How to Manage your AdWords in 10 minutes a day

Provided you have an AdWords professional set up your Google AdWords account, Tag Manager and Analytics, managing your AdWords account can be done in 10 minutes a day, or if you don’t have that kind of time per day, approximately an hour on the weekend. Obviously you’re not going to be able to dominate your industry with this limited time, but you will be better placed to receive leads and sales, provided you follow this simple guide:

Monday:

1. Is your CTR (click through rate) above 2%? - At one stage CTR was the primary indicator of the health of an account, if it was above 2% then it meant your ads were exciting enough that they caught a decent amount of potential clients’ eyes. Recent research still connects high CTR with high Conversion Rates, the idea being if people are excited to click your ad, then that excitement seeps through to the website, provided the UX is quality.

2. What position are you in? - If you’re average position is 4+, then you’re likely not being seen, at least not often enough to provide a decent CTR. While you might think you’re being frugal and only paying for cheap clicks, not only do the Ad Extensions on your ads not show, but it’s likely your website has been opened alongside every other link on the SERP and a decision has been reached well before they even view your site. Increase your bids to sit in positions 1,2, or 3.

Tuesday:

1. Does your Ad Text address the KeyWords? - Any decent AdWords Professional should have set it up so that the KeyWord is wholly relevant to the Ad Text, however, unless that person has been working with you in your business for months, it is unlikely he/she will have the experience that you have with your clients. Ensure that the Ad Text addresses your customers needs.

2. What are people typing in? - If you haven’t seen this, you need to, it is now your best friend:  

3. Identify Negative KeyWords - that’s it for today, identification, not implementation. Pull a Search Term Report and highlight the Search Terms that you know will NEVER convert.  

Wednesday/ Thursday:

1. Review Search Terms - The highlighted Negative KeyWords in the Search Terms Report from yesterday need a quick review and a deep think. Why? Because you might need to add more. - There’ll be the obvious Negative KeyWords, they’ll jump out at you because you’ll wonder what in the hell caused this particular person to click on your Ad. After all these years I’m still amazed at the variations of seemingly innocent KeyWords that someone has somehow magically turned X-rated with their Search Term.

- There’ll be ones that you need to think strategically about, like location based Search Terms. An obvious example might be that your service only covers Brisbane, and someone is searching for the Sunshine Coast. A less obvious example is that maybe you sell a product that historically your clients seem to be only from your city. It could be they are only from your local area. It could be that the product you sell is the type that makes clients want to trust the supplier. 

2. Implement Negative KeyWords - Many people take the easy way out and make Exact Match Negative KeyWords for the entire Search Term. If you can figure out the Core* Negative KeyWord, you will eliminate wasting more money in the future. *For more information about Core Theory, contact Sam on 07 3117 2300.

Friday:

1. Review Google Analytics - For the first two to three weeks, use this time to browse Analytics, explore the account, take notes if something intrigues you. Be careful not to freak out at the volume of information, below is information about what to focus on for AdWords, but it is a boon for your own knowledge to see what is happening with the information in the Analytics account.

2. Let’s say we’re three weeks into the campaign and you are familiar with your Analytics account, you’ve followed the Daily Steps and want to know how to ascertain if the account is improving. Your AdWords Professional should have set up Conversion Tracking on some level and if they were particularly savvy (like us here at Matter Solutions), they would have also set up numerous Goals in Analytics through Tag Manager for things like Phone Number Clicks and Form Submissions. Essentially the Tag Manager would report to Analytics when someone clicks the phone number on your website, or submits an enquiry.

If you still are unsure of where to go in Analytics, check this out:   

Once there you will see what I call my Key Performance Indicator(KPI):

And my Lead Performance Indicators (LPI):

If your LPIs are healthy, Bounce Rate lower than 40% and Pages/ Session in keeping with the information on your site, then your KPIs should be healthy as well. If your KPI is unhealthy, check your LPI.

If you have a high Bounce Rate, optimise your Landing Page, or your Final URLs in your AdWords account.

Simple!

I must reiterate that this only works if you have your Account set up by a Trusted AdWords Professional. A solid foundation is an absolute must in order to ensure this strategy works. If you have not had your Account set up by an AdWords Professional, then there is only one step you should follow:

• DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!