Google allows an Adwords Agency to acquire new customers on behalf of advertisers through: a) timely & targeted advertising; b) based on bids set by the seller; and c) resulting in measurable results.  In this way, Google Adwords serves as an “Accountable Advertising Platform.”

Adwords Advertising Reach

Distribute Ads in Real-Time on a Potentially Massive Scale

Awords Agencies and Advertisers choose where and when their ads appear.  According to Google, each month 84% of users in the US view Adwords ads.  

Google is the number 1 search engine, with 4.4 billion daily page views, 706 million monthly visitors, and thousands of online publishers.

Adwords Advertising Relevance

Precisely Targeted Ads

An Adwords Agency or Advertiser displays their ads only to prospects looking for their goods and services on the Google Search Network, the Google Content Network, and via Local Business Ads on Google Maps.  

Return on Ad Spending for Adwords Advertising 

Accountable and Measurable Advertising Results

Google’s pay per click or pay per impression advertising system allows an Advertiser to control ad prices and targeted audience to enabling an Advertiser to pay the optimal price for qualified leads.  

Search advertising serves ads when people are seeking a particular item or service, and for this reason is proven to result in a lower acquisition cost per new customer or lead.  Google estimates that the average acquisition cost for search is $8.50, as compared to an acquisition cost of $20 for Yellow Page ads and $70 for direct mail ads.

Whether the purpose of ads are to build awareness, generate leads, or generate sales, the Adwords platform allows an advertiser to measure performance in a manner which is generally not possible with more traditional forms of advertising.

Control & Measure

The Adwords platform allows an Advertiser to control:

1. Cost per click
2. Daily Ad Spending
3. Ad targeting
4. Marketing Messaging

The Adwords platform also allows an Advertiser to track conversions and determine a precise Return on Ad Spending.

To get started today with Adwords, phone Hanna at 720 377 8431.

Some of the most successful Adwords campaigns we manage are for local advertisers.  Consumers are increasingly using search to find, sort and select local goods and services.  Here are the statistics to prove it.

Local Advertisers Moving Online

Local online ad spending is estimated to have increased 48% in 2008 to $12.6 billion, according to a publication by eMarketer entitled, “B2B Marketing Online: Business Meets Social Media,” January 2008.  This is because for many advertisers local online marketing is proving to be more effective than other more traditional forms of advertising.  In fact, according to Google, AdWords advertisers rate their satisfaction with AdWords 57% higher than with all other marketing media.  If you’re not yet advertising online, why not?  Need even more stats to decide?  Read on . . .

Ten years ago, consumers’ primary resource for local business information was the business listings in their local phone book.  That has changed!  Today, (according to a report by WebVisible and Nielsen//NetRatings, “Why Search Matters to Local Businesses,” September 2007) 93% of consumers rely on online search engines for their primary source of information about local businesses.  If you doubt it, then think about where precisely you might find your own phone book?  For many consumers, the old Yellow Pages is either being used as a door stop, or has made its way directly from the front porch to recycle bins.

Internet Advertising - Simply Better Terms!

The popularity of Local Internet Marketing over print isn’t just a matter of consumer trends, it’s also facilitated by a better offer.  Anyone who has advertised in local newspapers and the business phone listings appreciates the flexibility offered by Adwords–no annual or monthly contracts!  With Adwords, advertisers have ZERO commitment up front!  With Adwords, you can advertise anytime you want, for any period you want.  The budgets are flexible.  Most local advertisers can achieve an impact with $1,000 to $6,0000 per month and the budget amount can be increased or stopped instantly.

Internet Marketing Complements Bricks & Mortar

According to the report by eMarketer, consumers are not just searching online for services and goods, they are also buying online!  The number of consumers in the US who have purchased online more than doubled between June 2000 (22%) and September 2007 (49%). 

According to BIGresearch, January 2007, 89% of consumers are researching online, prior to making in-store purchases.  That means, if you are local brick & mortar merchant, online marketing can significantly impact your in-store sales.

If you’re a local merchant, local service provider, or an online store and you wish to learn more about the benefits of Local Internet Marketing, then phone Hanna at 720 377 8431.  Ask her about what approach she recommends for your local advertising, as well as a suitable preliminary intenet advertising budget.

