Click Tip - Archive: October 2013

How a PPC Campaigner Can Learn to Live Away From the Computer

If you run PPC campaigns, either for yourself or for others, then you are used to living in a hurry up and wait world. You spend the majority of your time waiting for something to happen, and then you must move immediately to correct the problem. You may find that you spend the majority of time trying to analyze what is happening in your account, and then trying to fix what is happening, before the next disaster or success occurs. Many people, in fact, give up on PPC campaigns because they do not have the time successfully to manage a campaign. If you live in the hurry up and wait world of PPC, then there are some tools that will assist you to quickly make the right decisions about your campaign. These tools should also assist you in being more comfortable away from the computer because you can have alerts emailed straight to your smartphone or other device.

1. Google Ads Alerts

The first set of tools that you need to be using is Google Ads Alerts. These are found directly in your Google Ads Account, and once set can email you alerts every time something important happens. While you will have to discover which alerts are most important to you, users have the choice of several settings including:

  • Notification topics
  • Billing alerts
  • Campaign maintenance alerts
  • Newsletters
  • Google market research
  • Disapproved ads and policy alerts
  • Reports

While each person needs to decide for himself or herself, which is the most important, almost everyone will find billing alerts, disapproved ads and policy alerts, and reports very important.

2. Google Ads Scripts

While the Google Ads Alerts takes care of the financial part of your campaign, Google Ads Scripts help you make day-to-day management decisions. In particular, use email alerts to alert you to unusual events in your campaign. In particular, allow these scripts to email you when any of the following fall outside the historical averages that you create.

  • Clicks
  • Impressions
  • Costs
  • Morning check-in

3. Tools to Simplify Your Life

Now that you have your life back because you have set the campaigns to email you when events happen, and you have your morning check-in automated, you have time to play with third party tools.

  • Bizible
  • Pardot
  • Marketo
  • Quality Score Monitor
  • Ad Guardian

For people who are used to having hurry up and wait life of the PPC campaigner, the change can sometimes be terrifying. Relax, there are many other things that you can be doing. By allowing the Google Ads campaign to alert you with emails when preset criteria have been met, or when an ad fails, you can even occasionally manage campaigns from your smartphone. You will also discover that there are many tools that allow you to raise your return on investment or create campaigns that are even more creative.


When using any tool, it is vital that you label the accounts very carefully. Label them so that you know what the labels stand for, but so that the enemy (anyone else looking at your data) would have a hard time deciphering what the labels meant.


This week's ClickReport.com Click Tip provided by:

Paul Smith
Pay Per Click Consultant
https://www.payperclickconsultant.co.uk/

Analyzing Your PPC Data Like a Mega-Corporation

If you talk to the manager of a large box store, they will tell you that they do not even have to interact with customers or employees to know what is happening in their stores. This is how mega-corporations manage to run many different locations at the same time. It should be the same way for your PPC report. You should be able to tell what is happening with your various campaigns, without ever seeing your campaign ads or talking to a customer. This can be easily accomplished if you know what data to collect and how to tweak your campaign based on those results.

1. Know Your General Traffic

The first piece of data that you will want to make sure to collect is the amount of general traffic. Just like the manager of a large box store, you need to know how many customers saw your ads. Knowing the total number of customers that see your ads is not enough, you need to know:

  • Which hours of the day the customers responded to your ad
  • Which days of the week customers responded to your ad
  • Average position conversion
  • Average click per conversion
  • View through conversion

When you are armed with this material, then you can make your return on investment even larger. That is the reason that big box stores keep track of the customers that walk through their stores, the average length of stay in the store, and compare them to sales.

2. Analyze Hours of the Day and Day of the Week

When you know the hours and days of the week that the most people are responding to your ads, then you can put out more ads during that time assuming they are not too expensive.

3. Compare Against Impression Share

Now that you have this report, there is one more analysis that you need to complete. Compare your hours of the day and day of the week report to your impression share. When you compare these two reports, then you can plainly see what hours during the day and what days of the week, you stand to make the most improvements. Remember to compare the budget, the impression share, to the potential. Only when you keep all three in mind are you ready to make adjustments.

