Yahoo! is still the little kid on the block when it comes to Ad Scheduling - they simply don’t do it.

Google is definitely the rich kid. Very flexible scheduling in 15 minute increments all day with the ability to split your schedule like mad. You could set your ads to run every other 15 minutes for hours at a time!

MSN simply looks up to Google with gaga eyes and says weakly “Anything you can do we can do…not better.” Semi-flexible ad scheduling with blocks of 3 or 4 hours at a time. I like to think MSN is simply a poser on the playground.

Anyways, mild humor aside - here is how you schedule ads in Google and MSN:

Google Ad Scheduling

Get into any of your campaign settings (yes, each campaign can have a different ad schedule).

Look down the left side of the Edit Campaign Settings page for your “Advanced Options” and click on “Turn on ad scheduling” or if you already have ad scheduling on it should say “edit times and bids”.

You should see a page that has this schedule on it -

Now you can edit each day however you want using the edit button next to each day or you can edit clumps of days using the links located in the upper left of the image above.

For example, we have our ads turned off on weekends and all weekdays are scheduled to run from 8 am to 3 pm.

When you are editing a clump of days like “weekdays” - simply click the “add another time period” link to run split schedules for your ads…for example, I want to run my ads from 1am to 1:15am and 5pm to 5:15pm so I would start with the 1am schedule and add another time period of 5-5:15pm.

Click Add when you’re done then save your schedule and you’re off to scheduling another campaign! It’s that easy!

MSN Ad Scheduling

MSN, being the usual culprit with usability, takes a few more clicks to find your ad scheduling…

Click the campaign tab (or click on your account), Click your campaign, click your ad group, click Settings, scroll down to the bottom and you will see your scheduling options -

Simply click on “Select specific…” radio buttons and MSN will load the scheduling options you see in the image - and that’s the total flexibility of MSN. You CAN select more than one option so you can still run a split schedule, turn off ads on the weekend, turn the ads of every other day, run the ads at midday and in the evening…etc.

Remember to SAVE your changes when you’re done and you’re set to schedule ads for another campaign in MSN!

Sometimes click costs are cheaper in the early evening or at another time of the day so we will run a schedule that takes advantages of the times that cost the least. At other times that doesn’t matter to a client but the business hours do matter - you only want to run the campaign while you can answer the phone and email…there are a variety of reasons to use scheduling.

That’s a wrap for Pay Per Click Advertising Tip #13 - Ad Scheduling. Enjoy!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

Site exclusion and domain blocking are the “negative keywords” of the content network. You might find that the content network can be very profitable if you exclude/block certain domains from showing your ads.

A detailed description of how to find sites you want to exclude from the content network will be in our upcoming Pay Per Click Advertising tips…but for now, you can check for referrers in Analytics or run reports to find out where clicks are coming from on the content network.

Some tips to keep in mind when finding sites to exclude:

1. Exclude your own site if you run AdSense or Yahoo! Search Marketing ads on your site. Why would you want to pay for somebody to click an ad that simply points right back to your site? I know it is silly…but I have witnessed it again and again and again!

2. Make sure you measure conversions - you probably don’t want to exclude a site that is generating sales for you…just because it shows up as a high volume referrer doesn’t mean you should automatically exclude it. A good example is Ezine websites. I almost excluded a HUGE referrer for one of my clients because I noticed how much it was costing. I did a little digging and found that conversions were extremely cheap from that referrer even though I thought it looked like junk traffic after glancing at the initial stats.

3. Consistently check your referrers for sites to exclude. Your budget gets reallocated each time you exclude a site so you can, and probably will, find new sites to exclude for a while so don’t “set it and forget it”.

Google AdWords Site Exclusion

There are two ways to access the Site Exclusion tool in AdWords -

1. After logging into AdWords, simply click on Tools under your Campaign Management tab and find the Site Exclusion link…

Simply choose the campaign you want to use site exclusion for and list the sites you want to exclude! It’s that easy!

2. Click into a campaign from your Campaign Management -> Campaign Summary page and click on “add” next to excluded sites under your basic campaign details…

List the sites you want to exclude, save them and you’re ready to wait for new data!

Yahoo! Search Marketing Domain Blocking

I love Yahoo!’s domain blocking because it blocks sponsored search AND content network ads from showing on the domains you list - I like it because you have probably seen some parked domain referrers that typically end up being junk referrers.

It’s easy to block domains in Yahoo!.

After you log into Yahoo! Search Marketing, click on Administration, then click Submit Domains next to the Blocked Domains option under your Account General Information section…

Write in the domains you want to block and hit submit - it’s that easy!

adCenter

Oh yeah…adCenter is lagging a little on this feature - unless I missed an announcement since they released their content network from beta last year?

