Over the course of the past few months we’ve created a series of series focusing on various aspects of the Google AdWords interface. Thus far we’ve covered:Google AdWords Ad ExtensionsThe Google AdWords Dimensions Tab & AdWords ReportingGoogle AdWords Campaign Settings & the AdWords Settings TabWhile Google offers their own help sections, the materials there tend to be pretty dry and of course are more geared towards the mechanics of using the interface in the way that Google wants you to use, rather than being centered around best practices for the advertiser.

And, as many of you have realized, the AdWords interface and managing AdWords campaigns has become really complex and too difficult for many busy AdWords advertisers.As a result, we’re continuing with our collection of... > Read more

If you’ve ever worked with small to medium-sized businesses on search marketing campaigns, you know that there are a lot of smart, busy people running their own AdWords campaigns. Often times these campaigns are driving lots of qualified traffic, but the people managing the campaigns don’t have much time to dedicate to making optimizations within the campaigns.

For that reason “quick wins” within an AdWords account can be very valuable to these types of advertisers, so we wanted to show you two quick reports that you can use within your campaigns that will frequently unearth some campaign inefficiencies that you didn’t realize were there.Quick Win #1: Are Search Partners Generating Quality Traffic?Each of these reports will show you a dimension of your campaigns that you might not... > Read more

This is the final installment in our series on Google AdWords Campaign Settings. Previously we’ve covered:Naming and organizing your Google AdWords campaignsLocations and language settings within the AdWords settings tabGoogle AdWords bidding and budget settingsNetworks and device settings in Google AdWordsAnd in this post we’ll walk through the “advanced settings” section within AdWords campaign settiings to explain how they work and how you can best use them.

What’s Available in Google AdWords Advanced SettingsWithin the settings tab are a number of different options surrounding how your ads are displayed, targeted, and served:SchedulingAd DeliveryDemographic BiddingSocial SettingsAutomatic Campaign OptimizationAdWords Campaign ExperimentsIn this post we’ll walk through each a... > Read more

Ring in 2012 with these 20 AdWords vouchers to help your small business marketing efforts. Please find below 20 adwords promotional vouchers worth $100 each - for a total of $2,000 in AdWords vouchers! These adwords voucher codes are totally free and you can use them to: If you're an advertiser, you can start a new AdWords PPC Account to get more customers If you're a PPC Agency, Give these AdWords vouchers to your new customers and apply the AdWords credit on their behalf Reduce sales objections: A $100 adwords voucher can help bing on new customers on AdWords without the risk!.

New to Google AdWords? Check out Our Most Popular AdWords Articles! To maximize the value of your free google adwords voucher, read some of our most popular Pay Per Click Marketing tutorials: PPC Budgeting B... > Read more

This is the latest installment in a series on Google AdWords campaign settings. In the first post in the series, we talked about how to name and organize your Google AdWords campaigns, in the second post we focused on locations and languages settings within the AdWords settings tab, and in the third post in the series we offered best practices around Google AdWords bidding and budget settings.

In this post we’ll walk through the networks and devices settings within the AdWords campaign settings options.Google AdWords Network TargetingThe first set of options for AdWords advertisers lies within the AdWords network targeting menu. Your first option is to target “All available sites” or “Let me choose”:As you can see Google is “recommending” targeting all available sites fo... > Read more

This is the latest in a series of posts on Google AdWords campaign settings. In the first installment, we talked about how to name and organize your Google AdWords campaigns and in the second post we focused on locations and languages settings within the AdWords settings tab. The topic for this post is bidding and budget settings for AdWords campaigns.

Google AdWords Bidding SettingsAdWords' bidding options offer advertisers a variety of ways to manage bids:Focus on ClicksThis bidding option allows you to manage your bids at the cost per click (CPC) level. When focusing on clocks you can make use of a few different options.Manually setting bids for clicks means you can control your bids at the keyword level and set the maximum cost you’re willing to pay for clicks.You can also cede c... > Read more

This is the second post in our series on Google AdWords campaign settings. In the first installment, we talked about how to name and organize your Google AdWords campaigns. In this post we’ll focus on locations and languages settings within the AdWords settings tab.Google AdWords Location SettingsAfter you name your campaign the first big choice you’re presented with is what location or locations to target:You can use one of the defaults, or choose a specific region.

For this you can also use the map function and target either a specific location or locations, or a radius.In our guide to geo-targeting with AdWords, we talk about a two-pronged approach to targeting a specific region with a cohesive location and keyword targeting strategy (note: the actual functionality has changed since... > Read more

This is the first post in our series on the GoogleAdWords settings tab, where we’ll be looking at various options and best practices surrounding settings within your AdWords campaigns.In this post we’ll be focused on the general idea of what you actually designate as a campaign, and how you settle on a naming convention.

