AdWords API - How to build a platform

AdWords API Workshops – All rights reserved


Building a Channel Partner Platform with the Adwords APIA step-by-step approach to success

Timo Bozsolik, Google, Inc.


Before We BeginPrerequisites, considerations, costs


1. A manageable number of clients

2. A strong engineering team

3. A step-by-step/agile development process

Be Sure to Have


● If you plan to grow explosively, not ideal to build

● Not enough time if # of customers is too high

● Manageable growth is ideal

● Better if you have time to learn along the way

What Growth Rate are You Targeting?


● Handle complicated coding scenarios

● Deploy and maintain servers

● Design for heavy load usage

● Keep up with API changes

● Clients will depend on their work

Strong Engineering Team


● Incremental, easy to steer

● The eng team will learn to work together

● AdWords knowledge takes some time to spread

Step-by-step Approach

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3


0. Manual operations

1. Reporting

2. Account management / creation

3. Automated optimisation

4. Landing page automatic creation

Three Technology Phases


● Use experienced AdWords Account Manager(s)

● Learn the product and get the process right

● Use this knowledge to scope out the automation

Phase 0 - Manual operations


Phase 0 - Expected Growth (Accounts per AM)

No automation

● Scale horizontally only

● Requires more people to handle more accounts

Eng Cost: 0 0# of accounts per AM


● Customer reporting

● Account analysis

● Billing integration / management

● Enough automation for up to ~300 accounts per AM

Phase 1 - Reporting



Phase 1

Eng Cost: 1

Customer ReportingGoogle reporting

Account Optimizations

0● Basic automation● Around 1-2 months to

complete● Very little maintenance

# of accounts per AM


Doctor

● Integration with your portal / site

● Taxonomy (catalogue) building

● Sales tools

● Automated account management / creation

● Up to ~500 accounts per AM

Phase 2 - Account Creation

Car Dealer

Electrician

Baker

Nurse

Florist

Plumber

Cook



0

Phase 2

● Dedicated team● Business knowledge● More experienced engineers● Around 3-6 months to complete● Some maintenance

Eng Cost: 2-3

Integration, existing systemTaxonomy buildingSales tool

Account creation


● Conversion tracking

● Manual taxonomy / keyword optimisations

● Automated bid optimisations

● Further than many platforms

● ~1000+ accounts per AM

Phase 3 - (Automated) Optimisation


Expected Growth (Accounts per AM)

Phase 3

● Dedicated team● Experienced team● 6-18 months to complete● Dedicated maintenance● Auto Landing Page creation?

Eng Cost: 3-5

Automated taxonomy optimization

0

∞

Conversion trackingManual taxonomyoptimization


Building your platformA step-by-step process


Just for Clarification...

● The tools mentioned, are internal only to the company

● External tools must implement the respectives RMFs

● Basic way of seeing things:● Internal tools don’t expose AdWords data to the customer● External tools do!


Phase 1 - ReportingEasy as she goes


Let’s get Started

● Natural place to start

● A lot of tools available!

● No API calls if using the tools

● Automates a very time consuming task

100+ Accounts


● Account management via the AdWords Frontend

● Customised reports to clients

● Integration with CRM systems

1. Customer Reporting

100+ Accounts


● Pulls reports from AdWords and saves to local DB

● Use a PDF or HTML template

● Create your own reports

● Automatically send to customers

● (More details on the AwReporting talk)

1. Customer Reporting - Workflow

100+ Accounts


● We did the boring work for you! (AwReporting)

● You will have to code the integration with the CRM

● Combine all the customer information

● Completely automated!

1. Customer Reporting - Head Start

100+ Accounts


● Easier to do with the reports in hand

● Spot problems with the accounts

● Notify these problems to the AM

● Kratu, a publicly available tool, will do this for you!

2. Account Optimization and Performance

400+ Accounts


● Browser based data heat-map visualisation tool

● The Kratu-backend uses AwReporting

● Generate visualisations for your client accounts

● Easy to spot problems

2. Account Optimization - Kratu

400+ Accounts


2. Customer Analysis - Kratu


3. Billing Integration

● Client expenses information. What did we charge?

● You have all this info now!

● Share of Retail (SOR) Reporting to Google!

