Google lets you run your ads in any of the keyword matches above.
It’s your sole responsibility. So let’s explore each of the keyword matches:
i). Broad match: When you add broad match keywords,
your ads will show when people search for your given keywords. Your ads
will display regardless of the order of the words in the search string.
So if you run ads for best ogio bags, your ads will show for best
ogio bags, ogio bags best, best ogio bags to buy, ogio bags for best golf, etc.
There’s a lot of potential when you target broad match keywords.
For example, in the health & wellness industry, you’ll generate 91%
clicks if you’re targeting these keyword matches.
A broad match keyword also means that your ads will show
regardless of what the prospect intends to do. Even if they aren’t ready
to buy your product, as long as they mention a few of the words that you’re
targeting, your ads will display for them.
To enter a
broad match keyword, just add it and don’t use any form of punctuation – no
double quotation marks, no parentheses, no single quotation marks.
There is also the modified broad,
which means that instead of having nike shoes, you’ll target keywords such as black nike shoes, blue nike shoes for women, etc.
ii).
Phrase match keyword: When you target phrase match keywords, your
ads will appear when people search for your keywords in that exact order.
For example, if your keyword is best electric blanket, your ads will only show if people
type in best electric blanket.
Sure, your ads can appear for other related
keywords, but the individual words have to be in that order. So your ads will
also show for where to buy best electric
blanket, etc.
If you want to enter a phrase match keyword,
enclose it in double quotation marks like this,: “best electric blanket.”
iii).
Exact match keyword: With exact match, your ads will only display
when the exact keyword that you’re targeting is typed into the search engine.
Still using the keyword above as our
example, if your keyword is “best electric blanket” then your ads will not show
up when people search for best electric blanket online or where to buy best electric blanket.
To add an exact keyword match, simply
enclose the keyword in a squared bracket, like this: [best electric blanket]
According to this research study,
exact match keywords convert better than broad and phrase matches, but the
number of average monthly keyword searches is usually lower than broad.
So you’ve got to be strategic about your
keyword selection and the match type(broad,
phrase, or exact):
One last tip: If you want the best results, combine the 3 keyword matches and
bid strategically using a system known as cascading bid. Here’s how it works:
Mistake
#2: Lack of Ad Extensions and Poorly Written Ads
Not having or optimizing ad
extensions is another mistake a lot of advertisers are making.
Google has made it easier for
you to write better ads and adjust your settings to yield the best ROI. With ad
extensions, you can use sitelinks, call, and location extensions to enhance
your ad.
And it’s all on your Ad Extensions tab when you log into your AdWords account.
This simply means that you’ll
add extra pieces of information or links to your ad. It’s like the rich snippet
that you add to your organic listings. You’re giving customers more reasons to
click your ads.
Using ad extensions can be very
effective at increasing clicks. Take a look at these live extensions:
The ad below uses location,
phone, and sitelink extensions.
The right ad extensions will ultimately
increase your click rate.
The challenge is to ensure that your landing page is high-converting, so that
when visitors get there, they’ll easily find what they’re looking for.
Writing compelling ad copy is a lot like
writing a blog post headline. If you want to write powerful headlines, you’ve got to model what
works.
You also have to use the opportunities and
tools available to you. If you were doing search engine
optimization, rich snippets would increase your search CTR.
The best
option that’s closely related to rich snippets for PPC ads is ad extensions.
Make sure to always use the
right ones. Because the wrong ad extensions won’t appeal to your users and
might even scare them away.
Mistake
#3: Not Understanding Profit Margins and Conversions
When you’re running a business – even in the
offline world – you have to keep track of your conversions and your profit margins.
You do this because you want toimprove your revenue, not just your short-term profit.
The same applies to your PPC
ads. You should set up a conversion for inquiries or sales from the “Tools and
Analysis” menu option > add new conversion:
You
can actually save money when you understand how much you’re expected to make
and what conversion rate will get you there. So you could easily use this simple formula to calculate profit margin for your Google ads campaign:
Let’s plug in a few numbers and
calculate the profit margin to see how this formula works:
Cost per click – $1.00
Revenue per click – $10.00
Profit Margin – 0.3
Clicks – 1000
Sweet Tooth – $149
Remember that the profit margins above may
not apply to every industry. You’ve got to know what works in your industry, and test it out
for yourself to be sure. In all, having an estimated profit margin
is a great way to set up a winning Google AdWords campaign.
Mistake
#4: Not Using Negative keywords
Google processes over 6 millionkeywords
every day, and 15% of them are 100% new – that is, keywords that Google hasn’t
registered yet. This means that some of these keywords will be high-quality,
while others will be detrimental to bid and target.
