Conversion Tracking

You can know how many unique visitors are staying on your site, how long they're staying there, and how high your click-thru-rates are for all of your ads and keywords.  However, all other numbers pale in comparison to knowing your conversion rates.

A conversion rate is the percentage of customers that complete a goal.  The goal might be an order, newsletter sign-ups, or some other action.

It's importance might be summed-up by the saying, "Actions speak louder than words."  An ad may get a sky-high click-thru-rate and still not benefit you.  It's only getting a lot of clicks because it's attracting attention.  It's then not converting because it's attracting the wrong-type of people to your landing page.

It's not uncommon for the ad with the highest click-thru-rate to have a lower conversion rate than an ad with a lower click-thru-rate.

Similarly, you may have a lot of people staying on your site for long periods of time.  But, if they're not coming back and ultimately becoming a customer, it's not doing you a whole lot of good.

You need to know your conversion rates first.

Luckily, your AdWords account has a built-in conversion tracking system.  Let's walk-through installing it.

First, click on the "Conversion Tracking" link in the top menu:

Click on "Create a new action:"

 Next, give your action a name and select the type:

You can track it by if a sale takes place, a sign-up to your newsletter or opt-in form occurs, a new lead comes-in, a view of an important page happens, or your own custom goal  takes place by selecting "Other."

If you select view of an important page, you might make sure that it's one that leads to an action.  For instance, a contact page.

For revenue for action, you might put your average lead value here, average customer value, or simply the price of an initial purchase.

Next, select your language and if the page is normal or secure.  An order form in your shopping cart is likely secure.  Most others are not.

Finally, you can choose to display a box letting visitors know you're tracking their actions.  You also may select "None" and you can inform them elsewhere.

The last step is to input the HTML code provided to you.  It goes on the page customers visit after they take a certain action.  Most likely this is a "Thank you" page.  You're just popping the code in before the </body> tag.

And that's it.  It's very easy to set-up.  You should set-up as many important goals as possible.  You can then make smart decisions about what does and doesn't work.

You can see the conversion data every time you log-in in the following columns:

 

The New AdWords Interface

AdWords has launched a new Beta interface.  You can test it-out by clicking on the link in the upper right corner:  

 

You can switch back and forth between the old and new interface.

The announcement and new list of features can be found here.

One of the most noticeable features is a graph you can use to easily monitor click-thru-rate trends, clicks, conversion rates, and so on.

The Overlooked Content Network.

If you're only using the search network or merely dabbling in the content network, then you're overlooking a major opportunity.

The content network allows you to place your ads on countless thousands of sites on the web.  Many of them are a part of the most visited, including YouTube.com.

A main reason many marketers don't make an effort to take full advantage of the content network is that it seems more complicated than search.

With search, you just have text ads.  The content network has many different sizes of image ads and you can create video ads.  There are countless different combinations you can input into these ads.  

In addition, Google has 2 different ways to advertise on the content network:

1.   With keywords.  This is just like with the search network.  You input keywords and based on those, Google determines where your ads appear.

2.  With placement targeting.  This option allows you to choose where your ads appear.  Since you're choosing, this can bring much more targeted traffic.  You may use placement targeted to find the sites most aligned with your product or service to bid aggressively on.

Let's walk though the creation of a placement targeted campaign.

First, log-in to your account and click on the "New Online Campaign" link and select "Start with placements:"

On the next screen, give your campaign a name, select a language, and your target locations.  Hit "Continue."

It's now time to upload your ads.  For text ads, you likely want at least two ads for each ad group to compete against each other.  Each ad group should then be focused on each site you're going after.  So, to get started, you might just input a sample text ad and hit "Continue." Once you know what sites you're going to bid on, then you know what needs to go in your ads.

Next, it's time to pick-out your sites:

As you can see, there are 4 options to find sites.  You can sort through them based on categories, search based on keywords, input URLs of certain sites, and select demographics.

