Treble response with 7 steps to Google Adwords optimization by Ian Howie, 31 July 2009
“After your advice I was able to cut my PPC spend while increasing the amount of clicks … we are getting three times as many enquiries as last year”, says Tony Brewin, MD of Wedding Caterers, SuperEvent.co.uk. That advice came from Ian Howie and here he shares it with you.
In the tough trading conditions of 2009, SuperEvents.co.uk trebled their Google Adwords response after Tony Brewin (Managing Director) attended one of my Wordtracker Pay Per Click (PPC) Workshops.
The graph below compares his July 2009 (in blue) results with June 2008 (in green) and shows us that the Clickthrough Rate (CTR) has doubled. Cost Per Click (CPC) halved at the same time, allowing the increase in Clicks shown below.
Such dramatic improvements in results are only possible if you Never Stop Optimizing. Indeed, if you leave your Campaigns alone then they will slowly decline. Keep optimizing and you can always squeeze out better performance, with a lower Cost Per Click (CPC) or a higher Clickthrough Rate (CTR).
Below are the 7 Steps to Adwords Optimization that Tony used to fine tune his Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign and drive his business forward during difficult times.
1. Review, refine and add to your keyword list
If a keyword has a Clickthrough Rate (CTR) of less than 1% after you’ve tried to optimize it, then delete it. That was easy.
Remember you are bidding on keywords that real people search with and their popularity changes over time. Also, new keywords will always be emerging.
You can track these changes and find new keywords by using Wordtracker’s keywords tool with Google Insights.
Add the new keywords you find to relevant existing Ad Groups. If there is no relevant group, start a new one.
Within your Ad Groups, always look for keywords that can be used to start new Ad Groups with their own adverts and landing pages.
This allows the old and new Ad Groups to each have adverts and landing pages more relevant to their keywords. And more relevant ads and landing pages means higher Quality Score, lower Cost Per Click (CPC) and higher Conversion Rates.
For example, one Ad Group might contain both Marquee Hire Kent and Wedding Catering Kent. To work for both these keywords, the ad copy will need to be generic and will struggle to mention both target keywords. Likewise, the landing page won't be able to focus on either keyword.
But if each of those phrases is given its own Ad Group they can have their own ad copy and landing pages that focus on their specific keywords.
2. Use Keyword Matching options to lower costs
Are all your keywords using Broad Match?
Make sure you are also using Phrase Match and Exact Match bid types.
Use the Adwords Keyword Estimator Tool to create a 'bid stack' which involves bidding on the same keyword with all three match types. Sounds crazy but it works. Here’s how and why …
Exact Match is the exact keyword you are targeting and so should deliver the best response. Of your three bids this one is for the highest amount because you know exactly what you’re bidding for and these are searchers you most want to see your ads.
Eg, I might bid $2.00 for an Exact Match with Marquee Hire. Meaning I will pay up to $2.00 for that exact keyword only.
Make your Phrase Match bid 75% of your Exact Match amount because these searches are not as good as Exact Match and you don’t want to pay as much for them.
Eg, I might bid $1.50 for a Phrase Match with Marquee Hire. Meaning I will pay $1.50 for any phrase that contains that exact keyword, eg, Marquee Hire in Kent, Wedding Marquee Hire.
Make your Broad Match searches just 25% of the Exact Match amount because such searches are, generally, the worst.
Eg, I might bid $0.50 for a Broad Match with keyword Marquee Hire. Meaning I will pay $0.50 for any phrase that contains those keywords, eg, Hire Marquee in Kent and also any keywords that Google decides are similar. This might include badly matching phrases like van hire. This is why our Broad Match bids should be low.
It seems complicated but it’s really simple and ensures that your ad first appears for the best keyword searches, ie, Exact Match. But your ad will only appear for less responsive keywords if it can do so for a much lower cost, ie, you'll pay less for Phrase and Broad Match.
You can really start to save money and increase Clickthrough Rate (CTR) if you add Negative Broad Match and Negative Exact Match keywords to your Phrase and Broad Match Ad Groups.
