Maximizing Your Adwords Campaigns

The following is a list of steps on maximizing an AdWords campaign. It was taken from Google Cash 3 by Chris Carpenter.

1.Read and Learn Google’s Optimization Tips.

https://adwords.google.com/select/tips.html

2.Google AdWords provides matching options for search terms, allowing you to refine your ad targeting, and reducing your cost-per-click (CPC).
Click Here to view Google’s new multimedia online tutorial of keyword matching options.

3.Until you gain more experience, be careful paying more than 5 cents per click. Refine and narrow your phrases until you get a low rate. At only 5 cents per click, for many keywords your CTR will be too low. I often start off bidding more than I would like to, to get my ad in the top results. Then as clicks start coming in and when I have a CTR greater than 1%, I work on refining my Ad. Then I lower my CPC and hopefully hold my position because of my good CTR.

4.In the beginning, set your bids low. As you gain experience and learn to determine what your maximum bid rate should be – then you should raise your bids to generate more traffic.

5.To start, enter a low daily budget, like $5. This is a great way to test the waters without losing your shirt.

6.Once you have setup a test campaign or two and you have tested the waters, you will want to increase your daily budget limit. A common mistake is keeping the daily budget limit too low after initial testing.

You should set your daily budget limit high. In my experience, you only end up paying a fraction of your daily budget.

If you set your daily budget limit too low, your campaign will be shut down once you reach your limit, and your ads won’t be displayed. You want your ad to be displayed every time someone searches for that keyword.

If you’re bidding on expensive keywords, keep a close eye on your campaign as you could spend a lot of money very quickly.

As you’re starting out, avoid bidding on expensive keywords. As you gain experience you might want to bid on some more expensive keywords. You’ll just want to keep a close eye on your campaigns and affiliate stats and make sure you are earning more than you are spending.

Here’s how to figure out how much you can spend per click and still break even.

First, figure out your conversion rate. Conversion rate = total # of sales divided by total # of clicks.

For example, if you made 20 sales or sign ups from 1000 clicks, your conversion rate would equal 1/50, which means 1 sale for every 50 clicks.

Now multiply your product or signups commission by the conversion rate and that will give you your break even Cost Per Click.

So let’s say for example that your commission is $25 per sale or signup.

That’s 25 times 1/50 which = $0.50

That means that you can afford to pay 50 cents per click and still break even. If you spend more than 50 cents per click you’ll lose money. And if you spend less than 50 cents per click, you’ll earn profits.

7.Put your keyword list together first, then draft your ad.

8.Target key phrases, don’t use generic terms.

9.Use keyword(s) in the title and body of your ad to increase CTR.

10. Test two ads at the same time. Google AdWords allows you to run two different ads with your keywords which will enable you to compare ad performances. Keep the ad with the higher CTR and replace the other ad with a new one.

11. Test and adjust the Ad copy as you go. Constantly tweak your ad copy to try to improve the CTR.

12. To achieve a higher CTR, use exact keyword matching by putting your keyword/s in square brackets:

[buy vitamins]
[vitamins]

Your ad will not appear for queries that include other keywords. For the example above, the ad would not appear for free vitamins or discount vitamins. It would only appear for the keywords: buy vitamins, and vitamins.

13. Be sure to create negative keywords for the terms that do not pertain to your promotion. This gives you more control over who sees your ads so that you don’t suffer an unnecessarily low CTR because your ads are showing for irrelevant searches. Further, you won’t risk paying for clicks that are unlikely to produce well-targeted results.

If your keywords are negative-matched, your ad won’t show if the user’s search includes that word. Add the negative character (-) in front of the keyword you’d like to exclude. For example, if your keyword is satellite dish and your negative keyword is -free, your ad will not show when a user searches on free satellite dish.

14. Always include both singular and plural versions of keywords.

15. Add more keywords and more groups of keywords as you think of them.

16. Create a separate Ad Group and ads for your misspellings list, another one for your abbreviated keyword phrases, and so on. Organizing closely related keywords into their own Ad Groups improves keyword relevance and click through rates. This practice makes your campaigns easier to manage.

17. Make sure your Affiliate ID is in your affiliate link. Double check your Affiliate URL link to test its accuracy. After creating your Adwords ad, test it to make sure you end up at the desired page.

18. After your campaign has been running for a couple of weeks, try rewriting ads with low CTR’s.

19. Keep in mind that you can stop your AdWords from running at any time by clicking on the “Pause Ad Group” link.

20. Ramp up your efforts during the Holiday Season. From November 1st to Feb 1st you will see a dramatic increase in clicks and better conversion rates. In other words, more people buy during that time. Try to have as many AdWords running as possible during those very lucrative months.

21. Popups: Google will disapprove AdWords that go to sites with pop-ups on the landing page. At first look, this seems like a big problem.

Imagine that you want to promote a website, but they have a pop-up on their home page. You know that as a result your AdWords ad eventually will be disapproved.

Whenever I find this, I get a little excited because it is a big deterrent for many people. When people see that, they move on and look for another website to promote. If I find such a site, and think that it will convert well and offer a profitable campaign, I sign up for their affiliate program.

Often, I can find a link or create a link to one of their pages that does not have a pop-up. If I can’t create such a link, I just send them an email and ask them for a link to their website (with my affiliate ID in it of course) that goes to their page without a pop-up. It is in their best interest to provide me this link, because I am sending them targeted traffic.

So look at this as an opportunity, there will be much less competition!

22. An Important Note for International Users

If you are in a country outside of the US and you do a search on www.Google.com you will not see the Google AdWords that are targeted only for the US.

For example, I live in Mexico part of the year. When in Mexico, if I search on Google.com for the keyword: mortgage – there are only two AdWords. That is because I am seeing AdWords that are either targeted for Mexico or for All Countries. In order to see the AdWords that are only targeted for the US, I visit:

http://www.proxify.com

Then in the field at the top of the website I enter:

www.google.com

Then I do my search and I see the US AdWords.

Another thing you can do is to setup your internet connection to go through a proxy server.

Visit:

http://www.proxy4free.com/index.html

Here you will find a list of proxy servers in different countries.
Choose one for the US.

In your Internet Explorer, click on Tools, Internet Options, Connections,
then if you have a dialup connection click on Settings next to it.

Otherwise if you have a broadband connection click on the LAN Settings.

Then enter the proxy server IP address (number) you got from the website above.

Then the next time you open Internet Explorer it will go through that proxy server in the US and Google will think you are in the US and will show you the US adwords.

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• Google AdSense Optimization Tips | Publisher tricks

Tags: ads, budget limit, campaigns, chris carpenter, cost per click, cpc, fraction, gain experience, google, keywords, maximum, mistake, money, new multimedia, optimization tips, options, phrases, search terms, test campaign, traffic