Over 1 million people sign up to try the new Bing

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Yusuf Mehdi, the Corporate Vice President and head of Consumer Marketing Office at Microsoft, announced that within two days, over one million individuals had added their names to the waitlist for the upcoming AI-powered Bing search engine.

An impressive one million people have eagerly awaited the chance to try the new AI-powered Microsoft Bing search engine in just two days, as announced by Yusuf Mehdi. He stated, “The overwhelming response of over one million individuals joining the waitlist for our preview in just 48 hours has left us humbled and motivated. If you want to be a part of this exciting experience, visit https://bing.com/new.

As reported by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land:

On Tuesday, we covered the announcement of the new AI-powered search featured in Bing Search. We also explained how ads would be on the new Bing experience, how Bing had to update its webmaster guidelines to support the new chat experience, and we dug a bit more into the relevancy boost Bing had thanks to AI.

Nicole Farley also showed us her test drive of the new AI Bing.

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Google updates its gambling and games policy

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Google is set to start displaying advertisements for internet horse racing in Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia. The company’s policy regarding gambling and games for the United States will be revised in February 2023.

Advertisers interested in promoting their online gambling content in the mentioned states must apply for approval. The certification application process will be open to all advertisers starting February 22, 2023.

Once the updated policy goes into effect, the gambling and games policy page will be updated accordingly.

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Microsoft alters multi-channel advertising strategy and ceases bid modifiers for audience ads

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Microsoft has updated its multi-channel advertising approach and will be available to all advertisers starting on February 21st. As part of this change, the bid modifier for audience ads will no longer be displayed in campaign settings. Microsoft explains that instead of manually adjusting participation in the audience network with positive or negative bid modifiers, advertisers just need to set their goals and Microsoft Advertising will optimize their campaigns across channels for maximum efficiency and best return on investment.

Microsoft conducted a study on accounts that combined search and audience traffic and found that advertisers get the most benefit by using both Microsoft Search and the Audience Network. The study showed that people who saw a brand’s ad on both networks visited the website 2.6 times more often than those who only saw the ad on search. Microsoft notes that this increased website traffic leads to higher conversion rates, with users converting 6.6 times more frequently. This emphasizes the significance of utilizing both search and audience together, as reaching the same user through multiple channels can enhance engagement and sales.

Early tests. Microsoft has been piloting the new multi-channel approach over the past year. “After strong beta results, we’re rolling out this experience to all advertisers. Our results show that accounts already using multi-channel management have seen 14% higher conversion rates at 21% lower cost per acquisition (CPA).”

Microsoft’s new features. Microsoft has been working to enhance its advertising platform, with the goal of doubling its ad business to $20 billion, although no timeline was provided. Despite some uncertainty among brands, their FY23Q2 earnings showed a slight decline in advertising spend, but with a 5% increase in ad revenue and a 14% increase in LinkedIn revenue. The many changes and updates made by Microsoft over the last year could have contributed to this growth, and as Google advances automation and limits advertiser control, Microsoft may be seen as a viable alternative for advertisers.

You can read the announcement from Microsoft here.

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Why should businesses invest in PPC?

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads are crucial for businesses because they provide a quick and cost-effective way to reach a large and targeted audience. With PPC ads, businesses only pay when someone clicks on their ad, allowing them to control their advertising costs. Additionally, PPC ads can be highly targeted, allowing businesses to show their ads to people who are most likely to be interested in their products or services. As a result, PPC advertising can help businesses increase website traffic, generate leads, and boost sales.

Is PPC better than organic?

PPC advertising and organic search results both have their own unique benefits and drawbacks. However, PPC ads can be a better option than organic search results in some cases because:

  1. Faster results: PPC ads can provide quicker results compared to organic search results, which can take a long time to rank higher in search engine results.
  2. Targeted audience: PPC ads allow businesses to target specific demographics, locations, and keywords, making it easier to reach their ideal audience.
  3. Measurable results: PPC advertising provides detailed and accurate data on campaign performance, allowing businesses to track their ROI and make informed decisions about their advertising strategy.
  4. Increased visibility: PPC ads can increase a business’s visibility, especially for highly competitive keywords, by appearing at the top of search engine results.

