Google Adwords Mastery » Tips http://googleadwordsmastery.com Gaining competitive advantage through Google Adwords Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:33:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 5 Simple Ways to Improve Your AdWords Performance http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/xjm_-fVIhl8/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/xjm_-fVIhl8/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords.html#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander international launches of the Ad Innovations site, we want to take a minute to call out a few simple things you can do to quickly improve the performance of your AdWords ads. Give the tips below a try and see how our Ad Innovations can improve your performance.
  1. Enable Ad Sitelinks

    2. Ad Sitelinks allow you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to specific, relevant content deeper within your site. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to four additional destination URLs for users to choose from. On average, advertisers see a 30% increase in clickthrough rate (CTR) for the same ads with Ad Sitelinks.
  2. Optimize your ad text for longer headlines

    3. We recently made a change to top ads that allows you to display more information where it’s most likely to be noticed--in the headline. By taking information from the first description line and moving it to the headline, we found that we’re able to create a better user experience and improve advertiser performance. In fact, ads with longer headlines receive a 6% average increase in CTR compared to the same ads with a standard headline and description. To increase the chances that your ad will appear with the longer headline, make sure that description line 1 is a complete phrase or sentence and ends in punctuation (e.g., a period or question mark).
    Before: After:
  3. Link a Google Places account to a campaign to show location extensions

    4. Location extensions allow you to extend your AdWords campaigns by dynamically attaching your business address to your ads. In addition to the description lines and URL that appear in your ad text, your ad can also display your business name, address, and phone number. This helps promote your business brand, products, and services and associates your business with a specific location of interest to the user.

    By linking a Google Places account to your AdWords ads, you can quickly and easily make sure all your location information is available when it’s most relevant.
  4. Get reviewed to show Seller Rating Extensions

    5. Seller rating extensions make it easier for potential customers to identify highly-rated merchants when they're searching on Google.com by attaching your merchant star rating from Google Product Search to your AdWords ads. These star ratings, aggregated from review sites all around the web, allow people to find merchants that are highly recommended by online shoppers like them. On average, ads with Seller Ratings get a 17% higher CTR than the same ads without ratings.

    If your online store is rated in Google Product Search, you have four or more stars, and you have at least thirty reviews, you'll automatically get seller ratings with your ads. If you have high customer satisfaction, then make sure we know about it:
    • Regularly ask your users for reviews (e.g., in confirmation emails after purchases)
    • Make it easy for users to review you--include links to your site's page on the third-party review sites used by Seller Rating Extensions.
  5. Link a Merchant Center account to a campaign to show product extensions

    6. Product extensions are a way for you to enrich your existing AdWords ads with more relevant and specific information about your retail merchandise. Product extensions allow you to use your existing Google Merchant Center account to highlight your products directly in your search ads.

    With product extensions, you're charged the same cost-per-click (CPC) whether a user clicks on your main text ad or any of the offers within the product extensions plusbox.

Of course, you can always learn about the many additional AdWords innovations by visiting the Ad Innovations website and subscribing for the latest updates.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2011/04/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords-performance/feed/ 0 5 Simple Ways to Improve Your AdWords Performance http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/xjm_-fVIhl8/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/xjm_-fVIhl8/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords.html#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander international launches of the Ad Innovations site, we want to take a minute to call out a few simple things you can do to quickly improve the performance of your AdWords ads. Give the tips below a try and see how our Ad Innovations can improve your performance.
  1. Enable Ad Sitelinks

    2. Ad Sitelinks allow you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to specific, relevant content deeper within your site. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to four additional destination URLs for users to choose from. On average, advertisers see a 30% increase in clickthrough rate (CTR) for the same ads with Ad Sitelinks.
  2. Optimize your ad text for longer headlines

    3. We recently made a change to top ads that allows you to display more information where it’s most likely to be noticed--in the headline. By taking information from the first description line and moving it to the headline, we found that we’re able to create a better user experience and improve advertiser performance. In fact, ads with longer headlines receive a 6% average increase in CTR compared to the same ads with a standard headline and description. To increase the chances that your ad will appear with the longer headline, make sure that description line 1 is a complete phrase or sentence and ends in punctuation (e.g., a period or question mark).
    Before: After:
  3. Link a Google Places account to a campaign to show location extensions

    4. Location extensions allow you to extend your AdWords campaigns by dynamically attaching your business address to your ads. In addition to the description lines and URL that appear in your ad text, your ad can also display your business name, address, and phone number. This helps promote your business brand, products, and services and associates your business with a specific location of interest to the user.

