Embedded Match - the OTHER Keyword Match on AdWords
I just read this on Google AdWords Learning Center:
Embedded Match
Embedded match is a sophisticated form of keyword matching that allows you to prevent your ad from appearing in relation to certain phrase or exact matches. This is popular when an advertiser sells merchandise related to a movie or book, but not the actual movie or book.
Example: An advertiser selling Toy Story merchandise might use the embedded match option of a negative and exact match on -[Toy Story]. This way, the advertiser’s ads appear for Toy Story dolls and Toy Story products, but not for the exact match Toy Story.
How interesting… didn’t know about embedded match until now 
Lawrence Talent
“AdWords Tutorial” From Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss
Okay, so I got them on the call and they essentially gave me a mini “AdWords tutorial” if you will… basically they schooled me a bit on what went haywire with my campaign. What I learned was quite an eye opener.
After hearing that despite opening up a new account, Google STILL didn’t like me (and I say that loosely of course) and slapped me right from the getgo… They suspected that my domain was trashed. Basically Google keeps a “history” of domains on their PPC network. And if your domain has a HORRIBLE track record and ends up in their dog house, that’s the end of that.
It doesn’t matter (as I discovered) if you open a new account with brand new credit card, they’ll still not give you (with that domain) the time of the day.
With that said, to remedy my situation, I bought another domain and merely had it aliased to the original domain. And wouldn’t you know it… problem solved. That’s right, with that change, i got out of Google’s dog house and the same exact keywords that were originally getting poor quality scores are now OK and Great
So next time you get in Google’s dog house and can’t seem to get out, you know what to do.
Lawrence Talent
It’s been Confirmed, Google can be Merciless
Okay, so I just confirmed something Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss taught me a few weeks ago.
Here’s the scoop. I am helping a client of mine do Google AdWords. Actually, I picked up his account after someone else butchered it. I adopted it a copule years ago when I was still relatively green with Google AdWords (I haven’t gotten into the AdWords Tutorial business yet…)
I made his account a bit better… at least for the time being. Back before Google Slap become synonymous with “Google AdWords”, I got away with having hundreds of keywords in one campaign.
Then I left it alone. For quite some time. OOPS.
Google Slap happened, again, and again. And boy Google did NOT like that account.
Recently I went back to pay attention to it to find that every single keywords we had had the quality score of poor. That’s no good! And no matter how hard I tried (using every single AdWords strategies under the sun) to raise the quality score, I was NOT finding any success.
Heck, I even went so far as to open a brand new account with a brand new credit card (my client’s of course)…
That didn’t help either :( After a few weeks and a ton of tweaking I was still seeing the “Poor” quality score.
What to do what to do…? Well, I finally decided to make an emergency phone call to the AdWords greats, Perry Belcher (not to be mistaken for Perry Marshall) and Ryan Deiss. And this is what they had to say…
See next post
Lawrence Talent
9 Google AdWords Strategies
9 Google AdWords Tips
As you may know, Google AdWords is king of Pay-Per-Click. They get tons of advertisers vying for an ad spot and paying top dollars for those spots. As such, Google maintains the highest standards of quality control - punishing those who don’t know what they are doing while rewarding those who do.
While Google does offer a ton of help to advertisers trying to do well on the network, they don’t bother making it easy to find that “help”. I guess they figure that only those who are truly serious about marketing will bother digging and searching around for these nuggets of tips that’ll help them market better on AdWords.
Below are 9 advanced tips/strategies I dug up that will help you get a better understanding of AdWords and help your efforts. Enjoy!
9 (Advanced) Things You May Not Know About Google AdWords
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Google keeps a history of how good your account performs.
The better your track record, the more Google likes you. And the more Google likes you, the less cost your clicks will be.
By track record I am talking about your click-thru-rate, ad position, how much you are spending, your keywords’ quality score, etc.
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You can use Google AdWords Tool to analyze your website for keywords.
Just use the “Website content” option and enter your web address. The best part about this is that Google will return keywords in the order of relevancy, so you know what will make Google happy and give you a good quality score. And if the keyword you want to bid on is lower on the relevancy scale, you know you should go back and optimize your landing page more for that keyword.
