Google AdWords’ Fifth Match Type

You heard it straight from the source. Aside from broad, phrase, exact, and negative match keywords, Google has gone and done it again, and added a fifth match type: “Embedded Match.”

Upon getting re-certified as a member of the Google AdWords Professionals program, I realized that the “Big G” created a new negative keyword type. So what is embedded match exactly? The Google Learning Center defines, Embedded Match as a keyword type that, “allows you to prevent your ad from appearing in relation to certain phrase or exact matches.”

This allows you to prevent your ad from appearing in relation to certain phrase or exact matches. This can be best utilized when an advertiser sells merchandise related to a movie or book, but not the actual movie or book.

For example, if an advertiser is selling merchandise for the movie “Toy Story,” such campaigns might want to utilize the embedded match option of a negative keyword and exact match on -[Toy Story]. This way, ads will only appear for Toy Story dolls and Toy Story products, but not for the exact match “Toy Story.”

Although this seems like a relatively new concept, professional Pay-Per-Click Marketers have been utilizing “Negative Exact” keyword match types in order to eliminate irrelevant impressions, and increase click-through-rates for higher relevance. It seems that the new match type is nothing more than a way to further segment your negative keywords, however, I must admit – if Google saw the need to add this to their “tried & true” tactics of qualifying traffic, I am more than willing to give it a shot.

Yahoo! & Microsoft Search Alliance: What’s Changed?

After all of the build-up over the last few months, the merger between Yahoo! & Microsoft’s search engine marketing entities is now complete. Despite widespread concern, the world of search remains relatively unchanged. Although Yahoo’s pay per click platform has been shut down, all ads can still being displayed on this engine, via Microsoft adCenter.

The partnership itself opens up advertisers to 163 million unique searchers, which translates to roughly 33.8% of the entire United States search market. Paired with Google AdWords, pay per click campaigns have the potential to reach over 95% of all online searches.

Although there are some tangible benefits to the recent union, including a single consolidated interface, a functional desktop editor program, and increased traffic – there are some potential pitfalls that advertisers should be aware of:

1. Increased Click Costs: Increased impressions, mean increased clicks, which mean – increased costs. Assuming that the average cost-per-click (CPC) doesn’t rise, your costs probably will. Before the Alliance, campaigns and keywords were only receiving a fraction of the traffic. To maintain control on ad spend, keep bids conservative and gradually increase over time.  This way you can still generate a constant flow of traffic without worrying about exhausting your monthly budget.

2. No Segmentation: Analyzing specific data sets, and making informed decisions based on your findings is essential to the success of any online marketing initiative. However, for the time being, advertisers will not be able to independently view performance data for Yahoo! & Bing. This means that maximum CPC’s will be standard for both engines despite competition and performance, so special care must be taken to have pre-determined benchmarks for success within your campaign.

3. No Revenue Tracking: There is currently no interface compatible revenue tracking column that allows site owners to calculate a goal return on investment. Although this data can be extracted within Google Analytics through the use of tagging, or through referring URL’s in the back end of your store, for optimizations on the fly is is best to have a goal cost-per-acquisition (CPA). If you know your average order value over a long enough timeline, you can adjust bids with relative ease and be certain that you are reaching your goals.

If you can manage to keep these three things in mind when managing campaigns through adCenter, you should be able to eliminate a lot of the growing pains associated with advertising on a new platform.

Google Instant, Learn to Love It…

Loyal readers probably noticed that it has been some time since my last post, but I do have a pretty good reason. Google recently made a big change in the way that people search online. Allow me to introduce you to Google Instant, a new game-changing feature in the dynamic world of Pay Per Click Advertising.

If the hyperlink is leaving anybody confused, or you haven’t experienced the new feature first hand, Google basically predicts your search before you finish typing it. It may offer new suggestions based on search volume, or even correct misspellings as you type, in an attempt to speed up the average time of a search. Although this feature seems helpful, it has been having some interesting effects on Google AdWords accounts.

