Do Your Students Use Search Effectively?

I remember a student who was assigned to write a SWOT analysis on Coke Classic. He came to my office quite concerned because he couldn't find any information to write the paper. Knowing there was plenty out there, I asked him to show me how he was searching. He simply entered Coke Classic in the search bar and was annoyed that he was only getting back the Coke websites. We started searching for strategy topics related to Coke Classic and he walked away with a big smile on his face!

Fast forward a few years and I imagine most of our students do better than that. Are they getting the most they could out of searches, though? In my experience, most people don't.

So I wrote a post on how to search effectively on my Protecting Yourself in Cyberspace blog. It's target audience is unskilled computer users like the lovely retired folks I often make presentations to in my current life.

This post works for both audiences, however. It includes an update I wrote when I realized that Google Alerts was a good additional piece of knowledge. The update contains a good link to uses of Google Alerts which suggests an alert on your own name, which every one of us should do. Your students should start one now as part of their personal brand creation on the web. I use mine to find out who's trying to sell our books illegally. What people will do to attract clicks is amazing and I occasionally find something that the Cengage legal team finds actionable.

I'd be delighted if you referred your students to the post  👏 And I'd be even more delighted in you worked up a challenging search exercise and shared it with all of us 👏👏

Three Things You Really Need to Know to Teach Paid Search in Fall 2018

This blog post outlines changes to the paid search environment and to the Google Online Marketing Challenge in teaching marketing using Internet Marketing:  Integrating Online and Offline Strategies in a Digital Environment.  This material supplements the information on paid search with Google in Chapter 11 and the Appendix on the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

 

Farewell AdWords, Hello Ads

Google made a number of changes over the summer to its ad formats and is rebranding AdWords to Google Ads. Most of the functions are still in beta and some of the online material has yet to be updated to reflect the rebranding.  The new formats and changes take advantage of machine learning and automation and are outlined in an excellent blog post from Search Engine Land. Google wants to focus less on finding keywords and text ads and more on encouraging advertisers to use different ad formats and let automation do much of the work. Certainly, paid advertising is one of the first places where artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation will have the biggest impact.

The announced changes will allow advertisers to automatically run ad campaigns based on the latest responses from consumers, which is a good thing.  We also see a potential danger in more automation in terms of monitoring budgets. We wonder if only the largest advertisers will be able to use these changes or if they will truly benefit small businesses, as Google claims.  The following list is a summary of the changes announced this past summer.

a. Responsive ad types:  These ads can run in rotation and take the place of manual A/B testing.  Automation will try to match the ad closest to the user’s query and the ad formats allow for more characters.  The responsive search ads allow for three headlines and up to two 90-character descriptions vs. 80 characters, so the format allows students more leeway in writing ads.  For simplicity for teaching purposes, it might be better to start out with plain text ads and branch out after students master that format.

b. Local campaigns: This result is a new ad type targeted for retailers and aimed at increasing store visits.  This local campaign is similar to Smart Campaigns, which is the new default for new advertisers. So if you are running a Google Ads project in class and want the students to be able to select their own keywords and make manual changes to track the results, they have to switch platforms to do so.

c. Smart Shopping:  In a similar way, Shopping campaigns can now be automated and structured to achieve the advertiser’s conversation goals, now including store visits or new customers as well as revenue or return on ad spend (ROAS).

d. You Tu be Ads:  With continued growth in conversions, advertisers will continue to look to YouTube for ad conversions and there will be an automated bidding strategy for YouTube, Maximize Lift to target users most likely to consider a brand purchase after viewing a video ad.
e. Hotel Ads: These will be integrated in to the Google Ads platform and also be able to take advantage of automated campaign features.

f. Google Analytics:  It looks like there will be more integration with Google Analytics allowing for cross-device reporting and the ability to build cross-device remarketing audiences for use in Google Ads.  This type of sophistication is not typically taught in the introductory internet/digital marketing courses but the topic might come up in conversation.

 

 

 

Find Google Ads certification on Academy for Ads

Google replaced the Google Partners site with the Academy for Ads early in 2018.  It is still possible to become a Google Partner but not necessary to do so to get certified in Google Ads.  The Academy for Ads allows individuals to get certified for free. Previously, students were signing up as Partners to get free certification.  This is a welcome change to the process and an acknowledgement that more professors are teaching paid search in their programs.

 

 

 

 

A New Form of the Google Online Marketing Challenge

Find the new form of the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) as the Google Ad Grants Online Marketing Challenge or OMC:   Students will register and request a nonprofit partner and be matched with one by Google.  The budget is up to $10,000 a month. It will be interesting to see how this form of the challenge progresses.  There are always issues working with a real life company in terms of communication and student teams sometimes

have issues as well in terms of organization and commitment.   However, not having to find a partner is a big bonus for instructors.  We agree with the program’s insisting on the Google Fundamentals exam before beginning the challenge as that basic knowledge really helps in terms of project execution. There is a program similar to the old GOMC for Bing advertisements but none of the students in Dr. Zahay’s class last Spring wanted to use Bing ads.   They know Google is the source of most search traffic.

 

A couple of other notes for teaching this material

Project structure and coaching tips for the student teams and professors found  in the text in the Appendix and instructor Power Points can be applied to any paid search project. It is possible to replicate the old GOMC by getting companies to sponsor student teams.  We found that having the companies buy $250 prepaid Visa cards worked great and relieved client worries about going over budget.  Also, if as an instructor you find a company with multiple product lines to promote via paid search, client communication is easier than working with multiple clients.

In summary, there are a number of changes in the Google Ad world and the online marketing challenge, but the material in the text robust enough to rise to the challenge.  We recommend using the Search Engine Land or similar blog post to update the class on ad formats.  Also, consider the new Academy for Ads for certification and the new form of the Online Marketing Challenge.

Debra Zahay, September, 2018

New Ad Formats

The Expanded Text Format