The AdWords Secrets You Need to Know Now
Google is in a state of perpetual change. Using a chameleon-like strategy, Google quickly adapts everything from their algorithm to Google Analytics enhancements to reflect the changing online environment. As a result, even the most cognizant interactive marketer may not be aware of every trick of the trade. The success of advertising with AdWords depends primarily on the knowledge of the individual advertiser and how well they take advantage of Google tools’ functionality. Learning the basic features of AdWords is enough to create an average campaign, but to truly become an AdWords virtuoso, in depth knowledge is necessary. Presented here are five things you might not have known that Google AdWords could do.
See the Search Terms that Actually Triggered Your Ad
Showing which queries triggered your ad can be an invaluable metric for keyword targeting. If you use broad matched keywords in your AdWords campaigns, you could be receiving clicks and impressions from irrelevant search queries, giving you no chance for conversions. However, AdWords compensates for broad match types by providing a way to see what the actual search queries are that are causing impressions. By using the actual search query report, you can decide if your ad is showing for appropriate queries. If not, you can add the appropriate negative keywords or expand your keyword list to encompass or tighten your keyword strategy.
Under campaigns, select the keywords report in AdWords. From here simply click ‘See search terms’ and select either ‘All’ or ‘Selected’ keywords. The report produced includes the actual search terms, the match type and other pertinent information such as impressions, clicks, and CTR. You can then add terms directly from the table as keywords or add negative keywords.
Phone Call Tracking
Although currently available only to a limited audience, Google AdWords has begun offering phone call tracking for ads displayed on both mobile and desktop devices. The new functionality allows you to measure call metrics received from your AdWords campaigns.
Google displays a custom phone number from Google Voice when your ads appear. When users call, the number is then rerouted to your general business number. Once phone call tracking is enabled, you can see metrics in AdWords under the Campaigns tab for total, received, and missed calls as well as average and total call durations. Because the phone number is unique to your ad campaign you are tracking calls not only from click to call ads on high end mobile devices but also calls stemming from traditional ads.
To enable this new feature, start by choosing the campaign you want to enable call metrics for and go to the Ad Extensions tab. From here, select the Phone Extensions tab, enter your business phone number, and select the box to enable call metrics. Finally, you will select whether you’d prefer to use a local number or a 1-800 number for your custom phone number.
Google TV
Google TV advertising is available through AdWords for national television advertising. As with online advertising strategies, Google TV ads should be extremely targeted and specific with multiple campaigns and separate network and program targets.
Through AdWords, Google TV Ads provides tools to customize and target your campaigns. The audience search tool provides demographics on gender, age, income and interests. The program targeting tool allows you to find programs related to a keyword or theme. Finally, the network and daypart targeting tool allows the user to select which networks and times of day for their ads to air.
To get started go to the Home tab in your AdWords account. In the Active Campaigns box select ‘Television’ and this will take you to the Campaigns tab for television. Next, select ‘Start Now’ and fill in the campaign name, your bidding preferences and upload your ad. There is no special hardware required for creating and uploading your ad to AdWords. If you have a digital copy of the ad you can upload it directly into your AdWords account. If you do not have access to a digital copy Google accepts videos by mail.
Because TV ads are displayed passively, without a user query, they can provide a new way to reach target audiences that doesn’t require their direct participation. Google TV Ads provides in-depth reports on impressions and audience statistics. Comparing this data with your web traffic in Google Analytics can show how effective your TV campaigns are at driving Internet traffic.
YouTube Advertising
YouTube, currently the second largest search engine in the world, can be used for everything from simple text ads to display ads to in-stream video ads. It has the distinct benefit of reaching users that are already deeply engaged with the content. YouTube is part of the Google Display Network and therefore the sole requirement for YouTube advertising is opting into the display network through your AdWords account.
As with other forms of AdWords advertising, YouTube advertisements can be targeted to show on search pages related to keywords or themes. YouTube also offers traditional content targeting, audience targeting and interest-based advertising. A standard text ad can appear on a Browse page or as a text overlay on the bottom portion of a video. A display ad can appear on the two previous placements as well as to the right of a video on a Watch page and on a search results page.
YouTube currently offers two video formats to advertisers: promoted and in-stream. Promoted videos appear for search queries on YouTube based on keyword relevance and the AdWords auction system. In-stream ads allow advertisers to run their video at the beginning, middle or end of a YouTube partner video. YouTube partners include traditional broadcast networks, professional content producers and producers of highly viewed content.
Remarketing
Remarketing provides a way for AdWords users to target consumers who have previously visited their website but did not complete the conversion process. Remarketing can serve hyper-relevant ads that are determined by a consumer’s previous site interactions.
To enable remarketing, navigate to the Audiences tab in AdWords and select ‘Add Audiences.’ Next, click ‘Create and manage lists’ in the add audiences box. Click ‘New audience’ and select ‘Remarketing list’. Designate a title and description and set the duration for which you want customers to be included in the audience. Finally, add the remarketing code to all pages visited by users you want included in the list.
You can then set up custom combinations to further refine your audience. For example, you could set up two remarketing lists – one list of users who hit ‘Page A’, and one list of users who hit your conversion page, ‘Page Thank You’. You can then target to all users who hit ‘Page A’ but did not hit ‘Page Thank You’, meaning they did not convert. Once you’ve defined your lists and combinations, just add the appropriate audiences to your remarketing campaign.
Remarketing, although generally underused as an AdWords tool, has demonstrated great ability in driving conversions. Advertisers may be unaware that AdWords offers remarketing, or they may have reservations about using it due to the negative connotation of remarketing as intrusive. Although consumers’ privacy preferences should be respected, users who have previously visited your site are your best prospective customers, and have already demonstrated an interest in your products or services.
In Conclusion
The AdWords tools listed here are only a small portion of what Google has to offer. Remember, the success you achieve with Google AdWords will heavily rely on your awareness as an advertiser. With constant research, experimentation, and optimization, you can maximize the performance of your SEM campaigns.