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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Contrary to popular belief, there are times when trying to increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) is actually a bad idea – in fact sometimes you might not want to increase the CTR any higher!  When might this be true?

• If you’re using Dynamic Keyword Insertion – CTR will artificially rise as the keywords – whether wrong or right – are inserted into your advert!  You might actually be wasting a lot of money with incorrect keywords, while gloating that your CTR is increasing through the roof!  To combat this – ensure you include an extensive negative keyword list, and mine your search query report regularly for new negatives
• Chasing the “cheap consumer” by offering prices too low to be affordable – are you including prices in your ads that are not sustainable long term?  Then of course your CTR will be raised by people seeking by bargains!
• Too general an advert – if your advert does not qualify your customer, and your keywords are too broad – they may very well click your ad “just in case” you sell the product they are seeking.  To overcome this, make your ads very specific and prequalify visitors.

However, generally a higher CTR is what you are aiming for, as this will increase quality score and lower your costs.  A good CTR to aim for is between 3% and 5% depending on your market.  Always be testing new ads to try to increase CTR!

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So how do you identify a REAL AdWords Certified Partner?

Quite simply, they must display a logo and it MUST be linked to their registration page at Google.  If you click their logo, and it doesn’t take you through to the correct page, then they are NOT a real AdWords Certified Partner.

Click our logo and see:

I really wish Google would crack down on those companies fraudulently displaying these logos.  The exams are now extremely hard to pass, and are a real indicator of quality.

If a company or individual is only displaying the old style Google AdWords Professional logo – this means they have passed only the older far easier exams (almost anyone could pass them!).

With the new exams, it’s compulsory to take 2 out of the 4 exams.  Some, like myself, choose to take them all to prove competence in Analytics and the Display network as well as the AdWords search network.

Claire owns and operates Marketing By Web, an AdWords Certified Partner in Bristol who work worldwide with clients.

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I’ve been asked this question a few times now by our monthly AdWords clients, so have decided to answer it in a blog post.

In an AdWords account, one of the most important factors is quality score.  Quality score makes a difference as to how high your ads appear, and also the Cost Per Click you pay for.  Ideally quality score should be at 7 or above – see the effect on Cost Per Click in the image below, courtesy of Click Equations.

The easiest way to get quality score up is to make sure the exact keywords appear in the advert heading.  This is the way that Google prefers.  It has the added benefit of often increasing conversion rate.  Having the exact keywords in the advert heading is usually impossible if there are a large number of keywords in a single ad group.

Therefore an account will usually be optimised over time to break it in small ad groups.  In each of these ad groups there will be only a handful of keywords, as the adverts for this group need to reflect these keywords extremely closely.

With large accounts, this can result in a very large account with many hundreds of ad groups.  This can appear unwieldy to the client, but it is usually the ideal way to manage a large account.

Questions?  Do ask them here!

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Did you know that it’s possible to schedule your AdWords campaigns so that they turn on and off at certain times of day, as well as raising bids at certain times of the day?  No?  Then read on!

This is likely to be advisable in a number of occasions – for example if you are operating a same day delivery company such as a florist, you may wish to raise bidding in the morning in order to maximise orders before your cut off point for delivery.

In order to set your times of day, you will need to open the Campaign Settings for the campaign in question.    Scroll down until you find the option Schedule – you will note an option marked “Display ads all days and hours”.

Click the Edit button  - a weekly scheduler will now appear.  Find  the option “Bid adjustment”.

Within this option you will need to select the day you wish to change first.  Click where it says “Running all day” and you will now have the option to set ads to run between certain times.  You can also add in a percentage – for example you could schedule bids to be increased to 200% between 9am and 1pm, and then reduce to 100% between 1pm and 8pm.

You also have the option to copy the setting to all days of the week, or just weekdays at this stage.  This can be particularly useful if your company is B2B and you would like ads to run only Monday to Friday.  Do remember to pause the campaigns on the weekend if you are interested in this option.

Scheduling your campaigns can make a huge difference in a number of markets.  For example in the holiday industry, it would be a good idea to raise bids at lunchtimes, when people are likely to be using their lunch break to browse and book holidays.

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Having recently posted on my Facebook fan page that the Return On Investment to aim for with web marketing is 5 times your marketing spend, I received requests to explain further how this might be achieved.  So I’ve written a quick guide to point you in the right direction:

• Invest in your website design.  Don’t expect an AdWords campaign to deliver ROI unless you have a professionally designed website.   There is no excuse for a poorly designed website – I had my AdWords training website www.HelpWithPPC.com designed for just £170 by an excellent company I sourced via www.freelancer.com
• Create landing pages for each product or service you are trying to sell via AdWords.  These pages should be highly focused on just one product or service.  Ideally ensure the vistor’s questions are answered, and make sure you include full contact details including an online form to collect visitor details and allow them to ask you to call
• Ask for a second opinion on your website, and all of your landing pages.  What questions would visitors have?  Do they know where to go next?  Do visitors know what how to make a purchase or leave their details?  The worst website owners are those who have designed the website themselves – ideally you should be asking for a third opinion too!
• Track your online form submissions via AdWords as a conversion and also Google Analytics as a goal
• Set your AdWords campaign up carefully with one ad group per service.  Make sure your keywords appear in the advert heading and ideally elsewhere within the advert as well.  Use some broad match keywords to start with.  Make sure you send the visitor to the correct page on your website, NOT the homepage!
• Check quality scores for your keywords after a short while – how are they performing?  Good quality scores can hugely decrease Costs Per Click
• Track visitors via Google Analytics and possibly other tracking packages such as Get Clicky, which allows you to watch visitors in real time on your website
• Monitor conversions carefully.  Identify new keywords by checking which keywords resulted in conversions.  Increase spending on these keywords if appropriate
• Keep an eye on Cost Per Conversion – work out your profit levels.  Are you making 5 x your marketing spend in new turnover?  If not, continue to work on getting your conversion costs down
• Still struggling?  Try using the Google website optimiser to split test your landing pages.  Test different marketing messages to see if Cost Per Conversion improves
• ROI still too low?  Work on increasing customer value to make more from each customer.  Consider using email marketing to newly acquired customers to increase lifetime customer value.  Or use cross-sell and up-sell existing customers to new products and services, especially where the customer acquisition cost is high.   I have have worked with clients in the flower market who sell 1 bouquet of flowers for £30, the cost to acquire that customer can be as high as £12.  This means they MUST focus on increasing the lifetime value of that customer by using email marketing.
• Bear in mind that for some markets, just one lead per week might deliver ROI.  For example, working with a solicitor where a new client is worth £4000 – if 1 in 4 leads results in a new client, each lead is technically worth £1000.  This means a monthly spend of £4000/5 = £800 will deliver ROI even if just delivering 1 lead per week.

Questions?  Do ask!

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This is a very common question asked by new advertisers.

So here’s a list of potential reasons it might not be showing:

• Your account is new, and you have not entered payment details. When you have entered payment details, they take a short while to be authorised. This can be up to a day or two.
• You have set up a new campaign with new ad groups and keywords, that need to be reviewed. This can take a short while.

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