Bill Jeppesen

ClientName Deleted AdWords Review For First Last April 5, 2017 By: Bill Jeppesen dba Effective PPC Time frame for data collection and review: Jan. 1 - April 3 Enabled campaigns and ad groups only ============================================================ The purpose of this review is to provide an analysis of the current AdWords set up and provide suggestions and recommendations as to issues with past performance and future considerations. As noted in our earlier messages regarding this project, I do not do fancy graphs and PowerPoint slides. My goal is to simply assess how well AdWords is working with the data provided and make recommendations. Please note, this review is based exclusively on AdWords data. Regardless as to hiring me or any other consultant for additional work, I highly recommend linking Analytics data to your AdWords account so that you can see important metrics such as bounce rates of campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords directly in AdWords. This metric alone can reveal problem areas instantly. Additionally, tie AdWords and Analytics together with Search Console so that you can see the actual search queries that drive traffic to Client Website. As these are not in place at the time of this review, it is not possible to assess some of the individual details as to what the traffic did after clicking an ad (i.e., did they bounce, look at multiple pages, etc.) Although I did not view the traffic in Analytics, I could still get a representation of time of day traffic, using the NameDeleted ad group as the basis. Top Performers Without a doubt, NameDeleted is your best performing ad group and oddly enough, it should not be. Typically, when people search for a specific product or service, that is exactly what they are looking for. For several years for my AutoMall.com, LLC business, we used to advertise using a competitor Auto Mall name, (e.g., Roseville AutoMall). Over time, Google has changed its algorithms, realizing when people search for a certain thing, they show results specific to that thing both organically and for paid search. Today, our Roseville AutoMall ad gets zero impressions and no competitive ads are shown. That said, you are definitely doing something right. My thought is, 1) Google has not filtered down this market as it has, and does for others and, 2) ClientCompetitor and other similar services do a lot of advertising and your service - by virtue of well written ads - catches the attention of those visitors. Recommendation Assuming Google continues to show your ads for NameDeleted, you should find a way to incorporate their name into your content to make it more relevant (easier said then done, I know). The average keyword quality score for this ad group is poor to bad. Adding relevant content will increase your ad's quality score (hidden), your keyword's quality score and lower your average CPC and/or raise your average position. This concept: landing page content, relevant keywords, relevant ad text all arranged into relevant ad groups, is key to any successful AdWords campaign. AdGroupName Deleted is your next best performer and it's not surprising that keywords scores are okay to good and the average position of the ads is in the top two. Note that your best ad included AdGroupName in the text. Time of day Using NameDeleted as the basis and assuming this hold true across all ad groups - and I would think that is should - the lion's share of AdWords traffic is 9:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. with clear drop offs on either end. Not surprisingly, nearly all of the conversions happen in these hours with 3, 4 or 5 in any given hour vs. mostly 0 or the occasional 1 in the off hours. Recommendation Increase your bids, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. and either don't advertise during the off hours or reduce your bids. Mobile, Computer and/or Tablet As you are probably aware, 60%+ of searches on Google start or are done completely on a mobile device (more on the this later). Up until fairly recently, you could only adjust your bids for mobile devices. Google recently enabled bid adjustments for Tablets. Tablets are great for reading articles, playing games and looking up information. However, while they appear to be on par with a mobile phone or desktop computer, for business websites that require forms to join or pay, etc. they tend to perform poorly at best. For Client Website, the cost of a conversion (and there have only been two) is nearly double that for Mobile and two-and-a-half that for Computers. Recommendation While it only represents X% of your ad spend here, it's still $XXX you could have saved or put towards other campaigns. Set bidding for Tablets to -100%. Ad Performance I'm gong to start this section with some questions as I don't understand what you have set up or the data is not available without Analytics or a discussion. Bidding: The average position is pretty good at 1.9 so you are probably close. However you might be able to dial in the CPC overall or for particular ad groups. How much is a conversion worth? What is the lifetime value of a customer? How many forms actually turn into a customer? How many clicks to an ad result in a form completion? This information can help you work backwards to determine your optimal bid. Are you using a third party tracking program? Did you use Google Link Builder? www.Client Website/offer?