OK, so threatening to take your own life may be a little extreme, but we all have things that drive us nuts about Google AdWords and the AdWords interface and make us want to kick something. Here are our top 5 AdWords grievances…

1. Google AdWords Network Targeting

This is a very common mistake and one that has burnt thousands of advertisers. The settings you choose here will determine where your ads appear on the Internet. The Google Network is made up of the Search Network and the Display Network (formerly the Content Network).

- The Search Network is where your ads can appear above or beside the search results for the keywords you target. The Search Network does include other search partner sites like ask.com and aol.com.

- The Display Network (formerly Content Network) is where Google scans your ad groups and based on the keywords, they assign a theme to those ad groups. They then do the same to the pages on the Display Network. When the content page and your ad group have the same theme, your ad is displayed. You can use text, image, video and rich media ads on the display network.

By default your campaigns are opted into both the Search and Display Networks. But what Google doesn’t tell you is that because the Search and Display Networks work in very different ways, best practice is to run separate Search and Display campaigns, not lump them all in together.

So when you set your campaigns up, build separate Search and Display Network campaigns:

Click ‘let me choose’ and select Google Search and Search Partners if you want to and save your changes.

2. Devices Targeting

This is another trap that is easy to fall into. Just like the Network targeting scenario, you can target your ads to desktop computers and mobile devices:

- Desktop and Laptop Computers (pretty self-explanatory).
- iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers where you can display standard text ads.

Again, by default both of these targeting options are selected, and again, this goes against best practice. User’s behaviour is so different on a mobile device than on their computer or laptop. People tend to use one-word searches and misspellings are common.

It’s best to structure mobile and desktop device campaigns differently. If you’re on a computer you might be more likely to use long tail keywords and be looking to make a purchase, rather than looking for information. But the same rules apply – make sure your landing pages are relevant and make sure they render OK on a mobile device.

As before, deselect “iPhone and other mobile devices with full internet browsers” to only target Desktop computers, and vice versa to only target mobile devices. You can also target specific networks, so if you were after business users, targeting Vodafone might be a good test.

3. Quality Score

Do you honestly know what Quality Score is and how Google determines your Quality Score? The rule of thumb is that the closer the relationship between your keyword, your ads and you landing page, Google will give you more points out of 10 (1 the lowest, 10 the highest), which in turn will mean better ad positions and lower costs per click.

Did you know that Google can display your keyword Quality Score in the AdWords interface? OK, so it’s not your actual Quality Score. Google can’t really tell you that. But it’s an indication that you might need to do some work on your ads or landing pages. So anything with a Quality Score of 6 or below might need some attention.

By default the Quality Score is not displayed. To turn it on and display the Quality Score, go to the Keywords tab and click on Columns and tick the Quality Score option:

Now you’ll be able to see your Quality Score under the keywords tab:

4. First Page Bid

Have you ever logged in to your account and seen those little messages that tell you that your keyword max CPC is below first page bid estimate?

AdWords is only trying to be helpful. If your bid is less than the first page bid it will tell you, and suggest what you should be bidding. But be careful with this! Firstly take a look at your average ad position. If it’s high, it suggests that your ad is always appearing on the first page so you probably don’t need to worry about increasing your bid.

Also, it should really only apply to Exact match keywords, and occasionally Phrase match. You’d be mad to increase your Broad match bids too much. It may cost you a fortune and you could end up overbidding. Use your own judgement on this one. Take what Google says with a pinch of salt.

5. Daily Budgets

Be careful with your daily budget as you can find you’re overspent by up to 20%. To be fair to Google, they do warn us that “Daily budget represents your average spend over the month; actual spend on a given day may vary”, but it’s worth keeping your eye on it.

We recommend using a slightly lower test budget when you first start an AdWords campaign. Then you can ramp it up once you are sure your campaign is running smoothly.

Stop Google AdWords from beating you!

The real danger is that you make a few mistakes, don’t build or optimize your campaigns in the best way, and then declare “AdWords doesn’t work!”.

