UPDATED: A visual history of Google ad labeling in search results

In February, Google kicked out the “Ad” label with the green background in favor of a version with a thin green border on a white background. We’ve updated our look back at the way Google has treated ad labeling in its search results, first published July 25, 2016.

The debut of Google’s short-lived green “Ad” label on text ads in the search results had marked the first time the color of an ad demarcation was the same color as an element in both the ads and organic listings: the display URL. The green border and font used in the latest variation is also the same color as display URLs.

Below is a look at the major updates to the treatment Google text ads. In 2007, there was the shift from the long-standing blue to yellow. In 2008, Google briefly tested green before reverting back to yellow. Google tested variations including bright blue and a light pinkish-purple in 2010, and the pinkish-purple replaced the yellow, but that only lasted about a year before yellow reappeared in 2011. In 2013, Google tweaked the yellow to a paler shade. At the end of 2013, Google began testing a yellow ad label next to each text ad in the mainline and removed the background shading. The yellow “Ad” label rolled out globally in 2014 in a much smaller size than first appeared in the initial testing. That label size hasn’t changed from the solid green of 2016 and the outlined version of today.

Google labels its text ads nearly the same way across mobile and desktop, including mobile web and Google iOS and Android search apps. The one difference is that Google displays the “i” (more information) icon that explains why those ads are showing is included next to each text ad in mobile web and app results. It does not show at all with text ads on desktop. The 2017 ad in the graphic above is from mobile.

More above-the-fold monetization

Trying to see how the ad labeling helps distinguish ads from organic content isn’t as easy as it used to be. On desktop, there is typically a small amount of space visible above the fold below the four ads, but that real estate sometimes shows a map (as in the first example below) or image results. For results with ads on mobile, three of the four text ads, or one text ad and product listing ads, are typically all that’s visible above the fold. This is how the search results looked last year  on desktop, mobile web and the Google app when the green background debuted.

Clockwise from top: Google search results on desktop, iOS app, and mobile web

Here’s an example of what the results look like now. Expanded text ads have rolled out. In the mobile and app results, the top ad is enormous, displaying with sitelinks, rating annoations and three location extensions.

 

In this example with product listing ads, arguably the most prominent feature on both mobile results is the distance call-out in the first ad, which is a local inventory ad.

Results with product listing ads. Clockwise from top: Google search results on desktop, iOS app, and mobile web

Not much has changed, though now the longer vertical format from mobile has been brought over to desktop. This desktop shows six PLAs, but Google sometimes shows blocks of nine.

In fall 2015, I surveyed how Google, Bing and Yahoo each treat ads from organic content in search results. That was a follow-up from a prior look in 2013. From the loss of background shading to the adoption of an ad label that is the same color as the display URL it appears next to, Google’s ad labeling has grown increasingly more subtle. That said, it’s remains head and shoulders above the other search engines in terms of disclosures. Bing labels ads with a very subtle gray “Ad” label. The exception is in the Bing app, the “Ads” label above the product ads is in Bing-teal, as shown in the 2016 examples below. Bing now uses all-caps “AD” in its labels, and the “ADS” label in the app is now less bold.

Clockwise from top: 2016 Bing search results on desktop, iOS app, and mobile web

Our 2013 look at search engine ad disclosures came shortly after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) noted a “decline in compliance” of search engines to clearly differentiate ads from organic listings and issued and called for clearer design treatment for ads suggesting:

(1) more prominent shading that works across monitor and device types, or

(2) a prominent border, or

(3) both.

Now, four years later, disclosures are as subtle, or even more subtle than they were then. In May 2016, Sundeep Jain, who oversees text ads at Google, told the audience at SMX Advanced in May that the green ad label was chosen to simplify the colorscape on mobile. “We want to make it easier for users to digest information on the page, so we’re gradually trying to reduce the number of variations of colors and patterns on the page and bring a little bit more harmony to the page, which is why we reduced one of the color elements on the page,” Jain said. Google also stressed that testing showed consumers were no more confused about what was an ad and what was unpaid when the label was green than when it was yellow. It did so again with this latest version.

The post UPDATED: A visual history of Google ad labeling in search results appeared first on Search Engine Land.

