What is the difference between the actual CPC and the maximum CPC per bid? Knowing the answer can help corner that top position on Adwords and explode your traffic.
Every Adwords advertisers knows what the maximum CPC bid is. This is price you give Adwords as the absolute most you're willing to pay for a click.
The actual CPC is what you pay. These two numbers are almost never them same. You will almost always pay less in the actual CPC. The actual CPC is the cost to raise your ad above the next advertiser, based in part on your quality score.
For example, let's say your maximum CPC bid of $0.25 would get you the 3rd ad position. Adwords will charge you just what it costs to beat the 4th ad. This could be $0.10, $0.20 or the full $0.25.
This is known as a Vickrey Auction.
Another important point is that prior to 2007 Adwords based your ads position on the combination of the actual CPC and quality score. Since 2007, Google changed to base the position on the maximum CPC bid and the quality score.
The quality score component of this formula is closely related to your CTR. The better a CTR/ quality score, the cheaper it is for you to achieve top positions. For example, an ad with a 2% CTR and $0.25 max CPC bid is the same as an ad with a 1% CTR and a max $0.50 bid. If both bid $0.50, the ad with higher CTR wins.
You can use this to your advantage. You can set your maximum CPC bid much higher than you really want to pay. You know that the actual cost will be less. Plus, you can be assured of a higher ad position because Google will base the ad position on this inflated maximum CPC.
You could theoretically bid $100 per click. This would guarantee you the top ad position, because Google will base the ad position on the high bid. You would know that your actual CPC would be nowhere near $100, but instead just enough to beat out the second ad. A keyword with no competition would cost $0.05 or $0.10 assuming you had a good quality score.
Assuming you have a good CTR rate of 1% or better, it would impossible for any other advertiser to take the top position from you. Since google bases the top position on the maximum CPC, and you are at $100 per click with a good quality score and CTR, you would be unbeatable.
But there are some risks with inflating the maximum CPC. A competing advertiser could increase is maximum CPC. You would still have the top position, but it would more expensive to beat the number 2 ad. It's quite possible for the actual CPC to go beyond your budget or comfort level. You would need to be very vigilant to make sure you do not cross this threshold.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
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Saturday, September 13, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Could you use use fear to persuade your customers to buy from you?
Should you scare your customers? Should your sales copy persuade visitors by attempting to scare that they are missing something vital without your product or service.
Machiavelli was an Italian renaissance author who wrote a work called the "the prince". His book was intended to instruct the young Italian rulers of various city states how to govern. One of the main points of the work was the conclusion that it is better to feared than loved.
Could you use use fear to persuade your customers to buy from you?
Much of the sales copy in adwords ads today focuses on making the consumer either curious or greedy. This is particularly true in the ads for internet marketing. Most of them make an outrageous claim, like "see how I'm making x dollars a month". This ad is designed to appeal to marketing consumer by appealing to his greed. Plus, the more outrageous the amount, the more curious the consumer is to see how the advertisers is doing it.
This is a very good tactic. Appealing to these two emotions is a great way to approach sales copy.
But, in a column of Adwords ad, you want your ad to stand to out. You should always strive to stand and be noticeable in the crowd. So, if other advertisers already advertisements of this type, could you profit from a different tactic.
As Machiavelli discovered, consumers also respond to fear. In recent years, politcal campaigns have tried, or accused each other of tried, to use fear to get candidates elected.
You could appeal to a fear your consumers have in the first line of ad. Your second line then informs them that your product or service provides a solution. This will compel your consumers to click your ad.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
Machiavelli was an Italian renaissance author who wrote a work called the "the prince". His book was intended to instruct the young Italian rulers of various city states how to govern. One of the main points of the work was the conclusion that it is better to feared than loved.
Could you use use fear to persuade your customers to buy from you?
Much of the sales copy in adwords ads today focuses on making the consumer either curious or greedy. This is particularly true in the ads for internet marketing. Most of them make an outrageous claim, like "see how I'm making x dollars a month". This ad is designed to appeal to marketing consumer by appealing to his greed. Plus, the more outrageous the amount, the more curious the consumer is to see how the advertisers is doing it.
This is a very good tactic. Appealing to these two emotions is a great way to approach sales copy.
But, in a column of Adwords ad, you want your ad to stand to out. You should always strive to stand and be noticeable in the crowd. So, if other advertisers already advertisements of this type, could you profit from a different tactic.
As Machiavelli discovered, consumers also respond to fear. In recent years, politcal campaigns have tried, or accused each other of tried, to use fear to get candidates elected.
You could appeal to a fear your consumers have in the first line of ad. Your second line then informs them that your product or service provides a solution. This will compel your consumers to click your ad.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Why did your Adwords keyword get inactivated?