400+ Accounts


3. Billing Integration - SOR

● AdWords data tells you how much was spent

● Your billing system tells you how much you billed

● Throw together SOR report with minimal code!

400+ Accounts


● Reporting will eliminate most of the periodic work

● Increase very effectively the number of accounts per AM

● Allows simple analysis to help client performance!

Summary


Automating time-consuming tasks

Phase 2 - Account Management / Creation


Three Key Aspects

1. Build a taxonomy (catalogue)

2. Build a sales tool

3. Automate account creation


● Business segmented catalogue

● Instantaneously create campaigns for new clients!

● Can be specialised by market segments

● Dentists in West London

1. Create Taxonomy

500+ Accounts


● Create a hierarchy of businesses and services

● Some advertisers will often have their own

● Common strategy: two top levels (domains)

● Can have various sub-levels

1. Create Taxonomy

500+ Accounts


● Level 1 - Business Area: maps to Campaigns○ i.e. plumber, dentist, lawyer, auto dealership, etc.

● Sub Level 1 - Service Area: maps to AdGroups○ lawyer: criminal, injury, wills, corporate, etc.

● Define the areas for new clients

● Create AdGroups for them

1. Create Taxonomy - Levels / Domains

500+ Accounts


● Areas defined, time to write Ads

● Each area has its own Ad format

● Auto generate the Ads

● Easy to build a tool to do it for you!

● ...or it can be done “on the fly”

1. Create Taxonomy - Pre-write Ads

500+ Accounts


1. Create Taxonomy - Pre-write Ads


● Level 2 - Geo taxonomy

● Will vary on the region that you advertise

● In USA is very granular, can alter target and bid○ Geo targeted (GPS / IP localized)

● Other regions will demand more work from your code○ Geo modified (Keywords, Ad text modification)

1. Create Taxonomy - Geo Targeting

500+ Accounts


● On a granular market, just modify the bid

● Sometimes can go as deep as the zip code level

● Great for franchisees

● Awesome on mobile!

1. Create Taxonomy - Geo Targeting


● Non granular market

● You can go as deep as your taxonomy allows

● The “Geo targeting” will be in the keywords○ Instead of “dentist”, will be “Manley dentist”

● Be careful with franchisees

1. Create Taxonomy - Geo Modification

500+ Accounts


1. Create Taxonomy - Geo ModificationCar dealership

Country (Australia)

Province (NSW)

City (Sydney)

- Car dealership Australia- Australia Dealership

- Car dealership NSW- NSW Dealership

- Car dealership Sydney- Sydney Dealership

- Car dealership Neighbourhood- Neighbourhood Dealership


● Geo data might not be available

● You will need negative keywords

● Seed keywords are a good start○ i.e. emergency plumbing, quick plumbing

○ Service area can act as seed, or you can add seed keywords

to the service areas in the taxonomy

1. Create Taxonomy - Additional Keywords

500+ Accounts


1. Create Taxonomy - Keywords

Targeting Idea

API

Seed Keyword

+ Keywords+ Stats

+ Keywords+ Stats

+ Keywords+ Stats


+ Keywords+ Stats

+ Keywords+ Stats

+ Keywords+ Stats


Traffic EstimatorAPI

+ Keywords++ Stats

+ Keywords++ Stats

+ Keywords++ Stats


● Now you have a lot of keywords to choose from

● You can sort the keywords by their stats

● It will give a lot more power when building the sales tool

and the accounts


500+ Accounts


● Customer rep talks to potential customer

● Customer loves talking about themselves

● Asks about the services that the customer provides

● Define the locations that the customer attends

● Sales tool steers the conversation and the sale

2. Build a Sales Tool - Workflow

500+ Accounts


2. Build a Sales Tool


● The problem is to offer a good package to the customer

● Sales tool will come up with the keywords for the

customer

● Or you could use the Keyword Tool

● So now you need to define basic packages

2. Build a Sales Tool

500+ Accounts


2. Build a Sales Tool - Basic Packages

1. $100 p/ month

2. $200 p/ month

3. $500 p/ month

4. $1000 p/ month

5. $1500 p/ month

Packages Margin

1. 40% cons. est.*

2. 30% cons. est.*

3. 20% cons. est.*

4. 10% cons. est.*

5. 5% cons. est.*

1. $100 p.m. 40%

2. $200 p.m. 30%

3. $500 p.m. 20%

4. $1000 p.m. 10%

5. $1500 p.m. 5%

Final Packages

* conservative estimate


2. Build a Sales Tool - Choosing the Offer

1. $100 p.m. 40%

2. $200 p.m. 30%

3. $500 p.m. 20%

4. $1000 p.m. 10%

5. $1500 p.m. 5%

Final Packages

Traffic Estimator Service data + system data*:

● One dollar => One click

● 10 Clicks => 1 conversion

Final Offer

3. $500 = 40 cvrs.

