Everything You Should — and Want — to Know About Adwords

Are You Ready For AdWords Q&A?

This past October, AdWords product managers fielded unscripted questions in front of a live audience at SMX East. The responses to some of these questions are sure to be of significant help to marketers of all backgrounds and experiences, as we all try to maximize the return on investment we have from AdWords.

Here is a rundown of some of the most prevalent questions – and answers – that were discussed during SMX East:

Have you seen an increased frequency in below first page minimum bid messaging?

If you have, you’re not alone. A recent change made by Google might be to blame. This rollout helped to improve the quality of the estimates for newer and lower volume keywords. Thus those parts of your accounts might incur a status change.

If you’re seeing this status change with other keywords, there may be a shift in competition or in the quality of your ads.

So, what can you do? Review your Auction insights report, which will help you determine any changes in your competition. Furthermore, you can review the details of your keywords’ performance.

There is certainly an increase in mobile traffic, but what if you’re not seeing the type of conversion volume that you see with desktop?

Google’s response is that while consumers are very possibly converting from mobile, these conversions may not be traditional in scope. For example, it’s not uncommon to see mobile users use online searches to fuel their in-store purchases, which wouldn’t appear as a traditional AdWords conversion.

So, what can you do? Review your All Conversions column for further insight and be sure to also adhere to Google’s mobile best practices to ensure you’re connecting with your mobile users.

Getting the skinny on local: exclude ads from appearing to audiences outside a certain proximity

All the data suggests that conversion rates are high within a specific distance from a target location. So how can you exclude ads from appearing beyond that location? Radius targeting will help you reach users within a certain distance. If you only target these areas, AdWords will not target people outside that region.

If your goal is to only ever target people within a certain radius, then you may want to update your advanced location targeting to only appear for physical locations.

Are you concerned about how fraud and spam might impact you as an advertiser?

That’s a pretty common concern among all online advertisers, and Google knows it. So, what do they do to protect you from fraud and spam? They use automated and manual detection systems, combined with machine learning and human research, in order to identify abnormal traffic patterns. They’ll then block activity that they find to be invalid or fraudulent.

Want to know more about universal app campaigns?

Here’s what Google has to say about them. Universal app campaigns use a cost-per-install model. So, when you set your bids for app installs, your budget will be used to get as many installs as possible – at your set amount.

Let’s use real numbers to explain it further. If you set your daily budget for $30, and your target cost-per-install to $3, then, by crunching your numbers, you’ll know that you’re aiming for roughly 10 installs per day from your ads.

How does Google’s automated bidding system calculate bids?

This is a particularly good question to know the answer to if you’re not sure if you (or a client) should be pursuing a manual bidding strategy.

The way automated bid strategies work is that Google will adjust your bid at the moment of the auction for every impression, based on every factor at play. These factors include exact wording of the query, more specific device, time of day, browser type in use, as well as even what remarketing list someone may belong to.

By factoring all of these at the moment of an impression, you can get the bid that’s most sensible for that piece of context.

Still Looking To Learn More About Google Adwords?

We can’t blame you. AdWords is a massive entity in its own right and – for good reason – is constantly changing. Keeping up with these changes would take you far more time than it’s worth, which is why we make it our mission to be your bona fide AdWords expert.

There is no debating that the more familiar you are with the AdWords ecosystem, the more successful you’ll be. Contact OperationROI today to learn more about how we can turn your business into a master of the AdWords universe. Call us at 1-888-277-5429, or fill out our contact form.

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