Yes, there will always be those that do dismiss text or display ads while searching the display network as they are not necessarily actively searching for the product that is being remarketed to them; but that is where remarketing is clever. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad so if they are simply not interested then it is no risk to the business. Also, remarketing provides a great way of recapturing those that have already booked through cross-selling to similar products that they might be interested in or special offers and exclusive deals.

How can you make use of remarketing?

As I mentioned previously, remarketing can also be used to retarget those that have already purchased from your website with similar products or special offers that are likely to entice them back to purchase again. This is also a very effective way of remarketing as it is based on their previous interactions with your site and if you know exactly what else they might be interested in then here is the perfect opportunity to show them.

Another benefit of remarketing is brand visibility. People who have already interacted with your website will continue to see your ads as they surf sites within the content network. This can also result in greater conversion rates of up to 75% greater, providing you can present them with the right offer or product.

How to implement remarketing

Remarketing is very easy to implement into your Adwords account. If you want to remarket to those that enter your site but do not purchase then you can simply use your existing conversion tracking code to measure the number of people who have booked. You then need access your audiences tab to create and add a new piece of code to the entry pages that you use for paid search such as the homepage, product pages etc. This will then allow you to measure everyone who has entered your site. Once you have over 500 cookie ID’s added to your lists you can create a custom combination which will capture everyone that entered your site minus those that booked which will leave you with the Cookie ID’s for those that did not book.

If you then create a remarketing campaign you can add the custom combination as an audience to target on the display network with relevant text or display ads that will help in recapturing lost customers. We have found display ads to be most effective for remarketing as text ads can often get lost within the mass of content on the display network, while display ads can be created to replicate the theme, colour scheme, unique selling points and products offered on the site.

How to take remarketing to the next level

Remarketing can also be used in many other ways to capture those that have entered your site on a specific page or exited at a specific page including those who abandoned during the checkout or order summary pages. We can already learn a lot about the bounce rate of such pages and work to improve the landing pages based on the percentage of people that are being lost at such pages. However, for the majority of advertisers, those that abandon very near to completing the purchase process are simply lost prospects. It is definitely worth working to improve your checkout process, ensuring that you tell your customer exactly what they need to do to complete the process and make any delivery options very clear. Remarketing can then capture these people again which an increased chance that they might complete the purchase process this time based on the fact that you have minimised your bounce rates from the page that they exited.

So I would definitely suggest that you trial remarketing. Get a minimum of 500 cookie ID’s tagged and away you go. See exactly how many people you can bring back to your site through clever display ads and cross-selling and see just how much you can increase your conversion rate!

Why use Google Remarketing? is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

The majority of PPC advertisers will have noticed quite a substantial increase in CPC’s over the past few years and according to Econsultancy, “competition drove up CPC’s by 22%” while the average order values only increased 2%. While this may seem like a massive problem, there are ways of working with an increase in cost and a good strong strategy is one of them. In fact, a strategy is the answer.

When working in such a competitive marketplace, where a new competitor can jump in at any moment, advertisers need to consider exactly what they plan to do if their costs do increase and paid search becomes less effective. The answer isn’t just to stop competing as that would be giving in to your rivals and sending your hard earned traffic their way. Instead, here at WMpS, we would strongly advise that you put together a strategy that accounts for every possible factor that may change the way things work for you including seasonal trends, competitor offerings, bidding rules and landing page changes.

Having a keyword and creative strategy

If you do find that certain keywords are no longer viable to run, pause them and find new niches in your market. Don’t just give up on your instant traffic and potential on Google – instead focus on the keywords that really do bring in your goals or even try different search engines where the CPC’s could potentially be cheaper and the competition lower.

It’s also worth considering combining your PPC and natural search efforts. The ultimate strategy uses a balance of PPC and SEO, whereby if you have built your natural search ranking on a set of keywords, perhaps you could focus your paid search efforts on keywords where you don’t rank as high naturally.

