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View Full Version : How do you measure success with adwords?



Dustin07
02-17-2009, 11:56 AM
I posted a similar thread in a 'differen't forum before I realized this forum even existed :o


But I'm looking at what I deem to be a pretty low CTR, of .25-.35% on my adwords (not adsense). I have a lot of keywords that I'm working with, and there are a number of specific ones that I have really narrowed down in terms of very specific landing pages, and increasing my bids to rank higher in the results...

But what do you consider to be a successful adwords campaign? I'm getting about 1/10, maybe even 1/100th of what I'd like as far as clicks go, but I'm sure everyone here would say the same thing. :cool:

vangogh
02-17-2009, 12:10 PM
Hard to know what might be wrong without seeing your AdWords account, but a few thoughts:

Are you keywords grouped with different ads for each group? You don't want to list everything under one group. Try to organize your keywords into groups around keyword themes.

Do you test ads? On each group run at least two ads with a little variation between them. Over time one ad will usually outperform the other. Drop the underperforming ad and replace it with a new ad to test against the one that performed better. Little by little you'll be improving your ads.

Where do you send visitors? Don't send people to your home page for most ads. Send people to the most direct page relating to the ad.

Do you have negative keywords set? If you're bidding on 'data cables' for example have you set a word like 'free' as a negative word?

Are you using broad, phrase, or exact match on your ads? If you're using broad or phrase when you bid on 'data cables' your ad will show up for 'free data cables' and probably many more phrases you probably don't want.

Hope some of the above helps.

Dustin07
02-17-2009, 12:22 PM
Hard to know what might be wrong without seeing your AdWords account, but a few thoughts:

Are you keywords grouped with different ads for each group? You don't want to list everything under one group. Try to organize your keywords into groups around keyword themes.

Yes I have, but I think I need to break them down further. I have 2-4 differen text ads for each group, and I currently have 4 groups/campaigns. I think each campaign will need to be broken down into two more though.


Do you test ads? On each group run at least two ads with a little variation between them. Over time one ad will usually outperform the other. Drop the underperforming ad and replace it with a new ad to test against the one that performed better. Little by little you'll be improving your ads.

I have been, and I am thinking that when the keywords in the ads match perfectly to the keywords in the campaign my odds may be better (bold text thanks to Google) so I'm thinking if I can't get the keywords and ads to match 100% of the time, I need to create a new campaign for that grouping.


Where do you send visitors? Don't send people to your home page for most ads. Send people to the most direct page relating to the ad.

I send them all to specific landing pages, none to the homepage.


Do you have negative keywords set? If you're bidding on 'data cables' for example have you set a word like 'free' as a negative word?

this I don't know about ! I'm going to have to look into this further.


Are you using broad, phrase, or exact match on your ads? If you're using broad or phrase when you bid on 'data cables' your ad will show up for 'free data cables' and probably many more phrases you probably don't want.

Hope some of the above helps.

I've been picking up 'long tail' type keywords on the cheap... which is good, and I've been letting less specific terms go the wayside very cheap.

Today I just went through all my impressions that I've had so far and I picked out the keywords that I felt were the most valuable to me, and raised my bids. I figured if they are getting lots of impressions, and they are very specific, I will try to pick up higher ranking on them and see what happens.

I also created a couple new text ads.

I think later I will create more groups though. I may be too broad in that sense.

billbenson
02-17-2009, 12:29 PM
In addition to what VG said, look at your site stats for ideas on keywords. Ideally you only want about 20 keywords per ad. Optimized keywords -> optimized ad -> optimized landing page. I have several hundred ads in my campaign.

Oh, and use your stats to find negative keywords as well.

Steve B
02-17-2009, 02:09 PM
It's a success for me if I make more money than I spend.

vangogh
02-17-2009, 04:27 PM
Dustin it may be the negative keywords or that you have things set to broad match. Broad match will show your ad as long as the keyword is used in the query.

Say you bid on the single word 'cable' and have it set to broad match. Your ad will show up for

cable television
underground cable
cable news network
time warner cable
etc

None of those queries are looking for you and probably aren't going to click on your ad. If your ad shows up then it lowers your CTR. Make sure to set your ads to display for exact match so they only show when the query exactly matches the phrase you bid on. It will help eliminate showing your ads to people not looking for what you have to offer.

Dan Furman
02-17-2009, 05:02 PM
Today I just went through all my impressions that I've had so far and I picked out the keywords that I felt were the most valuable to me, and raised my bids.

where are you ranking?