Basic ROI and Conversion Tracking

Conversions can be sign up, sales, leads or pageviews

ROI is ROAS – Return on Advertising Spend

The Report Center can show you Profit (Sales rev less adwords costs)

Divide by Adwords Costs to get Adwords ROI

Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is a popular alternative

Conversions happen on sale completion, lead generated, downloaded PDFs, newsletter sign ups or other.

Multiple actions during a single visit are called transactions but only counted as 1 conversion.

Tracking is free, javascript based (both http and https security levels) and can be implemented via copy and paste on the confirmation page.

The code is obtained via Tools > Conversion Tracking

Very important to ensure the confirmation page is not accessible by other means to prevent inaccurate reporting

Can be disabled by Tools > Conversion Tracking > Stop Conversion Tracking

Conversion Data to Improve ROI

New columns appear in the interface but don’t include the advanced stats from the Report Center

Conversion stats are available at all levels throughout the campaign.

Report Center data can show Cost Per Transaction

“each individual conversion can lead to multiple transactions as users shop for various products on your site or return later to make additional purchases”

Transaction reporting can valuable insight into the effectiveness of your advertising, website and the value of your product offerings.

“transaction statistics can prove even more valuable, since acquiring regular customers is more valuable than any single conversion”

Advanced Option Conversion Statistics: data on unique conversion values set

Improving the conversion performance of low-ROI keywords can help make your advertising budget last.

Are the keywords targeted and relevant enough to produce the desired results?

If the keywords are well-targeted, then is your site hindering your conversion rate?

the tracking code is JavaScript function associated with a cookie

Internet users who have disabled cookies or JavaScript in their Internet browsers won’t be tracked

Therefore, conversion data is a close approximation

clicks which can’t be tracked aren’t included in your conversion data

Advanced Conversion Tracking

select different values for each transaction type

track dynamic values that change for each transaction (known as ‘dynamic variables’); for example, total purchase amounts

Static and Dynamic Variables

Conversion tracking works with most of the popular webpage development languages available.

For example, ASP users most likely have a dynamic variable such as <%=totalValue%>, while sites built with PHP resemble <?echo $totalValue?>

Verifying Your Code – can you see google stats link?

common errors – incorrect values or transaction type or both!

Costs & Billing

AdWords Discounter means you end up paying less than the CPC and CPM bid as the actual CPM/CPC is calculated after the rank is calculated

Smart Pricing gives Google Adwords the discretion to lower the CPCs on the content network if Adwords determines that the ad is less likely to perform in terms of conversions – already reflected in Actual CPCs

Control Costs via Budget Amount & Settings (standard/accelerated), and Max Bids.

Costs only accrue upon Ad Clicks (CPC) or Ad Impressions (CPM), Charged at the end of Google’s Billing period

Google accepts all major credit and debit cards

Prepay and postpay (once credit card details are submitted) is available

Staged charging for new customers first $50 then next $200, $350 then $500

My Account

My Account allows you to print invoices, view the outstanding balance, billing activity, pending charges (constantly updated and therefore not final)

Overdelivery Credits – Where Google overdelivers ads than the budget allows in a 30 day period, Google will credit the overdelivery click costs

Google will suspend advertising if the Credit Card on file cannot be charged

Credit Card security based on industry standard SSL

Its not possible to switch between post (credit/debit cards and direct debit) and prepay (credit/debit cards and bank transfer) – a new account must be created

Spend above $1,500 for 3 months qualifies for invoicing (30 day credit terms) and an advertiser’s combined daily budget cannot exceed 1/30th of their 30-day credit limit otherwise ad delivery will be slowed.

Optimisation Overview

* Your website and landing page quality:

Look at your website from a user’s perspective.

Good Questions - Does the design flow well? Is it well organized? Is the information useful, honest, and clear? You want your website to be easy to navigate and to communicate your business clearly.

* Your account:

Review individual keywords and ad performance across different campaigns.

Check stats such as your keyword clickthrough rate (CTR), costs, and ad position.

If your CTR is low or if your costs are high, optimisations are in order.

* Competitors’ sites:

Understand the Competition – browse your competitors’ ads and websites to help you understand the similarities and differences in your products or services.

