Google Adwords is the closest marketing system we have as a replacement for the old Yellow Pages printed business directory.
The mindset of people looking for a problem solving business in the 1990’s in Australia was open the Yellow Pages, find a relevant category, look at the ads, pick a business and call them.
This is especially true for businesses like plumbers, air conditioning, solar, hot water, construction, repairs, maintenance and other services where someone has to turn up at a location and do perform a service. Those types of businesses were often the subject of Yellow Pages advertising campaigns but now nearly everyone who is looking for a business like that will Google it whether on a computer or phone, young or old, as consumers we have learnt that Google will find us solutions to solve our problems.
Google Adwords replaced the Yellow Pages
There were businesses that would spend tens of thousands of dollars on Yellow Pages ads.
Not anymore though, just about all that money has been redirected to internet marketing, and much of it to Google Adwords for Pay Per Click Ads.
Once businesses and their marketing advisors cottoned on to the incredible accuracy and measurement of Google Adwords in the 2000’s there has been a rising tide of billions of dollars flowing from traditional marketing like printed business directories into Google (the company now known as Alphabet).
Creating a Google Adwords Campaign
Creating a Google Adwords Campaign that gets a sufficient return on investment is not as simple as it once was. The Express Adwords setup which hides all the technical details from you and it is a good introduction to Google Adwords but quite limiting in how you can refine the campaigns.
In this step by step tutorial we are going to create a typical small Ad Group in Google Adwords, select a few relevant keywords and target the budget to aim for a first page position.
There is a summary Google Presentation slides available for this topic of Google Adwords here.
Example of Google Search with Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads
What’s your profit margin like?
If you have the good fortune of being in a business where there are few competitors in your area or have amazing profit margins then you might well get away with setting up a campaign and letting it run. There aren’t many businesses where few competitors and high profits remain. The Cost Per Click (CPC) of Google ads is much higher than it was when Google first started offering keyword specific text ads years ago. If you aren’t careful you could blow a lot of money on getting people to your website that you may not even convert to customers.
Google Ads will rarely cost less than $1 per click
The days of sub $1 per click Google Ads are all but gone for most business types and typically for a city the size of Newcastle, Australia with hundreds of thousands of consumers there are multiple businesses in every business category who are all vying for top positions on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
On average, for the types of businesses that we often work with such as trades, engineering, technical and other local services the average cost per click for a top of page listing of relevant keywords is anywhere from $2 – $12 and the Sydney, Australia equivalent region will be easily double that for a given keyword.
With target search page location, AdWords automatically sets your bids to increase the chances that your ads appear at the top of the page or on the first page of search results.
How to setup a Google Adwords Campaign
I’ll assume for the purposes of this tutorial that you have created a Google Account (like a gmail account or Google for Business login). If not go and signup a gmail account now. You will need a Google Account login to access Google Adwords.
Once you have done that go to https://adwords.google.com
Click on Start Now.
It will start you onto the Express Setup.
We don’t want to use that though so click to Skip the Guided Setup.
Then continue with the signup process filling in the details it asks for.
After all that is done you should be able to find your way to the Campaign management tab of Google Adwords.
1 – Go to the Campaign tab and click on the red button to add a Campaign.
2 – Select Search Network Only.
3 – Name the campaign and choose standard campaign type.
4 – By default the campaign will target the whole of Australia. Click the locations box.
5 – Select the city areas or regions that are to be targeted.
6 – The city area is selected. Eg. Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
7 – Manual CPC is the typical method of setting a bid level. Click on it.
The default bid is your maximum cost-per-click for ads in an ad group.
How it works: We’ll use your default bid for clicks on your ads unless you set unique targeting-specific bids. The closer you get to your budget limit, the less your ads will show.
What to do:You should set a bid that allows you to get the most value out of a click while staying within your budget.
Example: On average, one in five clicks on your ad leads to a sale worth $5. Because you don’t profit for click costs of $1 or more, you set a default bid of $1.
More about choosing your bid and budget
More about choosing a bid amount
More about bidding by targeting method
Your daily budget is the average amount you’re comfortable spending each day on this campaign.
