Digital Marketing using Google Services
8 Google AdWords
As of this time, we have been analysing on Organic promotion. Let’s take a look at Google’s Paid Promotion Platform called Google AdWords. This platform is also called as Google Pay Per Click (PPC). Using this platform, you can place Text Ads in Google Search Results page, Display Ads in Google Display Network and Video Ads in YouTube. If people click on your ads, you will be paying certain amount to Google based on Ad Auction results. Hence it is called Pay Per Click.
8.1 Paid Ads in Google Search
Have you seen Ads in Google Search?Can you spot Ads in Google Search Result Page listed below (Snapshot 8.1)?
Snapshot 8.1 Google Paid Ads in Search
What you see above (A & E) are called Text Ads created using Google AdWords Platform. Please note the Keyword searched by this user:yoga classes in chennai.This Keyword is also called as Search Term.
What happens here?
Many Competitors are running online marketing campaigns using Google AdWords for the search term “yoga classes in chennai” and mapping it with specific Ads. Hence you see such ads in Google Search when you type this Keyword.
If someone clicks on a Text Ad above, the respective client who owns this Ad will be paying certain amount to Google. Hence this platform is also called as Google Pay Per Click (PPC).
There are various types of Ads:
1. Text Ads
2. Banner Ads
3. Video Ads
Let’s take a look at Text Ads. Banner Ads and Video Ads will be covered later in this Chapter. Let’s analyze various attributes for a Text Ad (Snapshot 8.2):
Snapshot 8.2 Text Ad
1. Headline (25 Characters): Yoga Besant Nagar Chennai [Usually, Headline should need to have Keywords searched by the user. This helps you to get the user attention.]
2. Display URL (35 Characters):www.practo.com/Chennai-Clinics[Please note this is not the actual website page URL. Only the domain www.practo.com in this URL is correct and it should match with the actual domain. “/Chennai-Clinics” need not be the actual URL. This portion is used to display or convey the URL details or unique points to attract the user. Hence it is called Display URL.]
3. Description Line 1 (35 Characters):Clinics < 2 KMs From Your Location [We need to have Unique Selling Points listed in this Line 1. You should differentiate your ad from other competitor ads.]
4. Description Line 2 (35 Characters):Book an Appointment Instantly[We need to have Call To Action (like Enquire Now, Buy Now, Book Now, …) listed in this Line 2. This will make the user take immediate action by clicking on your Ad.
5. Destination URL/Final URL (1024 Characters):This attribute is not visible in ad.It is a link to the actual website page URL. If someone clicks on this ad, it will land them to the actual website page URL (also called as Landing Page URL). You provide this URL when you create an Ad in AdWords and rest will be taken care.
Text Ads can be displayed in following Google network
1. Google Search (Only in Google Search)
2. Google Search Partners (refer description below)
3. Google Display Network (refer Chapter 8.2)
4. YouTube (refer Chapter 8.3)
Google Search Partners are non-Google Search Network that partnered with Google to show Ads. For example AOL.com is a Google Search Partner. There are hundreds of such Search Partners. Google Search Partners also includes Google Maps, YouTube and other Google sites.
In this chapter, we are going to create Text Ad Marketing Campaign targeting Google Search Network using Google AdWords.
Before we create any Marketing Campaign, we need to have better strategy in place. We should review our website and come up with following points:
1. Campaign Structuring and Budgeting
2. Targeting Ideas
3. Unique Selling Points
4. Call To Action
5. Preference
Once we have these 5 points, we will be able to create effective marketing campaign in Google AdWords.
Campaign Structuring and Budgeting:
1. If you have many divisions in your organisation, we usually allocate marketing budget for each division and measure Return on Investment (ROI). This helps us identify the best performing divisions. In your case, the division may be a product or service or brand. So, you should create multiple marketing campaigns in AdWords if you have multiple product lines and want to allocate specific budget and measure ROI for a specific product line.
2. You need to allocate special budget reserved for seasonal campaigns
Targeting Ideas
1. Who are your target customers? Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Consumer (B2C)? The keyword searched by a consumer looking for a product in Google Search will be different from the keyword searched by a distributor looking for a manufacturer. As a business owner, it is important to identify the correct keyword and target your Text Ads.
2. Where are your customers located? In specific city or country or worldwide.
Unique Selling Points
1. What is unique about your company? We are in business since 1975. List all.
2. What is unique about your website? Free Shipping, Secured Payments. List all.
3. What is unique about your specific product or service? Offers, Technical Specification. List all.
Call To Action(answer to What Next? in any page)
1. Inquire Now
2. Buy Now
3. Add To Cart
4. Learn More
5. Call Now
Preference
1. Do you want your Ads to run from Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM? or All
Days?
2. Do you want your Ads to run on all Devices like Laptop, Tablet and Mobile? Do you
want to exclude Mobile devices?
