Introducing a new real-time marketing metric: ‘EvE’ (effort vs engagement)

Does the world really need another metric to measure performance? Unfortunately, I think we do, as one of the biggest issues in marketing is a lack of agility. We need new metrics to help speed up our reaction times.

With that in mind, allow me to introduce ‘EvE’, which is a loose, ill-defined, highly immature real-time marketing metric. I’d love some feedback as this is very much a work in progress.

EvE is a measure of how much bang you’re getting for your buck. You want maximum bang for minimum buck. In most cases, time is money, and effort / time can be measured in cold hard cash. Are your efforts paying off? Is there anything you can do to ensure success?

I’ve always had some sense of whether the thing I’ve worked on has underperformed, or outperformed, and increasingly I monitor this in real time, mainly because it’s possible to do so. I’m really just trying to figure out if something was worth the effort.

I instinctively use ‘EvE’ thinking primarily to measure content marketing, but it applies to marketing more broadly, as well as things like conversion rate optimisation, and UX. In fact, it applies to all kinds of things.

EvE could also apply to that three-course meal you’re going to lovingly prepare for your dinner guests. If it goes right, you’ll hear a lot of comments about how delicious it is, and how lovely it smells, and how did you make it, and where did you find such incredible ingredients, and oh we must really come over more often!

If it goes badly, there will normally be a few polite murmurings, and then silence. You’ll wish you just ordered pizza. Cooking really wasn’t worth the bother, nor the expense, and you could have spent the afternoon doing something else.

That’s EvE in a nutshell. You want people to come over more often and to say nice things about your efforts, and to feel like it was a worthwhile endeavour.

It’s a bit like that in business, don’t you think? You want lots of repeat customers who do your marketing for you by becoming advocates, and recommending your products and services (the most powerful form of marketing there is).

Why we need something new

There are dozens of ways to measure success, but many of them are lagging indicators. In other words, they reflect the state of play once the results are in. This is all very well, but we need more leading indicators in our lives.

Leading indicators help us to predict future success, or warn us about imminent failure. All kinds of leading indicators are used by goal-orientated people to see if they’re on-course, or heading for the rocks. They give us the opportunity to react.

EvE is a blend. It is one part lagging indicator (‘effort’) and one part leading indicator (‘engagement’), but over time I think it will become much more aligned to the latter, as engagement (which is broadly a synonym for ‘performance’) can be measured in real-time.

For example, if this post achieves a certain number of social shares within a certain timeframe then I know it will be a hit, relative to other posts on this site. I also know that it will continue to attract shares (and page impressions, and comments, and new inbound links, etc) in the days and weeks ahead.

If, however, things go the other way, I can consider doing something about it. I could do some paid social, or get in touch with some of my influencer buddies to spread word. I could push it around to relevant link sharing sites. I could start a fight with somebody who I know will disagree with it. I could create a visualisation to explain EvE in less than 1,000 words. I could spin it out into other content formats, such as slideshows, webinars, videos, etc.

And so on.

Building momentum

What we’re really talking about here is engagement velocity. EvE seeks to measure engagement velocity in real time.

Content is ‘alive’ for a while, and at some point it will naturally fade out. Or at least that’s how it should be. If you’re busy creating content that doesn’t reach the average lifespan of an article, then you seriously need to consider whether it was worth the effort. Lifespan can be measured in impressions, comments, shares, downloads… whatever floats your particular boat.

You also need to spot the outliers and learn from them. Figure out why certain blog posts or videos outperform. More importantly, take a look at the ones that underperform, especially if you’re spending a lot of effort on them. If they don’t have a tactical value, then is it worth investing in any more of them? Remember that as the amount of effort increases, so must the engagement.

The EvE metric, if used in real-time as a leading indicator will help you spot whether or not something needs – or merits – a push. You can use it to predict performance, considering how something should be performing at any given point.

Sometimes you need to light a fire underneath your efforts. If you spend a month working on a new piece of content (or marketing campaign, or product feature, or 72-course dinner for your guests) then hopefully it will be good enough to attract enough attention to merit the effort. But, if needed, you can go the extra mile to promote it, unless it’s clearly a dud.

This is why EvE is different from ROI. It is meant to be more fluid, and less final. Real-time marketing is all about agility, and if you track EvE you should be in a position to move the ROI needle.

Calculating ‘EvE’

I don’t want to be too prescriptive with regards to scoring systems, but suggest that you can use absolute numbers, points, weighted averages, and multipliers to come up with some meaningful figures.

The key is to know a few things in advance. All of these things can be baked into your calculations.

Effort

• The cost
• The amount of time spent
• Output
• People

Cost is the primary – and most straightforward – measure of ‘effort’. When you’re ready to release a new piece of content you’ll have a pretty accurate sense of how much it cost. At this point, you’ve invested what it takes to produce and edit the content, and as such you’ll know what it takes for that effort to pay off. Cost is more easily measured when using freelancers, agencies and contractors.

Time spent seems straightforward on the face of it, and is an alternative to cost (though you can use both). Time is inherently linked to cost, but is perhaps more useful for evaluating the efforts of in-house teams, especially if you don’t want to get into proportionate salary calculations. Was it worth spending an hour, a day, a week or more on that thing? Worth it, as in, should you do it again?

