The Most Important Element of Your AdWords Campaign is...

[GuyFromChicago]

Over the years I've interacted with a number of people and companies in regards to their AdWords campaigns. It's always amazed me to see the varying degrees of importance different organizations assign to different elements of their campaigns.

In your mind, what is the most important element of an AdWords campaign? I know that's kind of like asking what's the most important part of your car...in reality they are all very important but some elements are critical (brakes) and other not so much so (radio).

[CustardMite]

Tough call between the advert title (which I feel influences QS more directly) and advert text (which impacts the QS through the clickthrough rate).

Went for the title. Damn. I've changed my mind now - make it the advert text...

[flip]

This reminds me of one of those riddles from a Greek play: unsolvable, but it tries to show you some inner truth. Because as I went down the list, for each item I said, "Oh yeah, that's the most important." Next item: "No, it's that one." Next: "No, it's this one instead."

[cianuro]

You can have the best quality score in the world, a million targeted keywords and the best product on the market but if your landing page does not convey trust, authority and relevance, your visitors leave.

My vote is for Landing Page.

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by cianuro

My vote is for Landing Page.

Mine was too. I have a feeling someone accidently voted for dayparting...

[cianuro]

Originally Posted by GuyFromChicago

Mine was too. I have a feeling someone accidently voted for dayparting...

Damn. It's been one of those days.

How on earth could day parting be?

Thanks for pointing that out.

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by cianuro

How on earth could day parting be?

I'll let you know between 1:00 and 4:00 Tuesday through Friday

[cianuro]

Originally Posted by GuyFromChicago

I'll let you know between 1:00 and 4:00 Tuesday through Friday

And I'll be converting the international consumers. ;P

[CustardMite]

Originally Posted by cianuro

You can have the best quality score in the world, a million targeted keywords and the best product on the market but if your landing page does not convey trust, authority and relevance, your visitors leave.

Agree absolutely with everything you say...

On the other hand, get your title wrong, or your advert text, and you can immediately halve your clickthrough rate and Quality Score - this leads to your sweet spot being much lower, and can halve (at least) the amount of traffic that you get. So your conversion rate needs to be a lot higher to offset that.

Perhaps if you are representing a retail website, the landing page is more important, but for a subscription service or a lead-generation site, I'd probably stick with the advert text (until I change my mind - the keyword list is quite important too)...

[danielb]

I don't know whether it's the most important, but I think the most under-rated element is the campaign architecture (a fancy way of saying the way your ads/keywords/groups are organised).

Well organised = easy to track & measure, allows you to relate ads more closely to their keywords, allows you to separate content vs search clicks quickly
Badly organised = shoot & hope!

[porkiey]

If you cant convert sales after you get the clicks what was the point in the click? I would far prefer 20% of visitors to convert after i have paid for their visit rather than CTR of 20%.

Landing page by far

[kmb40]

Well for me, conversion rate is the most important element but based on the choices in the poll, I'd say Keyword selection. If your homework is not done there, then little else will matter.

[virusrulez]

generally i think it is the keywords and landing page

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by kmb40

Well for me, conversion rate is the most important element

The conversion rate isn't an element of a campaign, it's a result or outcome. You can't set a conversion rate.

[TerryB]

in a word:

Relevancy ...

right thru the process ...

Terry

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by TerryB

in a word:

Relevancy ...

right thru the process ...

Terry

Where's the relevancy setting in AdWords?

[CustardMite]

If they're allowed conversion rate and relevancy, can I have 'profit'?

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by CustardMite

If they're allowed conversion rate and relevancy, can I have 'profit'?

I was going to add that as a choice

[Sarto23]

Well there a lot of good answers over here but they are all related to 1 element that is the most important i think...Data analysist. You can't improve what you can't see so i think the most important part of an Adwords campaign is the way you analyze and collect your stats to improve the other parts of your campaign.

JMHO
Julien

[Spartan_Strategy]

Has anyone utilized any type of additional software/services to A B variant testing on ads and landing pages. Meaning to test say 100 combinations over a week?