Tools to Measure Performance

Now that I have an Adwords campaign set up, the next step is to measure its performance. Measuring performance is vital. Through improving the ad and website, one can optimize the ROI or return investment (or the effectiveness of the campaign). Here are two tools that make performance measuring a whole lot easier:

Conversion Tracking: This is a free tracking tool from AdWords. Conversions are basically actions (goals) that occur once the ad is clicked. For example, a conversion for a website promoting an app would be the amount of app downloads that occur. So, instead of simply counting how many clicks the ad brought, conversion tracking counts how beneficial the ad was (in meeting goals). AdWords starts conversion tracking after a bit of java code is pasted on the page that displays once a conversion or goal is complete. Conversion tracking is a meaningful way to decipher how effective ads are. It also allows one to put more money into ads that are effective.

Google Analytics: Google analytics is a widely used website traffic and activity tracking tool. It is possible to link Adwords and Google Analytics together thoroughly understand customer behavior. Here are the benefits according to the AdWords Fundamentals Module 3.2:

Targeting Your Audience

This week I will be discussing information from Module 2 of AdWords Fundamentals Study Guide entitled: Setting up an AdWords Campaign.

A first step to a successful campaign is ensuring your ads are being viewed by the correct audience. It is extremely important to know who your audience is and what their behaviors and tendencies are in order to create effective ads. By uing different functions within AdWords you can easily reach out to your target market!

Location and language targeting is a helpful option that allows you to choose specific geographic areas to display your ad, for instance in America and English only. In addition, device targeting allows you to choose if people may see your ads of devices or only desktops (time of day or device type). This may be helpful if reaching out to a specific audience such as the elderly that are more comfortable searching the web using a desktop than a phone. 

One type of targeting that we are all very familiar with is managed placement targeting. This allows you to choose where your ads will appear on websites your audience is accustomed to visiting. For example, if you have a natural makeup line and you notice your audience often visits a vegan recipes website, you may want your ad to appear on that site. 

Keyword Targeting is using different match types to trigger your ad for different phrases your audience may search. Exact match, for instance, will narrow the possibility of the ad appearing, appearing only to a specific target audience. There are also negative keywords that can be added. Negative matches will exclude your ad from appearing when certain keywords are used in a search. Below is a helpful chart from this Adwords support page:

Match type	Special symbol	Example keyword	Ads may show on searches that:	Example searches
Broad match	none	women's hats	include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations	buy ladies hats
Broad match modifier	+keyword	+women's +hats	contain the modified term (or close variation, but not synonyms), in any order	hats for women
Phrase match	"keyword"	"women's hats"	are a phrase (or close variation)	buy women's hats
Exact match	[keyword]	[women's hats]	are an exact term (or close variation)	women's hats
Negative match	-keyword	-women	are searches without the term	baseball hats

Introduction to Adwords: Effective Keywords

Hello everyone! This week I will be introducing Adwords and providing some tips to building effective keywords. To begin, Adwords is the tool Google uses to monetize its search engine capabilities. It essentially allows its search result pages to host paid ads. Through Adwords, companies can create custom ads that appear by specific search inputs. The ad's cost is dependent on how many people click on it; this is called CPC or Cost Per Click.

Keywords, according to chapter one of Introduction to Social Media Marketing and Adwords, are "guesses of what people might search for when they are looking for information on Google". Keywords are simply words or phrases. Companies can write a list of potential search inputs or keywords people may make. For example, a local French Bakery may choose keywords like "Bakery in Naperville" or "Macaroons near Lisle". Previously, all keywords had fixed prices but now bidding can take place. Competitors may often vie for the same keywords,  Dollar Tree and Dollar General may both vie for the "Dollar Store" keyword, for instance. However, only the highest bidding company can claim the keyword. It is also very important to carefully choose keywords. This will allow for higher quality keyword scores. A high score means that the content on the web page matches the keyword given. It is also important to have good keywords with these high scores so that the ad can appear higher and closer to the first page of search results. Naturally, this will lead to more clicks and thus more site traffic. This process is apart of Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Some Tips for an Effective Keywords List:

According to this Adwords Help article, it is very important to approach this task through the lens of the customer. What would your typical customer search for? Using what terms?

• Break down the company into different aspects and start building from there. Creating ad groups that are based on products or services allows customers to see different ads based on their specific searches.
• Use natural language instead of word bites. i.e "custom made cakes" instead of "fresh butter cream fondant cake"
• General keywords: In order to reach as many people as possible choose broader words. This requires alot of testing because general terms are more competitive and often require higher bids.
• Use word clusters: These are sites that review an article and find reoccurring words (ie Wordle or Tag Crowd). Using these reoccurring words is a good start to finding high scoring keywords.
• Look at competitor keywords by viewing their source code and searching "keywords". This will allow you to get effective keyword ideas.

Sources: 

-Introduction to Search Engine Marketing and AdWords: A Guide for Absolute Beginners 1st ed. Edition by Todd Kelsey

-https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453981?hl=en

-https://hub.wiley.com/community/exchanges/discover/blog/2017/06/07/how-to-choose-effective-keywords-for-your-article

-https://www.weidert.com/whole_brain_marketing_blog/bid/112478/seo-5-simple-steps-for-choosing-effective-keywords