How to Make the Most of Google AdWords- 3

Age : 45 Joined : 08 Mar 2008 Posts : 1850

In Part 2 of this series, we learned how to create copy that compels your prospects to click on your ad, and discussed the importance of landing your prospects on a page that maximizes your investment in their click. In this installment, we’ll learn how to:

Precisely limit the distribution of your ad to only those prospects that are most interested
Beat the competition with creative bidding strategies
Limiting Your Distribution – The Key to Success
If there is one component of AdWords that’s most often neglected, it’s controlling the distribution of your ad impressions to only those prospects who are most targeted. According to the Google AdWords Website:

Each account is evaluated after every 1,000 ad impressions are delivered on Google. If the CTR for your account falls below a minimum required CTR (which varies by ad position, but is 0.5% for the top spot and slightly reduced for each subsequent position), we’ll only show your ads occasionally on your underperforming keywords. (The status of each of your keywords will be clearly indicated in your keyword reports.) If your keywords don’t improve, we may disable them. You’ll then need to refine your campaign to improve its performance and effectiveness. After editing your campaign, you may restore full ad delivery to your account.In short, if your ads don’t get a decent clickthrough rate (CTR) they will be disabled — your ads won’t be shown. Conversely, if you achieve a high clickthrough rate for a very general term, you will potentially be spending a huge amount of money. So, how do you get your ads more closely targeted to your audience? Here’s the secret — use the built-in tools that Google provides:

Phrase Match
Exact Match
Negative Keywords
Remember, the default setting for AdWords is “Broad Match”. This will see your ad displayed when any keyword from your search phrase is typed in any order. So, if you target ‘Palm Pilot’, under Broad Match, your ad will be shown when someone searches for: airline pilot, auto-pilot, pilot light, palm reader, palm trees, etc. None of these search terms are in the least bit targeted!