Google Adwords Updates from the Partners Masterclass

MOONEE PONDS, Australia - March 31, 2014 - PRLog -- The Google Masterclass event featured keynote speaker Dave Booth (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DaveBoothCP), author, speaker and marketing consultant from Cardinal Path (http://www.cardinalpath.com/). The day covered the following elements:

·      Dave’s personal story on why your agency should work smarter not harder.

·      The ins and outs of Google Tag Manager

·      How to maximise the full potential of mobile.

·      Adwords updates and changes.

·      How to prove the full value of what your agency brings to clients.

The great thing about the masterclass was that it covered updates and tips we will actually use (not an introduction to Adwords 101). Here is a run down of some of the most useful insights for us.

Converted Clicks

Last fortnight, Google Adwords made some changes to conversion tracking to give advertisers some more flexibility in how they track conversions. Unaware of this update, we were running around in circles trying to figure out why the interface had suddenly changed. I was pleasantly surprised that it was the very first thing they covered in the master class.

All in all, Google wanted to help us advertisers understand the relative value of each click that results in a conversion. To do this, they have changed:

·      The conversions (1-per-click) has been renamed to Converted clicks

This column will count clicks that resulted in one or more conversions. Only unique conversions will be counted, so if one customer makes two purchases, it will only show as one converted click in the column.
The conversions (many-per-click) are now referred to just Conversions.
Essentially, this counts total conversions or sales and unique leads. Therefore if one customer makes two purchases after clicking on an advertisement, Adwords will count that as one converted click and two conversions.

View-Through Conversions

Another important tip we will certainly be using is the view-through conversions for the display network. Reporting back to clients is a very important task to demonstrate what sort of traffic you are bringing them. However, display campaigns historically perform much poorer than search campaigns and it can be difficult to justify the implementation. What the Google master class emphasised was that display-remarketing campaigns are more about keeping the brand top of mind and are only part of the conversion process rather than the direct last click.

View-through conversions: Adwords registers view-through conversions when a customer sees your display ad and then later completes a conversion on your site (perhaps by returning through an organic search or direct URL). The implication of this is that it doesn’t have to be a direct click-through (which it often isn’t for the display network).
The updates that Google have made to the view-through conversions are to ensure better accuracy about when a customer actually ‘views’ your ad. Previously, a view would be counted even if the ad was shown below the fold of the webpage and the customer didn’t even scroll down. Now, at least 50% of the ad must be viewed for at least one second before it can be counted as a view – much more accurate!
We will be sure to include this when reporting to our clients as view-through conversions portrays a holistic view and lets you see the lifting effect of display.

Google Tag Manager

Lastly and perhaps the most beneficial thing to come out of the master class was the benefits of using Google Tag Manager- a free tool that is currently not being broadly used. We have found the constant back and forth between our web developer every time I need a new code installed to a website to be very time consuming. Using Google Tag Manager, we have the ability to access all this ourselves without contacting the web developer.

To learn more about how Google Tag Manager works, you can view a short introductory video here

For all you other Google Partners in Australia out there, make sure you join the Google+ group ‘Google Partners Downunder‘.