Output is the thing that was produced. Everything is relative. Different content formats have different costs, on average, and they perform differently. A video should be compared with a video, a blog post with a blog post. Adjust your benchmarks, targets and goals accordingly. It’s worth adding that some things are more aligned to your macro goals than others.

People. This follows on from ‘time spent’. What was the opportunity cost of that particular person doing that particular piece of work? What else could they have been working on? It is crucial that you use your team wisely, especially your star players.

Engagement

• The real-time targets
• The goal

Targets. How will you know if you’re on track? For content, real-time targets might be things like concurrent users onsite, or impressions or comments, or shares or likes, or influencer mentions, or inbound links, or downloads, or leads. What is par, one hour, one week, or one month after publication?

Goals can be strategic or tactical. This is very much a case of horses for courses. You’ll need to figure this out for yourself, thinking about the ultimate goals of your business. How is the thing you’ve worked on contributing to those goals?

You can track all of this stuff as it happens, and react as necessary.

A scoring framework

I think the best way to measure is EvE is to put together a scoring framework, based on average costs (effort) and average performance benchmarks (engagement). The higher the EvE score, the better.

EvE score = engagement divided by effort

A blog post might be given an effort score of 100. The effort reflects time and cost to produce the post, relative to other outputs (e.g. video = 500, whitepaper = 2,500, etc).

For that blog post to break even, it must also achieve an engagement score of 100. This is the anticipated performance, and value, relative to similar content. In other words, the goal.

Its EvE score is engagement divided by effort. In this case, that’s 100/100, which gives it an EvE score of 1. And that’s okay, because 1 is par.

The effort score

Using the above examples we can compare different outputs. A video costs five times as much effort to produce, vs a blog post. A whitepaper costs five times a video, and 25 times as much as a blog post in effort.

However, these are averages. 100 points is the average effort score for a blog post. That might be akin to three hours of a freelance writer’s time.

It could be that the same writer puts together a post in half of the time, and charges you half the fee. We can halve the effort score to reflect that.

The engagement score

Let’s say an average blog post pulls in 5,000 impressions. If a post hits that mark we can award it the full 100 points, and an EvE score of 1 (100/100 = 1).

If it underperforms and reaches just 4,000 impressions then it gets just 80 points, and an EvE score of 0.8 (80/100).

But let’s say it only took half the time to produce. We halve the effort score (to 50) and the EvE score rises to 1.6 (80/50). It took 50% less time and money but still achieved 80% of the goal. You still have resources at your disposal to chase down the other 20% (or more).

Real-time EvE

In a real-time environment, it gets more interesting. EvE becomes a leading indicator of ROI, rather than a relative calculation of ROI, which occurs after the fact.

For EvE to work in real-time, you need to set some targets (I like to think of them as checkpoints) and stay tuned-in as things unfold. By doing so you’ll be able to react, if you need to.

Social shares are a particularly strong leading indicator of content performance. Let’s say 400 shares after 24 hours is the average for par performance for a blog post. If your post accrues 800 shares you should be in for a good time. If you struggle to reach 100 shares then something may be amiss. You can adjust your real-time EvE scores accordingly.

Multipliers and weightings will come into play. 800 shares might be worth more than double, for example, as the network effect, buzz and viral momentum can propel a blog post much further than you think. And perhaps 100 shares isn’t quite as bad as you fear.

At this point the formula will probably need to be finessed on a case-by-case basis. What you track and how you score things will depend on your macro and micro goals.

Audit

There’s one other thing that EvE does: it makes you think about what’s working, and what’s not. In order to put a scoring framework together you need to undertake an EvE audit, to benchmark effort vs. engagement across all that you do.

There’s a bit more to say, but I’ll throw this out there now for feedback. Do let me know if you think it’s workable, or if you put together a real world example based on the above methodology.

I’d also be interested to hear of any other real-time marketing metrics and KPIs that you’re using as leading indicators of future success. I’m keen to explore this area in more detail.

from Donald Jarrett digital marketing news http://ift.tt/1ZydrTG via transformational marketing
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1Jffv1a

US display ad spend will overtake search ad spend in 2016… wait, what?

In news that will possibly contradict what you assumed about display advertising, in 2016, digital display ad spending will surpass search ad spending in the US for the first time ever. 

According to a new report by eMarketer video ads, sponsorships, rich media and the loosely named ‘banners and others’ will account for a 47.9% share of digital ad spending, worth $32.17bn.

That subsection of display named “banners and others”, which also contains native and social ads, will also receive the most investment from advertisers. The report states that “overall, one in five dollars devoted to digital in 2016 will go to ‘banners and other’ digital display ad types.” 

So what the heck happened? I thought display ads were long dead. One of my most over-used stats is this from Solve Media: “You’re more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad.” There are loads more similar stats here.

But I now realise these are more than two years old now. However there was plenty of evidence to back this up in 2015…

Pardot published a collection of stats in November 2015, as well as quoting our very own Leighann Morris. 

• More than 70% of U.S. internet users ignore online banner ads.
• 70% of marketers in Asia currently use display advertising, but only 44% plan to use it in five years’ time.

Last year, AdWeek also gave multiple reasons why you shouldn’t waste money on digital display ads.

