Archive for the ‘pay per click’ Category

Google Launches Near Match for AdWords

Posted on: May 16th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

Big changes to some some primary areas in Google AdWords have been released. All ads (unless you opt-out) will be shown for close variations of search queries. Much like broad keywords, this phrase and exact match change will add more clicks to your campaign.

This wouldn’t be such big news if Google wasn’t automatically opting everyone into this keyword matching change. So if you have an active campaign on AdWords, then you will be affected by the change in the coming weeks.

For our AdWords clients that enjoy regularly optimized and maintained campaigns, this is not something you have to worry about because we’ve already started analyzing how this could effect your account and we will be making the needed changes.

For anyone that is managing their campaign themselves, please be aware of how this can change your campaign. We always encourage testing for best results. Don’t ever assume that Google has your best interests in mind. They are a very large company with different goals in mind. Google typically wants to focus on impressions and clicks, but a successful campaign will focus on conversions rather than clicks.

Never take your AdWords campaign to full auto, because Google will change and modify the standards in ways that could negatively affect your account.

When a PPC Keyword Should Be Deleted

Posted on: April 18th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

Pay per click (PPC) is a wonderful marketing platform because the entire English vocabulary is at your disposal for your marketing purposes. If you think your customers are using certain words to find your business, then all it takes is a few clicks and you can find out just how effective that keyword actually is for your business.

ZZ7C3A6FE1.jpgHowever, a large pool of keywords is expensive and it’s likely that you won’t be able to pay a large sum of money indefinitely to advertise for the wide variety of keywords that your customer may or may not use for searches.

When it comes time to delete keywords for your PPC campaign, we’ve got three different situations that would require the deletion of a keyword.

1. Irrelevant or Too Broad: When you first launch a PPC campaign it is likely that you will try a wide variety of keywords and topics. After time those keywords will show themselves to be too broad or not specific enough to your business.

2. Wrong Phase: The phases of online purchasing (interest, research, purchase) requires a certain amount of time until the person is ready to buy your product or service. For this reason, any keywords that focus on the first two phases of the process should be deleted from your PPC campaign because they are not leading to more sales.

3. No Conversions: This is the easiest trend to spot in your keywords, a big zero in the conversion column. If your keyword has been running for a significant amount of time (depending on search volume, ranking, budget, ect) and it has no sales attributed to that keyword then you know it is time to delete it.

If any of these three situations do not make sense to you, then perhaps it’s time to make an even bigger change in your PPC campaign. By that we mean it is time to get some professional help. Transformation Marketing offers results focused PPC campaign management to get your keywords performing for the best possible ROI for your business.

Google AdWords adds ZIP Code Targeting

Posted on: April 9th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

Last week Google introduced the ability to target more than 30,000 ZIP codes using Google AdWords. Much like businesses have been doing with direct mail, outdoor ads, or newspaper ads, now online marketers can use a specific zip code to show their ads.

ZZ184B438C.jpgThe big advantage that AdWords advertisers have over print marketers is that Google has the ability to give feedback on the performance of the zip code campaign. Goal and performance tracking been a benefit since day one that online marketers have enjoyed.

Additionally, the Google Display Network has been upgraded as well. Where previously only the physical location of the user was used in targeting, now Google will also look at the content of the page to determine if it is in reference to a specific location or zip code.

Finally, this last bit of news gets into the details of ad writing, but is exciting to advertisers. A new feature called Location Insertion will let advertisers create a single ad for all locations! It works by using {lb.city:Local} as a parameter within your ad. What the searcher will see is their location in place of the Location Insertion parameter. For example, an advertiser would type “Get Hotel Rates in {lb.city:Local}” and the searcher would see “Get Hotel Rates in Chicago” based on their location information.

Exciting developments happen constantly in the pay per click industry and that’s why it takes a team of professionals to stay on top of the latest developments. At Transformation Marketing we believe we have the right team and tools to get your website in front of the right people at the right time.

Paid Search Ads Enhance Your Organic Listings

Posted on: April 3rd, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

It’s likely you don’t have a top organic ranking for your business’s premium keywords. While there are some great strategies to get your website to the top of Google organically there are other ways to acquire quality traffic.