Your Google ad went inactive for one reason. The quality score was poor. You may have heard other factors caused it, but the quality score is the reason.
The initial quality score is determine by the revelance of your ad and landing page to your keyword. If you optimize both your ad and your landing page for the specific keyword, you should have a good initial quality score.
You optimize your ad by using the keyword in the ad. Put your keyword in the headline and/or the description. It's also a good idea to have the keyword in the url of your landing page, which puts it in the destination url. In addition, you can put the keyword somewhere in your display url, since it won't affect the destination url.
You optimize your landing page by applying the same techniques as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) would have you do.
* use the keyword in the page name or path path.
* use the keyword in the page title.
* use the keyword and related keywords in the keyword meta tag.
* use the keyword in the description meta tag.
* use the keyword inside "h1" html tags on the page.
* use the keyword throughout the content of your page.
The quality score is also affected by the ads CTR. As your ad gains impressions and clicks, Adwords computes your click through rate (CTR). Adwords draws conclusions about your ads relevancy from the CTR. Google assumes that if your CTR is high, above 0.5%, then your ad is relevant and your quality score goes up. Conersely, if your CTR is below 0.5% Adwords assumes it is not relevant and lowers your quality score.
An inactive ad has either an initial quality score that was poor that made it all but impossible to get a CTR and it went inactive. Or, the CTR for a good initial quality score is below 0.5% and it damaged the quality score to a point that the ad went inactive.
You have 3 options to fix the problem.
1) Delete the keyword. This is often a good solution because the poor quality of the keyword stops becoming a drag on the qulaity score of your entire campaign. Campaigns have a quality score based on all the keywords, so a poor keyword can damage the quality of other keywords.
2) Improve the quality score. This generally means improving the CTR by re-writting the ad sales copy to more persuasive. The more appealing the ad is to consumers, then more clicks you will get.
3) Increase your maximum CPC bid.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
The initial quality score is determine by the revelance of your ad and landing page to your keyword. If you optimize both your ad and your landing page for the specific keyword, you should have a good initial quality score.
You optimize your ad by using the keyword in the ad. Put your keyword in the headline and/or the description. It's also a good idea to have the keyword in the url of your landing page, which puts it in the destination url. In addition, you can put the keyword somewhere in your display url, since it won't affect the destination url.
You optimize your landing page by applying the same techniques as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) would have you do.
* use the keyword in the page name or path path.
* use the keyword in the page title.
* use the keyword and related keywords in the keyword meta tag.
* use the keyword in the description meta tag.
* use the keyword inside "h1" html tags on the page.
* use the keyword throughout the content of your page.
The quality score is also affected by the ads CTR. As your ad gains impressions and clicks, Adwords computes your click through rate (CTR). Adwords draws conclusions about your ads relevancy from the CTR. Google assumes that if your CTR is high, above 0.5%, then your ad is relevant and your quality score goes up. Conersely, if your CTR is below 0.5% Adwords assumes it is not relevant and lowers your quality score.
An inactive ad has either an initial quality score that was poor that made it all but impossible to get a CTR and it went inactive. Or, the CTR for a good initial quality score is below 0.5% and it damaged the quality score to a point that the ad went inactive.
You have 3 options to fix the problem.
1) Delete the keyword. This is often a good solution because the poor quality of the keyword stops becoming a drag on the qulaity score of your entire campaign. Campaigns have a quality score based on all the keywords, so a poor keyword can damage the quality of other keywords.
2) Improve the quality score. This generally means improving the CTR by re-writting the ad sales copy to more persuasive. The more appealing the ad is to consumers, then more clicks you will get.
3) Increase your maximum CPC bid.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Is your Adwords ad it's own worst enemy?
Google penalizes Adwords ads with poor click through rates. If your ad is not generating clicks, it's making it more expensive for you to advertise. Discover how to improve the click through rate of your ads.
Your Adwords ad is sales copy. You are attempting to persuade a potential consumer to make a decision based on your ad text. This is the art a science of sales copy. Sales copy can be defined as salesmanship in print.
The trick in Adwords is that you only have 95 characters to do it in (25 character headline + 2 lines of 35 character description). That is daunting task for any professional salesman.
1) Speak to the customer
A general rule of sales copy is that you want to appeal directly to the consumer. By using the word you, you address the consumer in a direct personal way, as if you were speaking to them. Use you in your sales copy instead of your product name or I.