They interviewed Bob Hoffman, retired CEO and chairman of Hoffman/Lewis Advertising, and he said the one of the biggest issues with display, alongside possible fraudulent activities involving bots and artificial ad impressions, is that “One-half, or more, of paid online display ads never appear in front of humans.”

This corroborates the claim that Reid Tatoris, cofounder of MediaPost, makes that fewer than 10% of display ads will ever be seen.

Another major issue that hit mainstream awareness in 2015 was the rise in ad-blockers, and the combative rise in ad-blocker-blockers.

According to a report by PageFair and Adobe, in the UK there are an average of 12m monthly active users of ad blockers. Year-on-year this figure has by 82% from 2014. The global economic impact of ad blocking software is predicted to reach £26.7bn by the end of 2016.

This is completely understandable. You only have to look at the desperate and user-experience destroying presence of a whole contemptible variety of display ads, from push-downs, to overlays, to pop-ups, and their proliferation on sites that traditionally used to have better sense than that.

And don’t even get me started on automatic content recommendation platforms.

At best, we have trained ourselves to ignore display ads, at worst, they ruin our experience of the web and make us question whether we want to repeat our visit.

But… perhaps things aren’t quite so bleak. As the eMarket report suggests, there is an upswing in digital display investment.

Why is this? Improvements in “cross-device capabilities, programmatic advertising and continual efforts to address issues of ad viewability and fraud” have helped.

Clearly the higher quality a remarketed ad is in terms of relevance and timing, the more effective it is, and as programmatic bidding increases in popularity, this will hopefully free up more time to develop more sophisticated ad strategies. 

from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1PBvR0u via transformational marketing
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1S0GAXc

How To Review and Edit Your Facebook App Permissions

If you’ve ever downloaded and used a Facebook quiz app such as a personality test, friend comparison, most liked photos, most used words, etc., you may be unwittingly providing these app companies with a ton of your personal data. Some of this data may be used to guess your passwords, hack accounts, and even steal your identity. Yikes.

Granted, whenever you give any Facebook app access to your account, you should be able to choose what data to share. But, most people just hit ‘accept’ without realizing how much data they are opening up to the app.

Facebook quiz apps PSA – over one million organic reach

I recently published a post on my Facebook page cautioning people about using the quiz-style apps. You can see by the epic viral impact of this post, clearly, it’s a popular topic. Over 14,000 shares.

PSA: please be careful of participating in all of those Facebook quizzes, personality tests, friend comparisons, most…

Posted by Mari Smith on Monday, January 11, 2016

Protecting your email account password

The password for your primary email account is probably one of the most critical passwords you need to protect. If a hacker accesses your main email account, he/she can trigger lost password requests for all your main social channels, critical websites and even online banking. I strongly recommend two-step login wherever offered. That is, where you receive a special code via text message, for example, when your login changes. And, you get alerts if someone tries to access your account.

Now is a good time to check your Facebook app settings and do a bit of spring cleaning.

According to Comparitech, a tech comparison and review website, the popular “most used words” app  is a “privacy nightmare.”

NOTE: There are tens of thousands of fabulous Facebook apps and websites that utilize Facebook Login. Using your Facebook account to log in is usually safe, secure and perfectly fine. You simply want to exercise caution when allowing access to excessive data. And, you might also familiarize yourself with an app’s Privacy Policy. Better to be informed. Not all apps are created equal.

I’m a huge fan of Facebook apps, always have been. However, I am not keen on the trivial quiz apps that gather an inordinate amount of data for no (apparent) good reason!

How to review your Facebook app settings 

Whether you access via desktop or mobile, there are several steps you’ll need to take to discover a) what apps you’ve granted access to your Facebook account, b) how much information the apps have gathered, edit that info, and c) remove apps where appropriate.

Instructions for mobile (iPhone)

1. First, tap on the More icon at the bottom right of the Facebook iOS app. Then you’ll need to scroll down to Settings.

2. Tap on Settings.

3. On the popup, you have three options. Tap on Account Settings.

Your next screen should look like this – you’ll need to scroll down to get to Apps.

4. Tap on Apps.

5. On this next screen, you’ll see a variety of choices. We’ll come back to this screen to visit one other setting. Meantime, tap on the top option, Logged in with Facebook. (You’ll see the total number of apps that you’ve granted permission to log in using your Facebook account. In my example below, you can see I have over 200 apps. For sure, time for a spring clean myself!)

6. Now you’ll see your list of Facebook apps in alphabetical order, grouped in categories: Sharing with Public, Sharing with Friends, Sharing with Only Me. (You might also have other variations, such as Sharing with Friends of Friends.)

I have a habit of selecting ‘Only Me’ for the privacy option when trying out apps. However, all this does is limit the visibility of posts that the app might make on your behalf if and when it does publish posts on your Timeline. Otherwise, there is typically quite a list of data that each app has been given permission to access.

In this step, you’ll want to scroll through your list of approved apps and look more closely at each app’s settings.

As you look at each app, you may wish to deselect some types of data.

7. Or, you may wish to remove the app entirely if you are through using it.

Desktop instructions

As shown in the screenshot below, click the small down arrow in the top right, click Settings in the menu bar, then Apps on the left. Then follow the same/similar steps as mobile above.

