Barely avoided PPC trainwreck. Please help! (long post)

Hi Bob,

1. Yes, create 2 ads per ad group. The idea is to split test to see which performs better.

2. If you know excel well, then you can use that. You may want to consider downloading Adwords Editor from Google.

3. You could do that, that's one of the drawbacks of Tracking202, the setup. It's very important to track so take the time to setup a tracking system that tracks earnings down to the individual keyword level.

4. It is generally a good idea to have a lot of keywords, that have little competition, to keep your CPC as low as possible. You should consider a shorter list while you are learning the ropes.

5.Test both, but create separate campaigns for the different networks. stick with just the search network until you have it working satisfactorily, then expand to the content network.

6. Avoid using broad match, concentrate on exact match and use phrase match keywords to pickup the long tails.

7. Manual bidding, unless you have invested in a sophisticated bid management tool.

If you are using targetted keywords then I would disagree with NOT using broad match. I would use broad/exact and phrase match. One tip that always goes un noticed is the power of negative keywords. A lot of people forget to use these and end up with a lot of click wastage.

For example, I used to have a huge cruise client. Becasue they had a huge budget, even though I advised against it they were adament they wanted to target the term 'cruise'. Anyway, cut a long story short, we implemented the negative term 'tom' so all those looking for Tom Cruise would not see the irrelavent ad and costing my client thousands. In general you can use words such as free, info, review and lots more to really laser target your terms.

With reagrds to Ad Groups, yes you need to target relevant keyword types into a single ad group. For example, 'property' and 'properties' need to be in seperate ad groups, some will disagree but this is something I tested over a period of time and saw a much better CTR.

I'm not sure about the courses you are referring to but I was self taught and learnt that to really make campaings work, it all has to be done manually. Forget any bidding software. Focus on improvng CTR all the time and in the long run this will help your RoI. I would go against 1 keyword per ad group, thats just riddiculous, just make sure that they're very very relevant and you'll be ok.

With regards to ad copy, make it highgly relevant too. Use the most relevat keyword in the title as well as Dynamic Keyword Insertion (although this does not imprive your quality score). Also, ensure you use it in the ad copy and in the URL as this will help quality score, but DONT spam.

Sorry, I don't want to sound like Im preaching how to do PPC but I realised a long time ago thats its all in the planning, if you plan your campaigns correctly, you'll generally do a lot better.

Are you using the Google AdWords software? That should help you manage your campaigns better.

Dont expect to have incredible CTR's from the outset as it takes time to build up campaign history, I would give it about a month before you can really start to see any patterns, however, do ensure that you optimise every day if you can.

I hope this helps!
Z

Bob, do exactly as Don says.

AAAARGH! I just lost my post because the forum logged me out. Let me try again...

Thanks guys! VERY helpful! Here is my new game plan and a few more questions:

1. I'll use about 5 ad groups with about 10 keywords each.

2. A combination of broad, phrase, and exact. When using broad, I will have to be smart about negative keywords.

3. I'll start on the search network until I find some winners, and then I'll move on to the content network.

4. nettech, you mentioned that I should aiming for a month's worth of data. My original plan $50/day for seven days. What is a reasonable daily minimum if I want to do a month of testing? The average CPC for all of my keywords is $0.05, although the first page bid estimate is as high as $2.50. My current max CPC is $0.08. Should I change my bid?

5. I'm trying to get the hang of AdWords Editor, but can someone please explain Placement Max CPC? I read up on it and I understand it as being a means to set a max bid for a specific keyword. However, I'm not certain why I'm seeing it at the ad groups level where I can't specify a specific keyword.

6. Any daily optimization tips?

Thanks again!

I must be blind because I don't see a Thank You button anywhere. Am I completely missing something? :confused:

1. I'm thinking about going with $20/day for 30 days, although the amount of days may change depending on what trends I notice.

2. How can I find out what the top 5 positions are paying?

3. I just noticed that the Search Volume Trends for all of my keywords say "No Data." Is this a bad sign?

4. When you were watching your stats daily, what actions did you take in response? Increase/decrease bid? Pause keywords? I was planning on doing split testing on a near daily basis. Starting with completely different ads, finding the right angle, and then honing from there. Do you only start split testing after the first month? I guess I'm having a problem with figuring out what is considered too drastic of a change and the timing for those changes.

I would love to run the best campaign possible for my first go, but I'm thinking I should just take the plunge and learn from my (expensive) mistakes.

Thanks are bottom right corner of the post.

You cannot find out what anyone is actually paying. Don't go by the estimate in the keyword tool. That's just some calculation based on average QS and historical data. It can be easily beaten.

I don't see "no data" as a bad sign. Simply that they don't have enough data. Of course, it means don't expect too many impressions from that keyword.

You must wait until you have enough data before making any changes. I and others recommend at least 30 clicks for each ad. There are other factors involved too.

Use phrase and exact matches more than broad.

LOL, okay this thanks button thing is really bothering me. I just tried to post a pic of what I'm seeing, but I'm apparently not allowed to post links or images until I hit 15 posts.

THERE IT IS. Okay, so in order to thank someone you need at least five posts.