Google AdWords Made Simple: A step-by-step guide
I do not understand.
I have a ton of friends who own businesses. As soon as they start making money, they start talking to me about all sorts of investments.
"The real estate market is supposed to be good."
"I want to be an angel investor, any advice?"
My usual response?
"AdWords, man!"
They run these big companies, sell good products, and what do they do?
They flee and try to put their money into anything EXCEPT their own business.
Why not just sell more of their products?
Double down on what is already working, instead of starting to play in an area you know nothing about.
Google AdWords is usually the simplest way to do it.
If my friend wants to multiply his investment by 10, let's say $50,000, he can
Spend 1000 hours trying to become a good angel investor, learn everything about the subject and hope to land an investment in the next Facebook (which is almost impossible).
faire de même pour l’immobilier, en essayant de décrocher un appartement ou une copropriété bon marché et de le retourner (plus facile, mais toujours difficile).
Passez 100 heures à apprendre les Google AdWords (ou engagez simplement quelqu’un qui les connaît) et investissez 50 000 dollars dans des campagnes Google AdWords pour réaliser 500 000 dollars de ventes.
Which one do you think is more likely to succeed?
Option 3 is a no-brainer.
Today, I want to open the black box that is Google AdWords to most people and show you what it is, how to get started, and how to reverse engineer to succeed.
If you know the costs and margins of your products, AdWords is a very simple way to get value for your money, with a return on investment often in the hundreds of percentage points.
If you don't know what ROI means, it stands for return on investment. In this example, for every $100 spent on ads, you will recover $330.40.
So, you could turn 100 dollars into 430.30 dollars and thus quadruple your money.
Such a return on investment is not uncommon with AdWords. And, if you can achieve it, a return on investment of 900%, like with my friend who wants to multiply his money by 10, is entirely within reach.
But, let me start from the beginning..
Overview of Google Adwords tutorial
Watch:
My bread and butter are in SEO. The first place I start when developing a new site is with content and links. That's the SEO strategy I recommend most of the time..
Except
SEO + content is powerful. In short, it is the most cost-effective way to grow a website in the long term. But it takes time. It requires a little patience.
AdWords is the opposite.
You can be up and running in less than an hour. And if you do it right (by reading the rest of this guide), you can start generating new sales by the end of the hour.
And the best part? It is
Here is what I mean..
We have talked about pay per click (PPC) advertising before. It is different from other advertising models (such as banner ads with a CPM or cost per thousand impressions) because you are not paying for views. Instead, you are paying for results.
No results? No clicks, leads, or sales? You don't pay. It's as simple as that.
But that's not the only advantage..
When people go on Google, they are looking for something specific. This means that they have
That's why Google AdWords is so powerful (and cost-effective). There is no better form of SEM (search engine marketing).
For every 3 dollars spent on online advertising, Google receives 1 dollar. Advertising is their main source of revenue.
More than 95% of their $60 billion in annual revenue comes from Google AdWords. Add to that the fact that over 1 million businesses use it and you know that companies are seriously spending money in this area.
Google AdWords is a marketplace where businesses pay to have their website ranked at the top of a search engine results page, based on keywords.
Let's be honest with each other for a second:
Google loves big brands in their organic search ranking. So unless (or until) you are a big brand, it will be difficult to outperform Papa John's or Domino's in the rankings - no matter how much better your pizza is (and let's be honest again, it's probably better).
AdWords allows you to cheat.
Instead of waiting, building up an arsenal of content and links in a few months, you can go straight to the first position on the page.
Check:
Grubhub is able to overtake Domino's for one of the top keywords in their industry. And then Racca's Pizzeria (an unnamed place) is able to outperform Domino's as well.
Thus, even the smallest players in the industry can rise to the top of a SERP, and all it took was... a few minutes (as opposed to months or years with SEO)..
AdWords also gives you a little extra bonus. It can help you uncover the keywords "make money" in your industry. So, by spending a few dollars, you will discover which keywords convert the best in order to bring them back to your content and SEO strategy.
The Adwords market works like an auction. People bid for clicks. But the highest bid doesn't always win. Google combines the money factor with a quality factor (which we will look into soon), in order to create the best possible experience for the user.
Quality ads + strong offer = victory!
It is a massive industry and if you have not tapped into its potential, I bet you would like to do so. But be warned: Google AdWords is simple, but not easy.
It takes time to master it and most companies lose money because they are not patient enough to see results with pay-per-click advertising. In this guide, I want to help you get started simply.
Before we begin, promise me to commit to 3 points:
Do not spend a lot of money. Establish a fixed budget. It could be 50, or even 25 dollars. That is enough to get started.
Ne compliquez pas trop les choses. L’interface de Google AdWords est complexe, il est facile de s’y perdre et de commencer à créer des dizaines de variantes d’annonces. Ne le faites pas. Restez simple. Faites-en le moins possible pour que la plateforme vous permette de commencer.
Soyez patients. C’est de loin le plus important. 99 % des personnes qui perdent de l’argent avec AdWords abandonnent tout simplement trop tôt (ou dépensent trop, trop vite). Soyez patient. Cela prend du temps.
Can you promise me?
Raise your hand in the air!
Ok, good.
Let's start with some basics..
How to use Google AdWords (instead of the overview)
You have to start with some basics first. That way, everyone is on the same page.
