Everythink Excellent

In this article I show you my top twelve tips for creating effective Google AdWords ads.

I’ve been testing the Google pay per click advertising system for a while, with much success. These tips will help you create ads that generate higher click through rates, and lower cost per click.

1. Target The Right Audience

Target the right audience by selecting the language and countries that you want to target. For example, I exclude all countries where English is not understood by a large percentage of the population.

2. Refine Your Keywords

Use square brackets "[…]" around your keyword/s.

For example:

[google]
[google adwords]

Your ad will only show when the search is for the exact keyword phrase you have included within the brackets.

The ad will not show for searches that include other keywords. In our example, this would be for searches such as "google search," or "google news."

3. Test Multiple Ads Simultaneously

Always test 2 (or more) ads simultaneously. This is what is known in the print industry as an A/B split test.

Find out which one produces the higher click through ratio. Then replace the weaker performing ad with a new one.

Continue this process in your never-ending quest to get the highest click through ratio possible.

4. Track The Return-On-Investment Of Each Ad

Google tracks the click through ratio of each ad. But it doesn’t track the conversion ratio.

Use a special tracking link in each ad to track its conversion ratio. For example, you could attach each ad with an affiliate tracking system link. Make sure each ad produces a return-on-investment.

5. Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad

Include the targeted keywords in the headline and the description of the ad. Google will highlight searched keywords in bold in the ad.

When people scan search results, they look for the keywords they have entered. Searched keywords highlighted in bold certainly help to catch the user’s attention. For this reason, ads with searched keywords usually perform better than ones without.

6. Sell The Benefits

Spell out one or more major benefit in your ad. For example, make more money, stay younger looking, lose weight, get healthier, live happier, etc.

7. Include Attention Grabbing Words In Your Ad

Start your headline with an attention grabbing word. For example, "Free:, New:, Sale:, etc." Make sure you stay within Google’s editorial guidelines.

8. Use Words That Provoke Emotion & Enthusiasm

Use power words or call-to-action phrases that provoke emotion, enthusiasm and a response.

Here are some examples of power words:

free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, you, tips, enhance, discover, fact, learn, at last, free shipping, etc.

Here are some examples of call-to-action phrases:

* Buy Today - Save 50%
* Download Free Trial Now
* Sale Ends Tomorrow

Make sure the phrase specific to your business, otherwise Google may reject the phrase.

9. Sell Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

What makes your product or service better, or different, from the competition? Spell them out in your ad.

For example, one of Amazon.com’s first taglines was "Earth’s Biggest Bookstore." That’s a powerful USP!

10. Link To Relevant Landing Pages

If an ad is for a specific product or service, create a landing page for the ad. Include relevant and useful information to convert the customer. Generally, a well designed landing page will almost always convert more visitors than if you simply sent the visitor to the home page.

11. Remove Common Words

Remove common words, such as "a, an, in, on, it, of, etc." Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.

12. Deter Freebie Hunters

Deter freebie hunters by including the price of the product or service at the end of the ad. This will improve your overall conversion ratio and lower your average customer acquisition cost.

This may reduce your click through ratio, but that’s OK. After all, you’re not trying to target every body, only potential customers. In most cases, freebie hunters will never become paying customers.

Conclusion

Remember that advertising is a never-ending series of tests. Always track your ads. Never stop testing different keywords and ads to improve your conversion ratio and lower your customer acquisition cost.

Advertising in the Google AdWords advertising system works. It may not necessarily produce as many visitors as Overture, but the click through cost is usually lower.

Master the art of advertising in Google, and you could outsmart the competitor who’s always outbidding you in Overture. ;o)

While sitting in sessions at any Search Marketing Conference, you will hear agency-side search marketers asking the panel for advice on how to keep clients from standing in their own way.

Questions like:

What if my client ignores our optimization recommendations?

What if a client doesn’t see any value in social media?

Some search marketers might think working with clients who won’t implement recommendations is a waste of time. I think it’s well worth a little extra work needed to understand why they are not following recommendations and finding a work around. In fact, if you’re working for an enterprise SEO client, the ability to find work arounds is a bare minimum requirement.

As an account manger for TopRank, I’ve been fortunate to work with a variety of companies, managing SEO and public relations campaigns that range from small businesses to the Fortune 20. That experience has provided many opportunities to find work arounds to client created roadblocks. A few solutions I’ve discovered include these tips:

Tips to Overcoming Client-Created Roadblocks:

Commit to the RE’s:  Resend, Revamp, Re-evaluate
Realize that clients are busy. Numerous items could have come into play to explain why a client isn’t taking a recommendation and running with it and/or providing the approval you need to do the same.

