Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text Part 3

Time to finally wrap this series of posts up.  (AKA, time to put the egg nog away and get back to work, but more on that in my next post)

So far, in our review of AdWords ad text tips and tactics, we have discussed the following points:

• Utilizing tight ad groups with small amounts of keywords in order to incorporate keywords into ad text.
• The tactic of using keywords in your Display URLs : www.example.com/giftbasket
• The importance of qualifying and providing incentive for your prospective users to click through with  strong content writing in your headlines and text lines, given the challenge of the character limits.

Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text Part 2

In today’s post, I will continue to discuss tips and tactics for ad writing pay per click marketing campaigns.  Now, keep in mind that there are several great resources on the web for this, and some fantastic articles written by experts.   Last post we discussed creating small ad groups to enable the ability to use keywords in ad text, and the tactic of using keywords in the “/” of Display URLs.  

The next tips center around the body of the ad itself.  Here is where the two campaigns - holiday gift baskets, and plastics manufacturing, bring examples to bear as to where campaign goals have an impact on writing.

Headlines: Don’t forget about headlines.  From a usability standpoint, this is what gets your searcher’s attention.  We have 25 characters in the headline to stay within. Again, based on my previous posts, using keywords in your headlines is an important tactic to qualify and motivate a user to click.  However, sometimes due your competitors, it isn’t that easy when it comes to improving your click through rate.  In light of this, use motivational headlines that stand out from our competitors. For gift baskets, “Act Now, Save $20″ can appeal to a consumer.  For the plastics manufacturer, “Plastics Molding Experience” may appeal to the purchase engineer or plant manager looking for a trusted partner. 

Lines 1 and 2: In our ad lines, we have 35 characters to work with on each, which of course makes the challenge fun.  For holiday baskets, ads are crafted against a heavy amount of direct competition.  In this environment, where most players are using keywords in their ad text, it is important to differentiate to get a qualified click.  Ways to do this in an consumer driven environment would be:

• Including cost
• Phone number
• Any sales or offers: “Holiday Gift Baskets, Act Now to Save %20″

Another way to differentiate in this case is to try to be specific on the details of the product.

“Comany X Gift Baskets”

“Holiday Gift Baskets, wine,

cheese, and tasty chocolate”

The key to this approach to do searches and study your competitor’s ads.  (And don’t be malicious and click on them, of course)  Just like any advertising, be thinking what will make your “billboard” on the Google highway stand out.  

For the plastics manufacturer, it is important to differentiate against your competitors.  The goal is entirely different, we are not selling online we are trying to generate a lead.  In this case, less energy in the ad is needed, but we still need to stand out.  Again, relying in keywords in ad text is very important here, so that we may best resonate with the user.  Focusing on your experience, your location, sub segements you reach:

Plastic Molding Company

80 years of plastics exp. 
Focused on Medical Suppliers

Some very broad key points before I wrap this post up:

Keywords in your ad text.  The most important point that I am driving home and have talked about before on this blog is to use keywords in your ad headline and text.  Nothing helps out better qualify and motivate your users to click, as well having a positive impact on Quality Score. If you do nothing else, do this.  And in order to do this, you must craft small ad groups with focused sets of keywords.  It is very hard to write a relevant ad for a keyphrase “holiday gift baskets” if your ad text is focused on Wine gift baskets. 

Writing ads for search engines is challenging, and requires creativity!  You must qualify the searcher, motivate them to click, and tell your message all in about 90 characters.  And, many times you must do this with competing ads all around you.  

Which is why my final point is important:  Research and test.  These two items are coming up on my next post.

Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text

Now, either I have been really lazy or really busy — no posts since November 11th?  Terrible! Especially when my blogtastic business partner Adam Henige has been posting like crazy. Oh well.  Things have been busy at Netvantage, we have several new Pay Per Click campaigns starting this week.  Two of the campaigns are in very different sectors - one is for higher end, consumer based, luxury goods, and very seasonal - wine gift baskets.  The other is manufacturing based, business to business focused, and is very widgety, for lack of a better term - plastic molding. 

There are the obvious advertising thought processes that needs to go into developing and launching this campaign: audience targeting, audience personas and associated keyword selection, product mix, landing pages, bid amounts, you know the usual.  However, despite the massive differences in the two campaigns, there are some definite similarities.  And one of those is in the make up of the ad text.

