Refine Your Pay Per Click Campaigns

Refine Your Pay Per Click Campaigns

Google Adwords is a very effective method of driving traffic to your website, but many business owners using it for the first time set generic keywords and if they use the upper daily spending limits, can get hundreds of misguided visitors a week, costing thousands of pounds and reducing their PPC (Pay Per Click) Google score with very little extra business. When someone searches online using a broad keyword, say, ‘compact digital cameras’, then they are browsing or researching the market, they are not looking to buy. If the keyword is more precise, say ‘Sony T77 compact camera’, then the searcher is looking for a specific product and is more likely to have intentions of buying.

Some businesses or industries may also benefit from including their geographical location with their keywords, ‘homes for rent’ isn’t going to get you as many conversions as ‘homes for rent in Cardiff’ but this depends on your business, if you can trade internationally then you may be loosing out on business by including your location. When it comes to keywords, the one with the highest search volume isn’t necessarily going to be the one that lands you top spot in Google or gets you the highest conversions and it might be worth targeting a handful of keywords with a lower search volume but are more likely to be converted into sales.

Before we look at the keyword options within Adwords it is important we understand how PPC works, so below is the formula and a quick example.

Google operates a quality assessed system so there are more factors to how well your ad performs beyond the amount bid on a word.

Google says that;
Your Cost Per Click (CPC) * Relevance Score = Google Score

However it is easier if we replace Relevance Score with Click Through Ratio (CTR) as this substitutes a variable we can asses and monitor, so now our formula is;
Your Cost Per Click (CPC) * Your Click Through Ratio (CTR) = Google Score

The reason for this substitute is simple, if we have a high click through ratio then we must be writing good Ad copy and it must be relevant to the searching user. Let’s look at how this can affect two adverts using an example.

If Advert 1 has a 10% CTR * 50pence CPC = its Google Score will be 500
If Advert 2 has a 20% CTR * 30pence CPC = its Google Score will be 600

Therefore Advert 2 will appear above Advert 1 whilst costing less per click, this allows the manager of Advert 2 two options, either they operate at the same level (the same amount of clicks) as their rival on a smaller budget, or for the same budget as Advert 1 Advert 2 can receive more clicks during a monthly period.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of how PPC works we can look the various keyword options and why sometimes the negative keywords can be more important than the other (positive) keywords.

When selecting your Keywords, these should be the terms relevant to the ad you have written, the more broad these terms are the more impressions your Ad will receive though this does not guarantee a high click rate for your Ad. Once you have selected a list of Keywords there are four formats that your Keywords can take;

Broad Match – By default, Google AdWords sets all keywords to broad match, meaning that an ad containing the keyword ‘French food’ would be triggered by search queries containing the word French and Food regardless of their order or context. So, the ad may appear in search results for French Fries or French Food in San Francisco. Ads will also show for such expanded keyword matches as plurals and relevant variations, such as French Food and French Cuisine.

Phrase Match – By putting quotation marks around a keyword phrase (“French Food”), ads will appear on searches where the word French is directly followed by the word Food. In this case, the ad would be shown for searches such as French Food, French Food Dishes, or Cheap French Food. However, the ad would not be shown to users who search for French Fried Food or French Cuisine and Food. To clarify further, the ad will not show if the search contains any term between French and Food.

Exact Match – By adding square brackets around a keyword ([French Food]), you are specifying an exact match. This means that the ad will only show when a user searches for the exact phrase French Food without any other words before or after, and with French and Food in that exact order. This type of matching is especially recommended for single-word keywords.

Negative Match – We can also use negative matching to eliminate certain searches that may be irrelevant. To do this, we add our normal keywords (such as French Food) and then specify negatives by placing a minus sign before the irrelevant words. For example, we could add –free, -calories and –pictures. This means that the ad will not show for users who search for free French food, French food calories or French food pictures.

Often strong performing Adword accounts will either have an Ad with a long list of Exact or Phrase Match keywords or more likely, a collection of Ads with each one based around an Exact or Phrase Match keyword and both are likely to have a list of Negative Match keywords.

In many ways, though the keywords your Ad is shown for is important it might be the keywords your Ad isn’t shown for that is more important, ensuring that your Ad is shown in the correct search results will lead to your business paying for the right traffic to come to your website.

To receive a free Adwords account review, or to find out how IT Pie can help you manage your account please e-mail us your Customer ID and we will be able to view your account and provide you with feedback.

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