What Tina Fey Can Teach You About AdWords

A 50-year-old comedy and improv school/theater in Chicago called The Second City has produced an alumni list consisting of many of the world’s most talented and successful comics.

A short list would include Tina Fey, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, Amy Poehler, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, John Candy, Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Joan Rivers, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, and Dan Castellaneta. Doh!

The Second City: Testing Ground and Launch Pad

Tina Fey wrote about her experiences with The Second City in her book Bossypants:

“[Second City] was like a cult. People ate, slept, and definitely drank improv. They worked at crappy jobs just to hand over their money for improv classes… In the touring company we were paid seventy-five dollars per show plus twenty-five dollars per diem…”

The touring companies play for post-high-school prom shows, drunken college audiences, charity auctions, corporate meetings devoted to telling employees that their health benefits have just been slashed, and lots of other rough crowds. After months of this, the best performers are invited to join one of the main companies and earn a living wage and get noticed.

From there, the best writers, directors and actors get snatched up by Saturday Night Live, the Daily Show, Conan, or they go to Hollywood to make funny movies. It’s understood that anyone who survives The Second City gauntlet is just THAT GOOD.

So what can The Second City teach us about AdWords?

Three things:

1. Just as The Second City touring gigs were the hardest places to get laughs, AdWords is one of the hardest places to compete for customers.
2. The Second City and AdWords are both the best places to develop your A game.
3. Once you’ve made it with The Second City and AdWords, your success is virtually guaranteed in every other relevant medium.

The Second City, like AdWords, is a testing ground and launch pad. Nobody aspired to a career whose pinnacle was Second City’s Mainstage Company. For that matter, Saturday Night Live was itself considered a launching pad for movie careers and not an end in itself.

AdWords is also a Testing Ground and Launch Pad

But here’s the crazy thing: most people treat AdWords as if that’s all there is. Readers ask me all the time, “How can I make enough money with AdWords to make a million dollars a year?” Or whatever number fits their vision of having “made it.”

Yes, it’s possible to make a lot of money using AdWords. But two things are true for every business that does that successfully:

1. They use AdWords traffic to systematically and obsessively test, refine, and improve their marketing.
2. They can multiple their AdWords profits by 1000-100,000% by leveraging their AdWords experience into other media.

And those two things are true of many successful businesses that don’t make their fortune on AdWords, but by leveraging their AdWords tests into a marketing machine everywhere else.

In marketing and in comedy, creative improv plus rigorous testing is an unstoppable formula. In a future blog post, I’ll share how to map the improv process onto AdWords. Right now, I’ll leave you with this video of Tina Fey’s early years at The Second City. See how many correlations you can make between comedy and AdWords:

Paid Search without Keywords? What the…?

2010 was the most volatile year for paid search since Google introduced AdWords Select in 2002.

The changes have been so fast and furious, and so all-encompassing, that most advertisers have taken refuge in one of three strategies:

1. Ignore them and keep soldiering on

2. Catch snippets of the changes and wonder what they mean

3. Jump onto a new platform or feature without really grokking the implications

I want to suggest a fourth way (thanks, Gurdjieff ;) – pay attention to the few folks out there who are able to see the big picture and translate it into actionable priorities (or, if you prefer, prioritized actions).

Alex Cohen of ClickEquations is one of those rare fellows. While I was reading his January 18, 2011 article on The Dawn of Paid Search without Keywords in Search Engine Watch, I kept getting the feeling, “I better tell my students and clients about this.”

I got Alex on the phone this week, and interviewed him about the article, and much more. We got into a rollicking discussion of AdWords complexity, advertisers competing against Google for listings, how Szechuan restaurants in Narbeth, PA can compete in the new AdWords, why the 2003 Oakland A’s were twice as smart as the 2003 New York Yankees, and why AdWords 2011 is now a game of subtraction rather than addition.

I learned a lot. You will too.

Download the audio here, then come back to this blog post and add your comments and questions.

As I mention in the interview, my agency, ThePPCAgency.com, uses the advanced reporting features of ClickEquations, as well as our natural charm, rugged good looks, and marketing expertise, to redistribute wealth to our clients from their competitors and from Google.

If you’re spending more than $1000 a month on AdWords and you’re still doing it all yourself, you’re probably leaving a lot more money on the table than we’ll cost you. Give us a shout for a free account audit followed by a zero-pressure sales call.

The People I Learn AdWords From…

… are joining forces to promote Perry Marshall’s Maui AdWords Summit.

Over the next few weeks, Perry will be sharing interviews with Shelley Ellis, who must be triplets because nobody is that busy or knows that much; Brad Geddes, the man whose brilliance caused my hand to cramp from taking notes when we shared the stage in Germany last year; Rob Sieracki, the COO / Mad Scientist of Rocket Clicks; and several others.

