Here at Marketing By Web we’re the first to tell you that you CAN manage your own Adwords campaigns, and we give you lots of great hints and tips on our blog to help you do so.

But if you run a small business, often things such as Adwords take a back seat, which means they become inefficient, expensive, or both.

An Adwords Manager can make sure you’re getting the best from your advertising spend, and here are 5 reasons why.

1) We’ve been there, done that

We too were newbies to Adwords once, believe it or not! We built up our knowledge, made our mistakes and learned from them, and now we’re experts in what we do. Getting Adwords right requires a learning curve, trial and error, and can sometimes mean some pretty costly mistakes. We’ve gone through that curve and our systems and processes are efficient and slick, giving you the best bang for your buck.

2) Time is on our side

Because Adwords and SEO is all we do, we’ve developed th aforementioned systems and processes to ensure that we can dedicate time and energy to each account we manage in an efficient way. Adwords is our lifeblood as it were, so we put in the time to get it right. Your lifeblood is YOUR business, and as such do you really have time to be testing and tweaking, checking and changing, monitoring and tracking, on a daily basis?

3) Dedication is our watchword

We’re dedicated to making sure that you get the most from your Adwords, and we stake our reputation on that. You’re dedicated to serving your customers or clients, and being the best in your business. Well so are we. We’re never going to be great car mechanics or accountants, but we are great Adwords Managers which means your business gets two dedicated experts; us and you!

4) You get what you pay for

We charge a flat monthly fee or percentage for our services; not a variable amount. With that and your clickthru budget you know exactly what you will pay every month and can sit back in the knowledge that we’re getting you the best results possible from your Adwords.

5) You’re in safe hands

No more having to wonder whether you should increase or reduce a bid, no more being scared of click fraud, no more checking your stats every ten minutes to see what’s happening. Our track reputation is flawless and we have the testimonials to prove it. Our monthly reporting let’s you see exactly what’s going on, and we’re always on the end of the phone for a friendly chat.

Of course, we’re not the only Adwords Managers in the world, but we’re probably the only ones that give away so much free information, spend as much time promoting our customers as we do ourselves, and we’d like to think we’re the hardest working

As we’ve said – you CAN do all of this yourself. And with a bit of training and education, we could probably fix a car or do the yearly accounts. But we know where our skills lie, and we’re sticking with Adwords

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Image by rustybrick via Flickr

A guest blog by @saraharrow

Imagine paying 20 pence cents per click, on adwords. Yeah right, I hear you think that’s so 2005… but wait! Don’t hit the back button on your browser just yet. Adwords has a variety of possibilities that need exploring, especially by the small business.

Is it still possible to get adwords at 20p while others are paying £1.00?

How easy would it be to initiate world domination? Get to the top of the heap, totally take over your marketplace when you’re playing with those kinds of numbers? Yes, it is possible and Quality Scores are how you grab those prices.

What Nobody Told You About Quality Score

AdWords has changed and Quality Score is the name of the game. If you have a QS below 8, you can forget making the big bucks in AdWords.

Instead of optimising for conversion, optimise for Quality Score. Yep, work on that rather than work on getting the click through. Am I saying you should blow off your sales page for the sake of Quality Score? In a way, yes, I am. You should absolutely still pay attention to your conversion rate – but that comes second to your quality score.

The difference between a “good” quality score and a “great” quality score is monumental. Truly it is and whilst Google doesn’t like the clickthroughs to email sign up landing pages, there are ways of boosting your quality score to make the most of your adwords budget.

You could be paying £1 per click for 5th place with a “good” quality score – And just 20 pence per click with #2 position with a great quality score. The traffic difference is the difference between failure and success.

QS affects both your ad placement and your CPC. The difference is huge (that’s the success/failure thing I mentioned above, it’s worth repeating). Most single-page salesletters and squeeze pages just do not get high QSes. They’re allowed by Google, but they’re not appreciated by Google. As always Google rewards it’s users when you take the action it requires.

Let’s take the example of a website with an info product on… “how to buy a second hand car cheaply, without getting ripped off”.

Example 1: You have a one-page salesletter. You’re paying 50p per click, getting 100 clicks a day. You make one sale per day. You’re selling the eBook for £40. You’re losing money.

Example 2: You have an informational website tailor-fitted to the keyword. When they click on your ad, they come to a 2,000 word article answering all their questions. You’re paying 05p per click, getting 500 clicks a day because of your higher QS and placement.

Your conversion rate is half of the one page salesletter’s. You’re making 2.5 sales a day for a £100 profit, while only spending £25 a day on ad cost.

Am I overstating how big of a deal Quality Score is? Pay attention to your quality score, even if it’s at the cost of your conversion rate, see the examples above and work out what works for you.

Move Your Information Product to Other Countries

Most people under look the money making potential in doing business in other countries. The US may seem like the biggest marketplace for info products but other English speaking countries like the United Kingdom or Australia have far less competition than the United States.

You could make even more money by converting your products into other languages and then using Adwords in another language. Why? Because very few people are willing to make the effort to do it. It’ll cost you a few hundred pound to hire a translator, but the payoff will be well worth it. Less competition? Very probably.

These are just a few AdWords tips that could make your business a lot more money. Almost everyone knows AdWords basics these days, but “beyond the basics” tips are where the money is made. Apply even just one properly and watch your profits /subscriptions or sales; soar.

Remember:

1. Quality Score – make it work for you
2. Consider marketing in other English speaking countries
3. Consider marketing in other languages.

Adwords with a high Quality Score can help boost your bottom line, don’t ignore them!

Sarah Arrow is the director of Special Projects for a same day courier company and the author of Always Be Creating the Advanced Blogging ebook

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This post is for Nikki Pilkington’s 30 Day Blog Challenge – why not go and sign up today?

So here they are – my 7 top tips for getting AdWords working for your business!

1. Do some keyword research to identify multiple keyword phrases that you believe will bring you business.  The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is great for this research.   Simply enter the name of your product or service, and see which keywords Google suggests are related.  Download only the keywords you believe will be beneficial- you may want to note any odd looking keywords for later, to add in as negative keywords.  Don’t make the mistake of going for keywords which are too broad – such as “cameras” or “mobile phones” – instead choose very specific keywords such as brands and model numbers.  Also add keywords that indicate buying intent such as “buy Skip Hop changing bags” – note the inclusion of the word buy, plus the exact brand and type of product.
2. Add each keyword in its 3 different forms – these are broad match, phrase match and exact match.  Some novice advertisers may choose to remove broad match for the first trial – this will prevent Google from matching your ad against irrelevant words
3. Add one ad group for each keyword or set of related keywords  – this will allow you to add different ads for different keywords, which will increase your Click Through Rate.  Do not make the mistake of adding just one ad group with hundreds of keywords – how can one advert represent all these keywords?
4. When creating your advert, capitalise all main words and place the keyword in the advert heading.  Include prices in your ads wherever possible as this will give you a competitive advantage
5. Make sure you are tracking all leads or sales you receive in from your campaign.  You can do this by adding conversion code to the checkout page or lead success page.  This is absolutely essential to make sure you know which keywords are working for you!
6. Add negative keywords you do NOT wish to be found for.  This normally includes words such as “job”, “free”, “how”, “why” etc.  These searchers are unlikely to convert into a paying customer!  An additional keyword to watch out for is “compare” – these type of visitors are very price focused and likely to be expensive on AdWords clicks, but low on conversion rate!
7. Finally – wherever possible set up specific landing pages for sending visitors to, and do not send them to the homepage!  AdWords visitors are especially fickle and likely to click away if they cannot find what they are searching for quickly.  Do not expect them to immediately have to search for the product they are interested in

Good luck – let us know of any questions you have regarding your AdWords campaigns here and we will happily answer them.

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Remarketing allows you to target visitors who have been to your website, and allows you to “follow” them across the web.  This occurs because many websites have Google ads – called Google Adsense installed.  Your adverts can appear in these advert slots, giving quite a spooky effect as your adverts will continually appear to the former visitor, as they continue to browse the normal web.

