How to Succeed with Gmail Ads
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My presentation from SMX London 2016 about using Mailchimp to build Custom HTML email templates that are compatible with Adwords Gmail Ads and effective at lead generation.
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How to Succeed with Gmail Ads
- 1. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Using Custom HTML Templates to Improve Lead Generation How to Succeed with Gmail Ads
- 2. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC cmccaskell@ambergreen.co.uk Colleen McCaskell Paid Media Manager at
- 3. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Gmail Ads allow you to reach your target audiences via the Google Display Network within Gmail’s Promotions tab. You are charged on a cost-per-click basis when somebody clicks to expand the teaser and view the full ad. What are Gmail Ads?
- 4. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Gmail Image Template All content (text and visuals) must be contained within a single image. Gmail Single Promotion Template The brand’s logo is featured separately alongside a smaller image, text description with headline, and a CTA button.
- 5. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC (Gmail) (An ACTUAL Email) (Qualified interaction from someone already engaged with email content) I want to promote my capybara rescue and rehoming service. How can I leverage Gmail Ads towards driving more adoptions? The Challenge
- 6. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Sign up for a free account Click “Create Template” in the Templates section Choose a “Drag and Drop” template from the “Basic” selection Be sure to select a layout that suits your content – How many columns do you require for your text? – How many images will you be using? Create a Template in MailChimp to Get Started
- 7. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Simple, User-Friendly Interface Simply drag and drop the elements that you require from the right to the left.
- 8. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Recommended Components of the Email – High quality header / hero image with optional text CTA – Business logo incorporated into the header – Engaging, informative, descriptive ad copy with headings as appropriate – Images to break up blocks of text – A call-to-action button – Ensure that your email does not exceed the limits of 650 x 1,000 px / 1.25 MB!
- 9. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Export as HTML Once you have saved your email, you can preview, duplicate and export the template as an HTML file to be uploaded directly into Adwords. Tidy Up Your Email in Mailchimp Remove any extraneous components from the email such as the standard Mailchimp footer which enables people to update their preferences or unsubscribe. Click the trash bin icon to delete.
- 10. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Ensure that your folder aligns precisely with Google’s specs – The email itself (that you exported as HTML) should be saved as “index.html” – All images in the body of the email should be saved to a folder entitled “images” – The logo should be saved to the main folder as “logo.png” – The teaser should be saved as “teaser.txt” – Compress your folder and you’re ready to go! Organise Your Gmail Ads Assets
- 11. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Create a Gmail Ads Campaign Create a new Display campaign – Select the “All Features” option – Sort out the basics: budget, location targeting, scheduling, etc. – Add Gmail as the only placement. Easy peasy!
- 12. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Upload your HTML file into Adwords – Visit the Gmail Ads section of the Ad Gallery – Select the custom HTML upload option – Remove any unnecessary components of the email (or modify the HTML directly) Create a Gmail Ads Campaign
- 13. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC The Finished Product (Ad Preview) (Collapsed Ad)
- 14. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC I still need to find fans of capybaras! Where do I start? – Domain targeting (via the Keywords section) – Keyword targeting – Customer Match lists – Topics – Demographics – Similar Audiences – You can also exclude audiences based on all of the targeting listed above Cool! But how do I reach the right Gmail users with my ad?
- 15. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Target top-performing keywords from your Search campaigns Targeting is based on broad match content in the users’ last 300 received emails (inbox and archive). (And don’t forget to “retarget” your own domain, as well!) Target specific domains from the Keyword targeting section If you add a domain as a keyword, you’ll be able to reach people who are on the mailing lists of your direct competitors or partners!
- 16. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Expand your targeting, but keep it highly relevant. Don’t create a message mismatch like below!