As you consider your search marketing campaigns, an often overlooked component is ad text.  I spoke of it at the Google 101 event in October, and it is important.  Ad text in structured for your target audiences for your search results pages is tricky.  All engines, Google included, have character limits on each of the lines for headlines, ad text, and display URLs.  Some basics:

Use keywords within ad text.  And to do this, create ad groups with a low number of keyphrases.  As I covered in my horrible stab at Halloween humor in the attack of the Adblob, large ad groups in your campaigns do not lend themselves to well written ads.  So that is tip number one, and the most important for running good foundational campaigns, not use writing good ads. Use small ad groups to give yourself the opporutnity to write ads that incorporate your keywords.    Remember, as keywords appear in your ad text, they will be highlighted and provide visual incentives to click.  

Display URLs An interesting tactic that we are seeing that has positive impacts on click through rate is the use of effective display URLs.  Keep in mind that you must use the domain name for your website.  However, in the display URL /, you can leverage your keywords to display in your ad text.  For example, www.netvantagemarketing.com/seo.  But, keep it in mind that you’ll have to keep it within the character limits, and if you have a long URL, this may not be an option.

That’s all for now, more tips to come this week! ( I promise, not January 11th,)

Using Timing and Accountability in Advertising

I was listening to a local sports talk radio show today while driving between client appointments. This show is probably the most well known and prominent show in the area for either AM or FM. That would mean that the advertising rates for these radio spots are probably the highest priced. Now, stay with me here. Late last week it was very pleasant here in Mid-Michigan, unseasonable, and in the high 60s, sunny. People were taking advantage of this, as I saw many golfers out on the local courses. In the tradition of Michigan weather — this changed quickly over the weekend. Today I brushed snow off my car, it was 31 degrees.

Back to my AM drivetime. I heard an ad for a local golf course advertising a special to play all day for $35. I looked around. The truck said 32 degrees, it was gray, nasty windy, and snowing. How valuable was that ad at that time? I thought about this.

Now, did the golf course place the ad right after the nice weather, anticipating it would last and an extended season? Did the golf course have the ad running last week during the nice weather? Does the course always place these ads for these specials this time of year?

You know what, it doesn’t matter. This ad reached me, and was highly mis-targeted. Yes, I am a male 25-39, I like sports, beer,etc. and I do like to golf. Good targeting. But the content of the ad inviting me to golf all day in this weather at that time was enough to make me shiver. Not at the thought of golfing in this type of weather that was more fit for deer hunting or football. But at that the thought that these was money spent on that ad spot. It was had an ROI of 0%. And even worse, that ROI WAS UN-TRACKABLE.

It made me glad that I work in an industry that has features in advertising such as:
A reaching customers looking for my clients’ products and services, not managing how my clients hunt and peck for their consumers.
The ability to change where an ad is placed, what is says, and who it speaks to within minutes.
I can specifically track the effectiveness of these ads, and my clients’ ad spend.

Now, I am not naive to believe that there can’t be shortcomings for search marketing. But, if you are managing your own AdWords or other search marketing campaign, be sure to use timing, a change in market conditions, and accountability in your advertising to your advantage. You’ll be glad you did, and should allow your approach shots (ads) to be much tighter to the pin (customers).

The Scary, Growing Ad Group, It’s the Attack of the Adblob!

We participated in the Greater Lansing Business Monthly Fall Showcase yesterday, and I was a presenter at the Lansing IT Council’s Google 101 event.  Both went very well.  At the Showcase, we had lots of interested companies stop by, and we also saw a lot of old friends and colleagues.  At the Google 101 presentation, it was myself, Bill Hamilton of TechSmith, Ryan Vartoogian of Spartan Internet Consulting, and Travis Stoliker of Liquid Web.  It was a very exciting honor to be on this panel with such respected and successful individuals, and their companies. 

The areas I spoke on within the presentation were:

Search Engine Result basics - explaining the difference between paid and organic results.
Ad Group Development and Ad Construction - a real favorite topic of mine.
Key takeaways - I got to wrap up the presentation with key points of emphasis, and well as some tangible takeaways, such as setting up a Google Webmaster Tools account, and registering with the Google Local Business Center, and some resources available at Google. 

