Understanding keyword match types is necessary to run a successful AdWords campaign. Match types give you the power to control how relevant a search term needs to be to match your keyword and trigger your ad.
How Keyword Match Types Work
Every keyword you add to your account can be assigned one of four possible match types: broad, broad match modifier, phrase, or exact. You assign a match type by adding symbols to your keywords.
Let’s take a look at the symbols associated with each match type and how it affects the reach of your keywords.
Broad Match
Broad match keywords will give you the widest reach, but the least relevance.
No additional symbols are required to set your keyword as broad; you just type it in as is. Broad match keywords will match to search terms that are misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and whatever AdWords considers to be relevant variations of your keyword. This means that your keywords do not have to be in the search term anywhere and your ad can still show.
Bike shop as a broad match keyword would match to any search terms that mentioned bikes, shop, or any synonyms or related terms as determined by Google.
Example bike shop matches: motorcycle store, cycle stores, mountain bike shops
Broad Match Modifier (BMM)
You set a BMM keyword by putting a plus sign in front of any or all words in your keyword. Any word with a + before it must be in the search term, or a close variant of that word. Note that you do not have to put a plus sign in front of every word in your keyword, only the words that have to be in the search term. I like to refer to this as partial or complete modified keywords.
If you add the BMM keyword +bike +shop to your account it will only match to search terms that contain both the word bike and the word shop, or close variants of bike and shop. Order of the words does not matter. If you only partially modify the keyword as +bike shop, the search term just has to have the word bike, or close variant, in order to match your keyword.
Example +bike +shop matches: bike repair shop, shop for a bike
Example +bike shop matches: bike store, bike
Phrase Match
You set a Phrase match keyword by putting it in quotes. For a search term to match to a phrase match keyword, it must contain all the words (or close variants) in the keyword in the same order without any words in between. The search term can have other words before or after the phrase.
The phrase match keyword “bike shop” would only match to keywords that have the words bike shop right next to each other, without any terms in between. The search terms can have additional words before or after the phrase bike shop.
Example “bike shop” matches: local bike shop, bike shops in washington
Exact Match
Exact match keywords provide the lowest reach but highest relevance. Putting the keyword in brackets sets exact match keywords. Only search terms that exactly match the keywords will trigger your ad. This means all the words are present, in the same order, without any words before, after, or in between.
The exact match keyword [bike shop] will only match to search term bike shop, no additional words, or close variants.
Example [bike shop] matches: bike shop, bike shops
Close Variants
Now you’re probably wondering, what are these close variants you keep mentioning? Close variants of a keyword include any misspellings, plurals/singulars, stemmings, acronyms, abbreviations, and accents. What’s important to call out here is that close variants do not include synonyms.
Close variants will always match to broad and BMM keywords, but you can choose whether or not close variants match to your phrase and exact keywords. You can find this option in the Advanced Settings section under Keyword matching options. If you don’t see Advanced settings, make sure your campaign type is set to All features, not Standard.
By default, close variants are included for phrase and exact keywords. I recommend leaving close variants turned on because this means you won’t have to spend the time adding in all the possible stemmings, misspellings, etc. of your keyword in order for a search term to match.
Examples of ‘bike’ close variants: bikes, bikers, bicycle, bicycling,
Examples of ‘shop’ close variants: shops, shopping, shopper, shoppers
The Match Type Target
I like to think of keyword match types like a target. As you move down the match types the target audience gets smaller, but what you lose in reach you make up for in relevancy. Having an exact match is like hitting the bullseye, those people are searching for exactly the keyword you’re bidding on.
Take a look at a list of some of the search terms that would show for each match type of bike shops. Note that any out ring match types will also match the search terms in the inner rings. So a broad match of bike shop would match to all the search terms on the target.
*These words would not match to the phrase and exact match keywords if close variants was disabled.
That’s the rundown on AdWords keyword match types. If you’d like to learn more about keyword match types and creating a successful AdWords campaign, attend one of our live, hands-on trainings.
AdWords Keyword Match Types
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9 World-class Bloggers Share Their #1 Email List Building Tip
This is a guest post from Nate Desmond of SumoMe , plus half a dozen contributors you’ll encounter throughout the article.
Too many blogs are plagued by hit-and-run visitors. These are people who come, read your article, and then melt back into the ether of the internet.
As much as we love to see spikes in our website visitor analytics, post views are actually useless. Unless those visitors do something – buy your course, follow you on Twitter, join your email list – even a large traffic spike will leave you back in the same place a few days later.
So how can you transform one-time visitors into lifelong readers?
Simple: convince them to join your email list.
Next time you publish a new post, you won’t start over from zero – your new email subscribers will be glad to read your latest writing. Think of it as a great vicious cycle. More emails = more traffic = more sharing = more emails.
But how do you build your email list?
I wondered the same thing, so I asked major bloggers for their advice. Here’s what they said:
#1. Partner with other bloggers
“Strategic alliances help grow the email list. The clients already know and trust the partner and hence the trust is transferred to us as well.”
- Sean Dsouza writes at Psychotactics
Partnerships with other bloggers can help both blogs reach new audiences and build their reach. When selecting potential alliances, look for two factors:
1. Size: While bigger blogs offer bigger rewards, they also are less likely to be interested.
2. Audience: The more similar your audiences are, the more benefit both blogs will see.
Keeping these criteria in mind, build a list of 10-20 blogs you’d potentially like to partner with.
Here’s an example guest post on ProBlogger
Once you’ve selected a these potentials, decide what type of content you’d like to use:
Webinar
Guest post
Ebook
Podcast
Email
Physical events
Armed with these ideas, you’re ready to reach out to the bloggers you brainstormed earlier. Particularly when you’re new and don’t know people, this step will often be discouraging as probably only one in 10 bloggers will express any interest.
Instead of becoming frustrated, expect initial failure, and use the results to steadily improve your emails. As you start gaining momentum after your first partnership, landing the second and third will be easier.
#2. Prominently ask people to subscribe – then provide amazing value
“A big-ass banner across the top of my blog helped a lot. I also used CrazyEgg.com to make sure people were clicking on it. I went through a couple of revisions based on the CrazyEgg stats.
At first I was afraid of asking for people’s emails because I thought it would annoy them. Then I realized getting my posts via email were people’s favorite way of hearing from me!