Why it matters: Once you meet your average daily budget, your ads may stop showing. Traffic fluctuates, so you may spend up to 20% more than your daily budget on a given day.
What to do: Pick a budget that allows your ads to run enough to meet your goals. Let’s say views cost $1.00 on average, and you’d like around 10 views per day. You might budget $10 per day ($300/mo). If they have the potential to earn more traffic after they run a while, you’ll see a recommended budget on your Campaign Settings page.
Avoid a depleted daily budget
Managing your budget
8 – Select Target search page location.
When you click that and the view changes select the option for Anywhere on the first results page.
There’s not much point in setting up Google Ads if you are going to be beyond page 1 of the search results.
9 – Set a default bid and daily budget.
Pick something reasonable that you can manage and not risk huge expense if this is your first time.
10 – Setup an ad extension location.
First tick the box next to Location – Extend my ads with location information
11 – Filter for your business name.
This might not be necessary if you only have one business location setup. If you haven’t got it setup at all maybe easier to leave this out for the moment and revisit the option in the Ad Extensions when you have sorted out your Google for Business listing (Google Maps).
12 – Locations I pick and add your business location.
Or you can choose locations matching filter. It’s not really crucial which way this is done so long as the address is correct.
13 – Enable extending ads with site links.
Sitelinks are used to create additional links on your ad to specific pages within your website rather than just the homepage.
The sitelink description may show along with your sitelink when you fill out both lines.
Why use it: Use this field to tell your customers what to expect if they click the sitelink.
Example sitelink:
Men’s shirts
Example description:
Huge variety of shirts
in all sizes and colours.
14 – New sitelink: these are for pages within your website
15 – Exampleof a new sitelink on Jezweb for seo.
16 – Add sitelinks for your main pages like services or product categories.
17 – Try to use descriptions that will explain what is on the page the site link points to and causes a click.
Aim to add at least 4 sitelinks to your most important pages.
18 – Once you have added a selection of site links there will be a summary showing on the page.
19 – Add your phone number to extend the ads with phone number links.
You will have to first click on the box next to Call: Extend my ads with a phone number.
20 – Edit the phone numbers options.
You don’t have to do this but if someone is going to call from a mobile phone I’ll set it so that they get directed to my mobile number. I’m mainly doing this to demonstrate the way this feature works but you might do it so you can prioritise people who are on a phone and might be in more of a hurry than people who are sitting at a desk on their landline?
21 – Edit the phone number options.
Edit the phone number options to enable the call forwarding for conversion tracking its usually enabled by default.
22 – Create ad groups.
We’ve configured the campaign level parameters so now it’s time to setup the ads and keywords we will target.
Enter your website address in the Enter your landing page field.
23 – Create a name for the ad group.
Add the website url to link to and a name for the ad group then add tightly related keywords one per row.
24 – Add the Keywords, one per row.
You can create extra ad groups if you but for now lets just do the one and Continue to ads.
25 – Create your first ad.
The ad title is the main keyword then call to action descriptions.
26 – Create and duplicate.
Once you click Create the ad then duplicate it with the page on page icon (next to trash can icon).
We’re doing this so that we can have a separate copy of the ad for mobile. It helps with seeing whether mobile or desktop converts better and lets us alter the text in the ad to maybe something more like, click to call or some call related action compared to the desktop ad.
27 – Now there are two copies of the ad. Click Edit.
28 – Tick Device preference Mobile.
We’re going to set one of the copies of the ad to be specifically for mobile devices.
29 – Save the ad then Review campaign.
Save the ad so we now have two ads with one just for mobile.
30 – Review your campaign, Save and finish.
31 – Click on the keywords tab and look at the status column.
In this example on the keywords tab we have below first page bid. If you have set your bid high enough for first page then you shouldn’t see these warnings for Below first page bid. We do not to either remove the keyword or increase the bid though if we are going to get results.
32 – Click the Ad groups tab and edit the bid to increase it.
You’re editing the Default Max. CPC, this is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for one click on your ad to take one person to your website or call etc.
Change the value and then click the Save button.
33 – Click back to the keywords tab.
Updated keywords columns view should show the keywords are now all Eligible (to show).
34 – Increase the Campaign budget.
