Finally, the love bug season is behind us, and it's post-event chocolates are now available for cheap!

Along with Valentine's Day coming to pass, we have also uncovered some new insights to how consumers perform searches for their gifting endeavors on this special day.

Valentine's Day 2020 Google Search Trends

Valentine's Day Searches spike from February 11 to February 13

More Searches for 'Gifts for Men' than 'Gifts for Women'

Source: Google Search Data, U.S., Dec. 25, 2018–Feb. 28, 2019.

Of Valentine's Day GIFs and Gifts

Source: Google Search Data, U.S., Dec. 25, 2018–Feb. 28, 2019.

Valentine's Day - Not Just for Your Significant Other

Source: Google Search Data, U.S., Dec. 25, 2018–Feb. 28, 2019.

Too long, didn't read?

Search absolute top impression rate = Impressions on the absolute top/ImpressionsStarting on September 30th (that's today!) Google ads will be removing a feature that many of us have used to gauge our ads performance - the Average Position metrics.

While Google has hinted about the removal since as early as February this year, there were no exact dates until recently.

Absolute Top Impression Rate & Top Impression Rate to Replace Average Position Metrics on Google Ads

Along with the removal of Average Positions, several other features that you might have in your account will also be no longer available:

• Rules using Average Position
• Custom columns with Average Position
• Saved reports with filter on Average Position
• Saved filters with Average Position

Why is Google Removing the Average Position Metrics?

What Does Top Impression Rate Mean?

What Does Absolute Top Impression Rate Mean?

Use Top Impression & Absolute Top Impression to Measure & Optimize Your Ad Performance

Google uses machine learning and AI to power your business ads - we all know that. This is why Google Ads has plenty of options available when it comes to bidding strategies.

12 Google Ads Bidding Strategies You Should Know About

Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) Bidding)

Perfect for:

• Display campaigns
• Display remarketing campaigns

How you're Charged:

• You're charged your bidding amount every time your display ad reaches 1000 impressions 
• Your ad has one impression when your display ad is shown to user, regardless of whether or not the users click on them.

Cost per Viewable Thousand Impressions (vCPM) Bidding

Cost per View (CPV) Bidding

Manual Cost-per-click (CPC) Bidding

Enhanced Cost-per-click (eCPC) Bidding

Target Search Page Location

Target Outranking Share

Target Impression Share Bidding

Target Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

Maximize Conversions

Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) Bidding

Have you ever compared your Google Ads performance report with your Google Analytics and noticed a discrepancy in the number of clicks?

This could be caused by several reasons - it could be due to the wrong date settings, looking at the wrong views or it could be some technical errors.

If you have noticed a discrepancy between the number of clicks on Google Ads & Google Analytics, check each item in the checklist below to find out if you're looking at the right settings first.

Troubleshooting Click Data Discrepancies Between Google Ads and Analytics

Here's a checklist to rule out potential human / technical errors that led to this data discrepancy.

1) Check linked account

1. Go to analytics.google.com and click on the gear icon (admin).
2. Check if you're looking at the right account and property first. 
3. Under the second column marked 'Property', check under 'Google Ads Linking' to see if you have linked your Google Analytics account to the right Google Ads account ID.

2) Check if you're looking at a filtered view

1. Go to analytics.google.com and click on the gear icon (admin).
2. Under the third column marked 'View', check if you have any activated filters. These filters can cause some impressions, clicks and more to be filtered out from Google Analytics, causing the number to be fewer than those shown in Google Ads.

3) Check date range 

1. Go to analytics.google.com and click on Acquisition, then go to 'Google Ads' and click on 'Campaigns'. You can look at other sub-columns, but looking at campaigns will be a good start.
2. Check the data range on the upper right corner of Google Analytics and Google Ads and make sure that they are the same ad range.

4) Check again in 24 hours

If you're comparing the stats for the current date, there may be a time delay for the data to show up either on Google Ads or Google Analytics. Give it a day or two and see if the issue persists. Alternatively, look up the data up to the previous day.

5) Check if you're looking at Total Clicks in Google Ads

Have you gone through the list? Does the problem still persist? Here's a few possible explanations as to why the number of clicks are different in these two platforms.

