The ROI Revolution Blog

Search is from Mars, Content is from Venus

2009-11-20T14:49:07Z

Google's search and content networks are both great sources of profitable traffic, but they are very different from one another. And in the same way that you wouldn't want unrelated keywords grouped together in your account, you're going to want to keep search and content in their own distinct campaigns.

But what is it that makes them so different?

Audience:
Traffic from the search network is coming from an active group of prospects. This is exactly what makes paid search advertising so unique: you get to show your ad to a prospect at the precise moment that they are seeking your product or service (depending on your keyword list of course).

On the other hand, traffic from the content network is much more passive. You're getting your ad served at a moment when their attention is elsewhere, focused on the content of the site they're on.

Performance:
This variance in user behavior between search and content leads to a large difference in performance. Due to the high level of motivation found in search traffic, the search network tends to have a much higher CTR than content. However, the number of impressions available on content tends to be vastly greater than available search impressions for a given keyword theme since AdSense can be found on so many sites throughout the web, so you can still pick up plenty of clicks from content despite the low CTRs.

Search traffic also tends to convert at a higher rate than content for the same reason. Searchers are pursuing your product or service so they are more likely to become customers after they hit your site than traffic from the content network. Because of this, click prices on the content network are often much lower than search. So, even though conversion rates have a tendency to be lower for content, if the average CPC and conversion rate drop by the same proportion when compared to search, then both networks will be equally profitable.

Targeting:
When considering keywords for search, each keyword is a unique entity that you bid on with its own separate performance from all other keywords in your account. With content however, Google takes a look at all of the keywords in an ad group and applies that ad group a theme that it will use to serve your ads across the content network.

For this reason, search and content ad groups need to be organized differently. There are a lot of keywords that you'll want to throw into content ad groups to round out overall themes that you wouldn't want to put in a corresponding ad group.

An example of this would be adding the keyword "cheese" to a content campaign focusing on Gouda. Also, Google only uses up to 50 keywords from an ad group to determine a theme, so any keywords over 50 in an ad group is always a waste for content.

In Summary:
Due to the major differences between search and content, you would be remiss to try targeting both in the same campaign. They require different keyword organization, ad copy, and analysis for optimizations and targeting both networks in one campaign makes it impossible to do.

Make sure to utilize both networks though, as they both have the potential to be very profitable for your company; just make sure to split them up in your account.

For more profitable AdWords account pointers click here.

Funnels on the Fly in Google Analytics

2009-11-18T15:18:30Z

So there you are - you're all ready to put more oil in your car, or maybe you're trying to fill your sugar jar. Maybe you're all set to do some ironing, but you need to put some water in the iron. Whatever the reason, it immediately hits you that you'll be needing a funnel - but... OH SNAP!

You don't have one. Or you can't find it. What do you do? You improvise of course!

Quickly and with a MacGyver-like moment of inspiration, you grab a 2-liter bottle from your recycling bin and cut the top off. Phew - that was a close one! Now you won't have oil on your driveway, or water all over your bedroom carpet, and you can go about your day feeling like a secret genius.

Now, a funnel would have still been the best tool for the job, but sometimes it's just not available. What the heck does this have to do with Google Analytics?

Well, Google Analytics has a great built-in Funnel Visualization report, but the problem is that it only works if you have the foresight to build it ahead of time. Funnels are never retroactive - they will only start working the moment you create them. What if you have multiple landing pages? Moreover, what if you only want to look at AdWords traffic? Well, you would need a separate profile in addition to a properly set up funnel, and all of this has to be set up ahead of time.

The problem is that often you won't know what kind of funnel you need until it's too late. Having 20 goals in Google Analytics is great, but you could have a million and it wouldn't make a difference.

The good news is there's hope. That hope is called Advanced Segments. Here's how you do it:

Step 1: Define the funnel.

This part is pretty straightforward. Lay out the path you are trying to get information on, along with any other parameters (AdWords only, US only, etc.), like this:

Step1: /consumer/special/index.html (Landing Page)
Step 2: /order.html
Step 3: /cart.asp
Step 4: /checkout.asp
Step 5: /bonus.asp
Step 6: /order-receipt.asp

Step 2: Create a new Advanced Segment.

