Archive for the ‘Paid Search’ Category
Posted on September 27, 2011 by Brittany Baeslack
Geo-targeting Paid Search campaigns to attract a specific geographical audience is a practice that is implemented by advertisers in a plethora of industries. What many advertisers neglect doing, however, is separating geo-targeted campaigns from nationally targeted geo-modified campaigns. It is important to understand the difference between the
two, and treat them just that way: differently
- Geo-targeting (often referred to as “location targeting”): Campaigns target one or more specific locations, made up of keywords that do not contain location modifiers (e.g. “digital marketing agency” targeting the Pittsburgh area)
- Geo-modifying: Nationally targeted campaigns made up of keywords with location modifiers (e.g. “Pittsburgh digital marketing agency” targeting nationally)
Different Strategies, Different Campaigns
Always keep in mind that geo-targeting and geo-modifying are two different strategies, and therefore should always be separated out into different campaigns. While advertisers may assume the search situation is the same, this is very often not the case. Geo-targeting works by showing ads to users in a specified location at the time that they perform that search. What if a user is currently performing searches while on business in Chicago, however, but interested in finding a digital marketing agency in the Pittsburgh area? Let’s say the search is “Pittsburgh digital marketing agency.” Your Pittsburgh geo-targeted campaigns will not trigger an ad to show, regardless of whether that campaign is made up of ad groups that contain geo-modified terms. Your ad will be triggered, however, by the nationally targeted campaign that contains “Pittsburgh digital marketing agency” keywords.
Aside from the above reasoning, another key reason to separate geo-targeted campaigns vs. geo-modified campaigns is budget management. As paid search professionals know, the more specific, transparent, and closely targeted your campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are, the more successful account management will be. Ensuring a handful of keywords doesn’t gobble up an entire campaign’s budget is an ongoing task for advertisers, and separating geo-targeted and geo-modified campaigns helps to alleviate this issue. Depending on your account and the locations you are targeting, either geo-modified campaigns or geo-targeted campaigns can pull in more traffic than the other, although the majority of the time, geo-modified campaigns will receive less traffic. It is an advertiser’s job to ensure both sets of keywords get a fair chance in the engines, and are not missing opportunities due to the other keywords using the majority of the budget. Separating geo-targeted and geo-modified campaigns allows for a more efficient method of budget management, and provides better indications of trends, search intent, etc.
Geo-Testing
In my post last week, The Many Faces of Negative Keywords, I detailed why every Paid Search account should utilize negative keywords, and how this match type can be used to manipulate your account to your liking. Geo-modifying and geo-targeting are a perfect example of how to use this negative keyword manipulation. While it is best to target geo-modified campaigns nationally, there will always be instances of searchers in a certain location including that location name in their search query; therefore, we run into the situation where an ad could be triggered by both the geo-targeted or the geo-modified campaign (depending on which match types are set up within the ad groups). While many advertisers will choose to let this be the case and allow the engine to decide which keyword/ad is best to match it to, I recommend testing out this scenario. Try adding, for example, “Pittsburgh” as a negative keyword within the geo-targeted campaign to allow the nationally targeted campaign to trigger “Pittsburgh digital marketing agency.” After sufficient data is gathered, remove the negative keywords to determine how the performance of each campaign changes, and which method is best for your account.
View Comments (3 Responses) | Categories: Paid Search, Web Analytics
Posted on September 22, 2011 by Brittany Baeslack
Many advertisers who may be unfamiliar with all of the positive effects that come as a result of negative keywords tend to shy away from implementing negative keywords within their account altogether; other advertisers may sporadically add negative keywords to their account, but not take enough advantage of just how much a little manipulation of these keywords can boost an account’s performance.
Regardless of Clicks, Get Rid of Those Irrelevant Searches
First and foremost, negative keyword “audits” should be performed on a regular basis, regardless of your industry, your results, or your budget. Discovering negative keywords is easy, and adding negative keywords is even easier. While some advertisers may not see the harm in appearing for irrelevant searches every so often, it is essential to recognize the negative effects this will have on your account in both the long and short term. The obvious is wasted spend – no one wants to waste clicks and money on visitors who were searching for something completely different than your ad is offering. Often I find myself answering the following question, however: “So what if my ad shows up, but no one clicks it? No money wasted, no harm done, right?” Wrong. It is an absolute must that any advertisers understand the harm that irrelevant ads can have on an account even when they are not clicked. Click-through rate is the largest (but not only) determinant of quality score, and your quality score is a large (but not only) determinant of your CPCs; therefore, negative keywords help us maintain a strong click-through rate, resulting in higher quality scores, and therefore lower CPCs (and more money to spend on the clicks that will convert!)