Possible Reasons for Click Data Discrepancies between Google Ads and Analytics

Wrong Implementation of Google Site Tag

Script Is Not Firing to Record Clicks

On the 13th of May, Google released an article explaining the impact of using Performance Planner as tested during its beta phase.

As it turns out, advertisers were able to increase their conversions by 43% after optimizing their ad spend with this new feature!

If you remember the old Google Ads interface, there was a feature that this new planner was probably built upon - the Google AdWords Budget Planner.

Here's What the Google Ads Performance Planner Does

You can use this feature to:

• Create an ad spend plan to view Google Ad's forecasts for how well your campaigns will perform
• Adjust different settings in the planner to see how your forecast will change
• Implement the changes into your Google Ads account based on your plan

What Else Can Google Ads Performance Planner Do?

• View your campaigns' projected monthly and quarterly performance
• Obtain campaign settings suggestions to improve its performance for the same ad spend
• Explore how your ad spend and performance goals might be affected if you change the campaign settings

How Does Google Ads Performance Planner Work?

To find out if your selection of keywords are viable or performing well, the Performance planner will process the performance of billions of search queries, and these performances are updated everyday. It then runs simulations of ad auctions with different factors including:

• Seasonality
• Competitor activity
• Landing page relevance
• ... and others

The forecasts and simulations do not stop there - the Performance Planner will continue to use machine learning to fine-tune your forecasts, and so you can expect this advanced algorithm to measure its own accuracy across periods of 1-, 7-, 30-, and 90-day periods as well.

What are the Requirements for My Google Ads Account to be Eligible to use Performance Planner?

Your campaign is eligible to use Google Ads Performance Planner if it:

• Has been running for at least 72 hours (3 full days)
• Has received at least 3 clicks in the past 7 days
• Has received at least 1 conversion in the past 7 days (if your campaign goal is steered towards conversions)
• Are Search campaigns using either manual cost-per-click (CPC), enhanced CPC, or target cost-per-action (CPA) bidding strategies.

There is no better way to understand a Google Ad feature more than by testing it out yourself - so why not go check it out and see how it can help your campaign to get more conversions?

New to Google Ads? Without taking the free classes Google's Academy for Ads, the interface would be confusing to say the least.

Let's introduce you to some of the terms that you will see on Google Ads before you venture into the free classes and the interface itself! If you're looking for a specific term, you can click on CTRL + F to find it in this list.

Familiarize Yourself with These Google Ads Terminologies

Account Structure Terminologies

Account

The biggest structure you can have in Google Ads interface. Having one Google Ads account  means you will have one billing info, one log-in email and one password to access it. It's just like any other accounts that you have elsewhere, and you can share access to the account later on too.

Here, you can choose your billing preference - monthly invoicing or credit card and your account timezone.

Responsive ads have been around for a while. These ads allow you to add multiple headlines, descriptions and images in a single ad slot, so you don’t have to create multiple ad assets for your display ad units.

Recently, Google came up with three new features in responsive display ads, making this ad format even more convenient and reliable.

New Features in Google Responsive Display Ads

You Can Now Include Video Assets In Your Responsive Display Ads

Previously, responsive display ads can be made up of images and logos in landscape and square formats. You can also include short headlines, long headlines, several descriptions and your own CTA button as well.

Now, Google has included the option of adding up to five 30-second YouTube video clips in your responsive display ads as well. It is already known that video assets can help users to gain more visibility as compared to a plain image or test ad, so this addition of a video asset can improve your ad’s performance.

Find Out Which Ad Works & Which Ones Don’t with Combination Report

With that many headlines and descriptions, it’s hard for you to know which ad combination is being seen by your audiences, and which ones are working.

There’s the ad combination report for that. When you click into the responsive display ad units, there will be two tabs at the top - assets & combinations. Click on the ‘combinations’ tab to find out how well your assets are doing, and which combination in particular is gaining you more clicks and interests.

This is why it is important for headline and description varieties to be included when you are creating a responsive display ad - if all of these are similar to each other, then you can never see a significant difference in the results. Think of responsive display ads as a method to A/B test your headlines and descriptions!