SearchCap: Google code syntax search, AdWords second line and AMP analytics bug

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Using AMP? A known bug is probably screwing up your Google Analytics
  Mar 2, 2017 by Danny Sullivan

  Issue can cause visitors to be overcounted, single sessions to be divided into separate ones, and more.

• AdWords Expanded Text Ads could get even longer with second description line test
  Mar 2, 2017 by Ginny Marvin

  A new test doubles the number of characters available in text ad descriptions.

• Google makes it easier to search for programming languages answers
  Mar 2, 2017 by Barry Schwartz

  Google can now handle queries containing sequences of 2–3 special characters.

• Google’s location tracking is better now than ever before
  Mar 2, 2017 by Andy Taylor

  Columnist Andy Taylor notes that Google has improved its ability to track search traffic at the ZIP code level, which is good news for advertisers who employ granular geographic targeting.

• What to expect when you attend SMX West. Here’s your special preview!
  Mar 2, 2017 by Chris Sherman

  Search Engine Land’s SMX West is every SEO and SEM’s dream. Join us March 21–23 for a tactic-packed agenda with more than 100 dynamic and authoritative speakers, keynotes, exceptional networking and more. If you’re involved in SEO, SEM, PR, social media or any other customer-facing activity, you owe it to yourself (and your company or client’s bottom line) to […]

• Should you bother rewriting your ads?
  Mar 2, 2017 by Jacob Baadsgaard

  Rewriting and testing your ad copy may not be the most glamorous way to improve your paid search campaigns, but columnist Jacob Baadsgaard points out that it can be an incredibly effective way to get more bang from your budget.

• 6 steps to creating high-converting native ads
  Mar 1, 2017 by Digital Marketing Depot

  Reaching your target audience and gaining traction and interest with native ads is far more complex than simply slapping up an ad that will integrate with a medium. Make sure your native ads are working for you. With the threat of ad blocking, creating native ads the right way is growing in importance. According to […]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• Marketers are sending fewer emails & getting better open rates [SendGrid]
• The Future is Now: Ramp up your Google Shopping ROI
• Using AMP? A known bug is probably screwing up your Google Analytics
• Better collaboration is the best martech investment you can make
• The value of search across the modern consumer decision journey
• What to expect when you attend SMX West. Here’s your special preview!
• Do you know what a mobile crawl of your site looks like?
• From algorithms to advertising: 7 steps to introducing AI to marketing
• Denny’s ‘zoom in’ tweet is selling like hotcakes with more than 75K retweets, 100K likes & 5K new followers
• Pro tips for every Facebook visual ad type
• 3 steps to take your influencer marketing to the next level
• Instagram Story ads now sold globally as standalone placements through Facebook’s self-serve tools
• Report: How industry leaders are using email marketing in e-commerce

Search News From Around The Web:

Local & Maps

• Top Local SEO Blogs 2016, BrightLocal
• Local ranking factors that help your local business’ SEO, Yoast

Link Building

• Link Building for Your Startup, SEM Rush

Searching

• Bing Adds Larger Coupon Codes to Brand Knowledge Panels, The SEM Post

SEO

• Google Crawl Budget for SEO, STOP Guessing! (Real Info Here), ignitevisibility.com
• Google Top Stories & Google News Are Independent Features, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Many Pages Should a Website Have?, Stone Temple
• More Pages About Topic X Versus Y Won’t Hurt Your Google Rankings For Y, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM / Paid Search

• Google’s AdMob Asks Why Publishers Aren’t Using Interstitials, Search Engine Roundtable
• New campaign helps partners “Take off with Bing Insights, Bing Ads Blog
• PPC Video Campaign Targeting Methods You Shouldn’t Forget, PPC Hero

Search Marketing

• Google: How Bounce Rate Increases With Longer Mobile Load Times, The SEM Post

The post SearchCap: Google code syntax search, AdWords second line and AMP analytics bug appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Using AMP? A known bug is probably screwing up your Google Analytics

If you are using the Google-backed Accelerated Mobile Pages, there appears to be an excellent chance that those AMP pages are not being tracked correctly, if you use Google Analytics.