    By linking a Google Places account to your AdWords ads, you can quickly and easily make sure all your location information is available when it’s most relevant.
  4. Get reviewed to show Seller Rating Extensions

    5. Seller rating extensions make it easier for potential customers to identify highly-rated merchants when they're searching on Google.com by attaching your merchant star rating from Google Product Search to your AdWords ads. These star ratings, aggregated from review sites all around the web, allow people to find merchants that are highly recommended by online shoppers like them. On average, ads with Seller Ratings get a 17% higher CTR than the same ads without ratings.

    If your online store is rated in Google Product Search, you have four or more stars, and you have at least thirty reviews, you'll automatically get seller ratings with your ads. If you have high customer satisfaction, then make sure we know about it:
    • Regularly ask your users for reviews (e.g., in confirmation emails after purchases)
    • Make it easy for users to review you--include links to your site's page on the third-party review sites used by Seller Rating Extensions.
  5. Link a Merchant Center account to a campaign to show product extensions

    6. Product extensions are a way for you to enrich your existing AdWords ads with more relevant and specific information about your retail merchandise. Product extensions allow you to use your existing Google Merchant Center account to highlight your products directly in your search ads.

    With product extensions, you're charged the same cost-per-click (CPC) whether a user clicks on your main text ad or any of the offers within the product extensions plusbox.

Of course, you can always learn about the many additional AdWords innovations by visiting the Ad Innovations website and subscribing for the latest updates.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2011/04/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords-performance-2/feed/ 0 Join other AdWords users as they share their tips on the Help Forum http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/7z1bcyv6dkA/join-other-adwords-users-as-they-share.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/7z1bcyv6dkA/join-other-adwords-users-as-they-share.html#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:53:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander
Are you a part of the Google AdWords Help Forum community yet? If not, you’re missing out! It’s a great place to get help and advice from AdWords experts, Top Contributors, and Google employees.

Recently, we held a "Share Your Best Practices Week" from March 28, 2011, to April 1, 2011, to encourage users to exchange AdWords tips and learnings that have worked well for them. Over five days, we chose five different topics on which we gathered expert knowledge from our users:
  • Tips and best practices on optimizing AdWords ad text
  • Tips on how to build an effective keyword list
  • How to deal with keywords that are "rarely shown due to low quality score"
  • Display ad optimization tips
  • Best practices for choosing managed placements

We were excited to see the level of enthusiasm from around the world. A good number of AdWords experts provided great contributions, and some spent a considerable amount of time sharing their tips via detailed posts!

We’ve selected the best of the best practices, and we're proud to share the results with all of you.

So hearty congratulations to Calin, Dave, Katie, Kim, and Shweta for their excellent contributions and knowledge of AdWords! Here are some excerpts from what they shared:
  • “If the keyword is really important, a special landing page gets built. Importance = potential for good ROI, and a high search volume.” (Calin)
  • “Use AdWords and keyword data in Google Analytics to 'weighted sort' your keywords to find the top performing keywords.” (Dave)
  • “I always find I get the highest CTR when the ad text is highly focused on the keywords in question.” (Katie)
  • “If you identify a site that has major potential, evaluate the site of interest and you may find yourself creating image ads specific to certain placements.” (Kim)
  • "Set up Conversion Tracking before you set the campaign live.” (Shweta)

Does this make you compelled to learn more about ad text optimization, keyword lists, keyword statuses, the Display Network, and managed placements? If the answer is yes, your time would be well spent on the AdWords Help Forum!