Since we increased the maximum cost per click we’re going to need to increase the daily budget otherwise the ad will show maybe once in the morning and then it wouldn’t be showing for the rest of the day. Click onto the Settings tab to increase the budget to higher amount.
35 – Enter a multiple of the max cpc.
The budget per day needs to be a multiple of the default bid if you want the ads to show.
36 – Modify columns on the Keyword tab.
There are a few columns that will be useful to have on the keyword view so that you can see what the conversion rate is, the quality score and search impressions share. These metrics all help us see whether an ad is effective in creating enquiries. It’s great to have clicks but what we really want are enquiries.
This isn’t strictly necessary so you can skip these steps if you want or come back and do this anytime.
37 – Add conversions costs and rates.
38 – Attributes: Quality Score and est top page bid.
39 – Competitive metrics: search impression share
This is how often your ad is running compared to the total of searches for your keywords.
40 – Account Options. Connecting Google Analytics.
Now we have some handy columns to view for keyword management lets get the Google Adwords account connected to Google Analytics.
This isn’t required in order for the Adwords to show so if you haven’t got Google Analytics setup yet you can skip this step.
41 – Linked Accounts. Google Analytics. View details.
42 – Link the relevant account.
43 – Import site metrics and save.
44 – The account is now linked.
45 – Back to the Campaign management.
46 – Scheduling times to display ads.
We can schedule ads to show at certain times of the day. In this case we’re not very interested in showing ads late at night and on weekends. Click onto the Settings tab and then Ad schedule.
Click on the red button AD SCHEDULE.
47 – Select the campaign the schedule will be setup for.
48 – Create custom schedule.
49 – Select Monday to Friday
If your business is 7 days a week then you could leave it on every day.
50 – Select the start time
51 – Select the finish time
52 – Click save and now you can see the scheduled times.
53 – Callout extensions
Lets add a callout extension so that we can show an extra differentiator between our ad and a competitor.
The callout ad extension lets you include additional text with your search ads. This lets you provide detailed information about your business, including products and services you offer. Callouts appear in ads at the top and bottom of Google search results. You can add callouts when you create your campaign. You can edit your descriptive text, and see how ads that contain callouts perform in the Ad extensions tab.
Example of a callout extension
You own Acme Electronics, an electronics retail site. Your ads already include sitelinks, but your business has some unique offers you’d like to promote to shoppers. You know that if these potential customers could see the additional benefits your business has to offer, they might be more likely to click on your ad.
When you add callouts, people can immediately identify that your business provides services like free shipping, 24-hour customer service, or price matching. Seeing this information directly beneath your ad on the search results page helps people make more informed browsing and purchase decisions.
Acme Electronics
Ad www.example.com
Shop ACME Electronics for laptops, smartphones, video games and more!
Free shipping • 24-7 customer service • Price matching
The callout is the part in bold.
Click on the Ad extensions tab and then the View extensions menu.
Select Callout extensions.
54 – Click on the red EXTENSION button.
55 – Click the New callout button.
56 – Enter a callout text.
In this case I’ll put in the words: We can visit your office!
57 – Example of a mobile specific callout.
58 – A callout can be scheduled too.
In this example I’ve set the mobile callout text to show between 10am and 12pm.
59 – Create some more callouts.
Setup enough callouts so that you have callouts for your main points of benefit. The reasons why people would consider contacting you instead of a competitor.
Save the callout extension settings when you are done.
60 – Extensions initially pending review by Google.
61 – Select View: Review Extensions.
We’re going to setup some review extensions.
With review extensions, you can share those positive write-ups, awards, or third-party rankings with potential customers in an additional line of text beneath your ads on Google Search.
You know your business is great, but review extensions let customers know that a respected third-party source agrees. Adding a quote from a positive review, award, or accolade to the text beneath your ads gives potential customers one more reason to click.
Review extensions let you add positive write-ups, awards, or third-party rankings about your company in an additional line of text beneath your search ads on desktops and tablet devices.
Reviews can be exact quotes or paraphrased and there is no charge for clicks on links to the third-party reviews. Reviews must be approved by Google before they can appear with your ad. Here are the essential guidelines.