Don’t just chuck all of your keywords in top position and expect a good return on your investment. Top position will generate great visibility and brand recognition but it often catches those that are not yet ready to buy. Try sitting in a lower position and seeing if that works for you as often people need over 7 exposures to a brand or product before they make their final purchase decision.

Be intelligent when choosing your keywords. Don’t just go for the high traffic keywords, test using longer tail phrases where the visitor is likely to buy sooner and competition is less fierce.

Although Google has stated that testing creative’s works well in helping to determine which of your ads is most effective, we have to look at what competitors are doing. People often remember and recognise the ad that they clicked on and rotating ads might prevent people from returning to your ad. Initial testing is vital but once you have the creative that works, try sticking with it and seeing if your conversions increase or even if the percentage of people booking sooner increases.

Review your competition, analyse what they tend to do in their ads and whatever you do, don’t copy it. Make your creatives distinguished from others in the same auction will entice visitors and increase the chance that a visitor will remember your ad if they return to search to find you, the company with the edge in your market.

Working your website into your strategy

A high converting website is also critical for an effective PPC campaign. If your competitors have optimised their sites and outbid you, take a look at why they might be able to afford a higher position. Finding seasonal occasions such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day is great for developing a list of focused keywords where there could potentially be less competition but where people might be closer to making their purchase. So make sure that your strategy includes holidays and seasonal occasions to get the best return for your investment.

It is also worth considering that landing page quality and relevance is vital to your quality score and having high quality scores is vital when trying to cut costs or at least manage your costs more effectively. Making sure that your quality scores are as high a possible will ensure that you are not paying too much or that you can justify sitting in your desired position for each keyword.

So remember, PPC is not just a game of ‘set it and forget it’. Having a functional and achievable strategy will ensure that while the average internet user becomes increasingly savvy, the increase in ad spend on Google warrants your return.

The importance of having a PPC strategy is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Facebook will begin to fill in the ‘who is this’ box with suggested tags – all the user has to do now is click ‘save tag’ to accept the suggestion rather than scrolling through all of their photos and individually tagging each of their friends which is often thought of as a chore!

As part of an effort to improve the overall user experience of Facebook photos, along with the launch of bigger thumbnails, group tagging and drag and drop photos, Facebook predicts that tag suggestions will encourage users to upload and tag more photos. Not only are Facebook improving the overall user experience, they are also making the process much more simplified.

What does this mean for Facebook users?

Facebook is ultimately making it easier for users to share photos and memories with their Facebook connections. So for a social occasion where your sister is in 50 of your photos, rather than going through and tagging each individual photo, facebook will group photos that it believes your sister is in and suggest that you tag all 50 in one simple click.

While this is all good and positive, many users have their doubts with this feature.

Privacy concerns?

Despite the fact that Facebook user interface is becoming increasingly easy to navigate and use, the facial recognition may sounds a bit frightening to those who have privacy concerns with the social network. While this feature will save time and effort when uploading photos, it is only natural that Facebook’s users are wary of a feature that can recognise faces and do the job of tagging photos for them.

Luckily Facebook gives users the ability to opt out of tag suggestions in their privacy settings, so it is entirely down to each individual as to whether they want to see Facebook suggesting who might be in their photo.

Another concern would be that users have no way of accepting if their friends tag them in a photo that Facebook recognises as being them. I think that a further improvement to this feature would be for users to be prompted to accept a tag in a photo before it is published to avoid being tagged in embarrassing or bad photos of yourself. This way, people will be able to control this part of their online identity and privacy before it makes its way into all of their friends news feeds.

Although Facebook have said that suggestions will only appear if the product has high confidence in it being the right person, I still think people will become annoyed if cases arise where people have an identical twin or are very similar looking to one of their family members and find that they are getting tagged as the wrong person.

According to Chris Cox, Facebook’s Vice President of Product, this feature is being rolled out in the US over the next few weeks. I for one can’t wait to have this on my profile and see just how accurate this exciting new feature is!

