Avoid these 5 Pitfalls with Your Adword Campaigns
Posted by RevenueGal on
May 13, 2008
Avoid These Five Pitfalls with Your Adwords Campaigns
Considering advertising online with Google Adwords but afraid of depleting your marketing fund? Webmasters who are new to internet marketing can be assured of a more successful campaign by avoiding these common mistakes:
• Bidding too high on cost per click (CPC) for either content or search engine advertising. Doing the research first will save Adwords users a great deal of money and ensure that they stay within their budget. A search of keyword CPC will bring up websites that list rates being paid, which can serve as a guide in determining the initial bid.
• Creating only one ad campaign or failing to monitor ad performance. It is important to create several types of ads, each one worded differently, to determine the most effective campaign. Likewise, it is imperative to measure the performance of ads. Two tools are available to Adwords users: conversion tracking and Google Analytics. These allow the user to measure actions taken by viewers so that campaigns can be adjusted to maximize response.
• Using words like “free” simply to increase the number of clicks. While this will initially drive traffic, it will not lead to higher conversion rates. More effective would be to focus on targeted keywords. This attracts a more concentrated number of people who are more likely to want what the webmaster has to offer.
• Adding too many keywords. Casting a wide net is not always the best way to proceed. Focus on choosing the most relevant keywords in order to reach the target market. Google automatically matches ads to websites based on the advertiser’s list of keywords and the number of keywords appearing on the site. The closer the match, the better the advertiser’s ROI.
For help choosing keywords, advertisers can make use of the Adwords support area. Google suggests thinking as the customer would when doing a search. Words that are too broad and general are less likely to be effective. Rather, keep them focused and specific.
• Directing traffic solely to the advertiser’s homepage. This is a big mistake. The landing page should be the one that allows visitors to immediately find the information offered. This means it must closely match the wording of the ad. For example, an ad for slippers should link directly to the advertiser’s page showing slippers. If visitors are routed to the home page and have to search for the promised information, chances are good that they’ll get distracted before making the purchase, or simply feel irritated and click away altogether.
Rhonda White
3 Responses to “Avoid these 5 Pitfalls with Your Adword Campaigns”
I have just entered the blogging world and already I feel a little overwhelmed. I have decided to use adword to promote my site but it seems I failed 3 out of 5 things you mentioned above. The only thing worries me is that if I rely on adwords traffic then the traffic will stop once I run out of money. If the conversion ratio is poor then you can’t even recuperate the cost of advertising. Oh dear, oh dear….
Sherry Love
http://sherrylove.net
Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/sherrylovenet
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By Sherry Love on May 29, 2008
You need to decide what you want out of your advertising. Sales? Subscribers? Large companies with a huge budget may advertise solely to get their name well-known online. They’re not specifically after sales.
Some online marketers do need the extra traffic since it can be difficult to compete with other websites ranking high in the search engines or if you have a brand new website that hasn’t had time to rank high yet…
But, never rely just on Google adwords for traffic. You want to constantly be doing what you can to rank higher in the search engines and other methods to draw in free traffic.
If you are going to advertise with Google be sure to use low budget keywords and login very frequently to check on your expenditure and compare your results to see if you need to make changes.
Most importantly, be sure to have a visible signup form for your mailing list on whatever page you decide to direct your ads. I use to direct my ads to a signup page just for my mailing list and then placed google adwords below. That way if they scrolled down my sales pitch to sign up for my mailing list and were not interested in signing up, they would perhaps click on one of my google ads. This helped to compensate for some of the advertising expense. In fact, sometimes, I came out ahead and made a profit.
By RevenueGal on Jun 3, 2008
Great Google article. I have found Perry Marshall’s information to be great but the headline and other lines will still be your job to create. Split testing will help to keep improving headlines as will using copy writing software. When I began using Glyphius, conversions rose dramatically as the software enabled me to keep tweaking my headline until the score rose. Split testing is good, too.
By Rhianna Clarke on Jun 23, 2008