- 17. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC User signs up to our newsletter User ticks location as “United States” User is added to the US Mailchimp list The Mailchimp list is used to create a Customer Match audience in Adwords Distribute a Gmail ad about American capybaras to this audience Customer Match: Geo-targeting
- 18. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Not clicking on your emails? You need to demand their attention! Try a more urgent CTA: “Our capybaras need your help urgently. Save a capybara’s life today!” User signs up to our newsletter User doesn’t open up any emails from our drip campaign User is added to a “low engagement” Mailchimp list The Mailchimp list is used to create a Customer Match audience in Adwords Distribute a Gmail ad to this audience with a more urgent CTA or even a special offer Customer Match: Engagement
- 19. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Bad News! The standard CTR and CPC columns are inaccurate in that they report all clicks on the ad unit itself rather than clicks through to the website. Evaluating the Performance of your Gmail Ads Calculate Your CTR and CPC CTR = Gmail clicks to website / Impressions Avg. CPC = Cost / Gmail clicks to website 0.02% £1.76
- 20. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC How do Gmail Ads stack up against other Display campaigns? Campaign Cost Impressions All Clicks Clicks to Website CTR Avg. CPC Gmail Ads £4,085.73 1,151,076 37,082 2,321 0.2% £1.76 Custom Affinity Audiences £1,889.01 2,453,966 12,907 12,907 0.5% £0.15 In-Market Audiences £2,284.44 6,276,910 13,335 13,335 0.2% £0.17 Similar Audiences £1,474.19 2,266,869 15,163 15,163 0.7% £0.10
- 21. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC How do Gmail Ads visitors engage with the content of the website? Campaign Bounce rate Pages / session Avg. session duration (seconds) Gmail Ads 51% 2.5 149 Custom Affinity Audiences 91% 1.1 10 In-Market Audiences 91% 1.2 17 Similar Audiences 93% 1.1 11
- 22. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC How effective are Gmail Ads at driving conversions within a goal CPA? Campaign Conversions CPA Conv. rate Application Forms Gmail Ads 159 £25.70 0.43% 27 Custom Affinity Audiences 49 £38.55 0.38% 7 In-Market Audiences 43 £53.13 0.32% 8 Similar Audiences 32 £46.07 0.21% 5
- 23. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC “People aren’t clicking through to my site!” Embed a form directly within the ad, removing an impediment to capturing the lead data. “People aren’t engaging with my content!” Embed a video within the ad, improving clarity on more complex processes or services.
- 24. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC Design expertise isn’t necessary HTML / CSS knowledge isn’t necessary Capybaras aren’t necessary (unfortunately) So what’s stopping you? Take Gmail Ads out for a test drive in your account. They may just become one of your top-performing Display campaigns!
- 25. #SMX #11B @SpitfirePPC LEARN MORE: UPCOMING @SMX EVENTS THANK YOU! SEE YOU AT THE NEXT #SMX
Notas do Editor
- My name is Colleen and I’m an expat from Buffalo NY currently based at a Scottish digital marketing agency, Ambergreen, which I joined in January 2015 after moving away from a more general digital marketing role and deciding to specialize in PPC. Today I’d like to tell you more about one of my favourite Display campaigns -- as well as one of my favourite animals – and share some insights about how Gmail Ads can help you achieve solid results for your clients.
- As per the example above, Gmail Ads allow you to reach out to your target audience in the Promotions tab of a free Gmail account. As far as Google’s offerings go, they are nothing new: they were around for a couple of years as a beta and were finally made directly available within the Adwords interface in September last year. Uptake of this product has been relatively slow and the level of competition remains surprisingly low, allowing advertisers to capitalise on this space in a cost-effective manner. I have found them to be highly effective for my clients over the last 8 months and they regularly outperform other types of Display campaigns for high quality traffic – in many accounts, my Gmail Ads campaigns are second only to my Remarketing campaigns from a performance standpoint. One positive aspect of the full migration into Adwords last year is that Google made a variety of templates available to choose from, thereby lowering the barrier to entry for those advertisers who have limited access to design resources.
- Here we can see a few examples of some of the most common templates, the Image template on the left and the Single Promotion template on the right. Although these are handy in making it faster and easier to get off the ground with Gmail Ads, they are not particularly native to their environment (an email client). The Image template is effectively a large banner ad and does not offer any space for content outside the image itself that allows you to describe and contextualise your offering. Even the Single Promotion template places constraints on image size, message length and the styling and layout of the ad. In sticking with an overly simplistic template, an advertiser runs the risk of focusing too heavily on conventional methods of managing paid media when they SHOULD be putting on their email marketing hat from the very beginning and thinking about how they can best communicate with someone who is interacting with their Gmail inbox. Today I hope to encourage you to give Gmail Ads a try if you haven’t yet already -- but I also hope to convince you to take the plunge and dive straight into the Custom HTML format and build an actual email for the simple reason that it will provide the best user experience that you can possibly offer, seamlessly blending email marketing with paid media. Although there is doubtless some merit in e-commerce advertisers testing out the multi-product and catalogue templates, I’m going to focus on B2C lead generation and the types of content we can serve within Gmail that will improve the likelihood of conversion.