Review extension requirements:
- Reviews must be an exact or paraphrased quote from a reputable third-party source. They can’t be drawn from individual comments or reviews, paid endorsements, or user-based websites and review aggregators.
- Reviews must apply to the advertiser itself, not particular locations, stores, or franchises.
- Reviews must highlight a specific award or accolade; general descriptions of products or services are not allowed.
- Reviews must link to a landing page on the third-party source’s website where the exact or paraphrased quote appears. They can’t link to the advertiser site or other third-party site.
62 – Add a new review.
63 – Adding the details of the review.
A review has to be published on a verified source and it can’t be a personal review like a testimonial on facebook.
This is a relatively new part of Google Adwords which we have not widely used so finding out what will be approved or rejected by Google has been something of an experiment.
When we manage to successfully publish a review to the extensions I’ll add it here.
Format
Format indicates whether your review is formatted as an exact quote from the third-party source, or if you’re paraphrasing. Paraphrased text must be based upon information clearly available on the review’s source page.
More about review extensions policies
More about review extensions
Text
The text for reviews is either an exact quote or paraphrase from a third-party source that appears beneath your ad.
Requirements: The character count for your review text is combined with the source name character count and can’t exceed a combined 67 characters, so take that into account as you choose how to format and phrase the review text and Source.
Source
The Source is the name of the third-party publisher of the quoted or paraphrased review you’re using in your review extension.
What it does: The Source text links to the page on the Source website where the quoted text, or facts included in the paraphrase, appears. You aren’t charged for these clicks.
Requirements:
- The Source name must match the Source URL domain name. For example, a review from “Best Reviews Magazine” must link to a page on that magazine’s website (such as “www.BestReviewsMagazine.com”).
- The character count for your source name and review text are calculated together and can’t exceed a combined 67 characters, so take that into account as you choose how to format and phrase the Source and review text.
Source URL
The Source URL is the landing page of the third-party website where the quoted or paraphrased review is located.
What it does: The Source URL is where people will be taken when they click on the Source name in your review extension. You aren’t charged for these clicks.
Requirements:
- The Source URL must lead to the third-party site where the review’s quoted text, or facts included in the paraphrase, appears.
- The Source URL domain name must match the review’s Source name. For example, a review from “Best Reviews Magazine” must have a Source URL that directs to that magazine’s website (such as “www.BestReviewsMagazine.com”).
- The Source URL can’t exceed 1,024 characters.
64 – Once you have added some reviews click save.
65 – Reviews are now pending review.
66 – Select structured snippet extensions.
67 – Add New structured snippet.
68 – Example of a Brands snippet.
69 – Example of Types structured snippet.
70 – Save the structured snippets.
71 – Structured snippets pending review.
72 – Select keywords and edit to change match types.
Changing the match type from broad to exact can be useful in optimising the delivery of ads to very specific phrases. We’ll do this now so that only the precise keywords that we have setup in Google Adwords will trigger our ad to show.
73 – Change match type to exact match then preview changes.
74 – If the preview looks ok then Make changes.
75 – Now we can see the keywords are square bracketed for exact match.
Google Adwords is a banquet of options
As you can see there is a lot that can be done with Google Adwords besides picking some keywords and writing ad text.
With the growth in mobile browsing and the increasingly sophisticated campaigns that marketing agencies are running on the Google Adwords platform it will take time and testing to setup and manage a campaign that provides a profitable Return On Investment (ROI).
Managing your Google Adwords
It’s definitely possible for someone with time and concentration to understand the fundamentals of Google Adwords.
With a small budget you might make the decision to manage your own campaign. With a spend of less than $10 per day the risk exposure you have in case something is not completely optimised is fairly low and so long as you can see after a few months that you are getting an acceptable ROI then let it run.
For a more substantial budget though $10+ per day we would recommend weekly management and optimisation so that knowledge of the best converting keywords and your competitors activities can be fed back into the way your campaign is spending to improve your ROI.
We can help you with Google Adwords optimisation
If you would like help with your Google Ads campaign either for a once off checkup or ongoing service please give us a call and we can discuss how your business can benefit from a carefully managed Google Adwords Campaign.