A guide to building successful AdWords campaigns

 building successful  Ad-words campaigns

Chapter 1: Introduction to AdWords

Chapter 2: Getting Started with AdWords

Chapter 3: Targeting

Chapter 4: Costs and Billing

Chapter 5: Tracking Ad Performance

Chapter 6: Optimizing Ad Performance

Chapter 7: Account Performance Tools

Chapter 8: Google Analytics

Chapter 9: Managing Client Accounts

Chapter 1

Introduction to AdWords

AdWords Basics

Google and Google AdWords

 Google is a search engine

 Google uses keyword based advertising to target your ads to users searching for your product or service

 The text ad headline is limited to 25 characters (including spaces)

Basic AdWords Features

 The CTR helps determine whether your ad is effective

 If you elect to show your ads on the Google content network, your ads will be eligible to show on websites that contain content related to your ad.

 Google ads can be targeted to any language or location available worldwide.

Benefits of AdWords

 There is no minimum spending limit with Google AdWords

 AdWords allows an unlimited amount of changes to an account per month

 Google Ads appear primarily on the right hand side of the screen or above the search results and are titled “sponsored links”

 Your ads will appear when a user’s search query includes a keyword that is part of your ad campaign  You control the budget for your advertising campaign. You can set a daily budget and Google will stop showing your ad when you reach the daily limit.

AdWords Policies

Link Policy

 A Destination URL must

 Link to a working website

 NOT link to website under construction

 NOT require users to download software

 Sites can not have pop-ups on the landing page

 An example of an appropriate URL would be www.gmail.com

Editorial Policy

 Punctuation Policy allows only one exclamation point in ad text

 Google allows certain common misspellings or variations of words in ad text (for example: E-Z or foto). If you can find the word in an online dictionary, it is probably ok

 Prices stated in ad text must be supported within 1-2 clicks of the landing page.

 Free offers in ad text also must be supported within 1-2 clicks of the landing page  Superlatives are only allowed in ad text if the claim can be backed by a legitimate third party.

Image Ads Policy

 Text in image ads must adhere to editorial policy guidelines

 A display URL is NOT necessary to include in an uploaded image

 Image ads are NOT allowed to be rotated or inverted

 Image ads must be rated family-safe only

 Images must be clear and readable

 No mock animated features may be included in an image ad

Trademarks

 Google trademarks are not allowed in ad text. Google, Froogle, Gmail, Orkut, keyhole, and PageRank are all trademarks owned by Google.

 Advertisers are responsible for their use of other companies’ trademarks in their ad text and as keywords

 Google encourages trademark owners to resolve trademark disputes with advertisers directly, but will begin a limited trademark investigation after all mandatory information included in a claim is received

Copyrights

 Google’s policy on copyright claims applies to ads, search results, and Google group postings.  You can send a Google copyright claim form by ground mail or by fax

Google Invalid Clicks Policy

 Repeated manual clicking, use of click robots, or automated clicking agents or tools are prohibited

 Invalid clicks are used to inflate publishers’ earnings through AdSense or drive up an AdWords advertiser’s costs.

 Google closely monitors campaigns for invalid clicks and automatically filters them out of any reports before you are charged

 If Google discovers you were accidentally charged for invalid clicks, you’ll receive a credit for those clicks

Identifying Invalid Clicks

 If your web log shows identical IP addresses, it does not necessarily mean you have invalid clicks.

 Possible reasons for increase in clicks:

 Users may be comparison shopping

 AOL, Earthlink, and Comcast assign identical IP addresses to multiple users in the same geographic region

 Your ad may be too general

 Competition may have decreased

 Your ad may have been approved for the search or content network

 Seasonal products may be more desirable at certain times of the year

 Increase in CPC bid will show your ad higher on the page and increase clicks

 You should suspect invalid clicks if:

 Review your account for suspicious activity

 2 or 3 times normal amount of clicks on a single day

 Number of impressions is equal to number of clicks

 Compare your clicks over time

 If one week is unusually different from another and can’t be explained

 Compare web log to Google reports

 Web logs should not have higher number of clicks than Google reports show  If you suspect invalid clicks contact click quality control with the following info:

 Campaign, ad groups, and keywords associated with suspicious clicks

 The dates and times of the suspicious clicks

 A paragraph explaining why you believe the click activity is invalid according to trends in logs or reports

 Data in weblogs or reports that indicates invalid clicks

Pricing and Ranking

Paying for AdWords and Ad Ranking

 No minimum spending requirement.

 One time $5 activation fee

 You control your cost through:

 Daily budget

 Bids

 Quality score

 If your daily budget is set to less than the recommended amount, your ads may show intermittently throughout the day, but will not stop showing completely

 Higher quality score = lower CPC minimum bid

 You can set your CPC for each keyword or ad group in your campaign

 Keyword targeted ads are positioned based on rank number

 Rank number is determined by your quality score and CPC bid

 Google determines your quality score by considering:

 Your CTR

 The relevance of your ad text

 Historical keyword performance

 Your ad will never be locked out of top ranking position solely based on price

Terms To Know

Search Engine – A website that gathers and sorts information from the Internet based on a specified topic Search Field – Input box in the middle of the Google homepage

Search Query – The keyword(s) a user types into the Google search engine to find information on the Internet

CPC – Cost per Click – You are charged every time a user clicks on your ad, but not every time your ad appears in the search results

CPM – Cost per Impression – You are charged every 1,000 times your ad appears on Google whether it is clicked or not