Now you can exclude and block ads from showing on specific domains - use this tool to improve your ROI on your content campaigns!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

Adding a conversion code to your thank you page or confirmation page gives you greater depth in understanding and calculating your pay per click ROI.

Conversion tracking is actually a quick, simple and free process but we run into a lot of businesses and individuals that have not implemented it yet.

Google AdWords

When you log into AdWords you end up on the Account Snapshot screen or your Campaign Summary screen…simply click on the Conversion Tracking link below the main Campaign Management tab and Google walks you through the simple steps to adding the conversion tracking code to your site.

Here is their flash tour.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

When you log into Yahoo! Search Marketing you end up in the Dashboard. Yahoo! doesn’t make their conversion page easy to find so here is a little more detail on getting a Yahoo! conversion code - then you will want to follow the insertion instructions from Google…simply put the code tag from Yahoo! in front of the /body tag on your thank you or confirmation pages.

1. Click on the Administration tab.

2. Click on the Analytics link.

3. Enable Analytics.

4. You will have the option to Activate “Conversion Only” analytics…I recommend doing that, especially if you’re already using Google Analytics or another Analytics package.

5. The code will be on the same page! Simply copy and paste that code into your conversion page. If you want to add a value to each conversion, use the drop down menu right above the conversion code Yahoo! gives you and select Constant Average Value to insert the constant value each conversion is expected to bring.

Microsoft adCenter

I can’t hide the disappointment I have for adCenter…getting the tracking code is a pain! Here are the instructions though:

1. When you log into adCenter you land on an Account Summary page - click on the Campaigns tab and click on any campaign.

2. Click into any Ad Group. The first Ad Group page you see is the Keywords page…

3. Click on the Settings Tab.

4. The first set of data are your Campaign Settings…you should see the Campaign Name and Time Zone.

5. Click on Advanced Options right below Time Zone in your Campaign Settings - I know, we are actually in the Ad Group and it doesn’t make sense to me either.

6. Put a check mark in the Track Conversions box and the tracking code will show up!

7. Finally! You can copy that code into your conversion pages and you will start to see conversions being counted in your MSN reports…

Now you can quickly see how much each conversion is costing AND you can track each conversion back to specific keywords whenever you review your Google, Yahoo! and MSN pay per click reports!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

In Tip #6 we discussed the idea that you will want to target transactional keywords.

How do you expand your transactional keyword list? It really boils down to doing good keyword research.

Free Keyword Suggestion Tools You Will Need

KeywordDiscovery - We subscribe to KeywordDiscovery.

WordTracker - This is our second favorite keyword research tool.

SEOBook’s Keyword Suggestion Tool - A great tool to analyze trends and more.

We will regularly use at least two of these tools to get an average of what we think the real search query volumes are for a specific term. Another one we used and enjoyed was the keyword tool WordZe.

How To Find Transactional Keywords

1. Write down the top 3 to 5 most general transactional search terms you can think of for your product/service.

2. Research one term/phrase at a time in any of the keyword suggestion tools listed above.

3. Copy and paste or write down the additional keywords that fit your transactional keyword profile from the results you get from the keyword suggestion tools.

4. Repeat steps two and three for your additional terms and you will soon have a good list of transactional keywords to advertise with!

5. At some point you will want to stop finding keywords - Warning: This process can get addictive…

6. Group your keywords according to theme and start testing ads and conversion rates for these terms.

7. Rinse and repeat!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

Geo-targeting is a good buzz word for local businesses. In fact, we run into local businesses every day that completely dismissed the idea of marketing on the Internet because they didn’t realize the power they had to target their products to the local market!

You can advertise to people within 1 mile of your business with Google by targeting a physical location and radius around that location:

1. Log in to Google AdWords and find your campaign settings. The settings can be found by visiting your campaign summary page, putting a check mark in the box next to the campaign you want to edit, then simply click the button above the campaign name that says “edit settings”.

2. Scroll down to the mid-right side of the Campaign Settings page and find your Target Audience section. In this section you will see two subsections - languages and locations. Click on the “edit” button next to the locations subsection:

AdWords Campaign Settings Locations

3. A warning pops up - read it carefully and decide if you need to save anything before continuing, then click OK and you should be viewing a page that gives you Locations Targeting Options at the top.

4. Click on “Change Option”, read a warning and decide if you want to click ok to continue - you can hit cancel on the next screen if you don’t want to change anything…

5. Choose Regions and Cities if you want to target any city or choose Customized if you need to target a specific zip code or radius around a physical location (we’re going to choose Regions and Cities):

Geo Targeting Options in Google AdWords

6. After you hit continue, you will see a list of Regions and Cities to choose from OR you can write in a city by choosing the radio button labeled “Cities” if you do not see it in the pre-populated list:

Regions and Cities you can target in Google AdWords

7. Clicking continue will take you back to “Edit Settings” where you will want to scroll to the bottom and click “Save Settings”.

