Structure Your AdWords for Optimization
Paid search is a useful tool for supporting almost any online strategy. In some cases it will be the primary tool for driving sales through a website, however, it usually is not. Before you start your AdWords campaigns (some of these concepts apply to other search marketing platforms as well), know what you are trying to achieve.
You can use up all of your resources getting optimal click-throughs and not increase conversions one bit. If you are marketing a new product to a highly targeted market that may be an acceptable strategy — perhaps you will want to optimize your campaign for traffic. If you are in a well-developed market your ad spend will be better allocated by optimizing for conversions. By the way, this decision will affect everything from keyword selection to landing page content.
In practice, most businesses want to create campaigns that increase traffic and specific conversions. However, to simplify the presentation I am going to ignore that and treat them as completely separate.
Get More Traffic
Here are some instances when you will just want more traffic:
- Sites with advertising revenue models based on CPM,
- Branding strategies,
- Product awareness strategies,
- The problem is number of visitors, not the conversion rate (say you are converting 20% of your total visitors, focusing on getting more traffic makes sense), and/or
- Testing purposes (certain A/B or multivariate tests).
To get more traffic you can select more general keywords, and it makes more sense to focus your efforts on the content network. You may even want to create some image ads to put on the content network, particularly if your goal is branding or product awareness. Your ad copy should direct people to your site, not necessarily to a conversion. To complete the cycle you should have a landing page that makes sense. “One page wonders” will probably not serve you well in this case. You need to focus on getting these people back to the site, because they are less likely to participate in any conversion event on their first visit. If you haven’t prepared them a heavy-handed sales page will drive them away immediately. To create a really powerful landing page you have think of it as an extension of the ad copy you are using for your search marketing. Simply put, deliver what people expect.
Get More Conversions
Here are some instances when you will want to focus on conversions:
- Site conversions are clearly defined,
- Cost-per-conversion strategies,
- ROI focused strategies,
- Site revenue is driven by action (newsletter sign-up, phone call, purchase, etc.), and/or
- Controlled website optimization.
If you want more conversions the process is similar to getting more traffic, but the focus of each step is different. Select specific keywords that your product/service specifically addresses solutions for (specific enough?). Focus your efforts on search, not on content network (this is a generalization, but serves as a good guideline). Ad copy should be action-oriented. Don’t write an ad that says “Visit our site” if you really want people to sign-up for a newsletter. Lastly, make sure visitors can perform the action you presented in the ad on the landing page. For example, if your ad says “Buy the BSU Blue Turf Mouse,” visitors should be able to start the purchase process right on the landing page. Again, the landing page is just an extension of the ad copy, and if your goal is conversion don’t create friction for people who see your ads by not delivering what the ad promised.
General Paid Search Thoughts
I think every ad group should have its own landing page. There are very few times when you should direct ad traffic to your home page. We will be talking a lot about quality scores in the future, guess what? It will be the same stuff you found in this post (repackaged a little, of course), namely: Relevant keywords, relevant ads, and relevant landing pages. And finally, always “start with the end in mind.” Before you expend your marketing resources on paid search be sure to know how you will measure success.
