Google News Ads

Google has recently been testing ads alongside their image search.  Now, they have recently announced ads showing alongside Google News results (News.Google.com).

This is likely more significant when it comes to generating high-quality traffic.  This is because just like with normal search, searchers are actively looking for information (content) on a specific topic.

More information on this news can be found at:

• http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39399781,00.htm  
• http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/ads-in-google-news-search-results.html 

On Image Ads

Whenever you create a campaign for the content network, you're able to create a wide range of image ads.  

They have two big advantages over normal text ads:  

1.  Their size allows you more freedom with what copy you want to include inside.  

2.  There are often zero competing ads on the placement page or, at least, no competing ads right beside your image ad.

The result is you get campaigns far more successful than if you did not have image ads.  The size of the ideal audience you're able to reach skyrockets.

In fact, some sites on the content network don't show any text ads.  Your only option to get on them is with image ads.

This means that if you're not already using them, you should be.

At the same time, it's important you don't just have any image ads.

After all, just because a graphic looks attractive and you think it will be successful, doesn't make it so.

Here are some tips to create killer image ads:

• Consider taking copy from what's proven and tested to work from either your existing AdWords ads or other sales copy.    

• Use the graphic nature to emphasize key and important words.  Draw the readers' eyes to your copy.  The goal of your graphics should be to increase readership and get the click.   

• Test and tweak your image ads just like with your text ads.  It shouldn't be hard to make minor modifications to your ads once they're designed.  You can just change the ad copy or make simple color changes.   Pay attention to small details as well, such as font and punctuation marks. 

The bottom-line is that image ads can sometimes be the most important part of your AdWords campaign... They can be the difference between a losing content campaign or a wild success. 

The Magic of Research

If you want to create a killer AdWords campaigns, then you need to do research on your market.

You may already know this or have heard this advice before.

But, what exactly does this entail?  Everybody likely does at least some research.

A well-researched campaign means to know your market inside and out.  You should know:

• How many competitors you have (on and off of AdWords),  

• How savvy they are at internet and pay-per-click marketing, 

• Who are the people buying and what are their motivations?    

• What needs and desires are and aren't being addressed?  

• What serious problems are and aren't being addressed?    

You should be able to answer all of these question without stopping to think.  If someone asked you, then you should be able to answer without hesitation.

When you can do this, you know you're doing research right.

You can create killer ads, pick the right money-making keywords, and uncover opportunities others are missing when they appear and without thinking.

This then leads to the question of how you can uncover this information?

The best way is to actually be your customer.  Buy from competitors (to get on their mailing lists and see what they do), use the product just like your customer, watch the same television shows as your customers, and even read the same magazines as your customers.

For instance, if you sell nutritional supplements, you should actively use them too.  If you sell to golfers, then you should watch the golf channel.  If you trade stocks, you should read major investment publications.  If you're selling a weight loss product, you should watch Oprah when she's talking about the topic.  

By actually experiencing what your customers are going through, you can relate to them.  You see the world through their eyes and what they are needing.  

Then, when you look at the ads on Google, you can see how well the ads are serving their needs.  It allows you to see opportunity.

Who Are You Competing Against?

On any given keyword, there may be dozens of competing ads.

Only a select few will get clicked on by a searcher... and only one (if that) will get that searcher as a customer.

This is why it's important to know exactly who you're up against.  There are three main types of advertisers:

1.  Direct-Competitors.  These are the folks that offer the same or a similar product or service as you do.  For instance, if you sell every book under the sun, then a direct competitor would be Amazon.com.  

2.  Non-direct competitiors.  If you specialize in selling just business books, then Amazon.com may not be directly competing with you for customers.  However, it still may be competing with you for clicks.  Searchers don't know what you have to offer that Amazon doesn't if you don't tell them.  Thus, they may never get to your site.

3.  Affiliate marketers.  You don't need your own product or service to profit from AdWords.  You can sell other people's products using their affiliate or referral program.  You then get commissions for every sale you refer.  

Affiliate marketing is wide-spread and countless markets have a tons of affiliate ads.

Why are they important to consider?  Affiliates typically know a lot about AdWords because they may only get 50% of the initial sale, while others are getting 100% plus future backend sales.  If they don't know what they're doing, they're going to lose their shirts.

As a marketer, you should be on the lookout for them and study what they're doing.  

You can usually identify an affiliate by the URL they are advertising.  Affiliates URL usually have some type of identiying code to track the affiliates referral.  An example might look something like: 

http://www.promowebsite.com/?hop=affid

Affiliates also might send traffic to a review page where they are giving an apparent "unbiased" review of the product they are promoting.