The reason you might want to follow them is to encourage them to come back and complete your purchase, but also because people often do not complete their purchase instantly, they may still be making a decision.  Seeing your ads continually will subconsciously persuade them to pick your company for their purchase.

To set up remarketing, do the following:

1.    You will need to set up an audience and create a remarketing list.  This will add a cookie to the website of your visitors, to allow you to show further ads to them.  To do this click in your AdWords account on the drop down arrow here next to the tab Ad Extensions, and choose the option Audiences:

Choose the drop down arrow then Audiences

2.    Click the new tab that has appeared, Audiences and then select Add Audiences.  Now select the option Create and Manage lists.

Now select Create and Manage lists

3.    Select New Audience, then Remarketing List.  Create a descriptive name for your group, and choose the number of days you wish the cookie to remain active for.  Save the code  that is generated, and place this onto each page of your website.

4.    Create a new campaign called Remarketing – it needs to be a Display Network only campaign, so make sure you select Let Me Choose and untick the boxes for the Google Search network.  Save the campaign once you’ve added a suitable budget, and now add a descriptive name for the ad group such as the name of your product or service.  No keywords are needed for this ad group!

5.    Craft your advert carefully, knowing they will be somewhat “spooked out” by your advert and its appearance.  Make the most of this by asking them to come back again and visit!  Set a suitable bid and save.

6.    Now make sure you go to the Audiences tab and select the audience you want to show the ads to!

7.    Please bear in mind that it does NOT start working instantly – you need to wait until at least 500 visitors have visited and have received the remarketing cookie

Now – you’re done.  Go and spook some visitors out by following them across the web with adverts today, and let us know how you get on!

Further reading – it’s possible to set up more complicated combinations than just “all visitors” – to read more see Google’s help centre

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I often recommend that clients use AdWords to test which keywords will work for them, before they start on an SEO campaign, going to the trouble of altering metatags and page copy, only to realise they have chosen the incorrect keywords.

A test AdWords campaign could be as simple as a few keywords, each added in its ad group to a campaign.  Add each keyword in its broad, exact, and phrase match like this

Canon digital camera

[Canon digital camera]

“canon digital camera”

You do need a broad match, as with above, to allow Google to identify new related keywords which may convert to a sale for you.

Set a bid price appropriate to get the advert at least showing on the front page, and as high as you can comfortable handle.  Ensure you have implemented conversion tracking within AdWords to track sales or leads.  I would recommend running the test campaign for at least 50 sales where possible.  If you can afford to, I would suggest running it for at least 500 sales to ensure you have found a higher proportion of converting keywords.

Now run a search query report in AdWords to show the exact keywords that resulted in the sales above.  These keywords are the best to use in your SEO campaigns.

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When optimising an AdWords account, it’s extremely important to make sure you are tracking conversions.  These might be such items as:

• Sales, for an ecommerce website
• Brochure requests
• Call back requests
• Contact us requests

The reason you need to track conversions, is to see which keywords are working for you, so you can up the budget for these keywords, and eventually consider pausing keywords that do not convert.

Your AdWords conversion tracking code needs to be generated by going into Reporting and Tools – then Conversions.  Choose the relevant conversion type and generate the required code.  Send this code to your web designer and ask them to place it onto the people see once they completed the required action.  This is extremely important!

Now here’s where the problem occurs – it’s very common for web designers to place the code onto the contact page, or the lead page.  This then creates false conversions, and you can very rapidly end up with hundreds of them!

What will be the end result?  A falsely optimised AdWords campaign, with the results skewed by people who were just trying to find your location, or even those who were seeking totally unrelated products…

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If you are in a globally contested market but your business mainly comes from the UK, then it is sensible to focus much of your attention on making your business and marketing clearly delineated as being so.    Even if you are going for a global market, then specializing campaigns to regions can be more than just sensible, it may be necessary.

Firstly, when it comes to your Adwords campaign, you can specify that the advertisements will only appear to browsers from the UK.  There is a big difference between customers browsing from the UK and those who are looking for products sourced in the UK, so be sure that this is exactly what you are looking to do.  However, in most niches, focusing even on the whole UK at a time will be more than enough customers to deal with, and they should be closer to the customers you are looking to entice.