Here are some basic terms that you need to know:
A keyword is a word or phrase that the user searches for and then sees your advertisement. Your ads will appear for the keywords you have chosen.
The dashboard is quite complicated, but we will get there
Google counts the clicks on your ads and charges you for each click. It also counts impressions, which is simply the number that indicates how many times your ad has already been displayed when users searched for that keyword.
If you divide the clicks by the impressions, you get the click-through rate, or CTR. This is the percentage of users who land on your advertising page because they clicked on your ad. It is important because the click-through rate indicates which ads are performing well and which ones are not.
Google AdWords is like an auction house. You need to set a budget and a bid. The bid sets the amount you are willing to pay for each click. If your maximum bid is $2, Google will only display your ad if others are not bidding more (on average).
Google wants to maximize its revenue, so naturally, it will show the ad of the company that offers the highest amount for this keyword, assuming that all bidders have the same quality score.
However, if people bid less for the keyword for which you want your ad to appear, Google will not spend your maximum bid. It optimizes impressions and bids. Therefore, you could actually pay less than 2 dollars per click.
Your cost per click, or CPC, can therefore be lower than your maximum bid, especially if your ads generate a good quality score. This is a measure based on the user's experience of your landing page, the relevance of your website, and your ad itself.
Google doesn't just want to show people ads from the highest bidder, they can be horrible. They care so much about their users that they prefer to show them a more relevant and higher quality ad from someone who pays less, because it encourages users to come back to Google.
But none of that matters if you don't get conversions. A conversion is a new lead or a new sale, but, in general, it means that the user has taken the action you wanted them to take.
In some cases, this action may be something other than a purchase. Signing up for a mailing list or entering their personal information are examples of other actions.
But in most cases, it's a matter of money (ha, I'm so gangster!). And rightly so.
Businesses often quickly spend thousands of dollars on paid AdWords advertising because their budget is set daily and, unless you stop the process, it is unlimited.
Imagine creating 10 different campaigns for different keywords, with a daily budget of 10 dollars for each of them. If you let it run for a month without paying attention, you will have paid a bill of 3,000 dollars!
That is why conversions need to be sales of a product, in order to quickly recoup the money you spend on advertising.
To earn money with ads, you need to sell something.
It's logical, isn't it?
That is why we will start with conversions. I will explain how to set up your account, how to track your click-through rate and conversions, and then we will begin.
But first, here is a deeper dive into how Google AdWords works. I'm talking about the mathematics and factors that determine the two things you should be most interested in:
How much do you have to pay..
Et où vous allez vous classer.
Here is how it works..
How does Google AdWords work?
In the past, you could bid on almost any keywords you wanted.
It was so
The
This measure combines several factors in order to effectively determine the "quality" of your offer for someone's search.
Buckle up, because things are about to get a little old-fashioned. It's
Let's get started..
Each keyword in your account will receive its own quality score. Therefore, even two keywords in the same ad group (we will come back to this in a moment) can have different quality scores (which depend on the relevance of the search performed).
This is the first factor they are looking for:
For example, let's say someone is searching for "snowboard rental". Which key phrase seems most relevant to you?
"Snowboard rental in Tahoe"
“Location de skis
It should be easy, right? Even though they are related, one of them is obviously more suitable. But the same thing happens in a campaign when you use keywords like
Snowboard rental
“Prix de location des planches à neige”
“Location de snowboard à Lake Tahoe”
This time, they are all quite relevant. But depending on the popularity of each, it is best to be as precise as possible. (For example, this could mean creating individual ads or even new campaigns for each of these specific keywords).
Because the second factor taken into account is the
Your ads will be accompanied by "impressions" (views) and actual clicks. Your click-through rate (CTR) is the calculation of clicks from views. A high CTR generally means that the relevance of your ad and keywords is better than that of other ads with a lower CTR (assuming the text is good, of course).
Therefore, Google will examine your past CTR and also predict future CTR to determine how well your ad matches someone's search.
Next, your
All of these factors pertain to your actual AdWords account so far. But the flip side of the coin is your landing page - or where people will go once they have clicked on your ad.
It needs to be relevant to what someone has just searched for. Therefore, a search for "snowboard rental" should display ads for "snowboard rental" that lead you to a page talking about "snowboard rental".
The homepage itself must also be user-friendly. For example, if the navigation is difficult or appears to be basic, people
This is a negative signal for Google. It means that your page, for whatever reason, is bad. Therefore, your "score" will suffer and you will fall below those who have better homepages (or you will have to pay more to catch up).
Because that's the only thing that's funny about AdWords..
It's an auction, that's true. But sometimes, if you do it right, you can actually rank first while paying the least amount (compared to other advertisers).
It often comes down to your quality score and your
The ranking of advertisements is your quality score multiplied by the maximum bid you have selected. Simple math, really. And this is what (in theory) dictates the position you will occupy. (In reality, it's not always that simple, because AdWords is such a massive landscape).
Next, the actual cost per click that you will pay is often determined by these scores in comparison to your competitors.
Therefore, Google AdWords will evaluate your maximum bid + quality scores + ad rank and compare them to those of your competitors, all in a few fractions of a second, in order to determine what you will pay.
Here is a brilliant visual from WordStream that illustrates this process:
The cost per click in your own industry can vary significantly depending on (1) the demand from internet users and (2) the expenses of competitors.
For example, the automotive industry may only cost you a few dollars per click. But in competitive sectors like insurance and law, I have personally observed that the cost per click ranges between 50 and 100 dollars per piece!
You may be wondering: How can you afford to pay $50 per click?
This seems so expensive!
But guess what, with AdWords, it's actually quite cheap. If you know what you're doing, you can always get 10 times your money back.
Comment?
First, you continue reading this guide.
Because I will show you after we have first talked about creating an AdWords account.
Step 0. AdWords 101: Preparation of your first campaign
It's quite simple..
Go to Google AdWords and click on "Get Started Now".
Enter your email address (it is preferable to use a Gmail account) and the URL of the homepage to open your AdWords account. Then, Google wants you to set up your first AdWords campaign.
But what is this, Google?
How am I supposed to know all these things, if I'm just getting started?
This is what this guide is for. You can leave the browser tab open in the background. Let's first talk about the different types of campaigns you can run on AdWords.
There is also a "Display Network" selection that allows you to extend the reach of your ads. For example, if you search on one of Google's partners (like AOL), your ads may also appear on their site.
We will focus most of this guide on the search network due to the benefits we have already discussed
You can target blogs and websites in specific categories (such as "home improvement" for example). But otherwise, you don't have that search intent that kills you to generate conversions.
You would rather use the Display network to make your name known. Reaching as many people as possible can help improve your brand image and visibility within a sector.
Thus, when people start
But after seeing your name on the Display network and visiting your site several times, they will finally take action
Let's start with that..
We will first explain to you how to calculate an AdWords budget that will bring you more than what you spend. Then, we will delve into advanced bidding strategies.
Let's do it...
Step 1: Calculate an AdWords budget
You can do it with fourth grade math, really.
To find out how much you can comfortably spend, all you have to do is work backwards.
Let's say you sell bricks. You need two elements to determine it: your profit per sale and your conversion rate.
If a pack of 500 bricks costs 200 dollars and, out of these 200 dollars, you make a profit of 100 dollars on each pack, these 100 dollars will be your profit per sale.
Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who actually place an order when they arrive on your brick sales page.
If for every 1,000 page visits, 10 people make a purchase, this represents a conversion rate of 1%.
As advertising on Google costs money, they also have a share..
On each sale, how much are you willing to give them?
If you think it is still possible to earn $70 per sale, then you can pay Google a 30% commission for each successful conversion via AdWords.
By bringing together all these elements, you will achieve your maximum CPC.
Max. CPC = your profit x commission for Google x your conversion rate
In this case, it would be $100 x 0.3 x 1% = 0.30
This means that you can spend $0.30 per click on Google AdWords and still make $70 per sale (assuming your conversion rate remains the same).
It wasn't that difficult, was it?
Now, we can simply increase our maximum CPC to determine our daily budget. A common misconception is that it takes a lot of clicks to be able to evaluate anything.
It's not true.
Just a few clicks to get started..
Of course, the more data you have, the more statistically significant it is. However, this volume of data is something you will obtain over time.
If you only receive 20 clicks per day, at the beginning, it's good.
At our maximum CPC, it would cost us 6 dollars per day, maximum. You can run a campaign for 10 days and only spend 60 dollars.
Perfect!
Easy, isn't it ?!
You can now improve this performance through bidding strategies.
AdWords offers internet users several ways to manage these bids to help you keep track of fluctuations in multiple campaigns at once.
For example, you can keep it on
Is this your first time doing this? With a limited budget? Keep your bids at the manual CPC level to ensure that they do not automatically increase or decrease without you realizing it.
Automatic Cost Per Click (CPC)
Let's say you want to reach as many people as possible. If your impressions start to drop, the bids can increase slightly so that your ads continue to be seen.
What is the disadvantage then?
Unlike manual bidding, you cannot set a maximum bid on different keywords. You end up sacrificing some of your budget control.
Improved CPC
For example, if the results of a campaign appear promising, it will automatically increase bids to "capture" more results (for less money). Likewise, it will abandon bids if necessary to help you save on unnecessary advertising expenses if performance begins to decline.
You now know that CPC refers to cost per click
In other words, Google will adjust the bids to get you the best possible cost per conversion on a campaign (even if it means increasing them in some cases)..
The CPM bid
In this case, you pay for eyes instead of clicks or conversions. Therefore, your goals should be a little different as well.
You wouldn't use CPM bids to maximize leads or conversions. But to increase brand awareness, you first need - as part of a separate campaign - to start with CPC and CPA bids on different campaigns to "capture" or convert this new attention.
These are the most popular bidding strategies. But each of them can be optimized accordingly
The three most common modifiers are geographical locations, device, and time of day.
Geographical location
For example, Californians may spend more money. Or maybe conversions in Ohio tend to be more expensive (based on cost per lead)..
This modifier will help you "handicap" these differences so you don't overpay in one region (like Ohio). But you also don't leave easy money on the table in another (like California).
The same idea applies to it
More and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices than on desktop. This means that more people are also conducting searches on their mobile phones.
BUT... this does not mean that conversions also follow this trend.
Historically, conversion rates on desktop computers still tend to be higher than on mobile devices.
What do these data teach us?
You may want to optimize mobile campaigns to generate new awareness or visibility. But it is important to prioritize conversion-focused campaigns for the return to the office.
Thus, device bid modifiers will help you control the share of these expenses allocated to you (and when you should withdraw).
