YouTube’s main benefit is building brand awareness. With TrueView in-stream ads, advertisers can run very cost-effective video campaigns in Google Ads. But we can use video campaigns to do more than just boost awareness. With TrueView for Shopping, ecommerce advertisers can promote their products with engaging video ads. Let me show you exactly what I mean. When a user is watching a TrueView in-stream video (typically the pre-roll ad a user sees before the video they actually intended on watching), there are visible products related to the video ad. Whether the user watches the video or skips it, product cards will still be visible for the user to click. In this post, I want to show you how easy it is to set up a TrueView for Shopping campaign in Google Ads as well as some ideas you may want to consider when structuring your campaigns. Choose the Right TrueView …
Should Smart Shopping Include More Data? My Rebuttal to The Rebuttal – Part 6: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
If you’ve been monitoring the Google Shopping Ads, Smart Shopping Campaign, ongoing data transparency discussions (okay, so all 2 of you) you might have run across this sound article by Patrick Gilbert on LinkedIn in response to my article, both linked to here: The Concerning Lack of Data Transparency in Smart Shopping – Part 5: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns by Kirk Williams (hey, that’s me! Insert Homer Simpson “WOOHOO” here). Google Doesn’t Owe Us Anything – Why I’m Not Concerned About The Lack Of Smart Shopping Search Term Data by Patrick Gilbert One friend DMed me and asked, “did you and Patrick plan this?” The answer is, no! Which makes it even more awesome since unplanned disagreements are often the discussions that push us to really think deeply about a topic and our viewpoint on it. Patrick’s pushback article to mine was filled with good …
The Concerning Lack of Data Transparency in Smart Shopping – Part 5: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
This is the next segment in our series on Google Smart Shopping Campaigns (SSC). You can read the first 4 posts in this series here: What Is Smart Shopping? – Part 1: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Establish Your Strategy – Part 2: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Should You Switch From Standard Shopping Ads to Google Smart Shopping? – Part 3: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns How to Exclude Placements in Google Smart Shopping Campaigns – Part 4: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns — In the past year, I have personally had multiple conversations with a variety of representatives from Google through public events, private emails, phone conversations, client meetings, etc. on one specific aspect of Google Smart Shopping Campaigns: the concerning lack of data reported back to the advertiser. If you recall from previous posts, …
Video: Adjusting Campaign Daily Spend in Google Ads… the Right Way!
As we move beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you’re likely bringing budgets down to normal levels. But did you know there are a couple of ways to do that, one being better than the other? In this video, PPCKirk discusses how to wisely decrease daily spend to maintain as much traffic as possible. No time for the video? No problem! Scan the Audio Transcript below. Adjusting Campaign Daily Spend in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads – Audio Transcript. Hey, Kirk Williams here with ZATO. I wanted to talk to you a little bit today about controlling spend. I’ve seen a couple of different ways overall that PBC managers control spend, and I think they’re both legitimate and they’re both part of the puzzle, but I think there’s one that’s a little bit better than the other. The two different ways that I typically see …
SEO & PPC: Better Together – an SEMRushChat on Twitter
I had the esteemed honor and privilege of participating as one of the guests of yesterday’s SEMRushChat on Twitter. SEMRushChat is hosted by SEMRush and is a fast-paced, educational chat on current happenings and best practices in the digital marketing world. Yesterday, the chat was on using SEO & PPC together, and myself and Craig Campbell were the guests. I thought it would be helpful to include my answers below along with the original questions… and as a bonus I also included my Star Wars GIFs from the chat as well! Read on, and please don’t hesitate to hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn with any questions or comments on this engaging topic. #SEMRushChat Thanks so much for having me!! So that my answers can be easily found in the chat, and to honor Disney+ for hitting the US market yesterday (and virtually wiping out productivity), I’ll …
Listen: Managing Shopping Ads in an Automated World – BrightonSEO Search Show Talk
In September 2019, I had the privilege of speaking on Shopping Ads at the world renown, massive search conference in Brighton, UK: BrightonSEO. While this was an honor in itself, I secretly enjoyed my time at the Search Advertising Show the day before even more! The Search Advertising Show is a precursor event (to the main BrightonSEO show) put on by Kelvin Newman and the BrightonSEO crew and was really a fabulous environment. Great attendees, speakers and location. I hope to be back someday! At the Search Ad Show I spoke on Google Shopping (shocker there huh 😉 ) and you can hear the recording here, plus follow along with the slides below if you like. It’s as good as being there! Listen to PPCKirk on Shopping Ads: View PPCKirk’s Shopping Ads Slides: Did you know: ZATO can manage just Shopping Ads for your Brand or company alongside …
How to Exclude Placements in Google Smart Shopping Campaigns – Part 4: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
This post was originally published on June 13, 2019 as a stand-alone post. However because of the way it fit into our series on Smart Shopping Campaigns, we decided to re-release it as the 4th installment in the series. You can read the previous 3 posts here: What Is Smart Shopping? – Part 1: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Establish Your Strategy – Part 2: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Should You Switch From Standard Shopping Ads to Google Smart Shopping? – Part 3: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns — Just yesterday, we at ZATO discovered and shared that you could see placements in your Smart Shopping campaigns through the API. I lamented in that post (here: How to See Placements in Google Smart Shopping Campaigns ) that we couldn’t add them as exclusions. Well thanks to a line of …
Finally, a great solution for Small Budget PPC! – Introducing the Google Ads for Small Budget Program by ZATO
ZATO has been around since 2011 (with a rebrand somewhere in there), and one of the most consistent things we have seen is that starting PPC business budgets have remained the same, while costs have risen (both platform costs and agency costs) making it more difficult for small budgets to get great PPC management. Oftentimes, what this has looked like is management from a company in which dozens of accounts are sold by an expert (PPCer or salesperson), and then handed off to be managed by an intern who…. let’s say made all their mistakes during this part of their office journey. As we grew, we determined that the investment we needed to put into an account, any account, required a certain amount of time and energy and thus required our minimum pricing to be higher than many small businesses could afford. We found ourselves among a large …
My Notes on the Google Shopping Expert Series in LA Seminar
Today I had the privilege of a quick trip to sunny LA to learn a little more about Google’s take on Smart Shopping campaigns (SSC). It was especially a privilege, because Billings (in Montana where ZATO is based) is getting buried under 6-12 inches of snow! While I’m sad to miss the first snowfall of the season… I’m also not. So what did Venice CA have to teach us about Smart Shopping? Here is a write-up from my notes on today’s seminar, please feel free to connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any specific questions! Google Expert Series LA – Google Shopping Ads Amazon Fast Shipping: One thing to note before we get into Smart Shopping (SSC), was a stat shared in the beginning that should scare everyone who has Amazon in their Auction Insights. “ Queries for ‘same day shipping’ have increased 200% in …
Should You Switch From Standard Shopping Ads to Google Smart Shopping? – Part 3: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
In the first segment of this series (What is Smart Shopping?), we focused on what Google Smart Shopping is, and in the second segment we discussed key tactics (Establish Your Smart Shopping Strategy). In this post, we will answer the question of whether someone should follow Google’s advice and switch their entire Shopping program over to Smart Shopping. This is a shorter, but essential next post in the series on Smart Shopping. This post actually came about specifically as I responded to yet another Google rep contacting a client and telling them they should consider switching totally from Standard Shopping Ads to Smart Shopping. Here is a variation of my answer, made more general for a broader audience. Hopefully this gives you assistance as you consider the best way forward in your accounts. Should You Run Only Google Smart Shopping Campaigns in Your Account? In short: No. I …