- For the sake of a fun example, I’ve created a hypothetical company, “Colleen’s Capybara Emporium” which offers a rescue and rehoming service for everyone’s favourite rodents – capybaras! I’m trying to find new ways of raising awareness of my company as well as encouraging more people to get involved and give a capybara a good home. Assuming that I’ve already been running some basic Adwords activity for my business, I’m going to walk you through the steps I’d take to encourage more people to adopt capybaras from within their own Gmail accounts. At this point, you may be wondering, “How do I use the Custom HTML template when I don’t know anything about HTML?” The solution is far simpler than you think.
- With a free Mailchimp account, some text content and a few high-quality images, you are ready to build a professional-looking email that is bound to capture a great deal of attention on the Gmail platform. It’s quick and easy to set up and it won’t cost you a thing. You don’t even need to worry about importing lists of email addresses or anything like that – all you need to do is navigate to the Templates section and select a basic drag-and-drop template that suits the amount of text and image content that you’d like to present.
- Many of you will doubtless have experience of using Unbounce or a similar landing page design tool with a simple interface that allows you to drag and drop the elements you require into your page, thereby eliminating the necessity to customize it with HTML and CSS. Mailchimp is no different in its functionality and, assuming that you have your creative assets at hand, you can build your email in a matter of minutes. Let’s take a look at the email I put together for Colleen’s Capybara Emporium!
- The email begins with a prominent header / hero image that include my business logo and creates a visual connection between a capybara and its owner and conveys how you can bring one into your life. Further images serve to show off the cuteness of the capybara and strengthen an emotional connection with it and the text content not only explains that capybaras make wonderful companions but endeavours to pre-qualify the leads by stating that capybaras need access to a great deal of food, space and water for swimming. All of this content funnels the reader towards the CTA which encourages them to get started with the adoption process. Now we have something more than a simple banner ad to send to our target audience -- and all within the maximum total creative size stipulated by Google!
- Once your email template has been crafted to perfection, you can easily save it and export it as an HTML file. This is a component of what you will ultimately upload to AdWords. Before exporting the HTML, ensure that you have removed anything extraneous from Mailchimp which is not relevant to a Gmail ad, such as the standard footer which allows people to manage their email preferences. This will save you a lot of time and aggravation when uploading your files to Google and helps to ensure that the Gmail ad fits Google’s specs and doesn’t contain any unsupported elements such as Flash or Javascript.
- You’ll need to save the HTML export of the email you’ve built in Mailchimp to a folder with a few other creative assets. Any images that you’ve used in the body of the email need to be saved to a subfolder named “images”. At this point, you’ll also need to add in the assets that comprise the teaser which entices people to open the full email – so save your business logo as “logo.png” and the text content that comprises the teaser can be saved as a .txt file. The teaser is quite straightforward and simply requires an advertiser name, subject line and short description. Be sure that you adhere to the precise naming conventions and file formats that Google has specified or you won’t be able to upload the ad to Adwords.
- Now you’re ready to get cracking on Adwords itself! You’ve already done most of the hard work so setting up the campaign or campaigns that you need will be a breeze. All you need to do is create a new Display campaign opted in for “All Features” and sort out all of the basics (budgets, location targeting etc.) as per your more traditional Display campaigns – however, you need to establish Gmail as the only placement and layer in further targeting criteria from there.
- If you visit the Ad Gallery within your new Display campaign, you can navigate to the option to upload your custom HTML and all you need do is troubleshoot any issues that may arise by reviewing Google’s guidelines and removing any problematic components of the email. In this example, I tried to upload the HTML with the standard Mailchimp footer still within the body of the email. After removing this component and saving the HTML without the footer, I encountered no problems in uploading my file.
- Now we’re ready to enjoy the fruits of our labour! You will be able to preview your Gmail ad in full before saving it to ensure that everything is in place. The Expanded ad should look exactly the same as the email template that you built in Mailchimp. However, for the first time, we are also able to properly preview our teaser and see how the logo looks alongside the Advertiser name, Subject line and Description. As the Advertiser field is quite limited at only 15 characters, you may wish to input something descriptive such as “Pet Capybaras” if you are unable to fit your full business name in this space. The subject line is a great place to ask a question or otherwise capture a user’s attention and you can provide a bit more detail about what you’re offering in the description line. Be sure to include a CTA that will prompt a user to actually open your email, of course!
