I'm just about to start up a campaign in adwords, it will be my first. Though I have a decent amount of experience in SEO including landing page optimization I have never managed a campaign before in adwords. So any tips you have would be greatly appreciated!
Before turning it on, read up on how to manage and optimise a campaign. My book's quite good (IMHO): http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/google-adwords/ (and it's free, which is a very fair price IMHO(A)). There are a few absolute things you really have to do to make your campaign work... 1. Learn how to get a good Quality Score. The higher it is, the less you end up paying per click and the lower your minimum bids are. 2. Write compelling (though not misleading) adverts, and keep testing new ones. Maximise your clickthrough rate without damaging your conversion rate. 3. Choose appropriate keywords. If they're all very specific, you'll get good quality traffic but probably not in large volumes. If you go generic, you'll get a lot more traffic, but it won't convert as well (as a general rule). 4. If you're new to Adwords, focus on the Search Network to begin with. Leave the Content Network until you've got the hang of search. 5. You should set your bids based on how well the keywords/adgroups are converting, not how much everyone else is paying to advertise. Find your most profitable position and advertise there - there are no prizes for appearing first in the search results.
When editing your ads never edit existing one. Create one with needed changes and after it "alive" delete an old one.
Apologies - the guide is free. You only have to pay if you want to download it as an e-book. But the information's all available on the site gratis...
Never done a campign myself , perry marshells book seems good , so those day job killer, there is a software called ppc detective , which seems to help mount a campaign with over 90% success rate.
My "weapons of warfare" are Keyword Elite, Affiliate Elite and Perry Marshall's, "Definitive Guide To Google Adwords."
Maybe the first thing a lot of people do not consider would just be to go to the Adwords helpcenter: http://adwords.google.com/support/ It has all of the basic points of starting a campaign and is often pretty useful. Otherwise, I would highly recommend doing your keyword research before you begin a campaign, using sites like inventory.overture.com and the free trial of wordtracker. Some other things... 1) Create a landing page for everyone of your products that Adwords points to - it'll increase your conversion a lot. 2) Do a search for Adwords Tips through the DP Forums. 3) Set your campaign budget low at first, turn off content bids, and make sure your ads are specified - use Google Analytics and play with $100 to change around things. Watch your visitors and where they come from and try to figure out why/where they're leaving. 4) Split Test - Take multiple different instances of your Ads and circulate them over a week period and see which ones give you the highest CTR and why. The key I think with Adwords is finding unique keywords that buyers are typing into search engines but that aren't utilized yet by other websites trying to sell products to them. For example, in the natural health market, you might find that "natural health" is really high CPC, but "holistic health" gets way higher conversion rates for some weird reason and no sellers realize it yet. Capitalize on those opportunities as you find them - and the easiest way to figure out unique keywords like that is through Wordtracker. Hope that helps!
Can u tell me the url where I can download the software and other details about this software? Thanks
Please can u tell me where I can download the PPC detective software and some other free softwares which can help me in excelling my PPC adwords campaign. How do I analyse my competitors and what are they bidding is there any free software for the same. replies will be appreciated
Not a fan of Perry Marshall myself - unless his guide's undergone a complete rewrite, it barely mentions the Quality Score, and spends far too much time talking about clickthrough rate, without enough caveats about what you shouldn't do to improve it...
I agree Perry Marshall's book is way too outdated and pretty much useless now. I disagree on not using the content network though. As long as you set up separate lower bids for it, you may be shocked to see it actually outperform the search network in certain cases. It's been cleaned up quite a bit lately and is a great source of dirt cheap traffic now. I also wouldn't touch any software yet, you need to gain some experience first. They still teach math in school even though calculators and computers can do it 100x faster right? Lastly, no one has mentioned your target ROI yet. What are you trying to achieve. That is the first step before you dive into anything. Set up your ground rules and goals before beginning any campaign. That way you're not flying blind when it comes decision time in the future.
I would agree that the Content Network can outperform the Search Network. As a general rule, I would recommend that people starting their first campaign turn it off for a month or two, as they have enough to worry about without it. It'll skew your clickthrough rates, which are critical, particularly early in the campaign (I know that you can look at the clickthrough rate of search only, but again, it's an added complication when you're just starting out). It's certainly worth trying the Content Network, but I feel that unless you've used Adwords before, it's just easier to pause it, at least initially... ROI is a bit of a tricky one. Unless you are seeing a higher conversion rate nearer the top of the search results (which is very unusual in my experience), your ROI will always be lower, the further down the results you appear (since your clicks, and hence conversions, are cheaper). So the best ROI, in theory at least, would be to appear right at the bottom of the search results. I'm not saying ROI should be ignored, but I would use it as follows... 1. Establish how much profit you can make from Adwords for a number of different budgets 2. Calculate the ROI's for these budgets 3. Compare the results of this advertising spend with the results from other advertising media. 4. Optimise your ROI for your total advertising spend, by selecting the most appropriate budgets for each advertising medium.