You need to have answers to all above 5 sections to start your campaign in AdWords. You also need to understand few basic terms.
1. Campaignin AdWords Account: A Campaign is like a root folder (say C:\ or D:\). You can create multiple campaigns from your AdWords Account.
2. Adgroup: Adgroup is like a theme based sub-folder under a Campaign.
3. KeywordandAd: A theme based Adgroup will have specific theme based Keywords and Ads designed for such Keywords.
4. A Campaign may have multiple Adgroups to cover multiple keyword themes.
5. Impressions: An impression will be counted if your ad appears in Google Search
6. Clicks: If someone clicks on your ad impression, it will be counted as a click.
7. CTR(Click Through Rate): Number of Clicks divided by Number of Impressions.
Let’s create a simple Text Ad Campaign in AdWords with following inputs:
Website Domain:www.msmedi-chennai.gov.in
Aim :We provide Digital Marketing Training in our Chennai office. If someone search for keywords like “digital marketing training” in Google, I need my ad to appear. Let’s create Text Ads Campaign.
Website Landing Page or Destination Page URL where you talk about this specific training: www.msmedi-chennai.gov.in/training/dm
(If someone clicks on my Text Ad, it should take them to above specific training page.)
Network:I want my Text Ads to appear only in Google Search.
Target Location: 20 Miles around Anna Nagar West Extension, Chennai. Also, I receive enquiries from a place called Karur which is located outside Chennai. People come from there to attend this training.
Let’s begin working in AdWords interface. Go toadwords.google.com,
Snapshot 8.3 AdWords Sign In
Step 1:Click on Start Now or Sign In to create a new AdWords account.
Once you click onStart Now, it takes you to the Welcome screen (Snapshot 8.4). As always, please use the same Gmail ID to sign up for all Google Services.
Snapshot 8.4 Welcome Screen
Step 2: Enter yourGmail ID
Enter yourCountry, Time ZoneandCurrency. Once saved, these settings cannot be changed later.
These settings do not affect the targeting audience location. These settings will be used for your Reporting and Billing purpose.
Click onSave and continue.
Step 3: It takes you to the login screen. Provide your Gmail ID and Password to sign up for AdWords.
Step 4: After successful sign up process, it takes you to the Google AdWords Campaigns Tab (Snapshot 8.5). Choose “Create your first campaign” to create your first campaign.
Snapshot 8.5 Create your first campaign
Step 5:You are in Campaign Creation page. Always choose the Campaign Type first and then enter your Campaign name (Snapshot 8.6).
Snapshot 8.6 Choose Campaign Type and Name
What should be the campaign type?
We have 4 options to choose from (Snapshot 8.7). They are
Snapshot 8.7 Campaign Type
1. Search Network with Display Select
2. Search Network Only
3. Display Network Only
4. Shopping
As our focus is to create Text Ad Campaign targeting Google Search Network, Choose “Search Network only” as Campaign Type
Usually “Search Network only” Type is more suitable for Businesses that require immediate leads/sales.
Step 6: Choose “All Features”in the sub type given on the right side (Snapshot 8.7).All Featuressub type enables features like Ad Scheduling, Ad delivery methods and all the ad extensions which are not available inStandardsub type.
Step 7:Now enter the Campaign Name ‘MSME Digital Marketing”
Step 8: If you want to show your Text Ads only in Google Search, uncheck “include search partners”. If you also want to show your Text Ads in Google Search Partners, leave it checked. Step 9:Devices option by default will be enabled to show ads on all devices. i.e., your ads will be shown on Desktop, Laptop, Tablet and Mobile.
Step 10:Our Target locations are Karur and 20 Miles around Anna Nagar West Extension, Chennai. So, choose Advanced Search to select these locations.
Step 11: There are four tabs Search, Radius targeting, Location groups and Bulk locations. We are going to use the first two (Snapshot 8.8). Type “karur” in search box and choose Add. This location will be added.
Snapshot 8.8 Choose Karur
Step 11:Choose Radius targeting tab and type “Anna Nagar West Extn, Chennai”. Type 20 and Select mi or km from the dropdown. Click on Add to select this location.
Step 12:Verify the locations added and click on “Done” to save your selections (Snapshot 8.9)
Snapshot 8.9 Save your locations
Step 13: Once you save your locations, it takes you to the Campaign Creation screen. Next step is to select the Languages. Click on Edit and choose the language of the websites that you would like your ads to appear on. By default, the language targeting is set to English.
Snapshot 8.10 Languages
You can choose any language based on your business interest.
It is important to understand that Google will not be translating your ads or keywords based on the targeting language you select. It is your duty to add translated keywords and ads if you want to target other languages.
Step 14: Choose your Bid Strategy for your keywords (Snapshot 8.11). There are two options
1. I’ll manually set my bids for clicks
2. AdWords will set my bids
For every keyword, the cost per click varies based on competitors bidding for the keyword during Ad Auction. I would suggest you to choose “I’ll manually set my bids for clicks”. Also, I would suggest you to analyse your Keyword bid values before you proceed to next step. Click onToolsmenu and right click onKeyword Plannersub-menu. Open it in New Window for reference.