CTR – Click Through Rate – Clicks/Impressions x 100 = CTR%

Keyword Based Advertising – Advertisements that are triggered by users search query Daily budget – The daily spending limit for an AdWords campaign

Text ad headline – The title of your ad - used to attract users interested in your product or service Display URL – Last line of an AdWords ad. It indicates the URL of the website the ad is linked URL – Uniform Resource Locator (also called web address)

Affiliates – People who get paid commission to promote a merchants website Superlatives – Words that emphasize superiority over others (i.e. Best, Greatest, etc)

Call-To-Action Phrase – Example “Buy here” or “Click here” are not allowed in ad text because they are unrelated to the content of the site

Image Ad – A Google ad that includes an image

Trademark – A word, phrase, logo, or symbol that identifies and distinguishes a product or service from others in the marketplace

Copyright – The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive

publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work

Invalid Clicks – Clicks generated through prohibited methods often with the intention of driving up advertiser’s costs

Rank Number: The result of your CPC bid x Quality score Daily Budget: Spending limit you set on each campaign

Chapter 2

Getting Started with AdWords

Account Types, Setup, and Structure

Starter Edition vs. Standard Edition Accounts

 Starter Edition – simplified version of AdWords used to advertise a single product

 Standard Edition – utilized by users with multiple ad campaigns and provides all the features AdWords offers

 You can graduate to a standard account at any time, but can not switch back to starter edition once you have upgraded

 You may want to graduate to a standard account if

 You want to sell more than one product

 You want to create more than one campaign

 You want to target multiple geographic locations

 You want to target multiple languages

 You can always edit your keywords after setting up an account

AdWords Account Structure

 Account

 Your account contains all your campaigns and ad groups

 Email address, password, billing information, and account preferences are all part of your account information

 Campaigns

 Each Campaign has a name, start/end date, daily budget, ad distribution preferences, and language/location targets

 Each campaign is either keyword or placement targeted

 Each campaign contains at least one ad group

 Ad Groups

 Keyword or placement targeted

 Successful advertising= many small and highly targeted ad groups

 Versatility – you can run as little as one ad with a few keywords or up to 25 campaigns with as many as 100 ad groups each

Account Navigation

Campaign Management

 You can edit campaign language and location targets at any time

 You can search for words or phrases across all campaigns, ad groups, and ads in your account by using the “search my campaigns” box on the campaign summary page

 You can customize the columns on the campaign summary page

 Choosing Accelerated Delivery tells Google to show your ad as quickly as possible until your daily budget is met

 Ad groups within a campaign can be paused from the campaign details page

Ad Group Management

 Keywords Tab

 Magnifying glass icon is used to see whether a keyword is showing ads and to check the quality score

 Edit your CPC bids

 Check to see whether a keyword is showing ads

 Pause individual keywords

 It is possible to pause an individual text ad

My Account Tab

 Billing Preferences page

 View method of payment

 Change contact information

 Edit payment details

 Account Preferences

 Edit login, email address, password, display language

 Edit Google Analytics

 Billing Summary

 View invoices

 Access page

 View and control others’ access levels

 Invite others to share the account

 Grant users access

 Disable users access

 Report Center tab

 Contains detailed account statistics

 Generate reports for different levels of your account

Starting Off Right, Organization, Keywords, Ad Text

Selecting Keywords

 List 2 – 3 word phrases that searchers might use to find your product or service

 Use the keyword tool

 List plural variations, synonyms, and spelling variations

 Keep lists small and manageable

 Exact match keywords only show your ad when a searcher types in the precise phrase without any words before, between, or after

 Single word or general keywords are often too broad and can lead to too many clicks from uninterested users

 Use negative keywords to increase the accuracy of your campaign target

Writing Targeted Ad Text

 Rotate your ads and automatically show your best performing ad more often

 The most effective headlines directly relate to the keywords being searched

 Your display URL does not have to be the exact same as your destination URL

Using Different Ad Formats

Image Ads

 Can be banner, leader board, small square, square, inline, large rectangle, skyscraper, or wide skyscraper format

 Can not exceed 50k file size

 Image ads can be created in groups that target keywords, placements, or both

Video Ads

 ‘Click-to-play’ ads – the first thing a user will see is a static image

 It is best to deliver key message as soon as possible

 Before creating a video ad you must enable the content network

Local Business Ads

 Can NOT appear on Google content network

 Before creating an ad you must create a local business listing in the local business center and on Google maps

 Format of Local Business ads is different on Google maps and Google search network

Mobile Ads

 Ads that appear when users search on mobile devices

 Contain 2 lines of ad text with a maximum of 12-18 characters per line

 Your mobile ad can connect users to your business phone

 Mobile ads are either pay-per-click or pay-per-call

Traditional Media Ad Formats

 AdWords can help you reach offline customers with print and radio ads

 Track performance in Report Center

 Only available to U.S. advertisers

 Free call reporting

 You can choose what newspapers and what sections of the paper to show your ad

 Print Ads

 Announce sales and promotions

 Communicate a branding message

 Target key audience segments

 Support multimedia campaigns

 Generate leads and promote conversions

 Audio Ads reach hundreds of AM and FM stations across the country

 Reaches over 82% of population

 Increase brand awareness

 Influence brand perception and appeal

 Cost effective

 Auction Audio Campaign

 Works like pricing of keyword targeted campaigns

 Set weekly budget and max bid per 1,000 listeners

 Ads broadcasted based on available time slots for your price

 Reserve Audio Campaign

 Provide more predictability than auction campaign  You can reserve the exact time for ad to be broadcast