Negative Keywords Don’t Just “Block” Searches
The key element of adding this match type throughout the campaigns and ad groups in your account is not only ensuring your ads aren’t showing up for irrelevant searches, but also ensuring that the best and most relevant ad available in your account is triggered over another. Many people ignore this use of the negative match type, and focus solely on excluding irrelevant searches, when in reality one of the best uses of this match type is the ability to manipulate your account with makeshift “filters,” which are useful for virtually every advertiser.
Let’s say you have a generic campaigns set up for Vacuums, containing the broad match term “bagless vacuums,” while you have another campaign set up for specific vacuum brands containing the broad match keyword “bagless ABC vacuums.” Although these keywords are not identical, it is possible for either one of them to be triggered by the search “bagless ABC vacuums.” While many advertisers do not see any harm in a generic ad showing up for the search term “bagless ABC vacuums,” it is essential that you ensure a relevant ad containing the brand ABC is shown, vs. a generic one. This is where negative keywords come into play, filtering the keywords in our account to ensure the best ad is triggered. It’s simple – make sure the negative keyword “ABC” is added throughout all generic campaigns, ensuring that generic ads won’t be triggered by this branded search. Repeat this process through all of your campaigns, using the same rules to exclude generic search queries from triggering brand-specific ads and to set filters for the various vacuum-type keywords and ads. While this can be a lengthy process, it will pay off with higher click-through rates, higher quality scores, and lower CPCs. Don’t be afraid to add negative keywords on a regular basis, or fear that you’re limiting your traffic – remember the traffic that matters is traffic that’s relevant, no exceptions.
View Comments (No Responses) | Categories: Paid Search
Posted on September 8, 2011 by Dorcas Alexander
A Cure for Campaign Tag Soup
It’s so easy to tag your campaigns for Google Analytics that you can quickly fill your reports with a mishmash of labels and end up with campaign tag soup! But what’s the best way to get organized? Even if you know what medium and source mean, it’s not always obvious how you should fit campaign info into those slots. And what about the extra slots we get for campaign tags like campaign and content and term?
Take these 4 steps to develop a coherent campaign tagging plan and start improving your data today:
1. Build On the Default Labels
Google Analytics already fills your Traffic Reports with values (labels) for medium and source. Any new labels you create for your campaign data will fill the same reports, so think about what you want to see together in the list of mediums or sources. Making old and new labels look like part of the same family is a good way to get organized.
Medium has four default labels: referral, organic, cpc for paid search, and (none) for direct traffic. Think of these as the big buckets of traffic, the highest level marketing channels. Create new channels at the same high level and don’t get too specific. For example:
email
social
banner (or display)
print
direct-mail
Source has three types of labels by default: website names for referrals, search engines, and (direct). Think of these as your target audiences – the users of specific websites or search engines, or people who already knew you and came directly. Describe who’s viewing your campaign content with source labels like:
newsletter-subscribers
facebook
partner.com = the website where you put your banner ad
industry-today = the name of a publication where you advertise
postcard-list = the name of the mailing list
Remember the default labels also make lots of tagging unnecessary. Turn auto-tagging on in AdWords and you automatically get medium=cpc and source=google along with all the other AdWords dimensions including your campaign names. You have to tag other paid search campaigns, but you don’t have to tag things like links from affiliate sites. They’re already in the Referrals report with medium=referral and source=your-affiliate-site-name.
2. Make Labels Answer Questions
Creating labels for campaign and content and term is easier if you think of them as answers to questions, following the same lines as medium and source.
- Medium = What broad marketing channels are you using?
- Source = Who is viewing your content or delivering the viewers?
- Campaign = Why are you targeting these sources and (optional) when?
- Content = Which marketing effort performs better?
- Term = Which keywords perform better?
Campaign labels pull all the other labels together, identifying all the different mediums and sources you used for a particular purpose. Think about why you are targeting these audiences. It could be a product launch, a fundraising event, or an ongoing promotion. You might want to indicate the date or time of year here as well, since campaigns usually occur over some limited period of time.
product-launch-2011-july
community-event-2011-09-08
summer-rewards-program
Content labels help you compare how well different links perform within the same source, medium, or campaign. Which type of link persuades more people to click? Top or bottom of email? Different target text, maybe using different offers to see which is more attractive (free shipping or 20 percent off)? Text link or photo link? Or even a QR code!
