AdWords Editor’s new custom rules let you quickly see what’s missing in your accounts

Google really wants advertisers to adopt their best practices. The latest version of AdWords Editor, version 12, has a whole new section to show you where you’re not complying, along with some other new features.

Custom Rules

The new “Custom Rules” section can be found in the left navigation pane in AdWords Editor (AWE). It will report on warnings for not having at least four sitelink or callout extensions, using manual bidding, not having search audiences assigned to campaigns, not having conversion tracking set up and more. And if it wasn’t clear yet that Google really, really, truly wants advertisers to quit it with the basic A/B ad testing, there’s a built-in custom rule to show you how many ad groups have fewer than three ads.

Below is a screen shot showing the list of built-in custom rules. They will show up even if there are no violations, just with a “0” in that column.

Also shown in the screenshot is the editor pane for setting up your own custom rules to be able to quickly spot warnings and errors. You build the filter for the custom rule in the violation criteria box. Custom rules can also be set up to apply to campaign and ad group labels, which is pretty handy.

To then see what entities are in violation for any custom rule, there are a couple of ways to go about it:

1. From the Custom rules section, you can right-click on a rule and select “Show violations” at the bottom of the menu (h/t Jonathan Maltz).
2. You can build a filter by clicking in the filters box and scrolling down to select among the drop-down options under “Custom rule violation filters,” as Frederic Harnois pointed out in the tweet below.

Other updates

The first thing you’ll notice when you update to the new AWE 12 is a subtle new design change (you can tweet feedback to the AdWords team). As far as features go, the new AWE supports maximizing conversions bid strategy, image uploads for Universal App campaigns and responsive ads creation and editing.

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About The Author

As Third Door Media's paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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New Adobe voice analytics will capture data from all the major virtual assistants

With 50 percent of search expected to be voice-driven within three years (per comScore), voice interactions with mobile devices and smart speakers become a critical source of data for marketers and enterprises. For this reason, Adobe is introducing a new voice analytics capability as part of its Adobe Experience Cloud.

The new offering will capture and process voice data for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana, Siri and Samsung Bixby. Adobe reported that sales of voice-enabled devices grew 39 percent year over year. Another voice analytics firm, VoiceLabs, projected 30 million smart speakers/virtual assistants in US homes by the end of the year.

Source: Adobe

I spoke with Adobe’s Colin Morris, director of product management for Adobe Analytics. Morris said Adobe voice analytics will parse speech interactions and be able to understand user intent and the relevant objects of those requests — for example, ordering a pizza from a specific vendor.

He said that the system will also understand whether the query was actually answered and any follow-up actions (e.g., reservation, sale). That’s possible because Adobe is able to access its customers’ broader data sets. Indeed, voice analytics data can be combined with other Adobe Cloud data to yield deeper audience insights.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (Adobe Sensei) are driving all of this in the background. Morris said much of the analysis and recommendations will be automated, making it easier for customers to make sense of the data. Data overload and weak analysis is a major problem in enterprises today.

Many of the hypotheticals Adobe provided during our call were well ahead of where many of its customers are today. In terms of 360-degree audience analysis and related customer and media-buying insights, most enterprises are at the very early stages of taking advantage of what’s possible. The notion of how voice interactions with Alexa might inform a subsequent email or display ad campaign is pretty advanced compared to where most brands still are today.

Nonetheless, it’s important for marketers to understand what’s possible and start engaging with these tools, like Adobe voice analytics. That can help them to better understand their customers’ needs and maximize the efficiency of their marketing spend.

Most enterprises, however, are typically slow to respond to changes in consumer behavior. For example, a recent BrightEdge survey of 252 enterprise digital marketers found that while “voice search/digital assistants” was identified as the top new technology trend, 62 percent said they were “not likely” to do anything about it this year.

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About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog,

Screenwerk

, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on

Twitter

or find him at

Google+

.

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Search in Pics: Old Google trailer, Google Dance Tokyo shirt & really clean Google server room

In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Really big Google beach chair and beach ball:

Source: Instagram

Old fashion Google trailer:

Source: Instagram

Clean Google server room:

Source: Twitter

Google indoor tire swing:

Source: Instagram

Google Dance – the Tokyo version t-shirt:

Source: Twitter

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Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Update Underway, EU Fines, AdWords Features & Danny Sullivan Retires

