AdWhat Now? AdWords Tactics For Local Businesses In The Post Enhanced Campaigns Era

Editor's Notes

• #3: IMAGE: http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-21949439/stock-photo-alphabet?pic=new3
• #4: Google want you to target all locations in one campaign now because of their new location bid adjustments with Ecs…DON’T!!!Nationwide & geotargeted:-One with location terms in such as ‘furniture shop Brighton’ targeting whole of UK-One with generic terms such as ‘furniture shop’ just targeting -This means don’t loose visit where IP isn’t actually users location - control spend and performance in locations - Greater control over performance in locations to combat QS issues, as account location is considered in qual score. - Easy to do just duplicate one campaign and then append the keywords
• #5: Bid on your brand name:-protection-own the space (even if you rank organically you’d loose conversions so those above you if you don’t use PPC)-more ad extensions eligible-Cheap traffic & converts (the best kind of traffic for small & local businesses) - Good CTR will boost overall quality score(don’t mention local search)
• #6: Modified broad:-A way of controlling broad match-Google now deems many low search demand keywords as ineligible for auction but if you make them modified broad match you’ll find they are eligible again and modified lets you have more control over them-Cheap CPC’s but still targeted-discover new search terms for keywords that you won’t find in most keyword toolsAdd broad and mod broad to get impressions up, as your keywords won’t start collating their own individual quality score until their are a significant (thousand+) impressions and they’ll be done on industry average until then. Don’t just use phrase and exact, add broad match for the initial stages too. Phrase, exact and broad all have same quality score so if you can get your broad match qual score in place then phrase and exact will follow.
• #7: Don’t rely on AdWords bidding strategies unless you have to – if your account is tightly structured and you’re a small / local business you should be fine doing this manually every two weeks or so.Image: http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-1289241/stock-photo-coins
• #8: You probably know what these are…but just incase any of you don’t…Layer them…so if your location is the most important make this your highest bid increase, or if users on mobiles are more important then bid up more here…it’s about layeringPercentage adjustment of your standard bidHelps with making targeting more effective / tailor when you want to bid up for higher visability
• #9: -Great for local businesses and key to manage geographical performanceYour Quality Score takes into consideration your accounts performance in a location to calculate your quality score.It is account level, not campaign level, so you won’t be able to influence it by splitting out locations into campaigns, however by using dimensions tab date to see which areas have low CTR and bounce rate and then up bids in those areas if they are valuable to you. If they aren’t valuable to you, then exclude them as locations in all your campaigns so the bad performance in those areas doesn’t affect quality score for the account.…………………………………….A local estate agent might have 3 offices in Manchester, and bid on the whole of Manchester. They can increase their bids by 5% in a 1 mile radius of their offices as those victors are more likely to actually visit the offices and enquire.-Increase bids in locations which convert well -The might decrease their bids in locations where people are less likely to travel from.-Use dimensions tab to see where your traffic comes from and how it converts-Exclude locations all together (eg ‘users in or searching for my location)(Image http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-16335928-red-pushpin.php?st=3efc6fe)
• #10: NEW IMAGE: http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-49064162/stock-photo-colorful-alarm-clocks-on-table-on-light-backgroundTailoring your bids to time-of-day performance can really help you manage your quality score, which will save you money when you’re rewarded with lower CPCs.Use dimensions tab data and bid up at times of day when CTR is low to combat these slumps which will help lift yoru overall qual score. If you can’t afford to bid up, or the time of day never converts so isn’t profitable, then amend your ad schedule so you simply don’t show ads then.FOR EXAMPLE if you are a restaurant increase bids around lunch time to increase lunch time footfall when people are most likely to become customers or be looking for a restaurant in the area.FOR EXAMPLE If you’re a recruitment agency which is always inundated with new clients on a Monday, you might decrease your bids on a Monday as you know you’ll be busy anyway, and increase them on a Friday when things are generally quiet.Image creative commons http://www.google.com/imgres?start=236&biw=1600&bih=775&tbs=sur:fmc&tbm=isch&tbnid=M3DM9ZOex3OqaM:&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/quasimo/247205213/&docid=uX2Em_B1Vq6aPM&imgurl=http://farm1.staticflickr.com/80/247205213_2476415389_z.jpg%253Fzz%253D1&w=640&h=640&ei=kPyMUaLlA4bPhAfHh4DQBg&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:39,s:200,i:121&iact=rc&dur=568&page=9&tbnh=183&tbnw=158&ndsp=31&tx=89&ty=99
• #11: You don’t have to do it!!!!Set at ad group levelStart at around -30% unless you have stats to go on and analyse at ad group level to see which need tweaksRest assured that even though mobile is now in the same campaign as desktop, it won’t effect your quality score, that’s still calculated separately based on your performance on each device