 

How to control what your friends see about you in the apps they use

Here’s another setting you may wish to double check. Facebook states, “People who can see your info can bring it with them when they use apps.” In other words, the info that you share with Friends only, for example, could also be accessible to those friends inside an app they use. Sounds harmless, right? Still, it’s worth just peeking in on what exactly you’re allowing to be ported into apps by your friends. Here is where to access the setting on mobile:

It’s up to you what permissions you choose. Personally, I only share my website!

Data that apps may be able to access include the following:

• Public profile: profile picture, age, birthday, gender and other public info. This data is always required for apps.
• Friend list. Apps may request access to your list of friends. However, thankfully, Facebook shut down its API for giving your friends’ data to apps back in April 2015 due to privacy concerns.
• Relationships: your loved ones and other family members on Facebook
• Status updates, photos and videos (basically, anything you’ve ever posted on your timeline)
• Work history
• Education history
• Website (this is one I recommend for sure!)
• Events
• Interests: your hobbies, skills, activities and all pages you’ve liked
• Groups you joined and groups you manage
• Hometown and current city
• Religious and political views
• Manage your Pages
• Publish on your behalf
• …and more!

Familiarize yourself with the extensive range of data permissions that Facebook offers developers to include in their app. NOTE: Facebook requires app companies to submit (most all) their desired data permissions for review. Plus, in terms of optimizing permissions requests, Facebook states to app developers:

Only ask for the permissions that are essential to an app.

and

As a general rule, the more permissions an app requests, the less likely it is that people will use Facebook to log into your app. In fact, our research shows that apps that ask for more than four permissions experience a significant drop off in the number of completed logins.

Questions?

So, bottom line – caveat emptor, right? It’s up to each of us to decide what information we share with Facebook… and with apps. I hear people complain that there is no privacy anymore. I also hear others not worry one iota about privacy and just ‘put it all out there.’ Fortunately, we do  have a choice as to what we do and do not post online.

If you have any questions about Facebook app settings, privacy, safety and security, do let me and my team know. Post on Facebook or in the comments below.

The post How To Review and Edit Your Facebook App Permissions appeared first on MariSmith.com.

from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1PYv50t via transformational marketing
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1SPjHXh

US display ad spend will overtake search ad spend in 2016... wait, what?

In news that will possibly contradict what you assumed about display advertising, in 2016, digital display ad spending will surpass search ad spending in the US for the first time ever.

from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1RzTWuZ via transformational marketing

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1l3O4vq

100 Google AdWords Scripts You Should Be Using

Google AdWords scripts provide a way of controlling your AdWords account using JavaScript code. Scripts can be used to automate tasks or interact with external data. The function is available to assist with running day to day activities in your account and enhance performance. Scripts can work particularly well for you if you have some knowledge of coding or if you manage large AdWords accounts.

I have spent a lot of time researching and testing Google AdWords scripts to bring you the top 100 that have been proven to be most useful. They have been split up into specific sections, so you can easily locate the script you are looking for.

• Bid Modifiers
• Pausing and Deletion
• Third Party Data
• Bidding and Budgets
• Tools
• Alerts
• Reporting
• Seasonal
• Automating Maintenance Tasks
• Labels
• Tracking
• Ad Text
• Keywords
• Google Display Network and Shopping Campaigns
• Other

Thank You

Before we go on any further, I want to take a minute to thank the individuals and/or companies who have created these amazing scripts and made them opensource so anyone can use them and benefit from the results. I also want to thank AdWords Scripts and Canada Catalyst for the scripts they have provided.

Bid Modifiers

1. 24 Hour Bidding Schedule by Brainlabs. This script is a favourite of mine, as it enables you to adjust your bids 24 times a day, 7 days a week via a Google spreadsheet. The standard Google ad scheduling only allows for 6 bidding windows in one day, which limits the number of bid adjustments you can make. The benefits of using this script are that the ads will only run at optimum times and it’s possible to tweak bid adjustments every hour of every day, which will decrease costs in the long term and place your ads in the best ad positions for converting.

2. Calculate and Set Mobile Bid Modifiers by Frederick Vallaeys from Optmyzr. This script reviews your ROAS or PPC performance between mobile and desktop/tablet. When it has reviewed this, it then analyses keyword level data and suggests a mobile bid modifier for the ad groups/campaigns. This script is for those who want to bring mobile in line with their desktop/tablet campaigns, as mobile only campaigns have been removed. Sign up with Optmyzr to access the script.

3. Set and Suggest Mobile Bid Modifiers by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script is based on adjusting the mobile bid modifier. You can set a minimum and maximum bid adjustment for campaign or ad group level, which enables you to keep on top of mobile traffic.

Pausing and Deletion

4. Pause Ads With Low CTR by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. With this script, you are able to pause the lower CTR ad in each ad group (based on if there is at least one other ad in the ad group). Manually, this can take a long time to do, so this script enables you to easily keep the better performing ad running, meaning lower costs and higher CTRs.

5. Pause Ad Groups With No Active Keywords by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script would be useful for larger AdWords accounts, as it automatically pauses ad groups with no active keywords. This essentially saves you time in the long run in managing the account.

