Enhanced Campaigns Hangouts on Air: Campaign Management and Upgrading Strategies

AdWords Specialists hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday as the second installment of the Enhanced Campaign Hangouts on Air series.

During the Hangout, Phil and Leslie talked about how to upgrade to use the new Enhanced Campaign features. Phil told us how to upgrade a single campaign, and Leslie showed us how to use AdWords Editor to migrate multiple campaigns before upgrading. To watch the full 20-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel.


To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our Help Center, check out the AdWords Community forum, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to tune in to the live stream of our next Hangout on Air at 11 a.m. PDT, Wednesday April 10th, when we discuss location targeting and ad extension updates.

Stay tuned!

Posted by Courtney Pannell, AdWords Team

Help Desk Hangouts: Google+ Profile and Page Update

Editor’s note: Each week on the Google+ Your Business page, we’re putting you in touch with Googlers and users who can help you as a business owner get the most out of our products and features.

In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air, we chatted with +Navin Kadaba, who works on Google+. We walked through the updates to Google+ profiles and pages that rolled out last week, learning about the new, larger cover photo, the refreshed look and functionality of the About tab, and the new customizable tabs for profiles.

Miss the event? You can watch the whole thing on the Google and Your Business YouTube channel.


Check out the video description on the YouTube page for a minute-by-minute breakdown.

Some of the questions we answered during the Hangout:
What size photo should I upload as my new cover photo?
We recommend that you upload an image that is 960 x 540 px (16x9 aspect ratio). At a minimum, please select a photo that is 480 x 270 px. For HD displays, we’ll take a maximum resolution of 2120 x 1192 px.

What does the update look like on mobile?
This is a desktop-only update for now.

Any tips and tricks to making my page look good?
We’d recommend keeping the essential aspects of your cover photo toward middle, vertically. The bottom fifth of the cover photo will sometimes be covered by a dark gray bar, and when people visit the page, the top portion of the cover photo may not be visible. We also recommend uploading a large, zoomed out profile photo, so you can crop the photo to appear as you’d like.

Posted by Jade Wang, Google+ Local Community Manager

Fueling discoverability and engagement with Google+

Cross-posted with the Inside AdWords blog.

Automotive brands were among the first advertisers to adopt Google+ and they’re making it pay off in big ways. Our research has shown that the path to buying a car is becoming more and more social, with consumers relying on information and advice from their social connections and brands to inform their purchase. Millions of consumers are already engaging with the top global auto companies on Google+, and brands are using this opportunity to connect and engage with customers in unique ways, from connecting with auto enthusiasts through G+ Communities to launching new car models via Hangouts.

Today we’re releasing new insights on how Google+ is working to amplify auto brands’ existing marketing campaigns. For example, we found that brands can experience a 91% increase in conversion rate for non-brand terms when running social annotations on search ads.

Please check out our infographic below for additional insights and tips, and visit our Google+ Business site to learn more about Google+.

Click to see full-size infographic

Posted by Gretchen Howard, Director of Global Social Solutions

Interview on Handmade Packaging and Etsy

I had a chat today with Sara from CrochetBusiness.com and Squidoo about packaging, craft shows, and other business stuff. Watch the video below or on YouTube.

Looking for Ways to Grow Your Business Online? Meet Friday 15

In 15 minutes, you could clip coupons, wash dishes, fold laundry, dance to your favorite song... three times, or you could learn some new tips to help your business succeed on the web. Businesses that are online grow faster.* Make it a habit to grow your business online with Friday 15, a series designed to help small businesses make the most of their online presence.

Friday 15 answers questions small business owners need to know, like: How should I choose the pictures on my website? How can I monitor my business online? What should my website be called? How should I handle a bad review? What information should I include on my website?

If you want to learn more about growing your business online, visit www.gybo.com/friday15 for training videos and tip sheets. You can also tune in to live discussions with industry experts during the Get Your Business Online team’s Friday 15 Google+ Hangouts. Each episode is 15 minutes or less and will provide you with tools, tips, and practical use-cases to help grow and promote your business online. The series is open to everyone. All you need to join us is a computer and an internet connection. The Hangouts air every other Friday on +Google+ Your Business at 11:00a.m. PT/2:00p.m. ET. Watch this Friday, March 8th, for a discussion on optimizing your website.

Friday 15 is brought to you by Get Your Business Online with Google, an initiative to help small businesses get online and succeed online. Visit the Friday 15 page at www.gybo.com/Friday15 for directions on how to watch a Hangout and sign up to receive Friday 15 tips, news, event notifications and more.

*Source: BCG Report, "The Connected World: The $4.2 Trillion Opportunity," March 2012

Posted by Whitney Lemon, Friday 15 Host, Get Your Business Online Team

New Ways to Use Etsy Coupons

Recently Etsy made some improvements to their coupons codes. The new features are:

• Thank you coupons. You can set one of your coupons to be automatically sent by email to your customers when they order (this option can be set on an existing coupon as well as a new one).
• Fixed amount coupons. If you want to offer $5 off purchases you can now do that with this coupon setting.
• Minimum purchase for coupons. You can set a coupon to only be valid for purchases over a set amount e.g. 10% off orders over $25.

These new features make coupon codes even more flexible. Personally I'm thrilled to have the thank you coupons emailed, I think that will make customers more likely to use them than the printed coupons I currently send. I also see some great potential for the other features, I think a set discount like $5 off might be more appealing than a percentage and having the minimum purchase means someone can't use that $5 off coupon to buy just a $5 item. Here are some ideas from Etsy on using coupon codes.

How do you think you might use the new coupon code features? Leave a comment.