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The 10 Most Serious AdWords Beginners’ Mistakes

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I just received this email from Perry Marshall.  I trust what he says and who he endorses.  I had written a similar AdWords mistakes article three years ago before reading this one. This is excellent information though that Marshall has borrowed from a partner of his who wrote the book AdWords for Dummies.  Without further adieu:

*10 Serious AdWords Beginners Mistakes*

1. Neglecting to Split-Test Your Ads. I’ve gotta say one of the coolest discoveries of my whole life was, in my first week of playing with AdWords 5+ years ago, noticing that “create new ad” link and seeing that I could create a 2nd and 3rd and 4th ad and try different text. Running them simultaneously, then seeing how teeny tiny changes made huge differences. I still get jazzed about this. It’s like practicing psychology without a license.

2. Letting Google Retire Your Ads Without Testing: In Campaign Settings, when you turn “Optimize Ad Serving” OFF, you declare a winner and a loser much faster. Turn that option off if you’re checking in every day.

3. Split Testing for Improved CTR Only: At first, Click Thru Rate is the only thing you can measure. You want it high so you get the most traffic. But eventually what REALLY matters is conversion rate and cost per new customer. Sometimes high CTR ads don’t bring buyers. Conversion is what matters most.

4. Ignoring the Display URL Line in your Ad: If you own http://www.redwagon.com, you should try http://www.RedWagon.com, and http://www.RedWagon.com/RadioFlyer, or http://www.RadioFlyer.RedWagon.com, or RedWagonStore.com. Tiny hinges swing big doors.

5. Creating Ad Groups with Unrelated Keywords: Do not write an ad and dump every keyword under the sun into the ad group. Make tight ad groups based on a narrow set of related keywords matched closely to the ads and the landing page.

6. Muddying Search and Content Results: If you run all three streams of traffic (Google / Search / Content Network) through the same ad group, you lose the ability to distinguish among the very different kinds of traffic. I prefer to separate Google & Search from Content, in different campaigns.

7. Ignoring the 80/20 Principle: The 80/20 Rule says that the vast majority of outputs (impressions, clicks, leads, sales) are caused by a very small minority of inputs (ad groups, ads and keywords.) Spend your time on the vital few instead of the insignificant many.

8. Declaring Split-Test Winners Too Slowly: If you can declare a winner twice as fast, your site improves twice as fast. I recommend combing through your ads as often as you can announce a winner. If you go to http://www.splittester.com you can enter the # of clicks and the CTR of any two ads and it’ll tell you whether the better one is really better, or if it might just be luck.

9. Declaring Split-Test Winners to Quickly: If one ad got 1% and 5 clicks, and the other got 2% and 8 clicks, that’s not enough clicks to know for sure the winner is a sure thing. Again, let http://www.splittester.com decide their fate. Rule of thumb: 20+ clicks on each ad.

10. Ignoring negative keywords: Just about ANY ad group should probably have some negative keywords. It should always be on your checklist. It increases your Click Thru Rate because your ads don’t get shown to people who shouldn’t see them. Less waste.

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Posted in Ad Networks, Google.

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By Neil L. – July 7, 2010

Control Yahoo! Search Marketing through MSN adCenter

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I just got this letter from Yahoo! Search Marketing.  Apparently, they have struck a “Search Alliance” with Bing. Now you will be able to control your YSM accounts through MSN adCenter.

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Dear Advertiser,

As part of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, you’ll soon be able to reach potential customers using Yahoo! Search, Bing, and other partner sites with the convenience of one account. To do so, you’ll transition from using your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to an account with Microsoft Advertising adCenter.

This email kicks off a series filled with tips and advice designed to help you prepare for this transition. We strongly recommend that you follow the provided guidance to help make your transition experience smooth and to get your ads live within adCenter as quickly as possible.

Make some changes now
You can start editing your Yahoo! ad copy now so it will be ready to meet adCenter’s length guidelines.

• Shorten ad titles and descriptions — While Yahoo! has a 40 character title limit, ad titles in adCenter may be no more than 25 characters. In addition, Yahoo! ad descriptions may be up to 71 characters, versus 70 characters with adCenter. To prevent your ads from being truncated in a way that may cause them to read improperly, or be ineligible for display, please revise your ad text now. Doing so now also gives you plenty of time to test ad copy variations within the new character limits.

Prepare now for changes to apply later
There are important differences in keyword mapping and bid requirements that you should prepare for now to be able to apply to your adCenter account after the transition.
Learn more about expanding your keyword lists and checking your bids.

Stay informed about the transition. In a few weeks you’ll receive the next email in this series. In the meantime, please visit the following resources:

• Transition Center — The Yahoo! Transition Center includes articles and downloadable materials designed to help Yahoo! advertisers learn more about their transition to adCenter.
• YSM Blog — The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog will make regular posts about the transition.

Until the transition is complete, please remember that you’ll still want to continue to manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to maximize your Yahoo! network traffic. Our goal is to provide a quality transition experience for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada in 2010 while protecting the all-important holiday season. If we feel that it would improve the overall experience, we may defer the transition to 2011. If this should happen, we will keep you updated. We appreciate your business and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the search alliance.

Sincerely,
Your Partners at Yahoo!

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Posted in Search Marketing.

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By Neil L. – July 1, 2010

AdWords Success Seminars in Austin March 8th-9th, 2010

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Today I received this email from the Google AdWords team. AdWords seminars and workshops are great for new advertisers.  Austin is a great city and if you live close and are interested in learning AdWords.

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seminars_for_success

Dear AdWords Advertiser,

Would you like hands-on, in-person training on how to make the most of your AdWords campaigns? If so, we invite you to attend the upcoming AdWords Seminars for Success in Austin at the Wyndham Garden Hotel. Each seminar is led by an independent and unbiased search marketing professional – an AdWords advertiser with years of experience who can show you how to choose targeted keywords, organize your account, and write effective ads. Continued…

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By Neil L. – February 4, 2010

32 Useful AdWords Tips for Intermediate to Experienced Users for 2007

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adwords-tips-light

I wrote this back in May 2007.  A lot has changed since then, but some of the principles still remain.  This became the most highly read thread on SEOChat’s AdWords forum with 16k views and eventually added as a sticky. There were also almost 50 comments.  The original forum post can be found here.
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This is by no means a definitive list. Here are just some straight forward tips that I have learned over the years from experience with pay-per-click, AdWords in particular, as well techniques I have learned from gurus’ books and newsletters.

I am not merely repeating a combined list. These are in my words, and in no particular order. I believe in all of these and am currently using or have used these techniques in the past for multiple client accounts.

Some of these might require more explanation, which you are welcome to ask for here.
Each are split into categories that should help for reference.

Improving CTR & Conversions

1.) Use the core/parent adgroup keyword three times in the ad text and display URL.

2.) Bid on all three match types for every keyword/keyphrase: broad, phrase, and exact.
(This will get you more clicks for your money).

3.) Bid higher on terms that have been converting well.

4.) If continual ad performance improvement is one of your goals, on campaign settings, change Ad Serving to “Rotate: Show ads more evenly” from the default “Optimize: Show better performing ads more often. Then A/B split test your ads. Continued…

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Posted in Adwords.

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By Neil L. – February 2, 2010

7 Common AdWords Mistakes & Solutions

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roiGoogle AdWords is the greatest direct response advertising medium ever created. This fact has been recognized by more than one national business magazine, newspaper, and marketing guru. Some business owners have Google AdWords to thank for their entire existence and growth, while others have replaced their traditional advertising budget at a fraction of the cost to advertise on search engines with better results. Since 2001 these classifieds-style, “Sponsored Links” seen above and alongside organic search listings have created millionaires, they have also lost advertisers millions. With a low barrier-to-entry, many business owners  and marketing managers have tried their hand at Google’s pay-per-click system. Some have soared, while others have hopelessly wasted big bucks without knowing why. Having looked at dozens of accounts over the years and managed over a million dollars in clicks, I’ve seen the costly mistakes often made. Below are six of the most common with solutions.

1. Always Bidding to Be Number One -  Ego bidding can cause expensive click wars. Always trying to be #1 over your competitors on one specific keyword just to be #1 wastes time and money unless you know your keywords’ true value or cost-per-conversion. For high volume, competitive, high cost clicks, make sure you know your keywords’ cost-per-conversion.

Solution: Generally, positions 3 – 10 have higher conversion rates because they receive less impulsive and irrelevant clicks. In recent years relevancy has been playing a larger role (Quality Score), and being #1 is not solely dependent on maximum bid. Calculate how much a customer or lead is worth to you and don’t spend more than that per lead (excluding the first month of testing or so). Swallow your pride, mind your ROI, and let your competitors waste their time and money on bidding wars. The one exception being when the keyword is the name of your company. Get five more common AdWords Mistakes & their Fixes. Continued…

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By Neil L. – January 8, 2010

Five AdWords Webinars for Oct. & Nov. 2009

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Google has now decided to give live webinars for AdWords basics. This makes sense, they can reach more people than live AdWords seminars.

Users should have the choice of medium in which he or she would like to learn. Some are visual learners others are more auditory. By Google offering several choices, their advertisers can learn more.

