Learn How To Do Facebook Advertising

Facebook is on track to make over $4 billion in revenue this year from advertising. Someone’s clicking.

How do you get them to click your ads? More importantly, how do you get them to buy your product?

Many marketers who have tried Facebook ads, especially in their early days, decided that Facebook advertising doesn’t work. Don’t believe them.

If you’re totally new to Facebook, start with this Facebook Marketing Guide. Then come back to this post for a deep dive into advertising.

In this guide, you’ll learn which businesses are the best fit for Facebook ads and how to run successful campaigns. We’ll cover the most common mistake marketers make and the biggest factor in your ad’s success.

You can learn more and create your first ad at Facebook.com/advertising.

How Do Facebook Ads Work?

Facebook ads now come in several varieties. You can promote your Page, posts on your Page, actions users took, or your website itself. Despite Facebook’s increasing focus on native ads and keeping traffic on its site, you can still be successful sending users to your website.

Facebook ads are targeted to users based on their location, demographic, and profile information. Many of these options are only available on Facebook. After creating an ad, you set a budget and bid for each click or thousand impressions that your ad will receive.

Facebook’s most important ad targeting options

Users then see your ads in the sidebar on Facebook.com.

This guide will walk you through the best practices for creating CPC ads that drive traffic to your website. Facebook’s other ad options are great for driving engagement and brand awareness, but ads driving users off site are still the best option for direct response advertisers looking to make a sale.

Who Should Advertise on Facebook?

Many businesses fail at Facebook advertising because they are not a good fit. You should always test new marketing channels, especially before demand drives up prices, but make sure to consider your business model’s fit to the network.

Facebook ads are more like display ads than search ads. They should be used to generate demand, not fulfill it. Users are on Facebook to connect with their friends, not to find products to buy.

Low-Friction Conversions

The businesses that succeed with Facebook ads ask users to sign up, not to buy. You must use a low-friction conversion to be successful.

A visitor to your website wasn’t looking for your product. He clicked your ad on a whim. If you’re relying on him to immediately buy something to make your ad ROI positive, you will fail.

Facebook users are fickle and likely to click back to Facebook if you ask for a big commitment (purchase) up front. Instead, stick to simple conversions like signing up for your service, filling out a short lead form, or submitting an email address.

Even if you sell products, not services, you should consider focusing on an intermediate conversion like a newsletter signup. Then you can upsell later through email marketing.

Living Social’s landing page with email sign up

Daily deal sites like Groupon, AppSumo, and Fab are good examples of businesses that can succeed with Facebook advertising. After you click one of their ads, they just ask for your email address. They’ll sell you on a deal later.

Business Model

Even if you only ask for an email address initially, you’ll need to eventually make money from these users if your ads are to be profitable.

The best business model that fits for Facebook ads earn revenue from their users over time, not all at once. A user may have given you her email, but you’ll need to build more trust before she buys anything.

You shouldn’t depend on one big purchase from her. Several smaller purchases are ideal.

Daily deal and subscription sites are great examples of business models that can thrive on Facebook. Both have customers whose lifetime value is spread out over six months or more.

At Udemy, we focus on getting users to sign up on their first visit. By aiming to be profitable on ad spend in six months (not one day), we can turn Facebook users into long-term customers. We target a 20% payback on ad spend on day one and 100% payback in six months. These numbers can serve as a rough guide for your business.

How to Target Facebook Ads

The #1 mistake most marketers make with Facebook ads is not targeting them correctly.

Facebook’s ad targeting options are unparalleled. On Facebook, you can target users by:

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Connections
• Relationship Status
• Languages
• Education
• Workplaces

Each option can be useful, depending on your audience. Most marketers should focus on location, age, gender, and interests.

Location allows you to targets users in the country, state, city, or zip code that you service.

Age and gender targeting should be based on your existing customers. If women 25-44 are the bulk of your customers, start out only targeting them. If they prove to be profitable, you can then expand your targeting.

Interest targeting is the most powerful but misused feature of Facebook ads. When creating an ad, you have two options: broad categories or precise interests.

Broad Category Targeting

Broad categories include topics like Gardening, Horror Movies, and Consumer Electronics. Recently, Facebook has added newer targets like Engaged (1 year), Expecting Parents, Away from Hometown, and Has Birthday in 1 Week.

Broad interests may seem like an efficient way to reach a large audience. However, these users often cost more and spend less. Avoid using Broad Category targeting.

Precise Interest Targeting

Precise Interest Targeting allows you to target users based on information in their profile including “listed likes and interests, the Pages they like, apps they use, and other profile (timeline) content they’ve provided” (Facebook). You’ll find the best ROI using Precise Interest targeting.

Facebook has an amazing array of interests to target from Harry Potter to underwater rugby. The hard part is choosing the right ones.

When targeting precise interests, Facebook provides the size of the audience and other suggested likes and interests. You won’t have any competitive data. Once you select interests for an ad, Facebook will show an aggregate suggested bid.

Many marketers target the largest groups possible. This is a mistake. These groups are more expensive and less targeted.

Rather than target broad terms for your niche like “yoga” or “digital photography,” focus on specific interests. Research which magazines and blogs your customers read, who they follow on Twitter, and which related products they buy. If you use laser-focused interests like these, you’ll reach the people who are most interested in your topic and the most willing to spend money on it.

For example, when we added a new DJ course on Udemy, we didn’t just target the interest “disc jockey.”

Instead, created ads targeting DJ publications like DJ Magazine and Mixmag. Then created another ad targeting DJ brands like Traktor and Vestax. Combine smaller, related interests into a group with an audience of 50,000 to 1M+. This structure will create ads with large audiences that are likely to convert.

Example interest group of DJ-focused brands

Advanced tip: Use Facebook Connect as a sign up option on your site. When users connect via Facebook, you’ll be able to analyze their interests. Index these interests against the number of fans of their respective Facebook Pages. You’ll be left with your high-affinity interests. Using this method, we created a target group that has been our best performer (out of hundreds of test groups) for nearly a year.

Images for Facebook Ads

The most important part of your ad is the image. You can write the most brilliant copy in the world, but if your image doesn’t catch a user’s eye, you won’t get any clicks.

Don’t use low-quality images, generic stock photography, or any images that you don’t have the rights to use. Don’t steal anything from Google Images. Unless you’re a famous brand, don’t use your logo.

Now that we have the no’s out of the way, how should advertisers find images to use? Buy them, create them yourself, or use ones with a Creative Commons license.

Below you’ll learn which types of images work best and where specifically to find them.

People

Images of people work best. Preferably their faces. Use close-ups of attractive faces that resemble your target audience.

Younger isn’t always better. If you’re targeting retirees, test pictures of people over 60. Using a pretty 25 year old girl wouldn’t make sense.

Facebook ad images are small (100 x 72 pixels). Make sure to focus on a person’s face and crop it if necessary. Don’t use a blurry or dark picture.

Advanced tip: Use images of people facing to the right. Users will follow the subject’s line of sight and be more likely to read your ad text.

Aside from models, you can also feature the people behind your business and showcase some of your customers (with their permission, of course).

Typography

Clear, readable type can also attract clicks. Bright colors will help your ad stand out.

Just like with text copy, use a question or express a benefit to the user. Treat the text in the image as an extension of your copy.

Funny

Crazy or funny pictures definitely attract clicks. See I Can Has Cheeseburger, 9GAG, or any popular meme.