Let’s go toKeyword Plannerwindow (Snapshot 8.12) to analyse the bid values suggestions for keywords.
Snapshot 8.11 Bid Strategy and Tools Menu
Snapshot 8.12 Keyword Planner Window
Step 16:
Snapshot 8.13 Search for new Keyword Ideas
Step 15: Keyword Planner Tool helps you identify various keyword combinations related to your
keyword, monthly search volume in Google and suggested Bid values.
Expand “Search for new keyword and ad group ideas” row (Snapshot 8.13).
Enter a keyword related to your business to get more suggestions related to that keyword. Choose the targeting Location, Language, etc. to make a research on the keywords under the selected conditions.
I entered “digital marketing training” to search for keyword combinations and bid values.
I chose Chennai and English as Targeting Location and Language.
Now click on Get Ideas. It opens up the Various Adgroup and Keyword Ideas related to “digital marketing training” (Snapshot 8.14).
Step 17: It shows Average Monthly Searches, Competition and Suggested Bid for the keywords. You have to analyse the various keyword combinations suggestions provided in this tool to decide on specific keywords to bid for.
Snapshot 8.14 Adgroup and Keyword Ideas
Do not choose generic keywords for your campaign. Always choose specific keywords and bid for it. For example, I would suggest you to choose “digital marketing training Chennai” as your keyword. This should fetch more focused visitors from your marketing campaign as they are specifically looking for training in Chennai.
Step 18: Let’s click on “Digital Training” Adgroup from Snapshot 8.14 above and analyse. As you see in Snapshot 8.15, I found that “digital marketing training in Chennai” is the best keyword for me to target with Average Monthly Search of 70, Medium Competition and suggested bid of Rs. 127.78. You should do this analysis for all Adgroup Ideas and find more keyword themes for your campaign.
Snapshot 8.15 Keyword Ideas
Step 19: Based on keyword planner analysis, I decided to set Rs.128 as bid value and will be adding “digital marketing training in chennai” as my keyword for my first ad group. Budget amount should be decided based on how much you are willing to spend on the ads. Consider if I’m planning to spend Rs. 80,000 on my AdWords campaign for a month, divide it by 30.4 to know the amount to be spent for a day and enter it in the Budget per day box. Here, in this example we have decided to spend Rs. 60,800 and hence we have entered the budget as Rs.2000/day.
Snapshot 8.16 Bid and Budget
Step 20:
Ad extensions will be covered later in this chapter. For Now, we can Save and Continue.
Snapshot 8.17 Save your Campaign
Step 21: Provide name for your first Ad group. It is important to understand that the name of the Ad group is for our reference only. This has got nothing to do with the performance of the campaign.
Add Keyword “digital marketing in chennai” under this ad group (Snapshot 8.18).
Snapshot 8.18 Ad group name and Keywords
While adding keyword, we need to decide on the various keyword match types to add. There are 4 keyword match types.
1. Broad match: digital marketing training in chennai
2. Phrase match: “digital marketing training in Chennai”
3. Exact Match: [digital marketing training in chennai ]
4. Broad Match Modifier: +digital +marketing +training in +chennai
Match types are used for informing Google about how the keyword should be matched with the search term by the users for showing ads.
Exact Match Type :
Exact match type is used to specify the Google search engine that our ads should be shown only if a person search for that exact term included in the AdWords campaign. Exact type keywords are added inside Square Brackets [].
Example:when we give [digital marketing training], our ads will be shown only if people search for digital marketing training. If they search in different order with the same terms or if they include “in Chennai” to the search term, our ads will not be displayed.
Phrase Match Type:
In Phrase Match Type, our ads will be shown if people search for the exact term, or with some other terms in the beginning or at the end of the keyword phrase provided by us. Our keyword order should not be modified. Phrase match keywords are represented using double quotes “ ”.Example:When we add “digital marketing training” in phrase match, our ads will be shown if people search for the following terms.
· digital marketing training in Chennai.
· chennai digital marketing training.
· digital marketing training
Our ads will not be shown for the following keywords. · training for digital marketing in chennai. · training for digital marketing
Broad Match Type :
Broad Match type is the most generic way to add a keyword, such that the ads will be shown if the search term contains the keyword in any order and this also shows ads for the plural terms and other same meaning keywords. It is not necessary that all the terms in the keyword should be present in the search term for showing our ads.
Example: When digital marketing training is given in broad type, Our ads will be shown for the following:
· digital marketing
· marketing training
· training for marketing
· training for digital marketing, etc.
Broad Match Modifier:
This type of keywords is used to prevent the ads from being displayed to irrelevant customers. This type of keyword would have a Plus symbol before the important terms of the keyword. The terms with plus symbol should be compulsorily present in the search term but can be in any order.
