A reader wonders:

if my Adwords ad shows up on page 4 of a search, and the searcher never gets to page 4, does that count as an impression? It was potentially available to be seen, but the searcher quit before getting to page 4.

Or does an impression occur ONLY when the searcher actually views the page where my ad is located?

My response:

It’s only an impression if the searcher brings up the page with your ad on it. So in your example, if you’re on page 4 that doesn’t count as an impression.

That’s why, in your 80/20 AdWords management practice (described in AdWords For Dummies), you must check the average position of keywords after sorting by impressions descending. The total number of impressions is the limit of your market - unless you’re bidding too low to take advantage of the whole pool.

A reader wonders:

I took some of my most active keywords and moved them out of one ad group into their own ad specific ad group. The only problem is they are being copied with their crappy quality score intact. I was hoping they would generate a new, higher quality score in their own specialized ad group. Any way to circumvent the bad history and start a star out with a clean slate?

My reply:

Quality score is based on the interaction between keyword, ad, and landing page - and wrapped up in the overall quality assessment of your account and website. If you simply move a keyword into a new ad group with a different ad, you’ve changed only one small part of the equation.

If you create a different landing page specific to your keyword (one that follows Google’s guidelines), you will see an improvement in quality score as soon as Google sees your new keyword.

Now - some keywords are never going to have great quality scores, regardless of what you do. That’s because they have a “Google-wide” history of low CTR, or just don’t get searched much. In that case, realize that Google is grading on a curve, and that everyone bidding on that keyword is suffering the same indignity. All you have to do is be better than your competitors - you don’t need to see that Gold Star of “Great” next to every keyword.

So to answer your question - there’s no “clean slate.” There’s just improvement. But as long as you’re playing the game according to Google’s rules (which basically means aiming to give a good quality experience to the humans who see your ads), you should see better quality scores by adhering to the best practices Google preaches.

For a comprehensive guide to improving your quality score,

A reader wonders:

What are the advantages to running the ads only certain times during the day if you’re an information website?  In theory, you’d need the site accessible 24/7 for the individuals who don’t sleep.

My response:

You’re not turning off your website - it’s always available. The question is, are you making or losing money by showng your ads at some particular time of the week?

Ad scheduling serves three basic purposes:

1. Eliminate negative-ROI traffic streams

When you set up conversion tracking and run AdWords reports, you may discover that certain times of the day or days of the week, or combinations thereof, produce negative-ROI traffic. That is, you spend more to get the click than you make in sales from that click.

So once you discover that people searching at 2 in the morning aren’t serious buyers, you can save money by not showing your ads at night. Or weekends. Or whatever. Pay attention to patterns and let your market teach you.

2. Differentiate your message for daytime/nighttime or weekday/weekend audiences

If someone is searching online at 2am, their mindset may be very different from a 10am searcher. The nighttime visitor to your website may be more desperate and open to a more emotional appeal, while the daytime visitor may respond better to calm and rational sales copy. 

A weekend searcher may be looking for personal reasons, while a weekday searcher may be researching for a workplace project. 

You may get a stronger response by running multiple campaigns, with the ads and landing pages geared to the particular mindset of that traffic stream.

3. Capitalize on Event-Based or Media-Based Traffic

If you discover by running reports that certain times of day / days of the week bring you a specific traffic stream, you can schedule certain ads to run only when those traffic streams are running. For example, if you sell an ebook on picking stocks, your best converting traffic may occur right after Jim Cramer’s Mad Money show. So you could create a campaign that runs only from 6-8pm and 11pm-1am on weeknights.

Since this traffic is more motivated than other traffic, you can bid higher. You can also run ads specifically referring to Mad Money - and perhaps even change the ad daily to reflect that day’s show topic. 

Important: none of the examples I gave above necessarily have anything to do with your business. Don’t listen to me (or any expert) for advice about your market when you can get the true expert - your market - to tell you exactly what they want and don’t want. Set up conversion tracking and analytics, and you’ll start making decisions without doubt and second-guessing.

If you don’t understand how to read and take action on AdWords reports, check out the powerful Magic AdWords Button.

A reader wonders:

I have been using one particular keyword that has been garnering lots of impressions and clicks over the past 8 days.  Today, nothing. What happened?

My reply:

Several things may have happened. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Google may have reassessed your quality score. If it went from Great or OK to Poor, then your current bid may not be enough to put your ad on the first page of search results.

2. Did you activate position preferences? If so, you may be bidding for positions 4-6 while limited your ads to positions 1-2, for example. In that case, your ad would stop showing completely.

3. You may have new competition: more or higher bidders.

4. You may have maxed out your monthly budget a little early.

Here’s what I would do:

1. Show the quality score of your keyword. (The Look Over My Shoulder AdWords Video Series has a nice video tutorial on how to do this.) If it’s poor, then click the details link to find out why.

2. Use the Ad Diagnostic tool to see why your ad isn’t currently showing.

If neither of those methods reveals the path to keyword salvation, then you might want to reach out for help. You can try contacting AdWords help, or call in a pro. (Gentle plug: this sort of situation is exactly why I created the Ring of Fire coaching club. Included in the Ring of Fire is a Help Desk, manned by me, to get you the answers you need without having to hire me as a private consulting client.)

"Who is wise? One who learns from everyone."
- Pirkeh Avot (Sayings of the Ancestors)

So today I got a lesson in operational consistency from the US Postal Service: A letter with a label urging me to "NOTIFY SENDER OF NEW ADDRESS" - in which the label covers the sender’s address.

