Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn
The increasing number of consumers using mobile devices is one reason why Google is now making changes to its Adwords. But, are these changes also beneficial for people who are into ecommerce? Wait, there’s more. Microsoft also recently bought LinkedIn. How will this impact your online business?
If you haven’t been thinking about how LinkedIn can help your business grow, might as well check out their five advertising formats:
• Sponsored content
Almost similar to Facebook where you could post something and say Hey! Here’s a story of our company or look at this dancewear that we have.
• Text ads
These are the ads that you see on the side when you log in to LinkedIn.
• Display ads
These are typical banner ads
• Sponsored InMail
This can be a bit expensive because you will be paying just to be able to send messages to people on LinkedIn. With sponsored InMail, you can send personalized messages. One advantage of using sponsored InMail is that it offers huge space for marketing copy.
• Dynamic Ads
Dynamic ads enable you to send personalized messages to your chosen audience. This ad format dynamically populates with relevant content and profile images that are relevant to the target audience’s interest, career history and skills.
If you have not tried these types of ads on LinkedIn but you think that this could be beneficial to your ecommerce store then I recommend that you should try it. Make a research and get better acquainted with it.
Hopefully, Microsoft will make it a little more affordable. The last time I tried it the minimum bid was $2 per click which is pretty pricey. But, I was able to make profit out of it and it is something that I am also going to revisit.
For Bdancewear, what I did was I targeted dance teachers because I know they need to buy dancewears and that they are my VIP customers. Although it is not the most lucrative advertising platform. But still I was able to make profit out of it in just a short period of time. But, with the news that Microsoft acquires LinkedIn, I am thinking about revisiting the advertising platforms that I used to have.
Google Announces its Changes to Adwords
Get ready for the changes that Google will be making to Adwords!
Expanded Text Ads
Right now when you try to search on Google you can see the text ads in the middle section and there are also ads on the right hand side. They are now getting rid of the right rail ads and this means all the ads are going to be at the center. Originally, the title of the ad was limited to only one 25 character header. Google says they will expand this to two 30-character header.
Responsive Display Ads
People who have smaller budget and those who do not have a lot of creative forces, Google will help you create display ads. This is good news because this will help smaller companies be able to afford display ads. Once you provide Google your url, description, image, headline etc, Google will then automatically create responsive display ads that are relevant to the content of the website where these ads appear.
Bid adjustments for each device type
Currently, there is one price for desktop and tablet and then you are going to do a mobile bid adjustment. Now they are going to separate desktop and tablet. This is good news considering that tablet is not converting as well as desktop does.
In the past you could do a mobile bid adjustment of up to +300, now they are going to change it to up to +900.This also means you may eliminate desktop if you wanted to. This way, if you are really targeting mobile, then you can have up to +900.
Ads on Google Maps
This may not seem very important for people who only have online stores but these ads on Google maps will no doubt be very helpful to local businesses. So, if your online store also has brick and mortar version then think about how you can use these ads to send more customers to your store.