If you don’t already have conversion tracking implemented correctly, you’ll need to resolve that to make use of Search Funnels.

You can find Search Funnels for your account on the Reports tab on the Conversions page in the left navigation.

This is a pretty simple premise, but scratch the surface and there’s a rich seam of data. Here’s the low-down:

By default, you’ll be shown the last 30 days’ data, but you can change the date range as you might expect. If yours is a longer sales cycle, looking at the most recent data might skew your results and analysis, so factor that in.

Aside from the number of conversions, there are three interesting figures here; average ad impressions to conversion, average ad clicks to conversion and most importantly, average days to conversion. This last one surprised us when we first got access to this data, which will vary depending on your product or service, the market competition, the cost/value and of course the keywords that you bid on and the overall performance of your campaigns.

Knowing that visitors typically click more than one ad also puts some context to the performance of specific keywords. We’re often asked, “why not bid only on those keywords that convert most effectively?” This data helps to demonstrate that the conversion is often achieved through more than just one keyword and one click.

The conversion is only allocated to the last click – take away those search terms that position your offer through the search funnel and your offer loses some of its impact. Take away the frequency of your ad being seen for every relevant search and your CTR and conversion rates go down and the cost per conversion more likely to rise rather than decrease as you might expect.

In short, if your ad appears consistently for each of four relevant searches, and your competitor only appears once or twice, it is more likely that you’ll get the click AND the conversion rather than your competitor. It’s the cumulation of seeing your ad multiple times that wins the game, not one search, one ad one click (wouldn’t that be so much simpler?).

The knowledge that customers take a number of days to convert also helps to build a strategy to address that conversion rate. In this example, an average 5-day funnel suggests that remarketing should influence the rate at which visitors return and also position your site more firmly in their memory when they make that decision to buy or enquire.

There really is enough science and psychology to write a book, but to summarise:

• Conversion tracking is required to use Search Funnels
• Analyse a date range that ends before your average days to conversion to avoid mis-diagnosis
• Investigate paths to understand what visitors search for before they convert
• Build this knowledge in to your strategy using the other tools at your disposal such as remarketing and Content Network campaigns.

What is Remarketing?

Remarketing is a new weapon in the Google Adwords advertiser’s arsenal and one that you really should consider using.

The premise is that if a visitor comes to your site, but doesn’t purchase, sign up or perform whatever is considered a conversion, then Google will start to re-show them your ads, wherever they are on the Google network, until they convert.

How does it work?

First of all, you need to create set of Javascript remarketing tags in your AdWords account. One tag goes on every page, for example, and the other goes on your conversion pages. Every time a customer visits one of your pages they will be tagged, whether they came through Adwords or not.

In this example, you’ll now have two audiences; ‘visitors’ and ‘converters’. You can now show ads across the Content Network to a specific audience or create a custom combination – a group of visitors that includes everyone who visited the site, but excludes those that contacted you or bought something, for example.

This group becomes your market for an audience targeted content campaign. Upload a mixture of text and display ads to keep your brand front-of-mind, positioning you firmly when the buying decision is made.

Important point though – ads in your campaign will target the audience, not the content they are reading. This also means that you can understand where your audience lives on the web and use that data in a separate Content campaign to raise the profile of your brand and drive new visitors to your site.

What’s the thinking behind it?

The reasoning here is that, especially if you are selling items or services with a longer buying cycle, you’ll benefit from reminding them of your brand, product or service. For instance, if you are selling a high ticket product or service or a long term commitment, they may take a while to actually decide. Remarketing ads help to positively influence the choice between you and your competitors.

Does It Work?

Yes. We’ve been running remarketing campaigns for a number of our clients’ campaigns with some great display ads. Early stats show the cost per conversion to be 35% less than the account average and conversion rates 100% higher.

Ask a Google AdWords Professional about this

Unlike Search, the Google Content Network gives you the ability to target an audience before they search for your product or service. Depending on your offer, you’ll get some direct sales of course, but that isn’t the main objective behind such a campaign.

Put it this way. If I’m reading about golf, I’m probably a golfer. I might be interested in improving my swing, buying a set of clubs, or a golfing holiday. I might be interested right now, at this minute, and I might click.

That’s a whole lot of might.

However, most importantly, I’ve seen your ads on a number of different sites that I’ve visited and I’m beginning to associate your brand with my passion for golf. To me, you must be a big company with a big presence in the golfing market. That makes you trustworthy and reliable.

