Basic Principles of Adwords Success

[intelligentppc]

As a PPC consultant it sometimes doesn't make sense to manage the account of a small business due to the low spending level.

I appreciate that as a small business owner you want to run your own PPC campaigns using the Google tutorials and free advice that is available. But please be careful - Google want you to spend money to satisfy their shareholders and they will try to push you into spending money that just won't convert into sales well enough for you.

I've used Adwords to earn a full-time income (with part-time hours) for nearly 10 years now. Here are the principles upon which my Adwords success are based:

1) Focus on conversion from click to lead/sale

Any marketer can generate traffic to their website. Not many can generate the right type of traffic. The right type of traffic is traffic which converts into sales or leads for your business. As a general rule you should be looking to achieve a 2% click to sale conversion with an eCommerce site, or a 10% click to application rate with a service/lead-based website. Mobile is a different kettle of fish - I have seen conversion rates upwards of 40% click to lead on properly mobile-optimised websites.

2) Don't focus on CTR (click-through-rate)

CTR is important but should not be your main focus. Increase your CTR by being uber-relevant, having and using a unique selling point that separates you from your competition, increase your ad's presence using extensions, bid high initially.

3) Landing page optimisation

If your landing page is not optimised for conversion you may as well mail Google a big wad of cash in an envelope because you are going to fail at PPC. Use these tactics to succeed: a solid call-to-action above the fold, remove distractions like complicated navigation, create a consistent customer journey from ad to checkout/thank you page, use social proof like testimonials, use images which draw the eye but don't slow the site down, hold the customer's hand and guide them to the goal as if they were a 5 year old child.

4) Optimum Adwords Campaign Settings

- Search Network Only unless you want to throw away money on banners that don't convert. I don't include remarketing in this though - that can work really well if done correctly.

- Clearly define your location settings. If you don't deliver to the Isle of Man, don't show your ads there.

- Switch off mobile ads until you have a site that is optimised for mobile. For new campaigns your ads will show on mobiles by default, so you have to change this.

- Use ad extensions for extra calls to action/marketing spiel


5) Keywords & Ads

- Create small targeted ad groups with no more than 5 keywords in each (Google advises up to 20)

- When doing keyword research, put yourself in the shoes of a customer who may not understand those acronyms you are so familiar with

- Use modified broad match for the best mix of targeting + volume

- Your negative keyword list should be longer than your keyword list and should be constantly updated

- Clearly define your USP in your Ad text, and use the display URL to repeat the keyword you're bidding on for relevance.

6) Employ an intelligent bidding strategy

- Where your goal is an application or lead, start off with your max CPC as 10% of the value per application to you.

- Alter CPCs at keyword level based on your conversion statistics

- Don't delete non-performers initially, lower the bids to see if you can produce positive ROI.

- Think about ad position. 4th/5th is best on desktops as the exposure is high compared to CPC. On mobile if you're not 1st or 2nd you will not get volume.

7) Tracking & Ongoing Management

- Install Adwords conversion tracking code and Google Analytics

- Increase bids on keywords which convert the best

- Constantly add negative keywords



I hope this helps you with your Adwords PPC efforts. There are other avenues to explore if you still can't make Adwords work for your business, so don't get too disheartened!

 

[Ideaswise]

Some good information there, thanks.

 

[Office Cleaning]

Very solid and good advice. Thanks

 

[jrp]

To add to the list.

Always use search network and not combined. Display network gets the lowest conversions.

 

[RealEcon]

Make sure to setup retargeting/remarketing and start building a retarget list, or you are throwing free money away.

As the gurus say: The Money Is In The List

 

[webgeek]

Any more than one keyword phrase per ad group and you're most likely not going to get quality score 10, which means you're not going to get the best price per click possible.

1 ad going to 1 tailored landing page targeting 1 keyword put in 1 ad group = best chance of scoring 10 out of 10.

If you don't have time to do it this way, then consider something like SpeedPPC which does the grunt work for you.

If you have the time, then do it right from the outset, since quality score early on determines what quality score by default you get when you add more campaigns/ad groups/ads/keywords later. It's like benefit of the doubt - if you've had QS 5 or 6 running, don't expect QS 10 to suddenly spring up in your new stuff right off the bat.

 

[intelligentppc]

Happy to help small businesses, as I run one myself!

 

[Office Cleaning]

I would just amplify a few things on the list that I've learnt over the years (10+ odd)

Anytime you speak to a google consultant now it will probably cost you money rather than make savings, so dyor rather than blindly switch on whichever new feature they’ve brought out and suggest you use.

Negative keywords: I am obsessive over negative keywords, why would you not be unless you like giving money to google for nothing? Our negative keyword list is possibly 15 -20k words.

Things I would suggest adding to your negative keywords are;
Questions (unless they are relevant to your service/product) so add things like why/how/when etc, these make up huge volumes of search queries - it’s an interesting philosophical angle on the plight of man continually trying to find answers in an often confusing world but I’m not paying for it.

Add celebrities - there are lists of the most searched celebs online and again unless they are relevant add them, I have no idea what some celeb and cleaning has to offer anyone in the way of interest but people search for this nonsense endlessly (and stuff you simply would be pushed to make up) so add them.