One of the latest and most popular techniques is called
For example, if you want prospects to call your office, you can use a bid modifier so that your campaigns are more aggressive during office hours. This is the exact time you want the phone to ring.
But when it's 11 o'clock at night and no one is answering the phones, you can step back a bit on these offers and let your competitors spend more than necessary in the meantime.
These are all advanced techniques that you can use to fine-tune things once you have some experience under your belt. But let's leave it at that for now in order to start creating your account.
Is your budget in order? Do you have at least a rough idea of what you can spend? Good. Here is how to find profitable keywords for that price.
Step 2: Choose a keyword
Now that you know you want the maximum price of your keyword to be around 3 dollars, it's time to determine some keywords.
Go to the Google Keyword Planner and start searching for...
Put yourself in your client's shoes.
If you are looking to buy bricks online, what will you type into the Google search bar?
Type exactly this.
You can even define your product category, if you find it. You can also set the appropriate country and language under "Targeting".
For Google, simply choose Google and exclude the network (those are the sites that display banners, etc.). Click on "Find ideas"..
Once you have accessed the "Keyword Ideas" tab, you will see the monthly search volume for your keywords in this region, plus the average CPC for each of them.
You can infer that only 10 people per month in the United States search for "buy bricks cheap," but it costs nearly 3 dollars per click to advertise for this keyword.
Not really.
"Cheap bricks", on the other hand, has 260 searches per month, but only costs an average of $0.78.
This is a good start!
How can you make them come?
Always start with
These are easy-to-use terms that are already associated with your business. It could be the name of your product or service. Or a term that you have come up with to describe what you do (think of the creation of "inbound marketing" by HubSpot).
These terms will help you easily get conversions from people who are already searching for you by your name.
The downside, however, is that we are talking about a fairly limited market overall. You should instead aim to secure larger deals from people who have not yet heard of you.
These "lower" or "bottom of the funnel" keywords convert at a higher rate. But they are fewer in number. Therefore, you will need to add keywords from the middle and top of the funnel.
These topics should be the same as those you have already identified in your content strategy.
For example, "marketing automation consultants" may be too niche of a market. So, you can go a bit further by discovering relevant terms that are already in high demand for search.
Moz's Keyword Explorer (technically, a paid SEO tool) helps to make this discovery process a little easier. For example, start with a search term and you will receive a list of recommended suggestions that you can sort by both relevance and search volume.
SEMrush is another great tool for keyword research. But with an added bonus..
You can use a tool like SEMrush to literally spy on the competition. You can see who else is bidding on the same terms as you, and even what ad copy they are using to target that keyword.
So, if you type "buy car insurance online" for example, you can also export the text of their ad to think about other relevant terms that might be appropriate.
We are only scratching the surface of keyword research.
For example, you can also analyze the keyword based on:
Trend - Switch to Google Trends to see if specific people, places, or things are gaining popularity in the mainstream media
Saisonnalité – Autour des grands événements qui auront lieu dans les prochaines semaines (comme le Super Bowl ou autre)
Recherche de site – Google Analytics vous indiquera ce que les gens recherchent déjà sur votre site. Il vous suffit donc de le trouver et de le leur donner.
The keywords you choose are important. But you must also consider their
Here's why...
Let's say you are looking to hire "engineers". You then create a new landing page and a new AdWords campaign to start attracting new engineer candidates to your system.
One problem..
When you start sifting through your initial results, you notice that many of these engineers are not the right type.
You wanted "software engineers". But instead, you get "electrical engineers", "civil engineers", and more.
Your problem was not only the keyword you chose. But more specifically, the type of match you were using.
Google Adwords has three main types of matching:
Capture any word related to the one you have chosen.
Phrase : Reprend le mot lorsqu’il est utilisé dans une phrase.
Exacte : Ne s’affiche que lorsque ce choix de mot exact est utilisé.
As an expert SEO, a broad match will attract the largest number of people possible. While an exact match will attract the smallest number of people.
Generally, you need to find a balance between the three in order to achieve the best possible performance. Too little, and you will never be able to grow your business. Too much, and you are paying too much for low-quality clicks.
Here is how you will write each of them (pay attention to the punctuation used):
Broad:
Phrase : “ingénieur en informatique”
Exacte : [software engineer]
The use of a mix of the three types of matching will allow you to obtain a good sample of
It is essential, because while you make an offer
These are the words people use when they type into Google and your ad is displayed.
And that's why, if you weren't using the right types of matching earlier, you started getting a bunch of random results - but somehow related - for "civil" and "electrical" engineers.
Therefore, as part of the
Now... what if you don't like these search terms appearing?
And what if they are completely off topic and you are wasting a ton of money paying for these bad clicks (such as "civil" or "electric" clicks from earlier)?
You will want to
Further in this guide, we will discuss a "maintenance" routine to follow regularly so that you can identify all those bad keywords before they ruin your budget.
But for now, know that you can "flag" certain keywords in your campaigns that, basically, indicate to Google
All these negative keywords are listed on a list that accumulates over time. In a few weeks, you will start filtering out all the junk and catching it before it causes havoc.
This means that your ads should only appear for the right things. And the return on investment of your campaign should actually increase over time.
Choosing your own budget and your own keywords is half the battle. The other half that determines what you will pay is the competition you will face.
Here's how to dominate them...
Step 3: Check the contest
By observing the activity of your competitor, you will be able to determine whether it is easy or not to outperform them.