Identify USPs – find factors that make your business more compelling than the competition (such as special promotions or unique products), and highlight the USPs in your ads.

Landing Pages

Make the content useful, relevant, and trustworthy

Link to the page on your site that provides the most useful and accurate information about the product or service in your ad.

Try to provide information without requiring users to register.

Create unique content that relates to your service or product and that can’t be found on other sites.

Clearly define what your business is or does.

Deliver products, goods, and services as promised on your site.

Treat user’s personal information responsibly. Be honest and clear about why and how you might be collecting a person’s information.

Make the site easy to navigate

Make it easy for users to purchase or receive the product or offer in your ad.

Avoid the misuse of links or browser controls, such as pop-ups, poor back-button functionality, and other obtrusive elements throughout your site.

Quick Page Loads— anything over four seconds will deter visitors from staying.

* Competitors’ sites:

Understand the Competition – browse your competitors’ ads and websites to help you understand the similarities and differences in your products or services.

Identify USPs – find factors that make your business more compelling than the competition (such as special promotions or unique products), and highlight the USPs in your ads.

Account Optimisation – Organisation

Create separate campaigns by Product Lines, Resources, Brands to get better visibility.

Separate campaigns further by Geography and Languages.

When creating Ad Groups make sure all the keywords in the group are highly relevant to the Ad Copy message and Landing Page URLs.  Think CTR and LP QS

Avoid Duplicate Keywords across Ad Groups – Identical keywords compete against each other, and the better-performing keyword triggers your ad.

Account Optimisation – KWs

Keep that offering-ad group-keywords relationship tight. 2 to 3 keyword strings work best as they’re more specific.  Consider colloquials, plural/singulars, synonyms, misspellings,product numbers.

Don’t forget keyword matching options

Use unique keyword laden URLs for a better quality score and of course make sure the content is keyword relevant also.  Don’t forget each keyword can have their own custom/unique URLs assigned.

Google Sitemaps (a la Google Webmaster Tools) can help you generate more keywords by showing you the top search queries for your website.

Account Optimisation – Placements

Pay attention to the Ad Formats column – to ensure placements accept your ad format when selecting websites

Target Site Sections (if necessary) – for higher relevancy and cost efficiency

When you choose both keywords and placements, you’ll be targeting your content network ads twice: once by keywords and once by placements.

‘Relevant pages across the entire network‘ or  ‘Relevant pages only on the placements I target,’

Account Optimisation – Ads

Capture the User’s Attention and Use USPs to make the business stand out

Include Keywords in Title and Ad Text (where possible)

Include a strong call-to-action

Relevant Destination Landing Page URL

Test Multiple Ads in each Ad Group

Try Different Ad Formats like Videos and Images

Advanced Optimisation – Ad Scheduling

Control the days and times your AdWords campaigns appear by enabling Ad Scheduling

up to six scheduled segments per calendar day

Segments can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as an entire 24 hour day

advanced mode – a bid multiplier feature that lets you raise or lower your bid during certain time periods

advanced mode – affects all ads in any campaign, including ads with separate search and content bids.

will not raise or lower your budget, does not guarantee your ads will receive impressions or clicks, keyword targeting and placement targeting, will not work with the AdWords Budget Optimizer

Advanced Optimisation – Ad Serving

Optimise or Rotate?

Google recommend that you stick with the default optimize ad serving setting for best results.

Why?

Higher average Quality Score for keywords of the Ad Group over time

Ad Position Optimisation

Ad Positions can be optimised using “Position Preference” (search network only)

Adwords will automatically try to lower the bid to place the ad in the preferred position

No guarantees on achieving position preferences due to quality score rules, plus there is a 3-4 day learning period

AdWords will try to show the ad whenever it is ranked in the preferred position, and to avoid showing it when it is not.

only affects ranking relative to other ads across given units on a given page

Can be set as a range, above, below and exact position – set at campaign level

Increasing Clicks

Adding new or unused keywords – use unique keyword variations not already covered by expanded broad matches like plurals

Creating keywords for unadvertised parts of the advertiser’s website

Including more general keywords – think synonyms but relevant synonyms

Separating high-traffic keywords – tighter keyword-Ad-landing page focused ad groups

