THE MOST ENTERTAINING

GOOGLE ADWORDS GUIDE(PART 1)

MEENU JOSHIMarketing Manager, LeadSquared

Written by

This is Bob

Bob is cool

Bob is also the only marketer in a small, fast-growing education companyA one man army, the unsung superhero, living in the sales star’s shadows, almost the dark knight

He is always doing things!Finding new lead generation channels, setting up email campaigns, creating the social

strategy, running webinars to recruit and educate potential students

But, that wasn’t enough!They needed more leads, more paying students. So, they brainstormed

THAT’S WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!Bob loved the new challenge

But, soon enough, he realized that running paid search campaigns wasn’t

all rainbows and butterflies – there’s a lot of work involved

Data ScienceHadoop

Android

JavaPythonApache

Like, detailed keyword research

Let’s bid of broad matched keywords

Getting enough impressions

I should test these ad copies

Testing ad copies

I should test these landing

pages

Testing landing pages

AND MORE…

In the beginning, as is the case with all beginnings, things were smoothLeads came in. Everyone was happy!

But, what’s a good story without at least a few villainsSlowly, things start going downhill, like they always do

A week in, Bob’s superstar status has started to fade

Sales team is now blaming him for not getting them high quality leads

Why, you must wonder!Very few of the leads he generated became customers

CEO questions him daily about wasting money without any sales to show

He doesn’t even get invited to office parties, anymore

IT DIDN’T MATTER THAT HE

WAS ALSO JUST LEARNINGWhat mattered was that he wasn’t saving the day anymore

Bob was devastated

For a while…

But, Bob is coolHe knows that a problem is only a problem till it’s solved

Instead of complaining about it, and wallowing in self-pity, he decides to take charge

.Google Adwords might be a beast, but it IS a beast waiting to be conquered.

BUT, HOW DO YOU TAME A BEAST

THE SIZE OF ADWORDS?

“You take your learnings, and implement them”

Bob has tons of data – from the campaigns he has run

He finally sits down to analyze it

The key problem immediately shows

Like many marketers, he was judging the campaigns by the number of leads generated, not their quality!

THAT’S WHY ALL THE NON-CONVERSIONSSo, before looking any further, he changes his success metric – quality over quantity!

LEARNING #1Focus on quality, not on quantity of leads

LEARNING #1Focus on quality, not on quantity of leads

Bob has his way forward nowAs he digs deeper into the data, he realizes that majority of the revenue comes from one course – Hadoop

But, in his campaigns, he was allocating similar budgets to all the courses

Bob thinks the higher revenue from Hadoop might be because of higher demand

But, Bob has enough leads looking for Python courses as well. Just that, they never seem to convert

Now, he decides to change the strategyand give more weightage to more profitable courses

When the spend was equally divided between Hadoop and Python

When the spend increased on Hadoop and reduced on Python

LEARNING #1Focus on quality, not on quantity of leads

LEARNING #2Spend wisely, based on your most profitable offerings

THINGS ARE LOOKING BETTER ALREADY…

But, it’s far from over! Bob’s back at work

Hadoop jobs

Search Terms

Android Phone

Bob’s ad

“Why”

He finds irrelevant search terms still triggering his ads

These search terms are irrelevant, because Bob’s company doesn’t sell Android phones and they don’t provide jobs either

To control this, he starts marking negative keywords

ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, IRRELEVANT CLICKS

BECOME LESS FREQUENTBut, they were still there

Reason: The overuse of broad matched keywords

That trigger the ad for irrelevant search termsThis, of course, can be countered by adding negative keywords regularly, but there IS a better fix

Free Hadoop training

Search Terms

Android internships

Bob’s ad

Stupid search

terms!

BIDDING MORE ON “PHRASE,” “BMM” AND

“EXACT” KEYWORDS, AND LESS ON BROAD

Putting all your money on broad match is like selling blues music to everyone who likes music, irrespective of the genre(by using “buy blues music CDs” as a broad keyword)

Or, even to people who are trying to sell their own music

And, trying to sell “blues” to “metal-heads” is never a good idea

INSTEAD, USE

+BUY +BLUES +MUSIC (BMM), OR “BUY BLUES MUSIC”

(PHRASE) AND [BUY BLUES MUSIC] (EXACT)You’ll eliminate people who are trying to sell their own music, and who are looking for other music genres

LEARNING #1Focus on quality, not on quantity of leads

LEARNING #3Focus on high-quality impressions – Mark negative keywords and limit the use of broad keywords

The impressions are really relevant now

BOB IS ALMOST DONE

GETTING RID OF BAD IMPRESSIONSHe still checks the report to see if he missed something

Guess what! He didCertain relevant keywords with good search volume, like “Hadoop crash courses,” were going unclicked

Hadoop course Hadoop crash courseLearn Hadoop

Ad copy in common Ad Group

Reason: The ad copy advertised only full time coursesNot crash courses

Hadoop course Hadoop crash courseLearn Hadoop

Highly relevant to Hadoop course and Learn Hadoop

But not to Hadoop Crash course

Ad copy in common Ad group

He creates another ad group for crash courses specifically Now there is perfect “search term + keyword + ad copy + landing page” match

HE ALSO SUPPRESSES “CRASH COURSES”

IN OTHER AD GROUPS, SO THAT THE

KEYWORDS DON’T COMPETE

LEARNING #1Focus on quality, not on quantity of leads

LEARNING #4Take care of non-performing keywords – create new ad groups, if there’s a chance

ONE WEEK IN...

The changes in Bob’s campaigns are insane

Impressions High Quality Leads Cost per High Quality Lead

Before Change After Change

Sales numbers were up. So were Bob’s spirits

MORE IMPORTANTLY, HE WAS SAVING THE DAY… AGAIN

BUT IT’S FAR FROM OVERWant to know what happens next?

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