Increased impression volume, lower click-through-rates, and spikes in ad spend, seem to be the most common side effects. This is because even the most relevant long tail keyword variations, are generating impressions by displaying ads as soon as a person searches a key phrase located within the term. This is causing impression spikes in broad match, which inevitably lead to lower click-through-rates (compare this to the search network vs. the display network). The increased impressions also translate to more exposure, which brings in more clicks over time, which drives up costs over time (without the promise of a higher conversion rates).

These changes have forced several advertisers to reformulate their strategies. Negative Exact Keyword variations are growing in popularity in order to help preserve CTR’s and keep costs down. This tactic allows the brunt of the traffic to be taken off of your broad and shorter keywords variations. If this is not enough, pausing broad match entirely, might be your best choice until you can restructure the account and optimize your keyword variations.

Despite having to tweak existing accounts, there is a very big positive side effect to come about from the birth of Google Instant. As you may or may not know, the the AdWords Reporting Center has been retired. Although the days of the all-mighty Search Query Report are long gone, there is a more intuitive way to generate negatives & account keywords within your campaigns.

Under the “Keywords” tab, there is a new button that reads” “See Search Terms…” Simply click on the button, select “All,” and you will be able to see every keyword that caused your ads to display within any given timeline. Click the radio button and add the term as a negative or account keyword to refine and increase the relevance of the traffic coming into your site.

Personally, I recommend looking at any extreme changes in account performance, and then determine which areas need to be optimized. Give higher spending campaigns top priority and evaluate performance at the granular level by analyzing adgroups and specific keyword variations. One single broad match term could throw off the profitability of entire account, so be sure to identify the root of problem before making major changes.

No matter what your take on Google Instant is at this time, I suggest you learn to love it – because it looks like it’s here to stay.

Should I Use PPC if I Rank High Organically?

There is a lot of debate over whether or not to continue using Pay Per Click advertising after your site begins to rank organically for your top performing keywords. Over time, store owners would ideally like to cut expenses by increasing free traffic streams to their site through SEO & Social Media efforts. However, deciding to pull the plug completely on your Sponsored Search initiatives, could have some very serious consequences on your overall performance.

The freedom of the Internet allows your competitors to bid on on literally any keyword under the sun. Because of this, the marketplace is fierce. Although you may have the top organic listing, that doesn’t mean that some “fly-by-night” company can’t spring up and pay a lower price to display ads in the spot that you once occupied (or worse, display an ad above your organic listing). 

Also, the intelligence of the buying public is growing each and every day, and they actually tend to utilize the “Sponsored Links” section when they are at the final stage of the buying cycle, since they know that this space is a favorite hangout for ecommerce sites. Although free traffic may sound appealing, there is a certain level of reputability and  brand reinforcement that is achieved by taking advantage of this double exposure, as well as an increased likelihood of converting.

Maintaining your PPC campaigns, also allows you to protect the integrity of  your brand. As I mentioned earlier, the competition can bid on any keyword that they’re willing to pay money for – including your company name. If you aren’t at the very top of the page for your own site, it is likely that a percentage of searchers will never reach your store (despite their previous intent to). This tactic has also been proven to increase overall click-through-rates, as it further justifies the legitimacy of the user generated query.

Consistency is also a benefit of running PPC ads despite an uptick in organic traffic. Unlike paid search, your rank on the search engines can fluctuate greatly over a relatively short period of time. Between search algorithms, changing content, and competing SEO efforts – assuming that you will hold the top spot forever, simply isn’t feasible. Unlike sponsored links, you cannot go to the top of the search results with a simple bid increase. By doubling up on your efforts, you are not only protecting your stake in the online marketplace, but ensuring visibility when your organic efforts begin to slack.

Increased control, is also an additional benefit that PPC has over SEO. Pay Per Click campaigns allow you to execute time-sensitive promotions, customize ad content, and immediately respond to current trends in the marketplace, while organic listings wait be crawled and updated by the search engines. The control of paid search, also allows you the ability to respond to negative press, or give specific landing pages additional exposure based on demand. This control allows for a more proactive approach to your online marketing initiatives.

