I’ve now been working with Google AdWords for more years than I can remember. Literally.
Over the years I have helped setup, administer and maintain a variety of AdWords accounts. As well as being a qualified Google AdWords professional, I’m currently handling almost 30 different AdWords accounts, with a combined advertising budget in the region of $80,000 per month.
Generally speaking, the vast majority of the accounts that I have handled have seen good results. Some have proven to be reasonable, while others have been staggeringly effective.
However, in any form of advertising, there is no such thing as a 100% certainty. AdWords is no different. If it was, we’d all be taking out bank loans just to raise our budgets as high as humanly possible.
There are four main reasons that I have seen for a Google AdWords account to fail.
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1) The AdWords account is not set up properly.
This is by far the most likely explanation for an AdWords account not performing as hoped for. And there are more possible ways of shooting yourself in the foot than I could possibly attempt to cover.
Some of the more common mistakes include using of the wrong keywords, overly-heavy use of broad matching, inexact (or none existent) negative keywords, poorly written ads, bad landing pages, bad products, running the AdWords campaigns with a “one size fits all” approach, spending too much, spending too little, not giving changes time to kick in and much more.
I would never point any fingers, but nine times out of ten when a person tells me that AdWords doesn’t work for them, their account has not been properly set up.
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2) Account not managed continuously.
“Set it and forget it” is a bad, bad idea for Google AdWords. It is an approach that spells slow and certain death for any AdWords account.
As a general rule of thumb, you need to be logging into your Google AdWords account once a week. At an absolute minimum, once every two weeks.
If you’re not doing so, then at best you may be wasting potential opportunities. At worst you may be wasting your money as well as opportunities.
And it’s not enough just to log in every now and then and raise a bid or two. You need to keep on top of monitoring performance, adjusting bids, writing more ads, purging dead ads and keywords, experimenting with new ideas, improving quality score and more.
Look at your Google AdWords accounts in the same way you might view a car. If you never paid attention to the oil, water, tyres or gas/petrol, you might well get into serious trouble quicker than you can shout help, skid off the road and hit something large and heavy. If or when your car starts acting strangely, topping up the gas and replacing the oil probably won’t help much either.
Don’t leave your Google AdWords account to run itself.
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3) No demand for what you’re selling.
Anyone who has worked in marketing for a reasonable length of time can tell you that creating demand for a product where none exists is extremely difficult.
The same principle applies to Google AdWords. You can have the best keywords, perfect matching options, beautifully written ads and an immaculately set up series of ad groups and campaigns. But if there’s no-one out there who is actively searching for your product and keywords, then AdWords isn’t for you.
In the past four years or so, I have worked with two different products where this proved to be the case. Great products, well written ads, good landing pages, well-picked and targeted keywords and a well structured account. But no one bit the bait. No one was searching for what we were offering. And it’s a depressing thing to see a 25% CTR for an average of two impressions a day.
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4) A saturated marketplace with high budgets.
If you have many AdWords competitors, and worse still they’re quite active, you may be in trouble.
Why? Dave’s rule of the marketplace:
If many people are involved in activities where skill and strength are equally important, guess which will be more prevalent?
Or in the case of Google AdWords, if your many competitors can get their ads higher than yours by either spending more money or using more skill, which do you think will be the more common approach?
In the past, Google leaned heavily towards use of skill. But nowadays, sadly, spending more is almost as effective as polishing your campaigns. Think of their “to activate this keyword either increase your bid or improve your quality score” approach. Anyone with more money than sense and/or skill may be able to beat you. At least in the short term, until their money runs out.
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The million Euro question is: what can you do about it? Well, you can start by accepting the fact that Google AdWords is great for most products, but not all of them.
And if you’re not sure? My advice would be to dip your toes in cautiously.
Don’t spend weeks (or longer) carefully crafting twenty -five campaigns, each with 3 ad groups, hundreds of keywords and a multi-level tracking system in place. Start with the ones most likely to produce the results. Setup a campaign or two, an ad group or two, and test the waters.
If it works, you can be reasonably confident in investing more time. If it doesn’t work, try to understand why it didn’t, consider alternative approaches or get in touch with me!