6. Pause All Keywords With No Impressions by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. Do you have lots of dead keywords looming in your account negatively impacting on your Quality Score? Well this might be the script for you, as it automatically pauses keywords with no impressions. This script will clean up your account, providing a clear view of the top keywords in your account.

7. Pause or Enable Campaigns, Keywords or Ads On a Specific Date by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. Using labels with “Pause on” or “Enable on”, this script will perform the action you want to take on a specific date. This is useful for when you aren’t available to access your account on a specific date and therefore need to schedule in specific actions.

8. Account Monthly Budget Pause by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. This script is really useful for when you only have a limited amount of money to spend and you can’t afford to go over on your budget. It will label and pause your ads when you have reached your total spend cut off point. This is beneficial for those who have strict budgets to adhere to.

9. Pause Keywords With Low Quality Score by Optmyzr. This script checks your keywords over the last 30 days (by default) and automatically pauses keywords with a Quality Score of 5 and under. This is a great time saving script and will help with maintaining high Quality Scores in the account.

10. Delete All Disapproved Ads In An Account by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. Another great account maintenance script here – large accounts may sometimes build up thousands of ad groups with ads in that have been disapproved. Having this script enables you to remove those disapproved ads in bulk.

11. Remove Underperforming Ads by Frederick Vallaeys from Optmyzr. You can use this script to run a monthly clean-up of all ad experiments (it’s always advisable to run two ads per ad group to split test). It then suggests the ad to remove. This can help you to keep the correct ad when split testing, which will ultimately improve account performance. Sign up to Optmyz to access this script.

12. Disable Ads and Keywords For Out Of Stock Items by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script pauses ad groups when an item on the website goes out of stock. This script is really useful for big e-commerce sites that have products that go in and out of stock all of the time, as you don’t want to be paying for ads that are directed to pages with inactive stock. This is a must have script to save on costs.

Third Party Data

13. Bid By Weather by AdWords Scripts. The Bid By Weather script allows you to apply a bid modifier based on the weather through the OpenWeatherMap API. This is beneficial for businesses that depend on seasonality, as they will be able to automatically modify their ad position through this. For example, a sunglasses shop would apply high bid adjustments in the summer and low bid adjustments in the winter.

14. Manage Ads Based On Airport Delays by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script enables and pauses ads when there is a delay at an airport. This is where bars, restaurants, hotel and surrounding businesses can be really smart and adjust their ad text to cater for such circumstances.

15. Leverage Amazon To Find High Commercial Intent Keywords by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script works by using Amazon autocomplete for new keyword opportunities. You can export the results and add the new keywords into Google AdWords. This is a great tool for making the most of keyword research and would be beneficial to most businesses.

16. Stock Market Performance by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This is a good script for using the stock market performance to adjust your bids via the Yahoo Finance API. It uses real time data which you can use to determine your bids.

17. Authenticating to OAuth Services Using AdWords Scripts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script works by authenticating using OAuth and retrieving data from a service. By pulling data from a service (e.g. Twitter REST API), you can have all your data in one place.

18. Put Crime Statistics In Your Creatives by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script was created by pulling in crime stats (public record data) and updating the keyword ad parameters with the total number of different types of crime. This script would be beneficial to security companies or those who sell insurance, as statistics are always a great way to lure people in to click on an ad; it would also have a great impact on your CTR.

19. Connect Zoho CRM Data With AdWords Using Scripts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. By connecting your Zoho CRM to Google AdWords using scripts, you are then able to report on an entire sales flow within a single report, which is especially handy for B2B businesses. By having all of your important data grouped together, you are able to analyse your PPC activity efficiently and effectively.

20. Pull Salesforce Data Into AdWords Using Scripts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. Similar to the Zoho CRM script, you are able to connect your Salesforce CRM to AdWords in order to report on an entire sales flow within a single report. When integrating two platforms of data, this will allow business owners to access information in one place.

Bidding and Budgets

21. Bid Testing by AdWords Scripts. This script tests different bids and records the results in a Google spreadsheet. This is great because it can then show which bid had the highest CTR and performed the best. This sheet will enable you to determine the best strategy to use in terms of setting budgets and ROAS.

22. Bid to Position by AdWords Scripts. By bidding to a certain ad position, you can test which ad position works best for your goals. This is ideal if you have any budget constraints and need to work with a lower ad position due to competition (e.g. ad position 4).

23. Multi Bidder by AdWords Scripts. The Multi Bidder script acts the same as automated rules. However, you can see all of the rules in a Google spreadsheet, which helps you to keep on top of all of the rules that are currently running in the account.

24. Unique Bidding Rules For Each Campaign by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script enables you to automatically adjust bids depending on a rule. For example, when the cost per conversion has reached a limit, the bids can be adjusted. You can add as many rules as you want. This is a great script for saving time.

25. Flexible Budgets by AdWords Scripts. This script enables you to decipher how the budget is set on a daily basis. However, there is no control over how the budget is consumed during the campaign. This is a great script if you want to schedule how the budget is spent day to day.

26. Update Your Bids From A Google Spreadsheet by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. With this script you can update your bids at a large scale from a Google spreadsheet. This is a great script for saving time.

27. Dynamically Adjust Campaign Budgets by Russell Savage. This script enables you to set a budget and gives you the ability to pause or set a different budget for campaigns when the monthly budget has been used up. It re-enables the campaigns at the start of each month. This is ideal for those who have strict budgets to adhere to or want to set different budgets at different times of the month.