For a lot of first time advertisers this seems pretty straightforward, but there are actually a lot of considerations that go into making a sound decision about how to organize your campaigns and even how to name them so that as your account grows your campaign structure can easily scale with it.Creating an AdWords Campaign Structure: What Do You Need Categories For?In thinking about your AdWords campaigns you want to consider: what actually deserves its own campaign? ... > Read more

We just released a new, free white paper for search engine marketers: "PPC Budgeting Best Practices: 10 Tips for Setting Your 2012 Budget." You can read Part 1, which includes the introduction and the first tip, in yesterday's post. Below you'll find tips 2-5.2. Base Your Budget on ProfitabilityThis tip seems pretty straightforward, but with all of the nuts and bolts and minutiae that go into running successful PPC campaigns, managers sometimes forget to focus on the most important metric: profitability.

As with all things PPC and marketing in general, remember to base your decisions on profitability and the way your business actually runs. Areas of your account that are more profitable should get more attention and more of your budget.3. Don’t Arbitrarily Cap Profitable SpendIf your cam... > Read more

We just released a new, free white paper for search engine marketers: "PPC Budgeting Best Practices: 10 Tips for Setting Your 2012 Budget." You can read the introduction and the first tip below. Click here to download the full guide.PPC Budgeting Best Practices: 10 Tips for Setting Your 2012 BudgetAs the end of the year approaches, it’s time to start setting budgets for your various marketing channels in 2012.

If you’re relatively new to pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, you’ll probably find that budgeting for this channel can be a challenge.Setting budgets for your PPC campaigns is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. In this paper, we’ll walk through ten best practices to help you get the most from your PPC budgets in 2012.1. Getting Started: How to Determine Your Ini... > Read more

Over the past few months we’ve been walking through several areas within the AdWords interface in great depth. We started with Google AdWords Ad Extensions and most recently wrapped up a series of posts on Google AdWords Reporting with the Dimensions Tab. This will be the first in a series of posts about AdWords campaign settings:As with each of these series, the main objective here is to help AdWords advertisers better navigate the increasingly confusing AdWords interface, and also to be able to help impart best practices for setting up your AdWords campaigns.

If you can’t wait for the individual posts in the series and want a quick AdWords campaign audit as to whether you’re adhering to best practices within your AdWords campaign, WordStream has a free performance grader which... > Read more

This is the last post in a series on Google AdWords reporting from the dimensions tab. In previous posts we’ve covered:Google AdWords Dayparting – The AdWords Dimensions Time Tab ReportGoogle AdWords Conversion Reporting via the Dimensions TabGoogle AdWords Destination URL ReportGoogle AdWords Demographic ReportingGoogle AdWords Geographic ReportGoogle AdWords Search Term ReportGoogle AdWords Free Clicks ReportIn this post, we’ll be walking through the call details report in the AdWords dimensions tab.

What Is the AdWords Call Detail Report?The Google AdWords call detail report offers data around AdWords-enabled call tracking via call metrics or AdWords call extensions.In general call extensions from AdWords leverage Google Voice to allow you to track not just activity on your site (v... > Read more

This is the latest post in a series on Google AdWords reporting from the dimensions tab. In previous posts we’ve covered:Google AdWords Dayparting – The AdWords Dimensions Time Tab ReportGoogle AdWords Conversion Reporting via the Dimensions TabGoogle AdWords Destination URL ReportGoogle AdWords Demographic ReportingGoogle AdWords Geographic ReportGoogle AdWords Search Term ReportIn this post, we’ll be walking through the free click report in the AdWords dimensions tab.

What Are “Free Clicks” According to AdWords?First we need to determine what Google is defining as “free clicks.” The free clicks report provides you with data about how people interact with different components of your ad, and about actions they take. It's important to note that these "free clicks" aren't all c... > Read more

If you own a small company and use or are considering using Google pay-per-click (AdWords) for your goods and services, this article is meant for you. I’m including two practical Excel techniques in this article: How to write Google PPC ads using Excel.How to estimate profit/loss for a Google PPC campaign.

Fun Stuff – Writing Google PPC Ads with ExcelFirst the fun stuff. Seven years ago when I ran my one and only Google PPC campaign (a profitable one), I really didn’t enjoy writing Google pay-per-click ads. I hated counting the letters in the ads to meet Google’s criteria.Ad line #1: 25 characters.Ad line #2: 35 characters.Ad line #3: 35 characters.I wrote the ads on scraps of paper when I had creative flashes. Naturally I lost some of the slips of paper and started using ... > Read more

This is the latest post in an ongoing series on AdWords reporting in the AdWords dimensions tab. In previous installments of the series we’ve covered:Google AdWords Dayparting – The AdWords Dimensions Time Tab ReportGoogle AdWords Conversion Reporting via the Dimensions TabGoogle AdWords Destination URL ReportGoogle AdWords Demographic ReportingGoogle AdWords Geographic ReportGoogle AdWords Search Term ReportAnd in this, the seventh post in the series, we’ll be focusing on the automatic placement report in the AdWords dimensions tab:What Is the Automatic Placement Report and Why Is It Important?The placement report is similar to the search query report in that placements are the targeting lever you use on the content network to determine where your ads will show.

