Tag Archive for: Google AdWords

Google AdWords Gains Web UI Copy and Paste Functionality

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AdWords Editor is one of the best tools available for editing and building out campaigns and ad groups, but it has its limits. For example, it would be convenient to be able to break up an ad group, clone a campaign, or copy keywords right into the Web UI. Thankfully, now you can, as Ginny Marvin reports. This week, Google added copy and paste functionality for the Web UI, making AdWords Editor even better than before.

Users are now able to copy keywords, ads, ad groups, or entire campaigns directly into the Web UI with the simple keyword shortcuts you are already used to. Simply press Ctrl-C/Cmnd-C and Ctrl-V/Cmnd-V. Though if you want, you can also use the Edit drop down menu.

Martin suggests the final version of the update might not be exactly as Google’s screenshot shows. Apparently you may see “Copy to” instead of “Copy” in the drop down, and you might not see the option to “copy keywords as paused”. Other than that, the tool is expected to roll out as planned.

You will be prompted when copying keywords to select both the campaign and ad group where you would like them to be copied.

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The 5 Most Common Mistakes on Landing Pages

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You can do a lot of different things with landing pages, be it selling something, encouraging visitors to subscribe to a newsletter, or trying to get people to sign a petition. No matter which of these goals you have, you are ultimately trying to get visitors to perform an action.

Making a great landing page seems like it should be easy, but it is more complex than you may think. This leads to poor sales because a landing page is only working if it is getting people to convert.

With that in mind, let’s examine the most common problems with landing pages.

  1. Mismatching Text Ad Copy and Landing Page Headline – There are numerous reasons you should make sure your Google AdWords text ads match your landing page headline. For users, the text ad creates an expectation, and you don’t want to confuse your visitors or make them feel mislead. The quality of your landing page also decides cost-per-click in AdWords, so if you raise your quality score, you will lower your cost-per-click.
  2. Poor Grammar and Misspelled Words – Throwing up a quick landing page is always a terrible idea because it leads to a ton of smaller problems. One of those is bad spelling and grammar. This is one of those mistakes that just shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Your visitors will take any reason you give them to not convert, and this one is a big reason to leave.
  3. No Trust Signals – To get visitors to convert, you have to establish trust. You can build this into your landing page in just a few ways. If you establish your brand’s popularity, people will view it as credible. You can also present your 3rd party certifications with organizations like Verisign or the Better Business Bureau. You can also establish trust by making positive mentions of your brand in the press easily available on the landing page.
  4. Lack of Good Call-to-Actions – You’re call to actions are important to help make people convert. They should also be compelling, with practical language, and solid, consistent design. You should also keep it short, between 90 and 150 characters. You need to make it clear what you want the visitor to do, but short enough to keep their attention.
  5. Poor Quality Videos or Images – Videos on your landing page can help boost conversion rates by about 80%. Images don’t raise conversions that much, but they still have their own positive effect on visitor activity. This doesn’t mean you can just toss up any image or video you want however. Poor quality images or videos will actually lower conversion rates rather than improve them.

Eric Siu from Unbounce has even more common mistakes, but these will help get you started with making sure users are converting. Remember, if users aren’t converting, your landing page has problems.

 

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Google AdWords and Analytics Form One Powerful Tool

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Google’s Dan Friedman recently took to the Google AdWords blog to discuss new integration between AdWords and Google Analytics. As David A. Utter reports for eCommerce Bytes, Friedman also shared a few tips for how users could benefit from the data gleaned from Analytics.

High Engagement Groups

Analytics allows you to discover ad groups that, on average, stay on your site longer and visit more pages per visit. Typically, those numbers would suggest a group with high levels of engagement and one that would give you great returns with an increase in your ad budget.

High Engagement, Low Conversions

You may notice a group or page that seems to have high engagement, but isn’t yielding enough conversions. Use this information to target those users with promotions or any other way to light the fire beneath them and get them to turn into a conversion.

Short Visits and High Bounce Rates

Monitoring for pages that aren’t doing so well is important too. But you can turn a negative into a positive. If you notice a certain page isn’t yielding the results you’d hoped for, use that page for A/B testing. You may discover a way to improve your site as a whole.

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Quick Fixes For Your New Google Shopping Issues

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Google Shopping officially switched to a paid service for businesses at the beginning of the month, which means a whole new set of issues for users trying to get their Product Listing Ads campaigns up and running.

Mary Weinstein reports for Search Engine Watch that AdWords support staff has been less than helpful when trying to resolve these new issues. So, here are the problems you’re likely to encounter and how to fix them.

You may have found that trying to get your Auto Targets to validate is extremely frustrating. Don’t throw your computer out the window just yet though.