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Learn what you need to succeed with AdWords Basics webinars

Hello,

This fall, learn how to improve your advertising performance by attending the new AdWords Basics webinars, free of charge. Led by an AdWords specialist, each live, online seminar will include a presentation plus live Q&A. Whether you want to learn how to get more sales at a lower cost, add display images to your ads, or better set-up your campaigns, there is a webinar for you. Sign up and get the dates. Continued…

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Posted in Google, Training.

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By Neil L. – October 22, 2009

Does Yahoo! Owe You Money?

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court-gavel-yahoo-sued

Today I received an email from the “Claims Administrator” for a class action law suit against Yahoo! Search Marketing. It was addressed to:

ALL PERSONS THAT PURCHASED, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, YAHOO! PAY-PER-CLICK TEXT ADVERTISING IN THE U.S. MARKETPLACE

It then asked me to read the letter in its entirety in case I may receive some type of settlement. Now I never sued Yahoo!, but it looks like some major companies did. I’m guessing for some type of click fraud activity. Over the years, I’ve received small checks from large class action law suits against CD retailers and even PayPal, not because I complained, but because I was apart of the customer base at large. Here is the letter in its entirety.

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I. Why Did I Get This Notice?

You received this Notice to inform you of a proposed class action settlement (the “Settlement”) that may affect you. The Settlement was entered into by the parties in an action entitled In re Yahoo! Litigation, Case No. CV-06-2737 CAS (C.D. Cal.) (the “Action”). The purpose of this Notice is to inform you that a class has been certified in the Action and to inform you of the terms of the Settlement. You may have received this Notice because you were identified as a present or former pay-per-click advertising customer of Yahoo! Inc., Overture Services, Inc., or GoTo.com, Inc. (collectively “Yahoo!”). This Notice explains your legal rights, and how and by when you need to act. Continued…
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Posted in Search Marketing, Yahoo!.

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By Neil L. – October 14, 2009

How to Adjust First Page Bid Estimates Quickly

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bid-management-tips-adwords

You may have noticed over the last year or so, the Google AdWords interface saying by specific keywords your are “Below first page bid estimate.” It will then tell you the predicted maximum cost-per-click bid in order to appear on the first page. As you may know, being on the second page greatly reduces your overall impressions and clicks. If you have several highly competitive keywords not appearing on the first page, you may have a skewed view of the traffic and search volume for some of the most highly-sought after keywords in your industry. If you manage a large account, it can be time consuming to click into every adgroup in order to see the keywords which are “Below first page bid estimate.”

Fortunately, using the AdWords Editor, you can find all keywords which fall under this category in one swoop. You can also quickly adjust your bids to appear on the first page. If you are sure most of your keywords are not not overly expensive, you can make this adjustment on a macro scale. Simply click on the keywords tab, making sure you are on the whole account, then choose “Advanced bid changes.” The third choice from the top says “Raise keyword maximum CPC bids to their first page estimates.”

Craig Danuloff over at ClickEquations.com covers more in-depth how to run adjust First Page Bid Estimates quickly using the provided report.

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Posted in Bid Management, Google.

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By Neil L. – October 12, 2009

How to Add Account-Wide Negative Keywords to AdWords

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google-adwords-negative-keywords

Negative Keywords are keywords you do not want your ad to show for when in combination with other phrases which may or may not be relevant. They are highly important to your campaign’s success. Without them you may be showing your ads for irrelevant queries, spending money on irrelevant clicks, and dealing with a lower click-through rate than you deserve. When working with large or highly stratified accounts, adding negative keywords on the adgroup level can be tedious. Using the AdWords Editor, there is a way to quickly add account-wide negative keywords.
I’ve done this many times and it always increase click-through rates as well as conversions. Some common negative keywords you typically always want to add if you are selling products or services are: free, pro-bono, pictures, photos, and history of. Depending on your industry you could have 100s more negative keywords which are often associated with your true keywords, but are not associated with someone in the buying mode. Or by adding one of these words, it could completely change the meaning of the product or service. If you need help finding your negative keywords here is a quick guide I wrote a while back with some excellent examples on SEOChat — Building Your Negative Keyword List – Three Progressive Strategies.

I’ll get back to the subject at hand. Hiren, over at over SEOAddicted.com does a through job of explaining how to add account-wide negative keywords.

I will let him take it from here, since he has already taken the time to explain. Read How to quickly add Account wide Negative Keywords here.

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Posted in Keywords.

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By Neil L. – October 11, 2009

PPC Summit Coming to Chicago Nov. 4th-5th

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ppc-summit-adwords-conference

Find out how the experts run campaigns on Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture), Microsoft adCenter (MSN), and all the smaller Pay Per Click Engines! PPC Summits are designed as How To workshops that teach you how to better manage your PPC campaigns. The focus is solidly on advertiser education: how to spend less money, more effectively, with better results. What will you learn? Continued…

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Posted in Conferences.

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By Neil L. – October 5, 2009