28. Increase Bids On Cheap Conversion Keywords With this script you can decide on a bid adjustment percentage for cheap conversion keywords. This is ideal if you want to increase conversions on low cost converting keywords, as you will then be able to reduce your cost per conversion.

Tools

29. Ad Customizer by AdWords Scripts. This is a handy script, as it enables you to fetch live data (e.g. prices or inventory level) and dynamically insert these into your ads. The data is stored in Google spreadsheets. The benefit of this is that it is pulling in live data into the ads, which can be very compelling for searchers.

30. Ad Parameterizer by AdWords Scripts. This works the same as the Ad Customizer script, but with ad parameters.

31. Sale Countdown by AdWords Scripts. The Sale Countdown script essentially calculates how many hours and days until a promotion is over and incorporates this in the ad text – ideal for those who have a sale on for a limited time only.

32. Sales Countdown Calendar by AdWords Scripts. This essentially works in the same way as the script above, however you can schedule multiple events by integrating a calendar into the script – ideal for managing your special offers throughout the year.

Alerts

33. Account Anomaly Detector by AdWords Scripts. This works by e-mailing the account user if the account is behaving differently to how it has performed in the past. This script is worth having set up because you want to be sure your ads are running without any errors or problems, otherwise you could be wasting money.

34. Link Checker by AdWords Scripts. This script is great for picking up links that are broken. Every account should have this script implemented, because if your ads are directing to pages that are not found, you are effectively throwing money away.

35. Finding Anomalies In Your Keywords, Adgroups and Ads by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. By identifying anomalies in your account, you can identify the issues and fix them. This helps with cleaning up your PPC account.

36. Disapproved Ads Via Text Message & E-mail by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script identifies disapproved ads in a Google spreadsheet and texts you to alert you of this. By being alerted of the disapprovals, you can pause the ads and create new ones immediately or contact Google to try and get them approved.

37. Zero Impressions Alarm by Catalyst Canada Contributor. This script lets you know when your ads have had no impressions. This would be beneficial so that you can investigate and rectify any problems as soon as possible.

38. Make Calls and Send Text Messages To Your Phone From AdWords Scripts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script effectively works by sending you text messages and calls via Twilio about the account. This is ideal for those who get locked out of their e-mail accounts regularly and would prefer an alternative method of communication for their accounts.

39. Changes In CTR by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. With this script Google spreadsheets is used to note the changes in CTR. This is useful if you have a highly successful ad you want to track which has had a recent change in CTR. From here you can check for any changes in user behaviour or on and changes on the website that may have triggered it.

40. Campaigns Over CPA by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. This script alerts you when your campaigns have reached your target CPA. This is useful if you have certain CPA goals to reach and need to do some optimisation on the account to reduce this.

41. Ad Copy Test Alert by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. This script compares the CTR of two ads that have had more than 1,000 impressions each. It will help you to choose the best ad to use and enhance account performance.

42. Daily Alerts by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. This script will send you daily alerts on your account, which can be very useful if you want to know how your account is performing on a day-to-day basis.

Reporting

43. Account Summary Report by AdWords Scripts. This script uses Google spreadsheets to show the performance of an entire AdWords account – you can even create graphs. This is perfect for those who would like to keep a record of how their account is performing.

44. Ad Performance Report by AdWords Scripts. This script focuses primarily on the ad performance, including how a given headline or URL performs. If you want to find out which ad text variations work the best, then this is a great report to use.

45. Declining Ad Groups Report by AdWords Scripts. By tracking ad groups that are gradually worsening in performance, this script enables you to decide whether to switch these off or improve them. The benefit of this is that you can keep on top of the performance of every ad group in your campaign to find out which ones are most successful.

46. Keyword Performance Report by AdWords Scripts. This works by using a Google spreadsheet to display how your keywords are performing with a number of different distribution charts. This is ideal for making a decision on keeping or pausing under performing keywords.

47. Search Query Report by AdWords Scripts. The Search Query Report sets out the keywords you can add or exclude, which helps you to sort out your incoming search terms.

48. Performance Signals Report by AdWords Scripts. This is a flexible MCC report that shows several performance signals across all of your accounts via a heat map, which then allows you to calculate a score that rates each account. This is great, especially for agencies to figure out which account is performing the best.

49. Mobile PageSpeed by AdWords Scripts. The PageSpeed Insights: Mobile Analysis tool provides a report suggesting how you can improve your mobile landing pages. This is a great report for landing page optimisation, as the more mobile optimised your landing pages are, the more likely they are to convert on mobile.

50. Store Account, Campaign, Ad Group, and Keyword Level Quality Score by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script stores the Quality Score for any date range via Google spreadsheets. This is a fantastic script, as you can compare the scores between certain date ranges and see where you need to improve.

51. Campaign and Keyword Performance Reporting by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script enables you to report on campaign and keyword performance with five different metrics. The benefit of this is that it would save you time in creating reports manually, as the script generates the reports, which you can schedule to send.

52. Daily Metrics Export by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. By exporting daily metrics via Google spreadsheets, you are able to keep track of your statistics and historical data.

53. Monthly Projections by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. By tracking the monthly projections via Google spreadsheets, you can keep track of your data month on month.