Here at WMpS, we are interested to hear about user experiences with this so feel free to get in touch to let us know your opinion on this, be it good or bad!

Facebook Photos get ‘Tag Suggestions’ is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

This is the second time in a month that advertisers have experienced technical issues within the Adwords system.

“After the recent Quality Score bug and shake out things stabilized for my account for a few weeks. But today once again something is going down. My whole average QS across my entire account is taking a pounding today. Is anyone else experiencing this?” One forum poster questioned.

According to Google, the bug was apparently only a cosmetic reporting issue and did not directly affect ad serving which is great news for those that sat tight and made no bid changes.

“We don’t believe it to be a new issue, but are looking into [the situation],” the spokesman said. “In the meantime, we’re telling our advertisers to continue to focus on core metrics like [click through rate] and net [cost per click]. It’s also worth noting that the holidays can be a time of much change as advertisers optimize their campaigns for the shopping season.”

Luckily we read the Google Support Forum and manually checked our ads to confirm that they were maintaining their optimum positions so we were aware of the issue before we made any major bid changes. We knew that without any click through rate, landing page or ad relevancy changes, there was no reason for quality scores to have dropped so dramatically on such high performing keywords. We sat tight and did not panic while Google sorted out the issue and luckily all quality scores have returned to their previous levels. However, the question on our minds here at WMpS is what happens to those advertisers that did panic and increased their bids to match the massive first page bid estimates that Google provided them with?

Threads have become littered with advertisers who have raised their bids unknowingly, in turn forcing other advertisers to raise their bids to maintain their previous position. What we are left with is a mass bidding war where Google ultimately take in more revenue! For those that are left with soaring costs while their quality scores have returned to normal, I would highly recommend dropping your bids back to what they were previously to avoid higher than usual costs and the risk of affecting impressions and click through rates.

Although most advertisers have stated that their quality scores are at the usual level again, Google has yet to make a proper statement explaining exactly what has happened and how they are going to tackle this issue in the future to prevent it from happening again. Surely Google could have helped many out by being transparent and preventing what I can only imagine is thousands of people either pausing their account completely or increasing their bids unnecessarily.

Hopefully Google will put the systems in place that will make advertisers aware when there is a cosmetic issue within their account; rather than the advertisers panicking and then realising a few days later when digging through forums that there was no in fact need to increase their bids.

The Quality Score Nosedive! is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

At 11:12 yesterday morning, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook places is soon to include ‘Deals’ whereby a user checks in to a location, enabling them to view local deals on offer. The user then checks in to their desired place to ‘claim’ their deal and it is posted on their wall for their use and to share with their friends.

At present ‘Deals’ is being rolled out across the US and will be expanding over time, at least we hope so as we can’t wait to get our hands on this and find some good local deals through Facebook rather than having to hop onto another app or use another voucher site!

Deals will also provide customers with brand loyalty as the return to check in again and receive further discount codes to use in their chosen location. Merchants who participate will also benefit from increased traffic and brand recognition such as Gap who are offering the first 10,000 customers to check in a free pair of jeans and subsequent check ins a 40% discount.

Is this the end of Foursquare?

Through the use of a challenge to accumulate badges, become the mayor of their location by checking in the most times and receiving offers from selected partners, Foursquare provides users with an incentive to use their check-in service. When Facebook Places emerged into the market, great speculation occurred on whether this would be the end for Foursquare. However, Facebook Places as it was lacked incentive and caused many users worries over security and privacy.

So, although Foursquare did survive the last hit from Facebook, will it survive Facebook Deals? I am not convinced. Now that people can not only use all the existing features but also check-in and get local deals through Facebook, it is now the social network that does everything plus a little bit more.

