Adwords Survival Tips
Advertising on Google’s Adwords can best be described as operating in a
hostile environment. Even though the search engine giant makes $15 Billion
a year on this “little” paid search business they have, they don’t go to any
great lengths to make it easy for you to work with them.
However, to be fair we must understand that Google has two customer bases to balance, with each of them being unable to exist without the other. On one hand, Google has to please the searches that want good information, quality content, fast answers, relevant search engine and paid search results, and no spam. On the other hand they have the advertisers that want traffic and lots of it for as cheaply as possible. There are a few “bad apples” out there that will try to use underhanded techniques and get rich quick schemes to get ahead. These are the advertisers that Google is really concerned about. The problem is that when Google tries to take measures to protect their searchers and themselves from underhanded advertisers, the well intentioned ones suffer.
Adwords can be a very profitable place to invest your advertising budget. In
fact, I make most of my living doing so. The key is to understand the
(sometimes unwritten) rules, tips, and tricks to employ in order to keep
Google happy. If Google is happy, then your per click costs will be going
down, and your traffic will be going up. The added benefit is that making
Google happy will generally result in better profitability for you as well.
Google is happiest when your ad is getting a high CTR (click through rate,
meaning lost of people are clicking on your ad), and the people who click on
your ads are satisfied with the information they see on your web site. This
makes Google the most money, and should work the same for you. Google
measures how “happy” people are with the web sites they visit by how quickly
they hit that back button.
Here are a few tips and strategies that help you rescue your Adwords campaigns:
Tip #1 Keywords
First of all, you just don’t have enough of them.
If you aren’t using at least 300-500 keywords in your ad campaign, regardless of the market you’re in, you are definitely leaving profitable keywords on the table.
Use one of the good keyword research tools like Wordtracker or Keywordtopia to get suggestions you may have never even considered.
Don’t forget to use the plural versions of your existing keywords.
Look for combination multipliers like cities and states…for example, instead of the one
keyword of “weight loss center”, use that along with each state, and then add each state along
with “weight loss centers” etc.
Take the time to brainstorm with colleagues and friends and add the terms you come up with to your campaigns. Before long you will have thousands of keywords at work in your Adwords campaign.
Tip #2 Proper Usage of Match Types
There are three match types to use in an Adwords campaign; exact, phrase, and broad. You will be able to find information on how each of these match types work in help documents provided by Google Adwords.
Adword’s help documents for a discussion about how each one works.
Most people who are just starting out with Adwords make this mistake. They only bid on the
broad match. That is, putting the keyword or phrase by itself with no quotes or brackets
around it. In fact, Google has a built in suggestion to start out only using this match type.
That is not always sound advice.
I think its best to bid on all three match types. This also triples your keyword list. Since there is really no way to know which match type is most effective, you have to try them and track them and make adjustments as needed.
Tip #3 Keyword Grouping
The majority of Adwords advertisers stuff hundreds or thousands of keywords and keyword phrases into the just one ad group. This is a practice that doesn’t make Google happy. They immediately assume that there is no possible way to write ads that are relevant to all these keywords and have landing pages that are relevant. The result will be a low quality score that makes your click price very expensive. There’s also a good ad you’ll never even get your ads running.
The key is to make tightly focused adwords groups. The way that most people do it is by a
“theme”. Generally, if all the keywords or phrases in an adgroup can be served by one highly
targeted ad and landing page…they are in a good grouping. However, my suggestion is to
have one adgroup for EVERY keyword (include all three match types, so every
adgroup really ends up having three keywords or phrases). This is a lot of work, but there are
tools out there that can help. Google’s own Adwords Editor is free and will help a lot.
Tip #4 Landing Pages
You absolutely must have targeted landing pages that address each of the conversations your customers have when they start searching for something.
If you are advertising for the purpose of capturing leads from people that are trying to sell their home in San Francisco, you should send them to a page that tells them why they should retain you as their listing broker. If you are capturing leads from people that are interested in relocating to London, send them to a landing page that highlights your expertise in handling relocations and helping people purchase homes.
Too often, advertisers capture totally different type of customer leads and simply send them
to their home page. This does not make people happy, as they want to continue the
conversation they were having quickly…and get answers to their questions and problems, not
try to navigate through your web site to find the information. They’re not happy, so they hit
that back button in less than 5 seconds. This does not make Google happy, you’ve lost a sale,
and Google may penalize you with higher click charges.
Tip #5 Writing your Ads
This could be a whole article in itself. Common mistakes to avoid:
You have to try to use the keyword or phrase in the ad. This is why keyword grouping is critical. Google assumes that if you use the term the searches types in, your ad will likely be highly relevant. Your reward for doing this will be lower bid prices.
Never continue a sentence or thought from one line to the next. Most people never really read the ads; they just skim over them and click on an ad or something that attracts them.
Capitalize the first letter of every word in the ad. This has been proven to increase click. Why? I have no idea and don’t care and neither should you. I just do it because it works.
Make proper use of the display URL, especially if it contains the keyword. Don’t use www.weightlossclinic.com, but WeightLossClinic.com. It’s easy to see which one draws more attention.
Tip #6 Proper Split Testing
When you set up an adgroup, always write two different ads. You must then monitor them to
see which one is performing better. You can literally increase your clicks 3x or more by doing
this. It doesn’t matter what you change and make different in your ads. Just change something
and always test and monitor.
When one ad can be declared as the winner (search the web for split test calculators to get the
statistical answer), get rid of the under performing one and immediately write another new
one to try and beat the one that just won.
Tip #7 Content network
I recommend turning the content network off at first, and then taking the terms that have
been profitable for you and starting another campaign that ONLY advertises on the content
network.
If you run both types of ads from one campaign, it can be very hard to track your keywords and ads’ performance as well as monitor your return on your investment.
Tip #8 Geographic and Schedule Targeting
If these options make sense for your market, use both.
In the London real estate example, you would run two different campaigns in an effort to get listings in your area. People searching on “Sell house London” not paying attention to
geography, and people searching on the more general “sell house”…targeting only those
people in London.
Use the scheduling feature to examine all the metrics. There will be some campaigns that will only be profitable to run on weekends for example. If you are able to determine this, it would make sense to only run your ads then.
Tip #9 Conversion Tracking
If you do nothing else, you absolutely have to track conversions!
If you don’t know what you’re getting for you’re advertising dollar, how can you make good
decisions?
If you are selling an actual product online, the easiest way to track conversions is with Google’s own conversion tracking. This simple bit of code is added to a sales confirmation page and works very well and lets Google know that the keyword or phrase led to a sale. Google stores and reports the information, making it possible to go to one place to see exactly what you spent on a campaign and what your return on the investment is.
There are other ways to do this, and it’s a bit more difficult to do if you’re not selling
something; however, it’s absolutely mandatory. Do web searches on conversion tracking to
learn more.
Tip #10 Bid Adjustments
You have to remember that every keyword is not created equally. You have to examine your spend and your conversions for every keyword and adjust the bid (individually) for each of them.
Bonus Tip – Learn the Adwords editor…and use it.
Want to find out more about AdWords, then visit Robert D’Arcy’s site on practical tips to set up and run yourinternet marketing strategy.