The ad rotation setting determines how your ads are distributed. Currently the settings allow ads to be;

• Optimise for clicks: Show ads expected to provide more clicks
• Optmise for conversions: show ads expected to provide conversions
• Rotate evenly: Show ads evenly for 30 days

Most good PPC campaigns will be running multiple ads in each adgroup, when using multiple ads it is possible to adjust settings to allow Google to distribute the ads differently. These settings are important to consider as they can effect the performance of your campaigns.

If you select rotate evenly each ad in the adgroups will be given equal exposure, which is good when you are running tests on adcopy. While using the optimise for clicks rotation will allow google to show the ad most likely to lead to a click which can benefit click through rate and through this quality score. The optimise for conversions setting, will optimise for conversions and great for commerce campaigns or other campaigns with particular on page goals. This last setting will require conversion tracking to be in place.

So there are clear reasons to use each, It seems however that the new rotation setting is actually just an update to the existing Rotate evenly.

While most tests will be completed in 30 days there are occasions where we have various messages running that deserve equal exposure, this new setting now removes the ability to do that for longer than 30 days which is unfortunate.

So overall I think that the function is good, I would have preferred an additional setting rather than the update.

One of the beauties of social networking is that our experiences are personal. We post links, share videos, upload our holiday pictures to share with our loved ones, broadcast the juicy details of our relationship break-ups after one too many…
The networks have always known that we love to get personal, but they are now providing tools to enhance this experience even more. For my first blog for SGM, I wanted to take a look at the updated Discover tab released by Twitter.

Discover

“Discover lets you tap into a stream of useful and entertaining information, customized just for you. When you use Discover, you’ll see results reflecting your interests – based on your current location, what you follow and what’s happening in the world. As you use Twitter more, Discover gets even better at serving up more content just for you.”

What is the update all about?

The previous Discover tab featured news from around the Twitterverse, acting as a trend front-page where we were all given the same news and stories, whether they were of any interest to us or not. The information you see in the updated Discover tab is now more relevant to you. Twitter have improved their personalisation algorithms to incorporate several new signals including the accounts you follow and whom they follow. All of this social data is used to understand your interests and display stories that are relevant to you in real-time.

As always, there are some people who dislike the update and believe it infringes on privacy. But I think for the majority, the update has made Twitter an even more valuable source of news and information. I am a huge fan – I love that I have to put in very little effort to be provided with news and stories that are of interest to me (although it may be a bit Big Brotheresque!) I think users now expect to be provide with relevant information as standard, no matter the platform.

Custom Experience

The name of the social media game certainly seems to be custom experience, as all the networks are releasing updates that try to cater for this: Facebook recently released a Trending Articles feature that shows you articles your friends are reading; Google’s search changed completely when it released Google Search Plus Your World, which changes your Google search results and rankings based on your Google+ activity; and now Twitter are providing targeted news stories.

This could be an interesting move for Twitter and could help build better relationships amongst Twitter communities. At SGM, we are looking to incorporate this within our social media offering to help our clients develop their customer relationships and become thought leaders in their particular sector.

I use adwords and the adwords editor for pretty much 90% of the working day. Its a pretty easy interface to use but our friend google have made some pretty sweet changes to the keyword tool and traffic estimator. Oh, google your too good to us!

Heres whats changed;

Improvements to the Keyword Tool

You can now see keyword ideas grouped by themes – With the updated Keyword Tool, you can easily view suggestions for new ad group themes and quickly choose to add ad groups directly to your account.

Seamless Traffic Estimator integration: Easily view Traffic Estimator data for the keywords you select in the Keyword Tool to make better campaign strategy decisions.

Improvements to Traffic Estimator

Graph your performance estimates: Google have introduced a graph to the Traffic Estimator to make it easier to gauge traffic and bid estimates and develop an effective bidding strategy.

Structure your keywords into ad groups: You can now create draft ad groups within the Traffic Estimator and easily view traffic and bid estimates for each of your draft ad groups.

Add campaigns to your account: When you’re satisfied with your campaign structure, you can add the draft campaign directly to your account. Easy as pie.

I read that google are also improving the quality and accuracy of the traffic estimates, they are doing this by using performance history to better gauge traffic estimates. This means that going forward you’ll have to log in to AdWords to use Traffic Estimator – I think this is pretty cool. Not 100% when this is going to happen so will keep my eyes peeled and updated you all when we hear more – or if you know more about this then share the news with us!

Ive seen these changes in my adwords interface already but a few of my colleagues havent yet so I imagine as usual it will take a few weeks or so to be rolled out everywhere. You also will need to be signed into google to see these changes.

thats all folks.

Heather (@eldertown)

Well read on and I will tell you.

You may have heard the rumours about Aliens coming to earth and Google Drive floating around recently. Well it turns out, one of the two actually does exist – Introducing Google Drive!

Google drive is basically a cloud-based storage solution called Google Drive which has just been made availble to the US on Android devices, Macs and desktop PC’s. Google Drive is very similar to Apple’s iCloud service and enables you to store your files on a remote server.