Create Good Responsive Display Ads with an Ad Strength Scorecard

If you aren’t sure what to insert in the headlines and description slots, or if your responsive display ad is strong enough, try referring to the ad strength scorecard.

This scorecard will assess the number and types of images that you have, whether your headlines and descriptions are unique enough with sufficient number of words in it

There is also a middle column with the phrase ‘Next Steps’ that you can refer to in order to increase your Google Responsive Display ad strength.

So, these are some of the newer features introduced for Google responsive display ads so far. How many of these features have you already tried and is actively using? Let us know in the comments section below and don’t hesitate to ask us if you have further questions about Google ads, Facebook ads or other digital marketing platforms and methods!

Your potential clients are always online - that’s nothing new. After all, why wouldn’t they be? A single search and a few clicks is all it takes for them to find all the options they will ever need for services and products that they are looking for. These same customers can conduct their entire research process online, making them exceptionally educated in making their purchasing choices.

However, regardless of how high-tech online shops can get, there are still some purchases that requires the customers’ presence in person.


Before online shopping and researching became a thing like it is today, most car shoppers would shop for cars fully within showrooms, requiring visits to various different showrooms before they decide on one to purchase. Today, an average new car buyer visits only two car dealerships before they finalize their purchase.

Since these potential buyers can now research and compare different car brands and models online, these buyers are already very educated about the entire buying process, so auto dealerships now need to step up their game and adjust their buying experience accordingly.

What A Car Dealership In Texas Did to Adapt to Modernized Car Purchasing Experience

Let’s just say that Park Place has optimized their website to shorten the time required for their customers to get the keys to their new cars at their dealerships.

Park Place recognizes the fact their potential customers initiates their first contact with them online, long before they decide to step into available showrooms for their next purchasing step.

Customers Purchase 2x Faster When They Engage With Park Place’s Website As Compared to Other Auto Internet Sources

The revolutionary move that Park Place took was to add a ‘Path to Purchase’ tool onto their site, allowing potential customers to complete up to 80% of their purchase online. Throughout this entire process, customers can always go for the chat option to talk to a Park Place consultant if they need any help. The purchase pathway was broken down into 6 steps as detailed below.


Step 1: Customers can browse their preferred vehicle models and choose one.
Step 2: Customers obtain instant pricing and financing options.
Step 3: Customers can enter their credit score to explore possible financial solutions.
Step 4: Enter your trade-in for instant redemption (if you are planning to).
Step 5: Include add-ons such as extended warranty, insurance or others.
Step 6: Submit information and schedule a meeting with a sales experience manager to finalize purchase and collect your keys. Car can also be delivered to customers’ home or office.

Notice how most of a car buyer’s worries and needs are addressed with this Path to Purchase?



Outstanding move, Park Place! They were very well rewarded by prioritizing their customers’ purchasing journey too!

Park Place’s Customer-centric Path to Purchase Tool Increased Online Car Purchase by 23%

Park Place did not just create and implement their tool on their website. They were also aware of the importance of mobile accessibility and searches.


In fact, 60% of automotive searches are from mobile devices.

This is why Park Place gave their mobile site a makeover so that their users can directly call the sales team, schedule their next servicing appointment, or get directions to the closest dealership near them.

Their results? Over 15,000 directions-related visits and 12,000 click-to-calls on a monthly basis.

Park Place’s Paid Search Strategy

Needless to say, most online users would use searches as their research tool when purchasing a car. They placed higher bids for in-market audience for new cars and for car-related searches.

They also bid higher for mobile users to reach more mobile users, in accordance to the higher search rates for automotives on mobile devices.

How Park Place Measured Their Online Marketing Results

Rather than focusing only on the lower funnels such as lead generation or purchases, their marketing team switched their perspectives and started to look at offline visits to their stores, which was achievable via Google’s Store Visits. This feature is only open to a number of Google advertisers due to its requirements, but Park Place was able to meet them all and utilize this function.

Quoting Kennedy Gibson, the director of digital marketing for Park Place dealerships, he said, “One in five people that click on our paid search ads end up visiting one of our dealerships, which just proves to us that we are putting our ads in the right place.”

