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REA S O N S
YOUR
A DWO R D S
S U CK.
Sunday, 1 June 14
INTRODUCTION.
With over 9 year s of hair pulling, keyboard smashing, coffee
spilling experiences with Adwords, weve seen (and been
guilty of) some great screw ups. Some were small and some
were simply gut wrenchingly huge (Google is the winner in
ever y case however!).
This was written as a guide to the foibles many of us are
guilty of, whether we like it, know it or not.
So here are 42 reasons why your
Adwords campaign sucks.
Jimmy,
JimmyData.com
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CON T E N T S.
1 . Negatives
2 2 . Co nve r sio n s
2 . To o B ro a d ?
2 3 . T h e o f fe r
3 . B ud g et C o n s t r a in ts
2 4 . Sp lit Te stin g
4 . M o bi l e
2 5 . A d te stin g
5 . Gr a nu l a r ity
2 6 . L ow CT R
6 . P r ic in g
2 7 . I g n o r in g th e lo n g ta il
7 . Mo n day ?
2 8 . Tre n ds
8 . Th e La nd in g
2 9 . R e m a r ke tin g ?
9 . E x t en si o ns
3 0 . R e m a r ke tin g # 2
10 /1 1 . Mo re E x t en s io n s
3 1 . A u to m a te d R u le s
1 2 . . . . E x t en s io n s!
3 2 . Pa tie n c e
1 3 . A dc opy
3 3 . D y n a m ic I n se r tio n
1 4. M o b i l e b i d a dj us t
3 4 . D y n a m ic in se r tio n # 2
1 5 . Mo b i le a d s
35. Lazy?
1 6. Low i m p Sh a re
3 6 . Ca lm D own
1 7 . Ad d el iver y
3 7 . Tr ig g e r H ap py
1 8. Mo d i f i ed Ma t c h
3 8 . Sc h e du lin g
19 . S ea rc h Qu e ri e s
3 9 . G e o Ta r g e tin g
2 0 . An a ly t ic s
4 0 . A d Se ttin g s
2 1 . S ea rc h + D is p l ay
4 1 . Co m p e tito r s
4 2 . R e p o r tin g
Sunday, 1 June 14
1. NO NEGATIVES
It never ceases to amaze me how many adver tiser s are
swimming in the PPC wor ld without the aid of Negative
keywords.
I recently audited a major global account with a spend of
approximately $250k per month over 18 countries and the
total number of negative keywords was 220! Thats 220
negatives over thousands of adgroups and $250k of spend
per month! Its like sending a capacity cr uiseliner with
3000+ guests that is only fitted with 60 life jackets.
I calculated that for one adgroup alone, the spend for
irrelevant keywords for a month was close to $600. This was
for one adgroup out of thousands.
Put your negative keywords in. If you dont then you are
wasting both money and time chasing your tail.
As an example you sell Watermelons. Yes Watermelons,
thats what you do now. You sell the big fresh green ones
with the red filling that for some reason stains like nothing
else. (how does water stain anyway?)
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2. TOO BROAD
You are too broad. You bid on generic terms and dont
bother with modifier s.
What some adver tiser s dont under stand is that Googles
definition of broad is well just that, ver y broad. The
synonyms they use can really send your campaign off on a
tangent and trigger some really random terms. Remember
the watermelons? Yeh well being too broad was your
problem. Think the terms reseller and whitelabel are
different? Google might not think so. Think the words
cheap and budget are different? Google may not. I know I
do and the conver sion rates for each term is completely
different.
Thats when the modifier comes in. Some have called it the
phrase match killer. Think of it as somewhere between
broad and phrase and what it does is essentially tell Google
to stay away from synonyms but include plurals. Kind of
sounds like what you would expect a normal broad to be! It
does not necessarily for all campaigns that using modified
broad terms are vital, but the majority of the time, I would
use them.
Dont let Google do the guess wor k, take control.
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3. BUDGET CONSTRAINTS
Is your budget too small? If you are selling a product for
$500 and your monthly budget is $1000 then that is most
likely not enough to test a mar ket.
Similar ly if you have a keyword list of 1000 keywords and a
budget of $500 per month, you have spread your self too
thin.
TIP: There are no hard and fast r ules however there are
some ballpar k figures to wor k towards. As a benchmar k, use
Googles keyword tool or an external tool like SEMr ush to
wor k out what a click is going to cost you. Assume you can
manage to get 2% CTR on your keywords, you can then
wor k out a budget that will most likely wor k for you.
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5. TOO G RANULAR
I like granularity. Love it in fact. However sometimes you
may be asking too much of your campaign if you stick
primarily to the long tail. Long tail keywords do, on average,
perform much better than general terms however the
downside to them is that they generate less volume.
The issue with being too specific is that if Google feels the
search demand or interest isnt high enough, it simply wont
show your ads, regardless whether the term is a proven
performer or not.
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6. PRICING
Dont lie. Dont say Free if it isnt and dont make a pricing
promise that you cant easily and clear ly deliver to your
Google traffic.
