Click on image for full Help File.

Here's a screenshot of how to enable it in your Google Display Network campaigns.  Note:  the defult setting is opted in.

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For the past few months, our larger ecommerce clients have been utilizing the Call Metrics feature that has been out in limited release in the US.  Call Metrics uses Google Voice technology to automatically insert a campaign specific, toll-free phone number in the headline of an advertiser's PPC ads when they appear on Google.com.   When a prospective customer calls the Google Voice phone number in your ad, the call is forwarded to your business phone number that is associated with the Campaign.  AdWords captures the call and attributes it to the appropriate campaign.  (Note:  this is not the same as the "Click to Call" feature that is specific to mobile devices)

This feature has been helpful for us to demonstrate the role of PPC in influencing offline conversions for advertisers who usually experience large or complex orders via phone call.  Unfortunately, Google is now charging $1 per call for this feature.  So, advertisers who experience a high incidence of offline conversions will need to determine whether it's worth potentially thousands of extra dollars per month for the attribution insight.  Some of our advertisers feel that they would have received the phone call anyway since their toll free number is prominently displayed on every page of their website.

Our Google rep put forth the evidence that users are 5 times more likely to click on ads with phone extensions, so it may be worth paying the $1 per call in order to increase traffic volume.  For our ecommerce clients, CTR is already upwards of 10% for many campaigns due to the presence of Product Extensions and Sitelinks, which makes the Call Metrics CTR argument a difficult one to champion.

Of course, everything has a Quality Score spin, and Call Metrics are no different.  Our rep informed us that calls will be "factored into Quality Score" and that advertisers will be "rewarded for call volume" in addition to clicks.  Google will be incorporating a new "bid per call" and historic "phonethrough" rate (PTR) in the calculation of Ad Rank.  We look forward to more detailed information on these and their overall impact on Ad Rank and CPC.

Call me jaded, but I can't help but smile when I hear how advertisers will be "rewarded" for call volume.  More like Google will be rewarded with even more bottom line revenue.  (Quick - time to buy more GOOG?)

If you are considering enabling this feature, keep in mind that you currently don't have the ability to pause it during non-business hours.  So, unless you have 24/7/365 phone support, you will definitely be paying for wasted calls.  We've asked Google to clarify whether there will be a minimum call length before the $1 charge is assessed, and if there will be any way to "schedule" Call Metrics for business hours only.

If the Call Metrics feature make sense for your business, here is how to set it up:

In the "Ad Extensions" tab of each campaign, choose "phone extensions" from the View dropdown and click on "add new extension".  Then simply click the "Call metrics" box  and "save" as follows:

Click on thumbnail for larger imageThat is all advertisers are currently required to do for Call Metrics, but we assume that we will be prompted to enter a "bid per call" just as we would a keyword Max CPC.

To view Call Metrics data, simply enable the "Call Metrics" data columns at the campaign level as follows:

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More detailed call information is currently available in the Dimensions tab by selecting the "Call Metrics Calls" view:

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This pricing development is unfortunate, but not surprising as the beast known as the "GOOG shareholder" has an insatiable appetite, and once again needs to be fed.   It is clear that Google is dangling the carrot of improved Quality Score and Ad Rank to lure advertisers.  

With CPCs and competitors on the rise,  most of our advertisers have chosen to sit on the sidelines for a bit, rather than incur additional significant Adwords charges.  However, we will be watching closely to see if there is ultimately any impact on Quality Score or Ad Rank as a result of our "non-participation" in the coming months.

1. Login to Google Merchant Center:
   
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2. Select the appropriate account to link:
   
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3. Select "Settings", then click on the "AdWords" link:
   
   
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4. Enter the advertiser's AdWords Customer ID:
   
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5. Now, you're ready to proceed to AdWords to finalize the connection with the Merchant Center as described in detail in my blog post here!

Once you've created your Product Extensions, Targets and Listing Ads in AdWords, your "plusbox" extensions and stand alone Product Listing Ads will be eligible to show for relevant user queries.

Have you made the appropriate connections and still can't see your Product Listing Ads or Extensions?  Be patient, it can take 24-48 hours for the ads to appear.  If you've set up your PLAs in their own Campaign, as I recommended last week, then you'll be able to set higher bids just for these ads - IF competitive pressures warrant. 

