When I get emails from marketers using Adwords to
promote their business, a large number of them complain and gripe that  it’s not working out nearly the
way that they had hoped…  Dismal click through rates
(CTR), barely workable click costs, and no matter what
they do, they can’t “figure out” the Adwords system (yes it’s a big mystery, kinda like the ones in the Scooby Doo cartoons :0).

Adwords does have a steep learning cure but it is a phenomenal way to get laser-targeted
traffic to your site…
And that’s pretty rough when it’s your own time and money
on the line!

 Adwords can be down to the following seven step
checklist.  Although it’s not intended to be a cure-all for
every Adwords problem, these seven steps are the first ones that you can
take to make serious headway on your account ( and increase that laser-targeted traffic)!

Step 1:  Are you split-testing both your Adwords ads and your
sales letter or landing page?

This is the biggest, most crucial mistake , fatal error whatever you want to call it of them all!  When I say
“split-testing” does your blood curl, or do horrific memories of
high school algebra class flash into your head?  It doesn’t
have to be that way, I promise!

Testing is, in essence, very simple.  By “simple” I mean that all
you want to do is figure out whether ad “A” is better than
ad “B”.  The definition of “better” being more clicks or
sales.  See, told you it was very easy!

When you begin split-testing, make sure that every adgroup
in every campaign has two (yes two, don’t be lazy) ads in it.  Depending on the size
of your account, this could take a while, but trust me, it’s
well worth it.

After a while (not that long), each ad will have a different number of
clicks and a different Click Through Rate.

Now, go to http://www.splittester.com.  It is a free tool so it won’t cost you anything! Plug in
your CTR and number of clicks, and it will run a statistical
test telling you how confident you can be in the results (meaning it’s a good ad).
(In advertising, we usually use the 95% confidence level.)

After you’ve determined which ad is better, you’ve got your
“control” ad (that is your new benchmark).  Now, write a new ad, and attempt to beat your
control.

Ok, for the more advance topic of split-testing your sales page or landing page, there are
tons of available scripts, both free and paid.  In some
cases, your shopping cart system or ad tracker will have
this feature built in.

When this process is repeated on both your Adwords ads and
your sales pages or landing pages and you’ll quickly notice
an enormous cumulative effect.

2) Are you using all the potential keywords in your market,
not just the obvious ones?

Don’t be content to only use the 10 to 20 major keywords and phrases.
If you don’t have at least 500 to 1,000 keywords (I know it seems like a lot but believe me it’s worth it),
you’releaving highly targeted traffic on the table!
For example, I have a campaign that has 2,015 keywords –
all to sell an ebook on how to get rid of bronchitis (and that is just for one e-book)!  I
highly recommend you do your keyword research with
http://www.keywordtopia.com, my personal favorite.

Keyword phrases that are two to five words long are called
“long tail” keywords .  Individually, each one may only
account for a few clicks a month, but together represent a
massive amount of traffic.

(In next month’s article I’ll reveal a super-slick way to
spy on your competitors and find out exactly what keywords
they’re already using on Adwords!)

3) Do you use the three match types and negative keywords?

Do you know what brackets and quotation marks have to do
with Adwords?  Many advertisers( you too) lose targeted clicks by
only using what is called “broad match”.

If you’re not tripling your keyword list by using phrase
match (putting the keyword in quotes) and exact match
(putting the keyword in brackets) you’re losing out on
traffic that is much more targeted and relevant than just
using broad match!

In fact, some savvy advertisers delete their broad match
keywords and solely use phrase and exact match to increase
their ROI (remember laser-targeted traffic).

Negative keywords are words and phrases used to prevent your
ad from showing on unrelated or untargeted searches (less chance of people clicking through).

Say, for example, you’re selling Condos in Panama and
one of your keyword phrases is “Panama”.  You’ll save
yourself tons (and I mean tons) on your Adwords bill by using negative
keywords like, -surfing, -travel, and -tourism.

This will prevent your ad from showing if someone searches
for “Panama Surfing” or “Panama Travel”, and that’s
good because those searchers probably aren’t interested in
what you have to offer.

4) Are your keywords and adgroups organized
correctly?

If you only a couple of adgroups per campaign, stuffed
with hundreds (or thousands) of keywords you are seriously
hampering your results!

Relevance on Adwords  is key.  And since it’s impossible to
write ads that are targeted and specific for hundreds of
different keywords, you need to “break out” keywords into
their own adgroups.  For high traffic keywords, this could
mean one keyword, with the three different match types, per
adgroup.  For lower traffic keywords, have no more than 15
to 21 keywords per adgroup.

After you “break out” the keywords into new adgroups, write
more focused ads, using the keywords as much as possible in
the ads.  Your CTRs will raise across the board.

5) Are you using the content network effectively?

A common fallacies that you hear is that you should only
have the “search network” turned on and the “content
network” turned off (missing the boat here!).  It’s true that the traffic from the
content network in some markets doesn’t convert into sales
as well, but that’s not always the case.  I have several clients
where the content network converts better than search (imagine that!).  How
will you know?  You won’t, until you test!  Adjust your bids
for the content network up or down until it reaches your
desired cost to make a sale or get a lead, but to get those
numbers you’ll need to read the next step…

6) Do you have conversion tracking turned on?

Not all keywords are created equal!  Some keywords convert
into sales at 3 to 9 times as often as others.  Setting up
“conversion tracking” inside your account will tell you
exactly which keyword is responsible for a sale.  If you
don’t have either conversion tracking, Google Analytics or
some third-party tool in place, you’ll never know.  Pareto’s
principle, or the 80/20 rule, applies to Adwords as well.  A
small portion of your keywords are bringing in most of your
sales.  Wouldn’t you like to know which keywords to nurture
and grow (i.e. throw more money at it), and which ones to delete?

7)  Do you adjust your bids by keyword?

Again, not all keywords are created equal!  Every keyword
will convert into a sale or lead at a different rate.
Adjust your keyword bids up or down until you hit an average
cost per sale that works for your business.  You’ll find
that some keywords won’t work, even if you get the click for
only 1 cent!  Delete ‘em, and move on (yes, its ok to let go of losers!).  Continue to monitor
and adjust the keywords that are left.

I hope this article has turned you on to some quick and
dirty ways to get the most out of your Adwords efforts in 30 days or less!  Day
by day, work on your account and apply these steps, and
you’ll soon see real progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 4:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.