That being said, organic search results are often preferred by users as they are seen as more trustworthy and credible, and they don’t require any advertising budget. The choice between PPC and organic search results ultimately depends on a business’s goals, budget, and target audience.

How much should businesses spend on advertising?

The amount a business should spend on PPC ads varies depending on several factors, including:

  1. Industry: The cost of PPC advertising varies depending on the industry, with highly competitive industries requiring a larger budget.
  2. Target audience: The size and competitiveness of a target audience will also impact the cost of PPC advertising.
  3. Campaign goals: The goals of a PPC campaign, such as increasing website traffic or generating leads, will also determine the budget required.
  4. Bid amounts: The bid amount a business sets for specific keywords will also impact the cost of their PPC advertising.

As a general rule, businesses should allocate a budget that allows them to reach their target audience effectively while still being cost-effective. On average, businesses can expect to spend anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars per day on PPC advertising, with larger businesses often spending more. It’s important to note that the cost of PPC advertising is just one part of the equation, and a business should also consider the potential return on investment when setting their budget.

What ad platforms should businesses advertise on?

The ad platforms that a business should advertise on depends on several factors, including:

  1. Target audience: The platform a business chooses should have a large and active user base that aligns with their target audience.
  2. Budget: The platform’s advertising cost and bidding model should fit within the business’s budget.
  3. Campaign goals: The platform should provide the necessary features and targeting options to help the business achieve their campaign goals.
  4. Industry: Some platforms are better suited for specific industries, such as B2B or e-commerce, so it’s important to choose a platform that aligns with a business’s industry.

Based on these factors, some of the most popular ad platforms that businesses can consider include:

  1. Google Ads: Google Ads is one of the largest and most popular ad platforms, and it’s a great option for businesses looking to reach a large and diverse audience.
  2. Facebook Ads: Facebook Ads is ideal for businesses looking to reach a highly targeted audience and engage with them through social media.
  3. Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads): Microsoft Advertising can be a good option for businesses looking to reach users who use Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.
  4. Simpli.fi: Simpli.fi supports a wide range of ad formats, including display, video, and mobile, and it provides access to a large network of publishers and exchanges. The platform also offers advanced targeting options, such as location-based, behavioral, and audience targeting, allowing businesses to reach the right people with their advertising message.
  5. Amazon Advertising: Amazon Advertising can be a great option for businesses looking to reach a large and active audience of shoppers, especially in the e-commerce industry.

Ultimately, a business may choose to advertise on multiple platforms to reach their target audience effectively, and it’s important to regularly assess and adjust their advertising strategy to ensure they are getting the best results.

How should businesses prepare to run PPC ads?

To prepare for running PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads, businesses should follow these steps:

  1. Define their advertising goals: Before starting a PPC campaign, it’s important for a business to clearly define their advertising goals, such as increasing website traffic, generating leads, or driving sales. This will help determine the target audience and platform to advertise on.
  2. Conduct market research: Conducting market research can help a business understand their target audience and their behavior online, including the keywords they use to search for products or services. This information can be used to inform the keywords and targeting options for their PPC campaign.
  3. Create a keyword list: Based on their market research, a business should create a list of relevant keywords that they want to target with their PPC ads.
  4. Develop compelling ad copy: Creating compelling ad copy is crucial for a PPC campaign as it helps to attract the attention of potential customers and entice them to click on the ad.
  5. Set a budget: Based on their advertising goals and target audience, a business should determine a budget for their PPC campaign and set their bids for specific keywords.
  6. Choose the right ad platform: Based on their target audience, budget, and advertising goals, a business should choose the right ad platform to advertise on, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Microsoft Advertising, or Amazon Advertising.
  7. Launch the campaign: Once the ad copy, keywords, and targeting options have been established, and the budget has been set, a business can launch their PPC campaign.
  8. Monitor and optimize the campaign: Regular monitoring and optimization of a PPC campaign is crucial for achieving the best results. This includes tracking the performance of the campaign, adjusting bids and targeting options, and testing different ad copy to find the most effective approach.

By following these steps, businesses can effectively prepare for and run a successful PPC campaign that helps them reach their target audience and achieve their advertising goals.

PPC advertising is a crucial tool for businesses looking to reach a large and targeted audience in a quick and cost-effective manner. Choosing the right ad platform to advertise on will depend on various factors, such as the target audience, budget, and campaign goals. To make the most out of PPC advertising, businesses should allocate a budget that allows them to reach their target audience effectively, track their campaign performance, and make informed decisions about their advertising strategy.

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Google Ad Assets: Take back control

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It’s no secret that Google Ads can be the most valuable digital marketing tool for a business. The platform can help existing businesses achieve new levels of growth and exposure, as well as help new businesses establish a foothold in their industry. 

Google’s automated services can help you with some of the heavy lifting, but what if they turn against you? Despite their best intentions, Google Ads’ automated extensions can be disastrous for a company. If you’re taking the time to read this post or educate yourself on PPC, you probably want to be in charge of your account. 

Our marketing manager Sasha Brummer found and dealt with this frustrating case today.

Our most recent experience with automation

One of our client’s automated assets was directing visitors to dead landing pages. Google’s dynamic sitelink and callout assets used an old URL rather than the new one while continuing to charge for clicks.

If an ad directs a person to the incorrect link, it is unlikely that they will navigate to the correct one. This not only wastes money, but it also results in a loss of potential customers AND false advertisement. 

Luckily, we got hold of a great Google representative who was able to solve this problem and refund our client’s account some of the wasted spend. 

we turned off this asset, but Google showed it anyway after automated assets were activated

What are ad assets?

Google Ad assets are additional assets applied in real-time to your Search ad placements as they appear in results pages. 

They provide additional information to your ad viewers and aid in the development of your ads to provide the best audience experience possible—or so they say. The types of automated ad assets:

  1. Automated call: Include your business’s phone number
  2. Automated message assets allows customers to message your business
  3. Dynamic sitelinks: include links to website pages
  4. Dynamic structured snippets: can highlight specific aspects of your business
  5. Automated locations: shows your ads with your address
  6. Seller ratings: display a combination of ratings and reviews
  7. Dynamic callouts: shows relevant information about the products or services on your site

How they are automated?

Google applies these assets to your ads without your knowledge, making it unclear which algorithm or crawled data was used to create them. In addition, Google does not display any asset-specific information or metrics, nor do they give specific details about the automated assets. These automated assets may appear in place of the ones you created, giving you less control, which makes it impossible to optimize fully. 

How to opt out of automated ad extensions

If you decide not to use this feature, Google makes it difficult to find and disable the automated option. To disable the feature, take the following steps: 

  1. Sign into your Google Ads account.
  2. Click the Ads & Assets tab.
  3. Select Assets.
  4. Click More on the far right-hand side of the screen.
  5. Select Account-level automated assets.
  6. Click More.
  7. Select Advanced Settings.
  8. Choose an extension to turn off and select a reason (Google is requiring this).
  9. Repeat for each extension that you want to turn off.

Our recommendation

Don’t use Google Ads’ automated assets—we sure won’t be. We recommend taking the good ideas and creating the ads and assets yourself.

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Google account-level negative keywords are here

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Creating a negative keyword list for search terms that generate unwanted clicks or impressions in multiple campaigns can streamline the process of excluding those terms. By applying the list to relevant campaigns, you can avoid having to manually add the same negative keywords to each campaign and manage future changes more efficiently. This guide will explain the functionality of negative keyword lists.

How it works

Negative keyword lists allow you to exclude specific irrelevant terms from triggering your ads, thus ensuring that your ads reach your target audience more effectively and result in better conversions. As an example, if you own a sporting goods store that specializes in workout clothes, you can create a list of negative keywords that includes terms such as “dress pants” or “blouses” to prevent your ads from showing up in irrelevant searches.

Types of negative keywords

Account-level negative keywords

An account-level list of negative keywords in Google Ads will automatically apply to all search and shopping campaigns, allowing you to create a single, global list that applies across your entire account. This can be found and created in the “Account Settings” under the “Negative keywords” section. You can define which search terms are negative for your brand, and specify the match type like broad, exact, or phrase match. Each account has a limit of 1,000 negative keywords that can be excluded.

Campaign-level negative keyword lists

Creating a negative keyword list involves identifying words that should not trigger your ads. You can use the search terms report to gather ideas and organize them into themes such as products or services. Each list can contain up to 5,000 negative keywords and you can have up to 20 lists in your account. Applying the list to multiple campaigns at once, and if you need to add a new negative keyword to those campaigns, you can simply add it to the list and it will be applied across all campaigns sharing the list.

Learn more. Read the full blog post on Google here.

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Twitter’s new Search Keyword Ads beta test

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Twitter just launched a beta program that’s available to all advertisers called Search Keyword Ads. The announcement was made on Twitter.

How it works. Twitter says “Now advertisers can bid to insert Promoted Tweets solely among specific search results, reaching people with high real-time intent & improving ad relevance.”

“Search Keywords Ads differ from other Twitter Keywords campaigns in that they only reach people who are searching for targeted terms when they are searching, offering a stronger signal of intent.”

Learn more. Read the full article on Search Engine Land.

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In-game ads: effective or annoying?

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In-game advertising is a huge opportunity for brands to reach a vast audience and expand their marketing campaigns beyond traditional media. In 2022, it was estimated that 227 million people in the US played video games and 46% of those were women.

With game revenues projected to reach $285 billion by 2027, it’s no surprise that this is a huge opportunity for advertisers. In-game ads can be effective for promoting almost any product to any demographic since gaming has become a universal pastime. Advertisers can reach new audiences, grow their community, and sell more products or services through in-game ads. Game publishers also benefit from in-game ads as it allows them to monetize their content. Mobile games are the biggest opportunity for advertisers as they represent the largest possible audience and are easy and fast to set up.

In-game advertising can take many forms, such as short videos that play between levels, banners at the bottom of the screen, or branded clothing or vehicles for player characters. This allows brands to target specific audiences by advertising on certain game titles, and tailor their message to reach that exact audience. For example, a brand can reach a very specific audience by advertising on a game that is popular among a certain demographic, such as a game that is popular among a female audience.

In addition, in-game ads can be interactive, which allows brands to engage with players in a more meaningful way. For example, Burger King successfully engaged with players of the game “Elden Ring” by encouraging streamers to only use fire- and flame-based weapons and spells within the game world. This type of engagement can be more effective in reaching and retaining customers than traditional ads.

However, it is important to note that in-game ads should be done in a way that is authentic and true to the gaming experience, in order to avoid annoying players and damaging the brand reputation.

Overall, in-game advertising is a great opportunity for brands to reach a large and diverse audience, and engage with them in a meaningful and interactive way. As the gaming industry continues to grow, in-game ads are likely to become an increasingly important part of the advertising landscape.

Learn more. Read the full article on Search Engine Land.

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Why advertisers should give Microsoft Ads a chance in 2023

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ICYMI, Microsoft has big plans plans to double the size of its ad business to $20 billion. Google and Meta are showing signs of fading, making more room for emerging platforms like TikTok, Amazon and Instacart. Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenues have consistently grown over the last four quarters and it offers cost-effectiveness and detailed analytics.

However, Microsoft still falls behind Google in terms of users, Google sits around 83.84% share of the global search market. Having competition for Google search encourages companies to innovate, invest in better search technologies, and create better user experiences, it also keeps prices down and helps to ensure that no one search engine has too much market share or power and ensures unbiased search results.

Microsoft has improved their Ads dashboard, features, and product offerings with a unified interface, more detailed reporting, data visualization, and new automated campaign management tools, audience insights, and automated bidding strategies to help users better target their campaigns and the ability to manage multiple campaigns from a single dashboard and the ability to optimize campaigns for different devices.

Here are just a few:

Learn more. Read the full article on Search Engine Land.

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