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_content=Competitors&utm_campaign=ClientWebsiteCampaign Are you overriding the auto tagging from AdWords? I'm just trying to understand why you have the manual tagging. There's nothing wrong with this, just adds some complication for setting up new campaigns, ad groups and ads if it is not being used. As noted earlier, most searches begin on a mobile device. You may be getting leads from ads clicked on a smart phone, but then the form gets completed on a desktop computer later in the day. This currently is not tracked. The ads are very well written and you make good use of the extensions. We'd need to discuss, but there may be more opportunities for structured snippets. Also if you have Client Website App there may be an opportunity here as well. You have ads optimized for clicks which is probably fine, however depending on what you are trying to do, optimized for conversions may make more sense, or rotate evenly if you are A/B testing ads. Keywords and Ad Groups Of all of your ad groups, AdGroupName Deleted is the only one with decent quality scores for the keywords. All of the other ad groups' keywords rate poorly or not at all. This makes for a higher than usual CPC to get impressions. There is a disconnect between the keyword searches you want to go after and the relevant content of the landing page where your ads point. While you have negative keywords in place, they are only by ad group and all of them are exact. This is barely effective and a lot more work than is necessary. For example, you have the exact phrase [text deleted] as a negative keyword for the ad group AdGroupName Deleted and if someone types that exact phrase, your ad will not show, but if they type what is the best text deleted your ad may show. Recommendation This one is a bit tougher as the concept and idea of what you're trying to do is good, but the execution is bad. When I first started reviewing the set up, my initial recommendation, at a high level, was to pause all but the NameDeleted and NameDeleted ad groups. And, that might be the right short-term play. Based solely on return, all of the other ad groups account for XX% of your spend but return almost zero. That ~$XXX could have been used in AdGroupName Deleted and AdGroupName Deleted. Additionally, review the individual keyword performance in these two ad groups. In AdGroupName Deleted, for example, XXX of the XXX clicks (XX%) had no conversions, accounting for XX% ($XXX)of the ad group's spend. The ad group keywords and possibly the ads in them need an overhaul and/or the landing pages need updated content. The negative keyword lists needs an overhaul and you need a shared negative keyword list that can apply to multiple or even all campaigns. (Side note: if you just look at ad groups with zero conversions, had they not run, you would have saved $XXXor XX% of your spend.) Conversion Tracking You have one imported from Analytics, which is generally the best and easiest way to set up conversions. You could use Analytics to set up remarketing lists as well, rather than requiring AdWords tags. You also have four goals set up in Analytics (I can see this from AdWords) but they have not been imported so they are not being tracked. Recommendation I would need to see Analytics to make a better recommendation as I would need to see the traffic flow and behavior. But there may be opportunities to track conversions that lead to sales. Also, with Event Tracking, we could also see what pages and/or links are active and so on and so forth. Display Campaign Display campaigns are a double edged sword, they can be highly effective for building a brand or a complete waste of money for driving leads. I would need to work with you closer on your marketing plan and company goals before recommending how or if to pursue this ad platform. However, I can make recommendations for what you have in place right now. Recommendation If you plan to continue running a display ad campaign, as soon as you finish reading this review, look up blocking my ads on mobile apps. You need to create an exclusion list for adsenseformobileapps.com. Unfortunately, for AdWords users, Google doesn't make it clear that your ads may show on mobile apps like Mobile App: Solitaire Ⓞ (iTunes App Store), by Zentertain Ltd and hundreds of other like that. These have cost you ~$XXX of your $XXX spend on display. Additionally, you can and should create a list of sites to exclude that are known to game the system so as to show display ads which otherwise would be irrelevant (e.g., 3dgames.la, 10fastfingers.com, etc.) This display campaign is for remarketing only, which is fine depending on what you are trying to do. However, you have campaign exclusions for to remarketing lists, NameDeleted (website) and NameDeleted - Jan 1 2017. I assume these came from Analytics, but not knowing what they are, and going only by name, it looks like these should not be excluded. Create another ad and rotate them evenly. There's no way to tell how well the ad performs if you can't compare it to another, different image and text display ad that would run in the same places. Adjust your bidding by demographics. xx-xx seems to be your sweet spot for age. Females are also more likely to click on the ad. Conclusion I realize there is a lot of information here, and honestly there could be a lot more if the purpose of this document was to detail every issue and explain the steps to fix or optimize your campaigns. When we first traded messages, I wanted to be sure what you are looking for and what I do match up. To be sure, your AdWords set up is good, but it could be better. I think you are wasting money on some ad groups, but also think they are on the right track, just not in line with what you have and what you want to do. If Google decides to stop showing your ads for NameDeleted searches, you are going to lose a huge chunk of your converting traffic. I would need to talk with you about this, but my guess is, your competitors have a lot of advertising in place, people are hearing their name(s) and search on them. They see your well-written ad and think Hey, that looks pretty cool/that's what I'm looking for/Hmmm, didn't know about these guys, etc. and you get the traffic. I get what you are trying to do with the break out of ad groups, but it is not working. We need to fix that. This could mean a re-vamping of the keywords, updating the site content or more. With these fixes, your keyword quality score will go up, so will your impressions and mostly likely clicks and conversions and for a lower CPC. I hope this helps. I am available if you need my help and we can set up a schedule that meets your budget. Please let me know your thoughts. Also, I would be happy to go over this on the phone with you if you'd like. Regards, Bill