By the way, we're planning another event for May 2011, so if you want a chance to showcase your AdWords expertise, stay tuned!

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2011/04/join-other-adwords-users-as-they-share-their-tips-on-the-help-forum/feed/ 0 Introducing the AdWords Small Business Corner, a new forum discussion category for SMBs http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/_cTrqHRgqC8/introducing-adwords-small-business.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/_cTrqHRgqC8/introducing-adwords-small-business.html#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:00:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander
We’ve heard from many of you that you’d like to be able to easily share tips for developing a successful AdWords strategy with others like you. To help you do that, we’ve created a new category in the AdWords Help Forum: the Small Business Corner. The Small Business Corner is designed to give those of you who are running your own AdWords accounts the opportunity to share best practices in discussions with your peers so that you can make sure your AdWords account is doing all it can to support your business goals.

This new category is not about troubleshooting specific account issues, but rather about sharing and learning from the experiences of others. To give you a preview of the kinds of topics that we hope to discuss, here are a few conversation starters that we had in mind:
  • Choosing the right tools to measure results
  • How to write great ads
  • Finding the right frequency to sign in to AdWords
Of course, this category is about your interests and needs, so we hope you’ll suggest the small business-related topics that you’d like to cover. For any other topics, please consider the other existing forum categories available to you.

Getting started
To join the conversation now, just visit the Small Business Corner. If you’re new to the AdWords Help Forum, you may want to create a Google Profile (while signed in to your AdWords account), introducing yourself and your business before jumping in. In the meantime, you can check out the introductory discussion thread here.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2010/08/introducing-the-adwords-small-business-corner-a-new-forum-discussion-category-for-smbs/feed/ 0 New tool for brand advertisers on the Google Content Network http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/obN82PHnVDI/new-tool-for-brand-advertisers-on.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/obN82PHnVDI/new-tool-for-brand-advertisers-on.html#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 23:17:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander frequency capping to help you manage how often your Content Network campaigns reach the right people. We then launched an “above the fold” filter to allow you to show ads only in places that appear on potential customers’ screens when the page loads. We also developed innovative tools to measure the impact of brand campaigns.

Today, in response to feedback from many of you who run branding campaigns, we're announcing a new filter that allows you to show your ads only on AdSense sites among the 1000 largest on the web, as defined by DoubleClick Ad Planner. This new feature will ensure that your ads reach a large number of users, but only on well-known sites best suited for branding goals.

To activate the new filter, select ‘non Ad Planner 1000’ within the ‘category filters’ section of your AdWords account. Keep in mind that not all sites in the Ad Planner 1000 are in the Google Content Network and that your ads will only show on those sites that are.

It's important to note that the Ad Planner 1000 does not take performance statistics into account, and that by enabling this filter, you may be excluding many sites that are relevant to your advertised products. Additionally, with this or any of our other brand filters enabled, your campaign will run on fewer sites, so you may need to raise your bids if you’d like to maintain your impression levels. We recommend experimenting to determine which feature or combination of features best meets your goals.

We hope this new feature gives you greater control and assurance over where your ads appear and makes the Google Content Network an even more powerful environment for effective branding campaigns.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2010/05/new-tool-for-brand-advertisers-on-the-google-content-network/feed/ 0 New best practices to find more customers on the Google Content Network http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/CPFPGj7k_Hc/new-best-practices-to-find-more.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/CPFPGj7k_Hc/new-best-practices-to-find-more.html#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:10:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander previous post in the Content Network Optimization University series covered the basics of setting up and launching a good campaign on the Content Network.

Today, we'll cover more advanced optimization strategies. We've compiled these by observing best practices from the most successful advertisers on the network. Whether you're new to the Content Network or have been using it for a while, you can get better results from your campaigns by employing some of these strategies.