Millions of people check online maps each day to search for business listings by location.  Our experience shows that map searches for attorneys are often somewhat cheaper than the cost of standard text ads for Google keyword searches.

Adwords for Attorneys-Local Business Ads Cost Less

Based on a sample of attorney and lawyer Adwords accounts, Google Map searches (which serve local business ads) are 25% cheaper on a CPC basis than normal Adwords text ads, and are 18% cheaper on a cost per conversion basis.  In summary, on a dollar for dollar basis, on average, the Local business ads are outperforming the Google Search text ads.

Adwords for Lawyers-Local Business Ads are Lower Volume

Obviously, for lawyers and attorneys using Adwords the volume of map searches is much lower than for standard keyword searches serving Adwords text ads, but if you are an attorney using Adwords, and you are not complementing your regular text ads with Adwords local business ads, then you’re missing out on customers actively searching for you on Google Maps.

Our stats show that in terms of volume, the Google map ads account for only 5% of searches.  However, if you are currently buying only 10% of your available relevant “attorney” type keyword impressions, you may be able to significantly improve your ad costs by separating Local Business Ads into a separate campaign and allocating your budget across your campaigns so that you spend disproportionately more on local business ads than on your regular text ads.

Applying Local Business Ads for Attorneys

We have done this recently for an Advertiser and as a direct result of this change were able to reduce his cost per online lead by 6% in a single month, an improvement which has a lasting impact on the account, for as long as the Advertiser continues to target a fraction of available impressions.

For further explanation about adding your law firm to Google Maps and creating your online Local Business Ads, phone Hanna at 720 377 8431.

Related Attorney Adwords Posts:

See our Adwords Tips for Attorneys

See our Attorney Adwords Case Study

See our Sample PPC Report for Attorneys

See our Attorney Keyword Trends

See our Adwords Performance Guarantee

The following search phrases for Attorneys in Denver are complements of Google Insights for Search.   As you can see, some of the most popular and fastest search queries relate to bankruptcy and divorce.  It seems that even in Denver, the economic times are exacting their toll.

Top Ten Search Results: Attorney KeyWords in Denver

Rising Searches - Attorney Keywords in

In the US, almost 75% of users are online.  Time on the internet now accounts for 41% of Media consumption while internet advertising accounts for only 7% of total advertising.

Don’t Fall Behind Online!

From 2006 to 2007, ad spending on the internet grew by 19%, which means it grew by 4x more than magazine ad spending, and 5x more than television ad spending (Newspapers and Radio ad spending grew by just 2%).

US ad spending for 2007 is estimated to total $307 billion for all forms of media, of which internet advertising accounted for $21.5 billion.

According to a 13 October 2006 report by Morgan Stanley, Internet advertising will more than double over five years, from $177 per household in 2005 to $362 in 2010.  

By 2010, online advertising will grow from its 2007 level of $21.5 billion to $36.2 billion, if the current growth rates in internet advertising are sustained.

How are You Allocating Your Ad Budget?

Is it time to re-evaluate how you are allocating your own Advertising budget?  Phone Hanna at 720 377 8431 to learn more about the growing options for advertising online.

Sources:  Media Consumption Partners (May 2007), and Google internal estimates.

The following tips for managing Adwords apply specifically to Attorneys, Law Firms, and Lawyers.

Target your Adwords ads Precisely

Over half the ads in a typical attorney ad space are too general.  If someone is searching for Medical Malpractice, don’t display a general ad or a laundry list of services to someone searching for Medical Malpractice.  Make your ad text precise.

Our experience shows that general keywords like Lawyer or Memphis Attorney don’t convert efficiently.  Consumers ready to buy legal services generally use more precise search phrases.  Targeting more precise terms usually results in better results.   While attorneys generally cannot claim to specialize, it’s important to select areas of emphasis for advertising.  Following are some relatively more precise search phrases:

• Tax Attorneys
• Accident Attorneys
• Personal Injury Attorneys
• DUI Attorneys
• Business Attorney
• Medical Malpractice
• Hospital Malpractice
• Personal Injury Lawyer
• Probate & Trust Attorneys
• Divorce Attorney
• Internet Law
• EState Attorneys
• Wrongful Death

Further on that point, the way to make your ads correlate more precisely to search queries is simply to group them into more ad groups; place a fewer number of highly congruent keyword phrases in each ad group.

