{"id":876,"date":"2019-04-30T15:37:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T07:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.haguepublishing.com\/?p=876"},"modified":"2019-04-30T15:50:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T07:50:15","slug":"the-great-google-book-ad-experiment-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/the-great-google-book-ad-experiment-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Google Book Ad Experiment (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(aka Can a Google Ad Sell Books)
Week 3<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Google<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I decided to wait three weeks until I had some useful (?) data. If you remember from my last post the intention was to target people searching for Alternate History (or similar) using the Google search engine. The seven findings so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7 findings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
  1. Despite specifically excluding search terms\nincluding bookshop or books, and only placing the ads before people search for\nAlternate History (or similar), Google decided to ignore my instructions\nbecause it needs to generate clicks not sales (see point 2). Specifically the\nphrase \u2018books\u2019 triggered the ad in 11,938 cases (nearly 1\/3 of all impressions),\nand generated 15 clicks (out of a total of 108).<\/li>
  2. Google tunes its placement algorithms based on\nthe number of clicks, not sales. I concede that Google can\u2019t actually identify\nsales (that\u2019s my job) but its hardly a fair trial of my proposed strategy if\nGoogle does its own thing.<\/li>
  3. Most of the ads placements were actually on Google\npartnered sites (97%), rather than in direct response to a search, once again preventing\nme from properly testing the effectiveness of my proposed strategy (see point 7(a)\nbelow).<\/li>
  4. Despite only 3% of ads appeared on Google Search\n13% of clicks came from ad placement on Google Search, indicating that such\nplacements were 430% more effective than appearances on partnered sites.<\/li>
  5. In addition, despite only 3% of ads appearing on\nGoogle Search they made up 43% of the cost.<\/li>
  6. Advertising on a Friday is twice as expensive as\nit is on a Saturday, and three times what it is on a Sunday. That is $1.20 per\nclick on a Friday, compared to $0.61 on a Saturday, and $0.47 on Sundays. OK \u2013\nthis one was an easy fix, I stopped advertising on Fridays and shifted that\nbudget to the weekend, which should increase the number of click throughs by\n50%.<\/li>
  7. The Google Ads App has way more information than\nwhat\u2019s available on the desktop \u2013 which is very weird. Information available only\nvia the App includes:
    1. Where the App was viewed:
      1. Google Search \u2013 3%<\/li><\/ol>
        1. Google Partner Sites \u2013 97% <\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol>
          1. What the App was viewed on:
            1. Smartphones \u2013 39%<\/li><\/ol>
              1. Tablets \u2013 47%<\/li><\/ol>
                1. Computers \u2013 14%<\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol>
                  1. The Ad was clicked on:
                    1. Google search \u2013 13%<\/li><\/ol>
                      1. Google partner sites \u2013 87%<\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                        Next steps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
                        1. I have cancelled Friday\u2019s advertising and\ntransferred its budget to the weekend<\/li>
                        2. I have a phone conference scheduled in a couple\nof days with my Google Ads Campaign Specialist to discuss<\/li>
                        3. I see what happens over the next three weeks<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                          (aka Can a Google Ad Sell Books)Week 3 I decided to wait three weeks until I had some useful (?) data. If you remember from my last post the intention was to target people searching for Alternate History (or similar) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,24],"tags":[259,45,260,258,257,263],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers","category-marketing-101-for-authors","tag-ad","tag-book","tag-experiment","tag-google","tag-great","tag-part"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879,"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}