- Original Poster
- #1
A lot of people have been in touch with me recently, asking me for help with their Adwords campaigns. There's no doubt that PPC is a tough nut to crack, even more so when you consider that Google aren't exactly proactive at helping you save money. It's so easy to burn through an initial budget in hours if you don't know what you're doing.
I've put together a few tips in this thread for businesses with relatively small budgets who might be struggling to get an agency to take on their accounts. In truth you don't need an agency - outsourcing PPC can be a great idea if you haven't got the time yourself, but you must consider that with a small budget, any agency is going to struggle to make a profit unless they're pushing you to spend more and more each month.
Tip 1: Try BingAds
It's relatively simple to export an existing Adwords campaign to BingAds, and although the volume of clicks is lower, the traffic converts just as well and the clicks are generally cheaper.
Tip 2: Change your campaign settings
You can get an Adwords campaign up and running in minutes, but if you don't go into your campaign settings and change all the Google default settings you are going to waste a lot of money.
- you will be serving ads to mobiles by default. If you do not have a mobile-optimised version of your website then you do not want to be bidding on mobile devices. Reduce mobile bids to zero immediately.
- your location settings might need adjusting, e.g. if you want to target the UK but don't deliver to the Isle of Wight.
- do you want to appear for searches in every language, or just English?
- do you really want to be serving ads to people who have just returned from the pub at 1am on a Friday?
Tip 3: Start small and grow
Don't listen to anyone who says you need hundreds of thousands of long-tail keywords for a successful Adwords campaign. I've averaged a 100% ROI over the past 8 years, spending nearly 2 million quid on Adwords, and my largest campaign had probably 300 keywords in it. Some have 10. You need to keep it manageable.
Tip 4: Negative keywords are your friend
Unless you are bidding on exact match keywords (and even then, by default Google will include 'close variants' in exact match searches - WTF?!), you are going to want a negative keyword list that is longer than your normal keyword list.
Tip 5: Don't use broad match
Google will try to second guess searches, so broad match is a dangerous strategy. They include synonyms and close variants which may be nothing to do with what you're selling, so it's going to waste money. Use modified broad match, phrase or exact. A combination of the 3 types is best, with an exhaustive negative keyword list based on your own common sense and on the stats you generate.
*Edited by Moderator*
Hope this helps, I would welcome any comments/questions below,
Mike
I've put together a few tips in this thread for businesses with relatively small budgets who might be struggling to get an agency to take on their accounts. In truth you don't need an agency - outsourcing PPC can be a great idea if you haven't got the time yourself, but you must consider that with a small budget, any agency is going to struggle to make a profit unless they're pushing you to spend more and more each month.
Tip 1: Try BingAds
It's relatively simple to export an existing Adwords campaign to BingAds, and although the volume of clicks is lower, the traffic converts just as well and the clicks are generally cheaper.
Tip 2: Change your campaign settings
You can get an Adwords campaign up and running in minutes, but if you don't go into your campaign settings and change all the Google default settings you are going to waste a lot of money.
- you will be serving ads to mobiles by default. If you do not have a mobile-optimised version of your website then you do not want to be bidding on mobile devices. Reduce mobile bids to zero immediately.
- your location settings might need adjusting, e.g. if you want to target the UK but don't deliver to the Isle of Wight.
- do you want to appear for searches in every language, or just English?
- do you really want to be serving ads to people who have just returned from the pub at 1am on a Friday?
Tip 3: Start small and grow
Don't listen to anyone who says you need hundreds of thousands of long-tail keywords for a successful Adwords campaign. I've averaged a 100% ROI over the past 8 years, spending nearly 2 million quid on Adwords, and my largest campaign had probably 300 keywords in it. Some have 10. You need to keep it manageable.
Tip 4: Negative keywords are your friend
Unless you are bidding on exact match keywords (and even then, by default Google will include 'close variants' in exact match searches - WTF?!), you are going to want a negative keyword list that is longer than your normal keyword list.
Tip 5: Don't use broad match
Google will try to second guess searches, so broad match is a dangerous strategy. They include synonyms and close variants which may be nothing to do with what you're selling, so it's going to waste money. Use modified broad match, phrase or exact. A combination of the 3 types is best, with an exhaustive negative keyword list based on your own common sense and on the stats you generate.
*Edited by Moderator*
Hope this helps, I would welcome any comments/questions below,
Mike
Last edited by a moderator:
