First, We Fell in Love.

As is typical with new relationships, when I was first placed on this account, I had so many plans! Restructuring, realigning settings, ad testing…and on and on. Again, as is typical with a new relationship, we had a week or so of getting to know one another and the general ins and outs of the campaigns, how they spend through the week versus the weekends, etc. Once I had a firm grasp on where we could make the biggest impact, I prioritized my tasks accordingly and set up month-to-month outlines of when I would test particular elements, when to expand and contract the account and all the optimizations I was looking to make from my end.

Then I Found Out There Was Someone Else…

Not long in to the relationship, I had a sit down meeting with the client to discuss the account’s performance. Things were going well; PPC metrics will steadily improving and revenue was at least even, if not exceeding, revenue year-over-year. However, the client had seen a recent trend in in-store sales where accessories for our product were selling more than our main products. Also, the client had recently discontinued a brand of a particular accessory in lieu of an exclusive contract for better margins. Essentially, the client was asking me to alter my game plan for the upcoming months and shift spend more towards accessory-based keywords, particularly the keywords for that discontinued stock. This wasn’t necessarily going to throw off my entire plan, just required a little alteration, so no problem.

Unfortunately We Had A Fight…

I began making these changes rather quickly to assist the client, as needed. Not long after, I started to see a bit of a dip in revenue across the board. We had switched to a new CMS in that same time frame; so much of the drop was attributed to making that change. Another two months later, we had stayed fairly on top of our revenue numbers, but the decrease was visible. We were running head long in to the holiday season at this point, so focus was moved to breaking out holiday-based campaigns with accompanying ad copy. This moved the needle a great degree through November and December. Once January showed up, though, we had a much bigger rift in our relationship than we thought.

And Then He Left!

Still reeling from our vast increase in PPC metric performance and huge revenue numbers to end the year, it came as a bit of a shock when January’s revenue numbers almost completely stalled. We went from doing around $100k in sales a month to doing about $25k for the month. Guess who wasn’t happy? The client and myself. My client wasn’t making any money and all the work I had put in to ad testing, increasing quality score and expanding reach to increase PPC metrics was practically ignored. Why? Because at the end of the day, if the client can’t pay the bills to keep the lights on, my 300% increase in CTR is pointless. Those clicks need to equal sales and revenue. Revenue straight up left me. He didn’t even leave a note…

So I Did A Little Soul Searching.

And by soul searching, I mean account analyzing. I dug in to pieces of our Analytics and AdWords that I’m sure had never been touched. What was incredibly frustrating was that by all normal measures, revenue should be going up. I’m sending through more qualified clicks, but making far less money. Then I decided to check out the comparison of my accessory and main product keyword spends to their revenue production. What did I find? Over the last 9 months, I had slowly shifted to spending 70% of my ad budget on accessories and only 30% on my big revenue earners. Basically I was sending through more clicks because it’s a larger pond of accessory buyers to fish in than it is to hang out around the main product puddle. However, that little puddle was worth three times as much as the whole pond and I had stopped investing in the pond.

But I Wooed Him Back!

As soon as I found the issue, I was relieved to find that my error was a fairly simple fix: realign budgets more heavily to my main product campaigns and ad groups and less towards my accessories campaigns and ad groups. We’re currently seeing the return on that change and I’m happy to report…revenue is making some headway! My secondary goal now is making sure my PPC metrics stay level to where they are now or continue increasing, with increased monitoring over spend versus revenue when it comes to accessories over main products.

The Moral of Our Love Story

You don’t need anything but lyrics:

“…hold on to the end. That’s what intend to do. Hopelessly devoted to youuuuu.” There will be times when you’re doing all you think you can do to move the needle, but revenue just doesn’t cooperate because of a secondary focus. At all times, when changing up your game plan, for whatever reason, make sure you realign all your goals and consider all the outcomes so you can prepare yourself.

Check back tomorrow for the full series wrap-up and be sure to leave your thoughts, experiences and suggestions in the comments section below!

PPC Hero: How did you get started in PPC?

Brad: It’s a very long story; but I’ll try to be brief. I use to work in the mental health/mental retardation industry helping people to become productive members of society; including transitioning people from institution life to community living programs. While its a rewarding industry; its also a burnout one as there’s only so many hours you can spend inside an institution. Eventually I quit and had no idea what I was going to do.

