Hey there Mozzers! Today I'm going to talk about how to link your new Google+ Business Page to your Google AdWords account so you can start utilizing the new social extension feature.
As we all know, Google+ has been hard at work lately trying to increase their user base and trying to close the gap between them and Facebook. Over the past few weeks they have moved one step closer by rolling out their Google+ business pages - basically the equivalent to Facebook business profiles.
Now, before I go any further, I want to state a quick disclaimer; social extensions are brand new within AdWords and the folks over at Google are still ironing out the kinks. There are still many questions around how they will evolve over the next several months, but for now I will do my best to explain what social extensions are, how to set them up, and what they can do for your PPC performance.
What Are AdWords Social Extensions?
Social extensions within AdWords are Google's way of annotating your Google+ follower count to your PPC ads. Here's what it looks like in action:
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Pretty cool, eh?
Now there's 2 types of Social Extensions that Google rolled out with, Personal and Basic. The example above is a Personal social extension. It shows you how many people within your Circles who have +1'd either the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. When the Basic social extension is shown, it will show you how many people across the web have +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page. For example, if Roger Mozbot does a search on robot wheels he might see an ad that has the Basic social extension, "300 people have +1'd this". That means that 300 people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or the Google+ Business Page.
How Do You Set Up Social Extensions?
1. Setup your Google+ Business Page
The first thing you need to do is setup your Google+ Business Page, if you haven't done so already. Our Chief Community Wrangler, Jen Lopez, set ours up and told me it was quick and painless. But, if you need some help on how to set up your business page, check out this article by Search Engine Land.
2. Verify your site
In order for Google to verify that you are the owner of the Business Page, you need to do two things.
- In the "about" section of your Google+ Business Page, add a link pointing to your website.
- Create a link from your site to your Google+ Business Page by adding the Google+ badge to your website. You can do this easily by adding a snippet of code to your website and formatting the Google+ badge.
3. Activate social extensions in your AdWords account
After completing the first two steps, go in to your Google AdWords account and click on the "ad extensions" button, then make sure you are viewing "social extensions" and click "new extension".
Now you'll have to paste your Google+ Business Page URL in to the box:
After saving the new social extension, it may take a few days for Google to approve it. It will say "pending review" until it has been approved and then the status will change to "eligible". Now your ads should start showing social extensions. W00t!
What Are The Benefits Of Setting Up Social Extensions?
So now that you have everything set up properly, you're probably wondering what type of impact the social extensions will have on your ad performance. I can tell you that I have seen a nice bump in CTR on all of my ads that have been shown with the social extensions. The data is pretty preliminary since Google is only showing social extensions on a limited basis, but so far, the results look very good.
After setting up everything correctly in your AdWords account, if you want to see how the social extensions are performing, follow these simple steps:
- Click in to one of your campaigns that has enabled social extensions
- Click on the "ads" tab
- Click on the "segment" drop down and select "+1 Annotations"
In the above screenshot you can see that while we only had a handful of impressions showing with the basic social extension, it has a much higher CTR then our standard ad. I reviewed some other ads within our campaign and am seeing a significant bump in CTR on all ads that were shown with either the personal or basic social extensions!
We know that these social extensions are still in their infant stages at Google, and I'm sure Google will be making some tweaks to them as they gather more data. But for now, there are several unique advantages you will have by turning on social extensions in your AdWords account.
- Most advertisers still aren't utilizing social extensions so you can roll out with them before your competitors do
- It only takes a few minutes to set up, it is free, and it will instantly give your ads more credibility and trust by having the social annotations appear within them
- While the results are still very preliminary, it appears that ads with social annotations are generating higher CTRs
- Increase the number of +1's you have on your Business Page since users who +1 your ad will count as a +1 to your Business Page
I hope you find this post helpful and can get some value out of turning on social extensions within your AdWords account. If you have already turned them on and are seeing results, please feel free to share them with me. Also, if you have questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.
Thanks justin, for making me aware of this social extensions in adwords. to be Honest.. I was not knowing it how to integrate the social extensions in the campaigns hence thanks for the step by step representation to show it up!
Just now I got my doubts more cleared regarding the Charges, if people click on the social annotation on our adwords ads! and I am happy to say there is NO charge for the clicks on social annotations--courtsey---SeoMoz's Google circle Page. So Folks it's totally no extra load giving on our wallet and of course , it's nice way to see increment in CTR.
Nice post, waiting for more.. Lots of thumbs up to you!
Great stuff Justin!
I think marketers & SEOs need to figure out how to incentivize clicking the +1's for these PPC ads because, if what you said is true, CTR can skyrocket. Maybe asking or giving a discount at checkout for e-commerce sites?
That's an interesting thought JR. What I'm seeing so far is that the CTR's are going up on the ads simply because they show the social extension. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with if people +1 the ad. Obviously the more we try to incentivize searchers to click on the +1 button within the ad, we increase the chance that they get distracted and click on the Google+ Business Page link instead of clicking through to the landing page.
