Google AdWords is a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising medium, where your advertisements are distributed across Google’s SERP and content network (websites that publish Google Ads). Google AdWords is a popular way for businesses to advertise on the Internet, and you’ll find pretty much every large business in Australia will be running their own campaign. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it might seem – and a lot of adventurous business owners will lose a tidy little sum trying to make their advertisements work effectively. In this post I will outline the important factors that make up a successful Campaign, and the areas that most will go astray with.
I’m not going to go in detail about the actual steps for creating an AdWords account, campaign and ad group – I think if you’ve gotten this far, you can figure out the steps. If not, there are surely thousands of step by step guides already out there. Instead I’m going to highlight some important factors of running successful AdWords campaign, so that you have a better chance of getting results rather then wasting money.
Budget
When you’re starting out, and testing the waters – keep the budget small. $5 or $10 a day is plenty to scope out what your bids are, and the number of impressions you can get. This way if you happen to be busy for a couple days and forget about the Campaign for a little while, you’re not going to come back and find you’re $100 down and get put off of the whole experience. Google gives you the ability to control your advertising, so make sure you do it. Play cautious to start with, and then get more adventurous.
On a little side note, there’s an option in your Ad Group management on how to distribute your ads during the day. You can either – run them non-stop until your budget is gone, or attempt to distribute them evenly across the day. I feel that running them non-stop gives you a better indication of the market and competition, and with such a small budget is somewhat necessary.
Location
I would hope that this one is an obvious one to most people. You want to narrow down your potential audience to be relevant to what you’re selling. If you sell blue shiny widgets in Sydney, there’s no point advertising nation wide. So be sure to narrow down your audience as much as possible, and target locations that are relevant.
Networks
This is a big money chewer, and is probably the most common way people burn through their advertising budget. It’s a simple setting in your Campaign that most people overlook. Make sure that your ads are only shown in Search Results – ensure that the Content Network is turned off! The problem with the content network is that you need your keywords to be set up properly for it to work effectively. Without experience, it’s unlikely that you will set up your keywords properly – so play it safe and limit your advertising to the Search Results network for now.
Ad Copy
This is something not a lot of people think about – is the wording of your advertisement interesting? Does it capture attention? Does it entice the viewer to click on the advert? There is 3 parts to your ad copy – the headline, the body, and the URL. The headline should include some or all of the keyword that triggers the advertisement, not only are the keywords bolded in the advertisement, it’s what the searcher is looking for and as such it’s more likely to get their attention. If your keyword is “blue widgets” your headline should be “Looking For Blue Widgets?” – it addresses what they’re searching for, and captures their attention.
Your advert body is the next most important part, it’s hard to make great copy in such a limited amount of characters – which is why it’s important to continually test different ads. Your copy should again include some or all of the keywords, and try to highlight a benefit as well as a call to action. ”By Shopping At Widgets’n’More”, “You Will Enjoy High Quality Widgets”.
Finally the displayed URL is a last chance to make your ad seem more relevant, plus make your ad go to a landing page rather then your home page (e.g. www.domain.com.au/blue-widgets). Just remember, test, test, TEST!
Keywords
Keep your keywords relevant to the Ad Group – if there’s numerous keywords you want to target that aren’t all related, you should split them into different Ad Groups and have a different Ad Copy for each one. It’s tempting to follow Google’s suggestions and add 101 keywords to your Ad Group, but it’s likely going to result in high impressions and low conversions. Keep it simple, keep it relevant.
Also try and target ‘long tail key phrases’ – rather then just advertising “blue widgets”, be more specific. Advertise on “shiny blue widgets Sydney” and you will have more change of converting a click into a sale. You can still advertise on “blue widgets” but you need to be prepared for more competition, lower conversion, and a higher advertising spend.
Bids
There is no “rule of thumb” with what you should be bidding. Some keywords you’ll pay $1 per click, others you will pay $10 per click – it depends on the competition for that particular keyword. This is another example of advertising on those long tail key phrases, rather then the more general keywords. You can start by letting Google automatically manage your bids, but closely monitor the Campaign over a couple days and start placing restrictions on it.
In general the more relevant your keyword is to your advert and your landing page, the higher the Quality Score you will have – and ultimately the lower the click cost will be.
Landing Page
This is external to your AdWords Campaign, but is probably one of the most important factors in converting a click to a sale. When a viewer clicks on your ad, where are you going to send them. If they’re searching for “shiny blue widgets Sydney” and you send them to the home page of Widgets’n’More, is that going to convert as well as if you sent them to a page specifically on “shiny blue widgets”? If you really want to get results, set up a landing page for each Ad Group you are running, and ensure that the keywords used in the Ad Group are on the page (this will improve your Quality Score, thus lowering click cost).
By having control over the landing page, you can make sure what the viewer sees is what they WANTED to see – and you can also lead them down your funnel with a call to action, to increase the chance of converting them. Again, be sure to test, test, TEST!
Quality Score
Your Quality Score is an indication of the quality of your Ad Group on each keyword. If your Quality Score is 5 or lower, you’re probably not doing enough and are going to be wasting money. Review the factors I’ve discussed above, and try to improve the QS of your keywords. With very little effort, and following the advice in this post, you should be able to easily achieve a QS of 7 or 8 out of 10. The better your Quality Score is, the lower your click cost is going to be – so keep an eye on it because it DOES change!
Author Bio: Chris Bates is a technology nut with a passion for using the Internet to help businesses grow their bottom line. Constantly learning and pushing the boundaries of the Internet, Chris is dedicated to getting results. To learn more about Chris, visit him online at www.frontbox.com.au.
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