Paid search has always been a popular method of advertising on desktop. However studies are finding that up to 30% of advertising methods are targeting mobile. There is no denying that mobile is growing, even to the extent that Google is focusing more on mobile and looking to benefit from mobile, as seen with new Enhanced campaigns.
This is a guest post by Yousef Sekander, Director at Rocketmill.
On May 1st, Salesforce will pull the plug on Salesforce for Google Adwords, and thousands of companies who use it will ask two questions. Why did Salesforce do this, and What do I do next?
We’ll make a few educated guesses at why, and also point you towards some solutions that can replace Salesforce for Google Adwords.
Salesforce for Google Adwords is different from every other app, in that it was the only app installed by default with Salesforce. With close to two thousand apps on the app exchange, only Salesforce for Google Adwords came pre-installed. Amazingly, even a few months after new customers were blocked from using it, it was still there for new salesforce instances (though completely unusable).
So why did Salesforce go from pushing this app on every single customer to suddenly retiring it? Their press release certainly doesn’t help, with this vague statement:
“Unmatched pace of innovation is one of the hallmark benefits to salesforce.com customers, and in order to continue to deliver more breakthroughs around Google AdWords, we’re turning to our vibrant ecosystem of partners. We’re focusing our innovation efforts around making the Salesforce CRM you love even better which is why we have decided to retire SFGA. Our AppExchange partners will provide similar offerings with additional capabilities so you can continue to realize success with Google AdWords.”
Theory number 1: It wasn’t worth the support / internal resources. According to Salesforce product managers, only one to two thousand companies were actively using Salesforce for Google Adwords. Considering it was installed by default for everyone, that’s a low, low uptake of +around 1% for active use.
Theory number 2: Salesforce got in a pissing match with Google about something and this was a casualty. Salesforce certainly had a lot more focus on integration with Google Apps in 2008, but this relationship since has cooled, with minimal development to bring the two companies, and their products, together.
There are a lot of solutions out there, ranging from a home-brew DIY solution using open source software, to Marketing Automation companies owned by Oracle. We’ll go through our favourite three at different price points.
Solution for around $100 a month – Daddy Analytics
We’ve taken a look at the solutions that have popped trying to offer a replacement for SFGA. All manage to replace the features of SFGA, and all of them cost somewhere between $50 and $200, depending on your volume of leads or number of users.
The outright winner on features in this price range is Daddy Analytics. As well as replacing Google Adwords, it offers some nifty services based around the IP address, including telling you what company or ISP the Lead came from, what device they were on (can you price your wares higher to Mac users then PC users?), and even their estimated GeoLocation. We were also shown a sneak peak at their beta features coming out shortly, and this one really impressed us – per page tracking for Leads. So you’ll know which pages your prospect went to before and after submitting your web form, and how long they spent on each page. If they spent 3 minutes on the pricing page and then submitted their info, this likely a more qualified prospect.
Solution for around $1000 a month – Hubspot
HubSpot is the winner here, seems to have the highest ‘cool’ factor. Have you seen their Alanis Moriset spoof video? Not only is it funny, it shows the power of inbound marketing, and already has over a hundred thousand views. When that went viral, HubSpot’s incoming leads shot up. HubSpot is not designed as a replacement for SFGA, they are so much more – a marketing automation system that increases your prospects engagement while focusing on your marketing ROI. And HubSpot seems to really ‘get it’, showing a personality that is at once trendy and edgy, while also being focused and professional. Their features are almost too long to list, and their integration with Salesforce leads is robust, as Hubspot use both Salesforce and Hubspot in-house. Salesforce even owns a significant stake in them.
Solution for over $1000 a month – Marketo
Marketo is the market leader, and offers even deeper integration with Salesforce, and more of a full featured offering. You pay for that power, though, with pricing in the range of $2000 to $8000 a month (their pricing can be even higher or lower). Marketo, for example, has far more features around it’s email campaigns, with arguably better better drip-marketing, deliverability reports, and list management.
But the challenge of comparing Marketo to Hubspot is that we quickly move into subjective opinion, rather than a more objective comparison. It’s a bit like Oracle vs Salesforce, or Windows vs Mac. At the end of the day it comes down to what suits you, from the user interface to the company approach. When you’re spending the big bucks for Marketo or Hubspot, you’re going to have to evaluate them and determine yourself, as only you know your exact needs.