First, make sure you change the calendar so that you're looking at the date range you want to analyze. Then click on the 'Advanced Segment' link in the left navigation:

Then click on 'Create custom segment' in the top-right:

Now you're ready!

Step 3: Results!

Let's start with just the landing page. I recommend doing a few things to the segment. First, use 'Page instead of 'Landing Page' and 'Contains' as the match type. Give your segment a name, and then click the 'Test Segment' button:

Make a note of that number - I usually do this in a spreadsheet (see below), although I have plans to use the Google Analytics Data Export API for this.

Next, by adding a second page, we can then see how many people looked at both in the same visit. You can do this one page at a time. Let's use the /checkout.asp page as an example:

Once you've done this for all of your pages, you'll have your improvised funnel report:

Finally, if you want to further segment the funnel, you can repeat the process with an additional condition. Here's the same segment we did before, but just for AdWords traffic:

By doing this analysis, you will get a real feel for how your actual funnels are performing and be able to take better benchmarks before running tests. Plus, you can feel like a secret genius.

Geotargeting: Do your ads accurately reflect your service area?

2009-11-11T16:45:31Z

Determining where you want to have your ads show is, surprisingly, often neglected. We often times see when conducting our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions, or when beginning work with a new client that geographic targeting is set up incorrectly. This is primarily due to new Google AdWords campaigns automatically adding Canada as a target country.

If your product or service is not available in Canada, be sure to remove it from your geo-targeting list once your campaign is uploaded.

Now, moving beyond this quick tip, there are a number of slightly more advanced geographic targeting features that are very helpful for advertisers.

In order to focus on specific cities, states, regions, etc you must select which campaign you would like to work on.

Using the new AdWords interface, select a campaign and then at the top of the page select the "edit" link found next to targeting.

On the following screen you will see a link underneath the "Locations, Languages, and Demographics" section that says edit beside locations:

Upon clicking on this link you will be brought to the "Select a Location" screen. Here you can determine your geographic targeting in 4 different ways:

Search: simply type various cities, states, countries, etc that you would like to target.

Browse: here you can browse every country that your ad could potentially be served in - it's a longer list than you can believe!

Bundles: here you can select sizable regions for targeting. For example: all of Latin America or all of Western Europe, etc.

Custom: this is the feature we primarily use. The most notable feature here is the ability to create a custom area to target by placing multiple pinpoints wherever you want.

Be sure to target the areas that your product or service is available; it's a simple, yet common, mistake we see. Get more helpful AdWords tips.

7 Common (Newbie) Google Analytics Mistakes

2009-11-09T20:56:55Z

Everyone's new at some point right? Well if you're just starting out with Google Analytics, here are a few things you can watch out for to stay ahead of the game.

1. Missing Page Tags
Probably one of the most common mistakes that can cause problems in your Google Analytics data is missing page tags. Yes, the Google Analytics code needs to be on all pages of the site. It doesn't matter that someone in sales told you that "all we need are metrics from one or two pages." You're setting up Google Analytics already, so you might as well do it right and get accurate data. If any of your sites pages are missing the Google Analytics Tracking Code, you'll start seeing self referrals (where the real source information is overwritten with your site information) and a variety of other issues will occur as well. Comb through the site a few times and make sure you aren't skipping any pages and that every page will register with Google Analytics.

2. Mixing urchin.js and ga.js code
For those of you inheriting Google Analytics projects, you may be faced with the task of maintaining or updating a site that was previously tracked using the urchin.js version of the tracking code. Although Google states it is possible to use both the urchin and ga versions of the code as long as they aren't on the same page, my suggestion is to update the entire site to the new ga.js version of the tracking code. Mixing the two can cause some complications that are better left avoided. Save yourself some future headaches and update everything at once. Plus you'll get some cool new features with ga.js anyway, so why wouldn't you want to upgrade?