Build effective campaigns

Taking time up front to set up your campaign correctly goes a long way in getting higher quality traffic to your site. Let’s recap the top strategies:
  • Separate Search and Content Network campaigns: Setting up a separate campaign just for the Content Network will give you more control over daily budgets, ad groups, keywords and bids. Watch this demo on campaign setup.
  • Create many, tightly themed ad groups: AdWords can target your ads more precisely if you build multiple ad groups, each with a small tightly-themed set of 5 to 20 keywords. Watch this demo on ad group setup and this demo on keyword selection.
  • Copy your best performing text ads from Search campaigns: For initial setup, it's best to use the text ads with the highest click-through rates from your search campaigns. Watch this demo on ad text best practices.
  • Setup the same starting CPC bid as your Search campaigns: We recommend starting with the same maximum CPC bid as your Search campaign ad groups. Once AdWords has collected enough data, our smart pricing technology will automatically optimize your bids on the Content Network to give you more profitable clicks. Watch this demo on bidding tactics.
  • Set up AdWords Conversion Tracking on your website: Install Conversion Tracking on your website to measure the sales and leads (conversions) you get from each ad group and placement. Watch this demo to learn how conversion tracking works on the Content Network.
Optimize for better results

It's important to monitor your campaign’s performance and consistently optimize individual elements. Before making significant changes (e.g. changing bids, excluding high volume sites, pausing ad groups), wait until enough click or conversion data has accrued. We recommend having at least 5 conversions or 100 clicks per site.
  • Exclude poor-performing sites: Get more qualified traffic and boost conversions by excluding sites that perform poorly for your campaign, based on the number of clicks, the average CPC and the number of conversions.
  • Focus your keywords and exclude less relevant keywords: Add more keywords that describe your product and ad group theme in greater detail. Also, add negative keywords to refine your targeting and prevent impressions on irrelevant sites. Watch this demo on refining your campaigns.
  • Adjust your bids to manage your costs: Change your bids for ad groups or individual sites based on conversion rate, average CPC and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) to meet your performance goals. You should bid higher for better performing sites to get more traffic, and lower for poorly performing sites.
  • Use Conversion Optimizer to manage your CPA: Google Conversion Optimizer is a free tool that automatically manages bids at the site level to reach a maximum CPA bid, which is the amount you're willing to pay for a conversion (such as a purchase or sign-up). Watch this video on how to use Conversion Optimizer.
Expand your campaign for more traffic

To get additional traffic and boost sales from your campaign, we recommend creating a keyword expansion strategy for the Content Network.
  • Use the Wonder Wheel tool for ad group ideas: You can use Wonder Wheel on Google Search to brainstorm new ad group themes and keyword ideas. When you search for any topic on Google.com, Wonder Wheel will generate up to eight related topics for you to consider.
  • Create new ad groups to reach additional parts of the network: Each topic in Wonder Wheel represents a possible ad group theme for your campaign. Simply click on any of the topics to see other searches and themes related to it. Any closely related topics that are less relevant to your product are great candidates for your negative keyword list. Watch this demo to learn how to use this strategy.
  • Expand your keyword list to get more traffic: Once you have finalized your ad group themes, use the AdWords Keyword Tool to get keyword ideas. Enter ad group theme descriptions or keywords under the 'Descriptive words or phrases' tab. Select the 5 to 10 most frequently searched keywords and save them to your ad group This will help to ensure that your list stays highly relevant to your ad group theme.
You can find all the latest videos and updates on our YouTube channel. We hope these tips help you get even better results from your Content network campaigns!

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2010/03/new-best-practices-to-find-more-customers-on-the-google-content-network/feed/ 0 Go Mobile! Series: A case study in optimizing mobile campaigns http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/EwB4uYmVvBY/go-mobile-series-case-study-in.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/EwB4uYmVvBY/go-mobile-series-case-study-in.html#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:19:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander More and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices. Take advantage of this trend by making sure that your ad campaigns are opted in to show on mobile devices with full internet browsers. If you’d like to take things to the next level, create separate mobile-focused campaigns so that you can optimize your keywords, ad text and landing pages for people using mobile devices.