It was a busy week in the search industry. First update, there was a Google algorithm and search update over the weekend that Google won’t yet confirm. Google said there was no Fred update, at least the name of it. Google said if you want to prepare for the mobile first index, make sure your mobile site is available for crawl. Google launched a new Test My Site feature that measures visitor loss based on site speed. Google News launched their first big redesign in seven years. Google was fined $2.7 billion by the EU over their shopping search feature. Google also has to take down content based on requests from Canadian courts. Google said those spammy links pointing to your highly ranked competitor’s site isn’t helping them rank so well. Google may launch more featured snippets in other languages oon. Google tests a new search refinement by material and more. Google updated their structured data developer docs. Google said Googlers themselves submit 20-50 search results complaints per day. Google Posts not available for you yet, here is how to let Google know about it. Google AdWords launched version 12 of the AdWords Editor. Google AdWords is testing a button to autocreate ad headlines. Google is testing larger images on the hotel listings. Reddit users tells us what is the worst thing about SEO. Finally, Danny Sullivan announced he is done writing and covering search. That was this past week in search at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

VIDEO For the original iTunes version, click here.

Search Topics of Discussion:

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

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MarTech Today: Snaps’ Conversational Cloud, dynamically personalized ads & the future of modern commerce

Here's our daily recap of what happened in marketing technology, as reported on MarTech Today, Marketing Land and other places across the web. From MarTech Today: Snaps launches a Marketing Cloud for chatbots, messaging and emojis Jun 29, 2017 by Barry Levine New York City-based company is offering a self-service platform so marketers can target users with automated conversations. Advertisers can dynamically personalize native ads with Flashtalking & Sharethrough partnership [...]

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KnowledgeVision’s Knovio 3.0 is Not Your Old School Online Video Platform

KnowledgeVision Systems, a leader in smart media creation and hosting technology, has announced the immediate availability of a major update to Knovio, its cloud-based online video platform. Knovio 3.0 dramatically expands the capabilities of an online media platform that’s already used by more than 235,000 registered users in more than 2,000 companies and campuses on six continents.

Knovio supports a comprehensive set of online video formats, from simple drag-and-drop video hosting and streaming to rich, interactive video-enhanced online presentations with embedded assessments. All Knovio-based videos are played through responsive, HTML5-based smart players, viewable in any web browser or mobile device without special plug-ins or apps. Knovio videos can be embedded in websites, shared through social media, and posted into third-party systems like CRM’s, marketing automation, sales enablement platforms, and learning management systems.

New Features in Knovio 3.0

The Knovio 3.0 update includes:

• New smart media players for adaptive-bitrate video streaming and presentation “flip decks”;
• New workflows for creating trackable online video content from video and presentation files;
• New collaboration tools for inviting others into the video creation process;
• New showcase building tools for creating, sharing, and tracking instant video collections and microsites;
• New comprehensive dashboards that reveal insights from a patented system for tracking, engagement scoring, and connections to third-party systems; and
• An entirely new user experience that features smart file type detection for uploaded media, suggesting all the next steps a user might take with an uploaded file.

In an interview via email, KnowledgeVision CEO Michael Kolowich said, “It’s time for business video platforms to raise their game. That means embedding video creation tools, collaboration workflows, deep viewer-by-viewer engagement metrics, interactive smart players, instant video microsites, and quizzing right into their platforms. Knovio 3.0 raises the bar by offering all these features in an easy drag-and-drop interface.”

Knovio offers a range of editions to meet the needs of every type of video user:

• Knovio Enterprise Edition, for company-wide video platform deployments;
• Knovio Corporate Edition, for workgroups, departments, and teams;
• Knovio Suite, which gives the full range of Knovio’s tools to power communicators;
• Knovio Gold, for educators and trainers who want to build learning video assets;
• Knovio Pro, an entry-level product for individual business professionals;
• Knovio Student Edition, which places many pro features in the hands of students;
• Knovio Lite, a limited free product for creating simple video and online presentations.

Evaluation and review accounts are available for analysts and media, along with a downloadable evaluation guide, by visiting www.knovio.com/media.

Quick evaluation of Knovio 3.0

I took Knovio 3.0 for a quick spin around the block and here’s what I found: The principal building block of the Knovio system is its Smart Player. The Knovio Smart Player combines one or more content streams, navigation, and widgets such as dynamic footnotes, searchable follow-along transcripts, quizzes, and question forms into a complete, measurable interactive multimedia experience.

Knovio is designed to host three principal types of cloud-based media content:

• On-demand and live video streams;
• Interactive video presentations; and
• Self-paced presentation “flip decks.”

As a Knovio user, you are able to:

• Upload or create video content using Knovio’s integrated platform tools;
• Format the video content using one of more than two dozen customizable player design templates;
• Enhance it by adding chapters, footnotes and attachments, programmable zooms, and attachments;
• Augment it with a multi-part quiz or assessment, which would be very handy to have in many of the online courses that I teach;
• Organize it along with other content into an online showcase;
• Register who’s viewing the content using a guest book, and secure it with a password and other access controls;
• Invite collaborators to contribute content; and
• Measure the performance of both your content and of individual viewers in absorbing your message, using KnowledgeVision’s patented integrated tracking, analytics, and engagement scoring system.