3. Not setting up ecommerce correctly
I've had numerous people come to me asking why they aren't seeing any ecommerce or revenue information within the Google Analytics reports. Aside from enabling ecommerce reporting in the Profile Settings, there is actually a separate script you'll need to setup on your site in order to get ecommerce working. Just grab the code and have your developers work their magic to get the dynamic transaction level variables passed into the ecommerce code for Google Analytics. Can't get all those fields? Read more about which variables are required and how to set up ecommerce.

4. Goal Conversion Setup
An important aspect of effectively using Google Analytics is to track the conversions that take place on your site. Aside from ecommerce you can set up goals within each profile to receive data on desired actions your visitors make on your site. I've seen some strange things when it comes to goal setups, but one of the most common is repeating the goal step in the funnel. After specifying the goal page, you don't need to repeat that step again in the funnel. Hopefully since Google added the "+ Yes, create a funnel for this goal" expandable selection this will help make this task a little clearer.

Also, be mindful of the match type you're selecting. Even with the helpful example next to the Goal URL field, I still see people that enter in the hostname in addition to the URI. If you're unsure about which match type you should use, the interface provides a link to an explanation of when you would each of the match types.

5. Campaign Tags Missing
If you're doing online (and even offline) marketing, you'll need to make sure you're tagging your URLs correctly in order to see metrics from those marketing efforts within Google Analytics. Typically by default in Google Analytics your paid traffic sources (with the exception of Adwords) will come in as a referral, so you must tag your URLs with the Google Analytics tagging parameters in order to see the correct referral information. To tag your URLs you can use our builder tool to generate the destination URL. By adding the necessary query parameters Google Analytics will attribute the visit information to the correct source. For Adwords users, just make sure Auto-tagging is enabled and Google will do the rest for you.

Tagging your URLs is also useful for other marketing efforts, like auto responder emails, offline campaigns, and banner ads. Without tagging your marketing efforts you'll be missing the opportunity to track the progress of your investments, so it's important that these steps are taken to get your Google Analytics data reporting accurately.

6. The Misuse of Filters
Filters can be applied to the information coming into your profiles to manipulate the final data in your reports. However, having an incorrect filter can severely impact the accuracy of your reports. When filtering out your office IP addresses make sure that you are using the correct regular expression. When creating include and exclude filters think carefully about what you're including and excluding. Include filters act as include only filters and will only include the information you specify into your reports. If your reports suddenly drop off and no changes were made to the site, check the filters that are set up on the profile to see if you are accidentally excluding your traffic. Carefully monitor any new filters because once the data has been manipulated (correctly or incorrectly) there's no going back.

7. Improper setup for subdomains and multiple domains.
Take a closer look at your site structure when you're setting up Google Analytics. Do you have any subdomains? Does the visitor ever cross over to another domain while browsing the site? Although this topic can be fairly advanced, tracking subdomains and multiple domains is arguably the most common mistake made by anyone setting up Google Analytics on their site. Check out the Google help files for instructions on setting up your Google Analytics Tracking Code to work with subdomains and for multiple domains to make sure you're getting it right.

Need Your Own Google Analytics Greasemonkey Script?

2009-11-09T15:18:00Z

I write most of my Greasemonkey scripts with the idea that they will be useful to as many Google Analytics admins and users as possible.

But what if you need a script that's very specific to your business needs? Or Maybe you've heard about the Google Analytics API and you'd like to use it to tie your Google Analytics report data with data from your back end. You might even just need some custom modifications to your Google Analytics Tracking Code and general setup to get that one bit of data that can make or break your business.

At ROI Revolution, we offer support plans that can be used for nearly any type of Google Analytics project you can think up. You can also use your support time to have us help you effectively configure optimal tracking for your business goals, get a second opinion on that those thorny configuration issues, or just to audit your Google Analytics account setup and make sure everything's working just as it should.

And if you just want your own Greasemonkey script, we can make that happen too.

Learn more about our Google Analytics technical support offerings.

Bid for Profitability, not Pride

2009-11-05T15:25:46Z

Every company wants to be at the front of the pack, leaving their competitors in the dust.