Shelley will be speaking tomorrow on:

- Retargeting tips for high conversions
- YouTube traffic beyond viral videos
- How to copy an Adwords campaign over to Bing quickly and easily

I find that the quality of the pre-event interviews are often correlated to the ticket price – the more they want you to pay for a seat, the more good stuff they have to deliver up front for free.

So if you want to attend a high level AdWords seminar for free, with Perry rolling the dice that at least a few people will be so impressed that they’ll take the Maui plunge, register here with my affiliate link:

https://m171.infusionsoft.com/go/maui-pros/SC94217/

If you end up buying the seminar on my affiliate link, I get a pretty decent referral fee. I’d promote Perry’s stuff anyway, both out of loyalty to him and because he’s a brilliant marketer and teacher and top-notch guy.

But a hefty affiliate commission just makes it that much sweeter to do the right thing ;)

So if you’re considering attending, let me know what kind of bonus you’d like if you sign up on my link and I’ll see what’s possible. (Can you tell that I’m not very accomplished at this JV stuff?)

Carole King, a pill to make you rich and famous, and the AdWords Slippery Slope

Moving Keywords to a New Ad Group

A reader wonders:

When you copy a keyword to another location, all values are reset to zero, is there some sort of delay in transferring or does this mean they are starting from scratch? – I have keywords that are great performers and I’m concerned that I will lose their status if I move them.

My response:
Cliffhanger? Keep reading…

Are you lazier than McDonalds?

Walking down the avenue in Cologne, Germany last week, I was stopped in my tracks by the unusually international specials available at McDonalds:

Thai Veggie? Gulasch Gourmet?

What’s going on?

What happened to Two All Beef Patties etc? Large fries and a shake? Apple Pie?

McDonalds, the world’s best-known restaurant chain, is peeling and sticking.

Huh?

The Importance of Tight Targeting

When I first started using AdWords, I had no idea what I was doing. (Sound familiar? ;)

My first teacher, Perry Marshall, hired me to work on some AdWords campaigns for a client of his. (Apparently, in the early years, there weren’t a lot of us to choose from.) I diligently researched the market, using the Overture Inventory Tool (R.I.P., but in its day it was amazing!) and came up with about 2000 promising keywords.

I dumped them all into a single ad group, wrote two ads (I knew enough to split test, at least), and sent a proud email to Perry informing him that I had done my job.

Perry wrote back, “Yeah, let’s get on the phone and talk about this.”

Oh.

Perry gently explained to me that maybe 2000 keywords in a single ad group was not such a good idea. Because the people searching for all those keywords weren’t all going to be attracted to the same ad.

I needed to separate the keywords into buckets, Perry said. All the keywords related to Topic A should go into one ad group. Then I could write an ad specifically about Topic A. And so on for all the themes contained in the giant keyword list.

That took a heck of a lot of time. Lots of iterations. Many printer cartridges, and several highlighters. And probably a few gray hairs.

But that was what it took to generate hundreds of inexpensive, valuable leads for the client.

And that’s what it took to get me on the road to AdWords mastery.

Even Big Global Brands Benefit From Tight Targeting

McDonalds would be much more efficient, I’m sure, if their menu was the same everywhere in the world.

Yet they offer regional specialties based on market research and testing in different countries and regions around the world. And they don’t automatically apply the results of a test conducted in Duluth, Minnesota to Berlin, Germany. They understand that while humans have certain things in common (among them, apparently, a deep love for fat and sugar), significant differences exist among groups. And ignoring those differences, in advertising, architecture, and product selection, would sub-optimize their profitability.

So if you are sending all your keywords to the same ad group, showing the same ad or ad rotation, and (heaven forbid) sending all your traffic to the same landing page (gasp – possibly even your home page?), you need to stop what you’re doing, hop on a plane, and walk down Schwertnergasse, near the Dom Cathedral. And check out what Ronald McDonald is doing.

Or, you can stay at home and attend my upcoming Traffic Surge telecourse. From online beginner to being able to choose a market and enter it effectively in 8 weeks. Discover how to set up your AdWords campaigns the right way. Avoid paying the Google Lazy Tax.

This is the last time I’m teaching this course live. Don’t miss out – get your online marketing on the right track, and start making the breakthrough online profits you deserve.

Read the reviews from the last class here:

Traffic Surge – course description and reviews.

And in case you’re wondering, no. You can’t get fries with that.

How to get more pesto (and more sales from AdWords)

Business is more like gardening than you might suspect. If you garden (or farm), you don’t fall for “get rich quick” schemes. Nobody is trying to sell you a magic seed that sprouts overnight. Sure, there are effective techniques and helpful tools, but you still have to put in the time and effort.

And the more you know and love your soil, the more you’ll be able to grow, and the better it will taste and look.