• #12: Make more of explaining how to do it and that its easy to do.Kooz.ai link to code.Is your local business weather dependant? A lot of local businesses are services which can be weather dependent so I thought I’d throw this in!Ie if it’s more popular on sunny days you might want to increase your bids when it’s sunny – there’s an adwords script to help you do this – you can even customise your headline eg theme park when sunny or cinema when raining during school holidays – if your café has outdoor seating you can change your headline to say this, or mention the nice log fire you have for when it’s raining / hot chocolate or cool drinks.Register for access to this weather API (it’s free) - Make note of your API keyEdit a google docs spreadhseetPaste api key and spreadhseet URLThe script gets the weather and creates a score for it, so the sunnier it is, the higher yoru bids will be, the colder / rain will make bids lower. It then tranfers that score into a bid multiplier by taking each point to be a 10% multiplier – might sound high but scores are usually like 1.1 or 1.2 so you are looking at ten percentUpdates bid adjustments at keyword level for the campaigns listed in the spreadsheetCould expand it to have minimum bid values.Code is here in the end of the prezo in the resources section with a link to original tutorial so you can customise it further if you need toImage http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-33676457/stock-photo-rainbow-umbrella-on-sky-background
• #13: Bid adjustments stack up on top of each other – be aware!!!-Prioritise your bid adjustments-If you bid £1 as standard desktop bid, but increase it by 10% for people in Brighton city centre, it would be a bid of £1.10, but then if you bid 10% more between 1pm and 2pm it would be another 10% on top of that amount, so £1.10 + 10% of £1.10 which is £1.21Creative commons approved image: http://www.google.com/imgres?biw=1600&bih=775&tbs=sur:fmc&tbm=isch&tbnid=XREXkNwiZJ3zPM:&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jenga_distorted.jpg&docid=fVzhB1K1o4RsaM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Jenga_distorted.jpg&w=1598&h=2385&ei=G_aMUZGjJoS2hAfYioDYAw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:1,s:0,i:172&iact=rc&dur=933&page=1&tbnh=179&tbnw=116&start=0&ndsp=24&tx=51&ty=97Old Image: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-20941856-wooden-mannequins-making-the-tower-insecure.php?st=92f3065
• #14: BLUR NUMBERS ON GRAPHFor local businesses, a contact form goal might not be as important as footfall and other metrics so it’s difficult to optimise your bid adjustments based purely on traditional conversionsThis report in Google Analytics allows us to see how traffic which found us as a result of bid adjustments interacts with your site (time on site, bounce rate etc) – here you can see that the area of Chelsea that we target actually doesn’t appear to be very effective (low time on site and pages per view) – I would adjust my bids and stop bidding up on Chelsea – could even exclude it as an area if it performed really badly.Also shows ecommerce stats of revenue and cost next to each other so you can see how your bid adjustments affect thatYou can see it for device and time of day too
• #15: Image:http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-40991368/stock-photo-great-idea
• #16: CycleNot necessarily in this order and there is naturally some overlap.I’ll now go over each of these areas in a bit more detail so you have a good understanding of them when you go into the work place (wherever that might be)
• #17: Big brands which have lots of locations do this well eg estate agents, and dominoes pizzaIncreases conversions and also boosts your quality score, so you eventually pay a lower CPC anyway!These kind of landing pages work really well on ad groups containing location keywords (remember we talked about account structure earlier)Make sure the content is unique and loads fastUse a button call to action so they complete a form and then the submit loads another page on your site so the bounce rate for the landing page doesn’t soar..(a bad bounce rate will effect your quality score)Follow UX & CRO best practicesBlock organicallyDon’t attach to your navI did this with a local plumbing client and saw a massive rise in conversions and quality score
• #18: Monthly invoicing required to do thisBillings tabOrdersThen click edit for the monthly period and amend to the total you can afford to spend that month
• #19: Explain email adddress how to get IPIt’s always great to be ahead of the game, but I can guarantee that at some point you have looked to your competitors to see what they are doing in order to get new ideas? They are very likely to be doing the same to you!A competitor seeing your ads means:They might copy your new ideas, for example if they see you doing product listing ads they’ll do the sameThey might click your ads maliciously (although if this is done on any large scale Google filter it out and you won’t get charged)Sooo…. Block their IP addressIt’s not fool proof as they might use multiple IPs but it can helpFind their IP by running their site thourghwhois, or by emailing them anonimously and checking the header IP, or by looking in your server logs at any suspicious activityThen go to
• #20: The average position number you see in your AdWords account is only the average position of your ads when they were eligible to showBut, your Quality Score is calculated including instances of keywords where you didn’t even make it to auction because you were ineligible for one reason or another (eg low relevance, bid etc)Make sure you review search impression share due to rank at keyword level and increase bids in these instancesif you can’t afford to bid up consider pausing them and adding them as modified broad match to get cheaper trafficGets more keyword eligible and helps overall quality score – reduces costs – which all businesses need!…………………………………………………………………………..Tweeking bids for average position optimisation: this is a tip for all small businesses (not just local businesses, as it will save you money!). the average position number you see in your AdWords account is only the average position of your ads when they were eligible to show – it’s not the same average position that will be used to calculate your Quality Score – the average position figure used to calculate your Quality Score also includes all the times your ads weren’t eligible to show on the 1st page because of lost impression share due to rank – in these instances your position would be worse than 11. To see where you really need to be increasing bids and improving Quality Score, you should add ‘lost impression share due to rank’ as a column on your table and then increase bids on any keywords (add it at keyword level to keep things granular so you only increase where you have to) which have lost impression share – once you’ve upped your bids on these you need to keep an eye to make sure they convert successfully and are worth the higher bids – if you can’t afford to bid up consider pausing them and adding them as modified broad match to get cheaper traffic and discover new cheaper search terms http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/why-you-should-be-careful-about-your-google-adwords-average-position/ - if you want to save time you can also set up rule so this is done for you