To beat the competition in PPC advertising, your first instinct might be to outbid competitors and get your ad into the top few positions, often located directly above the organic results.

With your ad gloriously perched atop the search results, surely you're at a competitive advantage compared to all those lowly ads on the right side of the page...right?

Well, not necessarily.

With PPC, you don't always get the gold for being in first place. While having your ad in higher positions tends to yield more clicks and therefore more conversions than lower spots, it doesn't always ensure the best return on investment.

If you have to pay twice as much per click to get your ad to the top position but find that it only gets you a few more sales and ultimately cuts into your profits, then you probably wouldn't want to continue that strategy.

And if you're thinking that you might be able to boost your conversion rate by getting your ads to the premium positions, Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian, shared on the Inside AdWords blog that conversion rates don't vary much by position. He explained that for the same ad, conversion rate only differs by less than 5% on average across all positions.

This is not to say that you should shoot for 4th position necessarily, or any other specific position for that matter. The important thing is that you test how profitable you are in different ad positions and then bid for the ones that work the best for your unique business.

To learn a few more AdWords tips, enter your name and email to watch a video explaining 3 more strategies.

ROI Revolution Attends 3rd Annual GAAC Summit

2009-10-30T14:09:27Z

Hey, look! It's a gaggle of GAACs!

Every year when autumn rolls around, you'll find the ROI Revolution Analytics Team hard at work planning our strategy. Not for clients (we do that all year 'round, of course) but for the strange and fun activities planned at the annual Google Analytics Authorized Consultant Summit. Last year, it was Rock Band. This year, trampoline dodgeball.

Not all of our time at Google is spent jumping around on trampolines and pegging each other with balls. For four days, Google Partners from around the world convene in Mountain View to talk about the state of analytics and optimization, learn from one another, and push the limit when it comes to supporting our favorite free analytics platform.

Click for a rundown of what we covered...

Day One: Google Website Optimizer

Dan Siroker, former director of analytics for the Obama Presidential Campaign and founder of the online multiplayer game CarrotSticks, talked about how his team used Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, and other free tools to help Obama win the presidential election.
Sandra Cheng, Product Manager of Google Website Optimizer, and Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager of Google Website Optimizer, talked about the future of the free website testing and optimization tool. There's some exciting stuff coming, not least of which were the recently announced over-time charts and the experiment management API.

Google Analytics Product Marketing Manager Eva Woo and her magical margarita machine. I want one for the ROI office.

Day Two: Google Analytics

The keynote, by Avinash Kaushik, was, as always, eye-opening and in-your-face. We <3 Avinash.
Phil Mui, senior product manager for Google Analytics, discussed the roadmap. He touched on engagement goals, mobile reporting, and multiple custom variables, all announced a week later.
What am I most excited? Analytics Intelligence, an algorithmic intelligence engine for Google Analytics to provide automated alerts for significant changes in your site's metrics. We've been using it in beta and we're glad we can share it with all of our clients!
After all of the announcements, we headed to Sky High Sports in Santa Clara and did our trampoline dodgeball. All of our practice paid off when we were unceremoniously destroyed in the first round.

Day Three: More Google Analytics

Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist, talked about using Google tools to "predict the present" and glean important intelligence about the current economic situation. Very cool stuff.Lots of discussion on the Google Analytics API, as well as some exciting developments in the works for Google Analytics and advertisers. We can't say much yet, but it's really a great time to be using Google Analytics!

Day Four: Urchin

We heard some awesome news from the Urchin team on the development of the Urchin software. Stay tuned to the blog for more news as it comes!

That's about it. In spite of our crushing dodgeball defeat, it was a great time and we were glad to chat with analysts from all over the world. We can hardly wait 'til next year. We're all secretly hoping next year's event is Slamball.

Slamball.

Yeaaaah. Not so much.

Use ALL 3 Google AdWords Keyword Match Types for Google Search

2009-10-29T14:19:31Z

One pattern we often see when conducting an AdWords account audit and strategy session for an advertiser, or when beginning work with a new client is that there are only broad match keywords throughout the AdWords account.

