Pay-Per-Click
Search Engine
Marketing:
An Hour a Day
David Szetela
Joseph Kerschbaum
WILEY
Contents
Foreword ... xxxi
Introduction xxxiii
Chapter 1 The Art and Science of PPC Advertising 1
PPC and Direct Advertising Fundamentals 2
Components of a Successful PPC Campaign 5
Keywords 6 Ads 6 Bid Prices 7 Landing Pages 8 Conversion Path 10
PPC Campaign Uses 10
The Science of PPC 11
The Art of PPC 12
The State of the PPC Industry 13
Chapter 2 How the PPC Machine Works 17
Think Like a Search Engine 18
How and Where Ads Appear on SERPs 19
How Advertisements Are Triggered 20 How Advertisements Are Ranked 21 How Keyword Match Types Work 27
How Ads Appear on the Google Content Network 30
After the Click 33
Chapter 3 Core PPC Skills and Objectives 37
Learn Scientific Advertising and Ad Copywriting 38
Know Thy Customer 40
Ask the Right Questions 40 How Do Potential Customers Search? 41 What If There's No Search? 45
Chapter 4 Month 1—Research Keywords and Establish Campaign Structure
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Week 1: Research Keywords 50
Monday: Defining Personas 50 Tuesday: Using Keyword Research Tools 51 Wednesday: Using Your Best Keyword Source—Your Intuition, and Reports 60 Thursday: Permuting and Concatenating 62 Friday: Researching Your Competitor's Keywords 63
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Week 2: Create Your Campaign Structure
Monday and Tuesday: Planning Your Campaign and Ad Group Structure Wednesday: Determining the Number and Granularity of Ad Groups Thursday: Getting Acquainted with AdWords Editor
Friday: Building Out the Campaign
Week 3: Adjust Campaign Settings
Monday: Setting Budgets and Delivery Methods
Tuesday and Wednesday: Setting Your Bidding Strategy and Options Thursday: Targeting Networks and Devices
Friday: Using Ad Scheduling and Geo-Targeting
Week 4: Use Conversion Tracking and Set Click Pricing
Monday: Setting Up Conversion Tracking Tuesday: Setting Up Google Analytics Wednesday: Testing Conversion Tracking
Thursday: Determining Your Starting Keyword Bids Friday: Setting Keyword Bids
Chapter 5 Month 2-Create Great PPC Ads
Week 5: T a k e Stock of Your A d v a n t a g e s . . . . ' . Monday: Surveying Your Competition
Tuesday and Wednesday: Listing Your Own Advantages and Benefits Thursday: Creating Causes for Urgency
Friday: Collecting Your Resources
Week 6: Write Right
Monday: The Fundamentals
Tuesday: The Headline—The Most Important Characters Wednesday: Line 1—Features and Benefits
Thursday: Line 2—Urgent Calls to Action Friday: The Display URL
Week 7: Explore Industry Examples
Monday: The Single-Product Retailer Tuesday: The Multiple-Product Retailer Wednesday: The B2B Service Provider Thursday: The Professional Services Provider Friday: The Financial Services Provider
Week 8: Understand Ads for the Content N e t w o r k . Monday and Tuesday: Writing Contextual Text Ads
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Good-Better-Best
Wednesday: Writing Static Banner Ads Thursday: Creating Animated Banner Ads Friday: Advertising on YouTube
Friday Night: Taking Stock
Chapter 6 Month 3—Design Effective Landing Pages
Week 9: Understand the Differences between Site Pages and Landing Pages
Monday and Tuesday: One Store, Many Entrances Wednesday: The ADHD Site Visitor
Thursday: The Golden Triangle
Friday: The Risky Business of Landing Page Links Week 10: Create the Mock-up
Monday: Start with the Golden Triangle Tuesday: Bullet Points, Not Paragraphs Wednesday: The Hero Shot
Thursday: Action, Trust, and Privacy Friday: Sample B2C and B2B Mock-ups Week 11: Lay It All Out
Monday: If It's Not Helping, It's Hurting Tuesday and Wednesday: Form Design Thursday: Error Trapping and Handling Friday: Spouse Testing before Deployment Week 12: Design for Testing
Monday: Decide on Test Elements
Tuesday: Headlines, Subheadlines, and Hero Shots
Wednesday: Action Buttons, Bullet Points, and Form Elements Thursday: Testing Never Stops
Friday: Simple A/B Testing /
Chapter 7 Month 4—Advertise on the Google Content Network
Week 13: Understand Google Contextual Advertising . . . Monday: Ad Types and Sizes
Tuesday: Ad Formats
Wednesday and Thursday: Why Search Ads Don't Work on the Content Network
Friday: Demand Generation vs. Search Satisfaction Week 14: Build Keyword-Targeted Ad Groups Monday and Tuesday: Why Keywords Are Different Wednesday: Building Your Keyword List
Thursday: Demographic Bidding Friday: Ad-Frequency Capping
Week 15: Build Placement-Targeted Ad Groups Monday: Placement Targeting
Tuesday: Choosing Sites and Placements with the Placement Tool
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162 165 170 171 173 173 174 n o z - I m Z HWednesday: Other Tools for Choosing Sites for Placements Thursday: Bidding Considerations
Friday: Separating Ad Types into Ad Groups
Week 16: Launch and Refine Your Content Campaign. . .
