In case you haven’t noticed, something big is happening this weekend, and the automotive industry just can’t seem to keep quiet about it.

(HINT: it’s the 2014 DrivingSales Executive Summit)

By now you’re sure to be feeling pretty down if you’re one of the industry’s few who isn’t going to be attending. It’s pretty clear that you’ll be missing out on one of the best automotive events of the year if you don’t attend. However, if you really truly can’t make it this year, have no fear. I’m here tell you how to experience DSES without so much as leaving your couch.

1. Mark Your Calendar

Let’s start with the most obvious of them all. You’ll miss ALL of the fun if you don’t tune in when the event is actually happening. The event begins on Sunday, October 12th and ends on Tuesday, October 14th.

2. #DSES

All web sharing for the conference will be tagged with the official conference hashtag #DSES. Search for #DSES within your Twitter client of choice, and save it. In my experience, watching the live twitter stream of an event is even better than a live video stream. You’ll experience the event from all angles: host, speakers, vendors, and dealers. Be sure to tune in not only during the event, but before and after as well, and don’t forget to participate!

3. Check Out the Contests

What makes this conference so special? Access to the most innovative ideas that dealers are using to succeed in today’s market. The DSES Innovation Cup Contest and the Best Idea Contest are your fast track to these great ideas. Check out the list of finalists and keep track of the #DSES hashtag for even more insights.

4. Get to Know the Speakers

The speaker list for this year’s event is arguably the best one yet. Spend some time reading up on the speakers and their respective presentation topics. Take note of the people that you know, and the ones who intrigue you the most, so that you can connect with them on social networks during the event. I’ve already put together a [mostly complete] Twitter list of all of the speakers; feel free to borrow it.

5. Take Notes

Since you’re not going to be listening to an audio feed, there’s no need to take notes as you would if you were in-person at the event. Instead, craft a custom IFFFT recipe that will save the conference tweets in a way that works for you. Personally, I will be creating two recipes: 1) to log all of my #DSES tweets to Evernote and 2) to log all of my favorited tweets to Evernote. After the event, you can organize and re-work your notes based on the full experience.

6. Try the Buddy System

If you’re reading this post, chances are you know at least one person who’s attending the event (if you don’t, give me a shout). Choose wisely, and ask someone to be your “conference buddy.” Offer to share your own notes and insights in exchange for a summary of that person’s exclusive in-person notes and experiences.

7. Read the Recaps

Even if you’ve decided to skip my first 6 suggestions, we’ve got you covered. There will be daily recaps posted by the DrivingSales team, not to mention all of the event recaps that will undoubtedly be posted by the dealer and non-dealer attendees.

Follow these steps, and you’ll be setup for a successful weekend of insights and networking, plus you’ll have double the ammunition to attend DSES in-person next year. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out a way to virtually experience the food, inside jokes, inspiring conversations, or killer parties. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments!

The past few weeks on the web have been full of people humming (literally) about Google's latest algorithm update, Hummingbird. If you haven't yet heard about the change, you can read more about it here. A lot can be said about the meaning behind the name, but there's no doubt that this update is a far cry from the Penguins and Pandas of the past. Such a large change naturally begs a lot of questions and theories, many of which have focused on the impact it will have on SEO. Few, however, have considered the impact it will have on PPC. This is critical.

Why would a change to the organic result algorithm impact PPC?

Let’s start with the simple answer: paid and organic results aim to achieve the same goal, to deliver the most relevant results to a user. Regardless of the mechanism that controls delivery of the results, the strategy behind “search” has remained unified. As long as this is true, changes to paid and organic algorithms will continue to impact one another.

On top of that, Google already rolled out the PPC equivalent of Hummingbird earlier this year with the introduction of Enhanced Campaigns. This was the largest update to the AdWords platform in more than 5 years, and was essentially Google’s attempt at rewriting the platform without a complete overhaul. Sound familiar?

Both updates push advertisers and web masters to think about search results and digital efforts differently. Long gone is a simply keyword matching system that is easily gamed. The new system is much more advanced, featuring the capability to decipher context and intent. Ultimately, Google does not want to be a search engine, they want to be an answer engine. Context and intent are crucial to success in this endeavor.

How will this impact PPC?

