Google Adwords

In this article, we'll explore a ficticious business and website that desires to advertise using Adwords, and how an initial campaign should be setup, and then managed on a continuing basis.

Adwords Tutorial - Let's Build A Campaign

To start, let's provide some background on our make-believe company. The business is local, only interested in making their business known throughout their region, wanting to attract new customers. The business name will be Bentley's Catering Service and the website: www.bentleys-catering.com. They've been in business for 20 years, but just recently decided to use Adwords. They are willing to service both residential and commercial interests, and provide a wide variety of specialty foods, meals, baked goods, etc. They also pride themselves on customer service, and their professionalism.

So, let's build a campaign.

Campaign Basics

• Campaign Name:First Attempt
• Locations:Bakersfield, California ( Metro )
• Language:English
• Networks:Search Network Only
• Devices:All Available
• Bidding:Manual Bidding For Clicks
• Budget:$25.00 per day.
• Position Preference:OFF - Show ads in any position.
• Delivery Method:Accelerated - Show ads as quickly as possible.
• Ad Extensions:Location, Sitelinks, & Phone
• Start Date:Today
• End Date:None
• Ad Scheduling:Only show ad between 7:00am and 8:00pm.
• Ad Rotation:Optimize
• Frequency Capping:No impression cap.
• Demographic Bidding:NA - Only available for Display Network.

We have now setup the campaign, so it's time to start an adgroup, build ourselves an ad, and insert some keywords we believe will be relevant to our business. It's important to note here, this is a start, and until we see some initial quality scores, we're going to hold off on creating a whole bunch of ads, and adding a large number of keywords.

Create Our First Ad

• Bentley's Catering Service
• In Business for 20 years.
• High Quality Catering. Professional
• www.bentleys-catering.com

The owner believes that's a good first ad, and proceeds to the next step of adding keywords, not realizing the impact the ad is going to have on the keywords chosen.

Create Keyword List

• KeywordMatch TypeScore
• cateringbroad4/10
• home cateringbroad4/10
• business cateringbroad5/10
• residential cateringbroad4/10
• commercial cateringbroad4/10
• bakersfield cateringbroad5/10
• catering servicebroad6/10
• home catering servicebroad5/10
• business catering servicebroad5/10
• residential catering servicebroad5/10
• commercial catering servicebroad4/10
• bakersfield catering servicebroad6/10

The first impression of our keyword selection is okay, but could be better. However, the dismay comes when viewing what it will cost to appear on the 1st page. In fact, there isn't a keyword combination we can bid on, that is close to our maximum default bid. At this point, the thought occurs that maybe an adjustment to the bid is in order. After all, who wouldn't want to appear on the 1st page ?

That is where the beginner, or the un-informed, has not made a wise decision. Increasing the bid, at this point in time, will only lead to a waste of money, because the Adwords system will likely be placing our ad ahead of more relevant, or better performing ads, which will ultimately lead to a poor conversion rate. What any advertiser seeks, is finding the most relevant customer to click on their ads.

So, the first adjustment we're going to make will be to the keywords. We're going to convert some or most of the broad matches to phrase match. Before continuing, let's review what the match types involve:

Match Types

• Broad Match

  Any search query that contains a word or combination of words, in different pluralities, and in any order. For instance, let's take the broad term “business catering”. Not only will an ad show for catering, but it will also show for searches with just the word business - “business news reports” - which has little to do with catering.

• Phrase Match

  Any search with the terms included in a phrase, and used in the exact sequence or order. For instance, “Johnson's Catering Service”. If you phrase matched “catering service” your ad would appear, just as it would for “Bad Catering Service” or “Catering Service Truck Repair”.

• Exact Match

  Any search query exactly matching the word or phrase chosen. For instance having an exact match for “Catering Service” would mean your ad will only appear when only those words are used, in that exact order, and not for any other variation. For example, a search for “Bad Catering Service” means your ad would not appear.

As you can see, the broad match will likely not be our best option, at this point. We'd like to narrow the focus so that our ad appears only when searchers are looking to find out about catering services, and hopefully contact one to do business with.

Adjusted Keyword List

• KeywordMatch TypeScore
• [catering]exact7/10
• "home catering"phrase6/10
• "business catering"phrase7/10
• "residential catering"phrase5/10
• "commercial catering"phrase5/10
• "bakersfield catering"phrase6/10
• "catering service"phrase7/10
• [catering service]exact10/10
• [home catering service]exact6/10
• [business catering service]exact7/10
• [residential catering service]exact6/10
• [commercial catering service]exact5/10
• [bakersfield catering service]exact8/10

Now we're getting somewhere. We've identified a means in which to narrow our ad focus. But, we'd like to see more 7's and less 5's, and a beginner may not understand how the ad text plays a role in determining quality scores, along with, of course, the landing page.