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If you have bad history with Google and want to start afresh, opening a new AdWords account doesn’t cut it… you’ll have to come up with a brand new domain name since Google also tracks domain names.
If you are worried about losing PageRanks, don’t sweat it. Keep your current name for SEO purposes and retaining your ranking, use the new domain to point to the same folder on your server and use THAT domain for PPC only.
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Content Network is longer requires you to bid using CPM.
Google has wisened up and now allows CPC on the content network… This is great news for you so go setup your content network!
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You are no longer blind on the content network.
You can actually see exactly where you ads on content network is showing up on by running a Report. Wooooohhhh, can you link this to placement targeting? (Hint: the answer is yes, you are now able to see which relevant sites have AdSense and now try targeting it with placement targeting).
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Google throttles your account initially.
Don’t be surprised if you find your account not getting the clicks (or impressions for that matter) you wanted and thought you’d get. Google sets up a cap for you in terms of spending.
Brand new accounts start at only $50 per pay period and they typically bill you once a month. What this means that you may try telling Google you want to spend $2,000 a month and you want to get ALL those clicks… but in reality, they are only going to get you at most $50 worth of clicks.
(This one shows a limit of $500.)Once they successfully charge your card, they raise your limit a bit, and the cycle repeats. This is why having an AdWords account with long history helps (your limit goes up).
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Google is fine with your using the word “free” in your ad…
But when a visitor goes to your website, they better get what they were promised for “free”. And having them opt-in first to get the product is not “free” - Google knows that a lead is worth some monetary value.
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Make sure you have “Privacy Policy”, “Disclaimer”, and “Contact” pages (or some form of them) reachable from your landing page.
Google wants you to be very open (and honest) with what you are doing.
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Every 6 to 8 weeks, a pair of actual human eyes WILL scope out your account including your ads and your landing page…
So if you are trying anything funny (i.e. using the word FREE in your ad, using illegal pop-ups, etc.), don’t be surprised if your campaign, that was once rolling just fine, all of a sudden get slapped by Google. And if you think, “oh, no problem, if that happens, I’ll just UNNNNDO what I did.“
Well, guess what, it’ll take another 6 to 8 weeks before another human eyes come back and UNslap you… That’s some costly wait time.
There ya have it folks! Please feel free to post any more tips/advice you have concerning AdWords in the comments section.
Lawrence Talent
Google Announces Major Quality Score Changes…
Okay, this is coming straight from Russel Wright - he’s got the scoop on what’s shaking over at Google land and here it is:
In July 2005, AdWords introduced minimum bids for keywords based on Quality Score. This system allows us to show very high quality ads to Google users, while also giving advertisers control over their keywords. Since 2005, we’ve improved Quality Score in many ways, such as the inclusion of landing page quality and landing page load time as factors. Along the way, we’ve also received much helpful feedback from both users and advertisers.
Today, we’d like to let you know of further improvements we’ll introduce in the coming weeks — based, in part, on this feedback. First we’ll outline the key points, and then dive into the details:
* Quality Score will now be more accurate because it will be calculated at the time of each search query
* Keywords will no longer be marked ‘inactive for search’
* ‘First page bid’ will replace ‘minimum bid’ in your account
A more accurate Quality Score
Most importantly, we are replacing our static per-keyword Quality Scores with a system that will evaluate an ad’s quality each time it matches a search query. This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed. Your ads will be more likely to show when they’re relevant and less likely to show when they’re not. This means that Google users are apt to see better ads while you, as an advertiser, should receive leads which are more highly qualified.
Keywords no longer marked ‘inactive for search’
The new per-query evaluation of Quality Score affects you in that keywords will no longer appear as ‘inactive for search’ in your account. Instead, all keywords will have the chance to show ads on Google web search and the search network (unless you’ve paused or deleted them). Keep in mind, however, that keywords previously marked ‘inactive for search’ are not likely to accrue a great deal of traffic following this change. This is because their combined per-query Quality Score and bid probably isn’t high enough to gain competitive placement.
