New Google extension allowing advertisers to collect leads

Internet goes (more and more) mobile. Also the search volume where the highest proportion now comes from mobile devices. However, when it comes to conversion rate mobile lags far behind desktop. To counter this, Google has looked for a creative solution. By the end of October, Google officially announced the launch of a new extension in beta called Lead Form Extension. As a reminder, extensions are shown right underneath the text ads in order to extend them with additional information.

This new feature has the particularity to capture leads within search results. The purpose here is clear: allow mobile users to leave a lead with a minimal effort by eliminating the extra step of navigating to your website.

How does it look like?

The form includes a headline, a business name and a description line. There is also the possibility of adding a background image. As for the fields form, they are limited to the name, email, phone number and postal code. It should also be noted that forms are prefilled with information obtained from Google accounts. So UX on mobile is swift and action driven.

Furthermore, data can be gathered in two different ways:

• Webhook: linking the lead form directly to your customer data management system, the collected leads will be received in real time.
• Manually:  manually downloading the collected leads in the ad extension table.

Now, what does it mean for advertisers? In concrete terms, this new feature offers the opportunity to increase lead rate while also making the user experience even easier.

Holidays are coming!

Last month Google announced that it will be rolling out two new seasonal events in-market audiences for Black Friday and Christmas to Search and Youtube.

In 2017, Google brought in-market audiences to Search. These audiences are built based on buyer-intent signals such as recently performed searches, surfing activity and interests. By using these audiences, you’re able to increase relevancy and ROI. Like with all audiences in Google Ads, you can add these to the campaigns as targeting or solely to observe how they perform in your campaign.

Now jumping to 2019, Google has added an extra segment to these in-market audiences: seasonal events. With the holiday season in sight, Google has added Black Friday and Christmas to Search and Youtube. Within these seasonal segments you’re able to target only Christmas or Black Friday shoppers who show interests in the products and services you have to offer. In May of this year, Google has added over 30 more categories, including many retail variations.

So what does this mean for your upcoming ‘end of year’ campaigns ? These new audiences are broadening your reach by targeting people that are not directly reached via the keywords used in your campaign. Because the in-market audiences are reaching relevant audiences that are further down the funnel, you’re driving potential high-value customers with an active state of mind to your brand and products which you would have never reached with another targeting. Don’t hesitate to ask your search or video experts for more explanation and see if these audiences can boost your business in the seasonal moment of truth.

Bye Bye average position

No mistake: the average position of Google ads will disappear soon.

Basically, the average ad position refers to the order of where your ad is shown but it does not say what the specific location is. For instance, you could have a position 1 but this does not mean that your ad will be shown at the top of the SERP (Search engine result page).

In fact, Google recently introduced new metrics that provide more detailed insights on the location of your ads: top impression rate, absolute top impression rate, top impression share and absolute top impression share.

Since these newly introduced metrics give a better view of the actual ad position within the SERP’s, Google decided it will remove the average position metric in September 2019.

Our take on this change is a bit mixed. We do report on impression share metrics and also on average position. We believe that the average position gives a nice overview of the accounts and is an easy to understand metric since not everyone is an expert in SEM. But it’s nice to see that Google is critical of its own metrics and offers a more in-depth view of the actual position of our ads.

Search Partners network might soon incorporate Youtube

Google mentioned that for a few months now, they have been testing Google text ads on the Youtube search results. The first tests look promising showing comparable performances on Google Search and Youtube on a cost-per-conversions basis. The ads are only shown on the mobile search feed on Youtube and it is not yet confirmed if they will extend this feature to desktop. Ad extensions as well are not supported to appear on YouTube mobile search results.

We believe Youtube and Search are very important in the consumer journey. The two channels complement each other, and people are doing the same actions on both (search). We are happy Google is testing new features between Google Search and Youtube and are sure we will use them as agency.

If you want to know more about current strategies on Youtube and Google Search for your business, don’t hesitate to contact us !

New tools for responsive search ads

Google introduced 4 more tools for responsive search ads that allow better reporting and feedback. We think it is a good sign that Google is providing more tools to a feature we did not have much control of. With better reporting A/B testing of these new kinds of ads will be easier.

The new tools to responsive search ads are:

• Auto-generated suggestions: Google ads will automatically suggest headlines and descriptions.
• Real-time feedback: While creating ads, a dynamically changing ad strength indicator will be displayed.
• Ad strength in ‘status’ column: This will show if ads are losing impressions or are disapproved.
• Import details from other ads: Headlines and descriptions from existing ads can be imported to responsive search ads in the same ad group.

Google mentions that on average, advertisers benefit of 10% more clicks after using responsive search ads. We also see some improvements in certain categories, but we do not see it as a guaranteed increase of the CTR.