• #21: Grants of 10,000 dollars per monthBids capped at £2 or $2Only available in UK & USDoesn’t include government organisations such as NHS / government charitiesFree Google aps access
• #22: Once you’ve got that awesome quality score, and some nice ad positions, you can pimp out your ads with ad extensions.So many different kinds…Lots of cool data to analyse performance now, so check out how many clicks the extension gets as opposed to the ad headline… might make your consider your extensions and optimise them.set them all up at the same time so they all start with even playing filed in terms of performance, and then let Google determine which ones it uses – often diff campaigns suit diff extensions eg brand works well with email extensions, sitelinks work well for product ad groups etcSet them at ad group level if you have the resources eg products variations in ad groups.I’m going to go over some nice extension funtions which are particularly relevant to local and small businesses.Image source: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375499?hl=en-GB
• #23: Review extensions (not seller ratings where you need google shopping) are perfect for local businesses – you can’t really sell a service on Google shopping, so you used to miss out, but now you can use review extensionsLinks to publishers website, not yours, but you don’t pay for those clicks67 charactersinc publishers nameContact AdWords RepImage: http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/review-extensions-new-dont-take-our.html
• #24: Great for local services where data is really valuable, such as an estate agent where you can email clients after with info on your properties2012Best on brand campaignsMake sure privacy policy is accurateEmail address yoru emails get sent to must be an admin on yoruadwordsaccountIndividual emails when people sign up, so maybe set up separate email address for this otherwise you’ll be bombarded.Image: http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/review-extensions-new-dont-take-our.html
• #25: Imageextensions give local businesses and services who aren’t ecom sites and can’t use PLAs to get images with their ads, a good platform to get images alongside ads.If your product is visual or non tangible eg holidays…this will work really well!Ad group specificBe careful of:No logosImage within 1-2 clicks on yoru siteFormat restrictions (read in resources slide)Very little white spaceUsual restrictions eg some pharmaceutical servicesImage:http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/new-image-extensions-enable-you-to-show.html
• #26: Use different example for local brand-Cost same as click – engagement is worth more-Schedule so if you’re an estate agent office open between 9-5pm only pay for calls when there’s someone there to take the call-Specify duration to be a conversion so if someone rang to ask about the property and it was sold, the call wouldn’t last long, but if they stayed on the line and booked a viewing that might be indication of a conversion-Ad group level and campaign level (eg if you have a shortcut for a particular part of your business such as sales vs lettings you can have them in separate ad groups and have separate call extensions)-Google forwarding numbers-Free on desktop & tablet-More data: eg how many clicks parts of your ads got (headline vs call extnsion)-Don’t lose data when editing themIncrease CTR by 6% on average (http://www.trada.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Trada-Whitepaper-Google-Quality-Score-in-2013.pdf)(Image creative commons approved http://www.google.com/imgres?biw=1600&bih=775&tbs=sur:fmc&tbm=isch&tbnid=lhBof5qEH6B6SM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:London_bus_and_telephone_box_on_Haymarket.jpg&docid=psJY8Xoucaz0sM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/London_bus_and_telephone_box_on_Haymarket.jpg&w=3731&h=2488&ei=qvSMUaeSGdGChQePwoHgCA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:1,s:0,i:172&iact=rc&dur=633&page=1&tbnh=179&tbnw=270&start=0&ndsp=29&tx=218&ty=62)
• #27: -Designed for footfall-percentage, free consultation, free whitepaper, ebook, guide, percentage discountFOR EXAMPLE:-Plumbing company – free call out (would be free anyway)-tailoring company – free suit consultation-SEO Company – free site audit-Discount code / Amount off-Schedule them (eg if you’re a hairdressers which is always quiet on a Wednesday afternoon, offer a discount scheduled to run at this time, a restaurant might offer lunch dealsImage source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/4450462104/
• #28: Youtube advertising:-so much cheaper than search for competitive terms because less advertisers using it (-so many ad formats-only pay when viewed-builds up branding-you can use your video ads on your own site eg tutorials work wellProduct Listing Ads:-uses google merchant centre and if you have SKUs for your productsand they can be purchased online then use it as often cheaper than ppc, although use lots of negative keywords as might not be as targeted.Remarketing:-Really effective for branding and alos conversions-very cheap-not too time consuming once initial work is complete
• #30: Main slide
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