Connect with us

SEO

4 Smart Tactics For Advanced Google Ads Audience Targeting

Published

on

4 Smart Tactics For Advanced Google Ads Audience Targeting

Gone are the days of solely relying on keywords to drive your PPC success.

With the relaxed keyword match types, the use of audiences in Google Ads has sophisticated tenfold.

Utilizing audience targeting is no longer an option for campaigns; it should be part of your overall campaign strategy.

Here, you’ll learn four advanced audience targeting tactics for refining your PPC targeting to leverage budget and maximize return on ad spend (ROAS).

1. Smarter Use Of Remarketing Lists For Search Ads (RLSAs)

Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSAs) allow you to customize your search ad campaigns based on the user behavior of previous website visitors, and tailor your bids/targeting options around these users when they’re searching on Google.

Advertisement

Example: Target people who spend over your average purchase revenue when searching for competitor brands.

This tactic will allow you to target and display ads to users that have generated a high conversion value for you historically whenever they are searching for one of your competitors on Google search, which could help you avoid losing customers to your paid competitors.

For example, an online grocery retailer could identify shoppers who spend over their average order value each week.

In this scenario, the advertiser could set up a separate campaign to target and bid on competitor terms but use RLSAs so that ads are only served whenever users within the list are searching.

This is a great way of ensuring your budget is only spent on retaining profitable customers.

If you’d like to apply this tactic to your account, you’ll first need to find the average purchase revenue per user being reported in your Google Analytics account by navigating to Monetization > Overview:

Advertisement
Screenshot by author, March 2022

Once you’ve found the average order value figure you’ll be able to create an audience list using the audience builder via Configure > Audiences in Google Analytics:

4 Smart Tactics For Advanced Google Ads Audience TargetingScreenshot by author, March 2022

You can set the event parameters and add any conditions:

4 Smart Tactics For Advanced Google Ads Audience TargetingScreenshot by author, March 2022

This tactic is particularly effective in industries where consumers aren’t loyal and may often flick between different retailers for the best deal (e.g., in grocery retail).

By applying this list you could tailor your ad copy and advertise loyalty discounts to these customers to prevent them from deserting your brand for a competitor:

Example of how to message your RLSA audiences in Google Ads.Screenshot by author, March 2022

2. Combining Social Audiences With RLSAs

With more than 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook has no rival when it comes to the enormity of its audience.

While Facebook targeting can be beneficial to reach the masses, another main benefit Facebook offers lies in the potential granularity with which you can target Facebook’s users.

Unlike Google Ads, Facebook has information on what users actually “Like” or follow, and in-depth data from users’ personal profiles.

The benefits of using social ads alongside search campaigns can be huge.

For example, a recent case study from Facebook showed that the brand Bombas saw a 27-point lift in ad recall for evergreen campaigns when utilizing Custom Audience targeting.

Despite this, I still encounter tons of brands whose approach to advertising on both Facebook and Google is unaligned, and therefore they fail to share insights gained from one platform to another to maximize success.

Advertisement

Example: Use Facebook to uncover new potential buyers and then target these people on search to increase the likelihood of them converting.

Facebook is one of the best platforms for expanding your reach and identifying new users who aren’t actively looking for your products or services right now.

By tagging the ads you run on Facebook targeting these new audience segments, you will later be able to target ads at these users when they search Google using top-of-the-funnel keywords, increasing the likelihood of those Facebook clicks turning into new customers.

To do this, you would first need to create a new campaign on Facebook designed to target new potential customers you aren’t already targeting with your search ads (exclude existing website visitors and mailing list members):

Target new potential customers you aren't already targeting with your search ads.Screenshot by author, March 2022

By tagging the resulting Facebook campaign with UTM tags, any clicks from this audience will be recorded in Google Analytics under the campaign name you have set.

You’ll then be able to create an audience list in Google Analytics which consists of traffic from this particular Facebook campaign:

4 Smart Tactics For Advanced Google Ads Audience TargetingScreenshot by author, March 2022

Remember, like any audience list you create, the list must contain at least 1,000 members before being eligible for use on Google search.

Once you’ve populated your audience list with enough traffic from Facebook, create a search campaign on Google Ads which includes only top of the funnel keywords such as informational queries related to the product/service you offer (they need to be top of the funnel because this audience isn’t specifically searching for your product/service).

