Clearview National June 2015 - Issue 163 | Page 28

INDUSTRYNEWS

STREAMLINE YOUR CAMPAIGNS
WITH HELP FROM THE EXPERTS
»»With so many businesses now
relying on Google AdWords as their primary
source of new business, it is imperative that
you streamline your campaigns to maximise
ROI and keep budget wastage as low as
possible, says Roy Dovaston of SimplePPC
and Click Guardian.
There are many agencies wanting to manage
your campaigns on your behalf. If you choose
this route, then it’s essential to do your
homework because among some very talented
pay per click managers there are also many
companies around with very little knowledge
that will happily take your money.
For many businesses, adding agency fees
on top of their advertising budget is not
affordable so self-management is necessary.
While one advantage of managing your own
campaign is the advanced knowledge of your
own business there is commonly a major
disadvantag e in that AdWords has evolved into
a highly complex advertising platform that
requires expert attention to avoid common
pitfalls and deliver campaigns that are finely
tuned.
TOP TIPS
Here are some top tips that will make
managing your campaigns more effective:
1. At the time of writing this article Google
has been offering a free £75 advertising credit
for quite some time! Of course there terms
and conditions, the main one being that after
applying the promotional code, the advertiser
has 31 days to accrue advertising charges
to the value of £25 before the promotional
amount is released. For any new advertiser
this is a boost that simply cannot be missed:
https://www.google.co.uk/adwords/coupons
2. When selecting keywords it’s important
to understand match types: https://support.
google.com/adwords/answer/6324?hl=en.
While using broad match keywords is perfectly
fine, it is, however, important to understand
exactly how this type of keyword works
prior to using it. If deployed incorrectly,
broad match keywords have the ability of
triggering your ads for completely irrelevant
keywords. Spending 10 minutes to completely
understand keyword match types will not
only save you money but could also be the
difference between a campaign’s failure or
success.

28 » JUN 2015 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M

3. Lack of conversion tracking is something
from which many business’s campaigns do
not suffer. In my experience of managing
AdWords campaigns for many years, I
have come across about 90% of business
campaigns that are running without tracking.
I understand the difficulties of tracking for
some businesses, but it really is important to
try and overcome this. Google offer a Google
Forwarding Number. While it doesn’t display
as a local number on your web site, when a
client rings it send invaluable information
back into AdWords which means being able
to make better informed decisions about
keywords that work and those that do not.
More information here: https://support.
google.com/adwords/answer/2382961?hl=enGB

‘All too often advertisers
completely overlook
negative keywords’
4. I have already touched on being mindful
of the keyword match types you choose which
leads on to the use of negative keywords. All
too often advertisers completely overlook
negative keywords purely on the basis that
they do not know what they are! The use of
negatives is imperative if your campaign if
using keyword match types other than exact
match. A negative keyword helps you refine
your campaigns by disallowing keywords
to trigger your ads that are irrelevant. For
example you may offer emergency glazing in
London and be using the keyword ‘emergency
glazing’. You may have your targeting area
defined but someone within your area searches
for emergency glazing Scotland. Clearly, you
do not provide services to this region but
the phrase match keyword allows the ad to
trigger anyway. This is a common example of
where using a negative keyword will save you
money!
To see exactly which keywords trigger
your ads and start working on your negative
keywords login to your AdWords, click on
the keywords tab, drop down details and
choose search terms/all. Immediately you’ll
get an invaluable insight and be able to react
accordingly.

5. Click Fraud is a subject that pops up
time and time again and for many businesses
can be a real worry. Click fraud is when
someone, whether it be a competitor, person
or automated clicks on your ad in an attempt
to exhaust your daily budget. The clicker
would typically have no intention of enquiring
and are purely out to waste your money. Not
only does click fraud waste your budget but
it skews your statistics and makes decisionmaking difficult when trying to optimise your
campaigns. You would think Google would be
on top of this and to a certain degree they do
have systems in place to detect invalid clicks.
But if you want peace of mind and want to
take a proactive approach, then companies
such as Click Guardian offer automated click
fraud blocking systems. Essentially, you can
decide how many times someone is allowed
to click on your ad within a day and block
them if they click excessively. Combined with
their advanced detection system and real time
blocking you can rest assured that your budget
is not being wasted. I have managed many
fenestration campaigns, and it won’t surprise
you to learn that the cost per click can be
very high, typically between £5 & £25 per
click. Using an anti-click fraud service such as
Click Guardian is highly effective at weeding
out these unscrupulous visitors, saving your
campaigns from becoming time-consuming,
expensive disasters.
SIMPLEPPC & CLICK GUARDIAN
Having been managing Google Ads since
the inception of AdWords, Roy runs a pay per
click agency called SimplePPC whose goal is
to maintain and maximise the productivity
of his client’s pay per click accounts. In
2014, Roy realised a major issue was going
undetected in the form of excessive clicks on
his client’s ads. He then joined forces with
Dan, a seasoned software and app developer,
to produce Click Guardian, an anti-click fraud
service that saves Google AdWords client’s
from budget busting click fraudsters.