28 Tips For AdWords Beginners Wish Someone Had Told Me

TOP 28Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was An AdWords Beginner When you're first starting out with AdWords there are so many things that you need to know and understand that it's almost impossible for you to grasp them all. To help you get started with your new AdWords campaign I've written a list of all the helpful knowledge that I have compiled over the years. Granted, all these tips are not necessarily beginner friendly, but they're good to know and you will one day find out why you need to know them. AD COPY | It's Not Just About One Metric When optimizing your AdWords Ad Copy it can be dangerous to look at only one of the key metrics CTR CONVERSIONS CLICKS CTR CONVERSION RATE AV ERAGE If for instance you only look CTR then you will focus on the ads that draw in a lot of clicks. Many of my own ad tests have shown that the ads that have the highest CTR don't have the best conversion rate. CONVERSION VALUE ÇOSTPER CONVERSION In order to convert the best you often need to detract some users who won't pay the price of your product or who are unable to get it delivered. You need to take all the main metrics into account and get a great balance of high click volume, high CTR and a lot of conversions at a profitable cost per conversion. Relevance is Key CTR CTR is the key metric that determines whether or not your AdWords Ads are relevant (The percentage of people seeing your ad who end up clicking). Maximizing your relevance has several advantages: CPC CTR Working with AdWords is all about relevance. Higher CTR Higher Position For a Lower Price Lower CPC 3 Remember a Call-To-Action A Call-To-Action is something that you're asking the user to do. It's a term that you'll hear a lot in advertising and particularly in online advertising. Get Your Free Estimate Order Now Contact Us Today Book Your Trip Claim Your Promotion Search for your .. here See Pictures and... CALL TO ACTION Call Today! Find Out Why We're Best Buy Online for Only... Including a Call-To-Action serves two purposes: O The user knows exactly what to do on your website 2 The user knows exactly what he can do on your website. If the user is looking for info, then he'll less frequently click a "buy x here" ad. 4 Use the Most Appropriate Landing Page Ensuring a high relevance between the search term and AdWords ad is just one part of the relevance game. Once a user clicks on your ad you need to take control and make sure that they're taken to the most relevant page, where they can quickly locate all the necessary information they need. 5. Ad Sitelink Are Mandatory Ad Extensions was first introduced in late 2009 (Beta tests were out before though) and have since become a crucial part to getting noticed. Google The difference in having Ad Extensions and not having them can mean 100% increase in the real estate you occupy on the Google Search Results Page. Always remember to include Ad Sitelinks. KEYWORDS 6 Don't Use Broad Match Broad match are the most commonly used match type in Google AdWords. It's also the most volatile match type. You have very little control over what search terms your ads are actually appearing for when you use broad match keywords. It's Not All About The Long Tail Don't get me wrong - The long tail is great and creating a lot of content to catch the long tail searches for your organic campaigns are an amazing strategy, but for AdWords you can afford to think broader. HEELEEEEEREHIELEI Higher Search Volume Lower Probability of Conversion Lower Search Volume Higher Probability of Conversion By strategically using broad match modifier and phrase match keywords you'll be able to discover the long tail keywords that actually have enough volume to be worth spending time on. 12 8 One-Worded Keywords Rarely Work Out One-Worded keywords attract searchers so early in the buying funnel that they're rarely worth it for the rookie or even intermediate AdWords advertiser. 9. You Can Add Instances of the Same Keyword in Different Match Types within the Same Campaign Broad Add the keywords in all the appropriate match types and find out what match type works best that specific keyword. Phrase Exact Don't skimp out on match types when adding new keywords to your campaigns. IU Negative Keywords are not a choice Even though I would like to say that it's getting rarer that I open up new AdWords accounts without Negative Keywords, then it's not the case. AdWords campaigns without negative keywords still prosper in the SMB community. Even though you can't start an account without keywords, then you shouldn't start a campaign without Negative Keywords either. 