PPC

They like to say looks aren’t everything, but when it comes to user interfaces a fresh, new look can go a long way.

Google recently previewed and then rolled out its new AdWords interface around the globe and most critics agree the new, cleaner look is a much-needed improvement to the company’s flagship advertising product.

Given that AdWords provides Google its main source of revenue – which totaled $37.9 billion in 2011 – it’s no surprise the search giant would want its interface to remain attractive and user-friendly for ad buyers. It may sound like just a number, but it helps paint the picture of how many people rely on and use AdWords every day.

As it is arguably the most formidable Web ad tool on the Internet, it pays to look sharp and work well. In an effort to improve how AdWords works, Google techs have added a “campaign types” function that allows advertisers to work with a customized interface based on the campaign type. A search network campaign, for example, can be customized Standard, All Features or Product Listing Ads that will help streamline ad management.

The upshot is that it frees up the screen of irrelevant data and display options that will not help the user given the selected campaign type. Combined with the lighter colors and layout that includes a new graph function it is expected to make spending time with AdWords easier and – hopefully – even enjoyable. Some have complained about the color scheme of the graph, but overall it is seen as a useful addition to the design.

Google calls the new additions a part of a more “revved up” contextual engine that will allow advertisers to more easily tweak campaigns down to the keyword level. Another feature, for example, gives users a chance to visualize the reach of a campaign by combining multiple targeting types like keywords, topics and placements.

The more modern look has been a long time coming, although it’s important to note that nothing has been removed from the “old” design. The new functional additions do not change or replace the display options and user ability from the former AdWords interface.

It’s hard to say why Google chose the redesign at this time given advertisers’ unabated and growing interest in marketing through the search engine. The truth is that AdWords could exist with no redesign at all and people would still use it for lack of a more powerful advertising alternative – but it would appear that a lot of people are appreciative of the change.

There could be several possible reasons why your ads aren’t showing in Google.

1. Campaign/Ad Group Paused – It’s fundamental but just make sure your account, campaign, and ad group settings are set to the Active setting.
2. Billing Information Issue – Review your account billing information such as credit card number, expiration date and address to confirm it is correct.
3. Daily Budget Not Set – Check your campaign daily budgets to make sure it is set above $0. Your ads will not run if you have no dedicated daily budgets.
4. Keyword Bids Exceed Daily Budget – Your keyword bids may be too high for your daily budget. To fix this, just lower bids and/or increase your daily budget.
5. Low Search Volume – Google will note low volume keywords within the “Keywords” tab in the interface. If your find that your keywords have a low search volume, use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find related keywords with higher search volume.
6. Disapproved Ads – When you sign up for email alerts, Google will send you an email if any ad text is disapproved. Login to your AdWords account and click on the Campaign Management tab to find if your ads have been disapproved. Then click on Disapproved Ads under the Analyze Your Ad Performance section. By using this tool you can learn why your ad was disapproved and receive suggestions for improving your ad text.
7. Disapproved Keywords – Google AdWords does not permit advertising products and websites related to firearms, drugs, cigarettes, pornography, hard alcohol, fireworks, and more.
8. Negative Keywords – Review your negative keyword list. Make sure that you have not added negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level that make your keywords irrelevant.
9. Position Preference Is Preventing Ad Serving – If your keyword bids are not set correctly, the position preference tool can stop serving your ads. Bids that are too high or too low for the selected position can cause your ads not to be served.
10. Patience -Google ad text and keyword approvals can take up to five days. If it has been more than five days, contact a Google rep to see if your keywords and ads have been approved.
11. Quality Scores – If your landing page has an inferior quality score, it will undoubtedly do terrible when compared to other advertisers. Make sure that your URL structure and content fit the keywords that you are advertising for.
12. Rinse and Repeat – Now that you know what to look for make sure that you apply these steps to ALL your paid search campaigns whether it is on Adwords, Adcenter or Facebook PPC. The core principles are applicable to most if not all pay-per-click platform.

 

Photo courtesy of Fox Broadcasting Company.

The Content Network is different from Google’s search so it’s important to know how it works and how to use it to optimize your AdWords for the best results.

First, understand that the network is driven by keywords. AdWords reviews every keyword in an ad group and makes a keyword theme that can be matched to websites within the network that have similar content.

There are two reasons to optimize AdWords for the Content Network. If you’re having success on Google’s Content Network the action can help strengthen your campaign.  If you’re not having success on the content network, you might want to optimize in order to get better results.

When you request a content optimization from your AdWords Rep, it will start a new campaign and create new ad groups within that campaign. Every keyword in your account can be regrouped into these new ad groups. The new content bids can be set for the ad groups, new ads can be written for each group and current content efforts and bids can be paused while a new content optimized campaign is uploaded and launched.

To make your optimization better, remember to revise or completely re-write your ad texts, make sure your destination URLs are correct and adjust your bids accordingly.

