Help me scale

Hi junkbox,

Congratulations on finding some fertile grounds, so to speak, in targeted keywords. You definitely want to scale that up. I will try to offer some advice on how to proceed with that goal.

First thing I would do is more keyword research based on keywords that are converting well. Enter those keywords, one at a time, into the AdWords Keyword tool and check the box labeled: "Only show ideas closely related to my search terms?"

Scan the returned list from above and remove any keywords that you know are inappropriate. Add all relevant keywords to your campaign, creating a separate ad group for each individual keyword, and a separate ad group for exact match and phrase match. Add any needed negative match keywords to the phrase match ad groups.

Another approach is to make a list of any common prefixes and suffixes that you find along with your root keywords. Use a permutation generator tool to build a list of every possible permutation of those prefix, suffix and root keyword combinations. Build tightly focused ad groups for each of those keywords. You will find numerous keyword permutation generators by searching Google, some free online web apps as well as commercial grade desktop applications.

Analyse your results, try to ascertain why certain keywords convert better than others. Once you understand why they convert better, you may be able to gain insight into a transferable principle that can be applied to other ad groups. Keep expanding and testing everything that might be closely related and share the same transferable principles.

Finally, be sure to test your winning keywords at multiple Max CPC bid levels. You are likely to find that profits decline above a certain bid level as well as below that same level, that is your optimal bid level. Please bear in mind that the optimal bid levels tend to change over time, due to the actions of your competitors, so repeat your bid level testing on a regular and frequent schedule.