Countries / counties / towns - restricting your geographical areas to where you actually operate seems common sense, but as has oft been pointed out common sense is somewhat an oxymoron. I am constantly surprised by cleaning companies selling their services in France/Spain/Brazil etc when they are based in London. However just restricting your location does not mean google is not prepared to take your hard earned cash by people searching within your areas for somewhere that is not relevant so add the places that are not relevant so you don’t shell out for unnecessary searches.

I have raised the above numerous times with google and they sometimes suggest specific long tail keywords which a) is practically impossible to predict (or even repeat from previous conversions) and b) overtime when I have tried this route we get zero traffic. It may work for others but not us.

Regarding mobile and tablets (which frustratingly you do not have any control over in adwords, bing yes, adwords no) - I would suggest thinking very carefully about using mobile or tablets ads if you are b2b. Most employees sit at desktops all day long doing work, in our case I very much doubt (and the stats seem to bear this out) that they are then going to play on their iPhone or whatever to find a cleaning company, possibly domestic but not commercial. Still this would of course be different for different types of services.

 

[neils3]

This is a really good informative thread. I'm no adwords experts and have tried doing it myself, with little success.

Thanks for sharing, I'll be using this in the future.

 

[intelligentppc]

If anyone wants to learn how to use Adwords to earn a side (or full) income from home, I have a course published on Udemy. Search 'How to Make Money Using Google Adwords'.

 

[Donna77]

As a general rule you should be looking to achieve a 2% click to sale conversion with an eCommerce site.

Hi,
What conversion rate would you expect to get with Google Display Shopping ads? If 2% is expected for overall conversion, including organic and other referral traffic, would you expect a shopping ad campaign to achieve around 10% conversion on clicks as it is so targeted? (i.e. the shopper is aware of the product, description, price and shipping cost before clicking).
I'd be interested to know if I'm achieving the norm.
Thanks

 

[directmarketingadvice]

would you expect a shopping ad campaign to achieve around 10% conversion on clicks as it is so targeted?

It's not particularly targeted as you don't get to choose your keywords.

My usual rule of thumb would be 3 times the conversion rate you'd get from bidding on product keywords (brand names/models).

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

[garyk]

I'm with office cleaning on -ve keywords. In fact it was Steve's (@directmarketingadvice) very good advice many years ago that drastically increased my CTR by purely implementing this technique.

 

[SEO Lady]

I'd like to add to this discussion if I may.

Adwords, Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics should be linked - I have seen many clients come to me and this is not in place, they simply create an Adwords account for the first time with no knowledge. This is essential in my eyes.

Some reasons why Adwords does not provide an ROI include:

• The 4 second marketing rule applies, impress or digress - The landing page is not specifically marketed and optimised for new visitors from Adwords. No call to action, or a wrong call to action e.g. "Read our blog!"
  
• Only broad match keywords are used, when other keyword matching options would be better
  
• Low priced product compared to cost per click
  
• Your ads are running 24 hours a day - is this necessary?
  
• You can’t split test as you don’t have multiple adverts
• You can’t split test as you don’t have mobile – specific adverts
• Are your online sales conversions recording accurate data
• Is there a contact telephone number unique to Google to track telephone converisons
  
• High competition keywords / phrases
• Low search volume
• Irrelevant search terms
• Tracking / ecommerce is not accurate

Anyone want to add to this list?

 

[intelligentppc]

Hi,
What conversion rate would you expect to get with Google Display Shopping ads? If 2% is expected for overall conversion, including organic and other referral traffic, would you expect a shopping ad campaign to achieve around 10% conversion on clicks as it is so targeted? (i.e. the shopper is aware of the product, description, price and shipping cost before clicking).
I'd be interested to know if I'm achieving the norm.
Thanks

In my experience they don't perform much better than text ads. As Steve said it's not really targeted, and although a photo helps, you lose a lot of marketing text space with a Shopping ad - sometimes needed to filter out people who are looking for a specific function that your product may not include.

I'd say you're doing exceptionally well if you're achieving 10%. As always the key is the landing page and the checkout/application process.

 

[Codefixer]

On mobile if you're not 1st or 2nd you will not get volume.

This is very true. Desktop and mobile are two difficult landscapes.

Any more than one keyword phrase per ad group and you're most likely not going to get quality score 10, which means you're not going to get the best price per click possible.

Not sure if this is practical. If you have one keyword per ad group, this could make management of a larger campaign an absolute nightmare. It may also reduce the volumne of traffic.

Quality score is obviously important, but striving for a 7 or a 10 isn't the be all and end all to a profitable campaign.

 

[GoPromotionalUK]

Very interesting post! Thanks for sharing, I'll be using this in the future.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Some reasons why Adwords does not provide an ROI include:

I reckon the main ones are:

• A customer is worth less to you than to your competitors (low profit per sale, failure to make repeat sales)
  
• Weak offer or lack of usp
  
• Weak proof
• Weak copy
• Poor website usability
• Not offering the option of a slow sales funnel - free videos/reports etc (for B2B or for info products).
• Failing to track where sales are coming from
  
• Not culling unprofitable search terms
• Using automated bidding

Steve