Secondly, you can throw in words into your Adwords ads that specify you are indeed from the UK.  Many other companies will fail to do this, as they have created sweeping Adwords they hope to garner a global market from.  Simply adding in a short term such as ‘UK’, ‘Next-day UK delivery’, ‘Local’, or ‘British’ can make your advert stand out.

You can use certain words to make your business appear smaller or larger, depending on the brand you wish to convey.  ‘UK-Wide’ service, delivery or available pegs you as a large business that still specializes in the UK market.  On the other hand, customers may prefer a more local term, which can show you are a smaller business but specific to their needs.  Sometimes, a smaller company image can bring in more business than trying to look like you are attempting to do it all.  Customers may prefer the idea they will get a more personal service, one devoid of call centers and faceless marketing blurb.

Don’t forget that this can be done on a more micro level, you can begin to specialize your campaigns for certain regions of the UK.  This is generally worthwhile if your business includes delivery or attractions which are specific to each region, for example if you run a hotel directory.   As with everything in Adwords optimization, you must decide which are the details you should focus on to best maximize your time and effort.

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Are you running an AdWords campaign, and would like a detailed audit from a qualified professional but don’t want to commit to full management?

Then this offer is for you!

We are offering a full audit along with advice on how to fix each point found.  Please note it will be brief advice (the audit is likely to be around 500 to 800 words), and you MAY need to do further research, read further blogs, or consider booking a session of coaching to fix any major points! This will be the best £100 you have spent in a long time – and it’s highly likely you will make the money back many, many times over from savings in your AdWords campaigns.

Here’s the type of analysis we will cover:

• Keywords – do you need new keywords to find new markets?  Negative keywords to save you money (and what are they?)  We will give suggestions and explain where to find new keywords
• Ad groups – do these need optimising? How?
• Ads – do these need rewriting?  We’ll give examples
• Landing pages – do you need new ones?  We’ll explain if you do, and what should be on it
• Money – how can you save money on your campaigns?  What should a typical conversion cost?

This offer is available for the next 7 days at the Special Offer price of £100 +VAT – please buy via Paypal here, and then contact us at admin@marketingbyweb.co.uk with your AdWords 10 digit Account Id (found in the top right hand corner of your AdWords screen).  Your audit will be completed within 48 hours!

If you have more than 1 AdWords account, or if your account contains more than 1 website address - please purchase the relevant number of audits you need.

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I’m currently being followed around the web, wherever I go by several ads.  In particular, by one for Ecademy’s Digital Coaching

This is Google’s remarketing – which means I’ve visited a site once and been left with a cookie which signifies I’m now an “interested party”.  From now on, every time I visit a website which has Google Adsense running (the ads which say Ads by Google – they’re all over the web on millions of websites), my cookie triggers a remarketing campaign if it’s been set up.  I visit a LOT of websites, so am seeing these ads everywhere.

So I am now SERIOUSLY feeling stalked by these ads!  Everywhere I go, they are calling me back, reminding me of my interest.  Almost like one of those irritating people you can’get rid of at a networking meeting who keeps trying to perusade you to buy from them….

So what are your thoughts on remarketing?  Although we’ve set it up for our clients, we’ve yet to fully test the results.  Have any of you been “followed” around the web by adverts, and you’re now realising why?

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I’m offering ten half hour coaching slots, usual price £125+VAT (see my website here) FREE of charge for next week only. PLEASE NOTE THIS OFFER IS FROM OCTOBER 2010 AND HAS NOW EXPIRED- SORRY!

You can use this slot to:

• Discuss a new internet marketing venture and if it will work
• Get specific SEO advice on how to get your website ranking on the front page
• Get advice on whether AdWords will work in your market and how to set it up effectively
• Already have AdWords running?  Get an audit of your existing campaigns and specific advice on how to improve it

There is NO obligation to purchase services following the consultation.

Email admin@marketingbyweb.co.uk to book in your slot now! There are 10 available next week between the hours of 9am and 3pm – email to check availability.

What do we ask in return?  Well a quick testimonial on our Freeindex review site would be lovely if you’ve found the call useful!

1 slot per person – obviously

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