Tuesday 10 February 2015

Google AdWords Rolls Out “Upgraded URLs” For Tracking Parameters

Ads (usually) will no longer be re-set and sent back to editorial review when tracking criteria change.

 

Yesterday, Google announced the release of what are dubbed “upgraded URLs” for AdWords advertisers that use tracking parameters. Upgraded URLs have been in beta for API users for months and are now rolling out globally to all users in the web interface this week.
With this change, the landing page URL and the tracking parameters that make up the destination URL will be treated separately. The separation means that making changes to your tracking won’t necessarily send your ads back into editorial review and ad history and stats remain with the ads.

You can scale tracking parameters across various levels of your accounts and set up new custom tracking parameters.

Sunday 4 January 2015

Keywords

Keywords: What Are Keywords & Why Do They Matter for PPC?

In pay-per-click marketing, everything starts with a keyword.


When you use Google or any other search engine, you type words into the search box to find what you’re looking for. The results that Google returns – whether they’re organic results or paid advertisements – are there because they’re relevant to the words in the search box. And if you want 
your ads to show up on the page, you have to bid on that keyword.
Therefore, to succeed at PPC, you need to make sure you’re bidding on the right keywords. This process includes a few moving parts:

  • PPC Keyword Research – Using keyword research tools and analytics data to find a list of keywords that are highly relevant to your business offerings. The goal is to show up in the search results when people search for products or services that are relevant to your business.
  • Keyword Grouping and Organization – The most effective PPC accounts organize keywords into small groups of tightly related keywords.
  • Negative Keywords – Negative keywords are a way of filtering out unwanted clicks. By setting a negative keyword, you tell Google what searches you don’t want your ads to display for.
  • Keyword Bid Optimization – Everyone has a limited budget, so it’s important to focus your spending on your best performing keywords, without paying more than necessary.
As you can see, PPC isn’t just a matter of finding the right keywords. In order to get high ad rankings at low costs, you’ll need to work at achieving relevance across your account. That means having:
  • An organized account structure
  • Targeted, compelling ads, and
  • Optimized landing pages
All of these factors will contribute to your keyword Quality Score – the key metric that determines where your ads are displayed and how much you pay for each ad click.

You can learn more about all of these concepts later on in the coursework. For now, let’s focus on keywords and how they function in your PPC account.

Keywords vs Search Queries

In casual conversation, the terms "keyword" and "search query" are often used interchangeably, but there is actually a difference. What is the difference between a keyword and a search query?

A keyword is an abstraction that we extrapolate from multiple search queries.

A search query is the actual word or string of words that a search engine user types into the search box.

As search marketers, what we target are keywords. For example, one of your target keywords might be “sunglasses.” When you bid on the keyword sunglasses, the search queries that trigger your ad might include variations like “women’s sunglasses,” “aviator sunglasses,” or “sunglasses for small faces.” These search queries all map back to your primary keyword.

The Importance of Keyword Grouping

Because search queries have so much variance, best practices dictate that PPC marketers group their keywords into related clusters.

Effectively grouping and organizing your keywords improves your PPC strategy by en­abling you to create more relevant, Quality Score-friendly ad groups, text ads and landing pages.

The easiest way to get started is to use a keyword grouping tool to break a large list of keywords down into smaller groups by theme. You can then break those groups into even smaller groups, forming a hierarchy, or tree structure:

Keyword Groups

This structure will map to your AdWords campaigns and the ad groups within those campaigns.


How Keywords work in your PPC Ads


Your text ads need to be relevant to the keywords you’re bidding on in order to earn high Quality Scores, which determine where your ad appears and your cost per click (CPC).

The keyword you’re bidding on should actually appear in your ad in order to show relevance to both Google and the searcher. The term the user searches on will appear in bold font in your ad, so using the keyword more than once will really make your ad “light up”:



Keywords in PPC

Some tips for using keywords in your PPC ads:

  • Try to use the keyword in the headline and once more in the description lines, if you can do so while still communicating benefits and including a call to action.
  • Bid on long-tail keywords, which have less competition and are therefore more targeted and less costly.
  • Consider dynamic keyword insertion, which inserts the searcher’s exact search query into your ad, making it extra-relevant to them.
  • Use sitelinks to expand your ad and include more related keywords.
Keyword Match Types