Unless you’re in the know, or are an agency with dedicated Google account management support, there are things that you just won’t know you’re supposed to be doing.

We’re running regular Google AdWords Certified Trainer courses and seminars for individuals, companies or agencies. Book one of our courses and expect to get the kind of information you need to be able to take on Google AdWords. Check our course dates.

Here are five ways you can assess your Pay Per Click (PPC) Agency, even if you don’t have direct access to your campaigns…

PPC marketing continues to grow and take increasingly larger chunks of marketing budget. But where is all the money going? Do you know how much your clicks actually cost? Are you bidding on all the keywords you should be? Are your ads any good? What would happen if you stopped using pay per click?

More and more Financial Directors are now asking these questions of their marketing departments and agencies.

Thankfully, unlike other forms of marketing PPC is extremely transparent. I have picked five ways for you to rate how your campaign is performing (and your agency), even without accessing your PPC account.

1. Use Google’s Preview Tools to check up on your campaigns

Performing searches on Google can have a detrimental effect on your campaigns. Every time you search for your business you are driving up number of impressions.

When you don’t click on the ad you could be lowering your Click Through Rates (CTR) and therefore, increasing your costs.
Worse still, clicking on your competitor ads actually reduces their costs – because it gives them 100% CTR.

Google provides two handy preview tools – one for computer searches and one for mobile searches.

For computer searches go to: https://adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool

The mobile tool can be found here at http://www.google.com/m/search. You can use it to see how ads are being displayed on Smartphones, iPads and WAP phones.

Not only do these tools give you a safe environment to check your ads and keywords, they also allow you to see how your ads are performing in any location. So if your agency is supposed to be running a localised campaign in New York, but you are based in London you can set the preview tool up as if you where situated in New York.

Did your agency tell you about these preview tools?

2. Is your agency defending your brand term?

You have spent a fortune on building your brand, so is your PPC campaign helping you defend your brand? Is your agency bidding on your brand term?

In general, bidding on your brand term is a good thing as it increases clicks and conversions for both PPC and SEO traffic. Searchers tend to have more trust in companies when they own both the PPC and SEO terms on the search results page. It also helps defend you against others bidding on your name.

In this example the Consumer Credit Council Service (known as CCCS) is being hijacked by its rivals:

Look at the Debt Advice Trust. It has both the top PPC and SEO positions and owns the search results page:

Is your agency running a brand campaign? Are they hijacking your rival’s brand campaigns?

3. Long tail keywords

If you want search to drive direct response then you need ensure that your long tail keywords, the users search query and the ad’s headline and text are all relevant and that they are all closely linked.

In this next example, the search query is ‘book 3 star hotel central London’. The results returned are very generic, with no mention of 3 star or 3* anywhere:

On the other hand, the query ‘4 Star Hotel Manchester’ shows that Millennium Hotels has taken the time to make sure their ads match the search query, therefore increasing their chance of a better click through rate (CTR).:

Is your agency producing the most relevant, compelling ad copy they can?

4. Keyword Spy

The Keywordspy.com tool allows you to peek not only into your own campaign, but also that of your rivals. Simply enter your domain to see an approximation of the PPC account:

Be warned! While it works well for those spending more than £10,000 per month, those spending less may find the results less useful.

It will even tell you what your best performing ad is and your Cost Per Click (CPC) bid for each ad:

Does your agency use tools like this to keep up with your competitors?

5. Google Analytics

Google has just upgraded Analytics to give you more information about AdWords. Even if you haven’t got access to your AdWords account you should be able to get access to your Google Analytics either by asking your Agency, or setting Analytics up yourself and asking your agency to link your AdWords and Analytics accounts together.

You can find the new AdWords report in the Traffic Sources Menu:

One of the most useful reports is the Destination URL report which shows you how your landing pages are performing, and gives you your goal conversion information.

The Day Parts report is also very powerful. This shows how your campaigns are performing on an hourly basis. This is useful for optimising your campaigns.