2) People buy solutions, not products or services
Another general rule of sales copy is that a customer is looking to find a solution, not buy a product. A customer doesn't want to buy a drill, instead they need a way to make a hole. You need to sell a solution. A perfect example of this are Billy Mays TV commercials for Hercules hooks, Oxyclean, OrangeClean or any of his products. Did you ever notice the commercial starts by describing or creating a problem? The commercial then proceeds to persuade you that they have the solution to the problem. The commercials are like that because the method works.
3) Feature versus Benefit
You may be tempted to list a prominent feature of your product. Don't. Instead, make a list of every feature you can think of. Then write down the corresponding reason the customer would want that feature. You can often move from feature to benefit by using "what that means to you, Mr. Customer is". That becomes a benefit. Then don't describe a feature in your ad, but describe a benefit.
4) Use a Call to Action
A Call to Action is a sentence instructing the consumer to perform a task. The consumer will often be subconsciously persuaded to do it. A call to Action generally begins with a verb (the action). Here are some examples.
* Click here.
* Download your copy now.
* Call now.
* Get help.
5) Keyword or Phrase
Your ad will be more attractive to the customer if your ad text contains the keyword or phrase they searched on. Right away your customer will view your ad has highly relevant, because the keyword is right there. The headline is a particularly good place to have the keyword since your customer sees it first. this tactic is done automatically if you use the Adwords strategy from adwords-marketing-tool,com
4) Use Free if applicable
Using the word free is likely to increase your CTR. Make sure your landing page does freely give away what you promised.
5) Hype words
Hype words like amazing or incredible may help you attract attention. But be careful, overuse them and you sound like a snake oil salesman.
6) Sense of urgency
You can create a sense of urgency with a phrase like limited offer. This encourages a customer to make a purchase on the spot. If you have the space available, you can describe the consequences of failing to act.
7) No risk
Consumers are cautious of being taken advantage of. A money back guarantee or a no risk free trial helps persuade you consumers.
8) Test your ads
The only way you'll know if your sales copy is working is to test it. Split testing is the accepted method of testing your ads. You run two ads simultaneously. After the proper amount of time, you compare CTR or ROI and declare a winner and remove the lesser ad.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
Your Adwords ad is sales copy. You are attempting to persuade a potential consumer to make a decision based on your ad text. This is the art a science of sales copy. Sales copy can be defined as salesmanship in print.
The trick in Adwords is that you only have 95 characters to do it in (25 character headline + 2 lines of 35 character description). That is daunting task for any professional salesman.
1) Speak to the customer
A general rule of sales copy is that you want to appeal directly to the consumer. By using the word you, you address the consumer in a direct personal way, as if you were speaking to them. Use you in your sales copy instead of your product name or I.
2) People buy solutions, not products or services
Another general rule of sales copy is that a customer is looking to find a solution, not buy a product. A customer doesn't want to buy a drill, instead they need a way to make a hole. You need to sell a solution. A perfect example of this are Billy Mays TV commercials for Hercules hooks, Oxyclean, OrangeClean or any of his products. Did you ever notice the commercial starts by describing or creating a problem? The commercial then proceeds to persuade you that they have the solution to the problem. The commercials are like that because the method works.
3) Feature versus Benefit
You may be tempted to list a prominent feature of your product. Don't. Instead, make a list of every feature you can think of. Then write down the corresponding reason the customer would want that feature. You can often move from feature to benefit by using "what that means to you, Mr. Customer is". That becomes a benefit. Then don't describe a feature in your ad, but describe a benefit.
4) Use a Call to Action
A Call to Action is a sentence instructing the consumer to perform a task. The consumer will often be subconsciously persuaded to do it. A call to Action generally begins with a verb (the action). Here are some examples.
* Click here.
* Download your copy now.
* Call now.
* Get help.
5) Keyword or Phrase
Your ad will be more attractive to the customer if your ad text contains the keyword or phrase they searched on. Right away your customer will view your ad has highly relevant, because the keyword is right there. The headline is a particularly good place to have the keyword since your customer sees it first. this tactic is done automatically if you use the Adwords strategy from adwords-marketing-tool,com
4) Use Free if applicable
Using the word free is likely to increase your CTR. Make sure your landing page does freely give away what you promised.
5) Hype words
Hype words like amazing or incredible may help you attract attention. But be careful, overuse them and you sound like a snake oil salesman.
6) Sense of urgency
You can create a sense of urgency with a phrase like limited offer. This encourages a customer to make a purchase on the spot. If you have the space available, you can describe the consequences of failing to act.
7) No risk
Consumers are cautious of being taken advantage of. A money back guarantee or a no risk free trial helps persuade you consumers.
8) Test your ads
The only way you'll know if your sales copy is working is to test it. Split testing is the accepted method of testing your ads. You run two ads simultaneously. After the proper amount of time, you compare CTR or ROI and declare a winner and remove the lesser ad.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Don't use Google Adwords until you've read these tips.