Unfortunately, even with descriptive ad text, these ads don’t always convert well. If you use this type of ad, set a low budget and track the performance closely. You’ll often attract lots of curiosity clicks that won’t convert.

How to Create Images

You have three options to find images: buy them, find ones that are already licensed, or create them yourself.

You can buy stock photography at many sites including iStockPhoto or Big Stock. Don’t use stock photos that looks like stock photos. No generic businessmen or stark white backgrounds, please.

Users recognize stock photos and will ignore them. Instead, find unique photos and give them personality by cropping or editing them and applying filters. You can use Pixlr, an online image editor, for both.

If you don’t have the money to buy photos, you can search for Creative Commons licensed images.

The third option is to create the images yourself. If you’re a graphic designer, this is easy. If you aren’t, you can still create typographic images or use basic image editing to create something original from existing pictures.

Rotating Ads

Each campaign should have at least three ads with the same interest targets. Using a small number of ads will allow you to gather data on each one. For a given campaign, only 1-2 ads will get a lot of impressions, so don’t bother running too many at once.

After a few days, delete the ads with the lowest click-through rates (CTRs) and keep iterating on the winners to continually increase your CTR. Aim for 0.1% as a benchmark. You’ll likely start out closer to the average of 0.04%.

Writing Facebook Ad Copy

After seeing your image, users will (hopefully) read your ad text. Here you can sell them on your product or service and earn their click.

Despite the 25 character headline and 90 character body text limits, we can still use the famous copywriting formula AIDA.

(A)ttention: Draw users into the ad with an attention-grabbing headline.
(I)nterest: Get the user interested in your product by briefly describing the most important benefit of using it.
(D)esire: Create immediate desire for your product with a discount, free trial, or limited time offer.
(A)ction: End the ad with a call to action.

AIDA is a lot to fit into 115 characters. Write 5-10 ads until you’re able to fit a succinct sales pitch into the ad.

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Bidding on Facebook Ads

Like on any ad network, strategic bidding can mean the difference between profit and a failed test.

After you create your ad, Facebook will provide a suggested bid range. When you’re just starting out, set your bid near the low end of this range.

Your CTR will quickly start to dictate the price you’ll need to pay for traffic. If your CTR is high, your suggested bids will decrease. If your CTR is low, you’ll need to bid more for each click. Optimize your ads and targets to continually increase your CTR.

In addition to click volume, your bid will also dictate how much of your target audience you’re able to reach. Facebook provides a great chart for every campaign showing the size of your target audience and how much of that audience you’ve reached.

Facebook chart showing how much of your target audience your campaign has reached

Increasing your bid will help your ad reach more of your target audience. If your ad is performing well but you’re reaching less than 75% of your target audience, you can increase your bid to get more clicks.

If your audience penetration is high, increasing your budget will increase your ad’s frequency: how many times a targeted user will see it.

Landing Pages

Getting a click is only the beginning. You still need the visitor to convert.

Make sure to send him to a targeted, high-converting landing page. You know his age, gender, and interests, so show him a page that will solve his problems.

The landing page should also contain the registration form or email submit box that you’ll track as a conversion. Focus the landing page on this action, not the later sale. If you want visitors to sign up for your newsletter, show them the benefits or offer a free gift for their email.

How to Track Performance

Facebook no longer offers conversion tracking. Facebook Insights are great for data within Facebook but can’t provide information on users who have left the site.

To properly track the performance of your Facebook campaigns, you’ll need to use an analytics program like KISSmetrics, Google Analytics, or your own back end system. Tag your links using Google’s URL builder or your own tracking tags.

Conversion Tracking

As mentioned above, make sure to separate campaigns by interest groups so that you can see how each one performs.

You can track them using the utm_campaign parameter. Use the utm_content parameter to differentiate between ads. Ad-level tracking is useful when testing eye-catching images and before you’ve established a baseline CTR and conversion rate.

Performance Tracking

You will also need to monitor your performance within the Facebook interface. The most important metric to track is click-through rate. Your CTR affects both the number of clicks you’ll receive and the amount you will pay per click.

Ads with a low CTR will stop serving or become more expensive. Ads with a high CTR will generate as many clicks as will fit within your budget. They will also cost less. Keep a close eye on CTR by interests and ads to learn which audiences work best and which ads resonate with them.

Even the best ad’s performance will decline over time. The smaller your target audience is, the faster this will happen. Usually you’ll see your traffic start to drop off in 3-10 days.

When it does, refresh the ads with new images and copy. Duplicate your existing ads then change the image and ad text. Do not edit the existing ad. Delete any existing ads not getting clicks. By the next day, you’ll see the new ads accruing impressions and clicks.

Monitor the images’ performance over time to see which ones generate the best CTR and maintain their traffic the longest. You can rotate high-performing images back in every few weeks until they stop getting clicked at all.

Conclusion

Despite the learning curve, Facebook advertising can be a great marketing channel for the right business. The most important points to remember are target specific interests, use eye catching images, give users a low-friction conversion, and track everything.

After a week or two of learning what works for your business, you’ll be able to generate a steady source of conversions from the world’s largest social network.

What are your best Facebook advertising tips? Share them in the comments.

About the Author: Fred Perrotta is a Marketing Manager at Udemy

Source : http://blog.kissmetrics.com

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Google's New Guidelines on A/B or Multivariate Testing

Google posted some guidelines on how you can conduct A/B or multivariate testing and stay clear of any issues with being listed in its search engine, such as avoiding penalties.

No Cloaking

Google says you shouldn’t cloak, show its crawlers something that humans wouldn’t see. From its post:

Make sure that you’re not deciding whether to serve the test, or which content variant to serve, based on user-agent. An example of this would be always serving the original content when you see the user-agent “Googlebot.” Remember that infringing our Guidelines can get your site demoted or removed from Google search results—probably not the desired outcome of your test.

Use rel=“canonical”

Google says publishers should make use of the rel=canonical method to ensure that any alternative pages reference what should be the main one:

We recommend using rel=“canonical” rather than a noindex meta tag because it more closely matches your intent in this situation. Let’s say you were testing variations of your homepage; you don’t want search engines to not index your homepage, you just want them to understand that all the test URLs are close duplicates or variations on the original URL and should be grouped as such, with the original URL as the canonical. Using noindex rather than rel=“canonical” in such a situation can sometimes have unexpected effects.

Use 302s, Not 301s

Google recommends using the temporary direction method, a 302, over the permanent 301 redirect:

This tells search engines that this redirect is temporary—it will only be in place as long as you’re running the experiment—and that they should keep the original URL in their index rather than replacing it with the target of the redirect (the test page). JavaScript-based redirects are also fine.

Don’t Run Experiments Longer Than Necessary

If you’ve been running an experiment longer than Google expects one should run, it warns that you could face penalty. How long is too long isn’t said. Google just says:

Once you’ve concluded the test, you should update your site with the desired content variation(s) and remove all elements of the test as soon as possible, such as alternate URLs or testing scripts and markup. If we discover a site running an experiment for an unnecessarily long time, we may interpret this as an attempt to deceive search engines and take action accordingly. This is especially true if you’re serving one content variant to a large percentage of your users.

If you follow these guidelines, Google does not promise there will be no impact in your search results but does say there will be “little or no impact on your site in search results.”

