AS per Google "Re-marketing is a feature of interest-based advertisement". Re-marketing in a layman terms could be explained as those visitor who visited your website are being again served with advertisement across various website. Re-marketing or call it Re-targeting it is highly targeted as the end users being targeted are not a new visitors but are visitors who once during their purchase cycle had visited the website. These users might have dropped off during their purchase cycle. Re-targeting these users will allow us to re-offer the inventory which he was interested or in other term Convert Repeat Visitors into Customers.


Having said that re-marketing is targeting the visitors who are not the new visitor but returning it is always very significant to classify these users. These users should be segmented properly. The users segmentation would be based upon the type of page and category the user was browsing. The granular the segmentation higher probability of conversion. The user could be re-targeted and thanks to re-marketing but the strategy of implementing the user categorization is vital. It is also important to consider that the visitor had left off the page because the product was not available to catch the interest a mechanism of serving those products which others were interested could lead towards conversion.

A general information on how re-marketing works:

• It is all about tracking:
• A JavaScript or Pixel Image is placed in the website. The code is activated every time the page loads. The data is transmitted via the code to the server which is responsible for offering remarketing ore re-targeting solution.
• It is all about getting to know your visitor: 
• Cookie is placed for every visitor who visits the website. The cookie has specific information at a granular level which is not only limited to the page the users visited but also the place where he dropped off.
  
• Follow visitor during his purchase cycle:
• The third party offering the solution is than capable of serving the visitor with the same product at a discounted price. Or serving alternative products with a highly targeted message as "Purchase now until the stock lasts - Last 3 items remaining".
• Providing sense of urgency and serving the item along with related product would help ease the visitor to make quick decision.
  

How can Remarketing influence Website Performance?
The answer to this question is very simple. The targeting and re-targeting visitor who are interested in your products in every step of purchase cycle could influence the visitor to purchase. There wouldn't be any company in this world who wouldn't want to appear in the search result or either in the form of MSE, PPC, CPC, CPA, CPM or even email marketing. The presence is utmost when the visitor is looking for you. It would be a crime against marketing if the presence is not marked especially when the user is looking for you or your product. Influence on the performance of the website would be seen as generally there is 2% visitor of the website converts while 98% visitors would abandon the website. To improve the performance a highly targeted campaign should be crafted to capture not only the visitor during the Pre-purchase but also Post-purchase. Based on the segmentation different kind of message is to be delivered.

Is price comparison available on Google? The search query are returning pages with the hotel properties and its review along with an arrow which would display the prices. This could also be a test being conducted over the google search pages. It might possibly being done for a better user experience. It could be the user conducting research might also be interested to purchase the properties.

Google search results for the term "hotel budapest" is displaying price for hotels for the selected date range. The query triggered the hotels with review and and price. These results are being seen only for the organic search result. A small drop down beneath if clicked would display the starting rate in US$ and the website offering the property at that price. It also displayed the rate with tax in small letters.

Price Comparison on Google Search Page - Search Query - "Hotel Budapest"
  

Price Comparison on Google Search Page - Search Query - "Hotel Bangkok"

Is it a myth or a proven fact that Keyword Insertion has a positive Impact on Quality Score? The answer to this question revolves around the Quality Score itself.

What is Quality Score?
For every query that is eligible to participate in an auction has a capability to triggers an ad. A Quality Score is than updated frequently and is a performance based. Quality Score is determined by following three criteria:

• Click Through Rate
• Relevance
• Landing Page Quality

Now, coming back to our question earlier, does Keyword Insertion has a positive impact over the quality score. In-fact yes the quality score could have positive impact due to keyword insertion. The reason for this would be the Ad triggered by the keyword would enhance the Ad making it more relevant to the user hence probability of Ad receiving Click would be higher.

The two major criteria Click Through Rate and Ad relevancy is both met due to Keyword insertion. There are other external factor which shouldn't be ignored such as Landing page Quality, the bid and average position.

Keywords results into conversion and. every advertiser are always in the dilemma of researching the golden keywords. These golden keywords which could help improve conversion. There are various sources these keywords are available -

• Search Based Keyword Tool (SKTool)
• Search Query Reports (SQR)
• Google Analytic (GA)
• Blogs, E-mails and Product Reviews

Search Based Keyword Tool (SKTool) -
The tool helps generate those keywords from Title which are not present in the Adwords account for the selected domain. This tool also helps you find all the related search terms for a given keyword. The beauty of this tool lies in identifying the queries from, location with the amount of searches which the keyword is actually able to trigger along with its approximate Max CPC.



Search Based Keyword Tool
While I started this post, the SKTool has been migrated to a new location, however the functionality has remained and even been improved. A new section to choose category and include and exclude terms are additional option available for users.



