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10
Worst Adwords Campaign Management
Mistakes
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On
today's highly competitive Google AdWords
pay-per-click (PPC) search engine, it is now more
important than ever to ensure that your PPC
campaigns are optimized to their utmost
potential. You should be achieving maximum return
on ínvestment (ROI) for the keywords or phrases
that are most relevant to your business and are
most likely to provide you with targeted traffïc
to your website. With ever growing cost-per-click
(CPC) prices throughout the various PPC search
engines it is essential that you avoid certain
mistakes that will undoubtedly result in poorly
performing PPC campaigns.
The Mistakes to Avoid
Long list of less than targeted keywords
Not identifying unique aspects of your product or
service
Lack of keywords in your ad text
Directing users solely to your home page
Creation of single Ad Groups
Utilizing single campaigns
Using broad match only
Failure to optimize Ad Serving for your ads
Not tracking results
Entering the content network without modifying
bids
Long List of Less Than Targeted Keywords
When you first set out to create your AdWords
campaign it is of utmost importance that you do
not go "keyword crazy". What this means
is that you must not create long lists of
irrelevant and generic keywords.
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For example, if you were an automotive dealership
then it would not be in your best interest to
target the keyword "truck". The reason
being is that the cost-per-click (CPC) for such a
generic keyword would be incredibly high when
compared to a more descriptive relevant keyword
such as "T-Z783 Extended Cab". An
example of an irrelevant keyword which would not
produce conversions if you strictly conducted
automotive salës would be "tail light
covers". The phrase may bring visitors to
your website but, if they do not find what they
are looking for when they get there, they will be
gone just as quickly as they arrived.
Not Identifying Unique Aspects of Your
Product or Service
Before implementing your AdWords campaign you
must first understand exactly what it is that
makes you stand out from your competition. By
identifying your unique products or services you
will have a lot more clarity on how to rise above
your competitors and zone in on the keywords or
phrases that are unique to your business. I would
recommend that you perform an analysis of your
competition, have a look and see what they are
doing and which phrases they are using. After
conducting a competition analysis and after
understanding what makes your products or
services unique you will be able to come up with
a strategy that will topple your competitors.
Lack of Keywords in Your Ad Text
When creating your descriptive ad copy it is
imperative that you find a means to inject your
keywords into your title and description while
maintaining the delicate balance of clarity and
relevance. Your ad copy should be tailored in
such a way that when read by a visitor they know
exactly what they are getting into when they
clíck on your ad, which brings me to my next
point.
Directing Users Solely to Your Home Page
Not taking the time to decide which destination
URL should be designated to which ad is an
oversight that I come across far too often. When
you finish compiling your list of relevant
keywords that describe unique products or
services of your business, why on earth would you
then send everyone to your homepage and let them
navigate through your site in hopes of finding
what it is that they are looking for. Instead why
not send them straight to the page that contains
exactly what was described to them within your ad
copy. As an example, if you are an automotive
dealership and your ad contains the keyword
"T-Z783 Extended Cab", instead of
sending them to www.auto-motive-dealership.com
send them to
www.auto-motive-dealership.com/T-Z783_Extended_Cab.html.
Creation of Single Ad Groups
Categorizing ads that are targeting related
keywords into a common ad-group will allow you to
have a much higher level of control over your
entire campaign. Let's say that you run a
sporting goods store, start by grouping all ads
targeted towards hockey skates into a single Ad
Group. You would then create another ad-group
which would be targeting hockey sticks and
another containing hockey gloves and so on.
Organizing your ad-group structure in this manner
gives you the ability to create in-depth reports
on the perförmance of each ad-group.
Utilizing Single Campaigns
Once you have your Ad Groups sorted out into easy
to identify categories you may then move on to
the next step of creating relevant campaigns.
From the example above you have created Ad Groups
containing separate products of hockey skates,
sticks, gloves etc. Now it is time to create a
container for all of the Ad Groups into one
campaign entitled "hockey equipment".
You would then repeat the process creating Ad
Groups for tennis, one group for shoes, one for
racquets etc. and then once again you drop them
all into a single campaign entitled "tennis
equipment". Having highly organized
campaigns is the key to determining which ads are
creating optimal conversions.
Using Broad Match Only
When you do not take advantage of the phrase
matching options that are available to you,
chances are you are missing out on potential
customers and creating a higher CPC. Broad
matches are usually less targeted than exact and
phrase matching. Broad matching is the default
option your ads will appear for expanded matches
such as plurals or relevant keyword variations.
When utilizing phrase match your ad will appear
for search terms in the order that you specify
and sometimes for other terms. Exact matching is
by far the most targeted option to use. You will
appear for the exact keyword specified. Negative
keyword is also a fantastic option to utilize in
order to specify which keywords you do not want
to appear for.
Broad match
Default option: Blue widget
Phrase match
Surround the keyword in quotes: "blue
widget"
Exact match
Surround the keyword in square brackets: [blue
widget]
Negative match
Place a negative character before the keyword:
-blue widget
Failure To Optimize Ad Serving For Your
Ads
When you take advantage of the AdWords Ad Serving
service basically what you will be doing is
showing your most popular ads more often. The
AdWords platform will give weïght to ads with
the highest click-through rates (CTRs) and
display them more often then keywords with lower
(CTRs) within the same ad-group.
Not Tracking Results
In order to have any idea on your AdWords
campaign perförmance you must be able to see the
keywords that work as well as those that do not.
Google AdWords supplies a vast array of very
useful tracking tools. Google has also built into
the user interface Google Analytics which is a
marvellous web analytics tool that provides you
with in-depth reporting on all aspects of your
campaign perförmance. I cannot stress enough the
importance of creating goals for your AdWords
campaign to measure your success by.
Entering The Content Network Without
Modifying Bids
Within the AdWords platform you have recently
been given the ability to set different bids for
the content network compared to that of the
search network. If you do not set different bids
on the content network for certain keywords, you
will be paying more per clíck than you should
be. After lowering the prices on certain keywords
you will notice that the amount of click-throughs
that you will be attaining will remain the same
as they were at the higher bid.
Conclusion
The purpose for this article was to create
awareness for common mistakes and to eliminate
frustrations that may emerge when managing Google
AdWords campaigns. The points mentioned above are
compiled from management mistakes that I have
stumbled upon time and time again in hopes to
assist you in creating a marketing campaign that
will generate dramatic increases to the profïts
of your business.
About The Author
Tyler Huston is the founder and CEO of SearchStrategist.com, a search marketing firm
that provides professional PPC Management, expert
search engine optimization, SEO press release
writing and blog optimization services. Tyler
takes pride in ranking clients from all over the
world at the top of the search engines. He can be
reached at tyler@searchstrategist.com.
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