Top SEM Spenders Manage Adwords Campaigns
Find out the best tips to manage pay-per-click marketing campaigns on Google Adwords for new advertisers to manage with ease:
Basic Steps:
Pay-per-click marketing search engines facilitate advertisers to gain desired conversions. Major Pay-Per-Click programs that an advertiser can choose are from " Google Adwords," "Yahoo Search Marketing," "Microsoft adCenter" and "Miva Pay-Per-Click" among others. Advertisers can bid for target keywords, and gain conversions through their websites.Understand Google Adwords:
Writing good ads is one of the most important parts of your campaign.
First Line (Title)
This is where advertisers should emotionally appeal to their website visitors by revealing the most powerful benefit of their product or service. For example, describe how much the users can save if they decide to book discounted flight tickets with you.
Second Line (Ad Copy)
You should use the second line of text to appeal to a visitor's logical side when presenting an additional benefit of your product or service. For example, explain how your particular weight loss product will enable individuals to live longer, feel healthier and wear more current styles. Present the logical reasons visitors should choose your product.
Display URL
Many PPC advertisers fail to recognize the importance of the display URL when they write their PPC ads. This is a common mistake that can be avoided. Consider the display URL as an actual part of your ad, and use this worthful space as a "call to action" component. For instance, use more enticing URL such as "BestTravel.com/InstantBookings", rather than using "besttravel.com". Capitalising each word in the URL will improve readability and include your keyword, if possible. Advertisers can also create a landing page containing a descriptive name. One has to take time and be careful while creating an effective display URL, this attracts more attention to ads and generate a more number of clicks to the website.
Although every campaign is different, I have found general trends through testing the ways that usually work. The overall formula I like to use when writing ad copy is as follows:
Title and Line 2: Repeating the search term, starting the pre-sell
Line 3: Reassuring the customer, showing authority, and bonus selling points if space.
Display URL: Providing confidence in next step.
As always, its easiest to see with an example. Let’s use the example of a shoe offer like shoebuy or zappos. This ad would be for a search hitting the keyword “running shoes“. Here is a sample ad:
Ad copy ads may look simple but there is a lot going on there. So let’s break it down into 8 simple steps.
1. The search term is repeated in 2 different places on the ad, strengthening the search, increasing quality score, and bolding that text for increased CTR.
2. Saving money. Everyone wants to save money, so in 2 places on the ad we have show they will save money. On line 1, the word “discount” and on line 2 the phrase “on sale”.
3. Urgency. The word “now” on line 2 evokes a sense of urgency.
4. Numbers and percentages. People scanning a page always stop on numbers. On line 3 we use “100%” which draws the eyes to the ad and increases CTR.
5. Reassurance and final selling points. On line 3 we provide buyer reassurance with the guarantee and the bonus point about free shipping.
6. The word free. If there is anything about the offer that is free, its a good thing to put in the ad. “Free” jumps out at people.
7. Sentence case. Capitalizing the first letter of every word usually leads to higher CTR.
8. Display URL. This is a simple display URL but effective because it further reinforces the search term and lets the person know the domain is related to what they want. Not overly hyphenated or too long. Also I capitalize each word in the domain if its multiple words.
Even though this ad doesn’t have a call to action like “click now for coupon” it should still lead to a good CTR. Once the searcher gets to your landing page, you can then close the deal with a clear call to action. I like more descriptive and informative ad copies, which usually work well.
In addition, an advertiser can get more serious clicks which keeps expenses down and leads to overall better conversion rates, using the above techniques. At any rate this is just one of the techniques that usually works great for me, there are tons of other ways to write adcopy ads on Google Adwords for different situations.
Managing Google Adwords Accounts further effectively:
Further more, advertisers can learn about few ways of managing Google Adwords effectively. While running campaign(s) on Adwords, advertisers can reduce their bidding for keywords by improving their "Quality Score". Effectiveness of Adwords Campaigns can be brought in by following Three Simple Steps:
First, an advertiser should create separate Ad group for each product or service that is offered to the users by targeting niche related keywords that have more conversion rate, using keyword suggestion tools available online, like Google AdWords: Keyword Tool, Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker, Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and Keyword Discovery Tool.