When it’s all said and done though, there will still be people that argue that it is pointless to “waste” money on sponsored links when you already have first page listings for your top keywords (including trademarks). However, I would never go so far as to call it a “waste.”  Whenever I’m not sure about the best approach, I look at what the competition is doing, and the bigger the competitor – the better.  Search for Amazon, Best Buy, Gap, Old Navy, TigerDirect, Walmart, or anybody else who can afford an in-house marketing department, and you will see that they have sponsored listings for their own brands.

If however you decide to stop advertising once you reach the top spot on Google, I recommend doing so with caution. Try ramping back on your spend in the beginning to see how it affects your traffic levels & sales volume. If the value of the reduced cost is greater than the decreased performance, try lowering your bids again and remember to track the changes to your bottom line. Every account is different, however you don’t want to limit the exposure of your business with the simple goal of saving money.

AdWords Column Metrics Increase Insight

Google’s gone and done it again. If their new user-friendly interface wasn’t enough to get you excited for AdWords, their new column options might.

Now you have the ability to enable conversion value and average order value to display on the campaign, adgroup and keyword levels with a simple click. This data was previously only available in the reporting tab, but now these figures can be used to make precise bid changes on the fly. Gone are the days of opening up multiple tabs or referencing printed reports to increase the efficiency of your campaigns.

These new column options are much like those found within Yahoo’s interface, which unfortunately will be phased out completely in the upcoming months as a part of the new  ”Search Alliance” with Bing. Although Google has yet to incorporate ROAS figures within their working interface, it should only be a matter of time before it becomes available.

With the partnership of Yahoo & Microsoft and the shift to the adCenter interface, it’s great to see AdWords raising the bar to continue increasing usability and insight. Paired with sorting capabilities, users can easily identify their top-earning keywords and make more informed decisions based on information that trumps conventional CPA figures alone.

Quality Score vs. Cold Cash

Quality Score is defined by Ad Synergies as, “An algorithm used in the Pay Per Click advertising platforms for ranking the relevancy of landing pages to their corresponding PPC advertisements and keywords.  Higher quality scores indicate a stronger correlation – thus giving the customer what they are searching for.  This increased “quality” or relevance is often rewarded by the PPC platforms with lower keyword costs and improved ad placement position.”

In a nutshell, you should be able to achieve a higher position at a lower cost-per-click based how relevant your keywords are to your ad copy and landing page. Although it may seem pretty straightforward, every search engine is different, and the metrics used to calculate this score are far from transparent.

Advertising on search engines is based on an open market system, so it is very possible that a less relevant site, bidding on the very same keywords, may rank higher simply because they are willing to pay more for a click to their site. Search engines are no different than your business, they are out to make money. Quality score is a way to justify higher costs with vague descriptions and secret formulas that are used to calculate relevance.

Pay Per Click companies claiming to “manipulate” the quality score – unfortunately, are bound by the same restrictions as everybody else. Nobody wants to pay for a poor placement, however in this case “money talks.” The more general your keywords are, the higher price you are likely to pay.

The best way to bypass this common pitfall is to utilize long tail keyword variations. These are often overlooked by most advertisers, and may help to increase the relevance of the traffic that enters your site. Although these terms don’t yield as much traffic, they can certainly help advertisers obtain a fair amount of relevant exposure when operating within a limited budget.

Yahoo! Search Marketing Alliance Update

In case you haven’t been following the recent headlines, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter are looking to have all PPC advertisers in the United States and Canada transferred to Microsoft’s platform by the end of 2010 under their new Search Marketing Alliance.

Yahoo’s Marketing Blog stated that users of its Pay Per Click services will be offered a window of several weeks, during which they can choose a time to carry out their account transition. Funds remaining in their Sponsored Search account will switch over to adCenter spend or be refunded once all marketing efforts are served on Microsoft’s platform.

At this time, companies can continue to manage Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns as usual and that there is no need to open a separate adCenter account. Under the guides of the new alliance, Sponsored Search will eventually be shut down and Pay Per Click ads will be served via a single platform targeting both Bing and Yahoo! traffic under the newly unified adCenter account.

