Weekly Tip: Search Engine Marketing Adwords
Setting up SEM Campaigns
One of the most overlooked aspect of running a SEM campaign is how important the structure of the account is for both management purposes and for performance. There are numerous factors to consider when deciding how to structure your account.
How can I make my structure tight?
What type of keywords am I targeting?
How should I best group my keywords?
Is targeting by product type more important? Geo-type?
How does creatives factor into all this?
Do I need to split out keywords with good history vs ones with bad history?
How does keyword combinations affect content campaigns?
Should I structure search campaigns differently from content campaigns?
How do I factor in budget constraints and budget management issues?
What landingpages do I have for use?
The list is endless…
Tip of the Week
Today we’ll throw out one tip to consider when organizing your accounts after you have collected some data. After you have collected a good sample size you probably are starting to get a better idea on what keywords are performing. If you have cast a good enough umbrella of keywords you would easily find some surprising performers as well as surprising duds. So how can you sort through all this data for management purposes?
Note of Keyword History
Before mentioning how you can restructure your accounts, let me bring up the issue of keyword history. If you are in a extremely competitive industry and your keywords have years of history, I would be very wary about changing up that keyword, creative combination lest you mess up what you have built for years. The issue of considering keyword history is a whole separate story that is worth several blog posts alone, but just wanted to throw that out there to keep on top of mind.
Splitting by Performance: 3 Categories
In order of priority.
1) Good Performers (Good CPL)
2) Good Click Thru Rate Terms
3) Good Impression Terms with Poor CTR
#1 - Good Performers
The benefit of splitting out the Good Performers, is that you can raise your campaign budgets and let these ride out without restraint. You can also give these performer campaigns extra attention such as pulling search query reports for this campaign and coming up with new variations. Also in times where you need to pull back spend you can turn all the other campaigns off and let this one ride with a limited budget. There are numerous benefits too many to list here!
#2 - Good Click Thru Rate Terms
Consumers seem to like your ad here but not converting for some reason. Check your creative, is it too broad? Does it need to be tightened to better focus on what you are providing? This will help weed out the bad clicks which for you are simply eating up your budget. How is your landingpage? Is there something on the landingpage that is causing the lack of conversions? Is it the layout? Is it a lack of call to action? Is it hard to navigate? Is it relevant to your ad creative? is it too cluttered? Landingpage optimization is one of the most crucial aspects of SEM that is often overlooked. Also check the tracking on these pages make sure they are working properly! Lastly you need to check your keyword selection. Is this really a keyword you want? Are you sure you can sell dog food using free ipod creatives? Pull search query reports to determine what the users are actually searching.
#3 - Good Impression Terms with Poor CTR
Look at all that volume! Yet no one is clicking on your ad? Is your ad too tight? Is there something about your ad that is scaring them off or perhaps asking for something they are relutant to give? Perhaps you are mentioning a price thinking it is competitive, but it is just turning people away. It may make sense to broaden your creative, let them land on your landingpage where you can educate them on all the benefits of your product thus making the price more palatable. Pull search query reports and see what people are actually searching on. Can you find some good negatives to pull out? Go type these keywords into Google directly and see what pops out. You’ll be surprised at how much you can discover about consumer intent by doing something so simple. Simple example is if you type in MLS, the first website is major league soccer. Not what you had in mind for real estate.
It isn’t imperative that you restructure your account in this way. However it does help with the management of the account because it is easy to group keywords together by their differing issues.
Quick Tip from the LeadQual Bunker. I am out like lehman brothers.
Paul Lee
Director of Online Marketing
LeadQual - SEM
Tags: Google Adwords, Search Engine Marketing, SEM, SEM Campaigns, SEM Structure
