June 30, 2008

20 Advanced Techniques to Improve Adwords Campaign Revealed

Google Adwords is one of the most important sources for getting instant targeted traffic towards your website. With the rising costs of Cost Per Click (CPC) becoming worrisome, it is now vitally important to optimize your Google Adwords campaign for a better ROI.

After spending years in research & analysis in Adwords, I am going to disclose the secrets of how to get high ROI through improved Adwords campaign. Needless to say, my findings are based on the positive results I have achieved by applying these techniques successfully.

The basis of Adwords optimization is that the keyword, adcopy and the landing page should convey the same thing. It’s a double edge sword, if you don’t optimize you will lose heavily.

On the other hand, if you manage to optimize your campaign in the right direction, you will get higher position at a much lower CPC, resulting in higher conversions at a much lower cost per conversion.

Let’s directly start with the details. The Adwords campaign optimization can be summarized in three main categories:

Keywords selection techniques
Adcopy writing tips
Landing page optimization

Keywords Selection Techniques:

Ideally there should be a separate adgroup, adcopy & landing page for each keyword. But that’s not feasible, so try to categorize the keywords in as many different adgroups as possible.
Choose long tail keywords over generic ones. My observation is that long tail keywords have a higher conversion rate. They are less competitive so you can achieve higher ranks at a lower CPC.
Use the correct matching types (i.e. broad, phrase & exact) of keywords to get a higher share of traffic.
Include negative keywords to filter out the unwanted traffic.
You can also try some geo specific keywords i.e. keywords attached with some location name. They are less competitive and have a good conversion rate.
Keep in mind the location, language & demographics of your target audience, while selecting keywords.

Adcopy Writing Tips:

Try to focus on the benefits & features of your product/services in adcopies. Ideally benefits should be in the first description line & features in the second line.
There must be a Call to Action in the second description line.
Try to include your keywords in the Title as well as the Description. It will help in improving quality index and the keywords would be highlighted in bold, hence increasing the visibility & chances of clicks.
Make your title catchy. Try to highlight your main USP in the Title.
Split test different adcopies to find out which approach is working well. Wait for at least 50 clicks to come any conclusion.
Use title text format i.e. first alphabet in capitals of each word in adcopies. It increases readability.

Landing Page Optimization:

Use a catchy, message conveying, to the point & attention grabbing Headline. As you know, you have got only 3-5 seconds to catch the attention of visitors.
Optimize the landing page with proper keyword density & incorporate keywords in title & meta tags, it will help in improving quality score.
The call to action (Lead, Sale or Form) should be visible in first scroll.
Authenticate your claims to gain the confidence of visitors. You can provide testimonials of satisfied clients or any award/reorganization from any authentic third party.
Tell the benefits & features of the product/service clearly.
Don’t offer too many things in a single page, it will create confusion. Ideally you should focus on single product/service in each landing page.
Test different landing pages through Split Testing for the same set of keywords & Adcopies to figure out high conversion page.
Once you are with a high converting landing page obtained through split testing, go for Multi Variate Testing. Try to test different variables of the landing page i.e. different images, headlines, content & call to action. Figure out which combination is working well.

In the near future, lot of other parameters apart from the above listed ones are also going to contribute towards the overall quality score of the campaign. It may include conversion rate, number of conversion, cost per conversion, historical success rate of the campaign.

The standard figure in web marketing is 2% as agreed by most web marketers. Don’t compromise below 2%. If your CTR is below 2% check your keywords and adcopies and if the conversion rate is below 2% you need to check out the usability of your landing page with reference to your keywords and adcopies.

Although the standard is 2%, sites with good usability and an optimized campaign are achieving a conversion rate of 16-20%. As they say, “marketing is all about trial and analysis”. You try out new techniques, analyze the results, make the necessary changes in your strategies and try again.

Try these techniques as innovatively as you can and analyze the results. I will tell you what and how to analyze the results in my next posting.

Imran Khan

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9 Comments on 20 Advanced Techniques to Improve Adwords Campaign Revealed »

August 9, 2008

Adwords Marketing @ 12:23 am (Trackback)

Adwords Marketing… After reading this post, I am not sure I understand what you are trying to relate. Please expand on your thoughts a little more. Thanks…

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August 31, 2008

Akashgarud Infosys @ 4:32 am:

this is good and relevant.

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September 9, 2008

Bhuvan Chand @ 6:42 am:

great article………

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search engine positioning service @ 7:24 pm (Trackback)

search engine positioning service… It sounds interesting but I am not sure that I agree with you completely….

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October 5, 2008

SEO Elite Review @ 7:00 pm (Trackback)

SEO Elite Review… There is a great deal of information here. Thanks for posting :)….

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October 13, 2008

Raja Basu @ 1:34 am:

Hi Imran, It was really nice reading. While I am impressed by the level of domain knowledge and confidence that you have shown in this posting, I also love the command of the language and expressive power that your posting displays. It is basically this second quality that forced me to send this note of appreciation. All the best. Raja

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April 9, 2009

Jawad (UK Magazines) @ 11:28 am:

Nice posting. One can increase the CTR by using keyword command in the title of the ad. But it may leads to quantity not quality.
Let me tell you how keyword command works.

Here is the syntax: {KeyWord:Actual title}
It will show the keyword in the title of ad but conditions apply, which are:
1-Search keyword should be in your ad group
2-Length of keyword must be less than 25
If these conditions are not matched then the actual title will be displayed.

One important thing that I would like to share here that with keyword command sometime a keyword having length upto 28 is also displayed in the title. I have personal experience with this.

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