Google Adwords Campaign

Fellow Entrepreneurs, internet marketers, and small business owners, I need some help!

I’m launching a new web-based company and have gotten to the point in writing my business plan in which concerns marketing. I would like to build this section into a comprehensive marketing plan, as we all know, it is so important for an internet based company to succeed. This being my first business, it will also be my first time running an Ad campaign using Google Adwords and I’m looking for any and all advice!

Im looking into two set of different targeting key words. One, specifically to target the low amount, niche, high return potential customers and the keywords they would be looking for. The second, a more generalized set of words to drive traffic up and increase awareness of the site.

A little background info:
The business will be selling Digital Cameras, Lenses, memory products, bags and other various accessories. More specifically, those only of Canon,Nikon, and Sony and on the mid to higher end of the spectrum concerning price and quality (i.e. DSLR’s, pro lens etc… NO Point and Shoots).

If you guys have any pointers or would be willing to get together for a cup of coffee I would be greatly appreciative!!

Hi Mobilityin11
I wish you the best of luck in starting your new web based business! I highly recommend a book called “Crush it” by Gary Vaynerchuk which can be found at garyvaynerchuk.com He has a new book coming out in March called “The Thank you Economy” which im expecting to be even better than his first book. Crush it teaches social media/marketing in such a way that anyone willing to do hard work can be successful at marketing a small business. Hope this helps you!

If you haven’t used adwords before then start with a small budget and spread it around.
The key is to measure measure measure
You want to know what brings traffic to the site but more importantly what brings paying traffic
It may be worth paying more for certain words if they bring in the buyers, and nothing at all for words which bring lots of browsers

This post is probably going to be very long, but if you can understand and implement it, it is going to make your business successful, here we go…

I am going to assume your market is going to be in the US, that’s why you are using adwords instead of YSM, as you are probably aware, YSM is more popular in Taiwan.

Google has the most volume, but also mostly researchers looking for info, go ahead and do your keyword research and test your keywords on yahoo/bing. As far as conversion rate goes, yahoo/bing tops google, but google has volume. yahoo/bing is also cheaper.

Tip 1 - Test your keywords in bing/yahoo, find out what’s converting then import the converting keywords over to google

PPC algorithm goes like this… They give you some initial impressions depending on your keyword set to gauge your

  1. ad relevance
  2. ad ctr (click through rate)

after the initial stage, they assign you a quality score, if your ad is not related to your product or your ad not getting clicks (they are not making money), your quality score goes to shit and they either stop serving your ad or they you have to bid crazy high bid to get impression.

If you keep creating ad just to get free impressions, after a few sets of ads, your account will be banned and you can kiss your adword account goodbye and you won’t be able to create another one if you are banned. They track IP/credit card and everything to stop you from creating another account.

Tip 2 - forget about using ppc advertising for exposure, it is for performance marketers or branders with huge budget

If you want exposure, you are better off finding blogs and forums and buy banner spaces directly from the owners, cheaper, you can negotiate if you buy bulk, also no quality score bullshit you gotta worry about.

Set up your tracking, track every keyword from ad click to thank you page, split test everything and optimize your website. If you don’t have those set up, forget about ppc advertising.

Tip 3 - Track every single click and highly optimize your site for conversion.

Some tips on how to pick converting keywords, take coffee for example.

People searching for coffee - browsing mode, looking to buy/drink some coffee, doing research
People searching for starbucks coffee - research mode, they are done w/ initial research, decided they want starbucks coffee
People searching for Caramel Macchiato - buying mode, they are done with research, know what they want, ready to buy

Look at everything at the broad scale, think like a consumer, think about the entire research process when people buying your product, and find your golden, converting keyword from there. Set your base with converting keywords, so you don’t lose money like crazy from advertising, once you have your base set, expand it to browsing mode keywords for volume.

Tip 4 - Set your base w/ converting keywords and expand from there for volume.

Forget about broad match and phrase match, just do exact match then expand to phrase match and broad match once you know your ppc game inside out. You may not get as much volume from exact match, but unless you have a huge budget, just stick with exact match.

Tip 5 - exact match only at beginning

There is way more internet marketing / advertising you can do than just PPC, learning curve is going to be huge. Do not buy anything from those fucking gurus, they are useless, you can find everything on the internet for free and the best way to learn is to just spend money and test.

Some software you will need to be able to succeed.
Google analytics
google website optimizer
prosper202 <-- gear more towards affiliates, but it is a great tracking tool
alexa.com, google ad planner and quantcast

good luck in your new business.

Amazing guys, thanks for the pointers. Much appreciated. You were right on that my market will be based in the US to start, and I will run campaigns later for Taiwan on YSM and eventually hopefully in Mainland China with Baidu.

Jardini, your pointers are great :bravo: , I really appreciate it when you were referring to the broad match and phase match, are those simply two other optional codes that you can run such as the exact keyword match?

Also, I have begun working on a start list of keywords geared directly at conversion sales. I already have one list pretty much ready to go, and its running at around 200-250 keywords, most of them being specific models I am selling. Would you recommend this list of ‘model’ keywords to be a good one to begin the campaign with? I’m asking this coming off of your Starbucks coffee drinker example. It seems to me that purchasers of my products, especially since they are slightly higher end as well, would do a search for the exact model number when they were ready to purchase; just as the avid coffee consumer would search for the Carmel machiatto specifically when they were thirsty.

thanks again for the tips guys, I’ll keep posted how things run for me here when the campaign begins in the next week or so!

On another note, is your website language specific???For example, my website in Taiwan is both for Mandarin and English speakers. BUT, in terms of keywords, my users will change on a semi-annual basis. It is important to ask service providers about their language capabilities, many can do both asian and romanized, but how many can help you track those customers using bilingual services…If this isn’t something you are concerned about, don’t worry, it’s worth considering, as customers now are from all over the world.
The reference to blogs/chat rooms is excellent, comes down to word of mouth vs. ‘brick and mortar’/website

[quote=“mobilityin11”]Amazing guys, thanks for the pointers. Much appreciated. You were right on that my market will be based in the US to start, and I will run campaigns later for Taiwan on YSM and eventually hopefully in Mainland China with Baidu.

Jardini, your pointers are great :bravo: , I really appreciate it when you were referring to the broad match and phase match, are those simply two other optional codes that you can run such as the exact keyword match?

Also, I have begun working on a start list of keywords geared directly at conversion sales. I already have one list pretty much ready to go, and its running at around 200-250 keywords, most of them being specific models I am selling. Would you recommend this list of ‘model’ keywords to be a good one to begin the campaign with? I’m asking this coming off of your Starbucks coffee drinker example. It seems to me that purchasers of my products, especially since they are slightly higher end as well, would do a search for the exact model number when they were ready to purchase; just as the avid coffee consumer would search for the Carmel machiatto specifically when they were thirsty.

thanks again for the tips guys, I’ll keep posted how things run for me here when the campaign begins in the next week or so![/quote]

Google might be cheaper in TW since YSM is the dominant search engine in TW.

Baidu - from my understanding, you need permit from the government to run ad on it, someone please correct me if I am wrong.

matching options - adwords.google.com/support/aw/bi … nswer=6100
model# are the good to start off b/c they convert well, just like people searching for printer cartridge model #, you know they NEED it. They are also competitive, hope you have good margin to cover the initial clicks.