dsa: a tool for all ppc accounts - heroconf london 2017

DSA: A Tool for All

Accounts

Michel le Morgan

Di rec to r o f Accoun ts | C l i x Marke t i ng |

@miche l lemsem

Michelle MorganDirector of Accounts at Clix

Marketing• PPC Pro for 6+ Years• Australian Shepherd owner• Lover of Legos

Today’s AgendaWe Have 4 Main Areas of Focus:

• The Set Up• Strategies for Account Types• Analysis and Optimizations• The Future

Intro to DSA

What are Dynamic Search Ads

(DSA)? The Rundown:

• DSA is a campaign type by Google that utilizes Google’s Organic Search technology to analyze your website content, make determinations about what you’re selling, and then dynamically match to keywords not currently in your account.


(DSA)? The Rundown:

• DSA is a campaign type by Google that


(DSA)? The Rundown:

• You control 2 features: • Body text. • Display URL.

• Google controls the other two: • Headline. • Final URL.

Why Use DSA if I Don’t Have

Control?

Why Use DSA?

People are constantly typing new, crazy stuff into Google.

Not All New Queries are Junk

• People are constantly finding new ways to ask Google for help, whether buying something online or looking for information.

• Voice Search is changing what we search for even more.

• DSA allows you to match some of these new queries to your existing page content, to get in front of new users.

It’s Not All About Dinosaurs and Spiders:

What About Broad Match Modified?

• But even with BMM terms, you could be missing out on quality queries based on what words you anchor.

• But what if I do something like this?• “+buy +shoes online” • “buy +shoes +online”• I’m clever with my anchors.

• I mean, have a blast. But DSA will save you a ton of time and you won’t have to build out lists of tons of keywords that might not ever amount to anything. So…your call.

Yes! Of Course Do That:

• By all means, continue to use Exact, Phrase, and Broad Match Modified terms where relevant in your account.

• Utilize DSA as a substitute for regular broad match on your core terms or as an extension for BMM on lower priority pieces of the business.

Change in the Match Type Hierarchy:

Use DSA as Broad Match

Replacement

Set Up

Vetting Your Website

Spoiler Alert:

• Not all websites are right for DSA.

Let’s Use an ExampleAmazon: Because Duh.

• Item: Lego Super Star Destroyer. (Because, also duh. Legos are awesome.)

Amazon Super Star Destroyer

Page

Signs Your Site is Right for DSAYour Page Has Good Content Describing the Product/Service:

• Descriptions and specifics about the product are easy to find on the site.

Signs Your Site is Right for DSAYour Content is Up to Date:

• Your content on the page reflects exactly where your company/the product, etc. stand at that given snapshot in time.

Signs Your Site is Right for DSAYour Site Has Clear Calls To Action:

• Easily identifiable and understandable. And you’re tracking them all.

Signs Your Site is Right for DSABONUS: You Also Have a Good Mobile Site:

• All of the above pieces are important to have on websites, but it’s officially the time of mobile.

• Having each of these features displayed in a compelling way on your mobile site will make you that much more competitive on those devices.

Signs Your Site is Wrong for DSAHold Off on DSA If:

• You have no clear call to action. • Your site is mostly images or the text on

the page isn’t very helpful in describing your offering.

• Your site is woefully out of date when it comes to what you’d like it to say about your business.

• Your site is only buzz words with no real outline of your product/service.

By the way, all of these things also mean your site is kind of junk, and you might want to rethink paying to send traffic to it. Just sayin’…

Choosing Your Pages

Determining the Pages You UseYou’re in the “Good Fit” Category, Now What?

• Next you need to identify which pages you actually want to use DSA for.

• Your whole site? • Only specific pages?

• There’s no right or wrong answer here, so choose what you want, then vet them for success.

Using Your Whole Site

Using Your Whole Site: A

WarningYou Don’t Always Know All the Pages on Your Site:

• If you want DSA to have the run of your site, you need to fully understand what that entails.

Get Yourself a Clear SitemapLayout the Full List of Pages Eligible:

• You can get your sitemap from Google Webmaster Tools or you can create one.

• I’ve always had good luck with this: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/crawl.html

• Limit of 500 pages for free.• Download your URL list via .txt file.• You can also get an unlimited number

of pages for $20. • Vet every page? No. But know what’s there.

https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/crawl.html

Be Proactive with Exclusions:Easy List of Pages/Folders to Exclude:

Tools for AnalysisGoogle Keyword Planner:

• What better than having Google tell you what it thinks about your page?

• Use the URL section and run your pages through to see suggested keywords.

• You can also use any of the other filters on the bottom of this form just the same way you would with normal keyword research.

• Run each of the pages you’re planning to use through this tool to determine their viability for using in DSA.

What You GetContinuing with the Amazon Page from

Earlier: • The tool analyzes your page and essentially shows you exactly what it think it’s about. Gold.

