The advantage of this change is that advertisers can now pre-load promotional messaging and get it reviewed prior to the promo starting. This means your ads are now eligible to appear as soon as you activate them, ensuring your new message is given maximum exposure and the best chance for success.

Use Automated Rules to Complement this Change

Advertisers who build this into their creative strategy and account management processes should also consider using Automated rules to automatically enable their new ads (and potentially pause existing ads) at the exact hour the promotion starts (helpful if the change is scheduled for the middle of the night).

Ad Delivery – Let Google Auto-Optimize or Show Ads Evenly

Finally, consider your “ad delivery” campaign settings. If set to “optimize for clicks” or “optimize for conversions”, your new ads may not get a fair share of impressions right away, which could hurt your ability to gauge the performance of your new ads. Consider using even ad rotation if you want to get a solid comparison of your new and old ads, or simply pause your old ads when the new ones turn on.

Contact us if you’d like assistance putting these ideas into practice.

In an email released earlier this week, Microsoft announced that its Bing Webmasters Tools program will now include data from Yahoo!. For example, the Impressions and Clicks shown on your Traffic Summary tab will increase as the data from yahoo.com properties are added.

No Change to Your Rankings

Microsoft reminds us that no keyword rankings will be adjusted in the change, this is merely a reporting integration between the two companies. Microsoft has hinted that in the future we will be able to segment data from the two properties, but at this time it is simply combined into one data set.

Bing Webmasters Tools Now Available in 42 Languages

Non-English speaking SEOs can now access Bing Webmasters Tools in their native language, be it Chinese, French, or 40 other languages.

Opt-In to Receive Alerts

If you don’t yet have a Bing Webmasters Tools account for your website, we suggest setting one up immediately. While not as valuable as Google Webmaster Tools, it is a free SEO tool and does give you some insights into your SEO efforts with Bing and Yahoo. Sign up for Bing Webmasters Tools or log in and update your settings to receive important email alert messages from Microsoft.

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The AdWords team has released AdWords Editor 9.5, the bulk editing tool that makes complex account management a breeze and completely kills Microsoft’s bulk editing tool.

Improved Bulk Text & Image Ad Importing

There are a few important updates to the tool, but the most-appreciated by the Magnifi Online staff are the usability improvements for adding multiple text and image ads to multiple ad groups. Previously, one must include a display and destination URL with each ad for each ad group to avoid nasty error messages. Now, if all the ads within each ad group contain the same URL, that URL will be automatically applied to any new ads uploaded to it. We’re glad to see this feature return.

Adjust Campaign Settings – Tablets, Enhanced CPC & Accelerated Delivery Method

Another great enhancement relate to campaign settings. Now you can adjust device targeting to tablets too (previously you could not select Tablets through AdWords Editor, and any new campaigns would automatically include tablets. You can also add “Enhanced CPC” bidding to your campaigns and change ad delivery method from Standard (the default) to Accelerated.

Campaign Experiments and Location Extensions

The other improvements include managing your campaign experiments through the tool, as wells as Location Extensions and being able to work on one account while another is downloading.

Here’s a link to the original blog post and release notes.

Our team will join representatives from other SEM agencies around the country to discuss trends, projections, and strategies for online desktop, tablet, and mobile advertising over the next year.

This will not be Magnifi Online’s first visit to Google’s offices, but it will be our first time attending the Agency Summit.

If you have any questions or concerns that you’d like us to bring up on your behalf, please submit them through the form below.

We’ll plan to share a summary of key takeaways with you after the event.

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Most exciting is the new “Click-to-Download” feature, which drives a searcher from your ad to either the iTunes App Store or the Android Marketplace to download your app. Google pulls your app icon from the store into your ad and your display URL is replaced with either “Download from iTunes” or “Download Android App”.

To make a Click-to-Download ad, simply create a normal text ad targeted to high-end mobile devices, but in the destination URL field enter the full link of where the app can be downloaded (i.e.,  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/example-app-name/id999999999?mt=9).

Note that AdWords policies prevent more than one domain per ad group, so you’ll need different ad groups (or campaigns) for iTunes versus Android. Get more details on creating a Click-to-Download ad from the AdWords Help Center.

There is also a related beta called “App Extensions,” which is a new ad extension a la Call Extensions or Sitelink Extensions. The benefit here is that your headline still links to your website, but your ad is supplemented with a link to download the app.

Google is also changing the background color for mobile search ads, from pale purple to pale yellow.

What does this mean? First off, Google now gets to charge you for those clicks (calls). Second, if you’re also running Call Extensions, your ads could potentially display two different phone numbers.

Here is the full text of the email alert we just received:

Dear AdWords Advertiser,

If you currently have a phone number in your ad text or have plans to start adding your phone number in an ad, this is an important notice that in the coming weeks, we will be launching a new enhancement to AdWords ads that will impact charges on clicks to these numbers.