Once someone joins my email list, I use Aweber to automatically send a series of epically valuable emails over the next couple of weeks. This helps transform a new subscriber into a hardcore, engaged fan.”
- Neville Medhora writes at Neville’s Financial Blog
Rather than just sticking a form randomly on your site and hoping for the best, take the time to test the best placement, wording, and coloring like Neville did.
You should test many elements of your form:
Headline
Button text
Forms required (name and email or just email?)
Color
Incentive
The signup incentive is a particularly potent piece of your form. Here are some ideas to consider:
Ebooks
Recordings
Cheatsheets
Videos
Email series
One of the incentives Neville uses to build his email list
Optimizing form locations and incentives will help you get many times more email subscribers than you do right now. Just remember, getting email signups is only the very beginning of a strong reader relationship.
This reader trusts you enough to share their email address – now it’s your turn to prove you’re worthy of it. Work to consistently overdeliver on expectations, and you’ll soon have a thriving email following!
#3. Use a non-annoying popover
“When I first started my latest blog, I just slapped a basic subscription form somewhere on my sidebar. Barely anyone noticed it, and even fewer subscribed.
Then I tried SumoMe’s List Builder plugin . Literally overnight, I saw a 10x increase in subscriber conversion, and my list has continued growing steadily ever since.
I actually liked it so much that I now work for the company!”
- Nate Desmond writes at NateDesmond.com and SumoMe
Building an email list is one of the fastest ways to compound your blog’s growth, so you’ll want to start optimizing your email forms as soon as you get the first trickle of traffic.
This is the email popover I use on my blog
For me, SumoMe popovers have been the most successful effort thus far. They’re pretty simple to setup (took me less than 5 minutes), but you should watch for a couple things:
Timing – Mine loads after about 1 second, but you should experiment to see what works best for your website.
Color – Make sure your form is colored similarly to your website – context matters.
Wording – This is critical. Brainstorm 25 ideas for headlines and test the three best.
Forms in your sidebar, footer, or even header can be out of your reader’s line-of-sight, so non-annoying popovers can be a highly effective way to get your reader’s attention.
#4. Produce exceptional content
“Producing exceptional content that our readers can use to improve their craft.”
- Sean Work writes at KISSmetrics
Ultimately, the success of your blog relies on the quality of your writing. A strong email list can help speed your growth, but everything ultimately relies on your posts and emails providing stunning content that solves real problems for your readers.
Quality content attracts potential readers to your website and inspires current subscribers to stick around and engage.
This is part of an infographic KISSmetrics uses to engage
Here are a few things you can do to make your writing amazing:
Make it easy to scan
Write powerful headlines
Add new articles regularly
Write at least 2000 words
Write articles that you would want to read and share with your friends, and you’ll probably be off to a strong start.
#5. Use Post-Specific Bonus Content
“Giveaway a bonus within your content that requires the readers email address.
Think of it like Facebook advertising.
My click-through-rate (ctr) on the newsfeed ads is 2.5% while my sidebar Facebook ads on a great day do .5% ctr.
That’s a 500% increase in clicks .
People are engaged in the middle of the site, NOT on the fringes.
Think of this with email collection within your blog.
Make a benefit and give the reader a link / button to get a cheat-sheet or bonus document related to the content the person is reading.
Then ask them for an email to get that content.
If you are really lazy just do it for the top 3 posts you get traffic on.
I have seen this nearly increase my daily email growth by 30%!”
- Noah Kagan runs SumoMe and writes at Okdork
Advertising platforms like Facebook are working tirelessly to try to better understand visitor intent. The more they can tailor advertisements to what a person actually wants; the more customers they will see.
You have a major advantage over advertisers though – since your visitor is reading a specific post, you already know that they have at least some interest in the post’s topic.
Based on this knowledge, you can create a targeted call-to-action offering exclusive content that builds on your post.
This email bonus is from one of Noah’s recent posts
So what exactly can you offer?
Google spreadsheets with exact formulas
PDF “cheatsheets” with a quick review of your post
Video materials adding on to your post
Exact emails and scripts you’ve used in your case studies
Ebooks closely related to the post topic
“Inside tips” like the list of top giveaway sites in the above example
Whatever you choose, giveaway incredible value and you’ll not only get email subscribers – you’ll get lifelong readers!
#6. Use multiple signup forms
“The number one strategy that helped me grow my list was placing multiple sign up forms on high traffic pages on my site and offering a high value giveaway in return.
Today I have forms in my popup, in my sidebar, at the bottom of every post and on a slide in.”
- Steve Chou writes at MyWifeQuitHerJob.com
Different readers will be ready to subscribe at different times. If you have a subscription form ready when they want to subscribe, your email list will grow quickly.
You should test email signup forms in all these locations:
Popover ( plugin )
Homepage ( plugin )
Header ( plugin )
Sidebar ( plugin )
Slide-in ( plugin )
Steve’s got a great sidebar form on his site
Over time, you’ll probably find two or three forms are dramatically more effective than the others. At that point, you can remove the low performers and focus on optimizing the forms that do work to make them even better.
This is a principle that actually applies in all areas of blog growth – cut the strategies that don’t work and double-down on the areas that are showing results.
#7. Provide deep research that solves problems
“There has to be a steady stream of high quality content that actually solves the visitor’s problem.
There’s a lot of research that goes into the articles we publish, because too many of the marketing articles out there skate by passing opinion off as fact without any kind of qualification. The problem with that is that it creates a culture of “marketers” who blindly follow opinion without being willing to test that on their own.
By including the deep research, and really digging to find those “aha” moment, we try to create a “can’t miss” experience.
The feeling is that if you don’t sign up for email, you might miss something valuable that increases your revenue. Nobody wants to miss out on revenue, especially if learning how to get more of it will be sent to your inbox for free.”
- Tommy Walker is the editor of ConversionXL
Most blogs today fall into one of two main categories: “churn and burn” websites that just publish frequent, basic posts and long-form websites that publish detailed, researched posts. Both types of content can build popular blogs, but in today’s competitive blogosphere you’ll generally go farther and faster with long-form content.
How can you do this?
It’s actually not nearly as complicated as you might think.
First, litter your posts with fun, memorable stories. Some authors actually go so far as keeping a “commonplace book” filled with stories waiting to be used. Others simply write from memory. Either way, adding examples and stories to your posts will make them easier to read and more helpful.
