The numerous list posts you see on the most common mistakes made by adwords beginners don’t get to the root of the problem.

They focus on the use of adwords features like this:

1. Too many keywords in one ad group
2. Not opting out of content network
3. Only using broad match keywords
4. Not using negative keywords
5. Not split testing ads

Adwords beginners do generally make these mistakes but the lists miss the main point that beginners often have no clue what they are trying to achieve or how the whole process works. And by the whole process I don’t mean how to log into adwords and opt out of the content network, I mean the process that starts with someone searching for something.

A lot of beginners have no idea of the absolute basics of what they are trying to achieve. They don’t understand the fundamental building blocks of search queries, keywords and ads and the relationship between them. This lack of understanding makes discussion on things like keyword match types and split testing ads pretty redundant.

I know this to be true and I’ve seen numerous examples. A while ago I reviewed a campaign set up by the owner of an entertainment website. The business is an entertainment booking service with a wide range of categories from clowns to bands to motivational speakers.

The campaign had one ad group with about 20 keywords and one ad. I explained the need to create targeted ad groups. He made some changes and asked me to take another look at the campaign. He’d created an ad group called “bands” with the keywords “rock”, “country”, “blues”, “world music” etc.

I think Google are at fault for giving the impression that adwords is easy. As Andrew Goodman said in a SEM group I follow, “It sure ain’t “five minutes and a credit card” - as the seductive sales pitch suggests”.

Sophie Wegat, the owner of Think Prospect in Melbourne, answers a question on search marketing in Australia as part of an interview series profiling women in Internet marketing.

“What differences do you see between optimizing for Australia and optimizing for the US?”

I hadn’t seen Sophie’s blog before but just subscribed.

Google AdWords provides four keyword matching choices, “broad”, “phrase”, “exact” and “negative”.

Broad matching is the default option in that it requires no special formatting. There are advantages to using broad match but some disadvantages as well.

Broad Match Pluses:

• more impressions and more traffic
• a wider variety of keyword phrases can be targeted without having to add them all into the campaign
• can be used to find additional, popular keyword phrases if you examine the logs to find the full phrases

Broad Match Minuses:

• not as targeted - you can cover a wider range of searches with one broad match but you can’t make the ads as relevant to very targeted searchers
• expanded match can give unwanted matches
• poor targeting can result in a lower click through rate which will in turn result in a low quality score
• broad matching will not be delivered on all matches for new accounts with no quality score history

Strategies:

1. Use all 3 matching types to start with and then act on the information the results deliver.

- Use an analytics program such as Google analytics to discover additional keyword phrases from your broad matches. Add them as exact matches in a new ad group and improve the targeting.

- Delete keywords which don’t perform.

- Use different bids for each keyword matching option. Keep in mind that you may have to pay more for high converting, very targeted exact matches.

2. Use broad matching for longer phrases rather than single words. Where phrases overlap use separate ad groups and negative keywords to control which keyword phrase is matched. For example, if you have broad match keywords “web design” and “custom web design”, a search for “custom web design” could be matched with either phrase. Google will not necessarily select the most relevant phrase so if you want more control and better targeting then add a negative keyword for “custom” in the ad group containing “web design”.

Ad Group 1

web design

-custom

Ad Group 2

custom web design

3. Use dynamic keyword insertion to improve the targeting for broad matches

A question that comes up a lot is whether it’s cost effective having your company name and your brand names as keywords in a pay per click campaign. It can seem as though it isn’t necessary especially if your website ranks highly for these keywords in the natural search listings.

Avinash Kaushik ponders the issue in his blog and comes to the conclusion that it’s better to use pay per click for generic, non-brand names and allocate resources to search engine optimisation to make sure that the website is optimised for the brand names.

He received this comment in agreement “I would fire anyone who would spend my precious SEM money on Brand keyphrases”.

In fact there are some good reasons why you should include brand names in a ppc campaign:

1. If you have a paid listing and a natural listing you occupy more of the real estate on the page. This multiple exposure can have the effect of enhancing the credibility in the minds of the searcher. People are more likely to click the organic listing just because they notice the paid listing.
2. The more spaces on the screen you occupy, the less are occupied by your competitors.
3. You have direct control over the wording of a paid ad so for example can include a strong call to action.
4. It’s not always the case that you show up in the natural listings for your brand names. The natural rankings can fluctuate so by having two shots at it you are covering more options.
5. You can target misspellings and variations of your name in paid search more easily than you can on your website.

Keyword research is one of the most important parts of a pay per click campaign so how do you go about identifying as many relevant words and phrases as possible? Here are some techniques:

1. Use your existing resources

You know your own business and you will have access to a list of your most relevant keywords. Your brain is a good place to start! Here are some resources that will be useful

• Your website
• Your product brochures, ad creative, email campaigns and any other marketing and sales collateral
• Your knowledge of the business , brainstorm!
• Your network of friends, family and customers , ask them for words and phrases they would use to find your business
• Your website’s log files. See what people search for when they come to your site.