Try the 3 RE’s:

1. Resend. It’s possible that the email got skipped, deleted or didn’t even make it to them.
2. Revamp. If after discussing with the client they are still not executing, revamp the recommendation. Perhaps they need a better example, they prefer to be communicated to in a different way (one on one, web meeting etc) or they need a bigger, better reason to execute.
3. Reevaluate. Make a point to review email strings and conversations with clients and learn from them. Each client is unique and will respond to information that’s best formatted for their preferences. i.e. Emails with lengthy paragraphs and no call to action tend to sit in my inbox, whereas I’ll respond immediately to bulleted lists or clearly stated actions

Learn from when/what your client responds to and repeat the patterns that get results.

Provide additional resources
Often times clients want to understand the industry and what is behind the recommendation. Be sure to offer them additional resources from which to garner information.

Share relevant articles, blog posts or data with them. I’ve found that often times it’s not the main client contact that’s the obstacle but rather other’s in their organization. Information, statistics etc can be very effective in helping them advocate SEO internally.

Bring in the heavy hitter
Sometimes you have to bring in someone else to motivate the client to action.

This can be especially true for clients that receive day-to-day communication. The folks on the agency side really become part of the client’s internal team. While this is great for managing a program, you often need someone ‘new’ to sell an idea.

As Lee and I have been discussing lately, it’s like the “prophet isn’t respected in his own hometown” idea. When you edify and build respect for an ‘out of towner’, their message will more likely be perceived by the client to be credible, even if the information from the agency contact is the same.

At the end of the day, it’s about best servicing the client and helping them achieve objectives. Find out what works for your clients and then adapt accordingly.

There are many reasons social media can be a productive marketing channel or platform. Rather than emplying it as a tactic du jour, the purpose should dictate strategy and the tactics used for reaching desired goals. A few common outcomes for social media marketing efforts include:

• Gain insight into a community of interest -You can run all the customer surveys you want, but some of the most interesting and progressive market research can be found within the social communities where your customers interact, share information and make recommendations. Tapping into the streams of dialog is a great start to engagement and social participation with your brand.

• Build brand visibility and authority - You’ve heard it before, “Conversations are happening online about your brand, with or without you.” You might as well participate and do so in a way that pays close attention to the interests and needs of your customers - providing them with information and interactions that further support your brand.

• Influence and promotion of products/services - Providing information to educate customers about your products in the formats and media types they prefer can go a long way towards building the kind of buzz that results in new business. By promotion, I mean advertising on social media sites.

• Link building for traffic and SEO - Creating linkbait and promoting it to social media news and bookmarking sites can attract a slew of links from bloggers that read them. However, sustaining high levels of promotion to the same site or with the same user accounts will quickly be outed as social media spam. Creating value for the community is not the only rule, creating value and behaving according to formal and unwritten rules is what sustains social media sourced link building.

• Drive traffic for ad revenue models - Becoming a power user of several social communities involves consistently contributing quality content, rewarding those who vote positively on that content as well as growing a large base followers. That base of like-minded connections can serve as an effective distribution channel for unique and interesting content which drives traffic to ad supported blogs that host the content. The linkbait suggestion above not only attracts links, but also attracts traffic. However, many ad supported sites report that traffic from social media sites is notorious for not clicking on ads. It’s the bloggers that write about linkbait content first viewed on social media sites that drive the kind of traffic which results in ad clickthroughs.

The mechanisms for putting these strategies into action vary depending on the resources and time allocations a company can make on its own, or when working with an agency. In fact, it is most often due to internal resource constraints that companies outsource social media strategy and tactics in the first place.

Type in “social media marketing” into Google and you’ll get about as many search results (23 million) as there are social media tactics being promoted. As with any type of marketing, social media promotions center around matching content with interested audiences as well as stimulating conversation and buzz. Content can be created from scratch, mashed up or you can “borrow to build” by piggybacking on someone else’s social media success. The key is to listen and participate.

Speaking of social media tactics, I recently wrote/facilitated an article on social media marketing for Larry Chase on his famous Web Digest For Marketers newsletter and web site which includes social media tips from some of the most opinionated minds on the topic: Brian Solis, Neil Patel, Chris Winfield, Mike Moran, Rohit Bhargava, Jeremiah Owyang, Muhammad Saleem and Jason Falls.

Each of these social media experts provided tips of their own as well as resources from: Steve Rubel, Robert Scoble, Charlene Li, Andy Hagans, Pete Cashmore, Chris Brogan, authors Huba/McConnell and Emanuel Rosen. If you’re interested in social media as part of your online marketing strategy, the tips are worth checking out when it posts this week.

I am curious if Online Marketing Blog readers are finding that social media marketing tactics are getting included in strategic marketing discussions? Is social media getting singled out like SEO or PPC in budgets and forecasts?