I’ve focused on Google AdWords but you can use Google Analytics to check your AdCentre, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Facebook PPC campaigns by going to the Traffic Sources tab and selecting all Traffic Sources.

Does your agency supply you with regular reports? Do they then go on to use the information in the reports to optimise and improve your campaigns?

So how did your agency rate?

So how does your campaigns stand up? Out of five, what rating would you give to your agency?

Hopefully you should already have a close relationship with your PPC agency and be talking to them regularly about how you can improve your campaigns and use them to engage with your audience.

If not, speak to them and tell them your concerns and get them to review your account with you. In the long run, you’ll both benefit from a closer, more collaborative relationship.

Want to know more? Join us on our next Webinar: How to rate your Pay Per Click Agency – Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

We’ve been keen for Google to introduce better controls over broad match for a very long time. Well, it has finally happened and we are pretty excited about it!

AdWords Broad Match Modifier

Google has introduced the AdWords Broad Match Modifier. The Broad Match Modifier will give you more reach then you get with phrase match keywords, and more control than you get with broad match.

The idea is pretty simple. Broad Match Modifier works by putting a plus sign (+) in front of a word or words in a broad match keyword phrase. Any word preceeded by the “+” must appear in the user’s search before your ad is shown. It will also pick up closely related variants, including misspellings, plurals and abbreviations.

For example…

Before, thanks to extended broad match, the broad match keyword cricket bats could be triggered by search queries as unrelated as sports equipment.

If you add the modifier +cricket +bats, the keyword phrase could only be triggered by search queries like:
cricket bats,
cricet bats
cricket balls and bats

The modifier doesn’t have to be applied to all the words in the keyword phrase. It could be +cricket bats. In this instance, the word cricket would be controlled, but bats could trigger anything that Google deemed relevant.

Tips for using the AdWords broad match modifier:

1. You can attach the modifier (+) to one, lots, or all words in a broad match keyword
2. Be careful – putting a modifier before every word in a broad match keyword will significantly limit the potential range of searches that will trigger your keyword
3. Don’t modify minor words like a, and, if, in, for etc. Attaching the “+” will require those words to be in the user’s search for your ad to show, so you would be limiting traffic
4. When using the modifier, be sure there are no spaces between the plus sign (+) and the word you want to modify
5. Make sure you are still bidding appropriately so your keyword is eligible to show
6. Make sure your negative keywords aren’t accidentally blocking your modified broad match keywords from appearing
7. Don’t switch your existing broad match keywords to modified broad match – it will probably have a seriously negative impact on clicks and conversions. Add new modified broad match keywords to your campaigns and adjust bids to achieve your target ROI

Summary

The benefits of Broad Match Modifier are obvious – by eliminating the huge number of users looking for something completely different to what you’re offering, you could really boost your click-through rates.

I’m going to give you some ideas from my new book Wordtracker Masterclass: Google AdWords PPC Advertising and we also cover these in our regular Google AdWords Training Sessions at our Central London Office.

Reducing AdWords costs and increasing response rates requires a range of creative, trading and technical skills that few possess:

• Creative skills are needed to increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR) by writing compelling and focused ad copy that more searchers will click.
• Trading skills are needed to keep costs per click down by managing your bid amounts and bid types.
• Technical skills are needed to effectively organise the keywords you bid on into different ad groups with matching ad copy and landing pages.

Offline, the equivalent work is often done by specialists. A creative department or agency might look after ad copy and design; a media buyer might be the trader negotiating price for media space and time; whilst techies look after the production of print, radio and TV adverts.

With AdWords, most of us have to do the lot

Although they maybe quite different in the real world, most AdWords users become either Creatives, Techies or Traders – personnas that match just one of the required skill sets.

The result is that most people play to their strengths and neglect their weaknesses. They fail to use all tools and metrics available to create higher clickthrough rates, lower costs and better response.

Below we’ll look at some techniques to help you develop your creative, trading and technical skills.

Google Adwords comes with Clickthrough Rate (CTR) and Quality Score (QR) – two key metrics you can use to measure your development.