2. Look at your competitors’ websites

Do the same with competitors’ websites. Have a look at the words and phrases they use and extract ones relevant to your business that you haven’t listed yet.

3. Use the Keyword Tools to expand the list

There are a number of free keyword suggestion tools. Put in the phrases you have uncovered so far and see what else comes up that is relevant.

• adWords keyword tool if you have a Google adWords account
• wordtracker
• keyword discovery

4. Include variations of your keywords

Consider the following:

• spelling mistakes
• relevant qualifiers / adjectives (eg cheap car loans)
• geo locations (car loans Sydney etc)
• single and plural versions of each word where it makes sense (eg use hotel and hotels)
• common abbreviations
• variations of verbs (eg learning Spanish and learn spanish
• separated and hyphenated words (eg pay per click and pay-per-click)

5. Maintain a seasonal calendar

One-off or seasonal events relevant to your business can present good opportunities for keywords in the time leading up the event. These keywords can be very cheap, and good for branding opportunities, if there is little competition for them.

6. Use all suitable combinations of words to uncover all phrases

Aaron Wall has an excellent keyword list generator that does this really well.

There was a useful addition to adWords functionality today. You can now temporarily pause keywords and ads in the same way that you can pause a campaign or ad group.

There are reasons why a brand new pay per click campaign will take time to start performing at an optimum level.

1. There is no click through history so Google assigns a predictive quality score rather than one based on historical performance. You will start with a low quality score which will mean a period of “buying in” (with a relatively high bid price) to get a good ad position. Expect that experienced advertisers in competition for your keywords are probably paying less if they have earned a higher quality score.
2. If you have keywords set up using the broad match option, you will probably get a lower volume of ad impressions at first than you will when the campaign has been running for some time. Your keywords will not consistently be broad matched until your quality score improves.
3. When a campaign is new there is no data to analyse and draw conclusions from to improve the campaign performance. Nothing has been tested yet so you don’t know the best ad position, the best time of day to run ads, the most effective ad copy and how well the landing page converts. Over time a systematic programme of testing each of these variables will give valuable information on what works the best. Experience with other campaigns gives a head start to knowing what to try first, but nothing beats the actual data from a campaign that has been running for some time.
4. Targeting is one of the key principles of PPC advertising and the narrower the targeting the better. If someone searches for “vintage heuer watch” then an ad title “vintage heuer watch” and targeted ad copy will get more clicks than a generic “ladies watches” ad. It’s essential to organise the campaign into targeted ad groups so that the ads can then in turn be properly targeted. This can be done effectively right from the beginning but when the campaign has been running for a while there will be some keywords that will be worth putting into a new ad group to further improve performance. You can’t always predict which keywords in advance.

What does this mean for new advertisers / new campaigns?

• Perseverance will pay off. Google rewards good advertisers by giving them higher ad positions for a lower cost. This creates opportunities for those who know what they are doing and who put the work required into an ongoing cycle of testing and targeting.
• Be careful not to jump to conclusions too early and start making changes that may be counter productive in the longer term. I expanded on this here.

A US based company has lost a court case against their main competitor regarding the use of keywords in an adWords campaign.

J G Wentworth, the market leader in buying settlement funding, claimed that their competitor’s purchase of the keyword “j g wentworth” violated the law on trademark use.

However, the court determined that as the trademark use was behind the scenes and not seen by the customer, it was acceptable usage.

There have been several similar court cases and the outcomes have been fairly evenly split so it isn’t clear cut by any means.

Google’s policy in Australia is to allow trademarks as keywords but not as ad text. The onus is on the advertiser to comply with the law.

The case was written about in this technology and marketing law blog.

I recently explained to a small business owner how pay per click campaigns work. His first comment was that he would be too worried about one of his competitors clicking on his ads. He’s having problems at the moment with a competitor tying up his fax machine on a daily basis.

There was a good thread in the High Rankings forum this week about click fraud. It came about after this report that Google claims the figures for invalid clicks are about 2% overall.

Google filters out and doesn’t charge for invalid clicks. This is when someone clicks more than once on the same ad within a time period. Of course this isn’t necessarily fraudulent. It can be part of normal search behaviour to revisit links. Truly fraudulent click behaviour can go undetected as it’s outside of their current filters. There were some understandable objections that the 2% figure doesn’t address this at all.

Really though, for the vast majority of accounts there’s going to be hardly any click fraud. That’s not to say that everyone clicking has a definite intent to purchase but that’s no different from any other advertising.

You pay in order to reach as many as possible in your target market. Some of those will be interested and some will buy. If you pay for a TV commercial a percentage of people will fast forward through the commercials. Same with newspaper inserts. The newspapers publish the circulation figures but a proportion will never look at the ads.

The biggest problem with click fraud is the fear factor that it seems to generate in some people. It would be better if it never happened at all but the risks are far greater that a campaign might be set up and managed badly. There’s more to lose by having a badly structured account, the wrong keywords or poor bid management than there is by the threat of click fraud.