 Pay a set price determined by station

Terms To Know

Keyword Tool – generates potential keywords according to your existing campaign settings and account performance history

Chapter 3

Targeting

Search and Contextual Targeting

The Google Network

 Search result pages like Google do not make up the majority of the web pages viewed on the Internet

 Search pages make up 5% of web pages

 Google Network provides an alternative to search pages

 Google automatically formats your ad to match the look and feel of different network sites

 Text ads can appear on search and content pages while image ads can only appear on content pages

 You can set bids separately for both search and content page ads

 Fine tune your ads for search targeting by:

 Target specific languages and locations

 Choose highly relevant keywords

 Use keyword-match types

 A low CTR on the content network will not affect the ranking of your ad on search result pages  A low CTR on content pages does NOT indicate that your ad is not profitable

Contextual Targeting

 An effective strategy for creating contextually targeted campaigns is to create overall keyword themes

 A Placement Performance Report provides the best information on your textually targeted campaign

 Use the site exclusion tool if you find that a particular site does not convert well over time

 Point all ads to the same destination URL

 Use the Google content network to:

 Increase awareness by using multiple ad formats

 Highlight your unique product to convert casual site visitors into buyers  Use call to action phrases like “Buy now”

Placement Targeting

Introduction

 Ads with placement targeting do not share the ad space of a content page with any other Google ads

 Placement Targeting campaigns are useful for advertisers who want to build brand awareness

 Placement Targeted campaigns can be expanded text ads, image ads, or animated image ads

 Campaigns with placement targeting offer the ability to

 Expand your ad to fill all ad space on a page

 Pay on a CPM basis

 Choose which sites in which you want your ad to appear  Exclude sites that do not provide a good ROI

Creating a Placement-targeted Campaign

 The Placement Tool gives you four different ways to choose placements on which to show your ad

 The Site Tool helps you choose sites on the content network on which you wish your ad to appear  You can choose sites based on categories, topics, similar URLs, or demographics

Pricing and Ranking

 Ads with placement targeting compete with keyword targeting ads

 In order for an ad with placement targeting to appear, it must outrank the effective CPM bids of the top four text ads with keyword targeting combined

Language and Location Targeting

How AdWords Targets Users

 Google does not consider a users previous purchasing history when determining whether to show your ad

 Google does not translate ad text

 Google determines the location and language of a user through:

 Google domain (i.e. Google.fr)

 Query parsing

 IP address

 Language Preference Detection

Language and Country/Territory Targeting

 Targeting ads to all countries and territories is ideal for businesses that sell products globally  Country and territory targeting allows your ad to show anywhere in the locations you select

Region and City Targeting

 Helps keep your quality score high and cost low

 Appear in a different format than Country/Territory targeted ads – ads include the chosen region/city in the last line of ad text

 Best for businesses that sell in a specific region or city and want to avoid extra clicks from country wide users

 Use the names of cities and regions you do not want to advertise to as negative keywords

Customized Targeting

 Customized targeting is best if you wish to reach an audience in a very specific area

 It is possible to target an audience within a specified radius of your business location

 Three types of customized targeting

 Create a circle around a specific address

 Create a circle around a specific point (latitude/ longitude)

 Multi-point or polygon

 With multi-point targeting you can create target areas of any shape or size

Keyword Targeting

Keyword Matching Options

 Four types of keyword matching

 Broad – reach the widest audience/ allows other words included in search query, mixed order of

words, related words (i.e. car = buy used car, used car = car used, car = vehicle)

 Phrase – triggers ad to appear when your keyword phrase is included in a search query/ can include extra words before and after keyword phrase (i.e. “buy car” = buy car cheap)

 Exact – most precise method of targeting/ triggers ad only when precise phrase is searched (i.e. [buy new car] = buy new car)

 Negative – prevents ad from appearing when irrelevant keywords are present (i.e. ‘buy toy car’ won’t show your ad if you specify toy as negative)

 The default setting for any keyword is broad-matched

 No punctuation is necessary for broad-matched keywords

 Quotes are used to specify phrase-match keywords

 Brackets are used to specify exact-match keywords  You can change keyword match types at any time

Implementing Keyword Matching Options

 Broad-match keywords provide the best possibility for a high number of impressions

 Exact-match keywords will provide less impressions, but a higher rate of conversions

 You can use multiple keyword matching options for different keywords in the same ad group  Negative keywords can be applied to an entire campaign or to specific ad groups

Combining Keywords and Placements

Combining Keywords and Placements

 AdWords ad groups can have keywords, placements, or both

 If a placement is targeted by both keywords and a placement, the individual placement bid will take priority

 The keywords and placements you choose, along with your campaign settings, determine where on the content network your ad will appear

 Three possible ad group targeting combinations

 Keywords only

 Ads can appear on search or content network

 Placements only

 Ads can appear only on content network and only on pages you have specified

 Keywords and Placements

 Ads can appear on search or content network

 Keywords and placements work together to determine where on content network ads will appear

 Once you have created an ad group, you can add or remove keywords or placements at any time

 Keywords and Placements work together

 AdWords first matches keywords with possible sites on the content network

 AdWords checks to see which placements match the possible sites

 You Choose

 Search network – Google and/or search partners

 Content Network – Relevant pages across the network or relevant pages only placements targeted