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the % of those that see your ads and click on them. It’s a measure of your ads attractiveness and appropriateness to searchers.

Quality Score (QS) is based on your advert’s click clickthrough rate, the relevance of your ad’s copy to the search terms you’re bidding on and the relevance of your landing page.

Google gives lower costs and higher positions on its results pages to ads with higher clickthrough rates and Quality Scores. So let’s have a look at how you can increase them by developing your creative, trading and techie skills

Develop your creative skills

The most important creative technique to practice is writing ad copy that matches the keywords you are bidding on. It’s as simple as this …

If the Search is green tea then bad ad copy might look like this:

Despite the search being for green tea but keyword is not there. The text is too general.

A good ad reads more like this:

The keyword green tea is in the ad title, the body copy and the URL.

There’s is a call to action (‘Buy’), a promise of good tea (‘Quality’), you will find what you want (‘Specialist’), at a good price (‘From $0.99′) and with great service (‘Free Next Day Delivery’).

Develop your trading skills

By becoming a better trader you’ll get more value for your clicks.

You can gain greater control of your bids and you lower your bid costs by mastering AdWords different match types.

Each match type uses its own punctuation to let AdWords know your bid type:

• Broad match keywords have no punctuation like this: keyword
• Phrase match keywords are surrounded by quotation marks: “keyword”
• Exact matches are shown with square brackets: [keyword]

A positive broad match will show your ads for the greatest number of possible searches. With a broad match your ads will match any search containing your bid keyword. For example, if you bid on brew tea your bid will match (and your ads show for):

• brew tea
• brew loose tea leaves
• brewing a cup of tea

However, broad match contains a little sting in its tail – it includes ‘expanded match’. Expanded match will display your ads for plural versions of your bid keywords and any relevant keyword variations. For example our brew tea broad match bid might match with:

• brewing teas
• brew teas
• brew tee

Those examples seem harmless enough – perhaps even useful. But expanded match can find matches that don’t even contain your keywords and you might think are little to do with the product you’re selling. For example brew tea might match with:

• tea infuser
• brewing coffee
• brewing iced coffee

For this reason, broad match bids are us usually accompanied by negative match bids. Adding negative keyword bids stops your ads showing for irrelevant searches, allowing you to greatly increase your profits by …

… increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR) which leads to a better Quality Score and paying less per click (lower CPC).

A negative broad match will stop your ads showing for any search containing the negative keyword. For example, if the negative keyword -coffee is added to an ad group then your ads will not show for any search containing coffee and therefore including:

• coffee
• brew coffee

However negative broad match bids do not ‘expand’ like positives so you have to add plurals and related keywords. For -coffee this might include:

• -coffees
• -grind
• -grinds

Develop your techie skills

Only if you first organise the groups of keywords you’re bidding on can your ads and landing pages match your bid keywords. Ad groups are the techies tool for this job.

An ad groups is a group of keywords you are bidding on, with matching ad copy and the landing pages those ads link to.

The most important thing to do with your ad groups is keep the keywords focused on a very narrow subject.

The diagram below shows poor ad group with a wide range of keywords, very general ad copy and landing page (how else could they be with so many different keywords to satisfy).

By contrast, the strong ad group below is focused on a small set of keywords about one subject (green tea) with closely matching ad copy (all about green tea) and a landing page also all about green tea.

Only by organising your keywords this efficiently can you use your trading and creative skills to increase clickthrough, reduce costs and increase response.

Summary

• To save money on Google AdWords you need to develop the differing skills of a Creative, a Trader and a Techie.
• As a Creative make sure your ad headlines and body copy use the keywords they serve. Do this and your ads can move higher up Google’s results pages without the need to increase bids – that means less cost and more profit.
• As a Trader you will master both exact match and broad match types. With broad match you bid on all keywords containing the specific word you are bidding on. As broad match can include irrelevant keywords that will deliver no response, you must combine it with negative keywords to stop your ads showing for those irrelevant searches.
• As a Techie you can learn to segment your keywords into tightly-themed ad groups with different match types, bids, matching ad copy and landing pages.