When you bid on keywords, you have the option of telling Google how restrictive it should be when matching your ads against relevant search queries. There are four keyword match types, from least restrictive to most restrictive:
  • Broad match – This is the default keyword match type. Google will match your ad against the greatest number of possible queries. For example, if you bid on the keyword “massage,” your ads might show when people search on longer phrases that include “massage,” like “Miami massage” or “deep tissue massage therapist.” Your ads might also show for closely related searches like “hot stone therapy.”
  • Modified broad match – With modified broad match, you can tell Google to only display your ads when one or more words is in the query, preventing synonym matches. If you bid on “+massage,” only queries that actually include the word “massage” will trigger your ad.
  • Phrase match – This match type allows you to tell Google to display your ad only when the search query includes a full phrase, such as “hot stone.” (The words have to appear in that order.) Other words may be included in the search query before or after the phrase.
  • Exact match – The most restrictive match type, exact match tells Google to only match your ads to queries that are exactly the same, word for word, as your keyword.
Broad match keywords have the advantage of allowing the maximum number of impressions and clicks – however, those clicks are less targeted and may be less likely to convert. The more restrictive the match type, the fewer clicks you’ll receive, but that traffic will be more relevant and more qualified.
To learn more about keyword match types, download our free white paper, “Complete Guide to AdWords Matching Options.”


Keyword Tools to Help You Along the Way

WordStream offers a suite of free keyword tools to help you get started with keyword research, organization, and management:
  • The Free Keyword Tool is an easy-to-use, FREE keyword suggestion tool that returns more keywords than even paid tools.
  • The Free Keyword Grouper takes a list of keywords as input and returns keyword groups ready for PPC campaigns and search-optimized web pages.
  • The Free Keyword Niche Finder is a keyword suggestion tool and keyword grouper in one. Enter a keyword search term to get back structured keyword suggestions and find your most profitable keyword niches.
Now that you’ve got a handle on keywords, let’s move on the next lesson.

Saturday 3 January 2015

What is PPC?

What Is PPC? Learn the Basics of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing


Whether you’ve heard a little about PPC marketing and are curious to learn more, or you already know that you want to use PPC to market your business, but aren’t sure where to start, you’ve come to the right place! This is the first lesson in PPC, a set of three guided courses that will teach you everything you need to know about PPC and how to make it work for you.

First, we’ll need to define PPC and establish a basic understanding of how PPC advertising works. Let’s go!

What is PPC?

PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.

Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine's sponsored links when someone searches on a keyword that is related to their business offering. For example, if we bid on the keyword 
“PPC software,” our ad might show up in the very top spot on the Google results page.

What is PPC

Every time our ad is clicked, sending a visitor to our website, we have to pay the search engine a small fee. When PPC is working correctly, the fee is trivial, because the visit is worth more than what you pay for it. In other words, if we pay $3 for a click, but the click results in a $300 sale, then we’ve made a hefty profit.

A lot goes into building a winning PPC campaign: from researching and selecting the right keywords, to organizing those keywords into well-organized campaigns and ad groups, to setting up PPC landing pages that are optimized for conversions. Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, intelligently targeted pay-per-click campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks. If your ads and landing pages are useful and satisfying to users, Google charges you less per click, leading to higher profits for your business. So if you want to start using PPC, it’s important to learn how to do it right.

What is Google Adwords?

Google AdWords is the single most popular PPC advertising system in the world. The AdWords platform enables businesses to create ads that appear on Google’s search engine and other Google properties.

AdWords operates on a pay-per-click model, in which users bid on keywords and pay for each click on their advertisements. Every time a search is initiated, Google digs into the pool of AdWords advertisers and chooses a set of winners to appear in the valuable ad space on its search results page. The “winners” are chosen based on a combination of factors, including the quality and relevance of their keywords and ad campaigns, as well as the size of their keyword bids.

More specifically, who gets to appear on the page is based on and advertiser’s Ad Rank, a metric calculated by multiplying two key factors – CPC Bid (the highest amount an advertiser is willing to spend) and Quality Score (a value that takes into account your click-through rate, relevance, and landing page quality). This system allows winning advertisers to reach potential customers at a cost that fits their budget. It’s essentially a kind of auction. The below infographic illustrates how this auction system works.
What is Google Adwords

Conducting PPC marketing through AdWords is particularly valuable because, as the most popular search engine, Google gets massive amounts of traffic and therefore delivers the most impressions and clicks to your ads. How often your PPC ads appear depends on which keywords and match types you select. While a number of factors determine how successful your PPC advertising campaign will be, you can achieve a lot by focusing on:

Keyword Relevance – Crafting relevant PPC keyword lists, tight keyword groups, and proper ad text.

Landing Page Quality – Creating optimized landing pages with persuasive, relevant content and a clear call-to-action, tailored to specific search queries. 

