It was a great experience again this year attending & speaking at SMX West in San Jose. I was thrilled to have such awesome, knowledge-hungry attendees at the sessions I spoke in, as well as see other smart industry leaders speak on their favorite SEM & SEO subjects.
Weren’t able to make it to the conference or to my sessions? Never fear! Check out my slide decks here:
- What Would Beyoncé Do? 5 PPC Tips To Make Your Account a Superstar
- Now You See It! Visualizing Your PPC Competition
Presentations covered everything from high-level strategic concepts to nitty-gritty tactical implementation. In this post, I took a stab at narrowing it down to my top 10 most valuable takeaways from SMX West 2016:
#1:
Google says Voice Search is growing at a faster rate than typed Search (so start factoring in voice search into keyword list builds) — Behshad Behzadi, Google & Danny Sullivan, SearchEngineLand/MarketingLand
Voice search is growing faster than typed search says @Google's @BehshadBehzadi at @SMX #SMX pic.twitter.com/WRkT6unoxk
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 1, 2016
#2:
Take ad copy from one channel (Search, Social, Display, etc) and test it in other channels — Marty Weintraub, aimclear
.@martyweintraub "Take ad creative concepts & tests from other channels (like Social) and apply it to your search ads!" #smx
— Maddie Cary (@MaddieMarketer) March 1, 2016
#3:
Watch out for Dynamic Search Ad (DSA) campaigns matching to your phrase or broad match keywords — Sahil Jain, AdStage
DSA's *shouldn't* compete w/ queries that exactly match your KW but can/will compete if phrase/broad match. #SMX https://t.co/GBySQxuSWa
— Amy (Hoffman) Bishop (@Hoffman8) March 1, 2016
#4:
Make all that raw data visual! Try things like creating Excel graphs & adding annotations to call out performance context — Annie Cushing, Annielytics
Note to self: add annotations to Excel graphs. Thanks @AnnieCushing. #smx #22c @SMX
— John Lee (@John_A_Lee) March 2, 2016
#5:
Rethink your audience targeting – your assumptions may be way off — Mark Irvine, Wordstream
Rethink your audiences. Ignore your assumptions (e.g. 40% of baby product buyers don't have kids in household) #smx #24b @MarkIrvine89
— John Lee (@John_A_Lee) March 2, 2016
#6:
For competitive Display research, use MOAT.com to review your competitor’s banners from up to 3 years back — Kim Thomas, PPCkimpossible
"Product groups don't allow you to add negatives and fence query mapping. Use ad groups instead!"@SusanEDub #smx #shopping
— Maddie Cary (@MaddieMarketer) March 3, 2016
#7:
Looking to stand out on the SERP and improve CTR? Try testing Bing Ads Image Extensions — John Lee, Clix Marketing
Are you using Bing Ads Image Extensions yet? @John_A_Lee says start. Works & more exposure coming #smx #31B pic.twitter.com/NGQEqzll3C
— Ginny Marvin (@GinnyMarvin) March 3, 2016
#8:
You can remarket to those who don’t visit your site! Try targeting email addresses, app downloads, Google’s Similar Audiences, or YouTube — Joe Kerschbaum, 3QDigital
The WAYS to magically remarket to ppl not on your site:
1) Email
2) App Downloads
3) Similar Audiences
4) YouTube#SMX @JoeKerschbaum— Christi Olson (@ChristiJOlson) March 3, 2016
#9:
Using Audience Exclusions only works for Display, not for RLSA (Search) — Brad Geddes
Before #smx PPC roundtable, @bgtheory told me @adwords confirmed that excluding audiences only works for Display, not Search (RLSA). Whaaa??
— Maddie Cary (@MaddieMarketer) March 3, 2016
Though Google disagrees…
@MaddieMarketer Hey Maddie, audience exclusions work for RLSA. Just ensure the campaign is Search-All Features and you're good to go! -Vrin
— Google AdWords (@adwords) March 4, 2016
#10:
For Shopping campaigns, Product Groups don’t allow you to add negatives for query fencing or apply shared bid strategies – so use Ad Groups instead! — Susan Wenograd, Kirk Williams
"Product groups don't allow you to add negatives and fence query mapping. Use ad groups instead!"@SusanEDub #smx #shopping
— Maddie Cary (@MaddieMarketer) March 3, 2016
BONUS TAKE AWAY
The Google Dance after party brought out some groovy dance moves 🙂
.@dchordigian shutting it down at #GoogleDance #SMX 👏🏻👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/71JWbay6St
— Search Engine Land (@sengineland) March 3, 2016
What did you learn from being at SMX West or following the #SMX hashtag this year? Share with us your favorite takeaways in the blog comments, or tweet at @MaddieMarketer & @point_it!
