Welcome To Using Google Adwords Tips

Do more with less -- Part 3 of 3

2009-02-09T07:43:00.001-08:00

In last week's post we discussed how to use Conversion Optimizer to get more conversions from your existing AdWords campaigns and keywords. This week, in the final installment of this series on doing more with less, we'll show you how you can tightly focus your AdWords campaigns on the areas that are converting the best, uncover the hidden traffic gems you're missing out on, and expand on what you already know is working.

If you want to refocus your existing budget on your highest performing product areas, or reach potential customers that you are missing, the secret is in the keywords. The Search-based Keyword Tool, a new, free tool from Google, looks at the content of your website and matches it against Google search queries (entered by Google users) providing you with a list of extremely relevant, actively searched keywords. The list of suggestions is then filtered to remove any keywords that you're already advertising on, so every single keyword you see is a new one.

Helping your bottom line
Other than giving you new relevant keywords, how does this help your bottom line? Say you sell two product lines - widgets and gizmos - and you know that your widgets product line is selling much better than your gizmos product line. You can use the tool to identify high-potential widget search terms that you're missing and expand that campaign, applying more of your budget on the campaigns that are most effective.

Focusing your campaigns
The Search-based Keyword Tool is equipped with a number of powerful filters and features to make it easy to find keywords for the parts of your website and business that provide you with the greatest ROI.

Looking for bargain terms? In the 'more filters' section, sort by 'low-competition' or pick a bid you're willing to pay and sort by 'suggested bid'.

Only looking for keywords in a particular product area? The tool automatically groups keywords by categories, so simply select the category you want on the left-hand side of the results.

Can't find the category you're looking for, or want to find terms for a specific page on your website? Click on 'more filters' and enter a term into the 'url contains' field.

The tool also offers additional information on each keyword so that you can choose the best ones for your campaigns. Each suggestion shows the average monthly searches for that term, how competitive placement on that term is, the estimated bid to place your ad in the top three positions, your Ad/Search share for the term, and the page on your site the term is most related to, which you might chose to select as the landing page (destination url) for that keyword.

Getting started Get started with the Search-based Keyword tool in 4 easy steps:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/sktool
2. Sign-in to your AdWords account
3. Enter the url of your website
4. Click 'Find Keywords'

For more information on the tool, please visit our support site. And remember, you can find other helpful Google tools at www.google.com/domorewithless.

Google TV Ads Summit Recap

2009-02-09T07:42:00.001-08:00

Last week, we hosted the 2nd annual Google TV Ads Summit in Google's New York offices. This event brought together over 200 industry professionals, thought leaders and executives from the world of TV advertising and media. We've posted a highlight reel and photos to give you an inside look at the event. Exciting conversations and themes that emerged from the event focused on doing more with less, using data to make decisions and utilizing new media to connect with audiences beyond television. Read more about this event on our Traditional Media Blog.

A new year, a new traffic model for Ad Planner

2009-02-09T06:02:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for more site information to help plan your display advertising campaigns and understand audiences on the web, Google Ad Planner can help. Our goal is to provide you with the most accurate site information for better planning and decision-making, and we're excited to kick off the new year with an improved traffic estimation model as well as several other features.

The new traffic estimation model should help reduce some of the confusion that often surrounds tracking the number of unique visitors to your site. When creating campaigns, many advertisers use media planning tools, including Ad Planner, to look at unique visitors based on estimates of real world users.

However, publishers typically rely on web server logs or web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to measure unique visitors based on cookie counts.

Discrepencies arise when these two types of unique visitors are compared. You can learn more about this topic by reading the on Audience Measurement.

To address the various ways of measuring site traffic, we:

Added Unique Visitors (cookies), a new cookie-based metric, to help you cross-check and compare metrics, similar to Google Analytics unique visitor metrics.

Changed Unique Visitors to Unique Visitors (users) so it's clearer that you're reviewing estimated numbers of real world users.

Placed the Unique Visitors (cookies) and Unique Visitors (users) metrics on a site's profile page so you'll have a more comprehensive view of how a specific site can support your media planning. Learn how to make the most of these two metrics.

In addition, our new model improves our traffic estimates. You'll notice our page view estimates are now more accurate and consistent with web server measurements.