These skills are explored in more detail in my new book: Wordtracker Masterclass: Google AdWords PPC Advertising, step-by-step guide to profitable pay per click campaigns.

I’m also hosting regular Google AdWords Training Sessions at our Central London Office which are designed help you develop your Creative, Trader and Techie skills.

]]> http://www.1updigital.com/blog/are-you-paying-too-much-for-your-google-adwords.html/feed 0 http://www.1updigital.com/blog/google-adwords-blog/google-adwords-site-links.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-adwords-site-links http://www.1updigital.com/blog/google-adwords-blog/google-adwords-site-links.html#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:00:15 +0000 David Bushell http://www.1upsearch.co.uk/?p=1944 At the end of October, Google introduced site links for ‘high quality’ Adwords advertisers:

Site links seemed to have arrived without making much of a ripple but they are likely to be a game changer as this move is the most significant reward yet that Google has offered to those who are ‘playing by the rules’.



Adwords Site Links

2 Reasons Why You Should Use Site Links:

1. Site links increase CTR… and CTR increases volume… and volume increases profits. Site links are your chance to have a more prominent ad with several different calls to action. This means that there is a far greater chance of a user clicking on your ad.

2. Site links decrease cost per conversion… and lower costs means higher margins… which mean higher profits. With a greater menu of links to choose from, the user is more likely to land on the landing page that suits them. In other words ‘one size fits all’ has been replaced by ‘choose from 4 sizes’ – and the result will be higher conversion rates and a bigger return for the clicks you are paying for.

In order to get this functionality, you’re going have to increase quality score – you can read all about this directly from Google.

]]> http://www.1updigital.com/blog/google-adwords-blog/google-adwords-site-links.html/feed 1 http://www.1updigital.com/blog/google-announces-adwords-sitelinks-for-adwords.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-announces-adwords-sitelinks-for-adwords http://www.1updigital.com/blog/google-announces-adwords-sitelinks-for-adwords.html#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:04:17 +0000 Ian Howie http://www.1upsearch.co.uk/?p=1753 Until now, Sitelinks have only been shown below some sites in the organic search results.

For example, Priceline.com’s organic listing looks like this:



Google has analysed the link structure of Priceline.com and has found shortcuts that will allow users to find the information they’re looking for more quickly.

Sitelinks within AdWords
Sitelinks within AdWords (Ad Sitelinks) means that you can specify the additional links that will take the user deeper into your website. So instead of sending everyone to the same landing page, Google will display up to 4 different destination URLs in your AdWords ad, so the user has more choice, and you get to create more relevant ads. Just like the organic Sitelinks, the Ad Sitelinks will only appear when your ad is in the top AdWords slot.



Ad Sitelinks can only be set-up at campaign level. Here’s how to set your Sitelinks up:

1. Click on the Campaigns tab:



2. Then Click on the Settings Tab:



3. Ad Extensions
If your campaign is eligible you see the Ad extensions option under Networks, devices and extensions.



Click on edit to bring up this screen:



Although Google will only display 4, you can add up to up to 10 links into the slots with a text description and URL for each one.

Some Ad Sitelinks Tips

1. Ad Sitelinks work best for brand terms so you can take visitors to specific places within your site through your Ad.

2. Ad Sitelinks also work well for general keywords. For example, in Priceline.com’s case the keyword Book Vacation means you can now show links for Hotels, Flights, Rental Cars and Vacation Packages.

3. SiteLinks are not suitable when you want to guide someone to a specific Landing Page. For example, if you are targeting Book Hotel in London, you would need to create a relevant ad, directing the user to a specific London hotel bookings landing page.

4. As Ad Sitelinks work at campaign level, make sure you check the Keywords, Ads and AdGroups within your campaign. I suggest creating an AdGroup with specific keywords as a new campaign so that Ad Sitelinks are NOT triggered.

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