Google has recently rolled out availability of Adwords In-Market Audiences for SEARCH marketing campaigns, and anyone in e-commerce or bricks and mortar retail in particular should be paying attention. This development was first announced by Google in May 2017, but it appears to have taken them a while to roll this out, however all Adwords users should have the facility enabled as of today.

Google's In-Market audiences have been available since 2013 under various guises, but for advertisers who are unfamiliar with Adwords Display advertising, this will be an entirely new concept, as the audiences have until now only been available for display (and YouTube) campaigns.

What are Adwords In-Market Audiences?

If Google notices a web user has changed their search behaviour to visiting or searching for a large number of topically similar and product or service oriented websites, it deems that user to be "in the market" for that particular type of product.

The science behind exactly how this matching works is as obscure as everything else about Google's big data, but Google themselves say "In-market audiences uses the power of machine learning to better understand purchase intent. It analyzes trillions of search queries and activity across millions of websites to help figure out when people are close to buying and surface ads that will be more relevant and interesting to them."

How Can I Make the Most of this?

The answer here will depend slightly on whether you've got some experience under your belt with in-market audiences for display yet. If you've been using these audiences in your own display campaigns, you are recommended to examine their historic performance, and strongly consider adding the most relevant such audiences to your search campaign audience targeting.

What you are looking for is traffic that performs significantly better on site than other audiences or targeting methods. You will be able find this evidence either in Adwords itself or otherwise in your Analytics.

For the vast majority of advertisers, you're recommended to simply add ALL your existing in-market display audiences to your search campaigns, and set bid adjustments based on how much better these audiences appear to be performing than others.

Comparing Relative Traffic Quality - Adwords

To answer that question, you might look at your conversion rates for these audiences in Adwords against your Adwords average conversion rate.

This screen shot is from one of our retail client accounts, you will find this report in your own Adwords accounts under "Display Campaigns> Audiences". On of our favourite metrics here at Rattling Tram is the perhaps arcane-sounding "all conversion value/click". We are RELIGIOUS about making sure all our conversions are given MEANINGFUL dollar values relative to their worth, because this methodology means you can do all sort of clever comparative analytics while knowing you are comparing apples with apples.

"All conversions value/click" roughly translates into English as "conversion value per click". For anyone familiar with Analytics, this metric is roughly analogous to "per session goal value". Neither of these are very commonly reported metrics, but we urge any advertiser who is ever looking at comparative traffic quality to get very familiar with both.

The screen shot indicates that our traffic from these two in-market audiences is performing around 20% and 10% respectively better than the site average, so we would set our bid adjustments to +20% and +10% for these audiences with confidence in these cases.

Note that if we had just focussed on the conversion RATE rather than value, the results would look very different, with results only 1-5% better than the account average, which would recommend only small bid adjustments.

Comparing Relative Traffic Quality - Analytics

We see a similar result in analytics (view this report in Audiences> Interests> In-market Segments), where the standard reporting metric - conversion RATE only indicates one significantly better performing audience. Instead, we strongly recommend building yourself a custom report a la the following:

Here, we see the per session goal value metric adds another dimension to the picture, indicating that we actually have THREE in-market audiences performing well above average, and we would look to add all these audiences to all our relevant campaigns, with bid adjustments conservatively set around +20 and +40%.

What If I've Never Used In-Market Display Targeting?

Never fear, Analytics has your back. Audiences> Interests> In-market Segments is not a very commonly run Analytics report, but we recommend all website owners - particularly anyone in e-commerce or local services to keep a fairly constant eye on this one. You are receiving this data whether you've been running ads targeting these audiences or not for as long as you've had analytics installed on your website.

You will usually see only about 50% of your total site traffic in this report, which gives you some idea how many users on average Google is able to flag as being "in-market" for some product or service. This makes sense, not everyone on the web is currently shopping for a major purchase.

How Good is the Data?

Advertisers have traditionally been dubious about the merits of these in-market audiences. However, at Rattling Tram, our experience has been almost universally positive. It's our strong belief that these audiences ARE highly effective for generating action-ready traffic PROVIDED your product or service is one that potential customers are likely to research extensively online in advance.