Once you've identified your competitors for each of your keywords, you now have a better idea of what to include in your ads.  Study direct-competitors to uncover what you need to say to get the sale, non-direct competitors to uncover what you need to get the click, and affiliates to uncover advanced strategies to give you an edge.

In addition, think about what needs are not being served by anyone else.  If you were going up against Amazon.com as a bookseller, you might differentiate yourself by putting together niche book packages.  For instance, you might bid on the term "Business books" and then offer a set of them at a limited time discounted rate.  Amazon goes from a direct to more of a non-direct competitor.

Where Exactly Do Your Ads Appear?

There's a reason why Google is effective.  It puts your ads where targeted, hungry prospects can find them.

Just like in the offline world, the key is location, location, location.

They give you 3 options of where your ads to show, including on Google.com, on search partners, and on the content network.

But, what exactly does each option mean?

After all, if you want to make money, you want your ads in the right places... and off of the bad.

Let's examine what each network means:

1.  Google Only.  The three big search engines on the internet are Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Google is by far has the most amount of searches, followed by Yahoo, and then MSN.

Together these three search engines dominate over 80% of search traffic.

The remaining searches are taken-up by smaller search engines.

This means that in most cases Google is going to generate far more traffic for you than on their search partner sites.

It's also often more profitable than the search and content network.  I think it's often more profitable than other search engines because it has a higher-quality searcher.  Users are savvy enough to visit Google before conducting a search.  This is opposed to typing their search into their web browser or on their internet service provider's home page.

2.  The Search Network.  In addition to Google.com, they have partnerships with other search engines.  Some of the more notable, include AOL, AT&T, Netscape, Ask.com and Earthlink.

The quality of these varies from market to market.  For instance, AOL, typically has a large number of less computer savvy users and likely older users.  This type of traffic may be ideal for certain products.

Any search traffic is usually high-quality because users are actively looking for solutions.

If they type in, "buy computer," you can bet most of these searchers are ready to buy.

3.  The Content Network.  There are countless thousands of sites across the web that show Google ads.

They do it through the "Google AdSense" program.  This program pays site publishers a cut of every click generated from ads shown on their sites.  The ads may be image ads or small text ads that look something like this:

 

It's called the "Content network" because AdSense ads are shown alongside articles, videos, and other website content.

With this type of ad, the user is not necessarily actively searching for information like with search.

However, they can be.  For instance, the top ranked free listing in Google for the term "Buy computer" might be a review site for computers. 

You can then get your ad alongside the review.

As you might guess, this means that what pages your get your ads on is vital.

If it's unrelated (such as Bob's Computer MySpace page), it's more likely to produce junk traffic.  If you get placed alongside the right content, it can be MORE profitable than search advertising.

You may be competing against zero other ads or only three others, instead of dozens.

To pick the right content sites, Google allows you to create placement-targeted campaigns.  Just select "New online campaign" and then "Start with placements."

 

All in all, it's important to understand where your ads are showing-up.  It can mean the difference between being located in wildly profitable web real-estate or in a money-draining low profit area.

Radio Down, What's Next?

Last month, Google announced the end of its print advertising program.  Now Google has suddenly announced the death of radio advertising.  This is despite recent indications that they would keep it.

Two detailed articles about this topic are at:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/technology/companies/13google.html?_r=1&ref=media  
• http://www.clickz.com/3632791 

Here's an interesting article about the future of Google TV advertising:

• http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090213_506671.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis  

Where To Start If You're Completely New To Google AdWords

There are over 400,000 advertisers on Google AdWords.  Everyday new folks join-in on the game.

If you're one of these new advertisers, you've likely heard about the potential of AdWords.  For only $5 and in 5-15 minutes, your ads can start showing on Google.com.  Then, hours or days later, your ads appear across the web on Google's partner sites.  You can generate your first profits in hours from now.

This often told part of the AdWords story is true.  Many businesses use AdWords as their soul source of lead generation.

But, there's a side to AdWords few people tell you.

Google's bean counters love new advertisers.  Why?

They pay a so-called "Lazy and ignorant tax." 

All this means is that by optimizing your campaigns, you get an edge.  Google charges you less, shows your ads more, and your profits rise.

New advertisers are unaware of how to go about doing this.... or that it's even possible.

You often hear stories about new advertisers opening-up an AdWords account -- not knowing anything -- and blowing thousands of dollars for little or nothing in return.

And, even if they're lucky enough to get something in return, they're overpaying (top advertisers may be pay .50 cents a click, while you're paying a $1).

Of course, you can't instantly become a world-class AdWords expert.  It takes time and experience.  So, what are you to do if you want to get started fast, make some quick profits, and not lose your shirt?  