Brilliant.

So, armed with this ironic example of not-to-do, I examined my own site. First thing I noticed, thanks to an email from a reader who wanted to send me a testimonial but couldn’t find my email address: if you name your site "askHowie," then you should give people a way to contact you.

Duh.

Given time, I’m sure I can come up with a dozen more inconsistencies - operational elements that discourage my prospects and customers from doing what I want them to.

A useful exercise - I recommend it. If you find anything worth confessing about your own site, please post to comments.

We human beings are wonderfully distractable. One second we’re working away at our desk, next second we’re feverishly searching Google for the name of that actress who played opposite what’s-his-name in that movie about the stuff…

Today we’re obsessing over LCD TVs, and tomorrow we’re checking out weathersealing. Day after that, scented candles. We lurch from desire to desire with no predictability, it seems.

Well, the externals of what we’re searching for may change, but the essence of the search remains constant, and has done so for tens of thousands of years.

After all, Google is a new method, but search has been the human pastime since we got those fabulous opposable thumbs. What do we do all day? We walk around trying to get stuff. More stuff, better stuff, newer stuff, bigger stuff, smaller stuff, cooler stuff, more environmentally friendly stuff; it’s all stuff. And not just material stuff; emotional stuff as well: experiences, feelings, and so on.

Why are we so programmed to search and collect? Because we all want the same thing: to feel good about ourselves.

And here’s the thing: we’ll give almost anything to get there. We’ll submit to peer pressure, eat junk food, listen to pounding music, spend more than we can afford on luxuries and trinkets, and put others down.

So no matter what keyword your visitor searched to find your site, they want to feel good about themselves. They want to feel clever, in control, in the know, and special.

If you can make your visitors feel good, you’ve already done 90% of the sales job.

The following 16-minute video is just fabulous. A great story, funny and sweet and inspiring. And a wonderful reminder of the one motivation that underlies all our other ones. Enjoy!

Google snuck in one of their earth-shaking changes recently, without so much as a "heads-up." Here it is:

Conversions used to mean, "Somebody who clicked your ad just did something good on your site."

So if a visitor opted in to my newsletter and then signed up for the Look Over My Shoulder video series, that counted as two conversions from the same visitor. For that keyword over that time period, my conversion rate would be 200%.

Now, things have changed. A unique visitor can trigger only one conversion. Now the above scenario would register as one conversion and two transactions.

If you’re relying on the AdWords dashboard to give you useful information about your conversions and ROI, forget about it. You need to be setting up and running reports.

Not sure how to go about this? You have several choices:

1. Wait until my current AdWords Ball class is turned into a home study course (March or April 2009).

2. Take the next AdWords Ball course live (April 2009)

3. Hire me as a consultant (right now)

4. Join one of my small group coaching programs (email me at howie AT askhowie DOT com if you’re interested) (January 2009)

5. Join the Ring of Fire online marketing club and get answers to your questions as well as exclusive members-only tutorials and coaching calls. Learn more at http://askhowie.com/ring2009 - first month is free. (right now)

A reader wonders:

I now manage several campaigns for clients who had someone else initially set up their campaigns. They are a terrible mess and have horrible CTRs. I’m curious (since part of the Quality Score is calculated by keyword history) if I should just kill off those old campaigns (delete or pause?) and start new ones that are better organized?

My response:

You should definitely stop doing things that annoy Google. And poor quality score is the most important "Google is Not Amused" metric.

Horrible CTRs are bad for you, regardless of what Google thinks. So immediately start writing better ads.

Pause poorly performing keywords based on profitability first. If the keyword is losing money (costing more than it’s bringing in), then pause it.

You don’t need to delete entire campaigns, since Google attaches quality score only to the elements within those campaigns: keywords, ads, and landing pages.

In fact, even if you delete the entire account and start over, that won’t help your quality score if you send traffic to the same lousy web site.

Check out this month’s Seismograph at the Ring of Fire online marketing club: an interview with AdWords account manager and Quality Score expert Kristie McDonald about upgrading your quality score. This interview is only available within the Ring of Fire. Give the Ring of Fire a try - the first month is free. Learn more here: http://askhowie.com/ring2009.

A reader wonders:

I’m really confused about the whole bidding game.  My fear is that I bid too much and wind up with a $4,000 google bill.  How do I gauge how much to bid?  And how can I have a rough estimate of how much it will cost for the month?  I was doing the starter edition where I set my monthly budget at $250, but ever since I moved onto the standard edition and starting bidding on my campaigns, I haven’t had a single order.  I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. 

My response:

First, your bidding probably doesn’t have much to do with the lack of sales.

If you’ve stopped getting visitors, then you may be bidding too low to appear on the first page of search results.

If you’re getting visitors who aren’t buying, then one of two things (or both) is true:

1. You’re attracting the wrong people

2. You’re showing them the wrong message

But let’s leave that alone and return to the bidding issue…

Read the rest of this entry »

A reader wonders:

I created my first Adwords image / banner ad last night.  I’m curious to know what sites Google might be displaying that on so I can see how it looks.  Any idea how to figure that out? 

My reply:

You can find out that information in the Reports section. Go to the Reports tab, click Create a New Report.

On the next page, select “Placement Performance Report.” Fill in the time frame you want, choose campaigns and ad groups, add or remove any columns you like, and then create the report. (Make sure you choose “URL” rather than “Domain” if you want to see individual pages.