Ideally, you should bid on all three match types of every keyword you decide to include in your account for Google Search. To see why, read on....

To quickly review:

Using broad match keywords allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations. If you are bidding on the keyword: buy flowers, your ad may show on searches such as: flowers, purchase flowers, buy daisy flowers.

Using phrase match keywords allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase. You are bidding on the keyword: "buy flowers", your ad may show for: I need to buy flowers, buy flowers online, buy flowers for my wife.

Using exact match allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively. You are bidding on the keyword: [buy flowers], your ad will only show when someone searches for: buy flowers.

Broad matched keywords are great for capturing a lot of traffic, but as you can see from the example, your ad may show up for many different search variations on Google.com. In the example above, you may be an online flower shop but you do not offer daisies. By only bidding on the broad match, your ad may end up showing for irrelevant searches, therefore potentially being clicked on and costing you money for no return because you simply do not have what the visitor is looking for.

Phrase match is more targeted than broad match, yet still allows flexibility. In the example above, by bidding on: buy flowers, these two words have to always be together and in this order for your ad to display. Clearly, the searches: I need to buy flowers, and buy flowers for my wife are still relevant to your keyword.

Exact match is the most targeted option available. Your ad will only show when a user of Google.com searches for the exact query that you are bidding on as a keyword. This match type guarantees that you get the exact traffic you are hoping to receive from Google.com. The negative impact of using this match type is that it can reduce the amount of traffic to your website, because your ad does not display nearly as often as it potentially could.

You should keep in mind that each of the three match types provides a different way for a Google.com user to interact with you. Broad match will give you the greatest amount of traffic but potentially not the most qualified and action oriented visitors. By using phrase match, and especially exact match, you're ad will show less of the time but will often yield more targeted and qualified visitors who are ready to conduct the action you want - whether that be signing up for a newsletter or making an actual purchase.

By bidding on all three match types, you provide the opportunity to enter a conversation with many different types of visitors, positioning yourself in the strongest way to find success using Google AdWords. You also are able to bid differently based on your ROI for each match type; this especially applies to high volume keywords within your account.

Learn more proven AdWords tactics with our AdWords strategies video.

Your Ads Can Work 9 to 5 Too

2009-10-22T13:06:15Z

Have you ever driven to a store in the evening to make a purchase, only to discover this sign hanging in the window?

Frustrated, weren't you? As a consumer, you just wasted your time and gas money, and now you have to come back the next day during business hours, go to a different store that's open, or just forget about it altogether and go home and watch some primetime television.

And as for the store that was closed at the time, they probably just lost out on your sale. Everyone loses.

So let's say you're shopping online in the evening instead, you click on an enticing ad and then decide that you'd like to speak with a customer service rep to make the purchase because you've got some questions and order specifications. You pick up the phone and dial the business number, only to hear the following automated message:

"Thank you for calling (insert company name here). Unfortunately we are closed at this time. You can reach us during our store hours which are Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm Eastern. Thank you."

Everything in this scenario is the same as the first brick-and-mortar example except for one major thing: the online business just wasted valuable advertising spend on a click that didn't result in a conversion.

Similar scenarios involving PPC advertising occur online every day, especially with businesses who carry out most of their transactions through the phone. Examples of businesses where this is common include ones who sell in bulk, have customizable products, or simply require all transactions be made over the phone.

If your business operates "9 to 5" and most transactions happen over the phone, you might test saving money by using Ad Scheduling to only show your ads during this time frame.

If you're not familiar with Ad Scheduling, it's an AdWords feature that lets you specify certain hours or days of the week when you want your ads to appear.

The Ad Scheduling feature is found under the Campaign Settings tab > Advanced settings > Ad scheduling. Click "Edit" and a window will appear where you can set your ads to run only during your desired hours.

If you click on "Bid adjustment", you can get a little more advanced by adjusting pricing for your ads during certain time periods. For example, if you know that your call volume is highest between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., you can bid more for impressions or clicks during that period.