Last thought:  always use Google's Ad Preview Tool when looking for your ads online.  Otherwise your results will most likely be skewed by your personal browsing history.  Plus, you don't want to cause unnecessary Impression data in your campaigns, potentially lowering your click through rate.

Still need help?  Contact Us, and we'll be happy to help you troubleshoot!

As with all of Google's new "innovations", it usually takes a bit of trial and error for us early adopters to figure out the best implementation for each client.  The relatively new Product Listing Ads are no different.  I originally wrote about them here last November.  With almost five months of experimentation under our belts, we'd like to present a simple step by step process for retailers selling brand name products. 

Our initial experience taught us (and this was confirmed by our Google rep) that Product Listing Ads should be set up in their own unique Campaigns.  While you can certainly incorporate PLAs within existing Campaigns (and we did!) that are connected to the Google Merchant Center, you'll get much cleaner data and insight if the PLAs are cordoned off in their own playground.  If you simply create your PLAs within an existing Campaign, you won't be able to isolate the query data that triggered the ad, so start with a fresh, new Campaign just for this ad type. 

Click the thumbnail to see the boost in performance we received when we moved PLAs to their own campaign:

Note:  we are not talking about "Product Extensions" that populate a traditional text ad with product images and links, but rather the "stand alone" image ads that Google serves in the top right of the SERPs.

For this example, we'll use a client who sells high end designer eyeglasses.  Since their datafeed pushes out products by brand and model (i.e., CHANEL, Ray-Ban, etc.), the PLA implementation was relatively straight forward. 

Here was our process:

1. Connect the new Product Listing Ad Campaign to the Merchant Center with a new Product Extension:
   
   
   
   
2. Next, for each adgroup, specify a product target from the datafeed.  For this client, we are targeting each brand to its own adgroup, i.e.,  the Maui Jim brand for the Maui Jim adgroup.  We selected "brand" from the target drop-down, and clicked "validate". 
   
3. Next, we created our Product Listing Ads for the adgroup.  We are testing two ad messages ("Best of Boston" vs. "Authorized Dealer/Free Shipping").  Note, this is a locally targeted campaign for the Greater Boston area only.  While this step isn't necessary (as long as you've done steps 1 & 2), it makes sense to utilize the 40 character ad space to create a call to action that will be displayed under the product image and price.  If you have free shipping, or a coupon code, this is where to enter that information:
   
   
4. Last, set bids at the AdGroup level.  We were advised by our Google rep to set our PLA bids 2-3 times higher than bids for our traditional ads to ensure good Impression Share. 
   
   Our experience is that the higher bid is necessary, particularly in competitive situations.  For one merchant, the average CPC is comparable to the text ad CPC, for another the PLA has a 96% lower CPC, and the third merchant has a 257% higher CPC for PLAs.  So, each advertiser's PLA cost is going to be dependent upon their vertical and competitive pressures.
   
   While CPCs vary widely among advertisers, we predict that rates of conversion will continue to be strong, as the PLAs tend to be triggered for only the most relevant queries, attracting customers who are well beyond their initial "research" phase and are ready to buy a specific product.
   
   
5. Note:  Keywords are NOT necessary for Product Listing Ad campaigns, as Google matches the user's query to products in your datafeed.  So be sure your datafeed is refreshed often and properly optimized.
   
   However, Google just announced that negative keywords can and should be used at the campaign and adgroup levels, if appropriate, to prevent your ads from showing for products that you don't offer.  For instance, if we only offered model 3016 in Ray-Ban Clubmaster, then we could negate "2156" to prevent the PLA from showing for a query on that model number.

For ecommerce advertisers, having an optimized datafeed is becoming a competitive necessity for both paid and organic SERPs.  As PPC professionals, we can provide tremendous value by helping our clients leverage their datafeed to attract the most qualified traffic to their site, and double their paid presence as illustrated below.  If you have questions about implementing Product Listing Ads within your campaign, feel free to contact us for assistance!

