I thought I would put a tips thread up to see when your Adwords accounts had a "Breakthrough" and what it was you did to achieve it. Also, please let us know how your account changed after you implemented this change. My breakthrough was Dynamic Keyword Insertion. We has about a 1% CTR before and about a 3% after.
Yes that one helped. But also having more targetted adgroups helped for me. Orginally I had 20 adgroups with about 3000 keywords. I had really bad CTR. Now I have closer to 100 adgroups with the same amount of keywords. Now they are more relevant. My CTR does not suck now.
Separating the Content Network and the Google + Search Partners Network with duplicate campaigns really gives a better picture of how your ads are doing. I used the AdWords Editor to do this. Simple copy and pasting of campaigns and adgroups and then turning of the corresponding serving area (make sure you name your campaign with the words Content Only, so you can easily see the difference). This way you can write separate ads for the different audiences, because they are different. Search is direct response. Contextual ads have to interrupt.
Agreed, I also like being able to write an ad that is specific to the product or product family. Helps CTR Tremendously!
Agreed. I dislike the fact that Google automatically turns the content network on. If I want the content network on I will set the campaign up that way. It is so much easier to get a snapshot when they are separated.
Yes, I've often thought about that default Content Network "on" thing. I'd say it runs counter to their "do no evil" motto. There must be millions of Mom-and-Pop advertisers who have no idea they're bleeding $$$ because of that.
I agree with the content network posts, so I'll post something else. The biggest change in my CTR came when I wrote pay per click ads for each keyword. Plural versions of the same keyword even got separate ads. The biggest increase in the number of clicks I got was when I started using phrase match. I was wasting less money so it could be better spent elsewhere. The biggest change in my conversions was when I created landing pages specific to each keywords/ad. Lots of work. Huligan
I have done several pay per click campaigns for clients as well so they range widely. For highs, I have had CTR at 60% and conversion rates at 80%. Of course, I've also had really low values. It really depends on the keyword and industry. Huligan
i am still a AW noob....but i have the impression (no pun intended : the more SPECIFIC, the better ! As google says...people clicking on Ads are buyers...and many people have specific products in mind they're looking for. So...product/model specific ads, maybe brand-specific ads also. Not too general. Thats also what i understand now is Quality Score. People LOOKING for products - people ADVERTIZING products. And send 'em right to the appropriate landing page.
Keep in mind my highs are the exception to the norm. I don't get those often at all. Here's why I think I got those. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=299946 I have had lots of keywords and pay per click ads with a CTR of less than 1% with a conversion rate of 0%. Of course, no one asks me about those. Huligan
How about tracking sales conversions by the keywords level? E.g. If you're promoting clickbank products, you can append a tracking id to your hop link... Like, you made '2 sales' of 'keyword elite' for the keyword - 'how to expand keyword list'... There are applications which does this, just do a search for Xtreme Conversions, and/or something from the rich jerk - xray conversion. But these are pricy... If you're low on budget, you could do this by taking advantage of adwords customized 'destination url' for each keyword. When you add/edit keywords in adwords, have you noticed this comment : " Want more control? Try setting individual CPCs and destination URLs for keywords in this Ad Group. [more info] Example: keyword**0.25**http://www.yoururl.com/xyz " so what you can do here is for each of your keywords, you can modify it to have a custom destination url... Like below(if you're direct linking) "how to expand keyword list"**0.8**http://affid.kemerchantid.hop.clickbank.net/?t=1234 If you made a keyword elite sale, and in clickbank, the sale had a tracking id of 1234, then you know what keyword converted to that sale. Now This is powerful stuff... I have a simple spreadsheet which just does this. Just email me at dennisb_palma@yaho.com if you want it...
In Perry Marshal's Adwords books they recommended to write text ads according to the following template: First line: Keyword Second line: Benefit of your product/service Third line: Your offer. This worked for me in many cases And another very important thing is split testing: you should always have two or more ads rotating in one ad group. From time to time you remove the ad that is performing worse and create a new one instead.
Hey minut. Each keyword should get its own pay per click ad or group of ads as Content-Master suggests. I may be misunderstanding your comments about conversion tracking, but Google offers this within AdWords. If you have enabled conversion tracking and separated keywords, then you should get accurate reporting. Huligan
For myself a breakhtrought "tip" was starting to use content network even as a main traffic source! When good targeted it could convert pretty nice! Just do research on your competitors if they advertise on content network (search for their domain in google) then build kw list and add a lot of negative. Then split testing. Best part is that content network is cheaper.
Split Testing MV testing (Google Website Optimizer) Increasing Quality Score MASSIVELY reduced CPC and increased volume. One keyword per ad gorup Separate Search and Content network campaigns *** Creating an image ad had surprisingly great results too. ****
Anyone use any of those Keyword tracking tools that claim to track any keyword to determine which word lead to what commissions?