  1. Check to make sure the wording on your Auto Target and the wording on your product type or AdWords label matches exactly. If it isn’t a carbon copy, with no special symbols, AdWords may have trouble matching them.
  2. Check your filters. Ideally, you have no filters running for your PLA campaigns. If you open the filters tab and see filters being applied, remove them from this campaign and you might just solve the problem.
  3. Check the PLA campaigns ad extension. Your AdWords account should be linked to your Google Merchant login. Also, if you have multiple logins, make sure this campaign is linked to the correct one.

Hopefully, these quick fixes will get you up and running with PLAs and allow you to avoid the time waste that is Google support.

 

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New AdWords Help From Google Directly

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This is pretty big news.  Google’s just released (on 9/9/10) a new site, called the Google AdWords Small Business Center.  This is a site dedicated to helping people learn more about how to use AdWords or how to improve existing accounts.

There are several lessons here, with tips and even a link to the AdWords Beginners’ Guide.  It looks to be a good place for people to learn about AdWords, although the site by itself doesn’t appear to be fully comprehensive.  However, they do include links to other pages, including a link that allows you to search for an AdWords Pro (such as myself, yes, I am an AdWords Pro) to help take care of all of the work involved in managing your AdWords account.

At any rate – if you’re having trouble with your AdWords account in any way, I recommend checking out Google’s new Small Business Center.  It might give you the help you’re looking for.

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AdWords Split Test Update, Beta Testing

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Google AdWords has a new tool they’re trying out.  It’s called the AdWords Campaign Experiments (or ACE).  It’s taking some testing that normally takes a while and making it faster. Read more

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Put Business Phone Numbers on Cell Phone Ads

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Google’s made a little tweak to AdWords, so now you can put an ad that will show on cell phones that lists a business number.  If the owner of the phone calls that number, that counts as the click that is paid for.

The benefit of this is that it’s a very quick hot lead for anyone who advertises on the mobile network.  And it’s easy to do, since it defaults to all devices in AdWords, anyway.  To make sure you’re listed, check to see that mobile devices are checked in your settings in the campaign settings in AdWords.

Also, to have your phone number listed, you can either have the business information synched up with your business account or enter it manually, both done inside of the AdWords campaign settings.  Make sure whichever you do that you include your phone number.

Then to see the results, just choose the “Filters and Views” drop-down list and choose “Segment by”->”Click Type”.  This will show which clicks were URL clicks, and which were calls, from either the Ad Group or Keywords tabs.

It’s just an addition Google’s made to AdWords, and sent out an announcement through email to Google advertisers.  This could be a good change for people who use AdWords for markets that actively use their cell phones.

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Basics on Quality Score – What It Is

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Just a quick post.  I put a tip on DailySEOTip about Google AdWords’s Quality Score.  I tried to make it short and sweet, although you do need to understand all of the acronyms (CTR, CPC, etc.) to understand it fully.

I do think it’s worth understanding because of the fact it can make a difference between a $0.30 click and a $5.00 click (seriously).  So if you use AdWords at ALL, learn about it – if not from me, then somewhere else, but it’s definitely worth investigating.

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Getting Banned From Google AdWords

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It’s been mentioned previously that AdWords has been going through some serious changes.  Well, it appears that they are also stepping up in their quality check on their advertisers.  Google has taken action by banning some of their advertisers that don’t meet up to standards – permanently.

This is quite major news for several advertisers.  These bans are hitting hard, and the first major revision on AdWords users and who Google will accept was done yesterday, December 3rd.  The Search Engine Roundtable has more information and a good copy of the ban letter that they published today.

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What Happened To Google AdWords Customer Support?

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Google does, in fact, have a customer support line: 866-2GOOGLE.  However, this line is intended primarily for AdWords, and encourages all other questions to be handled online (somehow that doesn’t surprise me).

One thing that happened sometime earlier this year is that Google stopped personally supporting most AdWords accounts.  So if you call in, indicate you are calling about AdWords help, and put in your account number – chances are you’ll get a message that will tell you they no longer offer personal support, to go online to find your answers in the AdWords online support.

However – if you have certain elements meeting a particular criteria in your account, you can still get personal support.  From what I’ve been able to find out from Google, this criteria is based primarily on ad expenditure.  That is to say – Google takes care of their big spenders, the advertisers who in turn take care of Google.  By giving them a ton of money.

This is not the happiest of news for all AdWords users, but hopefully it does clear things up.  As far as I can tell, if you have an AdWords Client Center account set up (have Google AdWords Qualification, etc.), they will also offer support.  I do not know if this is purely because you have that type of an account or because you are in charge of so many clients that spend a combined amount above their “trigger” figure.  I personally am able to get through to customer service, for one of these reasons or the other.

To sum it up – if you want Google support for AdWords, your best bet (unless you’re spending thousands a month or have a Client Center account) is to just go to their support center online, the AdWords Help Center.  They do have a lot of information there that covers most topics, so for the most part this is a great resource.  Although, admittedly, not as nice (for some people) as being able to just ask someone to help you out in real-time.  But you can ask through their contact forms online, if you can’t find your solution in their help center.

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