Considering that Foursquare has just 3 million users compared to the 200 million people that actively use Facebook mobile, it is going to be more of a vested interest for a business to establish a presence on Facebook rather than Foursquare. Perhaps Foursquare will continue to exist, but I am not entirely sure how it could expand to gain higher appeal than the biggest social network to date.

Facebook launches ‘Deals’ is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

With the current low interest rate and retailers promoting their Christmas ranges earlier than ever, consumers are encouraged to spend their money rather than save it; ultimately injecting some life into the economy and contributing a value of £30.5bn into retail for September.

While non-food retail rose 4% by value and 3.8% by volume year-on-year, textile, clothes and footwear sales rose 6.1% by value and 4.8% by volume. This sector of the retail economy has been boosted by new product ranges and people rushing out to stock up their wardrobes before the VAT increase takes hold. Food sales were even up 1.7% by value while volume was down 2.3% on last year due to price inflation.

The low growth of overall retail is thanks to very weak consumer confidence; this is obviously worrying considering the importance of consumer spending to the economy.

Where do consumers stand with e-retail?

IMRG has revealed that for September, e-retail sales alone saw the highest year-on-year growth since June 2008 with an increase of 24% in September 2010 compared to the same month last year.

While consumers are encouraged to spend their money, they are becoming increasingly price savvy by searching the internet to secure the best deals and avoid the rush of the high street at this busy time of year. Job security linked with falling disposable incomes, the impending spending cuts and the VAT increase are all equally contributing to a boost in e-retail performance.

With the rise in online sales, it is vital that retailers continue to offer an exceptional level of service online as well as in-store to ensure that their overall sales don’t suffer. All of this is unfortunately at the expense of the high street.

With more and more retailers now selling online, this channel has become crowded yet all the more vital to a business strategy. It seems that offering a range of multichannel options for browsing, buying and delivery creates the best results as well as the best customer experience when it comes to Christmas shopping. Gone are the days where consumers were excited by late night shopping and the rush of festivity under the high street Christmas lights in the months leading up to Christmas.

High street retailers need to be following in the footsteps of the likes of Debenhams, Next and John Lewis by implementing a multi channel marketing strategy including applications and exclusive web offers to help enhance user experience and move customers further along the buying cycle.

September’s Retail Performance is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

The one iPhone app that has caught my attention this week has been developed by No Need For Mirrors for the retail giant Debenhams. With Christmas fast approaching, Debenhams have chosen the right time to release an iPhone app, saving customers the hassle of rushing to their nearest store to fight to get the last Monopoly on the shelf.

According to The Future Laboratory “mobile commerce is definitely the future of retail” and I totally agree.

The barcode scanner

Launched on Monday 11th October, the Debenhams app is the first of its kind to incorporate a barcode scanner. The barcode scanner can not only be used to scan products to find pricing, stock and reviews but it can also be used to scan QR codes in store windows which give savvy shoppers access to exclusive offers.

Acting as a virtual shopping assistant, through the use of barcode scanning this app can help shoppers plan exactly what they want to buy and avoid the long Christmas queues or post payday sprees.

A colleague also scanned the barcode on the Debenhams webapp website with his HTC Desire which was surprisingly a success and provided him with a free delivery code for his first purchase made through the app. What better incentive could Debenhams give to try out their new app?!

How many of us have been store and found the perfect Christmas dress but it is not in your size? Well now you can scan the barcode and buy it direct from your iPod instead.

What else can it do?

Other features of the app include a wish list and a gift list. Adding items to your wishlist could not be easier and Debenhams even have the courtesy to alert you when stock is running low on an item that you have added to your list. Once you have added items to your wish list, you can email your lists to your iPhone contacts – what better way to drop hints to your friends and family about what you want for Christmas!

You also have the ability to enter preferences such as type, brand, colour, price and size which are saved under the ‘My Debenhams’ tab. This is one of my favourite features of the app as I for one despise having to scroll through endless lists of products online to find the right item. Instead you can save your preferences and be displayed only the products that fit into your chosen categories.