Then I found this thing called ‘affiliate marketing’. It seemed so easy. Drive traffic and make money. I already knew site design; so I gave it a try and it worked well (and it was easy in the 90s). Before I knew it Overture launched, and it gave me an opportunity to be on a page twice. Then AdWords launched, and it gave me an opportunity to be on another search engine multiple times; and I started working on blending SEO and PPC, increasing my conversion rates, and all the good stuff that comes with being a good marketer.

My marketing life spiraled out of control as other companies wanted me to run their accounts so after telling them no for years, I finally created an agency, then we sold another agency a few years later; and yet more happened –  and I’ve been happily working on paid search ever since.

PPC Hero: What is your favorite paid search topic?

Brad: I enjoy testing. It is by far my favorite topic and favorite (work) activity.

Testing ads, landing pages, keywords, SEO + PPC blending, Facebook pages, Twitter traffic, videos, etc is just fun for me. The hard part is usually digging through the analytics for insights; but when you find a new insight or visitor flow, and of course, more conversions it just makes me happy.

PPC Hero: Why were you interested in speaking on the Remarketing panel? What is it about this topic that interests you?

Brad: Remarketing is not just about paid search. You work hard to get visitors through social, SEO, PPC, email, etc. Remarketing might only show in ad slots across the web; but the way you build and market your lists can be fascinating based upon both how they got to your site and where they went on your site.

For example, if someone came through an email list of current customers then your ads will focus on retention and upsells. If someone came through Twitter, then you can focus on followers, social sharing, and a soft conversion like email signup into an autoresponder. You can segment and market your remarketing lists in so many ways that it can be a discipline unto itself.

I also like to share, and wrote an article about how I initially setup our own remarketing lists where you can see some of the thought process about website segmentation.

PPC Hero: You will be presenting a session on Quality Score.  Can you give us a sneak peek at what this session will include?

Brad: I’m going to talk about how to find opportunities for improving Quality Score and improving it once you find those weak areas.

I find that most intermediate to expert users understand how Quality Score is calculated so while I might cover the factor basics – it’ll be quick. I do find that many people still look through every single keyword and analyze every keyword’s Quality Score. That’s a waste of time.  If you have an account of 10,000 or 1 million keywords, it is not worth your time looking through every keyword. I’m going to demonstrate a technique for taking even a huge account and finding where you should start to optimize your quality score.

It is recommended you understand pivot tables for this session (they are easy once you work with them). If you don’t know what they are, see this Microsoft learning series; they will change the way you think about what’s possible with data.

PPC Hero: Why are you excited to speak at and attend Hero Conf?

Brad: The networking opportunities. I communicate with many people via email, Twitter, and Google+. However, that interaction is never the same as seeing someone in person.

I also expect to pick up a few tips that I can go home and implement.  A couple days of networking plus learning usually means more conversions in the long run; and after all, isn’t that why were all involved in paid search?

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there!

–

Brad Geddes is the founder of Certified Knowledge, an online paid search training and toolset provider.

He is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, the most advanced book ever written about Google’s advertising program. Brad is one of the first Google Advertising Professionals and Microsoft adExcellence members. He is the first advanced AdWords Seminar Leader and works directly with Google to train companies on Google AdWords. He has written extensively about internet marketing for more than a decade.

Brad has worked with companies who manage tens of thousands of small PPC accounts and other companies who spend millions on marketing each year. His experience ranges from owning his own agency, to working for a boutique agency, to managing programs that were official resellers of Google and Yahoo. Some brands he has worked with include: Amazon, Yahoo, RH Donnelley, Business.com, World Directories, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Red Lobster.

One of his trademarks has been demystifying the complicated aspects of SEO, PPC, and Internet advertising. Not one to hold secrets, Brad prefers to educate his readers on the various aspects of crafting successful marketing campaigns to ensure the success for all parties involved. Follow Brad on Twitter @bgtheory.

Sponsorships are still available. Download the Sponsors packet here!

"Let stay together, baby."

In today’s post, which is our third installment of this week’s PPC Love Series, I will be telling a tattered tale of heartbreak that has occurred over trying to use AdWords and Anlytics reporting separately for eCommerce clients. Fortunately this story has a happy ending, one that would keep Cupid himself aflutter. In the words of Al Green, “Times are good or bad, happy or sad…” My aim with this post is to make them more good/happy and to show you that you can use both AdWords and Analytics reports in harmony.

My biggest challenge in managing PPC accounts for eCommerce clients has been not being able to see revenue data in Google AdWords. Conversions and conversion tracking really don’t do me much good because my clients’ products have different values, so I can’t assign specific values to conversions. Of course, my keyword revenue data is available in Analytics, but I can only add one secondary dimension at a time to drill down this information, choosing either match type, campaign OR ad group. This isn’t entirely useful if I want to do bid changes that factor in revenue or ROI, as I need to have a complete data set to upload changes into AdWords.

