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Age Targeting in Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) Explained

Did you know that performance metrics by age are readily available in the Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) user interface? Unlike Google, Microsoft Advertising does not require the advertiser to set up this targeting setting in advance in order to access this information. Advertisers can also drive traffic to or away from certain age groups using bid adjustments available. In today’s blog we’ll go over the basics of Microsoft Advertising’s age targeting feature and how it differs from that of Google Ads.  Age Group Segments in Microsoft Ads Like Google, Microsoft segments their audience into various age brackets. Unlike Google, Microsoft also segments their audience into the 13-17 age bracket and can provide basic performance metrics on this age group. Note that Microsoft Advertising does not allow advertisers to target this age group.  Below are the age brackets that Microsoft provides insights on: Ages 13-17Ages 18-24Ages 25-34Ages 35-49Ages 50-64Ages 65 and aboveUnknown Note that the Unknown age group encompasses traffic that does not have age data available. Availability of Age Group Data in Microsoft Ads It is worth mentioning that age group data is available for most of your Microsoft Ads traffic in the Microsoft Ads user interface. This is beneficial for advertisers that want readily accessible age group data without having to apply the age groups in observation mode as users would in the Google Ads interface. You can find the age group performance metrics through the following steps in the Microsoft Advertising UI: You can find the age group performance metrics through the following steps in the Microsoft Advertising UI: 3. Under the dimension select, select Age and gender. Following these steps, you will now be able to see the age and gender data for your Microsoft campaigns. Targeting and Excluding Age Groups in Microsoft Ads Microsoft Advertising provides advertisers performance metrics on age groups and makes them easily accessible in the Microsoft Advertising UI. It also allows advertisers to add bid modifiers to those age groups to help drive traffic to or away from select age brackets. As mentioned before, Microsoft does not allow bid modifiers on the 13-17 age group. You can drive more traffic to a particular age group by adding positive bid adjustments to the age group you want to target. For example, if you wanted to drive more traffic to the 65+ age group, you can apply a positive bid modifier of your choice to this age group.  To exclude particular age groups from your campaign targeting, you would need to make negative bid adjustments on the age group, up to a -90% bid adjustment. Microsoft does not allow negative bid adjustments beyond -90%. If you want to drive traffic to only a particular age group, you would not only add a positive bid adjustment to this age group but negative bid adjustments of up to -90% to all other age groups. For instance, to drive traffic only to the 65+ age group, you would apply a positive bid modifier of your choice to this age group and add negative bid modifiers to all other age groups. You can access the age group targeting settings through the following steps in the Microosft Advertising UI: All campaigns> Settings > Advanced settings > Targeting > Demographic Below is what you should see when you access the age targeting settings: You now have the basic information on age targeting in Microsoft Advertising to change the age targeting settings in your Microsoft campaigns. You can use these tips too pull the age group performance metrics and to make changes where you see fit to help improve your campaign performance!

Parallel Tracking in Google Ads

If you have experience using Google Ads, you may have heard of Parallel Tracking. This feature is required on Search and Shopping campaigns and will be required for Display campaigns starting July 31, 2019. Parallel tracking will be made available to Video campaigns towards the end of 2019. So what is Parallel Tracking? Parallel tracking is a feature offered by Google Ads that loads your landing pages more quickly by sending visitors directly from your ad to your final URL without redirects. This is intended to reduce potential lost visits, improve ad performance and as a result potentially increase conversions in your campaigns. How does parallel tracking work? Parallel tracking is designed to direct users to your landing page as quickly as possible while also loading tracking URLs in the background. Here’s what the user flow looks like with parallel tracking: Here’s what the user flow would look without parallel tracking: The intention of parallel tracking is to drive visitors to your landing page as quickly as possible. Should I use parallel tracking? Parallel tracking is already enabled and required for Search, Display and Shopping campaigns and will be available for Video campaigns later in 2019. All advertisers that are eligible to use parallel tracking for Video campaigns should enable this feature when this feature is available. Note that Google states this feature is currently not available for Hotel campaigns. Important note: If you are using third party click measurement tools such as TruEffect or Firebase, be sure to check that your third party tool is compatible with parallel tracking to ensure that the feature will work properly for your campaigns. How do I turn on parallel tracking? As mentioned earlier, parallel tracking is already required for Search, Display and Shopping campaigns. This feature will be made available to Video campaigns later in 2019. Below are instructions on how to enable parallel tracking in your Google AdsDisplay campaigns: Now that you know about parallel tracking and how to use it, we encourage you to enable this feature in your Google Ads account to enable this for your Display campaigns today and for your Video campaigns later in 2019!

Custom Rules: How To Turn Google Ads Editor Into a Helpful Assistant

One of the most useful tools of Google Ads is the Google Ads Editor. Editor’s built-in and custom rules make your Google Ads Editor work harder for you. They change its nature from a passive database interface to an active assistant that can inform how efficient you are being with your accounts. In the video below we’ve reviewed the way to set up a custom rule, which can alert you that something in your account is not running as smoothly as you’d like it. For instance, I describe how to put together a custom rule that will alert you to the fact that your Display campaigns are running with targeting optimization on. It is not something that I want to happen in the account that I am looking at, so I demonstrate how quick and easy it is to set the rule that will scan your accounts/campaigns/ad groups/etc any time you are in the editor and alert you to the errors if they satisfy your violation criteria. Here is the new version of the custom rule video:  Additionally, In the following screencast I go over the built-in Google Ads Editor rules. Why they may be important for your accounts and the way you could use those pre-built rules. If you have a favorite custom rule you’d like to share with us, please share below! Additionally, we can answer any questions you might have for us regarding the rules and SEM questions in general.

How to Quickly Find Duplicate Keywords Using Google Ads Editor

If you have ever managed large, complex accounts, you might find that it is easy to start second-guessing your keyword additions since it’s quite possible they already exist elsewhere in your account.  It may not bother you at first, but over time you could build up a large collection of duplicate keywords, especially if you have multiple people working in a single account. Duplicate keywords are definitely not considered ‘best practice’ for a number of reasons: In order to quickly identify duplicates, I recommend using  Google Ads Editor to locate them.  The steps are rather easy: first open your Editor and navigate over to “Tools.” Once there, you’ll see in the drop down menu – it will provide an option “Find duplicate keywords,” go ahead and click on that: Once there, you’re able to customize how you would like to look for duplicates. These parameters you can choose from are as follows below: Once you’re ready, you can click “Find duplicate keywords” and you’ll be given a screen that looks like this one below. To help you quickly determine which keywords you would like to keep and which you would like to remove you can add columns like quality score and CTR. Hopefully, this tool helps you in eliminating duplicate keywords quickly! Not the most exciting project exactly, but it will only save you from future headaches down the line.