If you’ve ever advertised in Google’s AdWords platform, you may have seen their Quality Score metric adjacent to your targeted keywords. If you don’t understand what Quality Score does for your campaigns, then allow me to strongly suggest you read up a bit on it. Here is a good primer: seattlelocalmarketing.net
I’ll be posting more about Quality Score real soon.
I’ve written about WordStream previously as they have a great array of tools (both free & paid) that can help any PPC manager be more efficient with their time.
If you aren’t following their blog, I highly recommend you change your ways IMMEDIATELY. Here is a small example of the fine information they are giving away:
How to Analyze Your Ads in Google AdWords | WordStream.
You’ll find that this isn’t some fluff piece about why advertising on Google AdWords is important. No, they get right in and show you live stats from campaigns and show you what they look at when making critical campaign decisions. I can’t think of a better way to share valuable information about improving PPC campaigns. Thanks WordStream!
If you manage a Google AdWords campaign for any period of time, you’ll discover that achieving success is a long process. Here’s a great article containing a few Google AdWords tips to help even the smallest advertiser get a better ROI from their keywords:
Becoming Successful at Google AdWords | Montreal Marketing Company.
I usually don’t rant much, but this has been bothering me for some time now and I just feel like I need to get it off my chest.
First, let me just say that I am actually somewhat pleased with the day-parting capabilities of Google AdWords. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of day-parting, I think the best way to describe it is simply deciding which parts of the day (in full hour increments) are best for your ad to show.
The reality is that day-parting actually limits the exposure of your ads by preventing them from showing all the time (if your budget allows). In many scenarios, this is actually a good thing as it allows you to eliminate wasted spend by only showing your ads during times when your customers are actually looking.
So, what could possibly be wrong with Google’s day-parting? Well, the biggest problem is that the day-parting is all done in the timezone of the advertiser’s account. Why is this a problem? Well, let’s say you are setting up the breakfast campaigns for an international restaurant, and you only want your ads to display during breakfast hours. Under the current structure, you have to set up a separate campaign for each time zone! That is potentially 24 distinct campaigns in Google for one ad. That is far from efficient.
Wouldn’t it be better if the day-parting features had a setting that allowed the advertiser to day-part based on the visitor’s timezone? This would allow an advertiser to set up just one campaign for the entire world and still have the impact of only showing it during the appropriate times.
I know I’m not the first to think of this, but I can honestly say I thought about this before I heard anyone else mention it. I know the Google Product Marketing teams have a lot to work on, so I can’t really expect much to come from this post. But maybe they will if enough of us gripe about it. I’d love to know your thoughts on this.
As you probably know, placing advertisements in the Google Search Results and through the Google Display Network is all done through an auction format within the Google AdWords product. Your keyword and placement bids are essential to getting you good placement in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) and on relevant websites through the Google Display Network (GDN). What’s interesting about this is that there is relatively little guidance available for the different types of bid settings available to everyone using AdWords. In fact, all Google tells you initially is “Your cost-per-click (CPC) bid is the amount you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad.” The reality is that your bid does a lot more than that (like establishing your relative position among competitors as well as establishing your basic cost structure), so understanding the different options available becomes critical if you are to have any success.
So, I’d like to go through each of the bid settings and give you my understanding of how each impacts your campaigns. To begin, the Bid Settings are found Continue reading
If you are serious about advertising through Google AdWords, then you should be watching the Google AdWords Blog regularly for news and updates. A recent update that may have a huge impact on your Click Through Rates is the recent introduction of Instant Previews for Ads. As explained in the Google AdWords Article on Instant Previews for Ads, Instant Previews have been available for natural search results since November of 2010. Now (April 2011) they have decided to expand this feature to paid listings.
So, how does this impact your Text Ads? Well, there are a few different ways. First, Continue reading
Well, I guess it’s time to get back to another AdWords recommendation. This one stems from a conversation I recently had with a Google employee. As we discussed one of my campaigns, I casually asked if there were any ‘best practices’ that I was clearly missing. I was relieved to hear the response that it was among the best and most-structured campaigns the rep had seen. After quietly patting myself on the back, I then asked about the most common mistake made by advertisers. Without hesitation, the Google employee (who shall remain nameless) responded that it was Continue reading
If you haven’t yet signed up with Google AdWords, please check out my previous post on the steps you need to take before signing up with Google AdWords. In that article, I mentioned that I’d be writing a little bit about the settings you should use for your first campaign. After setting up hundreds of AdWords campaigns, these are the settings that I’ve used to avoid most of the costly pitfalls that beginners tend to fall into Continue reading
Assuming you’ve got a website that offers a product or service already set up and ready to take new customers, the next big step is to start promoting the site. One of the most frequented websites on the Internet just happens to be the world’s largest Search Engine. The best part about it is the traffic is “self-identified” by the search terms submitted (also known as keywords), which means you can get your “tiny little ad” right in front of the people who are literally searching for your product or service (and nobody else). Fortunately for you and me, Google has done an excellent job at creating an easy-to-use interface for placing “tiny little ads” right in the middle of their HUGE stream of website traffic. This interface is the Google product: Google AdWords.
Getting started with Google AdWords is relatively simple. All you really need are an email address and a credit card. From there, Google’s interface will walk you through the process of signing up. But there are actually a few things you will want to do before signing up with Google AdWords. These are very important as they will literally save you Hundreds of Dollars.
The absolute first step you need to take before signing up with Google AdWords is Continue reading