1. Although organic and paid search results are powered by different algorithms, they still appear beside each other in a shared sandbox. In fact, there has been a great deal of research conducted surrounding the correlation between organic and paid results. Although it's yet to be seen which direction the impact will lean, a change in the organic results will change the way that users interact with listings. 
2. Conversational search is a key function of the new Hummingbird update, which is pushing knowledge graph results up front and center before the user, sometimes pushing PPC ads to the side, bottom, or completely off the page.
3. Conversational search also brings an evolution to the concept of "previous query" or "adaptive search" in which it aims to understand the connection between consecutive queries. It introduces one more factor into the formula for determining user intent, making the results that much more relevant. You'll mainly find this evolution when searching via voice, but don't be surprised when it expands to cover all types of search. As this expands, expect that it will impact user search patterns and their interactions with results. 
4. Perhaps the most exciting impact of Hummingbird is that it is going to force websites to focus on quality, interesting content even more than before. Better content > better user experience > better engagement > better results. Not only should this improve performance of PPC campaigns, but the better quality pages should have a positive impact on quality scores.  
5. Restructure. While you don't need to start restructuring and reorganizing your PPC accounts tomorrow, you should start thinking about how you can adjust to the new system. With time, it's likely that conversational type queries will rise in volume, demanding that you incorporate these into your account. 

How do we need to prepare for this change?

In the short term, the most important thing you need to do is be aware. Be aware that search is changing, whether it’s organic or paid. This will allow you to identify specific performance and engagement changes, analyze, and then adjust. In the long term, you’ll want to adjust your campaign structures, keywords, and ad copy to better align with the new semantic search style. 

Nowadays, information travels through dozens of different channels (if not more), at a speed that is practically incomprehensible. Mix in emotions, experiences, and perhaps a little drama, and the reach of that information increases exponentially. It’s the telephone game on steroids, especially when a company’s reputation is on the line.

The importance of reputation, especially in business, isn't at question here. Reputation can make or break a business, particularly in the automotive industry--an industry which suffers from an air of distrust that we just can’t seem to shake. What is at question, however, is the way in which reputation is communicated and managed, both at the consumer and corporate end.

Making It Personal

Allow me to explain with a personal story. I own a 2005 Chevy Cobalt with approximately 131,000 miles. It is paid off, hasn’t given me very much trouble over the years and has traveled all over the country with me. Over the summer, I had the front bearings replaced at a local shop. The employees were kind, the location was convenient and the cost was more than reasonable. Last week, I noticed that there was something once again wrong with my car and so I brought it back in. I left later that day with a laundry list of problems that needed to be fixed [according to the mechanic] sometime within the next month and the quote totaled to around $2,000. Ouch.

What did I do next? I reached out to my network on Facebook asking for opinions and advice. That post has 40 comments to date from 18 different people and led to several phone calls and text messages. The responses took on 3 main forms:

1. Trash it and buy a new car.
2. Keep it, it's worth the cost to fix it.
3. Did you check their reviews? Get a second opinion.

Besides receiving such an awesome response to my cry for help, I was equally amazed by the number of people who asked if I had checked out the online reviews for this shop. Is that the end-all-be-all in the path to making a purchasing decision? What other factors are taken into consideration? Is it really all that strange for one to make a decision to do business with a company without reading said reviews?

Needless to say, the answer was no. I had not, and I still have not, read any reviews for that shop. In fact, very rarely do I reference reviews before making purchase decisions.

Right Back Where You Started

As much as I see the value in online reviews from a business and consumer standpoint, I’ve also spent years watching businesses sweat, stress, and obsess over online reviews. Likewise, I’ve watched friends/family/colleagues spend enormous amounts of time writing reviews on sites like Yelp, Google+ Local, etc.

Review sites are filled with fantastical stories of customers who have had great experiences and customers who have had terrible experiences; very rarely do you find a neutral or mediocre review. Should that lead us to believe that companies don’t ever provide mediocre services? Absolutely not, that’s unrealistic and it leaves us right back where we started.

I’m particularly fond of how Mitch Joel explained this phenomenon on his blog:

“How often have you looked for a hotel on TripAdvisor only to realize that there are many who loved the hotel and an equal amount of people who hated it. What to do? In the end, the aggregated result leaves you flat in the middle. You're left with what you always had: your own instincts to sort the wheat from the chaff and hope for the best.”

Choosing Between Friends or Strangers

Ultimately, when making a business/purchase decision, the goal is simply a positive outcome. It’s not to spend hours researching the customer service history of a company or the satisfaction track record of a product. So, instead of wasting my time reading reviews online that wouldn’t actually help accomplish the goal, I sought out opinions of people that I trust. As a result, I’ve made a decision that I’m happy with. I also now appreciate my network of friends and colleagues more than ever. Would I have come to this result by consulting online reviews? No.

