Tag: Google AdWords

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AdWords Exact Match and Phrase Match Changes Coming in May

AdWords announced this past week that in mid May they will be changing the way they use exact match and phrase match keywords for ad delivery. In the very near future, AdWords will imitate adCenter in using plurals and misspellings of words you have set with these selected match types in addition to the specific words and phrases.

Google has stated that:

“Starting in mid-May, phrase and exact match keywords will match close variants, including misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations. Based on our research and testing, we believe these changes will be broadly beneficial for users and advertisers.”

You can read the full article and see some examples of this new behavior on the AdWords blog.

As Google feels that they can identify the intent of a search from the query and search history, it makes sense to deliver ads to users when their is small variation and even though the specific keywords may not be in an advertisers keyword list. I consider this enhancement good news, and one of the things I particularly liked about Microsoft adCenter which supplies the pay per click ads for Bing and Yahoo.

 

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Promoting Brand New Products No One Has Heard Of

So you’ve just created a brand new product that you really believe in, got your first container shipment from your factory in China, you’ve launched your new website, and now nothing is happening! What do you do to get sales moving?

Not always is Google AdWords the best place to promote a product that no one even knows exists. If you do want to try AdWords, depending on the product, sometimes the display network is the very best place to use to promote unknown products. Great animated banner ads can communicate visually what you are selling and get some low cost exposure. Using the CPM (cost per one thousand impressions) versus the cost per click model may be best for these types of products. I would not recommend that you use text ads to promote this type of product, but certainly it depends on what the product is.

Some ways that you can promote your brand new product would be:

  • Do a press release and send it to as many news agencies as possible. This may cost up to $1,000 or more but may be a great way to get initial exposure.
  • Get started on YouTube and take videos of your product in action.
  • Consider using Google AdWords to promote your YouTube video.
  • Work your social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
  • Get exposure at appropriate trade shows. If you are selling a new door lock for hurricane protection, make sure to be at home shows and hardware shows. You may need to initially focus on selling to the distributor market first with face to face selling or demonstrations.

Make sure that your business plan has enough money to market your product before you even go into production. Just because you make it, people won’t be lined up to buy it without knowing more about it and how it could benefit them!

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Value Per Click – Bidding Strategies

In some cases you as a business owner may consider that a click activity is important to your advertising strategy. This may be the case when you have an unknown product or be in the process of establishing your brand. You may consider that a click in to your website where a visitor is initially exposed to your message, product, or service has a measurable value. Each business case will be different and the value per click will really depend on what you are selling.

In some cases a business owner considers that click activity may turn into a repeat visitor or potential future buyer. They may want to assign a value to each click. This value may be substantially less than that for a true conversion, but still has some value. For example a business owner may say that each click merits $1 whereas a lead conversion would be worth $20 and a sale $2,000.

“The value per click is the expected profit from a current visitor to your website. You’ll likely want to … reflect the fact that the visitor might not convert on this particular visit, but may return in the future to buy something. The size of this adjustment will depend on your particular product or service.”

I do not recommend that you make advertising budget decisions based on click traffic but rather more data and typically data from micro conversions (lead conversions) or sale conversions.

 

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Cost Per Acquisition CPA – Bidding Strategies

Some businesses that sell services on Google AdWords may find Cost per Acquisition (CPA) a helpful metric to determine if a Google AdWords program is working for them. In the case of CPA you will evaluate a number of metrics to determine what will be profitable for bidding in AdWords.

“Each time a user who clicks on your ad completes one of these goals, they’ve given you a new conversion. You should be able to attribute a value to each of these conversions. For example, you may sell digital cameras on your site for US$300. Let’s assume that each camera has an additional wholesale cost of US$200 to you. Therefore, a conversion for a user who buys a camera on your site generates US$100 of revenue for you. This amount is the price the user paid (US$300) minus the cost to you (US$200). The US$100 revenue is your maximum profitable cost-per-acquisition, or CPA. You can pay up to US$100 for each conversion and still make a profit on the sale.”

Understanding your conversion rate is the next step to be able to extrapolate on the average what you should bid per click to stay within your goal cost per acquisition to maintain profitability. If your conversion rate is 2.0% that means that for every 100 clicks 2 people will actually buy your product. If each sale generated $100 of profit each or a total of $200 in profit, you need to be spending under $2 a click to show a profit in your AdWords program.

If instead each acquisition you make is for a new client who will typically spend $30,000 over the effective lifetime of their use of your services, then your investment in Google AdWords takes on whole new approach. You will be willing to spend more to advertise to earn that client who will in turn spend more with you over the course of several years.