It’s that simple!

Here is what your ads will look like to your local audience when they search for your product or service and you geo targeted the campaign - remember, NO ONE else can see your ads unless they have an IP address in your geo targeted area…for example, I am in East Idaho but my IP is from West Idaho or Boise so I see ads targeted to the Boise locale:

Geo Targeted Ad for Boise Area

Geo Targeted Ad for the State of Idaho

I simply searched for “Toyota Camry” and “car insurance” respectively and these ads were displayed with an extra line stating the location of my IP dependent upon the advertisers targeting method…the extra line that lists the city or State adds relevancy to a searcher and they are more likely to click on your ad - I like to say that you get more Google search results real estate when you use geo targeting!

Improving your Click Through Rate (CTR) will improve your Quality Score which will lower your costs - AND you typically stand out among your competitors! Try it, go search for your product and see how many competitors are geo targeting your audience!

Start taking customers from your competitors by geo targeting today!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

This is a fancy little trick that can drive click-through rates up and improve your quality score. Be careful with it though…it can eat your budget up if you don’t use other strategies with it to avoid irrelevant visitors/search queries.

This is what Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) looks like from the advertiser side - specific to Google AdWords most popular DKI settings (using the keyword “potato” where you would ordinarily insert your advertiser’s keyword):

{keyword: potato}

every letter will be lower case

{Keyword: potato}

Just the first letter in the search query will be capitalized.

{KeyWord: potato}

The First Letter Of Every Word Will Be Capitalized.

Here is a screen shot of what this will look from your account:

Why do you need to put a keyword inside the brackets?

Editorial guidelines state that the Headline is limited to a specific number of characters. Whenever a search query is performed that exceeds that limit, the keyword you insert between the brackets is the default Headline - otherwise, if the search query is within editorial guidelines, your user’s search query will be the new Headline to your ad making it more relevant to them at the moment they are searching!

My search for “ppc campaign management” returns this ad:

“ppc ad management” returns this ad:

“ppc advertising management company” returns the default ad because the search query exceeds the character limits of the ad guidelines:

Simple, right?

Here are a couple key things to remember when using DKI with AdWords:

1. You need to insert the keywords that you want to display using DKI into the Ad Group - for example, semvironment is advertising on the specific keyword “ppc management”; if we use DKI in our ads and the ONLY keyword we have in our ad group is “ppc management”, then when somebody searches for “ppc ad management” our ad will show up with the default Headline “Ppc Management” instead of “Ppc Ad Management”.

2. Always use Dynamic Keyword Insertion with caution - mix other strategies with it so you don’t lose your wallet to irrelevant, non-converting clicks. Add a lot of negative keywords to ensure you are going to maximize the use of DKI. Also, control your bidding.

Google will display the search query (if it is within editorial guidelines) in your headline or ad text or display url.

Yahoo! is really nice about Dynamic Keyword Insertion - it is typically displayed on your ad creation page right below every text box so you can simply click it and enter the default keyword you want, then Yahoo! fills it in for you:

After clicking on that, you see a box that has this in it:

The ads in Yahoo! will display the search query as your headline or ad text - depending on where you put your dynamic keyword insertion.

As always, test every tip you can to see if they work for your industry/business!

For kicks and giggles…Ebay and Amazon use DKI and you can find some gems out there like this:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

You know it, you’ve heard it before, and the number always changes:

You have 3 to 7 seconds to capture the attention of your potential prospect and get them to click on your ad.

What are they doing in that 3 to 7 seconds? They’re scanning headlines, blue links, and possibly domains…if you want them to read more, you have to have a relevant, compelling headline.

I used the search query “HP Printers” for the following opinions.

Bad Headline

Sometimes, a bad headline can be self explanatory. I was looking for the generally specific item “hp printers”…not home and business gifts! Lucky advertiser because they don’t have to pay for impressions. Not so lucky advertiser because they probably get a lot of clicks from people that realize it wasn’t what they were looking for.

Good Headline

This headline is very relevant to my search query. I was looking for “HP Printers” and that is exactly what I got. The simple fact that I was already intent on looking for HP Printers makes it easy to create a good headline for me. All you have to do is make the headline the same as my search query and chances are high that I’ll click on your ad and like what I see…and I might even buy something, that is what you want - right?

Great Headlines

Almost every ad had the bold headline “HP Printers” so there was not any headline differentiation for that search query. Here are a few headlines I would test to see if I can pull clicks and conversions away from my competition:

New HP Printers

Quality HP Printers

Buy HP Printers

Order HP Printers

HP Printers On Sale

Quality HP Printers

Take Action

Learn these basic principles for writing headlines and you can improve your click through rate - and your conversion rate:

1. Give the user what they want - make it easy for them to visit your landing page by specifically including your targeted keyword or words in the headline.