Rather than being keywords you want to bid on, Negative keywords are those that you do not want to bid on. For example, I might have an Ad Group that includes the following keywords that I *do* want to bid on with a Broad Match:
- marquee hire kent
- wedding hire kent
… and the following negative keywords that I do not want to bid on:
- cheap
- free
- van
Which means that even though they contain my Ad Groups ‘positive’ keywords, I will not be bidding on the following:
- cheap marquee hire kent
- cheap wedding hire kent
- free marquee hire kent
- free wedding hire kent
- van hire kent
3. Keep testing your ad copy & landing pages
It is always possible to improve your ad copy and increase Clickthrough Rate (CTR). AdWords doesn’t charge you to test new ads so Always Be Testing one to three new ads against your current best performing ad.
You can also test new landing pages against your current page. Send 50% of clicks to landing page A (your existing or ‘control’ page) and 50% to a new landing page B (your ‘test’ page). If B performs better it becomes your new control which you then try to beat with a new test page.
You can test changing everything on your landing page, from the color of your response buttons to your choice of font. But try starting with your ‘offer’ – your product's price, discount and package.
Google's Website Optimizer allows powerful A / B testing of your landing pages and is available for free.
4. 200 is the magic number at which response can be judged
200 is the magic number. 200 ad impressions and 200 clicks.
If a Keyword gets 200 impressions then 200 people whose searches have matched your keyword bid have seen your ad. And 200 impressions is enough to judge your ad’s performance.
If your ad gets less than a 1% Clickthrough Rate (CTR) then you must either delete the keyword, add more negative keywords or improve your ad text.
If a Keyword gets 200 Clicks then 200 people who have seen your ad have clicked on it and visited your landing page. And 200 visits to your landing page is enough to judge its conversion rate and subsequent profitability.
Your unique bid cost, sales process and profit margins will determine what Conversion Rate is required to make a profit. But if you are converting at less than 1% then it’s likely that either something needs changing to improve conversion or that you should delete the keyword.
5. Use location targeting to show your ads only in relevant parts of the country
Many AdWords accounts only have one Campaign, targeted to one location.
If your product or service is location specific – you can use AdWords Location Targeting features to only target people in the areas you can sell to. You can configure this from the Audience section on your Campaign’s Settings page.
In Tony’s case he targets English counties such as Kent and Surrey. This allows Tony to tailor his ads and landing pages to these locations.
But the location service is not perfect as it’s based on IP address, and some IPs don’t match user location. To deal with this, you can run a second Campaign with much broader location settings - eg a whole country - but only bidding on keywords that include ‘location words’.
Eg, if you’re selling pizzas in Chicago, only bid on keywords containing Chicago and other words for relevant locations in Chicago.
Eg, if you’re Tony and selling to people in Kent and Sussex, then bid on keywords containing those words like:
- Wedding Caterer Kent (Phrase Match)
- Marquee Hire Sussex (Exact Match)
Smart location targeting like this should dramatically decrease your AdWords costs and increase relevancy.
6. Run Search Query Reports to find new keywords to bid on
Running a Search Query Report in Google Adwords will show the specific searches that your ads appeared for and you can use these to further refine your Ad Groups. Here’s how to do it …
Go to the ‘Keywords’ tab:
Click on the ‘See Search Terms’ box and then ‘All’. A pop-up window will appear like this:
Look at the Phrase and Broad Match keywords and consider adding them as specific keywords, perhaps with their own Ad Groups. Any inappropriate keywords can be added as negative keywords.
7. Schedule your Campaign to be on when customers respond
Fish when the fish are feeding.
You can easily increase your Clickthrough Rate (CTR) by making sure your campaign is on only when you get the best results. Find out when that is by studying response across different days of the week and times of the day (an hourly report is available to help you).
Your Campaigns’ current scheduling is summarized in the ‘Ad scheduling’ column in the ‘Settings’ tab view for all your campaigns. See right-hand column on the grab below.
The default setting is ‘Show ads all days and hours’.