A great way to start is by inputting keywords ("Describe topics") because there might be sites relevant to your offer in multiple categories.  

In addition, a great tactic is to search your keywords in Google.  Then, go through the top 10 results and identify sites showing Google ads.  You can tell they're Google ads because they'll have a small link beside them that says, "Ads by Google."

As you're doing this step for the first time, just select a few sites to go in your first ad group.

When you look-up sites, you'll see that it tells you what "Ad Formats" are supported on each site and the amount of "Impressions per day" each site has:

The impressions per day gives you a good idea of how competitive the site is and a general idea of how much traffic you might expect.  Pay close attention to the ad formats of each site.  This tells you what types of ads you need to show to get placed on the site.

You will also see that certain sites have various placement options:

When you click on "View all blurtit.com placements (12)," you have the option of adding specific areas on the site where you want your ads.

After you've selected your placements, it's time to choose how you want to pay:

In most cases, you will want to select "Cost per click" where you pay every time your ad gets clicked on. 

Finally, conclude your campaign by setting your daily budget and how much you want to pay per click.

You can now go-back and set-up new ad groups.  Just like keyword campaigns, keep your campaigns tight.  Write ads specific to each site or type of site.  

One last note is that image ads open-up a lot of new places to put your ads and it's not expensive to get image ads made.  You can find graphic designers to create your ads very cheaply.  So, there's little excuse to not get image ads made.  You should then request the photoshop file and you can test new text or design as the campaign progresses.  

Types of Paid AdWords Tools Out There.

When it comes to AdWords, there are tons of different free and paid tools out there to help you get more from it.

However, with there being so many, it's hard to figure what exactly they all do.

So, in this post I am going to talk about the different types out there.  So, when you come across a new tool, you have a better idea of how it might help you.  You can better judge the features of each AdWords tool and whether it meets your needs.

Keyword Tools.  These tools help you generate huge lists of keywords.  Here are some different types:

• Keyword mixers (the new version of AdText Generator has this built-in).  Keyword mixers help you come-up with new combinations of existing keywords.  For instance, you may input a base keyword "AdWords Marketing."  New variations might then be created by combining this keyword with another list of keywords. So, AdWords Marketing may be combined with a list of keyword related to cities.  A new keyword may then be "AdWords Marketing New York City."
• Misspelled keywords.  These take your base keyword and come-up with every possible misspelled variation for you.   AdWords Marketing becomes AdWords Marlting.  In this keyword, somebody just hit "L" instead of "K."
• Keyword diggers.  First, you type-in an initial keyword.  The tool then "Digs" into the results provided by a free keyword tool.  For instance, you might type-in, "AdWords."  The tool then visits a free keyword tool, pops-in "Adwords" for you, copies the list of related keywords, and then checks each of those related keywords.  Ex tools:  KeywordElite.com, AdWordAnalyzer.com
• Keyword harvesters.  You input a website or webpage into the tool and it scours the site looking for keywords.  

Structure/organization tools.   These reduce the tedious work of creating new tightly themed Ad Groups.  AdTextGenerator is an example.  It focuses on creating instant high click-thru-rate ads based on your keywords and puts then inputs it all into tight ad groups.

Content network tools.  These tools help you find places to advertise on in the content network.  They might work by searching the search engines and checking if the sites for your chosen keywords show AdSense.

Spy tools.  These tools monitor the search results.  You just input the keywords you want to monitor and these tools help tell you what's happening with each keyword.  By monitoring what ads stay-up and which ones disappear, you can tell what's working and what's not.  You also might use these tools by seeing what keywords top or successful competitors are bidding on.  You can then choose to only bid on those keywords as well because they likely work.

How to Set-Up Your First Website Optimizer Campaign

Previously, we talked about why you should be using Google's website optimizer (here).  Over time, it reveals hard data on what works and what does not.

