COVID-19: Ways to cope with the changing consumer behavior

The current COVID-19 situation has altered our lives, interests, and everything around us. The required changes brought about, in the present scenario have changed consumers’ mindset in terms of their needs, and purchasing behavior. These kinds of alterations have resulted in new challenges for advertisers in managing campaigns, as well as to all channels of Marketing.

We can also check, as to what’s trending these days through Google Trends.

Here’s how the consumer preferences are changing during the pandemic:

• Individuals are staying connected online more than ever before.
• Individuals are experiencing alterations in their daily routines.
• People are turning to new software and apps to meet their daily needs.
• Individuals are investing more time in taking care of themselves.
• Connecting with family and friends through videos have gained prominence.
• The individual’s needs and situations are changing, due to which spending more time on Google for specific information has become the new normal.

We are encouraged to adapt to these realities and reframe the Business strategies, to cater to the needs of the consumers.

The Google Ads team has come up with tips to help the advertisers in campaign management and also in formulating their digital marketing strategies, to suit the existing situations. Here are a few of them:

• Be aware of terms like “virus” or “check-up” and avoid using them in your search ads. Also, make sure that COVID-19 related local terms are not used in the ads.
• Review, evaluate, and update your ads to reflect your current business changes to the users.
• Keep your website up-to-date in terms of product availability, services, and local conditions.
• Reconsider the requirements of your customers and alter your messaging accordingly; to suit their needs and conditions.
• Google has provided an option to add a banner to your website, to quickly convey your business updates to your customers.
• Due to the pandemic, the demand, and supply is changing quite often. The businesses need to evaluate the availability of the list of products and services, and thereof modify the ad campaigns.
• As most of the people are viewing videos on YouTube through TV, set your device targeting to the TV screen.
• Understand your consumer and adjust your search text ads, landing pages, ad extensions, and websites to meet their changing expectations.
• In order, to provide convenience to the customers, it’s important to make the products available online and in stores.
• Use responsive display ads to convey the apt message in a fast-changing market.
• Individuals are turning more to apps and videos. It’s important to connect to the new users as well as reach out to the existing customers by engaging them with an offer.

The drastic changes are inevitable due to the pandemic and as advertisers and business owners, it’s important to understand the changes in consumer behaviour and re-define the business goals and match the demand and supply.

Business Expansion through Chrome

The new opportunity to grow your business on the web.

The Chrome Web Store that will help the businesses to grow both in revenue and traffic.

The distribution of your web content and applications through the store can help you connect to more than 120 million people who use Chrome.

The revenue can be earned by selling your applications to the users of Chrome and also by showing your ads within them.

To learn more about and get the advantage, you can build your app and check out the functionality for the same.

Also, can check the new website at www.google.com/chrome/CreateAnApp

Mobile Ads – New Targeting Options

Good News for all advertisers planning to target specific mobile devices or carriers.

You can now choose to show ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers or carriers.

The feature enables the advertiser to reach the targeted users on having a carrier- or device-specific message.

Example: if you sell iPhone cases, you can use “Target only selected mobile devices “ option, so that Palm webOS users won't see your ads.

Also, ads linking to mobile app downloads will appear only on devices that provide those apps. On the other hand, the ad will display a 'Download' link.

The download link is displayed in green color in the ad.

These features will enable the advertisers and companies to reach the right audience.

Display URLs – Policy Adjustment

The display URL is the URL displayed within the ad for identifying the site by users. The same leads the targeted visitors to the website, where the visitor lands when clicked on the ad.

Google is adjusting display URL policy for websites that sit on shared or hosted domains like blogspot.com.

Henceforth, ads leading to websites on hosted domains, need to include display URLs that clearly reflect their destinations.

In the past, ads having display URLs, for example: blogspot.com were acceptable. Now, the same will be acceptable only when display URL shows specific blog URL like adwords.blogspot.com.

If the ads, does not follow the above policy, then they will be disapproved.

A suggested display URL will be mentioned in the email regarding the disapproval notification.

30 Plus Updates Of Google AdWords For 2009

1. Think2010 Series: The series covered topics like: relevance, speed, experimentation and innovation to help the users and webmasters catch up, with the Accounts in a more efficient and effective manner. To hit and increase the performance levels.

2. New Content Network Resource for Display Advertisers: Several changes have been made to the Google Content Network, to make sure that the advertisers are having more advantage on the same. In the same effort, the new Content Network brand channel on YouTube has been launched.

3. The AdWords New Ad Formats in Search Advertising: The two new themes of Ad Formats are: Ad Extensions and New Ad Models. To provide more relevant information about the products.

4. Product Extensions – AdWords Ad Feature: This feature will enrich the Ads with related information about your products. The images of products are shown along with the ad based on the relevancy.

5. Advanced Reports in the Accounts: The advanced performance data is now integrated within the campaign management. All the necessary performance data can be viewed under the particular tabs in the account.

6. AdWords Editor Version 7.6.1: AdWords Editor upgraded to the version 7.6.1. The same is available to Windows and Mac. It supports ad scheduling, advanced location targeting, YouTube Promoted Video ads, etc.
The new users can download the version at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwordseditor/index.html

7. Product Listing Ads: Product listing ads have been announced to facilitate the buyers to take the right decision in the purchase of product. These ads would include product related information like: image, price and merchant name within the same.

8. Google Ad Planner - Find the Right Audience: Google Ad Planner has now been made more easy to find the right audience by various additions like sub domain data and data provision of Ad Placemen t etc.

