Newsletter #128 DIY AdWords Campaigns

Created on Nov 27 2008 12:00AM

A special hello to all new subscribers. This article is on the Web at this address.

Our last newsletter (29th October, 2008) was "Is the Net Changing Us?".

Feature Article

Increasingly people are looking online for information and to get things done and this is reflected in the amount of money now being spent in online advertising. ZenithOptimedia in their June 2008 forecast say that the Internet’s share of total global advertising moved ahead of radio last year and they expect it to trump magazine advertising in 2009.

One of the key drivers of this rapid growth is pay-per-click advertising, particular on search sites such as Google. Google is the leader in this area and has created a system called AdWords that shows text advertising linked to the keywords used in a search. The reason it is so successful for advertisers (and Google) is that they are advertising to people who have already shown an interest in what they are offering.

From our experience AdWords campaigns work best when:

• There is little competition in your industry. It’s ideal if your competitors are not very Web-literate or particular innovative in their marketing approach.
• You have specific products or services that are easily described in a few words and that are often searched for.
• They are used in conjunction with special offers or promotions that may be time dependent
• The acquisition of a customer has a high or undervalued worth. You may be able to out bid the competition.
  
  

The beauty of the AdWords system is that if you are a business of any size you can use a DIY (Do It Yourself) attitude and build your own campaign for free! It takes time and effort to become an expert and we have simplified the strategy and process, but if you follow the steps below you’ll be able to get a campaign underway.

1. Go here: http://adwords.google.com and click Try AdWords Now. Follow through the process to set up an account.
2. Once your account has been organised you can setup a new online campaign –choose the ‘with keywords’ option. A Campaign is the description given to the group of Ad Groups that you will setup for a Website.
3. Decide how many Ad Groups you will need. Look at your products and services and see if there are any natural groupings. Each natural grouping will form an Ad Group and each Ad Group should contain a maximum of 20 keywords or phrases.
4. You can choose which country or parts of a country you want to target.
5. Create your ad using the form provided. You can send people to any page on your site or create a custom page (recommended) for your Ad.
6. The system will suggest keywords but you can also enter them by hand. Read the help on the type of matches you should use, including the use of negative keywords.
7. Enter your daily budget and maximum cost per click.
8. Save your campaign if you are happy with the summary.
9. It's best to signup also with Google Analytics to track your site statistics.
10. Keep checking your campaign and adjust where necessary.

Online pay-per-click campaigns have become a standard part of many company’s marketing plan.

Have a look and I’m sure you’ll find some of your competitors using AdWords – but it’s actually better if they aren’t!

Hot Tips

Newbies

Thought about what happens if your email program crashes and you have to resurrect important information? Hopefully you're backing up the emails themselves, but what about your address book?
In Outlook Express go Tools/Address Book then once in the Address Book go File/Export/Address Book (WAB) and choose a place to store this exported file. The best idea is to export it to a directory that is backed up regularly.
If you use Outlook it's best to use an automated tool supplied by Microsoft to backup your Personal Folders:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8B081F3A-B7D0-4B16-B8AF-5A6322F4FD01&displaylang=en
Note that if you use Exchange Server for your email within an office environment it is likely that your email is backed up by your Administrator.

Power Users

Google's GMail offers almost unlimited storage capacity so why not use it to create an off-site backup for all the email sent to you? Once you have logged into your GMail account click Settings/Accounts/Get Email from Other Accounts and Add Email Account. You'll have to know the login details for your email account and follow through the Wizard to add them. In most cases you'll want GMail to leave a copy of the email on the server so that it can be accessed by your normal email client. Just note that GMail may not collect copies of all your email if you regularly clear your POP3 email from your mailserver.

Interesting Sites

Technorati is an Internet search engine for blogs, apparently indexing over 112 million as I write this. The World Live Web is incredibly active, and according to Technorati data, there are over 175,000 new blogs every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second. http://technoratimedia.com

InsiteFul Quotes

“The reason history must repeat itself is because we pay so little attention to it the first time.” Blackie Sherrod

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management