Do you remember that Google AdWords also takes into account quality? Do you want to know how high the quality of your ads should be to be successful?
This is also known as competitive intelligence.
Here is how to get started...
Go to
He will show you the average CTR (so you know what to expect) and the number of companies that have advertised for this keyword in the last three months.
In this case, there are only 41, which is nothing, considering that there are over a million companies advertising on AdWords.
It will also show you other keywords that have proven themselves on AdWords in this niche.
If you click on "Advertisers' History", you will even see the actual ads used by your competitors.
Tip: a key factor in relevance, for Google's quality score, is whether the keyword appears in your current ad.
In this case, Brickit doesn't even mention the bricks in its ad. This means that they shouldn't be too difficult to beat.
Do you remember SEMrush? Let's go back to it to do a similar competitive analysis. You can use it to find the estimated average costs for specific keywords.
But here is an even better tip..
You can search for an individual competitor. So start with the 800LB gorilla that dominates the SERP.
You can then go there and search for all the keywords they are currently offering (with their estimated volume and costs, of course)..
The combination of these approaches can therefore help you discover all the rules of the game of your competitors.
And then you can reverse engineer them to outperform them.
Sneaky, isn't it ?!
Don't compete. Dominate.
You now know how AdWords works. You understand the fundamental principles of how advertising bids determine your prices.
We have tackled more delicate topics such as bidding strategies. Selection of keywords (and their match types). We refine them based on the search terms you get and we exclude negative keywords.
Next, you have seen how to spy on the competition and use their own strategy against them.
We have covered a lot of ground. So it's time to launch these campaigns live, isn't it?
Not yet. Here's why...
Step 4: Make sure your homepage is strong
You are about to spend money to get traffic.
I must make sure that you understand this well.
You will pay people to visit your website, essentially.
It is always up to you to convert them and encourage them to give you money.
This means that if your homepage is bad, you will lose all that money. I was shocked to discover that companies only spend $1 to convert their traffic for every $92 they spend to acquire it.
Once people have arrived on your homepage, would you still spend $92 on them if it meant they would end up buying your product for $300? Of course you would!
Make sure you have done everything possible to convert visitors before starting advertising. If you send 1000 people to your landing page through AdWords and convert at 1%, you will earn $1000 with a $100 product. Imagine increasing that number to 2%...
You will instantly double your money and be able to spend more on advertising.
If done correctly, Google AdWords has a positive reinforcing effect, but your homepage must be converted.
After spending a quarter of a million dollars on conversion rate optimization (CRO), it breaks my heart to see generic and boring offers, like this one from Citibank:
They offer a kind of bank account. But it doesn't have any obvious advantages compared to, well, any other bank account.
Even worse, they also want me to enter a ton of information.
Wordstream has developed a great article on improving your homepage.
Here are 4 main points to consider:
Keep the design simple. Do not clutter your page with tons of videos, animations, and fancy designs that take forever to load.
Donnez du poids à la manchette et faites-la ressortir. C’est la première chose que les gens lisent. Il vaut mieux que ce soit bien.
Rédigez une copie claire. N’essayez pas de paraître intelligent en utilisant des termes complexes que personne ne comprend. Écrivez au fur et à mesure que vous parlez. Soyez aussi clair que possible sur ce que vous avez à offrir.
Utilisez des puces, des images et d’autres éléments visuels. Encore une fois, n’en faites pas trop. Ces éléments sont censés aider le lecteur à mieux saisir votre message, et non devenir la seule raison d’attirer son attention.
Do you want an example of a job well done? Check out Lyft.
A simple design, a clear title, simple instructions...
Another good example is Codecademy. Their homepage immediately tells you what you will get. And that you will get it quickly.
Lyft and Codecademy are both perfect examples of conversion-centered design. It sticks readers to your page like glue. And encourages them to click to learn more.
For example, Hiten teams up with ProfitWell to analyze the difference between a "good" and a "bad" pricing page.
More specifically, pages that combine "more information" and "more action" give users the most confidence. (Which means they feel most comfortable moving forward with you).
Otherwise, you have to make a mistake in the mix and the result is often intimidated, discouraged, or distracted visitors. None of them will buy.
Their study showed that Zendesk was one of the bad examples. See how cluttered and confusing the information on this page is
Compare this now with this simplified version of Campaign Monitor
At first glance, the layout of the prices is relatively similar.
The major difference, however, lies in how they present the information. Which comes down to the design of the pages.
The next essential difference is the copy.
Content writing is another complex and stimulating topic in itself. It would require far too much information to be covered here (in an article on AdWords).
Therefore, it is better to keep in mind this simple framework:
Here is how it works.
Problem: AdWords can bring you a ton of money. But it is difficult and complex to get started.
Agiter : Si vous vous trompez, vous perdrez non seulement beaucoup de temps, mais aussi beaucoup d’argent.
Solution : Heureusement, vous pouvez lire ce guide approfondi pour éviter de commettre ces erreurs.
This formula helps you focus on keeping someone's pain points at the forefront. It also helps you better match the homepage "relevance" + the keyword you are targeting + the search term used by someone. (Which, as we have seen, gives you the best return on investment).
It looks great, doesn't it? It's quite easy.
Only one problem...
How are you supposed to make these pages go up?
The AdWords quality score will rate the relevance of your landing page. This means it must match the keyword you are targeting.
