6 Costly Rookie AdWord Mistakes You’ll Want To Avoid
We’ve all been there. When we were handed our first AdWords account to manage we said, “I got this! I’ve been reading about all the best techniques and optimization strategies, and I have my Google AdWords certificate. Piece of cake.” In which I promptly spent half of my budget overnight on an ill-conceived broad keyword. Whoops.
Like any new talent, mastering Google AdWords is something that takes time and practice. It’s a hard skill to teach without hands-on practice.
Are you still trying to navigate the complex maze that is Google AdWords? Learn from those who came before you, and avoid making these six costly rookie mistakes.
Mistake #1: Blowing your budget by using the wrong keyword match types
Oy, there’s nothing worse then setting up your account, feeling confident, only to wake up to a drained budget that got sucked up by one or two keywords that were set too broad. …
7 Creative Ways To Track Google Ads Conversions As A Retail Business
Managing an AdWords account for a retail business can be tricky. When your boss wants to know the ROI of your AdWords account, the last thing you want to start spitting back is the impressive click-through rate of your ads. What they really want to know is how much business these ads are actually generating.
Tracking any retail sale from beginning to end proves to be much more difficult when it starts online. So much happens after that initial ad click! But with some careful planning and strategic account setup, you can really start to paint a much clearer picture of how clicks are translating into actual qualified leads.
For starters, not all of Google Ads conversions can or should be valued the same.
Not all conversions should be treated equal. The key to getting a more accurate understanding of your AdWords ROI is to assign values to each conversion type. …
Mastering Paid Search Analytics
I recently took the our short survey about paid search. I was surprised to learn that analytics presented the greatest challenge to both paid search managers and agencies. Why is paid search analytics so challenging? I can’t speak for the survey respondents specifically, but from my own experience, there are several common challenges to understanding your paid search marketing campaign analytics.
Lack of Context
Do you find yourself providing these types of answers to your manager or CEO?
Our ads are creating great click-through rates.
We’re getting lots of reach.
Our website traffic is up.
If you are, perhaps you need to consider adding a little context to your analysis.
Paid search metrics are only meaningful if they relate to a specific period, event, or plan. If you are only using the analytics provided by an online search provider, your context may be limited. For instance, understanding monthly search …
Google Adwords Bid Creep is Real, and it’s Here
It has been a few months since Google removed the right side ads from search results pages. In case you missed it, we recapped the change and what that means for your business in our April article Google Removes Right Side Ads, What this Means for Your Adwords Marketing.
One prognostication I made at the time was that we may see costs increase, perhaps in the mid term, perhaps in the long term, as less position inventory is available. Well, I have to tell you, it’s real, and it’s happening right now.
At the end of May I performed a multitude of end of month reviews for a variety of client campaigns. Interestingly enough, there were notices from Google that minimum first page bids had increased in all of them. Now let’s be clear, we are not talking about incremental CPC bids requiring a small adjustment upwards to maintain or …