Term looks like an extra slot for email or banner info, but should be used only for your paid search keywords. Whatever you tag with utm_term will end up in your Keywords reports! So let AdWords auto-tagging automatically capture your keywords, and work with any other paid search vendors to fill in utm_term with actual keywords as well.
3. Don’t Mix and Match
Consistency is everything. If you’re going to use email as a medium, don’t also use it as a source. Don’t put dates or seasonal info in any slot that seems convenient, pick one (like the campaign slot) and stick to it. When you need more granularity, consider adding it in the same slot like this example for sources:
newsletter-subscribers
newsletter-prospects
This still describes my target audience, so I think it makes sense to include it in the source label rather than bump it into the content label simply because that slot happens to be available. And being consistent has other benefits.
Using the same label across tags in the same slot also allows you to roll up data more easily. In the above example, I can search All Traffic sources for newsletter and see how the newsletter did overall as well as compare data for the two groups who received it. You can also compare performance across campaigns that had the same purpose but ran at different times, if you can search your Campaigns report for the label they have in common.
4. Document and Share
For best results, record everything in a campaign worksheet. Not only will it help you remember how you tagged prior campaigns to keep descriptions consistent, it’s absolutely essential as a guide for spelling and punctuation when more than one person is creating tags. Keep the worksheet in a shared space like Google Docs.
Another good thing about using a spreadsheet is that a formula can pull all your labels together into a campaign-tagged URL. Just make sure that utm_source comes first.
What’s your approach to campaign tagging? Have you developed a system that works for you? Please share in the comments.
View Comments (7 Responses) | Categories: Email, Google Analytics, Paid Search, Social Media
Posted on September 8, 2010 by Christina Keffer
Well. Today certainly has been a day. And it’s only 2:00 PM
Google rolled out Google Instant which modifies the SERPS as users type in their search terms.
My first impression was negative, and I admit it’s because I don’t like change. But it’s also because in a few minutes my brain went all haywire and I realized the ramifications for my industry. If this type of user interface catches on, there will have to be some serious changes in the way I think about keyword choice and optimization for my clients.
“But wait!” you say. “Google said the actual RANKINGS won’t change, just the way in which they’re presented.”
(http://www.google.com/instant/ :
Q: Does this change impact the ranking of search results?
A: No, this change does not impact the ranking of search results.)
While this may be totally true, it doesn’t really matter.
Say, for instance, that my client’s biggest money making keyphrase is “blue widgets from outer space.” It’s the key phrase that brings them the most targeted, conversion-oriented traffic. They were ranking number one for this term (thank you very much) and they were happy as a clam.
Now, with Google Instant, searchers may not be getting past the key phrase “blue widgets” before they are distracted by the shiny changing results parading around in front of them. The kicker is, they might end up clicking on a bunch of these less-focused pages and searching longer on those sites for what they want.
Am I whining because my long-tail, less competitive keyword might not matter as much? Sure. But I also feel like the user’s experience won’t be as enriched by constantly changing SERPS as the big G would like to think. Mostly, though, I feel bad for my client that spent a long time refining their product landing page to exactly fit what the user was looking for only to have it languish, unnoticed (potentially.)
Organic Results Below the Fold.
I’m using my super dorky big monitor right now, so the suggested search box, which used to simply overlay the search engine results but now actually pushes them down the page, allowed three of the organic results to remain above the fold. However, were I on my puny but awesome netbook, those organic results would be buried quite nicely under the paid search results. Sadness pile.
PPC? Impressions? Clickthrough Rates?
I wonder how long it will take before Adwords charges by impression? Hah. The user only has to pause for three seconds in order to trigger a new set of paid search results. Sheesh. Also, consider clickthrough rate as it pertains to quality score. If your impressions skyrocket because someone paused, then finished their search and your add appeared twice, but the quantity of clickthroughs stay the same, that is going to stink.
On the OTHER Hand
Maybe it’s not longtail but short tail keywords that are in for it. I just did a search for Distilled (the brand name of a SEO giant) and came up with a lot of distilled water pages where previously said company used to rank first. I had to search for “Distilled SEO” to get the site I wanted. I also just did a search for blue widgets from outer space. Just for funsies.