Because I love you, I have found a work around, and I am happy to share it today with you. It’s fairly easy, and it’s worth the extra few minutes you’ll spend compiling your reports in the long haul. Combining your AdWords metrics with your Analytics data will allow you to analyze your PPC campaign on many new levels. You’ll never look back! I will stop keeping you in suspense about this newly defined, revamped relationship between your AdWords and Analytics reports. Consider them turned around and made up (thanks, Al!).

In this post I’ll be detailing how to pull together a keyword report with revenue data, but you could apply this to any account level (campaign, ad group, keyword). So, without further ado, let the reporting honeymoon begin.

Step 1 – Analytics Custom Report

Build the report you want in Analytics. All your AdWords data (clicks, impressions, cost, etc.) is actually available to you in Analytics (assuming your account is linked to Analytics), you just might not know where/how to access it. The easiest way to get all the information you want in the same place is to create a custom report.

On the custom report tab, click the button at the top of your screen to create a new custom report. You’ll want to make sure that you’re creating an Explorer report, and not a Flat Table report, because you’ll be segmenting your data further once it’s created.

Since I’m only interested in Google data for this report, I made sure to filter this report accordingly:

Essentially, you just want to recreate the metrics available to you in AdWords in Analytics. Not all metrics are available, but the key ones are. Here’s the final structure of my custom report:

If you need more information about creating custom reports in Analytics, check out Google’s Quick Start Guide.

Step 2 – Export Your Data From Analytics

Okay, this is the only part of this process that can be a little labor intensive if you have a lot of keywords in your account. After you’ve created your report, run it and make sure you’ve set your view to show the maximum number of entries on your screen, 500 (you can change this at the bottom of your report in a small drop down menu). Then go to the top of your screen and click Export, then choose CSV as your file type.

Frustratingly enough, Analytics will only export the data that is shown on your screen, so you’ll have to dump your keyword data into your report 500 keywords at a time. I just created one report and copied and pasted all subsequent exports into my original. Keep things easy for yourself and don’t edit your columns until after you’ve dumped in all your keywords.

Step 3 – Reformat Keywords

To prime your report to merge with the data you’ll be pulling out of AdWords, you’ll need to format your keywords like the appear in AdWords with the keyword identifiers for each match type (“phrase”, [exact]). The fastest way to do this is to sort your keywords by match type, then use a blank worksheet to edit. Copy and paste keywords one match type at a time onto your blank worksheet and use the concatenate function in Excel to put parentheses or brackets around your keywords.

Copy your concatenated list and paste back into your original report to overwrite the keywords in your keyword column, but make sure you use Paste Special – Values to only copy in text. Otherwise you’ll paste in your formula, which won’t work since your original data is on another sheet.

Here’s what my Analytics report looked like when I was finished:

Step 3 – AdWords

Head into AdWords, and download a keyword report. Make sure your keyword match type is included in the data you export, and also make sure you’ve run the exact date range you used in your Analytics report. Clean up your report by getting rid of getting rid of data you don’t need. In this example, I got rid of all paused keywords, since I’m looking to make bid changes on active keywords, and then I deleted my status column. When this was all said and done, here’s what my report looked like:

Copy or move this worksheet into the same Excel file that houses your Analytics sheet.

Step 4 – Combine and Be Amazed

Now it’s time to combine your AdWords and Analytics reports to have campaign, ad group AND revenue/ROI data for each keyword! To do this, go back to your Analytics sheet and add in columns for the missing AdWords data you want to add. Make sure that you add the columns in the same order that they appear on your AdWords report. You’ll need the columns to be in the same place because you’ll be referencing data by column number.

A brief note, the CPC shown on your Analytics report is actually your keyword’s avg. CPC, and not your max CPC. I just changed the column title, and then set up my report to pull in the max CPC from my AdWords sheet. So, I added three columns (campaign, ad group, max CPC) where they appear in my AdWords report:

To make the real magic happen, we’ll be using the VLOOKUP function in Excel. After you’ve created your campaign, ad group and max CPC columns, click in the first cell of your campaign column. The VLOOKUP function will match data from another table based on your leftmost column. If you’re not well versed in Excel functions, just use the Formula Builder in Excel to plug in the correct data. To get to the Formula Builder, go to the Insert menu at the top of your screen and choose Function. Double click VLOOKUP and you’ll get this box:

Basically, you’ll just need to tell Excel which cell to try to match (lookup_value), which will be the data in your first column, the range of data to use to match from, the number column of the data you want to display (in this case, campaign, which is column 3). You’ll want to use FALSE as the range_lookup, which will tell Excel to match your keyword value exactly. This is why I had you format your keywords in the same way they’re shown in AdWords.