 A Placement Performance Report (PPR) lets you see which sites are providing the best conversions for your ad

Terms to Know

IP Address- Internet Protocol Address is a unique number assigned to each computer connected to the

Internet

Query Parsing- Google uses the query entered into the search field to determine what language and location ads should show

Content Pages – web pages in the Google Content Network that show AdWords ads Contextual Targeting – targeting determined by the page a user is currently on

Broad–Match Keyword – trigger ad from a search query including related words or mixed words Phrase-Match Keyword – Ad triggered when keyword phrase is included in the search query

Exact-Match Keyword – Most precise method of targeting/ triggers ad only when precise phrase is searched Negative Keyword – Prevents ad from appearing when irrelevant keywords are present in a search query

Chapter 4

Costs and Billing

Cost Control

How AdWords Controls Costs

 Google rewards high quality accounts

 Your Daily Budget must always exceed your CPC or CPM bid

 Choose between standard and accelerated delivery of your ads

 Standard Delivery shows ads smoothly throughout the day

 Accelerated Delivery shows ads until the budget is reached

 Google may “overdeliver” your ad up to 20% more than your daily budget to make up for days when the budget was not met

 If Google exceeds your monthly budget you will receive a credit

 Preferred CPC bid allows you to set an average amount you want to pay, rather than the maximum amount

 Content Bids are available for keyword targeted campaigns and allows for different bids on the content and search networks

 AdWords reduces your costs with the AdWords Discounter and “Smart Pricing”

 Discounter reduces your cost to the minimum amount needed to win your spot, works all the time, and causes your actual CPC or CPM to be lower than your maximum bid

 Smart Pricing works all the time and reduces the price you pay for a click on the content network if data shows it is less likely to turn in to an actionable business result

Billing Cycle

Basic Billing Process

 All accounts are subject to a one time $5 activation fee

 The amount billed may be more than the credit limit since ads do not stop running between the time the billing cycle is triggered and the time the charge is completed.

 Prepay and Postpay options depend on your address and chosen currency

 Prepay – pay in advance of receiving clicks and Google deducts from your balance

 Postpay – you pay only after users click on your ads and you accrue charges

 Billing occurs every 30 days or when the account reaches its credit limit

 The Google billing threshold gets raised each time an account reaches its credit limit within a 30-day period

 The initial credit limit of $50 is raised each time an account reaches its credit limit within a 30-day period and the charges are paid.

 Credit limit increases from $50 to $200 to $350 to $500

Billing Details and Issue Resolution

 The Billing Summary page differs for prepay and postpay accounts

 Prepay will show balance remaining

 Postpay will how balance due

 Pending charges are advertising costs accrued since the last time you were billed and can be viewed on the Billing Summary page under Outstanding Balance

 Invoice Details page will show charges broken down by campaign as well as billing adjustments like invalid click credits

 If a payment is declined, Google suspends advertising for that account until payment is received

Payments Outside The U.S.

Payment Options

 Advertisers may not switch between Prepay and Postpay options

 Google Postpay options include Debit card, Direct Debit, and Credit card

 Using Direct Debit allows Google to withdraw accrued charges directly from your bank account

 Google accepts Visa, Mastercard/ Eurocard, American Express, and JCB

 Google Prepay options include Bank Transfer only

 When Google receives your bank transfer funds you will receive a confirmation email and your ads will start running

VAT or EU Advertisers

 European Union Value Added Tax = EU VAT

 Customers living in the European Union, with exception to Ireland, must self-assess their VAT charges

 All European Union advertisers are effected by the VAT tax

 Advertisers enter their VAT registration numbers upon account creation

 An advertiser that does not submit a valid VAT number will be charged the Irish VAT rate

Invoicing

Invoicing Basics

 Advertisers that meet Google’s requirements may apply for Credit terms and monthly invoicing

 Advertisers on monthly invoicing must pay each invoice by credit card, check, or wire transfer

 To qualify for invoicing, an advertiser must spend at least $1,500 per month for 3 months and have an established credit history with AdWords

 Once on invoicing terms, the advertiser’s campaigns are no longer subject to suspension if a credit card is declined

 Credit terms are determined at Google’s discretion

 In order to receive credit terms and monthly invoicing you must submit a credit application and in some cases, additional documentation

 If approved, you will receive an offer of credit terms via email

 Upon accepting Google’s credit terms, you will need to confirm billing information and your account will be switched to monthly invoicing

Terms to Know

Standard Delivery – shows ads smoothly throughout the day

Accelerated Delivery – shows ads until the budget is reached

AdWords Discounter – reduces the cost of CPC or CPM to the minimum amount needed

Smart Pricing – reduces the price you pay for a click on the content network that is less likely to turn into a sale

VAT – Value Added Tax

Chapter 5

Tracking Ad Performance

Quality and Performance Basics

How It Works

 Your keyword will be inactive for search if your CPC is below the minimum bid

 Quality Score is determined by CTR, Quality of ad text and keywords, and Landing page relevance

 A high Quality Score will decrease your minimum bid

 Keyword’s Quality Score, minimum bid, and keyword state can fluctuate often due to the dynamic nature of search

 A High CTR usually means your campaign is performing well

 A low minimum bid usually means you keyword is performing well

 Ads Diagnostic Tool allows you to see if your ad is showing for a particular keyword query  Monitor your account to continually improve quality

Ad Visibility and Trouble Shooting

Account Wide Issues

 Billing information must be entered into AdWords before you can start advertising

 Email must be verified to see ads on Google

 If credit card is declined your ads will stop running until billing information is updated

 Not sure why credit card was declined?