We do a lot of work with retailers and local service businesses, and our experience is that for higher priced or larger purchase decisions - the sorts of purchases that potential customers WILL spend a bit of time researching online in advance, then you will almost certainly see benefits in using relevant in-market audiences for your ads targeting.

If you're selling fidget spinners, apparel or FMCG, chances are you will see less success with these audiences.

How do I do This?

In Adwords, navigate to Search Campaigns> Audiences, and click the blue pencil at the top of the page. You will then have the choice of adding your targeting at either campaign or ad group level.

Remember, with Adwords selecting "Targeting" ALWAYS narrows your ad reach. You ads will ONLY serve to users who meet one or more of the criteria you specify here if you select this option. There MAY be instances where you would consider doing this, but these would be very specific contexts that only experienced advertisers should really be contemplating, and a whole other blog post to themselves. For most advertisers, you should select "Observation". This expands your campaign reach to include this targeting in ADDITION to your existing setup, and allows you to set bid adjustments as necessary.

Once you've saved your targeting, you'll see it all presented in a neat table. Make sure you remember to set your bid adjustments by clicking on the "Bid Adj." column of the relevant row.

At this stage, it appears there's no intention to make these audiences available for Shopping Ads, although that would seem to be the final logical extension, as they are now the only Adwords ad format without these targeting options.

The post In-Market Audiences Now Available in Adwords Search appeared first on Rattling Tram Small Business & Retail Marketing.

As of today, your business' listing in the KNOWLEDGE GRAPH section of Google's search results will display additional POST card information that can be configured to contain direct calls to action to specific pages of your website, promote offers, or display upcoming event information.

'Knowledge Graph'?!

Before we get in to all the detail, "what the heck is knowledge graph???", I hear the internet collectively intone.

Well, chances are you're actually so familiar with Google's Knowledge Graph that you've actually never needed a name for it.

We are talking about the section on the right hand side of Google's search results which regularly displays "rich" information pooled by Google from a wide variety of online sources.

That's the Knowledge Graph in the pink area below.

The knowledge graph won't necessarily trigger for all searches. Google tries to intelligently serve it when a user appears to be doing a search that would benefit from the richer "context" the knowledge graph provides.

So, searching for something like a current movie title might trigger a knowledge graph that pooled together all the nearby session times for that movie from cinema sites, as well as review snippets and ratings from movie review sites, and so on.

Who Will See My Google Posts?

The easiest way to trigger the knowledge graph is to do a search for the name of any company that has an active Google My Business page. There you will see a "carded" preview version of your Google My Business page, and it is here that the new POSTS will now start appearing.

So, the first thing it's important to note is that Google is not offering to serve your promotions to people searching for relevant terms. It remains to be seen if Google is going to index these posts at all. Your Google Posts are probably not going to do much for you from an SEO perspective.

With a degree of assumption, your posts won't be shown unless a "card" for your business is triggered in the Knowledge Graph. At Rattling Tram, we've been keeping an eye on this, and Google My Business cards will sometimes trigger on related "topical" searches, but the reality is that most users who are seeing your cards are liable to be searching directly for your business name.

So, Google Posts won't be much about putting your content in front of new customers unfamiliar with your brand, and there is some up and downside to that.

View and clickthrough statistics for Google posts will be available through your Google My Business admin page.

Not all industries are apparently seeing the posts feature, with some confirmation that hotels and B&Bs are excluded at this stage, we're actively seeking feedback from anyone who is NOT now seeing this feature on their account. Please message us via the sidebar and let us know the nature of your business.

Tips for Using Google Posts

People performing brand-related searches are most likely to be closest to the purchase end of their buyer's journey, so small business owners should be thinking about some real elevator pitch offers for their Google posts.

For this reason, local small businesses and retailers are advised to consider making strong offers that are directly related to their conversion goals.

Similarly, emphasising product or service USPs or competitor positioning can also serve as a device to shift buyers through your sales funnel.