Second, use lots of statistics in your posts (and also in your headlines!). Lots of posts can tell you that colorful images are more popular on Pinterest, but that’s not nearly as useful as knowing that colorful images get 300% more shares .
One of many specific case studies shared on ConversionXL
As you write your blog posts and emails, look for opportunities to share unique, actionable information that will make your readers think “ah ha!”… and hopefully subscribe to your email list.
#8. Place a giant lead magnet on your blog homepage
“For the last six months or so we’ve been displaying a “lead magnet” on our blog homepage that offers four ecommerce case studies that drip out via autoresponder. After subscribers get the content they’re added to our main blog list.
Note: we aren’t currently using this on the blog as we plan to deploy it somewhere else soon.”
- Mark Macdonald writes at Shopify
What’s the most visited page on your website?
You guessed it… your homepage!
Unfortunately, your default homepage is also probably the least engaging page on your entire website. You’ve probably got a random array of your most recent posts, maybe a few images, and some sort of a sidebar.
Adding a major email form with a high-value incentive can help you transform confused visitors into engaged readers.
Shopify’s homepage subscription box
By filling most of the above-the-fold space on the blog homepage, this email box is almost as effective as a popover at drawing attention. The images and growth graph both make the form visually engaging, and who wouldn’t want to get 4 free case studies?
Unless you have a coding background, this could seem difficult to build. Never fear! You can simply use this plugin to make something very similar on your own website.
#9. Persistently continue writing – growth compounds
“The number one thing that helped me grow my email list was persistence. I have been writing a blog for ten years, and working really hard and teaching myself to write posts that people love. When you write good content, the email list is easy.”
- Penelope Trunk writes at PenelopeTrunk.com and Quistic
Here’s the fun thing about growing your blog: moving from 3,000 to 4,000 subscribers will be just about as hard as getting your first 100 subscribers. Growth compounds.
One of the most important keys to blogging is actually quite simple: keep writing and keep improving.
I always love Babe Ruth’s quote: “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
Generally, growth will be very slow for the first month or two; then it will start to accelerate for the next few months, and you’ll start to feel like you’re on fire after about seven months.
Practice clicking this button frequently
Unfortunately, the vast majority of writers quit before they reach the tipping point. If you just keep steadily writing, your email list will grow faster and faster.
What single thing has been most effective in building your email list?
Nate Desmond works at SumoMe helping fellow bloggers build their email lists, increase social shares, and build thriving blog communities though a suite of growth tools.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
9 World-class Bloggers Share Their #1 Email List Building Tip
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Earnings Report – May 2014
The Private Blog Network Course is open for enrollment.
Welcome to Niche Site Project! If you haven’t visited here before, thank you for taking some time out of your day to check out the income report for May, 2014.
This month the report is particularly exciting! It includes the income from the recent sale of one of my niche sites.
That also has a pretty big implication for June earnings…and we will talk about that later.
I publish income reports for you. By sharing the failures that I experience and the successes that I celebrate, you can see what is working, what is not working, and what you can do.
Near the Grand Canyon, AZ
It really wasn’t that long ago when I didn’t even know about WordPress and I’m still quite a novice.
I hope these reports inspire you and make your journey successful. I hope you can learn from my mistakes and avoid the roadblocks that I have encountered.
You will still find some roadblocks on your own, and that’s the only way to get experience. Every roadblock that you find your way around gets you one step closer to success.
So, let’s get to it!
Amazon Screenshots
Let’s look at the earnings of the websites that we are tracking. This month we have 3 sites to analyze.
Main Money Site – Cumulative Lifetime Earnings
Of course, this is the website that we have been watching for a while. ( Here and here via Niche Pursuits.) You might recall that this site has taken a dip in earnings.
It’s more like a plunge in earnings…The cumulative earnings still look impressive.
Main Money Site – Cumulative Earnings Since Aug, 2013
Now, you will see that it looks like the site isn’t even making any money (at this scale).
Main Money Site – Cumulative Earnings Since Aug, 2013
It is…but just not like the glory days. It happens…
Main Money Site – Monthly Earnings Since Aug, 2013
Main Money Site – May Only Earnings
Here you can see that the site is still making a little bit of money. It is still converting sales.
Main Money Site – Monthly Earnings May
Second Money Site – Cumulative Lifetime Earnings
So this will be the last big month with earnings for this site since it has been sold. This site has been a solid earner and I hope the new owner has continued success.
Second Money Site – Cumulative Earnings Since Dec, 2013.
(The date in the report is from Aug, 2013 but the site didn’t make a sale until Dec.)
Second Money Site – Cumulative Earnings Since Dec, 2013
We essentially claimed 17 months of future earnings all in May. We were able to get such a high sales multiple by selling with Empire Flippers, who sell sites at a 20 x monthly net income on their marketplace.
Second Money Site – Monthly Earnings May, 2013.
I included the sale proceeds even though the are not directly Amazon Earnings.
Second Money Site – May Only Earnings
The Amazon Affiliate earnings were just for a couple days in early May before the site was fully transitioned to the new owner.
Second Money Site – Monthly Earnings May
Second Money Site – Sold!
The site sold for $10,400 and if you minus the broker fee and listing fee, you end up with a take home profit of $8,858. That’s after the listing fee for Empire Flippers and the broker fee of 15%.
I’m proud to say that is my biggest payday in the niche site arena!
Second Money Site – Cumulative Earnings and Items Sold Since Dec, 2013.
Third Money Site – First Sale
We have a new site that we are tracking now. It’s not much but all sites start out slowly.
Third Money Site – First Sale!
Overall Amazon Earnings (All websites)
I will included the proceeds from selling the site here even though the earnings are not directly from Amazon sales. It’s a record month of earnings!
In addition, the costs were minimal overall. There were some expenses listing with Empire Flippers ($297 for the listing and $1,563 for the broker percentage) but other than that, it was a pretty lean month.
Here is the grand total of all the Amazon related earnings for May 2014.
Here is the grand total of all the Amazon related earnings since last August, 2013.
Cumulative Earnings since last August (2013).
Other Projects
I have been focusing on developing and refining a Private Blog Network Course with Lewis Ogden from Cloud Income .
That has taken a tremendous amount of time. All the material had to be written and then we had to shoot the video.