Key Takeaway from Park Place's Marketing Efforts & Results

Improving potential customers’ online browsing experience and creating a seamless experience for them can prepare them better for visits to showrooms and your physical stores. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that online experiences do not drive offline results!

Source: https://goo.gl/a6obH2

Picture yourself scrolling through the latest posts on your social media feed. Once in a while, you’d see a friend or two posting about their most recent vacation. It might be your dream honeymoon destination, or perhaps it could be just another short getaway that you start to find yourself itching to go for.

Whichever destination it is that has piqued your interest, you are dreaming about that holiday trip now.

That’s stage one. Most of us don’t get past that stage, but if we do, then it’s going for the next two phases - planning and booking.

As you might expect, the stage where we plan our next trip will always take the longest. We start researching about the best cuisines in that location, the must-visit areas, the travel reviews and many more. This process could span over weeks or months.

Here’s the million dollar question.

Can travel marketers utilise videos to help move these potential travellers down the purchase funnel?

Based on Airbnb’s latest branding campaign, the answer seems to lean towards a big yes!

Airbnb’s Goals & Challenges

Airbnb has over 5 million home-sharing listings distributed over 81,000 cities globally. When this branding campaign was launched, these were its main challenges & goals:

• Increase customer consideration for their listings in Latin America where customers know about Airbnb, but are not sure about how it works.
• Effectively compete with traditional accommodation chains in Brazil.

Airbnb turned to YouTube - the second largest video platform in Brazil to encourage these target audiences to book their next trip.

They included a human touch into their video campaigns, showcasing the warmth and hospitality of the Brazilian culture into their videos. This consists of a showcase of Brazil’s lush greeneries, colour-popping oil paintings, and the videos also feature 6 Airbnb hosts in Brazil with a short and sweet welcoming message, “Pode entrar,” or in English, “You may come in.”


Sarah Galvao, senior brand marketing manager of Airbnb in Latin America, shared her reasons for the concept behind the branding videos by saying, “We wanted to highlight local stories so people can see themselves. The best way to talk about Airbnb is through the heart of the community: the hosts. Every video features real hosts, real homes, and real stories.”

The best part of their promotional videos that made it more than just a branding campaign? Airbnb made them actionable - users can take action after viewing the videos. Here’s how.

4 Ways Airbnb’s Actionable Video Branding Campaign Achieved Its Success

Airbnb Tested Their Brand Campaign On A Smaller Scale First

This accommodation company first tested its campaign on a smaller scale, running its test campaign during the offseason to test the efficacy of Google’s recent video ad offering - TrueView for Action.

Airbnb added the call-to-action (CTA) “Reservar” - reserve in English - to their videos, bringing interested video viewers to their website to search for accommodations with their preferred dates.

By testing their video ad campaign during the offseason, Airbnb was able to test their campaign and video strategies with a smaller budget and find out what works best before they launch their global campaigns.

Airbnb Utilized Machine Learning to Find Their Best Audience

Since Airbnb already has a good number of conversion data, Smart Bidding becomes a viable option for them, helping them to identify the most engaged audience through consumer patterns & search terms and target them for higher conversion rates and volumes.

Airbnb ran this campaign for two months. Throughout this duration, Dwight Pirtle, the programmatic and paid social lead at Airbnb agreed that it was tempting to change the campaign settings now and then, but also knew the importance of giving at least two weeks for their TrueView for Action campaigns.

Create New Creatives to Find New Audience

Understandably, Airbnb’s marketing assets are usually focused on reaching the in-market audience for travelling. Machine learning and smart bidding strategies also further accentuate their marketing efforts to reach those most likely to convert.

However, Pirtle has also agreed that they still need to find new audiences with their digital assets. As such, their video assets for this campaign have one main message “Pode entrar” all while covering different interests, themes and passions in them, including surfing, gardening and painting.

Airbnb paired these video assets with different themes and passions with affinity audience targeting on their video campaigns. This means that viewers that are about to start watching a video related to traditional arts or painting would see the video ad featuring their Airbnb host with a passion for oil painting, as an example.

Measure the Full-funnel Impact for the Branding Campaign

Here’s a quote from Pirtle that we loved.