Getting back to Ad Groups,  I discussed the importance of setting up very tightly constructed ad groups, with with specific and ultra-relevant keywords.  I have seen too many companies group several keywords and keyword variations into too few ad groups.  The result are ad groups which generate low click through rates, or worse yet, ads that show up for keywords that are too broad, and attract clicks that result in poor visits to your site.  Now that is expensive! In the spirit of Halloween, I like to call it the Attack of the the Adblob!!!

You may start with good intentions and a few keywords centered around your service or product, and then over time the temptation to keep adding keywords to it that you think users may type in.  Or maybe you are passive in your approach, grouping in a lot of keywords into just 2-3 ad groups thinking it will just magically work. 

While it is good to add relevant keywords that your target audience may type in, you need to establish ad texts in different ad groups that address the diverese keyword variations.  And I am not talking about just the color of your product either.  Be thinking about those keyword variations for ad texts.  ”Halloween costume” should be not in the same ad group as “Halloween masks”.  Is there a rule of thumb on the number of keyphrases? Well no, but anything more than 8 should have you concerned.  

A fundamental driver to any good Adwords venture is small ad groups.  This approach enables specific ad creation, which allows for the usage of keyword variations in ad text, which allows for higher click through rates, which means a better Quality Score, which means lower cost per click.  Whew!  But seriously, that is the cycle, and that is why that approach is important.  

Enjoy your Halloween,,, and don’t let the Adblob massacre your AdWords budget!

Back to School Part 2

Well, it was back to school again on Friday — Google School if you will.  I was up late cramming like a college student on Thursday night, as I took the exam to become a Google Adwords Qualified Individual.  In an industry where there still is not a lot of qualifications or official status degrees, this is an important one.  The exam was not very difficult, and only a couple of billing and international questions caught me off guard a bit. You need at 75% to pass, — I got a 90%.  This is wildy exciting.  No, really, let’s party, I’ll bring the Bombay Sapphire. 

In all seriousness, as our industry moves forward, I hope that there continues to be industry certifications and qualifications that appear.  I know that currently the SEMPO and the WAA offer some as well. Some colleges have started to take mild approaches as well.  My hope is that sometime in the very near future a major Big 10 university we see offered Online Marketing as a degree choice, or least as a cognate/minor.  I would envision a curriculum encompassing classes on business aspects of web design, online brand development, online social media, paid search management, web analytics, and of course organic optimization.  I think there is a good demand for it, and as a learning base of the opportunities in the industry grows at the younger levels, this demand will increase.  

In the meantime, we rely on Google and Yahoo to set standards and bars, which we will continue to strive for and achieve at Netvantage Marketing.  Speaking of bars,,,, did you bring the tonic, ,,, or least a lime!

Back to School

I had an opportunity to do some guest teaching at Mason High School yesterday.  I came in for Kristin Higgins’s Info Tech class.  I talked about the importance of Google, and how it will become an increasingly important channel for marketers to market to their generation.  To make the point obvious to them, we took some polls. We took an obvious poll of how many of them watch TV, or even watch the commercials on TV.  Many of them barely listened to the radio, much less listening to those commercials.  Finally, I rattled off some search engines, Yahoo, Live, AOL, Cuil, Omgili, Ask, and a few kids raised their hands.  Then of course it was nearly 100% of those that raised their hands for Google as their search engine of choice.  We then talked further about how Google will become the primary marketing channel for their generation of consumers. 

We then walked through some fun keyword volumes examples, such as approximatley how many times do you think Jay-Z was searched on Google in September. (1.8 Million) I showed them some of the basics of natura search, keeping light, of course.  We then walked through and set up a Google AdWords campaign for Mason Bulldog Sweatshirts, writing the ad, selecting geography, setting the budget, etc.  Within 10 minutes, there ad was showing on Google, which of course was neat.

Finally, I talked about careers in search marketing, and in marketing/IT in general.  Within this, I mentioned the Capital Area IT Council, and their efforts in trying to promote careers in our field, and getting people excited.  As high school kids go, many haven’t thought that far ahead, but I tried to stress the possible educational/career track, as well as the many benefits of working in our industry.  In summary, it was great to be in the classroom with young people, and give them a little insight into how a powerful marketing channel works.  I look forward to representing Netvantage Marketing, and the CAITC in the future with such events.

A Visit from Google

I attended the Lansing Economic Club Luncheon at the Kellogg Center yesterday, and we were able to hear John Kelley, of Google Adwords to speak.  Aside from the surprisingly good chicken lunch, it was very good. John primarily heads up the Google AdWords division, I believe the official title is Manager, Online Sales and Operations, and works in the Google office in Ann Arbor.  John dida very good job of laying out Google’s history, direction, and current opportunities for advertising. 