To help our mobile users connect more easily with advertisers, all non-clickable phone numbers displayed in AdWords ad text will be automatically converted into a Click-to-call number.  Currently when advertisers enter a phone number directly into their ad text instead of using Call Extensions, the phone number is not clickable and will not generate a call. This can be a frustrating experience for mobile users who attempt to initiate a call to this phone number.

The new Click-to-call enhancement ensures that all phone numbers shown in AdWords ads are clickable and allows users to easily place calls from their mobile device. If your ad text includes a phone number, you will begin to receive clicks and calls on this number once the enhancement is enabled in your account. As with phone calls placed via a Call Extension, you will be charged for clicks on your phone number that result in a call.

Please note that AdWords policy does not allow for phone numbers to be inserted into ad headlines. As with all Click-to-call ads, advertisers will be charged when a user either clicks on the headline or the phone number listed in the ad. Please see below for additional information regarding this change.

Which phone number shows?

If you are currently using both Call Extensions and a phone number in your ad creative, only the newly clickable phone number in your ad creative will show. This is designed to help reduce user confusion from seeing two potentially different numbers.  If you would like your Call Extension number to display, simply delete all phone numbers from your existing ad text by following these steps. You’ll also receive an additional line of ad text displaying your phone number if the Call Extension is used.

Measuring results

You’ll be able to review how many calls you receive on the clickable phone number listed in your ad text for each campaign, ad group, keyword and ad on the “Campaigns” tab in your AdWords account. Just select the “Click-type” option under the “Segment” drop down and view your report.  Please note that since these are not calls generated from a Call Extension, they will not be reported in the Extensions tab reports.

Recommendations for featuring a phone number

You can simply leave your phone number in your ad text and benefit from this change which will automatically make your phone numbers clickable and enable users to call you. However, to get the most value from click-to-call, we recommend that you remove your phone number from your ad creative and create a Call Extension with your phone number directly.  This has several benefits. With a manually created Call Extension your number will appear as an additional line of ad text which frees up space in your ad creative for other promotion. In addition, when you create a Call Extension, your phone number appears on a separate line in the ad, and you’re able to take advantage of other powerful enhancements such as Vanity Numbers, Call-only and Call Metrics reporting.

We are committed to providing our users with the best mobile web experience and encourage you to learn more about Call Extensions by visiting our Help Center.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

⌐ 2011 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

If you have questions about how this change could impact your campaigns, we hope you won’t hesitate to contact us. Happy searching (and click-to-calling).

Simply LIKE Magnifi Online on Facebook and you’ll be entered to win a brand new iPad 2 with Magnifi-green magnetic smart case. Get your Facebook friends to LIKE Magnifi and post your name on our wall, and they’ll get a double entry and you’ll get FIVE EXTRA ENTRIES. No joke. The winner will be chosen at random. Promotion ends at 11:59pm Mountain, July 31, 2011. Employees and their immediate family members are not eligible to win.

The person with the most friend referrals has the best chance of winning the iPad, statistically speaking. So beg your friends, family, and co-workers to LIKE Magnifi Online’s Facebook page and you could earn yourself a brand new iPad 2.

According to the Insider AdWords blog post found here, the advertiser selects their business industry, writes a text ad, decides whether to link to their website or Google Places page, and add a maximum monthly budget.

The biggest difference here is that advertisers do not select their keywords, Google does that for you. This seems like a great, easy way for SMBs to get started, but for any advertiser with even the slightest sophistication, this option probably doesn’t make sense.

It’s yet to be seen how much control advertisers will have to block irrelevant searches, test ad copy, and control costs (Google’s system does the bidding, similar to the Budget Optimizer setting currently available for regular AdWords accounts).

For help setting up your own AdWords Express account, or a regular Google AdWords account, please contact Magnifi.

You can increase your chances of winning by referring friends. For every friend who likes Magnifi Online and then posts your name on our wall, your name will be entered five additional times, and your friend will earn themselves a bonus entry as well. There is no limit to the number of friends you can refer. One lucky winner will be selected at random in early August.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Magnifi-Online/152084954830432

Within the “Ad Extensions” tab of your AdWords account, you may suggest up to 10 sitelinks per campaign. Google will show 0, 2, 4, or now 6 sitelinks with your ad. Ads with high CTRs that appear in top positions will have the best chance of serving with sitelinks.

Google’s reporting currently only tells you whether a searcher clicked on the headline or a sitelink of the ad, but doesn’t tell you which specific sitelink was clicked. We recommend tagging each sitelink with a unique identifier so you can use your analytics program to understand which sitelinks are driving the most visits and generating the most revenue. Don’t be afraid to kill under-performing sitelinks and test new sitelink copy and/or landing pages.

Reach out to us and find out how to take advantage of this for your business.