 Make sure you entered the correct credit card number

 Check to make sure you haven’t reached your credit limit

 Check your cards expiration date

 Make sure your billing address is correct

 If everything on the checklist is correct contact your bank

Campaign-Specific Issues

 To get full exposure of your ads from your daily budget, view the AdWords recommended budget

 If your ad’s target location does not include your location, you will not be able to locate your ad on Google

 Ads will not show for a campaign that is paused, deleted, or ended

 A paused, deleted, or ended campaign can be reactivated

 On the Edit Settings page you can:

 Edit the end date of a campaign

 Change the daily budget and compare to it to the recommended budget  Change delivery method

 Change target audience and location

 Be sure none of your keywords are cancelled out by negative keywords

Ad Group Specific Issues

 Your ads will NOT show if the CPC or CPM are greater than the daily budget

 If your ad is disapproved because of editorial policies it will only show after you have made the appropriate changes and re-submitted it for review

 Ads in paused or deleted Ad Groups will not show until the Ad Group is reactivated  Sexually explicit ads will only show on pages with adult material

Keyword and Site-Specific Issues

 Keywords that are inactive for search can be re-enabled by increasing the keywords Quality Score

 Keywords marked inactive for search can still trigger ads on content network sites

 A poor performing keyword can affect the Quality Score of an entire ad group or campaign

Reports

How to Create a Report

 Access the Report Center under the Reports Tab

 AdWords Reports allows you to:

 Monitor the performance of your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords

 Identify important trends over time

 Generate spreadsheets to download

 Report Center allows advertisers to email reports, download report spreadsheets, and view both data and graphs for selected reports

 You can view your report data, graphs, or data and graphs together

 While a report is loading you can turn off your computer

 To create a report:

 Go to Create Report under the Reports Tab

 Choose what type of report to generate

 Keyword Performance

 Ad Performance

 URL Performance

 Ad Group Performance

 Campaign Performance

 Account Performance

 Search Query Performance

 Placement Performance

 Choose time period the report will be over– daily, weekly, monthly, etc

 Choose date range

 Choose which campaigns to include in report

 Name your report

 You can choose to run the report automatically every day, month, or set time period

Additional Reports Features

 You can save your report within your AdWords account to view later

 The Report Center will only save your 15 most recent reports

 If you create more than 15 reports, the system automatically deletes the oldest  Whenever a report runs you can have it emailed to multiple recipients

Basic ROI and Conversion Tracking

Understanding ROI

 ROI: Return on Investment a.k.a. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

 CPA: Cost per Acquisition

 CPA can be a measure of advertising effectiveness  ROI Percentage= (Revenue-Cost)/ Investment x 100

Introduction to Conversion Tracking

 To use Conversion Tracking, you must have an active ad and the ability to edit the HTML of your webpage

 Google’s Conversion Tracking tool is free

 In order to pause conversion tracking you must click the “Pause Conversion Tracking” button

 Steps To Set-up Cross Channel Tracking:

 Choose an advertising channel

 Create a campaign for this channel – a separate campaign for each destination URL

 Paste the tracking URLs into your related channel’s ads

 Insert JavaScript code (provided by Google) into your websites landing page

 Test your setup

 A Site Stats text block should appear on pages where you have placed the conversion tracking code

 Recommended placement of the text block is in the lower right hand corner of the conversion page (the page that thanks your customers for their purchase or visit)

 Do not hide or modify the text block

 Verify correct setup of Cross-Channel Tracking

 Check that you can see the ‘Site Stats’ text block on the pages that you’ve placed the code

 Test Data Gathering by completing a test conversion or wait for a conversion to occur to avoid incurring an ad click yourself

 Check cross channel reports  Reporting may take up to 24 hours

Advanced Conversion Tracking

Introduction to Advanced Conversion Tracking

 Effectively tracking advertising costs is essential to understanding your ROI

 Use the Conversion Tracking tool under the Campaign Management Tab to set up advanced conversion tracking

 Four Main Types of Conversions

 Purchase/ Sale – tracks purchases and sales

 Lead – how many users request follow-up calls

 Sign up – sign up for subscription or newsletters

 Page View – how many pages a user views and time spent there

 Other – define your own conversion type

 Choose language and security level – https:// is more secure

 Define the value of a conversion (a sign up may be worth $25 to your company)  Dynamic variables can be used in code for non-static conversion values

 Adding a dynamic variable to the ‘Total Value’ field of your conversion tracking code will allow you to calculate the accumulated value of conversions consisting of several purchases, each with a unique value

Terms to Know

Quality Score – determined by CTR, quality of ad text and keywords, and landing page relevance Report Center – AdWords tool that allows you to generate, email, and view reports on the performance of your account

ROI – Return on Investment ROAS – Return on Ad Spend

ROI Percentage – (Revenue – Cost)/ Investment x 100 Conversions – Purchase/sale, lead, sign-up, page view, or other

Conversion Tracking – a way to edit the HTML of your webpage to automatically track conversions Site Stats Block – a block that appears in the corner of your webpage to confirm conversion tracking is working

Chapter 6

Optimizing Ad Performance

Optimization Overview Preparing to Optimize

 Optimization: Adjusting parts of your account to improve performance of your ads

 Start optimization by reviewing the webpage of the advertiser

 Go through the motions of a customer to understand how they would experience the site