Several keywords mean several landing pages.
If you are already working with designers and developers, the problem is solved. But otherwise, you will need some additional tips or tools.
Unveil solves a lot of these problems, such as creating, hosting, and testing new pages. They have a library of templates with designs that you can simply pull off the shelf.
Next, their website builder is a simple drag-and-drop customizer that allows you to edit or change almost anything on the page (without touching a line of code).
They also have an advanced feature called Dynamic Keyword Replacement. This allows you to create a single homepage and the searched keyword will be automatically inserted.
In the past, it was necessary to create dedicated landing pages for each major AdWords campaign. It was
But not anymore with this tool.
Instapage and LeadPages are two other options. Both offer beautiful templates that you can select with just one click. And both offer limited customizations so you can get a new homepage in just a few minutes.
Unfortunately, launching your homepage is only half the battle. Here, for example, is what usually happens...
You choose a beautiful model. Push it live. Press the button for your advertising campaigns, and then... nothing.
Visitors are coming, but prospects and sales are not materializing.
What is happening?
One way to know is to use CrazyEgg. This tool will help you discover
You can see what people click on, how far they scroll, and how visitors from Facebook search for different things on your page than AdWords visits.
In general, this will help you take a step further to understand what is working well and what needs to be improved.
What is usually just a simple drag-and-drop with one of these previous homepage tools.
Now, you have fixed the page. The leads have started coming in. There is one last thing left to do before your AdWords strategy is complete.
Google Analytics is great. But it will only show you a raw number of conversions. That's why you need something more like Kissmetrics.
If you are already spending thousands of euros each month on AdWords, you need to know which of these campaigns is the most effective
Campaign A provided 10 leads. Campaign B, only 5
What matters is the number of those people who end up paying you.
This could be only 2 for campaign A. And 3 for campaign B.
Or, the average value of orders from Campaign B could be higher. Therefore, it is necessary to go all the way to the finish line to see which campaigns are actually generating revenue (those that may look good on the surface, but are not delivering results).
Your homepage is designed for conversion. It provides people with all the information they need. But it presents it in a simple way so that it is easy to understand.
The writing of your page follows the simple AIDA formula. And you can modify landing pages on the fly as soon as you start to see what user behavior looks like and how many actual customers you are getting.
It is now time to return to the process of setting up the advertising.
Step 5: Setting up your first Google AdWords campaign
Previously, we have set a daily budget. We will use 6 dollars to give you an idea of how it works.
The next step is to look at where the customers are. Physically..
If your business operates only in the United States, but across the entire American territory, enter the United States.
Subnetworks, uncheck the display network. You want your ad to only appear in Google desktop search results, and not on other websites in your industry.
Next, enter your keyword (don't worry about Google's recommendations, you can add more later) and set your bid at $3.00.
It is important that you understand what is happening here.
We create one
For now, you might start with just one campaign. But once you're good, you'll have multiple campaigns. Each campaign can contain a ton of ad groups. And then even more keywords and ads.
There are now several ways to structure your AdWords account.
Most professional PPC experts have their own "favorite". But there is no consensus. There is no perfect setup. So we will quickly introduce you to some of the most popular ones, as well as their pros and cons, so that you can make your own decision.
The first setup is done by
Basically, you create a campaign for Broad match. Then another one for Phrase match. And finally another one for Exact match.
This setup is good because it allows you to quickly highlight performance based on these exact terms. You can therefore quickly adjust a tighter budget based on the results.
The downside is that it often becomes large and complex over time. If you are a big advertiser with a huge product catalog and you are about to take a fall, you should avoid this situation.
You could instead set up campaigns around
On the other hand, this makes organization easier and you can quickly dedicate time and money to anything you are trying to introduce to the market.
Although it makes organizing and product goals easier, it can be difficult to improve what is happening at the keyword level based on individual performance.
Finally, there are Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAG). They are a bit unique because you are literally creating independent ad groups for each keyword.
If you have to have a ton of keywords... that means
Johnathan Dane, founder of KlientBoost (self-proclaimed lover of SKAGs) highlights some of its benefits:
It automatically solves the issue of matching between the quality score and the message
Les publicités deviennent des cibles laser pour un seul mot-clé
Et vous pouvez avoir un plus grand “contrôle” sur ce qui passe (comme les termes de recherche que vous payez)
The major drawback (besides the fact that it takes time) is that you must already know which keywords you are targeting before or during the implementation of these campaigns. There is therefore not much room for experimentation.
Each of these methods will work. It all depends on what suits you best.
But whatever your choice, it is important to understand how it will integrate into your customer journey.
Check out these three search queries:
Las Vegas
Restaurants de Las Vegas
Hôtel de Las Vegas
They are all connected. But each one is looking for something different. The website
For example, someone who is looking for the first sentence might simply be interested in the city in general. They may be comparing it to other places, like New Orleans, for their next vacation.
But that doesn't mean they are ready to buy or leave a credit card at a hotel.
The second sentence means that the person is traveling, but still evaluating their options. It seems like they are going to Las Vegas, but that doesn't mean they have chosen a hotel. They are still looking.
The third and final one is someone who is ready to buy. They are now comparing travel dates and seeing what hotel prices look like.
Each of these three elements is important. But the keywords you choose to attract each of them will be different. The same goes for the ads you will eventually show them.
Once again, it all comes back to your own business. You may have a limited budget and want to aggressively target paying customers.
