC spending.

Marin Software

Marin’s PPC platform offers maximum flexibility for PPC advertisers, making it an excellent choice for more experienced teams looking to optimize their campaigns.

Marin allows advertisers to tinker with all aspects of their campaign, including bid amounts, keywords and more. For businesses looking for maximum control over advertising, this platform may be a good option.

Another great feature Marin offers is an AI-assisted bidding function that optimizes ad bids dependent on the keyword. That feature helps newbies and experienced advertisers find the perfect amount to bid.

However, some customers complain about Marin’s support infrastructure, which can be challenging to interact with.

Which Software is the Right Choice?

For businesses looking for a one-stop PPC advertising platform that works for newcomers and experienced advertisers alike, Wordstream is an excellent choice.

Not only is the UX easy to use, but first-timers can feel comfortable optimizing their bids and tracking their best-performing content.

If an advertising team is looking for maximum control over their campaign, Marin Software’s platform gives them as much control as they want for their campaign.

Also, Marin’s bidding technology will help optimize bids with ease.

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Google AdsMobilePay Per ClickWeb Design

4 Ways Web Design Can Impact PPC Performance

by Brandon Lee
written by Brandon Lee

If you’re new to the concept of PPC, then you may not think too much of your website’s design. You may even be wondering “what does my PPC campaign have to do with my website’s design?”

From an objective standpoint, your website’s design can significantly impact your PPC performance in a variety of ways. Therefore, if you’re running a PPC campaign, you need to be sure that your website isn’t going to impede your success.

Check out these four ways your site’s design can impact your PPC performance and begin receiving a higher return on investment from your campaigns.

1.) Mobile Responsiveness

On this blog, we’ve mentioned time and time again that having a mobile-responsive website is crucial. Unlike how the internet used to be about five to ten years ago, consumers now expect businesses to have fully responsive websites on both desktop and mobile platforms.

This primarily due to the fact that more people are using their phones to find businesses, and more importantly, click on ads. Therefore, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, your prospects could leave your website before you have the chance to convert.

Before your PPC campaign goes live, make sure that your website is mobile-friendly by performing an audit or consulting with your SEO professional.

2.) Page Speed

According to Search Engine Journal, nearly 70% of consumers stated that page speed has influenced their purchasing decisions.

An Unbounce article cited in the report also stated that people will typically leave your website if they’re forced to wait more than three seconds!

Therefore, even if you have a website that looks incredible, you’ll have a problem on your hands if it doesn’t load quickly. To check how fast your website is on mobile devices, you can use Google’s free speed tool. Alternatively, you can use this tool to test your site’s speed on both mobile and desktop devices.

3.) Technical Errors

One of the most common issues with websites is technical errors, and these issues can drastically destroy your chances of converting any leads from your PPC campaign.

Your website may work just fine for you and your team, but you’re probably using the same browser and the same actions to access your website each and every time.

For a prospect, they’re likely using a different browser and they’re accessing your website for the first time, which can lead them into a bunch of technical errors you never noticed.

Hence, if one of your site visitors complain about a technical error on your site, don’t just say “it only works if you click this link and not this one”. That’s a sure-fire way to lose out on your advertising leads.

Instead, try different browsers and different methods to access your site to trigger technical errors so you can properly fix them.

4.) Aesthetics

Many businesses realize they need a website, but their means of obtaining one aren’t always ideal (or even legitimate). Consumers can usually tell if your website looks homemade or dated. This can call your business’ trustworthiness and credibility into question because your website is your business’ first impression.

Before your PPC campaign begins, take a hard look at your website and determine for yourself if it’s what you want your prospects to see. If you’re having doubts about your website’s aesthetic quality, contact your developer to receive a newer and more modern website design.

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