Google AdWord campaign advice from Altech

Google AdWords – the sponsored links that appear alongside search results and other web content – are the most cost-effective way to advertise on the Net because you only pay when people click your ads.

There is no blueprint for creating a great search advertising campaign. Businesses of all sizes create campaigns which include relevant phrases and words, only to find that click rates are low, or that they simply aren’t being converted into sales. There are several ways to ensure that you make the most of your AdWords promotions.

1. Use a Google AdWords certified company to manage your campaign

Anyone can open a Google AdWords account and start running a campaign, but management of that campaign is a different story. Experienced pay-per-click advertising consultants undergo in-depth training on all things related to Google AdWords to achieve certification.

Pay-per-click gives your business total control over its budget, and allows you to switch your adverts on or off as you choose. It even allows you to target geographical areas and to display your ads at certain times of the day when your target audience is more likely to be actively searching.

Critically, the key to a successful pay-per-click campaign is its management.  Experienced and knowledgeable pay-per-click advertising consultants can help you to devise and plan an effective strategy. Through clever management and monitoring, you can achieve the optimum use of your budget, value for money and a good return on investment. Certified consultants have an in-depth understanding of how important conversion is, and that it’s the difference between profit and loss.

Having knowledge of advanced techniques in keyword optimisation or landing page quality ensures that the campaign’s AdWords quality score is raised.  That’s why the company you choose to manage your pay-per-click advertising must be Google certified.

2. Have a clearly defined strategy

Every campaign has an objective, such as boosting sales or generating leads. You need to know what yours is, and have a plan in mind for which market you want to target, which geographical regions, and who you are up against.

3. Start out small and grow the campaign based on results

Measure the success of your campaign. You need to assign a value to the successful achievement of the campaign objective and understand where money is being spent well. When you have an AdWords campaign that is working, use the platform to gain more insight into what your potential customers want. You can, for example, launch a quick AdWords campaign to see how customers respond. If the response is positive, that will give you an idea of what messaging works so that you can make adjustments that sharpen your ads and give you the best returns. Success must be tracked daily and can be done with Google Analytics.

4. Ensure proper campaign flow

A campaign does not mean redirecting clients to your website. Have a product specific landing page with call-to-action functionality along with the benefits of your product or service. The call-to-action – buy, order, or sign up – encourages users to click on your ad and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page.

5. Manage and monitor your ads

Many companies create an AdWords campaign and check it once a week. This is bad practice. To get the most out of yours, monitor it on a daily or even hourly basis. Checking your account regularly to see how it is performing will enable you to add or remove keywords, and to do away with ads which are not performing.

It’s that attention to detail, management and continuous web analytics monitoring, combined with knowledge and experience about website usability and paid search through Google Adwords, that consultants use to fine tune your account to changing market conditions so that you can achieve optimum results.

By Wayne de Nobrega, CEO at Altech Technology Concepts (ATC).