Don’t worry if you’re not an Excel wizard. I used this help topic from Microsoft when I first started doing this, and found it to be more than adequate to get me started: VLOOKUP.

Copy your formula down to all rows in your Campaign column. To populate your Ad group and Max CPC columns, simply copy the formula in your campaign column, paste into each subsequent colomn, and then change the the column index number for each column (4 and 5 in this example). Congrats! You’ve merged your reports. Just a one more small thing to do…

Step 5 – One Last thing…

To make your new, combined report workable, you’ll just want to copy and paste your report onto a new sheet to get rid of the formulas. This will make tweaking your data possible, like using the report to do bid changes. To do this, just copy all rows, columns, create a new worksheet and paste as values (Paste Special – Values).

Just a brief note, I wouldn’t recommend trying to do this backwards by pulling data via the VLOOKUP function into your AdWords sheet data. Why? You might have keywords in AdWords that have not generated data in Analytics yet.

I hope this post will help you find the love that exists between your Analytics and AdWords reports. If you give it a try, let us know in the comments below.

Check back tomorrow for Kayla’s final post in our series, Hopelessly Devoted To Revenue!

Once in a while, Google makes an appearance in the news and dominates the blogs with half angry and half praiseworthy articles. Last week, Google publicly announced it’s new privacy policy, which will roll out in March, and though some people were angry about it, everyone has come to terms with it by now. Really, it’s nothing new. Google will now basically combine all of its existing privacy policies for its many products and services (like Google+, Gmail, Gmail Calendar, YouTube…). Google has actually kind of being doing this already. Going as far back as 2005, Google has stated the following in its policies:

“We may combine the information you submit under your account with information from other Google services or third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services.”

Last week they took it one step further and freed themselves of multiple (but similar) policies and rolled them all up into one. Let’s keep in mind that Google’s revenue stream is first and foremost through advertisement. So, let’s get to seeing what this means for the Pay Per Click industry.

The most important benefit of this new change for PPC is the fact that Google will eventually be able to give us more accurate information regarding the consumers we are trying to target. As Account Managers, we are always looking for ways to better target our users and widen our audience. The combination of Google+ with the other Google services allow us to use targeting not only based on who Google guesses the user is, but on actual facts based on the users profile.

Furthermore, this new change will also allow PPC Managers to expand our current market. One way that we will be able to do this will be through better interest category marketing for the display network. For example, in addition to Google pulling information from your Google+ profile (making targeting very similar to that of Facebook, by the way) and leaving cookies on the users browser from the different websites they’ve visited, Google will also be able to let us know what videos that same person is watching (YouTube) or where that person is possibly traveling to (Google Calendar) in the near future.

Now, imagine someone from Florida has on their calendar that they will be visiting Chicago in the next month during the winter. If Google allows for granular targeted advertising, we could start advertising snow clothes, travel recommendation, and hotels/accommodation in Chicago to that person before they even step into the city! How great would that be? Please share your thoughts on how else this new combination of privacy policies can be beneficial for PPC!

Of course, a decent ad should be non-fiction in that it should adhere to factual, substantiated claims to achieve truth in advertising.

But the ad writer with the heart of a dramatist — the one who understands how to paint word pictures, create a scene, and tell a short-form story with maximum clarity — will consistently outperform the “just the facts” writer focused on reporting features and benefits and deal sweeteners while cramming in keyword phrases.

And one of the keys to painting vivid mental images in the minds of prospective customers lies in what modern fiction writing calls “active description.”

What Is Active Description?

While a Victorian novelists might have easily spent several paragraphs or pages describing a street or a house or even a character, the modern writer understands that his audience will simply stop reading or start skipping pages after a sentence or two (or less!) of static description.

The modern writer has got to keep the action going with characters doing things, speaking to each other, etc.  So description has to be worked into the action and dialogue.

And the same holds true for PPC Ads, with active description routinely beating out static reporting.  Here’s an example:

Compare the static description on the first line of the old champion, “Bold & Clear — No Cell Phones,” with the action-packed, image-inducing language of the New Champion, “Post Your ‘No Cell Phone’ Policy.”