2. Be a unique competitor by adding a descriptive word, emotional word, or call to action in your headline.

3. Don’t forget rules 1 and 2.

More Resources

Copyblogger’s Headline Category - A lot of great blog posts about writing headlines.

Headline Analyzer - Advanced Marketing Institute created this fun tool for analyzing headlines (not specific to ads).

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

You should be aggressively advertising on the search engines with transactional keywords.

There are several different types of keywords: discovery, research, branded, transactional, etc.

Transactional keywords are words or phrases that you search for when you are ready to buy.

Example

User 1 visits Google and types in “bicycle“.

User 2 visits Google and types in “cannondale rockhopper“.

The intent of User 1 isn’t very clear - it’s quite broad, actually, but we can make a few educated deductions here…

First, the term “bicycle” is not specific.

Second, the intent of the searcher is unfocused - we don’t know if the person is looking to buy a bicycle or learn about them.

Finally, we can see that Google produced relevant results and they consist of sites that have a heavy knowledge base and very little retail base. Good examples here are: Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks, Answers.com, and Britannica.

Image - Bicycle Search Results (Click for a big picture)

This keyword does not appear to be very transactional.

Logically, ‘bicycle” would NOT be a great keyword to advertise on if you are on a limited budget. Advertisers you see advertising on this term are wal-mart.com, shopping.aol.com, and other large advertisers.

The intent of User 2 is still somewhat fuzzy BUT there is a lot more clarity to what the intent of the searcher could be so the probability of it being transactional is higher…

First, this query is quite specific in nature.

Second, the intent of the searcher is very focused on a specific bicycle type and brand. We know what the individual is looking for - the fuzzy part is that we don’t know if they are in a late research phase or if they are ready to buy. Either way, this term is much more specific; therefore, it is leaning heavily towards producing a transaction.

Finally, we can see the nature of Google’s results indicate it is a very transactional term. The funny thing about this example is that the natural results are very relevant. You can see a craigslist result listing the cannondale rockhopper for sale, a bicycle shop in the UK, and a forum question regarding a purchaser’s choice between the different cannondale rockhoppers - there aren’t ANY advertisements!

Image - Cannondale Rockhopper Search Results (Click for a big picture)

This keyword appears to be transactional!

While the search volume might not be high, it could easily be worth it to advertise on this term (or any transactional term) because the chances are higher that you will get a return on your investment on a transactional keyword vs. a discovery/research keyword.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

I recommend to almost every client that we set up a separate folder or directory for pay per click advertising landing pages that should not be crawled by the search engines.

Why?

Two simple reasons why this makes sense:

1. Testing. You should consistently test your message, your headline, the copy of the page, the images, etc. Most of the time, A/B testing is going to be the preferred method - especially if you are making dramatic changes to the design OR if your ads don’t get 1000+ views in a relatively short time period.

Because you are conducting A/B tests, or IF you conduct A/B tests, you will be creating pages that have duplicate content that is displayed differently and the search engines might pick them all up and toss the ones that convert the best and index or attribute the duplicate content to the wrong page - the page that doesn’t convert.

That is not a chance I’m willing to take.

Simply use robots.txt to disallow the specific landing page folder/directory from being crawled - and if you’re extra cautious, you can include the robots meta tag although the robots.txt file does a really good job at keeping the search bots out.

2. Organized Design. Sometimes you will create a “mini” site - only two or three pages that consist of the landing page, the confirmation page, and a privacy/disclosure page. Keeping everything in a nice little bundle makes it easy to vary the design and copy without changing your entire site’s design every time you want to test something!

Having this degree of control will improve your results beyond PPC. For example, you might find that a certain headline converts 20% better than another - you would simply move that headline over to the search optimized portion of your site and you will have a good chance of improving your organic conversion rates!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

Google’s Broad Match is similar to Yahoo!’s Advanced Match.

Here is a good example of Broad Match targeting:

You choose to advertise on the Broadly Matched term “car security”.

Whenever anybody searches “car security”, your ad could show up.

Your ad could also show up for the following terms -

auto security

vehicle security

security systems for cars

free car audio security

car security system(s)

buick security system

You can see that targeting a broadly matched keyword is simply telling Google to loosely identify with that keyword.

Here is how you can make AdWords Broad Match terms work for you:

1. Be more specific with your key term or phrase. The more specific you are, the less broad Google can be.

2. Write down all the words that would NOT be the words you want to target and add them as “negative” match keywords.

3. Be specific with your ad - what will the person find when they click through to your site?

The biggest takeaway you can have about Broad Matching in Google is this: Use broad match properly and it can make you lots of money because it is typically less expensive than phrase or exact match keywords.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!