Personally, I think it is always best practice to accept change rather than resist it (especially when advertisers have no control over aforementioned “Alliance”). Especially since there is no rumor that advertisers will be able to segment campaigns served to each engine, it might not be a bad idea to open up an adCenter account and begin to establish a new quality score under the unified platform, before the flood of late adopters begin to crowd the newly established market.

I highly recommend utilizing the recently released beta version of the Microsoft adCenter Desktop editor. This free program will allow you to easily upload established campaigns on both AdWords & YSM platforms in order to eliminate the time it would take to create your campaigns from scratch.

Google’s Robust Remarketing Feature

Even if you’re familiar with AdWords, you may not be familiar with the concept of Remarketing. Also known as Retargeting, this new feature allows you to display your ads to people on the Content Network who have previously visited your site, viewed a key landing page, or completed a predetermined action of your choosing.

The main goal of this feature is to qualify a visitors interest in your products and then reach out to them again, in an attempt to recapture an otherwise lost conversion. Google allows you to define a specific audience of users on your site by installing a custom cookie on one or more landing pages. Once a user visits a tagged page, their IP address is collected within AdWords in order to redistribute your ads to that specific group (audience) over the Content Network.

For example, say you are looking to sell a surplus of platinum wedding rings. Your landing page is getting plenty of traffic, however your products just aren’t selling. You can install a cookie on your platinum wedding ring product  page, which will trigger a relevant ad to display to any visitor who who previously landed on this url, but failed to convert. These ads will be served over the Google Content Network, but will not be displayed to the general public. Because of this, the clicks received through a Remarketing Campaign are much more relevant, and therefore more likely to result in a conversion – since the target audience has already expressed interest in the specific products you are looking to sell.

There are also Custom Combinations, which allow you to target multiple and or exclude specific actions on your site. Let’s say a visitor enters the platinum wedding ring page and ends up purchasing on the spot. Naturally, you wouldn’t want to redistribute your ads to existing customers since the likelihood of a repeat purchase for the same product in such a short period of time is pretty unlikely. You can install a second tag on the order confirmation page, and much like a negative keyword – set up a rule which will prevent your ads from displaying to a specific group of people (i.e. existing customers).

Proper utilization of Google’s Remarketing feature is also a great way to expand your customer base. You can set up Custom Combinations specifically geared toward reducing cart abandonment by creating hidden landing pages and secret coupon codes that will be displayed to people who place products in your cart, but ultimately fail to convert. This cart abandonment can be due to elevated shipping costs or visitors who are simply in the data gathering phase that need an added incentive to finalize their purchase.

Although this highly targeted traffic has been proven to increase sales, it does come with a price. Much like the Google Search Network, the Content Network operates on an open auction bidding system, so you will be competing with other advertisers on 3rd party and publisher sites. When setting up your Remarketing Campaign, in order to receive impressions, it is recommended that you set maximum CPC’s at $2 to $3 in order to ensure that your ads are displayed. Also worth noting, you must collect a sample size of 500 unique IP addresses before your ads begin to display through a Google Remarketing Campaign.

Distinguishing Keyword Match Types

In Pay Per Click Advertising, you choose keywords that relevant to your site or service offerings and designate a maximum cost-per-click that you are willing to pay in order to bring a person into your site. Your ads display based on your own custom keyword lists, and only do so when they match the queries that people are searching. Although this all seems pretty straight forward, there is another factor that should be utilized to not only ensure relevance, but save you money over the course of your online campaigns. Keyword Match Types, are essential in in achieving these objectives.

There are four match types that can be utilized in the world of Paid Search: Broad, Phrase, Exact & Negative. It is best to think of these types in regard to relevance in order to better understand the function of each.

Broad Match keyword variations have the “broadest” relevance. Let’s say your online store sells high-end aviator sunglasses. Naturally, you want people who are searching for this particular style to see your inventory, so you decide to bid on this keyword. Under the guides of the broad match version of the term: aviator sunglasses, anybody searching for this keyword should see your ad. However, because this match type has the broadest relevance, your ad may also display under the following sample queries: “sunglasses aviator, expensive sunglasses that aviators wear, buy aviator sunglasses from top gun, etc.” Bidding on this match type allows the order of the keyword to be switched and other variants to be added to the beginning, middle, or end of the core keyword: aviator sunglasses.