Source : Search Engine Land

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AdWords Quality Score Myths

The Top 10 AdWords Quality Score Myths

Anyone who has used Google AdWords knows that:

• High Quality Score = Lowest possible pay-per-click advertising costs

• Low Quality Score = Absurdly high pay-per-click advertising costs!

...and given a choice, it's obvious which one we'd all choose. The problem is, however, few aspects of PPC marketing cause more confusion, frustration, and wasted ad money than Google's seeming inexplicable AdWords Quality Scoring System for pricing AdWords PPC ads.
Yet, clearly, PPC marketing is a critical element of a successful search engine marketing (SEM) campaign. And, Google's Quality Score stands between most online professional marketers and their profits! The cryptic formula remains shrouded in mystery that forces advertisers to "guess" what Google actually means by such vague terms as quality or relevance.
Naturally that vagueness has led to much speculation about what it takes to boost your critically important Quality Score. Numerous misconceptions abound. This article will trade misconceptions for realities to help you proceed with confidence as we show you how to get more clicks for less money with your AdWords campaigns.
Now, let's debunk some myths!
The 10 Most Common Quality Score Myths
Myth #1. Each AdWords account has just one Quality Score that affects all keywords.

Actually, nearly every aspect of your AdWords campaign has its own Quality Score. There's an overall Account Quality Score, an Ad Group Quality Score (used for ranking in the Content Network), and a Keyword Quality Score (used for ranking in the Search Network, plus a few others we'll discuss.
Your Keyword Quality Score, combined with your maximum Cost-Per-Click (CPC), is what determines the position of your ad on the search network. Each keyword has its own Quality Score, which you can access by following Google's instructions on how to view your keyword's Quality Score.
Each keyword is rated either 'Great', 'OK', or 'Poor'. Your Keyword Quality Score is made up of...

• Your ad copy's relevance to your keywords.
• Your keyword click-through rate (mostly your click-through rate over the past 2 weeks, but lifetime click-through rate is also a factor).
• Your overall Account Quality Score.
• Other relevancy factors (such as geotargeting and demographic targeting; factors that have only minor impact on Quality Score).

Your Account Quality Score is essentially a summary of all your individual Keyword Quality Scores added up. It's used to determine initial minimum bids for those keywords that Google doesn't have a lot of existing data on.
Keep in mind that if you leave a lot of low Quality Score keywords active in your campaign, that can cause your overall Account Quality Score to tank-thereby affecting the Quality Scores of all your keywords, even your good ones. So ditching low Quality Score keywords that aren't performing is generally a good idea.
Note that the relationship between Keyword Quality Score and Account Quality Score is circular in that each affects the other. Account Quality Score is made up of the sum of all your Keyword Quality Scores, but your Keyword Quality Scores are in turn affected by your Account Quality Score.
If you've got just a few low Quality Score keywords, they're unlikely to drag down your Account Quality Score. But if you have large number of poorly performing keywords, that can have a negative impact on your Account Quality Score, which can then drag down the Quality Scores of your good keywords. (Are we dizzy yet?)
So if you've got a lot of keywords rated 'Poor', you may want to ditch them to elevate your Account Quality Score. Of course, don't ditch them if they're still bringing in the kind of traffic that converts into money. But also don't leave them hanging around if they're not doing you any good-because they could be hurting your campaign by increasing your PPC costs.
You should also bear in mind that Account Quality Score is primarily how Google determines minimum bid prices for new keywords where Google doesn't have much existing data. So, if you're regularly adding large numbers of keywords to your account, you'll want to maintain a good Account Quality Score to keep those initial minimum bids low.
Finally, there's also a Landing Page Quality Score, which impacts your keywords' minimum bid price-but does not affect your ad's actual position in the search results.

Myth #2. The quality of your landing page impacts your Quality Score and your ad's position in the search results.

This is a common misunderstanding. While it's true that landing page quality does impact your Quality Score in the Content Network (aka AdSense), it has no impact on your Quality Score in the Search Network. And getting your ads to show up in Google's search results is important because that's typically where the highest levels of traffic and conversions are.
However, while landing page quality does not impact your Search Network Quality Score, it does have an effect on your minimum bid (the minimum amount you can pay and still have Google allow your ads to appear on the Search Network). Clearly, you want your minimum bids to be as low as possible, so landing page quality is still important even if it doesn't effect your Quality Score.
There may be times when you see that a keyword has a high Quality Score but Google still wants a very high minimum bid (more than $1.00) in order to activate the keyword for search. That almost always means you've got landing page problems. Fix those problems and you'll often be able to get that keyword for fairly cheap.
While your landing page does not directly effect your Quality Score for search, it still plays a big role in keeping your clicks affordable, since you want to achieve the lowest minimum bids possible. If you're not sure what your minimum bids are, Google has a great tutorial on how to determine your keywords' minimum bids.

Myth #3. Creating an individual Ad Group for each of your keywords can improve your Quality Score

False. What's most important is that your ad groups contain keywords that are highly relevant to each other and to the ads you're displaying for them. Take a look at your ad group. Does each keyword match the theme of the ad it's triggering? Although it isn't necessary for the keyword itself to be found in the actual ad (although it helps), it is necessary that it be highly relevant to what the ad is offering.
If some of your keywords don't closely match the ads in your ad group, you should probably move those keywords into their own ad group. This generally means your ad groups will be small-but creating an ad group for every single keyword is not only overkill, it's also an account management headache.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, neither is the long tail approach to keyword research the best approach. Every AdWords campaign starts with a 50k keyword limit, which can be adjusted upwards later by your account rep. But if you're dumping hundreds or thousands of keywords into your ad groups you're going to have a hard time keeping them all relevant to the ads and to each other.
You're much better off starting with a smaller set of keywords and keeping any long tail keywords limited to 2-4 word phrases. Once you start using 5 word phrases or longer, Google won't likely have enough historical data on such specific phrases to avoid assigning them lower quality scores and high minimum bids right from the beginning.
Once we've established high Quality Scores for our initial smaller set of keywords, we can then branch out to a broader range of keywords. The many keyword tools available today make it easy to create huge keyword lists, but when it comes to PPC marketing, bigger is not always better.
We like to keep most of our ad groups limited to about 10 keywords, and rarely go over 20 keywords for any ad group. Some marketers we know use up to 100 keywords per ad group and it works for them, but we find our targeting is most effective when we keep our ad groups small.
Most importantly, we make sure all the keywords in the ad group are tightly targeted to each other as well as to the ad itself. This point can not be emphasized enough, as it is almost always the most effective way to boost your Quality Score.

Myth #4. PageRank and incoming links to your landing page impacts Quality Score.

This one surprised us a bit, as it's been our experience that starting an AdWords campaign on a site with established links made it easier to maintain a high Quality Score. But Google's official position is that organic search and paid search rely on two completely separate algorithms, and that links to the landing page itself do not impact Quality Score.
However, the results from our testing do suggest that landing pages on domains with established links outperform landing pages on domains with no links at all. But it isn't necessary that the landing page itself performs well in the organic search in order to perform well in paid search. So it appears that links to the domain help somewhat, but pointing them at the actual landing page is not strategically important. And, we are still testing this to determine for sure.
Obviously this is one area where we differ slightly with the official Google line of information. Even though Google says PageRank and inbound links don't affect Quality Score, we continue to begin our own PPC campaigns on an established domain with lots of inbound links and unique content whenever possible.
We can say for certain that linking out from your landing page to other relevant and unique articles on your site does indeed boost your landing page's Quality Score. So try not to make your landing pages stand-alone islands that don't link out. We suggest you link to your Privacy Policy, Contact Us, and About Us pages, as well as 10-20 relevant articles with unique content.
Bear in mind that it isn't necessary to link out to all 20 articles from every landing page. Instead you can just link to a single page which in turn links to your article content. We typically put these links in the footer of our landing pages.