Christian Oliveira, a technical SEO consultant, posted a long, technical explanation of the issues AMP is giving with proper tracking in Google Analytics. Malte Ubi, Google’s technical lead for the AMP project, confirmed the problems and that they have no easy solution, in tweets today.

In summary, Oliveira found that:

• A unique visitor potentially can be reported as up to four different people, when accessing AMP pages.
• When a visitor navigates from an AMP page to a regular page in a site, that causes a new session to be generated, even though technically, it was the same session.
• Bounce rate will appear higher than normal when AMP pages are involved, because since new sessions are generated as described above, it appears as if visitors are leaving quickly when they are not.
• Pageviews per session will appear lower, when an AMP person moves from an AMP page to a regular page in a single session.
• Visitors who come to AMP page from search and then goes to another page will appear as if they are new visitors coming from referral traffic, rather than search.

Oliveira documents a solution to this, but it’s not for everyone nor perfect. Hopefully, Google will accelerated efforts on its end to come up with a solution, but that doesn’t look to be coming quickly, based on Ubi’s tweets.

The post Using AMP? A known bug is probably screwing up your Google Analytics appeared first on Search Engine Land.

AdWords Expanded Text Ads could get even longer with second description line test

 

If you thought the 80 character description line available in expanded text ads already afforded a lot more room to get your message across, you could soon be seeing double that character count.

Valerio Celetti noticed the option to add a second description line to expanded text ads in the AdWords web interface earlier this week in a US account. The additional optional line also has an 80 character limit.

There is currently no information provided in the information popup next to the Additional description (optional) line in the UI.

Celetti says he started testing the second description line in ads two days ago. So far, CTR on the extra long ads are slightly lower than the average expanded text ad, says Celetti, but he’s continuing to test.

Asked about this test, a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land only that, “Google is constantly testing out new products and features to improve user and advertiser experience.”

Since their introduction last year, the promise of ETAs has been higher click-through rates. Some reports have shown mixed results on that front. We’ll have to wait to see how far this test to add even more real estate to text ads gets. It will come down to CTR lifts.

The post AdWords Expanded Text Ads could get even longer with second description line test appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google makes it easier to search for programming languages answers

Google announced they now let you search using sequences of 2-3 special characters, something many coders do when looking for programming help in search. So now you can go to Google and search for technical queries such as [== vs ===] and [+=].

Google gave the example, if you’re searching for the meaning of [c++17], you will get results for the well-known programming language instead of c17, which brings up a Boeing airplane.

Here is an example of a search result page for such technical queries:

Google also made it better for organization and product names that include punctuation. So for companies name She++ and Notepad++, Google will now return more accurate results.

The post Google makes it easier to search for programming languages answers appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google’s location tracking is better now than ever before

In April 2015, I wrote about Google’s progress in steadily tracking more and more user locations to ZIP codes. As ZIP codes are the most granular location type which populates the “Most specific location” field in AdWords geographic reports, the share of traffic that Google assigns to ZIP codes in this field gives advertisers an idea of how well Google is doing at figuring out searcher locations.

At the time, Google was showing strong progress in its location tracking:

Fast forward to today, and Google is tracking more searchers to ZIP codes than ever before. However, most of the progress made only applies to google.com traffic, while search partners are continuing to lag in terms of the share of searchers tracked to a ZIP code.

One big, huge, ginormous caveat

The most important thing to keep in mind with this analysis is that it is based on the locations that Google itself reports. This means that if Google were to, say, expand the use of modeling to infer searcher location to apply to users whose locations it is less confident in, we might see a rise in the share of traffic tracked to a ZIP code without any change in what information Google is actually getting.

As such, the trends shown here could be the result of updates Google itself made in assigning and reporting searcher location, rather than Google actually obtaining more granular information on searcher location over time. They could also be the result of a combination of Google changes and more granular information.

Google better able to track google.com searcher locations across all device types

Across the board, Merkle advertisers are finding more and more traffic attributed to ZIP codes in the “Most specific location” field in AdWords geographic reports. Looking at google.com traffic specifically for one advertiser, we find that while 28 percent of all traffic in Q1 2015 could not be tracked to the ZIP code level in this field, that figure was just 11 percent in Q4 2016.

