Soul-Searching at the SMX Search Marketing Expo

“Change is good… Change is inevitable.” I repeat this silently to myself, every time Google announces their latest change to the AdWords platform. As is the case when too many changes are happening at once, it’s important to take a step back to do  some soul searching – which is exactly what I did last week at the SMX Search Marketing Expo in New York City, the perfect place for SEO and SEM obsessives to congregate for three chock full days of actionable search tactics & best practices.

Enabled by fellow SEM junkies, we took a deep dive into how to make the best use of the latest changes to the AdWords platform, and what to expect in the coming months. We laughed, we cried, and for the most part, it was quite the cathartic experience (and a good lesson that we may need to get out of the house more!). Over the next few weeks, I’ll follow this up with some more in-depth posts about the key takeaways from the conference, but keep reading for some quick points below.

Mobile-Preferred Expanded Text Ad?

Google has quietly done away with mobile-preferred text ads with the launch of ETAs. For those of you who have been too lazy busy to get around to this on your “AdWords To Do” list, how serendipitous for you, indeed!

Now for those of you who have painstakingly written mobile-preferred ads, have a look at all your exquisite data you’ve collected and see if it can be tweaked for your ETAs, as the ads will be the same for both mobile and desktop, and the traditional ads will become obsolete any day now. You may find some interesting insight that can be applied to the new ad format and will help with conversions.

Price Extensions

Google also released a new mobile-only price extension  that allows you to promote prices for your services and products. You can choose from a list of the most relevant criteria headings that apply to your business with its associated cost. We’ve been testing Price Extensions for a few weeks now for our Cardinal Path Training Academy and below is a screenshot of price extensions that we’ve used to for our AdWords and Analytics classes.

RLSA Strategy

Larry Kim, founder of WordStream, an AdWords guru and a fellow Canadian “to boot” (yes, I went there), showcased advanced RLSA strategies and suggested as one tactic to run PPC ads for your remarketing lists only, if you are seriously limited by budget. The idea here, is that your dollars may be more effective capturing an audience that has proven brand affinity and higher chances of converting as they have already been to your website. Using carefully crafted ad copy, specific keywords, and strategic remarketing list targeting, this could be an interesting tactic to try and measure, provided you have the volume.

Creating Great Images for Display Advertising

Display Ads may be more effective when your products/services are showcased using the Rule of Thirds, a photography principle that divides the image space into horizontal and vertical thirds. When aligning your image along these compartmentalized sections, your images convey more natural balance and can help capture your audience with a longer-lasting impact and ultimately increased brand recall.

Image source: Creative Commons
There was a ton of information to take in at the conference, and if you want to get both beginner and advanced Google AdWords training, check out if there will be a Google AdWords (and Google Analytics) class at a location near you where we can teach you these things and more.

We are launching a brand new AdWords 301 class with Advanced Google Display in Chicago in November and the class is filling up fast. Can’t make it to an in-class training? Check out our online training, which is a compressed and convenient way to get AdWords and Google Analytics Training.