And, all the video editing…That stuff just takes a lot of time.
As a result, I have not been able to focus very much on the newer niche sites that I have started. They have not been completely neglected…
My wife has stepped up, errr – she’s been appointed as the content manager. It was a dicey for a week as we transitioned the tasks.
Now, things are stable and she is doing a fantastic job…I expected she would do a better job than me, and that is 100% true.
She has primarily been helping to get the case study domains to rank as well as the 3rd niche site that got it’s first earnings.
Summary
It was a great month financially. It was awesome!
However…
It is a little scary though. I don’t have any sites ranking on the first page right now.
The relatively consistent earnings from Amazon are gone with the sale of Site #2 .
That means that June will be a pretty low earning month – probably a very low earning month considering where my sites are ranking right now.
What we can see is that I’ve made almost $24,000 in niche sites in the last year.
Wow! I can’t believe it.
The most powerful thing is that I know I can do it again and better. I see other people that have bought my book and followed the same strategies find success, too.
What did I learn?
I learned that I might have taken on too many projects at one time. It’s a classic mistake.
Once you start seeing opportunities, it is quite easy to get involved in new projects.
It’s like a light comes on and you can see things in a different way. I need that light to go off again so I can focus very hard on 2 or 3 projects.
It’s all about focus and priorities.
As always, your comments are welcome and very appreciated! Just ask below…
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This DIY Game Boy Pocket Uses A Raspberry Pi To Bring You Absolute, Unending Joy
Imagine if I told you, almost 20 years ago, that you could put every single Game Boy game (plus a bunch of others) inside of your Game Boy Pocket without having to buy or swap out cartridges. “Forsooth, what wizardry is this,” you’d say. “Tell me more, time-traveler.” Prepare yourself, twenty-years-ago-you, because your brain is about to explode. This DIY project… Read More
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Getting the Most Out of Shopping Campaigns
Google continues to expand and refine the number of avenues it offers advertisers looking to generate more revenue. One of these avenues is Google Product Listing Ads. While this is a feature that’s been around for quite some time, they’ve recently refined it with Shopping Campaigns. This will make it easier for the average user to incorporate into their accounts.
Product Listing Ads: What are they?
Some of you may not be very familiar with what exactly they are. While you may not recognize the name, you’ve surely run across them multiple times while conducting your searches in Google. These are the ads where you see the product, along with an image and price.
You’ll notice that these images take up a fairly prominent role on the page. This is something that you’ll want to take advantage of, or test at the very least.
What do I need to get started?
Product Feed
You’ll first need a feed of all your products (or at least those that you want incorporated into PLA’s). Quite often if you’re a retail store, this is something that you’ll already have.
Google Merchant Center Account
If you don’t already have one, you’ll want to create one. It’s the tool that will allow you to upload your product data for use in Google Shopping and through Product Listing Ads on Google Search.
Connecting Your Google Merchant Center to Your AdWords Account
Within your GMC (Google Merchant Center) account you’ll want to click on ‘Settings’ and then AdWords. Enter in your account Id and press ‘link account’. You’re able to connect multiple AdWords accounts to one GMC.
What are the benefits of Shopping campaigns over regular product listing ads?
Easier to use
Google wants more of its user base taking advantage of PLA’s so they’ve streamlined the interface. The average user should be more comfortable within it and we’ll all be able to save time because of it.
Browse by Attribute
New within Shopping campaigns is the ability to browse by attribute. Break these out directly within the interface which include the following attributes:
Brand
Product Type
Category
Item Id
Custom Labels
Obtain benchmark data
Curious how you’re comparing with other players in the same industry? Google gives us the benchmark data we love including:
CTR
CPC
Impression Share
Avg. CTR’s and CPC’s can change depending on the industry. This should help you gauge where you stand.
Custom Labels
With regular product listing ad campaigns we would use AdWords Labels and Groupings. These will no longer be available. What will be available are new Custom Labels. You’re limited to only 5 labels, so you’ll want to be careful with what you’re choosing. Labels are a great way to break out specific groupings with which you’ll want to bid differently on.
Use Dimensions
As we know, when it comes to optimizing a campaign, it’s all about the data. With new shopping campaigns you’ll be able to use dimensions to determine where clicks are coming from. If you’ve got a campaign targeting ‘all products’ you can now use the dimensions tab to breakdown where your profitable clicks are coming from, whether it’s a specific brand or category.
Optimizing Shopping Campaigns within the AdWords Interface
Break out Product Targets
Likely not all of your brands or categories have equal value. If you’re just running with an ‘All products’ target then you might be spending more than you need and leaving revenue on the table. Break out product targets to give you the flexibility for separate bids.
Bid separately on Product Targets
Once you’ve broken out those product targets don’t just leave them all at the same bid level. Use your reporting data to determine how they’re working and bid accordingly.
If you’re just starting out with shopping campaigns, start by breaking out your most profitable product targets (as seen within your search campaigns).
Utilize Promotions
Too often we see promotions updated once and then left stagnant for the next six months. Competition increases every year, so you’ll want to stand-out from the pack. If you have monthly or weekly promotion, consider emphasizing it within ads. If you don’t have a promotion then consider adding a ‘point of difference’ which makes your product superior to others that are out there.
Tag Groupings with Custom Labels
Group together products using custom labels. This will allow you to separate and bid on these products together. You’ll need to put some consideration into these custom labels because (as mentioned earlier) you only get the use of five of them. Some grouping that may get consideration are things like:
Seasonal products
Special promotions
Bestsellers
Optimizing Through the Google Merchant Center
Fill out the feed as completely as possible:
Make sure that you’re making use of all of the appropriate categories. We want to give Google plenty of information to maximize visibility for appropriate product searches. There are attributes that are ‘required’, and you’ll also find Google ‘recommended’ attributes. The required attributes are obviously necessary and failure to fill these out can result in products not showing up. You’ll also want to fill out the recommend attributes, as not doing this can risk reducing your visibility considerably.
Ensure that all links are live:
This is an obvious point, but always worth the time to double check. Check both site links and image links to make sure that they’re live and going to the right page.
Include high quality images:
Make sure that all of you images are of a high quality and decent resolution (400×400). Nobody wants to look at poor images as this can reflect negatively with the products.