The app also gives you the option to use GPS and a link to Google Maps to help you navigate to your nearest store. This is also a big time saver as I am sure that many will agree it can be a tiresome job walking around the store for hours deciding what to buy your loved ones for Christmas and then seeing the growing queue and deciding to go home and buy online. Now we have the option collect from a store or have products delivered to our homes, we can decide what we want to buy on our mobiles and simply pop into the shop to purchase the already chosen items or buy direct from the app.

Simon Forster, Online Trading Director for Debenhams says, “Acting as a pocket personal shopper, downloading the Debenhams app means that getting lost, not being able to find your size and having to carry heavy bags home are pitfalls of shopping trips past.”

Forster also added: “Come Christmas, the Debenhams app will transform the on-the-go shopping experience, enabling customers to manage their purchases wherever and whenever they want at the busiest time of the year.”

The appearance of the app

The app design is very swish and easy to use, appealing to a wide audience. With the opening page simply holding links to shop all, shop sale, my Debenhams, barcode scan, Christmas, Debenhams tv, stay in touch and store finder; pretty much everything you need is there to do your Christmas shopping. Finding products is easy as the categories are split down well and products and prices are presented in a crisp and appealing manner.

The app is also very fun to use. I loved walking around the shop and scanning products to add to my Christmas wish list. I have visions of me doing my Christmas shopping whilst on the train, how much more convenient can this get?

I think the best thing about the Debenhams app is that it is free, so get downloading and let us know what you think! In the mean time, I am going to start making a Christmas wish list to send to my friends!

The Rise of the Fashion App is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

First of all, I would like to mention that the majority of Facebook’s massive fan base is still bewildered by this strange button. Try typing ‘Facebook Flag Button’ into Google and see what you get. Apart from my previous article ranking second (go WMpS) the rest of the search results are simply people questioning what it means, how to use it and that it is simply very annoying!

The silencing process

When reading users thoughts on the Flag button, it is obvious that many are frustrated by Facebook giving users what people are describing as the ability to ‘silence’ other people’s opinions by the press of a button. This has raised the question whether Facebook see any value in the freedom of speech. Well, first of all, considering that pretty much everything you say has consequences (whether on Facebook or in the real world), does this really matter at all?

As you can see above, many users are clearly irritated by the flag button. Michael Lowery mentions that he doesn’t want people to be able to ‘Flag’ things on his page, but being able to ‘silence’ each other on his page is not possible unless content is reported and then removed by Facebook.

How does the Flag button work?

Has anyone considered how the Flag button actually works? Well, let me tell you! When a user Flags a post on your page, it hides the post for that user only, not even affecting the page administrators or other users. So ultimately, Facebook is providing its users with freedom of speech and sight – letting people say what they want but also letting them see only what they want without having any affects on other what other people can see on a page. Only if a user is so deeply offended by content on a page, then perhaps they may report the content as offensive so that it is removed completely or they may just decide to leave that page.

So for the users who agree with Michael Lowery that Facebook need to realise that there is some ‘value in freedom of expression,’ perhaps Facebook have realised that by allowing users to personalise what only they see on pages to suit their beliefs.

If you are a regular visitor on a Facebook page, there also is nothing that stops you from using the Flag button to hide comments or posts that you have already read so that you can distinguish between old and new content.

In my opinion, the Flag button is a positive feature, put in place purely as a precaution. It lets parents know that their children have more options and a little extra safety online when it comes to viewing irrelevant content. Believe me; this has nothing to do with communism or censorship, just simply enhancing a users experience with the ability to uniquely hide unappreciated comments or posts.

An update on the Facebook Flag button is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

The release of Google Health

On the 15th September, Google updated Google Health with a number of additional features based on what its users requested such as easier data tracking, personalization and the ability to set yourself progress goals and track those goals.