Second, the bid amount for targeted keywords that can end up in conversions should be kept "HIGH". The initial bid amount can be 15 cents to 20 cents (for example). With this an advertiser can gain a good quality score and once a good quality score is increased, the CTR for keywords will improve (5%-10% is ideal) by further improving the relevancy of the adcopies and considering right landing pages, the bid for the keywords will come down. The position of an advertiser on Sponsored listings are normally calculated by the following formula.
Max CPC * Quality Score = The position on Sponsored Listings.
Google will charge for the minimum bid required to activate the keywords and will place the advertisers on top by considering their Quality Scores. This will bring the bid amount to less than 7 cents, but still holds an higher position. The keywords which have lesser conversion rate can be opted for bids that are less than 5 cents initially and can further bring it down to 2 cents when the Quality score is improved.
Third, the advertisers should create Adcopies that convey the maximum information possible for conversions to happen. Also, separate ad groups for each products and their Adcopies can have targeted keyword phrases in it with an "EXACT MATCH" option. This will improve the CTR of keywords in the campaign.
Here is a quick list from a source that claims the Top Search Engine Marketing (SEM) spenders (advertisers) who run their campaigns to promote their brands online:
Rank # Domain Name - Budget Spent $$ /week
A. Instantssl.com - SSL - $35,000
B. Trustfax.com - Free Fax - $12,000
1 google.com - $434,872.65
2 expedia.com - $381,312.69
3 geico.com - $337,578.15
4 hotels.com - $306,009.85
5 orbitz.com - $284,344.73
6 aol.com - $265,422.83
7 dell.com - $262,413.89
8 progressive.com - $251,978.39
9 cheaptickets.com - $198,884.02
10 mapquest.com - $172,539.00
11 cash4gold.com - $164,512.61
12 freecreditreport.com - $160,155.09
13 newbuicksforless.com - $157,116.98
14 rent.com - $155,434.55
15 bhphotovideo.com - $147,526.63
16 esurance.com - $143,825.66
17 carolinainsurancequotes.com - $143,428.37
18 nationwide.com - $139,938.40
19 search-schools.com - $138,707.04
20 checkngo.com - $134,237.19
21 paramountequity.com - $133,427.67
22 circuitcity.com - $132,379.20
23 amexnetwork.com - $127,435.95
24 hp.com - $121,090.47
25 live.com - $118,980.70
26 att.com - $117,114.22
27 bookingbuddy.com - $113,823.34
28 travelocity.com - $113,752.29
29 lendingtree.com - $113,396.52
30 hotwire.com - $110,145.67
31 fidelity.com - $109,103.13
32 ebay.com - $103,078.90
33 allstate.com - $98,572.41
34 ushud.com - $95,075.23
35 softwaresurplus.com - $92,725.24
36 shopsickkids.com - $92,462.48
37 bankofamerica.com - $91,977.22
38 uline.com - $91,919.08
39 victoriassecret.com - $91,581.69
40 rental-living.com - $91,213.24
41 glam.com - $90,566.21
42 jobing.com - $89,017.84
43 amazon.com - $83,310.69
44 stubhub.com - $83,072.83
45 lowes.com - $81,848.27
46 zappos.com - $79,791.99
47 sears.com - $78,645.68
48 target.com - $78,091.31
49 top-10-web-hosting.com
$77,592.92
50 countrywide.com
$75,611.42
51 brianwendt.com
$74,769.19
52 lucilepackardfoundation.org - $74,736.30
53 bresaqo.com - $73,936.99
54 educationdegreesource.com - $73,764.92
55 campusbooksale.com - $72,221.00
56 super8.com - $71,271.15
57 bmwdelawarevalley.com - $69,824.66
58 myjbrealty.com - $69,398.17
59 creditsolutions.com - $68,099.02
60 mortgageratesexperts.com - $67,265.95
61 memphistravel.com - $65,733.43
62 cscshosting.com - $65,461.58
63 intercontinental.com - $64,914.64
64 homedepot.com - $64,872.20
65 scottrade.com - $64,779.16
66 macys.com - $64,366.46
67 nextag.com - $63,693.28
68 truecredit.com - $63,160.79
69 jobslocal.org - $62,799.07
70 theoneupcashsystem.com - $62,029.09
71 stuff4sell.com - $61,766.18
72 walmart.com - $60,115.06
73 usdirectory.com - $59,079.15
74 nordstrom.com - $59,014.77
75 youtube.com - $58,173.97
76 mycashnow.com - $58,136.51