What I KNOW Will Change.
The way I include search terms in title tags will definitely change since the title tags (as i see it right now) will be increasingly important.
The way I research keywords and how I construct user behavior models will change. Maybe a little, maybe a lot.
The way I explain the SERPS to clients will change a lot, obviously. Also, I see a further decreased focus on rankings and a stronger focus on traffic metrics used as benchmarks for success.
View Comments (10 Responses) | Categories: Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Writing for the web
Posted on May 10, 2010 by Jonathan Weber
If you don’t see them yet, you will over the next couple of weeks as they get rolled out: new AdWords reports in Google Analytics.
What’s so new and great about them?
What’s still there
They’re still under Traffic Sources, which now shows the (rearranged) AdWords section with the new reports. They’re not all new though: the Campaigns report (the mainstay of AdWords reporting) is still around, and so are Keyword Positions (which helps you see the distribution of your ads in various positions on the page) and TV Campaigns (for use with AdWords TV ads).
What’s old is new
The layout of those reports is basically the same (the Site Usage, Goal Sets, Ecommerce, and Clicks tabs are still there). But hidden in the dimension drop-down menus, you’ll find a variety of new options.
- Ad Distribution Network — did the ad appear on Google Search, Search Partners, or the Content Network?
- Match Type — was it a broad, phrase, or exact match keyword?
- Matched Search Query — what was the actual search query the user entered that triggered the ad?
- Placement Domain and URL — for Content Network ads, what sites/pages did they appear on?
- Ad Format — text or display ads
- Targeting Type — keyword or placement
- Display and Destination URLs
“Matched Search Query” alone is worth a pile of gold. No more kludges to figure out the search terms your broad match keywords matched! Now it’s easy as pie to find potential negative keywords and untapped potential for related keywords and phrases.
With “Placement Domain” and “Placement URL”, we now also have much better data right within Google Analytics about Content Network ads and where they are shown.
Shiny and new
There are also a variety of brand-new reports. First of all, there’s an Overview report for the AdWords section which gives a nice summary.
The Keywords and Placements reports simply show all the keywords and placements across all your campaigns, which is handy.
Day Parts gives you data about your ads by day of the week or hour of the day. This is useful to see if you want to pause your ads during certain times when they don’t perform as well as you’d like.
And finally, the Destination URLs report is a great way to see if certain landing pages work better than others. Think of it as the “Top Landing Pages” report but just for your AdWords ads. It’s easy to see which destination URLs lead to more conversions or lower bounce rates.
So, that’s it. The changes are simple, but there’s a lot of power there with the new options. Take a look… If you don’t see these reports, you will soon — access is being rolled out to all accounts over the next few weeks.
View Comments (3 Responses) | Categories: Google Analytics, Paid Search
Posted on May 18, 2009 by Robbin Steif
“But our paid search vendor won’t give me access to our keywords and ads,” complained an attendee at our GA training in DC. (I promised her that I wouldn’t use her name.)
“Hmm,” said I, “That seems a little awful. You would think they would keep you locked up as a customer based on how wonderful they are, not based on your inability to get at your own data.” In fact, I mused out loud to her, I wonder if that is a violation of the paid search terms and conditions….
…. so I did a search for Google AdWords Terms of Service, and I found this:
6 Agency. Customer represents and warrants that (a) it is authorized to act on behalf of and has bound to this Agreement any third party for which Customer advertises (a “Principal“), (b) as between Principal and Customer, the Principal owns any rights to Program information in connection with those ads, and (c) Customer shall not disclose Principal’s Program information to any other party without Principal’s consent.
So, I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if the customer is an agency and advertises on behalf of a Principal (a real company), then the Principal owns the data. I don’t see that it says, the Principal must have access to the data, but hey, if you own it, you should be able to look at it, no?
And before I close — if you are in the NY Metro area and are interested in learning some actionable insights for your Google Analytics (techie or marketing), come to our GA Training Day, June 2 in Manhattan ($285 per person.) Learn more here.
Robbin
View Comments (1 Response) | Categories: Conversion Science, Google Analytics, Industry News, Paid Search
Posted on August 18, 2008 by Traci
Click to enlarge
At our Google Analytics training in Washington DC last week, one of the most burning questions we got asked was, “Why can’t I see my AdWords data in my Google Analytics?” And even though we’ve blogged about this problem before (here), we wanted to provide a step-by-step troubleshooting guide, complete with how-to’s and screenshots.