“The way to gain a competitive advantage is to build in micro-conversions to inspire people and move them further down the funnel,” he said.

Contrary to usual marketing tracking and reporting, this campaign saw to it that the Airbnb marketing team linked the results of their latest campaign from the initial branding phase right down to the end of the funnel when the video viewers convert to reserve accommodation through Airbnb.

The result of this video campaign with all 4 pointers for their TrueView for Action campaign?

Airbnb received a staggering 142% increase in their branded search terms and a 14% increase in booking, showing that branding campaigns can increase their sales with the right strategies. Airbnb has also informed that they will be analysing their data over 120 days instead of their typical 30-day duration since most individuals will need a long time to plan their trip.

Source: Think with Google

Knock knock! Have you updated the Google My Business account for your business yet?

Over the past few months, Google has been pushing this particular product for business owners and advertisers. Here's how keeping an updated Google My Business account would impact you.

How Google My Business is Impacting Your Business

Your Location Is On The Map!

Manual Location Extensions No Longer Supported

'Near Me' Searches

Along with a new user interface and being rebranded as Google Ads about a month ago, Google AdWords have also introduced a new targeting option for display ads - Custom intent targeting. This game-changing feature has just started getting more coverage and usage among digital marketing agencies, and here’s what you need to know about it.

Custom Intent - What Is It?

Custom intent audience means quite literally what the two words mean together. By using this targeting option, you can go beyond the predefined targeting options such as the existing categories in interest or in-market targeting. This is where you can insert keywords and URLs (psst! Your competitor URLs!) for Google to find the best audience for your products. You will also be able to target your audience’s intents - individuals who are simply browsing around, adding items into carts or purchasing online. All you need is a few specific URLs and relevant keywords! Keep in mind that custom intent targeting is for display campaigns only, and will not be an available option for search - at least as of now.

What Does Custom Intent Do?

Basically, custom intent targeting allows you to target your competitors’ visitors, but not in a way that is as direct as you might expect. Do note that creating a custom intent audience list with your competitor’s URL will not put your ads on your competitor’s website, although your ads could show up if said website has open ad slots.

How Do I Target My Competitors?

You’ll definitely need to know who your competitors are first! Here’s 3 ways that you can do so:

You might already know your direct competitors in your business line, such as the shop selling the same products with yours just two lanes down, or another agency providing the same services for the same costs in a busier city center, as an example. You can target their specific product pages which are more relevant towards your own products and add in keywords. This is one of the easiest way to get started with locating your competitors.

If you have run a Google Ad campaign or two with us, you might have gained some insights into how you perform against your competitors with us via the Auction Insights function. This is where you find out how much search or display impressions you have lost due to insufficient budget and how much of it is lost due to your lower ad ranks, along with other metrics such as your top of the page rate and most crucially - which competitors are taking up your ad slots.

If you are just starting up with your first campaign and have some keywords in mind already, you can search these keywords up on Google to see which companies are taking up the ad slots for your own reference. If they are selling the same products or services with your business, you already found yourself a possible competitor!

How Does Custom Intent Target My Competitors?

Aha! Here’s the interesting part. Two sections above, we have mentioned that custom intent targeting does not directly target your competitors.

You see, after you have created your own custom intent list with your competitor URLs and specific product keywords, Google’s super smart machine will do its magic and find out which category of people are frequently browsing through the relevant topics, keywords, websites, products et cetera.

Here’s An Example

You are selling laptops online. The easiest targeting option for you without custom intent would probably be interest targeting - Technology and gadgets & online shopping, for example. But is this the only way your audience is defined?

You have a few competitors who are also selling laptops online, and you know their website URLs. Let’s say you create your own custom intent audience list with these URLs, and some hot-selling product keywords that you have in common with the other shops.

You launch your display campaign with this list, and Google starts finding the common point between the site visitors of the compiled URLs and keywords in your list. Google algorithms then determined that individuals with an interest in photography and books, and are also recently searching for home furniture (in-market audience) are another prominent group of audience looking to purchase laptops online, just as much as the audience that you initially set if not more.

Google then shows your display ads on available ad slots when these people are browsing, and voila! You have just shown your ads to people outside your range of predefined audience who turns out to be more likely to purchase from you than your direct competitors.