Phrase Match keyword variations, on the other hand, must include the “phrase” to be relevant. In this case, the term will show up in quotations within the AdWords interface in order to distinguish it from a broad match type (i.e. “aviator sunglasses”). Unlike the aforementioned, phrase match variations must follow the same order as they appear within quotes. That being said, your ad may also display under the following sample queries: “mirrored aviator sunglasses, aviator sunglasses suck, cheap aviator sunglasses for sale, etc.” So long as the phrase “aviator sunglasses” remains intact, your ad has the potential to display.

Exact Match keyword variations will only display your ad when it is searched “exactly” as it is entered. This is illustrated within AdWords through the use of brackets to differentiate this type from the previous two (i.e. [aviator sunglasses]). No matter what variations are searched, your ad will only show when somebody searches for: “aviator sunglasses.”

Although it may be tempting to use only exact match since they don’t allow for any other keyword variations to trigger your ad, there is still one last type that can (and should always) be utilized. Negative Match keywords are unlike the other types, because they will never cause your ad to display. Shown in AdWords with a minus sign (-) in front of the keyword, this type of term will prevent your ad from being seen for searches that you deem irrelevant (i.e. -suck, -cheap, – top gun).

It is best practice to utilize broad, phrase & exact match types when conducting keyword research. Since there is no way to add every relevant variation during the initial account build, broad & phrase match types should prove to be very effective at driving a majority of traffic to your site. Over time, you will discover new terms that have varying levels of value to the account whether you decide to bid on them or add specific variables to your list of negatives.

Google Ad Planner Top 1000 List

When attempting to raise brand awareness on the Content Network, exposure means everything. Google just made the process a little easier with a list of the top 1,000 sites on the web ranked by unique visitors. The Ad Planner Top 1,000 List is published monthly, and includes the number of page views, as well as the reach for each site listed.

When properly utilized, the list acts as a perfect guide for finding high traffic site placements. You can easily determine whether specific sites serve Google Ads, or even decide if a potential placement is right for you based on the category listing. By segmenting placements of interest within their own campaigns, you can have total control over spend as well as positioning on some of the most popular Internet hot spots.

Google even went so far as to create an export feature, that allows you to easily transfer Content Network placements from Ad Planner directly into your AdWords account. These are automatically set up as new campaigns or ad groups, and should prove to be one of the easiest ways to build media plans of managed placements.

Although this is an amazing way to easily saturate the most visited sites on the Internet with your ads, be wary, as higher traffic sites translate to higher spend and competition. Try creating some placements with conservative budgets and lower maximum CPC’s to figure out if your spend allows you to show up on these sites. Be aware, that if  your ads qualify, they will display on these sites regardless of relevance, since placements are not keyword targeted by default.

Also, it may not a bad idea to research each site to determine if your ad units are actually served. Publishers typically pick ad blocks based on performance, as well as aesthetic appeal with regard to their site design.

Google’s New Adwords Interface

If you’ve been a Google AdWords client for awhile now, you have probably noticed the new user interface (UI). If you’re anything like me, you are very skeptical of change – however this isn’t necessarily a bad one. I truly believe that Google has the consumer as their number one priority, and the new UI further solidifies my theory.

In the past, you would have to click a campaign in order to enter an adgroup, and only after clicking through the organizational hierarchy, would you be able to view data at the keyword level. Well, not any more. With an advanced sorting feature, advertisers are able to view conversion data at the campaign, adgroup, and keyword level with a simple click of the mouse.

You can organize even the most granular of data, based on cost, conversions, CPA, CPC or even average position. This takes a lot of the guesswork, as well as the wasted time typically associated with trying to isolate problematic areas of your AdWords account.

Besides keyword data, you can also identify the top performing text or image  ads, and then modify others to mimic the tactics that have been proven to work over time in order to increase the overall performance of your account.

Google even offers a handy expandable menu to the left, that allows users to search their ‘Help Center’ – just in case you encounter any hang-ups along the way. Located within this ‘Help Menu,’ are several helpful links that can get you started on the road to Pay Per Click success. These links include tutorials that cover topics like: How an AdWords Account is Structured, an AdWords Beginner’s Guide, as well as Recent Changes to the Interface.