Review Title Descriptions:
Go through spot-checking your Title and Descriptions. You’ll want to make sure that these are all accurate, well written and contain the important information that you want to convey. Spending some time ensuring that these are properly constructed can go a long way to improving your results. You’ll also want to take note that there are character limits so keep the Title to within 70 characters to avoid truncation.
Something to remember is that feed specifications will differ depending on the country that you’re from. To find out more on specification for your location, you can find it here .
Review GMC for Errors Recommended Fixes
Once you’ve gone through the feed ensuring it’s up-to-date, you’ll want to upload it into Google Merchant Center and then review for any errors and recommendations. Click on ‘Data Feeds’ within the left navigation and then the ‘Status’ tab to discover any Warnings. If you’ve notice a large drop in impressions and are having problems with your feed, you’ll want to start here. You’ll also want to click on the Data Quality link in the left navigation. Google may have some recommendation on areas to fix.
If you’d like to learn more about setting up Google Shopping campaigns, attend one of our AdWords 201 trainings in the US and Canada.
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Amazon Announces The $199 Fire Phone, The First Smartphone With Head-Tracking Technology
Meet the Fire Phone, Amazon’s first venture into smartphones. At first blush, the phone looks like any other smartphone currently on the market, but it has a secret: the ability to track a user’s head. This is done through four corner-mounted, front-facing infrared cameras and produces wild 3D effects. Jeff Bezos calls it the phone built for the Amazon Prime customer. Read More
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The Tim Ferriss Show, Episode 14: Sam Harris, PhD on Spirituality, Neuroscience, Meditation, and More
Sam Harris, Ph.D.
Listen on iTunes, download , or stream it in the below player now:
This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is sponsored by Bluehost , which I used for my first WordPress blog, and I still use them for sites today. Click here for a special offer!
Now, on to our guest… Sam Harris .
Sam Harris is a neuroscience Ph.D. and the author of the bestselling books, The End of Faith , The Moral Landscape , Free Will , and Lying . His work have been discussed in The New York Times , Time , Scientific American , Nature , Newsweek , Rolling Stone , and many other journals.
In this episode , we explore the science of lying, uses and types of meditation, psychedelic drug uses and risks, spiritual experiences, and more. It’s really a discussion of the human experience, and how to optimize it without harming others.
Click here to subscribe/listen to the show on iTunes.
Click here to subscribe to the show via RSS (non-iTunes feed) .
If you have a second, please leave me an honest rating and review on iTunes by clicking here . It will help the show tremendously, including my ability to bring on more incredible guests. Thanks!
Once you’ve listening to this episode, let Sam ( @samharrisorg ) know on Twitter what you found most valuable or compelling.
Enjoy!…
Show Notes and Select Links (Resources, Books, Etc.) from Ep 14
Where Tim and Sam first met, and why shaking hands was not required…or really an option.
What are fMRI machines, and how does Sam use them for his studies of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty?
The faults of traditional lie detectors and the future of belief detectors.
Why “micro-expression” analysis is probably overstated.
Using meditation or pharmacology (drugs) to help present-state awareness and well-being.
What types of meditation Sam recommends and why.
Sam’s most controversial beliefs (or perhaps positions) of the last several years.
Why Malala Yousafzai should have won the Nobel Peace Prize…but why it’s probably a good thing she didn’t.
Are self-righteous but guilt-ridden white males ruining freedom of speech?
Examining self-transcendence and love.
Psychedelic drugs as an important rite of passage for human beings.
Which psychedelic drugs Sam has found most therapeutically valuable.
What are the powers and liabilities (or risks) of psychedelic drugs?
Why the only way to ensure you don’t have a bad trip is not to take a trip at all…
Debated by Tim and Sam — Is it only possible to truly hit the center of the spirituality bullseye through meditation (a.k.a. “try rugs, not drugs”)?
SOME LINKS FROM EPISODE 14:
Who is Lucius Annaeus Seneca ?
Sam Harris’s Blog
Paul Ekman’s work on Micro Expressions
Who is Malala Yousafzai ?
Who is Ayann Hirsi Ali ?
Brandeis University controversy with regards to Ayann Hirsi Ali
On the “freedom to offend an imaginary god ” blog post
Vipassana meditation
How to meditate – blog post
Drugs and the Meaning of life – blog post
6 Health Benefits of Yerba Mate Tea
The Riddle of the Gun – blog post
BOOKS FOR BRAINSTORMING, MENTIONED IN EPISODE 14:
Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion – by Sam Harris
End of Faith – by Sam Harris
Lying – by Sam Harris
Mindfulness in Plain English – by Bhante Gunaratana
The Experience of Insight – by Joseph Goldstein
Wherever You go, There You are – by Jon Kabat-Zinn
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Twitter Now Supports Animated GIFs Online And On Mobile
Um, finally. Twitter today announced a small, but SUPER AWESOME change to its social network: it will now support the ever-popular animated GIF format. The change, the company says, is live as of today on the Twitter.com website, Android and iPhone. The company made the announcement via a tweet (of course) where it demonstrated what the animated GIF would look like. The GIF itself… Read More
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New tools to help advertisers embrace cross-screen campaigns
Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Advertiser blog
Today, we're excited to shine a light on several new features of the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform that help advertisers more seamlessly embrace cross- screen advertising.
Mobile advertising is, without question, top of mind for marketers; but according to the latest "Internet Trends 2014" report from Mary Meeker, it's also the biggest opportunity gap of all forms of media spend. Although 20% of time spent on media is within a mobile environment, only 4% of US advertising spend is on mobile. (1) Marketers still struggle to get up to speed on the new technologies and strategies that crossscreen campaigns require.
That's why we're excited to bring new tools that make it easier to build, buy, target, execute and measure your campaigns across screens:
Google Web Designer integration: Build HTML5 ads easily in Google Web Designer and publish them into DoubleClick Campaign Manager. This allows you to quickly get your HTML5 ads live and serving to any device. Mobile inventory growth: Buy more mobile inventory Programmatic mobile inventory on DoubleClick Bid Manager has grown 130% since Q4 2013 across 12 exchanges and includes both display and video formats. Adding mobile inventory on DoubleClick Bid Manager allows you to incorporate mobile into the rest of your media strategy and optimize across all of your media buys. Inapp remarketing: (Re)target your customers using audience lists within mobile app environments, so that you can drive and measure reengagement with your existing mobile app users. Publisher Certification program for inapp creative formats:
Execute your mobile campaigns with the confidence. While mobile rich media standards are widely accepted across the industry, publishers still vary in their implementation, resulting in discrepancies and inconsistent behavior of inapp creative. We are certifying publishers and networks to ensure their mobile apps can accept and run standard mobile inapp ad units (59 certifications completed to date.) Inapp conversion tracking:
Measure inapp viewthrough and clickthrough conversions with Floodlight to report on mobile app downloads or any other inapp activities. Whether you are running an app install campaign or driving inapp purchases, you can now attribute these activities to your inapp media and better measure app campaign effectiveness. TalkTalk drives 12% decrease in eCPA with HTML5 creative and mobile programmatic.