54. Google AdWords Quality Score Performance Analyzer by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script audits an account’s quality score performance and creates a table that shows the distribution of CTR, conversions and cost against the quality score. This helps you to analyse the relationship between these metrics and the strategy going forward for improving your quality score.

55. AdWords Account Audit Checklist Using AdWords Scripts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. The account audit check-list script runs through as many checks as possible and reports on areas to solve first. This is great for those who have recently taken over an account and need to find out what needs to be resolved.

Seasonal

56. Update Ads For The New Year by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This is an excellent script, especially if you use years in your ad text. It essentially pauses your ads and updates them with new ad text on January 1^st – most businesses should take advantage of this to ensure their ads don’t look outdated.

57. Update Your Keywords For The Holiday Season by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script is similar to the above, however with this script you can update your keywords year on year, for example if they had the year 2015 in, this would be changed. This would save on admin time in the New Year and would suit those who don’t come into the office on January 1^st!

Automating Maintenance Tasks

58. Automating Maintenance Tasks With AdWords Scripting Part 1 by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script deals with keywords that are converting too expensively.

59. Automating Maintenance Tasks with AdWords Scripting Part 2 by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script rewards keywords that are bringing in cheap traffic.

60. Automating Maintenance Tasks with AdWords Scripting Part 3 by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script de-clutters your account by shedding keywords that don’t have any conversions.

Automating the maintenance tasks will save you time in optimising the account.

Labels

61. Label Keywords With Organic Rank Data by Brainlabs. In order for this script to work, you need to fill out your organic keyword positions in a Google spreadsheet and the script will then automatically match these up to any keywords in the PPC account (and their positions). This is great for comparing your SEO efforts against your PPC efforts.

62. Label Countdown For Ignoring New Elements by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. If you want to label keywords that have recently been added to your account, this is the script for you. The benefit of this script is that you will know which keywords to optimise and therefore will not accidentally optimise the keyword or pause it when it has just been added.

63. Merge Labels From Multiple Campaigns by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script follows on from the “merge multiple campaigns together” script, as it then copies all of the labels from the original campaigns over to the new campaign. This is so you can continue to keep track in the same format as before.

64. Labels For When New Ads, Ad Groups, Keywords or Campaigns Were Created by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. By using labelling to establish when an ad received its first impression, you can track how effective each ad/ad group/keyword/campaign really is. This is really useful for when you’re optimising your account, as you will be able to see the history.

65. AdWords Dashboard By Label by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. This script allows you to label different campaigns in bulk, which is useful to tag your campaigns quickly.

66. Account Labels by AdWords Scripts. Account labels comprise a list of different scripts on how to use account labels, which will let you bulk label certain campaigns in your account.

67. Labels by AdWords Scripts. This script identifies poorly performing keywords and labels them for you to review later on. This is great for identifying which keywords to pause or improve.

Tracking

68. Track Quality Score by Martin Roettgerding from Bloofusion Germany. This script uses labels to track the Quality Score of the keywords. Changes are logged and can be emailed to you. You can use the history in the Google spreadsheet for in-depth analysis.

69. Track AdWords Script Runs with Google Analytics by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script is used to enable Google Analytics to report on the scripts you run within your AdWords account. This would be beneficial for those who want all of their reporting in one place within Google Analytics.

70. MCC Script Dashboard by Frederick Vallaeys from Optmyzr. This script builds a dashboard for all of your PPC accounts and shows how yesterday’s spend compares to the day before and to the same day last week. This is handy for tracking spend on each account you deal with.

71. Track Campaigns By CPA by Sean Dolan from Pushfire. By tracking CPAs by determining whether they have a high or low CPA, you can determine which keywords to enable or pause.

72. Auto Add Track Parameters If Not There. In this script, you can state which parameters should be automatically added to your campaigns if they are not already there. This is useful if you want to make sure the track parameters cover your whole AdWords account.

Ad Text

73. Fixing Capitalisation Errors In Your Ads by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script works by trailing through all of your ads and replaces the ones with capitalisation with new ads. This helps to save time on amending each ad.

74. Ad Creative Test Automation Script by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script automatically tracks when the ad creative test starts and this is stored in a Google spreadsheet. You can then choose the best performing ad using an accurate time scale.

75. Manage Your AdWords Creatives Using Excel by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. If you want to manage your AdWords account using Excel, then this is the script for you. It allows you to manage ads, ad groups and ad extensions in Excel, which may be an easier format to use than Editor or the AdWords interface for some.

76. Copy Existing AdWords Ads With A New Destination URL by Derek Martin from Ask.com. By copying existing ads with a new destination URL, you can save time and switch the ads over/split test quickly.

77. Feed Your Inventory Count Into AdWords Ads by Nathan Byloff from RankHammer. This script pauses ads when a certain product is out of stock via WooCommerce. This is a handy script to use for e-commerce sites, as you will save money on ads that are directed to an out-of-stock product.

78. AdWords Countdown Ads Updater Script by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script updates the countdown ads by pausing them and replacing them with the new dates. This helps to keep the countdown ads fresh.

79. Automated Creative Testing With Statistical Significance by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script monitors ads and notifies you via e-mail to take action when they have hit statistical significance. This is to let you know that the ads are ready for split testing, which will enable you to start improving the CTR.