Monday: Flipping the Switch—Campaign-Management Checklist Tuesday:"Placement Performance Report
Wednesday: Site and Category Exclusion Thursday: Enhanced Ad Groups
Friday: Flipping the Switch (Again) and Judging Performance
Chapter 8 Month 5—Launch Your Campaign
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Week 17: Bid Your Brands
Monday: Your Brand May Be Weaker than You Think Tuesday: Brand and Domain Name Variations Wednesday: URL Variations
Thursday: Competitor Legal and Ethical Issues Friday: Competitor-Name Ad Groups
Week 18: Make Prelaunch Double-Checks
Monday: Budgets and Bid Prices Tuesday: Campaign Settings
Wednesday: Keywords—The Broad-Match Stomp Thursday: Verify Ad Destination URLs
Friday: Launching Initial Ad Testing
Week 19: Flip the Switch
Monday and Tuesday: Launching All Your Campaigns at Once? Wednesday: Are Your CTRs High Enough?
Thursday and Friday: Are You Reaching Your Target Conversion Rates and Costs?
Week 20: Perform Early Course-Correction
Monday: Activating Additional Ad Groups Tuesday: Adjusting Ad Group and Keyword Bids
Wednesday: Adding Keyword Variations to Winning Ad Groups Thursday and Friday: Adjusting Campaign Budget Limits
Chapter 9 Month 6—Optimize Your Campaign
Week 21: Review Your Top-Level Reports . .
Monday: Campaign and Ad Group Reports Tuesday: Network Distribution Reports Wednesday: Ad Performance Reports Thursday: URL Performance Reports
Friday: Placement/Keyword Performance Reports
Week 22: Review Your Deep-Level Reports .
Monday: Search Query Reports Tuesday: Impression Share Reports
Wednesday: Geographic Performance Reports Thursday: Placement Performance Reports Friday: Reach and Frequency Performance Reports
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226 229 231 233 236Week 23: Create Additional Useful Reports 236 Monday: Quality Score Reports 236 Tuesday: Demographic Performance Reports 236 Wednesday and Thursday: Google Analytics Reports 237 Friday: The My Change History Report 238 Week 24: Act on Your"Data and Optimize Your Account 239 Monday and Tuesday: Improving Your CTR 239 Wednesday: Improving Your Quality Score 241 Thursday and Friday: Improving Your Conversion Rate 242
Chapter 10 Month 7—Test Ads by Using Advanced Techniques 247
Week 25: Implement Advanced Text Ad Design 248 Monday: Google Dynamic Keyword Insertion 248 Tuesday: Ad Sitelinks 253 Wednesday: Product Extensions 256 Thursday: Product Listings 257 Friday: Local Extensions 259
Week 26: Insert Ad Text Symbols 261 x™
Monday: Bullets and Squares 262 n
Tuesday and Wednesday: Multiple Characters in One 262 § Thursday and Friday: Non-English Punctuation and Random Characters 263 m
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Week 27: Use Google Content Nontext Ads 263 5 Monday and Tuesday: Static and Animated Banner Ads 264
Wednesday: Video Ads 266 Thursday: Mobile Banners 270 Friday: Banner Fatigue and Ad Rotation 272 Week 28: Perform Advanced Ad Testing 273 Monday: Set Up Split Tests , 273 Tuesday: Know What to Split Test 275 Wednesday and Thursday: Conduct Initial A/B Split Testing 278 Friday: Reflect on the Outcome of the Test 283
Chapter 11 Month 8—Test and Optimize Landing Pages 285
Week 29: Plan Your Tests 286 Monday: Prioritizing Test Elements 286 Tuesday: Testing Headlines 286 Wednesday: Testing Body Copy 288 Thursday: Testing Offers 290 Friday: Testing Other Elements of Your Landing Page 290 Week 30: Use Google Website Optimizer 294 Monday and Tuesday: Introducing Google Website Optimizer 294 Wednesday and Thursday: Tagging Pages for Google Website Optimizer 296 Friday: Validating Your Pages 298 Week 31: Conduct A/B and Multivariate Tests 298 Monday and Tuesday: Using A/B Split Testing 298 Wednesday and Thursday: Using Multivariate Testing 300 Friday: Choosing the Right Test Method 302
Week 32: Report and Interpret Results
Monday and Tuesday: Reporting in Google Website Optimizer Wednesday and Thursday: Interpreting Test Results
Friday: Reaching the End of Your Landing Page Testing
Chapter 12 Month 9^-Migrate Your Campaign to Microsoft and Yahoo!
Why Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter Matter Different Look, Same Strategy
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Week 33: Understand YSM Differences and Advantages. . . . Monday: Standard and Advanced Match Types
Tuesday: Geo-targeting
Wednesday: Ad Types and Lengths Thursday: Ad Scheduling
Friday: Demographic Targeting
Week 34: Understand Microsoft adCenter Differences and Advantages
Monday: Keyword Match Types Tuesday: Geo-targeting
Wednesday: Ad Types and Lengths Thursday: Ad Scheduling Friday: Demographic Targeting
Week 35: Create Google AdWord Exports
Monday and Tuesday: Creating the Root CSV from AdWords Editor Wednesday and Thursday: Creating the Root CSV from Yahoo! Friday: Creating the Root CSV from adCenter
Week 36: Upload and Fine-Tune Monday: Uploading into Yahoo!
Tuesday: Troubleshooting Yahoo! Import Problems Wednesday: Uploading into adCenter
Thursday and Friday: Reviewing Campaign Uploads
Appendix A Advanced AdWords Editor
What Is AdWords Editor? Getting Started
Opening and Downloading Your Account Downloading Campaign Statistics Uploading Your Changes
Navigating, Editing, and Expanding Your Campaigns Saving Time with AdWords Editor
Find and Replace Detailed Ad Text Changes
Spreadsheets Are Still Important Backup Files (AEA)
Export Changes (AES)
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Export Spreadsheet (CSV) 359 Global Edits 359 Upload to Yahoo! or MSN 360 Import Changes 360
Working with General Tools 360
Find Duplicate Keywords Tool — 360 Keyword Grouper 361 Keyword Opportunities 362