Supporting Your Search Campaign

When I do search and click on a bunch of different sites, who do I choose: The cheapest? The best looking site? Both of those things influence me and more, of course – but I also buy on trust. Trust is worth EVERYTHING in a sales transaction.

The basis of the strategy is that you can show your ads to a wider target audience at a low cost to increase awareness of both your brand and your products and services. In marketing speak, referred to as “brand recall”, an important measurement of a marketing campaign’s success.

The first area then, as well as generating some direct sales, is to support the conversion rates on your Search Campaign.

For example, if you are advertising holiday cottages, you might target content such as hiking, water sports, fishing, bird-watching, etc. Your site and brand will then be exposed to an audience that might soon search for a holiday cottage. If and when they do, you can expect greater conversion rates from your search campaign.

Innovation = No Search Traffic

The second area this works well is the introduction of a new product or innovation. There is no search traffic, so how do you sell it on paid search? It’s tough, except perhaps bidding on a problem that it solves, but that’s a whole other article. What you can do though, is stimulate a relevant audience by introducing the idea.

Let’s pick something random. You’ve created a 30-something golfing holiday product where like minded individuals can meet and find love and play a bit of golf (Ahem. I did say random!). There’s no directly relevant search traffic for this at all – you could bid on “golf holidays”, but there’s a big chunk of that spend that isn’t your target audience. It won’t convert too well and you’ll burn your budget pretty quick.

On the Content Network, we can target golfers based on what they’re reading about: GOLF.

In some instances, we can even target the demographic; male, female, age range. The ads introduce the idea and those that are curious or interested will click and might enquire, request a brochure or sign up for your newsletter. Hell, you might even get some bookings. But the real value here is reaching your target audience to generate interest in something they didn’t even know existed. Over time, this will generate search traffic for your brand and what you do.

Having generated a good chunk of profit for our clients this way, we’d strongly recommend considering a Content Network campaign.

8 tips for creating a sound Content Network Campaign

1. Always create separate campaigns for Search and for Content. The structure, strategies and ads are very different and you’ll want to measure performance and ROI separately too.
2. In each ad group, pick 6-10 relevant, tightly-themed keywords to target content pages your audience would be reading.
3. Create attention-grabbing ads that will stand out from the page and help your audience remember your brand, even if they don’t click.
4. Image ads work far better than text ads – use the Ad Builder for the first pass and invest in professionally designed ads as performance warrants it.
5. We wouldn’t recommend the Content Network without Conversion Tracking. Although we won’t necessarily expect many direct conversions from Content ads, measuring View Through Conversions is critical.
6. Expect a much lower CTR from Content, but monitor which sites are generating traffic carefully. Increase your bids on sites that work well and add poor sites as negatives to stop your ads showing there.
7. Be patient. Search data can be analysed for yesterday, but data from 30 days ago is more relevant for Content, depending on how long your buying cycle is.
8. Create a small Search Campaign, perhaps even just bidding on your site name, brand or the name of your product. You’ll pick up the cheap clicks as the search volume increases.

Ask a Google AdWords Professional about this

The headlines:

• 43% of iPhone owners earn salaries in excess of £65,000
• 200 million Internet enabled phones shipped in 2009 with 22% growth projected for 2010.
• 38% of mobile phones worldwide will be smartphones by 2013
• UK mobile searches increased by 260% for commercial keywords from 2008 to 2009

Whether your business is suited to mobile browsing or not, mobile should be on your agenda.

Mobile Advertising

As a method for reaching your audience at the right time, mobile is growing faster that any other existing marketing medium. The latest advances in mobile technology have developed significantly and mobile advertising has come a long way.

No longer limited to SMS messaging, the mobile opportunity has evolved into a highly-targeted platform for advertising to an audience ready to buy, find or engage. Mobile advertising is mainly aimed at users on iPhones and other similar mobile devices with full internet access.

How Mobile Works

6 things to consider

1. Is your site usable on a mobile?
2. Is your target audience likely to search for or browse your product or service on a mobile device?
3. How quickly does your content load on a mobile device?
4. Can you engage a visitor on a mobile device and generate an action quickly (more quickly that a desktop device, for example)?
5. Examples of what works well; find your nearest location, opt-in for some information, find your phone number; browse your products or even buy.
6. Examples of what doesn’t necessarily work well; lengthy, technical content. Lengthy data capture forms. Large image files.