Run Broad Match keywords with Negatives

Don’t run Broad Match keywords without a comprehensive custom list of negative keyword phrases.  Generally campaigns for attorneys require minimum 200 negative keywords to effectively 

Let Prospects Determine Winning Ad Text

Don’t be too opinionated or close-minded about your ad text.  One thing about attorneys is they can generally write well.  However, that doesn’t mean they are better than the average Joe at determining what appeals most to the average Joe.  Let your prospects determine which ad text wins.  If you’ve properly structured your Adwords account, then it’s generating a ton of data.  Mine the data to determine best performing ads, and use that as a basis to continuously improve the ads so they appeal to your prospects.

Leverage Ads with Special Offers

Some of the most successful ads for Attorneys are those which offer something unique, like a free booklet about a specific type of claim, or a free video on something like Motorcycler’s Rights.  If you already have some marketing-related prnted material or video, consider using your internet advertising to leverage it.  In competitive geo-markets, a video can make you stand out from the crowd.

Don’t Buy Clicks in Bulk!

You know the old addage about half of your ad dollars being wasted–you just don’t know which half??  Well, that doesn’t apply to Adwords.  With Adwords, you have the ability over time to know precisely which ads, which keyword phrases, which hours of the day, which day of the week, which match types, which publications, which Do your homework, then just buy those clicks which convert–let your competitors buy the others.  Continuously improving an Adwords account involves number crunching and intelligent differentiation.  

If you’re not actively managing your account along these lines, then you should hire it out (to us).

Average Adwords Management Fee for Attorneys: $500

Our average management fee for managing Adwords for Personal Injury Attorneys, Tax Attorneys, Divorce Attorneys, and DUI Attorneys is about $500 and ranges from $350 to $750.  If you manage a Law Firm which is spending $6,000 or more per month in ad spending, then you’ll find that our fees will likely pay for themselves in ad dollar savings.

If you have already hired a firm to manage your Adwords and are paying more than $500 to manage your Adwords account, then you consider getting a Quick Quote from us; doing so involves no fee or further obligation.  Provide us access to your existing account for 24 hours and we’ll provide a list of improvements and a firm fee quote.  Our PPC Performance Guarantee applies to such accounts.

Lawyers choose Denver PPC because:

1. We squeeze more leads from fewer ad dollars–we guarantee it!
2. Our fees are competitive, and our terms are month to month.
3. We offer a PPC Performance Guarantee.
4. We are experienced in managing Adwords for attorneys.

Next Steps

Check out our Adwords Case Study for an Attorney, and our Sample PPC Report for an Attorney.

Use our online form to drop us a line, or quiz Hanna at 303 975 2810.

Identifying Long Tail Duds - Old Method

We love long tail keywords, because they generally outperform shorter less specific keywords.  However, if a keyword is too obscure, then it will generate no traffic.  Google labels such keywords, “Long Tail Duds.”   If Google decides that a keyword isn’t worth it’s own weight in hard drive space, then Google labels it a Dud, ignores it, and then it can never earn even one impression.  In the past, Google didn’t tell us that a keyword had been labeled a Long Tail Dud, we just had to infer it.

If you have accounts with thousands of keywords, then you’d better check for Long Tail Duds.  If the account is mature, then you can be sure that any with zero impressions have been labeled Long Tail Duds by Google.

When we setup new campaigns, we often create keywords by concatenating a suggested term which has reasonable traffic with a place name, for example:  speeding ticket attorney houston.  In such cases, we would create the keywords, include them in the account, and then wait two to four weeks to learn which ones were labeled Long Tail Duds by Google.  For some larger metro areas, like Houston, the term has reasonble traffic, but for locations like Little Rock, it might be labeled a dud.  We could infer this by seeing which received zero impressions after a period of time.  For such keywords, waiting longer won’t change the result.  Once a keyword has been categorized as a Long Tail Dud by Google, it can never earn an impression.

