Labels and AdWords Editor: A Match Made in Heaven

Posted on 18/05/201519/02/2016 by Jen Mottram

Today at fusion the PPC team is excited about something which will make our lives that little bit easier – the new AdWords editor update.

What makes this update extra special is one of the 9 new features; the integration of AdWords labels with editor, something we have been hankering after for years since their introduction.

Labels can be applied to ads, keywords, ad groups and campaigns, and have a number of uses. Tagging up similar themes can make bulk edits easier, be used as automation criteria and help with data analysis. But their manual application has hampered this feature reaching its true potential.

So what are you waiting for, upgrade now!

Other features integrated into the new editor upgrade include:
Upgraded URLs
Call-only Ads
New filtering methods and improved search
Mobile App Targeting
Etc.

For the full list see AdWords Editor Help

Google Announce Custom Audience Targeting Feature

Posted on 14/05/201519/02/2016 by Laura Costin

Google has recently announced it has been in talks with advertisers about implementing a custom audience targeting function, which will run almost identically to Facebook’s custom audience tool and could be released as early as this year.

The way custom audience targeting works for Facebook is you, the advertiser, uploads a list of emails or phone numbers to Facebook and they will deliver your ads to those people if they are on Facebook with that email.
So how will custom audience targeting work for Google? Basically, exactly the same as it does for Facebook. Advertisers will be able to pass on lists of emails that they have acquired to Google, who will then be able to target these email addresses with tailored ads perfect for them. Google already has data on millions of email addresses as it owns one of the largest, if not the largest, email service in the world; Gmail (over 450million active users). Furthermore, Gmail asks for a secondary email when you first create your account.

Lookalike Audiences

The Facebook Custom Audiences also offers a Lookalike Audience function whereby it takes the data it has acquired from the Custom Audiences, such as what they have liked and followed, and uses this to create a lookalike audience which has similar qualities to the original custom audience.
Google does not have that same functionality that Facebook does with the likes and followers and whatnot, however, Google has something potentially much more precious from an advertiser’s perspective; the ability to infer user intent based on their searches, which you could argue is a lot more informative to marketers than Facebook’s social data.
Using this tool to its fullest you will no longer have to worry about your ads not reaching the right people, or the quality of the audience you are reaching, Google will make sure that they get there.

Importance of Email in Digital

When you log into anything nowadays, be it your Facebook or Twitter account, there is always one thing in common; you have to put in your Email. This means that your email is essentially your digital identity; without your email you do not exist online. You can find out a lot of things about a person based on what they use their email for and to marketers this could be very useful information.

Fusion SEO Market Updates: April 2015

Posted on 05/05/201519/02/2016 by Joshua Carter

Google finally rolls out mobile friendly update

On the 21st of April Google finally began to roll out its much anticipated mobile friendly update. Announced early on in the year, the exact nature and effect of the update has been heavily speculated about within the SEO community, with reported 4.7% of webmasters making changes to ensure that sites fit within Google’s requested parameters.

However, at the time of writing the update has had a far smaller impact than previously anticipated. As of the 1st of May, Google have said that the algorithm has fully rolled out in all of its data centres. However, the majority of webmasters have reported no big changes in mobile search results rankings, and those who’ve been tracking the update have seen no significant impact, as seen in the below graph from Moz.

Google’s Gary Illyes stated that as many sites have not been re-indexed, they aren’t as of yet being affected by the new scores. This means it’s still possible for “unaffected” sites to be hit, and it’s still recommended that sites that are not yet mobile friendly be made so.

Google tests lightweight mobile results for slow connections

Google have continued their recent focus on mobile search results optimisation with the test of a “lightweight” display for mobiles with slow connections. Initially announced to simply effect mobile SERP’s, Google have now given webmasters the option to show a “toned down” version of their site to users on a slow connection. Whilst the lightweight version of the search results page is automatic, the option to strip out heavy images and files on a site will be down to webmasters to decide.

However, when tested on users in Indonesia, Google reported that sites that had opted in to lightweight display had a 4x faster load time, used 80% fewer bytes, and saw a 50% increase in mobile traffic – something surely likely to influence whether webmasters opt in.

Search Queries report being randomly replaced by Search Analytics in Webmaster Tools

At the beginning of the year, Google tested a new “Search Impact” report amongst a few select users, now renamed as “Search Analytics”. As well as the standard Search Impact features, the new report displays clicks, impressions, CTR and average search results position. On top of this, Search Analytics also allows for a comparison of these factors, broken down by specific queries, pages, devices, and country.

Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst Zineb Ait Bahajji also commented that the report is “slow to catch up” at the moment, having only 90 days of data. However, this is expected to increase shortly. Whilst at the moment Search Analytics is only available to a random selection of users, it’s expected that at some point it will receive a full rollout and replace the Search Queries report.

Google begins replacing URL search result snippet with breadcrumb pathway

After a long period of testing, Google has finally started to replace site URL in the search results snippet with a site name and breadcrumb pathway. This update comes after years of beta testing and randomly selected rollouts, and is designed to “better reflect the names of websites”, Google has stated.

With this update, webmasters will be given the opportunity to better reflect site structure and content to users, and display a “real world” version of the site rather than a domain name. At the time of writing, this update has only affected mobile results in the U.S, but is expected to have a worldwide rollout in the near future.

In order to make sure these changes take place, webmasters will have to implement specific site name and breadcrumb schema within a sites source code.

Image Source: http://searchengineland.com/googles-mobile-friendly-algorithm-a-week-later-was-it-really-mobilegeddon-219893