How Not to Blow Your Marketing Budget
Google AdWords can be awfully intimidating to those looking to get started (and also very costly). Especially considering the amount of competition nowadays.
I remember my first experience with Google AdWords. And let me tell ya, it wasn’t a good one. Rather than attracting customers and making a killing, I was being bled dry… by Google.
Since then I have painstakingly learned the mistakes I made, which I found to be very common among beginners.
The first lesson and one that will have one of the highest impact on your campaign has to do with your keyword selection.
Don’t Go For the Obvious
When I first got started, I was promoting an affiliate program. My initial keywords were blatantly obvious and competitive; they were the product’s name itself and also the creator’s name. Let’s call the affiliate product XYZ and the creator Mr. ABC. Essentially I thought it’d be so easy and so clever of me to just throw up ads with “XYZ” and “Mr. ABC” as the keywords.
After all, I reasoned, those who are searching for these terms must be interested at buying the product. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
I was right on one account, lots of people searching those terms are looking for that product. However, I was wrong on the account of it being as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
First off, because it’s such a popular product, it’s already attracted many other marketers. And these marketers had much more experience than I had.
Second, as a result of it being so competitive, Google was charging an arm and a leg per click. As if that wasn’t bad enough, because of my inexperience, I was getting Google Slapped silly to the point where I was putting up $1.00 ~ $5.00 a click. And more importantly, my clicks just weren’t converting into sales!
I just couldn’t hang with the other marketers.
Lesson #1:
As a newbie starting your campaign marketing an affiliate product, do not bid on the obvious keywords themselves. Odds are, these keywords are already inundated by marketers more experienced than you. They will most likely have a better relationship with Google, have better ads that convert better, get cheaper clicks, AND offer a more enticing offer than you are.
(Don’t worry… we’ll be sharing with you exactly what these “experienced” marketers are doing so you can do the same and dominate your niche market. All in good time =] For now, avoid bidding on the keywords that are your product’s name and creator’s name.)
On that note, I’d also like to point out that you should avoid broad terms that are sure to be inundated by competitors and aren’t targeted at all. Terms such as “real estate”, “network marketing”, “home business”, “chiropractor”, etc. (Doing a search on “home business” reveals over 800 competitors for the same exact keyword.)
You aren’t interested in marketing to everybody under the sun. It’s much more efficient and effective for you to home in only on those with the highest probability of purchasing your product/service. You do so by studying your market and brainstorming on more targeted keywords.
So Then What Keywords Should You Start With?
This takes us back to AdWords Seduction Newsletter #1 – knowing your market.
See, being able to pick effective keywords is tied directly to knowing your market, ideal client, and the product you are promoting. You have go get in your prospects’ shoes. Know that they are online seeking for information to either
- Move towards pleasure
- or - - Move away from pain.
From our studies, we have found that success lies more in targeting those who fall in the latter category – moving away from pain. So we suggest you start there.
Lesson #2:
Target your prospect’s pains.
Tools of the Trade
With that idea, start visualizing
- What problem it is that would motivate them to go online searching for a solution.
- and - - What keywords/phrase they would be searching with to address that problem.
Here are some tools to help you come up with ideas:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
http://www.goodkeywords.com
Use Google’s own site-related keyword tool -
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool
Also, go ahead and do a search for your keywords and check out the organic search results. What are those websites promoting? What keywords jump out at you?
These tools will help get your initial list of keywords started.
Lesson #3:
Use tools and current search results to help you brainstorm for targeted keywords.
Tunnel Vision
Now, at this point, a lot of people will take this idea and get tunnel-vision. They’ll go for depth rather than width. We’ll cover this in part II of this newsletter. So stay tuned!
To Your AdWords Domination,
Lawrence Talent
P.S. When you are ready for the next Google AdWords step, don’t be afraid to step up here: AdWords Secrets!