You can configure a specific Campaign’s timing by clicking on its name in the above report or on its own ‘Settings’ tab. Then click on ‘Edit’ to the right of ‘Ad scheduling’ beneath ‘Advanced settings’. See grab:
This reveals your ‘Ad schedule’ window (see image below) in which you can control when your ads are on and off (green is on, gray is off) by clicking on the time on the ‘Time period’ column for each day.
If you click the ‘Bid adjustment’ link you can further refine your Campaigns with different bid amounts for different times of the day.
Summary of how to optimize your Adwords Campaigns
- Never stop optimizing your Adwords Campaigns.
- Regularly look for new keywords to add to your Ad Groups.
- Split Ad Groups up to allow more targeted ad copy and landing pages.
- Use different match type bids to create a 'bid stack'.
- Always be testing your ad text and landing pages to find higher clickthrough and conversion rates.
- Judge keywords after 200 page impressions.
- Judge landing pages after 200 clickthroughs.
- Cull keywords that you can’t get better than 1% clickthrough and conversion rates for.
- Use location targeting to show your ads only in relevant parts of the country.
- Run Search Query Reports to find new keywords to bid on.
- Schedule your Campaign to be on when customers respond.
We’ll let Tony from SuperEvent.co.uk summarize the results: “We are getting three times as many enquiries as last year. Had we not known how to optimize AdWords we’d have just turned up the budget or turned back to traditional advertising.”
About Ian Howie
Ian Howie started working in SEO and PPC in 1995, turning professional in 2002 and specializing in PPC since 2003. Ian co-founded London PPC agency 1upSearch in 2006 and he manages Wordtracker’s PPC Training Workshops and PPC campaigns. Ian has been Google’s guest in Mountain View, San Francisco and Dublin and Microsoft’s in the UK and Dublin. Follow Ian Howie's PPC on Twitter.
58 comments
Valuable tips presented here. Great work. Love the 200 rule - Hits the mark.
Great info. The only thing you should have addressed regarding Ad Scheduling is the Time Zone issue. I am on US Eastern Standard time. If I decreased or even pause my ads at 2am, then folks in California are not seeing my ad at 11pm their time, or seeing it on a much lower position. Google Rep had suggested to make a clone campaign with a Pacific Time schedule. Ridiculous.
Hi Jack,
It is a frustrating limitation of the Adwords system that you can only have one time zone per AdGroup.
To get around this I use AdWords editor to clone the campaign.
So for the US I'd have four campaigns - so Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. And set different times for each. The times setting can only be done online - Google really need to sort that one out.
Now AdWords only gives you 25 campaigns, but if you speak to your rep they can up this limit.
If you split your campaigns in this way it is interesting how people in the different US time zones can react differently to Keywords and Ad Copy. So splitting in this way could give you an extra edge - but it does mean more work.
Ian
When you 'bid stack' do you do that within the same AdGroup?
Hi Madrid,
Very good question.
The answer is you can do both. You can create Bid Stacks within each AdGroup.
Or you can create a campaign wide Bid Stack - by having only one match type per AdGroup.
And some people even create different campaigns for the different match types - and that can also be a Bid Stack.
My preferred way is to create a bid stack within each AdGroup.
Ian
Good advice, thanks for the tips.
Brilliant!
First time I've heard of the magic number 200. I'll be using this as a gauge.
I'm still working on my 'testing' skills. The tip on pushing the limit on the best performing ad by testing 3 more ad campaign is neat.
This is really useful information. I tried the AB testing on Google once before but couldn't get it to work properly, but I'll try again. I especially like the Keyword Matching strategy.
Thanks
Barney
Deleting campaigns with less than 1% click through rate is rubbish advice. My best earner has a click through rate of 0.1% and acquires several new high spending customers a month. The bottom line for adwords is average cost per conversion taken OVER ALL THE CAMPAIGNS. Many conversions are new customers, some of whom will reorder. Find out your average order value and be prepared to spend 25% of that value to acquire a customer. e.g. if average spend is £50 per order, be prepared to spend £12.50 per conversion. This way you'll never lose money on your campaigns, and a percentage of your customers will become regulars and spend a lot each year IF YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICE ARE GOOD.