The share of traffic tracked to ZIP code has risen for all device types over the last couple of years:

Google continues to track more searchers to the ZIP code level on desktop and tablet computers than on phones, but the gap is now much smaller than it was two years ago.

Location tracking users on search partners lagging but getting better

Search partner location tracking is also getting better, but no device type topped 80 percent in share tracked to the ZIP code level in Q4 2016. As with google.com searchers, phone searchers are less likely to be tracked to a ZIP code.

As such, it’s apparent that Google isn’t always receiving the same information from search partner sites as it gathers when searchers are on Google’s website. It could be that there are specific sites which have issues, or it could be that this is just a complication Google has with all of its search partners.

Either way, Google’s progress in tracking search partner user locations at the ZIP code level is rather muted when compared to the significant leaps it has made in tracking searcher locations on its own site.

Google average household income targets becoming more powerful

Google average household income (HHI) targeting has existed for several years now, and it allows advertisers to target ads and adjust bids based on the average income of the ZIP code a user is searching from using income percentile bundles. In this way, advertisers can target, for example, all of the US searchers which Google can identify as searching from ZIP codes in the top 10 percent in average household income without having to add all of those ZIP codes individually.

Since these targets are based on ZIP code location, only those searchers tracked to the ZIP code level are targeted with them. The share of US traffic attributed to income brackets is nearly identical to the share of traffic tracked to the ZIP code level in geographic reports.

As such, Google’s progress in location tracking helps these targets account for a greater share of the population.

Better tracking is better for advertisers

ZIP code certainly isn’t the most granular location Google can track users to. Advertisers can target searchers as close as one kilometer from a specific address using AdWords radius targeting, and Google’s in-store visit tracking relies on tracking searchers to within feet of brick-and-mortar locations in order to credit ad campaigns with driving store visits.

However, the share of US traffic that is tracked to ZIP code in the “Most specific location” column gives advertisers an idea of how well Google is able to track users to granular geographic locations. This information helps inform campaign targeting strategy over time.

When Google was still only able to track about 70 percent of search traffic to the ZIP code level, advertisers that used only ZIP code-level geographic targeting were missing out on around 30 percent of traffic from those areas. Now that Google tracks much more traffic to the ZIP code level, that’s less of a concern, and advertisers can feel more comfortable using granular location targeting.

As mentioned, search partner location tracking lags that of google.com, but search partners only accounted for 9 percent of all Merkle advertiser Google search clicks in Q4 2016. Thus, while we’d prefer to see more progress in location tracking on the partner network, these sites don’t account for a hugely significant share of traffic overall that can’t be identified at the ZIP code level.

Whether it’s location or demographic audiences or any other type of search targeting, it’s safe to assume that Google will continue to progress in its ability to track user attributes for better ad targeting. This is a win for advertisers, as campaigns that target specific locations and groups are steadily targeting a greater share of the total population that falls into those locations and groups.

It also increases the likelihood that the most correct bids are placed in the AdWords auction for campaigns which target larger geographic areas (such as the entire United States) but use smaller location targets (such as the ZIP code 22902) to adjust bids for users in specific areas. This will only help advertisers to invest more in paid search by helping marketers to spend each dollar as effectively as possible.

The post Google’s location tracking is better now than ever before appeared first on Search Engine Land.

What to expect when you attend SMX West. Here’s your special preview!

Search Engine Land’s SMX West is every SEO and SEM’s dream. Join us March 21-23 for a tactic-packed agenda with more than 100 dynamic and authoritative speakers, keynotes, exceptional networking and more. If you’re involved in SEO, SEM, PR, social media or any other customer-facing activity, you owe it to yourself (and your company or client’s bottom line) to attend.

SMX West features multiple tracks filled with sessions that cover:

• Search marketing topics including search advertising, SEO, technical SEO, analytics and more.
• The latest, actionable tactics you can immediately use to improve your campaigns.
• All experience levels, from beginner to advanced.

There’s something for everyone… all the time.

You’ll get actionable tactics and techniques you can put to work immediately to drive the success of your search marketing campaigns. SMX West is the ultimate survival guide to the dynamic and tumultuous world of search marketing.