Not only have Google developed a more appealing and functional dashboard, giving its users the ability to set goals for themselves and check in daily on their progress. Through the use of graphs , users are now able to see their progress and add journal entries to remind themselves of their goals.

Google have also integrated their product with the likes of Fitbit and Cardiotrainer; already encouraging more than 150,000 users to upload their workout progress from their wearable devices.

Google Earth gets an update

As Google stated “For the past five years, people all over the world have been discovering new places to explore through our community, blogs, news articles and Gallery.” On the 9th September, Google released its brand new Google Earth Website, jam-packed with images, videos, tours, maps and tutorials.

My favourite addition to Google Earth has to be Showcase. This allows us to view up-to-date images, videos, tours, models and footage of amazing places such as the Ocean, the moon, Mars, the sky and 3D Buildings that have been created by Google Earth and its partners.

Another pretty cool feature of the new Google Earth is the industries section. Google understands that not everyone wanted to pretend to fly across the world to their chosen destination – some people do actually use Google Earth for educational or media purposes. For this reason, they have given users the option to specify what information they are looking for based on educators, non-profits, developers, businesses, and media or data provider.

The release of Family Safety Center

Google has defined its understanding of the safety of children online with the release of its Family Safety Center. This is a one-stop shop focused on staying safe online and how to best protect your children online. Information has been included from leading child safety organisations and for a little personal touch, a few tips from parents working at Google too!

Google have partnered with some of the top organisations worldwide such as ChildNet, OnGuard Online and NetSafe to provide its users with the best knowledge and answer some of the toughest questions that parents or even teachers may have.

Family Safe Center doesn’t only focus on Google’s products such as SafeSearch or Youtube Safety Mode, but also covers sharing and viewing control across the rest of the internet. It provides users with tools, advice, tips and videos to help beat cyberbullying and prevent exposure to indecent content online.

A new version of Chrome

On 2nd September, it was Chrome’s 2nd anniversary and what better way to celebrate than to release a new and more stable version of the popular browser. According to Google, the new Chrome is now “three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance.”

The new Chrome is a lot more simplistic too with the two menus combined into one making it a more pleasurable user experience. Google has also combined the right hand side navigation in to a simple drop down button and toned down the colour scheme slightly, giving it an even crisper design that is easier on the eyes.

It is fascinating to see just how much Chrome has changed over the past two years and I for one will definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for the next big development as apparently Google are going to be changing Chrome again in the very near future.

A new Google Translate

On the 8th September, Google released a much brighter looking Google Translate. A new feature of the new Google Translate is the ‘Inside Google Translate’ page where Google explains just how they make their translations and how effective it is to breakdown language barriers worldwide.

I find it fascinating that we now have the ability to translate emails in our Gmail accounts, take Google Translate on holiday with us on our mobiles, write letters in a language that we aren’t entirely familiar with or even read foreign news! I can remember the days of translation cassettes that people used to learn before taking a holida, now there is absolutely no need providing you have a mobile device that uses Google Translate.

How much easier can Google make communication for us?

Introducing Two Layer Authentications

Google apps are now better protected than they have ever been through the introduction of a two layer authentication. This is a new security feature that Google has released to make the sign in to their apps a double layer system.

Users can now sign in to Google apps with the combination of their password and a unique verification code that is sent to their mobile device. So if someone steals your password, they have also got to have access to your mobile to gain access to your Google apps, which is highly unlikely. This is very similar to some online banking logins as the majority of banks have now introduced a card reader and unique code that you need to access your account.

I think some users may find this very useful, reassuring them that only they have access to their account. Yet, as with the new online banking card readers and codes, other Google App users may just find it a tedious job having to check their mobile and enter a code just to access their emails.

TV episodes are now in search results

With an increasing number of people turning to Google to find reruns of their favourite TV series, Google have introduced “Episodes for” whereby if a user searches for a TV show they will be presented with a link to videos of three of the latest episodes of their chosen show. I predict that this will be a big hit with people using websites such as 4OD or iPlayer, saving them the time having to search for a certain episode when they may well find it right on Google!