4. Make Adjustments

Now, you are armed with the information that you need to make adjustments. By now, you know when your ads are performing the weakest. If your budget does not allow you to push these ads into sight, then consider if it is time to even further decrease your spending in these areas, so that you can spend even more when your ads are going to be seen. On the other hand, you may discover that there are times of day and days of the week that you need to spend a little more. Do not forget that you need to analyze after you make the changes to make sure your plan is succeeding.

Just like the mega-corporation, you need to be analyzing your ads on a regular basis. Then, like the mega-corporation, you need to make changes to your PPC campaign based on those changes. When you do this, you will soon discover that your impression share improves drastically, and you are making more return on investment than ever before.

 

This week's ClickReport.com Click Tip provided by:

Paul Smith
Pay Per Click Consultant
https://www.payperclickconsultant.co.uk/

4 Tools That Should be in Every PPC Campaigner’s Toolbox

The next time that you are around someone who loves to build things, look at their tool chest. Do not look at the big tool chest that sits in the corner for special occasions, but the small tool chest that goes almost everywhere with them. This tool chest holds their most treasured processions, and with the tools in this chest, the do-it-yourselfer can accomplish almost any construction task. It should be the same with your PPC campaign tool chest. Yet, many people try to run their campaigns without opening their toolbox, the equivalent of a carpenter trying to build something without their tools. Here are four tools that every PPC Campaigner should have in their toolbox:

1. Dimensions Tab

One tool that PPC campaigners should become very familiar with is the Dimensions Tab. Located in your Google Ads account, this report lets you quickly analyze changes that occur in your account quickly. The report even helps you analyze what may have caused these changes in your activity. A great carpenter may not admit to looking at an instruction manual often, but they do look. This is your instruction manual use it wisely.

2. Billing Tab

When a carpenter heads out to do a paid job, they provide the buyer with an invoice. The billing is agreed on ahead of time. The Billing Tab in Google Ads allows you to do the same thing. It allows you to set the amount of money that you are willing to spend in a particular period. The billing tab also allows seasonal PPC campaigners to set which periods they will spend the most money.

3. Bulk Operations

The next tool that PPC campaigners need to use in their campaigns is Bulk Operations. If you have ever watched a master carpenter work at his trade, then you know that he can get things done in half the time it takes other people to do the same thing. It is because they know what they are doing. Under the bulk operations tab, PPC campaigners can set rules for running their own campaigns. Using the bulk edit tab, you can easily raise all your first page bids, change the dates on your ads, and many more things. It will save you hours of work.

Under the Bulk Operations tab is the Scripts. Scripts are like the multi-tipped screwdriver. There are so many things that you can do with it like API reports, graphing, creating thousands of ads in seconds, generating return on investment reports, keyword tracking, and analyzing performance. While scripts can have a steep learning curve, keep going until it fits perfectly in your hand just as a favorite screwdriver fits in the carpenter’s hand.


4. Search Funnels Tab

The last tool that every PPC campaigner should have in their toolbox is the search funnels tab. Campaigners can do all types of amazing things with this tool. Some of the things that the search funnel tab allows campaigners to do is see their assist clicks, assist impressions, click assisted conversions, impression assisted conversions, click assisted conversion values, and impression assisted conversion values. Armed with this information, campaigners can tweak their campaigns to achieve the very best results.

Just like the master carpenter has certain tools that he never starts a project without, so should the PPC campaigner.  Hopefully these four tool suggestions will improve your pay-per-click campaigns and help you make even more money with your advertising!

 

This week's ClickReport.com Click Tip provided by:

Paul Smith
Pay Per Click Consultant
https://www.payperclickconsultant.co.uk/

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Pay Per Click Information & Resources
  • AffiliateGuide.com - Affiliate directory and resource center offering a huge range of web affiliate programs and affiliate information.
  • Passionforppc.com - PPC Management Services.