If this sounds up your alley, read my complete run down on SMX West here and register today to save $100 off on-site rates.

The brave new world of SEO

Long gone are the days when SEO was about tweaking a few on-page elements or industriously building links and patiently waiting for your rankings to improve. There’s much more to doing effective SEO today, especially given the advent of machine learning and massive algorithmic shifts. We’ve got SEO sessions designed to ensure your continued online marketing success:

• AMP: The Next Generation
• Speaking In Tongues: Mastering Multinational Search
• Optimizing Content For Voice Search & Virtual Assistants
• SEO & Social: A Match Made In Marketing Heaven
• SEO For Google’s Mobile-First Index & Mobile-Friendly World
• How To Use Event Tracking To Improve Marketing Performance
• Google Tag Manager: The Marketer’s Essential Multi-Tool

Navigating the evolving SEM landscape

Paid search advertisers have plenty to keep up with – new ad formats, extensions, more sophisticated options for remarketing and retargeting, enhanced automation tools… to name just a few.

SMX West paid search sessions cover fundamentals like creating, testing and optimizing paid search ads, and dive deep into advanced topics like bidding strategies and bid modifiers. We’ll also tackle thorny SEM issues, with sessions including:

• Thinking Outside The SEM Box
• The Nine Billion Ads Of Search
• The Rapidly Changing World Of Offline Targeting And Attribution
• Fun (And Profit!) With Dynamic Ads
• Always Be Testing To Always Be Closing
• Using Paid Search & Social Together To Deliver The Ultimate Knock-Out Punch
• Conversion Rates & The Law of Diminishing Astonishment
• Maximizing Performance By Testing And Optimizing Paid Search Ads
• Updating Your SEM Toolbox With New Shiny Tools
• How To Find, Hack & Build Great AdWords Scripts
• Your Mobile PPC Sucks (But It Doesn’t Have To!)

Keynote: The future of Google is now: How Google Assistant is transforming search

Google is continuously evolving to be more helpful and accessible to users, building an underlying foundation and investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Google Assistant allows people to have conversations with Google, get answers and get things done. But being a truly successful Assistant means connecting users across apps and services and enabling an ecosystem where developers can do so. In this keynote, Google’s Jason Douglas shares the key components of developing Google Assistant with the easy-to-use tools that are available through Actions on Google.

Tackle search marketing challenges in the brands & agency world

Brands face unique challenges when it comes to search marketing, including:

• Maintaining their brand image within restrictive headline and description requirements.
• Ensuring that testing takes into account other branding efforts.
• Following trademark guidelines and more.

Brands often work with agencies, and must find effective ways to work together on such tasks as coordinating the ownership of keywords, content and other assets.

You’ll hear from brand SEO and SEM experts about how they handle these and other challenging issues in sessions including:

• Taking The Brand/Agency Partnership To The Next Level
• Brands Talk Search Marketing
• Creating a Customer-Driven Content Strategy
• Protecting Your Brand In The Era Of Fake News
• Consumer-Led Change: How To Stay Relevant & Build Success

Let’s get technical!

Do you work with designers or developers? Are you a designer or developer? Are you an SEO who wants to be sure you’re keeping up with the latest technical aspects that can impact your online marketing efforts? We have sessions just for you!

• Successful SEO Using Markup & Structured Data
• What To Do When Google Can’t Understand Your JavaScript
• Solving SEO Issues In Google’s Post-Update World
• Future-Proofing Your SEO
• What SEOs Need To Know About Progressive Web Apps
• What’s New With Google Firebase App Indexing
• The Great Debate: PWAs Or Apps?

Know thy audience

When you’re running a targeted advertising campaign, knowing what you’re doing from start to finish is essential. Do you have the right messaging, ad formats and offers in your ads? Are you reaching the right audience at the right time, maximizing exposure? Have you built high quality landing pages to convert visitors into leads? Finally, are you properly attributing and making informed decisions on the leads you generate?