As with Instant Search, the ultimate goal of Google at present seems to be making it an easier process for users to find exactly what they want online using Google. Who would have believed it 10 years ago that Google would be presenting us with links to view tv episodes online right on a search page?

From what I can see, it appears that Google are quite often come up with fantastic ideas to throw it into the market and see how their users respond. Stay tuned to find out what is next for the world of Google.

The latest updates from Google is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Well, my initial reaction was also one of concern. Would people who initially intended to type in a long tail keyword now only type part of their query instead and make cpc’s, demand and competitiveness soar on head keywords? Would the increase in impressions generate a lower CTR and therefore lower quality scores? And lastly, would this all occur at the expense of the long tail keywords? At the end of the day, Google has killed two birds with one stone – making it quicker and easier for its users to find what they are looking for as well as benefiting from increased bids on competitive head keywords and therefore more revenue.

As soon as I heard about Google Instant, I cracked on with monitoring keywords that I thought could be affected by users finding what they wanted earlier in their search. Looking at daily trends and search query report over the past few weeks would enable me to analyse any possible threat that Instant may have on my PPC campaigns.

Has Google Instant affected PPC?

On the day of Google Instant’s launch and the day after, we did see an increase in impressions. I did predict in my last post The big speculation revealed – Google Instant that this may happen as novice Google users could potentially stop searching mid-search through curiosity over what the new Google is and unknowingly count as an impression for advertisers. Although this did mildly affect click through rates for a day or two, we saw no change in clicks, position or conversions.

As impressions have now evened back out to an average, I thought it was time to share with you my finding from search query reports and keyword data. After running a search query report for the week before and the few days after launch, I can see no difference in the way people are searching; probably due to the fact that Google suggested terms to users way before Instant Search was launched. This could also be due to the people searching being at a stage in the buying cycle where they know that it is a good idea to refine their search as much as possible and use longer search queries to find what they want easier. Perhaps Instant hasn’t really changed the way people search unless they are researching and not sure what they are looking to buy or find? Or perhaps users are getting wise to the fact that Google’s dynamic results may not be entirely relevant to their search unless they enter their full intended query?

With lots of businesses putting their time and effort into ranking for head keywords, it could well be that these are the keywords that will start to suffer as advertisers up their bids to try and secure a higher position on a wider range of head keywords. As long tail keywords are generally less competitive and therefore easier and cheaper to get a top position on, I would definitely suggest not dropping the long-tail. As Google suggests terms for users to click on, many of these terms are highly relevant long-tail versions of their initial search query, so in no way do I think that Google Instant will bring death to the long-tail!

So, as far as I can see, the impact has been minimal but I will continue to monitor impressions, click through rates, quality scores and the use of long tail/head keywords like a hawk.

How advertisers can use Instant Search to up their game

Despite the majority of marketers mainly having concerns over Google Instant, some savvy advertisers can see huge benefits behind the change.

Google is essentially presenting us with a keyword research tool showing us niches in the market that we could capture. Argos for example are bidding on the term ‘telev’ as they know that Google predicts that people searching for ‘telev…’ will be looking for televisions. If the searcher was to stop their search on telev and press search, the results shown would not be for televisions but for ‘telev’ instead. By bidding on the term ‘telev’, Argos will be paying very little for a keyword that could capture potential sales even quicker than Google predicts. I would suggest that all advertisers run through a list of their top performing keywords and start typing each search query into Google until the keyword is showing in the suggested searches to see what new keywords you could add.

To summarise, I definitely don’t think Google Instant is to be feared. Google are constantly changing their algorithm’s and as with people using Google to search, we just have to adapt to monitoring and optimising new strategies in order to make the most from what Google is telling us.

In the mean time, keep your eye out for further updates on our findings and feel free to share your thoughts below!

Google Instant’s effects on PPC is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.