AB Test Your Ads for Better Results

If you have ever run multiple ad variations within the same adgroup, you will probably realize that one ends up outperforming the other. This is totally natural, and although you may not know it, it is actually an example of “AB Testing.”

AB Testing (also known as multi-variant testing) is simply the tactic of running two different variations side by side until a clear cut winner is established. The metrics used to determine the winner can be CTR, conversion volume, ROAS or any other statistic that you are looking to achieve.

Since it is impossible to know what text will appeal to your targeted demographic, trying a few different ad variations is a a very wise decision in the world of PPC. By testing incentives such as: free shipping, coupon codes, and product distinctions, you may be able to quickly determine what is most important to your target audience.

Although you may be able to find out what your customer base is looking for, that doesn’t mean your search for the perfect ad should stop there. Test out different variables that include custom titles, specific calls to action, as well as price points, that are aimed at reaching audiences at different stages of the buying cycle.

Google AdWords offers an unlimited number of variations within any given adgroup, so feel free to experiment. Remember the phrase “Always Be Testing,” and you’ll be sure to remember to never stop the search for the perfect ad.

Advertising on the Content Network

If you have ever read a blog, visited a forum, or even browsed popular news sites – you have more than likely seen a variety of advertisements adorning the page. Believe it or not, in most cases these are Pay Per Click ads fed through Google, Yahoo and Bing. Site owners allow sponsored links from these engines to be placed on their site in return for a a portion of the revenue generated from every click. The compilation of these privately owned sites, are what is most often referred to as the Content Network.

Much like advertising on the Search Engine itself, the Content Network has many similarities. The average Cost-Per-Click (CPC) typically varies from site to site. For example, you would probably pay a higher price to have your ads show on CNN’s site, compared to that of a local news channel’s page. You also do not incur any charges unless somebody makes a conscious effort to click on your advertisement. Just like negative keywords protect you from unnecessary costs on Search Engines, the Content Network has negative placements that stop your ads from showing on sites that hold little or no relevance, so managing these campaigns is quite similar.

The Content Network, does however have some big differences. Because your ads have the possibility to show up on literally 1,000′s of partner sites, these campaigns have a tendency to spend a lot of money due to the increased number of impressions. Along with this, Click-Through-Rates (CTR’s) typically run below average since people aren’t necessarily coming to the site to purchase what you are selling. Several people go to Content pages for reviews, information, and support – so it might be a good idea to edit your negative keyword list to ensure that you are not cutting off a large portion of your target market (or sending the wrong type of traffic).

One of the best tactics for starting up a Content campaign is separating it from your Search campains, so you can accurately track the progress of your efforts. Because the bidding structure is also different, the separation allows you to better control the spending habits of the two separate networks. Cutting out Phrase & Exact matchtypes, is also a great starting point for Content campaigns, as you can get a lot of great exposure for your ads in the beginning before you start adding site exclusions. Also, be sure to set budgets low and keep bids conservative in the beginning so you don’t end up blowing through your designated allotment before the end of the month.

Do it Yourself PPC Management

If you’ve ever tried to manage your own PPC Advertising campaigns, you will realize that there is a lot of information to absorb before you feel comfortable making major changes to your account. Although each of the big three search engines have online tutorials, guides, and videos to help walk you through the process – many people find that the amount of information available is nothing short of overwhelming, so they seek outside assistance.

Several Search Engine Marketing Agencies claim that they can guarantee results based on cutting-edge tactics that can raise your quality score, and somehow manipulate the system. However, the truth is that every certified Internet Marketing Professional has been trained by the same sources available to you online (they’re just paid to learn it).

The only true reason to pay for PPC management, is to save time. Adjusting bids, testing copy, and maintaining budgets, can easily take away from your other responsibilities as a business owner. So before you begin shopping for an Internet Marketing agency, try some of the free online advertising databases listed below. Each one of these databases are updated regularly by the engines, so you can stay on top of all the new features and capabilities.