Myth #5. Click-through rates on broad match keywords impact your Quality Score.

The truth is that Quality Score is based on exact match impressions only. However, this does not mean that Quality Score is only calculated on keywords you have set to exact match. Instead, it means quality score is only impacted when someone does a search for the exact keyword phrase you have listed in your ad group-regardless of whether your keywords are set to exact, phrase, or broad match.
Setting some of your keywords to expanded broad match can be a great way to find new keywords. Doing so will expose your ads to a broad range of queries related to the keywords you're targeting. If you closely track the keywords which are leading to sales, you'll often find many new converting keywords
However, when doing keyword research using expanded broad match, be sure to closely monitor your budget and make use of negative keywords to block irrelevant queries so that you don't end up losing money.
By the way, we've learned exact match, phrase match and broad match don't offer much value to having the same keyword phrase listed three times in your ad groups. Instead, we like to use phrase match with negative keywords added in so our ad isn't displayed for irrelevant searches. And if we're researching the niche, we might use broad match as mentioned above.

Myth #6. Dynamic Keyword Insertion automatically makes ads more relevant and boosts Quality Score.

Dynamic Keyword Insertion is an AdWords feature that automatically places the user's search query in your ad if the query matches the keyword you are bidding on. While this can make your ad appear more relevant to users, it doesn't effect Google's perceived relevancy of the ad.
Google expects you to have ad groups tightly themed around a specific set of related keywords and does not consider Dynamic Keyword Insertion as a substitute for this. We recommend you work on creating small ad groups with keywords highly relevant to each other as well as to the ad. This is the best possible way to boost your quality score.
Used wisely, however, Dynamic Keyword Insertion can help boost your click-through rate which, in turn, can boost your keyword ad performance and Quality Scores. So, indirectly, Dynamic Keyword Insertion can have a positive impact on Quality Score.

Myth #7. You must bid high when you first launch your campaign in order to boost click-throughs and achieve a high Quality Score.

In the past all it took to push ads to the top and get lots of clicks was to bid high. Once you established a high click-through rate, you could lower your bids while continuing to maintain high positions due to your keywords' great click-through rates.
These days, Google takes into account that ads displayed lower on the page are less likely to get clicked. Now Google simply expects you to maintain a good click-through rate relative to what other ads in your position are achieving. So if you're getting a 2.5% click-through rate in position 9, Google might consider that great. But that same click-through rate when you're in position 3 may be looked upon poorly.
Google also expects different click-through rates for different keywords. Highly specific keywords with a great deal of commercial intent (like buy Canon EOS 40D) are expected to have higher click-through rates than a generic keyword like camera.
Note that click-throughs on Google's Content Network or search partners does not impact your ad's ranking. Where you rank is determined only by clicks that are tracked on Google's own search pages
So while a high click-through rate is going to be important to your ad's success, you don't need to bid yourself to the top of the page right away. Just make sure your ad does well for the position you're currently in
Be sure to factor in the reality that low-positioned ads often won't get much traffic, so it can take a while to determine if that keyword is worth bidding on. Thus, you may want to bid higher to speed up the process of determining if the keyword is target worthy
Although Google tracks the lifetime click-through rate history of your keywords when determining ad ranking, it places the most emphasis on how that keyword performed over the past two weeks. So, it is possible to salvage keywords sometimes, even if they've done poorly in the past

Myth #8. Optimizing your campaigns will delete your keyword history.

To optimize your various Quality Scores within AdWords campaigns, you must rearrange your keywords into tightly focused ad groups. You must also hone your ads to make them increasingly more relevant to specific keywords and ad groups.
Of course, you might have built up some nice history on those keywords which is helping you achieve low minimum bids-and you don't want to have to start over. Fortunately, you don't have to. Provided that you never delete anything you can optimize your campaign without losing your history.
Whenever you move a keyword into a different ad group, use the Cut feature in AdWords Editor to move it. Do not insert it into an ad group and then delete it in the old ad group (or vice versa) because when you delete something you lose the history that is attached to it.
Google has detailed instructions on moving keywords in this tutorial. If you cut and paste the keywords from one ad group to another without deleting them, you should be able to hang onto the history for those keywords

Myth #9. You need a long performance history with AdWords in order to achieve high Quality Scores.

Actually, it typically only takes about two weeks to establish your performance history. While it appears that Google likes accounts that have been around a while and have lots of history for Google to reference, once your new account has been live for two weeks you shouldn't be at any significant disadvantage to competitors with more seasoned accounts.

Myth #10. Each landing page must be unique and devoid of duplicate content.

Partially true-but it only applies when you're duplicating your content on outside domains. As Google says in their landing page guidelines...

Feature unique content that can't be found on another site.

So if you've got multiple landing pages with very similar content that you're using to split-test, that won't cause you duplicate content problems. But if the same content is being displayed on other sites, then you are in violation of Google's rule.

The Key to Slashing PPC Costs
Achieving an optimum Quality Score can have a supremely positive impact on your PPC campaign. We're are not surprised to see click costs drop by a factor of 10 once a keyword's Quality Score is fully optimized. The best part is that oftentimes it only takes only a day or two after making improvements to see click costs go down and profits go up.

Source :

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Concepts of Today's B2B Internet Marketing SEO Environment

The article highlighted how questionable SEO tactics (particularly for link building) will no longer be valid. Marketers need to focus on creating truly great content, which in turn earns the right to be shared and searched for.

The problem with the article’s hypothesis was that it was based on an assumption that SEO tactics only use shortcuts for success. My perspective is that SEO is more than a series of shortcuts, but an evolving Internet marketing discipline.

Regardless of what perspective you hold, one thing is true: B2B SEO requires greater integration with multiple marketing specialties. This is particularly true when working with larger organizations.

If you are responsible for SEO in your organization and hearing the chatter about its death, it is critical to understand the concepts and priorities various marketing teams hold important. Talk their talk.

Here are five concepts (and applicable supporting concepts) B2B search engine marketers should understand with regards to strategic marketing initiatives, and why they are important.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of creating, implementing, and evaluating facets of a webpage or website in an effort to increase the number and/or percentage of visitors that complete designated actions (such as form submissions, purchases, etc).

Why conversion rate optimization is important for B2B SEO

According to MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report generating high quality leads and generating a greater volume of leads are the two highest priorities for B2B marketing departments. We cannot forget this.

What is fortunate is that the search community has been expressing the value of CRO for quite some time. Search Engine Land’s Search & Conversion columnists share their expertise week after week; in addition, SEOmoz has a great guide on conversion rate optimization worth reviewing.

Lead Management

In an interview with Ed Hadley, Senior Marketing Manager at Neolane, Ed defined lead management as a set of processes and technologies that help B2B marketers optimize demand generation and move potential customers down the funnel.