What is a good number of keywords in an ad group?
Seems like the more I want to have specific landing pages, the more the need to create separate ad groups... so each ad group might only have 1 to 3 keywords at max, with the broad, phrase and exact match types. Which is good, and at the same time a huge time hog to monitor and tweak all the time.
Regards, Vinai
Hi Ian,
interesting comment about the 200 impressions and ctr. Do you stick to this rule without exception? so even on high volume keywords with very high competition the same would apply?
One of the best articles I have ever seen on Google PPC advertising. Too bad they don't provide this helpful, hard-learned information to their clients...
At least fix the title to say "Triple" as in three times instead of treble as in the musical treble clef.
On the question of CTR. On search my CTR is 1.44%, on content .06%. But my cost per click is less, even with a bad CTR. I'm getting more clicks for the same money.
Clicks Impress CTR CPC
Search 192 13,362 1.44% $0.22 $42.76
Content 284 464,546 0.06% $0.19 $53.25
Ed
Hi,
How do you use the Google Keyword tool to get new keywords that factors in your existig negative keywords? In other words, I only want the Google Keywords tool to only suggest keywords that consider the negative keywords in the ad group.
Thanks, Jason
Great article but is it possible to see when my Adwords have timed out? I know I can schedule the time of day they show but how can I see what time my budget may have ended?
Paul: I think "treble" can be used to mean "increase by three times" as well as "the musical treble clef".
You wrote "at least fix" implying that there are many other things we should fix. Let us know what these are and we'll try and answer those points too.
Brilliant tips thank you very much. I especially like the hourly report to find the times of day with the highest click through rates.
I have only just begun with my own web site and this info is the first where they dont want to charge you 49.95 for It has also given me very important advice on one of the most important part of selling online thank you very much
Hi Ed,
Good point - I should have been clearer - with the content Network CTR does not exist -. Google discounts your clicks based on your keywords, ad copy and Landing Pages.
I always build separate Search and Content campaigns.
Optimising for the content network is all about cost per conversion. To optimise you need to use the AdWords Placement report, found under the Nework tab.
Ian
Why 200? Why 1% CTR? if keywords are highly competitive and a lower position is all that can be attained then shouldn't the goal CTR be adjusted to reflect competitive situation?
Hi Jason,
If you are loggin to Adwords and access the AdWords Keyword Tool there is a drop down on the right - Broad (default), Phrase, Exact and Negative.
Also the Wordtracker tool is a very good negative Keyword tool. Do a search on Wordtracker - but look for the keywords you don't want rather than the ones you do want.
A negative keyword can be negative broad, negative phrase or negative exact.
So -green tea (negative broad), -"green tea", (negative phrase) and -[green tea] (negative exact) - you can enter negative keywords the same way you enter positive keywords - just make sure you add the minus sign.
Ian
Great work, especially the 200 rule. I do very little ppc advertising, mostly just work with adsense, but the information is good for both advertisers and publishers. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the sage advice.
I have a question about Geo Targeting..
My understanding is that Google WILL show geo targeted ads if someone mentions the location in their search.
e.g. If I have a campaign that Geo Targets Kent and have the keywords [Wedding Caterer Kent] [Wedding Caterer]
Then I do not need a separate UK 'keyword targeted' campaign with [Wedding Caterer Kent] in it unless I want people who are physically outside the UK but still using google.co.uk for their searches to see my ad?
Also - do you have any stats on how accurate geo targeting is now (I have found it to be far from perfect but couldn't give you exact figures...)
Thanks!