Or maybe you want to reach people earlier in their decision-making process in order to reduce the cost per lead you will ultimately get.
The fact is that you need to think about how these AdWords campaigns will be set up, and which part of the funnel they will target, before you can delve into the details of creating an advertisement.
What brings us to the next step...
The only thing missing is the announcement...
Step 6: Write your first ad
So, what does it take to write a good Google ad? Some elements..
Be precise. You don't have much space to express yourself. So, be brief and gentle.
Having a unique value proposition (UVP) helps. This is a one-sentence description of the benefits for your customers.
Do you remember the old Domino's slogan?
"You receive a fresh and hot pizza, delivered in less than 30 minutes - or it's free!"
What more could you ask for when you order a pizza? Fast delivery and a hot pizza when you receive it.
Spend time thinking about how you are different from others. What can you bring to the table that your competitors do not bring?
Enjoy it.
There is also good news...
It is not necessary to be original or intelligent. Just imitate what already works.
For example
Another test showed that incorporating a number in the title resulted in a 217% increase in CTR and a 23% improvement in conversion rates.
In other words, there are models to follow. Formulas to imitate. When someone types "Los Angeles Tax Attorney", it means they actually want to find a tax attorney in Los Angeles.
Therefore, create in your advertising a compelling "eye-catching" headline that will attract their attention. Make sure there is a compelling value proposition.
But otherwise, do not reinvent the wheel. Do not be too complex or smart at the expense of conversions.
It is also extremely important to include a call to action. The simplest way to encourage people to click on your ad is to
One technique to give your CTA an extra boost is by using power words. These trigger words almost force prospects to click. They play on our psychology (whether we like it or not).
For example, it is sometimes preferable to use fear. And sometimes, it backfires on us. The trick is knowing when to use it correctly.
Outbrain found that negative headlines (those that focus on threats and errors) achieved a 69% higher click-through rate than positive headlines (while also outperforming them by 50%).
So, when writing advertising text, switching from CTA to saving money could make all the difference. Instead of "Get these money-saving tips now", it would be "Prevent these 5 brain-dead people from making mistakes now".
Sometimes, the less said, the better.
Curiosity is one of the most powerful motivational levers we have. By piquing people's interest, teasing them, or posing a question without immediately providing the answer, it creates a small "gap" in someone's mind.
A form that they must absolutely fill out.
Curiosity is even a favorite technique of Copyhackers, who used it in the past to increase clicks by 927%...
Here is a bad example from which we must learn lessons.
Look at this ad that appears for our keyword "cheap bricks".
Not only do they not include the keyword correctly (having it in its actual form is very useful), but they also do not encourage me to take action.
Different types of stones, 12 years of experience.
And?
What does this mean for me? Nothing.
They don't tell me to do anything, so I don't do it.
Another key factor is your display URL. This is the green link displayed under the title. It can be anything, but the domain should match that of your homepage.
You must always include the keyword here, for additional emphasis.
Keeping these factors in mind, create your advertisement.
What do you think of this?
If our page is wesellcheapbricks.com, we also need to make it the display URL.
Tip: Remove the "http://" from your display URL to get more space for your keyword.
Let's quickly dissect the announcement:
Title:
The text "Get cheap bricks fast" is a title that not only relies on the keyword but also stands out, but it is also an action that people can take, making it clickable.
Display the URL:
Here, we have removed the http and added "cheap-bricks" to the end, so that it stands out in search results and our ad is more relevant to people searching for the keyword.
Copy of the ad:
You only have two lines, which is not a lot to get the message across. "Our bricks are inexpensive and delivered within 2 days." It's as clear as possible. Of course, inexpensive is always relative, but it seems sufficient for the searcher.
Delivering within two days is definitely a bonus that most other brick-and-mortar stores do not offer (not to mention advertise).
Call to Action (CTA):
"Order today." What else needs to be said? There is no exclamation point, as Google is not a big fan of those, but it is definitely a good call to action.
Want to have everything? Press "Save" and continue.
Step 7: Settle the details
You will then land on your dashboard for the first time. First, pause the AdWords campaign so that it does not start right away.
If you click on the campaign, you will see that inside the campaign, Google has automatically created an ad group. In our example of a single ad, the ad group doesn't matter. But when you start running a larger AdWords campaign with multiple keywords, dividing them into ad groups greatly simplifies the management of your ads.
If you click on it, you will reach the ad level, where you can see your keyword.
Click on your keyword and match it with the sentence.
In the first place, Google has defined a broad match. Unfortunately, this is not very targeted. This means that users can enter your keywords anywhere in the query.
But if someone is looking to know "how to make bricks at home cheaply", they are not looking to buy cheap bricks, so that is not what you want.
The exact match may be too targeted, as it only allows the exact phrase "cheap bricks" to be expressed.
In general, phrase matching is a good option because it should contain your keyword in the form of a fixed phrase, but it can be surrounded by other terms.
If users search for "where to buy cheap bricks", your ad will still appear.
Now, there is only one last thing left for you to do...
Step 8: Setting up conversion tracking
Do you remember when I said that all of this is useless without conversions?
That is why you must follow each one of them.
How does Google proceed?
With a piece of code...
You put some code on the page that users reach after successfully purchasing from you, which will allow
Google AdWords knows that there has been a purchase every time a user reaches the page after clicking on an ad.
