Steven Brown

Recently I was having a discussion with a client about the best way to approach their Adwords marketing campaign. While I continue to hear talk of CTR and CPC and Cost Per Conversion I cannot help but think it’s all a load of woop-de-doo. While statistics can be helpful in assessing how successful certain words are, I believe the core of your Adwords campaign needs to be based on sound marketing principles.

The most basic marketing principle I know is to put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Customers don’t give a stuff about you and your business, all they care about is their problem and how to solve it. Until you can accurately identify their problem and the solution (which I assume you can provide) your marketing campaign will always lack strength. The big M says “are you hungry?” then shoves a tasty looking burger in your face. Maybe you don’t like the big M but plenty of people do.

Lesson 1 – Identify the pain, offer the solution.
Another marketing principle I believe in is if you try to cover everyone you end up appealing to no-one. If a person is hungry they don’t care that you can feed them and wash their car and take their dog for a walk (although that would be great). They are hungry, they want food. Be specific. You may need to design several different ads to target the different segments of your market.

Lesson 2 – Target your market segments individually.
Once you have sorted these two out you will be able to set up a campaign for each market segment with a specifically designed ad for that segment.

From Google’s own site:

As with your campaigns, each Ad Group should center on a single product or service to ensure your ads reach the most qualified users. Build a list of keywords or site, then separate them into related Ad Groups. Create ads that pertain directly to that list. For example, if you sell mp3 players, and you’ve organized your campaigns by brand, create multiple Ad Groups based on the models of each brand.

Lesson 3 – Set up an Adwords campaign for each market segment.
During this meeting with the client I advised that they set up a page on their site for each Adwords campaign. If every ad was pointing to the home page the visitor (potential customer) would go from a specifically targeted ad to a general home page. Instead they should arrive at a specifically target page covering all the details of their problem and the solution.

From Google’s own site:

Typical internet users decide quickly whether to stay on a website or move on to another. When users click on your ad, they should arrive at a landing page clearly displaying the information or product offered in your ad. If users don’t immediately find what prompted them to click on your ad, they’re more likely to leave your site without converting.

More specifically in the Adwords blog (http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/07/landing-page-quality-update.html) recently they announced “…advertisers who are not providing useful landing pages to our users will have lower Quality Scores that in turn result in higher minimum requirements for their keywords.”

Right there Google actually says your cost per click may be cheaper if your landing page is better, or more expensive if your landing page is not relevant.

Lesson 4 – Create a landing page for each ad.
Now you are ready to dig in and do what most people start with – the keywords. Google’s keyword suggestion tool is quite helpful. Set up specific keywords and try to avoid being vague, while you may get more impressions your click-throughs will almost always be low. More specific words are more likely to match your ad to what the person is searching for, so they are more likely to click it and continue through your site. If your ad is to broad and someone clicks on it anyway, it is more likely they will not continue much further than the first page of your site.

Lesson 5 – Keep your keywords specific.
Once you have launched your campaign and you get some statistics monitor them carefully. You will find some get more impression than others and some get more clicks than others. At this point you need to analyse the poor performers and choose your next course of action. If your ad is not appearing in a high average position (top you may need to try the following:

1. Increase your bid
2. Improve your ad
3. Improve your landing page

This will allow you to set up your Adwords campaign with a strong base for building and improving. I plan to talk more in the future about improving ad position and identifying the right cost per click amount so keep an eye out for more blogs.