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Google AdWords – should you use the service?

28 September 2011

When you perform a web search using Google, the keyword phrase you search on brings up a list of the most relevant results to match your search. This list is known as ‘organic’ search results. At the very top of the list are generally 2-3 results which have a very light coloured background, with a tiny ‘Ads’ printed at the top right hand corner of the background. These are always paid for advertisements. Similarly, the right side panel is also filled with paid for advertisements also known as ‘sponsored links’. These advertisements are Google AdWords.

Google AdWords work the same as any advertisement in any media, you work out what you want to say, who your target market is, how much you want to spend, then place your ad.

However, due to the enormous amount of data that Google has been able to accumulate about us and our habits, we can make our AdWords advertisements targeted better and more useful to our potential clients.

Top 4 Positives of Google AdWords -

  • It would appear that if a user is one of the 5% who click on the advertisement, they tend to be closer to the purchase point of their buying journey.
  • You only pay for the advertisement when someone clicks on it, so no traffic, no cost.
  • You bid for the maximum amount of money you will pay for the advertisement containing the keywords you want. This means, you can choose and pay relatively little for long tailed keyword phrases which will attract a small, but very qualified user.
  • Google provides an excellent set of tools to initially define a quality set of keywords and then to analyse the actual results from the AdWords campaigns.

Top 4 Negatives of Google AdWords -

  • Of all the searchers who search for your keywords, only about 5% of them will click on an ad or sponsored link as opposed to 95% who will first choose to read one of the organic listings offered.
  • As with any form of advertising, these sponsored results will not carry as much trust as an organic result.
  • Google AdWords does have an interface which can sometimes feel unwieldy- it is, but with a little practice you will find your way around eventually.
  • There is a lot to understand when it comes to how much to pay for a click, how to bid etc. Take the time to read the instructions, view the videos – make time to make money.

So, who can benefit most from Google AdWords?

  • New websites which have not yet gained organic rankings as yet. The AdWords campaign can help drive traffic to the site.
  • For new product lines which are unique or not well known as a product group at all in your target market
  • Where you have a volume of products or services you wish to ramp up quickly, such as a year end sale, or you stock items for seasonal use only such as Christmas etc.
  • If you want to specifically target a group to see your advertisement, you can choose language, region and many other customised parameters which will enhance your results.
  • AdWords is an economical platform to test advertising. You can use an A/B landing page tester which allows you to track conversions from different landing pages.
  • There is also the ability to ‘remarket’ using AdWords. Remarketing is reaching out to an audience that has previously visited your website. By tagging groups of pages with a keyword, you can match these tagged keywords to specific ads you run.
  • The results of testing your niche using Google AdWords can provide the analytics to improve your overall site and improve search engine optimisation for organic searches.
  • Done well, a very small enterprise can benefit as much from AdWords advertising as can a very large corporation – a situation where it isn’t true that ‘size matters’.

Final thoughts

Unless you are trying to raise a profile for a charity or other Not for Profit, AdWords are not really designed for non-monetized websites. Why spend money when you don’t intend to make money?

Lastly, on a different path, if your site already ranks highly for organic searches, paying for advertising using Google AdWords is not a good economic decision, you will gain little for your investment – put your advertising dollars elsewhere.

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Article Review: Google Rolls Out Behavioural Targeting To All AdWords Advertisers

25 July 2011

A recent article by Pamela Parker briefly discussed the changes to Google AdWords which has been over two years in the Beta stage – Google Rolls Out Behavioral Targeting To All AdWords Advertisers.

Essentially Pamela wrote that AdWords can now be targeted to users based on their previous browsing behaviour. She enthusiastically heralds this as their final and full entry into behavioural marketing in AdWords.

Google AdWords advertisers can now utilise user’s browser history to target their message to more suitably qualified leads. This will hopefully mean a better response than perhaps the current 5% average click rate on AdWords advertisements over organic.

Pamela explains that the new system will look at the page types and frequency of a user’s browsing behaviour. There is a browser cookie that is installed and that has the interest categories attributable to your history. You can look at this list of interest categories attached to you and even change them in the Google Ad Preferences Page. Of other interest is the fact you can completely remove your user id from this process by opting out, also on the Ad Preference Page.

The advertisers benefit in many ways according to Pamela, with one retailer claiming a 400% increase in conversions. With over 1000 interest categories it would seem advertisers can be more streamlined in their targeting and reduce their cost per click.

An additional bonus for the marketer includes those users who actively add categories – they are really standing on a street corner yelling ‘please sell to me’! Hopefully advertisers will capitalise on this pull marketing.

I noted that there were some things that were missing from the article. There was no discussion about seasonality or ‘one off’ searching. What I mean is, will I be inundated with perfume ad campaigns for 6 months after Christmas just because I wanted to buy perfume for several Christmas presents? Also, if I search all day today to find accommodation for the in-laws this weekend locally, how long will I be presented with related marketing offers after this one off occurrence.

Other than that, it seems as though the new targeting will be a bonus for marketers as well as generally positive for users being shown advertisements they have an interest in.

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Paid Search Signals To Understand

21 June 2011

Alex Cohen raises some vital questions and offers answers in this article which essentially looks at the optimisation of the Pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement paradigm in the WWW. (searchenginewatch.com/article/2076542/43-Paid-Search-Signals-You-Need-To-Understand)

Where the search engine optimisation specialists have been vitally concerned with a whole regime of methods to keep their organic listings at the top of search pages, there have been few open discussions about doing the same with paid listings.

Cohen distils the whole foundation of doing search engine marketing into 6 questions we would like to be able to ask of our potential users including:

  • What are they searching for?
  • How much is that search worth?
  • Who is doing the searching?
  • How, When and Where are they searching?

Merely articulating these questions would be a revelation to many new website owners. Google is a commercial publisher, they want more people to ‘read’ them, and to keep users returning to the Google search engine. To achieve this, it is critical that they present well targeted PPC ad campaigns on the best Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). They do this through an algorithm just as complicated as the one used for organic search listings.

More data and more recent data improves the quality score of your advert, along with the price you bid for the ad, will determine your positioning. Google wants to have the best most click-able ads in front of your potential audience as it is only once an ad is clicked that Google hears the ka-ching for themselves.

Cohen goes onto complete the list of 43 important questions or messages to consider when designing your advert for any PPC campaign. One of the key messages to come from this article is ensuring we have a concrete understanding of what drives our profit, our business need and thus should be the converting driver for our advertising – be it finding clients, brand awareness, sales or any other criteria.

This article is filled with good basic solutions for your AdWords campaign set up, so take the time to read up on this interesting subject and contact us with any further enquiries you may have about controlling who sees you in Google searches first.

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