Increasing daily budgets – More budget means more delivery and therefore increased chances of getting clicks

Increasing Maximum CPC or Quality Score – increases ad positions and thereby clicks

Setting your distribution preferences to maximise traffic – don’t forget the content network

Broadening your location targeting settings – language, geography

Increasing Conversions

Understand the Buying Cycle:

Awareness

Interest

Consideration

Purchase

Retention

Advocacy

Use -Negative keywords like -free -info -information -how to -define -what is to qualify searches

Use Specific keywords like product numbers

Try including prices

Adjusting Keyword Bids to Maximise ROI

Consider how long the keyword has run and Keyword position

Does it have enough clicks?  Is the keyword in a prominent Ad position?

Adjust CPCs Above the Minimum Bid (to prevent them going inactive)

Keyword Tool

The Keyword tool can do the following:

find and add new keywords to your ad groups

refine your keyword list

find negative keywords, and

see additional keywords that can also trigger your ads (expanded matches).

‘Descriptive words or phrases’ option – Section where you enter keywords

OR

‘Website content’ option – enter web URL to get suggested keywords

The Keyword tool can do the following:

Estimated Ad Position: Your ads’ estimated position on Google for these keywords

Estimated Avg. CPC: Your ads’ estimated average cost-per-click (CPC) on Google for these keywords

Advertiser Competition: The number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google

Previous Month’s Search Volume: The relative number of users who searched for these keywords on Google

Avg. Search Volume: The average monthly search volume on Google for each keyword over a recent 12-month period

Search Volume Trends: Fluctuations in Google search volume for each keyword over a recent twelve-month period

Highest Volume Occurred In: The month that each keyword received the highest Google search volume within a recent 12-month period

Other Ad Performance Tools

Site and Category Exclusion – prevents Ads appearing on unwanted sites in the content network

Campaign Optimizer – using Google’s Team to look at

Budget analysis

Keywords

Ad text

Campaign Negatives – same as the keyword tool really

Clean Sweep can remove them from the ad group level and add them at the campaign level

Adwords Analytical Tools

The Traffic Estimator

traffic and cost estimates for new and existing keywords before you add them to your campaign.

estimates for your keyword’s status, search volume, average cost-per-click (CPC), cost/day, and average position

Great for planning search media proposals based on your keywords, CPC bid, targeting options, and other criteria

My Change History

view all changes for a particular time period or to filter the results by the type of change, user

Shows Daily budget adjustments, Keyword edits or additions, Changes in ad distribution preferences, Changes made via the AdWords API, Ad text

Won’t show Maximum cost-per-click (CPC) adjustments made by the Budget Optimizer, Changes made by the Ad Automator, Ad approval or disapproval, Password changes (for security reasons)

Campaign Negatives – same as the keyword tool really

Clean Sweep can remove them from the ad group level and add them at the campaign level

Troubleshooting Tools

Ads Diagnostic Tool

Reports whether an ad is appearing on the first page of Google search results?, Identifies why ads may not be showing, Determines why particular keywords may not be triggering ads to appear, Provides recommendations for increasing ad rank or ad display

Ad Preview Page – test search to see how your ads and search results would appear on a regular Google search results page without accruing extra impressions (www.google.com/adpreview)

Disapproved Ads Tool

shows all ads in your account that have been disapproved.

view the disapproved ad, its location, the reason for disapproval, suggestions for improving your ad, and the date your ad was disapproved.

Advertisers still receive emails regarding any disapproved ads, unless they opt out of email notifications.

At this time, the tool doesn’t reflect the status of approved or pending ads, or keywords for your account.

Adwords Editor

Free, downloadable desktop application for managing your AdWords campaigns

Great for Agencies – large number of campaigns or keywords, or if you manage multiple accounts, AdWords Editor can save you time and help streamline your workflow.

Features include:

Work offline on your Mac or PC.

Make large-scale changes quickly.

Sort and view performance statistics.

Copy or move items between campaigns, ad groups, and accounts.

Export a snapshot of your account for archiving or sharing.

Upload changes to AdWords any time.

Store and navigate one or more accounts.

Add, edit, and delete campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, and placements.

Perform advanced searches and edits.

Add comments for your changes.

PS unposted local changes will be marked in purple