 The ‘About Us’ page or something similar is a good place to start

 This page often offers good keywords to use in ad text

 Review the products and services offered

 Review existing AdWords campaigns to see what has worked well so far (and what hasn’t)

 Research competitor’s sites

 Figure out the similarities and differences in your products or services  Find factors of your business to highlight in your ads

Your Website

Choosing Landing Pages

 Users need to find what they want on your site quickly

 Link the most relevant pages to your ads

 Landing pages should be easy to navigate

 Landing pages should include unique content that highlights your service or product above the competitors’

 Clearly define what your business is

 Provide information without requiring users to register or log in

 Be honest and clear about how and why you would be collecting someone’s information

 Provide an easy path for users to get to products and purchasing page  Make sure your page loads quickly – 4 seconds is best

Your Account

Account Optimization

 Optimization makes your ads more effective

 Increases the rate at which you connect with customers

 Raises your ads position on the search results page

 Increases your CTR

 Decreases your costs

 Three main areas for Optimization

 Campaigns – organize, modify location or language

 Ad Groups – edit keywords, ad text

 Website – choose more relevant landing pages, make page easier to use

 If your CTR is low or costs is high, it is time to optimize

Advanced Optimization Features

 Ad scheduling – control the days and times your ads appear

 All ad groups within a campaign follow the campaign scheduling

 Enable ad scheduling on the ‘edit campaign settings’ page under ‘advanced options’

 Set correct time zone

 You can raise and lower your bid during set time periods

Optimizing Ad Position, Position Preference

 If you know your ad gets the most hits when in a certain position, you can set a position preference

 Position preferences are not guaranteed

 Selectively target less expensive positions in order to increase ROI

 Beneficial if you are only interested in position 1 and 2 – your ad will only show in those positions

 You can set highest and lowest preferred positions

 The AdWords system will adjust CPC to fit within preferred position

 Position preferences can be enabled for campaigns and individual keywords

 Position preferences do not work with Budget Optimizer tool

 The Report Center can show position preferences  Does not work with preferred CPC bidding

Specific Optimization Strategies

Increasing Traffic/ Clicks

 Create new or unused unique keyword variations

 Use plurals and misspellings

 Create keywords for unadvertised products

 Create keywords for product categories

 Product types or Models

 Include more general keywords

 Generate lots of impressions

 Separate high traffic keywords into different ad groups

 Increase daily budget to increase traffic on all keywords

 Increase maximum CPC or Quality Score

 Ensure distribution preferences are set to maximize traffic  Broaden Geo targeting settings

Increasing Conversions

 Conversion Optimization requires understanding the Buying Cycle

 Consumers go through different stages while buying a product

 Keywords should address each part of the Buying Cycle  Awareness/ Interest: Customer learns about product

 Consideration/ Purchase: Ready to buy – target with words like ‘buy’ and ‘purchase’

 Retention/Advocacy: Target with words like ‘accessories’ to target loyal owners of a product

 Negative keywords help filter out uninterested users

 More specific keywords tend to convert at a higher rate  Including prices in ad text may save you the cost of a click

Adjusting CPCs to Maximize ROI

 Adjusting your CPC should be an ongoing process to reach your ideal CPC

 CPC affects position which in turn affects CTR and ROI

 Monitor your account after making changes since CPC can drastically affect CTR and Impressions

 Factors to consider before changing CPCs

 Length of time keyword has been running – It takes time to acquire the data to tell if a keyword is performing well

 Position – position affects CTR and ROI, try changing a poorly performing keyword’s position before deleting it

 Determining ROI

 How much value a keyword generates as compared to cost

 Track conversions from keywords

 If value per click is higher than average CPC there is a profit

 If average CPC is higher than value per click than there is a loss

 Increase CPC of profitable keywords for more exposure and traffic

 Decrease CPC of non-profitable keywords

 To determine your minimum bid

 Create a custom report for minimum bids

 Edit your keywords’ CPCs or URLs in your Ad Group Details page  Edit your keywords in your Ad Group Details page

Terms to Know

Optimization – the process of adjusting your account to improve performance of you ads and produce a greater ROI

Buying Cycle – the process consumers go through before purchasing; awareness, purchase, retention

Chapter 7

The AdWords Toolbox

Account Performance Tools

The Keyword Tool

 The keyword tool is used to

 Find new keywords

 Find negative keywords

 Estimate traffic for existing keywords

 View expanded matches that may trigger your ads

 Ad new keywords directly to an ad group or download them

 The Keyword Tool provides results based on your existing campaign settings and account performance

history

 If the keyword tool offers irrelevant variations, you should ad them as negative keywords

 When selecting keywords from the keyword tool, look for terms that are highly relevant to your product or service

 The keywords generated by the Keyword Tool have not been reviewed and are therefore not guaranteed approval by AdWords

 Site Related Keywords Tab – used to generate keywords based on the content of a webpage

 After adding keywords from the Keyword Tool, you can

 Estimate their potential traffic

 Add them to your ad group  Download them as a .csv file

Site Exclusion

 The Site Exclusion Tool allows you to stop your ad from being shown on certain websites in the Google Content Network

 The Site Exclusion Tool is located under ‘Tools’ on the Campaign Management Tab  Site Exclusion is applied at the campaign level

Analytics Tools

The Traffic Estimator

 Used to estimate:

 Your ads position based on keyword selection and max CPC

 Your daily advertising costs by keyword or Ad Group

 The number of impressions and clicks your keywords will generate

 Your keywords status and minimum bid

 The traffic estimator is located on the Campaign Management Tab under ‘Tools’

My Change History Tool

 Located on the Campaign Management Tab under ‘Tools’

 Used to view changes you have made to your account in the last three months

 Allows you to view changes within

 Daily Budget

 Keyword edits and additions

 Change in distribution preferences

 Changes made via the AdWords API

 If multiple people manage the account, you can view who made what changes

 The My Change History Tool will not display

 CPC changes made by the Budget Optimizer

 Changes made by the Ad Automator

 Ad approvals or disapprovals

 Password changes

Troubleshooting Tools

Ads Diagnostic Tool

 Used to:

 See if your ad is appearing on the first page of search results

 Determine why a particular keyword is not triggering your ad

 Identify why a particular ad or group of ads is not showing

  

 Access the Diagnostic Tool under the Keywords Variation Tab to get information on each individual keyword

 Or access the Diagnostic Tool from the Campaign Management Tab under ‘Tools’

 Hover over the Magnifying Glass icon next to a keyword to be presented with details on that particular keyword

Disapproved Ads Tool

 Tool displays:

 All ads in your account that have been disapproved

 The location of your disapproved ads

 The reason for disapproval

 Suggestions from AdWords to get your ad approved

 Date of the disapproval

 Disapproved Ads Tool is located on the Campaign Management Tab under ‘Tools’  Once you edit your ad it will automatically be sent for review by AdWords for approval

Chapter 8

Google Analytics

Google Analytics Basics Introduction to Google Analytics

 Google Analytics is used to report on the performance of your webpage

 Google Analytics provides reports on:

 Performance of all your ad campaigns

 How visitors use your website

 Understanding how users interact with your website is key to building an effective online business

 Helps answer questions like

 Why are visitors abandoning my shopping cart page?

 Is the design of my website inefficient?

 Which marketing initiatives work best?

 How are people finding my business?

 What do users do while visiting my site?

 What keywords generate the most conversions?

 Some of the things you can do with Google Analytics include:

 Evaluate ROI of all marketing efforts

 Evaluate visitor navigation to identify problem areas

 Track revenue and conversions

 Track any browser based events

 Define groups of users by age and gender

 Spend time exploring reports to fully understand the large amount of information provided

 To install Google Analytics to your website, simply place the Google Analytics Java Script tracking code within the body of the HTML on each page you want to track

Introduction to Google Analytics Settings

 Profile – one complete set of Analytics reports for one domain

 Use multiple profiles to track several domains, sub-domains, or sub-directories

 You can have up to 50 profiles in your account

 Under Website Profiles Area you can:

 Add new profiles

 View reports for each profile

 Edit profile settings

 Delete profiles

 Editing Conversion Goals

 A conversion occurs when a visitor to your site completes an activity that you have identified as a goal, such as a purchase, signup, download, or page view

 A funnel is a series of pages a user must pass through before reaching the goal

 Editing Filters

 Filters are used to manipulate your data to depict your reporting objectives

 Exclude Filters – exclude specified data from your reports

 Editing Profile Users

 A user is someone that can log in to your analytics account

 Change first or last names and access type

 Access type can be administrator or ‘view reports only’

 Add new or existing users

 Analytics and AdWords logins are separate

Tracking Your Advertising Campaigns

 Campaign Tracking enables you to monitor the effectiveness of various marketing efforts

 AdWords Ads

 Other CPC Ads

 Banner Ads

 Email Newsletters

 Offline Advertising

 Reports allow you to compare different ads side by side

 Campaign Tracking Variables are identifiers you attach to the hyperlinks that lead to your website in order to track ads

 Reports will show where the clicks to your website are coming from

 Attaching Campaign Tracking Variables to a hyperlink is called Tagging

 Tagging is not necessary for all links since Google Analytics will track some types of referrals

 You can enable auto-tagging under the Account Preferences Tab

 Tagging is not necessary for

 AdWords URLs

 Links from search engines (organic)

 Links from referral sites such as portals and affiliates

 You should tag

 All non-AdWords paid keyword links  Banners and other ads

 Links are tagged with the following Campaign Tracking Variables

 Campaign Name – track campaign name or product promotions, use auto-tracking feature for AdWords referrals

 Source – Track where customers found your hyperlink (i.e. Google.com or Email Newsletter)  Medium – Helps to qualify the source (i.e. organic or CPC from the source Yahoo.com)

 For AdWords auto-tagged accounts the medium is automatically CPC

 Content - Optional Variable used to test different versions of an ad

 Called A/B content testing

 For AdWords auto-tagged accounts, the content variable is the first line of ad text

 Term – Tracks keyword or phrase that triggered the ad

 If you don’t manually tag your links, Google Analytics will automatically assign source and medium values that will show in your reports

 Automatically assigned source values are usually the domain of the reffering site

 Another source you may see in reports is “direct” which means the user had the URL bookmarked or typed it directly into the browser

 Automatically assigned Medium values will often follow the source value

 Organic – visitors referred by unpaid search engine result

 Referral – visitors referred by links that were not paid

 Not Set – visitors referred by links which were tagged with Campaign Variables, but not with a Medium Variable

 Direct/None – visitors used a bookmark or typed the URL

 Several Reports show traffic from tagged initiatives

 All Traffic Sources Report – displays all traffic that comes to your site

 Ad Versions Report – Traffic assorted according to content

 Campaigns Report

 Search Engines Report – View how well your paid keywords for a particular search engine are performing