By
using negative keywords, you can exclude keywords that aren’t a good match for your
product or service. Doing so can lower your cost and increase your revenue.
Many Google advertisers make the
mistake of ignoring negative keywords and then wonder why their ads aren’t
converting the way they’re supposed to.
Negative keywords is the easiest
way to reach the most targeted customers, reduce your costs, and boost your
ROI.
It also helps you increase your Google
AdWords quality score. For example, Search Scientists increased their client’s quality score by 60.1% and decreased CPC by 24.6%.
Suppose you run a website related to job
placement. You could target profitable andcommercial keywords such
as engineering careers, technical career placement, and long term
careers.
You’re spending money for these
clicks and you deserve to earn money back from them.
When you target a keyword like “jobs,” the
people searching for that keyword maybe looking for something short term versus
a career. Therefore, adding the word “job” or “jobs” to your negative keyword list will
keep these people away.
1).
The essence of negative keywords: Why would you allow your ads to be shown to
people who aren’t interested in your offer?
Here’s a typical example: When I
typed the keyword “small business programs” into Google, I saw an ad from
Shopify advertising commerce software.
Trust me, this ad is totally
irrelevant to the keyword. People who are looking for small business programs
may not necessarily be looking to start an online store.
When I searched for free typing
jobs, I saw lots of ads, but when I clicked the one that resonated with me, I
landed on a page that requested payment. I wasn’t looking for paid programs,
only free ones.
Is your audience willing to buy from the
first contact with a product like yours? If so, your select keywords will produce results.
Let’s say that you’re selling an
information product (ebook) for starting a business. If you include keywords
such as:
·
start a business
·
free ways to start a business
·
start a business at home
·
start business cheap
·
free business ideas
If you include “free, cheap” in
your ad, it means that your ads will show up when people who are only
interested in free information use keywords that include the word “free.”
On the other hand, if you add the same
keywords, “free, cheap,” to your negative keyword list, when people are
searching for free information in your industry, your ad won’t show up and you
won’t have any wasted spends.
2).
Effect of negative keywords on Display Networks: If you set up your Google Ads to appear on
both search and display networks, your negative keywords will help you increase
your conversions.
They
aggressively used negative keywords, optimized the keywords on display networks,
tested their ads, and used strategic bidding techniques to achieve those tremendous
results.
To add your negative keywords,
just click the [-] sign to expand it.
Paste your negative keywords the
space provided:
·
free
·
porn
·
cheap
·
nude
·
naked
·
torrents
·
youtube
·
craigslist
·
ebay
·
kijiji
·
sex
·
porno
·
torrent
Mistake
#5: Not Bidding on Your Own Brand
You should bid on your own brand name
keywords in order to increase conversions. Along with that, though, you have to pay
attention to your brand’s value.
A study by Loyalty360 found that 66% of U.S. customers are willing
to pay more for a product if the brand delivers a positive customer experience. So you’ve got to always strive to increase the value of your
brand.
Delivering a consistently positive customer
experience can be achieved through SEO and PPC advertising. Use every opportunity and tool available to you to project your
brand, because your brand is you.
Here’s the importance of bidding on brand search terms:
Coca-Cola is the #1 brand on Facebook because they promote the brand using
every available app as well as their current fanbase. You can and should promote your own brand by bidding on its
related terms through Google AdWords PPC.
When you bid on your own brand,
you’re promoting your business and reaching out to your social media fans and
customers.
Advertisers who make the mistake
of not bidding on their own brands have seemingly solid reasons why they’re
ignoring the opportunity:
·
My brand keyword doesn’t get
much traffic
·
The search volume for my brand
keyword is low
·
Our brand is ranking #1 right
now, so there’s no need to advertise it
All of these are good reasons,
but they can still hinder you from growing your business and running a
successful campaign. It’s not necessarily about clicks, visitors, and
impressions – it’s really about revenue.
My own brand keywords have a
decent search volume, with a handful of brand keyword variations. Take a look:
“Neil patel” is searched over
4,000 times per month, and the suggested bid is just 0.16, which is great.
Imagine how much traffic and how
many conversions I’d lose by not bidding on my own brand. After all, when
someone types your full name into the search engine, it usually means the
person already knows and trusts you.
Having customers search for your brand
(either your name or domain name) is a great indication that you’re doing a
good job. And according to Forbes, 80% of
revenue of most companies come from 20% of their customers – the ones who are
loyal to the brand.
What about your company or
business brand? Let’s see how many times my domain name is searched for in a
month:
Quicksprout is searched 1,600
times per month. And Google hasn’t suggested a bid yet. This means that I can
easily bid 0.10 – 0.20 per click and drive an insane amount of traffic to my
blog, digital marketing university, or services page.
