Managing Your Campaigns

Good campaign management is the key to getting results from your AdWords account. From the Campaign Management tab, you can select a campaign to edit or see information about each of your campaigns. View the following about each of your campaigns:

• Current status of your campaigns

• Budget for each of your campaigns

• Number of clicks and impressions for each campaign

• Statistics such as the CTR (Click Through Ratio) and Avg. CPC (Average Cost Per Click)

• Your actual cost for each campaign

When viewing the information about your campaigns, similar to that shown in Figure 34.3, you can select the time period from which the statistics are compiled. Two radio buttons are located above the statistics. One button allows you to select a present period from a drop-down list ranging from today through all time. Of course, that means from the time you first started your AdWords account. You also can select the radio button that allows you to specify a date range by typing begin and end dates. Click Go after specifying your date range. Selecting a period from the drop-down list automatically adjusts the campaign statistics for the newly specified date range.

In addition to viewing statistics about a campaign, you can edit your campaign or create new campaigns.

Editing a campaign

Each of the campaigns listed in the Campaign Management tab appears as a link. Clicking the campaign name launches a list of Ad Groups, displayed as links, for that campaign. An Ad Group is a group of keywords. To see the keywords associated with a particular Ad Group, click the Ad Group name. Three tabs are displayed, each giving you specific information about your ad group.

The Summary tab displays an overall look at how your ad group is performing. You can see performance in the Google + Search Network. These are the results of your ad group in Google search pages and on Google partner search pages. You also can see its performance in the Content network or impressions on relevant Google partner Web sites.

The Keywords tab presents information about all the keywords within the ad group. Each keyword is listed along with its status; your current bid (maximum CPC); the number of clicks, impressions, and the clickthrough ratio; average CPC; cost; and the average position among the ads when the ad was displayed. This gives you a good idea of how well a particular keyword is working for you. You can see the cost associated with the keyword, see how often it was displayed, and compare that to the number of times people clicked the ad. Low click-through ratios can mean that the ad may not be of interest to people searching on that particular keyword. Consider either removing the keyword or changing the wording of the ad to make it more applicable to people searching on the keyword performing poorly.

The Ad Variations tab allows you to view and manage your display ads. You can change your ad’s content, see performance statistics, and choose to create a new ad.

Creating a new campaign

To begin creating a new ad campaign, you must first select the type of campaign you want to create. Choose between keyword-targeted and site-targeted campaigns. Your ad may appear the same, but how and when it appears and how you are charged are very different.

Keyword-targeted ads can appear in Google search pages and on other Web sites within the Google network. You can tell Google where you want your ads to appear. Your ads appear when someone uses keywords to perform a search that matches the keywords you specified for your ad campaign.

Site-targeted ads appear on specific Web sites within the Google network that you specify. Your ad appears each time someone visits the site, and you are charged based on how many times your ad is viewed, rather than by how many times someone clicks your ad. This is an important distinction between keyword-targeted ads and site-targeted ads.

The steps for creating a keyword-targeted ad are the same as when you first set up your AdWords account: targeting the customer, choosing keywords, setting the price, reviewing your campaign, and saving it.

Creating a site-targeted ad begins by configuring the ad for your target customer. Creating a site-targeted ad campaign differs from the keyword-targeted ad in the next step where you select the sites on which you want your ad to appear. You can select sites based on these characteristics:

• Category: Select sites based on the category of site such as animals, home & garden, lifestyles, recreation, or one of the other many categories listed. After you select a category, a list of sites appears. Click Add to select a site location for your ad. You easily can see what type of ad formats each site accepts and what your expected impression rate might be.

• Topic: Describe the topic of your targeted site by typing topic keywords. This is not exactly like keyword-targeted ads, but similar in idea. A list of sites containing your specified keywords appears, allowing you to select all or specific Web sites.

• List URLs: Specify Web sites that are already part of the Google network (hosting Google ads on their Web pages). You can type a URL to see if it is part of the network. This is the most specific way to specify where your ad appears.

You can try each method of selecting Web sites to host your ad until you find the method that offers you the best selection of sites. When you finish selecting Web sites (they appear in the Selected Sites column on the right), click Continue.