Our experts will show you new approaches to gain the maximum return from your highly-targeted campaigns. Sessions include:

• Your Retargeting Sucks (But It Doesn’t Have To!)
• The Lowdown On Google Customer Match
• Conquering Google Display & Gmail Ad Targeting
• Advanced Audience Targeting
• Google Analytics And The Rise Of (Free!) DIY Audience Marketing
• Attribution Success In A Cross-Device World

Local & retail tactics

If you cater to local clientele, search is essential. But the current state of local search is messy, with confusing options, variations and alternatives – not to mention the chaos that algorithm updates like “Possum” create for local SEOs.

Retailers also face unique challenges, ranging from maintaining complex sites with hundreds, thousands or even millions of products that constantly change based on inventory, new items or models and consumer demand. Beyond maintaining and optimizing their own sites, retailers also must deal with issues like providing structured product listings to shopping and comparison search engines.

SMX West features experts who have faced all of these challenges and offer lessons learned and best practices for thriving in these complicated environments. Sessions include:

• The Definitive Guide To Local Search Ranking Factors
• Advertising In Maps: Unparalleled Local Context
• Harnessing The Power Of Online Reviews
• Getting The Most Out Of Google & Bing Shopping
• Inside The Amazon Shopping Engine
• Brick & Mortar’s Secret Weapon: Search Data
• Findability & Shoppability Beyond Google

SMX Boot Camp gets you in shape

If you’re new to search marketing, SMX Boot Camp gets you up to speed. Boot Camp takes place on the first day of the show, Tuesday, March 21. Attend and learn the fundamentals in these sessions:

• Keyword Research & Copywriting For Search Success
• Link Building Fundamentals
• Paid Search Fundamentals
• Search Engine Friendly Web Design

To encourage new search marketers to learn and grow, we offer these sessions through a low-cost SMX Boot Camp ticket. The Boot Camp ticket includes admission on the first day to Expo Hall, networking lunch and the Expo Hall reception. You can upgrade to a full pass if you want to attend more sessions on the second and third day.

SMX Boot Camp is also open to anyone with a full All Access conference pass. Everyone who attends every Boot Camp session gets a Certificate of Completion.

Exploring important search marketing issues

We all love the art and science of search marketing, the tactical aspects of optimization or bid management, the thrill of seeing analytics show successful and improving campaigns… but there are other aspects of online marketing that are often overlooked and as important. Each of the sessions below features a single speaker taking a deep dive into a topic, providing you with actionable, thought-provoking insights or offering the results of their own research you won’t want to miss out on:

• Your Programmatic Sucks (But It Doesn’t Have To!)
• Survive & Thrive With SMB PPC
• Intelligent Bidding Using Non-SEM Marketing Data
• Winning At Organic Search By Taking SERP Market Share
• The New 1+1=3: Using Search Marketing to Amplify TV Buys
• SEO & PPC In Trademark Law: The High Price Of What You Don’t Know

The clinics are open!

Want specific advice from experts about issues with your sites or campaigns? The doctors are in! On the second and third days of the show, our popular clinics return, covering these areas:

• SEO Site Clinic
• Social Media Clinic
• Link Building Clinic
• PPC Tune-Up Clinic With The SMX Mechanics

Ask the experts obsessed with SEO & SEM

Got a puzzling issue? Wondering about emerging trends or searching for tips and techniques? Ask the experts! During the AMA (Ask Me Anything) With Google Search panel, Webmaster Trends Analysts Gary Illyes and Mariya Moeva dive into how Google interacts with your site and content. They’ll also answer your questions about algorithms, ranking factors or other components of Google’s “black box.”

The Meet the SEOs is no-holds-barred session as veteran practitioners take any and all questions.

We know you wish you could attend every session at the conference, but have no fear! SMX West wraps up with a perpetual favorite: Best Of Show / Key SMX Takeaways. In this session, speakers and fellow attendees will share their personal highlights from SMX West.

Quality programming & speakers

All 60+ sessions I’ve described above are editorial sessions. Speakers were hand selected because we feel they have great information to offer. And as always at SMX, no one bought their way onto a panel.