The winning ad causes you to see yourself using their signs in exactly the way you’re hoping to use them.  And so that bit of active description helped it boost CTR performance by 155%

And then there’s this ad:

Again, the winner uses action-packed, image-inducing language — “Get Exposed to College Scouts” — while the losing ad uses static adjectives and nouns: “College Basketball Recruiting.”

This time, the active description helped boost CTR by 39%

And finally, there’s this recent win:

“Rip Your Music into MP3 Quickly” — yeah, I can see myself doing that.

“Free [software] download” — um, it’s just a static thing.  No action. No imagery.  No way to see yourself doing anything, really.

And again, the active description wins, this time by 34%

So take a tip from the fiction writers of the world, and keep your PPC ads action-packed with active description.

In the past 6 months, my relationship status with adCenter and the desktop editor has changed from “It’s Complicated” to “Engaged.”  I have become proficient with these PPC tools and if I don’t know where something is, I poke around until I find it.  But this stumped me for sure: How in the world can I save time and upload a bulk list of negatives?  I don’t have to insert each keyword into their ad groups individually, do I?  If that is the case, this relationship is over.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for working on solving a problem, but I would never get to anything else in my accounts!  So, I asked for help.  Yup, the adCenter editor and I went to counseling and here is what I learned.

Step One:  Gathering Your Information

In order to create a negatives keyword list, you need to perform a Search Query Performance report.  If you have not pulled this report in a while, I suggest taking a 3-month snapshot.  This will be a lot of data to sort through, but it’s all valuable information!  Sort your excel spreadsheet in ascending order by the search term and start scrolling.  The first move is to find search inquiries that are completely bizarre and have nothing to do with your account and mark those as negatives.  It could be a word, a phrase, or you may want to eliminate the entire search as an exact match.  Next, sort by conversions.  This is a great way to actually expand your account by adding in these higher converting words or phrases.  On the flip side, you can exclude things that have not converted or have a very low click-through rate.  Once your exclusions are made, create your new upload sheet.

Step Two: Prepping Your Information

Creating your bulk upload sheet is simple.  Create your columns and fill in your information.  The following columns are required for upload:

• Type:
  • The column will be filled with either “Campaign Negative Keyword” or “Ad Group Negative Keyword.”  This will depend on where you want your negative to be placed.
  • Will it be on the Campaign or Ad Group level?  Remember, Ad Group level negatives will trump Campaign level negatives.
• Campaign:
  • The column will be filled with the different Campaign names and is needed for Campaign AND Ad Group level negatives.
• Ad Group:
  • This column will only be needed if “Ad Group Negative Keyword” is the Type.
• Status:
  • This column should say “Active.”
  • Negative:
    • This column will be filled with the negative keyword you want to upload.
    • Remember that adCenter will not recognize a match type column for negative keywords.  So where you would actually delete out the match type signifier out of your Google keyword column, for adCenter, you will need to add them in!
      • Phrase Negatives should be signified with “quotes”
      • Exact Negatives should be signified with [brackets].
      • Broad Negatives – tricked you!  There is no such thing in adCenter… don’t forget that!

Step Three: Uploading Your Information

In the editor, you can upload in a couple different ways.  You can choose to cut and paste your information and hope that you have all of your columns set up correctly, or you can import from an Excel spreadsheet.  We are going to go with the latter because it puts up less of a fight!

Log into your account, synch the account to make sure the editor and the User Interface are on the same page and click the “Import” icon in the Home Tab in the Data box.

Once you have the Import Wizard screen open, you will pick the last option, “Import from a modified Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet.”

One thing to note when using this function, is that you must uploaded your data from a single tab excel workbook and save it to the desktop.  If you have multiple tabs in your document, the editor will become confused and not know what information to pick… (Ladies, does this sound like any ex-boyfriends you know!?  Just playing guys!)  So, keep it simple – one tab!

The editor will ask for a file name and then it will actually give you the option to view your import (al la Google!).  This is the best feature of the Import Wizard, which is why I prefer using it instead of the cut and paste method.

Once you hit “Next”, you are on your way to upload!  The rest of the process is the same as uploading your keywords or your bid changes.  Don’t forget to synch your account back up with the User Interface when you are done with all of your edits!

This uploading technique is quick and simple and should save you a whole heck of a lot of heartache with adCenter.  See, you don’t have to break up and throw all of your campaigns out on the street after all.  Just by giving your account tools a little love, you too can have a strong, healthy relationship with adCenter.