TalkTalk, a Telecom company based in the UK, has embraced crossscreen strategies for their campaigns and drove a 12% decrease in their eCPA using DoubleClick and Google Web Designer. Their creative agency, 22Design, used Google Web Designer to quickly learn and build HTML5 into TalkTalk’s campaign, getting the campaign live in a third of the expected time.
Not only was the learning process much easier than anticipated, the HTML5 ads actually performed better than the Flash ads, indicating that TalkTalk’s audience was more receptive to the brand message on mobile devices than on desktops. Equipped with their new HTML5 creative and audience insights, TalkTalk was able to add mobile inventory to their programmatic media buy for the first time.
Rather than waiting on the sidelines, TalkTalk has taken a proactive approach to trying new mobile strategies and techniques with DoubleClick. They started slow, tested what worked, and iterated on their findings, to get their campaigns running successfully across screens.
Check out the full case study here .
We are excited about these new tools and will continue to improve our technology to help marketers and agencies more seamlessly build, execute and measure crossscreen campaigns.
Posted by the DoubleClick Marketing Team
(1) Mary Meeker’s “Internet Trends 2014” http://www.kpcb.com/internettrends
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Our First Look At Adobe’s Ink And Slide Tools For The iPad
Today Adobe unveiled the Ink & Slide, its first foray into the realm of hardware gadgets. The company is calling the pair of gadgets a “Creative Cloud Pen and Digital Ruler.” Basically, it’s a smart stylus that syncs with your iPad over Bluetooth and offers some nifty features when used together with Adobe Line, a new app available today for the iPad. Read More
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Adobe Photoshop Mix Review: Touch-Based Selective Photo Editing Done Right
Adobe has a new Photoshop app for mobile out today – but it’s entirely new, as in not an update to either Photoshop Touch or Photoshop Express. The app is called Photoshop Mix, it’s an iPad exclusive at launch, and it aims to fill a gap between the company’s existing products by providing users with some unique editing functions aimed at making sharing-friendly… Read More
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Adobe Upgrades Creative Cloud, Adds New Mobile Apps And Creative Hardware
Adobe aims to establish itself as more of a service platform today with a focus on mobile first and the largest overhaul of Creative Cloud desktop applications to date. All 14 desktop applications in Adobe’s creative suite get an upgrade. The company is also introducing a new Creative SDK library for mobile developers, five new mobile apps, and two pieces of hardware to use for… Read More
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Can A Lightbulb Make For A Great Multi-Room Wireless Speaker? Meet The Whome Bulb
WiFi LED lightbulbs are cool — I’m currently enamoured with a pair of LIFX bulbs I’m testing for an upcoming smarthome post, along with those from competitor Philips. But you know what might be even cooler? Lightbulbs that also double up as wireless multi-room and music-reacting speakers. Read More
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LinkedIn Ads: What I learned from spending a year and $100k on the platform
If you do any B2B marketing, then you should try LinkedIn Ads. Here are a few pointers from my experience to help you get started.
I'm sure that almost everyone who reads this blog is active on LinkedIn.
You are 'linked' with all of your business contacts and friends, you have filled out your profile, and you may even be active in a group or two. But it's quite likely that you have not used the ad platform.
Or if you have, that you have only tested it and perhaps you stopped after not getting the results you were after.
Well, if that is the case, and you do any B2B marketing, then it's time to take another look at LinkedIn Ads.
Why?
Well, if you're in B2B marketing then you need to get the attention of professionals .
LinkedIn can help you do that because:
It's a social network specifically for professionals
It delivers business-focused content for its network
And, surprisingly, LinkedIn only gets 25% of its revenues from advertising (Q4 2013).
(Note that 90% of Facebook's revenue for the same period was from advertising)
So, should you be looking to deliver a message to a business audience, it's got everything you need - the right network with the right context, and less competition than other platforms for your targets’ attention.
But like all social platforms, LinkedIn does have its quirks. And many advertisers have been put off by just how different the platform is from Google and Facebook.
Last year I worked on accounts which spent approximately $100k on LinkedIn ads alone and I learned a lot about what works well on the platform and what is still challenging.
Overall, though, I think that the benefits of advertising on LinkedIn outweigh the challenges, so I’ve provided some tips which can help you navigate the platform and get started advertising on it.
The Good
Let’s start with the good stuff.
Targeting
Hands down LinkedIn has the most accurate targeting of any ad platform. Sure, Google has wider reach and Facebook has more categories, but for pure targeting, nothing beats LinkedIn. This is because LinkedIn users input the targeting data themselves; if they work in a bank, they put in their profile that they work in a bank.
There is no algorithmic guesswork by the platform like for Facebook Audiences or Google Affinity Segments.
And targeting is not limited to broad categories. You can target very specific attributes:
Their industry
What company they work for
What skills have they been endorsed for
Their title
Or even groups they belong to.
So if your target is, say, employees of major banks in European countries, you can configure your ad to be delivered to that audience and be reasonably sure that they will be the ones who see and click your ad.
Audience sizing
Now this is cool. When you're building your ad - before you have even paid anything - you can see exactly how big the ad audience is going to be (if it has over 1,000 people).
For example:
How many people work in software in the USA? ( 1,158,055 )
How many employees does Bank of America have globally? ( 151,556 )
Or how many work in HR in Asia? ( 813,867 )
I can only guess at how hard it was for the product visionaries to get this feature into the platform, so be thankful we have such great information and use it where you can. I mean, you can even size a target market when you’re advertising elsewhere.
Self-service tool
LinkedIn does not have the most sophisticated ad engine (both Google and Facebook have more functionality), but it does the job.
