I was invited for a chat with Hanson Toh (Google Country Consultant for Malaysia) in July and in response to our discussion, started a Google Adwords management service 2 weeks ago. What I did was to address the weaknesses in the current offerings of fellow Adwords consultants/resellers, and packaged it into a flat S$250 per month service. I was lucky to land my first Singapore client within days - an NYSE-listed company nonetheless. What made it tougher was that it’s a B2B campaign and targetted at only Malaysia, meaning low demand but high competition. Another Hong Kong agency is managing their Singapore and Hong Kong campaigns, but I was told today that they’ll be handing over the Singapore account to me in 2 weeks time. Understand Your Objective Increase Conversion Rates Avoid Content Networks Pay Less, Rank Higher 1) Relevance 2) CTR 3) Landing Page Quality These 3 factors play a big role in your Quality Score. Try to minimize experimenting blindly because Google tracks your historical performance. The idea is to start with keywords that you think potential clients may use and by using available Keyword tools. After 1 or 2 weeks, dig closely into your Keyword Performance and Search Query reports, and adjust accordingly. Next, optimize your text ads by using different words and rotating multiple ads. You can optimize your landing page for conversion by trying different layouts, content, etc. and see which one converts better (a.k.a. split A/B test) - Adwords has a built-in feature called Website Optimizer to help you. I was unable to optimize my client’s landing page because it’s maintained by the head office in the U.S. But using the rest of the suggestions above, I was told that I obtained the same number of sales leads as the Hong Kong agency in my first week. Not bad, considering I received 1/3rd the number of ad clicks and spent only 1/8th their budget! I hope the above will help with your own Google Adwords campaign. Otherwise, my Adwords services only cost S$250 a month. ;)
The first thing I asked my client was their objective for the Google Adwords campaign. Since it was to generate sales leads, my focus is to get the best conversion rates possible. Many advertisers fail to understand this, and instead focus on the number of ad impressions and ad clicks. Always remember that your campaigns and hence, website traffic, is only a means to an end. What matters most is how much of that traffic convert into sales - the basis for your ROI.
Next, I implemented several “filters” with the objective of obtaining a good conversion rate and cost-per-conversion. I used geo-targetting so that only Malaysian users (by IP address or those searching on google.com.my) will see my ads. I then selected ideal keywords and matching options to ensure that my ads show for only the most relevant searches. Finally, I worded my text ads with details so that only the most interested users click on my ads.
Apart from having your ads show on the search results of Google and their partner networks, you can also have them show on their content network, i.e. on websites that are affiliated via Google Adsense. Due to the possible conflict of interest (the website owner gets paid everytime your ad is clicked on), I always exclude the content network in my campaigns to minimize click fraud - can be as high as 30% according to industry estimates. If you’re thinking of choosing your own sites within the network instead of via the default contextual placement, be aware that Google will charge you based on a CPM and not a CPC model. So if you picked a busy site, e.g. a forum, your budget will run out very fast while having very little click-thrus.
When advertising with Google Adwords, your primary concerns are to (a) pay less per click and (b) rank better than your competitors. To achieve this, you should pay attention to:
- relevance of your ad to the targetted keywords.
- the ratio of your click-thrus to ad impressions.
- apart from the similar SEO tricks, make sure there are no redirects, pop-ups, etc.