You can already do some pretty interesting stuff with the existing Google Impression Share data – my favorite of which, having been taught by Jeff Allen and Sean Quadlin, is reverse engineering your potential maximum budget based on lost Impression Share. Imagine then, if you will, their reaction to last week’s release on the Google AdWords blog detailing the new Impression Share reporting changes! (Hint: There might have been some giggling and awkward high fives.)
As detailed in this post, early November brings with it some reporting improvements:
- Distinct search and display columns: For those of you who haven’t yet gotten around to segmenting your display campaigns.
- Hour of day segmentation: Examine how your Impression Share varies by each hour of the day.
- Filters, charts and rules: Apply filters, see pretty graphs, and make use of Google’s automated rules utilizing Impression Share metrics.
- Accuracy: This is more a peek behind the curtain, but it’s still nice to know that we’ll be getting a more accurate idea of how our Impression Share breaks down – especially when combined with the above changes.
More data is always a good thing, especially when it comes to making informed decisions about how to best allocate your budget. With the new hour of day segmentation, you could potentially combine this feature with the existing ad scheduling options for more effective dayparting. Well, theoretically, at least.
With this change, the existing Impression Share columns will be phased out starting this November. If you’d like to keep an offline copy of the existing Impression Share data columns for posterity, I’d suggest handling that before the end of October – historical data before October 1st will be unavailable to you after that point. The existing Impression Share columns will then expire in February 2013 (but you’ll be able to pull new data for them going back to October 1st up until that point).
Bing Adds Sitelinks
In other, non-Google related news, Bing has finally gone live with Sitelink extensions. They’ve been in beta for some time, so the feature has only had limited availability up until this point.
Bing reports that advertisers have seen as much as a 15-25% jump in click-through-rate from the use of the new Sitelink Extensions. Seeing as how the pilot program had them active on only a 30-50% rotation, I’m quite enthusiastic about the potential gains of having them on 100% of the time.
(You DO make use of Sitelink Extensions, right?)
To make use of this handy new feature, you need only go to the Bing Ads interface. Inside the Campaigns tab, you’ll find the new “ad extensions” sub tab.
Once inside, it’s a simple matter of selecting “Add an Extension” and choosing “Sitelink Extension” from the drop-down menu. Clicking on that will bring up a new field where you can select your affiliated campaign and create new (or use already-existing) Sitelinks; similar to how it’s done in AdWords. In addition, you also have the option of using the newest version of the Bing Ads Editor to create your Sitelinks, as well as through the Bing API.
So that makes Google and Bing even in the functionality arms race, right? Well, maybe not – but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. Excited about Impression Share? Can’t wait to “Bing It On” with some Sitelinks? Or maybe you have an idea about what features should come next for both Google and Bing? Let us know in the comments, and thanks for reading!
