Proper AdWords Campaign Structure

April 20th, 2009

Here are two great sources from the source on Proper AdWords Account Structure.

Following these guide lines will help your adwords account preform much better. This is one of the top 3 things I see wrong with consulting on Pay Per Click Mangement. Re-Structureing your campaign to better match the examples here will help bring up your Quality Score, Down Cost Per Click, and Up Position in most cases.

AdWords Campaign Sturcture Refrence Sheet

AdWords Campaign Structure Video

Great Google AdWords Video from Google

March 27th, 2009

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February 19th, 2009

Was watching a youtube video and saw this Ad at the bottom. Enjoy!

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Excluding Internal Traffic from Google Analytics

February 17th, 2009

Excluding Internal Traffic from Google Analytics is a MUST.  Not accounting for a companies internal traffic helps you make better decisions on AdWords or any other PPC marketing as well as keeping tabs on Top Content as well. This is the easiest way to block internal traffic.
Below I will give you a step by step guide on Excluding Internal Traffic from Google Analytics.

1. In Google Analytics, create a new filter. In this example I will title “Internal”

Filter

Add Filter
Filter Type is: Custom

Select the “Exclude” Option

Filter Field: Campaign Source

Filter Patter: internal

Custom Filter

Select the website profiles you wish to add this filter to, Click Add:

Add Profile

Then Save Changes: Save
2. Go to: Google URL Builder

For the website URL, just put in your website’s domain (i.e. http://www.mywebsite.com)

For campaign source, medium, and name, enter in the word “internal”.

Click: Generate URL

3. Copy and paste it to an email, and send it to everyone in the company or anyone you want to exclude. This is per browser. So if you use multiple browsers just click it in the browsers you want to block. I suggest bookmarking it as your link to your company site!

Best Practice Google AdWords Campaign Structure

January 9th, 2009

Get Your Structure Right!
I can’t tell you the amount of times I have heard and said that!
To have a successful AdWords Campaign you must have them structured properly. First make sure you have a Standard Edition NOT a Starter Edition. The Standard Edition gives you much more control and better functionality. And don’t worry, it’s not any harder to navigate and edit.
Each campaign should have its individual:
1. Daily Budget
2. Language Targeting
3. Location Targeting
4. Ad distribution preference
5. Start and end dates
Each Ad Group for each Campaign should have its individual:
1. Set of keywords that are relevant to each other.
2. Relevant Ad’s/Ad creative/Ad Copy for the keywords selected

If you have key words that have high CTR% ideally you should break those high performers into their own adgroup so the entire adgroup has the highest CTR%. Instead of being brought down by the other low performers. And even full campaign if you so choose. DON’T FORGET to use the “Copy or Move Keywords and Ad Text” tool to rearrange things if there is any positive history for the keywords and Ad’s. Or the AdWords Editor works well also!

Quality Score (QS) is HUGE factor for every PPC marketer. The better your QS, the higher placement you get, and Cheaper your clicks cost! When I first got my start in PPC I was able to reduce CPC for my employer by 50% after going to an educational session for Campaign Structure optimization. More and more recently I have been seeing changes in the ease of getting Good and Great QS for new campaigns by starting off broad. I have some old (real old) Clients that have 100’s of key words in one adroup with 90% great score and 10% good QS and minimum bid as low as $0.01. These days I have noticed proper structure from the start is even more important to get and keep QS that is good and great from the start. Following this out line HERE is great to get and keep a QS of good and great from the start. However, with some of my Geo targeted clients even with absurdly structured campaigns they still can get some poor and okay QS. Which takes a bit more work with the other variables in the AdWords management  Process. I found with these, getting the Click Through Rate up as quickly as posable will get the QS up the quickest. I suggest using the link above as a reference in all new campaign and adgroup creation to keep your Quality Score as high as possible.

Should I use Google AdWords Starter Edition or Standard Edition

January 7th, 2009

This is a very Common question I get asked very often! “Which Should I use, AdWords Starter Edition or Standard Edition?

My answer is very simply: Google AdWords Standard Edition. 

The Starter Edition may seem to be easier, how ever the loss of settings far out weighs the value of Control. Plus when you really do get more familiar with AdWords and it really starts to make you good money, You will have to switch to Standard Edition and re-learn the set up all over again. Usually with the Starter edition, since it’s not as easy to turn off the stuff that wastes your money i.e. content network, mobile devices, etc. and not as easy to turn on the things that save you money like Time Targeting etc. your campaigns will not be nearly as profitable. Starter edition is a big reason people out there say they have “Lost money on AdWords”

Internet Marketing Raleigh NC | LookToTheRight.com Video

January 4th, 2009

Manually Tagging Links for Google Analytics

December 31st, 2008

Manually Tagging your links in other search engines (besides AdWords) and other marketing campaigns such as Banner Ad’s, Text Link Ad’s, and Video ad’s is a MUST!

Unfortunately Google Analytics doesn’t always pick up the right Campaign source, medium and keyword that generated the hit to your site. The best tool to create URL’s that will be easy to track in Google Analytics is the Google URL Builder. This tool makes Manually tagging URL’s very easy for tracking. Enter the Destination URL, The Source (Like Yahoo, MSN, etc.), The Medium (Like PPC, Banner Ad, Text Ad, Email), and Campaign Name (Like Product #, Model #, SKU, etc.) and Click “Generate URL”. And You’re Done! Just Copy the URL that is generated and paste into the Destination URL field at Yahoo PPC, or MSN PPC, or what ever provider for advertising you are using. 

This is very simple, Very effective for making sure all your tracking is showing up properly in your Google Analytics reports!