11 Use the Negative Keyword Lists If You Have More Than One Campaign The introduction of negative keyword lists means that you can add negative keywords that apply for your entire account. Negative keyword lists can be a huge timesaver and will optimize all your campaigns at once instead of going one-by-one. ACCOUNT STRUCTURE Your account structure is the foundation of what you built your AdWords campaign. In the beginning you might be able to build whatever structure you like and work perfectly fine. But when you start adding more keywords, more ads and make your campaigns more granular you would have wished that you built the right account structure from the get go. 12 Your Account Structure Should Be Built Focused on Keyword Themes – Not Products or Services Your campaign is comprised of ad groups, which in return is comprised by keywords and ads. The healthiest way of building these ad groups is by focusing on themes THE MES Even though a single product might have several keywords that represent that product, then you should never put keywords that bear no resemblance in wording within the same ad group (unless you do it on purpose). KEYWORD THEMES The reason to this structure is that even though two keywords might essentially mean the same thing, then the people who are searching for either keywords are looking to see different things: Rodent exterminator and rat exterminator are basically the same thing. But if you search for rat exterminator and see ads for Rodent Extermination Rat Extermination a rodent exterminator you might not click it. 90% 100% Now add the fact that the 8 other ads on the site actually say rat exterminator. You're 90% sure that the ad for rodent exterminators can get rid of your rats, but you're 100% sure that the ad for rat exterminators can get rid of your rats. This is why account structure is key to your success. The better your structure is the better will your ad relevance be as well 13 Align Your Account Structure With Your Website When structuring your AdWords account you should try to mimic the same navigation and structure of your website. This is especially true for ecommerce websites. You're familiar with how your website is organized and you can intuitively find a product without performing a search for it. By using the same structure in your AdWords campaigns you'll be able to easily find the ad groups that represent certain products on your website. WEE 14 One Keyword, One Ad Group Only Works for the Professionals You might have heard the old AdWords "rule" that the only true account structure experts use is to have one ad group for each keyword. First of all, that's not true. Second of all, just because it's what the experts are doing it doesn't mean that it's right for you. AdWords experts have vast experience and intuitively know how to set up a campaign. Most experts even use proprietary or third party optimization tools that you don't have access to or can afford. The one keyword, one ad group approach is very nice in theory. In practice however, this approach turns very time-consuming and depending on how big your account is and how big of a return you get, the ROI on your time spent might be abysmal. SETTINGS The AdWords settings panel has gone through quite a bit of changes the last couple of years. Here are some of the most important things to do or know so you know that you have the option. 15 Search and Display Campaigns Don't Go Together Even though I've seen it produce good results when I've taken over Clients' own AdWords campaigns, then it's never the way to go moving forward. SEARCH DISPLAY Display campaigns are more of a push marketing channel and require completely different ads and setup to make it work optimally. Just don't. 16 You can Dynamically Change Your Bid Depending on Day, Device, Location and Hour of Day Hour of day Enhanced Campaigns have elaborated on your possibilities for dynamically change your bidding according to a lot of factors: Geographical location Depending on what kind of campaign you're running and what products you're advertising for, chances are that you're not seeing the same conversion rate on Saturdays as on Tuesdays. Device (Phone or Desktop) 15 Day of the Week Use the Dynamic bid modifiers once you got the hang of optimizing AdWords campaigns and you will be able to squeeze the last couple of conversions out of your account. 17 Choosing Your Locations Is More Precise Than Radius Targeting When you're using AdWords in a small geographical area it can be tempting to just set a radius of 50 miles from your company address. Even though it's faster, then it's not better in most cases. The radius feature is not as precise as selecting your locations. You can easily use either the bulk location uploader or select them on the map in AdWords. 18 Mobile Is No Longer a Choice After the introduction of enhanced campaigns you're no longer able to opt out of the mobile search market. Mobile search is finally here and it's a force to be reckoned with. Don't ignore it. 14 Tablets Are Considered the Same As Computers This is another thing that enhanced campaigns introduced. Tablets are no longer distinguished from Computers. This produce some challenges as many of us formerly use device-specific bidding as the conversion rates were ent on varying devices. SEARCH, DISPLAY, REMARKETING, PRODUCT LISTING ADS 20 AdWords is no longer "just Google.com" The last couple of years Google have rolled a huge amount of new features to AdWords. This is amongst others: AdWords Retargeting for Search & Display Product Listing Ads Google Mobile Ads AdWords Express New Targeting ways for Display App Extensions Offer Extensions Email Extensions No matter how you look at AdWords, then the truth is that it's no longer just AdWords. If you're only focusing on getting the most out of AdWords in the regular sense, then you're missing out on big potential. 