Remember: No one likes seeing the "Sorry, We're Closed" sign, so don't be the company that wastes money sending people there.

For more information on ad scheduling, click here and for more AdWords tips check out this video.

3-Session "AdWords Academy" Bootcamp for Beginners ONLY

2009-10-15T13:21:35Z

ROI Revolution is now offering a 3-session training series for PPC beginners ONLY.

Our goal with this course is to really take you step-by-step through the process of creating and managing campaigns in Google AdWords.

Each session goes for 90 minutes including 20 minutes of Q&A.

The course will teach beginners how to use the AdWords interface to build your Google campaigns from the ground up. You'll learn the essential structures, terminology and all of the many handy facets that can help you better manage, understand and utilize your account's data.

You will learn and gain an understanding of:

Pay-Per-Click Marketing
The Google Networks
Features & Benefits of AdWords
Key Terminology
A Proper Account Structure
The new AdWords Interface
How to Create a Campaign

Language & Location Targeting
Writing Ad Creatives
Building a Keyword List
Match Types
Budgets

How to Edit Campaign Settings
How to Optimize Your Campaigns
How to Create Reports & Understand Them
How to Use the Many Tools in AdWords
Bidding
Other Advertising Options on Google

If you have just started using Google AdWords or would like to grow your business online, but have yet to try, this is just the course for you to get you started.

I manage pay-per-click campaigns on AdWords all day long, every day-of-the-week, so I made sure to cover all of the essentials and give you insider tips to build a well-structured campaign and manage it smoothly.

Please come and join the AdWords Academy boot camp, and get the help you need to make your business soar online or learn more about each training session in detail.

All three sessions are now available on demand via the All Access Pass.

Universal Conversion Code For Google Website Optimizer

2009-10-13T19:48:32Z

We've been using a piece of code for a while that makes it easier to set up multiple Google Website Optimizer experiments. These experiments could be one right after the other, or even several experiments running simultaneously. The only requirement is that you should have a single conversion point for all of your Google Website Optimizer experiments. You may be able to adapt this code to situations with multiple conversion points, but that's likely to get rather complicated. So why use this code? Oftentimes your conversion point is a page that you're not really wanting to edit a lot, or may even be able to edit a lot. Instead of having to update your conversion page every time you set up a new experiment, you just add this code to your conversion page once and forget about it. It will register a conversion for all current and future experiments, and will even accommodate visitors who may be part of more than one experiment. So here's the code:

A few things to keep in mind:

If you have your own functionally equivalent readCookie function, you can use that instead.
This code will probably work best if it comes after your Google Analytics Tracking Code.
If you have any kinds of modifications to your Google Analytics Tracking Code, you'll need to make those same modifications to your Google Website Optimizer code. See Shawn's post on this.
This code is meant to replace the Google Website Optimizer conversion script that's provided with your instructions.

That's it! I always appreciate suggestions for improving code I put up here. If you've found this code to be particularly useful, I'd like to hear that too.

Leverage Your Brand in your AdWords Account

2009-10-12T16:27:34Z

Be sure to have a "branded" campaign filled with variations of your company name and website.

Not only do you want to ensure ad dominance for your own keywords, but it will help separate these highly performing keywords from everything else, so as not to skew your overall account statistics.

Creating a branded campaign is key to online advertising success as you will want your company to come up when users are specifically searching for your company.

You would want to bid on all versions of your company's name including:

the correct spelling
common misspellings
your company name followed by.com
your company web address
your company name with the www. before it

For example, say your company was called Cheesemonger. You would want to bid on the following keywords:

cheesemonger
cheesemongers
chesemonger
cheesemunger
thecheesemonger
www cheesemonger
cheesemonger com
www.cheesemonger.com
www cheesemonger com

Directly bidding on these keywords, means searches are specifically looking for you, so it is important that you don't miss out on this profitable opportunity. Plus, if your company's site is already ranked organically you will show up twice, once in the paid listings and once in the organic listings, which can only help!