One other final point, while we’re on the subject of Google AdWords.
People sometimes ask whether it’s really worthwhile paying for Google AdWords if their regular Search Engine Rankings are doing well already. In other words why pay for the ads to be displayed when your company shows up in Google’s search results anyway?
The answer is simple. You’re not paying to have your ad displayed, you’re paying for it to be clicked. And if you choose not to do so, then those very same people will be clicking on your competitor’s ads instead.
Aside from that, AdWords give you more extensive and immediate control that goes infinitely beyond anything that you can consider applying to your regular search results. Also, don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re only paying when your ads are actually working.
Ask not what you can do for Google, but what Google can do for you.
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TOP THREE WEBSITE MISTAKES:
Having carried out countless website reviews – some of them live at the SIC – we have seen more than our fair share of websites selling software. After a while, patterns have emerged, and it is clear that there are certain mistakes that website owners make time and time again. To help you avoid following in their footsteps, we’ve decided to write about the three index page mistakes we see most often.
Mistake Number One – Not focusing on your customer.
Let’s be blunt: people don’t come to your site to read about you or your plans and aspirations. They come because they need something, and they hope you’ll provide it. They want to hear how you can help them – and the easiest way to do this is to address them directly on the index page. There are two main rules: try to avoid the passive voice, and avoid using the term “we”. Instead, talk to your customers by addressing them with “you”.
Compare these three examples of realistic introductory sentences:
“FunkyTool 3.3 has been developed with ease of use being a top priority.”
“We offer a full range of productivity solutions and time management software. Our first priority is customer satisfaction.”
“Organize your notes, tasks and schedules – save time, and make your life easier and more productive!”
The first example uses the passive voice, and while there’s nothing technically wrong with it, it is a bit dull and bland and probably won’t catch anyone’s attention. The second example is the biggest no-no – at this point, visitors don’t care about you and your priorities, they simply want to find out what your software does. Clearly, the third example is the most immediately appealing as well as the easiest to understand.
It’s simple, really: just leave pompous self-importance and technical details behind, and talk directly to your customers as if they were in the room with you and you only had ten seconds to convince them to buy your software. Simple!
Mistake Number Two – Too many links.
We see this all the time, especially on sites that started out as a one-man business. A website grows, and rather than rethinking the navigation and making things easier for visitors, you simply add a link. And a second one. And a third. Take a look at your index page, and count the links. All the links, including that one to news about the latest update, the little one to the award you got three years ago, the old purple download button that your forgot to remove, and the link to SETI that no longer works. All of them.
With main navigation and footer links included, around 20-40 links is acceptable – but only if most of them are repeated several times. More than 25 unique links is usually a very bad idea, and more than 60 (which we have seen!) should qualify as link assault.
While it is a good idea to provide your visitors with information, too much choice at this early stage will only confuse them. Trim your links down, and leave the ones that really matter. Provide your visitors with a clear path to the pages you want them to focus on, and they will no longer stray over to the ones that you yourself have forgotten about.
Mistake Number Three – Lack of a consistent look.
Your index page is like a shop window. It’s the first thing people see, and so it is your only chance to make a first impression. Now, imagine you’re standing in front of the window of an electronics shop, thinking about going in. The left side of the window looks great, with a wide range of tempting gadgets artfully laid out looking shiny and new. In the middle of the window you notice a big smear on the glass, and there’s a camera with some Christmas glitter on it even though it’s the height of summer. Odd. On the right side, things seem a bit haphazard, and there’s dust and some breadcrumbs in the corner. Disconcerted, you leave the store without entering.
You know this would never be acceptable in a shop window, so why do you think it’s not a problem on your index page? Making your index page look better doesn’t have to cost you anything, either. In fact, the one thing we constantly advocate is completely free: consistency. Deciding on a look and sticking to it can make all the difference in the world.