The Benefits

Right now, the mobile market is less competitive than desktop, with reported conversion costs being lower than desktop devices – the time to position your site as a market leader is now.

Creating separate campaigns with different targeting, you can segment and measure the response and ROI independently for mobile, or even for specific types of devices.

Mobile Marketing Plan

1. If your target audience never (ever) searches for what you do using a mobile, or you’re not ready to exploit it, turn it off – but remember to come back to it later.
2. Check your site’s statistics to see how many visitors use mobile browsers.
3. Segment your campaign(s), creating a dedicated mobile campaign with it’s own budget and performance data so that you can measure the response and ROI.
4. Targeting is the same as desktop devices and the same best practice applies; segment Google Search and Search Partner networks and the Content Network.
5. Depending on traffic volume and performance, consider a dedicated mobile version of your site. You can detect the browser type and size when a visitor lands on your site and redirect to the right version automatically – a desktop visitor gets the desktop site, a mobile visitor gets the mobile site.

Ask a Google AdWords Professional about this

In recent months, Google has been adding new functions to the Google AdWords system. In particular, in many ads, you might have seen “ad extensions” appearing.

Ad Extensions refers to a number of ways in which you can add more to your AdWords ad. Some of these extensions are available now in your account and others are in beta, being tested by a limited number of advertisers.

The one you might be eligible for already is called “Site Links”.

Google AdWords ad with Site Links

The site links option allows you to show additional deep links in to your site to help the searcher find exactly what they are looking for. For example, you might want to show “special offers” or “clearance stock” or a subset of information or products on your site, for example – but you can show whatever you feel helps the searcher.

Firstly, the searcher gets to go straight to the correct page which improves the visitor experience.

Secondly, your ad will be much more prominent which increases CTR and in time should lower your cost per click.

How to add site links to your Google ads

If your account qualifies for it, the option is available in the campaign settings tab:

1. List up to ten links within your site, starting with the highest priority first.
2. Google will use up to four of the links in your ads in addition to the existing Display URL.

What you should be aware of

1. Site links will only show where your ad provides the “best answer”. A little cryptic, but in our experience, this essentially means you have a MUCH higher CTR than everyone else bidding on that keyword. Typically, this is going work well if you bid on your own brand, for example.
2. Site links will also only be shown in ads in top position with a high quality score.
3. The site links option is set at campaign level, so you can’t set different site links for each ad, or for ads in a particular ad group.
   

There is no data on whether a particular ad displayed site links or not – you’ll have to just check it online. It will therefore be difficult to measure any improvement in performance once you added this function. However, we’d still recommend implementing it – it sure can’t do any harm to your CTR.

Ask a Google AdWords Professional about this

AdWords Analyst, Antony Potts explains how this helps you.

A “View Through Conversion” occurs on the Content Network when your ad is shown, but not clicked, and that person then returns to your site through a Google Search/Search Partner campaign and converts within a 30-day period.

Think of it this way. There’s an old adage, “we waste 50% of our marketing budget. If only we knew which 50%”. This arises because there is a lack of ability to measure how some advertising media influence your customer’s decision to buy. Let’s say you place an ad on the side of a bus, sponsor Coronation Street or your local football team – very difficult to accurately measure the impact this has on your sales and enquiries.

View Through Conversion Tracking delivers more accurate measurement of the customer’s journey across the web (only for Google ads, remember!) to demonstrate where your ads have displayed and perhaps should be credited with ‘an assist’ in generating that order or enquiry.

View Through Conversion Tracking

This measurement may help to indicate that your Content Network account is performing well, but it unfortunately can not be as accurate an indicator as we’d all hope. Remember that although your ad may have been rendered on a web page that person is viewing, it may be in a position off-screen and they may not have physically seen it.

However, the trends it illustrates are more important than the numbers – even if it accurately measures only 50% of the traffic, improvement trends would still prove valuable data. You can now measure the benefit of Google Display Ads on the Content Network with more confidence, knowing that you’ll have some method of calculating the return on effort and the budget you spend.

This is a valuable metric to analyse and understand, but like View Through Conversions, use it to influence your decisions rather than build your entire business strategy around it.

Much better than not knowing which 50% you’re wasting, but won’t get that waste to 0% just yet.

Want more from your campaign?

Call our AdWords team free on 08000 474714.