To help you understand what mobile optimization looks like, we thought we'd share the approach that Razorfish, a global digital advertising agency, took for one of their retail clients:
  • The Razorfish team started by duplicating the existing desktop campaigns and switching the settings to target mobile devices with full internet browsers.
  • Since their client had a well-known brand name, they focused on branded keyword terms with enough traffic to help them learn quickly about what was working best for their campaigns.
  • To measure performance, they tracked several conversion metrics including whether a mobile user looked up the brick and mortar store location or downloaded a coupon from the website. Right away, they saw a 7.5% lower cost per conversion on mobile devices, encouraging them to test ways to optimize their mobile campaigns.
  • Razorfish tested whether variations in the campaign’s landing page would affect conversion rates. The team hypothesized that mobile users might be looking to take a specific action, and by starting the user’s experience closer to that action, the client would see better results. As it turned out, for this client, they saw much higher conversion rates when the user was directed to a landing page that showed nearby store locations.
  • Finally, they tested variations in the ad text. Four versions of ad text were tested, including the original copy used in desktop campaigns. Each of the three new versions provided over 9.3% lift in conversion rate over the strongest performing copy in their desktop campaigns.
We hope you can learn from Razorfish's success and apply some of these strategies to your own mobile campaigns.

To learn more about the approach Razorfish took to optimize their client’s mobile ad campaigns, or read about other case studies, check out our Mobile Ads Success Stories.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2010/03/go-mobile-series-a-case-study-in-optimizing-mobile-campaigns/feed/ 0 Search Based Keyword Tool: 1 Minute Guide http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/ssyBC_eHnZ4/as-end-of-year-approaches-you-may-be.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/ssyBC_eHnZ4/as-end-of-year-approaches-you-may-be.html#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:09:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander
Millions of people use Google each day to find products and services by searching on various keywords. This means that by including all keywords that are relevant to your product or service in your campaigns, you can ensure you can ensure that you will reach a greater set of potential customers. To help you do this, you can use the Search-based Keyword Tool to quickly identify relevant keywords which aren't yet included in your AdWords campaigns.



Our 1 minute guide will show you how the tool works, as well as how it's already helped one AdWords advertiser to increase sales.

Watch the video today, and you'll be ready to start using the Search-based Keyword Tool right away.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2009/12/search-based-keyword-tool-1-minute-guide/feed/ 0 AdWords & Analytics Sessions at SES Chicago http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/_RycAIFeVkI/adwords-analytics-sessions-at-ses.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/_RycAIFeVkI/adwords-analytics-sessions-at-ses.html#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:43:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander Next week on December 7th and 8th, you can catch presentations by the Google AdWords team at SES Chicago. We'll be offering practical tips on how to quickly improve your search and display ads performance in the following sessions:
Finally, if you want to learn more about AdWords optimization tools, you can also watch a video walkthrough of the improvements we've made to AdWords this year. Ariel Bardin, the lead Product Manager for the AdWords web interface, will take you through the major new features and give you tips on managing your campaigns more efficiently.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2009/12/adwords-analytics-sessions-at-ses-chicago/feed/ 0 Getting started guide for the Google Content Network http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/u2vYb2JYWUs/getting-started-guide-for-google.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ATHs/~3/u2vYb2JYWUs/getting-started-guide-for-google.html#comments Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:07:00 +0000 Geoff Alexander Getting Started Guide to help you hit the ground running. You can think of it as a do-it-yourself instruction manual for how to best structure, optimize, and track your Content Network campaigns.

Not sure how to create an effective content campaign? You can refer to the campaign, ad group, and ad sections to find tips for optimal account structure.

Not sure what's working well? You can use the optimization section to determine which of your ads are performing well and which you should edit or delete. You can also take further control of your campaigns by learning how to select where your ads are shown and how to exclude certain sites and keywords.

Not sure how much to bid? Use the guide to learn more about how bidding works on the Content Network. You can also get tips to refine your bids and improve your performance.

Don't forget to check out our Content Network microsite for even more information on Content Network campaigns, including details on available ad formats and a list of some of the websites we partner with to show your ads.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew
]]> http://googleadwordsmastery.com/index.php/2009/10/getting-started-guide-for-the-google-content-network/feed/ 0