Example:If our keyword is +digital +marketing +training in +chennai, we can see that we have included + symbols for the keywords required to be present in the Search Term.
Our ads will be shown for the following search terms: · digital marketing training chennai
· chennai digital marketing training
· training for digital marketing training chennai
Our ads will not be shown for the following: · marketing training chennai
· digital marketing training
· training in marketing
We have added all four match types just to explain. Google suggests following Broad to Exact approach. You may start with adding just broad type and analyze. You may then move on to include only specific match types as required.
Step 22:Once you are done with adding the keywords, click onContinue to ads. 
Step 23:Create your Text Ad for first Ad group (Snapshot 8.19)
Snapshot 8.19 Create ad
Headline:
Headline of the ad which will be shown in Google Search Results Page. It should not exceed 25 characters and should contain keywords. Make sure to use “Initial Caps” for your words for better readability.
Snapshot 8.19: our Headline is “Digital Marketing Course”
Ad Text (Description Line 1) & Ad Text (Destination Line 2):
Should contain unique selling points about your business and Call to action terms such as buy now, enquire, contact us etc. Each line should not exceed 35 characters limit.
Snapshot 8.19 : our Ad Texts are:
Course Starts on October 2014
Fee INR 4000, Register Today!
On the right side (As shown in Snapshot 8.19), we can see the preview of how our ads will be displayed in Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Note: Ads should followGoogle AdWords Guidelines. Search for “Google AdWords Guidelines” to know more about Ad Guidelines and Policies.
Display URL:
It should not exceed 35 characters. It should contain the domain name
Snapshot 8.19: our Display URL isMsmeDi-Chennai.gov.in/Digital
Destination URL / Final URL:Final URL has advanced feature when compared to Destination URL option. So, choose “Final URL” option and enter your Landing Page URL.
Do not use your home page URL here. It should be the actual Landing Page URL where we talk about digital marketing training program. Land your visitors to the page they are actually looking for. Do not land them on a generic page like your home page where you talk about everything. Do not confuse your visitor by providing more options.
Snapshot 8.19: our Destination URL iswww.msmedi-chennai.gov.in/training/dm
Advanced Ad Options: Please leaveURLs for MobileandCustom Parameteroptions empty. Save the ad by clicking onSavebutton (Snapshot 8.19).
Step 24:Click onReview Campaignbutton to review your Campaign Settings, Ad group, keywords, Ads and Bids. If you are fine, Click on “Save and Finish” to create this campaign.
Step 25:Once you click on Save and Finish, you would see a pop up to continue to billing. We will setup billing at a later point.
ChooseSave and Finishto analyse our Campaign first.
Step 26: Here is the AdWords interface with our Campaign (Snapshot 8.20). Campaigns and Ad Groups are listed on the left pane. On the right pane, you have various tabs “Ad Groups, Settings, Ads, Keywords, Ad extensions and Dimensions”.
You will be able to add/modify/pause/enable/delete Ad groups, Ads, Keywords from respective Tabs above.
You can create new campaigns by choosing “All online campaigns” from left pane.
You will be able to change the campaign settings for your campaign from Settings Tab.
Snapshot 8.20 AdWords Interface
Snapshot 8.21 Pause / Enable
Ad extensions :
Ad Extensions are the additional information displayed in addition to your Ad Text. Here in this Snapshot 8.22, “20 Million Units Sold” is called Sitelink Ad Extension. The next ad has Location Ad Extension: “6, Kariyan Ponnan Street, Madipakkam”
Snapshot 8.22 Ad Extensions
To Enable or Pause any Keyword, go to Keywords Tab and click on the Green button as shown in Snapshot 8.21. The process is same for Ad groups and Ads but you will be doing it from the respective Tabs.
Step 27:These extensions are used to provide more information about the business, website or products. We are going to add three key Ad Extensions for our MSME - Digital Marketing Campaign:
· Sitelinks
· Location
· Call
You can add Ad extensions at campaign level or at Ad group level. If you add a campaign level extension, it applies to ads in all Ad groups. If you add an Ad group level extension, it applies only to ads in that specific Ad group. It is advisable to add Ad group level extensions to have focused extensions per ad group.
To add an Ad extension, click on your Ad group under Ad Groups Tab
Now Click on Ad extensions Tab (Snapshot 8.23). Click on View Drop down.
Snapshot 8.23 Ad extensions
Step 28:Choose your Ad group
Step 29: Click on+New Sitelink.
Sitelinks extensions :
Click on Sitelinks Extensions to create sitelinks for specific Adgroup. It opens up the Sitelink Extension window.
Step 30:Provide required details to create a sitelink (Snapshot 8.24).
