It appears that the much-anticipated day for the Google+ Pages and Google Places to merge has arrived. The Google Places has been totally replaced by the new Google+ Local pages, and roughly 80 million of Google Places pages have been automatically converted to the new feature.

Introducing the New Google+ Local

Google+ Local has converted a static Places page into something dynamic, while the search engine giant’s star rating has been replaced by the Zagat 30-point rating scale. According to Google’s Vice President for Local, Maps and Location Services Marissa Mayer, the new rating scale is used because it has separate scores for food, service and atmosphere.

There are several ways on how users can discover the Google+ Local:

• Google’s search engine result page
• Google Maps
• Mobile apps
• Search on Google+

How Google+ Local Works

From their Google+ account, users can click on the new “Local” tab, which will redirect them to a personalized homepage. This discovery page offers a mix of popular, social and recommended content, and it has various elements that go into the page.

They can either use the discovery page to browse for more content, or head on to Google or Google Maps to search like how they normally do it. Regardless, the inclusion of Zagat rating system and other social features make Google+ an arguably better local search destination.

The new Google+ Local adds richer content and functionality to local search results than what the SERP can offer. The new feature is much more versatile and “social”, giving Google a local vehicle functionality that is similar with Facebook and Twitter. Simply put, the former Google Places is now an interactive page that merchants could use to communicate with their customers.

What Google+ Local Means to Business Owners

What makes Google+ Local visually interesting is the fact that it enables presentation of a wide array of information. It allows users to build a follower base and have the social interactions that are already available on other networking sites.

Moreover, local business owners should wait for new and updated features that will be coming in the future. As posted on Google’s official blog for small businesses:

“We know many of you have already created a Google+ Page for your business, and have been hosting hangouts and sharing photos, videos and posts. We’re excited that we’ll soon extend these social experiences to more Google+ Local pages in the weeks and months ahead.”

Just like beauty, your marketing campaign’s value is in the eyes of the beholder. For brand marketers, well-designed banners that are presented to target customers on quality website are perceived as value. It’s also the same with high click-through rates that drive qualified audience is also something valuable.

But in the world of performance display, high returns on advertising spend and return on investment is the main goal. This means that they pay attention on cost per action, or the performance of their campaign that drives favorable action, instead of impression or click-based metrics. That’s why it’s for marketers to know how to use search retargeting to lower their campaign’s CPAs.

Don’t Mind CTRs and CPCs

When it comes to performance display advertising, CTRs and CPCs don’t usually matter when all you want is to lower your CPA. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but what’s important is that you don’t limit your campaign on sites with very low CPM while optimizing your keywords for high CTR.

Take Note of Recency

Depending on your campaign and its nature, the window period between a user performing a search and a user seeing your ads on relevant search varies widely. That’s why it’s important that you understand the recency of each of your campaign, as it can help you improve your CPA.

Bid for High Impressions

Campaign performance data reveals that the best keywords could lower CPAs when targeted in the right recency windows, even it has higher cost per impression. That’s it’s important that you are not afraid to bid for high impressions. As long as it drives performance, this could help your campaign win more volume on the best performing keywords.

Consider Keywords that Fall Behind

There are keywords that don’t perform well due to various reasons. Regardless, it could still deliver favorable CPA in search retargeting when used on impressions with right characteristics. Other than that, it could also expand the reach of your campaign.

Use Look-a-like Modeling

Look-a-like modeling can provide insight on the search patterns of existing converters. This enables you to discover and test additional keywords, as well as tap other markets that are related to your campaign.

Optimize Your Campaign Automatically

While you can set up your campaign and make initial targeting parameters, you can achieve optimum performance through automatic optimization. This feature could decide in real time which combinations of impression parameters could yield a more favorable conversion. In turn, your campaign can achieve the best results.

 

Just like in any online marketing campaign, you have to learn and understand its nature so that it can perform well without costing much. If you are successful with lowering your CPA through search retargeting, fruits of labor could be sweet.

SlideShare is an online presentation website that businesses use to upload presentations, documents and PDF files. Sporting 30 million monthly viewers, this website makes uploaded presentation embeddable and sharable to various social networking platforms. However, there’s more to this presentation website than that. Brands can also use it to gain social media success if they know how to do it.

Tell Your Business’ Story

Since presentations cover specific subject matter and are more three-dimensional, SlideShare is used by businesses of all sizes to tell their story. In addition, the online presentation site can also leverage a company’s latest thinking, research and videos from its employees since it conveys a more personal approach.

Share In-depth Information

Using SlideShare’s charts and graphs, businesses can easily share in-depth information, like financial status, latest research or case studies. This kind of information is difficult to present using traditional website tools. In turn, it enables organizations to connect with their potential clients in an entire new way since it’s easy to understand details posted on the presentation website.

Connect with Wider Audience

Another way that businesses can use SlideShare is to reach and engage a whole new array of audience. Using the online presentation website’s social tools and community sections, brands can track users who comment on, embed or share their presentations. In turn, they can root who their viewers are and how they can connect with them.

Leverage Your Business’ Exposure

Although holding a webinar or an online conference can reach thousands of people, SlideShare can amplify the number of audience. Since a company can upload a video through this website, it’s easy to promote the content using its various social media links, with an additional bonus of squeezing inbound links to its original source.

Measure Your Leads and Use the Social Media

It’s a no-brainer that whatever is measured gets funded. That being said, SlideShare features the Eloqua channel to measure the online presentation site’s lead. In addition, this channel can automatically populate SlideShare’s demand generation profile database. Another best thing about the presentation website is its social networking cross-pollination capabilities. Under its channel description, a company can highlight its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube links which can also generate inbound links for a website.

 

SlideShare proves itself to be an untraditional avenue to promote a brand. This online presentation site obviously has functionalities and capabilities that need to be discovered and must be used to its full extent.