Just A Couple Little Tips For The Newbies

I see a lot of people complaining about low ctr on there ads here. So here is some tips for the newbies. I am not giving out to much. But I'll give out a little.

1. Don't use 1500 keywords! Focus on the main keywords. For instance lets say you have a campaign about an iPod site. Bid on the keyword iPod, not just on the small keywords that relate to an iPod with just 2k-3k searches a month like "ipod 80gb". Use general relative keywords with your campaign, they are more important.

2. Never use more than 35-50 keywords EVER!

3. I use 4-6 ads when I do a campaign. Not just 1-2.

4. List you features and benefits inside of the ad.

5. Wait till all your campaign ads have gotten 1000 impressions. Find the ones that have the smallest ctr's and tweak them till the get higher ctr's. If you can't seem to get those low ctr ads to come up, just delete them.

6. The word free in your ads is also good. But remember, if you give your customers something free, they have to receive it within 3 clicks of clicking your ad I recently found out.

7. The content network is your friend. It is more important than google's search engine. If you bid just $0.05 on any keyword no matter what it is, you will usually get lots of impressions on the content network. I never spend more than $0.15 on a keyword, even if others are paying $3 a click. If you get a high ROI per visitor you might want to bump up your CPC if you are not getting alot of clicks.



This is isn't anything much, but it will give all those newbies out there a little head start to high ctr ads. . Anybody got anything else to add?

 

Erm...

Not totally sure that I agree with all of those - I guess life would be boring if everyone agreed on everything!

1. Regarding the number of keywords, I'd suggest starting out with lots - though it's important to group them into appropriate adgroups, since they'll want different adverts. If you are renting out property in the South West of England, I'd initially start with "Quality"/"Luxury"/"Exclusive"/etc (or cheap/affordable etc), then "Flats"/"Houses"/"Accommodation"/etc, then "in Cornwall"/"in Devon"/"in the south west" etc. So for example, you'd have keywords "Quality Flats In Cornwall", "Exclusive Accommodation In The South-West", etc. From this, you can very quickly see which adjectives etc work or not, and trim the list back accordingly. Keywords with no/low impressions should have negigable impact on your clickthrough rate, and getting the right keywords has to be the number one priority.

2. See 1.

3. Do you mean 4-6 alternatives for the same line? Or two different first lines, two different second lines, etc. The first one is fine, the second is missing a trick a bit.

I'd suggest Either run simple a:b or a:b:c tests (making one change to your advert) or, if you're feeling ambitious, use Taguchi testing. This allows you to make changes to a number of different variables (lines) at the same time, without missing any synergies between the lines of the advert.

4. Agree absolutely. This should be one of the first things you a:b test - should you mention the free delivery or the wide range? Or the price?

5. 1000 impressions may be the right number for you, but it depends on what sort of clickthrough rate you're getting. The higher it is, the less time you need to wait to see what's working and what's not. And the bigger the difference between the good and bad adverts, the less time you need to wait.

6. Free is a very powerful keyword, but it has to be true! There are plenty of other strong words out there if you're selling something, but remember that you can't use superlatives in general.

7. The content network works a lot better for some things than others. By all means try it, but keep it on a tight leash, at least until you know whether it's delivering the goods. Remember that Google have just bought MySpace (which has TWICE as much traffic as it's own search engine), and that this has changed everything - some people have had their fingers burned quite badly on that one, I believe.

Here's a few more thoughts:

8. Avoid broad matching, at least until you're happy with your exact and phrase matches. Broad matching needs a good set of negative keywords in general, and Google are playing with their synonyms tool, so broad matching may lead people to click on your site, having searched for something you don't have in your keyword list.

9. By all means, optimise your clickthrough rate by playing with your adverts, but don't accidentally sacrifice your conversion rate. It can easily happen if you try to make your advert appeal to as many people as possible - but some of them won't necessarily be looking for what you're selling. For example, if you are selling expensive chairs, and bid on the keyword "chairs", the advert should probably make it clear that they are high quality, and not cheap. Not saying this will get you more traffic, but if they want cheap and cheeful, they won't convert...

 

Thanks for your input. I guess different things work for different people. BTW, I don't suggest advertising on Myspace unless you have an arcade site maybe.

 

As a search marketing professional, I have to say this is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen presented as 'tips'.

1. Bid on generic keyterms instead of highly targeted, better converting ones? lol

2. "Never use more than [arbitrary number] keywords" - Why? What on earth could be the reasoning behind this?

3. One tiny bit of sense. No mention though of tweaking, A-B testing, and rewriting advert variations to maximise ROI though.

4. List features and benefits - in 2 lines of text? Yes, sometimes a feature or benefit can go into the ad, but surely this is what your landing page is for?

5. 1000 impressions is another arbitrary number. Why 1000? Surely when and how you should tweak your ads depends on a host of variables such as CPC, your budget and goals?

6. So you're saying that it's a good idea to mislead in your advert. Do you think that will help you convert clicks into leads/sales?

7. This kind of low quality, scattergun approach is usually a gigantic waste of time unless you know exactly what you're doing. The search network is usually far easier to get a good ROI on for beginners, as long as you're writing highly targeted ads for highly targeted keyterms, and optimise your landing page.

Sorry to be harsh, but I can't stand the thought of a new AdWords user reading this thread and acting on the shockingly bad advice (for the most part) contained in it.