Google AdWords Help

Yahoo! Sponsored Search Help

Microsoft AdCenter Help

PPC Advertising vs. SEO

Although this site is about Pay Per Click Advertising, we can’t deny the importance of incorporating Search Engine Optimization (SEO) within your website. However, it is important to know the difference between these two traffic-driving tactics, as they are quite different from one another.

PPC Advertising is based on keywords of your choosing, and you simply “Pay-Per-Click,” as the name indicates. These clicks can vary in cost, from a few cents – to a few dollars. Although you can see immediate traffic spikes to your site, these are not long-lasting, as they do not contribute to your overall ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Simply put, once you stop putting money into your advertising efforts – so does your traffic.

Search Engine Optimization on the other hand, is totally free (assuming you know how to do it yourself). Results typically are not as immediate, however it is a great long-term strategy for driving traffic to your site through increasing page rank with link building, relevant content, and Social Media Optimization (SMO).  These tactics are often quite time consuming, and require constant attention as competitor sites try to rank on the same keywords that you do.

This is where PPC Advertising truly shines. Depending on how much you are willing to spend, you can always have a custom link to your site on top of (or directly to the right of) any organic listing on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Even if you have a moderate budget, there is still a good chance that you can have your ads show on the first page of search results – which are ideal for maximum exposure and click-through-rates (CTR’s).

The great thing is, you can set up paid search campaigns to conicide with your SEO efforts until you establish a quality page rank. However, more often than not, you will discover that competitors maintain their PPC campaigns depsite how high they rank organically.

Turn On Search Partners to Expand Reach

When you create a new Pay Per Click campaign, you are given several choices in regard to where your ads will be displayed. Although you must choose to utilize either the Google Search or Content Network, there is a third option which can easily expand your online reach even further.

Google Search Partners, is the third option. These ‘partners’ include other well-known search networks that include: AOL, Netscape Netcenter, Earthlink, CompuServe, Shopping.com, AT&T, and Ask.com. These smaller engines typically bring in lower cost clicks, as well as lower cost conversions, so it’s definitely worth trying out. With Google’s new interface, it’s easier than ever to determine if the Search Partners are profitable or not.

By rule of thumb, you should always separate your search campaigns from your content campaigns – however, it isn’t possible to separate Google Search & Search Partner campaigns. Because of this, you should check the data on both networks frequently, as you cannot adjust bids independently.

Typically, Google Search has a higher average cost-per-click (CPC) than the Search Partners due to increased competition. Because of this, we recommend turning on the Search Partners option after you already have data established under Google’s primary search option.

Qualify Traffic With Search Query Reports

Volume vs. qualified traffic. This is the constant struggle that most Paid Search marketers face each and every day. The traditional way of thinking, is that the more eyes you have on your store, the more likely people are to buy. Although this tactic may work in a typical brick and mortar store, this does little to persuade a person to make a purchase online.

It is essential to filter out people who are just looking around, or not really ready to buy your products. Because every click ultimately costs you money, it is pointless to keep driving visits that don’t result in sales. Allow me to introduce you to one of the most helpful tools in filtering our irrelevant traffic to your site – the Google AdWords ‘Search Query Report’.

This simple report, when coupled with conversion data metrics, can add valuable insight into how people are entering your site through your AdWords campaigns. With detailed long tail queries, often generated through broad match-types, this data is instrumental in generating new negative keywords.  Simply sort your report by cost, and find our which irrelevant keyword searches are costing you the most and add broad-match negative keywords to your campaigns based on your findings.

You can run ‘Search Query Reports’ as often as you like, and I personally recommend doing this on a weekly basis during the infancy of your AdWords account, since you may not yet have a fully developed negative keyword list. Along with saving money, ‘Search Query Reports’ are also effective in creating new keywords that you may have neglected to add to your account.

Google’s Reporting Center allows you to set up and save templates, so you can run custom reports on demand with a simple click of the mouse. Experiment with running reports at the account, campaign and adgroup levels to start bringing in only the most qualified traffic to your site.