Ian,
What I am asking, and hopefully you have an answer, is how to get suggestions that factor in negatives, too. For example, I use bid stacking and have the keyword "sports car" that shows up as getting clicks under the broad match. I want to figure out the specific keyword phrases that are actually being searched and I want to keep expanding the words in my ad group. So I use the keyword tool and enter "sports car" to get all the possibilities. I see results that include "sports car colors" and a whole host of other words including variations of color. And lets say I have different campaign or adgroup for anything related to color words, so I add it as a negative to the adgroup. But every time I use the color tool, it keeps showing me words that contain color because it doesn't appear to factor in any negatives in my campaign. If I add a positive keyword e.g. "sports car collectible", the next time I run the Keyword tool, the the keyword I just added is grayed out as "in ad group", but there is no affect on the results for the negatives I added. It takes me a lot of time to sort through these negatives over and over again every time. Would love a way to factor this in to the results. This make sense?
Good work. Consistent with other PPC how-to teachers. I'm with Bryan Irving (post above) about the 1% rule - thanks Ian for clarifying that it only applies if the keyword is not converting. I've got a good keyword converting at something like 0.6% and I'm not about to cut it!
Ian, a great post of the simple yet effective strategies for getting the best results from Google Adwords.
Hi Ian,
Some really nice ideas, especially the match type stack. I tend to do this already, bidding my phrase match keywords lower than exact match, and broad match keywords lower still, but have never heard it referred to as a 'match type stack' before.
I would tend to agree with Bryan that the 200 impressions / 1% rule may not be practical, for three reasons:
I think CTR is given far too much importance. In my opinion, it's all about engaging the user, so metrics such as bounce rate, page views and time on site should be given greater consideration than raw CTR stats.
I would prefer to have a CTR of 0.7% with people really interacting and engaging with the site, rather than a CTR of 2.3% where the majority of users bounce or view no more than 2 pages.
Completely agree though that search query reports can be incredibly useful for generating new keyword ideas and identifying irrelevant searches that can be added as negatives. It remember it being voted the favourite AdWords report (can't remember where though) and for good reason.
Thanks for a fascinating post. Alan
What a great article. I'm just learning how to use adwords and ppc. I've learned more from this article than the crappy ebooks and videos I've purchased.
You should write an ebook Ian. So very excellent.
Thanks for the tips.I,m keep working to achieve 200 mark.TQ
Hi,
Brilliant article! Does Ian do seminars/courses?
I would appreciate if someone could email me details on same.
Thanks
Hi Jordan,
When you geo-target down to the region e.g. a English county - the location override does not work.
This Google video explain this concept in detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK9NzQRWCnA
Geo-targeting is only as accurate as the ISP - this seams to be getting better - but not 100% accurate. When using one ISP recently Google though I was in Italy when in fact I was in the middle of London!
Ian
Hi Alan,
Google rewards Keywords getting above 1% CTR - so it is a huge advantage getting above 1%.
If you have a less than 1% CTR Keyword getting conversions - there is no reason why you can't still optimise it.
I'm working on a campaign right now (taken over from one of the UK's biggest PPC agencies) and I've moved a short tail word at 0.5% to 1.3% CTR and just save them a ton of money.
If you run a Search Query report on your less than 1% CTR you'll see the actual CTR for the search queries. You may well find that the keywords getting conversions are getting above 1% CTR - there may be some keyword queries bringing down the average. Are these keyword queries bring in sales / sign-ups / leads or some of them just chewing up your budget.
You can also try spit testing your ads - it costs you nothing to test AdWords copy. Changing just one word can make a huge impact to CTR.
200 is valid - used by Google people and by Perry Marshall and other well know AdWords people.
Ian
Hi Jason,
You may find my piece on Using Wordtracker to find Negative Keywords helpful.
I'd be happy to look into this in detail with you. But lets take this offline - if you email the Wordtracker folks they can put us in touch.
Ian
An interesting post. It flies in the face of 'long tail" thinking on keywords, which I have found to be time consuming and not particularly effective.
I still have several long tail campaigns running with a dribble of traffic at a reasonably low CPC but hundreds of keywords that have never achieved anything. A rethink and a scrapage scheme are in order I think!
Tm
And would you deal with the fact that the PPC cookie apparently only lasts 30 days, and get's overwritten on the very next visit by the same person?