Today, let's move on and walk you through setting-up and creating a campaign.  Once you've signed-up for an account, click on the "Website Optimizer" link inside your AdWords account:

 

Then, click on a the following link:

Next, you need to choose what kind of split test you want:

A/B tests two different pages (such as Headline A versus Headline B).  Multivariate split tests multiple variations of a page against each other (such as headline A with price A, headline A with Price B, headline B with price A, headline B with price B).

Usually, you want to go with a multivariate test.  It's more accurate because you may find Headline A is the winner over B on an A/B split test.  But, would B have won with a different price or intro copy?

A/B is ideal for when you've got a low traffic landing page that probably won't see a big increase in traffic any time soon.  You just want to test one or two elements.

Let's click on the "Multivariate Experiment" link and up pops a short list of instructions.  We'll click "Create."  

The next step is then to input the following data:

Experiment name:  Give it a simple and descriptive name.   You may create follow-up experiments and so you don't want it to get confusing.

Test page URL:  This is your landing page URL or the page where your visitors are being sent to.

Conversion page URL:  After your visitor buys or signs-up to your newsletter, this is the page that they go to.  It's often called the "Thank you page."

Hit "continue" once this info is typed-in.

The next step is to "Tag" pages or put in the Google code into your test and conversion pages.

You can put the code in by opening Microsoft's notepad

 

Then, select the HTML file you want to edit.  Once you do this, you will see the code.

Alternatively, you might log-in to your control panel that your web host provided you with.

Once you see the HTML code, simply input the "Control Script" at the beginning and the "Tracking Script" at the end of the code of your test page.

Finally, you input the following code around the HTML of the elements you want tested:

<script>utmx_section("Headline Test")</script> <h1>Your Headline Goes Here

</h1> </noscript>

The above allows us to test our headline text.

While you're here, you might as well put this code around all elements you might decide to test in the future.  

Here are good elements test:

1.  Your headline (often makes the biggest difference).

2.  Your intro copy

3.  Price

4.  Font style

5.  Headline color

6.  Graphics

7.  Border style of tables

8.  Background color

9.  Logos and professional seals

10. Testimonials

11. Guarantee

12. Payment options

13. Site design

Every detail can be tested.  At the same time, don't get stuck on the little details, while ignoring the big issues.  You probably want to test headlines before background color.

After you've completed adding in the code to your test page, insert the conversion script to the end of your conversion page.  You're then ready to upload your pages to your web host.

If you edited them in Microsoft's Notepad, then you need an FTP client.  You can gain FTP access in windows by clicking on "My Network Places" and filling in your log-in information provided by your web host:

Once you've uploaded your files, you're ready to hit the "Validate" button:

If you don't know how to do this or your page is not ready for launch, then you can do the "offline validation."

The next step is to input your actual variations:

In the above example, two headlines and two different page background colors have been inputted.

After you've inputted your information, just review and launch.

Google then runs the rest and you can monitor the results:

You then know when it's time to start a new test when the "Chance to beat original" is very low for the losing variation and your "Est. conv. rate" has a very low margin of error.

And that's all there is to it. With multivariate testing, just set-up a large number variations for high-traffic sites and you won't have to do anything else, until the testing is all done.

For quicker results or for pages getting less traffic, limit the amount of variations.

AdWords Geotargeting Keys

One of the most powerful parts of Google is that it allows you target specific countries, regions, states, or even a specific neighborhood.  

Here's are some ads that appears when you type-in "Restaurants NYC:"

 

Notice that the first ad has a specific street address at the bottom.  This ad has targeted a specific neighborhood/area.  The second ad has targeted New York City and the final ad is not using local geotargeting.

In addition, I am not in New York City or anywhere close to it.  Yet, I was able to trigger local ads.  This is because Google doesn't always follow geotargeting guidelines.  They're most interested in serving relevant ads.

Since I typed in "NYC," in my search query, Google figured I wanted local ads.  

If I were traveling to New York City, this could be a good thing for merchants.  If not, this could be a waste of money for the advertiser.

