Do You Start Campaigns Off With Broad Match Keywords?

The other day I launched a new Facebook Fan Page where you can ask me any question you want and I'll respond in 72 hours (see: http://tinyurl.com/AdWordsBuzz).

Well, so far, I've received some great questions... and today I want to re-publish one of the questions and my answer for everyone's benefit.

Here it is:

Q:  What is your step by step process for setting up a new campaign in Adwords for a new niche - Do you start with a lot of broad match and distill it down to what is profitable or do a healthy keyword analysis for the niche and start with a few keywords and expand from there - Or something else entirely?

A:  This depends on your budget. You see, the true Adwords strategy is a game of patience and finesse. Now, with the Google site quality team in place, your site needs to have even more unique content and even more choices for your visitors to click on within your site.

I would start with broad general keywords and monitor daily by running a "Search Query Performance" report. Make sure under the ADVANCED SETTINGS that you select "Conversion". Look at the data in Excel and sort by conversions. Highlight all with a conversion. Then search by CTR. Highlight all with CTR above 2%. Then search by Impressions. Depending on the volume (usually 50-100 is good since you are doing this daily, initially), highlight all high Impressions. Then, sort by Clicks. Highlight all with at least 1 click.

Now, you take those keywords you have highlighted, and create a new campaign with EXACT match only  (I usually call this campaign name "Search Only SQR KW") and enter those keywords as its own adgroup. Monitor these once per week.

After 1-2 weeks, you would run another Search Query Performance report on the original search campaign. This time, I would go through the list and look for keywords that are hurting me and add them as a NEGATIVE KW on that campaign.

You need to be able to look at your Quality Score and conversions and tweak your landing pages accordingly or create new landing pages to accommodate.

Again, this is what I mean by patience and finesse.

Keep in mind that you can also start with your own detailed KW analysis, but I usually like to start broad and then finesse it over time.

Next Steps Checklist For After Data Rolls-In.

We've talked about the checklist before launching a campaign over here.  Following these steps are essential to starting off on the right footing.  However, to keep the profits coming-in and improve your ROI, you need to continue optimizing.

Over time, you begin to gain an advantage over even the most well-funded new advertisers because you know what keywords, ads, and landing pages are the most effective.

Let's dig-in:

Keywords

  I am keeping track of my high-traffic keywords and making sure they are producing high-quality traffic.  

  I am keeping track of the conversions each keyword is producing and making adjustments if keywords just aren't producing results.  

  I am looking for new negative keywords to add to weed-out junk traffic.

Structure

 I am continually looking to create new ad groups for my top keywords. 

 If I am not already using the content network, then I have considered expanding to it with a new campaign.

Ads

 After my ads have generated enough traffic (for a low margin of error), I am changing-out the losers to test new variations.

 I am on the lookout for ads that do not make sense for the keywords they are associated with so I can replace them with new targeted ads.

Landing Pages

 If I haven't already, I am setting-up a website optimizer campaign to boost the percentage of visitors that become customers and fans.

 Once my Website Optimizer experiments are complete, I am setting-up new variables to test, while learning from my existing results.

 As I add new keywords with their own ad groups, I am customizing the landing pages to make sure they are relevant.

Content Network

  I am looking for junk sites my ads are appearing on and adding them to the "Exclusions" list so they will not show on them anymore.

  I am looking for new sites I can target with Placement Targeted campaigns.

  I am adding new types of ads I currently lack (especially different sizes of image ads).

Accountability

  I monitor my reports on a regular basis and make changes based on what they tell me.

  I am checking my analytics data for valuable information about how visitors are interacting with my site.

  I am working toward increasing my visitor and customer values so I can easily outbid the competition (because I can justify spending more for traffic).

Dealing With The Ups and Downs of AdWords.

We've already talked a lot about the benefits of hiring a third party to manage your accounts.  You can read more starting here.

However, probably one of the biggest reasons to hire a third party has not been discussed yet... and it's simply this:  AdWords is full of ups and downs.

Sometimes everything runs smoothly.  Profits are coming-in and you're just waiting for more data to make simple adjustments to your account.

However, AdWords is also known for surprise changes.

The most well-known is that every so often they tighten their standards of what they deem to be a high-quality advertiser.  The so-called, "Google slap."

When you're affected by this, you get hit overnight.  Google usually doesn't give much warning.  They simply lower your quality scores and jack-up your bid if you want to still get shown.

Then, when you contact them for a straight answer, it's hard to get.  Their support documentation often lacks specific details.

This then can leave you stuck to figure it all out on your own.  You might have to do a lot of testing to figure-out exactly what's going on and why you've been effected.

And, if you don't get excited by dealing with details, then this isn't a lot of fun.

On the other hand, if you had an expert manager, then he or she can guide you.  He or she likely manages many other campaigns and can pin-point exactly what's going on with minimum tweaks.

In addition to the occasional possible "Google slap," a manager helps with the day-to-day challenges of boosting your ROI.

For instance, if you're struggling with getting targeted traffic, converting the content network, boosting your clickthrough-rates, and so on, the guidance of an experienced manager can be very helpful.  

What An AdWords Manager Does For You.

If you're either looking for an AdWords manager now or you plan to in the future, then you may be wondering what exactly a manager does for you.  What do they take care of and what do you still need to be aware of?

After all, it's easy to hire someone.  But, how do you know you're getting the most for your investment?

Here are the key items an AdWords manager should take care of:

• First, understand your market and business.  This means taking time to ask you the right questions, listening, and then researching.  This is opposed to the manager immediately jumping-in before he or she knows what he or she is getting into.
• Restructures your campaign to make sure the right keywords are in the right ad groups.   
• Makes sure each ad group has targeted ads written for them.
• Heads the split testing for your ads, monitors results, and makes changes.
• Keeps track of your conversion data and makes adjustments based on it.  
• Helps you set-up landing pages for your ad groups.  
• Monitors how much you're bidding, the ideal positions you should be bidding on, and if this amount should be raised or reduced.  
• Picks-out the best sites on the content network for placement targeting (which can be very time consuming).
• Uses matching types effectively (you don't want all broad match keywords).
• Researches each of your most important keywords. 
• Creates reports and regularly looks through them to find areas for improvement. 

So, as you can tell, the manging job can get fairly complex.  To do all of these tasks, there are a lot of tricks or techniques you can use to do them more effectively.  As the business owner, your job is then to supply information the manager needs to do his or her job.  You should also have a basic understanding of why the manager does each of these tasks.  How will each task make you more money?

This then allows you to contribute to the effort and you can make sure your manager is working hard for you.