Each session is developed by a session coordinator who reviews speaking pitches and reaches out to industry experts to assemble a panel. They work with speakers to create sessions where presentations support each other, rather than overlap. Sessions are presented in several formats because different topics require different approaches. Formats can range from being lecture style presentations with one, two or  multiple people while others are pure Q&A. That diversity is what makes SMX experience a diverse and learning environment.

The entire editorial portion of the show is overseen by myself and my co-chair Danny Sullivan. We’ve been organizing search conferences longer than anyone in the industry – more than 19 years and counting!

Expo hall & plus sessions

Our many SMX West sponsors & exhibitors also have great information to share with attendees. That’s why we provide several ways for attendees to hear from them.

Plus Sessions are part of the agenda; they are produced by sponsoring companies. These companies know they are competing for your attention with our educational sessions, so they’re highly motivated to deliver great information and value.

Bing and Google each conduct full days of programming on their search advertising offerings Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

The Expo Hall is open Tuesday March 21 and Wednesday the 22nd. In it, you can get information from exhibitors and sponsors about the many products and services to accelerate your business and performance.

Looking to network and visit the Expo Hall? An Expo+ Pass might be the right fit for you. Learn more.

Take a deep dive on internet marketing topics

Looking for even more advice in a smaller group setting on particular internet marketing topics? Come a day early, and you’ve got a choice of in-depth workshops and training classes to choose from:

• Bruce Clay Advanced SEO Training
• Certified Knowledge Advanced AdWords Training
• Content Marketing Mastery
• Mastering Google Analytics
• Search-Engine Friendly Mobile Design & Development
• Mastering Social Media Advertising

You’ll save $200 off on-site rates by registering for an All Access + Workshop combo pass.

Networking with like-minded peers

SMX West brings together the most accomplished search marketers in the world, and we provide plenty of organized and social networking activities for you to connect:

Our SMX Facebook group page will allow you to connect with other attendees and speakers before, during and after the conference.

If you’re new to SMX, attend the SMX Orientation, where we’ll show you how to optimize your conference experience. The orientation is from 5:30 – 6:00 PM on Monday, March 20, just before the SMX Meet & Greet reception, in Salon III of the San Jose Marriott.

We’ll kick off the conference with the SMX Meet & Greet reception, sponsored by Bruce Clay, Inc. Arrive early, pick-up your registration materials, and join us on the 2nd floor Ballroom Foyer of the Marriott, for an informal evening reception with fellow attendees, speakers and invited guests.

During lunch, sign up for an “Obsessed With…” networking table, where you’ll network with other attendees and discuss specific topics. Being grouped with people who share a common interest is a great icebreaker.

The SMX Expo Hall Reception sponsored by Stone Temple consulting takes place on Tuesday, March 21, from 6:00pm to 7:00pm. The reception offers a great chance to mingle and check out the best-of-breed marketing solutions from exhibitors and sponsors.

The Expo Hall Reception is followed by the popular Janes Of Digital evening panel and group discussion event, covering topics in equity, diversity and inclusion. Join us for small bites, drinks, connecting and engaging discussion between industry leaders and the audience. Sponsored by Bing and SMX, Janes of Digital takes place just blocks away from the convention center at The GlassHouse, 2 South Market St. in downtown San Jose. All are welcome (this means you too, men), but space is limited and your RSVP is requested to guarantee a spot and bring your SMX badge for entry. Register here.

Featured networking event @ Googleplex

Our featured event is the Google Dance networking reception at the Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View. The good folks at Google are hosting a party for SMX West All Access attendees! Don’t miss this incredible experience — affectionately known as Google Dance — at the famed Googleplex campus.

Want to attend? Be among the first 500 people buying a 3-day All Access Pass and you’ll automatically be registered. Transportation will be provided. (Sorry, 1-day All Access Pass holders are not eligible.)

All these options can be found on our SMX West networking page. We keep SMX West intentionally intimate, so you are guaranteed to meet plenty of amazing people!

I hope you’ve found this preview useful, and that you’ll be joining us in San Jose – register today!

-Chris Sherman, SMX Programming Chair

P.S. It’s not too late to plan to attend SMX West as a team! Sign up with 3 or more of your colleagues and grab significant savings! View group rates.

The post What to expect when you attend SMX West. Here’s your special preview! appeared first on Search Engine Land.