Ed highlighted four main steps in a lead management process:

• Lead Capture – the specific conversion initiative, such as filling out a lead form to download a white paper.
• Lead Scoring – a method of assigning points to prospects and sending them to the right marketing channels appropriately.
• Lead Routing – ensuring that the sales team is pursuing the most winnable opportunities.
• Nurturing – Leads that are not qualified enough for sales are funneled into nurture programs (more on this in the next section).

Why lead management is important for B2B SEO

The understanding of a lead management process helps B2B SEO’s establish greater clarity in developing tactical initiatives, because not all leads are created equal. Expectations to leadership, on the results of lead acquisition from a B2B program, can in turn be set across multiple levels of quality and volume.

Lead Nurturing

I spoke with Eloqua VP of Content Marketing Joe Chernov a while back on his thoughts about lead nurturing: “Lead nurturing is about moving each of these visitors down the path to purchase.”

Basically, there is a significant percentage of website visitors not interested in an immediate purchase. Lead nurturing programs help build a trustworthy relationship between visitor and company; with the ultimate goal of making them a sales-ready prospect.

Why  lead nurturing is important for B2B SEO

Perhaps there is no such thing as a bad lead. Curiosity seekers, students, researchers, etc may become advocates for sales and more qualified lead opportunities, should the right lead nurturing campaigns be put in place to address this audience.

Establishing a better expectation for leads requiring greater emphasis on lead nurturing may be appropriate when considering the percentage of keyword queries associated to informational intent.

Content Curation

Rohit Bhargava defines content curation as “the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue.”

Per this MarketingSherpa report, the creation of new content is one of the most effective B2B SEO tactics but also requires some of the greatest levels of effort.

Content curation strategy offers another tool for content development and link acquisition. Specific content curation features more SEO friendly include more easier-to-enable keyword landing pages and social media functionality built-in.

Why content curation is important for B2B SEO

One of the biggest stumbling blocks B2B SEO’s face is the ability to generate unique content. Content curation can become an easier jumping off point for establishing industry expertise and developing valuable assets for keyword visibility.

The Concept Of Converged Media

The Altimeter Group’s report “The Converged Media Imperative,”  defines converged media represents the utilization of two or more channels (paid, owned, and earned media) working in concert and enabling brands to reach their target audience regardless of channel, medium, or device.

• Paid media is classified as display or broadcast advertising (Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, etc.)
• Owned media is content assets the company owns or controls (websites, blogs, etc.)
• Earned media is user-generated content created and/or shared by users (shares, organic reviews, etc.)

Why this is important for B2B SEO

It is critical for search engine marketers to keep up with emerging trends and concepts, particularly those that benefit SEO. In the case of converged media, Altimeter research supports the hypothesis that collaborative efforts throughout media channels will be the future of a successful marketing initiative.

This is a boon for an industry like SEO, which becomes more reliant on others for action and insight.

(Editor’s note: Search & Conversion columnist Scott Brinker has also covered the concept of converged media with respect to conversion rate optimization in his latest article, Framing Landing Pages In The Bigger Picture.)

Final Thoughts

The death of SEO is a truism if search engine marketers fail to understand the priorities and concepts important to the overall B2B  marketing space.

You will be replaced with marketers who can tie SEO best practices into their existing competencies. Search engine marketing is a component (large and small) of the entire marketing mix.

The Author: Derek Edmond

Source: http://SearchEngineLand.com

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The Best PPC Bidding Tips from 18 PPC Experts

PPC bid management is one of the more complicated areas of PPC marketing, so many advertisers choose to automate using either the automated bidding option in Google AdWords or a third-party bid management solution. Both approaches have their upsides and downsides – Google’s automated bidding feature is free, but requires you to give up complete control, and it’s less than transparent. Third-party bid management software is generally more robust, but (obviously) it comes with a price tag, so it may not be feasible for smaller, budget-strapped advertisers.

I was curious how most AdWords advertisers handle the PPC bid management process, so I asked 18 practicing PPC experts three questions:

1. Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

1. If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

1. What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Here’s the all-star lineup:

• Aaron Levy
• Bethany Bey
• Brad Geddes
• Chris Kosteki
• Crystal Anderson
• Elizabeth Marsten
• Greg Meyers
• Jeff Daniel
• Joe Kerschbaum
• John Lee
• Justin Vanning
• Larry Kim
• Marko Kvesic
• Martin Roettgerding
• Pamela Lund
• Shawn Livengood
• Todd Mintz
• Tom Demers

Read on to learn their answers and get some awesome PPC bid management tips from the pros!

Aaron Levy

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not? If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

No-ish. SEER uses a third-party tool for reporting and bid management. The tool can set up specific bid rules (either on a keyword or ad group level) and our software sends us alerts whenever a specific keyword or grouping meets the criteria.

I prefer this to the AdWords automated bidding, largely because I have to go in and actively approve (or reject) each bid change. With AdWords automated bidding the changes are … well, automated! While you can go in and revert after the fact, I like to check before things are posted to make sure the changes are in line with goals.

The main rules I run are checking to make sure top-performing groups are getting the traffic they deserve, and to make sure that we’re not paying too much for competitive terms. A few examples:

• Rough keywords/groups: If CPA is 2x goal and position is less than 3, reduce bids.
• Strong keywords/groups: If conversion rate is 2x average and position is less than 3, increase bids.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Don’t bid more than you can afford! More often than not, the top position isn’t the most profitable.

Aaron Levy is a PPC associate at SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based search agency. He’s been involved in digital marketing for the better part of 5 years, and has managed clients as large as Fortune 50 companies and as small as regional plumbers. Follow Aaron Levy.

Bethany Bey

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I do use automated bidding in my accounts. For accounts that with a large amount of conversions, CPA bidding has worked great. I tend to use target instead of max CPA bidding because my accounts all have goal CPAs that we need to meet. I have also had success using optimize for clicks with smaller budget accounts. This type of bidding brought us more clicks within our budget which increased conversions since we had more traffic coming to the site.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Even though I use automated bidding, I still increase/decrease the target or max amounts just to test the effect. For example, how many conversions I will lose if I decrease target CPA by $1? I usually let these tests run for about 2 weeks.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Experiment! Test all different types of automated bidding options. Just because you are focused on conversions, doesn’t mean optimize for clicks won’t drive sales!

Bethany Bey is a PPC account executive at Hanapin Marketing and blog manager of PPC Hero.

Brad Geddes

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

That really depends on the client. We have used third-party bid management, AdWords CPA bidding, Excel spreadsheets, and helped others build their own system. Some of the big questions we look at are:

• Scale. How many keywords, placements, audiences, etc. need to be adjusted.
• Conversion volume: How many conversions happen on a daily/monthly basis.
• Average sale amount & margins: Is the amount/margin static, within a small range, or all over the place?
• Sale/lead flow: One-off sales, sales forces, phone calls, affiliate, downloads, etc. How does a sale actually happen and what steps are taken along the way?
• Technical integration: How many systems need to talk to each other to get the data correct?
• Technical savvy: Can the client create and maintain their own system?
• Long-term goals: What should the account look like in 1-3 years?

With all of this information, then you can examine the cost benefits of where and how the accounts are managed and what technology is required.