Advertisement

Finally, apply the remarketing list to the ad groups created in your search campaign, choosing the target and bid setting, so that the search ads only show to users who are from your list of new potential customers uncovered on Facebook.

I strongly recommend this tactic if you feel like you have exhausted current demand on Google search in your industry, as it allows you to effectively create search demand by reaching new users and promoting consideration of your product or service.

You can also utilize this same strategy using Microsoft Ads to maximize your reach.

3. Using Custom Affinity Audiences

Google launched custom affinity audiences to give advertisers more granular control over audience targeting options on the display network.

This tackles the issue with regular Google Ads affinity audiences in that there isn’t a predefined affinity audience suitable for every business.

Custom affinity audience targeting can be set up by navigating to a Display campaign in Google Ads, clicking Targeting > Audience Segments  > Your Custom Audience Segments > New Custom  Audience.

Advertisement

Here you can create your own specific audience using free form interests entered as keywords and/or using URLs as a proxy for interest bundles:

Create your own specific audience using free form interests.Screenshot by author, March 2022

In this example, the custom affinity targeting has built an audience of “Garden Enthusiasts” using interests (keywords entered) and URL targeting.

You’re able to get real-time demographic insights as you’re building the audience. This can help drive further granularity to ensure you’re targeting the right people.

While custom affinity audience targeting allows for more control on the GDN, I think it’s best used for brand building.

You can take an even more granular approach to GDN targeting by layering custom affinity audiences with other forms of targeting to increase campaign efficiency.

4. Combining In-Market Segments With Remarketing

In-market audiences allow you to set up your campaigns to reach people who are further down the funnel and are more ready to make a purchase.

Google accurately categorizes users so you can target those most interested in their offerings.

Advertisement

Google states that you can distinguish interest from the purchaser’s intent by leveraging real-time data and a powerful classification system based on demonstrated in-market behavior.

In-market audiences can help drive incremental conversions, helping you to connect with consumers as the last step before they make a purchase decision.

To target an in-market audience segment you would need to navigate to Targeting > In-market and life events > In-market segments.

Here you will see a list of almost 500 available in-market audiences, with the option to further granulate the high-level categories (highlighted below).

Simply click the “down” arrow on each In-Market category to drill down your desired audience.

Choose from over 500 in-market audiences in Google Ads.Screenshot by author, March 2022

The real impact on conversions comes when using in-market segments in conjunction with website remarketing lists.

You can layer the in-market segments on top of your remarketing lists to increase reach while maintaining a high degree of relevancy with the aim of bolstering overall conversions.

Advertisement

Conclusion

Paid search keyword costs continue to rise every year. If your marketing budget doesn’t increase to keep up with the shift, you’ll need to get creative to drive new demand growth.

Many advertisers are shifting huge chunks of the budget over to other platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok, largely due to superior audience targeting options (not searcher intent) and reduced CPCs.

With this in mind and the increased use of automation within Google Ads, I think Google will be continuing to add to its options of audience targeting in a privacy-centric way.

The PPC landscape is always changing. Make sure you keep on top of the latest features as well as test some of the tips outlined above to see whether they can deliver improved paid media results for your business.

More Resources:


Featured Image: Jirsak/Shutterstock

Advertisement



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

SEO

Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

Published

on

Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

Content pruning sounds pretty appealing: delete a ton of content and see your organic traffic improve. But pruning has risks (like deleting useful pages and useful backlinks), and benefits are not guaranteed: So how does pruning actually work? And when

Read more ›



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

SEO

8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

Published

on

8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

There’s no shortage of SEO reporting tools to choose from—but what are the core tools you need to put together an SEO report?

In this article, I’ll share eight of my favorite SEO reporting tools to help you create a comprehensive SEO report for free.

Price: Free

Google Search Console, often called GSC, is one of the most widely used tools to track important SEO metrics from Google Search.

Most common reporting use case

GSC has a ton of data to dive into, but the main performance indicator SEOs look at first in GSC is Clicks on the main Overview dashboard.

