This August, the Google Adwords blog has been promoting knowledge and understanding of all the tools and resources in the Google toolkit. There are articles on increasing sales using affiliate marketing, case-studies on display network campaigns and the introduction of Google Learn, a one-stop online classroom to help individuals market their businesses online.
In the display world.Google has released its latest display benchmarks, revealing an average click through rate that has remained almost constant for the last 2 years. Lastly, many of us have wondered whether it really makes sense to spend on pay per click (PPC) for keywords which are top of the organic listings. Google has carried out over 400 studies to look into the relationship between paid and and organic search, and most significantly whether PPC canabilises organic search trafic The results presented in a short video, reveal an 11% cross over between the two.
Boost Sales through Affiliate Marketing
Over one third of marketers across the globe use affiliate marketing to promote their businesses. But what exactly is affiliate marketing and what does it entail?
Essentially, affiliate publishers place your ads or links on their site with the goal of driving a sale, lead, or other online goal that you specify. You pay only when a user clicks through one of your affiliates and performs a desired action. In this post, Google explain the Google Affiliate Network, an on-going performance-based program that uses trusted publishers.
Doing more with the +1 button, more than 4 billion times a day
Back in June Google launched the +1 button for websites to facilitate content recommendation across the web. Since the launch more than 1 million sites have added the button. Encouraged by this uptake Google has launched two further features designed to make +1 buttons more useful for users and publishers alike: Sharing directly with your circles on Google+ and +Snippets.
A look at how display drives performance for marketers today
Examples of some successful Google display campaign including Airbnb, Groupon and ShoeDazzle.
In response to popular demand, Google have introduced Learn with Google a one stop shop for users to learn about online tools and strategies. Learn with Google will help users to start up, market and run their business online. There are videos, worksheets, and checklists to browse through and new content will be added to the site at regular intervals.
Latest Display benchmarks now available
Evaluating the success of display campaigns has historically been a challenge given the lack of relevant benchmarks available. Google first started publishing display benchmarks in 2009 to address this problem. On August 16th they introduced a dedicated space for display benchmarks data on the Watch This Space website. This data makes for interesting reading. Highlights include the relative stability of response and engagement rates since 2009. In the past two years, the overall click-through rate has remained constant at around 0.09%. Furthermore, the use of rich media ad formats has doubled as advertisers look to gain cut-through in an increasingly saturated online world.
Studies show search ads drive 89% incremental traffic
There has been much debate over the years about the relationship between paid and organic search and specifically whether paid ads simply eat into organic traffic. After all if you are in position 1 for organic, is there any point in investing in a paid listing? Google statisticians have run over 400 studies looking into these questions. The answers are presented in a short video.
Webinar: Display targeting strategies for direct response
Catch up on the Webinar from August 4th on how to run effective direct response campaigns.