According to a recent study by Google, the lower the rank of your website organically the more you can benefit from a PPC campaign. But don’t just take our word for it, here are the numbers behind that statement.

- 50% of the ad clicks that occur with a top rank organic result are incremental.
- 82% of the ad clicks are incremental when the associated organic search result is between ranks 2 and 4.
- 96% of the ad clicks are incremental when the advertiser’s organic result ranked lower than 4 (i.e., 5 and below).

In short, when your organic ranking to low, there is a higher chance that the searcher’s click will be replaced by a paid ad on Google. But don’t take that mean your ads can be paused when your organic search results reach a top ranking. Take a look at this video from Google that shows what happens when advertisers pause their search ad campaigns.

You can see both the original study from Google and the follow up study for yourself.

At Transformation Marketing we offer a wide range of online marketing services including both organic and paid search marketing. We use diverse methods of marketing to experiment with each network to achieve the highest return on investment.

Google AdWords Quality Score Is Not…

Posted on: March 28th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

We’ve discussed Quality Score on this blog several times, but as a quick refresher let’s review.

Quality Score: Quality Score is a variable used by Google , Yahoo!, and MSN that can influence both the rank and cost per click of ads. The exact weight of Quality Score versus bid has not been revealed by any of the major search engines, and each company has stated that they reserve the right to continually adjust their ranking methodologies.

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In short, quality score is the hidden value that determines how much you pay for your ad to show up in the paid search results on Google and other search engines. Companies can control the amount of money they pay for each ad, but it takes time and effort to ensure that your quality score is fully optimized.

We could take all day talking about how to get your quality score higher, but for today’s blog post we will discuss what quality score does not embody. And to kick things off we want to make it very clear that a high quality score does not equal success in your PPC campaign.

For example, one method to get your quality score higher is to create ads that very closely reflect your keywords and landing page. So let’s assume that you do a very good job of this and Google rewards your campaign with all quality scores of 10 for each keyword. That is great, but that is not the mark of a successful campaign. Basically all the high quality scores will get you is lower bids per click.

Quality score is not a sale. The best laid plans in Google AdWords will fall short if you do not first set your goal to be a high return on investment. Quality score, click through rate, impressions, clicks, and ranking are all secondary to acquiring new sales through PPC.

Should Your Business Outsource Its Pay Per Click?

Posted on: February 29th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

Google has created a great product that businesses all over the world use every day to sell their products, services, and enhance their brand recognition. No matter what industry you are in, Google AdWords is a great channel to advertise your products to people all over the US that are searching for you every day.

ZZ1C3B3E14.jpgThe question that most businesses struggle with is whether they should try and manage their AdWords account within their own company or hire a online marketing agency to manage it for them. Over the years we have seen many different examples of each situation. There are benefits and drawbacks to each method. For today’s blog post, we will compare outsourcing your PPC versus managing it within your own company. Let’s jump in!

Disclaimer – We obviously consider outsourcing your paid search marketing to be the best situation in most cases, but we have written a fair blog post with pros and cons from both sides.

Benefits of Outsourcing Your PPC

1. Learning Curve – Marketing agencies make it their business to stay up-to-date on the latest marketing tactics. That’s why we read blogs, attend conferences, watch webcasts, and blog about it each week. We use that knowledge to create better campaigns for our clients. Make sure your agency has the knowledge to back up the fee they are charging for PPC management.
2. Experience – An online marketing agency will have much more experience and will be able to build and launch your campaign much more efficiently due to their prior experiences in the industry. There are great resources to help businesses better understand the AdWords market, but an agency will be able to skip the research phase and get straight to the implementation.
3. Dedicated – Each and every person in your company has a critical role in the life of your business. When you hire an outside agency to manage your PPC, it ensures that your man hours are not compromised between different priorities. On the other hand, make sure you have a dedicated support team from the outsourced agent. Don’t let an agency keep you from talking directly to the people that manage your campaigns.

