So, you’re faced with your one of your first adventures in AdWords. You need to build campaigns! They are the bread to your advertising sandwich, the crust to your advertising pizza…you get it. Creating the right campaign structure for your AdWords campaigns will help to improve your profitability. This will have a lasting benefit for your business. By keeping a theme in mind for your campaign, compiling a relevant keyword list, tailoring your ad headlines and finding the most applicable destination URL for each ad group, you can not only improve your Quality Score through Google but improve your click-through-rate, conversion rate and overall customer experience. Are you wondering where to start?
Well, I have compiled a clear cut list to help guide you in the direction of campaign stardom.
1. Goals – First and foremost, throughout the entire process, you need to remember your goals. Whether it is for your customer to complete an action on your site, or for you to achieve brand awareness, remembering your goals throughout the process will help you create the best and most appropriate campaigns.
2. Keyword Research – Once you know your goals for this campaign, the next step is keyword research.
My strategy manager always tells me to “think like a customer would think” when creating a keyword list for a campaign. Most importantly, make your keywords and ad groups as granular as possible so that your ad can be as tailored and relevant as possible. This is really important for your CTR’s and overall user experience.
No one…and I mean no one…wants to click an ad with one headline, only to find out that they’ve been taken somewhere that has nothing to do with the product they searched for. When deciding between very specific keywords and general keywords, always keep in mind what your customer would be searching for. Then, cover all your bases by also including all three match types: broad, phrase and exact match keywords.
Some really great tools to help you discover new keywords are Google Keyword Planner and using search query data from the Dimensions tab of your AdWords account.
Negative keywords are also really important. Add terms as negatives that a.) spend a high amount, b.) are not relevant to your products, and c.) do not convert. This way you can be sure to never have ads showing when those queries are searched. Covering all your bases is incredibly important so to summarize: be relevant, be granular, include all match types, and use negative keywords.
3. Create Ad Groups for each Keyword Variation – Once you have compiled a list of relevant keywords, create an ad group for each keyword including all three match types of each keyword. Ad groups are the sub-segment groups of your campaign that tell Google how much you want to pay for keywords, and then which ad to show when a shopper searches for one of those keywords.
By grouping your keyword variations into ad groups, you will be able to control bids and ad text better. Since those ad groups fit within common theme of the campaign you are creating, you can write the most relevant ad and send customers to the most relevant landing page possible. This will raise your click-through-rates and Quality Score, while lowering your cost-per-click. Plus, the more relevant you can make your landing page, and that will make your happy, too!
4. Writing Ad Text – After you have created ad groups for each keyword in your list, the next step is writing tailored ads for those ad groups.
Your ad text is a very important step in creating a successful campaign. With this ad text, you have to convey to a customer why they should click your ad, what makes your business different from other businesses and how you can help them achieve what they are searching for. Like finding the right keywords, the point is to be as relevant as possible with your ad text.
For each ad group, tailor your headlines to include at least on keyword that the customer would be searching for. That way, that word will be bolded in your headline. Include call to actions, low prices, promotions and exclusive discounts in your ad text and always highlight what makes your business unique from your competitors. It is also really important to split test ads at all times so that you can always improve your ad text.
Of course, there are many more ways to create a great campaign, but these are the fundamentals to AdWords that will never let you down. Always remember that once you’ve created a campaign, continue to experiment and optimize as there will always be ways you can improve your campaign in the future!