Identifying Long Tail Duds Using Diagnose Keywords Tool

With the release of the Diagnose Keywords Tool, an SEM Professional can now create a campaign and immediately run the tool to identify Long Tail Duds.  Access the tool from the online interface, from inside the campaign screen, at the top of the page.  Just click the link, wait a minute or two, and Google clearly states which keywords won’t earn any impressions.  Those are your Long Tail Duds.  If the account is downloaded to your Desktop Editor, flip back and forth between the two screens to delete the Long Tail Duds immediately before activating the campaign.

Delete Long Tail Duds for Higher Quality Score

Don’t leave Long Tail Duds in your account!  Delete them as soon as you learn about them–they damage your Quality score!!  Google penalizes your abuse of their hard drives by zapping your quality score.  They’ll reward you for deleting them.  So if you’re setting up a new campaign, for immediate better results, use the Diagnose Keyword Tool to cull out the Long Tail Duds before your Quality Score is zapped.

Long Tail Duds are Not Free

A drag on quality score is not the only cost associated with Long Tail Duds.  After years of managing Adwords accounts, I’m coming to appreciate the true economic cost of bloated accounts. Long Tail Duds are costly. Adwords has great tools and the Desktop Editor is a life saver–even so, bloated accounts sap time and bandwidth with every upload, download, page view, edit, replication, and monthly performance analysis.  And if this is true for Adwords accounts, it’s true by a factor of 10x for Yahoo accounts (I want to send Yahoo a bill each month for all that post-back time).  

An SEM Professional can improve her life by deleting Long Tail Duds.

The first thing any new aspiring PPC Expert invariably does when assigned to a manage a new PPC account is to increase bids.  It’s the easiest thing to do, but for any mature and well managed PPC account, it is almost without exception the worst solution.  The results can be immediate and painful!

When to Increase & When to Decrease Bids

If a PPC account is Disengaged, then by definition, it has not been properly managed.  The solution is generally to increase bids, and most often at the ad group level.  For all other Economic Modes, the arbitrary increasing of bids will almost always denigrate the economic performance of a pay per click account.   Maximize performance of a PPC account by bidding for high positions for star performers, and minimizing bids for all other keywords.

When in Doubt . . .

It’s easy to say just bid high on star keywords.  However, the reality for any account is that there exist a lot of keywords about which we lack sufficient evidence to justify either promoting or pausing them.  Additionally, since we as a matter of policy continuously improve every PPC account, then many of elements of an account, at any one time, are undergoing improvements, the combined impact of which has not yet been determined.  Such improvements might include the addition of new negative keywords, breaking keywords into multiple ad groups, writing new ads and development of new or revised landing pages.  If we’re going to give the improvements a chance to take effect, then we can’t pause the underperformers in the mean time.  Until we have gathered sufficient statistics to evaluate the impact of such improvements, then a certain element of doubt may exist about the future performance of related keywords or ad groups.  So, in such cases, when in doubt, leave keywords set at their default ad group bids.  Whatever you do, don’t ratchet up ad group level bids, without having a good reason for doing so.

Fix Keyword Losers

If a keyword is highly relevant and has converted, but not efficiently, then fix it.  One fix may be dropping the targeted range and bids for that keyword.  At a lower bid / position, you’ll get fewer clicks, but at a cheaper cost per click.  This may also apply to complete Ad Groups.  If you purposely drop an ad group or keyword bid to achieve a position lower than your previously targeted range, then we would expect that decision to be clearly documented in the change history, as well as the definitions section of the Road Map. Changing the targeted positions is a reportable event.  Accordingly, this sort of decision would be included in a special or monthly report, never simply implemented as part of daily maintenance.  

If you find that the keyword / ad group still doesn’t convert efficiently, even at the lower position, and you’ve taken every other possible step to fix it, then you may finally label it a loser for life in the Road Map, and give up on it (pause it).

PPC Reviewers Beware!

If you’re a PPC Expert assigned as the reviewer / supervisor for a new PPC Analyst, then it’s your responsibility to monitor the average CPC for the account.  Ask the new PPC Analyst to show you average CPC by week for the account, for the past 6 months, and investigate any increase!!  Especially in the current economic environment, a well-managed account should have more of a chance of having a declining CPC, than an increasing CPC.

