aWebBiz Newsletter 05-10-04 : Google AdWords campaigns : click through rate (CTR)

aWebBiz Newsletter
"Learn the Marketing and Sales Techniques of the Business World."

May 10, 2004

When I first started out marketing affiliate products using the Google Cash System in November 2003, I would use both relevant and broad keywords. I now start all my test campaigns out using only relevant keywords if I can.

The reason I say "if I can" is because some times the most relevant keywords for an affiliate product may not create enough impressions and clicks to run a test campaign.

In that type of situation you will usually have to add another Ad Group of broad keywords in order to get enough impressions and clicks to run your test campaign.

I always thought that if the affiliate product was good and the merchant's website did a good job of selling, that it really didn't matter where the traffic came from since an Affiliate Money Maker (AMM) would show itself.

To a certain degree this approach worked since I did find some AMMs this way, but there was always the possibility that perhaps I might miss an AMM or maybe a Baby AMM.

A Baby AMM being an affiliate product that might not make me thousands of dollars a month, but might be capable of making me an extra hundred dollars or more a month.

For an example lets use an ebook for starting a day care center as the affiliate product which we will create a new test campaign for with Google AdWords.

If you were marketing an ebook for starting a day care center, relevant keywords and keyword phrases would be terms like these: start a day care, start a daycare, open a daycare, starting a daycare, start a daycare business, starting a daycare center, etc.

(NOTE: I have run test campaigns for every daycare ebook within ClickBank, so don't waste your time or money running a test campaign for them. None of them were profitable. A landing page might work, but personally I only like to test landing pages for affiliate products that were profitable sending traffic directly to the merchant's website.)

Broad keywords are terms such as these: daycare, day care, child care, childcare, taking care of children, etc.

Even broader keywords and phrases would be terms such as these: start a business, home based business, business opportunity, work at home, starting a business, etc.

The first thing I would do would be to search for "daycare" with the free Overture Suggestion Tool or Ad Word Analyzer (AWA).

I like AWA since I can save the list of keywords it creates. The problem with using the Overture Suggestion Tool is that you have to strip the search numbers from the list of results.

The next step is to go through the list of terms and delete any keyword that is not relevant to the affiliate product you are marketing.

Then I use this free online tool, AdWords Wrapper, where I paste a copy of my edited, relevant keyword list into an input box. Then AdWord Wrapper will turn my keywords into three separate lists which will include phrase, exact, and a combination of broad, phrase and exact match. I use all three versions in all my campaigns.

1. Broad Match: start a daycare
2. Exact Match: [start a daycare]
3. Phrase Match: "start a daycare"

I also use negative keywords like the word "free" below. That way my ad will not show up for any searches where these negative keywords are used.
-free

Then I set up my new test campaign, write my ad, place all these relevant keywords in the three versions into an Ad Group, set the keyword bids, set my budget and the test begins.

I'll go through this process for every relevant keyword I come up with. For example I might run "daycare" through AWA and then run "day care" through AWA. Then I go through the above process for each keyword to edit the lists. Since both these keywords are closely related I can set them both up in the same Ad Group.

If the test campaign is profitable then I will add more Ad Groups with broad keywords. The bids on these broad keywords are kept much lower than the bids on the relevant keywords.

If sales are going well then I will often raise the bids on these broad keywords. On the other hand if sales slow down then I can lower the bids on these broad keywords or even pause them, but I always keep my relevant Ad Groups active and running.

Another thing that is important is having a high CTR for your Ad Groups and your campaigns.

I tweak my Ad Groups in order to increase their Click Through Rate (CTR). A higher CTR will allow you to get a higher position in AdWords and you can often get that higher position for a lower keyword bid than other advertisers who have a lower CTR for their ads and quite possibly a higher bid than your keywords.

In order to get a high CTR you will have to have a very short list of very targeted keywords and most of your ads will have to show up on the first page of the Google search results page.

Personally I prefer to find less competitive keywords where it doesn't matter what your CTR is since you will get a high position for a low bid. However, that is not always posssible so if I can get a CTR of two to four I am happy since I use many keywords in my campaigns.

You also need to have a great ad that gets people to click through. I usually try to get the keyword in the headline. In line two of the ad I put a benefit of the product and in line three I put a feature of the product.

You can always break out a list of your best performing
keywords and create a separate Ad Group if you
want a higher CTR for them.

There is something else you can do to slowly raise the CTR
of any Ad Group. This works for me and my Ad Group's CTR
goes higher and higher.

Go into your AdWords management area and then into one of
your Ad Groups. Click on the option to view "Show statistics
for: all time." Next click on the "Impr." in the top row and all your keywords will be listed with the highest impressions on the top. Go through your keyword list and delete any keyword that has 100 or more impressions and no clicks.

Next click on the "CTR" in the first row and then your keywords will be listed with the highest CTR on top. Go through your keyword list and delete any keyword that has 100 impressions or more and has a CTR under 0.05%.

If a keyword cannot get a click within the first 100 impressions
then it really isn't relevant to your campaign or it is being displayed too far down on the Google search results page to be of much help to your campaign or the CTR. All it is doing is dragging your CTR down. That's true of any keyword that has a CTR of under 0.05% with over 100 impressions.

I do this process about every two to three days and my CTR keeps going higher for all my campaigns and Ad Groups.

IMPORTANT: Only do this tweaking when you are viewing
your Ad Groups showing statistics for "ALL TIME." Otherwise
you might delete some good, relevant keywords by mistake.

By the way, I'm getting quite a few sales from the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and some other countries that I don't recognize the abbreviations for in my ClickBank management area.

I did a search on Google for English speaking countries and found quite a few websites that list all the English speaking countries. I added all the countries where the majority of the people speak English to my various campaigns . However, I did not add third world countries where the incomes are low. Countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc.

Of course you have to take into consideration the affiliate product you are selling with regards to whether or not it would be something the people in any particular country would be interested in. I don't think you will sell too many ebooks on how to build a water sprinkler system in Antarctica, but I may be wrong. :)

Until next time, take care.

Best regards,
Barry Stein
http://awebbiz.com
It's all about business.

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