So – let’s start from the beginning! Log into your Analyltics account directly from www.google.com/analytics/home/ (rather than just tabbing over to Analytics from your AdWords account). Go to Traffic Sources / AdWords / Adwords Campaigns. If you see data there, but simply cannot access it from your AdWords screen, that is a separate problem (see steps #4 and #5 on this Google help page). However, if you see zeroes there (as in the thumbnail to the left which you can click to enlarge), follow the steps below:
Click to enlarge
Step #1: Checking Your Auto-Tagging
When your AdWords aren’t talking to your analytics, the first thing we suspect is that your Auto-Tagging may not be turned on.
To check this, log into your AdWords account from adwords.google.com/select/Login, click on the “My Account” tab, and click on “Account Preferences”. Under “Tracking”, you will see either “Auto-Tagging: Yes” or “Auto-Tagging: No”.
If you see “Auto-Tagging: No”, you’ve likely found your problem. Click on “Edit” and change it to yes. (Remember that once you do this, you’ll be collecting AdWords data going forward — you can’t recover data retroactively — so wait six to eight hours before you log into your Analytics account and look for your AdWords data.)
If your auto-tagging was already turned on, keep going on to Step #2 to find your problem!
Click to enlarge
Step #2: Make Sure Your Landing Pages Are Tagged
Now, you’re going to check whether you have Google Analytics code on the landing pages you’re sending traffic to. So go to one of your landing pages, and click on “View” / “Page Source”. (If you’re not entirely sure what landing pages your ads are going to, you can go to an ad group in your AdWords account, and just click on the blue underlined title in the Ad Variations tab all the way to the right — that will take you straight to your landing pages without incurring any click charges.)
After you select “View” / “Page Source”, you should see a bunch of HTML with a chunk of javascript like in the screenshot to the left. However, if you find that your landing pages aren’t tagged (since it’s easy to forget to add GA code if you have dedicated landing pages!), you’ve found your problem. On the other hand, if your landing pages are all properly tagged, continue on to Step #3.
(**Side note: If going to “View Source” and then hunting in the code for your GA code is not your cup of tea, never fear. Stephane Hamel has created a wonderful plug-in for just this purpose and it’s well worth the download!)
Step #3: Make Sure Your AdWords are Linked to the Right Analytics Account
We’ve seen cases where your AdWords actually are talking to your Analytics — but they’re linked to the wrong account. To check whether this is your problem, you’ll need to do a bit of work.
Click to enlarge
First, you’ll need to log into you Google Analytics account from the www.google.com/analytics/home/ screen. Under “Settings”, click on “Edit” next to your main profile (you need to have admin access to your Analytics in order to do this). On the next screen, you’ll see a piece of javascript code in the center of the page — write down the GA account number you see there. (It comes after the letters UA. Like this: UA-12345676-1.) Now, do the exact same thing, only get the UA number from the Analytics tab of your AdWords account (log in from adwords.google.com/select/Login).
Do the two numbers you wrote down match? If they don’t, you’ve found your problem. (And if this is the case, you’ll need to get in touch with Google to have them unlink the “wrong” account — you can’t do this part on your own!) Then, you just have to link up the right account, and you’re in business! (See this Google help page for instructions.)
If that’s not your problem, keep going — right onto Step #4.
Step #4: See If You’ve Got a “gclid” Problem
Click to enlarge
If you still haven’t solved your problem, you’ve most likely got a gclid problem. (And what the heck is a gclid, you ask? Actually, it’s just the tracking code that passes information from your AdWords to your analytics. [The term gclid actually stands for Google Click ID -- thanks to Jesse for clueing me in to the origin of the word!])
To diagnose this problem, go ahead and click on one of your ads in the paid search results, and then look up in the URL. Do you see the letters “gclid” followed by a series of letters and numbers? If not, you’ve identified the problem at last!
Usually, this happens when the destination URL of your AdWords traffic is being automatically redirected to another page. To correct this problem, fix the destination URLs in your AdWords account so that each ad is going directly to the right landing page. Or, just have the server redirection retain the gclid parameter in the URL of the page the traffic gets redirected to. (You may need to find yourself a good Google Analytics geek to help with this last part!)
Best of luck, and happy linking!