Keywords

80. Reverse ‘Close Variant Matching’ by Brainlabs. This script enables you to reverse the “close variant matching” on your keywords so you can tailor your ad text specifically to that keyword without it being shown for the variant keyword. This is ideal for those who have detailed strategies in mind for “exact match” keywords.

81. Account Performance By Keyword Match Type by Manas Garg from Optmyzr. This handy script enables you to compare the performance of each keyword match type so you can analyse how each one performs. This is great for figuring out which keyword match types to focus on using in your account. To access the script, you have to sign up to Optmyzr.

82. Search Query Opportunities by Daniel Gilbert from Brainlabs. This script analyses your search query report and works out the performance of each word. This enables you to figure out which keywords will work best.

83. Perform Search Query Analysis by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script allows you to review search queries and post adjustments via Google spreadsheets.

84. Negative Keyword Lists by AdWords Scripts. These two scripts allow you to construct a new negative keyword list, add it to a campaign and remove all the shared negative keywords in a negative keyword list. This allows you to deal with negative keyword lists in an efficient way.

85. Negative Keywords by AdWords Scripts. These negative keyword scripts allow you to deal with negative keywords on a campaign and ad group level, which is great if you don’t want to use the AdWords interface or editor to manage your negatives.

86. Master Negative List by AdWords Scripts. This script enables you to use one master negative list against multiple campaigns. This could be handy for those who want to build a generic negative keyword list across multiple accounts.

87. Keywords by AdWords Scripts. The keywords scripts cover the following: adding a keyword to an existing ad group, pausing an existing keyword in an ad group, getting all keywords in an ad group and getting statistics for all keywords in an ad group. Again, these scripts are useful if you don’t want to use the AdWords interface or editor to manage your keywords.

Google Display Network & Shopping Campaigns

88. Shopping Campaigns by AdWords Scripts. AdWords Scripts have provided a list of Shopping Campaign scripts to use to manage your Shopping Campaigns. This is perfect if you don’t want to manage your Shopping Campaigns within the AdWords interface or editor.

89. Shopping Content by AdWords Scripts. These scripts focus primarily on the products in the Shopping Campaigns and will save you time on optimisation by implementing them.

90. Google Display Network by AdWords Scripts. If you want to manage your Google Display Network campaigns with scripts, this list will enable you to do so. These are great scripts that help you manage your GDN campaigns efficiently.

91. Reviews GDN Placements by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script identifies your under performing placements so that you can change what’s not working. This is a very useful script as the GDN campaigns can generate thousands of placements, which can be time consuming to manage and control manually. This script will help to keep costs low.

92. Review Google Shopping Products For Sharp Changes by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This script searches for any sharp changes in your Google Shopping campaigns. It will look at product level cost and average CPC. This is worth using if you want to be alerted to any changes in your campaigns.

93. Bulk Shopping Ad Group Creator by AdWords Scripts. This script enables you to create ad groups and product groups at a bulk level using Google spreadsheets. It allows you to organise your campaign structure and upload ad groups and product groups quickly.

Other

94. AdWords Scripts Taking Advantage of Google Prediction API by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script lets you use Google Prediction API in conjunction with AdWords scripts to glean insights into your PPC data. This is useful because it provides you with predictions, saving you time that you could use to analyse data yourself.

95. Use GDrive To Load A Single AdWords Script Into Multiple Accounts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. By using one Google spreadsheet to control all of your scripts, you won’t have to log in to each account and update them.

96. Building Entity Deep Links with AdWords Scripts by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script works by building deep links next to the entity that’s having issues, which is convenient if you need to identify problems within the account.

97. Use Google Feed API To Convert RSS to JSON by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. By using the Google Feed API in your script, you can automatically convert the XML in the RSS feed to JSON – this makes working with them much easier.

98. Making Sure The Date/Time Zone Is Correct by Nathan Byloff from RankHammer. If you’re running a script that turns ads on or off at a specific time, you need to make sure that the date and time zone are correct. This script enables you to rely on your account’s time, which is great if you have other time reliant scripts running.

99. AdWords Script That Leverages Google Autocomplete by Derek Martin from Ask.com. This is a brilliant script for finding potential keyword opportunities by taking advantage of Google auto complete. It will help you to expand your account without having to take the time to do your own keyword research.

100. Merge Multiple Campaigns Together by Russell Savage from FreeAdWordsScripts.com. This script pauses the old campaigns and copies them over into one big campaign, so you still have the historical data. This is useful for restructuring campaigns and making merging a quick process.

Conclusion

There we have it – the top 100 scripts for you to implement across your PPC accounts! If you can take away and implement a few of these scripts to start with, you’re on the way to saving yourself time and money. Automating daily tasks will help to keep your account neat and tidy. Remember to check your scripts are running in the way you want them to and sit back and relax as they do the work for you!

I’d be interested in hearing about your own scripts, so feel free to share these in the comment section below.  Alternatively, you can contact me on any of the social profiles below if you have any questions.

The post 100 Google AdWords Scripts You Should Be Using appeared first on Koozai.com

from Donald Jarrett digital marketing news http://ift.tt/1ZXTbgk via transformational marketing
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/22XdvRt