The Knovio Video Showcase

The second principal building block of the Knovio platform is the Video Showcase. A showcase is an organized collection of video content that can be launched in minutes and revised with a few clicks of a mouse.

These branded showcases have their own custom web address, and can be as public or private as you want. Corporate and enterprise-level showcases can incorporate pull-down menus and filters that turn a showcase into a full-fledged microsite for rich, highly accessible collections of video and rich media content. Among the brands using Knovio are ADP, Aetna, Bazaarvoice, McDonalds, Merck, and the NBA.

Upload and share a presentation Flip Deck

A “Flip Deck” is a way to take a presentation — sourced from either PowerPoint or PDF – and turn it into a Knovio that can be shared and viewed in exactly the same way that other Knovio video or online presentations can be viewed or shared. When sourced from PowerPoint, Knovio flip decks preserve and play slide animations. I can’t tell you how many of the online courses that I teach at either Rutgers Business School Executive Education or Simplilearn are built around PowerPoint presentations, but I’ve been creating them since 2007 – so this is a key feature for me.

Organize your Knovios into a branded video showcase

A Knovio Showcase is a way to gather together multiple Knovio videos, interactive presentations, and flip decks into a branded collection, arranged in an attractive branded grid, with its own address on the web. They can be assembled in minutes, and can be updated and rearranged with a few mouse clicks. I’ve been uploading videos to YouTube since 2006, and it doesn’t offer anything like this – and neither does Facebook Video.

Add a guestbook to a Knovio

Knovio offers a unique and patented tracking system that measures how viewers are interacting with your Knovio video content. While tracking is enabled automatically, viewers are tracked anonymously unless: a.) you add a guestbook to the presentation or showcase; b.) you use Knovio to email a presentation to a particular viewer; or c.) you add viewer-specific tracking information to a Knovio link you send out. Neither YouTube nor Facebook Video offers anything like this.

Add a quiz to a Knovio

Knovio allows the creation and insertion of multi-part quizzes into any Knovio. Questions can be graded or ungraded multiple-choice, or open response. You can specify how the quiz should be scored, what the passing grade is, and even issue a personalized PDF completion certificate when a viewer passes the assessment. I could have used this feature scores of times over the past 10 years.

Invite a collaborator to create a Knovio

With Knovio, you can invite someone else to create or narrate an interactive presentation, even if that person doesn’t have a Knovio account. The resulting content will return back to you for review, and, if you accept it, will reside in your Knovio Library. Now, I’ve flown solo for virtually all of the online courses that I’ve taught over the past decade, although I have often collaborated with colleagues during workshops held on site. So, I could use this feature with a couple of Buckeyes from The Ohio State University who I know (I’m a Wolverine from the University of Michigan).

Analyze your content’s performance

Driven by its patented engagement measurement system, Knovio offers the deepest analytics available from any online video content platform. Now, if you’re just trying Knovio out for the first time, then you won’t yet have the kinds of data and insights that you will once thousands of people have viewed your Knovios. But I encourage you to browse some of the reports that they’ve made available to check out. Every time a Knovio is viewed, their servers record information about how long it was viewed, how the viewer interacted with it, quiz answers and results, and detailed guestbook information.

I’ve just scratched the surface of Knovio’s comprehensive video platform and multimedia functionality. Kick its tires for yourself. Here’s something that you can try: Use the “Sync” feature to build an interactive multimedia experience by syncing pre-recorded video of someone giving a presentation (such as a keynote speech, employee meeting, or analyst briefing) with the slides for that presentation. This requires a small piece of downloadable software called KVStudio, which is included with all Knovio Suite, Corporate, and Enterprise Edition accounts. As a former speechwriter for the CEOs of Wang Laboratories, Data General, and Lotus Development Corporation in the 1980s as well as Ziff-Davis in the 1990s, I would have loved to have had this capability back then. But, it’s available today – so KnowledgeVision’s Knovio 3.0 is not your father’s online video platform.

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Greg Jarboe is the President and co-founder of SEO-PR, a content marketing agency. He’s on the faculty at the Rutgers Business School and Market Motive. Jarboe is the author of YouTube and VideoMarketing as well as a contributor to Strategic Digital Marketing, Complete B2B Online Marketing, and Enchantment. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, he also writes for ReelSEO and ClickZ.

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The ultimate law of mobile site design: Entertain users and drive conversion

Most consumers rely on their smartphones to make purchases and gain knowledge. In 2017, any business that lacks a mobile presence runs a serious risk of falling behind.

