ppc management tool  |  pay per click bid management software  |  google adwords optimization

You may or may not be aware that in just the past 60 days, Google AdWords has undergone some changes that should have impacted your pay-per-click strategy.

Minimum Bid replaced by Estimated First Page Bid
Previously, you might have had some keywords inactivated by Google due to a minimum bid that was too low. Their calculation took into consideration click-through-rate and quality score, and made a determination about the smallest bid they would allow for your keyword to be eligible to show. That has now changed. Instead, Google is helping advertisers to focus on what bid is required to keep ads appearing on the first page of results.

At the keyword level, this information is displayed in the Status column, but only if your bid is too low. When setting up the columns for a keyword report, there is also now a checkbox to display the estimated first page bid for every keyword.

This change has a couple of impacts; first, it means that long tail keywords won’t be deactivated due to a low CTR. Secondly, it makes it easy to see keywords that are at risk of dropping onto the second page of results.

Search Results Now Differentiate Google and the Partner Network
Hopefully you already have separate campaigns for Search and Content match types. Now Google has increased magnification one more level and is separating results for Google Search and their Partner Network as separate numbers.

Google Search are simply searches performed on Google’s site. Search partners include AOL, Ask.com, and many other search sites around the web, who run a search box ‘powered’ by Google.

Although Google doesn’t allow separate campaigns for Search and Partner, smart marketers will begin running separate campaigns with the Partner Network active and inactive.

Build Your Own Display Ad
The idea here is to allow advertisers to create their own graphic ads to use with Google’s site targeting capability, without the need for a professional graphic designer. I like the idea – site targeting is something that more companies should be experimenting with. However, after a few trial runs with the ad builder tool, I’m not convinced that it will get widespread use. Here’s why:

1. The number of templates is fairly limited (about 50).

2. The tool requires image files to be a max of 50kb, which is probably not typical for company logos or stock imagery. So, the user will have to know how to re-save their image at a lower resolution.

3. The tool doesn’t seem to do a very good job at resizing uploaded images to fit properly in the ad space. As a result, my designs using the tool looked very amateurish.

4. The tool only deems to create ads in two sizes, which does not include the popular 120×600 (vertical banner), and 468×60 (horizontal banner).

It’s entirely possible that Google will expand the functionality and ease of use of the tool, but right now, I think these limitations give it very limited appeal.

Upcoming Changes to Quality Score and Ad Position
Although not yet live, you should be preparing for the upcoming changes to the Quality Score calculation. In the coming days, the Quality Score algorithm will be updated to account for the influence on ad position on click-through rate. This may lead to either an increase or a decrease in cost per click, and the position your ads appear in. Either way, you need to be watching closely (at the keyword level) to respond to the changes.

Google is also adjusting the way they determine which ads appear in the yellow region above their organic search results. The update will now allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. This increases the (already high) importance of Quality Score.

AdWords Editor not yet Current
At this time, none of these changes had been incorporated into AdWords Editor. Google advised me to cease using features inside AdWords Editor that no longer apply (such as the advanced bidding option to increase all bids to the minimum for a keyword to be active), since it wasn’t clear which keywords would be affected and how.

Marketers from a cross-section of categories and industries are feeling the pinch of budget belt-tightening - over half (53%) expect ad budgets to be reduced over the next six month - according to a survey from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

However, for those firmly focused on the right metrics, such as cost-per-conversion, justifying the marketing budget should be easy.  With the detailed metrics provided by Google AdWords and Google Analytics, marketing costs can be demonstrated as being an investment rather than an expense.  It would be a rather dim-witted CFO or CEO who reduces the budget when you can firmly articulate the exact ROI from every marketing dollar spent.

General reductions in marketing budget also present some opportunities for pay-per-click advertisers.  Overall bid amounts may drop in AdWords, as the number of advertisers drops. Also clicks may well cost less later in the day, as competitors drop off-line due to their budgets being spent.

If your budget is being cut, consider trimming some of the fat in terms of pausing keywords with a higher cost per conversion and leaving the most profitable ones live.  Also consider using ad scheduling to run your ads later in the day, when competitors may already be offline.

You’d think that a concept like Google AdWords Optimization would be a simple one - not necessarily simple to implement, but simple to define at least. Over the past few years, I’ve been asked to “improve” or “optimize” many AdWords accounts. It’s interesting that when I ask companies what their criteria for optimization are, I often get little or no response.

Let’s look at a few possible targets for optimization:

1. Optimize clicks - this involves selecting the keywords with the highest impressions and lowest cost-per-click. It also requires balancing the lowest possible bid, with the best position possible. Writing appealing ads is essential.

2. Optimize conversions - this involves selecting the keywords that most often lead to a conversion. Ads will typically mention the conversion offer to qualify the visitor. In addition, effective landing pages are critical - probably requiring the use of a methodology such as split testing.

3. Optimize cost-per-conversion - this approach involves selecting the keywords that lead to a conversion at the lowest average price. This might well be considered a ‘long tail’ strategy. Testing ads (for conversion rate, not CTR) is critical, as is having effective landing pages (again consider split testing).

At PPC CoPilot, we suggest that a balance between optimizing for cost-per-conversion, and number of conversions is the right approach. The way we accomplish this is to allow the marketer to set a ‘threshold’ number - the maximum dollar amount that you are willing to pay for a conversion. The proprietary PPC CoPilot algorithm then seeks to optimize the number of conversions that fall below your threshold price. It’s an approach that you can certainly utilize if you’re trying to optimize Google AdWords by hand, but you’ll find using a tool such as PPC CoPilot much easier.