We've also added country demographics for Australia, Brazil, Japan, and Switzerland, which brings our demographics total to ten countries, with more coming in the future. In select countries we've also added a new demographics category, Children in Household, which can be used to research sites.

You've told us that defining an audience to fit your intended customers can be difficult. In response, we've created Pre-defined Audiences that represent commonly used audiences. Now you can experiment with different criteria without having to choose them manually.

This release represents only a fraction of what we're planning for 2009. Stay tuned for more Google Ad Planner announcements soon.

Valentine's Day & President's Day ad templates now available

2009-02-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

Last week, we gave you a sneak preview of our seasonal display ad templates for Valentine's Day and President's Day. We're excited to let you know that these new templates are now available for you to use in your campaigns -- just visit the "Seasonal" section of the Display Ad Builder gallery in AdWords to get started.

We're always interested in your feedback and ideas for more template themes, so let us know if you're looking for something special. One of our advertisers, Jason Barnes of Superb Internet Corporation, helped us come up with the idea for easier, more timely display ad promotions. Jason and his team wanted a way to bring more relevancy to display ads, without the cost or lead time it would otherwise require, so he got in touch with us. Here's what Jason had to say:

Using Google's display ad builder is just a smoother process. Say we wanted to do a one-day holiday sale of 50% off, and the rest of the week, 30% off. That can be a hassle with standard image ad directories, but with the Display Ad Builder, we can easily swap in text if we have an image. It's a great time saver, and we'll definitely continue to use it that way.

You can adopt Jason's strategy of making quick text changes to your image ads in the Display Ad Builder, whether or not you decide to use one of our new seasonal templates.

If you're new to Display Ads, you can get started by clicking "Display Ad Builder" on the "Create an ad page" within a new or existing campaign. To learn more about creating and running display ads, visit our Display Ads 101 tutorial site.

Do more with less -- Part 2 of 3

2009-02-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Last week we talked about how Website Optimizer can help you convert a higher percentage of your website visitors (getting you more conversions with the same amount of clicks). This week we'll see how you can get more conversions from your existing AdWords campaigns and keywords with the Conversion Optimizer. We're also happy to announce that the Conversion Optimizer is now available to all campaigns using AdWords' free Conversion Tracking tool that also have at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days. So, if you were previously unable to use the Conversion Optimizer in AdWords, you may now be eligible to use it.

Whether you want visitors to fill out a form, sign up for an account, or buy a product, you want the people who click on your AdWords ad to complete some action on your site. The Conversion Optimizer, a free AdWords feature, helps you get the most conversions for your ad spend by using your conversion tracking data to improve your advertising efficiency. It does this by optimizing the placement of your ads in each auction based on the likelihood of a conversion. This process helps to avoid unprofitable clicks and to get you conversions without requiring you to spend as much time managing your bids - thus saving you money and time (which is particularly useful during a down economy).

For example, say you advertise on the keywords 'shoes' and 'brown leather shoes'. If the Conversion Optimizer determines that people who search for 'brown leather shoes' buy more shoes on your website than people who search for 'shoes', it will adjust your bids so you can appear higher on the page for the more profitable term and lower for the less profitable term.

You might already adjust your keyword bids with the goal of increasing your conversions or decreasing your costs, but the Conversion Optimizer is able to adjust bids using additional factors that are otherwise unavailable. This includes varying bids by broad match query, user location, and the particular search or content partner sites where the ad is appearing. These extra adjustments enable many advertisers to achieve double-digit percentage increases in conversions while paying the same price or less for each conversion.

To learn more or to get started, check out the Conversion Optimizer page. And remember to visit www.google.com/domorewithless to find a list of other Google resources that can help you achieve your advertising goals -- even in a downturn.

New AdWords Help Videos

2009-02-09T05:57:00.000-08:00

We'd like to share with you seven new help videos on popular AdWords topics. In each video you'll find the exact steps you can follow to use different features within your account. The videos cover the following topics:

1. Entering billing information
2. Adjusting your budget
3. Using the Ad Preview tool
4. Applying a Promotional Credit to an existing account
5. Viewing Cost and Payment history
6. Using the Ads Diagnostic tool

The seventh video, shown below, demonstrates how to use the Campaign Optimizer, a free AdWords tool designed to help you fine-tune your advertising campaigns. The Campaign Optimizer analyzes your budget, keywords, ad text, and landing page to create a customized proposal for your campaign. You can then review the proposed changes and accept the ones you want to apply to your campaign.

