Posts Tagged ‘optimisation’

AdWords in tough times – Google’s tips

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Google’s own internal Optimisers have produced a helpful set of tactics to help people get the best results from AdWords in this difficult economic climate. In these conditions it’s important that you really make sure your campaigns are profitable and you will probably have to work that little bit harder to persuade people to buy your product or service.

Here are Google’s 6 Tactics for Tough Times with my interpretation/comments:

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings
Price is more important than ever. Make sure your proposition and Ad copy focus on low prices and value for money. That is what people are looking for, now more than ever before.

2. Use value-related keywords
Keywords are what people are looking for, so if people are looking for bargains then make sure your keywords reflect this. Research and test value-related keywords such as “cheap carpet”, “discount carpet”, “carpet offers”, etc.

3. Ensure your Ad Groups are targeted and relevant
This is not particularly a recession tactic, it is always important but it’s perhaps even more important in difficult times because you have to have everything right. Even small mistakes might now mean the difference between profit and loss. So rather than having big vague Ad Groups that target a broad area, split them into smaller more tightly-focused ones. For example, rather than have a big Ad Group about Training Shoes, split it into smaller groups covering Running Shoes, Squash Shoes, Gym Shoes etc. so that your Ads can specifically address what people are looking for. People looking for running shoes are more likely to click on an Ad about running shoes than they are on one about trainers in general.

4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.
Use negative keywords to filter out people who are looking for something different but which uses the same words. For example if you’re selling Butter you don’t want people who are looking for Peanut Butter clicking on your Ad (and believe me they will!) so add Peanut Butter and Peanut as negative keywords.

5. Make it easy for people to buy
Make sure the destination URL takes them straight to the order page – don’t make them hunt for it!

6. Focus your money on your high-performers
Spend your budget where it has the most effect. Always monitor the profitability of your campaigns and spend your money where it generates the most profit. Simple, but you’d be amazed how often it isn’t done!

So there is nothing earth-shatteringly new here, but it wouldn’t hurt to spend 5 minutes reviewing your AdWords activity against this list just to make sure you’re doing the best you can in this difficult climate. I pretty much guarantee that there will be something you can improve. All in all, a very helpful article from Google.

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5 Keys to success with AdWords

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

No this isn’t another how-to-setup-and-optimise-an-AdWords-campaign article, there are plenty of those already. What this article concentrates on is the non-technical aspects of AdWords that are often overlooked in all the excitement of choosing keywords and writing copy, but which are actually critical to the success of your campaigns. It doesn’t matter how good you are at setting bids and optimising your account, it will all be for nothing if you get these fundamentals wrong.

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