Tag Archives: Search Ads

Budget Adwords wisely by using Google Analytics

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Use Google Analytics to optimize your Adwords Pay-Per-Click spending by monitoring your conversion rate, bounce rate, and ROI.

First, link your Adwords to Analytics. Tip, do it from your login account (same admin on both), not a My-Client-Account MCC. Make sure your “cost data” is applied to the correct adwords account number.

Once your accounts are linked, apply conversion tracking/goals. Do this even if you don’t have e-commerce. A goal could be a sign-up, contact request, newsletter request, purchase, key page view, etc.

Now, login to Analytics and analyze you data! Find your adwords data by going to Traffic Sources –> Adwords.

  • Check the bounce rate. Ideally, a lower percentage is better…especially because you are paying for these keywords. Bounce rate is a visit with only one page view on your site, then they “bounce off” aka leaves your site. If the bounce rate is high, the landing page may be wrong.
  • Check average time on site. Usually longer time is better. You may want to improve the look of landing pages with low time on site because it may mean that the searcher immediately doesn’t like what they see. Or maybe they can’t easily navigate around your site.
  • Find out what time of day you are getting highest amount of conversions. This can help enable “Day parting” if you would like to lower your budget (or increase impressions for times when people are more likely to buy.

Expand on keywords with high conversion rates. Bid aggressively on keywords that are giving you a good return-on-investment (ROI). Ditch the keywords that aren’t converting!

Please contact Bevelwise if you need someone to manage or straighten out all of this data!

AdWord’s Low Share of Voice Status

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Google AdWords has a new keyword “status” message called “Low Share of Voice.” We are getting to the bottom of what this means and how it impacts our clients’ campaigns.

If you hover your curser over this status message, it explains that “Low Share of Voice” indicates that you are missing out on opportunities (impressions). This is most likely because of budget constraints.

Here is what an AdWords rep said: “..Long story short, I have been looking into this since I first saw this thread a couple of hours ago – and am trying to get to the bottom of things. At this point, though, I am sorry to say that I don’t have any definitive information.

However, a tech contact with whom I have been working had an interesting comment that I’ll pass along. He has been able to check the accounts of a few folks who have written us, and he is seeing no drop in traffic as has been reported here. His thought is that those in this thread who have reported such a drop may have been looking at their stats mid-day, rather than for a complete day – thus the apparent drop in stats. And, looking at the time stamps of these posts, I think that is a real possibility.

In any case, my colleague Stephen who has posted here in the past as ‘AdWordsPro Stephen’ (and whom Sarah and I are actively be trying to lure back into the forum) will continue to look into this, and update the thread when he has a clearer picture of what’s up.

In the meantime, my apology for the confusion and discomfort. Not fun, I know.”

We are wondering if AdWords is having a bug or if it is a bigger scheme than that. Most of the business owners that we work with have a specific/strict online advertising budget. Is the only way to get rid of this message to dramatically increase your budget? Sometimes this is not possible. Should we just ignore this message? Until we get more info, we are thinking we should.

What are your thoughts on Google’s “Low Share of Voice” status?

Improve Adwords Pay-per-Click (PPC) Quality Score to Lower your Cost-per-Click

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It can be very confusing to understand a keyword’s quality score. How does Google concoct my score? What’s a good quality score to receive? Why bother improving quality scores?

Bevelwise complied a bunch of information from the AdWords blog and help center to help clear this up.

Quality Score ensures that Google only shows relevant ads to its users. Searchers want to find the information they are looking for quickly and easily and Quality Score helps Google show more relevant ads. To make sure that your potential customers see your ad, you need to pay attention to Quality Score. It also influences your ads’ position, and it partially determines your keyword’s minimum bids, which can help reduce your budgets.

Quality Score is used in several different ways, including influencing your keywords’ actual cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and estimating the first page bids that you see in your account. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the better your ad position.

Quality Scores 1-10

  • 1-4: The keyword isn’t very relevant to users, and as a result may have a very high first page bid. This means that the keyword is not performing very well for your website, or even for your competitors sites. Try experimenting with variations of this keyword by using plural/singulars or grammatical tweaks. If you’d like to keep advertising with this keyword, you can optimize instead. To do this, try lowering the first page bid, writing a more targeted, relevant ad, or improving your landing page content.
  • 5-7: This keyword is performing well, and there isn’t a need to worry too much. On a grading scale, our AdWords Specialist at Google, said “a 6 or 7 is equivalent to an A-.” It may have a mid-range first page bid, and the keyword may not be very costly. Optimization can lower your overall costs, draw more clicks to your ads, and result in a better return on your investment (ROI). If you want to further optimize, try using more targeted ad text and keywords or improving your landing page content.
  • 8-10: The keyword is extremely relevant and may have a high click through rate (CTR), relevant ad text, and a unique, relevant landing page. The first page bid for this keyword may be low. This keyword is very relevant and effective for your ad campaign. Our AdWords Specialist at Google, said that it is very rare to get this high of a quality score from Google.