On the one hand, searchers already want to buy from you and might well find you in organic links where the clicks are free, so why pay for the click?

On the other, there may be competitors bidding on your brand and stealing your profit from right under your nose if you don’t.

There isn’t a right or wrong answer, but there some factors you may want to consider;

Google knows that this is your domain name and/or your brand, so it’s very easy for you to achieve top paid position.

Clicks on your own brand keywords tend to cost pennies – we’ve often seen clicks at £0.05 for position one.

CTR, as critical as ever, is typically awesome – 25-50% CTR, which won’t do your overall campaign CTR any harm at all.

In one of our most advanced campaigns, our client makes over 100 sales every month on one single competitor keyword for less than £0.20 a click.

Whether you like the ethics or not, there’s profit waiting on the table.

Learn more advanced techniques in Google AdWords Masterclasses.

So what are session-based keywords?

Google says:

“When determining which ads to show on a Google search result page, the AdWords system evaluates some of the user’s previous queries during their search session as well as the current search query. If the system detects a relationship, it will show ads related to these other queries, too.”

So this means that, assuming there aren’t more relevant ads to show for these later searches, Google will show your ad instead. Mostly, I would imagine that this doesn’t happen too often – most of the time, there will be other people bidding on the secondary terms.

Example: you’re bidding on “car tyres” and the user searches for “car tyres“; it shows your ad. However, the user then qualifies their search further, “peugeot car tyres“, which shows your Peugeot Car Tyres ad. The user hasn’t clicked yet and now searches for “peugeot 406 1.9 diesel 2004“. You’re not bidding on this because it isn’t relevant enough to your market, and neither is anyone else (except maybe ebay et al.)

At this point, Google shows your car tyres ad again because at some point in the search session, the user did type in your keyword. Google feels that they are still searching the same theme and your ads are still relevant, so it shows them.

Should I bid on session based keywords?

You shouldn’t necessarily bid on these keywords, only if they are specifically relevant.

Can I switch off Session-Based keywords?

No. There is no option to do this, but like expanded keyword matching, it does only work with broad match keywords.

Why do Session-Based keywords have such a high CTR on the Search Query Report?
It is important to understand the context of this measurement. Remember that the Search Query Report only reports data for keywords that have generated clicks – it won’t show you data for session-based matches which have shown your ads, but not generated a click, hence the high CTR.

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In a fiercely competitive market, where clicks are £1.50 or more, together we established that he was wasting around £50 PER DAY on irrelevant clicks that had absolutely no chance of becoming sales.

Why? Keyword match-types.

You will hopefully be aware that Google Adwords provides three different keyword match types; broad match, phrase match and exact match.

Starting with the last first, Exact Keyword matching will only show your ad when the search term (what your customer types in to Google) matches your keyword exactly, no misspelling, no typos, no plural, no partial matching.

Secondly, Phrase Match will match the search term if it includes your phrase somewhere; the phrase “red dress” would be matched to searches for ‘ladies red dress’, ‘girl in a red dress’, ‘make a red dress’, ‘red dress design’, ‘red dress lyrics’. Now, of course some of these are relevant, but some are not and potentially waste your budget.

Phrase Matching is quite tightly targeted though, so the same phrase would not match searches such as ‘red evening dress’, ‘red cocktail dress’ or even ‘dress red’ or ‘dress red’. The words are in a different order or do not form the phrase you’re bidding on, so you should thoroughly research and include each variation in your campaign to avoid missing that traffic.

Lastly, Broad Matching is the widest possible match type, and matches any search which includes the words in your keyword, misspellings, plurals, the words in a different order.

This is fine in some circumstances, but we would advise caution; research all possible search variations which might match your keyword. In the example broad match ‘red dress’, this matches; red head dress, dressing in red, red gingham dress, red white and blue dress, red or dead dress, red dressing gown and many other, potentially wasteful clicks which aren’t relevant enough.

Some of the terms may be relevant, and you want that traffic anyway. But matching one broad match keyword in this way will make it difficult to target that keyword with a relevant ad and to land that searcher on the right page on your site, impossible to measure the success of each search term and you’ll pay a lot more for each click.

Worse still, Google AdWords also uses what it calls, ‘expanded matching‘ on broad match keywords, often using synonyms. In a recent example, fujitsu bracket might match ‘mount fuji’ and ‘monitor mount’ matches a search for ‘shower screen bracket’! Completely irrelevant.

