Google AdWords

Preface

Since being selected as an AdWords Seminar Leader by Google in 2006, I’ve had the opportunity to teach thousands of businesses and organizations how to use AdWords, Google’s advertising platform. I believe in the product; if used appropriately, it offers vast online exposure for advertisers. Unfortunately, most advertisers do not understand how AdWords works or hold it accountable to deliver value to their businesses. Some advertisers make money by dumb luck; others waste hundreds or thousands of dollars each month. I’ve met countless advertisers who gauge the effectiveness of their online campaigns based on gut feelings. I’m generally a proponent of trusting one’s gut, but not in the case of online advertising. In this world, it’s all about the data.

It’s in Google’s best interests for advertisers to use data to make decisions about their campaigns. If AdWords is working for a business, and the numbers prove it, that business is likely to continue advertising and potentially allocate more of its budget to AdWords. Conversely, advertisers can use this data to identify what’s not working, so they can try something else or stop wasting money.

The AdWords platform includes free, simple tools to track and measure performance, down to the individual keyword level. This book is intended to help new and existing advertisers improve the quality of their advertising campaigns and quantify the value AdWords brings to their businesses.

So why Google AdWords? Why not other viable online advertising options like Bing or Facebook? No reason; you should try them all. Everyone has to start somewhere, and AdWords is the logical choice considering the popularity of search and Google’s impressive market share of search volume, as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Google.com is the leading search engine by market share of search volume in the United States, according to Experian Hitwise “US Data Center” from July 11, 2011, provided by eMarketer.

With AdWords you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck (“bang” measured by potential ad exposure, “buck” by the effort and expenditure of setting up and managing campaigns).

In my classes I encourage businesses to promote themselves wherever target customers spend their time online. You may be able to get cheaper clicks or better conversion rates for some keywords on different advertising platforms, but Google AdWords provides the volume necessary to grow your business.

I’ve heard this question at every class I’ve taught for the past five years: do searchers really click on ads? It’s an understandable question, because it’s difficult to imagine search behavior differing from your own. If you always gravitate to Google’s organic results, you might assume ads are irrelevant.

Google’s 2011 annual report disproves this assumption. Gross revenue was $37,905,000,000, and 96 percent of this was advertising revenue derived from AdWords and display advertising. In the first quarter of 2012, Google reported revenues of $10.65 billion, a 24 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2011. The numbers prove that people do indeed notice and click on ads to find products, services, or information they are looking for.

According to the digital research company eMarketer, growth for U.S. online ad spending continues to rise. As you can see in Figure 2, search is the leading category, claiming close to half of online ad spending. Total online ad spending will approach $49.5 billion by 2015.

Figure 2. U.S. online ad spending 2010-2015

This is not to say that paid advertising is the best option for promoting a business online. After all, who doesn’t want free exposure from the organic results? The process of optimizing for organic results is called search engine optimization (SEO), and this book doesn’t cover it. Google’s organic algorithm is completely separate from AdWords, and ad spending does not influence organic position in any way.

If high placement in the organic results is your primary objective, AdWords may still prove useful. If you are not sure which keywords to focus on for SEO, you can use AdWords to test and identify profitable keywords. It may take months of work before your website ranks well organically on the selected keywords; in the meantime, AdWords can provide interim exposure. Many businesses do both, because a bigger presence on the search results page improves the chance of connecting with a searcher.

No matter which advertising route you choose, the objective remains the same: help potential customers find your website. In this book, I show you how to connect with potential customers and spend your advertising budget wisely. My teaching philosophy is to keep it short and sweet; this book packs a great deal of AdWords information as succinctly as possible. I hope it helps existing advertisers fine-tune their accounts and new advertisers get off to the right start.

Terminology Used in This Book

If you are new to AdWords and online advertising, there are many terms to familiarize yourself with. The following list covers the most common terms used in online advertising, which are used throughout the book. Refer to the Glossary at the end of this book for a comprehensive list of terms and definitions.

AdWords

The brand name for Google’s advertising platform. There is no such thing as an “AdWord.”

Clickthrough rate (CTR)

The number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad is displayed (impressions), expressed as a percentage.

Conversion

When a click on an ad results in a desirable behavior, like an online purchase.

Impression

The appearance of an ad on a search results page, whether someone clicks on it or not.

Keyword

A word or phrase that can trigger an ad on a search engine results page. A keyword is not an AdWord.

Search engine results page (SERP)

The page presented to a searcher after typing a search query into a search engine.

Search query

The word or phrase a searcher types into a search engine.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context.

Tip

This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note.

Caution

This icon indicates a warning or caution.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to extend deep gratitude to the family, friends, and colleagues who made this book possible.

I owe a huge thanks to technical editors Heather Cooan and Mike Small.

Thanks to the all the Googlers I’ve worked with, especially Justin Cutroni, Betsy Schmitt, Helen Schindler, and Vivian Leung, for putting your faith in me at the start.

Thanks to David Booth, Corey Koberg, and the entire Cardinal Path team.

Thanks to my clients who put up with my absence and graciously allowed me to reference their accounts: Tom, Kent, Clive, Leslie, Julia, Tyler, David, and Peter. You are all wonderful!

Last but not least, a huge thanks to my incredibly supportive, patient, enviably charming, and attractive editors: Courtney Nash, Simon St. Laurent, and Teresa Elsey.