This report is also ... > Read more

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been walking through the Google AdWords dimensions tab with a series of posts highlighting each of the reports you can find within the still relatively new AdWords dimensions reporting suite. The first five posts in the series covered:Google AdWords Dayparting – The AdWords Dimensions Time Tab ReportGoogle AdWords Conversion Reporting via the Dimensions TabGoogle AdWords Destination URL ReportGoogle AdWords Demographic ReportingGoogle AdWords Geographic ReportIn this installment, we’ll be focusing on the search terms report in the dimensions tab:What Is the Search Terms Report? Why Is It Important?The search terms report is similar to the search query reports you used to find in the AdWords reporting center in the old Google AdWords interface.

Sear... > Read more

If you work in the search marketing industry, you may have found yourself having a conversation somewhat like this one (the same conversation I have every time I tell a "regular person" what I do):Regular Person: So, what do you do?Me: I work as a writer for a software startup.Regular Person: What kind of software?Me: Um, search marketing software?Regular Person: So .

.. like Google?Me: Well, yeah, sort of. We make software that helps people advertise on Google.If this regular person is curious enough to know more (rare), I usually find it helpful to explain that Google advertising functions similarly to an auction. In the off chance that they tell me advertising on Google does not work, I tell them that our whole company exists because it does work.how does google adwords work?Since there ... > Read more

This is the sixth in a series of interviews we're conducting with AdWords advertisers who got unusually high scores using our AdWords Performance Grader. We're reaching out to high scorers to find out what strategies contribute to their strong AdWords performance. For more in this series, see:AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 1AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 2AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 3AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 4AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 5This week’s interview is with Jason White.

Jason is the Marketing Director for Stadri Emblems, a company that designs and produces custom embroidered patches. Like other millennial marketers, he... > Read more

This is the fourth installment in our guide to reporting via the Google AdWords dimensions tab. In the first three posts we covered:Google AdWords Dayparting – The AdWords Dimensions Time Tab ReportGoogle AdWords Conversion Reporting via the Dimensions TabGoogle AdWords Destination URL Report The focus of this post is AdWords demographic reporting functionality within the dimensions tab.

What Is AdWords Demographic Reporting?Demographic reporting in AdWords allows you to look at the demographics of the prospects you’re targeting on certain sites. One of the powerful things about Facebook advertising is that you’re able to build a demographic profile to target your ads to; AdWords offers similar insights into who your ads are being served to for certain sites that have this type o... > Read more

This is the fifth in a series of interviews we're conducting with AdWords advertisers who got unusually high scores using our AdWords Performance Grader. We're reaching out to high scorers to find out what strategies contribute to their strong AdWords performance. For more in this series, see:AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 1AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 2AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 3AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 4This week’s AdWords expert interview is with Glendon Llewellyn Lloyd, the e-commerce director at Tszuji, an online home storage store specializing in shoe storage and clothes storage solutions for the home.

Glendon manages Tszuji's SEO and SEM, ensuring th... > Read more

This is the third installment in our series on AdWords reporting via the dimensions tab. Previously we’ve covered the dimensions tab time report (aka AdWords dayparting) and AdWords conversion reporting via the dimensions tab. In today’s post, our focus will be on Destination URL report within the dimensions tab.

What Is the Destination URL Report?The destination URL report is pretty straightforward: it’s showing you a list of the various destination URLs (i.e., your actual landing pages where you’re sending traffic – not your display URLs) in your AdWords account. As with any report in the dimensions tab, you can customize the columns in this report to give you a variety of different data points:In the screenshot above we’re focusing our column selection on two key components o... > Read more

Google rolled out yet another new AdWords feature last week: dynamic search ads.The same day they announced the introduction of dynamic search ads, they also announced that AdWords Express was rolling out to the UK and Germany. Back in August I wrote about Google’s focus on display and talked about how:You can learn a lot about marketing from Google, and if you’re in search marketing paying close attention to what Google says and what types of things they place emphasis on are vital to your livelihood.

This is why Matt Cutts gets 350 comments on a post announcing a change in the algorithm that affects around 2% of queries, and it’s why search marketers have a much keener interest in Google Plus and its integration in SERPs, Webmaster Tools, et al than your average social ne... > Read more