I’m intrigued when I hear the phrase ‘beat AdWords’, it suggests an adversarial relationship that Google has worked hard to dispel. In fact the informal Google motto is “don’t be evil”. In the intro to their Corporate Code of Conduct, Google explains the “don’t be evil” philosophy, “it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect.”

The same code of conduct goes on to detail various types of ‘conflict of interest’, but it’s interesting that it makes no mention of the natural conflict which arises from an advertiser’s desire to get maximum exposure for as little as possible, and Google’s desire to have spending budgets increase.

In fact, the Google AdWords system has (imho) a set of biased settings that sway things in a way that doesn’t benefit the advertiser. Here are just 3 of the blatant ones, and what you should do as an advertiser to ‘beat’ the Google system:

1. In Campaign Settings, ads default to show on an ‘optimized’ basis. This means that AdWords will show ads with a higher click-through-rate more often. I personally find Google’s definition of ‘optimized’ as best CTR as a little bit ‘evil’. I’d suggest always using the ‘Rotate’ option and substituting your own definition of optimization to mean the ads with the best conversion rate.

2. When setting up a new Campaign, AdWords subtley suggests that both Search Match and Content Match are used. However, it seems fairly clear that since different ads are likely to appear to Search vs. Content audiences, it’s best to have Content and Search run in separate campaigns. The AdWords Editor tool is great for copying and pasting an existing campaign and then making the relevant modifications.

3. The nature of a bidding system is that prices will always go up, perhaps not ‘evil in itself (although certainly good for business). However, Google’s implication that you should bid for position 1, is perhaps misleading. In my opinion, the ‘race’ for position 1 leads many companies to overbid. I’d actually suggest that there are a number of cases where position 1 isn’t desirable.

Overall, I’m not sure that I agree with Google as being the adversary to be beaten, however, I do think that the smart pay-per-click advertiser keeps an eye on their own interests, and doesn’t rely on the ‘goodness’ of any advertising platform.

Google AdWords has recently added a new feature that assists greatly in the task of effective keyword selection. Instead of giving a vague idea of the frequency that terms are searched for, AdWords now reports the actual number of searches.

The tool now shows the average number of searches performed for a phrase over the past 12 months. This is incredibly useful in selecting keywords that have enough volume to be the main components of your ppc campaign, but also selecting lesser (long tail) keywords to provide small volume (but highly qualified) traffic.

In addition, the new AdWords Keyword Tool provides an estimate of what you would need to bid in order to show consistently in position 1-3. This is also very useful in understanding how your budget will be used.

Remember selecting the right keywords is just one of the critical steps in effectively managing a Google AdWords account. Consider a tool such as PPC CoPilot to assist in the other management tasks such as refining account structure, monitoring individual keyword performance, adjusting bids, and testing ads.

Growing up in the UK, I was a big fan of the sit-com Fawlty Towers. I remember an episode where the hilarious waiter Manuel confessed that he learned to speak English ‘from a book’.

So what does this have to do with Google AdWords? Well, I have nothing but good things to say about Andrew Goodman’s book Winning Results with Google AdWords, and undoubtedly Perry Marshall’s Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords has some great techniques for managing AdWords. In fact, I’m sure that there a number of people who have sucessfully ‘conquered’ Google AdWords with the help of these books, and others like them.

However, for everyone that these books helped, I suspect there are hundreds or even thousands of individuals who own these books, but still don’t break-even from AdWords. Why? Simple, because just like our hapless Manuel, most folks don’t do so well when it comes to learning from a book.

Just to add insult to injury, Goodman’s book has 340 pages, and Marshall’s has 294. Neither could readily be described as a real ‘how-to’ guide. Instead they take the approach of educating the reader about the various concepts that go into mastering Google AdWords. Presumably this is because no book could contain a step-by-step list that would be applicable to every situation. (It might also be because Marshall and Goodman run consulting companies.)

If you’re the owner of one of these books, and are still struggling to manage Google AdWords, you might consider PPc Co-Pilot. This next generation PPC management tool brings the principles and best-practices, taught by Google AdWords experts, to the non-expert. It reviews your AdWords account on a daily basis and makes specific recommendations to increase performance. PPc Co-Pilot also incorporates and advanced tracking engine, logging all of your changes, and allowing you to see whether they improved results or not.

There are dozens of AdWords management software tools on the market, so what makes PPc Co-Pilot different?  Well, PPc Co-Pilot is really the next generation in ppc management.

The first generation of ppc management tools were really just for bid management.  Checking your account multiple times per day and adjusting your bid to ensure that you weren’t overpaying.  However, the usefulness of such tools greatly diminished when Overture/Yahoo stopped operating on an open-bid type system.  Also, Google’s focus on Quality Score as a part of the cot per position algorithm, has made bid management much less important.

Instead, PPc Co-Pilot review your account, prioritizing your keywords, and making actual suggestions for increasing performance.  It works on a proprietary algorithm that examines all key metrics, not just bid amount.  Recommendations may include tweaks to ads, matching status, adgroup and campaign structure, and yes - bids.

v.2.0 of the tool is also slated to include an advanced ad testing methodology.

Don’t forget to sign-up to be alerted when PPc Co-Pilot launches.

It’s worth discussing how to measure the success of a Google AdWords manager within a company. I think there are just two metrics that any manager of google adwords should be measured on:

1. Cost per conversion.
2. Number of conversions.

All other indicators such as cost per click, quality score, etc are really all just means to an end - and that end is to drive down cost per conversion, and drive up the number of conversions. It’s that simple.

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• How do I effectively utilize the AdGroup and Campaign structure?
• Should I always bid for Position 1?
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