AdWords “Remarketing Lists For Search Ads” Coming Out Of Beta

 

On the heels of releasing dynamic retargeting for retailers in AdWords, Google has announced it will be rolling out remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) to all enhanced campaigns advertisers over the next few days. RLSA, which launched in beta last July, allows marketers to modify and tailor their search ads, bids, and keywords based on visitors’ past activity on their sites.

In the beta, a European online tire retailer saw a 161 percent conversion rate increase with RLSA, which led to a 22 percent overall sales increase. The new conversions had a 43 percent lower average CPA than previous campaigns, according to Google.

Using RLSA, you can increase bids for past site visitors who looked at specific high-value pages, added items to their carts or spent a certain amount of time on your site. You can also bid on more generic keywords, or broader match types of keywords for site visitors or past customers that you don’t include in your regular campaigns because they are too broad for general search traffic.

You can then show different ads to specific sets of site visitors. For example, you can write ad copy targeted to shopping cart abandoners.

RLSA bid adjustments combine with other bid adjustments for location, device and time in enhanced campaigns.

To use RLSA, you’ll need to tag your site with the Google Remarketing Tag for the Google Display Network. So if your site is already set with the remarketing tag, you are ready to start running RLSA.

Google Grants Cannabis Group $240,000 in AdWords Money & Other Products

Google's got $5 on it ... er, make that $240,000. This is according to last week's announcement from a medical cannabis nonprofit.

According to Michigan Compassion, Google awarded the group $240,000 annually in AdWords advertising through Google Grants as well as the use of other Google products for nonprofits.

If you're unfamiliar with Google Grants, it's the nonprofit version of AdWords launched in 2003, which allows participating nonprofits to spend up to $10,000 per month in grants on AdWords.

The grant for Michigan Compassion advertising doesn't seem to fit neatly within any of Google's AdWords policies. According to its guidelines, there are certain restrictions on prescription drugs and even tobacco, but since Michigan Compassion is not a direct retailer for prescription marijuana, rather an organization dedicated to the awareness of the benefits of medical cannabis, the guidelines could be different.

It looks as though an organization like this could be given the same allowances that say, vaporizers are in AdWords. While Google does not allow the direct sale of drug paraphernalia, it does allow the sale of vaporizers "when promoted as a humidifier or as an aromatherapy device to relieve respiratory symptoms."

We reached out to Google for some clarification on the grant and any restrictions that ads from Michigan Compassion might have; we were curious about a few things:

• Will ads from Michigan Compassion be assigned a family status or non-family status?
• Will ads be targeted only to Michigan or also to other states allowing medical marijuana?
• How does Google distinguish between the promotion of tobacco versus promotion of cannabis in AdWords?

A Google spokesperson had this to say about the Michigan Compassion AdWords grant:

"Our regular Grants program was approved for this organization as a certified 501(3)(c) non-profit to run ads that comply with our policies. Specifically, their ads are designated as non-family safe, are approved in states where medical marijuana is legal in the U.S., and they are not permitted to sell the product or paraphernalia on their site."

4 Google AdWords Updates You Might Have Missed

Google AdWords has launched a series of new changes for advertisers, including updates to AdWords Editor, a new Display Benchmarks Tool, and improvements to enhanced campaigns with flexible bid strategies. Here's a recap of the latest AdWords updates.

1. Google AdWords Keyword Planner

The biggest news from AdWords for many webmasters is the introduction of a brand new keyword tool combined with a traffic estimator, called the Keyword Planner.

The new tool allows you to find new keywords related to a keyword or keyword list, URL, or category, which can be very helpful for those trying to do keyword research or expand their targeting keywords.

You can also use it to get performance and cost estimates, which can be helpful for planning out potential budgets before actually putting it in action.

Lastly, you can import the data and use it in your account without having to manually enter it from other research tools.

2. Advertising on Google Maps

We saw the preview of new advertising on Google Maps when they showed it off at I/O, and now AdWords is updating information for advertisers wanting to target Google Maps locations for advertising. The new ads will show right on the location for those with on-page location extensions, or in a box below the search box.

It is worth noting that advertisers will need to do two things to ensure their ads are showing up on Google Maps. First, you need to run search ads with location extensions and also include search partners in your campaign network settings, since Google Maps is considered a search partner for AdWords campaigns.

3. AdWords Editor Changes

If you use Google’s AdWords Editor, they have made some updates in the new 10.1 version of the editor to include tools for making bulk changes on enhanced campaigns and to include performance stats and metrics.

Some of the new features for advertisers are:

• Set bid adjustments for placements, topics, and audiences.
• Set mobile bid adjustments at the ad group level.
• Upgrade campaigns in bulk using CSV import or the add/update multiple campaigns tool.
• Use the new ValueTrack {ifmobile}, {ifnotmobile} parameters.

4. Flexible Bid Strategies for Enhanced Campaigns

Google AdWords included flexible bidding options for advertisers when they upgrade to enhanced campaigns. This allows advertisers to manage different parts of campaigns or even cross campaigns with specific bid strategies, which is very useful for those wanting to promote certain keywords while leaving other keywords to the current bidding setup.

Flexible bid strategies will be available to advertisers in the next few weeks once those campaigns are upgraded to enhanced campaigns.