Pay per Click 101- America Outdoors 2012

Elizabeth Marsten@ebkendo

elizabeth@portent.com

Pay Per Click 101America Outdoors 2012

IN 2011, GOOGLE SEARCH AND ADVERTISING TOOLS GENERATED $80 BILLION IN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY ACROSS THE U.S.

What is PPC?

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How PPC Works

•Advertisers visit the search engine’s PPC login page.

•Advertisers create ads to show and list out the keywords they want associated with that ad.

•Advertisers set how much they want to spend each day and how much they want to spend every time an ad is clicked.

•Search engines then show the ads when relevant searches that match the advertiser’s keywords are shown.

PPC Pros

•Results come in quick•Cost is easy to control•You decide what words to bid on•You write the ads•Changes are easy to make and upload fast•There’s an on/off switch•No contracts•There is customer service/tech support for most issues•It can be the cheapest form of advertising•Visitors are a targeted user- they searched for you!

PPC Cons

•It’s not for every industry•Assume that whatever money you set aside for it, is spent•It can be confusing•If your industry is competitive, it may not be any cheaper than any other method of advertising•Competitive industries require competitive budgets to match•Have to be aware and watch for click fraud

Is PPC For You?

Consider your advertising budget

•If a lead or sale is worth $100 to you now, how much can you spend to get that sale?•Is that amount enough to buy the clicks you’ll need?•Can visitors actually convert?•Do you have tracking set up?•Do you have the time set aside to really give it a try?

Information Overload

STRUCTUREKEYWORDSADSQUALITY SCORE

STRUCTURE

PPC Account Structure

Account

Campaign Campaign

Ad Group Ad Group Ad Group Ad Group

Ads/ Keyword

List

Ads/ Keyword

List

Ads/ Keyword

List

Ads/ Keyword

List

ACCOUNTCAMPAIGNAD GROUP

Campaign Set Up

• The campaign is the vessel for your ad groups and where most of the settings are. Budget, geography, networks, negative keywords, time of day/days of the week and devices.

• Pick a category, place or brand that you want to group you ad groups under.

• Go narrow enough so that you’ll need to have a few ad groups under it, but not so narrow for only one ad group and not so broad that you’ll need 3,000.

Ad Groups

Use the keyword niches you plan on targeting to determine how many and which ad groups you’ll need to create.

THINK RELEVANCY

KEYWORDS

KEYWORDNEGATIVE KEYWORDMATCH TYPE

How to Pick Keywords•Start with a single product or service that you want advertise for.

•Ask yourself how you would search for that item or how someone else might.

•Search under a few of queries in Google and see what else comes up. Are the results related to what you’re going to be advertising for?

•If so, then you’ve found your niche

•From there, build a keyword list of keywords that are similar to your chosen keyword.

Negative Keywords

The words or phrases you don’t want associated with that ad group or campaign.

For example: cheap, free, download, sample, coupon, do it yourself

Keyword Match Types•Broad- shows for plurals, singulars and well, everything related.

•Phrase- shows for plurals, but also pays attention to word order.

•Exact- shows for exact and that’s it.

•Modified Broad- uses an “anchor” keyword, more exposure than phrase match, but more controlled than broad match alone.

Keyword Examples: Broad

Seed phrase: dog collars

Would show for: dog collars, pink collars, small dog collars, collars for dogs

Doesn’t honor word order, can match synonyms or part of a phrase, related searches.

Keyword Examples: Phrase

Seed phrase: dog collars

Would show for: dog collars, small dog collars, dog collars on sale

Honors word order, can match synonyms or part of a phrase.

Keyword Examples: Exact

Seed phrase: dog collars

Would show for: dog collars, dog collar

Honors word order, must be exact or close variant of.

Keyword Examples: Modified Broad

Seed phrase: +dog +collars

Would show for: dog collars, dog collar, small dog collars, collars for dogs

Doesn’t honor word order, no synonyms or related searches, must contain anchored words.

GEO-TARGETINGNETWORKS

Geo-Targeting

By default, Canada and the USA are bundled together

Target by Neilson DMA, city, state, zip code, congressional district, radius or country.

Networks: Search

Networks: Display/Content

ADS

TEXT ADSIMAGE ADSPRODUCT LISTING ADS

Best Practice Text Ads#1 Use a keyword from your list in the headline and in the body

Dynamic Insertion

Best Practice Image Ads

Best Practice Product Listing Ads

QUALITY SCORE

AdWords Quality Score

Google’s 1-10 scale for determining relevancy.

Keywords have QS visibly listed in the AdWords interface.

Ads, ad groups and accounts also have a quality score.

What Makes Up Quality Score?

•The historical CTR of the keyword and the matched ad.•Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account .•The historical CTR of the display URL in the ad group.•The quality of the landing page.•The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group. •The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query. •Your account's performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown. •Other relevance factors.

*Google AdWord’s AdWords Help Center

Bing Ads Quality Score

Bing’s 1-10 scale for determining relevancy within your account against the marketplace.

Keywords have QS visibly listed in the Bing Ads interface.

Uses keyword relevance, landing page, user experience and historic QS to calculate.

HOW TO MANAGE A PPC ACCOUNT

THE CARDINAL RULES

Each search engine will try and differentiate itself by using different names for features, roll out tools and best practices but the basics of PPC remain the same across all of them.

Always separate out Search, Content/Display and possibly Partner networks.

Always set a budget you are comfortable with.

Double check the setting for WHERE your ad is showing, geographically speaking.

Add negative keywords.

Do NOT set it and forget it. Always check in.

Send users to the best page possible, don’t dump them off on the home page for every ad.

A strong foundation (account that is properly configured) will bring you the most success in the long term.

A TO DO LIST

Give data a chance to collect (100 clicks rule)Check the budget/spend month to dateEdit or add new adsAdd keywordsChange match typesPause keywordsAdd negative keywordsCheck the destination URL (landing page)Bids for the ad group and keyword levelsTime of day or geographic schedulingAverage ad positionQuality ScoreAccount structure

Elizabeth Marsten@ebkendo

elizabeth@portent.com

Q&A