I don’t think there’s a one-solution-fits-all approach. A site making $15/lead with 100 leads a month doesn’t need to pay for a huge bid management system. A site doing thousands (or tens of thousands) of sales where the prices and margins are variable needs a robust system. A site that is bidding on multiples of email captures, page views, click-outs, sales, installs, downloads, etc. probably needs their own custom system.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

That depends on volume, volatility, CPC ranges, and workflow. The higher any one of those items are, the more often bids need to be examined. A site spending $100/month does not need daily bidding. An account spending $4mm/month needs to change bids multiple times per week. Some companies watch how busy their sales force is and adjust bids or campaign budgets in real time based upon call volume, phone wait times, and their current capacity, which is a workflow bidding environment.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Understand the true value of a customer and work to increase the customer’s value post sale. If you can raise the customer value and have a true picture of customer worth, then you can make much better bid decisions. I can’t count the times I’ve seen a company say “My competitors must be losing money – there’s no way they can afford to pay that much”; and sometimes I’ll know the other side (of course, I can’t say that) and that they aren’t losing money. In reality, they have great lead nurturing, upsell, and customer retention programs that make their customer worth more.

Brad Geddes is the founder of Certified Knowledge, a PPC training and toolset platform. He is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, and an official Google AdWords Seminar Leader. You can follow @bgTheory on Twitter to stay up to date with industry news.

Chris Kosteki

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords?

Our agency uses a proprietary system that includes bid management software.

Why or why not?

Too many keywords! We have millions of impressions a week across tens of thousands of keywords. Monitoring, analyzing, and acting on all this data at the keyword level is not practical. Instead, we assess performance by predefined segments that let us know where we need to get more aggressive or passive. This allows us to measure not only the ad placement/delivery, but also the subsequent performance downstream (conversions, revenue, leads, etc.). An added benefit is we can gain insight into the bidding history and either spot cycles or trends which provides an important perspective for future decisions.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Always take into account the position you are getting when you review bids. It’s not a race to the top, and usually the best performance comes from finding the sweet spot between cost and high-quality traffic volume.

Chris Kostecki has been working in search since 2006, and in marketing since 1997. He created a PPC product for small businesses to supplement a Yellow Page directory product, and worked as a PPC manager in an agency serving e-commerce clients before his current role as in-house Search Analyst at  Keurig Inc., the manufacturer of the revolutionary single cup coffee maker, part of the Green Mountain Coffee family. Follow Chris on Twitter to keep up with the latest trends in Search Marketing, especially every Tuesday from 12-1 p.m. EST during #PPCChat. All views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of any entities he is associated with. 

Crystal Anderson

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I do not use AdWords automated bidding. At SEER we use Acquisio for our PPC management platform, which has an extremely robust bid management platform. Their platform allows me to customize complex bid rules for my clients, and run them on a specified schedule in a “suggestion mode.” This allows me to use the tool for “blocking and tackling” versus relying on it to make the bid changes for me. I prefer to use suggestion mode as it allows me to review the bid changes to ensure that there are not any other outside factors going on that may warrant me to deviate from my initially set bid rules. Automation of bids can certainly have strengths, but is something I prefer not to use in most situations, as it has its weaknesses too. If you do use automated bidding, I think it’s always vital to remember that it’s just a tool and the results will only be as good as the rules you set. Evaluate them often to ensure they are still in line with your overall goals.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Know your ceiling and floor bids. In various accounts I’ve audited, it’s clear there is no understanding of what the bid strategy should be. There are keywords with bids so low they aren’t showing, and keywords with bids so high that goals are blown by. Tip: Use ACE to test bids and positions if you aren’t sure what those thresholds are for you. ACE can be extremely powerful to hone in on what the optimal bids for your terms are to drive conversions at a profitable rate.

Crystal Anderson spearheads the PPC division at SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based Search Agency.  She began her PPC career in early 2006 and has managed PPC accounts across multiple platforms, internationally and with monthly budgets from four to six figures. You can follow her on Twitter at @CrystalA.

Elizabeth Marsten

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I use a combination of automated rules bidding and manual bidding. I rarely use tools like Enhanced CPC or CPA. Why: I find that unless the campaign has significant and consistent conversion data, the automated options are more expensive than manual CPC bidding or using an automated rule to control costs.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Depends on the amount of data/spend, but weekly is at minimum when bids see evaluation and adjustment.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

For new campaigns, I take the suggested max CPC by the traffic/keyword estimation tools and add another 25-50% to the max CPC for the ad groups. It’s better to start high and come down than to try and keep climbing up. Build that Quality Score right out of the gate.

Elizabeth Marsten is the Director of Search Marketing at Portent, Inc., an internet marketing company in Seattle, WA. She oversees the day-to-day workflow of PPC, SEO, Links, Copy and Social at Portent while also managing some PPC clients of her own.

Greg Meyers

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

No, I do not use Google’s automated bid management. The reason is because I feel that bid management can be more effective when it is done manually. There are too many variables (offline and online) that occur during the life of keyword or keyword group (aka ad group) that could actually be more counter-productive. However, I do feel there is value in automated bid management based making predictions from past performance trends (such as weekends and time of day).

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

My best practice for performing bid management is identifying overall trends. These trends consist of Day of the Week, Time of Day, Avg. Position and continually reviewing search query data. If raising or lowering the bid is consistent with the Cost Per Acquisition threshold, then bid management is performed.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

Do not base bid management rules on Google’s Quality Score Rating. It’s not an accurate representation of a success metric. I have seen countless examples of specific head and long-tail terms that had the highest percentage of conversions with the lowest Quality Score rating, even though the text ads, landing page and keyword groupings were highly relevant.

Greg Meyers is an Internet Marketing Expert who has helped companies both large and small achieve success in Search Engine Marketing through proven strategies and effective implementation. Most recently, he founded AfterClicks Interactive, a pay-per-click marketing firm that provides advertisers, as well as digital agencies, with professional PPC marketing services geared to maximizing their return on investment. AfterClicks leverages all search marketing platforms, technologies and industry best practices backed by proven strategies that are based on the client’s goals and objectives. Greg specializes in Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Landing Page Optimization, and Web Analytics.

Jeff Daniel

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I do not. I use a third-party bid management tool (Marin Software) for our SEM efforts for a couple reasons:

1. Workflow Efficiency.  I, like most search marketers, run campaigns on more platforms than just AdWords.  So I use a third party bid management tool to manage all of my campaigns.   Sure, I could use the AdWords tool, but then I would be using one tool for that and another tool for the rest and that just doesn’t make sense for us to do.
2. Objectivity.  Letting Google optimize for me seems little like “letting the fox in the hen house.”  I’m sure their tool does a great job but I wouldn’t feel comfortable about turning over this much spend control to them.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Bid strategy is completely dependent on the account goals.  For example, if I’m optimizing for conversions and have a CPA goal of $15, bid management tools might automatically slash bids on keywords that are delivering CPAs over $15.  Of course, that’s what they’re supposed to do, but what if there are still keywords delivering at $15.50 and I could be missing out on real sales?  Automated rules don’t usually account for that.  I like to manually monitor situations like this to understand where to raise and lower bids instead of ‘setting it and forgetting it’ with a tool. I also typically look at a basic 20/80 percent rule (although not fixed to those specific numbers) – manually monitor and optimize the top 20% performing keywords delivering on my goal and providing the most volume and let the bid management tool optimize the other 80%, assuming I’m 100% comfortable with the tool itself.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

If you’re going to use any PPC bid management tool, learn everything you can about it.  How does it really work? What are its limitations? What are its advantages?  Understand the ins and outs to make sure the tool can and will do what you think it will do to ensure that you won’t end up actually hurting performance. By knowing this information, you can make sure the tool is making the right decisions when you’re not looking.