Well, here are some ideas of what you first steps should be:

First, begin educating yourself about the basics of AdWords.  Even if you plan on outsourcing your campaigns, you still need to know the basics to judge how well they're doing.  You should know the following terms shown each time as you log-in:

  

• Impressions (Impr.) -- The amount of times your ad is shown (a user might NOT see your ad, but he or she could potentially see and click on it if it came into view).
• Click-thru-rates (CTR) -- This is a measurement of how well your ads are doing for EACH of your keywords.  It's based on how many clicks you get for every hundred impressions.  Higher click-thru-rates means Google charges you less.
• Conversion Rates (Conv. Rate) -- Once you've installed conversion tracking code on your website, you can track how many visitors take an action on your site (such as signing-up to your newsletter or buying your product).  You want to make your decisions, such as how much you're bidding on each keyword on this number.  It helps tell you what is and is not working. 

Although Google doesn't do a great job of teach advanced optimization tactics, they cover the basics very well. Spend some time in their free advertiser learning center: http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

Next, as you're learning, start slow, be patient.  You can begin by telling Google how much you want to spend by selecting the check box to the right of your campaign and then selecting the "Edit Settings" button.  

It's located to the right of the "Delete button."  Here's what appears:

You can then adjust your daily spend allowance and click "save."  

After you've launched your campaigns, log-in and monitor what is happening each day.  If you've installed conversion tracking, you should have an idea if you're getting results.

Finally, you should be aware that the keywords you input without quotes or brackets around them (normal keywords) are known as broad match keywords.

These trigger a wide-range of searches.  If you input the keyword, "Clothes," then you ads might get triggered for "Used clothes" or even "Shirts."

If you want to get more targeted results, you should be utilizing phrase, exact, and negative keyword matching options (Read about them here).   

All in all, doing these basic steps put you on the right footing to get started quickly, successfully and by yourself.

If you want a pro designed campaign right out of the gate and without a lot of struggle, you can use tools, such as AdText Generator or invest in a manager to do it all for you.

Beyond AdWords: Preparing For The Eventual Storm

AdWords is always innovating.  They have a huge majority of the search market for good reason.  

They're constantly developing groundbreaking new features and applications for all of the areas of their business.

Yahoo and MSN don't come close to rivaling it, despite potentially having resources to do so.

However, all of this innovation can come at a cost.

Search engine optimization experts have had to deal with their changes for many years.  Overnight a change in Google's search algorithm wipes-out fortunes.

And, not too long ago, Google decided to hit AdWords with their huge "Google Slap" that jacked up bid prices for many advertisers they deemed did not meet their new guidelines (which were far from clear).

At the moment, much of the storm has cooled.

But, for those advertisers who've been around for long know, it won't be long before Google hits again.  Fortunes will be wiped-out.

In fact, just recently, there is much talk about Google possibly switching to AJAX at some point in the future, which could dramatically change the users' search experience and possibly make many analytics tools obsolete (read more about this here and here).

What all of this means is simple:  AdWords is a powerful tool that can make you a lot of money.  Profit from it as much as you can.  But, do so knowing that you could easily get hit.

At the same time, you're far from helpless.  Here are 5 steps you can take:

1.  Prepare your AdWords campaign to weather any storms.  Create the right structure, work on boosting your click-thru-rates, and optimizing your landing pages.  This reduces your chances that you'll get hit hard by any change Google throws at you.

2.  Copy your campaigns to MSN and Yahoo.  These have significantly fewer searches, but they are still worth your time.  Some markets perform better than others in them.  Occasionally, you'll see reason for optimism that they might be on the right track for someday competing with Google.

3.  Focus on relationship building.  This means collecting contact information and following-up in a meaningful way.  If you build an email list or customer list, this can mean a lot more money for you than a pay-per-click campaign.  

4.  Consider offline advertising.   Direct-mail, newspapers, magazines, and so on can reach huge amounts of people who you would otherwise not connect with on Google.  

5.  Create great content.  While search engines change, the need for quality information never disappears.  By focusing on creating articles, videos, or even e-mails, these can last forever. For many topics you address, there will always be demand for it.  You've got an asset Google can't take away.  

Simply, once you've established your AdWords campaigns (have it running on full cylinders), it's time to branch out.  Look for alternative means to generate low-cost leads for your business... even if you've got more than you can currently handle.

The Do's and Don't of AdWords Ads

At only 120 character maximum (including display URLs), your campaign's success rest on their shoulders.

If they're not on target, your click-thru and conversion rates suffer.  You fail to attract new customers into your business.  

What's more, if your ads aren't up to par, then the competition sucks-up all of the best traffic.

To succeed, every word must do its job.  There isn't room to waste.  Even punctuation marks can make a big difference in response.