If you have acquired new graphics for your site, don’t just add them: get rid of the old ones first! There’s no better way to lessen the impact of snazzy new screenshots and slick new buttons than by placing them next to the banner your cousin made in 1998. Be consistent in your colour scheme, too. If you’re using cerulean blue in the header graphic, don’t use indigo at the bottom and ultramarine for the links. The same thing goes for fonts – if you’re desperate to make a sloppy impression, go ahead and use Verdana in the top two paragraphs and Times New Roman in the third.
There you have them – the three most common mistakes we see. Easy to rectify, and even easier to avoid in the first place. Have a good, honest look at your own index page and see if you’re guilty of any of them. You’d be surprised by the difference a few small changes can make!
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GROWTH OF AN INDUSTRY REVISITED:
I did promise to let you know whether last month’s newsletter generated a response from CNET, and to my surprise it did.
I actually had a total of three CNET people getting back to me, which initially struck me as encouraging.
One of the people who got back to me was the very person who had left such a sour taste in my mouth at the conference. Credit where it’s due, he did respond at length to the issues I raised. Nevertheless, after reading through the emails I’m still not 100% convinced that what I was saying has really been addressed.
A quote (printed with permission) from the first email:
“As we discussed at the conference, your clients have had some confusion and frustration in regards to the PPD Program. I wanted to provide a little insight into some internal transitions at CNET that have been happening over the past months that we believe will ultimately improve the quality of our product for software publishers.
Over the past 6-8 months, we’ve been focused on the integration of our three CNET Brands – CNET.com, CNET News.com, and CNET Download.com. We have been working to integrate product, user registration and profile databases, and improve the cross-pollination of content and navigation across all three sites. In some ways it has been like integrating 3 different companies! The good news is that after months of this work, we are now looking ahead and are able to focus on new growth and development.”
My main point with regards to the PPD issue were and still are (1) that people don’t understand it – even if they think they do, (2) that the system confuses people, and (3) that it has been this way for many years now.
Every time I bring this up with CNET, I am assured that the issues were temporary and things are now going to be fixed. Time will tell whether this particular incident will be any different.
The same person also said the following:
“I was surprised at your reaction to a partnership in which you could help educate your clients about PPD, especially since you have clients that were “itching to spend” on advertising. After all, despite the numerous ways it could be improved, the PPD tool is still a very effective and economical means to drive downloads.”
I replied that I was surprised by their surprise. Why would (or should) we “educate” our clients about PPD, when so many of the companies that we work with have walked away unhappy with their CNET PPD experiences?
From their point of view, the scheme did not prove to be effective, nor was it particularly economical.
I also pointed out that I was eager to put this behind us, yet needed more than vague bold phrases to convince our clients that they should be spending with CNET. Our discussions continue. I’ll keep you posted.
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ON A LIGHTER NOTE:
Working in this industry, I generally get to do most of my work online and from a home office.
However, there are two industry events that I regularly attend, that require me to get away from my office and talk to and meet people in the flesh. They are the Shareware Industry Conference in the US, and the European Shareware Conference, in that charming, rainy place on the other side of the pond.
Karin and myself live in the most beautiful part of the UK; the New Forest. Note all that lovely green!
The only disadvantage of living here is that we are an hour and a half away from a major international airport. So every time I go to one of the conferences, my journey begins with a 90 minute drive to the airport, a two hour wait at the airport, and then (finally) the flight begins. If it’s on time.
So you can imagine how pleased I was once I found out that this year’s European Shareware Conference is in Cambridge, UK. This means that I can drive the whole way there. No airport parking, no hanging around Heathrow Airport, no cramped & airless flight, and no plastic meals on plastic trays.
So why is it that working out how and when to get there is now more complicated than ever? It does appear that when I have been given an unlimited number of options to choose from, I’m incapable of doing so.
For the life of me, I can’t decide what to do. Arrive early, or late? Go via London to see my parents, or not? Stay the last night and leave early next day, or leave in the evening and get home the same day? Unlike every other year, I have complete and utter flexibility.
As it turns out, I may not be equipped to deal with it. Pity there aren’t any flights from the New Forest to Cambridge.
The Competitive Edge newsletter is a monthly in-depth look at the issues faced by independent software developers today.
If you’d like to comment on any of the information within the newsletter, please email Dave Collins directly atdave@softwarepromotions.com.
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