-Traci Scharf
View Comments (27 Responses) | Categories: Google Analytics, Paid Search, Web Analytics
Posted on July 13, 2008 by Robbin Steif
While some customers (and friends!) are ready to go out and spend gobs of money on their pay per click campaigns, I don’t usually hear that. More often, I hear, “I’d like to start very small, learn what works and what doesn’t, and then roll out in a large way.” It sounds like a great idea, but it doesn’t usually seem to work — in my opinion. Traci Scharf, our pay per click (PPC) specialist, disagrees, so after I write, she is going to do a rebuttal (and you’ll get to see both sides of the problem.)
Oh, before I get into this in a big way, let me not forget: our next Google Analytics training is August 12 in Washington DC, it costs $285, and you can read more and register here.
Robbin’s opinion: It’s hard to start small with Pay Per Click:
So you want to start small with your pay per click campaigns and roll out after you know what works? Here has been my experience:
To make the numbers easy, let’s say that a click for the customer we are working with is $1.00, and his conversion rate for visits to the site is .5%. May be he wants to spend a million dollars eventually, but up front, he is starting with $100/day. He starts wtih 500 keywords and multiple ads.
If a click costs $1.00, and his budget is $100/day * 30 days, he has a monthly budget of $3000, i.e. 3000 clicks/month. With a .5% conversion rate, that’s 15 orders.
Those 15 orders will be spread over many keywords. There may be two keywords that got three conversion each, and three keyword that got two orders each, and another three keywords that got one each. Some of those may be branded keywords, too, like “LunaMetrics conversion rate.” When someone does a branded search, they are already looking for you (a topic for a different post.)
So what can we learn from this? My answer: just about nothing. We don’t have enough data to be able to say, “This keyword does well,” or “This keyword does poorly.” If everything is coming from the same AdGroup or campaign, we may be able to learn more there, but my experience has been that we generally learn what we already know — which products, or which areas of the site, draw the most visitors. Which products tend to sell the most. Whereas real learning would be, “When we use exact match on these five keywords, we have a higher quality score and get better conversion for less money, but on this AdGroup, we can’t get the kind of traffic we need with exact match, and so we need to use a different kind of match” (for example.) Or even, “These keywords suck!! We have to retool this whole campaign.” Now, that’s learning.
OK, Traci, your turn.
Traci’s Opinion: It’s Really Important to Start Small with PPC
I’ve always felt that limiting your initial spending in a PPC campaign is a smart move for most businesses. Let me give you a little analogy:
Say you want to lose weight, and someone says to you, “Hey, you can lose a lot of weight on the peanut butter diet.” You might be willing to give it a try, but probably don’t want to invest too much of your time and energy until you know whether it works for you or not. A rational decision, then, might be to try it just for three weeks, and then get on the scale and see whether your weight went up or down.
When client companies say they want to learn small, this is in effect what they’re proposing. They’re saying, “Let’s spend a set amount of money, and see if our investment is getting a positive ROI.” Because, just like a diet (“Are you losing weight or aren’t you?”), PPC is pass/fail (“Are you making money or aren’t you?”). Maybe you know that, given where your initial budget is set, you need 15 conversions to break even on your PPC campaigns over the course of three weeks. If you find that your campaigns are getting 30 conversions over the course of three weeks, you’ve learned one big important piece of information: “You’re making money – so go ahead and increase your budgets.”
But probably the most compelling reason I encourage companies to limit their initial ad spend is because they’ll want to have enough money to act on what they learn. Consider the company that runs PPC campaigns for three weeks and finds out they are getting, on average, three conversions a week, but need to be getting ten/week in order to break even. Well, assuming I’ve done my job in setting up their campaigns to drive qualified traffic to their site, we will want to look at what is going amiss with their landing pages. That will mean doing a best practices analysis on their landing pages, and then creating and testing alternate versions so that we can transform their conversion rate. However, if they’ve already blown their whole PPC budget, there is no place to go from there, except to cut losses and admit defeat – not the best strategy for getting ahead!
So the bottom line is, be leery when anyone tells you that you have to spend a lot of money in the beginning months of your PPC campaigns. Exercise the same caution you would with anything else, and remember that you can’t just throw money at PPC and expect success.
View Comments (8 Responses) | Categories: Paid Search
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Traci
For anyone who is reasonably new to the world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC), let me share a few words of wisdom — if you don’t have an extensive list of negative keywords, you’re probably paying too much for your traffic.