Benefits of Managing PPC In-House

1. Industry Knowledge – No one knows your business like you. For that reason, no one will be able to brainstorm topics and keywords like someone close to your products or services. There is a balance between the learning curve of your business and the learning curve of PPC management. The reason we consider outsourcing to be a better situation is because it is easier to transfer the basics of your industry than it is to transfer intimate knowledge of the PPC industry and its tactics.
2. Costs Less – In black and white, keeping your PPC in-house will save you money… But nothing is truly black and white. There is a lot of grey in this topic. You may save money in the short term, but over time your campaign and overhead paid to your employees will cost just as much money. Not to mention the opportunity costs of a poorly optimized campaign.
3. Funding Percentage – If your business has $5,000 dollars to spend on pay per click and you manage that campaign within your own company then 100% of those funds will be dedicated to getting new customers. However, if you hire an outside source to manage your campaign a percentage of that money will go to paying for those services rather than actually paying for PPC.

There are several sides of the argument for this topic. While we have tried to be fair on both sides, we want to hear what you have to say. Leave us a comment and tell us what you think is the best solution to managing a PPC campaign.

Automated Rules Do Not Ensure AdWords Campaign Success

Posted on: February 8th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

ZZ11966C39.jpgThis month Google announced that they were rolling out updates to their Automated Rules. The first big change was the ability for advertisers to now create up to 100 rules. Previously it had only been 10 rules, so that’s a huge improvement. Second, they added the ability for users to undo the changes made by a rule.

If you aren’t familiar with AdWord’s Automated Rules we’ll briefly describe them. Automated Rules help users manage their account in ways like scheduling ads for special promotions, adjusting budgets, and raising keyword bids.

We are always excited to hear about enhancements to AdWords, but this particular feature has always been a sticky point for some people who misunderstand what Automated Rules can do.

Automated Rules Do Not Replace Human Optimization and Management
While the ability to place boundaries on your account specific to key occurrences can help curb some areas of profit loss within your campaign, there is no replacement for a qualified Google AdWords professional working on your account day after day.

Many people misunderstand the term automated to mean something that you turn on or off. The truth is that you must first create the rule and before the rule can be created you must first understand what specific keyword or ad needs to be adjusted in order to ensure a more successful campaign. When you create a rule you are presented with many different options for keywords, ads, and ad groups. There have even been instances where rules fail to update the programed changes.

Unfortunately there is no Automated Rule that will optimize your campaign for you. A successful campaign will always rely on an individual that understands the intricacies of your business’s products and how to create keywords and ads that effectively promote those products. At Transformation Marketing we have the knowledge and tools to ensure your campaign is performing at its peak performance. Give us a call at 800-618-1215 or email us to get more information on how we manage and optimize your business’s PPC campaign.

Critical Google AdWords Improvements

Posted on: January 27th, 2012 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

We’ve setup countless accounts for clients all around the United States. No matter whether the ads featured a service or product there is always one aspect that is critical to a successful Google AdWords campaign. The ads!

Here’s an easy way to best understand how critical your ads are to your AdWords campaign. Let’s say that you have fifteen thousand keywords broken up into several different AdGroups that are tightly themed and grouped. In this hypothetical situation we’ll even say that your keywords all have a quality score of 7 or above, so you are really rocking a great account and Google is giving you high scores for your campaign hierarchy.

Sounds like a great campaign, right? It is, except that you’ve forgotten the most critical aspect of any campaign, the ads! No matter how good your keywords or how refined your AdGroup themes might be your campaign will fail unless you put some serious time into writing compelling ads. Not a single visitor will appreciate your keywords, because the only thing they will ever see are your ads.

The best campaigns could be optimized to perfection with the right keywords, but that’s just the “computer” side of a campaign. Each AdWords campaign is made up of a “computer” and “human” aspect. If people don’t like your ads your campaign will fail. Advertisers must constantly do a/b testing and continuously improve the quality of their ads.

Are you making each ad in your AdWords campaign perform to its fullest potential? At Transformation Marketing we have the tools and skills to assure your campaign succeeds in acquiring sales and leads for your company. Contact us today to learn how we’ve provided this service for many clients around the nation.