The Consumer Perspective

Personally, the opinions of 18 people that I know and trust are so much more valuable than 100 strangers that left reviews of a company fueled by an experience that triggered either a positive or negative emotional response. However, by no means am I suggesting that reading or writing reviews is a waste of time. Instead, I challenge consumers to look beyond the easy answers that can be found online, to think about why others are taking the time to write a review and to make sure that each review is taken with a grain of salt. For those who tend to write reviews, I suggest that you question whether posting your feelings online for strangers is really a valuable use of your time. Is there a better way for you to communicate your experience, to people you actually care about? People who actually value your input.

The Corporate Perspective

Regardless of whether consumers rely on online reviews to make decisions, businesses still have to monitor and manage those reviews. And while doing so might seem like an intimidating job, the key to managing online reviews for your business is actually quite simple: don’t stress. In order to do this, you must stop looking at reviews in a vacuum, and instead remember that they actually fall under the overlapping umbrellas of reputation management and customer service. You should have a larger corporate strategy for both of these things; let those strategies guide you.

By focusing on the big picture, you will be reminded that online reviews represent only one of many channels that communicate your reputation. It’s crucial to have eyes on all channels, not just the ones that are most visible, and to keep a lookout for emerging channels. Try asking yourself the following questions - I’d love to see the answers.

1. What are the top 5 channels that communicate your dealer's reputation?
2. How do you communicate to consumers who don't trust reviews?
3. News channels are always emerging. How are you keeping up?

Guilty admission: I find cool new tricks very exciting, especially when they provide a solution to an annoying or tedious task. So! You can imagine my excitement (and maybe even a happy dance or two) when I stumbled upon a gem in Twitter promising an easy fix to dealing with modified broad match keywords in Excel.

One click later, I found myself knee deep in Mark Jensen’s piece which offers a cool macro and step-by-step directions that will solve all your modified broad match problems. In fact, I was so intrigued that I had read the entire post before realizing that I didn’t need his solution. I found another way to deal with these pesky modified broad match errors years ago, and it’s much much much easier than geeking out with macros. I promise.

Problem: The error comes from the fact that Excel places a ‘=’ in front of all ‘+’ because it assumes that ‘+’ indicates a mathematical formula. So all we’re going to do here is a simple find and replace.

Solution: Replace all ‘=’ with a single (‘) apostrophe.

Result: Voila! By removing the ‘=’, the cell contents are transitioned from a formula to a general text format. You’ll also notice that the (‘) which is referred to as a leading apostrophe, will not be shown in the cell, so you’re left with your modified broad match keywords in perfect shape.

That’s it! Easy, painless, and should take you only a matter of seconds when you’re working with keywords in a spreadsheet. With that said, I’m actually a big fan of Mark’s solution, so if you have the time to go through the extra steps of working with his awesome modified broad match macro, check it out. I actually think it could prove to be extremely useful if you have a have a big workbook template that you work with often and don’t want to run F&R each time that you update the data.

Original Post: "An Even Easier Modifed Broad Match Excel Fix" on the Get Found First PPC Blog. 

Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to visit Google headquarters. They unleashed a ton of great insights and figures, but perhaps the most interesting insights were their projections for the future of mobile search. They estimate that in 2013, 29% of automotive queries will come from mobile phones, and 18% will come from tablets. That’s a whopping 47% of searches coming from mobile devices.

I don’t find these projections particular surprising, but rather quite exciting. There are so many opportunities that exist on this side of the fence, which is why I’m surprised that it’s taken Google so long to really start playing with mobile-specific ad types. Whatever the reason be, they are starting to sneak up on us, so keep your eyes peeled.

Recently, Google Adwords started rolling out a new click-to-call mobile ad format. The main difference is the transition from a hyperlinked phone number to a more visually appealing ‘call button.’ While I forsee this being an overall positive change, there are certainly a few things you should keep in mind while managing your accounts:

1. Google is rolling out this feature at its leisure. You do not currently have the option to choose whether or not you want these buttons to show. Assuming that it performs well, it’s safe to assume that we’ll be seeing this rolled out globally in the near future.
2. On average, 51 characters will be shown in conjunction with a call button. You have the option to leave your ads as they are, or shorten them in anticipation of the button.
3. This move supports several key facts about mobile that should be remembered. Mobile users are more inclined to take action, particularly via a phone call, and a clear call-to-action is key.
4. By shortening the character limit in order to coordinate the ad text with the call button, Google is perhaps suggesting that more concise messaging performs best on mobile. 
5. The “Big G” has taken the liberty on many occasions to modify SERP listing titles and descriptions for organic results and even for Adwords Express ads. Until now, PPC has appeared to be safe from this practice. Now that they’ve done it once, it’s likely that they might do it again in future ad formats. 

While it does concern me to see ad texts modified on a whim by the system, I think this is going to be a good change for advertisers across the board. New ad formats often bring with them exciting new opportunities. Stay tuned!

