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Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia

As a certified Google Partner agency, Gapture® Malaysia had the opportunity to co-host an event with Google Malaysia in its office at Menara 1 Sentrum, Brickfields.

Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia Google Office 1 Sentrum.jpg

At 9:30am of November 22, 21 guests arrived at the event with full enthusiasm. They were treated with scrumptious sandwiches, pastries and beverages while networking in the welcoming ambience of Google’s office.

Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia refreshments cakes
Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia refreshments pastries
Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia Google Lounge.jpg
Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia Google Guest Lounge

Apart from the Founder of Gapture® Malaysia, Stanley Chee, Google Malaysia’s Agency Account Strategist, Norra Shamsuddin was also present at the event. She kicked off the presentations with a simple question for the attendees: “On average, how many times do people check their mobile phones daily?” - the answer is 150 times! Norra then went on to sharing some amazing statistics on how Malaysians are embracing the Digital Revolution.

Google Malaysia’s Agency Account Strategist, Norra Shamsuddin was also present at the event.

Google Malaysia’s Agency Account Strategist, Norra Shamsuddin was also present at the event.

Norra highlighted the importance of Google Search and its evolving role in consumers’ decision-making journey. Today’s search is powerful, more human and it has the ability to deliver human experiences. It is disrupting the decision-making process and the way we reach our consumers every day. This topic then moved on to some great insights into the property development industry in Malaysia and followed by the advantages of working with Google Partner agencies like Gapture® Malaysia.

Google Regional Trainer, Stanley Chee

Google Regional Trainer, Stanley Chee

Next, it was Stanley’s turn to talk more in-depth about all the types of Google ads and their placements. He explained these with actual ad visuals run by real Gapture® clients. Examples of ads that were delivering good vs bad results were also shown to explain how important it is to follow certain guidelines when creating artwork for Google ads. Apart from good ads, a good landing page is just as important in delivering optimum results for an ad campaign. Landing pages with dull hero images and enquiry forms that can’t be found don’t deliver as well as those with great images and enquiry forms above the fold.

Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia Stanley Chee

Before ending the presentation, Stanley shared a few tips with the attendees on things to watch out for in an agency. This is especially important for advertisers with little knowledge on how to manage an ad campaign on their own - to protect their investment and make the best out of their campaigns.

Google Partners Co-Pitching Event with Gapture® Malaysia Stanley Chee Google Regional Trainer Q and A

The day’s event ended with a Q & A session where Stanley and Norra answered some technical questions from the attendees.

Google Split Testing Search Results

Google run thorough split testing on live system before rolling out any changes on the search results, as any wrong assumption or mistake would cost them millions of ad revenue (literally).

For the past few weeks, I have noticed Google split testing on ad box color, current yellow vs. new teal, in their search results.  Upon further inspection when writing this blog post, I also noticed that they are split testing the character count of the search results title and description, on both organic search results (SEO) and search ads.

Google split testing different search result format

The tested version seems to cut off at 62 characters for headline and 82 characters for description, which is quite inline with the announcement in Google Performance Summit back in May 2016 on Extended Text Ads for Google Search Ads (60 characters for headline and 80 characters for description).

Extended Text Ads for all devices in AdWords (source: "Inside AdWords")

It is also hard not to speculate that Google may place some new ad format on the right hand side of the search results on desktop, given that it is so empty now after removal of right-hand-side search ads in February this year and now the truncating of organic search result headlines and descriptions.

From digital marketing agency point of view, there will be a lot of testing required to use the more prominent headlines to optimize the performance of our clients' ads and campaigns.  It is also important to watch how the new format change users' behaviour on the search results.