Perhaps you're not sure whether your Google AdWords account has been set up correctly? Maybe you're wondering if you're losing or making money from your AdWords account? Or it may be that you simply don't have the time to really learn how to work the AdWords system to your advantage, and would like to hand this over to a Google AdWords Qualified Company?
If you're interested in a no-obligation, free proposal, then please click here to receive a free quote.
Campaign settings:
- Use descriptive names for campaigns. Accounts grow with time, and a logical structure makes management simpler. The same applies to ad group names.
- Never mix search and display campaigns. And don’t be tempted by separate display bids in a combined campaign.
- Never mix display/image ads with text ads. Each performs differently, and analyzing performance in a combined campaign is close to impossible.
- Only target appropriate devices. If your product does not function on an iPhone or iPad, consider disabling delivery of ads to those devices.
- Set ad serving to "Rotate: Show ads more evenly". You need to monitor ad performance; not Google.
- Set delivery method to "Choose Standard: Show ads evenly over time". The "accelerated" option may exhaust your budget when many of your potential customers are sleeping. Don’t relinquish control.
- When targeting a large number of countries within one campaign, ads will be displayed according to demand and bid levels. Some countries may over-utilise your campaign’s budget.
- Make Google work hard for your money. Never increase your budget just because Google think you should.
Keywords:
- Find new terms through continuous keyword research. Google’s keyword tool, Google suggests and search query reports are all useful.
- Huge keyword lists are not a good approach. Smaller and focused is better.
- Negative keywords are vital. If you’re not offering free software, -free, -freeware and related terms can be useful. As are -hack, -crack, –serial etc.
- Match options:
- Use broad match with caution because of expanded matching. But don’t be put off; broad match can be highly effective.
- Don't only use one match option. Using all of them shouldn’t work, but it does!
- Misssspellings can be useful. Regional variations too eg: British / American English.
- Purge keywords that don’t work and expand those that do.
Ad text:
- Don’t be gentle - be pushy! Calls to action work.
- Use popular keywords within your ad texts.
- Shorter is sometimes better.
- Punctuation is important!!!
- The display URL has to match the destination URL, but does not need to be a live URL on your website. Use keywords if you can.
- Dynamic keyword insertion is simple to implement, but use with caution - unexpected results may occur!
- {KeyWord:Alternate Text}: Fast Red Cars
- {Keyword:Alternate text}: Fast red cars
- {keyword:alternate text}: fast red cars
Best practices for new ad groups:
- Start small. Once you have data, purge low performers and expand what works.
- Start with "safer" keywords - using a reasonable number. Less is better.
- Always analyse data in time-intervals of seven days.
- Never use one single ad. Use a minimum of four per ad group.
- Allow adequate time to generate sufficient data. Haste leads to poor ROI.
- Split ad groups into focused keyword-based themes. Then set up targeted ads for each of the new ad groups.
- Purge whatever doesn’t work and expand on what does.
Best practices for improving an existing ad group:
- Keywords:
- Identify and delete low performers:
- low CTR (high impressions low clicks)
- off-target keywords (common sense)
- zero-impressions over 28 days
- Make sure keywords with large numbers of clicks are targeted and converting
- Ads:
- Use individual tracking for each ad.
- Identify and delete low performers:
- Through CTR
- Through conversion tracking
- Through Analytics
- Pause ads for at least seven days before deleting them
Tracking:
- Track everything, but don’t drown in data. Too much tracking can paralyse.
- Use unique tracking URLs for each of your ads. Don’t track by keyword.
- Google's conversion tracking: easy to implement but can be inaccurate.
- Conversions will not be tracked in the following scenarios:
- No purchase within 30 days of clicking on your ads
- The person clicking on the ad is not the person making the purchase
- Cookies cleared from the system
- Ad clicked on one computer but purchased through another
Reports and log analysis:
- Analytics data is integral to AdWords management. Information in the AdWords account is one-sided.
- Make use of the reports within your AdWords account. Here are a few:
- Search terms report - for finding new and negative keywords
- Automatic placements report - for gauging how well your ads perform on the display network.
- Geographic report – for understanding where your ads are displayed
AdWords Editor:
- Clunky but useful software - great for copying and pasting keywords, ads, ad groups or even campaigns.
- Always work in units of seven days to make sure that trends are accurately identified.
- Twenty-eight days is a good time period to work with:
- Click on the "view statistics" button, choose "last 30 days" then add two days to the initial date.
Golden rules:
- Never allow an AdWords account to run itself.
- Never make too many changes at a time.
- Never let Google control your budget.
- Never let Google decide what’s best for you.
- Always allow time for changes to take effect.
- Always work in time intervals of seven days.
- Always question Google’s motives.
- Always keep control.
- Repeat the mantra: A neglected AdWords account is a dangerous AdWords account.
- Follow @TheDaveCollins obsessively.
Taking AdWords to the next level:
- Have your AdWords account managed by a team of qualified professionals.
- We take care of all aspects of your Google AdWords management.
- Free up your time so that you can focus on what you do best.
- Stop wasting your money and time.
- Let us improve your ROI.
- Let us help you turn your AdWords account into a money maker!
- SoftwarePromotions