Location Extensions:
Similar to an ad, create this sitelink with heading (Link text), destination URL (link URL) and description. Scheduling is used show this sitelink for a specific time period. You can add offer as a sitelink and set a time limit for this offer sitelink to expire by certain date.
Click on Save to create this sitelink.
Snapshot 8.24 Create Sitelink
Location Extensions are used for displaying the business location along with the ad text. Through Location Extension, we should linkGoogle AdWordswithGoogle MyBusiness. We have already discussed about creating a Google MyBusiness Account in Chapter 4. Let’s go through the steps to link Google AdWords with Google MyBusiness.
Step 31:Choose Location extensions from Ad Extensions Tab -> View drop down (Snapshot 8.23). Click on + EXTENSION.
You’ll be prompted to link your Google MyBusiness and AdWords accounts. As we use same Gmail ID for all our Google Services, you just have to click on Done (Snapshot 8.25). Your location information from MyBusiness will be linked to AdWords.
Snapshot 8.25 Link MyBusiness and Adwords
Call Extensions
Call extension is used to display the phone number along with your Ad Text in Google Search.
Step 32: Choose Call extensions from Ad Extensions Tab -> View drop down (Snapshot 8.23). Click on + EXTENSION. Click on +New Phone Number to add your call extension as mentioned in Snapshot 8.26.
Snapshot 8.26 New Phone Number
Enter your phone number and set the schedule if needed.
Click on save once done.
We have successfully created our Campaign and Ad Extensions. It’s now time to make it live. To do this, we need to setup Billing Profile and make a Payment.
Billing Setup
Click on the Gear icon on the top right corner of the AdWords interface. Choose Billing.
Choose your billing country from Account Setup Screen. I chose India here. 
Choose Individual or Business. For Business, Tax Account Number is mandatory. Provide
Snapshot 8.27 Billing Setup
Name and Address. Choose the Payment type. There are two types:
1. Automatic
2. Manual
If you choose Automatic Payments, you should provide your Credit or Debit card details. Your Ads start running. You will be automatically charged after 30 days or when you reach max billing limit for your account. This is called Post Pay mode.
If you choose Manual Payments type, you should make a payment first using Net Banking or Credit or Debit card. Your ads start running. Google deducts Cost per click from your Pre Paid Balance. Your ads stop running when your balance is exhausted. You need make a payment again to start. This is called Pre Pay mode.
As you are a beginner, I would suggest you to go ahead with Manual Payment to have control on your spend.
Choose the Language, review the terms and click on Complete sign up.
As soon as you enter your billing and make a payment, you ads start running. The next step is to measure performance of your campaign and optimize it to make it a successful campaign. You need to closely monitor your campaign and tune to generate more sales / leads.
Key Fields to Monitor
After going live with your campaign, you should monitor these values. Budget: Decide if you have to increase or decrease your budget for the campaign.
Budget is one of the key factors for your Ads to show up more times in Google Search Results Page.
Clicks: Number of times user clicked on your Ads in Google Search Network.
Impressions: Number of times your Ads shown up in Google Search Network.
CTR : Click Through Rate. Clicks divided by Impressions. CTR is a key field to monitor. Try to improve CTR%. If CTR goes high, it means your Ads are relevant to your Keywords and hence you get higher CTR. It helps in increasing your keyword Quality Score. Please refer “Quality Score” section below.
Avg CPC: Average amount charged by Google for a click on your Ad. Avg CPC will never exceed your maximum bid value.
Cost: Total amount spent for your Ad Clicks.
Avg. Pos.: Average Ads Position in Google Search.
Converted Clicks : A conversion is nothing but a lead generated through website or product sales or any action that you want to measure. This field shows how many conversions have been generated in your website using Google AdWords. To setup conversions, you need to generate and paste setup code. Please refer “Conversions” section below.
Cost/converted click: Cost divided by number of Converted Clicks.
Click conversion rate : Number of Converted Clicks divided by number of Clicks. Try to increase the conversion rate as it directly results in more revenue. Check the “Optimization” section below to improve.
Max CPC : Maximum Cost Per Click (Maximum Bid) that you are ready to pay for a click on your Ad. The right combination of Max CPC and Budget acquires maximum number of impressions for your Ads.
There are more columns you may add from Columns drop down under any Tab in Adwords. What we have listed above are the core fields you should track on a regular basis.
Conversions
Assume we have a lead form in our website. Whenever we click on this lead form, it takes us to a thank you page. It is called a conversion or lead or goal. To track number of leads generated through AdWords Ads, we should create AdWords Conversion Setup Code and paste it into this specific thank you page.