Marie Forleo also has a lot of
opportunities to bid on her own brand keywords if she decides to run a
campaign. Take a look:
Did you notice that “marie forleo bschool” is searched 110 times in a month?
Bschool is Marie’s flagship training course. The fact that people are searching
for it means they’ve either heard about the program from someone they know, or
they’re Marie’s customers.
The probability of selling to these people
is high. According to Econsultancy,
the probability of selling to a prospect is 5%-20%, whereas the probability of
selling to existing customers is 60%-70%.
1).
Prevent competitors from hacking your brand: When you bid on your own brand, you’re also
preventing competitors from poaching your business. More importantly, you’re strengthening your brand.
The harsh truth is that if
you’re not bidding on your brand, others will. And these people will probably
be your competitors who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of your oversight
to hijack your prospects and visitors to their sites.
You may continue to rank #1 in
Google for your main keyword, but if your competitors poach your brand keyword,
they can get ahead of you in organic search.
The beauty of bidding your own
brand is that oftentimes you can bid very low and still drive a lot of targeted
clicks and visitors to your landing page.
Pro
tip: When bidding for your own brand name, you
should aim for the top, since people who are searching for your brand are the
most targeted visitors that you’ll ever get.
Instead of settling for low bids that’ll keep you
at the bottom, increase your bid in order to stay at the top and get the
majority of the clicks. Spend the most on branded
search terms because they convert very well.
2).
Reduce Customer Turnover:Another
important aspect of advertising for brand name keywords is the huge improvement
that you’ll see in your customer turnover rate.
In the book Leading on the Edge of
Chaos, author Emmett C. Murphy expanded on the 10 key elements
for success in critical times. He highlighted the fact that when you reduce
customer turnover by 5%, it leads to a profit increase of 25%-125%.
If you’re an internet marketing
coach, targeting popular keywords such as internet marketing, online marketing,
and more, you’re expected to bid $16.61 per CPC (cost per click).
If you get 10 clicks, that costs
you over $160, 100 clicks will cost you more than $1,600, and so on. And the
odds you can convert those prospects searching for “online marketing” into
paying customers are very slim.
That’s because the search term is not
well-defined. These prospects are still in the awareness stage of the customer buying cycle.
Consequently, they’re not ready to buy yet.
On the other hand, if you’ve
been marketing online for quite some time now, your brand has probably gained
some momentum.
Consequently, people will be
searching for it. Instead of bidding $16.61 and above for keywords related to
internet marketing, for example, you could bid for keywords that are
closely-tied to your product, blog, or brand name. Here’s an example using John
Chow:
Apart from the first keyword in the
screenshot above (john chow blog), every other keyword highlighted in red is a
money term. People who are searching for them are likely to be more ready to
buy.
Those keywords are for John’s
video products, which he sells through Clickbank and other third-party
affiliate networks. Although the keywords have fewer than 600 average monthly
searches, the fact still remains that John can drive qualified clicks and
buyers to his sales page.
Remember that when you use negative
keywords, you’re telling Google not to show your ad to people who are searching
with that word or any display network that actively targets that word (e.g.
free, cheap).
But when you bid for brand
keywords, you’re telling Google to show your ads to prospects and customers
both in search networks when the keywords are searched, and display networks
when your brand name is used in the content (e.g. product review or company
news).
Customers want convenience. They
want brands that are well represented, at all times. And losing customers to
your competitors is one of the biggest nightmares of internet marketing.
Mistake
#6: Not Knowing Your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Do you know the lifetime value
of your customers? If you don’t, then you’re wasting both time and money.
How much are you going to spend on AdWords
to acquire one customer? There’s no utility in guessing. Instead, eliminate the
guess work and assumptions by calculating the Customer Lifetime Value.
The CLV of your customers is
basically how much money a customer is expected to generate over the lifetime
of their engagement with your brand.
CLV is the Key Performance
Indicator that determines the value of a customer. This determines how much you
can spend to recruit customers on the long term, keeping in mind the return
purchases of the customer.
The lifetime value of a customer is much more complex
than ROI (return on investment). But they are dependent on each other to grow
your revenue and your business.
When you’re aware of the
customer lifetime value, you can easily adjust your campaigns and bid on the
strategic keywords that will drive the right prospects and customers to your
landing page.
In this must-read article, David Skok, a venture capitalist, said that
the biggest reason why startups die is that their customer acquisition cost
versus their customer lifetime value often looks like this:
From David Skok’s post, it’s
obvious that if you want to still remain in business, the amount you spent on
Google AdWords PPC to acquire a customer should be recovered in < 12 months.
In other words, if you’ve spent
$270 to acquire a customer, you should also have a strategic and well-designed
funnel in place to make $270 or more off of that customer in less than one
year.