You can find all seven videos, and more, on the AdWords Help Center YouTube Channel.

2009-02-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

Regardless of the year or economic climate, it's always been important to optimize the return on your advertising investment--but now it's more important than ever. Google Analytics specializes in providing you with the metrics you need to make informed advertising decisions.

By linking your Google AdWords and Analytics accounts, you can optimize your AdWords investment even more effectively with increased trackability and customized reporting. Check out this short video and learn more about the benefits of linking your accounts.

To learn more about advertising more effectively with Analytics you can watch the "Google Analytics in 60 Seconds" videos - a series of videos that illustrate simple tips such as how to optimize keywords and how to use placement targeting.

Do more with less -- Part 1 of 3

2009-02-09T05:37:00.000-08:00

As you're starting your advertising for a new year, we'd like to share some strategies that can help you refocus your campaigns for the current economy. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll show you some different AdWords tools and features that can help you make the most of your marketing dollars. You can also visit www.google.com/domorewithless to find a list of Google resources that can help you achieve your advertising goals -- even in a downturn. This week we'll focus on how you can get more conversions (sales, form fills, account sign-ups, etc.) from your website.

When the economy's down, it's more important than ever to make the most of your paid search traffic. One way to increase your sales without increasing your budget is to convert a higher percentage of visitors to your website. That way you can pay for the same number of clicks, but have a higher percentage of them turn into customers. So, how can you do this?

This is where Website Optimizer can help. Website Optimizer is a free tool from Google that allows you to compare multiple versions of a webpage and statistically determine which version performs the best. For example: you can create two different landing pages, one with four small pictures versus a page with one large picture, and scientifically determine which design has the highest conversion rate. Sometimes small changes, like changing the size of an image or the wording of a special promotion, can improve conversion rates by 10, 20, or even 50%. And, since Website Optimizer uses actual visitor data, it can take the guesswork out of site improvement and give you confidence that you're improving your conversion rate.

Website Optimizer is very easy to implement and only involves inserting a small bit of Javascript code into your webpage and variations. If you are not sure what to test, start with these guidelines:

1. Simplify your page: try creating a variation that has less text, fewer input boxes, or a shorter header.

2. Move your call-to-action to a more prominent location: try creating a variation where the button you want your visitors to click is in a different location (at the top of the screen? more centered?).

3. Change the color of your call-to-action button: try creating a variation where your Submit/Buy button is a higher contrast color (like a bright red or green).

4. Change your promotional text: try creating a variation that emphasizes a different promotion to see if it affects sales (10% off versus free shipping).

5. Change the number of options the visitors see: try creating a variation with fewer product categories or fewer links to see if visitors have an easier time navigating the page.

For more ideas on what to test, check out Website Workout videos and learn how four companies improved their conversion rates using Website Optimizer. Also, if you're a testing and optimization pro, you'll be happy to hear Website Optimizer allows you to perform both A/B tests and multivariate tests on your webpage for free.

Check out the Website Optimizer page to learn more about the tool and how you can set it up for your website. Next week we'll talk about how you can get more conversions from your current campaigns.

New Seasonal Templates For Display Ad Builder Coming Soon!

2009-02-08T07:23:00.001-08:00

Celebrate Valentine's Day and President's Day with ad templates dressed up specially for the occasions. In a few days, we'll offer seven new templates in the display ad builder -- each with elements and animations designed for the upcoming holidays. Seasonal templates are a fun, effective way to make your message more relevant to customers, no matter what you're advertising.

As a sneak preview, we've included some screenshots of a few upcoming templates. Keep in mind that customization options for each template will vary, so we encourage you to check out all the options once you're ready to create your ads.

The new holiday templates will be offered in all of the display ad builder's 13 languages. We'll update the blog once the holiday templates are available to you.

New Free TV Ad Creation Solution

2009-02-08T07:17:00.001-08:00

Now it's easier and more affordable to advertise your business on national television and reach new customers from within your AdWords account.
Google TV Ads has partnered with SpotMixer to bring advertisers a new, free ad creation service. This means you can create your own TV commercial from a library of free images, audio and video content, or your own uploaded content. Simply access this service from the Submit Ad page when creating your Google TV Ads campaign.
To learn more and watch a demo video, check out the blog post on the Traditional Media Blog.