21 Product Listing Ads Are Not Voluntarily Any Longer If you're an Ecommerce store, then you have the option to opt-in to the Google Merchant Center and show Product Listing Ads on Google.com. Product Listings Ads are today such a big part of the Google Search Results Page for commercial searches that if your ad is not shown as part of a Product Listing Ád, then you're missing important clicks and sales. GOOGLE MOBILE ADS 22 Ads Mentioning Mobile Specific Terms Work Amazing SMARTPHONE & CALL NO W Always try to use mobile specific terms when creating your mobile ads. Mentioning the fact that the user is on a mobile have proven to increase your click rate and conversion rate. USE YOUR 23 It's All About the Top 3 Positions In Google mobile ads you live or die by the top 3 positions. Even though you've always been able to get more clicks in the top 3 positions on a desktop as well, then mobile takes it to a new level. Consider increasing your bidding if your clicks are low on mobile. Conversion rates on mobile ads are almost always better than on desktop for call focused campaigns, so feel free to play with higher CPCS than your desktop conversion rate allows. 24 Keywords Are Shorter Using a smartphone is a lot different than using a computer. Mobile users tend to use abbreviations and shorter keywords in general. Think about this when setting the bid percentage for keywords on mobile. Some keywords will simply never get traction in mobile due to their complexicity. QUALITY SCORE 25 Quality Score Is Volatile STOP Your Quality Score can change several times without you even knowing it. The Quality Score that you see in your dashboard isn't necessarily equal to the Quality Score that Google uses to calculate your ad rank. There are several reasons to why this happens, but just know that what you see is not what you get. Even the smallest, unnoticed, change in Quality Score can allow you to get a higher ad position or pay less for your current ad position. Never stop optimizing for a higher Quality Score. 26 Quality Score Can (and will) Make or Break Your Campaign Ignoring your Quality Score is the one thing that will always break your campaign in the long term. While there are a lot of things to know about Quality Score, then you can't ignore Quality Score or avoid optimizing for it. QUALITY SCORE You need to put in time and effort to achieve the highest Quality Score possible for your campaign. BILLING 27 Your Accountant Will Hate You The AdWords billing system has become friendlier as the years have gone by, but it is still deeply annoying for first-time users. When you're first starting out with your your accountant will be the person you never want to meet. INVOICE US S00.00 Before your billing threshold increases you will get billed for $50, $200, $350 etc. until you reach $500 in spend. If you're spending $500 every couple of days, then yes - you will see an ERROR bice every couple of days. Unless you choose manual payment or get approved for monthly invoicing, then your accountant will hate you and she will voice her complaints 28 There Are The Possibility of AdWords on Credit The monthly invoicing option with Google isn't one of the most known features for new AdWords advertisers, but if you're planning on spending more than $5000 per month, then this will be your best friend. If you spend more than $5000 per month and your business have existed for more than one year, then you'll be able to apply for monthly invoicing with Google. In effect it means that you can pay 30 days later through bank transfer. Your AdWords spend in March will be due on April 30th. +5,000 Just know that you need to be on top of your AdWords spend as you won't have a natural reminder of how much you spend or any other limit than the one you set in your AdWords account. ADWORDS IS ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN JUST A LIST Successful AdWords management is about more than just knowing a few facts or being able to set a bid for x-amount of dollars. The best AdWords managers develop a feeling for the market that guides them through optimizations, directions and strategies. Once you've worked with AdWords long enough all the items on this list, and many more, will be imprinted in your head and they will all work together to form your AdWords strategy. Until then, keep your lists, keep your procedures and your AdWords campaigns will prosper. White Shark Media Offers Specialized Search Engine Marketing for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses to Achieve the Highest Return on Investment. Get more insights from White Shark Media on Twitter at @WhiteSharkMedia or by visiting our AdWords blog: whitesharkmedia.com/blog/ WHITE SHARK MEDIA KEYWO