- Although some have described Gmail ads as being more of a tactic for visibility and awareness, with the right layers of targeting you can also make them extremely effective at driving conversions within your goal CPA. For lead generation that revolves around form submissions, signups and free trials, you can expect strong results, not the least because you are targeting actual people on the basis of their Gmail data rather than just cookied users for whom Google has an indication of their browsing patterns. In my example, I need to reach out to groups of people who are fans of capybaras and likely to engage positively with the thought of adopting one! Although Remarketing and In-Market audiences aren’t currently compatible with Gmail Ads campaigns, there are plenty of options to get us started, such as targeting domains, keywords, topics, similar audiences and customer match lists.
- If you’re unsure where to get started, keywords are the ideal place. An easy starting point is loading in some of the top-performing keywords from your Search campaigns. If a Gmail user has matching content such as “find a capybara” amongst their last 300 emails, they’ll be eligible to receive your ad. Importantly though, domains can also be targeted in the keywords section of the Display network for Gmail ads campaigns -- and this is some of the most powerful competitor targeting that I’ve ever employed. By simply adding your competitor’s domain as a keyword, you’ll be able to reach people who are on the mailing lists of your direct competitors. In the example above, I’m targeting the domains of websites that specialise in guinea pig rescue and adoption so I can encourage these folks to upgrade and take home a capybara instead. Admittedly, if you target competitors that are too small, you won’t be able to generate many impressions or much in the way of meaningful data. A potential workaround is simply to target your competitors’ names as standard keywords but you have to ensure not to try this with a company name that could have multiple meanings (such as Boots!). I’d advise sticking with domain-level targeting wherever possible for the sake of accuracy and using one competitor per adgroup so it’s easy to compare and contrast performance and adjust bids accordingly. Additionally, much as you can target your competitors’ domains, you can also target your own domain, thereby “retargeting” anyone on your newsletter lists who has recently received an email from you. This is a great method for grabbing the attention of those who may not be opening your newsletters as often as you’d like.
- We can take this domain-level targeting one step further by using tools to learn more about our current audiences and get a better sense of the types of websites that they might frequent. Take a look at the Affinity Categories that best match your audiences in Google Analytics as a starting point. If you notice a commonality such as a shared interest in animal welfare, you can do further research in the Adwords Display Planner to find new types of websites that your demographic may enjoy visiting and receiving email from. You can then add these domains into other adgroups under the assumption that our target users are part of their email lists and see how these perform. Of course, keep your targeting on point as you expand and try to reach out to new audiences. You probably won’t want to send your Gmail Ads out to an audience that’s ultimately going to be too broad or diverse to engage with your messaging in the right way – for example, I wouldn’t want to encourage a capybara adoption to a person that thinks they’re bringing home a pomeranian!
- Now more than ever, we can see the importance of building and utilising Customer Match lists to re-engage with relevant groups of people. This is another way in which Mailchimp shines! If you are already using it for your email marketing activity and properly segmenting your lists, you will be able to export these as well and build Customer Match audiences that you can target with extreme precision in terms of the messaging you want to deliver. For a start, I have the option of building a Customer Match audience of people who have adopted a capybara from me; I can use an entirely different type of messaging for them such as encouraging them to take part in my Refer A Friend scheme or I could simply exclude them entirely from my advertising, depending on my goals. Moving beyond this small group, we can make use of segments of people that live in a particular region or share a common interest. If a visitor to my website has signed up for my newsletter and indicated that they live in the States, I can ensure that the content of my ad is specific to the capybaras from this region, rather than sending them something more generic.
- Alternatively, if my lists are segmented by engagement, I can pinpoint people who haven’t been opening my emails and try out a more urgent CTA in the teaser or something which will hopefully rekindle their interest. And of course, if you have been developing lists of users who have given up their emails in exchange for a whitepaper, webinar, free trial or softer conversion on your website, then you can structure your Gmail Ad similar to your email drip campaign so that it provides these users with more helpful information and assists in moving them along the funnel towards purchasing. However, an important limitation of Customer Match audiences is that they are often too small to generate meaningful data, similar to targeting very small or niche competitors. You will want to segment your Customer Match audiences sensibly that so that the right groups of people are receiving the right messaging but at the same time, a good rule of thumb for these audiences is “the larger, the better”. If you experience good success with your Customer Match email lists, you could consider cautiously testing the Similar Audiences that are populated against these, ideally layered with a number of other targeting settings that correspond to your customer profiles and personas.