And, even if I were traveling to New York City and looking for restaurants to eat at, it's not going to be right away and so I could easily change my mind.  As a local business, you need to be aware of this and address this concern in your landing page.  You must have reasons or systems in place to capture outside visitors and encourage them to follow-through.  Be aware that not all visitors are looking for an immediate solution.

At the same time, if you just type in "Restaurants," then only local ads appear.  Although the geotargeting can still be off to a small degree, it largely works as directed. 

If you don't want your ads to show in a specific area within an area you targeted, Google allows you to exclude them:

 

So, if I wanted my ads to show in the United States, but not Alaska, I can specify this.

This then leads to the question, who exactly should be using geotargeting?

Just about everybody will probably want to target specific countries.  

A tool Google provides to help you decide what countries or regions you want to target is at:

• http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

For more specific region or local targeting, Google's most interested in serving relevant ads to local searchers.

If you don't have a local business or local solution, then you might cater to them by creating specific landing pages targeted for a state or cities.  For instance, if you sell an e-book on dog training, then your landing page might incorporate local information about local solutions on it.

Finally, it's also may be a good idea to separate the different areas you're targeting into separate campaigns so you can more easily track the response.  For instance, if you get lots of traffic from the U.S. and Canada, then you may create separate campaigns for each.

Trigger Words and Phrases

What seperates an ad with explosive click-thru-rates and one that's just good?

With so little space, every word, grammar, and punctuation choice influences response.  

However, what makes the big difference has to do with how well you are able to give your searcher what he or she wants.

For instance, let's say you're looking for a solution to "stop snoring."  What do searchers for this term want?  They want to end their snoring without surgery, without a cpap machine (you wear while sleeping), and they want a credible solution that actually works.

So, what makes a killer ad for this person?  

Here are some ideas to create it:

• Communicate the credibility of your solution with your domain name.  For instance, if you're a doctor, then your domain name might be, "DrYourName.com."  Or, if you're not a doctor, then a domain name like "SleepStop.com" or a similar name that sounds like a product found in a store may add credibility.
• "Stop Snoring" is more compelling than other phrases like "Anti-snoring device." Using AdText Generator, we can see the top ads all use this phrase in their headlines.  The one ad performing well with the headline "Anti-snoring device" builds credbility by citing a percentage of its success rate.
• The top performing ad on Google addresses the main problem of fatigue.  After all, if someone snores, then this is likely on the top of his or her mind when searching Google for a solution.

Simply put, there are certain "Trigger words and phrases" your searchers want to see in ads for each of your keywords.  By studying what's already converting well, you can uncover what they are to form your own killer ads. Punctuation and small formatting tricks help highlight these trigger words and phrases.

How To Save Time Managing Your AdWords Campaign

Managing, optimizing and mainting your campaigns can a large amount of hours every week.  However, it's also easy to spend time on tasks that can be done quicker and easier another way

  Let's talk about five ways to slash hours off of your management time:

1.  Use AdWords Editor (http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwordseditor/).  If you're still managing your campaigns inside your web browser, you're wasting countless hours of time.  The main reason is because with AdWords editor, you don't have to wait for a web page to load before you make a change.  Just make your campaign changes inside AdWords Editor and upload when you're ready in a couple of minutes (if that).   Inside your web browser, an hour worth of editing might be as much as 20 minutes waiting for pages to load.  On top of this, there are a number of time saving features built inside to make changes a lot easier.   

2.  Do all of your research at once using an Excel sheet.  Before you start any campaign, you should research your market.  Uncover the top ads and top advertisers, who your target customers are, and so on.  As your campaign progresses, make time to go back and track changes. This saves you time because you instantly know what keywords you should use and what should go inside your ads for maximum results.
  
3  Swipe ads from competitors and sit down to do your ad writing at once.  Once you've uncovered top competitors, make note of the phrases and ads they're using.  You can then use phrases or certain words that are proven to work to generate high click-thru-rates.  This is opposed to creating ads from scratch where you have to spend month's testing and tracking to uncover killer ads.  As your campaign progresses, you should set aside a fix amount of time every week or couple of weeks to swap-out inneffective ads and test new variations.

