Tips, tricks and things to remember when building a
GoogleAds campaign
1 General notes on Google AdWords 1
a. Google Quality scores 2
b. Balancing spend on Search vs Display campaigns 2
c. Top level recommendations re: Google campaign from BBR 3
2 Starting the campaign 3
3 Tracking conversions 3
a. Conversion/tracking 3
b. Tracking Conversion with EventBrite 4
c. Remarketing 4
d. Linking AdWords and Google Analytics 4
4 Display campaigns 5
a. Frequency capping 5
b. Static vs animated Ads 5
5 Video Campaigns 5
6 Search campaigns 6
a. Search through Google Partners? 6
b. Mobile targeting 6
c. Ad extensions 7
d. Enhanced cost/click 7
e. Changing bidding depending on the time 7
7 Keywords 8
a. Keyword tool tactics: 8
b. Establishing key word buckets 8
c. Negative Keywords 10
8 Writing ad text 10
9 AdWords Editor 11
10 To improve campaigns 11
11 Analyzing for maximum performance 12
12 Daily ongoing activities 12
a. Things to check up on in Ad Words Editor 12
b. Split testing 13
13 Cloning campaigns 13
14 Remarketing 14
15 Ten most serious AdWords Mistakes 14
16 Evaluation 15
a. Display ads: 15
b. Search ads: 15
1 General notes on Google AdWords
· Remarketing is done via tracking cookies
· Video ads give you good value for your money
o But the strongest traction is with search ads
o Remarket to ppl who watch the whole video
o Having a YouTube companion Ad with a call to action is very important
o Use a pre-roll of 15sec – they tend to perform better
§ Target the ad to specific people:
· Tech videos, families with kids 0-12, SW superFans, culturally keen, adults 20-30
· More specific keywords like “technomuses” are less expensive
· Google doesn’t count clicks from the same computer more than 1x per day
· Avg position: Google displays up to 11 ads for page: 8 on the right side and 3 above the organic listings
o Ads above the body are considered higher than ads on the right
· Conversion = the visitor did something on the website
How much to spend?
· $ investment depends on the conversion rate we are looking for
o Need a budget large enough to drive clicks
o CPC
o Smaller budget → you can target ppl dpding on the time of day
o $ over 1 few months
o Search + youtube combo maybe?
AdWords Editor
· Use .aes file – drag it into editor
o Shows changes the optimization includes
· To trial changes in the account
· Import snapshot
o “review…”
o Keywords (+) & (-)
· After review = keep proposed changes (highlighted changes disappear)
· “Post changes” select campaign to make it go LIVE
· Ad words Editor Help Centre
a. Google Quality scores
· Scores are between 1-10
o Keywords with lower quality score tend to be the less specific keywords (like Yoda) because they are not exactly relevant they get a lower score.
o The score is determined based on the keyword, ad text and landing site text and if they don’t all match then you get a lower score.
o Optimization of the campaign should help increase the QA score for some of the words
b. Balancing spend on Search vs Display campaigns
· If you are not reaching your daily maximum for the Search campaigns, they don’t recommend moving part of the display budget over
· If your campaigns are doing quite well (good conversions rate)
o Maybe increase some bids in more competitive ad groups (like “Ottawa activities”)
o Or expand your campaign in broader ad groups
c. Top level recommendations re: Google campaign from BBR
· Create a separate campaign for people searching for anything related to Star Wars
· Create separate campaigns based on geography
o NCR
o Cities outside NCR (e.g. Montreal)
· Remove the mobile targeting if mobile isn’t converting to sales
· Test driving people to the information page vs. ticket sales page.
o Depending on keyword and ad you will have drop off of those looking for more info before they buy. I would advise information ads with the Buy Ticket sub link.
· Remove less/under performing ads & create new variations based on those that are performing best
· Increase bids on certain keywords that are not showing (have you established a max CPC bid?)
o Add phrase match on certain keywords
· If display campaigns are not performing well enough compared to campaigns, based on a cost-per-conversion.
o Recommendation: remove some display; keep remarketing, and really focusing on SEM.
· Dynamic keyword insertion doesn’t tend to work too well.
o Remove: {KeyWord:Star Wars Exhibition}
2 Starting the campaign
· Start with more ad groups then funnel down according to what works – start with 5-6
· Start with “search” ads
o They usually get the most CTRs
§ Increase awareness of campaign using YouTube – display ads
· Start with 2hr radius around NCR
§ Sell tickets with Search and Display campaigns
· Start with ≈ 5hr radius around NCR
· Send people to the ticket site directly – you don’t want to loose them
· Message needs a call to action: Don’t wait in line – buy tickets now
· Like most MarCom campaigns, split the spend: English 80% / French 20%
3 Tracking conversions
o Very important to set up tracking!