There were several changes in PPC in 2010 that have had big impacts. For example, Twitter started reaching out to companies who want to advertise on their social media platform via through promoted tweets. A company or advertising agency can pay on a cost per impression model to have their Tweets appear at the top of the Twitter search page. The Tweet can stay in this top spot as long as it is considered relevant and interesting by Twitter.

The way Facebook handles advertising changed in 2010. Now we can give advertising dollars directly to Facebook through the use of Facebook Ads. You still only pay when you receive clicks and you can serve image ads to people who you know are interested in your topic of choice.

If you have an eCommerce company the new ad extensions in Google can help you reach more customers. Product extensions and Product Listing Ads allow you to link your Google Merchant Center data feed, and show images, prices, and product names along with, or in addition to ads. Sitelink extensions allow you to show up to ten links along with your ads.

One of the biggest changes in PPC was the Yahoo and Bing merger. Since the merger on October 27, 2010, all Yahoo paid traffic has been delivered through Bing’s interface. Of course, with all the change that 2010 brought, we also have several expectations for PPC in 2011.

One expectation is mobile marketing. With the continued expansion of mobile search volume and mobile device and tablet sales, it will be important to develop a strategy to both leverage and measure the value of mobile searchers, as their capabilities, behavioral patterns, and lead generation paths, become more divergent from those of traditional computer-based search.

This is also the year social media marketing will be included more in small businesses’ online marketing strategies. Watch for social network mobile advertising to improve and for your Facebook keywords to rise in price. If you want to take part in exciting changes in 2011, this is the time you should resolve to get your PPC account in the best possible shape. Start by looking at what you are already doing and then set a reasonable goal that should be achieved by next year. Or you might want to have quarterly goals that build up to the overall annual goal.

Write your goals down.

Here are several other resolutions for your PPC account in 2011:

•Tighten Up Broad Match Keywords -Tighten up broad match keywords by adding modified broad match keywords to your account. Broad match keywords will trigger an ad if the search query contains even just a part of the keyword. Modified broad match keywords trigger ads only if all marked keywords are contained in the ad.  To mark a keyword, put a + in front of it.

•Cut Out the Junk – Detox your account by weeding out any keywords or ads that are not helping. Utilize Analytics and use data to back your decision. If the keyword has not brought you any leads in a significant amount of time, then get rid of it. If your account is not lead based, look at things like time on site, bounce rate, click through rate and quality score to make your decision.

•Exercise Judgment – Account maintenance is crucial to the ongoing health of a pay per click account. Run ad performance reports to determine which ads are not performing. Do bid changes in order to maximize spend and leads. Download the search terms that triggered your keywords in order to determine any negatives that you might need to add and find additional keywords that might be beneficial to the account.

What are your goals for 2011? Share them with us here.

If you are looking for more pay-per-click (PPC) traffic, the Google and Bing Content Networks can be great places to start. However, if not properly managed, the content networks can leave you spending a lot of money without giving you the results you want.

You can exclude domains and subdomains from your network in both Google and Bing. Use at least a 30-day date range when reviewing your performance. You may wish to use a 60 or 90-day range depending on your account.

To review and exclude sites from the content network in Google, go to the Networks tab and select show details next to Automatic Placements. From here you can see the sites Google places your ads on based on keywords in your ad groups. Then you can sort the data to find the sites that are converting at a high cost per conversion rate or that are spending without converting.

When you find these sites and want to exclude them, click on the box to the left of the website and select the Exclude Placements button. Confirm if you want to exclude the Campaign or Ad Group level, hit OK and you will see a red Excluded box with the site listed. When you scroll down to the bottom of the Networks page and expand the exclusions section you can see all the exclusions on the account.

In Bing, go to the reports tab and select an Ad Delivery Report from the reports listed on the left. You can review the domains and subdomains in a spreadsheet if you export the data.

When you are ready to add exclusions into your Bing account, click on the Administration tab at the top. In the Account General Information box on the left, there is a section called Blocked Domains. Click on edit and you will be able to add your excluded sites. You only get 500 exclusions, so make sure the sites you exclude are really not performing to your standards.

Adding exclusions into your Google and Bing accounts can help control your overall spend, cost per click and cost per conversion, so it’s important that you regularly review and update your exclusions list.

The Content Network can increase leads but it also has the potential for a user to end up spending money quickly on irrelevant clicks.

Bing has added a few tools and reports to help advertisers along the way. One thing they’ve addressed is the amount of control advertisers have when deciding where ads will be displayed. Advertisers in the United States or Canada will be able to choose from: All Bing and Yahoo! search networks and syndicated search partners; only Bing and Yahoo! search syndicated partners; or only Bing and Yahoo! sites.

