In my previous two blog posts I have been discussing the key sessions from day 1 of SMX Advanced London on Monday 16th May. Today’s blog post discusses some of Google’s newer, more advanced ad features.

Best Practises with Google’s New Ad Features with Biren Kalaria Sales Development Manager at Google UK, Brian Lewis Vice President at Engine Ready, Ann Stanley MD at Anicca Digital Solutions and Link Walls Director of Product Management at ChannelAdvisor.

In this presentation there were some really useful insights, tips and optimisation ideas for using new features in Google AdWords.

Product Extensions

For those of you not familiar with Google AdWords’ Product extensions, it offers the functionality to integrate your Google Merchant centre with Google AdWords. This enables you to show relevant products in your ads based on the search query. Google Product Extensions initially appear like this:

And when you click on the blue cross, it expands the ads to show products from your Google Merchant Centre product feed. Clicking on the blue cross is free for advertisers, and costs are only accrued when the searcher clicks on a link to direct them to the site (i.e. product or main title)

In this session Brian Lewis suggested that these product extensions tended to show only when the “quality” threshold equalled a very high cost per click (CPC) or click through rate (CTR). This meant that product extensions do not always appear when ads are served.

Brian Lewis’ initial data from Engine Ready showed that when Product extensions were served with ads there was a higher 76% CTR and 16% higher CPC. Cost per conversion tended to be 15% higher because conversion rate remained largely similar whilst cost per clicks increased. The increase in cost per conversion is concerning, and highlights the importance of testing the campaign with and without product extensions enabled. At the end of the day, it might look good in the listings, but if it is costing you more, it should be carefully managed and only used in the correct situations.

How to get Seller Ratings in your PPC ads

Have you ever wondered how you get star ratings in your PPC ads, like the ad below?

In 2010 Google announced that if “your online store is rated in Google Product Search, you have 4 or more stars, and you have at least 30 reviews, you’ll automatically get seller ratings with your ads”. However, many advertisers have not found this successful.

In this session, Link Walls advised to sign up with one of the following ratings companies:

• Reseller Ratings (highlighted these in particular)
• BizRate
• ReviewCentre.com
• Viewpoints
• Google Checkout

This should enable seller ratings to show in your ads. To be eligible to use seller ratings, your site must be .co.uk, .de or .fr and you will need a minimum of 30 reviews.

In my next, final blog post of this series I will discuss the new features and tools to use with Google’s Display Network.