To set it up, go to "Tools" and then "Conversions"..
Click on "+ Conversion".
Now, choose "Website"..
Add the information, basically just a name and the value of the conversion.
Press "Save and continue". Then, you will arrive on the page with the code.
Just copy the code snippet and add it to the HTML code of your thank you page (the one people see right after making a purchase).
That's it!
At first, your dashboard will show "unverified", but this will change after a few hours or a day.
Once you have set up this option, go to the Campaigns tab and let the campaign run.
But... what if you are a lead-based company?
According to the Invoca Call Intelligence Index, 70% of the 30 million phone calls started with a digital channel. Phone calls are also better converted.
The average conversion rates could range from 1 to 2% online. But on mobile phones, this figure reaches 30 to 50% according to Invoca data.
So two things to try...
The first is setting up the AdWords Call Extension. This will add a phone number or call button to the ad itself
So, when someone calls, it records the new ringtones as conversions in AdWords (so you can see which campaign or even which ad delivered each phone call).
But not everyone will call the number indicated in this ad. They can click on the website and browse a bit before calling.
Unfortunately, you will lose the digital trail of the advertisement that delivered this call. Unless you use a tool like CallRail to help you keep track.
You just need to copy and paste a script on your website (similar to the one used for AdWords above).
You can then set the phone number on your site as the "exchange target".
From now on, a brand new phone number will be assigned to each visitor, following from page to page.
So, when someone calls, you instantly know which advertising campaign was sent to you initially.
Congratulations, you have just set up your first AdWords campaign!
It is now time to maintain it.
What is happening now?
Not much..
Google will first examine your ad before displaying it. That's why it's not very logical to create a lot of ads right away.
Once you have accessed your account the next day and seen that your ad has been approved (you will also receive an email from Google), you can start creating other ads by copying your original ad.
Therefore, you can avoid going through the approval process again. Go to the Ads tab.
Select your ad, check the box and click on "Edit", then "Copy".
Next, do the same and click on "Paste" (or simply press Cmd/Ctrl+V).
Paste your ad and check the two boxes.
Next, you can click on your copied ad and edit it. Change the title and/or the copy.
To achieve results on AdWords, you must always test different ads against each other.
If you only run one ad and get mediocre results, you can't know what would have been better because you can't compare it to anything.
That is why you need to create at least a second advertisement on the second day, once the first one has been approved.
Additional credit: regular account maintenance
Your account is up and running. (Finally!)
In the coming days and weeks, the results will begin to flow in.
There is not much to do until then.
But... there is one last thing to put on your radar before you get too comfortable counting all these new sales.
Over time, you will want to continually maintain, prune, and improve your account. Small accounts can wait about every month. While other large accounts that I have worked on go through something like this every week.
The goal is to check the health of your campaigns. And to quickly correct what is not working in order to minimize the amount of wasted advertising expenses.
So, first of all, pull out this report on search terms.
You will want to regularly check this report and do one of the two following things
Identifying new potential keywords to add to your existing campaigns, or
Identifiez les mots-clés hors sujet que vous voudrez ajouter à votre liste de mots-clés négatifs afin qu’ils n’apparaissent plus.
The goal here is to shift bad expenses to good ones. Restricting any wasted part of your budget and putting it behind what you can already see is a good thing.
This will eventually give you a way to compare profitability by keyword.
The next step is to check the positions of the ads.
For example, if you consistently show up in the first position, you could actually get away with reducing your budget gradually in order to lower your cost per click (while still maintaining your top position).
If you appear in position 3-4, you probably won't get many clicks. So this time, gradually increase your bids on the keywords to slowly move towards positions 1-2 (again, without spending too much).
The next step is to create more advertisements. Ideally, you want the ads to have a click-through rate of at least 8%.
This means that you will likely need to test at least a few variations per keyword or ad group (depending on your setup) in order to find the one high-performing ad.
In the meantime, feel free to drop or pause the underperforming ads. Generally, ads run indefinitely to test multiple versions. So quickly pause the losers to avoid continuing to reduce the budget of your winners.
You can also try out new advertising extensions during this time. For example, adding a few extensions (whether it's a phone number or those little yellow stars from product reviews) can sometimes improve the performance of an existing advertisement.
After improving the ads, go to your locations and at the time of day (both sub-dimensions).
This part is simple.
What are the least performing places? Remove the budget and put it behind those that produce.
The same goes for days and hours.
What are the days of the week or times of the day when performance is insufficient?
No fancy graphics or statistics are necessary. Just common sense once you know where to look.
Conclusion: Congratulations! What now?
Sit down and wait. I am serious.
Turn on your second ad and once everything is up and running, do something else.
Don't just sit in front of the computer waiting for things to happen.
Do you remember the third promise you made before we started? AdWords requires patience.
Come back in a day. Then, create more ads and start building your first ad groups. Start refining. Read the data.
And remember: Nothing matters without conversions.
It's great if you can tell which ads get a better CTR, but if they don't get conversions, that doesn't help you make money either.
It may take you a month to see results (here is a good infographic on what to do during this month)
You just need to follow your ads and analyze the data that will come to you over the next ten days.
Next, review, disable ads that are not working, add keywords, and double the results.
Once you have started delving deeper, make sure to check out the superb videos we have on Google AdWords at the Quicksprout University.
Why do you want to use Google AdWords? Let me know the title of your first ad in the comments.