🔍 Capture leads from text ads | New Shopping campaign metrics

Oct 22, 2019

Good morning search marketers, new ads betas are available.

Google Ads is floating some new tests, one for e-commerce and one for advertisers focused on lead generation.

Google is giving lead capture from ads another go with a lead form extension. Advertisers can capture name, email, phone number and/or postal code from their text ads. With a webhook, lead data can flow directly into your CRM or customer data management platform. You may recall, many (many) years back Google tried this kind of thing in a couple of iterations, none of which got past the testing phase. This latest version, both mobile- and CRM-friendly, could be successful (Facebook's lead ads have proven to be), but advertisers will need to closely monitor lead quality from the fairly friction-free experience. Thanks to Steven Johns for first spotting this.

Advertisers running Google Shopping campaigns will see a new set of conversion metric columns in the UI. This is a beta. If you have Google Ads conversion tracking set up, the columns can show transaction and profitability attributed to Shopping ad clicks. Advertisers can drill down to the product level to see which products are driving higher AOV, cart sizes and gross profit — regardless of whether users end up purchasing the product they originally clicked on or other products on your site. In Report Editor, merchants can see additional product-level revenue and profit metrics.

Read on for a Pro Tip on disavowing links and more.

Ginny Marvin,
Editor-in-Chief

Pro Tip

3 common mistakes SEOs make when disavowing links

"There are some common areas where a lot of people go wrong in the process of disavowing links. Some of these misconceptions can have detrimental impacts on your website's visibility," explains Manish Dudharejia of E2M Solutions Inc. "Here are three misconceptions about disavowing links you will want to avoid: 1) Disavowing the wrong links. Take a critical look at every inbound link you have and be sure that it adds contextual value to your content. The common types of links you should focus on disavowing are schemes when it's obvious the link is for ranking or making money, non-editorial, spammy links and links with promotional anchor texts. If it's obvious that the link is only there for the purpose of link building, it could get you into trouble. 2) Disavowing unnecessarily. Disavowing links without strong, individual rationales oftentimes results in links that are actually helping your website rank. Before you make any decisions, examine each link and take the time to consider all the risks and benefits of disavowing each link. 3) Relying too much on tools. Link analysis tools can be misleading so SEOs should not listen to these tools blindly. Automated tools shouldn't be your compass in disavowing links. Examine each link critically to decide its contextual value."

Pro Tip is a special feature for marketers in our community to share a specific tactic others can use to elevate their performance. You can submit your own here.

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Search Shorts

Google Update, AMP, Spam and nofollow.

Google update. There are some signs of a possible Google update over the weekend. This is not confirmed, but check to see if you had any improvements to your site.

Search team doesn't help YouTube. John Mueller of Google said on Twitter: "We (the Search side) don't control YouTube; they hear about these changes at the same time as others, and prioritize changes on their own," when he was asked about the nofollow links.

AMP and rankings. Danny Sullivan said on Twitter: "AMP doesn't improve ranking. We've been consistent on that with many public statements."

Report spam. Twitter is not the best place to submit search spam reports to Google, said John Mueller.

See The BIG SMX East Preview!

SMX East kicks off November 13-14 in NYC — and it's our biggest agenda ever. Join us for over 100 search marketing presentations from industry experts and market-defining solutions providers, including two new tracks on agency operations and local search marketing for multi-location brands. Click the link below to access your exclusive preview of everything in store!

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