Improving AdWords Results

Based on the private emails I have received, some are making a little bit of money with Adwords and some are losing money consistently.

I suppose if you’re really make great money with AdWords you probably wouldn’t want to share your specific campaigns. That’s understandable. I can’t either, but I will share some of the methods I’ve learned that have helped me.

Here’s a couple things I’ve learned as I started to have some success finally after testing them for 2 years on and off:

1) Select a ‘primary’ keyword or set of keywords (2 to 3 words or phrases) then using ‘keyword branching’ increase the number of keywords you’re using until you are ready to begin adding additional ‘branches’. Let me give you an example:

Let’s say one of your primary keywords is: make money".

Start adding ‘branches’ to it so that you get a set of phrases and keywords that shoot-off from that keyword:

make money - the primary - then start adding branches around your primary:

make money online - ‘online’ is a branch
how to make money - ‘how to’ is another branch
ways to make money - ‘ways to’ is another branch
make money easy - ‘easy’ is a branch
make money the easy way - ‘the easy way’ is a branch

You could go on and on using ‘branches’ to increase your number of very targeted keywords. This is much more effective in keeping your CTR higher than anything else you could do a long as your ad is well written.

See what I mean? Each keyword phrase has the primary keyword (make money) in it. The important thing here is to think like a real searcher would think and use the terms he would use.

I’ve talked to a lot of people running campaigns that wanted to extend ‘reach’ by start adding keywords that were ‘close’ to the target market but without really giving thought to the way users actaully search for things online. The AdWords keyword ’suggestion’ tool HURTS your campaign if you use it without thinking of ‘keyword branching’. Using ‘keyword branching’ is a way to extend reach while staying on target with your market as tightly as possible.

2) The second thing that has helped me be more successful is by increasing the number of clicks before abandoning a campaign as ‘unprofitable’. I used to believe that if I got 100-200 clicks and didn’t make a single sale then the campaign was a loser.

Now, as I have tested, you really need to test 500-600 clicks before making that determination. One of my campaigns recently went 300 clicks with only one sale but at the end of the test with 500 clicks I had 8 sales. If I had ended the test at 300 clicks I would not have known that it could have been a profitable campaign if it had been run longer.

But after 500-600 clicks and up to 7 days (I would not go to past 500-600 click) of testing I would end it if there were less than 1 sale in 100 on average. I also try to kep my bid per click as low as possible during the test period.

If it’s a highly competitive field and the amount I’d have to bid per click is higher than .25 to get the 6th or 7th spot I would forget about even testing it and go on to a less competitive keyword. Of course it depends on how high a margin you are working with and your potential ROI.

In general, I like to get the 6th or 7th spot or better with .07-.25 per click to test. I would also set my daily budget at twice the Google recomendation so that my exposure is 24/7.

3) I am concentrating more and more on residual income programs rather than one-time commission. If you have a program that will pay you $10 monthly commission from a sign-up the ROI is much higher than a one-time commission. Of course, the site you promote must have excellent service and content to keep the referral signed-up so that your ROI is positive- but without the residual income the campaign may not be profitable at all.

So a campaign that would only be marginally profitable with a $20 one-time commission would be very profitable if it paid that commission of $20 each month.

3) I am finding that using AdWord for ‘lead generation’ can be profitable. I used it as a ‘lead generator’ and even if we are on the top of the search results for our name, why take the chance the prospect would click on any other link other than our own? We want that lead even if it costs us a few cents because we know the long-term value of a qualified lead.

Here’s a key point:

Use and test different landing pages that gives you the lead through a sign-up form before taking them to the site you are referring them to. This will allow you to follow up with the lead and increases the possibility of a sale. In fact this is one of the biggest mistakes most people make when trying to sell affiliate program through AdWords. They don’t ‘capture’ the lead before sending them on to the affiliate site.

4) When writing my ads I want a question in the first line, a benefit statement in the second line and a call to action in the third line. Simple formula but it works and I stick to it in almost every ad.

I also have found much better success if the URL that shows up in the ad MATCHES as close as possible the primary keywords you are using in your keyword list.

In other words if make money is your keyword your URL that shows in your ad should be make-money-always.com , etc

I have lower CTR when I use a sub-directory of an existing domain such as:

marksenterprise.com/makemoney/

Does that mean I have to register a different domain for each test? No, but after the test runs for a while and it looks successful I can probably boost CTR (click-through ratio) by registering a domain using a combination of my primary keywords.

Those are just a few of the things I’ve learned so far that have helped me.

I hope they help you too

Nick Marks