Please let us know what tools make your life as a PPC Manager a little bit easier!  Be sure to check out Sarah’s post tomorrow about the love between AdWords and Analytics reporting.  Thanks, as always, for reading PPC Hero!

This question came to my mind after seeing this ad on my wife’s Facebook page:

Also, here’s a little context for you non-photographers out there.  Nikon and Canon pretty evenly divide the market share for working photographers in the U.S., with most photographers dedicated to one platform or the other.

Think Apple vs. PC, with all the same “sidedness” and self-identification that sometimes goes along with that, but with a much more even division of marketshare.

So if you sent out that ad with the Nikon image and call to action, you’d have to do it knowing that you’d be intentionally excluding half your audience (assuming that you rent lenses for both Canon and Nikon, which this company does).

That’s why most Facebook advertisers wouldn’t pull a stunt like this: it’s counterintuitive. But that same dynamic is exactly why they should consider it!

If you create both versions of the ad — a Nikon and Canon version — and run them alternately to different segments of your list, you could leverage the identification and emotion felt towards these two brands to get a much higher reaction rate for your ad and service.

Because excluding half your audience with each ad is worth it if both ads boosted response rate, right? If the generic, non-branded ad gets a CTR of 2% and the Nikon-specific ad got 4%, who cares about those Canon photographers who didn’t respond to that ad — we’ll get ‘em next week when we run the Canon version of the ad!

It’s an interesting thought experiment because targeting through messaging can often make up for whatever targeting limitations are inherent to your platform. People who advertise on mass media know this, but Facebook advertisers sometimes get so spoiled by the platform’s micro-targeting capabilities that they forget to target by message.

Consider this a reminder : )

Ooh baby, I’m hot just like an oven

I need some [CTR] lovin’

And baby, I can’t hold it much longer

It’s getting stronger and stronger…

Click through rate is an important metric to consider when optimizing any PPC account. And with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it would only seem fitting to crack open a fresh bottle of wine and allude to Marvin Gaye with some CTR Healing. Right…? Regardless of whether or not you think I’m crazy at this point, I’d like to focus on click through rate and offer up a few ways to improve CTR in your own accounts.

What is click through rate?

Essentially, click through rate is the rate at which users click on your PPC ads. This value is calculated by taking the total number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions that particular ad received. CTR can therefore be an excellent way of gauging the relevancy between your ads and keywords.

Why is click through rate important?

Improving click through rate can achieve a variety of things, but most importantly, optimizing CTR can lead to higher ad positions and cheaper click costs. We know this because CTR is one of the elements the AdWords system considers when calculating Quality Scores. Therefore, since AdRank = Quality Score x CPC bid, higher QS’s allow advertisers to maintain optimal ad positions for less cost. So if saving money and gaining more visibility are of interest to your business and/or client, then this article is for you.

Improving CTR With Keywords

• Choose Relevant Keywords

The first step to achieving an optimal click through rate is making sure you’re targeting only relevant terms. Your keywords should be closely related to your landing page and the product/service being offered. If you are keeping a close eye on your Quality Scores, this can be a quick way to determine the relevancy of a given keyword. If Quality Scores are low, you may want to consider finding additional keyword ideas using the AdWords Keyword Tool.

• Capitalize on Long-Tail Keywords

As marketers, it’s our job to find the lowest cost option for our businesses or clients. Overly broad terms can be good if you have the budget to back them and want to generate more traffic, but they can also be very competitive and expensive as well. Therefore, focusing on long-tail keywords instead of broad terms can help boost your CTR. With a long-tail keywords, there are far fewer searches on those terms, but it becomes much more likely that users who search on those terms will be interested in exactly what you’re offering and click on your ad when they occur.

• Create Tightly-Themed Keyword Groupings

Keywords should be grouped according to similar themes, which can play a big role in achieving optimal click through rates. By segmenting your keywords into closely related groupings, this allows your ad groups to work as efficiently as possible because you can then create targeted ad copy that relates to the keywords in a particular grouping. Not only will effective keyword groups improve your Quality Scores and save you some cheddar, but they will also yield higher click through rates as well. No wonder this is considered a best practice!

Improving CTR With Text Ads

• Extend Headlines

One easy way to increase CTR is to manipulate your ads to show extended headlines. To do this, your ad needs to first appear above the organic results. Secondly, the first description line must end with a period. Google will then take the ad’s description line 1 and append it to the headline, as demonstrated in the example above. Although this tactic isn’t guaranteed to increase your click through rate, it certainly helps your ad to stand out from the crowd and entice more clicks.