Review the Road Map for warning signs — look at the change history and ensure that every bid increase is carefully justified and explained.  If you find a lame comment like this in the change history of one of your Road Maps, then beware:

“Momen 15 Feb - Increased 143 keyword bids to achieve targeted positions.”

If you are a new PPC Analyst, ask yourself daily, “Am I increasing more bids than I’m decreasing?”  If the answer is yes, then you please re-read this article!

Questions:

For Pay per click, when should I increase bids?

For Pay per click, when should I decrease bids?

Which economic condition would generally require one to increase keyword or ad group level bids?

How can a reviewer of a PPC account quickly determine if a New SEM Pro is inflating bids?

No Lazy Ads

One of our policies about writing ad text relates to “Lazy Ads.”  There really are so many selling points to be made about a client’s products / services, that they simply cannot all be captured in three lines comprised of a total 90 characters.  So we generally refer to ads which waste character opportunity space as “Lazy Ads.” You’ve got 35 characters on the description lines, so use them!!

Ok, Just One Lazy Ad

Turns out, for some products, some services, some ad spaces, sometimes . . . lazy ads work! WHAAAT???!!!!!  OK, OK, so now we have this new policy about writing ads:  Try one Lazy Ad per ad group.

Winning Formats for Display URL’s

There is a lot written about the best use and format for Adwords display URL’s.  Our company policy is generally to try to exploit the display URL to the fullest extent of the law.  We found out a long time ago that Google doesn’t even enforce it’s lamest of trademark policies for display URL’s so we use and abuse them for anything we can, including calls to action, etc, by formatting them as subdomains.  

Example - Old Standard: Visit-Huge-Sale-At.BigJoeTire.com

So, for a recent campaign, our friends at Google recommended a different format for our display URL’s.  My response was, “Unless you got stats from your wambo jambo Googe database to back this up, don’t mess with us.”  Ask and ye shall recieve!  They gave us facts based on their database stats!  Turns out, subdomains are not the way to go.  Too many people mistake them for redirects, and avoid them like the plague.  Furthermore, Google has data which indicates that shorter display URL’s most often outperform longer ones.  

Example - New Standard:  BigJoeTire.com/Sale

Jump Out of The Box

Last week, I had a web designer ask for changes to some of the client’s ads.  She recommended that we change the formatting, by adding bold text to words in the description, and that we put the URL in italics, in order to make the “labels” stand out. Luckily, I took the request by phone, even so, it was all I could to do disguise the smirk in my voice.  No doubt it was a difficult request to manage.  Still, she had the right idea.

Sometimes when we’re buried up to our eyeballs in the wonderful statistics of Adwords, it’s easy to forget that we’re in advertising!!  If this is you, then it’s time to JUMP out of the box.  Study competitors’ ads, and find a way to stand out.  Try something new, something unusual.  Sometimes that’s writing a short ad.  Sometimes that’s including humor, puns, slang in an ad.  Will it work?  Maybe it won’t . . . but what if it does?  A great ad really can make all the difference, so shake it up!!

Diversify Ads

Finally, don’t forget the importance of diversifying your ads within each ad group.  How often do you finish writing four ads per ad group, then look back on the ads, and see them all blurring together??  You can’t tell where one ends and the next one begins–they all look the same.  That’s what we strive to avoid, especially for new setups.  People can only guess what is going to work when it comes to ad text, but if you diversify your ads from the outset, then you have a better chance of quickly discovering better ads.

He went on to explain that when a keyword has such low search volume so as to be designated by Google as not worth it’s weight in disk drive space, then Google flags the word and it can then never earn an Adwords impression.

My response was, oh well, so what?  So I have 120 keywords in an ad group, and 20 will never produce even one impression.  That’s life, right?  Wrong.  He went on to explain that such keywords have a negative impact on quality scores.

New Policy for Zero Impression Keywords

So, now we have a new policy:  if a keyword has zero impressions after one month, DELETE IT.  Don’t pause it, DELETE IT.

Consider this for all future setups.  In the future I would expect initial client reports to include a recommendation about this matter, as applicable.