The Secrets of a Successful Google AdWords Campaign  

PPC (Pay Per Click) can be a very effective advertising tool. It will drive you an immediate traffic to your web site while paying only for surfers who actually follow your ads and visit your site.

But driving traffic doesn't necessary mean that you run a successful campaign! Using AdWords , or any other PPC campaign, without knowing the basics could end up with a negative ROI, meaning that you will spend more money than you actually earn.

Following these tips will help you cut down your spending, while driving more traffic to your web-site and improve your CTR (Click Thru Rate) and Conversion Rate:

1. Research for keywords. Choose at least 200 keywords. Use tools like http://inventory.overture.com to get many variations. Use only relevant keywords. Don't use too general keywords (e.g. "cars") or you will end up with many non-relevant visitors and very expensive keywords. You will have to be very focused and specific.

2. Use Negative keywords. Filter those visitors who are not looking for what you offer. You will be surprised from how many surfers are looking to "buy" stuff for free. (Use "-free" as a negative keyword if you expect people to pay you).

3. Use [phrase matching] and "phrase matching".

4. Organize your Campaigns and Groups in a logical way. Don't put all your keywords under one group. Cluster your groups in very tight matches between phrases and ads.

5. Use matching keywords in your Headlines. That way the keywords will appear bold and your ads will stick out in the search page.

6. Take your visitors to a highly specific landing page, usually not your home page. This strategy will rise your Quality Score (thus reducing your Cost Per Click) and your Conversion Rate - your visitors will be shown exactly what they are looking for.

7. Bid conservatively and win with high CTRs, not high Bids. High CTR and QS (Quality Score) will allow you to drive more traffic and pay less for each click.

8. Rotate and split test your ads. Always run at least two ads and always be split testing them. Change one thing at a time and get at least 30 responses from your best ad before deleting the loser.

9. Tricks for converting Ads:

A. Use Commanding Verbs: Concert Tickets vs. Get Concert Tickets

B. Use Capitalization on headlines, URL, directory and subdomain: www.myconcerttickets.com/thepolice vs. www.MyConcertTickets.com/ThePolice

10. Delete non-converting keywords and cut your ad cost by 40-80%.

11. Make your campaign visible only in relevant countries or regions. If your product is targeted for US citizens, you will have no use of visitors from other countries.

12. Lead your visitors to opt-in registration pages. Make them come back to your site after the first visit.

Implementing these strategies will help you build effective money making campaigns. But building a proper campaign, with thousands of focused keywords, dozens of ad-groups and ads and hundreds of focused and optimized landing pages will take you many hours a day per effective campaign.

Fortunately, Jay Stockwell and Allan Gardyne came up with a system called SpeedPPC. This system actually produces full and effective campaigns automatically!

Main features of SpeedPPC:

A. Generate highly targeted keywords that capture the buyer when they are in the mood to buy.

B. Create small focused ad groups that have a strong theme to help increase Click Through Rates, improve Quality Score and reduce costs.

C. Create ads that match exactly to the ad group increasing click through rates, reducing costs and increasing conversions.

D. Create a landing page and then change the contents based on the search to help improve click throughs. For example, dynamically create coupons that are specifically for the region.

E. Drive traffic to those perfectly matched landing pages for every keyword to increase quality score and improve conversions.

F. Put mechanisms in place to closely track and monitor the profitability of each keyword and ad group.

G. Ability to roll out campaigns incredibly quickly saving you both time and money, as well as give you the ability to have faster testing cycles. Instead of taking weeks, SpeedPPC helps you roll it out within minutes.

H. Use the "Datafeed Landing Page Generator" to dynamically build landing pages that are pulled from data feed files you get from your affiliate merchants.

I. Integrate into your site search engine directly so that the site will display the correct product landing page based on the incoming search phrase.

About the Author

Amir provides consulting services to internet business companies, and is the owner of several affiliate and educational web sites. Web Hosting Chart, Website Resources and Tools.