Search Query Reports (SQR) -
Another important golden mine for researching golden keywords would be Search Query Terms report. This is a perfect source to see what other keywords are  being searched are could be considered to be bought. A quick and fast way of buying these keywords could be by downloading all the Search Terms and filtering down those which has brought conversion and excluding those which are very generic. Best practice of using these search terms listed be classified as below -

• Download all the Keywords or Search Terms, it is worth using at least 30 or more days data.
• Check for all those keywords which have brought Conversions and add them.
• Filter those keywords which brought tons of impression but no clicks, this would result into lowering the overall CTR and hence would impact the quality score.
• All those keywords which brought tons of costs and no bookings might be worth considering to add as an exact negative. Having said that it is always good to check the landing page, if it is working or is not and also the product if it is not out of stock.

Google Analytic -
It is one of the source which does not only relies on Google but various other search engine. The keywords which brings traffic from different sources could be considered to be bought in paid campaigns.Not every company considers advertising over all the search engine. But visitors do land up in our website via means of different search engine. Those keywords which results into goals are the keywords which we shouldn't be missing in our advertising platform. Digging these keywords is straight forward. Take a look in analytic where the keywords have conversion. With the aid of SQL query it is possible to remove duplicate keywords such that unique converting keywords could be bought in the Google Adwords.




Blogs, E-mails and Product Reviews -
Making use of keyword density to identify those keywords which are with higher density. These keywords than could be considered to be posted in the Adwords.

Overall it is wise to make use of various sources to consider different keywords. More keywords the merrier it is. The hidden golden keywords are vital to improve the performance of the campaign, it could be bought as either positive or negative.

A common question that every advertiser has, I would like to improve my conversion while lowering my cost and improving my ROI. Having sitelinks provides advertiser with more option to inform their audience about products. These sitelinks are available at Campaign level at Ad extensions tab. Upto 10 sitelinks are available for advertisers. If the search term is applicable to appear in the top 3 spots on the left side of the Google search, these sitelinks are displayed just below the description. Google Adwords system however only displays minimum 2 site-links and maximum 4 site-links.




Advantage of using Sitelinks for advertisers:

• Segmentation of main product in sub product while the main product is being researched.
• Additional message for audience in the form of sitelinks instead of only description line 1 and description line 2.
• An option to serve the target audience to their specific product or service page.
• Sitelinks helps increasing the CTR by 10% to 30% which in-return would boost the conversion rate from 10% to 40%.

How do we improve Sitelinks performance?

Four actionable tips for sitelinks to improve the performance.

• Sitelinks used should be related to the products on a sub category of which the top level category the target audience is researching for.
• If the target product is meant for a City, it is worth capturing the areas as a sitelinks.
• Description of sitelinks should be descriptive & relay the message. The sitelinks with star (★ ) symbol helps itself  standout from the crowd.
• Related best selling products are vital to capture the attention of the audience.

For Instance:
My products are engaged in the business of selling airline ticket for Bangkok. I would than target my campaign Bangkok with four sitelinks which are the name of different adgroup as an areas in Bangkok.


Having related site links in line with the main product would help audience focus on the related product in their initial stage of research and decision making process. For every advertiser it is worth considering the sub products conversion while the main product is being featured such that those on the top radar could be served as site links.

Update: Google doesn't allow usage of special symbols in Sitelinks such that there is no competitive advantage and standard is maintained. Also, please note Google Adwords now supports Sitelink Extension.

Impression share is a metrics which could be seen at Campaign level. It represents the percentage of time ads were shown out of total impression accrued in the same target market. These loss in impression share could be either due to less budget or due to quality score result rank lost. The lost in impression share means missing opportunity. Sadly impression share metrics is only available at Campaign level, it would be great to see the impression share metrics at adgroup and keyword level. Having impression share metrics at adgroup level would allow us to view the actually opportunity lost for each adgroup.

IS Lost (Budget): The budget for the Campaign is to be set to an amount which does not ends within few hours of the day. This will result not to run the ad as a result of lack of budget. This one is relatively straight forward to fix, increase the budget and let the Ads run all along the day and night. Lost in impression share due to budget for small advertisers could be common. Yes, it is well understood that there is budget restriction for every advertiser. It would be wise to analyze the conversion in the hour of the day and peak traffic hours. Once these hours are noted, it is recommended to run the campaign on scheduled hours.

IS Lost (Rank): This is a tricky one, lost in Rank would be mainly due to lower CPC and lower quality score. This lost in impression share due to AdRank means improving the Quality Score and increasing the bid for the keyword.

