Web Search & Marketing Newsletter - May 2017

Welcome to the latest issue of our regular monthly newsletter which features news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search engine marketing techniques and trends.

In our first article this month we take a look at Google's recent introduction of a new "home" page for its Analytics website User Interface. The second article looks at their roll out of Smart Display campaigns for AdWords and how this can help to improve your brand awareness.

In the final article this month we take a look at the recent press release by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in Australia that shows digital advertising expenditure surpassed $7b in 2016 and what sections of the industry saw the largest growth.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month or by subject. You can also follow us on Facebook or LinkedIn, as well as our occasional updates on Twitter.

On to this month's edition...

 

Google Introduces the New Analytics Home Page

As featured in our March newsletter, Google recently introduced a new look for its Analytics User Interface. Now they have started to roll out a further enhancement with a new Home screen when you first access an account, to give new insights into the data being recorded.

Since 2016 Google has been improving Analytics with the goal of making it even easier for anyone to gain the business insights they need. A fully redesigned mobile app for better insights 'on the go' was introduced last year and more recently, automated insights were added in the mobile app, which has now been downloaded over a million times. In late May Google introduced additional enhancements designed to help Users make better data-driven decisions based on a deeper understanding of website visitors.

The new home page, which is currently being rolled out across Google Analytics accounts, is represented by a new landing page for all accounts. This "Home" page now offers an overview of key aspects of a business's online presence.

Here are a few highlights:

• You can see snippets from a curated set of Google Analytics reports, including real time data, with simple and streamlined controls. Each snippet is preceded by a helpful question that frames the data, such as "When do your users visit?" or "Where do your users come from?".
• Want to dig deeper? Hover on any data point for more details or drill into the relevant report with the provided link on each card.
• "Home" is automatically configured based on your setup: For example, if you have Goals or Ecommerce, you'll see the page change accordingly.

Existing reports have not changed. The Audience Overview report, which used to be the default landing page, is still available: just open the "Audience" section in the side navigation and click on "Overview".

If you're looking for the latest enhancements to the basic Google Analytics experience you can find them in the new "Discover" page, which has a link just next to the Admin link at the bottom of the left navigation panel. As the name suggests, Discover offers products and experiences that might be found useful when working within the Google Analytics account. These could be products like Google Optimize, tools like the Google Analytics mobile app, helpful features like Custom Alerts, or even useful educational materials from the Analytics Academy.

Both of these additions will be rolling out to all Users over the next few weeks and Google hopes these new additions will help make it easier to get the most out of Google Analytics.

If you want more information about how Google Analytics can help to improve the performance of your business, contact us now.

 

Google Rolls Out Smart Display Campaigns for AdWords

Smart display campaigns began rolling out to all AdWords advertisers from the end of April, with the intention of letting users reach more customers easily on the Google Display Network. Using the power of Google's automation, these campaigns are designed to make it easier to advertisers to create campaigns that reach the target audience at the right time, and with the right message.

There are now over 3 million apps and websites on the Google Display Network (GDN), from popular news websites to the latest gaming apps. No matter what potential customers are doing to stay informed or entertained across the GDN, it's important for advertisers to reach them with timely and relevant messages. In order to do that, it's necessary to find the right customers, tailor your creative to them and set optimal bids.

This is where the new Smart display campaigns come in, as they use the power of Google's machine learning to automatically:

• Connect your business to prospective customers who may be interested in your products, using insights from millions of apps and sites
• Create beautiful image, native and text ads that fit anywhere across the GDN
• Set the right bids to meet your performance goals.

Only Google provides automation like this at scale, helping to deliver richer experiences to consumers and better results for a brand. Google states that advertisers who use Smart display campaigns are seeing an average 20% increase in conversions at the same CPA, compared to their other display campaigns.

The large hotel search platform, Trivago, is cited as using Smart display campaigns to help travellers around the world find hotel rooms that meet all their travel needs. The travel brand provided creative assets (with headlines like "Find Great Hotel Deals,"), together with descriptions of its hotel listings and beautiful images of destinations like Rome and London, plus its logo. They also set business goals, with a target CPA and daily budget.

AdWords did the rest, creating over 25,000 tailored ads and showing them to travellers shopping for hotel deals. With Smart display campaigns, it's claimed that Trivago drove 36% more conversions at the same CPA, compared to its other similar display campaigns. The brand now uses Smart display campaigns across markets in Europe, Asia and North America. So the potential is evident and this is a significant step forward for Google's Display Network.

If you want to know more about how Smart display campaigns and how to implement them, contact us now for details.

 

IAB Australia Reveals Digital Ad Spend Surpassed $7b in 2016

The annual Digital Advertising Expenditure report for the 2016 calendar year was recently published by the Internet Advertising Bureau of Australia and showed that total spend increased by over 20% again on the previous year. The strong growth resulted in a 23% gain over the previous year, to finish at $7.4bn. That marks the fifth successive year of growth of over 20% and the continuing strength of this market.

The data comes from the annual IAB/PWC Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER) and shows that 2016 again saw the largest growth seen in Display advertising, driven by strong gains in video and mobile advertising. Although desktop display ad spend dipped due to shifting consumer device habits, the Video segment of the General Display market was the fastest growing area of digital in CY16, representing 28% of digital General Display.

The report also says that for the first time, mobile ads accounted for more than half of that spending — $36.6 billion, which is 51% of the total. Video advertising grew by 53% to $9.1 billion, social media spending grew more than 50% to $16.3 billion and search grew 19% to nearly $35 billion, so that it remains the largest sector in online advertising. The report also looked at digital audio ad revenue for the first time, saying it totalled $1.1 billion in 2016.

The IAB report doesn't break out Facebook and Google specifically, and these 2 organisations dominate the market, despite figures not being officially released by them. However, the IAB does address "revenue concentration" by looking at the top 10 ad sellers and saying they accounted for 73% of total revenue — which is apparently not all that unusual, since the number has fluctuated between 69-75% over the past decade.

The last quarter of the 2016 calendar year showed growth of 15.3% to reach $1.97 billion. However, despite a 4.6% increase on the previous quarter, the market did not experience the normal level of seasonal growth expected for the December quarter. This was partly due to retail share of digital display spend remaining flat, although overall, retail increased with the growing market and the total ad spend was still up on the previous quarter and year.

The December quarter saw shifts in device expenditures, with the tablet share of device revenue dropping as advertisers move more money into smartphones to shadow changing consumer device habits.

You can read more here. If you would like more information on how these figures can be used to improve your online marketing, contact us now.

 

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