Quality Score Formula:

  • The historical click-through rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google
  • Landing page quality
  • The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
  • The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
  • Relevance of ad text (especially the title)
  • Historical account performance (CTR)

How Quality Score Impacts Your PPC Campaign:

  • Cost-Per-Click – A keyword’s Quality Score influences its CPC – that is, how much you’re charged for a click on your ad when it’s triggered by that keyword. The higher a keyword’s Quality Score, the lower its CPC, and vice versa.
  • First Page CPC Bid Estimates – On your Keyword Analysis page, you’ll see a metric labeled ‘Estimated bid to show on the first page.’ This metric, also called the ‘first page bid estimate,’ approximates the cost-per-click (CPC) bid needed for your ad to reach the first page of Google search results when the search query exactly matches your keyword. The estimate is based on the Quality Score and current advertiser competition for that keyword. Ad placement will still be dependent on Quality Score, your cost-per-click (CPC) bid, your budget and account settings, and user and advertiser behavior.
  • Eligibility to Show Up when Searched for – Every time one of your keywords matches a search query, our system evaluates its combined Quality Score and cost-per-click (CPC) bid to see if it’s eligible to enter the ad auction. Keywords with a higher Quality Score will be eligible to enter the auction more easily and at a lower cost. Our goal is to encourage relevant ads for our users, so our pricing system is designed to favor more specifically targeted ads and keywords.
  • Ad Position – Ads are positioned on search and content pages based on their Ad Rank. The ad with the highest Ad Rank appears in the first position, and so on down the page.

Monitoring Your Quality Score

Search advertising is a dynamic, evolving marketplace, and the Quality Score of your keywords can fluctuate. Google continually monitors the performance of all ads, keywords, and landing pages to reward high quality ads and encourage advertisers to improve low quality ads. The best way to maintain a high-quality, cost-effective campaign is to frequently optimize your account to help ensure your ads have a high Quality Score.

Improving a Keyword’s Quality Score

Optimization is the best way to increase your keyword’s performance (Quality Score, CTR, conversion rate) without raising costs. If your Quality Score is very low (below a 5), you may be using keywords, ads, or landing pages that aren’t as targeted or relevant as they could be. This can mean higher cost-per-clicks and a potentially poor ROI. Remember: The higher the Quality Score, the lower the price you’ll pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) focuses on keywords and relevance of pages to popular keywords. Looking at quality score, if your landing page isn’t viewed by Google as relevant to the search query, you can work improving landing page content, meta tags, image tags, etc to make the page more relevant and possibly improve your Quality Score.

While a high quality score may seem like the most important part of your PPC campaign, the conversion rate is a best indicator. A high CTR or Quality Score doesn’t necessarily mean a high ROI or that people are buying your product or service. The conversion rate tells if your keyword is driving sales, sign-ups, or whatever else your company is trying to achieve.

For more information please contact us or read our whitepaper.

 

References

http://adwords.google.com/support/
http://adwords.blogspot.com/

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

Advertising of the future is interactive and location sensitive

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Dockers has an interactive ad which displays while an iPhone game (or possibly other apps) is loading. The ad, called “Shake down to Get Down”, asks the person to shake the phone in order to make the person on the screen dance. The screen focuses on the dancers shoes which of course are Dockers.

This serves as an increasing trend for organizations wanting people to interact with and be entertained by their brand. One of the first examples I can think of this new type of advertising is Burger King’s subservient chicken which launched in 2004. What makes the Dockers ad unique is how it is embedded as a part of another application and it is mobile.

The ad was built specifically for the iPhone which offer much more functionality than TV, paper, radio or websites. One of the more exciting features of using a mobile platform is location based ads.

Imagine this scenario: you are shopping in a store and you scan/take a picture of a bar code to lookup the price of the item on amazon.com to see if the price you are looking at in the store really is a good deal (available now with the iPhone and Google’s Adroid phones). Soon there after, you might receive a text message informing you that the store down the road has the same item for 10% less then prompts you for turn-by-turn directions on how to get to that store. I would expect to see this scenario take place very soon.

Other new opportunities are available with location and motion based ads such as…

    • A electronics company could display a new rebate enticing users to scan a barcode at a nearby store, then give you directions to that store.
    • A cruise line could offer deals for users in Miami and New Orleans due to proximity to their ships.
    • A soda company may create an interactive bottle of pop that is motion sensitive. The user can shake up the bottle and it splashes all over the screen.
    • A car rental company can determine that a user is outside their typical geography and serve an ad for extra insurance or a CPA ad for a discounted rate.

This is just the beginning as newer technologies become available that we carry around in our pockets. I can think of the new summer baseball movie may offer discounted ticket if you can swing your phone faster than 45 MPH (measured by an accelerometer like what is currently in the iPhone). Then after you try, show the next available show times of the movie for the 5 closest theaters near you.

Mobile is the advertising platform of the future as the viewers are more engaged. It is easy to walk out of a room or skip over a TV commercial with a DVR. Most people skip the first 15 pages of a magazine. Mobile offers tracking for easy ROI measurements, unlike print. And most importantly mobile users are not usually doing any thing else – their attention is focused solely on the device. It is coming soon and it will come fast.

via ReadWriteWeb

Microsoft Says Most Small Businesses With Web Sites Don’t Buy Search Ads

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The search advertising market still has most of the way to grow among small businesses, results from a Microsoft-sponsored online survey suggest.

59% of responding small businesses with Web sites still don’t buy search advertising — usually because they worry it will be too expensive or not “the best use of their marketing budgets.”

Reading between the lines, it’s obvious that Microsoft is trying to suggest that search advertising leader Google does a poor job marketing itself and making customers comfortable with its products.

Of course, Microsoft sponsored the survey and presumably only released numbers it thinks will help them sell more search ads, so you have to take them with a grain of salt. Still, they’re interesting:

  • 59% of small businesses with Web sites don’t currently use any paid search marketing
  • Of those, 90% have never even attempted it.
  • 70% of small business owners say they would rather do their own taxes than start a search marketing campaign
  • 86% small business owners felt that they could be missing opportunities to grow their business.
  • 75% believed prospective customers could be searching online for the type of service their business offers.
  • 89 % feared keywords may become too expensive.
  • 81% questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
  • 25% of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
  • 21% thought it would be too time consuming.
  • 25% felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.