9. New Alerts - Campaigns: Along with the existing account alerts, the advertisers can now use custom alerts. Also, two new alerts have been added for use. (i) Alerts for new keyword and budget ideas in Opportunities tab (ii) Alerts for changes in conversion volume, conversion rate etc.

10. Conversion Tracking Now Made Easy: The interface for the tool is redesigned to make its usage easier. The three easy-to-use tabs are Conversions, WebPages, and Code to help manage the conversion data.

11. AdWords Comparison Ads: The new feature, comparison ads helps the users to compare multiple relevant offers. These ads focus on speed, transparency and privacy.

12. Translator Toolkit - Adwords: To advertise to customers in multiple languages, it becomes difficult to spent time to translate the advertising campaigns. The same can be performed by the Translator Toolkit.

13. Free Keyboard Shortcuts Stickers in New AdWords Interface: In the new interface, advertisers have access to a number of keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are available at the levels: Global Navigation, Table Navigation & Actions and Editing Ad groups & Keywords.

14. New Interface Link - My Client Center (MCC): A link was placed on My Client Center (MCC) Dashboard that directs to the new interface. This effort has been made to save the time and improve the standards of performance of the account.

15. Advertise your Business through Promoted Videos: Now businesses can promote their business through promoted videos on YouTube directly from your accounts.

16. View-through Conversion reporting - Content Network: As display ads are a source to increase the brand awareness and purchase decisions, View-through conversion reporting has been introduced to measure the number of conversions that occurred within the duration of 30 days of the display ad appearing for which there was no ad click generated.

17. The Updated Version of Keyword Tool (beta): The new version of the Keyword Tool is the combination of the functionality of both the Keyword Tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool.

18. Opportunities Tab Beta: New section called Opportunities tab has been added to help find additional cost-effective traffic for the search campaigns in your account.

19. “i” Icon - “Ads by Google”: A small "i" icon (for "information") at the bottom right-hand corner of these ads will expand when the user hovers over it. The message format was designed for rich media ads.

20. New DoubleClick Ad Exchange: The new DoubleClick Ad Exchange has been announced by Google, the real-time marketplace to sell and buy display advertising space.

21. AdWords New Interface: New interface got with it, many changes in the way of managing accounts by the webmasters. AdWords campaign management has been redesigned to get the work done faster and in an effective and efficient manner.

22. New Search Features in the Account: New features have been introduced to target the right audience. The features listed: Data sources, Category suggestions,
to drill down to specific regions, or metros, to know the varying interests.

23. Conversion Optimizer Availability: Conversion Optimizer is now available to more campaigns in the accounts of the advertisers.

24. AdWords Editor 7.5.1: Users can now access to AdWords Editor Version 7.5.1, available for Windows and Mac.

25. U.S. Ad Text Trademark Policy Updated: Adjustments have been made to the U.S. trademark policy to allow few ads to use trademarks in the ad text.

26. Display Ad Builder Made Available Global: Display Ad Builder is now made available global i.e. templates are available in over 40 languages and over 100 countries.

27. Display URL Policy – Changes: The updated display URL policy is as follows: (i) Multiple display URL domains will not be allowed in a single ad group. (ii) On the other hand, all display URL domains need to have the same top-level domain.

28. Free Keyword Tool - Search-based: A free search-based keyword tool has been offered by Google to make the keyword research more effective.

29. New traffic Model for Google Ad Planner: The new traffic model for Google Ad Planner has been launched to provide more information about the site and specific traffic details.

30. Free Ad Creation – TV – AdWords: Google TV Ads has partnered with SpotMixer to provide advertisers usage of a new and free ad creation service.

31. Alcohol Policy - Updated: According to the updated policy, the alcohol manufacturers are allowed to advertise their products in the U.S. through their accounts.

Google Analytics - Cost Details & More

Cost Details

It is a good news for new users and webmasters that Google Analytics is free!

Google is offering this web analytics tool for no charge.

The free version is limited to only 5 million pageviews, month.

The users with active Google AdWords Account, however, will have an added advantage of tracking unlimited pageview.

It allows any webmaster to track conversion data for their website. It also enables the webmasters to track the flow of data and analyze the same to improve the performance of the webmaster.

Also, it is a great solution that makes the webmaster aware of the changes for customer retention.

Google Analytics & AdWords:

Google Analytics is completely integrated into the AdWords Account and campaign, making it convenient to track your AdWords ROI.

This integration is more easy and effective, as it saves the time and effort of the webmasters.

Analytics would be one tab among other tabs in Google AdWords Account.

This facilitates the user to shuffle between tabs for checking and analyzing the data for a better performance.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free traffic stats program provided by Google to track detailed stats about the visitors who visits the website.

How to get started?

To start using Analytics, you need to sign in with your Google account.

If you do not have an Analytics account, then sign up for one now.

Google Analytics account can be created in two ways as mentioned below:

• Creating a Google Analytics account at: http://www.google.com/analytics

• Creating an analytics account within the Google AdWords account.

How it works?

The tracking code (code snippet) found in the analytics account need to be copied and pasted in the bottom of the content before the body tag is closed of the web pages you desire to track on the website.

Once the code is added to the website, it will start tracking the following statistics:

1. The number of people visiting the website.

2. Visitors exploring the site

3. The duration of the visitor, visiting the page/ pages etc.

It is a powerful web tracking tool provided by Google to track the performance of the website.

Therefore, if you are a business owner, it is the right time to get started and experience a growth for the same.