So, what should your keyword strategy be?

Depending on your market, budget and your personal preference, we might recommend bidding on phrase matches to begin with, researching as many variations as possible, or using only exact matching to start. In either case, a small number of broad matches should also be included to pick up anything you missed in your research. You can then frequently monitor the search query report for your account to add more phrase or exact match variations, or use negative keywords to exclude the irrelevant searches you find.

CAUTION: if you have been using broad match keywords in your account, removing them all in one go can upset the ecology of your campaign – be very careful before implementing a policy change such as this.

For advanced keyword strategies, try live one on one coaching – guaranteed satisfaction or your money back.

Alternatively, have one of our professionals carry out a free audit of your campaign and tell you where you’re going wrong.

Many of our clients and coaching students have asked us about their obligations surrounding their use of competitors’ brand names in Google ads and as keywords to generate traffic and sales. We interviewed top commercial technology lawyer, Frank Jennings to field those common questions.

Mark Tillison: Although Google disapproves some Google ads because they include trade marked terms, this isn’t true of all trade marked terms. If Google lets you include the terms, is it OK to use them?

Frank Jennings: It does depend on how you’re using the trade mark. If you are using a competitors’ trade mark to divert traffic away from their site to your site, this is a clear infringement of the Trade Marks Act 1994. In principle, the trade mark owner has a right to seek compensation from the advertiser.

However, the law is less clear where you might include a trade marked term in an ad because you sell an accessory product, rather than a competitive product. An example of this might be mobile phone ringtones or tyres – the intention here isn’t to divert traffic away from the trade mark owner but to use the mark descriptively.

Mark Tillison: So what about bidding on those same terms as keywords?

Frank Jennings: The same principle applies. The law does provide for the trade mark owner to seek compensation for damages through your unfair use of their trade mark and does include bidding on keywords, including them in any part of your ad text and/or including them on your web site.

In the landmark Mr Spicy case against Yahoo!, the judge concluded that the search term was used by a member of the public and that Yahoo! used it to produce results and that Yahoo!’s use did not constitute infringement of the trade mark.

The result of this is that in essence the search engines decided that they had no legal responsibility to block the use of trade marked terms, leaving the market to self-regulate. The responsibility would be for trade mark owner to make a claim against the person using their trade mark in key words.

Mark Tillison: Google’s position is that it will allow you to bid on keywords, but may block some trade marked terms from being used in ads where it has received a complaint from the trade mark owner.

Frank Jennings: Google has been looking into this whole area recently but their policy appears to exceed the legal requirements, allowing certain parties to block use of terms unnecessarily. Such action prevents a site selling mobile phone accessories or ring tones using trade mark terms with the words “ring tones” although there is not necessarily competition with the trade mark owner nor an attempt to divert custom from that trade mark owner.

Mark Tillison: So if the brand is not a trademarked term, is it OK to then use it?

Frank Jennings: In principle, the law still applies, although in such an example the claimant would have to demonstrate that their investment in the term entitles them to claim compensation in the same way. This is a more complicated and lengthy proposition. I’d recommend that companies register their trade marks using a filing agent, or you can register it yourself at http://www.ipo.gov.uk.

Mark Tillison: What about natural search?

Frank Jennings: The Trade Marks Act would prohibit use of the mark to unfairly divert sales away from the trade mark owner, so yes, work to increase a natural search ranking for a trade marked term would be subjected to the same legal test.

Mark Tillison: What about beyond the UK?

Frank Jennings: Google has expanded its new policy to 194 countries but not yet the other EU countries (other than Ireland). However, there are different trade mark laws for different countries, so beware.

Mark Tillison: So if a trade mark is being used to sell an accessory product, and the trade marked term is blocked for use in a Google ad, what can the advertiser do?

Frank Jennings: You need to ensure you are using the third party’s mark correctly under the Trade Marks Act and this is a fine balance. Once you are compliant, contact Google and show them you have a legitimate business selling accessories which complement the trade mark and you are using the mark descriptively and are not competing with the trade mark owner.

Frank Jennings is a Partner within DMH Stallard LLP’s highly-rated Technology Group and head of the firm’s Commercial Team in Gatwick. He has extensive experience of the technology sector having previously worked at Psygnosis (part of Sony) and Vodafone and regularly writes and gives presentations on intellectual property rights and IT.

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