‘First page bid’ will replace ‘minimum bid’
As a result of migrating to per-query Quality Score, we are no longer showing minimum bids in your account. Instead, we’re replacing minimum bids with a new, more meaningful metric: first page bids. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results on Google web search. They’re based on the exact match version of the keyword, the ad’s Quality Score, and current advertiser competition on that keyword. Based on your feedback, we learned that knowing your minimum bid wasn’t always helpful in getting the ad placement you wanted, so we hope that first page bids will give you better guidance on how to achieve your advertising goals.
It’s worth mentioning that the impact of these changes will vary from advertiser to advertiser; some might see no changes to their ad serving, while others may see a noticeable difference. As always, we recommend optimizing ads to prevent them from receiving a low Quality Score.
Putting it all together
Here’s an example to illustrate how per-query Quality Score works:
Nancy’s Dairy advertises on the keyword ‘milk.’ Nancy’s ads perform better on the keyword ‘milk’ in the U.S. than in Canada. Her ads also perform better on the query ‘milk delivery’ than on ‘milk,’ and better on certain search network sites than on others. Instead of one static Quality Score and minimum bid that determines whether the keyword ‘milk’ is eligible to trigger an ad for all search queries, we will now determine eligibility dynamically, based on factors such as location, the specific query, and other relevance factors. For that reason, Nancy’s keyword ‘milk’ will be able to trigger an ad for search queries where it’s likely to perform better, i.e., in the U.S., on ‘milk delivery’ and on certain search network sites.
We’re working to update the AdWords API and AdWords Editor so that, in the future, they will support first page bids. Until then, both the AdWords API and AdWords Editor will continue to show the minimum bid field. However, the information shown in this field will be based on the new per-query Quality Score. You may keep current with upcoming API releases on the API Blog and learn about upcoming AdWords Editor releases via the AdWords Editor Forum.
Finally, please note that we’ll release these Quality Score changes to a very small segment of advertisers within the next day or two, so that we can gather feedback before launching to all our advertisers. We will, of course, post again in advance of the time that these changes go live for everyone.
The “Secret” Google Slap??
So you are probably familiar with the Google slap and how that’s affected all advertisers across the board. It happened a few years ago and since then, things “recalibrated” - the spammers got ditched, and the honest to good (albeit intelligent) marketer survived. And if you are anywhere in the middle? Well, flip a coin.
I noticed that a few weeks ago, there was ANOTHER Google Slap, this time against those promoting affiliate links (such as through Clickbank). I know because I tried running a PPC campaign that directly drove traffic to a Clickbank link.
“No no” said Google.
Bam, $10.00 minimum bids. I think Google’s on to me, some Google advertisers are able to get away with it while others (such as myself) are not. No worries. The simple solution is to buy a domain at ~$9 a pop and have that do a “URL frame” to the Clickbank affiliate link. Problem solved.
The only question is… I wonder how long it’ll take before Google Slaps THAT also. Only time will tell.
Split Testing Like Crazy
Okay… This one reads like a SAT Math Question.
(But don’t worry, it’s not hard.)
Pop quiz hot shot!
Bob and his brother Jerome areco-owners of a retail store specialize in Widget. Just recently, they each came up with a new packaging design for their beloved Widget (in case you didn’t know, packaging has a significant impact on how well a product sells) and both swear by their new designs.
Being the competitive types, Bob and Jerome got into a heated argument about whose design is better and therefore should be used for the packaging of their Widget.
Bob claims that the color he chose is brighter and therefore will attract more attention while Jerome claims that his design is transparent which will attract more interest. It became such a big deal and for days they couldn’t settle it that instead of letting it get in the way of their brotherhood and hurt their relationship, they decided to call upon their mom to decide.
What do you think is the logical choice for her mom to make:
- Bob’s
- Jerome’s
The Answer
If you said a. Bob’s, I hate to tell ya but you are wrong.
And if you said b. Jerome’s, you are also wrong…
See, the answer isn’t that simple. As a matter of fact, the answer isn’t even dependent on Bob, Jerome, OR their mom!
The answer actually depends on their market - and the answer is simply this…
Let their market tell them what works better. Run a split-test where on one shelf the customers will find Widget in bright packaging while on the shelf immediately adjacent they will find Widget in transparent packaging.