Jeff Daniel is an account supervisor at Fuor Digital. He oversees digital media strategy, planning and execution across a variety of vehicles and tactics.

Joe Kerschbaum

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

Yes! We use a couple different automated bidding options provided by Google. We use a third-party tool as well (Acquisio). Depending on the needs of the campaign, we use Cost-per-Acquisition bidding (CPA) or we use AdWords automated bid rules.

As a rule of thumb, we utilize CPA bidding (Conversion Optimizer) to maintain mature, stable campaigns. For those types of campaigns we can focus our optimization efforts on ad testing, negative keywords, ad group break down, etc. We use the automated bid rules when we want to maintain control, and get more specific with our bid adjustments. In general, we use AdWords automated bid rules to improve a campaign that may have fluctuating performance.

We also use automated bid rules to launch new campaigns as we establish ad position, click-through rates and Quality Scores.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

We utilize as much automation as possible. This way we can focus our optimization brainpower elsewhere within our campaigns. However, there are campaigns that aren’t eligible for automation, such as those with low conversion volume (high value but few conversions). When this is the case, we monitor bids, ad rank, CTR and other metrics at least once per week and make changes as needed.

What’s your best PPC bid management tip?

I have two bonus tips.

Monitor your automation closely: You can’t set and forget your bid rules. Monitor the trends closely to make sure the rules that you’ve implemented are actually helping your campaign. You may find that your settings are too aggressive or not aggressive enough.

Adjust automation strategy as needed: Throughout the life of a campaign, there will be varying strategies and goals. At some point you may need to focus on increasing volume (impressions, clicks). At other points you may need to focus on improving ROI (lowering CPA, increasing conversion rate). As these needs shift over time your automation should evolve as well. Remember, bid rules can be paused or adjusted to suit your current needs. Of course, don’t adjust your bids too frequently. But don’t be afraid to adjust in order to focus on your current KPIs.

Joseph Kerschbaum is Vice President of Clix Marketing. Joseph’s writing on the SEM industry appears widely in Website Magazine, Search Engine Watch, and other industry blogs and journals. Joseph is also coauthor of the Wiley/Sybex book PPC Advertising: An Hour a Day.

John Lee

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not? 

The short answer is yes. Depending on the account in question, I use Conversion Optimizer (CPA bidding) or Automated rules – both of which are AdWords features. I also use Acquisio which provides me with a wide variety of rules for my AdWords campaigns. Bid automation should be considered another tool for PPC advertisers to use. I believe that bid automation can help to streamline your processes and free up time to take care of other important tasks like ad writing and conversion optimization. Another reason why I use automated bidding is that it can help me to reach my KPI targets much more efficiently.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Even though I do use bid automation, I can still answer this question. The truth is, I don’t use bid automation in every account or even every campaign. In some instances I’ve even had clients that were fundamentally opposed to bid automation. So there is still plenty of manual bid optimization in my processes. So, when do you adjust bids? Let the data guide you – just like a bid algorithm! Determine a schedule that is reflective of the performance flow of your account (how many clicks, conversions are generated each day?). Whether it is daily, or weekly, the process is the same. Pull reports and adjust bids according to your KPI targets. The key here is having a schedule, and sticking to that schedule.

Bonus: What’s your best bid management tip? 

My best bid management tip is simple: be sure that you are basing your changes on data! Many advertisers adjust bids based on a whim or ill conceived notions of how the PPC game is played. Meaningful bid changes are based on the actual performance of your keywords and ad groups. Determining an appropriate “look back period” (how far back you pull data) will allow you to make intelligent decisions on whether to raise or lower your bids or give you the confidence to turn on an automated bid rule.

John Lee is the Client Services Director for Clix Marketing, an SEM agency specializing in PPC. John is an internet marketing jack-of-all-trades with experience in PPC, SEO, and social media marketing. Working in the search marketing industry since 2006, John has perfected his paid search, social media advertising and analytics skills for his role at Clix Marketing. John is also an avid blogger, and has been featured on the Clix Marketing blog, Search Engine Watch, WordStream Blog, PPC Hero, SEO Boy and Website Magazine. 

Justin Vanning

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I mainly use the Enhanced CPC bidding in AdWords since most of my campaigns are focused on driving conversions.

Bonus: What’s your best bid management tip?

My best bid management tip is if you have enough conversion data, use the Enhanced CPC bidding option. It almost feels like it’s cheating a bit to be able to use Google’s user behavior to increase bids based on when they believe a user is more likely to convert but I’ve seen it make a big impact in campaigns that have high traffic and conversion volume.

Justin Vanning is Paid Media Strategist at SEOmoz. Follow him on Twitter at @justinvanning.

Larry Kim

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

No. I don’t use automated bidding because that’s more of a Google Profit optimizer.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Bid management is complicated. We recently built a bid management software application, and the specifications were around a hundred pages of rules and overrides and calculations that would be way too long to describe in this blog post. (If you want to see how it works, sign up for a free trial of WordStream PPC Advisor and check out the bid recommendations for your own AdWords account. Don’t worry – they’re just recommendations, and you can review before accepting or rejecting the suggestions.)

What’s your best bid management tip?

The hot trend in bid management seems to be “write your own automated bid rules.” My tip is to run away from that as fast as you can. I know it sounds like a cool idea at first – if you’re doing manual bid management, there are a bunch of manual tasks that you would want to automate. But I guarantee that you’ll end up inadvertently blowing up your account performance. The reason is, as I said before, bid management is complicated. It’s very hard to simulate the interaction of dozens of different bid rules running on a live system. It’s hard to fully understand all of the different factors at play. There will most certainly be unintended side effects. So, unless you’re a math PhD and have a big software engineering and QA testing team on your side, use a third-party bid management software tool!

Larry Kim founded WordStream in 2007 and currently serves as CTO, contributing to both the product and marketing teams. Larry is the author of four award-winning books on software development and has contributed to publications including Wired, iMedia Connection, Marketing Profs and many other industry sites and magazines.

Marko Kvesic

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I prefer manual bidding because I’m just not comfortable yet giving all the control over to Google, and I love the fact that it gives me the most control over my account.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

I always raise bids on keywords that are most relevant to what I advertise and are performing best – keywords that bring me results. I lower bids on keywords with low performance.

What’s your best bid management tip?

Choose the bidding strategy that fits your advertising goals. Always test and experiment with different bidding options and see what works best. I recommend estimated first-page bid and top page bid metrics, because they give a great insight in how much you should bid. Try the Keyword Traffic Estimator tool to get an idea of the potential click traffic, average CPC, and cost per day for your keywords. Also the good tool I recommend  is Bid Simulator, which enables you to see the advertising results you could get if you used a different maximum CPC bid for your keyword or ad group.

Marko Kvesic is the Internet Marketing Manager at GoTraffic Internet Marketing Agency. He is currently analyzing clicks and conversions for Hotel Zagreb. Follow Marko Kvesic onTwitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.  