And he did it in a way that resonated with a group of business people that really don’t have an understanding of tech, yet of course use Google every day.  The event had around 200 people in attendance.  I am not sure who on the Economic Club was responsible for bringing John in, but it was a good move, and a great move for our new company. 

Having him in front of that audience was a great way to heighten awareness to the advertising potential, and accountability, that Google and search marketing can deliver.  My hope of course is that those in the audience may turn to Netvantage for assistance in setting up and/or managing their campaign.  And again, my hats off to the foresight of the the Lansing Economic Club to bring in a top-line speaker on an important and innovative subject. (well, of course I am biased in how important it is

Network, Network, NETwork

Well, shame on me.  It has been two weeks since I have posted.  We have been very busy at Netvantage Marketing.  It seems to me that the business community and associations have a vast period of inactivity between July 1st and Labor Day, and then bam - I am going to Capital Area IT Council meetings, Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce Bottom Line breakfasts, luncheons, and local business association meetings.  Why? Well because we want to network, and pursue all avenues possible to spread the word on Netvantage Marketing.  And I am guessing that we will be on this torrid pace until Thanksgiving - and then of course its “we’ll get to it after the Holidays”.  But until then, lots of meetings and networking events, which should be a lot of fun.

Why network?  Well for lots of reasons that you know.  But this is not a post about why network to build leads.  You can get that in something like the local paper’s business tips section.  Besides the odd chance that we will gain a lead, we network to help build brand.  Build brand?  Yes, remember a brand is not your logo.  A brand is what your various target audiences perceive of you.  Is is totally controllable?  Unless you  can manipulate people’s minds, no.  But can you contribute to it?  Of course!  Giving the right first impression when you network at events helps build your perception and resultant brand.

However, don’t forget to build your online brand.  Online brand development is very key to your business.  Thinking of the home page of your website as that first handshake and 45 second elevator pitch at a cocktail mixer will go a long way in the success of your website as an important part of your business model.  At Netvantage, we are always looking at ways to drive more traffic to your site, with search engine marketing, and search engine optimization, and web analytics.  However, first and foremost, before we can do our work, we also need to make sure that our client’s online handshake is strong enough, and that their website is able to NETwork.  So if you are looking to generate more traffic to your site, be sure to take a good look at the site, and take the appropriate steps to develop the right online brand.

End of summer

Well, the unofficial end of summer is here.  Here in Michigan, kids go back to school, legislators go back to doing what they do, and people tend to get more focused on work, and not what up north destination they will be camping at the upcoming weekend. 

In my previous positions at Michigan State, this transition always seemed to happen the week before Labor Day, when classes start. However, most recently at the private sector Internet consulting firm I was at, you always saw it.  All of a sudden, projects and initiatives they were unconsciously being put off get placed on the forefront.  I think its just human nature.  Of course, this mad push tends to go until just after Thanksgiving, and then you hear “we will get to it in the New Year”  But that is another post for another day.

We had a very busy and productive summer at Netvantage Marketing.  As many of you know, this was our first summer, and we have been very fortunate to gain several great clients.  They have been a nice mixture of all of our services, which is good as we don’t want to get too focused in one area.  We hosted a successful seminar in East Lansing, and hosted a non profit search engine optimization contest, which was won by the way by the American Red Cross Mid Michigan Food Bank.   We made some media splashes, getting featured in the Lansing State Journal’s Business Section, as well as getting featured twice in Capital Gains Media. We have found all these wonderful friends on Twitter (I really didn’t know we were that popular), and made some great connections in the blogoshere of online marketing.  And we joined lots of business associations, including the Web Analytics Association, Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce, Meridian Area Business Association, South Lansing Business Association, Mid Michgian Creative Alliance, and Michigan Business & Professionals Association.

So, we weren’t exactly hanging out at the Cedar Point wasting away our first summer in business.  Yeah, maybe we had some fun, but it was a properous first summer, and we look forward to things getting even busier as the rest of the world comes back from the beach.

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  • Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text Part 3
  • Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text Part 2
  • Tips and Tactics for your AdWords Ad Text
  • Using Timing and Accountability in Advertising
  • The Scary, Growing Ad Group, It’s the Attack of the Adblob!