a. Conversion/tracking
· In upper tool bar go to Tools and Analysis → Conversions
· Click on “+ Conversion” → call it “Thank-you”
· You want to (track ticket sales)
· Add the code created to the order confirmation page
· Confirm the code is well installed
b. Tracking Conversion with EventBrite
· When you want to track the conversions and stats, etc for a campaign where tickets are being sold on Eventbrite, a confirmation page on our site needs to be created and the conversion tracking code needs to be put there – you need to ask the web team to create this page
· When you are on the page for the event in question:
- In the column on the left, under “modify Order Options” click on “Order Confirmation”
- At the bottom of the page under “Customize order confirmation webpage” we want to Redirect users to your own webpageonce the order is processed” so you need to enter the URL of the page confirmation website that has been created
- You also need to enter the UA code for the AdWords account in the Eventbrite account for that Event
- Sign in to Event brite → click on the event → In the left column under “analyse” click on “google analytics” there you can enter the Google Analytics UA number
§ CASM UA-4141230-1, http://www.aviation.technomuses.ca
§ CAFM
§ CSTM UA-763029-3
c. Remarketing
Set up the remarketing list:
· This code can be placed on all pages
· Go to Campaigns then “Shared library” (in the left hand side column)
o Under Ads click on “Audiences” (in the left hand side column)
o Then click on the green button “+ New audience”
o Choose “Remarketing List”
o To track “visitor to site with a TAG”
o Add TAG
· Add this code to your webpages, right before the </body> tag.Insertion guide
Make sure people being remarketed-to are receiving the ads in the right language
o From the list make Rules (works for our site) or we could create an additional tag
o Go to Campaigns then “Shared library” (in the left hand side column)
§ Under Ads click on “Audiences” (in the left hand side column)
§ Then click on the green button “+ New audience”
§ Remarketing list
§ Visitors of page (ad part of the URL that is unique to the visitors you want to add to the list – so in this case something that defines the language)
o Adding lists to a campaign
§ Change display targeting
§ Interests and remarketing
§ Add rules for correct language
§ How to do this: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704341?hl=en
d. Linking AdWords and Google Analytics
o Log into Adwords → Under “Tools” go to “Google analytics”
o Click the admin button in the upper right
o Click the name of the analytics account you want to link (in the upper left side grey bar)
o How an AdWords expert uses Google Analytics data
§ http://adwords.blogspot.ca/2012/12/how-adwords-expert-uses-google.html
4 Display campaigns
o Image Ads
§ .JPEG, .PNG, or .GIF image ad files smaller than 50K with any of the following dimensions
· Bold = most important/popular sizes to have! But it’s best to have all the sizes you are able to have
· Banner: 468 x 60 Square: 250 x 250
· Small Square: 200 x 200 Leaderboard: 728 x 90
· Medium Rectangle: 300 x 250 Large Rectangle: 336 x 280
· Skyscraper: 120 x 600 Wide Skyscraper: 160 x 600
· Details about image ad specifications for animated ads: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176108?hl=en#
· These outline both static and animated image ad requirements.
· Display network: ads can either be automatic placement or Managed placement
· Go to Display Network → “See details” → Filter → Conversions (1 per click) = 0 to see what websites are not getting conversions and costing you too much
· Go to Display Network → “See details” → Filter → Conversions (1 per click) >= 1 then put in order based on cost per conversion and select all those that are lower than the value of a conversion click “manage placements and bids” at the top left and continue to use your default bid
a. Frequency capping
· Regarding the total number of impressions for the display campaigns.
o Is there a way to tell how many unique impressions we have had? I can find the number of unique views for the videos but not the display or search campaigns.
· Setting a cap to the number of times a person sees our ads per day. Doing this for the remarketing list:
o Go to Remarketing → Settings → Advanced settings (near bottom of the page)
§ “Ad delivery: Ad rotation: frequency capping” → Edit Frequency capping
§ I chose to limit to 10 impressions per day per ad group for both French and English remarketing campaigns
b. Static vs animated Ads
· Regarding static (jpg) vs flash (gif) ads appearing.
o Went over numbers for different creatives and compared for thejpg & gif files.
o We can pause all the jpg files so only the gif appear, but both are doing well in terms of CTR
§ There is no way to only have the static appear if the animated ones don’t work, so Karissa recommends that we just leave both.
5 Video Campaigns
Recommended content for Google Display campaigns
· Video pre-roll ads: also recommend a companion ad: 300X60 banner.
o Make sure the file size is less than 50k
o Add pre-roll (15sec ads) to the Museum YouTube site and link the Youtube & GoogleAds accounts as per these instructions (to create a remarketing list)
§ Instructions: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2545661?hl=en
· Important to have a YouTube companion ad with a call to action:
o The CTRs and conversions for the companion ad count and will be seen through the video campaign data
Video campaigns for “branding” not necessarily conversions
· Use video if your goal is branding:
o If you are already “branding” with other ads (radio, bus, poster…) consider this when deciding the spend for the video campaign
o Look at the number of impressions, view through rates and CTRs and compare them to the numbers for the traditional advertising, is it cost effective?
o Don’t consider the number of direct conversions since the goal is “branding” and not “sell tickets”
6 Search campaigns
a. Search through Google Partners?
· Google is running search through their partners. To increase the relevancy and conversions - is this something we should remove?
o Find out what percentage and $ are being spent on the ads being placed on search partners
§ SWID: ≈15-25 % of money is going towards the search partners and the conversion rate on the Search Partners is in some cases better than Google search so Karissa recommends we just leave it as is
b. Mobile targeting
· There is always a lower conversion rate via mobile – but it is good for awareness if people look up the information after seeing a trigger /poster / bus ad
o For your ad to appear on mobile it needs to be in position 1 or 2 (so really important to have a high average position)
o For a search campaign it needs a search position of either 1-3
· develop mobile specific ads with location extensions – they tend to work well
c. Ad extensions
· Create ad extensions: sub links under the official link (e.g. Buy Tickets)
· Can be added to search campaigns (additional links of any pages from the same domain)
o Call extensions: phone number shown alongside the ad to create another touch point
o Location extensions: when they search for the location they see the ad
· To create the ad extension:
o “ad extensions” → View sitelinks extensions → “No site link Edit” → “+New site link”
o Can leave description blank
· Example site link extensions
o How the Exhibition Works
o FAQs
o Overview
o Planning Your Visit
d. Enhanced cost/click
· An option is to select “enhanced cost/click” where it automatically adjusts your max CPC +/- 30% depending on the viewer and situation.
· To do this go to:
o Settings → Bidding & budget → optimize for conversions → Bid strategy → enable Enhanced CPC
e. Changing bidding depending on the time
· When do most ticket sales and visits occur?