How do we Improve Rank/Position?
Rank or Position could be improved by improving quality score and placing CPC above first page CPC. The broad match would trigger tons of query and these query terms are not always being bought. To improve impression share a regular SQR needs to be done. 

A question would then arise why do we need to do SQR to improve Quality Score? 
There are vaious query terms which comes into an auction these query terms are relevant terms and there could be an intense competition over these query terms. Buying them as exact match would allow us to place different bid and hence appearing in the search results.

For Instance -
My broad match term - buy books online in bangkok  this keyword broad match would also have tendency to capture query like - books online bangkok. The competition for the books online bangkok could be high and the bid placed for the broad term which triggered this query would would lead towards display the ad not in the first page. It might be due to quality score which would make us think if there is need of preparing a new landing page or a new campaign to target these keywords separately.

Hence review over SQR should be done either to include these search terms as keywords or permanently exclude them by adding as a negative exact. This would lead towards improving the ad rank and capturing the lost IS due to rank. Before the work over improving impression share is started, it is a good practice to store the current lost IS due to rank and position, and all other PPC metrics and consider it as a benchmark. And after commencement of lost IS work wait for at least two weeks to measure the results.

Search funnel is an insight over the consumer clicks to conversion cycle. Every consumer landing on the page for the first time is unlikely to purchase or commit transaction. Every buying process cycle goes through a phase of research, compare, evaluate or decision making and purchase. These research to purchase phase are vital for every business and for every advertiser it is a must to be present during the entire cycle of research to purchase.

Every advertisers would take a look at Search Query Report and start optimizing its Campaign, Adgroup such that the keywords being triggered are well targeted. Now, in the process of improving the performance of the Adgroup as a rule of thumb we tend to place search query terms as negative. Let us try visualizing this as an example:

Supposing, the advertiser is in the business of selling air tickets to be more specific selling air tickets in Bangkok. Structure of the Campaign are as below.

• Thailand Air Ticket

• Bangkok Air Ticket

• bangkok air ticket
• air ticket bangkok
• book air ticket bangkok
• online ticket bangkok
• purchase bangkok ticket
• reserve bangkok ticket

Visitors landing on the site are those who are interested in the products and posses more probability to convert as compared to those who have never visited the site. A visitor leaving the site without any transaction is missed opportunity and as the saying goes "everybody deserves a second chance". Remarketing has brought the new concept of targeting those visitors who had earlier been to the page and had left without transaction.


How Remarketing Works?
Once opted to run campaign as remarketing, Google implants cookies on every visitor those who left the site without any transaction. The length of these cookies could be upto 540 days. A proper campaign targeting should be implemented considering the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) of the page where the visitor departed. Both inbound and outbound metrics are to be considered in order to run a successful remarketing campaign. Once the campaigns are set properly ensure the text Ads, images or rather call it as offers being shown to these visitors are lucrative to ensure clicks converting into conversion.

Opting to run in a remarketing would require creation of audience. Three basic type of audience to be considered could be -

• General Visitors
• Visitors Abondning the transaction cart
• Visitors who left didn't enter the transaction cart

Audience creation could be one step towards a successful remarketing campaign but it should also be followed by a lucrative and more impressive creative. Offering discount and using the terms like we missed you, or even the cart is missing you could be certain creatives which are useful. Think out of the box as those visitors who left the site once they were towards their final step of committing transaction is crucial for every industry. Successfully converting even 0.25% of those visitors who left the shopping cart could improve the conversion rate. Targeting visitor for the first 30 days with different Adgroup and later serving them with another AdGroup is also an acceptable option.

In a nutshell, remarketing is a mixture of converting a missed visitor into a customer with a strategic plan, a mindful approach,  targeting the campaigns and delivering a lucrative Ads such that every dollar spend on the remarketing would result into a successful marketing campaign.

Google instant, has redefined the way we search. As we type along suggestions are made by the system, it is indeed helpful and people would tend to rely on the suggestions being provided in the search box. This lead towards less thinking and influence the query as per the suggestion made by Google instant. The main advantage of Google Instant is that there would be less new query and it would also reduce 30-90 seconds typing and  2 to 5 seconds per search. There are 20% new queries seen coming every month and these new queries are search terms which Google system had never recorded.

Google instant also gives the feeling towards he death of long tail keywords. The death of long tail keywords would mean that more competition in popular terms overall increasing the CPC. The google instant also gives the feeling of death of SEO. Well, it won't be a total death but rather an intense competition over the popular query terms.

As we are moving towards an instant era of search engine, the results are displayed in the search box and the resultant page changes instantly. One important thing to note for Adowrds advertiser is that as the user types, the suggestion are placed in the search box. If the user stops typing for more than 3 seconds those partial query displayed in the search box in grey color are the terms that would appear on the Search Quer Results (SQR).