Advertisement

As the data is from Google, SEOs consider it to be a good barometer for tracking organic search performance. As well as clicks data, you can also track the following from the Performance report:

  • Total Impressions
  • Average CTR
  • Average Position
gsc-performance-overviewgsc-performance-overview

Tip

If you’ve signed up for AWT using Google Search Console, you can view your GSC performance data in Ahrefs by clicking “GSC Performance” from the main dashboard.

But for most SEO reporting, GSC clicks data is exported into a spreadsheet and turned into a chart to visualize year-over-year performance.

organic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-yearorganic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-year

Favorite feature

One of my favorite reports in GSC is the Indexing report. It’s useful for SEO reporting because you can share the indexed to non-indexed pages ratio in your SEO report.

google-search-console-indexed-pages-reportgoogle-search-console-indexed-pages-report

If the website has a lot of non-indexed pages, then it’s worth reviewing the pages to understand why they haven’t been indexed.

Price: Free

Google Looker Studio (GLS), previously known as Google Data Studio (GDS), is a free tool that helps visualize data in shareable dashboards.

Most common reporting use case

Dashboards are an important part of SEO reporting, and GLS allows you to get a total view of search performance from multiple sources through its integrations.

Advertisement

Out of the box, GLS allows you to connect to many different data sources.

Such as:

  • Marketing products – Google Ads, Google Analytics, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360
  • Consumer products – Google Sheets, YouTube, and Google Search Console
  • Databases – BigQuery, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
  • Social media platformsFacebook, Reddit, and Twitter
  • Files – CSV file upload and Google Cloud Storage

Sidenote.

If you don’t have the time to create your own report manually, Ahrefs has three Google Looker Studio connectors that can help you create automated SEO reporting for any website in a few clicks

google-looker-studio-partner-connectorsgoogle-looker-studio-partner-connectors

Here’s what a dashboard in GLS looks like:

ahrefs-seo-audit-dashboardahrefs-seo-audit-dashboard
Ahrefs Google Looker Studio integration

With this type of dashboard, you share reports that are easy to understand with clients or other stakeholders.

Favorite feature

The ability to blend and filter data from different sources, like GA and GSC, means you can get a customized overview of your total search performance, tailored to your website.

Price: Free for 500 URLs

Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you audit your website.

Advertisement

Screaming Frog’s free version of its crawler is perfect if you want to run a quick audit on a bunch of URLs. The free version is limited to 500 URLs—making it ideal for crawling smaller websites.

screaming-frog-user-interface-screenshotscreaming-frog-user-interface-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

When it comes to reporting, the Reports menu in Screaming Frog SEO Spider has a wealth of information you can look over that covers all the technical aspects of your website, such as analyzing, redirects, canonicals, pagination, hreflang, structured data, and more.

Once you’ve crawled your site, it’s just a matter of downloading the reports you need and working out the main issues to summarize in your SEO report.

Favorite feature

Screaming Frog can pull in data from other tools, including Ahrefs, using APIs. 

If you already had access to a few SEO tools’ APIs, you could pull data from all of them directly into Screaming Frog. This is useful if you want to combine crawl data with performance data or other 3rd party tools.

screaming-frog-api-accessscreaming-frog-api-access

Even if you’ve never configured an API, connecting other tools to Screaming Frog is straightforward.

Price: Free

Ahrefs has a large selection of free SEO tools to help you at every stage of your SEO campaign, and many of these can be used to provide insights for your SEO reporting.

Advertisement
when-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustrationwhen-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustration

For example, you could use our:

Most common reporting use case

One of our most popular free SEO tools is Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT), which you can use for your SEO reporting.

With AWT, you can:

  • Monitor your SEO health over time by setting up scheduled SEO audits
  • See the performance of your website
  • Check all known backlinks for your website
ahrefs-overviewahrefs-overview

Favorite feature

Of all the Ahrefs free tools, my favorite is AWT. Within it, site auditing is my favorite feature—once you’ve set it up, it’s a completely hands-free way to keep track of your website’s technical performance and monitor its health.

If you already have access to Google Search Console, it’s a no-brainer to set up a free AWT account and schedule a technical crawl of your website(s).

Price: Free

Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension useful for diagnosing on-page technical issues and performing quick spot checks on your website’s pages.

Most common reporting use case

For SEO reporting, it’s useful to run an on-page check on your website’s top pages to ensure there aren’t any serious on-page issues.