Martin Roettgerding

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I believe that there is often a human advantage when it comes to bidding. Algorithms are great to make sense of tons of data, but when it comes to semantics, they’re lost. The most advanced prediction models won’t beat a PPC manager who sees the sun shining and decides to raise bids for sunscreen. However, when an account grows there is a point where manual bidding is no longer feasible. You simply can’t look after thousands of bids manually. So yes, we absolutely use automated bidding. This includes proprietary software as well as Google’s Conversion Optimizer.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Even though we usually rely on automated bid management, we’ve found that there are times when it’s necessary to intervene and correct things manually. A classic example would be the first day in December, when you can no longer ship in time for Christmas. Conversion rates drop like a stone from one day to the next, but most bid management systems will need some time to adapt to the change. Unless you intervene, your bids will be far too high at a time when many people still search and click on your ads.

Another extreme but not uncommon example is a software effectively “killing” a keyword. This might happen if you advertise for a product that is temporarily out of stock. A corresponding keyword will then perform badly and will consequently be bid down. If the bids get too low, there is little or no new performance data and the keyword can’t redeem itself. An automated system is stuck here. If you want to give the keyword another chance, you have to raise the bid manually.

What’s your best bid management tip?

The best bid management tip would of course be to understand how the ad auction works and that improving CTR and therefore Quality Score is often cheaper than increasing bids.

But with so many experts I expect that this one is mentioned more than once. So let me just share a little hands-on tip: Whenever you have to raise or lower all bids in a campaign quickly, consider the ad scheduling settings. Simply adjust all bids to, for example, 80% for all days of the week and you’re done. It’s fast, easy, and quickly reversible.

Martin Roettgerding is the head of SEM at SEO/SEM agency Bloofusion Germany and oversees a small team working on client projects. Bloofusion does a lot of research and lately Martin has started to share some of those findings on his new blog, PPC Epiphany. You can also find Martin on Twitter, where he goes by the name @bloomarty.

Pamela Lund

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

Only for very large accounts that need frequent bid changes. Other than that, I prefer to make manual changes that I control because I am a control freak with PPC changes. In order to use automated bidding you have to be completely sure that you have set up the rules properly, then audit those rules and results regularly. If you don’t do that, you run the risk of having poor results. Sometimes that takes as long as manually making the changes. So, given those two choices, I prefer to make the changes myself.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Bids are always changed based on ROAS. If a keyword is exceeding the goals we have set for it and there is room to increase the bid to try to get more clicks (and therefore conversions), a higher bid will be tested. If a keyword is not meeting its performance goals, a lower bid will be tested in conjunction with other optimization techniques.

What’s your best bid management tip?

Schedule your optimization. Don’t obsessively look in campaigns every day and make reactionary changes. If you make bid changes every day, you’re most likely not gathering enough data for those changes to be warranted. Use your calendar or project management system to task you with regular bid optimization, ad optimization, search query report review, etc. Keeping your optimization on a regular schedule will ensure you are making the right changes at the right time based on the right data.

Pam Lund handles PPC management for BlueGlass Interactive. She has over 10 years of experience in developing and managing online advertising strategies for companies of all sizes. She has an “ROI is king” philosophy with PPC management and loves seeing CPA performance improve month over month for her clients.

Shawn Livengood

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

Not currently, but I have in the past.  I stopped using it because the automated rules got stuck in a negative feedback loop.  The system reduced the bids due to a lack of performance, which in turn resulted in lower visibility and poorer performance, which triggered the system to decrease bids further.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

For an e-commerce retailer like BuildASign.com, profitability is key.  We try to find that sweet spot between customer acquisition and total profit.  So we increase and decrease bids to get to a position where we’re getting the maximum amount of orders while maintaining a healthy profit margin.  I also like to increase bids on anything that’s showing off the first page (generally position 8 or below).  Once a keyword has adequate visibility on the first page, I can make a better decision on whether or not to keep it active.

What’s your best bid management tip?

Don’t feel like you need to manage bids every day.  A lot of people do daily bid adjustments (or set up automatic systems to do daily adjustments for them).  A keyword needs to gather adequate historical data before you can make a good decision.  The time frame you need in order to gather this data is going to vary depending on your vertical, keyword bids, match type, campaign budget, and many other factors.  However, I have personally found the ideal interval to be around two weeks of data between bid adjustments.

Shawn Livengood writes about pay-per-click marketing on his blog, PPC Without Pity. Follow him on Twitter at @slivengood.

Todd Mintz

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I’ve never used the automated bidding feature before. I either bid at the keyword level or do CPA bidding.

If you look at the wording next to the choice, it says “AdWords will set my bids toMAXIMIZE CLICKS within my target budget.” Maximizing clicks is never a goal for PPC … maximizing conversions is. This choice doesn’t map to my goals. In theory, this choice would appeal to the non-professional marketer who isn’t savvy enough to track conversions and bid to them … however, that isn’t me.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

Raising and lowering bids is purely a function of my CPA goals and how the keyword is performing relative to them. How much and how often to adjust the bids is as much an art as a science, and as you get more experience with a particular account, you can make your moves with a much clearer picture as to the predicted outcome.

What’s your best bid management tip?

Dayparting can be your best friend. Frequently, the easiest way to slash CPA is just to shut down during the lowest performing hours of the day.

Todd Mintz, who has been with PPC Associates since March 2011, has over 10 years of experience in search marketing and has used Google AdWords since it began. He also is very visible in the SEM social media space and is a curator/contributor at MarketingLand. He was one of the founding members of SEMpdx (Portland’s Search Engine Marketing Group), is a current board member, and writes regularly on their blog.

Tom Demers

Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?

I do occasionally – basically the decision to use this or not (on campaigns for my own properties or as a recommendation for a client account) is a cost/benefit decision: if I think we or even the client internally can do a better job managing the account by hand and/or using a bidding tool and that it’ll have a major impact on the revenue generated by the campaign, then we’ll do that. If the spend on the account is relatively small and based on the fundamentals of the campaign I just don’t think there is a ton of extra yield over using Google’s free tools, though, I think the Google automation tools or possibly a really quick and simple approach to bid management can be a good option.

If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?

At a high level you want to raise bids when you can get more profitable traffic from a keyword, and you want to lower bids when you can generate valuable (i.e. converting) traffic but it’s currently costing you too much. Depending on the account, though, there may be a number of more nuanced factors including:

• Different margins on different products or offers – In other words, “profitable” may mean different things for different offer types and products.
• Seasonal trends – If conversion rates are dramatically higher right before Christmas, you don’t want to continue bidding with the same aggressiveness post-Christmas simply because a keyword had been converting well the previous week/month – you need to account for historical account data.
• Competition – You may be able to increase bids to get more traffic for a keyword, but the jump from your current bid to move up a spot in the SERPs may push you over the line from profitable to unprofitable, in which case you obviously wouldn’t want to blindly push bids up simply because a keyword is converting profitably.

As with the question of whether or not to use free automated bidding tools, how granular you get in managing bids really has more to do with the yield you expect and effort/cost to you to manage bids this way (by way of a service fee, software fee, your own time, etc.).

What’s your best bid management tip?

I think a good tip is to look at your bids from a perspective you don’t always consider – this could be a different date range (i.e. if you’re consistently looking at the last week’s performance, pull back and look at a month and a quarter to see if there are longer-term efficiencies or inefficiencies you’re missing) or it could be looking at a different dimension of your account where you can alter bids such as dayparting, targeting by device, or other reportsthat could lead to quick wins within your AdWords account by way of altered bids.

Tom Demers is co-founder and managing partner at Measured SEM, a boutique Boston SEO and PPC agency offering search marketing consulting services.

Source : http://bostinno.com

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