Terms to Know

Campaign Tracking Variables – identifiers attached to the hyperlinks that lead to your website in order to track ads

Tagging – the process of adding campaign tracking variables to links

Chapter 9

Managing Client Accounts

My Client Center

 The purpose of My Client Center (MCC) is to centralize and manage all your AdWords accounts

 Useful for advertising agencies, search engine marketers, and automated bid managers

 Useful for advertisers with very large campaigns that cannot be easily managed in one account

 With MCC you can access all your accounts with one password and move between accounts easily

 You can receive a My Client Center account by signing up as a Google Professional

 Sign up under the “Google AdWords Professionals” link on the Google homepage

 Google allows two or more of your clients to use the same keyword as long as they have separate accounts

 My Client Center allows you to

 Run a keyword report for a linked account  View recent charges for a linked account

 Modify the daily budget for a campaign in a linked account

 The only way to edit a clients billing information, login, and password is to log directly into the clients account

 The Dashboard Report displays the following

 Status Alerts

 Start and End date

 Budget

 Account description

Selling AdWords

Selling the Benefits of AdWords

 Google AdWords is effective because your ads reach users at the moment they are interested in your product or service

 AdWords is particularly effective for

 Generating leads or sign-ups on your website

 Generating sales or conversions

 Brand marketing and brand awareness

 An advertiser only pays when a user clicks on their ad

 AdWords ads are seen by over 80% of Internet users in the United States every month  AdWords allows for easy tracking of conversions

Understanding the Basic Google Sales Pitch

 Four steps to creat an effective advertising campaign

 Create relevant keywords and ads grouped by goals

 Test multiple ad copies and keyword variations

 Use reporting tools to measure results

 Refine campaigns and keep what is working

 Once an ad campaign is created, it should be monitored regularly and modified for best results

 Four step client start-up process

 Define marketing objectives, metrics, and budget

 Deliver proposal, including messaging and budget options

 Receive client approval and sign-off

 Launch, monitor, and modify campaigns to meet objectives  Share reports with client and refine

Handling Common Questions and Concerns

 Why use Google over another search marketing organization?

 Approximately 50% of Internet users use Google as their primary search engine

 That is almost 2.5 times more than any other search engine

 89% of Google users rated their experience as “strongly positive”

 Why use search marketing?

 Relevant, real-time, and extensive ad distribution

 Measurable results

 Total control of spending and targeting

 Generates leads or sign-ups on your website

 Generates sales or conversions

 Effective for brand marketing and brand awareness

 Respond to common objections such as “I don’t need to advertise” or “I don’t have the budget”

 Start with a budget of one dollar per day to demonstrate the possible return on investment  AdWords will never charge more than the set CPC and with Smart Pricing, advertisers are charged the minimum amount necessary to show their ad

AdWords API

AdWords API Overview

 Application Programming Interface (API) is another way to manage your AdWords accounts through programs that you write

 AdWords API is most beneficial for online marketing agencies with multiple clients and for advertisers with technical backgrounds and/or programming skills

 AdWords API is a good substitute for screenscraping

 In order to access AdWords API, advertisers must already have a My Client Center account

 With AdWords API you could

 Create/Manage campaigns and ad groups

 Get traffic and performance estimates

 View clicks, click through rates, average position

 Retrieve account performance reports

 Modify Ad Syndication preferences

 Change account login information and password  View basic API usage information

 Benefits of using API

 High efficiency

 Compatibility with many programming languages

 Innovative uses of AdWords

 Simple and quick to sign up

Getting Started

 To sign up for AdWords API go to www.google.com/apis/AdWords

 Developer and Application tokens are necessary to access AdWords API

 Token – a combination of letters and/or numbers that identify your AdWords API activity

 Developer Token – one per account, shows user as approved developer

 Application Token – one per account (can apply for more), shows approved application for API usage

 Fee-based quota system

 Rate is 25 cents per 1,000 quota units

 The API operations quota is defined by the total account spend and the number of clients managed

 Updating the bids on 1,000 keywords would equate to 1,000 operations

API Implementation

 Web Services provided by AdWords that give programmatic access to AdWords accounts include

 Data Services

 Criterion Service – provides information about targeting criteria, create and modify keywords and website targeting criteria

 Keyword Tool Service – generate keywords based on a website or specific keywords

 Account Service – modify AdWords account features

 Info Service – allows you to obtain basic information on your API usage

 Traffic Estimator Service – provides operations for estimating traffic for keywords, campaigns,

and ad groups

 Report Service – allows you to request a report about the performance of your AdWords campaigns

 Data Services

 Campaign Service – create, update, access, list and perform campaign-wide operations such as changing the daily budget, pausing a campaign, or adding new ad groups

 Ad group Sevice – create, access, or update ad groups, add keywords and creatives

 Keyword Service – create, update, or access keywords, specify keyword type and text

 CreativeService – create, update, and access creatives

 API Data Services allow you to manage campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and creatives  Use of batch operations is encouraged over single operations

Terms to Know

My Client Center – account management tool provided by Google

Application Programming Interface (API) – a tool used to manage AdWords accounts through programs you write

Developer Token – a combination of letters and/or numbers that identify your AdWords API activity – only one per account

Application Token – a combination of letters and/or numbers that identify your Adwords API activity and shows approved application for API usage – can apply for more than one per account

Batch Operations – API applied to a group of items at once

Google Launches Panda 4.0

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