You can put multiple people on one account, collaborate on ads, and easily do multiple versions of an ad in one campaign.
They also offer a dashboard to keep an eye on ad performance and a button to turn both ads and campaigns on and off.
The Not-so-good
Now the challenges - and how you can get around them.
The ads
The first complaint for those who start using the platform is the ad size. You are strictly limited to a 25 character headline, 75 characters in the body, and a 50x50 image. With a bit of work, though, it is certainly possible to deliver an effective ad within those constraints.
Here’s what you need to do:
1) Identify your audience.
Although you are reaching your intended audience with your targeting, the reader doesn’t know that so you have to let them know that what you’re saying is for them. And it’s best to do this in the headline.
2) Tell them what you do.
You only have room for one value proposition, so spit it out. And remember, B2B audiences have very different priorities than B2C.
3) Make an offer
In a recent podcast on The Lede , Joanna Wiebe talked about a button being like a closed door. And closed doors cause anxiety, which leads to people not clicking. Your ad is also like a closed door. And not knowing what you offer also leads to inaction. So, help them out. Let them know what’s on the other side, what you offer. And you'll get higher click-throughs for sure.
4) (Optional) Tell them exactly what to do next.
When you have room, tell them to click. In my experience, it converts better when you do.
5) Use a face for the image
You only have 50x50 pixels, so it's recommended that you use a face. It’s the only thing which we can’t, no matter how hard we try, glaze over. By all means experiment, but my non-face ads have had terrible CTRs.
Managing a large number of campaigns
The self-service tool was clearly designed for the small-scale advertiser in mind. It handles your every need until you reach about 50 campaigns, and then the problems start.
For one, every time you go to the ad tool you see every campaign - even those you have hidden. Clicking ‘Show all but hidden campaigns’ at the bottom solves this - but when you use the tool many times every day this becomes tedious.
Also, spreading your campaign info across multiple pages makes getting a quick overview hard - and sometimes the ‘next page’ links don’t work.
Finally, the absolute worst aspect of the self-service tool is ‘Duplicate Campaign.’ For some reason, LinkedIn forces you to pick the campaign to duplicate in a pop-up with a randomized list of all previous campaigns - with four campaigns per page. It's awful. And sometimes it can take so long to find the campaign that you end up redoing it from scratch.
Third-party LinkedIn ad management is available from Adobe, but for those without enterprise software an ad management tool will soon be available from AdStage . (I can't wait to get on the beta program...)
Cost
And finally, the biggest issue marketers have with LinkedIn is its high minimum CPC (US$2.00) and daily minimum per campaign (US$10).
For those in the branding world, that may not seem high, but many small business marketers are used to running dozens of campaigns with at a buck a day to test different strategies. And these prices make that quite difficult.
But this can be overcome as well. Although, you cannot change the minimums you can run your ads with a $2 CPM. Then, a click through greater than .1% will start bringing down the cost below $2 per click.
Also, you can stop/start the ads manually for when your audience is likely to be on so that you’re not spending money when you're targets aren't awake.
Oh and don’t pay any attention to the suggested minimums. A lways use the absolute minimums of $2 per CPC or CPM.
TL; DR
So hopefully this guide has helped you come up with some ideas for how to use LinkedIn Ads to promote your business.
In brief:
The targeting is great for B2B.
The self-service ad tool is adequate.
And although the ads are small and cost are high, there are ways to use it effectively - even on a tight budget.
But, like with any platform, run tests and try to make the ROI work for your business. And, if nothing else, you will get some great feedback about whether various business segments find your product compelling.
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Know Thy Competitor: Using Adwords Auction Tool to Assess Competition
It is said,
If you know your enemy and know yourself, you will win 100 battles.
If you know yourself and do not know your enemy, you will win one and lose one.
If you do not know your enemy nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
- Sun Tzu
While Sun Tzu applied this wisdom on the battle field to win wars and conquer enemies these lessons can, and have been used in industrial marketing to increase qualified leads.… Read the rest
The post Know Thy Competitor: Using Adwords Auction Tool to Assess Competition appeared first on Fathom .
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Ensure You Never Send Paid Traffic To a 404 Page or Broken Link
Paying for traffic is expensive.
There is nothing worse than sending traffic to a broken link or page that is down.
You would think this would be common sense, but at least once a month I click on a ppc ad that goes to a 404 page or a page with some other error code.
It happens to the best of us. We make a change to the website and forget to update the SEM campaign, or perhaps we typed in the wrong URL in the ad, or did some bulk editing and accidentally made a mistake.
When this happens, you are throwing money down the drain, literally!
This is most common with landing pages where you might make changes constantly, or launch new campaigns and take down old ones or simply redesign your site. There are lots of reasons why a landing page might not resolve…but, there is NO EXCUSE to be paying for clicks that you have no chance of converting.
Hint: It is a good idea to turn your 404 page into a landing page. LeadPages.net offers a great 404 template in an easy to deploy format for WordPress sites.
If you are running traffic to dozens or hundreds of pages, it’s hard to know if one goes down.
Here’s a strategy you can follow to monitor your ppc for broken links to make sure your landing pages are always up and running.
There are two versions of this Adwords Script, one which monitors one account and another meant for MCC accounts where you can monitor multiple accounts simultaneously.
As you know , Adwords Scripts programmatically make changes to your Adwords account. While this script works wonders, it only checks your Adwords landing pages. If you happen to be using the same landing pages for Bing and Yahoo, you’re covered…
I have my script running daily, and it basically checks all the URLs in active campaigns and emails me a report of all the accounts I run. Here is a screenshot of what my reports look like:
If you were to click through to see details, it would show you exactly where the problem links are so you can quickly go in and fix them ASAP.
If you want me to monitor your account for broken links for you, simply email me your Customer ID and once it’s linked in my MCC account, this script will automatically run it for you. You can email me at david@davidmelamed.com.
If you are more of a DIY kinda guy, here are step by step instructions:
Let’s dive right in. If you need to know how to setup an Adwords script follow the instructions in this post . There are only two small differences. One, you need to upload a different code for the script which will appear below and two, you will need to slightly modify this code to email you the report.
Great, now let’s setup the code to install. There are two options here. Google has a code they created and shared. You can try to implement it, however when I tried it, I got an error message, so I’m not sure how to fix it, but feel free to give it a try…
Good news if it doesn’t work for you though: Russ Savage published a code that works wonders. It installed super quick, and runs like a charm.