The next step is to type your daily budget. Remember that you are charged based on impressions, not clicks on your ad. Impressions are the number of times someone views your ad. Type the maximum amount you are willing to pay per impression. This affects your position in the list of ads placed by your competitors. Clicking Continue again allows you to review your ad, the list of Web sites on which your ad will appear, and the pricing you set up. You can then choose to create another Ad Group for this campaign or simply save your campaign. After your account is set up with Google, your ad begins appearing on your selected sites.

Tools

Google AdWords provides you with a number of tools for creating, editing, customizing, and tracking your ad’s performance. These are some of the tools you can use while creating or modifying your ad:

• Keyword tool: This tool allows you to add new keywords, view performance, and view important details such as advertising competition and search volume.

• Negative Keyword tool: This tool allows you to specify keywords that indicate you do not want your ad displayed when these keywords are included in the user’s search. This can save you lots of money by eliminating unwanted clicks on your ad.

• Traffic Estimator tool: This is another keyword tool that helps you determine how well a particular keyword will perform for you. It is an invaluable tool when selecting keywords.

• Site Exclusion tool: This tool lets you designate sites in the Google network on which you do not want your site-targeted ad to appear. For example, you may not want your ad appearing on your competitor’s Web site, or maybe you do.

When determining the performance of your ad campaign, Google AdWords provides several other important tools, including these:

• Ads Diagnostic tool: This tool lets you know if your ads are appearing for a particular search. It helps you adjust keywords or your CPC bid.

• Disapproved Ads tool: This tool informs you of the reasons some of your ads may not have been approved. For example, certain keywords and phrases are disallowed.

• My Change History tool: This tool lets you see all the changes you’ve made to your account over the last three months. This helps you see things you’ve tried and measure performance against your efforts. It’s a great tool for improving your ad strategy.

• Conversion Tracking tool: Find out how many of the people that click your ad actually buy your product or use your services. This is covered in more detail in the next section.

When an ad is working for you and you are pleased with its performance, it may not require any tweaking. But you may want to play with it from time to time to see if you can improve its performance, or you may want to create new ads that supplement the ones that are already working for you. These tools assist you in focusing and managing that ad’s performance.

Conversion tracking

Conversions occur when someone clicks your ad, visits your Web site, and then possibly buys a product, reads something you wrote, or took some other action that you consider a successful visit to your Web site. Google has a special process by which it can drop a cookie on the user’s machine. You tell Google which page visit is considered a success - for example, an online receipt for a purchase the visitor makes on your site or the “congratulations, you’ve signed up for my newsletter” page. When this page is reached, Google tallies a successful conversion. Conversions help you decide if your ad is attracting the people who will buy your product or use your service.

You have two tracking options:

• AdWords campaign tracking of existing campaigns

• Cross channel tracking of campaigns using other providers

To get started, you must have an ad already approved and running in Google AdWords. Choose from Google’s two conversion tracking products: basic and custom. The basic conversion tracking product allows you to quickly and easily start using conversion tracking. As the name suggests, you get basic number of clicks compared to how many successes you had.

The customized conversion tracking option gives you greater flexibility. This option allows you to select one of the four types of conversion tracking:

• Purchase or sale tracking

• Lead tracking

• Signup tracking

• Page view tracking

To begin conversion-tracking setup, set the format and background color of the small box that appears on your conversion confirmation page. The conversion confirmation page is the one that says, “Thanks for buying my product.” Next, set the language and security level of your page.

For custom tracking, you can assign a conversion value, either a constant or a variable. Use a constant when you have a set value that you will receive from the conversion. For example, everyone who views your site’s video product pays $5. Your constant would then be $5. Variables include things like purchase prices of many different products. You need to know how to find that price in your Web site’s shopping cart to use variable conversion value tracking.

When you finish configuring your conversion tracking, copy the HTML that Google creates for you and paste it into the Web page you consider the “success” or conversion confirmation page.

Note 

You must be able to edit the HTML on your conversion confirmation page.

Visit your conversion confirmation page to see that the Google Sites text box appears there. Then visit the conversion statistics page (in about an hour) to see that your test conversion has been tracked.

Note 

Conversions can take up to an hour to appear in your conversion statistics.

You can choose to view standard conversion tracking reports, such as the conversion ratio, or select custom reports to receive additional metrics, such as your cost of conversion. You can find conversion tracking right down to the keyword level.