And at the end of each day, take heed of which one sells better. And that becomes the answer.
Lesson #1:You let your market decide for you rather than just second guessing. What you might think would sell better may oftentimes turn out to be dead wrong. And when you turn out to be dead wrong, you lose money. Period. |
Split Testing in AdWords
You need to practice this very same concept of split testing in your AdWords campaign. You have to constantly tweak your campaign and let the market tell you which ad performs best, which keywords gets you the more relevant reader, which URL attracts the most active buyers etc.
Split testing in AdWords encompasses many factors on various levels.
And it is most easily done on the ad level - trying it figure out what ad gets you the most relevant click. This is done so through adding more than one ad per ad group and making sure your “Ad Serving” option is set to “Rotate” (found in “Campaign Settings”).
Then going to your ad groups and adding in more than one “Ad Variation” (write another ad).
Lesson #2:Start by split testing your ads, this is often the easiest place to start since AdWords itself offers tracking of your ads’ CTR. Just be sure to change your “Ad Serving” to “Rotate“. |
Some factors you want to split test on the ad level include, but are not limited, to the following:
- Titlecasing (would it improve your CTR if you capitalized all the important words?)
- Adding in symbols such as quotes, ©, …, !, ?, etc.
- Change your punctuation marks (have a comma instead of a dash, etc.)
- Changing your URL (what if you add an extra “/Keyword” to your display URL such as going from www.YourWebsite.com to www.YourWebsite.com/Widget)
- Changing up the theme of your ad (perhaps go from focusing on the pain to focusing on the benefit)
- Change the tone of your ad (be more “in your face” as opposed to being passive)
The list goes on… Once you made your changes, let your ads run side by side for a bit and observe the discrepancies in click thru rates. Dump whichever got the lower CTR over a period of time/number of clicks, take note of it, and make a new split test against the winning ad.
Always try to outdo yourself, this is the secret to getting high conversions - letting the market tell YOU what works.
(Now… if you want to abide by the concept of “standing on the shoulder of giants”, you can get a head-start by checking out 43 PROVEN split-tests with results you can implement right away, click here.)
Lesson #3:Always be split testing and trying to “beat” your best. This is how you get better and become the most efficienty and effective AdWords marketer you can be. You can get a head-start with your split testing by checking out these killer 43 split test results: |
More AdWords Split Tests
Split testing also goes beyond just on the ad level. For example, you can split rest from a settings perspective. These factors include, but are not limited, to the following:
- Geographical location (are the English speak population in Australia as prone to buying your product?)
- Day, night, all day of advertising (should you run your campaign ONLY during the day, night, or run it all day?)
- Weekday/weekend (what about running your ads on the weekdays versus the weekends?)
- Position (would you save money if you opted for going for a lower ranking ad such as at positions 4 through 7 or would it make more sense to be # 1 through 3?)
- Broad, phrase, exact matching, or all three types (which match type of a keyword is profitable?)
- Standard versus accelerated (you have the option of spreading out your ads throughout the day depending on your budget or have them show up as often as possible… which one nets you the most profit?)
- Negative words (what negative words will have a positive impact on your campaign?)
I’ve listed just a few of the split tests you can possibly do to fine tune your campaign and let your market tell you what’s your best marketing piece. These split tests are on more of a campaign level and aren’t as easy to test as testing for the best ad, but they are still well worth testing - you just have to get a bit more creative in setting up the test.
Lesson #4:Split testing goes beyond just the ad level. Look to the campaign level also. |
So when it comes to testing your campaigns and ads, don’t pull a Bob and Jerome…
Leave your mom out of it.
To the Top,
 |
| Lawrence Talent |
Google AdWords Editor Crashing?
As you may know… Google AdWords Editor is a killer app created by Google that makes it so simple for you to edit your AdWords campaign. However, it seems Google likes to keep it as an AdWords secret since it’s not very widely promoted (if at all) by Google.
Anyway… I’ve been using it for a long time now and just recently it’s been crashing on me whenever I try to start it. It says it’s crashing my Windows Vista Explorer, is that happening to you too?