• This will also most likely give you a large list of negative keywords you can add right off the top without having to have shown for them in the first place.

More AdvancedMarket Muse:

• Paid tool that analyzes your page content and tells you how strongly related your content is to a particular topic.

• This can be used to vet pages or to help develop pages for future use.

Campaign Structure

New Example:Lets Use the Lego.com Site:

Creating Your Ad Campaigns:You’re Given 3 Options in the Builder:

• Each has it’s own specific uses.

All Pages in One Ad Group:Targeting All Pages:

• Easiest of all the set ups. • Should always exclude non-relevant

pages.• Best for:

• Sites with a limited number of pages but are all decent quality.

• Using as secondary layer with limited bid.

• When more granular set ups don’t render any traffic.

All Pages in One Ad Group:

Targets

Ad Group

CampaignSearch -

DSA

All Pages

All Pages

One Category in Each Ad Group:Using Recommended Categories:

• Google will recommend categories for you based on the content they find on your homepage when it’s crawled at set up.

• Best for: • Sites with strong natural

segmentation/map. • Quicker set ups but large

audiences.

One Category in Each Ad Group:Using Recommended Categories:

• They’ll then show you examples of what the queries, headlines, and landing page might look like.

One Category in Each Ad Group:

Targets

Ad Group

Campaign Search -DSA

Themes

/themes

Minifigures

/minifigures

Games

/games

Sub Category in Each Ad Group:Categories within Categories:

• Taking one step beyond the suggested categories by Google or your natural categories on your site.

• Best for:• Sites with differing product sets within categories.• Pages highlighting individual features of a whole offering

(i.e. Shoe stores have sections for men, women, and kids).

Sub Category in Each Ad Group:

Targets

Ad Group

Campaign Search - DSA

Star Wars

/themes/star-wars

Ninjago

/themes/ninjago

Friends

/themes/friends

Individual Pages by Ad Group:One Page Per Ad Group:

• This is the most specific of set ups. • Best for:

• High quality pages with loads of quality, relevant content.• Lead gen accounts that have only one page that is a good fit for DSA.• High volume pages that have performed well in existing DSA campaigns

that you would like more control over.

Individual Pages by Ad Group:

Targets

Ad Group

Campaign Search - DSA

TIE Fighter

/TIE-Fighter-75095

Death Star

/Death-Star-75159

U Wing

/Rebel-U-Wing-Fighter-

75155

Best Practices for DSA Set UpRule of Thumb: Be as Broad as You Can, While Being

Specific • The the only piece you have control over is the body and display URL of the ad.

• For choosing your structure, go as broad as you can while still being able to write a compelling ad to a specific audience.

• For example, say you feel comfortable writing compelling ad copy about Star Wars Lego sets, but not when writing copy meant for all themes.

Best Practices for DSA Set UpStart Off on the Right Foot:

• Segmentation: Start with larger groups of pages, then break them out if necessary for better control.

• Starting with too much segmentation can lock down the tool quickly. • Add all of your current keywords as negatives.

• Google claims you shouldn’t need to do this, but the system isn’t fool proof. Just add these at the campaign level. Shouldn’t take long and will ensure stronger query mapping in your account.

• Test using Enhanced CPC for bidding. • Exclude easy sections of the site that have nothing to do with what you’re

advertising: • blog, about us, careers, etc.

Strategies for Ecommerce

It’s Like Shopping Campaigns……But Without the Product Feed:

• DSA is arguably best suited for Ecommerce websites with lots of products.

• It can fill holes in your search campaigns the way Shopping can, but based on page info rather than feeds.

It’s Like Shopping Campaigns……But Without the Product Feed:

• Utilize DSA the same way you might with Shopping.

• Set campaigns with specific groupings and appropriate bids.

• Then layer in a “catch all” All Webpages ad group (with appropriate negatives) and set a low bid.

Targets

Ad Group

CampaignSearch -

DSA

Star Wars $1.00 Bid

/Star-Wars-Sets

Catch All $0.50 Bid

All webpages

Page FiltersExcluding Out of Stock Items:

• You’re able to exclude some of your pages from showing based on the content found on that page.

• Use the same terminology on your site “Unavailable”, “Out of Stock”, etc. to exclude items that you don’t currently have in your inventory.

Premium vs Bargain ProductsSegment by Product Price:

• If your site is organized accordingly, segment your ad groups by price. • Write ads differently based on the price point to best match with user intent.

US Targeting: Location & IncomeUse Household Income Targeting:

• If you’re targeting folks in the USA, you can also layer in household income targeting to your Premium/Bargain strategy for additional control.

Strategies for Lead Generation

Be PickierLikely, Less Pages are Good for DSA:

• Ecommerce sites have the benefit of giving the ability to purchase on nearly every page. Lead gen doesn’t.

• Be very particular when vetting your landing pages and only include those that have appropriate calls to action.