What would your solution be?
This week Google announced a new Adwords update which will presumably have a big impact for the advertisers using Google as their main platform. With the new update Google says managing campaigns should become a lot simpler.
But there is more to it than meets the eye. It could implicate a lot of more work from advertisers to turn back the things Google asked them to do last year and next to that it might not always have the result you would think it has. (more…)
Last year we reported on the most expensive keywords in the US. Now Hallam Internet comes with numbers specifically for the UK. ”Online Live Roulette” (worth £75.02) and “TAC Compensation” (£70.19) are the ‘big ones’ and Claims and Compensations is the most expensive category (above gambling!). Look for yourself. (more…)
This the season for search marketers in retail to not sleep, as click volumes begin to rapidly increase and fluctuate throughout the busy festive online shopping season. To ease some of this stress, we at Marin Software have been analysing data from the 2011 festive season to help search marketers prepare campaigns for key dates and fluctuations.
We’ve been looking at spend, CTR, CPC, impression, revenue and mobile click share trends across Q4 2011 to identify key dates for your 2012 Christmas calendar. Off the back of this I wanted to provide nine practical and actionable tips to prepare campaigns for the festive season. So, here goes: (more…)
Nowadays, simply running an AdWords campaign via the AdWords Interface isn’t enough. We all have so many tools at our disposal but nine times out of ten, people forget the one tool that they should be using when it comes to managing a PPC campaign…. Google Analytics.
In this post, I am going to look at some of the features available to PPC advertisers in the Google Analytics interface and explain how you should be using them when it comes to managing your paid search campaign.
First things first you need to make sure you have linked your AdWords Account with your Google Analytics. If you don’t do this, you are going to be missing out on a wealth of data that is essential to running a successful paid search campaign. If you are unsure of how to link the two accounts together, check out the AdWords Help Desk which will give you step by step instructions.
Back in February, Google announced that they would be testing enhanced sitelinks for advertisers with desktop adverts. Over the past few months, they have continued to test and improve their systems which create the sitelinks and results have proven very positive for advertisers using the enhanced sitelinks.
As such, the enhanced sitelinks are now being rolled out globally which is great news for AdWords advertisers.
Bing seems to be on a small war path with Google. Earlier this week we already highlighted some of its social search strategy, but Bing has a broader challenge: Google. Microsoft has been actively promoting their search engine in different ways, along the way ‘attacking’ Google directly. And that while Bing is already gaining a little ground on Google in market share in the US last August.
While Comscore numbers show a small increase of Bing shares in the US and a small decline for Google, Bing is actively working on their visibility by doing a ‘Bingiton’, a TV campaign, by changing the name of Microsoft Advertising and by trying to lure away Google Adwords customers. All actions are not just aimed at showing how good Bing is though, they are also very much ‘against’ Google. (more…)
I can’t remember the last time I looked at a new PPC account that ticked all the boxes when it comes to the settings available within Google AdWords. Some of the settings are very easy to understand and set up, whilst others can be a little more confusing.
The aim of this post is to talk you through all of the settings available for a Google Search campaign and how to use and implement them. Some of these may seem very obvious to you, but you would be surprised to know how many campaigns are purely opted into the standard settings only. Advertisers can be wasting so much money on their campaigns if they are not targeted correctly and following the advice in this post should help you to get the most out of your PPC advertising.
The nice guys at Wordsteam have put together this infographic which takes a look at the impact that more prominent PPC ads are having on the average Google searcher. There is no doubt that the paid search ads are now taking over much more real estate in the search results and the results they have found are incredible!
Yesterday Google announced it will change its Product Search to a new Google Shopping system, which will require merchants to pay for inclusion.
Since its launch as Froogle, later named Merchant Center, ecommerce sites could see their products included in Google’s Product Search for free. As the database of products and sellers fueled Google’s universal shopping results, this proved to be a very effective way to gain traffic and conversions from Google’s search engine users.
Google’s newest Adwords features are a welcome addition providing us with more competitive data and transparency at a keyword level.
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