Writing PPC Ads
Headline
To start off, you always want to use the keyword you are bidding on in your headline. Since Google will Bold font the keyword, your ad will stand out more and will appear more relevant to the reader.
A short cut you can take in creating your headlines is to take the top 10 competitor’s ads and copy their headlines. This might seem unintuitive because you may be thinking that you want to stand out from the crowd. Well, through my own testing of various types of ads I’ve noticed that readers will sometimes associate the language of your ad to credibility.
So if your ad is kind of gimmicky, that may attract a few clicks from the curious but is likely to result in low quality traffic. This doesn’t mean you can’t test out a few gimmicky headlines, but baseline your testing first with something more professional. Then split test some more original ads (this holds true even in “adwords overture“).
Another reason why you may want to copy competitor headlines is because it’s very likely that they have tested their ads already. You want to benefit as much as possible from any testing they have already done in that market.
Lesson #1:Ensure your keywords are in your headline . Rip off of your top competitor’s headlines |
Descriptions
After the headline, you have 2 description lines available, each with 35 allowable characters. There’s a real art in being able to write a clear and concise message within these 2 lines.
The first thing you need to understand is the difference between benefits and features. A benefit describes the results available for the reader if they click on your ad. A feature would be similar to specifications, characteristics or details about the product or service. For a more in depth description check out Feature vs. Benefit.
For example, features of a desktop computer system are: 2 Gigs of memory, processor speed (3 Giga-hertz), Windows operating system, 250 Gig hardrive, etc. Benefits associated with such a computer system would be: increase in productivity, get work done in half the time, saving time, easy to use, the convenience of having everything stored on your big hardrive, etc.
Once you are clear as to what a benefit and a feature is, you are ready to write your description.
There are a few formulas people use which will help give you a starting point.
Formula #1 – Only Benefits
Your description should only talk about the benefits of what you’re offering. The advantage of this is that it create desire in the reader’s mind. And since you are leaving out the features, it creates a little bit of mystery and the reader will want to figure out how getting the said benefits is possible.
The disadvantage is you might get less qualified visitors to your site, since some people may just be curious.
Example:
Looking for {KeyWord}?
Learn How To Get Your Leads to Pay
For Your Ads, Even If They Don’t Buy
www.AttractionMarketingFormula.com
Formula #2 – Benefits on 1st Line, Features/Offer 2nd Line
This type of ad sets up the expectation of what they will be receiving with a beneficial result in store for them. Usually, you want to start with a stated benefit, then state how they will receive this benefit.
The advantage to this is this type of ad will create higher quality clicks, but may result in a lower CTR.
Looking for {KeyWord}?
Get Your Leads to Pay for Your Ads.
Free Report Shows You How.
www.AttractionMarketingFormula.com
Lesson #2:Some pointers for writing your description are:
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Display URL
Lesson #3:
Test the display URL with “www” and without (i.e. www.AttractionMarketingFormula.com or AttractionMarketingFormula.com ) |
Destination URL
Not much to discuss here, other than make sure your display URL’s domain is the same as your destination URL’s domain. Discrepancies will result in a Google Slap.
For tracking and testing purposes, you can use ‘insert’ functions to carry important data over to your website.
For example, you can use the {keyword} function at the end of your URL to pass the searched for keyword to your website, where your PHP or Javascript page will be able to grab and store that keyword for tracking.
i.e. http://www.attractionmarketingformula.com?google={keyword}
When the user arrives at your site after clicking on your ad and for the sake of this example was searching for “google adwords”, then the destination URL will read:
http://www.attractionmarketingformula.com?google=google20%adwords
You then have the ability to call the “google” variable using PHP or Javascript and store it however you want.
Lesson #4:There are other insert functions, which are available to you. See the ‘help’ section under Google AdWords for more details. You can use these functions to help you in tracking your campaign. |
There should be plenty of information here to get you started on your first few ads for your campaign. Next time we’ll cover a critical piece of the Google AdWords puzzle that will separate you from AdWords mediocrity - “split testing”.
To Your AdWords Domination,
|
| Lawrence Talent |