/****************************
* Find Broken Urls In Your Account
* Version 1.1
* ChangeLog v1.1
* - Updated to only see Text Ads
* Created By: Russ Savage
* FreeAdWordsScripts.com
****************************/
function main() {
// You can add more if you want: http://goo.gl/VhIX
var BAD_CODES = [ 404 , 500 ];
var TO = [ 'email@example.com' /*,'email_address_2@example.com'*/ ];
var SUBJECT = 'Broken Url Report - ' + _getDateString();
var HTTP_OPTIONS = {
muteHttpExceptions: true
};
//Let's look at ads and keywords for urls
var iters = [
//For Ad Level Urls
AdWordsApp .ads()
.withCondition( "Status = 'ENABLED'" )
.withCondition( "AdGroupStatus = 'ENABLED'" )
.withCondition( "CampaignStatus = 'ENABLED'" )
.withCondition( "Type = 'TEXT_AD'" )
.get(),
//For Keyword Level Urls
AdWordsApp .keywords()
.withCondition( "Status = 'ENABLED'" )
.withCondition( "DestinationUrl != ''" )
.withCondition( "AdGroupStatus = 'ENABLED'" )
.withCondition( "CampaignStatus = 'ENABLED'" )
.get()
];
var already_checked = {};
var bad_entities = [];
for ( var x in iters) {
var iter = iters[x];
while (iter.hasNext()) {
var entity = iter.next();
if (entity.getDestinationUrl() == null ) { continue ; }
var url = entity.getDestinationUrl();
if (url.indexOf( '{' ) >= 0) {
//Let's remove the value track parameters
url = url.replace(/\{[0-9a-zA-Z]+\}/g, '' );
}
if (already_checked[url]) { continue ; }
var response_code;
try {
Logger .log( "Testing url: " +url);
response_code = UrlFetchApp .fetch(url, HTTP_OPTIONS ).getResponseCode();
} catch (e) {
//Something is wrong here, we should know about it.
bad_entities.push({e : entity, code : -1});
}
if ( BAD_CODES .indexOf(response_code) >= 0) {
//This entity has an issue. Save it for later.
bad_entities.push({e : entity, code : response_code});
}
already_checked[url] = true ;
}
}
var column_names = [ 'Type' , 'CampaignName' , 'AdGroupName' , 'Id' , 'Headline/KeywordText' , 'ResponseCode' , 'DestUrl' ];
var attachment = column_names.join( "," )+ "\n" ;
for ( var i in bad_entities) {
attachment += _formatResults(bad_entities[i], "," );
}
if (bad_entities.length > 0) {
var options = { attachments: [ Utilities .newBlob(attachment, 'text/csv' , 'bad_urls_' +_getDateString()+ '.csv' )] };
var email_body = "There are " + bad_entities.length + " urls that are broken. See attachment for details." ;
for ( var i in TO ) {
MailApp.sendEmail( TO [i], SUBJECT , email_body, options);
}
}
}
//Formats a row of results separated by SEP
function _formatResults(entity, SEP ) {
var e = entity.e;
if ( typeof (e[ 'getHeadline' ]) != "undefined" ) {
//this is an ad entity
return [ "Ad" ,
e.getCampaign().getName(),
e.getAdGroup().getName(),
e.getId(),
e.getHeadline(),
entity.code,
e.getDestinationUrl()
].join( SEP )+ "\n" ;
} else {
// and this is a keyword
return [ "Keyword" ,
e.getCampaign().getName(),
e.getAdGroup().getName(),
e.getId(),
e.getText(),
entity.code,
e.getDestinationUrl()
].join( SEP )+ "\n" ;
}
}
//Helper function to format todays date
function _getDateString() {
return Utilities .formatDate(( new Date()), AdWordsApp .currentAccount().getTimeZone(), "yyyy-MM-dd" );
}
————————————
Simply copy and paste that code into the scripting section in Adwords, authorize the script, set the scheduling to run daily, and you are all set to go.
Just make sure you change the email address in this script 'email@example.com' to your actual email address and/or anyone else you want to email.
If you are running an MCC account, the setup process is slightly different and you may need to setup a copy of a google spreadsheet. Here are Russ Savage’s instructions for MCC accounts.
Trying to increase your Google rank that is like no other?
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Is Your Blog a Lead Generation Machine, if Not Here is Why
Jeffrey and I built our business on content. When we first started our agency in 1998, we had zero capital (even rent grocery money was tough). What we did have, for those of you who really know us, was lots of opinions. So we started writing, first in discussion lists (remember i-sales, etc.), then our own newsletter and then ClickZ. We started blogging before it was even called blogging or even thought of as content marketing. All these years, we have experimented with our blog and others into what makes people comment, subscribe, read and share blogs.
As bloggers we worry about the social shares, but the money is in the list. #contentmarketing
Click To Tweet - Powered By CoSchedule
In other words, what do you do to turn your blog into a lead generation machine ? Here is a recent slideshare with some of our techniques, tips and even suggested plugins to help you convert more blog visitors into commenters, subscribers, social sharers and leads.
How to convert more blog visitors from Bryan Eisenberg
The post Is Your Blog a Lead Generation Machine, if Not Here is Why appeared first on Bryan Jeffrey Eisenberg .
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What ‘Budget’ Means in PPC & Why You Should Divulge It to Prospective Agencies
In certain circles it can be considered rude to talk about money. It may not even matter the circle; there are plenty of circumstances where it’s either awkward or impolite …
Read more at PPCHero.com
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Lightbox Wants To Be Your Phone’s Other Lens
Say hey to a new wearable camera contending for your cash. The Ca7ch Lightbox boasts of being the smallest live-streaming wearable camera — at just 1.5 inches x 0.49 inches, and weighing in at a dainty 30 grams. Read More
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Apple’s Smartwatch Said To Debut In October With 2.5-inch Screen And Wireless Charging
Apple will reportedly launch its smartwatch as early as October, after kicking off production in July, according to a new report from Reuters. The smartwatch will have a 2.5-inch screen, according to the news organizations sources, which will arch up from the band and be “slightly rectangular,” and it’ll feature touchscreen controls and wireless charging. Apple is planning… Read More
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