Initially you may think, why should I pay for my own keywords if my site is already in the organic listings, but if you show up twice, people will most definitely find your company. Plus, you don't want competitors snapping up your traffic because they are bidding on your branded terms and you are not.

Not to mention, if you are having trouble getting your site to rank on the first page of the organic search results, bidding on your branded keywords is a surefire way to show up.

Typically your branded campaign will get you the cheapest conversions out of any of your campaigns because clearly you must be the most relevant choice if you actually are that company, so you will be paying the least amount for your own terms.

Lastly, you will want to have these terms isolated in a separate campaign so that you can strategically bid for these less expensive terms. If you have your branded terms mixed in with other general terms, you may end up bidding these terms higher than is necessary.

In essence, if people are searching for your specific company name, they want your exact product or service, so missing out on this easy way to make money would just be foolish. Go out and make yourself a branded campaign today!

For PPC Beginners ONLY: AdWords Academy online training course

2009-10-06T18:48:45Z

Learn how to set up your Google AdWords account step by step from the very beginning. We'll go through each step of campaign creation from keyword research to match types, account structure and setting bids. Each one of these steps done correctly results in saved money and time.

The best part is that this course is for the true AdWords beginner; we'll practically be showing you every button you need to click to get the job done. If you've been putting off starting your own Google AdWords account or have paused it because it was losing money, you'll want to be sure to attend this course and learn to do it the right way.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your products or services in front of your prospects at the precise moment when their interest is at its peak. Over 60% of all US paid search advertising comes from Google AdWords.

Beginner Google AdWords Academy Online Course dates and times:

Tuesday, October 27th, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed): Introduction to Google AdWords (available on demand via the All Access Pass)
Thursday, October 29th, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed): Properly Setting Up an AdWords Account (available on demand via the All Access Pass)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed). Advanced AdWords Features(available on demand via the All Access Pass)

Each training session lasts approximately 90 minutes, including 20 minutes of Q&A at the end of each session.

Online Training Topics

Pay-Per-Click advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your products or services in front of your prospects at the precise moment when their interest is at its peak.

Session 1:
Intro to AdWords

Session 2:
Proper Account Set Up

Session 3:
Advanced Features

Introduction to Online Advertising

What is pay-per-click
Features & benefits
Google search & content network
Account structure
The interface

Benefits and features of AdWords

Cost
Timing
Flexibility

Basic Terminology

Keyword
Cost-per-click
Clickthrough rate
Impression
Landing page
Conversion
Conversion rate
Ad position
Quality score
SEO v. SEM
AdWords v. Adsense

Creating a Campaign

Language and location targeting

Targeting guidelines
Excluding locations
Making custom targeting

Writing ad creatives

Editorial policies
Ad writing exercise

Building a keyword list
- Best practices
Match types
- Broad, phrase, & exact
- Negative keywords
Setting bids and budgets

Daily budget
Minimum & Maximum bids

Using the Traffic Estimator

Optimization

Optimize to increase traffic
Optimize to increase quality score
Optimize to increase landing page quality
Optimize for the Google network

Reports

Creating and analyzing reports
Saving reports and report templates

Google Analytics

Basic linking to AdWords
Analytics dashboard
Using All Traffic Sources, and Site Usage
Tracking goal conversions
Tracking keyword performance

Proper Account Structure

Account
Campaign
Ad Group
Keywords

AdWords Interface

Campaign management tab
My account tab

Editing Campaign Settings

Basic settings

Setting start and end dates

Budget options

Delivery methods + Standard & Accelerated

Networds and Bidding

Choosing content or search

Ad scheduling

Multiplying bids
Setting times of day that you want your ads to run

Ad Serving

Setting ads to “Optimize” or “Rotate”

Tools

Campaign optimizer, Keyword tool, Traffic estimator, Ads diagnostic tool, Ads preview tool, Disapproved ads, Conversion tracking, My change history, AdWords Editor

Bidding

Manual bidding
Changing bids through “edit keyword settings”

Other Advertising Options

Image ads
Video ads
Local business ads
Mobile ads

Billing cycle and options

Steps to setting up an account

Starter vs. Standard
Choose Currency
Create your first campaign

Each training session lasts approximately 90 minutes, including 20 minutes of Q&A at the end of each session.