In this short video, I show you how to prune a basil plant that’s going to seed, and relate it to your AdWords account. To learn specific AdWords pruning techniques for free, go here to view a 60-minute web clinic on the AdWords Ball method.

Happy late summer eating!

How to Optimize AdWords for ROI

A reader wonders:

“I am tracking conversions, just wondering how someone whose seen a gazillion AdWords campaigns approaches optimization.  Is there a system or do things just pop out based on your experience.”

My response:

Things do pop out at me at this point (I flatter myself by imaging my brain working like Russell Crowe as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind – before he went crazy), but it’s a result, I think, of just adoping a process and practicing it until it became second nature.

Here’s my system:

1. Set up conversion tracking, as closely related to actual dollars in as possible. If you can track online sales, do that. Use the actual ecommerce sales totals if you can. If you can’t track sales online, then track leads. If you can’t track leads, then use analytics to track time on site, or use AdWords conversion tracking to track views of a key page.

2. Sit down and make a list of my questions. Before diving into the reporting, decide what you want to know. If you just go in wondering, “What is all this data?” you can get lost for days. Enter the spreadsheets with a “search image” in mind – a specific question or set of questions.

For example:

• Which keywords cost more than they’re worth?
• Which ads make me the most money?
• Which sites on the content network are delivering bad traffic?
• Do prospects in different parts of the country or the world respond differently to my marketing?
• Are there certain days of the week or times of the day when I shouldn’t advertise?

There are dozens of potential questions you can ask – and since every business – and every business owner – is unique in some respects, no one can hand you your list of important questions without knowing something about your circumstances.

3. Set up reports that answer those questions.

4. Filter the data so you end up with,not just information, but as Jim Collins puts it in Good to Great, but “information that cannot be ignored.” You can do this manually, or with the Magic AdWords Button.

5. Take action on the data – pause non-performing keywords, annoint ad split test winners, find new negative and positive keywords, use the Google Ad Planner to identify new content sites based on existing good sources of traffic, etc.

6. Ask new questions and repeat.

This is the process you’ll master in AdWords Ball – the first official class is Thursday 12/11/08 – learn more here.

AdWords Quality Score Gets Cardinal

Until recently, quality score was given in moral terms – Great, OK, or Poor.

That’s still the way it appears in your campaign management dashboard:

But now, you can get actual quality score numbers in your reports:

All part of Google’s effort to get us to pay attention to the overall quality of the experience that searchers will have once they click our ad.

It’s like when I was in high school, the teachers used to complain about how grade-grubby I was. I would write a 12-page essay on predestination in Malamud’s The Magic Barrel, the teacher would spend 2 hours reading and commenting on it, and I would flip to the page page, check out the grade, and totally ignore the commentary. (That’s probably why I’m writing Dummies books instead of novels :)

Google’s now giving quality score the same serious treatment – a black and white cardinal number – as they give to position, average bid price, and CTR. 

So why do they still hide it by default? ;)

Good Ads Leapfrog the Competition – to the Top

Google announced yesterday that it’s now easier for a well-crafted ad to get to the coveted (sometimes) TOP LEFT area of sponsored links (above the organic listings). See the position of the Yoplait ad below to grok what I’m talking about:

Before, your ad would show up there only if you bid high enough, regardless of quality score. Now, quality score, and especially the clickthrough rate (CTR) factor in quality score, is more important.

In Google’s own words:

To appear above the search results, ads must meet a certain quality threshold. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, we may not have shown any ads above the search results. With this update, we’ll allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. For instance, suppose the ad in position 1 on the right side of the page doesn’t have a high enough Quality Score to appear above the search results, but the ad in position 2 does. It’s now possible for the number 2 ad to jump over the number 1 ad and appear above the search results. This change ensures that quality plays an even more important role in determining the ads that show in those prominent positions.

AdWords Mad Scientist Dr. Glenn Livingston put it this way in an email to me this morning:

My take is – it increases the stupidity tax, making it harder than ever for big dumb advertisers to win by just outbidding smart, hyper-relevant advertisers who work hard to understand what people want.
 
Now you REALLY gotta get’m clicking ’cause you can’t maintain your quality by paying for the top slot anymore.
 
Score one for our team.

My take is – Glenn’s absolutely right. AdWords, while still favoring deep pockets and well-known brands, is the least unfair advertising medium ever invented. And the playing field just got leveled even more with this welcome improvement.

Today at 11am EDT, I officially launched AdWords Ball: The Easy Way to Breakthrough Profits. In my mind, though, its subtitle is stolen from the book Moneyball (why not, since I stole/adapted the title from that book?): "The Art of Winning an Unfair Game."

Yes, you’re competing against advertisers with deeper pockets than you. With more brand recognition than you. But I’d bet money on a smart, prepared bootstrap entrepreneur going up against a big company every time.

AdWords Ball – the playbook for winning an unfair game. The good news for us, it just got a little fairer today.