The growth of the internet as a global marketplace has made it a necessity for every business, from the smallest to the largest to advertise online. With the movement of consumers to the internet for a large portion of their shopping, businesses need to be where their prospective buyers will find them. Online advertising is a multibillion dollar business and companies occupying every sector of the economy use web based advertising to generate brand awareness and drive sales. Google is by far the most popular search engine and with its Google AdWords program, also one of the biggest names in online advertising.
When you search for something with Google, the engine returns a list of results which are ranked in order of relevance to the search you’ve used. As you’re probably aware, there are ads displayed along the right side of your search results. Just like the results, the ads are displayed based on the search terms you use. For instance, if you were to place an AdWords ad using the keyword birdcages, then this ad will only be displayed to users searching for this word.
AdWords ads are priced on either a cost per click (CPC) model; this is also called pay per click (PPC) or on a cost per thousand impressions model (CPM). In the CPC/PPC model, the advertiser pays for the ad only when someone clicks through to their website. CPM ads are priced on a flat rate per 1,000 views.
A Google AdWords account is divided into categories for campaigns and ad groups. You can set different options for each campaign; different daily budgets, different geographic locations (for example, having your ads only displayed to people in Canada) and starting and ending dates for the campaign.
Adgroups are subcategories of you campaigns where you can determine individual keywords to use in your ads and set the CPC for your campaigns. As an example, you could set keywords such as coffee, Mexico City or pastries, Mexico for different adgroups and the CPC for each group. You should also list your goals for each campaign or adgroup. While you already know what the goal of your campaigns are, its a good idea to set this – if you’re running several campaigns at once, it can get confusing.
Its not mandatory but is very highly recommended to make different adgroups organized by cost per click, subject and geographic location for each of your campaigns. The reason for this is that it allows you to monitor the results of your campaigns very closely (don’t forget to check how they’re dong often) and adjust them as you go. Don’t mismatch keywords in ad groups or make the work of managing your AdWords campaigns more difficult by using your adgroups as just big lists of keywords. If you’re in doubt about anything, there are many excellent resources on managing your AdWords campaigns.
Google AdWords is one of the best and most cost effective tools for reaching your target market. Its scalable enough to be perfect for any business and while it may take you a little while to get the hang of it, an effective AdWords campaign can do wonders for your website traffic and your sales.
The World Wide Web has made a lot of changes in how businesses carry out their marketing and advertising. From sole proprietorship all the way up to multinational corporations, advertising on the web has become an essential part of fostering public awareness of products and services as well as directly driving sales. Google is of course a name which needs no introduction and its Google AdWords program allows businesses to use the search results provided by Google to help reach consumers anywhere in the world.
When you search for something with Google, the engine returns a list of results which are ranked in order of relevance to the search you’ve used. As you’re probably aware, there are ads displayed along the right side of your search results. Just like the results, the ads are displayed based on the search terms you use. For instance, if you were to place an AdWords ad using the keyword birdcages, then this ad will only be displayed to users searching for this word.
AdWords ads are priced on either a cost per click (CPC) model; this is also called pay per click (PPC) or on a cost per thousand impressions model (CPM). In the CPC/PPC model, the advertiser pays for the ad only when someone clicks through to their website. CPM ads are priced on a flat rate per 1,000 views.
Every Google AdWords account is structured and divided into campaigns and ad groups. Under each campaign you can select your daily budget for the campaign, geographic targeting or the countries or regions you want your ads to show up in, start and end dates of each campaign, and even start and end dates. For example you can set a budget of $100 to a campaign, let your ads show up only on searches from Japan, and set it to run for a month.
Within your campaigns, you can set up adgroups. These allow you to set individual keywords and to find the cost per click for the campaign; for instance, you could pick keywords like pizza, Chicago and then the cost per click for this campaign. You can also select goals for your campaign; you likely know the goal of your campaigns already, but this can serve as a useful reminder if you have several campaigns running simultaneously. Adgroups can also be organized by keywords to promote different products or services; for example pizza, delivery, Chicago or pizza, takeout, Ravenswood.
Always create multiple Ad Groups per campaign and group campaigns and ad groups by subject, cost, target area for display, and, products. Analyze your results and refine your keywords and ad text to get better results. Watch out for mismatched keywords in ad groups. Don’t make an ad group into a large keyword list. Always remember to check your statistics. Also consult the AdWords blogs and help sites for good advice on maintain an effective campaign.
Google AdWords is one of the best and most cost effective tools for reaching your target market. Its scalable enough to be perfect for any business and while it may take you a little while to get the hang of it, an effective AdWords campaign can do wonders for your website traffic and your sales.