Go to Tools -> Conversions -> + Conversion Select "Website" -> Provide a Name Value: Choose "Don't assign a value" Category: Choose "Lead"
Click on Save and Continue
It shows Conversion Setup Code. Here is a sample Conversion Setup code generated using Google AdWords:
<!-- Google Code for Contact Form Submitted Conversion Page -->
<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
var google_conversion_id = 1023521550;
var google_conversion_language = "en";
var google_conversion_format = "2";
var google_conversion_color = "ffffff";
var google_conversion_label = "hrotCLPmi1oQjuaG6AM";
var google_remarketing_only = false;
/* ]]> */
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="//www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js"> </script>
<noscript>
<div style="display:inline;">
<img height="1" width="1" style="border-style:none;" alt=""
src="//www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/1023521550/?label=hrotCLPmi1oQjuaG 6AM&guid=ON&script=0"/>
</div>
</noscript>
You should paste this setup code on your Thank you page. Please paste this in between <body> </body> section of this webpage. Please do not paste this code into every page.
(Optional Step) Adding it via Google Tag Manager:
If you are using Google Tag Manager, please do not paste this setup code in your thank you page. Instead, note down the values of google_conversion_id and google_conversion_label and refer Adwords Conversion Code Setup section in Google Tag Manager Chapter to set it up.
Optimize
You should optimize your campaign to get better Return on Investment. Follow these steps to tune your Campaigns.
Quality Score: For every keyword, there is a Quality Score assigned in AdWords.
Having highest Quality Score improves your Ad Ranking and it helps you reduce your cost per click.
How do I improve my Quality Score? 1. Perform SEO on-page and off-page activities for your website. It improves the Quality of your webpages and also the Quality Score of your campaign keywords.
2. Ads, Keywords and Landing page relevancy should be improved. Relevancy plays a major role in increasing your Quality score.
3. Maintain highest Click Through Rate (CTR) for your keywords. Again relevancy matters. To increase the CTR, you should try adding various Ads for your Keywords. Pause Ads with low CTR. Keep experimenting by introducing new ads relevant to your keywords.
4. Historical Performance of your Campaign affects your Quality Score.
Negative Keywords : Negative keywords help your campaign target only relevant visitors by not showing your Ads for irrelevant keywords search in Google. You need to add few generic negative keywords always to start with if it is applicable for your Campaign. For example: you may want to add these keywords as your negative keywords in your campaign: jobs, career, free, pro bono, hiring, review, what, how, etc. You can add negative keywords from Keywords Tab. Go to Keywords Tab -> scroll down to the end -> Expand +Negative Keywords -> Add your negatives at Campaign or Ad group level. If you add negatives at Ad group level, it will be applicable only for the Ad group. If you add negatives at Campaign level, it will be applicable for all Ad groups. Once the negative terms have been added, your ad won’t be displayed for the people who search for those terms. The negatives can also be added with individual keyword types such as broad, phrase and exact type.
Search Terms :
To increase relevant visitors to your website, you should review Actual Search Terms that triggered your Ad in Google Search. To review your search queries, go to the Keywords Tab for specific campaign and click on the Details drop down. Choose “All” from the drop down if you want to review the actual search terms for all your keywordsoryou can check for a specific keyword by selecting the check box from keyword list and then choose “Selected” from the Details drop down.
It opens up the Google Search Terms report for your keywords. It shows the actual search queries entered by the user in their systems that triggered your Ads. This helps you identify the good keywords used by the user to reach you. Also, it helps you identify the irrelevant keywords entered by the visitors. You should add irrelevant keywords to Negative Keywords so that your ad won’t appear next time when some other user search for that term. You should add relevant keywords to your keyword list if it is not present already.
Ad Schedule
If you want to run your campaign only for certain time period, you can do so by setting your Ad Schedule. Click on Settings Tab -> Ad schedule -> + AD SCHEDULE. Create your specific ad schedule and save.
Devices
Bid Adjustments
By Default, your ads will be shown on all devices. You can check the device specific performance of your campaigns from Settings -> Devices Tab.
You will be able to adjust your Mobile Bids from this tab by clicking on Bid adj. column for “Mobile devices for full browsers” row. You will be able to increase or decrease the bid by certain percentage. If you want to completely avoid Mobile devices from showing your ads, you can decrease “Bid adj.” column by 100%.
As you monitor your keywords performance, if you want to decrease or increase the Max CPC, you can do so from Ad group Tab and Keywords Tab
Edit your Default Max CPC column to adjust your bids based on the performance of your specific Ad group or Keywords. When you change your Max CPC for an Ad group, it applies to all Keywords inside the Ad group except below:
If you change Max CPC for a specific Keyword, it won’t follow Ad group’s Max CPC. It will use only the Keyword’s Max CPC.
Reports
You can choose the custom period for which you need the report from top right corner. Click on the down arrow mark button next to “Columns” drop down.
Choose the format you require and click on Download. You can download reports from any tabs except settings.
Process
Ad Rank
An Ad Rank is a value that is used to determine the ads position (Where the ads to be shown). This Ad Rank is calculated from the bid, quality score of each ad (expected click through rate, ad relevancy & landing page experience), Ad extensions and other ad formats. The Ad rank is recalculated each time the ad is eligible to show and thus the ads positions may vary each time when the ad competes in an ad auction. This also shows you whether your ad is eligible to show on all time or not.
