In running Ad Word campaigns I have been, and continue to, learn how to best help my clients. Google is more than happy to take as much money as you are willing to throw at them. You will have to do your homework, but if you get your ad and bids lined up, and people are clicking on them then that is good, right?
Google has gotten the market share that it has because it is very good at providing good, relevant results to what you are searching for. Just because you are willing to spend lots of money if you do not get clicks from your ads then they will not be shown as you would expect.
Here are some things that I believe:
- Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I notice that most of my click thru’s are for very few of the key words that are chosen. Therefore using the 80-20 rule I believe that you should spend your money on the big hitters for search and not worry so much about the other key words that might or might not bring someone to your site, but can cost you.
- Ask if time matters. For some campaigns it might not make sense to run the ad all day everyday. By just limiting your ad to certain times will the clicks be better off for my client? You can limit time to time of day and day of week. If no one is able to answer a phone on the weekend and a phone call is key to the business then pause the campaign when no one is able to answer the phone. This can save my clients money.
- How much are you willing to spend? This can be important to limiting time or keywords. Maybe a client cannot spend much but can bet OK traffic by using a set of keywords that are not the biggest hitters but still get good relevant clicks. Why spend as much as possible if you can get by on less. There are always trade offs but it is good to think about these sorts of issues.
- Write a compelling ad. This is not as simple as it seems. I have run a number of ads all with similar but different parts to them. I am always amazed of the difference in clicks that a small change can make. Words matter and words are at a premium on Ad Words. Write with clarity and don’t be afraid to get rid of an ad that is not working.
I might not be the best or the brightest but do feel that I can run good solid Ad Word campaigns for my clients. Yes anyone can do it but then you might just get what you pay for. One of my Pete-ism’s goes like this — “there are times to do your own plumbing and there are times to hire a plumber”.