Suspect you might be one of those advertisers who is feeding the Google piggybank? Well, let’s put a stop to that! In this post, you’ll learn what negative keywords are and how you can generate a starter list of negative keywords in no time at all.
So what are negative keywords? Let’s start with an analogy. When you do pay-per-click advertising, it is like throwing a party. You’ve created a guest list of people who are invited to your party (these are your keywords), but you’ve also hired a bouncer to keep out any undesireables (these are your negative keywords).
Here’s an example. Let’s say I offer French lessons. My keyword list likely has a number of keyword variations that users might type into a search engine, like “French lessons”, “private French lessons”, “French language lessons”, and “French language instruction”.
But what if someone types in “private French Horn lessons”? Or “French language instruction online”? Or “French language lessons on DVD”? Without negative keywords, you will be showing your ads to all these types of bad traffic — inadvertently lowering your quality score and overpaying for your traffic as a result.
Now, you’re probably wondering where you get your negative keywords from? Do you have to pluck them out of thin air by sheer ingenuity? Am I going to ask you to brainstorm negative keywords while sitting in the bathtub, or keep a notebook on your bedside so you can think them up as you’re drifting off to sleep? No, no, no — there’s a much easier way!
Here’s what I want you to do. Just as you probably use a keyword tool to help you develop keyword lists, I’d like you to use a keyword tool to develop negative keyword lists. And if you don’t have fancy tools at your disposal, don’t worry — for our purposes, the free keyword tool in your AdWords account will do just fine!
First, you’re going to type one of your keywords into the keyword tool:
Then, scan the list for “bad traffic” terms:
For each “bad” search query on the list, find the offending word in the phrase and add it to your negative keyword list. (Below is a screenshot of adding a negative keyword in AdWords using AdWords Editor, but this works for whatever search engine or interface you happen to be using.)
See how it works? It’s not hard at all really and is well worth the effort.
Good luck and remember — don’t feed the Google piggybank!
View Comments (16 Responses) | Categories: Paid Search
Posted on March 2, 2007 by Robbin Steif
So you did everything Google told you to do, but you can’t get your AdWords to talk to your Google Analytics.
This question came our way this week, and it was interesting, because I just went through the same problem myself. So here is some advice.
Problem #1) You want to link AdWords and Analytics, but when you follow their directions, you don’t get an “I already have Analytics” option.
I learned this one the hard way. Because you can only have one AdWords account associated with your GA account (even though you might have multiple Analytics profiles and even be able to look at multiple Analytics accounts), you have to unlink the old AdWords account so you can get the one you really want. However, unlinking is fraught with problems. (Thanks Justin, for teaching this one to me.) In fact, Google even says, if you want to unlink, contact us (use their contact form, they are pretty responsive.)
Problem #2) You successfully linked AdWords and Analytics, but you don’t see your campaigns.
This can be caused by autotagging turned off. You might have your autotagging turned off so that you can tag your AdWords just the way you want, but you have to tag them all. If you want to turn it back on, it is in AdWords, under My Account > Account preferences.
Problem #2a) You successfully linked AdWords and Analytics, you have autotagging turned on, but you still don’t see your campaigns. Or maybe, you see some of them, but not all of them.
When you see some but not all (and you have autotagging turned on), that’s a red flag — you don’t have Google Analytics installed on the landing page. “But wait,” I can hear you say, “I have my Analytics in a file that automatically gets copied to every page on my website.” Yes, I work with a customer like that, and two (count ‘em, one-two) of her campaigns landed on very specific landing page, stripped of all navigation and include files. Hence, stripped of Google Analytics.
Problem #3) No, none of those are the problem. Your account was never linked to another AdWords Account, you have auto-tagging turned on, you have analytics on your landing pages. This was the problem that came to me this week. Finding the problem was real gumshoe work and it was exciting to discover it.
Here’s what happen. I was getting ready to send it to someone on high, but decided to have one last look. I wanted to be sure he had GA on his landing pages. And then I noticed that he did have code installed — but he was running two different Google Analytic accounts. The account that was used from his landing pages was nothing like the account for the rest of his site. (I mean, the numbers, like this: uacct=”UA-xxxxxxx-y”) So yes, there is a Google Analytics account somewhere, someplace, that is reading the AdWords, but the other account, the main one, can’t see that the clicks are coming from AdWords. And isn’t the whole idea to be able to see it in one place and then make decisions based on your data?
Robbin Steif
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