Without a custom intent audience list, you could have missed out this huge chunk of audience who might be buying from you next. With this new Google Ads feature, you can expect the digital ad competition to get even stronger now, so you should definitely start early and get ahead of your competitors! By the way, PanPages TRINITY will be happy to answer your inquiries about this feature and more. Simply leave your inquiry on our official website or call us at 03-5611 8099 to find out more!

Cold calls like this can be difficult when it involves business owners that are new to Google Ads, and they often have plenty of questions about it. This guide will answer the top 5 FAQs about Google Ads if you are completely new to it.

5 Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is Google Ads?

When you are using Google Ads’ services, you’re basically showing your ads either in text, image (GIFs too!), video or other formats across the Google network. Depending on your business type and objective, we will suggest a different Ads campaign type to you.

2. What types of Google Ads advertising formats are there?

There’s generally four types of Google Ads campaigns that you can run.

Google Search

Your text ads can be shown  at the premium slots of Google search results.

Google Display 

Your images & animated GIFs can appear on Google-affiliated or partners’  websites, Gmail inbox & more.

Video Ads

Your videos can show up before or during a YouTube video’s playthrough.

Shopping Ads

Your products will be showcased with their brands, pricing & your company name above Google organic search results.

Universal App

Advertise your mobile app or game on Google Play, search results & more.

3. What’s the best Google Ads campaign type for me?

a) Do you want to be found when people need your services or products? 

E.g.: As a plumber, your customers might have leaky pipes at home. When they search for ‘leaky pipes repair’ on Google, you want them to see your ads.
If you said yes, you need: Google Ads Search

b) Are you intending to do a branding campaign? 

E.g.: You have a new product line that does not cater to a narrow target market segment. We’re talking about food chains, clothing, home furnishing, etc that can be used by everyone.
If you said yes, you need: Google Ads Display

c) Do you have an e-commerce website where customers can purchase online?

E.g.: Websites such as Amazon, Taobao, Lazada, or Shopee. Your products could have specific model names with several color and size selections.
If you said yes, you need: Google Shopping Ads

d) Do you have a creative video production team whose finished videos you’d like to show off?

E.g.: Imagine TV ads & advertisements ran before a movie starts in a cinema, and bring that to YouTube before other videos start. That’s how simple it is!
If you said yes, you need: Video Ads

e) Looking for more downloads for your mobile app or perhaps involved players for your new mobile game?

E.g.: You might see a ‘sponsored’ sign next to some apps while you’re browsing Google Play Store or App Store.
If you said yes, you need: Universal App Advertising

4. What’s The Prices?

Here’s the best part - Most of the time, you get charged only when people click into your ads. We say ‘most of the time’, because some ad formats such as video ads or app downloads are charged based on views and number of downloads.

This means that your ads can show frequently on Google search results, but if no one clicked on it, you don’t have to pay a single cent! As such, you might only need a small budget to get your first Google Ads campaign running. However, a bigger budget can help you to reach more customers later on if you decide to run a consequent Ads campaign.

You can also set different budgets for products with different priority levels, which we will talk about in a later guide.

5. How Does It Work?

Let’s use Google Ads Search as an example, since it’s one of the most common Google Ads campaign utilized by businesses.

Here’s an overview: You have your account, then you have your campaign(s), and you can categorize your products or services into different groups. Then, under these groups, you have different text ads and keywords that will trigger the ad to launch when people search for it. Let’s give you a better idea by having an example.

You are from Travilla Traveling Agency and you provide 3 tour packages for Bangkok, Vietnam and Malaysia. Perhaps you have a 20% discount promotion for Vietnam tours for the entire year, while your Malaysia tour package features a local tour guide & free accommodation. Maybe there’s no ongoing promotion for Bangkok tours, so you’d rather promote your tour packages for the other two countries. You plan to allocate RM100 in total as your daily budget.

So, we will structure your account as below:


     Account Name: Travilla Traveling Agency
     Campaign 01: Promotion-Enabled (Daily Budget of RM85)
     Campaign 02: No Promotion (Daily Budget of RM15)