Advertisement
ahrefs-seo-toolbar-overviewahrefs-seo-toolbar-overview

With the free version, you get the following features:

  • On-page SEO report
  • Redirect tracer with HTTP Headers
  • Outgoing links report with link highlighter and broken link checker
  • SERP positions
  • Country changer for SERP

The SEO toolbar is excellent for spot-checking issues with pages on your website. If you are not confident with inspecting the code, it can also give you valuable pointers on what elements you need to include on your pages to make them search-friendly.

If anything is wrong with the page, the toolbar highlights it, with red indicating a critical issue.

severity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbarseverity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Favorite feature

The section I use the most frequently in the SEO toolbar is the Indexability tab. In this section, you can see whether the page can be crawled and indexed by Google.

indexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbarindexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Although you can do this by inspecting the code manually, using the toolbar is much faster.

Price: Free

Like GSC, Google Analytics is another tool you can use to track the performance of your website, tracking sessions and conversions and much more on your website.

google-analytics-screenshotgoogle-analytics-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

GA gives you a total view of website traffic from several different sources, such as direct, social, organic, paid traffic, and more.

Favorite feature

You can create and track up to 300 events and 30 conversions with GA4. Previously, with universal analytics, you could only track 20 conversions. This makes conversion and event tracking easier within GA4.

Price: Free

Google Slides is Google’s version of Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have a dashboard set up to report on your SEO performance, the next best thing is to assemble a slide deck.

Advertisement

Many SEO agencies present their report through dashboard insights and PowerPoint presentations. However, if you don’t have access to PowerPoint, then Google Slides is an excellent (free) alternative.

google-slides-screenshotgoogle-slides-screenshot

Most common reporting use cases

The most common use of Google Slides is to create a monthly SEO report. If you don’t know what to include in a monthly report, use our SEO report template.

Favorite feature

One of my favorite features is the ability to share your presentation on a video chat directly from Google Slides. You can do this by clicking the camera icon in the top right.

share-video-chat-google-slidesshare-video-chat-google-slides

This is useful if you are working with remote clients and makes sharing your reports easy.

Price: Free

Google Trends allows you to view a keyword’s popularity over time in any country. The data shown is the relative popularity ratio scaled from 0-100, not the direct volume of search queries.

Most common reporting use cases

Google Trends is useful for showing how the popularity of certain searches can increase or decrease over time. If you work with a website that often has trending products, services, or news, it can be useful to illustrate this visually in your SEO report.

Google Trends makes it easy to spot seasonal trends for product categories. For example, people want to buy BBQs when the weather is sunny.

Advertisement

Using Google Trends, we can see that peak demand for BBQs usually happens in June-July every year.

bbq-google-trends-graphbbq-google-trends-graph

Using this data across the last five years, we could be fairly sure when the BBQ season would start and end.

Favorite feature

Comparing two or more search terms against each other over time is one of my favorite uses of Google Trends, as it can be used to tell its own story.

google-trends-comparison-examplegoogle-trends-comparison-example

Embellishing your report with trends data allows you to gain further insights into market trends.

You can even dig into trends at a regional level if you need to.

regional-trends-via-google-trendsregional-trends-via-google-trends

Final thoughts

These free tools will help you put together the foundations for a well-rounded SEO report.

The tools you use for SEO reporting don’t always have to be expensive—even large companies use many of the free tools mentioned to create insights for their client’s SEO reports.

Got more questions? Ping me on X 🙂

Advertisement



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

SEO

Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

Published

on

By

Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

A new study by Authoritas suggests that Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), currently being tested with a limited group of users, could adversely impact brand visibility and organic search traffic.

These findings include:

  • When an SGE box is expanded, the top organic result drops by over 1,200 pixels on average, significantly reducing visibility.
  • 62% of SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results.
  • Ecommerce, electronics, and fashion-related searches saw the greatest disruption, though all verticals were somewhat impacted.

Adapting to generative search may require a shift in SEO strategies, focusing more on long-form content, expert insights, and multimedia formats.

As Google continues to invest in AI-powered search, the Authoritas study provides an early look at the potential challenges and opportunities ahead.

High Penetration Rate & Industry-Wide Effects

The study analyzed 2,900 brand and product-related keywords across 15 industry verticals and found that Google displays SGE results for 91.4% of all search queries.