Ad Auction
The Ad auction decides which ad to be shown at which position comparing all the competitors’ ads in the auction. Each time when an ad is eligible to appear in the Google search results, it goes through the Ad Auction.
How does ad auction takes place?
1. When a person enters the search term in Google Search bar, the AdWords system analyses all the ads that matches with the search term.
2. The ads which are not eligible to appear are ignored by the AdWords system.
3. The ads sufficiently with a high Ad Rank may show. Ad Rank is a combination of your bid, ad’s quality score, ad extensions and the other ad formats.
Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool
It helps you preview your ads. It provides diagnosis information if there is an issue with your Ads in showing up in Google Search. For example, if you added a Negative Keyword and it is blocking your Ads from showing up in Google Search.
Tips
Google Merchant Center:Application used to add your product data to Google and make it available via Google Shopping and Google Search. For example, when you search for “buy sarees”, it shows items with images and prices on the right side of Google SERP. This is created using Google Merchant Center.
Sign up here www.google.co.in/merchants/ with your Gmail ID and upload your product data in the format required by Google. Create a campaign with Type as Online Shopping with a budget. Your ads will be there in Google Search after approval from Google.
Google AdWords Editor: A desktop tool from Google to download/upload/sync your online AdWords account with your local desktop. You can create/edit campaigns, adgroups, keywords, ads, etc., from this desktop tool. You can make bulk changes in less time. You should try this too. Go to Google and search for it.
8.2 Display Network
Google Display network consists of a collection of websites in which the ads are displayed. You can display text and image ads in Google Display Network. You can also have Video Ads but we will be covering that in YouTube Ads section below. This network doesn’t just restrict to websites but also extends its advertising to mobile sites and apps. Display network helps us reach more potential customers and is an effective way of reaching the target audience.
The true potential of Display Network is acquired when the right measures are taken. Using the right keywords, placements, topics, interest and demographics can help your business reach potential customers.
For Example: When a medical ad is to be shown in Display Network, we can target websites with similar content to display our ads.
Google Display Network reaches a wide audience worldwide. With not just registered websites, the potential reach to customers extends to YouTube and many such Google subsidiaries. · Reach new customers and sell more products.
· Brand Awareness.
Have you seen Google Display Network Ads in any of the websites you know?
I have highlighted Display Banner Ad in red (refer Snapshot 8.2.1). You can target specific websites to create your Branding by placing your Banner Ads using Google Display Network.
Snapshot 8.2.1
Aiming the right Audience: To target right audience,
Select right keywords:To display ads in the relevant websites, adding right keywords to your Display Network campaign play a major role.
Adding right Placements (Websites): Using Display Planner Tools (AdWords Tools Menu -> Display Planner), you can find the suitable webpages (placements) that are relevant to your business. Adding right placements in your campaign helps you reach potential customers.
Example:
If you run gold rings business in India and want to create a display network campaign, you may choose to perform these:
1. Targeting Keywords (Contextual Targeting): Add keywords like gold rings, gold rings business in your Ad group. Ads will be shown in websites that talks about these keywords.
2. Targeting Website: Identify a website which has related content about gold rings and if you wish to show your ad there, add it as a placement in display network campaign.
Re-Targeting: You can re-target or show your ads to visitors who already visited your website. By creating Display Network campaign with re-marketing as sub type, you can re-target people who have already visited your website but did not complete a goal. It can be done from “interest category” tab.
Display Network Ad Format:
You can display Text Ads and Image/Banner Ads in Display Network.
Text Ads:We talked about Text Ads in Search Network Campaign.
Image Ads:
Image ad ( Snapshot 8.2.2) gets the attention of website visitors and makes them click on it to reach your website. You should mention your unique selling point (USP), call to action and better design to attract the customers.
Snapshot 8.2.2
Please follow these technical requirements provided by Google for your Image Ads:
Image size:
· Vertical rectangle: 240 x 400
· Mobile leaderboard: 320 x 50
· Banner: 468 x 60
· Leaderboard: 728 x 90
· Square: 250 x 250
· Small square: 200 x 200
· Large rectangle: 336 x 280
· Inline rectangle: 300 x 250
· Skyscraper: 120 x 600
· Wide skyscraper: 160 x 600
· Half-page: 300 x 600
· Large leaderboard: 970x90
· Large mobile banner: 320 x 100
· Billboard: 970 x 250
· Portrait: 300 x 1050
Your Image File Size should not exceed 150 KB.
Acceptable Image File Type: .jpeg or .jpg or .png or .gif
Do not use “Click Here” as a call to action in Image Ads. Do not use copyright materials in your image ads. Your ads will be disapproved by Google. If you receive disapproval email, it will also have policy details. Go through the policy and edit your image ads accordingly. When you resubmit your image ads after correcting the issues, it will be approved by Google after review.