- When reviewing the performance of your Gmail ads, bear in mind that the CTR you see reported includes clicks to expand your ad rather than just clicks through to the website. The same principle applies to the average CPC, which reports the cost to expand the ad unit. Thankfully, you can calculate these values using the Gmail-specific metric “Gmail clicks to website” to get a more accurate depiction of how these metrics stack up against your other Display activity. This will be important to implement or else your CTRs will appear abnormally high for Gmail ads. Also, remember to make use of Gmail-specific metrics when evaluating the performance of your ads! Gmail saves and forwards are good indicators of how both the ad unit and your targeting settings are performing amongst the audiences you’ve established, especially if branding and awareness are important to you. Gmail clicks to website are important if you ultimately want to drive direct conversions from these ads; if this is the case, be sure you don’t forget to view these alongside the standard Clicks column which reports back all interaction with the ad. Thankfully, conversions and CPA are reported as normal, and these should ultimately be your most important metrics if you are using Gmail Ads to drive direct response conversions.
- In reviewing actual client data, we have noted that impressions are naturally lower for Gmail Ads campaigns than other types of Display campaigns as they are constrained to the single placement. Although engagement with our ads is quite high and we enjoy high numbers of people expanding and reading our custom HTML ad unit, clicks through to the website are a great deal lower when compared against more traditional banner advertising. Also, when calculating your CTR and CPC appropriately, the click-through rates to the website are on the lower end of the scale and the cost to acquire a website click is far higher than the norm across the Display network. However, looking towards other metrics, we can see that although it is more difficult to acquire clicks through to the main site with Gmail Ads, these visitors are highly engaged and highly predisposed to convert once they arrive. Google Analytics metrics demonstrate that not only are Bounce Rates significantly lower, visitors also spend a good amount of time on site, browsing several pages of content. Finally and most importantly, the efficacy of our Gmail Ads campaign is highlighted by the high volumes of conversions it drives relative to other Display activity, particularly with reference to generating strong volumes of application forms, the most important onsite conversion activity. With an average CPA of £40 across all of these Display campaigns, our Gmail Ads campaign is undercutting the average by £15.
- In reviewing actual client data, we have noted that impressions are naturally lower for Gmail Ads campaigns than other types of Display campaigns as they are constrained to the single placement. Although engagement with our ads is quite high and we enjoy high numbers of people expanding and reading our custom HTML ad unit, clicks through to the website are a great deal lower when compared against more traditional banner advertising. Also, when calculating your CTR and CPC appropriately, the click-through rates to the website are on the lower end of the scale and the cost to acquire a website click is far higher than the norm across the Display network.
- However, looking towards other metrics, we can see that although it is more difficult to acquire clicks through to the main site with Gmail Ads, these visitors are highly engaged and highly predisposed to convert once they arrive. Google Analytics metrics demonstrate that not only are Bounce Rates significantly lower, visitors also spend a good amount of time on site, browsing several pages of content.
- Finally and most importantly, the efficacy of our Gmail Ads campaign is highlighted by the high volumes of conversions it drives relative to other Display activity, particularly with reference to generating strong volumes of application forms, the most important onsite conversion activity. With an average CPA of £40 across all of these Display campaigns, our Gmail Ads campaign is undercutting the average by £15.
- If your performance isn’t where you want it to be and you’ve been experimenting with different targeting settings, it may be time to go back to the drawing board and seeing what you can do to improve the Gmail ad itself. In the event that your ad is receiving a good amount of interaction but few people are clicking through to your website, try embedding a form to capture their lead data directly within the ad, thus removing an impediment to conversion. Within the custom HTML format, you can also enable a click-to-call functionality which allows users to call you directly from the ad unit without needing to visit the website. Similarly, you can also embed videos in the expanded ad unit which is ideal if your product or service would benefit from an explanation or demonstration. One caveat, however, is that for any of the modifications I’ve mentioned, you will need to dive directly into the HTML of the ad and you may need the assistance of a developer to ensuring that you capture any lead data from form fills accurately. As with any other form of ad that you might launch in your account, also try split-testing your Gmail ads (with a key difference between version 1 and version 2) so you can clearly determine which version resonates with your visitors most effectively.
- Thank you for your kind attention today and for the warm welcome that you’ve offered me at my first-ever SMX.