Quality Score – Quality Score is Google's rating of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and PPC campaigns. Advertisers with better Quality Scores get more ad clicks at lower costs.

PPC Keyword Research 

Keyword research for PPC can be incredibly time-consuming, but it is also incredibly important. Your entire PPC campaign is built around keywords, and the most successful AdWords advertisers continuously grow and refine their PPC keyword list. If you only do keyword research once, when you create your first campaign, you are probably missing out on hundreds of thousands of valuable, long-tail, low-cost and highly relevant keywords that could be driving traffic to your site.
An effective PPC keyword list should be:
  • Relevant – Of course, you don't want to be paying for Web traffic that has nothing to do with your business. You want to find targeted keywords that will lead to a higher PPC click-through rate, effective cost per click, and increased profits. That means the keywords you bid on should be closely related to the offerings you sell. 
  • Exhaustive – Your keyword research should include not only the most popular and frequently searched terms in your niche, but also to the long tail of search. Long-tail keywords are more specific and less common, but they add up to account for the majority of search-driven traffic. In addition, they are less competitive, and therefore less expensive. 
  • Expansive - PPC is iterative. You want to constantly refine and expand your campaigns, and create an environment in which your keyword list is constantly growing and adapting.
Managing Your PPC Campaigns

Once you've created your new campaigns, you’ll need to manage them regularly to make sure they continue to be effective. In fact, regular account activity is one of the best predictors of account success. You should be continuously analyzing the performance of your account and making the following adjustments to optimize your campaigns
  • Add PPC Keywords: Expand the reach of your PPC campaigns by adding keywords that are relevant to your business.
  • Add Negative Keywords: Add non-converting terms as negative keywords to improve campaign relevancy and reduce wasted spend.
  • Split Ad Groups: Improve click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score by splitting up your ad groups into smaller, more relevant ad groups, which help you create more targeted ad text and landing pages.
  • Review Costly PPC Keywords: Review expensive, under-performing keywords and shut them off if necessary.
  • Refine Landing Pages: Modify the content and calls-to-action (CTAs) of your landing pages to align with individual search queries in order to boost conversion rates. Don’t send all your traffic to the same page.
You’ll learn more about all of these elements of PPC campaign management as you move forward through the coursework in PPC University.

If you’re ready to get started with PPC, skip ahead to learn how to set up an AdWords account.

If you’ve already got an AdWords account, we suggest you use our FREE AdWords Performance Grader to help you zero in on areas of improvement. In 60 seconds or less, you’ll receive a customized report grading your account performance in 9 key areas, including click-through rate, Quality Score and account activity.


About Me

Ashwin Bochiwal

Iam Google AdWords & Google Analytics Certified Professional and Bing Ads Accredited Professional.
PPC Expert, Web Analyst, Professional Trainer.

Working as PPC Expert Executive. I have managed paid search accounts for clients across the United Arab Emirates and India in AdWords, Bing, LinkedIn, and Facebook. I enjoy training people in AdWords and helping them understand how to create and manage a successful campaign.

Providing training seminars and works one-on-one with business users and digital marketers to get the most out of their data. Workings directly with clients to implement and configure their GA, set up custom reports and provide advanced analysis.


Achievements: Digital Marketing Certifications


Google AdWords Certified ProfessionalGoogle Inc.
December 2014




Google Analytics Certified Professional
Google Inc.
December 2014




Bing Ads Accredited Professional
Microsoft
December 2014




Microsoft Advertising - Digital Academy
Microsoft




Mobile App Analytics Fundamentals Certified
Google Inc.
December 2014






Ecommerce Analytics Certified Professional
Google Inc.
July 2014





Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft
July 2013






Microsoft Technology Associate
Microsoft
July 2013







DoubleClick Ad Exchange Certified
DoubleClick - Google
February 2015







DoubleClick Bid Manager
DoubleClick-Google
February 2015







DoubleClick Campaign Manager
DoubleClick-Google
February 2015







DoubleClick Dynamic Creative
DoubleClick-Google
February 2015







DoubleClick Rich Media
DoubleClick-Google
February 2015







DoubleClick Search Certified
DoubleClick-Google
February 2015






Google Analytics Premium
Google
February 2015









DoubleClick Studio Certified Professional



DoubleClick Studio Flash Certified Professional







DoubleClick Studio HTML5 Certified Professional









Advice for people who want to contact me:

Feel free to contact me at

Email: ashwinbochiwal@gmail.com
Mobile: +91-9394676406
Linkedin: in.linkedin.com/in/ashwinbochiwal
Linkedin

and let me know how I can be helpful.

I truly honor the value of personal relationships and would love to be of service.