Pay-Per-Click Beyond AdWords

It should come as no surprise that Google reigns supreme in the wide world of search. Accounting for nearly 70% of the total market share, with nearly 7 billion searches per month – Google and it’s AdWords platform are constantly revolutionizing the Internet marketing industry.

Although it’s clear that the lion’s share is currently spoken for, there is still 30% of the search market that is unspoken for. Despite the fact that no other single search engine can generate the same volume for your pay-per-click campaigns as Google, you should think twice before you limit your ads to just one medium.

Yahoo! & Bing (formerly MSN) account for roughly 25% of the remaining market share, and typically generate 2 to 2.5 billion searches per month. By allocating some of your monthly spend to these “Big Three,” you can ensure that your ads are seen by approximately 95% of the entire online market.

Besides the additional exposure, engines such as Yahoo! & Bing can prove to be especially beneficial to smaller businesses with limited budgets. High spending keywords on Google can be moved onto other engines where the search volume isn’t as high – or as costly. Google’s increased traffic means increased competition, and that translates to a higher average cost-per-click (CPC) for those first page impressions which typically go hand-in-hand with online advertising success.

*Remember to keep budgets low when expanding campaigns to unfamiliar search engines. Some platforms don’t require you to set a daily spending limit, and you may find yourself burning through your funds in a hurry.

Making Sense of Negative Keywords

Common Google AdWords Terminology

Getting started in Google AdWords can be a bit overwhelming at first – especially when online support documents are catered to professional Internet Marketers. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t start slinging around lingo like the pros by beefing up on some industry jargon.

Impressions:

An ‘Impression’ is the name given to the total number of times that your ad shows in AdWords. Although people see your sponsored link when they make a search in Google, this does not mean that you will incur any cost. So long as visitors are not clicking on your ads, just think of impressions as free exposure on Google’s Search Network.

Clicks:

A ‘Click’ is the name given to the total number of times that a visitor enters your website through a sponsored listing in Google. Every time you register a click, your AdWords account is assessed a predetermined fee that is established at the time of campaign creation.

CTR’s:

‘CTR’ is the name given to the ratio of clicks to impressions in AdWords. Also known as ‘Click Through Ratio’ or ‘Click Through Rate’ – this metric is expressed as the percentage of times an ad is clicked in Google, out of the total number of times the ad was seen (impressions). Although AdWords typically calculates this automatically, CTR’s can be found by dividing  your total number of impressions, by your total number of clicks, and multiplying that number by 100.

Example: If you receive 25 clicks out of 100 impressions, you will have a CTR of 25%

(25/100 =.25) x 100 = 25%

Avg. CPC:

The ‘Avg. CPC’ is an abbreviation for ‘Average Cost-Per-Click’. Although somewhat self explanatory, this is the average price you pay for an ad to show at a given position. This value can be seen at the keyword, adgroup, campaign, and even the account level, to help determine how much you are paying on average to bring a visitor to your site.

Avg. Pos:

Depicted as a number from 1-10, this is the ‘Average Position’ of your Google ad impressions. Much like the ‘Avg. CPC’, this value can be seen at the keyword, adgroup, campaign, and account levels. This number can be used to see where your ads are being shown over a specific period of time.

Conversions:

‘Conversions,’ is simply another name for a completed action. Whether you are tracking sales, purchases, leads, sign-ups, or even a view of a key URL – conversions are a great way to determine the success of your AdWords account.

Cost/Conv:

‘Cost/Conv.’  is the abbreviated form of ‘Cost-Per-Conversion’. The ‘CPA’, as it is more commonly referred – is the amount of money it costs to bring about a designated action to your site. If you know the average value of a conversion, this is a great way to determine how much money you are bringing in vs. how much money you are spending on advertising costs.

Conv. Rate:

‘Conversion Rate’ is the name given to the ratio of conversions to clicks in AdWords. This metric is expressed as the percentage of times a customer or visitor completes a predetermined action on your site. The conversion rate can be calculated by dividing  your conversions by your total number of clicks, and then multiplying that number by 100.

Example: If you receive 5 conversions out of 200 clicks, you will have a Conversion Rate of 2.5%

(5/200 =.025) x 100 = 2.5%