The main advantage of this system is that if you misplace your mobile your data is both safe and secure and obviously you can use your memory for other things. Whats even more significant is having a central location to store files which can be accessed from anywhere without having to transfer them between each device. Infact, Google Drive takes this one step further because its got Google Docs built-in to it, which means multiple people can access edit and work on files at one time. This also ensures people are always working on the latest version of the files.

I think this will really help search marketing agencies too.

You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond. If you cant tell yet, Im a big fan already of drive and of this kind of organization (Plus im a woman so this is right up my street!)

Heres what you can do with Google Drive

Create and collaborate.
Google Docs is built right into Google Drive which is fantastic as this means you can work with others in ‘real time’ on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items. Simples.

Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go)
All your stuff is literally right… there! You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, From any device. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. Google are working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. (Hmm this is the only complaint I have about google drive so far!)

Search everything
Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner etc. This is a really handy feature I think, also Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology (clever cloggs) For example, you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. Google also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your holiday/conference/night out etc into Drive, you can later search for ‘egypt 2012′ and photos of its sandy beaches should pop up. Pretty Impressive huh?

Google are rolling out Drive to other markets and i doubt it will be long before we see it here in the UK. Ill keep you all updated

We are thinking about using this feature in our office as its such an easy system to use when it becomes available over here, and lets face it we just love google and pretty much everything they do

Are you loving the sound of drive yet? Will you use it? Let us know your feedback/thoughts!

Heres a video about Google Drive

Over and Out

Heather (@eldertown)

(see what I did there!)

Despite lots of changes to the google algorithium over the years, page titles are the one thing that has remained pretty stable and of a high value.

For the new guys, the page title is the bit that sits at the top of the browser window. it is also the bit that you read on the google search engine results page after you have entered a search.

Why are they so important? And why you should care about yours.

As mentioned before it is a crucial SEO ranking factor in determining position. Invariably, most sites when they are being built will have a default value set as the page title, which will be the same as the name of the page within the cms (content management system). For example you some time see “home” on some sites home page. This is not ideal, as this is essentially telling google that there is content on this page about “home”.

How should they look?

Page titles should reflect your most important keywords. So what are your most important keywords? Well, quite simply the ones that make you more money. (assuming that the objective of your site is to make more money, which is generally the case, certainly with our clients)

There is very little point ranking on terms that don’t make you more money or are of no interest to your customer.

Here are some general rules and examples to get you started:

Don’t change them too much. Any change may impact position, so make sure it is a good change before you make it and update the page.

Keep it too no more than 65-70 characters. There is however a new additon to page titles that allows double length page titles. So if you have enough creativity in you to write 2, do so. Google will then apply the most relevant one when someone searches for your product/service.

Use the most valuable keyword at the start. Google values the start more than the end. Use your company name at the end of the page title if at all.

Make them all different, even just a little. Duplicate page titles are not good and Google will consider this a negative factor.

As the new cookie legislation draws closer, website owners, agencies and government bodies are scrambling to work out what it is they need to do to comply with the new rules. What makes this difficult is no one really knows what that is.

In a nutshell, you have to tell users arriving on your site that your site will place Cookies on their browser. The type of cookie varies and the function of them also varies significantly. My frustration is in direct regard to the marketing cookies. These are cookies that are placed on a users’ browser which facilitate the website owners online marketing activities, generally through re-marketing. If used responsibly and effectively, it can add real value to the user, providing them with relevant and timely offers.  This is wholly similar to supermarkets providing you with chewing gum and magazines at the check out. What do people think?

Twitter may be the first to break stories, but few use it for news…

All indications point to Twitter being the place to learn about breaking news. I certainly am one of the growing number of people that turns to twitter for the latest news or celebrity gossip (dont judge me, im sure you do it too!)

Twitter seems to breaks news before even major news networks pick it up, for example Twitter was the first to report on Whitney Houston’s death.

A recent study from the Pew Research Center shows that just 9% of Twitter users get their news from the microblogging site – compared to 36% who use news websites, 32% who use search engines, and 29% who use news aggregation sites.

When news is shared via Twitter or Facebook, it’s usually stories that are more unusual and “viral” in nature. Such as a very famous celebrities death or the killing of a terrorist.

Why aren’t more people relying on Twitter for their news?! I thought the same. But its probably because the social networking site is still something of an electronic wild west — it’s hard to know what’s real on Twitter and what isn’t, Twitter was the first to break the news of Jon Bon Jovi’s death… despite, of course, the fact that he’s still very much alive!

Do you use twitter for ‘breaking news’ or are you like me and use it to stalk follow your favorite celebrities?

Take part in our poll:

The process has been lengthy, stretching over the last 6 months, with regular teasing updates as to Luke’s provisional status as a torch bearer, only having been confirmed last Friday.  We’re genuinely pleased for him, as he’s getting married 2 days later (on the 20th) in Germany to his long term girlfriend, Isabelle.