But it’s not just about having a site – it needs to provide a good experience. According to Google, 29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.

Mobile users are goal-oriented, and they expect to find what they need from a responsive mobile instantly and easily. So punch up your conversion rates by designing your mobile site with the user’s intent and needs in focus.

1. Homepage and navigation

A homepage can serve as a promotional space and welcome page, but should provide users with the content they are searching for. A conversion focused homepage should tick off the following elements: concise CTAs, homepage shortcuts, minimal selling or promotions.

Navigating on a smaller screen, it is easy for users to miss key elements on your homepage. Therefore it is advisable to put your calls-to-action where users will see them easily, such as occupying the bottom half or above the fold.

Your call-to-action signifies the tipping point between conversion and bounce. To design calls-to-action that convert, optimize the copy and design, i.e. choice of words, color, size, fonts, etc.

We understand the travails of losing our way in the mall or a mart? The same happens on mobile sites, the lack of navigation menus or location bars can hurt conversion. Mobile users expect to get back to the homepage with a single tap either through tapping your logo or clicking the home navigation menu. For best practices, use your logo as the homepage shortcut.

Too often, ads and promotion beat the purpose of visiting a page and users get turned off. To entertain visitors and drive conversion, ads or promotional banners should be kept to the minimum and placed in a position which won’t affect the user experience.

To place ads on your homepage, think like a user. What is the user trying to accomplish? Where will their attention be focused? How do I keep the page clean and uncluttered?

By answering these questions, ad placement on your homepage will be a breeze and won’t need to negatively impact user experience.

2. Commerce and reviews

With an increased rate of digitization, users expect smooth mobile experiences when searching, reviewing and purchasing products. How can marketers and businesses increase their conversion rates while ensuring excellent mobile experiences for visitors?

The answer lies in allowing visitors/users to convert on their own terms.

For an ecommerce store, requesting that visitors sign up very early in the customer’s journey is a major turn off. Visitors will abandon a website demanding registration before they can continue, resulting in low conversion unless the site is an authoritative brand.

For better results, allow visitors explore your site before requesting for registration and enable visitors purchase products as a guest. For mobile commerce sites, easy and quick should be the watchword when designing the checkout process.

Best practices for mobile commerce include the availability of multiple payment options for commerce sites. Adding payments options such as Apple Pay, PayPal and Android Pay can boost conversion rates saving users the stress of inputting credit card information. For previous users, load and pre-fill their data fields for convenience in filling shipping information.

Statistics show that 92% of consumers read online reviews before purchasing a product or doing business with a company. Meaning reviews are an important part of the decision-making process for consumers, include reviews on your web pages then allow filters be applied to these reviews. Filters such as “most recent reviews”, “most positive reviews” and “lowest ratings”.

3. Site usability

When it comes to mobile site design, every little detail matters. Details such as zooming, expandable images, transparency about the use of visitors data will aid conversion.

According to studies, users found it easier to navigate a mobile-optimized website than desktop sites on smartphones. To ensure consistency, optimize every single page on your website for mobile devices, including forms, images, etc.

Your search bar should be placed near the top of your homepage for users to search for specific products and ensure the first search results are the best. Remember to include filters on search results to narrow down users intent or preferences on your mobile site.

Be careful not to label the link to your desktop site as full site. This might confuse visitors into thinking the mobile site is not fully featured causing them to opt for the full site, simply label the link to the desktop site as “Desktop Site” and link to the mobile site as “Mobile Site”.

When optimizing a mobile site, remember to disable pinch to zoom on your images as this might affect the general site experience, calls-to-action will be missed and messages will be covered. Basically, upload images that are sized properly and will render perfectly on any device.

Due to the nature of mobile devices, lengthy forms will hurt conversion when trying to gain leads. On surveys or multiple page forms, include a progress bar with upcoming sections at the top or bottom to guide users through the process.

To aid or satisfy customers, implement auto-fill on forms for name, phone and zip code fields. For date and time fields, include a visual calendar as users might not remember dates for the next weekend but the visual calendar will stop users from leaving your page to use the calendar app.

There are numerous resources on forms that include the use of calendars and other custom input fields, including Google forms, Xamarin Forms and FormHub.

4. Technicalities

While great design drives conversions, do not ignore the very foundation of your website. The following technicalities should be implemented and audited monthly.

• Implement analytics and track conversion on mobile and desktop
• Test your site as a visitor and load content in their intent
• Optimize and test your mobile site on various devices and browsers to ensure optimum performance
• Mobile ads should redirect to mobile sites, not desktop sites
• Check your site speed using Google speed tool
• Check for elements of Flash and remove them as they won’t render on iOS and slow on Android
• Submit your mobile site pages XML sitemap submitted to Google.

Finally, run your website through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

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