2. $200 = 14 cvrs.

1. $100 p.m. 40%100 cl. - 40% = 60 clicks60 cl. = 6 conversions

* The data can give a rough estimation on the values. Be conservative with the offers


● Use the traffic estimation to generate ROI data

● Offer to the customer the more attractive package

● T.E.S. is an estimate - remember to be conservative!

● Very domain specific

2. Build a Sales Tool - Summary

500+ Accounts


● Basically ready to go!

● The platform has all the info to create the account

● Campaigns, AdGroups, Ads, Keywords, etc.

● Create as PAUSED!

● This last step will give you huge scale

3. Set up the Account

1000+ Accounts


● Some customers will want to add or remove specific

keywords

● Platform should be flexible to allow this

● View your taxonomy as a base on which to expand

● Taxonomies are the core feature to optimisation

● Don’t forget the RMF when building your platform!

Note About Taxonomies


● Very robust solution

● Pretty large investment so far

● Most of the process is automated

● The AMs will be able to do much more for the customer!

Summary


Taking AdWords to the next level

Phase 3 - Optimization


Three Main Areas

1. Conversion tracking

2. Manual optimisation

3. Automated optimisation

CT

AO

MOFull

Optimisation


● AdWords normally optimises based on clicks

● Can optionally do it based on conversions

● Correlate amount user spent with specific ad served!

● Apply different values to different kinds of conversions

1. Conversion Tracking

1500+ Accounts


● A provider is needed to manage / setup

● Plenty of players in this space

● Really great way to drive good traffic to clients

● Clients love to pay for conversions!

1. Conversion Tracking - Call tracking

1500+ Accounts


● You can track conversions with basically anything!

● A piece of JavaScript will do the job for you○ The customer booked a room?○ Accessed a particular page on the website?○ Signed up for a newsletter?○ Downloaded a particular menu?

1. Conversion Tracking - Other

1500+ Accounts


● All about finding problems

● Kratu can help a lot

● Finding taxonomy problems - push to all accounts

● Finding account problems - pull to the taxonomy

● Either way you will want to automate most of it

2. Manual Optimisation

1500+ Accounts


● Even for manual optimisation, coding is required

● The AM must have access to keywords, ads text, etc.

● You need to build the tools

2. Manual Optimisation

1500+ Accounts


● All about automatic keyword selection

● AW is a fully dynamic marketplace (think stockmarket)

● Good keywords today might not be good tomorrow

● Your system will optimize itself!

● Let’s try to codify an example...

3. Automated Optimisation

2500+ Accounts

CODE


for each service area, area {keywords <- get keywords for area;rank keywords by performance;best keywords <- 90% top keywords;keywords <- generate from best keywords

using TargetingIdeaService;repeat;

}


2500+ Accounts



Area

Traffic estimatoror report data

Targeting Idea Service

windshield repair

car window repair

fix car glass

auto glass repair

car glass replacement

car glass

glasses repair

window repair

auto glass replacement

vehicle glass repair

window auto glass fix

auto glass fix



2500+ Accounts

● Running this monthly will bring very good results

● The best keywords will always stay

● You can add more keywords to the cycle!

● The new keywords will be generated from the best ones

● If bid increases too much for a keyword, it will be thrown away due to low conversion rate


● You made it! Your own platform!

● But a lot more can be done…

● Automatic landing page creation?

● Landing page optimisation?

● Predictive churn prevention?

● We didn’t talk too much about negative keywords...

Summary


Resourceshttps://sites.google.com/a/google.com/smb-partner-resources/

https://sites.google.com/a/google.com/smb-partner-resources/

https://sites.google.com/a/google.com/smb-partner-resources/


Questions?A lot of content. Thank you!