This is opposed to how many advertisers approach ads.  In a number of markets, you find that most advertisers simply use their company name as the headline.  Their ads give basic information everybody else can offer.

Instead, you need to consider the job of your ad.  Consider what's happening when your ad shows on Google.com:

First, a user types in a search query.  Her or she might be:

• Looking to buy right away.
• Looking for information and has commercial intent if there is a good offer 
• Looking for information and does not have any commercial intent  (this might be because of a lack of interest or funds)

Next, the user starts with scanning the highest ads, moving downward if he or she does not see what he or she is looking for.  

Your ad is competing with close to 2 dozen other paid and free listings just on the first page!

Just giving a typical yellow page ad doesn't cut it. 

Here are some techniques to boost click-thru-rates, attract buyers, and stand-out:

• Create ads differing in appearance (not necessarily content) to make them stand-out.  For instance, you can capitalize the first letter of each word or make every word lowercase, depending on what others are doing.  You also might use differing punctuation, such as dashes, commas, or other unique punctuation that doesn't violate Google's guidelines for excessive punctuation. Another technique that sometimes works is to create very short ads (3-6 words) where everybody else's are long (though you need to be careful with this). 
•  Study the appeals that are working for top competition for each of your keywords.  If the ads at the top appeal to the searcher's desire to make money and this gels with your other research, then chances are, this appeal works.  You should always be on the lookout for existing successful ads to get ideas.
• Use rhyme, alliteration, or other techniques to create a rhythm that sticks.  At the same time, this does not mean rhyming just because you want to be clever.  It should be relevant to your offer.  A helpful tool to help is up at: http://www.rhymezone.com/
• As you read your ad out loud, make sure it doesn't sound awkward.  A problem with creating small ads is that in an attempt fit in your copy, it may make sense, but it doesn't sound quite right.  If it doesn't sound right to you, it's likely not going to stand-out against the competition.  Take a few extra minutes to re-write it if necessary.
•  Use qualification.  You want to weed-out those not likely to buy.  For instance, if you bid on the word "Website traffic," then you might be sure to specify that you're ad is for those looking to increase website traffic -- not for those looking for web stats tools or research on this topic.  
• Speak directly to the person who is likely to buy and avoid trying to address everybody.  Be focused on what he or she wants the most.  So, instead of saying, "We've been established since 1960."   You might say, "Same-Day Shipping" if it's for a product the customer wants immediately and the competition just can't compete.

By using these simple ad writing tactics, you get profitable ads that pull-in buyers and leave the rest to waste your competition's ad budget.

Creating A Campaign From Start To Finish

When you sign-up to create an AdWords campaign, it seems simple enough as Google walks you step-by-step.

There's only one problem.  Google is only showing you how to do the bare minimum, which often isn't enough if you want to compete.

For this reason, let's talk about what you should be doing whenever you create a new campaign:

1.  Research the market.  You should know your market inside and out.  Who exactly are you trying to attract through each of your ads?  Before you dig-in, you should know everything about this person.  Otherwise, you won't be able to choose the right keywords to bid-in, the right bid prices for each keyword, or know how to create a winning ad.

2.  Keyword research.  Once you've identified who you're trying to attract, it's time to decide what keywords you want to bid on.  Use a keyword tool to brainstorm as many keywords as possible.  Then, go through those keywords weeding-out those that the person you identified with market research would not type-in.  Make note of unrelated keywords you can add as negative keywords.  You should also be sure to consider exact, phrase, and broad match options.

3.  Create tight/small Ad Groups.  Once you've got a powerful keyword list, you need to organize it into small, tight ad groups.  Ideally, each keyword should have its own Ad Group.  If you don't do this, then you should build each Ad Group around a key phrase.  For instance, if you were selling a product related to profiting from AdWords, you might have a group of keywords with the term "AdWords" in them and one with "PPC" in them.  As you group keywords, think about the meaning of each.  The ads for each Ad Group should be relevant to each of your keywords.  

4.  Create ads targeted for each keyword.  Once you've got your keywords down and organized into Ad Groups, you need to create ads for each Ad Group.  Generally, you might start with a minimum of two ads for each Ad Group to split test against each other to find the most effective one.  Each ad should be written specifically for each keyword and to attract your target customer.  It also might weed-out those who are not targeted.  Be sure to study top competitors ads to see what's working.

5.  Adjust bids for each keyword, likely giving the most targeted and prized keywords higher bids.

6.  Test, track, monitor and adjust.  Finally, once you've launched your new campaign, you need to monitor the results and change it based on the data that comes-in.  This means re-writing low-performing ads, adding negative keywords, and working toward improving your results.  You should also be looking for market changes, such as changing search habits and new competitors.

By taking these full steps, your click-thru-rates soars and your costs take a nosedive.