Create Display network Campaign:
Step 1:Create a Campaign with Type as “Display Network Only” and sub type as “All Features”.
Step 2:Fill up required campaign settings such as location, language and bid strategy
Step 3: Set your Budget
Step 4: Provide your Ad group name and a bid for this Ad group. Use Tools -> Display Planner to analyze on the approximate bid for the Display Network for your business related placements.
Step 3: You can choose your target placements (websites) in three ways.
By choosing “Display Keywords”: Add your business keywords. Google shows ads in websites related to your keywords added.
By choosing “Interests & remarketing”: Your ads will be shown to people based on their interests.
By choosing third option, you can target using “Topics”, “Demographics” and “Placements”. Topics targets webpages based on the topic chosen. Demographics to target specific demographics like age, gender.
If you choose Placements, you can choose specific websites to target by searching for it as mentioned below.
You can also find placements (websites, mobile apps, video channels) related to your business keywords using Display Planner from Tools menu
Choose the type of ad you want to create. If you want to create image ad, upload your banner image. Provide Display and Destination URL.
If you want to create Text Ads, fill up the respective fields. Click on Done. Your Display Network campaign is ready.
Optimize
Placement Analysis
Let’s analyze the placement performance from Display Network -> Placements Tab
There are two types of placements: Automatic and Manual. Automatic placements are websites chosen by Google based on your target settings. Manual placements are websites that you added.
Check the performance of your placements by analysing the CTR and Converted clicks column. Usually CTR for display network campaigns will be less than 1%. If you see higher CTR for any of your placements, check if it is a valid placement by analysing the webpage. You can analyze the specific webpage by selecting your placement and choose “Selected”. It shows the actual Page URL. Open the Page URL and see if it is a valid page to display your ad. If you think the specific webpage URL or website is not going to fetch relevant visitors, go ahead and exclude it by adding the website domain or specific webpage URL as Negative Placements. If you scroll down to the bottom of “Placements” Tab, you will have option to add Negative Placements. Or you may select the placement, click on “Edit” drop down and choose “exclude (Campaign)” or “exclude (ad group). When you add a website domain as negative placement, your ads will not be shown in all webpages in that website. If you add only specific webpage URL of a website as negative, your ad will not be shown in that specific webpage URL but your ad may be shown in other webpage URLs in the same website.
You can also evaluate the performance your keywords from Display keywords tab.
If you want to add any keywords as a negative, just scroll down to the bottom of page and you will find this screen
Add your negative keyword by using + EXCLUSIONS
You can also add irrelevant Categoriesfor your business (for example. Games) as your negative category. If you add, the website classified under Games will not be targeted. You can do so by using + OPTIONS button under Site Category options (located next to Campaign keyword exclusions). This will save money and also you will get relevant visitors.
Similar way, you can add negatives from other tabs: Topics, Interest & remarketing and Demographics.
8.3 YouTube Ads
If you have a video in YouTube that you want to promote, you can do it using YouTube Video Ads. You can create your Video Ads from Google AdWords.
Types of YouTube ads format:
In-Stream Video Ads: When you try to open a video in YouTube, a video ad opens up before opening your actual video. It is called In-Stream Video Ads. There are two types in In-Stream video ads:
1. Video Ad that you can skip after 5 seconds.
2. Video Ad that you can’t skip. You have to watch the complete video ad.
In-Display Video Ads:As you watch some video, you can see Video Ad Suggestions on the right side. The one highlighted in Yellow. It shows related videos or suggestions as Ad.
Steps to create a new video campaign:
· Sign in to your AdWords Account
· To create a new video campaign, click on+CAMPAIGN -> Online Video
Enter the name of your campaign, budget, networks, location and language. For Networks, I would suggest you to start with YouTube Search and YouTube Videos. Uncheck “Include the Google Display Network” to begin with.
Choose your video from YouTube to be promoted as an Ad.
Save and continue to set the Targeting options for this Video Ad.
As shown in Snapshot 8.3.1: Name yourTargeting Groupand setBidding. When you set yourbidding, please note it is for Cost Per View (CPV). You will see “Typical” suggestion for CPV.
Choose the DemographicOptions underTargetingSection.
Choose Interest Categories to target (Snapshot 8.3.2). Further narrow down your Targeting options based on Topics, Remarketing, Keywords and Placements.
I would suggest you to use Keywords and Placements as your Targeting Filters to start with.
Video Ads Performance Evaluation: To view your video campaign, go to adwords.google.com and click on All Video Campaigns.
There are various tabs available on your video campaign page.
The performance of the video ads can be evaluated based on views, audience, branding and conversions using different metrics given under theColumnsdrop down list as given below. These metrics are available from all tabs except settings tab.
As you select one from the drop down, it shows various other statistical information about your video like Impressions, views, etc.,