The prevalence of SGE results indicates they impact a majority of websites across various industries.

Advertisement

The research analyzed the typical composition of SGE results. On average, each SGE element contained between 10-11 links sourced from an average of four different domains.

This indicates brands may need to earn multiple links and listings within these AI-curated results to maintain visibility and traffic.

The research also suggests that larger, well-established websites like Quora and Reddit will likely perform better in SGE results than smaller websites and lesser-known brands.

Shifting Dynamics In Organic Search Results

With SGE results occupying the entire first page, websites that currently hold the top positions may experience a significant decrease in traffic and click-through rates.

When a user clicks to expand the SGE element, the study found that, on average, the #1 ranked organic result drops a sizeable 1,255 pixels down the page.

Even if a website ranks number one in organic search, it may effectively be pushed down to the second page due to the prominence of SGE results.

Advertisement

New Competition From Unexpected Sources

The study revealed that SGE frequently surfaces links and content from websites that didn’t appear in the top organic rankings.

On average, only 20.1% of SGE links exactly matched a URL from the first page of Google search results.

An additional 17.9% of SGE links were from the same domains as page one results but linked to different pages. The remaining 62% of SGE links came from sources outside the top organic results.

Challenges For Brand Term Optimization & Local Search

The study reveals that SGE results for branded terms may include competitors’ websites alongside the brand’s own site, potentially leading to increased competition for brand visibility.

Laurence O’Toole, CEO and founder of Authoritas, states:

“Brands are not immune. These new types of generative results introduce more opportunities for third-party sites and even competitors to rank for your brand terms and related brand and product terms that you care about.”

Additionally, local businesses may face similar challenges, as SGE results could feature competing local brands even when users search for a specific brand in a regional context.

Advertisement

Methodology & Limitations

To arrive at these insights, Authoritas analyzed a robust dataset of 2,900 search keywords across a spectrum of query types, including specific brand names, brand + generic terms, brand + product names, generic terms, and specific product names. The keywords were distributed across 15 industry verticals.

The study utilized a consistent desktop browser viewport to quantify pixel-based changes in the search results. Authoritas also developed proprietary “alignment scores” to measure the degree of overlap between traditional organic search results and the new SGE links.

While acknowledging some limitations, such as the keyword set needing to be fully representative of each vertical and the still-evolving nature of SGE, Authoritas maintains that the insights hold value in preparing brands for the new realities of an AI-powered search ecosystem.

Why We Care

The findings of the Authoritas study have implications for businesses, marketers, and SEO professionals. As Google’s SGE becomes more prevalent, it could disrupt traditional organic search rankings and traffic patterns.

Brands that have invested heavily in SEO and have achieved top rankings for key terms may find their visibility and click-through rates diminished by the prominence of SGE results.

SGE introduces new competition from unexpected sources, as most SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results. This means businesses may need to compete not only with their traditional rivals but also with a broader range of websites that gain visibility through SGE.

Advertisement

As Google is a primary source of traffic and leads for many businesses, any changes to its search results can impact visibility, brand awareness, and revenue.

How This Could Help You

While the rise of SGE presents challenges, it also offers opportunities.

Taking into account what we’ve learned from the Authoritas study, here are some actionable takeaways:

  • As SGE favors in-depth, informative content, businesses may benefit from investing in comprehensive, well-researched articles and guides that provide value to users.
  • Incorporating expert quotes, interviews, and authoritative sources within your content could increase the likelihood of being featured in SGE results.
  • Enriching your content with images, videos, and other multimedia elements may help capture the attention of both users and the SGE algorithm.
  • Building a strong brand presence across multiple channels, including social media, industry forums, and relevant websites, can increase your chances of appearing in SGE.
  • Creating a trustworthy brand and managing your online reputation will be crucial, as SGE may feature competitors alongside your website.

Looking Ahead

While the long-term impact of SGE will depend on user adoption and the perceived usefulness of results, this study’s findings serve as a valuable starting point for businesses and SEO professionals.

By proactively addressing the challenges and opportunities SGE presents, you can increase your chances of success in the new search environment.


Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

Source link

Advertisement
Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

Trending

Follow by Email
RSS