Make the most of your Google AdWords reports

One "mistake" that we consistently see when conducting one of our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions or when beginning work with a new client is that the AdWords report center is not used effectively, or maybe even not at all. In order to know what is working, what is not working and how to make your account better you need to make use of this feature.

You can access the report center by clicking the "Reporting" tab found at the top of the AdWords user interface and selecting reports.

Once the next screen loads you will find reports ranging from individual keyword performance to ad performance - even discovering the exact search queries that are being made on Google.com that then show your ad and delivered a visitor to your site.

There are 11 reports in all.

At the very least, we recommend running an Account Performance report for the past few months at a week-by-week basis to spot major trends.

A few of the other reports we recommend utilizing on a regular basis are:

• Placement/Keyword Performance: a favorite. This report will allow you to view performance data for every keyword in your account and discover how often each particular keyword shows your ad, how many clicks a keyword generates, how many conversions a keyword is responsible for and more.


• Search Query Performance: one of our other favorites! This will allow you to see the exact search queries being made on Google.com that then show your ad and generated a visitor to your site by way of your ad being clicked. This is an exceptional report for identifying new keywords to be added and also, new negative keywords.


• Placement Performance: a newer favorite! This will allow you to see specific performance for any website placement you have added to your content network campaigns.

It should be noted that both the Search Query Performance report and the Placement Performance report can be run directly in the AdWords user interface for any date range that you decide to select. For small, quick changes to your account on a frequent basis this is the best way to utilize these reporting features.

However, we prefer to run these two specific reports via the report center for extended date periods and then download the data that is populated into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. This way you have a great deal of data at your disposal all at once, allowing for greater sweeping changes, which can be conducted in AdWords Editor for robust optimizations to your AdWords account.

Whichever way you personally choose to utilize Google AdWords reports, it's imperative to take advantage of them (especially the three highlighted above). By doing so you will be able to out perform your competition; and if you use all 11 of them, there will be no stopping your ads.

Want more traffic? Check your delivery setting.

Often times our clients want to get as much traffic as possible, yet their campaign settings are not set up appropriately to accomplish their goal and that's where we come in.

There are two different types of budget delivery standard and accelerated.

Standard Delivery: Selecting this option can potentially limit the number of times your ads show throughout the course of the day. This option designates the campaign to spend the daily budget allocated steadily throughout each day.

Accelerated Delivery: Selecting this option guarantees that your ad will show as much as possible throughout the course of each day except in the event that the budget you allocated for that campaign is depleted before day's end.

As an AdWords advertiser you must decide which of the two settings is a better fit for you and your overall account budget.

To switch between Standard Delivery and Accelerated Delivery, follow these steps:

• Start by accessing one of your campaigns.
• Then, in the new AdWords Interface you will see at the top of the screen an edit link next to Budget:

• On the following screen you will see the "Networks, devices, and extensions" section. Within this section you will see "Delivery Method" and an edit link.
• Click edit and decide which of the two best suits your needs.

Remember: to maximize coverage in your marketplace, choosing accelerated as your delivery method will position you far better to achieve this.

The Positives of Keyword Negatives

A "mistake" that we consistently see when conducting our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions, or when beginning work with a new client is that there are no negative keywords throughout the entire account. The use of negative keywords can save you hundreds of dollars every month by preventing your ads from displaying for irrelevant Google.com searches.

The addition of negative keywords to your account should be made in order to have your ads show only when it is relevant to your product offering or service. The easiest (and quickest) way to find negative keywords is to use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

This tool can be found by clicking on "Opportunities" at the top of the new AdWords user interface...

...and selecting "Keyword tool" found on the left hand side of the following page.

On the next screen you can enter a few of the keywords you are currently bidding on in your account. Let's say that you operate an office supply company. Common items you might sell include staplers, Scotch tape and paper clips. When you enter these three keywords into the tool and click "Get keyword ideas", you will see a list of keywords populate.

Once the list populates you can select the match type on the far right. Use the drop down menu to select "negative".

The populated list will change to potential negative keywords that are worth consideration for inclusion in your account. You will be able to see the negative keywords suggested, as well as the number of times your ad will not show on Google.com by adding the negative keyword.

In this example above, the keyword 3m may be a good negative keyword. Perhaps you do not supply 3m products for purchase, and if such was the case, adding 3m as a negative keyword would be a great tactic that could potentially save you a great deal of money.

Another example is the keyword electric. This negative keyword suggestion is most likely associated with the keyword "stapler" that you entered originally to populate the list. Perhaps you offer staplers but not the electric type. Adding the keyword electric as a negative should be done so that your ad does not display and run the risk of costing you money when that visitor will only hit the back button once they land on your site because you do not have the product they want.

Negative keywords are essential for making a killing with Google AdWords. This tactic will save you money, guaranteed.

Geotargeting: Do your ads accurately reflect your service area?

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.

Use ALL 3 Google AdWords Keyword Match Types for Google Search

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.