• Incorporate Credibility Symbols

Credibility symbols are also a great way to improve click through rates, which include the Trademark ™ and Registered ® symbols. Not only will they make your text ads appear more professional, but they can also help establish consumer trust and confidence surrounding your brand. To include the Trademark symbol, hold down Alt and type 0153. For the Registered symbol, hold down Alt and type 0174.

• Enable Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are another great way to improve upon existing click through rates. Essentially, these help your ads become more visible by taking up more real estate on SERPs, but they also enable your ads to reveal some of the specific products/services offered by your business or client. This tactic can improve CTRs because your customers can more easily find what they are looking for by simply clicking on the particular link they’re interested in. For more information, check out our series on ad extensions.

• Include a Call To Action

One of the most important components you can add to your text ads is an effective call to action. Typically, this is included in the second description line and encourages viewers to act in a certain way after viewing your ad. In other words, it indicates what the user should do next and therefore encourages higher click through rates. A few examples of solid calls to action include: Buy Now, Apply Online, and Get More Info.

• Specify Incentives

Offering incentives directly through your ad copy can also boost your click through rates. Ads containing incentives usually receive more attention simply because consumers are always looking for deals. For example, you might try and offer an exclusive discount or free shipping to those who see your ad. Regardless, incentives like these act as excellent bait and helps improve CTR.

As you can see, there are many ways to go about increasing CTR in your own accounts. Be sure to stay tuned for Felicia’s post tomorrow on uploading negative keywords into Bing. Feel free to leave any commentary below, thanks for reading.

JANUARY HIGHLIGHTS
Speaking of love, thanks for all the support we’ve seen from all of our PPC Hero fans! January was an especially great month! We had our highest pageview month ever with 89,309 pageviews and 44,581 visits. We also had our highest pageview day to date on 1/9 with 4,678 views. Jeff’s “145 PPC Must-Do’s for 2012” broke our single blog post record by nearly 1/3! Squeeze every drop of PPC goodness out of 2012 with these tips, tricks, and must-do’s – there’s even a PDF download!

Bethany authored the second-most popular article, “4 PPC Misconceptions of AdWords Keywords.” Bethany did a fantastic job discussing the truth behind four common misconceptions that PPC managers often believe, from not deleting keywords because of lost account history to new keywords’ quality scores reflecting their performance.

The third most popular article, written by Rob, was entitled “The Single Biggest Mistake You Can Make in PPC.” Rob’s seemingly simple piece of advice, “Don’t ever make a change without fully understanding your desired outcome,” may be harder to follow through on than you would think. Taking his advice, however, will ensure that you don’t make the mistake letting “the bad chocolate” slip into your PPC box simply because you didn’t think through your end goal and desired outcome!

JANUARY BLOG SERIES AND VIDEOS
We enjoyed a great January blog series on Ad Testing, “How to Ad Test Using Best Practices” that covered a variety of topics from general best practices to setting up and running ad tests to the challenges you might face when testing your ads. I thought that Kayla brought out some great points about overcoming the challenges of ad testing. It may be difficult to wait for as long as needed when gathering data for testing, and even harder to “pull the trigger” and make the call on which ad to run, but you will be glad of your decision when the results pour in.

January’s most popular Whaddya Know Wednesdays video was on “How to Use Pivot Tables for PPC Data” http://www.ppchero.com/how-to-use-pivot-tables-for-ppc-data/). In the video, Sean explains how to make all your huge PPC data sets more digestible by using Excel pivot tables. Not only does he have excellent content to share, but also the soothing background music will provide you with a little midday relaxation!

UPCOMING IN FEBRUARY
This month, we’ll be presenting a blog series about showing your PPC account some love. Learn how to coddle your accounts and let them love you back with extraordinary results! Additionally, you can look forward to a guide on how to effectively inherit large PPC accounts.

WEBINARS
In January, Jeff presented an excellent webinar entitled “Growing Profits with Growing Budgets: When and How to Increase PPC Budgets.” If you missed it, you can view the recording here. In the pre-webinar video/interview below, Jeff explains the topic a bit more. I was excited for the great turnout of attendees we had, Jeff did a fabulous job of presenting tips when asking for an increased budget.

This month, Kayla Kurtz will be presenting another free webinar, “Ad Writing and Testing- Benefits and Best Practices.” It’s on Monday, February 20, from 5-6 (EST), and you can register here to preview a checklist for ad writing best practices, learn effective ad writing techniques to increase ROI, increase quality score, and decrease CPC, as well as receive a manageable calendar of how to test accurately. I highly suggest that you tune in for this next webinar – Kayla has great insight into ad writing and testing, and I’m looking forward to hearing her recommendations!