Add Additional ExclusionsExclude More Pages:

• Be vigilant of additional pages that might not be good for new visitors:

• Member/User Interfaces.• Pricing.• Log In pages. • Awards pages, etc.

Content AmplificationGet in Front of Relevant Folks Fast:

• Many lead generation companies are moving away from demos and free trials and moving to higher funnel, content amplification with gated content.

• Using DSA, you can get in front of these folks quickly, not matter how fast the content churns out.

• That said, it’s important to make sure each page published is vetted before turning live.

• Using templates for publications works well for this.

Create Long Form PagesThey’re Useful in Other Places As Well:

• The biggest challenge most folks run into is the quality of their page content.

• Individual pages focus on one aspect of the product/service, but don’t really say much.

• Stop. Using. Buzzwords.• Solution: Make one long form landing page with all

relevant content and appropriate calls to action and use that.

• Can later be used for generic remarketing or brand advertising.

Remarketing + Dynamic Search

AdsRDSA: Put Those Audience Lists to Use:

• Whether you’re ecommerce or lead generation, RDSA can be a great tool. • Layer your remarketing lists on top of a DSA campaign to bring them back based

on what they did before. • Get creative with custom Audiences in Google Analytics, then import to AdWords.

Remarketing + Dynamic Search

AdsEcommerce:

• Targeting Lists: • High ROI Purchasers. • Previous Purchasers. • Revenue over $500. • Revenue under $50.• Visitors to multiple pages within the

site without a purchase.• Purchasers of specific Brand items.

• Exclusions List:• High bounce rate.

• Targeting Lists:• All visitors.• Users of “basic” products then send

to “premium” pages. • Content downloads.• High site engagement, but no

conversion.• Exclusions:

• Customer lists.• High bounce rate.

Lead Generation:

Analyzing & Optimizing

Performance

What’s Missing?Getting the Data You Need

• DSA Does 2 Things Automatically for You: Headline and Landing Pages• Can we get that data?

• For Landing pages: Of course we can!• For Headlines: Of course we can get a couple examples!

• Tools of the Trade:• Google Analytics • Excel

Google Analytics Set UpCustom Segments

• To start off, you’ll need to ensure you have clear naming convention for your AdWords campaigns. This will make creating the segment easier.

• I use “DSA” in all my DSA campaigns. It’s the easiest, honestly.

• Next, create a custom segment highlighting only your DSA traffic.

Ad HeadlinesAcquisition > AdWords > Keywords

• Then change the Primary Dimension to Ad Content.• All while having only the DSA segment chosen.

Landing Pages & PerformanceBehavior > Site Content > Landing

Pages• Keep the DSA segment as the only one active. • You can view nearly every stat you would analyze for other pages.

Pivoting the PagesExport to Excel:

• Regular reviews of top performing pages can be very valuable. • Download your Landing Page report as a csv. • Find and replace your domain name to remove it from lines if needed.• Then rename each instance of “/” with “/homepage”.


• Then run Text to columns using “/” as your delimiter.• Then rename each column to Path 1, Path 2, etc.• End result: pivot table worth set of stats you’re able to analyze at each level within the

page based on your site structure.


• Create custom columns for bounces, pages visited, based on the values within the spreadsheet:

• Bounces = Session x Bounce Rate

• Pages per Session = AvgPages per Session x Sessions.

• Use these stats to analyze cumulative data for folders/categories on the site.

The Ultimate Goal of DSA…

The Ultimate Goal of DSA…

…is to render it useless.

She’s Nuts…Right? The topic is using DSA in EVERY account...

• You heard me. • The ultimate goal is to render it

useless. • My hope, however, is that you

find enough ways to use it that it continues to be a long time asset in your accounts.

How to Render it Useless Regular Actions for DSA:

• Regularly mine search queries to find: • New keyword variations to add to your regular search campaigns. • New negatives to add to your campaigns/account.

• Regularly review landing pages to find pages to:• Segment into their own ad groups for targeting. • Exclude based on poor performance.

What’s Yet to Come?

ETAs for DSAExpanded Text Ads:

• Work is ongoing with these. • We can expect to have these in early 2017. • Right around the time you’ll have to use them for all other campaigns.

Similar Audiences for SearchFinally:

• Announced earlier this year and recently released in beta.

• Similar to what we’re doing with display campaigns, test out serving similar audiences to your site via DSA.

• Look to create similar audiences off of your further segmented lists that we talked about earlier (purchasers, big orders, repeat customers, etc.)

Demographic Targets for SearchLeveraging Demographics:

• Announced earlier this year, no ETA on betas just yet.• Use these as additional layers within your campaigns or break out campaigns

for different groupings to test out different messages based on these demographic differences.

Questions?

THANK YOU!

Michel le Morgan

miche l le@cl i xmarke t ing .com | @miche l lemsem