Google Adwords can quickly become expensive if it is used incorrectly. The following tips will show you how to correctly setup your campaigns. You'll discover what to do and what to avoid.
1) Use Google's Adwords Editor to manage your campaigns.
The Adwords Editor is free tool from Google that helps you manage your campaigns. It allows you to make bulk or multiple updates to your campaign. This saves you time and effort when compared to making manual changes online.
2) Disable the Content Network.
Beginners should stay away from the Content Network in Google Adwords. When you are just starting out, disable the content network in your PPC campaigns. Traffic from the content network is lower quality than Google search traffic, because it's coming from Google Adsense participants who don't care what quality of traffic they send your website. When you have proven ROI from your website, you can use placement campaigns or regular content network.
3) Set a reasonable daily budget.
You want to throttle your traffic and Adwords spending until you have a proven ROI. When you achieve a good ROI, you can increase the daily budget and increase your traffic. You don't want to throttle your campaign by bidding to low per click, because that can affect your CTR. You need a good CTR to maintain a good quality. Throttling your campaign with a daily budget stops showing your ads, so you won't get impressions and damage your CTR.
4) Don't set your CPC too low.
You don't want to throttle your campaign by bidding too low per click, because that can affect your CTR. You need a good CTR to maintain a good quality. You never want to damage your CTR by bidding to low. In fact, if you begin with a high bid, you can achieve a good CTR. After your achieve the high CTR, you can lower your CPC and still maintain a ad good position, saving money in the long run.
5) Don't hang on to poor performing keyword.
You probably have some keywords and ad groups that are not performing well. The half percent is a good goal for a well performing ad. Any ad group or keyword performing under a half percent with a high number of impressions needs to be altered. The poor performing ads can damage your overall campaign CTR and lower the quality score and position of your other ads. Remove the ad group or keyword. If you decide you simply must have this ad group or keyword, move it to it's own campaign and start split testing sales copy changes.
6) Evaluate your landing pages as if you were performing SEO.
Your landing page is examined and scored by Adwords just like your website is for inclusion on the Google search engine. Performing SEO on your landing pages will improve your quality score. The Google webmaster tools can provide free information on how Google scores your pages. If you don't have a Google sitemap, you can create one for free at the adwords-marketing-tool,com sitemap tool.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
1) Use Google's Adwords Editor to manage your campaigns.
The Adwords Editor is free tool from Google that helps you manage your campaigns. It allows you to make bulk or multiple updates to your campaign. This saves you time and effort when compared to making manual changes online.
2) Disable the Content Network.
Beginners should stay away from the Content Network in Google Adwords. When you are just starting out, disable the content network in your PPC campaigns. Traffic from the content network is lower quality than Google search traffic, because it's coming from Google Adsense participants who don't care what quality of traffic they send your website. When you have proven ROI from your website, you can use placement campaigns or regular content network.
3) Set a reasonable daily budget.
You want to throttle your traffic and Adwords spending until you have a proven ROI. When you achieve a good ROI, you can increase the daily budget and increase your traffic. You don't want to throttle your campaign by bidding to low per click, because that can affect your CTR. You need a good CTR to maintain a good quality. Throttling your campaign with a daily budget stops showing your ads, so you won't get impressions and damage your CTR.
4) Don't set your CPC too low.
You don't want to throttle your campaign by bidding too low per click, because that can affect your CTR. You need a good CTR to maintain a good quality. You never want to damage your CTR by bidding to low. In fact, if you begin with a high bid, you can achieve a good CTR. After your achieve the high CTR, you can lower your CPC and still maintain a ad good position, saving money in the long run.
5) Don't hang on to poor performing keyword.
You probably have some keywords and ad groups that are not performing well. The half percent is a good goal for a well performing ad. Any ad group or keyword performing under a half percent with a high number of impressions needs to be altered. The poor performing ads can damage your overall campaign CTR and lower the quality score and position of your other ads. Remove the ad group or keyword. If you decide you simply must have this ad group or keyword, move it to it's own campaign and start split testing sales copy changes.
6) Evaluate your landing pages as if you were performing SEO.
Your landing page is examined and scored by Adwords just like your website is for inclusion on the Google search engine. Performing SEO on your landing pages will improve your quality score. The Google webmaster tools can provide free information on how Google scores your pages. If you don't have a Google sitemap, you can create one for free at the adwords-marketing-tool,com sitemap tool.
Are you over paying for your Adwords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google Adwords?
• High cost to maintain your Adwords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert
There is a solution to all of these problems. Slash your Adwords costs in half and get more traffic with the free Adwords Strategy Guide. Get your free copy now.
.
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