Luke was originally nominated for his efforts within the local business community.  As a board member for the Kent Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs, and winner of the KEiBA young entrepreneur of the year 2011, Luke is well qualified having set up SGM in the depths of the recession, the business continues to thrive and looks forward to welcoming its 9th member of staff very shortly.

What does this mean I hear you cry?! Well read on and I’ll tell you.

I first read this email whilst drinking (downing) my morning coffee to bring myself into consciousness. I re-read it once the coffee had set in, and then I got excited as I think there is huge potential here.

Google are always trying to get across how important/helpful that sitelinks are to your ads.They give users more options, and deliver advertisers more clicks! (which is our aim in life!) I read that the clickthrough rate is 30% higher for ads with sitelinks than those without, so it really is worth taking the time out to get sitelinks on your ads. If you are about to rush off and add some sitelinks to your ads, make sure you come back and read the rest of this blog – you will find it useful I promise.

Heres how sitelinks can rock your world

Google have revealed one of their ‘strongest performing’ experiments. It works by incorporating text from ads in your account that are related to your sitelinks. The easiest way to understand things is with an example:

Say you’ve created sitelinks for your Pizza Restaurant campaign, and your ad displays sitelinks as shown here:

Now, let’s say your account also includes the following text ads:

With this enhancement, your ad could now look like this:

To be eligible for these sitelink enhancements your ads with sitelinks must show above Google search results and your account must contain active ads closely related to the sitelinks in your campaign.

In testing its been reported that ads with enhanced sitelinks were more useful and relevant, And CTR rates were significantly higher than the same ad with traditional 2- and 3-line sitelinks.

Google have released enhanced sitelinks in the US so watch this space for a UK release date.

You must have heard a lot about Pinterest over the last few months…

Like all other ‘up and coming’ social networks it took me a while to warm to it but I LOVE it!

The company recently received $27 million in venture funds and the site’s popularity has gone from 1.2 million users in August to over 4 million today – Crazy numbers huh.

Of course like any new social site, there’s always the question: “How does it work?” Have no fear, soon-to-be-Pintrest fan, we’ll show you the ropes.

1. What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a place to organise and share online images that you like, love or just find interesting/inspiring.

Once you upload or share on Pinterest these images become known as Pins. People can then place these images on customized, themed Boards – you can create boards for anything you like. I have 5 boards at the moment; Life, Love, Heaven, Favorites and Beauty. I have a mixture of my own images and other peoples images that I have ‘re-pinned’.

How do I pin stuff I hear you cry?

Pinning is easy-peasy with the official Pin It Button. A simple drag-and-drop browser extension. When you come across an image you like, just click the button and select the corresponding picture. Assign the pin to a Board, add accompanying text, and you’re done, simples.

If the Pin is something you want to buy or look into a bit more its worth including the price in the description and it will attach to the Pin for easy reference. If you find inspiration on the go, take a picture with your iPhone and add it to your Boards with the mobile app. (Sorry, no Android support at this time.) You can also Repin posts from other people. I am a nosey parker so I love looking at other peoples pictures!

So check it out, at the moment you need to be invited to sign up – You can do this on the site or chances are you already know a Pinner who will gladly send you an invite.

Follow Us!

on to the serious and logical stuff now…

2. What is Pinterest For?

While there’s nothing wrong with just pinning pictures of cool stuff all day, Pinterest can be a really valuable tool for people with a specific purpose in mind.

For example, many brides-to-be have replaced bulky three-ring binder wedding planners with the simplicity and portability of a Pinterest account. Some people create a Board for each room in the house and then pin decorating ideas for that room. Artists use it to organize inspiring images for their work, so like an online mood board that everyone can see – yes I know what your thinking, and I agree, its COOL!

Also, Boards can have multiple contributors – so collaborating with co-workers/friends etc on a project is easy with everyone’s ideas and inspiration in one place.

3. What’s the Social Angle?

Like most things, Pinning’s more fun when you do it together. To find other Pinners, access the Everything drop-down menu and filter Boards by category. When you see a good Pin, leave a comment, Like it, or Repin to one of your own Boards. If you find a Board that’s especially interesting, follow its updates, or head to the Pinner’s profile and follow all of her Boards. Like Twitter, it’s an open network, so follows don’t require permission, and you don’t have to follow anyone back. So basically, just share the love!

Check out the Popular button to see what pins are trending at the moment. It’s a great way to find new content and to find Pinners who share your interests.

and finally…

Most Pins are photos, but you can pin videos, too (it just gets cooler and cooler) Hit the Videos button at the top of the page to see everything from movie trailers to sewing tutorials to the latest viral videos. <—- love this.

Pinterest might seem like a natural place to promote your small business, but do so with caution. It’s frowned upon to spam your Boards with nothing but your own products or projects.

If you do want to promote your brand you I would say that you need to contribute more to the community if you want to stay in its good books, Use this opportunity to build your brand by linking and connecting to people who share the same style, or by pinning images that inspire your company’s work. You can use Pinterest for self-promotion, just do so creatively and not to spammy. nobody likes a spammer.

Sensible stuff done, Happy pinning!