None of my business you say? Well think again, its not
about me, its Google who is going to penalize you (thats
right Mr Acai Berr y dude). Thats right, Google does actually
analyze (whether it be automatically or manually) the
landing page experience and if you dont deliver on your
promise or your selling proposition then Google will either
charge you a for tune per click, or they simply wont r un
your ads at all.
TIP: An image wont cut it. Google isnt the best at reading
images so make sure your key selling driver s are clear and in
a readable text format.
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8. LANDING PAGE
What do you know about your landing page? Have you
tested it? Does it have trigger elements that are sending
people off your website in an instant.. or possibly trigger
elements that are making people buy?
In the day of the week example mentioned previously, the
clients Thur sday to Saturday problem was rectified by
simply adding Ships within 24hr s (which they did).
In another example, a client with a prominent dating site
focused around matching professional singles, found that
whenever their landing page features picture of people
under 30 conver sion rates would plummet. Why? The
landing page didnt relate with the user s coming to the site
(slightly older). Removing images of people and keeping the
site neutral was the key to turning this campaign around
and driving website sign-ups.
TIP: Tr y using heat mapping tools like crazyegg.com to
under stand the habits of visitor s to your landing pages. Also
ensure you have linked your Adwords with Analytics to
better under stand user behaviour from specific keyword
which provides great insight.
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9. AD EXTENSIONS
Since there isnt enough complexity in Googles Adwords
ranking system, towards the end of 2013, Google decided to
change how it calculates its Adrank (Ie the position you
appear on the search results page). Yes your bid is impor tant.
Yes your quality score is impor tant. But there is now another
factor in the mix and this third component is, quoting Google
directly, "the expected impact from your ad-extensions and
formats". And yes... it is truly as vague as how it sounds.
So if all things were equal and there are two competing ads
with the same bid and quality score, then the ad which is
deemed to have the most positive expected impact from
extensions will in most cases, appear higher. This all sounds a
bit here-say but Google does kind of make it easy in that they
will generally show the highest performing combination of ad
extensions and formats as it deems appropriate. Bottom line,
this means use the ad extensions, use them all and try to
incorporate them into ever y one of your campaigns. Don't do
it.. then your competitors are already one step ahead of you
(literally!).
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10. C A LL EXTENSIONS
Do you simply need the phone to ring? Are you using call
extensions? Are you driving people to a non-mobile friendly
website instead of only giving them the option to call? Each
business is different, but if you need phone calls, then make
sure you are using call extensions. Any business needing
phone calls should utilize these and with todays changing
Adrank algorithm, its never been more impor tant.
11. SITELINKS
If you are generally ranked in the top 1-3 positions and are
not using sitelinks via ad extensions then your competitor s
are doing a better job than you, simple as that. If they are
also not using them, please contact me and let me know
your industr y, I want in! Again, like most ad-extensions,
remember to use site links wherever you can (there is ver y
little reason not to use them). Sitelinks allow you to take up
more real estate on the front page and enables you to
include more information about your business, giving
potential customer s more choice and more targeted deeplinked options. Use them. Full stop.
TIP: Use them
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U s e f ul ex a m p l e ca n b e fo und he re
TIPS
1. Use Price in your adcopy
2. Use Ad extensions.
3. Base your copy around themes
4. Only test one thing at a time so you know what works and
what doesnt.
5. Test test test. Always test new copy and creative.
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Sorta.. but not 100% right. Or even close to 100% right. The more
telling statistics to look at are the other impression share data that
Google gives you. These include Search Exact Match IS, Search Lost IS
(rank) and Search Lost IS (budget). Little briefing:
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17. AD DELIVERY
Ad delivery is usually set to spread evenly over a day by
default. Check it and ensure you have the right settings.
Spending too quick? Then if could mean that you have it set to
accelerated. Bit simple? Youd be surprised.
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TIP: Use Adwords for raw click data and Analytics for
behavioural analysis of your users. Dont try to analyse exact
numbers in Analytics as it will simply lead to you chasing your
tail.. there will be a variance.. but analyse the data and use that
information to both improve your campaign and your website.
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22. NO CONVERSION
TESTING
Are you running conversion tracking? No? Leave. If you are
not measuring your campaign then there is no point running
it. Simple. As. That. Its like writing an email without your
monitor plugged in. You are hitting buttons, you kind of know
stuff is happening, a few noises, groaning, ticking... but thats
about it. Before you run anything, get your conversion
tracking sor ted.
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Good adcopy will mean not only higher CTR but also may
lead to: 1. More impressions 2. Higher Adrank 3. Lower CPCs
4. More conversions. No brainer really, test your adcopy!
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Enter the inquisitive 9yr old who visits Google and searches
the term Solar System Map. Guess whos ad shows up? Guess
what the ad headline said? You have not disappointed the 9yr
old, you have paid a for tune for that useless click and not one
got what they wanted. If on the other hand your ad said Solar
Panel Installer, would the child have bothered to click your
ad? Probably not. So dont use dynamic keyword inser tion as
your crutch, but a great testing tool.
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If you really are not sure, then maybe leaving it a little longer
is the way to go.
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