HERO CONF
If you’re a regular reader of PPC Hero, you’ve undoubtedly seen our posts about Hero Conf! If you’re at all interested in hearing from some of the best paid search speakers in the industry, you’ll want to register sooner rather than later. Space is truly unlimited and filling up quickly. Last Friday was the end of our super early bird special and a third of the total slots are already taken…with 70 days to go!

The next discount expires March 9 – Day 1 is $600 (discounted by more than 20%), Day 2 is $1350 (discounted by more than 25%), and both days are $1560 (discounted by more than 35%). Besides making you more awesome, the benefits of Hero Conf include:

• Hosted in Indianapolis, IN – home of Super Bowl XLVI! Less than a half-day from every major metro area in the US, Indianapolis is a safe and inexpensive city.
• Exclusive PPC content. There will be no “clutter” with irrelevant material. You can attend with specific purpose and leave with ready-to-implement strategies to improve your PPC campaigns.
• Low speaker attendee ratio. You will have opportunities to interact with PPC experts and ask questions related to your specific account issues.
• Accelerate professional skills and opportunities. You will have the opportunity to network with other professionals and vendors to understand and learn from what works in other industries. You will have the opportunity to make connections with potential partners and contacts to improve your business long term.
• Extended agenda. A full day of content will absolutely get your money’s worth.
• Best of both worlds perspective – Hero Conf includes speakers with both the big picture and “in the trenches” experience. You will get a broad understanding of industry best practice as well as issues you face day-to-day.

We are also delighted to announce two new speakers: Merry Morud, Online Marketing Account Manager at aimClear, and Bethany Bey, Account Manager at Hanapin Marketing and Blog Manager of PPC Hero. Merry will be speaking about social PPC, and Bethany will be presenting on the frustrations and opportunities in the life of a PPC account manager. Click on over to the Hero Conf website for the official and most up-to-date speaker list!

HERO CONF SPEAKER INTRODUCTIONS
We’ve had the opportunity to meet several of our Hero Conf speakers already! We have enjoyed an article by Shawn Livengood, and interviews by Matt Umbro, Marc Poirier, and our own Jeff Allen. I’m personally looking forward to hearing these gentlemen speak about Account Structure, Conversion Rate Optimization, Retargeting, and Mobile, respectively. (John Lee

CUSTOM ILLUSTRATIONS
Last month, Hero Conf presented three new movie posters – blockbusters that have been “hero-ized!”

In “The Wizards of Paid Search”, PPC Hero skips down the yellow brick road in search of the perfect PPC tip.

PPC Hero and SEO Boy are the stars in “Conversion Rate Redemption.”

In the third poster, PPC Hero explains how to “Avoid a Paid Search Slump.” Life is like a box of chocolates, but with Hero Conf, you know what you’re going to get – awesome PPC content presented and attended by dedicated paid search professionals!

This month, look for a poster based on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – “PPC Never Takes a Day Off!”

Thank you again for reading PPC Hero. We hope to see you at Hero Conf in April, and have fun showering your PPC accounts with love this month!

P.S. We’re hiring some great PPC Account Managers!

Register by February 12, and we will give you direct access to a Hanapin PPC expert. Start prepping for Hero Conf with a live Q&A session with one of our experienced Account Managers. We will follow up directly with registrants to discuss logistics of the session.

It’s just one more reason to register now! And if you still need more info, here are some other great benefits:

• Hosted in Indianapolis, IN. A centralized location, Indianapolis is a safe and inexpensive city.
• Exclusive PPC content. There will be no “clutter” with irrelevant material. You can attend with specific purpose and leave with ready-to-implement strategies to improve your PPC campaigns.
• Low speaker attendee ratio. You will have opportunities to interact with PPC experts and ask questions related to your specific account issues.
• Accelerate professional skills and opportunities. You will have the opportunity to network with other professionals and vendors to understand and learn from what works in other industries. You will have the opportunity to make connections with potential partners and contacts to improve your business long term.
• Extended agenda. A full day of content will absolutely get your money’s worth.
• Best of both worlds perspective – Hero Conf includes speakers with both the big picture and “in the trenches” experience. You will get a broad understanding of industry best practice as well as issues you face day-to-day.

Be sure to visit the Hero Conf website for more information such as our great lineup of speakers and the agenda. Sponsorships are also available. Download the Sponsors packet here!