New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

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Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook. Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance.

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action:

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extensions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extension. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page.

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land.

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do two things.

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first two steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension".

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible". Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good.

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTRs
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

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New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

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Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook. Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance.

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action:

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extensions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extension. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page.

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land.

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do two things.

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first two steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension".

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible". Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good.

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTRs
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

Do you like this post? Yes No

New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

Comments Off

Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook. Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance.

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action:

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extensions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extension. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page.

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land.

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do two things.

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first two steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension".

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible". Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good.

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTRs
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

Do you like this post? Yes No

New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

Comments Off

Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook. Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance.

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action:

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extensions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extension. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page.

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land.

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do two things.

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first two steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension".

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible". Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good.

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTRs
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

Do you like this post? Yes No

New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

Comments Off

Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook.  Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance. 

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action: 

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extentions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extention. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. 

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land. 

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do 2 things. 

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first 2 steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension". 

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible".  Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good. 

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTR's
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page.

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

Do you like this post? Yes No

New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

Comments Off

Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook.  Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance. 

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action: 

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extentions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extention. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. 

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land. 

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do 2 things. 

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first 2 steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension". 

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible".  Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good. 

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTR's
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page.

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

Do you like this post? Yes No

New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

Comments Off

Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook.  Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance. 

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action: 

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extentions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extention. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. 

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land. 

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do 2 things. 

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first 2 steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension". 

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible".  Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good. 

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTR's
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page.

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

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New Adwords Social Extension Displays Google +1′s In PPC Ads

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Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by JustinV

Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.

As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook.  Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages – basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.

Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance. 

What Are AdWords Social Extensions?

Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action: 

Pretty cool, eh?

Now there's 2 types of Social Extentions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extention. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. 

How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?

1. Setup your Google+ Business Page

The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land. 

2. Verify your site

In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do 2 things. 

3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account

After completing the first 2 steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension". 

 

Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:

After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible".  Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!

What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?

So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good. 

After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:

  • Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
  • Click on the "ads" tab
  • Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"

In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!

We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.

  • Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
  • It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
  • While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTR's
  • Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page.

I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. 

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Testing the Untestable: An SEO Title Tag Experiment

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Posted on 30th November 2011 by in Website Optimization

Words matter. It’s proven that your choice of verbiage can dramatically impact your email open rates, paid search click through rates and landing page conversions. Marketers spend thousands of hours and dollars testing and tweaking text to find out what performs the best. It’s easy with the wealth of testing tools available for your campaigns, but what about organic SEO?

Title tags are not just important for ranking, but also for click through. We can expect the majority of searchers to click on the top result, and possibly top few results when searching for information. But for commercial searches, it takes a bit more effort to figure select a search result that’s relevant to the search intent (i.e. an ecommerce site, not a Wikipedia or blog article) and attractive (a familiar domain, a reasonable offer). Your title tag, like your PPC headline, is your small space to shine. But unfortunately, we’re left to make a gut-feel decision on what title tag is best.

Testing title tags: the problems

SERPs (search engine result pages) introduce many uncontrollable variables, such as Google’s penchant for showing different flavors of results, in different areas on the page, for different keyword searches. For example, a search for ‘riding boots’ shows Google Product Search results that can divert a customer from organic listings, star ratings that draw attention to search ads, and brand links to help users narrow their searches.

Notice how the singular “riding boot” and plural “riding boots” show the same page results, but slightly different related Stores results, and omits Product Search results.

If you’re really observant, you’ll notice the related Stores options are different too. Testing is difficult because you have no way of knowing how often these elements are shown or how they may be skewing your results.

Not only that, but search positions are always in flux, and vary depending on the exact keyword phrase queried, the user’s geolocation, whether the user is logged into a Google account (personalized to search history), the “freshness” of results at any given time, and perhaps even involves estimated page load speed and activities of one’s social graph.

And did you know that search engines sometimes override your HTML and create their own title for you based on content on your page or what it thinks your page is about?

Finally, the biggest hurdle is that even with Google’s own Website Optimizer tool, you cannot tell Google to show one title tag 50% of the time and another the rest. Google will only index your control page. Test versions are served after the referral, if applicable. This makes A/B testing individual pages’ title tags impossible. The only testing you *could* do is in aggregate.

Testing title tags: the workaround

Get Elastic reader Sander Daniels’ team at Thumbtack.com found a workaround to A/B testing title tags in aggregate, described in this case study. Using a home-grown testing platform in its ecommerce back end, the test ran for 7 days, Thumbtack split its URLs into 3 buckets, each containing thousands of URLs. The buckets consisted of a control and 2 challenging formats.

Control: Looking for the best [Service] in [City Name]?
Challenger A: Get Free Quotes Today From [Service] In [City Name]
Challenger B: [Service] in [City Name] – Get Free Quotes Today

To control for the uncontrollables in search, Thumbtack used the ratio of visits to its experimental titles compared to visits to pages in its control group. Rankings were also monitored, and there was no significant change during the test period. The test ran for 7 days, resulting in a 20-30% drop in traffic to its test groups. Traffic rebounded (for the most part) after reverting to the original title tags.

What to test in ecommerce title tags

If you’re bold enough to try a similar experiment (and have the technical judo chops), here are a few hypotheses you could explore:

  • Keyword vs. store name at the beginning of the title
  • Short vs. long, “keyword stuffed” titles
  • Value proposition such as “Free shipping” or “largest selection of” at the beginning of the title
  • “Shop” at the beginning of the title to differentiate from informational results such as Wikipedia articles and blog posts

    • Remember, to make it work:

  • You need a fairly large sample size of URLs that you can experiment, and a tool to support it the test
  • Your treatment versions must be tested against your control concurrently, not sequentially
  • Allow enough clicks to accrue to reach a statistically significant result
  • Understand what you are measuring – are search positions affected (for example, if your brand name at the beginning of the title affects your keyword relevance across the board)? Is traffic affected (can you estimate you are getting higher click through)? Are conversions affected (are you attracting the same quality of visitor)?
  • And finally, revert title tags back to normal after the test is over to validate your results

    • Looking for help with ecommerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path Research & Strategy team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy services can improve your business results.