Google offered us a free review and optimisation and it resulted in
less click-thru's and less conversions. We now have a lot of campaigns
and have learnt mostly from trial and error. We have also tried Yahoo
search marketing but it did not deliver the results we expected. We
use Sensis and they do deliver lots of traffic at a relatively low
cost but conversion rate is low. I would give it a try if I was you
but it is more fitted to the consumer market.
On the Google front here are a few lessons that we learned:
1. Don't use broad keyword matching use "phrase" and [exact] and
duplicate all your keywords with both "phrase" and [exact]. We have
around 800 keywords in our main campaign which consist of phrases that
are duplicated for both match types. If you use broad keyword match
you get lots of traffic and burn your budget but not many conversions.
Avoid single words where possible and make sure you use brand names
that you sell.
2. Set up as many negative keywords as you can on all the obvious
things - Google has some good help and ideas on negative keywords. We
currently run around 75 negative keywords and phrases.
3. Have multiple ad-groups in a campaign with keywords specific to
those ads this provided far better control over costs.
4. Have multiple ads per ad group and mimic the keywords that you have
that way you get a higher quality score and better ranking. So if you
have a keyword like "Buy Blue T-Shirt" then the heading of an ad
should also be "Buy Blue T-Shirt"
5. I have found that you get good results if your ads ask questions -
e.g. Title - Want Exciting T-Shirts?; Body Text - Did You Know You Can
Buy Exciting Australian T-Shirts @ Our Shop
6. Make sure that you limit your geographical coverage and the times
that the ads run. I wouldn't run ads 24 hours a day as you get lots on
content clicks that are rubbish. Work on the times you most expect
consumers to be buying and setup your campaign as scheduling. Used the
advanced function and setup multiple time slots and bid percentages.
As an example we don't run our ads until 9AM and then we bid 100% up
till 21:00 for 21:00 - 24:00 we bid 50%. The ads are off from 24:00 -
09:00. This is different of Saturdays and Sundays. If you look at when
you have received the majority of your orders (i.e. day of week and
time of day) then you might see a pattern.
7. Remember Christmas is soon so you should have a specific Christmas
Campaign. This needs to have all the Christmas and Xmas type keywords.
Like "T-Shirt Christmas present", "lover Christmas gift" etc...
8. Download and use the free Windows Adwords Editor - it will make
your life a lot easier.
9. Make sure you know how much you want to spend and stick to the
budget.
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