Improve Your Internet Marketing

The key to bigger profits and sustained success in PPC is optimization.

“Optimization” can be a scary word; it brings to mind visions of complex testing, sophisticated statistical analysis, etc. So when I think “optimization”, I simply think “make ‘em better” - the process of optimizing my campaigns is just the process of making them better. This can mean improving my CTR, increasing my conversions, lowering my CPC; ideally I want to continually look at all of these and “make ‘em better”.

Ok, how do I optimize my campaigns? Today we’ll consider one of the most important variables, the ad itself. Let’s start with a hypothetical campaign for spyware software:

Spyware protection

Protect you computer

Best spyware program

www.spyware.com

Split Testing

First thing I would want to do is create a second ad to split-test. Split-testing simply means having 2 or more different ads in your adgroup, each ad ‘competing’ against the other. Over time, you will  see that one ad has a higher CTR than the other. This is obviously a ‘better’ ad. The idea is to continually change the loser to see if you can make it beat the better ad. Every 75-100 clicks, you re-evaluate. If the ‘worse’ ad is still being beaten, you change it again. Eventually, you will evolve it to the point that it beats the first one. Now your ‘better’ ad is the ‘worse’ ad and you begin changing that one to try to beat the new better ad. Over time, your ads will get better and better.

When I split-test, I will usually create ads with identical copy and begin my split-testing with the headline. Perhaps:

Ad 1: “Get Spyware Protection”    Ad 2: “Best Spyware Protection”

Quick Tip: One great way to split-test is to use your ad spying results and copy your ‘best’ ad, then create the second ad by taking just the headline from the second or third ‘best’ ad.

Make sure you have selected “Rotate“, not “Optimize” in Edit Campaign Settings. If you leave it on the default “Optimize”, Google will decide too quickly which ad is ‘better’ and favor that one. You want both ads to be shown equally when split-testing.

Quick Tip:  What happens once both ads are performing well - do you want to risk losing half of a really good CTR by changing one of them? I don’t! However, there is no rule that says you can only split-test two ads at a time. Once my CTR reaches a certain point, say 3%-4%, I will create exact copies of BOTH ads, then create a new, fifth ad to split-test. This means that I now have 5 ads, but my optimized ads are still shown 80% of the time.

I can optimize my ad further with capitalization and punctuation, both in the ad, and the display URL. Forget about what you learned in school about capitalization - what matters is getting attention:

Spyware Protection

Protect you Computer -
Best Spyware Program!

www.SpyWare.com

Another easy ad optimization is to append something to your display URL, either one of your keywords, or something else that makes your ad stand out. For example:

Spyware Protection

Protect you Computer -
Best Spyware Program!

www.SpyWare.com/UPDATED

Google’s Campaign Optimizer

This is a relatively new Adwords feature, and if you’re like me, you tend to ignore many of these ‘new’ features, especially once you get comfortable with your own individual step-by-step routines.
Recently I began experimenting with Campaign Optimizer, and overall I am very pleased with the results. (If you haven’t noticed it, look for “Optimize Campaign” near the top of the screen at the campaign level).

Campaign Optimizer is an automated process that attempts to analyze your campaign, and offer suggestions, such as changes to display URL, adding match types, etc. Some of it is common sense, not every suggestion is necessarily a good one, and for some new campaigns it won’t have suggestions right away. But overall, I have found it improves the campaigns I haven’t looked at in a while, or have otherwise neglected.

Most importantly, it underscores an important point. Google wants your campaigns to be effective. Effective to Google means relevant and focused. And “relevant and focused” translates into higher CTR’s and lower CPC’s.

How many campaigns are marginal or money-losers, that would be great producers if your CPC was cut in half? Optimizing your campaigns isn’t always going to result in 50% cheaper CPCs, but it’s happened to me more than once, and any CPC improvement is pure profit.

Quick Tip: Google provides tons of useful information on optimization through Adwords Help. If you haven’t read through it, get the low-down straight from the “horse’s mouth”! 

Next time, we’ll look at the other variables we can optimize, our targeting, our keywords, and out landing page.

UPDATE: I will be archiving all of the “Tips” on my website, and expect to send you the website address in the next day or two.

As always, feel free to send your comments and questions!

Melanie