Source

We all love a good story. Unfortunately, this wonderful, integral, piece of human nature has been diluted by the marketing world’s latest obsession with “telling stories.”

This happens a lot. Someone frames a great idea at the perfect time and place, it catches on, and develops into a buzzword frenzy. The same thing happens when a great new song is released to radio; next thing you know everyone hates the song because it is so overplayed. Such a cycle is almost unavoidable for any new song that hits the top 10. Buzzwords often experience a very similar cycle, which results in over-population, quality dilution, and a shift in focus away from the true goal.

If I had to point at one particular event that triggered this buzz, it would be the emergence of social media, which brought with it the need to engage and connect with consumers. Stories build connections, explore ideas, ask questions, and establish relationships. It seems perfect … right? I’m not so sure.

3 Problems

1. Suddenly, everyone is a "storyteller," simply because they decided to be.
2. Everyone is "telling a story" and it's not always a good one.
3. If everyone is a "storyteller," who's going to fill the roles of business-person, marketer, salesperson, manager, customer-service representative, etc.?

So how do we avoid this?

I have a little story to share. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine came to visit me here in Burlington, VT. In case you’ve never been, Burlington is a darling little city nestled in between the mountains of NY and VT with a vibrant downtown, filled with shops, restaurants, and bars. Meal times always led to a discussion of where we should eat, and a run-down of all the options. On the last night of her visit, I found myself running through the list of options again, when she asked “What was that place that you told me about? With the adorable story of how it was the first place you went to when you moved here and you always go back because it’s comforting. Let’s go there; I feel like my visit would be incomplete without going there.” It hadn’t even occurred to me that she would want to eat there. It was just a story I told in passing while we were catching up on life, and yet it resonated with her more than anything else.

Stories are extremely powerful. In business, marketing, sales - and life. The key is, how do we tell great stories that engage, capture, and motivate, without getting lost in the storytelling craze?

Stop trying so hard.

Be genuine.

Remember who you are.

Remember what your goals are.

Consider your audience.

Last November a new ad type started popping up all over Google Maps: bubble ads. When I first wrote about the topic in December, I found a slew of complaints from small business owners, but very little coverage from the marketing world. It amazes me that despite all of the uproar and confusion, 9 months later, coverage is still quite minimal. Below I’ve outlined four of the most common questions that I’ve heard from clients and colleagues.

What exactly is a bubble ad? It’s the ad you see in the bottom of the bubble that pops up when you click a place marker in Google Maps. It takes up approximately ⅓ of the entire bubble real estate, giving it a huge amount of prominence in the space.

How do I show bubble ads for my business? While many seem to think that these ads are a result of running an Adwords Express campaign, this is false. These are in fact Google Adwords ads. In order to run your own bubble ads, you must have your Adwords campaign opted into the Search Partners Network, which includes Google Maps in its network. Before you jump up and change your campaign settings, there are a few caveats you should be aware of. First, Google only allows advertisers to target the Search Partners Network in conjunction with the Google Search Network. Given that the SP network experiences substantially lower click-through-rates, and often yields lower quality traffic, this is not ideal. Ideally you would want to separate the two networks for individual management and analysis. You also cannot strictly target your advertising to Google Maps.  This means that if you opt into the SP network with the goal of running bubble ads, there is no guarantee that your ads will even show on Google Maps.  

How do I stop competitors from showing ads in my bubble? Unfortunately, there is no guaranteed way of getting rid of your competitors’ ads. I’ve heard rumors that if you run your own bubble ads, targeting your brand name as a keyword, that it will block your competitors ads from showing up. While this may decrease the frequency in which your competitors ads are shown, it will not block them completely. Adwords is auction based, which means that no one advertiser will receive domination of a particular ad slot.

Do these ads actually get clicked? The general consensus is no: these ads do not generate very many clicks, often due to the extreme irrelevance between the ad and the search query. Many experts argue that the algorithm fueling the Google Maps search function is incapable of appropriately targeting ads to searches. This is nicely illustrated by Blumenthal’s rather comical gallery of inappropriate bubble ads which proves how extraneous these ads can be.

At the end of the day, there is no one answer to how you should integrate bubble ads into your search strategy. The key is to know the facts, and to make a decision based on your business and marketing goals. Local search is gaining more prominence in the search market every day, especially in the automotive sector. This is most likely going to push local-focused ad formats such as these to the forefront of concern for business owners and advertisers. I’m still holding out hope that Google will someday open up some transparency and control into targeting the Search Partners network. Until then, we’ll just have to make do! How are you handling bubble ads? I’d love to hear stories and feedback!