Presentation for the America Outdoors Association. Dec. 4, 2012. Daytona Beach, FL

1. Pay Per Click 101
America Outdoors 2012
Elizabeth Marsten
@ebkendo
elizabeth@portent.com

3. IN 2011, GOOGLE SEARCH AND ADVERTISING TOOLS
GENERATED $80 BILLION IN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
ACROSS THE U.S.

4. What is PPC?

5. v

6. How PPC Works

7. •Advertisers visit the search engine’s PPC login page.
•Advertisers create ads to show and list out the keywords
they want associated with that ad.
•Advertisers set how much they want to spend each day
and how much they want to spend every time an ad is
clicked.
•Search engines then show the ads when relevant searches
that match the advertiser’s keywords are shown.

8. PPC Pros

9. •Results come in quick
•Cost is easy to control
•You decide what words to bid on
•You write the ads
•Changes are easy to make and upload fast
•There’s an on/off switch
•No contracts
•There is customer service/tech support for most
issues
•It can be the cheapest form of advertising
•Visitors are a targeted user- they searched for
you!

10. PPC Cons

11. •It’s not for every industry
•Assume that whatever money you set aside for it, is
spent
•It can be confusing
•If your industry is competitive, it may not be any
cheaper than any other method of advertising
•Competitive industries require competitive budgets
to match
•Have to be aware and watch for click fraud

12. Is PPC For You?

13. Consider your advertising budget
•If a lead or sale is worth $100 to you now,
how much can you spend to get that sale?
•Is that amount enough to buy the clicks
you’ll need?
•Can visitors actually convert?
•Do you have tracking set up?
•Do you have the time set aside to really give
it a try?

15. Information Overload

16. STRUCTURE
KEYWORDS
ADS
QUALITY SCORE

17. STRUCTURE

18. PPC Account Structure
Account
Campaign Campaign
Ad Group Ad Group Ad Group Ad Group
Ads/ Ads/ Ads/ Ads/
Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword
List List List List

19. ACCOUNT
CAMPAIGN
AD GROUP

20. Campaign Set Up
• The campaign is the vessel for your ad groups and where
most of the settings are. Budget, geography, networks,
negative keywords, time of day/days of the week and
devices.
• Pick a category, place or brand that you want to group
you ad groups under.
• Go narrow enough so that you’ll need to have a few ad
groups under it, but not so narrow for only one ad group
and not so broad that you’ll need 3,000.

21. Ad Groups
Use the keyword niches you plan on targeting
to determine how many and which ad groups
you’ll need to create.
THINK RELEVANCY

22. KEYWORDS

23. KEYWORD
NEGATIVE KEYWORD
MATCH TYPE

24. How to Pick Keywords
•Start with a single product or service that you want
advertise for.
•Ask yourself how you would search for that item or how
someone else might.
•Search under a few of queries in Google and see what else
comes up. Are the results related to what you’re going to be
advertising for?
•If so, then you’ve found your niche
•From there, build a keyword list of keywords that are similar
to your chosen keyword.

25. Negative Keywords
The words or phrases you don’t want associated with
that ad group or campaign.
For example: cheap, free, download, sample, coupon,
do it yourself

26. Keyword Match Types
•Broad- shows for plurals, singulars and well,
everything related.
•Phrase- shows for plurals, but also pays attention to
word order.
•Exact- shows for exact and that’s it.
•Modified Broad- uses an “anchor” keyword, more
exposure than phrase match, but more controlled than
broad match alone.

27. Keyword Examples: Broad
Seed phrase: dog collars
 Would show for: dog collars, pink collars, small
dog collars, collars for dogs
Doesn’t honor word order, can match synonyms or
part of a phrase, related searches.

28. Keyword Examples: Phrase
Seed phrase: dog collars
 Would show for: dog collars, small dog collars,
dog collars on sale
Honors word order, can match synonyms or part of
a phrase.

29. Keyword Examples: Exact
Seed phrase: dog collars
 Would show for: dog collars, dog collar
Honors word order, must be exact or close variant
of.

30. Keyword Examples: Modified Broad
Seed phrase: +dog +collars
 Would show for: dog collars, dog collar, small
dog collars, collars for dogs
Doesn’t honor word order, no synonyms or related
searches, must contain anchored words.

31. GEO-TARGETING
NETWORKS

32. Geo-Targeting
By default, Canada and the USA are bundled together
Target by Neilson DMA, city, state, zip code, congressional
district, radius or country.

33. Networks: Search

34. Networks: Display/Content

35. ADS

36. TEXT ADS
IMAGE ADS
PRODUCT LISTING ADS

37. Best Practice Text Ads
#1 Use a keyword from your list in the headline and in the body

38. Dynamic Insertion

39. Best Practice Image Ads

40. Best Practice Product Listing Ads

41. QUALITY SCORE

42. AdWords Quality Score
Google’s 1-10 scale for determining relevancy.
Keywords have QS visibly listed in the AdWords
interface.
Ads, ad groups and accounts also have a quality
score.

43. What Makes Up Quality Score?
•The historical CTR of the keyword and the matched ad.
•Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads
and keywords in your account .
•The historical CTR of the display URL in the ad group.
•The quality of the landing page.
•The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group.
•The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search
query.
•Your account's performance in the geographical region where the
ad will be shown.
•Other relevance factors.
*Google AdWord’s AdWords Help Center

44. Bing Ads Quality Score
Bing’s 1-10 scale for determining relevancy
within your account against the marketplace.
Keywords have QS visibly listed in the Bing Ads
interface.
Uses keyword relevance, landing page, user
experience and historic QS to calculate.

45. HOW TO MANAGE A
PPC ACCOUNT

46. THE CARDINAL RULES

47.  Each search engine will try and differentiate itself by using different
names for features, roll out tools and best practices but the basics of
PPC remain the same across all of them.
 Always separate out Search, Content/Display and possibly Partner
networks.
 Always set a budget you are comfortable with.
 Double check the setting for WHERE your ad is showing,
geographically speaking.
 Add negative keywords.
 Do NOT set it and forget it. Always check in.
 Send users to the best page possible, don’t dump them off on the
home page for every ad.
 A strong foundation (account that is properly configured) will bring
you the most success in the long term.

48. A TO DO LIST

49. Give data a chance to collect (100 clicks rule)
Check the budget/spend month to date
Edit or add new ads
Add keywords
Change match types
Pause keywords
Add negative keywords
Check the destination URL (landing page)
Bids for the ad group and keyword levels
Time of day or geographic scheduling
Average ad position
Quality Score
Account structure

50. Elizabeth Marsten
@ebkendo
elizabeth@portent.com

51. Q&A