To update settings for your existing campaigns, set the distribution on the ad group level in Bing. This is different from Google where you set the distribution on the campaign level. Click on the campaign then ad group that you want to modify using the interface. Then under the Settings link you will be able to edit your ad distribution selection.

Bing has also created two new reports that will help advertisers manage their accounts. When logged into your account in the interface, under the reports tab you can choose Website Placement Performance and Publisher Performance.

The Website Placement report is similar to Google’s old Placement Performance report. You are given Campaign and Ad Group names along with the metrics for each URL where your ads were shown. Once you have run the report, go into the interface, and add website exclusions to help keep your ads from popping up on irrelevant sites.

The Publisher Performance report is also similar to the Placement Performance report in Google, because it also shows you the sites where your ads appear. This report also gives you data for both Search and Content ad groups.

In Google, it’s a good idea to stay organized by keeping your search and content campaigns separate. By doing this, you will have a better idea of the actual results of each campaign or ad group, and be able to optimize more efficiently.

Remember, you know your account better than anyone else. Listen to advice from your AdWord representative but always do what you think will work best for you.

There are four main things to know if you’re interested in lowering your advertising costs on Google AdWords.

First, everyone wants to pay as little as they can for a click but be careful not to set up your first cost-per-click (CPC) too low. By overpaying at the beginning or starting with a high bid, you can expect a high position among other advertisers and that will let you get a better click-through-rate (CTR) as your ad is in a much more noticeable position. Once you have a good CTR and a good Quality Score you can start lowering your bids until you reach your desired CPC.

Another mistake is having too many keywords in a single ad group. This can lead to a poor Quality Score because you cannot create an ad that would be congruent with each and every keyword. Try creating ad groups with only one keyword.

Using AdWord’s broad match or phase match can mean chances are good that people who aren’t searching an exact match won’t click on your ad and this will lower your CTR. Using the exact match instead can help your ad be displayed only when someone is searching exactly for your keyword.

One final mistake to avoid is not having your ads match your keywords. An ad matching a keyword is important to the success of your ad. Using your keyword in the ad copy can help improve the efficiency of your ads.

Are you aware of other common mistakes that people make in their Google Adwords Campaign? If you do, please share them in the comments below.

You are well-funded, you got out of stealth mode and now you are officially “live”. Your startup website is getting more traffic each passing week and your marketing folks decide to launch a PPC campaign to augment your customer acquisition strategy. You have a live PPC campaign, now what?

Do you have an account plan for the month? If you don’t, here’s how to get one started.

First, pick a good time to run reports every month. Running the reports in a consistent manner will help you have enough data to analyze. Run a keyword report for the month and then export it.

After you’ve done the exporting, create the same keyword report for the previous month. Copy the data for the second month into the same Excel file as the first month’s data. Put the keyword and the match type in one cell by adding a column after ‘Match Type’. Combine the keyword and match type by typing Concatenate=(Cell1, Cell2).

Keywords aren’t in the same order on both sheets so to save time and energy a VLookup may be completed. To do this, add a column after the item you wish to compare on the first sheet and type in =VLOOKUP(). Click the newly combined cell, add a comma after the cell number and then highlight all the columns from the combined cells that you are looking up. Add another comma and count the columns from the reference cell to the column you are looking up. Use this number, another comma and the word ‘false’. Do this for every column you want to pull from the month.

To find the difference between months, subtract the past month from the current month. In order to check each number, hold down control (command if you are using a Mac) and highlight each difference column. Click conditional formatting from the format drop-down menu. Change the second drop down to ‘less than’ and put a 0 in the last query. Click format; patterns at the top; and select a color. Hit okay and any cells that show a negative difference will be highlighted. You can see any negative changes that have occurred over time using this view.

Create a whole new file to check seasonal trends such as the difference between December 2009 and December 2010 (holiday trends) or compare the month against the best performing month year to date. Run these checks every month so you can use your account data to make the best decisions when it comes to improving your account.

Sparkplug Digital has deep experience in working with local startups and local tech companies. If you have a PPC question please email us or post it in the comment section below.

Marketers can reach large numbers of customers through Pay Per Click or PPC marketing.

The most effective Pay Per Click companies want to make sure their customer’s money is spent well. A search query report in Google AdWords gives companies the data they need to make more money.

Search query reports are capable of finding negative keyword research that may be causing loss revenue for a small business or non-profit marketing campaign. These queries can increase the business owner’s average CPA as well as lower their CRT, which will ultimately affect their overall quality scores.

Once this report is done, the strange queries can be added as negative keywords for any PPC campaign, helping to make sure money is well spent. Since negative keywords can be created at any time, it’s a good idea to run this report at least once a month.

A search query report can also help find the keywords that will help business. Once they are found, these new and refined keywords can be added to a new or an existing adgroup. Businesses may wish that each keyword added to an adgroup from a search query report be placed on exact match so the search that provided the conversion can be found.

Do you have a report that you can’t live without? Let us know below.