This must have a hige impact on ROI for Websites that don't sell goods that visitors buy immediately.
On 1%:
Our 1% rule is given in the context of optimizing many ad groups.
You may have a scenario in which a <1% CTR is profitable. That of course is good but this article is about optimizing, going from good to great.
So with the optimization processes here it should be possible to optimize the such campaigns to get CTRs for enough ad groups to be above 1% that the deleting those below 1% is the thing to do.
This is helped by Google's own liking for 1%. G rewards keyword bids that have over 1% CTR by discounting the bid price and boosting the position of the ad on the page.
Of course, if you optimize like crazy and can still do no better than 1% but are still making a profit then you're going to keep those ad groups.
On 200:
200 is the number at which you can be confident your results aren't going to get much better or worse. Google gives out the magic 200. Our own work backs this up - we don't see results changing much with more than 200.
I stopped at the intro. The premise is that PPC costs were cut in half, but graphs do NOT show that (despite the caption saying they do). There is no graph on costs.
I've made and lost plenty of money with Adwords. I've read Perry Marshall's "secrets" of making money with Adwords (long, drawn-out and slightly boring).
I have to say, I was very impressed with your optimization tips... Clear, concise and right to the point.
I've learned a few new things which I will definately implement.
Much Thanks, Carl Willoughby www.One-Minute-Cure.com
Great article Ian.
The only thing that I do not agree with is A/B testing, when you do the metrics of A/B split testing works this is actually costing you sales/results. A more effective model is quad testing, A/B/C/D testing. Ads A/B/C are duplicate ads and you test against D.
Reader X: nice spot on the graph. There was another section that did contain CPC info but we cut it for some reason. Copy edited. I think it's a bit harsh of you to stop reading because of that but your time is your own.
Vince: The simple answer is that you need people to “convert” on their first visit.
One simple and effective way of converting people is to have a Landing Page that offers a great piece of content or offer in return for an email address.
And then when you have that email address you have to treat that person with respect – so send them more quality content and build up a the relationship with them.
I' m just a beginner, just equipped with the theoretical concept. Lacking the experience that all of you have, therefore I have a small question that might sound very foolish. as i don't have an answer to it. Here I go ... My ad gets clicks but the conversion is poor. there isn't any problem with the keywords or ad structure. The ad is about free quotes and the url opens to the free quotes page. Can anyone help?
Hi, great article. I think however, I need some clarification as to how Adwords should be tuned for particular types of businesses.
Our website (atomicinteriors.co.uk) sells a wide range of furniture products, from lamps, to sofas, tables and beds.
The items we sell are very high end, italian designer products. For example, we have a lamp that costs nearly £3000.
In our case, therefore, I could set up an adword campaign, with keywords relating to this product that have a very low search volume (come on, how many people are going to drop £3000 on a lamp?)
However, if we make one £3000 sale via 3 clickthroughs (with a very small CTR >1), is it not worth keeping the keyword?
There are also keywords that have had lots of impressions, but no clicks. Should these be kept on, on the off chance that someone may click, and buy a high value item?
I have been running about 25 campaigns since June 1st, each with their own targetted ad groups (manufacturers / designers / products) and keywords therein.
I have already removed all the keywords that havent had any impressions so far. How much longer should I wait before I remove low CTR adwords, or should I keep them on.
Finally, with such a large database of products, I find it difficult to manually bid for ads, therefore, I am using automatic bidding. Am I making a big mistake?
Thanks for reading.
Hi Ian,
Nice article.
You say one should keep testing landing pages - would you recommend using going as far as creating several 'keyword specific' landing pages (at least for your top keywords)?
Ameet
I've wasted so much money on google adwords! This article is very clear and to the point so thanks for putting that in context. Might have to give it another go now!
Hi Ian Brilliant article - thanks for shedding a little light on a few areas that are shrouded in such mystery. A quick question - is it ok to have the same keywords in multiple Adgroups, provided the Adgroups don't overlap (because in my case, they are location specific) - or is there a better way of doing it?