So, how can we increase those scores of 5 and 6 and get them up to 7,8 or 10's ? Create more targeted text ads. By creating more targeted ads, we can increase the relevancy of the keywords we've chosen.

• Catering Service in Bakersfield
• Serving Bakersfield for 20 years.
• High Quality Catering. Professional
• www.bentleys-catering.com

• Residential Catering Service
• Home Parties & Gatherings.
• High Quality Catering. Professional
• www.bentleys-catering.com

• Commercial Catering Service
• Staff Meetings & Luncheons.
• Special Rates. High Quality Catering.
• www.bentleys-catering.com

By creating more targeted ads, we've now increased the relevancy of some of the other keywords we've used. The changes are reflected below.

• KeywordMatch TypeScore
• [catering]exact7/10
• "home catering"phrase7/10
• "business catering"phrase7/10
• "residential catering"phrase7/10
• "commercial catering"phrase6/10
• "bakersfield catering"phrase7/10
• "catering service"phrase7/10
• [catering service]exact10/10
• [home catering service]exact7/10
• [business catering service]exact10/10
• [residential catering service]exact7/10
• [commercial catering service]exact6/10
• [bakersfield catering service]exact10/10

Increasing Relevancy Even More

To help target our message, and advertisements, even more, we shift focus from the campaign, to our landing page(s). We want to advertise the different catering services we offer, but the home page is generic, and summarizes all that we do. So, in our keyword list, we decide to change the destination URL for some of the keywords used, in order to bring our visitors to the landing page we believe they'd be looking for.

All general inquiries will remain targeted to the home page, while the residential, business or commercial, will be directed to defined service pages we have created for each. And, because we are community oriented within Bakersfield, we also have a page dedicated to our community activies we participate in, along with some photos, of a number of gatherings we've catered to in the Bakersfield area.

And, of course, each of those destination landing pages are linked to our contact page, where visitors can reach us by email, phone, or fax. We've also included some addtional references, like associations we are members of, and any customer reviews we've accrued over the last 20 years.

Depending on how the content is laid out, on those landing pages, can have an additional impact on our quality scores. And, the higher the quality scores, the lower the cost-per-click we will incur.

Examining The Finished Product

When looking over our campaign, we notice that although the quality scores have all increased again, our estimated 1st page bid has not changed much. In fact, in some cases, the cost hasn't changed for the better, it's actually increased. How can this be ?

New accounts, and accounts in which the historic CTR ( click-through-rate ) is low ( less than 1.00% ), you will initially have higher costs, until you have proven your ads to be relevant. The low water mark for CTR on the search network is 1.00%, while there is no such mark for the display network, where CTR does not have an impact.

As the account accrues clicks and impressions, and increasing the CTR, the cost for appearing on the 1st page will decrease. And, of course, appearing on the 1st page means you have the opportunity to appear in one of the top 3 or 4 positions.

Still, the question remains as to how we've created more relevant ads, keywords, attached relevant destination URLs, yet still the price for the 1st page is higher than it was before ? Besides, your account being new or having a historically low CTR, your competition weights heavily on this process, driving costs up, as they too, are looking to appear on the 1st page of results.

Managing The Account and Ad Campaign Process

Managing your Adwords account is important, and you can't just leave it be, like a radio, print, or television ad, being displayed through traditional media. Adwords is an evolving and fluid enviroment, in which your competition can change the dynamics virtually every hour, of every day. Having said that, you need not manage your account on an hourly basis, but you are encouraged to activily participate in tracking how your campaign(s) are running, at least on a weekly basis, if not daily.

Watching how effective your ads are is very important. Ads that are under-performing need to be adjusted or removed, as well as keyword matches that are not bringing you the results. Anytime your CTR, for a given ad or keyword combination slips below 1.00%, it's time to adjust them or remove them from the campaign. The higher percentage for your CTR, the lower your cost per click will be, and the greater the potential for having your ads displayed in one of the top 3 or 4 positions in search.

Fluctuations in quality score for keyword matches are very common, and largely dependent on CTR. If the CTR begins to drop, the quality score will drop too, which results in fewer impressions because your competition has likely surpassed you, displacing your ad from the 1st page of results. That's why managing the entire campaign process on a regular basis will go a long way to keeping you in the light, and out of the dark, scratching your head as to why you are no longer receiving impressions.

Read our article on Why Am I Not Getting Impressions ? for the common pitfalls of losing impressions and impression shares.