Here's a quick primer on how to set them up:

• first - make sure you've linked the AdWords account to the Merchant account
• at the AdGroup level, navigate to the Auto Targets tab (between "Ad extensions" and "Dimensions" tabs) in your Adwords interface
• click + product target button
• select either add all products which will allow any products in your data feed eligible to be shown for queries matched to keywords in the adgroup, or
• select add a group of products (maximum 3 criteria)
• select an attribute (product type, brand, condition, etc.) that can be matched to the variable in your data feed
• enter the value (i.e., product brand name listed in your data feed)
• click the validate button
• hopefully you'll see This target matches at least one product in your Google Merchant Center feed
• repeat one or two more times for each adgroup

This new feature provides a much greater degree of control than simple Product Extensions and Sitelinks.  Product Extensions and Sitelinks still have their place, and our clients have enjoyed significantly higher click through rates on their "plusbox" ads that show multiple links or images within a text ad.  But now we can dictate which products should be shown for each set of keyword groupings, resulting in a better user experience and hopefully an even better conversion rate and ROI.

Note - you will likely need to modify your data feed to seemlessly integrate with this new feature.  Here's a Google post with more details.

Watch this video to learn more about the two different types of product listing ads:

One client has experienced an 11% increase in mobile traffic on his two websites and another client's mobile traffic has absolutely exploded, with visits up 61% over the prior 30 day period!  Granted this particular client's market tends to be a younger, more technical buyer.  But 61% - wow!

In addition to an increase in mobile visits, we're seeing improved metrics for bounce rate (down 7%), pages per visit (up 8%), and average time on site (up 18%).

The most notable sources of increase have been Android and iPad devices, which makes sense given the massive marketing effort that Verizon has launched (I recently took advantage of their "buy1/get1" deal), and the recent launch of the iPad.  Blackberry and iPhone traffic remained steady relative to the prior 30 day period.

CPC for the click-to-call feature is the same as for a regular click on a text headline, so it's a no-brainer to enable this ASAP.  Preferably, the merchant should assign a unique telephone number for PPC mobile ads in order to track effectiveness of this ad delivery method.

In order to target WAP devices (not full browser capable), you'll need to create mobile-specific text ads which are really easy to do.  Simply create a new ad, choose "mobile ad" type, make the appropriate selections (text vs. image, specific carriers, click-to-call, etc.), and write your ad.  Google recommends that you create specific Campaigns or Adgroups for your mobile specific ads to make reporting and data gathering easier, and I agree with this practice.

The challenge with WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) ads are that you need to have a mobile version of your website, written in "acceptable mobile markup language" to be eligible for ads to display.  Accepted mobile markup languages include XHTML (WAP 2.0), WML (WAP 1.2), and CHTML.  

Mobile ads are eligible to display on Google Search & Search Partner networks as well as on their Content network.  Mobile ads may also appear while operating many downloadable apps.  I highly recommend that you use Google AdWords' knowledge base which contains dozens of pages of instructions on how to implement and best practices for mobile.

See you on the web!

Source: AdWords Help "What Are Mobile Ads?" (http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=29492)

Unlike most AdWords reports that are rows and columns of static data, the Search Funnels report operates more like the Google Analytics interface, allowing you to drill into specific Campaigns, Adgroups, and keywords.  This new report promises to provide valuable information to help PPC managers and business owners understand customer behavior and take appropriate action to optimize Adwords accounts for maximum effectiveness.

• link each AdWords Campaign to the Merchant Center Account from the Campaign Settings tab, AND
• link the Merchant Center to the AdWords Account from the Merchant Center Settings tab

Once your AdWords Campaigns are properly synched to your Merchant Account, it may take 24-48 hours before Google serves your ads with Product Extensions.

Note:  Ad Extensions are currently only enabled for US advertisers

Source: Creating Your Data Feed (http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160054&cbid=4zj0j49v28u&src=cb&lev=answer)

When a search query has relevance to your products, your text ad is augmented with a "plusbox" which, when expanded, will display up to six beautiful images of your products.  Now, your potential customers will be able to determine if your online store has the product they are looking for, getting them through checkout faster and improving your click through and conversion rates!

Always be sure to use relevant, high value keywords in your product Title and Description fields.  It may take 24 hours or more for Google to begin serving your Ad Extensions.