Charlie
How much time do you spend "optimizing" and all? Do you do this daily, weekly, or when? I'm just getting started in marketing and have yet to get a single click on an ad. This seems like it'll take forever. It also appears to demand meticulous record keeping and nuanced wisdom in managing numeric details. Am I getting this right?
Like Ameet I have high dollar, long sales cycle B2B technical training products and I find the majority of adwords advice oriented around a clean click through to conversion model based on impulse purchased personal products. I can guarantee that will never happen on my site.
Are there any resources or advice for this type of product?
Hi Ian,
I'm confusing about 200 rule.
For example, a campaign has 4 keywords. Each keywords have 3 match type.
1-week results:
... and no sale :(
According to your "200 rule" what should i do?
continue campaign by delete kw2 since kw2 got 200 imp w/o click.
stop campaign since total click = 50 + 0 + 75 + 100 = 225 and no sale.
Looking forward to hear your suggestion
Hi June,
Ok so the first week results are:
Keywords 1, 3 and 4 have excellent CTR - so the keywords and ad copy are a good fit
For Keyword 2 – you have the option to:
If you choose options 2 and / or 3 - then make the changes and wait for another 200 impressions.
In terms of conversion for Keywords 1, 3 and 4...
What this looks like is a case of a Strong message on the Ad Text - but the Landing Page is not capturing that interest. T
I’s suggest you check your Google Analytics - what is the Bounce Rate of your Landing Page? Do your visitors bounce straight out? A Bounce Rate of 50% of less is considered good. If it more than 50% you need to spend some time on your Landing Page. Here is an excellent video on producing a hard working Landing Page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S8B9dImacI&feature=channel_page
If you have a Landing Page with a low bounce rate and yet no sales - where are you customers clicking to? Start looking at exit rates of page within your conversion funnel.
Hi Aef03,
AdWords works best for a product or service where the decision is instant – if it is not instant your click may never ever come back, but you have just spent the money.
You could try offering a quality piece of content in return for an email address. For instance a weekly or monthly Video only open to people who register.
If you can’t do that it may be better to put your money into: SEO, online PR, Link Building and Social Media (just as twitter) - these allow you to build up an audience over time.
Great article, Ian. Thanks for putting it all together. Quick question: when you "bid stack," do you do so within the same Ad Group, or do you break out into separate Ad Groups? Also, the one thing I don't understand about bid-stacking: if you bid on "red gloves" with a three level bid, and a user searches on the phrase "red gloves," Google will surely serve up your ad based on your exact match keyword, won't they? They make more money that way. But if you didn't have exact and phrase match bids on that term, you may have gotten the click via broad match, also. What do you think? Thanks Neil Street
Thanks for the reply.
Ian, one last question. Just so I understand this fully... Does this mean that when you specify 'Regions & Cities' for your geotargeting, that the keyword override will work, but if you specify 'Custom' , then it will not? This is my understanding of it, but I am not 100% sure... Thanks.
There is far too much emphasis given on CTR and personally advising to remove a keyword because it has a CTR of less than 1% is not sensible advice. Furthermore, insisting that people convert on their first visit is nuts! In all the research I have done or read, very few people convert on their first search, we're just not that impulsive. Most people will do their research first and then make a decision based on that research, this is why comparison sites are so popular. It is not uncommon for someone to make a search, click on a PPC ad, make a note of the site, make a more refined search, click on an organic listing, then go directly to the first site and make a purchase. The PPC ad should be given the conversion for that purchase but in many analytics applications such as Google Analytics, the purchase will be attributed to a direct visit. Whilst CTR does play a role in measuring the success of a campaign, there are other factors too, they should all be taken in to account before you make drastic decisions such as deleting keywords.
Wow, this is the most concise and helpful article I've ever seen on how to tweak Adwords. Not only is your content helpful reading through the comments added even more great information. I wish I would have seen this five years ago.
Excellent article. I have spent a lot of money on various PPC ebooks but this is some of the most helpful advice I have had on Adwords and it is free. The comments also give some good extra advice. Thank you!