4.  Generate campaign reports to analyze.  Instead of scanning through your campaign to analyze results, you can generate reports.   Just click the "Reports" button to right of "Campaign Management:"

   

You can then set-up as many reports as you want.  And, if you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see that you can make them recurring:

To save time, have it schedule to run and be emailed to you maybe once a week or at the same time that you plan to spend time editing your campaigns.  

5.  Generate reports inside Analytics.   In addition to campaign management numbers, you can also get your website performance numbers with Analytics.  First make sure you've set-up your account (http://www.google.com/analytics/).  Once you've logged-in, you can generate reports by clicking on the "Custom reports" button on the left menu:

You then construct a report by dropping and dragging the various numbers you want to be inside your report.  Once you've finished, your report is automatically saved and can be accessed underneath the "Custom Reporting" link:

 

Now, in the future, you can access your report and just hit the "Edit" link to update the time period.

Simply put, the key to efficient AdWords management is to set a schedule.  You can then use the different tools AdWords provides to stay organized.  You get the data you need to make smart decisions fast and can implement those changes quickly with AdWords Editor.

Google Turns On Behavior Targeting

Google recently announced that they're going to begin using user behavior to show targeted ads.

Considering the mass amount of data Google could collect (Gmail, search habits, click habits, and so much more), this is a significant development.  

As an advertiser, it is likely good news when it comes to the content network.  You get your ads in front of the right audience.

In addition, the system seems to be "searcher-friendly" in that you can opt-out of the system and see what data they're using to show you ads (though searchers may not be aware their behavior is being tracked in the first place, unless they click on the "Ads by Google" link).

More articles on this topic can be found at:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/technology/internet/11google.html
  

• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/making-ads-more-interesting.html 

• http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/googles-new-ad.html

• http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Google-Tests-Behavioral-Based-Ads/story.xhtml?story_id=02300243M46R&full_skip=1  

What Makes A Good AdWords Manager?

There's a wild difference in pricing for AdWords managers.  Some charge thousands of dollars in on-going fees and others may only charge a hundred a month.

So, what exactly does the more skilled managers get you that a cheap one likely does not?

Here's a good comparison chart:

Skilled Manager	Non-Skilled Manager
Views AdWords as "Scientific" where you can test, track, and measure what does and does not work.	Most concerned about spending the monthly budget.
Has experience with what has and has not been successful in many different markets.  This gives a good intuitive feel for what will test well.	Lacks experience or may have only seen one what works in a couple of markets and with a couple of different products.
Takes the time to build a campaign right with quality ads, good keyword choices, and a detailed campaign structure.	Gets lazy and just wants to put something down (resulting in huge profit-draining "leaks").
Takes time to understand the clients product, customers, and market.	Gets started as soon as the client pays resulting in poor ads and keyword choices.
Uses often expensive software tools to research keywords and build campaigns that gives you an edge others can't compete with.	Uses free or low-cost research tools, which all of your competitors have access to.
Takes into consideration your landing pages and if it is on-target for your keywords	Is not overly concerned with what happens after the user clicks on your ads.
Stays up-to-date with the latest changes and new techniques Google is implementing to give you an advantage over others.	Doesn't read or talk with other experts and is in the dark about key developments that can make you a lot of money.
Is not just motivated by getting paid, but enjoys the testing and tweaking process followed by seeing results (he or she wants to know you're succeeding from his or her work).	May or may not be focused on retaining you as a client and not overly concerned with the value he or she is providing to you.

As you can see, a skilled manager makes you money and is often worth the extra investment.  He or she knows how to optimize your campaigns to get the most amount of profits possible out and into your bank account.

In addition, you enjoy working with a skilled manager more.  He or she wants you to succeed and takes an interest in your business.