All three sessions are now available on demand via the All Access Pass.

Meet the Academy Instructors

Timothy Seward is founder and CEO of ROI Revolution. Timothy's firm is a charter consulting partner with both Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer as well as a Google AdWords Qualified Advertising Company. Timothy has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida Gulf Coast University. His company serves large and small Google advertisers throughout the United States and Canada and is based in Raleigh, NC.

Mike O'Rourke is a PPC Account Manager at ROI Revolution. Mike joined the company in January of 2008 after graduating with a B.A. in Communication Media Studies from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2007.

See you during the academy!

Check Landing Page Performance by Browser

2009-10-06T15:52:19Z

Every browser is different.* Ask any web designer about their craft and you'll eventually get them talking passionately about these differences. How Internet Explorer 6 renders CSS pseudo-elements (badly) and handles padding and spaces (randomly). How IE7 ignores CSS drop shadows. How floating divs never seem to work the same way in any of the browsers. These peculiarities have driven many a developer to strong drink.

When it comes to testing new webpage designs in Google Website Optimizer, speed can be essential. You want to get the experiment out the door as soon as possible so you can get preliminary data. Sometimes this means that things slip through QA. Browser testing is exceptionally finicky and time consuming. Not every office has a spare Mac sitting around, and with three different versions of Internet Explorer still in wide use—and no easy way to install all three versions on a single PC—it's no small feat to make your page variations all work perfectly in every popular browser.

With just a few Google Analytics Advanced Segments in your arsenal, however, you'll be able to see whether or not your new pages are functioning fine in all the right browsers. Hit the jump for details.

First, you'll need to create a new Advanced Segment for each landing page in your experiment. Check out Segment 1 and Segment 2 for more detail.

Next, apply both segments to your reports and head to the Browsers reports. This report defaults to the pie chart, but I like to switch back to the data table:

Now check out each browser and pay attention to the Bounce Rate column for each Landing Page segment. If one particular browser has a Bounce Rate that seems particularly out of whack, drill down and check out the versions. Then, using your findings, test the page live (if you can) or use a site like Browsershots.

What other browser testing tips or tricks do you have to help ensure that your site is fit for all visitors? Share them in the comments.

* "No two browsers are not on fire."

Using Google Analytics to Your PPC Advantage: Geo Targeting

2009-09-15T20:38:07Z

Strategy: Using Google Analytics, you can see which cities and states are performing well, and you can create separate PPC campaigns for those areas with higher bids. Conversely, you can see which cities and states underperform, and you can isolate and bid them down or eliminate them altogether.

Google Analytics can reveal so much invaluable information about your online (and offline) marketing efforts, and uncovering where the majority of your traffic and customers come from is just one of the many important pieces of the marketing pie. Using different reports and segmentations in Google Analytics can shed light on where you should be focusing your marketing.

The Map Overlay report under the Visitors section (illustrated below) allows you to see number of visitors, revenue, goal conversion, and many other metrics for your website coming from anywhere in the world! You are able to click on a region and drill down further to see many different metrics within that region.

Another tip for finding out where your most valuable traffic or your trash traffic is coming from is to view any report and change your dimension targeting to Continent, Sub Continent Region, Country/Territory, Region, or even City.

Once you are able to pinpoint where you would like to target or exclude your traffic, you can alter your Google AdWords geo targeting to reflect what you've found.

Allowing your ads to display only in the areas that are most profitable for you and adjusting your campaign budgets to reflect where the best traffic comes from, can't help but boost the return on your AdWords investment!

We've got a few additional strategies to make your AdWords advertising drive more response & profit. Our CEO, Timothy Seward, has prepared his top 3 "undercover" tactics that we consider the cream of the crop. (Hint: there's a large-screen eight minute AdWords training video when you opt-in).

Get the three free AdWords strategies here!