You have the option of augmenting your post with upcoming event information or one of 5 call to action buttons linked to any page on your website. As with any online promotion, readers are strongly advised to consider creating campaign-specific landing pages for conversion objectives. This would be less imperative for non-offer-based posts.

Google's regular content standards apply, and that means avoiding any blue language, excessive or unnatural capitalisation, commercial slang or excessive exclusions on your offers. See HERE for Google's content policy in detail.

Google also offers some excellent best practices documentation HERE

Notes on image sizes

Images should be recommended minimum 426 x 426 px in size. Users have the option of cropping and resizing any uploaded images to square within the platform.

Images display in the GMB platform at 330 x 330 px, but in the Knowledge Graph full width, and cropped from the image CENTER to 426 x 130px, making it difficult to select an image that is going to display consistently in all contexts.

For this reason, users are advised to use large, clear, simple images, ideally with identifiable traits at the center of the image.

Getting Started with Google Posts

Creating a Google Post is easy, even for the non-tech savvy. It is literally just a couple minutes work setting up a new promotional channel that will tick over steadily for you over time.

• 1. Log in to your Google My Business account at https://business.google.com
• 2. If available, select the new POSTS item in the left hand menu

• 3. Click "Write Your Post" to bring up the following window

• 4. Click the camera icon to add a photo
• 5. Add your promotional content under "Write Your Post". Google recommends an ideal length of 150-300 characters, but your limit is 1500

• 6. Add an optional call to action button, and nominate its landing page URL on your site

• 7. Add optional event information. NB events gain an extra "Title" field, limited to 58 characters

• 8. When you're ready, hit PREVIEW and PUBLISH

• 9. Your post should now be showing in your Google My Business Manager

• 10. Click on your post again to view analytics results, delete the post, or to edit any of the content

Got Questions?

Contact Rattling Tram here, we just love helping out.

The post Google Rolls Out New Posts Feature for Google My Business appeared first on Rattling Tram Small Business & Retail Marketing.

I needed a SPECIALISATION. That was both my brilliant epiphany and dawning horror ... for I didn't have one. I was the ultimate jack of all trades, take up any marketing task and roll up your sleeves marketer. Useless. In other words.

But then it dawned on me. There WAS a specialisation. A golden thread that ran alongside my own meandering marketing path - and here at the Marketing Depots, you'll hear us blather on more than a bit about marketing as a metaphoric 'journey'.

I'd spent virtually my entire career, in one capacity or another, whether labeled as such or not, working predominantly with or for retailers on local area and in-store marketing initiatives.

I found I'd, had I actually stopped for a minute to consider it, been refining a very specific "package" of skills that essentially was local area marketing with a retail twist. Had I stopped for a minute to consider calling it anything.

The other thing I'd done most recently was work with a number of small business employers who were CRYING out for broad-based and strategic marketing assistance but didn't have the resources for an in-house marketing staffer, and were only being sold new media trickery by marketing agencies.

Thus was my sense of marketing purpose born. And it's that purpose which has in turn today begat The Aussie Marketing Depots.

Why Are We Here?

The Local Area Marketing Depot is one of a stable of three comprising the Aussie Marketing Depots, which I'm very pleased to be launching today after months of at times fitful gestation.

The idea is to provide free and actionable marketing advice to small business and retailers from the unique perspective of the Australian marketplace.

We're building a roster of guest bloggers too. If you'd like to be part of it, just drop us a line via the "Contact" tab at the bottom right or top of this page.

And be sure everyone to sign up for "All Aboard with Adam Ford" the weekly unobtrusive email update we send around. Just hit this here button.

We've also got RSS feeds, Facebook and LinkedIn Groups, Pinterest Boards, Triberr and Tailwind Tribes where /the community can continue the discussion offline.

Have a poke around the blog homepage HERE.

We'll be bringing you the latest Aussie Local Area, Small Business and Retail Marketing news here all updated weekly. Make sure you stay in touch. It's a "journey", remember ... All Aboard ...

The post Now departing! Let's Get Vocal About Local appeared first on Rattling Tram Small Business & Retail Marketing.