A trick to track Yahoo! Search Marketing in Google Analytics

If you're doing pay per click advertising, you better be doing some analytics. If not, stop reading this immediately, go to http://google.com/analytics and start.

Okay, you're back.

One of the biggest pains when it comes to setting up PPC is setting up your tagging for other search engines. Google provides a handy tool called the Google URL Builder which allows you to set up the right destination pages for Google Analytics to track your non-Google campaigns in your search engine reports in Google Analytics.

However, it can get really tedious adding destination pages for each keyword. But wait, there's an easier way, people!

By using Yahoo's variables, you can simply add them in at the ad level and Google and Yahoo will do the rest of the work for you. Basically, all you need to do is add {OVKEY} for your term and {OVADID} for your campaign content and all will be right with the world.

Who knew paid search marketing could be so easy?

How to ruin your paid search campaign before you even start

"Let's waste some money!"
-something you'll never hear yourself, or a client say

I was in a meeting yesterday with a creative agency who said they had constructed a high end site for one of their customers, who wanted to "advertise on Google". They built the site, set up AdWords for him (as a courtesy, they never claimed to be marketers) and set him loose. My head was already spinning, and when the story spiraled into a disgruntled customer's angry phone calls, I started imagining all of the things that must have gone wrong...

As such, a short list of ways to ruin your AdWords campaign from someone who has some experience in paid search management. So for you newbies, here's how to blow it from the get go:

1. Insufficient research and understanding of the platform. Just because you can get your ads live doesn't mean you know what you're doing. Check out the Google AdWords Learning Center before you get started. Take notes while you do it. I'm serious. And then, just to balance out the Google Kool-Aid factor, read your fair share of blogs like this to make sure you do things that Google doesn't tell you, like turning off the Content Network and rotating your ads.
   
2. Shorting your budget, or spreading it too thin. Sorry to tell you folks, but I've done some statistics in my day and there's something called sample size. Even the best of us will have to do a lot of adjusting to campaigns over time, but you'll never know what to adjust without some critical mass. Either have the budget when you start, or focus your efforts on a small number of keywords and ad groups so you don't have 600 keywords with four clicks each. If none of them convert well, you don't have enough of a sample to decide what works and what doesn't. Rule of thumb, don't make a change until you've had 30 clicks, bare minimum.
3. Making monstrous ad groups. This one has been said a million times, but can't be said enough. If your ad versions don't adequately represent each keyword, you need more ad groups.
4. You have no goals. Set a number of leads. Set a sales goal. Have SOMETHING to work towards. If you don't, you'll have no idea what you're working towards and how to get there. People who struggle here are the ones who remember a year later that they have AdWords running, have been paying for it, but completely forgot about it. This, my children, is unacceptable...unless of course you wake up screaming:

"Let's waste some money!"

A handy trick for using Google Analytics site overlay

Hopefully anyone out there running a paid search campaign is also running analytics as well. Obviously, Google Analytics is a mighty powerful (and free!) tool that provides a wealth of information to improve your campaign(s). Now, one thing that GA does not do in its standard functionality is allow you to segment the site overlay report. Instead, you are given all information in one aggregate mass.

It would be much more insightful to be able to see how your PPC traffic acted from one page to the next, and to be able to use the overlay to show our findings to non-analytics types can be even more valuable. So how can we make this happen?

It really just takes a few easy steps.

1. On the main login page, select "add new profile" above your current profiles.
2. Select "Add a profile for an existing domain" and give it a name - "PPC traffic" works for me.
3. Go to "edit settings" for your new profile and create a name for your new filter. Select custom filter>include>campaign medium> ^(cpc|ppc)$ > and "no" for case sensitive

Note: if you have all of your campaigns setup as only cpc or ppc, you would only need one of them, not both.

Now, once you've had a few days to collect data, going into this profile will only show you your paid search traffic. The site overlay, as an extension, will only show this traffic as well. If you want to take it a step further, you could add an additional filter that includes only the campaign source and add the specific search engine you want to track.

Alright kids, that's all for today. Go try this out and let me know how it works.

Rotate your ads!

Sometimes optimization is NOT optimization. A key example of this is when Google AdWords decides that they will "optimize" how your ad variations are displayed for an Ad Group. This is a fundamental problem with AdWords (that and having the content network on by default) that stops you from properly testing your ads.

Ideally, you want all of your various ads to run in rotation. Assuredly (I'm putting some faith in you, now), you're running Google Analytics or some other analtyics package that lets you see how the various ad copy is performing once they reach the site. AdWords, however, is only interested in click through. So, while I can write an ad that says "Free preview of (insert anticipated new movie here)" that gets a tremendous click through rate, users probably won't do much on my site if it doesn't really deliver to their expectations. Google AdWords, however, would begin optimizing for that very quickly and take your other variations out of rotation.

So, for you folks getting started with AdWords, please shut this stuff off or have a professional do your AdWords setup.

Doing Internet Marketing? Start with a business question.

Okay, you've decided you want to do some pay per click advertising, or you have some pay per click marketing agency doing a campaign for you. If you're doing it yourself, here's a quick rule of thumb:

Have business goals!

If you don't have some pretty hardened business goals for a campaign you're going to run, then don't waste the money. Advertising to advertise is not a good use of money. If the agency you're working for doesn't work with yout to identify some goals, before you cut them a check, make sure you call some other companies. Otherwise, you'd be better off just sending me a check for whatever you're going to spend, and at least you'll get some positive word of mouth from yours truly.

So, what are some examples of appropriate business goals? Without ducking the question, let me first say it differs wildly from one organization to the next, but here's some rough examples:

• Increase web leads by 25%
• Double sales for targeted categories
• Drive 2,000 goal page impressions each month
• Achieve x% ROI for product targeted ad groups

THESE are goals. Initiatives that begin by someone saying, "We should look into promoting ourselves on search engines" that don't evolve any further are akin to Cliff Clavin's Buffalo Theory, which you may remember from Cheers:

• “Well, you see, Norm, it’s like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it’s the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
  
  In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.
  
  And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”

Cliff's theory, while funny, doesn't really stand up to scientific scrutiny. So, unless you want your attempt to use paid search to go down in the annals of company history as a joke, make sure you define some tangible business goals first, or your campaign will last as long as the slowest, weakest buffalo.

Paid Search Marketing...the high level value

First and foremost, I just want to state that I am a professional. This does not mean that I carry a weapon, it just means that I do online marketing for a living.

*cue dramatic theme music*

The real value in paid search marketing is its accountability, and its ability to target people at deeper stages of the purchase funnel. New to this? Let me explain:

When you setup a Google Adwords account, you should also setup a Google Analytics account. By doing so, you can track how much you're spending per click, and what kind of results you're getting from those clicks. Say you have a website that sells toy trucks. With Google Analytics, you can track which keywords are leading to sales, what your exact return on ad spend is for each keyword and ad group. You simply can't do that with traditional marketing. This also allows you to fluidly adjust your campaigns. After a week you might find that "red toy trucks" has converted 20% of its clicks into sales, while "blue toy trucks" has converted only 3%. You can either make adjustments (send them to a different page, change the ad text, change the price on the blue trucks), or stop spending money there altogether. The fluidity of paid search marketing is something that really can't be replicated by traditional marketing channels either.

The other point here is that pay per click can truly target people further down the buying cycle. By targeting terms like "buy a toy truck" or "get toy trucks" you can reach customers who want your products now. It's like a heat seeking missile for marketing. Not using paid search yet? Find a paid search management firm, or get educated and start one up on your own. The time is now!