77 palmbeachplacevillas.com - $57,735.14
78 yahoo.com - $57,267.65
79 nassauparadiseisland.com - $57,238.64
80 dealnews.com - $56,878.68
81 wegiveloans.com - $56,708.18
82 alaskausa.org - $56,437.17
83 travelzoo.com - $55,965.59
84 holidayinn.com - $55,942.83
85 pronto.com - $55,414.38
86 directstartv.com - $55,249.44
87 tigerdirect.com - $55,090.09
88 gamefly.com - $54,849.47
89 booking.com - $54,778.49
90 greaterdaytonahomefinder.com - $54,252.71
91 getinstantgreen.com - $54,141.58
92 brocade.com - $54,035.92
93 jcpenney.com - $53,197.12
94 creditcards.com - $52,974.05
95 publicstorage.com - $51,557.23
96 priceline.com - $51,489.05
97 icompared.net - $51,124.52
98 beachcamera.com - $51,050.74
99 barracudanetworks.com - $50,755.73
100 creditreport.com - $50,732.20
Further more, few Advanced Tips to Manage Adwords:
- Dynamic Ad copies can be created by using the following string
{keyword: keyword that is in the ad group}.
For example if we have the following keywords in an Ad group like: Travel, cheap travel or flight booking and an adcopy which says,
{Keyword: Travel}Instant booking. User Reviews. Upto 25% cash back. Book Now!
For example if we have the following keywords in an Ad group like: Travel, cheap travel or flight booking and an adcopy which says,
{Keyword: Travel}Instant booking. User Reviews. Upto 25% cash back. Book Now!
- When a prospect queries ‘Cheap Travel’, the adcopy will show ‘Cheap Travel’ as the title. The advantage of using this Dynamic URL Technique is that CTR will be improved and this will result in improving the Quality score required for bringing down the bid amount. The same keyword with a bid amount of 40 cents is most probable to come down to 10 or 15 cents.
- Advertisers should create additional Ad copies which can be a combination of Text and Images. The Ads can be set to ‘rotate and show.’ This will help the advertisers to eliminate the ads that are not performing well and further improve their CTR.
- By setting up the right landing page can improve our quality score.
- Advertisers can opt for either Content network or Search network or both to run their campaigns. Bid amount can be separated for Content network and search network, and Advertisers can bid minimum for content network.
- Exact match and Phrase match will give targeted traffic.
- Advertisers can separate Ad groups for each of these keywords, as there is a scope of improving the CTR higher than broadly matched keywords.
- Most importantly, advertisers should consider enabling the ad scheduling if required and monitor the time period the clicks are more and increase the bidding for keywords which has high conversion rate and adjust it accordingly.
- Google has come up by listing Quality score adjacent to the keywords column, will help advertisers decide whether to delete the keywords or optimise the adcopies in the adgroups (Quality Score is usually termed as ‘Great’, ‘OK’ and ‘Poor’).
Considering the above points and more by constantly tracking and with timely analysis on the performance of keywords using proper analytics tools, the effectiveness of PPC campaigns can be enhanced.
In my next post I shall be writing about the Costly keywords and the ways to use such words on content to make money online.
Good PPC References: Formula of a winning PPC ad
Labels: Managing Adwords, online spenders, pay-per-click marketing, PPC Campaigns, Quality Score, SEM Spenders, trends
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V.B.Lakshmi Narsimhan
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About My work
I am an In-house Search Marketer handling Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) activities for an MNC in Chennai. I write this SEO blog posting on emarketing Trends and review SEO Tools with rave insights and topics at SEOChat, Highrankings.com, Mediapost, SEMPO among others to that could be helpful for the users who are inclined towards Internet Marketing.