Beginning now, through the month of February, we would like to offer $100 in free Google Ads for any new clients. Call us today to learn more about how we can help you with your Google Adwords campaign.

Testing Your Google Ads

Posted on: December 5th, 2011 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

Here at Transformation Marketing, we provide many different forms of online marketing. Search engine optimization, social media marketing, reputation management, and video marketing are all very strong strategies to gather quality leads to your company’s website. However, pay per click has an added feature that stands apart from other marketing methods. It’s called A/B testing and it can do wonders for your online sales.

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According to Wikipedia, A/B testing is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates. In Google AdWords, the testing process allows you to test the performance of two entirely different versions of an ad. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say your business sells insurance. The first ad we created for your campaign might look something like this:

Online Insurance Broker
Car, Home, Life, & Medical.
Get A Quote Today!
www.YourBusiness.com

We would call this ad your “control” ad. It would stay the same while we created alternative ads that tested different elements. For example, a few test ads might be as follows:

Online Insurance Quote
Car, Home, Life, & Medical.
Get A Quote Today!
www.YourBusiness.com

Insurance Application
Car, Home, Life, & Medical.
Get A Quote Today!
www.YourBusiness.com

As you can see, these ads are very close to being the same, but we want to test if the word “broker”, “quote”, or “application” generate more clicks and/or conversions. If more shoppers click on the “quote” ad, but a higher percentage of shoppers converted after clicking on the “application” ad then we would move forward with more tests that include the keyword “application.”

This is a very basic view of A/B testing with Google AdWords. Leaps and bounds in visitor testing can really be made by making changes to your ad’s landing page. These tests can include changes in your ad copy, call-to-action, page color, headers, and many other tweaks.

Ad testing is never complete. It is a continuous process that constantly searches for the best click through and conversion rates. At Transformation Marketing we not only provide premium Google AdWords optimization, we also offer a collection of online marketing tatics. Contact us today to learn more about our online marketing services.

Free Google Keyword Tool (of failure)

Posted on: November 21st, 2011 by Transformation Marketing No Comments

Warning: You’ve been suckered. In the post below, I tell you about a free keyword tool, but then I explain how this little tool can completely destroy your Google AdWords campaign if you don’t know how to use it correctly.

ZZ0A15478B.jpgThe Google AdWords Keyword Tool is a great resource that can help you build out your AdWords campaign to fully cover all the different types of keywords that fit your product or service.

It’s easy to use…

Step 1 – Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Step 2 – Enter a few keywords relating to your product or service.
Step 3 – Click the Search button.
Step 3 – Use the resulting keyword ideas to create your AdWords campaign.
Step 4 – Waste tons of money on ads without generating a single sale.

The Truth
You won’t find that final step in Google’s help files, but it might as well be in there. The truth is that the keyword ideas provided by the free Google keyword tool are simply ideas. Through the many years that we have been managing AdWord campaigns for our clients we have learned one clear lesson. A successful AdWords campaign is based on a highly refined, specific set of keywords. Broad keywords will generate a lot of traffic but they are not good for selling products.

If you want to properly use the free keyword tool you must follow these guidelines:

1. A product and service can be searched on Google in many different ways, but only a few keywords out of hundred will result in a sale. When creating your campaign do not stray too far from your core product or you will spend money on wasted visitors that are not actually interested in what you are selling.

2. Test all of your keywords by breaking them into refined groups. You will never know the best keywords if you don’t create tightly themed campaign. If you sell shoes you must create ads for each different ads for each different category of shoes (men, women, running, walking, formal, leather, ect).

3. Never use keywords that are only one word. Broad keywords will result in high traffic with low conversion rates. AdWords is best utilized when you bring in traffic that is very specific to the product you are selling. Give up the visitors that are researching new ideas and focus on those that are looking to make a sale. Your keywords should be at least 3 to 4 words in length.

Nothing is free and this Google keyword tool is no exception. Use it at your own risk or give us a call and we’ll explain how our Google AdWords campaign management services have provided thousands of quality leads to our customers.