That’s the only way to create a
healthy cash flow that will sustain business growth and expansion.
Most big brands like Moz use a
different strategy to ensure that they recover the cost of acquiring a
customer. The standard price plan for Moz’s software is $99/month.
For small business owners, that
monthly payment may not be too affordable. As a result, it’d take a lot of
education and persuasion to get prospects to buy into the deal.
So Moz sometimes will spend more
than $99 just to acquire the customer, but they have a definite plan to recover
their initial spend and make more in the long-run.
However, Moz also uses a unique strategy to
acquire customers and get them to pay.They partner with other companies to offer member-only perks,
which is more or less an affiliate program.
Here’s an extensive list of
Moz’s perks:
HubSpot provides a more detailed
example of Customer Lifetime Value, where they broke down the cost per customer
into 3 components:
·
Cost of Customer Visits (CoCV)
·
Cost of Lead Acquisition (CoLA)
·
Cost of Customer Acquisition
(CoCA)
Still using HubSpot’s examples, Peep Laja shows us
how to calculate the CLV:
You’re calculating the customer
lifetime value in part because it helps you run a better Google AdWords PPC
campaign. So if you’re paying $10 to acquire a customer, it means that the
lifetime value should be $10+. But if you’re paying $10 and getting $6, it
means that you’re losing $4 for every customer that you acquire. That’s clearly
not sustainable.
See also: How to Calculate and Increase Customer Lifetime Value
How to Calculate Your
Ecommerce Cost of Customer Acquisition
Mistake
#7: Not Testing the Optimal Ad Position
The simple formula that Google uses to rank ads is:
bid x ad quality
In other words, if you bid more
than other advertisers who are targeting the same keywords, your ad’s more
likely to appear at the top, assuming you both have the same quality score.
The quality of your ad is
largely dependent on the quality of your keywords, click rate, and targeted
keywords, and that score also determines where your ads get placed.
According to WordStream,
position #1 may not always be the best position. It’s true that higher ad
rankings tend to get the most clicks, but they don’t get the most conversions.
But you don’t have to rank #1 for your ads
to start generating quality clicks. If your goal is branding, then I’d
understand perfectly when your focus is to rank your Google ad at the top. But if you want to get results (quality clicks & traffic,
conversions), being in position 3-5 works best.
Let’s say that you’re selling
kitchen wares and your competitor is Home Depot – a top brand with a huge
advertising budget.
Your goal shouldn’t be to bid higher than
your competitors. Rather, focus on increasing your quality score – because a
high quality score will give you a better ad rank position.
Another advantage of targeting
positions 3 to 5 is this: people are always excited about the 1-2 positions,
because they’re easily seen. So people may decide to click ads at the top not
because they’re really ready to buy, but because they’re curious or for other
personal reasons.
In the book, Driving Customer Equity,
the authors Roland Rust, Valarie Zeithami and Katherine Lemon expanded on a
business’s most important asset – customer lifetime value.
In order to increase the CLV,
you’ve got to focus on the customers, by nurturing the relationship that you
have with them. The more they grow to trust you, the more you’re able to nudge
them into taking the action that’ll grow your business.
When it comes to ad positioning
in Google AdWords, there is no one-size-fits-all principle. You’ve got to test
this for yourself. Being at #1 may work best for you depending on your industry
and ad copy, but overall, ad positions 3-5 tend to be more effective for most
businesses, as they’ll yield the best return on investment.
Pro
tip: You
can and should test your ad to find the best position by lowering or increasing
your bid or CPC.
When you lower your bid, observe
what happens. Google usually provides a specific suggested bid amount. You can
start with the suggested bid or increase it a bit. Keep checking your ad
positions.
Georgia Eye Associates increased
their CTR from 0.95% in September to 2.80% in April, a time period of just six
months. By using more strategic targeting and bid optimization, they were able
to reduce the cost-per-click (CPC) from $4.90 to $2.31.
Conclusion
Your ads should be targeted at the right
people. This is how to increase your traffic, generate better leads,
and increase sales.
And you’ve got to set a
long-term goal, not just one for the short term. If your goal is only to generate
quality clicks to your landing page, you’re missing out.
Remember that the customer
lifetime value isn’t dependent on the initial conversion rate, but what happens
after they become customers.
Effective Google Ads boil down to targeting
the right keywords, reducing your cost per customer acquisition, and driving
potential customers to your site where you’ve set up a well-crafted funnel that
will improve conversions.
What
other mistake do you see Google AdWords PPC advertisers make?
Reference from- http://neilpatel.com/2015/08/04/7-deadly-adwords-mistakes-thatll-make-you-broke-and-how-to-fix-them/