I think you are right - we're testing at the moment and CTR's on two very similar sites/campaigns are up on the one we added social extensions to...early days yet but as you said, it's more about stimulatng the click visually...but will this "edge" diminish as more sites/campaigns integrate Social Extensions?
Yeah I definitely think the impact might diminish some over time as more and more advertisers turn on Social Extensions. But then again, if you are rocking it on the Google+ side and have more followers than your competitors, it still can help your ad stand out and increase CTR.
Given Bing's "special relationship" with Facebook, I'd always wondered why Microsoft didn't negotiate for the addition of FB social extensions within their PPC ad sales. It would have at least given Bing a unique selling proposition over Google Adwords. Much higher CTR within Facebook ads that have the social component activated: Bing could've gotten a small piece of that action if they'd moved on it early enough.
Hey Brian...I used to work at Microsoft on the Bing team so I probably should keep my mouth closed on that one. ;) But seriously, I always thought they could do so much more with the FB/Bing relationship than they are currently doing. Maybe they'll roll out some more functionality now that Google+ is so integrated in to Google search.
If they had done it prior to Google+, they'd have been able to say G was copying them... but alas.
Thanks for the update. I can see the CTR increasing because it stands out from other ads. Similar to the address being displayed underneath the ad for local search queries. How will this affect the address display? Will it replace the address or show both the address and +1's? That's a HUGE ad space!
UPDATE: Local search queries still display the address but the numbered pin is removed when google plus profile pics are displayed. Also,you will only see google plus profile pics next to the ad when friends within your circles have +1'd the corresponding ad/plus page.
Hey Derek. Thanks for the update! If you have social extensions enabled and you go in to your ads tab and click the "+1 annotations" under the segments drop down, you'll see that Google has 2 types of social annotations: Personal and Basic. What you are talking about is the Personal social extensions where it shows the profile pics. The Basic one will show you how many people across the web have either +1'd the landing page or business page for an ad (you don't have to have any friends who have +1'd it). This one will just be a total +1 number annotated to the ad. Still pretty powerful if you ask me.
Ahh Thanks for clarifying. I need to click the "+1 annotations" option to see anybody who +1'd the page (not just people in my circles). Yeah i agree it is powerful stuff and should have a positive impact on CTR.
Is it just me or does using the different variations of "+1" in a sentence feel awkward? Something I better get used to fairly quick though!
Hi, first of all thank you for the article. I guess the CTR bump is related with the number of +1 that you have. I mean, if a company only have a few +1s it shouldn't have a good impact, right?
Nevertheless I am going to implement it soon :)
Thanks again
Eh, more work... Now gotta get all our clients to make Google + pages, or eat the time sink and do it ourselves for them.. Great post though.
As far as I think this is just something that google is trying to do to promote its +1 social plugin. I can say undoubtably that +1 is going to affect the organic Search in near future but not the PPC at all as it is just based on your Bid amount.
Nice POST!!! looking forward to integrating social within my PPC! thank you
Go for it Dubs! It's super easy to set up.
If we had a PPC campaign running right now I'd be overjoyed by this.
It does show google seems to be constantly trying to increase the value of google+, so for a good while I expect it will keep giving better visability and such, and will continue to do so untill they're satisfyed with their share of the social market.
Nice one we have been testing this a bit, yet at this stage it is early days. Will be interesting too see what these types of advertising options are link in 2 years? I can see big things in this space =)
Hi Justin,
Wow! Some days it's almost like you Mozzers are reading my mind :)
Just when I think "hmmm...I need to do some reading about this" - Ta Da! A blog post with a simple explanation and all the tips needed to make it happen. Customer service is one thing, but mind reading? Just Wow.
Thanks so much,
Sha
I totally know what you mean. This is a great topic and one that deserves some special inbound marketing segmentation treats for power Gmailers and the like. I'm socially mapping my email database, you?
You know how we roll over here Sha! :) Didn't we tell you we hired our own in-house psychic to read our customer's minds so we can give them what they need before they realize they need it?? :) Glad you enjoyed the post!
Well that confirms what I thought - I've spent the morning add social ad extensions and I now thinking about an email campaign to get people to become our friends - hopefully being an early adopter will see us benefiting
I hope so too! Keep me posted on the results you see!
We have seller review on our adwords which the agency can not see any significant change in comparison with historical data. If anyone has some interesting historical comparison then please do let me know.
I have sent a copy of this to the agency now and will bring this up at our next meeting.
I have definately seen the impact of +1 in in organic search and with the estimation [Keyword privatisation by Google of logged in users via https] of 10% it is exciting to hear you could have your site appear in the #1 page of Google for 10% of searchers.
Need to get mapping out this process asap
Quacktastic!
Google did not make it easy to adjust the size/css of the badge.
Justin great Post with actionables we all can gain from..much appreciated..digging in tommorrow.